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Age of Sigmar: Soulbound
Age of Sigmar: Soulbound Corebook
Welcome to Warhammer Age of Sigmar Roleplay: Soulbound. This is your first step
into the awe-inspiring and deadly lands of the Mortal Realms. One person in your group will bring the setting to life by describing the world and adjudicating your actions in it, the rest of you will explore the realms and hope to survive in a time plagued by daemons, undead, and rampaging monsters.
Soulbound is a tabletop roleplaying game, sometimes shortened to RPG or TTRPG.
If you’ve played computer or console RPGs (CRPGs), you’re probably familiar with what to expect — you’ll create your character, choosing their Species and Archetype, and then you’ll venture out into the Mortal Realms. One person
in your group is the Gamemaster (GM), who describes the world. Everyone else takes on the role of player characters (PCs). The PCs are the protagonists, and the GM is there to help narrate their actions and resolve any rules questions.
into the awe-inspiring and deadly lands of the Mortal Realms. One person in your group will bring the setting to life by describing the world and adjudicating your actions in it, the rest of you will explore the realms and hope to survive in a time plagued by daemons, undead, and rampaging monsters.
Soulbound is a tabletop roleplaying game, sometimes shortened to RPG or TTRPG.
If you’ve played computer or console RPGs (CRPGs), you’re probably familiar with what to expect — you’ll create your character, choosing their Species and Archetype, and then you’ll venture out into the Mortal Realms. One person
in your group is the Gamemaster (GM), who describes the world. Everyone else takes on the role of player characters (PCs). The PCs are the protagonists, and the GM is there to help narrate their actions and resolve any rules questions.
352 pages, ebook
First published January 1, 2020
3 people are currently reading
11 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
July 3, 2024
I found this to be a very well done corebook that covers all the topics needed to get a lot of gaming in, without needing several other books to get any mileage out of the game.
The game itself is on a more heroic/mythic scale fantasy with the PCs being powerful from the getgo than for example WHFRP. Uses a d6 system, with difficulty mixed between variation of the TN of the dice rolls and amount of success needed, which I thought worked nicely. Feels fairly easy to get into with how characters operate out, with metacurrencies like Mettle, Soulfire and Doom adding need for more notekeeping and complexity, but they add something to the game making the extra clunk worthwhile.
The book itself I found very readable. The text breathes a fair bit, avoiding the endless walls of text that often happens in lorechapters. There's a lot of "legally distinct" descriptors that aren't very readable but doesn't make the text horrible anywhere like it did in the Starter Set citybook, for example. And all those descriptors are explained well in the book, so at the end it feels less greek. I also felt the authors explained the setting well for an RPG setting that was often a bit of a mess in GW publications. I also think they picked the right stuff to put in a corebook for content - some baseline lore, a decent selection of crunch, some gm tips and monsters. There are loads of examples for rules, decent page references for cross referencing and not the worst at hiding rules where you can't find them.
Some pet peeves made it's usual face. There is a lot of cross referencing, and a lot of topics are brought up at the start, but then just ignored and reader told it will appear later in the book. Sometimes hundreds of pages away. Why? One of the archtypes has a talent that gives a mount, that you then look up in talents with very little information, and you have to look up the bestiary info only to find out the mount can't breathe on land. Doom keeps being mentioned, mostly as a way to describe the world getting worse but it might mean something to monsters, but actual effect doesn't appear much. Monster stat blocks are well designed, but the usual "monster has spell, you have to look that up elsewhere" I am so tired of appears again.
The one thing I am missing when it comes to content is a 2-4 page simple adventure. There are several adventure seeds in the book, but showing something I always think is a good idea for beefy corebooks.
Overall I think it was a good book and I enjoy the game, and the setting is growing on me.
The game itself is on a more heroic/mythic scale fantasy with the PCs being powerful from the getgo than for example WHFRP. Uses a d6 system, with difficulty mixed between variation of the TN of the dice rolls and amount of success needed, which I thought worked nicely. Feels fairly easy to get into with how characters operate out, with metacurrencies like Mettle, Soulfire and Doom adding need for more notekeeping and complexity, but they add something to the game making the extra clunk worthwhile.
