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Mythic Bastionland
Take the Oath and venture into Mythic Bastionland, a tabletop RPG set in the imagined past of Into the Odd and Electric Bastionland, built on the same lightning fast, ultra-streamlined rules system.
In Mythic Bastionland you are a company of Knights sent to explore a Realm and seek out its Myths, which could be anything from a monster or a strange phenomena to an outright invasion. As you uncover these Myths you gain Glory which improves your reputation in the Realm. You might take up a place in court, be granted land, or even rule the Realm itself. As you play you’ll move through seasons and your Knight will mature, grow old, and eventually die, so you’ll want to find a good successor.
The system follows on from Into the Odd and Electric Bastionland, with extra care given to travel, knightly combat, and domain management. It’s fast, decisive, and simple enough to pick up as you play.
In Mythic Bastionland you are a company of Knights sent to explore a Realm and seek out its Myths, which could be anything from a monster or a strange phenomena to an outright invasion. As you uncover these Myths you gain Glory which improves your reputation in the Realm. You might take up a place in court, be granted land, or even rule the Realm itself. As you play you’ll move through seasons and your Knight will mature, grow old, and eventually die, so you’ll want to find a good successor.
The system follows on from Into the Odd and Electric Bastionland, with extra care given to travel, knightly combat, and domain management. It’s fast, decisive, and simple enough to pick up as you play.
210 pages, Hardcover
First published March 11, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
January 14, 2026
I have been playing TTRPGs since 1985. I love learning and reading new systems, seeing how different games tackle mechanics, themes, playstyles. This book is masterclass. It is succinct , well written, beautifully illustrated and covers everything you need to know to play in such a smooth method. I highly recommend this if you are a TTRPG enthusiast.
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April 2, 2026How? I heard great things about Electric Bastionland and there was a Kickstarter for Mythic Bastionland -- and then I actually got to play Mythic Bastionland.
What? These are big books, but almost all of the book is essentially a single random table: what kind of character do you have.
In Electric, the table is "failed career" and it indicates where you came from and what special equipment / skill / story baggage you have. (The subtables here are all keyed to your starting HP and gold, so the more you have of those, the less useful your initial additional equipment / skill / story baggage will be.)
In Mythic, this table is "what kind of knight you are" and it has your special skill, what seer knighted you, how you regain lost spirit points, etc.
The premise of Electric is that you live in a strange city, Bastionland, full of weird people and some aliens, with a strange machine-controlled underground, and weird backwards deep country around. You have a big debt and are going treasure hunting to pay it off. The book gives a little more guidance on what you might find in any of those areas, but it's a real loose framework.
The premise of Mythic is that you are knights of the realm, meant to protect the realm -- which mostly means seeking out these incursions of myth and stopping them. For instance, in my game, one of the first myths we confronted was this ogre (I think) who brought an endless winter to the realm, along with kidnapping some people to set himself up as a king. Other myths might be more ambiguous or even downright positive (like: we found a bunch of dead warriors waiting until the realm needed them and then pointed them at this big monster from another myth).
The system is pretty easy and fast -- no rolling to hit, it's all about whether you have enough armor to avoid the damage, and then enough HP to avoid damage off your attributes. Mythic actually has more rules since it expects your PC knights to eventually work their way up to holding their own domains (and dealing with the crises therein). Mythic also provides a large table of myths and as you cross the map, you roll randomly to see if there's an omen for the myth there.
Yeah, so? Both of these books are big and striking looking, though Electric has a lot of white space and big text. They're both... interesting, but I guess my big hesitation there is over the fact that so much of the book is about the characters. (Reminds me of Troika in that some of those books, you only get setting through character descriptions.)
Like: I definitely felt like Electric needed more info on the setting; and while Mythic has enough info, the real issue for me is that there's 72 kinds of knights (where Electric has, I think, 100+ failed careers) -- and how many of those are you really going to use? (We had 4 knights in a party and luckily no PC deaths, and we met another... 5 knights.)
The other issues specifically with Mythic Bastionland and how it plays is that the knights are supposed to be these fantastic warriors, but we often ended up feeling like we had to manage our attributes like resources. We'd get into a fight and then go into town to heal up, and then go out again -- we really had to push ourselves to get around the map.
I think I'd play either of these games, but I'm not super-excited to at the moment.
What? These are big books, but almost all of the book is essentially a single random table: what kind of character do you have.
In Electric, the table is "failed career" and it indicates where you came from and what special equipment / skill / story baggage you have. (The subtables here are all keyed to your starting HP and gold, so the more you have of those, the less useful your initial additional equipment / skill / story baggage will be.)
In Mythic, this table is "what kind of knight you are" and it has your special skill, what seer knighted you, how you regain lost spirit points, etc.
