Alternate Mythic Rules

A couple of weeks ago we answered the question, “What is Mythic?” That answer spoke to the foundational mythic rules you can find in War of Immortals, but that doesn’t mean it’s the only possible answer to the question.

The base system for mythic characters tracks alongside your character’s level. At low levels, mythic power is explosive; though highly limited in its applications, it provides a significant change in outcome when it’s applied. As you level up, your mythic power becomes more predictable and you gain access to a wider array of possible applications, but the degree to which it shifts the dial of success normalizes somewhat, reflecting the character’s growth into a mature mythic figure capable of reliably battling mythic threats. This was not the only concept for how mythic rules could be deployed, however. While working on this project, we imagined several alternative ways people might want to experience the mythic system.

Starstone Cathedral Transformed. Art by Sandra Posada.

What if you wanted to have an experience where you had one mythic character surrounded by a group of highly competent non-mythic characters, a la cult classic cartoon Mighty Max? What if you want the pacing of the mythic elements of your story to exist separately from standard level-based progression, either having your mythic power grow more slowly or instead having your mythic power outpace your level for more high-risk/high-octane adventures?

While we think that the mythic rules published in War of Immortals represent the ideal version of the system as we would like people to experience it, we wrote all kinds of alternate ideas that didn’t match that experience and didn’t fit inside what was already an impressively meaty book. Rather than letting those ideas gather dust in an untouched folder, we thought we’d share them with you!

On the War of Immortals product page, you’ll find a link to a web PDF product titled “Mythic Variant Rules” that gives you a variety of new ways to play with the mythic system in your home games! These rules aren’t necessarily as stable a table experience as the ones we printed in the main book, but we expect that the right group might find them invaluable and a great way to push the boundaries of the game. We’ve also made sure to attach the ORC license to this product, to ensure easy use of these alternate rules and ideas by any 3pp contributors out there!

Pop on over to the product page, preorder War of Immortals if you haven’t already, and download this free expansion product today! You’ll also notice that while we were putting this PDF together, we went ahead and slipped in a handful of clarifications onto the final page to make your battles in the War of Immortals just a little bit smoother and easier to use.

Michael Sayre (he/him)
Director of Rules & Lore