NARRATE IT, OR IT DIDN'T HAPPEN

Approaching the creation of a character is a bit like starting an improvised jazzy riff. You know the motif or figure leading your melody, yet your hands and ears need to adjust to it as you play, and only then can you delight in your fruits. City of Mist characters are in nature, themes that constantly evolve like an unending song, And you should trench on them as such. 

In the neon-noir-like game of City of Mist, unless you are the Master of Ceremonies, you will probably play as a Rift. Rifts are ordinary people with a mythoi inside of them that grants them powers. Like Hades granting the power to speak to the dead or Chaac granting power over rain and lightning, the moment the Rift opens, it changes their mundane life into the otherworldly. Only they and other rifts can see those magical phenomena. The titular mist obscures the rest. 

So what are the steps in creating your Player Character?

Start With The Myth

It is best to start thinking about your concept from the myth and your powers, research it, and find at least three aspects of it you could turn into superpowers. You will need these as you create themes for your Rift. For this example, I chose the classic and relevant myth of Cassandra of Troy. With some research about her (and watching Greek plays), we find a powerful diviner cursed by her god, Apollo, when she did not wish to indulge in his pursuits. Also, no one believed her after she told everyone about the burning of Troy, making it her destiny to take part in the destruction she knew was coming.

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Choose Your Themes

Themes are those paper cards the game is so recognised for. You get four of them, each representing your character's current capabilities, associations, and circumstances. Out of these four, you choose which will be Mythos themes; representing your cryptic powers, and which will be your Logos themes; representing your human existence.

You must have at least one of each type. If your character has four logos themes, the mist will make her forget about the magical world and hide it from her, making her a Sleeper. Yet, if four of your themes turn out to be myth themes, the power of the mythoi will overwhelm you, making you an Avatar - and, depending on how you want the story to go, lost to the player control. 

City of Mist is all about keeping that balance and swapping around. Each time a theme is lost, your character will gain a new one from the other side: logos becomes mythos, and mythos becomes logos. So, when you create a character, it is beneficial to be volatile in both aspects and let yourself lose and gain new powers.

Then, our themes for Cassandra's mythos cards will be Divination (her powers) and Destiny (her curse).

Now let's work on implementing it into a logos. When creating a character, you should match the myth, not just its power, with your character's life. For instance, a great companion to Cassandra might be a journalist. A whistleblower that no one believes, so much so that even his targets don’t take him seriously. Let’s call him Breon O'Casey, a late 30-year-old Irish man with a dream. To stop corruption and stay constantly on the hills of the wicked. His last name hints at his myth and is true to his “vigilant” nature.

The two themes you might want to take with him are Routine (A journalist job), and mission (eliminating corruption), but you can also take Training (M.A in Social Science). Whichever you choose, it represents him of now and which aspects of his life he is focusing on. It does not mean he can’t have a defining relationship with a boyfriend or a concerned mother or live through a defining event. It just means those don't take up space in his life or on his mind as much. The player can’t call on them mechanically because the narrative we create is of a man on a mission who gives up his personal life to achieve his goal. A very classic noir trope.

Name Your Themes 

The flavor should evoke a grand sentiment within you each time you glance at them, like a movie’s title. For example:

Add Identity/Mystery

A big part of development in the game is leaning into or departing from who you are and what your myth wants. An Identity is a sentence that captures your totality, a true statement that IS you; in case you forget it or act against it, your logos will crack, and when gaining three crack points, will break and be swapped by a myth card.
A mystery, on the other hand, is true to the mythos, it is always written as a question the mythos wants to answer, giving you the means to reach it.An example for our Mission: Absence of Malic can be “I shall leave no stone unturned”. While the Divinition: False god question can be “Can I find someone who believes me?”. 

Create Power And Weakness Tags

Now it is time to finally add the tags, your powers, that will be used to add, or subtract, from your dice rolls. But what of those powers? First, as I said, add your first power tag.

You always answer the first question of a theme book, question A, and then choose two more questions from B to J. An example of answering A on Divination:

“WHAT ALLOWS YOU TO UNCANNILY KNOW THINGS YOU WOULDN’T NORMALLY KNOW?”

would be: Prophecies from Apollo.

Now choose two more questions and fill your theme until you have three power tags. Then, choose a weakness; a question of your choice from the four options and add it as a tag. For example, Question A: “WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOUR DIVINATION OVERWHELMS YOU?” answer: The pain of knowing. Lastly, keep doing that until all your themes are done. You can speak to your MC about choosing two weaknesses and gaining more power tags or a broad power tag. A broad tag can do more than a specific task. If a power tag is “Research,”, you can swap it from a broad tag of “Journalism” which encompasses many activities, such as research, interviewing, stalking or comprehending a study or a paper.

A Big Tip

in answering the questions and which Mystery/Identity to create, is that it needs to be easy to invoke in the imaginary space. If you choose a mystery like “Where is my god Apollo?” it might not be answered for a couple of sessions since the MC did not plan for Apollo to appear that early or the Crew does not want to seek him yet. If your weakness is something like “Fear of fire¨ then you will only be able to invoke it while there is some kind of fire going on, which might be common in a modern city but won't repeat itself much in a good narrative. Always work with your Master of Ceremonies and ask them which tag, mystery or identity might fit their way of narration. If you want to find an MC that is ideal for you and will put effort into your story, you will find many of those on Startplaying, awaiting a participant to arrive with their imaginative mythos concept, poised to launch it into the city.

Remember to always think of the scenes your tags can be used in, and having more than one tag to cover the same subject is not a bad thing! To check your success you roll 2d6 against a 10. On a 7-9, you succeed but with a caveat: maybe the enemy punches you back or runs away right after the punch. On a 6 or lower you fail, and you will have to face the dire consequences. The more tags you can add to a roll, the better your chances are. 

Now you have your character, and all you need to do is find a Crew and create the last theme with them: a crew themebook that represents how you do things and who you are. Those should all be done in session 0.
Time for you to go on, investigate mysteries, let loose of your powers, and sit down for a session or a full jazz concert in the City of Mist. 

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‍Turgeman (they singular) are an “experience maker” who works on TTTRGs and streams on twitch, but mostly, they are a parent to three fluffs.