The premise of Electric is that you live in a strange city, Bastionland, full of weird people and some aliens, with a strange machine-controlled underground, and weird backwards deep country around. You have a big debt and are going treasure hunting to pay it off. The book gives a little more guidance on what you might find in any of those areas, but it's a real loose framework.
The premise of Mythic is that you are knights of the realm, meant to protect the realm -- which mostly means seeking out these incursions of myth and stopping them. For instance, in my game, one of the first myths we confronted was this ogre (I think) who brought an endless winter to the realm, along with kidnapping some people to set himself up as a king. Other myths might be more ambiguous or even downright positive (like: we found a bunch of dead warriors waiting until the realm needed them and then pointed them at this big monster from another myth).
The system is pretty easy and fast -- no rolling to hit, it's all about whether you have enough armor to avoid the damage, and then enough HP to avoid damage off your attributes. Mythic actually has more rules since it expects your PC knights to eventually work their way up to holding their own domains (and dealing with the crises therein). Mythic also provides a large table of myths and as you cross the map, you roll randomly to see if there's an omen for the myth there.
Yeah, so? Both of these books are big and striking looking, though Electric has a lot of white space and big text. They're both... interesting, but I guess my big hesitation there is over the fact that so much of the book is about the characters. (Reminds me of Troika in that some of those books, you only get setting through character descriptions.)
Like: I definitely felt like Electric needed more info on the setting; and while Mythic has enough info, the real issue for me is that there's 72 kinds of knights (where Electric has, I think, 100+ failed careers) -- and how many of those are you really going to use? (We had 4 knights in a party and luckily no PC deaths, and we met another... 5 knights.)
The other issues specifically with Mythic Bastionland and how it plays is that the knights are supposed to be these fantastic warriors, but we often ended up feeling like we had to manage our attributes like resources. We'd get into a fight and then go into town to heal up, and then go out again -- we really had to push ourselves to get around the map.
I think I'd play either of these games, but I'm not super-excited to at the moment.
May 1, 2026
Not so much finished as… finally ran one session, stumbled through a little bit and found that the rules and playstyle don’t really suit my group. There’s just kind of a big void at the center of the game that we couldn’t grok.
Staggeringly strong concept, though, full of vivid characters, foes, apocalypses and random tables.
Staggeringly strong concept, though, full of vivid characters, foes, apocalypses and random tables.
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February 2, 2026Du blir en bättre spelledare av att spela Mythic Bastionland. Chris McDowall är ett geni.
January 31, 2026
This is a fabulous game. Probably one of the easiest systems to pick up and start playing/running.
If you have D&D fatigue (particularly as a DM), give Mythic Bastionland a go. Character/quest prompts flow easily into real play, creating this seamless verisimilitude of world, GM, and player without overworking the GM.
Combat is solid and communal, though it does have a bit of a learning curve. You get to be a cool Mythopoeic knight without sacrificing risk, and combatants generate dice pools so players can strategise together each turn rather than spacing out for twenty minutes waiting to go. If you want more combat pros/cons details, I recommend the youtube video Quinns Quest Review: Mythic Bastionland.
The greatest hurdle my table and I experienced picking this up was that it takes a little while to unlearn some of the paranoia that systems like D&D instills. You don't have to live in fear that you've failed to ask the right question or missed a clue because of a bad dice roll. The GM isn't trying to trick you. Heck, nothing really feels like failure. Even getting obliterated in battle (and surviving) can be rewarded.
Basically, between the book and Chris' blog, this is a no-risk, breath of fresh air addition to a TTRPG library.
If you have D&D fatigue (particularly as a DM), give Mythic Bastionland a go. Character/quest prompts flow easily into real play, creating this seamless verisimilitude of world, GM, and player without overworking the GM.
Combat is solid and communal, though it does have a bit of a learning curve. You get to be a cool Mythopoeic knight without sacrificing risk, and combatants generate dice pools so players can strategise together each turn rather than spacing out for twenty minutes waiting to go. If you want more combat pros/cons details, I recommend the youtube video Quinns Quest Review: Mythic Bastionland.
The greatest hurdle my table and I experienced picking this up was that it takes a little while to unlearn some of the paranoia that systems like D&D instills. You don't have to live in fear that you've failed to ask the right question or missed a clue because of a bad dice roll. The GM isn't trying to trick you. Heck, nothing really feels like failure. Even getting obliterated in battle (and surviving) can be rewarded.
Basically, between the book and Chris' blog, this is a no-risk, breath of fresh air addition to a TTRPG library.
February 22, 2026
Work of art. One of the best systems I've read and run, together with endless flavor and an abundance of resources and inspiration.
A masterpiece.
A masterpiece.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews