5 Maps For Your Mistborn RPG Hombrew
The Mistborn setting for the Cosmere RPG will be here before we know it, and even though I don't have my hands on the new source books, my mind is already racing with fresh homebrew ideas for Scadrial.
With Mistborn Legacy splitting it's campaign between both eras, you'll have plenty of space to slow things down and explore both eras of Mistborn at your own pace. Homebrewing your own campaigns, adventures, and resources in the Cosmere RPG is easy, you just need a fresh idea and some planning.
Let's dive in to 5 homebrew ideas for Mistborn Era 1 that will give your adventuring party plenty to do around Luthadel and beyond. For each idea I share, I'll also publish a free to download map that you can start using in your campaigns day 1. Even if you don't end up creating your own adventure, each map will feel right at home on Scadrial, so feel free to grab them and use them for your next campaign.
Metals Supplier
This is where it all happens: every Allomancer needs their metals, and those who deal in Iron will need a place to buy it. This could be a business that your party sets up and runs during their time in Luthadel, or maybe they’re just shopping.
In this download you will get:
2K Grid and Gridless battlemap: Metalworks shop
Every allomancer needs a good metal supplier, your players will likely be going through ALOT of metal through during Mistborn Legacy.
The idea here is to create a place where your party can go to refill their stock of metal. Start with the basics: who is the NPC that runs the metalworks? What are their day to day needs? Who else do they serve?
Having a common location and characters for your party to frequently return to helps build a solid foundation for storytelling.
Maybe one time they go to visit them find that one of the local nobility hasn't been paying their bills, and the owner needs the party's help shaking them down.
Maybe there's something wrong with the metalwork's supplier, and the owner needs the party to travel outside the city to help out?
Maybe the owner wants to sell their business and is looking to the party to take over the metalworks for themselves?
A metal supplier is both a necessity for the session-to-session maintenance of your party's supplies, and a great place to set a small scale adventure or endeavor.
For the map I made I wanted to create a small factory where iron vials would be manufactured. I have to image that metal suppliers would rarely supply all the metals an Allomancer would need; it is more likely that you would have specific metallurgists for different metals. This is a great map for a shop for your party to visit or the supplier of an adversary they're about to take down.
Skaa Plantation Hideout
What seems like a normal farmstead actually hides a hidden route used by the Skaa Underground. In the bar on some noblemen’s farm, a basement has been converted in to a secret resting spot for traveling Skaa who need a place to hideout and rest before heading out across the Final Empire.
In this download you will get:
2K Grid and Gridless battlemap: Plantation Barn
2K Grid and Gridless battlemap: Skaa Hideout
Getting out of the city and in to the country will almost certainty result in your adventuring party passing by a Skaa Plantation.
Skaa Plantations weren't just the crowded hovels where rural Skaa went where they weren't working. They were the centers of the Skaa community, places where stories were told and meals were shared. They even occasionally served as safe havens for those Skaa brave enough to travel the Final Empire on their own.
Maybe your party needs a safe resting place while out adventuring in the countryside.
Maybe they are on a recruitment drive, attempting to win over the local populace to the Skaa Underground.
Maybe the party needs to defend the Skaa from the belligerent nobility who owns the farm.
There is a great description of a Skaa Plantation in the prologue of The Final Empire if you're looking for inspiration.
For the map I made I wanted to have a two building layout for a simple Skaa hovel. It's not a huge plantation, this barn at least only having enough space for about 4 Skaa and the farm equipment. There's always another secret though. Keen eyed players might notice a hidden door underneath some blankets. This leads down to an underground hideaway where the Skaa have been saving away supplies and have an area where a traveler could rest and recoup.
Skaa Underground Storehouse
In a quiet Skaa hovel in Luthadel, exhausted city workers sleep on battered floorboards of an abandoned warehouse. Little do they know that the Skaa Underground has co-opted their rundown home to store weapons, armor, and supplies for the movement against the Lord Ruler.
In this download you will get:
2K Grid and Gridless battlemap: First Floor Skaa Hovel
2K Grid and Gridless battlemap: Skaa Underground Basement
The Skaa Underground will likely play a strong role in Mistborn Legacy. These depots would serve as a supply dump for various goods and arms critical to this iteration of the Skaa Underground.
The idea is to give a setting for an urban encounter in a high stakes location.
Maybe the Final Empire has finally located the storehouse: your party has to defend it without leaving anyone to who might reveal its location.
Maybe its a rendezvous point for your Underground contact and you'll run a critical conversation to secure an ally in the Skaa Underground.
Maybe you're set to deliver supplies to the Storehouse, only to find that it was a trap all along: the Lord Ruler's soldiers have prepared an ambush and lay in wait.
For the map I made I wanted to capture that feeling of a hidden store of supplies that we saw towards the end of Final Empire. I love the idea that just under the floorboards that overworked Skaa sleep on every night are the very tools that will launch their revolution.
Canal Boats
A canal boat in a narrow channel. During the Lord Ruler’s Final Empire, canal boats were often used to transport goods and people throughout the waterways that connected all the major cities to Luthadel. Use this as your party’s personal transport, or as an encounter map.
In this download you will get:
2K Grid and Gridless battlemap: Canal Boat exterior
2K Grid and Gridless battlemap: Canal Boat interior
Canal Boats are central part of life on Scadrial, carrying goods and supplies in and out of Luthadel from all over the Final Empire. Most major cities can be reached by boat, and so its inevitable that your party will end up on a boat.
From there though, the skies the limit.
Maybe your party will have a few quick conversations or a chance combat encounter while on their way out of the Central Dominance.
Maybe your party bought a boat and want a place to relax and recoup while traveling across Scadrial.
Maybe they're planning a heist of their own and will be robbing the boat on its way down the channel.
Don't let travel be a simple A to B set of dialogue, make boats fun and a little dangerous.
For the map I made I wanted to capture the feeling of a ship moving through narrow canal waterways. The boat itself is fairly simple: a single deck long canal boat transporting some cargo. The narrow pass has the edge of the canal on either end; perfect for a raid on the ship. Whether your party is attacking or defending is up to you.
The Ashmounts
A desolate slope on the side of an Ashmount sometime in Era 1 Scadrial.
In the download you will get:
2K Grid and Gridless battlemap: Ashmount Slope
The Ashmounts are an iconic part of Era 1 Scadrial's ecosystem, but surprisingly we don't visit them in the books. Giving your party a reason to head towards the Ashmounts is a great way to explore the uniqueness of the setting.
Most of the Ashmounts are in somewhat remote locations, but both Kalling and Doriel have unnamed cities close by. These landmarks are the perfect spot for you to create your own city.
Maybe your party needs to find members of the Skaa Underground who have set up camp on the remote slope of an Ashmount.
Maybe the Ashmount is a meet up location for a clandestine meeting with a corrupted Obligator who is willing to give some information on the Final Empire in exchange for some Boxings.
Maybe the uniqueness of the mountains terrain has created the perfect spot for a secret Inquisitor base.
Choosing an Ashmount as a wilderness location really brings the Mistborn setting to life, but is fairly wide open when it comes to cannon details. This is a great opportunity to make your own homebrew that can easily slide in to the setting without breaking established lore.
For the map I made, it's the slopes of one of the Ashmounts, perfect for a basic battle map for any kind of adventure you might be running in the area. The scenery is desolate, covered with ash and just hinting at the active volcanos that linger just under the surface.
Homebrew is a community
If you haven't checked out the official Cosmere RPG discord, you're really missing out. There you can chat with fellow players and game masters about the game, Cosmere Lore, and of course, find a HUGE amount of really great homebrew content created by the community. Brotherwise knows that having a vibrant homebrew community is essential for the long term success of any TTRPG and so they do what they can to support the hobby.
If your brand new to homebrewing content for the Cosmere RPG, check out the Fan Content Template on the Cosmere RPG website. It gives you a document template that helps you lay out your adventure in a shareable format. It even includes Cosmere Dingbats - a font that includes common Cosmere RPG symbols like Opportunity, Complication, and Actions.
Get out there and start creating.