The book itself I found very readable. The text breathes a fair bit, avoiding the endless walls of text that often happens in lorechapters. There's a lot of "legally distinct" descriptors that aren't very readable but doesn't make the text horrible anywhere like it did in the Starter Set citybook, for example. And all those descriptors are explained well in the book, so at the end it feels less greek. I also felt the authors explained the setting well for an RPG setting that was often a bit of a mess in GW publications. I also think they picked the right stuff to put in a corebook for content - some baseline lore, a decent selection of crunch, some gm tips and monsters. There are loads of examples for rules, decent page references for cross referencing and not the worst at hiding rules where you can't find them.
Some pet peeves made it's usual face. There is a lot of cross referencing, and a lot of topics are brought up at the start, but then just ignored and reader told it will appear later in the book. Sometimes hundreds of pages away. Why? One of the archtypes has a talent that gives a mount, that you then look up in talents with very little information, and you have to look up the bestiary info only to find out the mount can't breathe on land. Doom keeps being mentioned, mostly as a way to describe the world getting worse but it might mean something to monsters, but actual effect doesn't appear much. Monster stat blocks are well designed, but the usual "monster has spell, you have to look that up elsewhere" I am so tired of appears again.
The one thing I am missing when it comes to content is a 2-4 page simple adventure. There are several adventure seeds in the book, but showing something I always think is a good idea for beefy corebooks.
Overall I think it was a good book and I enjoy the game, and the setting is growing on me.
June 21, 2020
This review is totally on the book itself, not the game-I'm playing tomorrow so I'll likely update this review based on that.
This book has tons of rich lore, and some really creative mechanics for RPG play. I'm excited to try out many of the features, there seems to be a decent balance between simplicity and customization, with a heavy lean to the customization side of things.
Big problem with the book though, it is absolutely terribly organized. Mechanics and rules are hard to find, and content is out of order, with references to rules being made early on that aren't explained until deeper into the book. Not to mention, lore interrupts the mechanics, so you have to bounce around like crazy. It's really REALLY bad! The lore itself felt like someone's notes on a homebrew world, just dumped into the book with no editing or anything. Really rough.
This book has tons of rich lore, and some really creative mechanics for RPG play. I'm excited to try out many of the features, there seems to be a decent balance between simplicity and customization, with a heavy lean to the customization side of things.
Big problem with the book though, it is absolutely terribly organized. Mechanics and rules are hard to find, and content is out of order, with references to rules being made early on that aren't explained until deeper into the book. Not to mention, lore interrupts the mechanics, so you have to bounce around like crazy. It's really REALLY bad! The lore itself felt like someone's notes on a homebrew world, just dumped into the book with no editing or anything. Really rough.
February 14, 2022
As I am not that keen on the setting, I mostly read this for the rules to see whether it could be used in other settings. Some of the ideas like the person- en party-oriented goals seem like a good idea, but I'm not sure they are tenable when playing. For the rest, the system does not really offer anything we haven't seen before. Overall the system is solid, though.
July 2, 2025
So take Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and Exalted and then put them in a blender. Pour the concoction into a book and you essentially have Soulbound.
Edit: So I’ve now read this book 3 times and finally got a chance to play it and it deserves more words. This is legit an incredible work. As a big old school Warhammer Fantasy fan, I was opposed to Age of Sigmar. But damn has it turned into a fascinating and original setting. Plus, the system runs effortlessly. This is an underrated game - no question. Kind of sad that Champions of Chaos will likely be the last book we get for the line, but it’s still an extraordinary game.
Edit: So I’ve now read this book 3 times and finally got a chance to play it and it deserves more words. This is legit an incredible work. As a big old school Warhammer Fantasy fan, I was opposed to Age of Sigmar. But damn has it turned into a fascinating and original setting. Plus, the system runs effortlessly. This is an underrated game - no question. Kind of sad that Champions of Chaos will likely be the last book we get for the line, but it’s still an extraordinary game.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews