Playing a Cubicle 7 adventure or campaign? Homebrewing some folks of Order fighting against Death, Chaos, and Destruction? Want to add flavor and depth to NPCs? Then you’ve gotta get your hands on Soulbound: Champions of Order. One of the first supplemental books for Soulbound: The Age of Sigmar RPG, this book released shortly after the Lumineth Realm-lords first made their appearance in Age of Sigmar and adds them and a host of other Archetypes and player options for the high-powered game.

Get Your Game On

This book is mostly for players to craft more and different characters. Not only is a whole new set of Archetypes added with the Lumineth, but each other faction of Order gets new options as well. Not to mention the addition of the Sub-Faction option for characters. I love this wrinkle as it allows players to gain a bonus rule as well as some more information for roleplaying. Your Fyreslayer isn’t just a generic duardin now, but you can choose what Lodge they hail from. Hella Greyfyrd, our duardin Doomseeker in “How Doomed Are We?” was able to gain an extra 500D to start the campaign! This also allowed her player, Jess, to lean into the mercenary aspect of the Sub-Faction and breathed some more life into the character from the get-go.

New Miracles, Spells, Equipment, and Endeavors, Loyal Companions, even a few Lumineth premade characters fill this book with so many new options.

Choice Abounds

Nearly each species get new Archetypes. Aelves- Khainite Shadowstalker, a stealth-focused melee fighter that is difficult to hit and can teleport short distances; Isharann Soulrender, a multi-faceted character that specializes in melee, healing, even restoring Soulfire by killing enemies and stealing their soul. Duardin- Grimwrath Berzerker, an insane Fyreslayer with more ur-gold runes than is good for them; Aetheric Navigator, expert pilots that can use their extensive knowledge of the Moral Realms to unbind enemy magics. Stormcast Eternals- Knight-Zephyros, a nimble warrior knows for being in touch with their animal side and their ability to attack twice on a charge! Sylvaneth- Spite-Revenant, creatures created from “endless vindictiveness,” these Sylvaneth will tear you apart with their Natural Weapons and scare the pants off enemeis.

Then there’s the entirely new type of Aelf, the Lumineth Realm-Lords. Sort of like the High Elves of AoS, these are new to the Mortal Realms and my knowledge of them is lacking a bit. Luckily this book fills it all in for us! “Obsessed with achievement, repressing all feelings, the Lumineth built their spires taller and taller, as if to pierce the shining vault of Hysh’s sky.”

“Obsessed with achievement, repressing all
feelings, the Lumineth built their spires taller and taller, as
if to pierce the shining vault of Hysh’s sky.”

After their inevitable fall, the Lumineth are now bonded to elemental spirits and accept that they are not, in fact, a perfect people. There are four Achetypes for the Lumineth in Champions of Chaos, summarized below.

The Alarith Stoneguard are aelementors, Lumineth that have bonded with elemental spirits of Hysh, who have bonded with spirits of the earth beneath their feet. They are hearty warriors that fight with stone and diamond hammers and are implacable. Their Core Talent is Mountain Stance, taking an action to get into the stance, the aelf then cannot be knocked prone or moved by the enemy and will send their foes flying with every blow of their mighty hammers. This also allows them to balance the ungainly helmets they wear!

An Alarith Stonemage, as their name implies, is the wizard to the Stoneguard’s warrior. Masters of geomantic magic, using the spells of the High Peaks (a whopping 15 spells to choose from!) to support their allies and pummel their enemies. My favorite so far is Gravitic Redirection, reducing gravity on the spellcaster while increasing it on an enemy!

Scinari Cathallar store the repressed emotions of their people and can use the negative energy to empower the Light spells. By suffering a Minor Wound, they can use this empathetic energy to increase the dice rolled to cast a spell by the current Doom. Watch out for searing lights of emotionally-charged energy from a Cathallar!

Vanari Warriors fight shoulder-to-shoulder with their allies, ready to give everything to protect those close to them. A Soulbound Vanari Warrior typically has specialized in the spear or bow, but with whatever weapon they’ve chosen they know how to fight with others. Starting their turn in combat in Close Range with an ally, they can increase the Melee, Accuracy, or Defense of both of them one step as a Free Action!

What’s Downtime?

A staggering 39 new Endeavors are added with this supplement! If there’s something you want your character to do during downtime, it’s probably covered now! One of my favorites is Transform, where you take time to swap two of your attributes. If you find that the party has enough melee fighters, and you want to increase your Skills that rely on your Mind, swap it out. This isn’t without cost though, as you suffer a Lasting Wound- a Minor Wound that won’t heal until your next downtime rest. Another great one is Greater Loyal Companion, which allows you to tame a beast from Soulbound or the Soulbound Bestiary. Any Beast is up for grabs, they even use a mighty Magmadroth as the example! This is not easy, and requires successes equal to the creature’s Toughness over three different tests, and of course there are rules for if things go wrong- or even horribly wrong- but who wouldn’t want to take the risk to have your own pet Grunta, Cold One, or even a Maw Krusha! The best part of this Endeavor is that you don’t need to have the Loyal Companion Talent to use it, it essentially gives you the Talent as well.

The Contacts Endeavor from Soulbound is also expanded here, with 17 new contacts that can help (or even hinder) the party as they adventure in the Mortal Realms. I love the idea that during downtime the Soulbound can form connections with people outside their binding and call on them for help. The Endeavor system is a simple but elegant addition to a natural part of roleplaying that is usually ignored. No longer does a week just pass with nothing happening, now players have even more options to add more life to their characters outside of plot points.

Yeah, But Should I Get It?

I heartily recommend this book for GMs and players. With all the options it adds, you could even have two people playing the same Archetype and have them be quite different with the new Subfactions, spells, miracles, Talents, equipment, and Endeavors. There are so many options packed into this book that a GM can really flesh out more powerful or complete NPCs, or create deep pregenerated characters for new players. So yeah, I give this book 5/5 pieces of aetherquartz and recommend it as a great supplement to one of my favorite RPGs. Get your own copy at DriveThru RPG and support the PCN! Let me know in the comments what book you’d like to hear about next!

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