The party will get its fair share of Good vs Evil, with Skaven and Daemon enemies abound, but if your party contains some dyed-in-the-wool Lawful Good characters (Stormcast especially), then extra measures may be needed to get their buy-in to the missions, whether that’s an out-of-character briefing, a Lord-Castellant quest giver instead of the Conclave, or helping the players pick a more jaded and individual character (lean into the Noir tropes) rather than those who will run to the Black Nexus at the first sign of corruption. As the book says, there are moments of hope and good in Anvilgard that are worth fighting for. Now this is definitely a player problem, but once I started to reinforce the idea that both the Conclave and Coil were made up of both Good and Evil characters, and characters who are doing their best to survive or make their own way in such a city (really not that hard to imagine given the state of our own world’s politics), then the players began to see the factions as sides to be played, rather than the Good Bureaucracy and the Bad Criminals.

What this translated to in my experience was 2 things: One, players who got slightly frustrated at not knowing who to trust, and what the ‘correct’ choices were when having to make them, and two, players who said ‘yes’ to everything and everyone, defaulting to video-game logic that whatever is in front of them must be the ‘correct’ path. ‘Trust is impossible to gain’ is an interesting concept for a roleplaying game. Good people are framed for crimes they didn’t commit, and murders are a common occurrence that rarely end in justice.

Anyone you meet could be a Blackscale Coil spy or assassin. Anvilgard itself is a city of corruption and vice, a place so corrupt at every level that trust is almost impossible to gain. Shadows in the Mist takes inspiration from two main genres: noir investigations and pulp adventure stories. Have a read and find out! Discuss the theme of the adventure There’s only so many ways I can write ‘yes, I whole-heartedly recommend this’, so let’s move onto some tips for any prospective GMs out there these are things I have learned the hard way, and may be relevant to you and your group, or not. The final episode is a straight-up war with everything coming back into play – think Avengers: End Game levels of emotional payoff if done right. Some missions feel more stand-alone than others ( Petrified Wood), whereas others seem to work best when the party has built up time and history in Anvilgard ( Aqua Nurglis). I would say half the missions would work as a one-off dip into the world, but the value-add of continuing a narrative with recurring characters and enemies is well worth running the whole thing for. Shadows in the Mist is an episodic adventure where groups can take on the individual missions in isolation, or they can play them through as a campaign. The adventure was fun and very well written, with the caveat that the theme and setting is specific and needed certain player buy-in (more on that later). If I had to pick, I’d say I enjoyed Soulbound as a system more than the adventure itself, but for me and my group, Soulbound is as close to a perfect system as we’ve had. So much so that I would happily continue running the system and narrative (which will be possible with the upcoming ‘ Blackened Earth‘ adventure). Overall I very much enjoyed my time with Soulbound, as well as running through the adventure. This is a review of the adventure, but more importantly some ‘things I wish I knew before playing’ tips for those considering running the adventure from the start! Let’s dive in. (Psst: You can watch them all on my YouTube channel!) Glorious news: yesterday my roleplaying group and I finished Shadows in the Mist, an adventure set within the Age of Sigmar RPG, Soulbound! As a group of 5 and playing almost every week, we started 1st December 2021 and finished 26th July 2022, averaging about 4 or 5 sessions per episode.

Age of sigmar dark mist