If you’ve read anything about Son of Oak before you know that this indie studio is prolific, has created a ton of RPG content for their City of Mist RPG setting and was responsible for bringing the excellent QUEERZ! Roleplaying game to life. Son of Oak is coming back to City of Mist, or rather they’re bringing a streamlined version of the City of Mist system to the RPG space in the form of COM: Reloaded as the driving force behind their brand-new setting.

It’s also a sequel to City of Mist, :Otherworld is the core book and there’s Tokyo :Otherworld which is the setting book. :Otherworld is powered by COM: Reloaded has a bunch of cool ‘engine’ features which include:

• Statless and classless, tag-based characters.
• Dramatic powersets/themes based on in-character and story developments
• 12 new themebooks for Mythos, Meat and Noise
• Custom character creation
• GM/MC moves and guidelines
• Action, stealth, exploration and investigation systems

But what is all this. Well, Tokyo: Otherworld is tag-based just like City of Mist, is a city (no surprises there!) and sounds cool. Billed as a megacity (I like those) of tech and myth with secrets and plenty of meat for their players to get their teeth into.

Gone is the noir-style Mist, replaced by something called Noise. Apparently, Noise is this kind of overpowering stimuli and sounds pretty cool. Player characters are the privateers, mercs, other hired gun type recruited to take control of sources of magic for various Corporations, governments and other movers and shakers in the world.

So you can look at :Otherworld as the alternate future take on City of Mist, and Tokyo: Otherworld is the first setting book, of potentially several to explore the new future.

Tokyo :Otherworld will be the first setting book in the :Otherworld setting and will explore local Japanese crime syndicates, megacorps, and government organizations — as well as the shadow world of ronin mercenaries — who are powered by Yokai, Kami, and other Japanese mythological beings. The book will contain dozens of Japan-inspired theme kits, like weapons, augmentations, spirits, and esoteric arts for players to pick from; dozens of Dangers representing cyberpunk adversaries to Yokai monstrosities; organizations; locations with Danger information; and two additional adventures (Jobs) set in the Japanese Megacity.

Son of Oak game studios on Tokyo: Otherworld

We’re big fans of Son of Oak, big fans of QUEERZ! And we’re certainly fans of City of Mist. So, we’re stoked to see what Amit Moshe (Founder of Son of Oak) and his talented team are doing with :Otherworld, and Tokyo: Otherworld. The good news is that the game’s coming to Kickstarter and we’ll be covering this one in more depth with a KSer spotlight once the campaign launches so be sure to check back in here when it does!

Until then, we’ll be wondering more about this evocative and different setting.