Guest Post: Alex's Ironsworn Journal - Preamble/Session Zero

I've got something a bit different for you today as my brother Alex has shared his Ironsworn campaign journal with me. He thought other solo roleplayers might like to read it and suggested I post it on here since there's a ready-made audience for it on this blog.

Those of you who watched my Scarlet Heroes one on one actual play video will remember Alex as the player in that session. I've queued up a whole series of posts that will publish at 5pm UK time each day for the next few days, so remember to check back in.

Preamble

After playing Ironsworn briefly several years ago, I had been meaning to come back and start a proper campaign for a while. Getting a new nifty laptop was the catalyst for finally doing it, because it meant I could play using the Iron Journal website, which handles the whole game in a nice neat package. I have found that I like the idea of playing a solo RPG with only analogue tools, but in practice I find it a bit cumbersome and overwhelming. 

So what follows is going to be the write-up of my Ironsworn campaign. I went in with very little idea of what I wanted to do with the world or my character, and it took me a good few hours of flipping through the rule book to settle on something. I saw some advice online about having a very broad, vague background vow that is there mainly to provide excuses for adventure. And I liked the look of the Lorekeeper asset. So combining those two things, I decided on a character who has inherited an unfinished “Ironlands Archive”, a sort of encyclopedia of the Ironlands begun by an ancestor, and the background vow is to fill it in. So I worked through character and world creation with that idea in mind. For the Truths I stuck mainly to the low or middling magic options, with things like mysticism and the Firstborn being known to exist, but rare. 

As I write this I have played three sessions, and I’m still finding my feet, but I’m thoroughly enjoying the game and how the moves click together to keep the narrative rolling. I’ve found I like to make fairly liberal use of oracles, and in writing the journal I decided to include in italics my question to the oracle, its answer, and sometimes my thought process in interpreting the answer. One personal rule I settled on was to only ever roll the oracle once for a question. I found that if I re-rolled once then I would end up re-rolling several more times, getting less satisfied with the answer each time. The only exception is when the oracle gives something that fits the current situation so perfectly that it doesn’t really give me anything new to work with. In that case I would say “yes I know, but…” and rephrase the question in some way. I’m not necessarily recommending this method, but it works for me. 

As for how I’m handling the writing of this journal, I’m experimenting. I started writing in a fairly fleshed out prose fiction style, because it seemed like a good way to get immersed and have a good sense of the world and character. I switched to third person and tried to be a little more terse in session (chapter) 3, and I’ll probably continue trying different things. If I want to make progress a bit faster I may switch to even more brief bullet points covering just the broad strokes of the narrative.

Likewise with recording moves and the mechanical changes they cause, I’m trying out different approaches. Mostly I’m just recording the move name, stat and outcome (strong hit, weak hit or miss) and not every change to my various gauges and progress tracks. I also decided to put a tiny reminder at the end of each session about what I’m planning to do next session, to make it a little easier to get started each time. 

That’s all I can think of to talk about. I might include some further commentary of this kind as I get deeper into the campaign. But for now, let’s get on with exploring, and documenting, the Ironlands. 

Setup 

• Varro is a young man living in the village of White Wick, on the River Kenning in the northern part of the Havens. 

• He has just inherited the mantle of village “talekeeper”, after his uncle Kuno died of pox. Varro has inherited a book, the Ironlands Archive, which Kuno had inherited from his father. The goal had been to finish it, filling it with lore and stories of the Ironlands, but Kuno never did. Now the task has fallen to Varro. 

• This much I knew. Now I wanted some background conflict in the village and throughout the Havens, so I would have something to work with. I decided there are two rival families with some kind of feud in the village of White Wick. 

• I asked the oracle: What is the conflict about? And got the response oppose relationship. I decided this meant the village Overseer, Chandra Dimling, has recently made peace with the neighbouring village of Newstone - who until recently used to steal our livestock and ransom it back to us. There were skirmished, blood spilled, grievances that are still raw. The rival family, the Wealds, headed by Wenin Weald, have not forgiven Newstone and are loudly opposed to Chandra’s leadership and the new peace agreement. 

• What was Uncle Kuno’s relationship to the families’ rivalry? Defend risk. Ok, he understood the Wealds’ opposition to the agreement with Newstone, but thought it was worth it. The Wealds see the peace as a betrayal of their slain kin, but Kuno saw peace as the most important thing. 

• I decided Varro has little interest in village politics and wants to stay out of it, but as the village talekeeper and heir to a very respected figure, the two families have other ideas. The Dimlings expect his support. The Wealds hope to win it. 

• Nevertheless, he has decided to fulfil the vow made by his ancestors to complete the Ironlands Archive, and he believes it is now or never. 

• What will it cost Varro to walk out on his home village at such an inopportune moment? Communicate weapon. 

• I decided that Wenin Weald has recently made it publicly known that he has no intention of ever backing down. If Varro leaves, who knows how the the feud will be resolved, and whether he will be welcomed back here when he returns? 

• I paused to think a little more about the stakes here. It’s becoming clear that Varro is risking making himself into an outcast. Once he leaves, Overseer Chandra and the Dimling family might see his departure as a betrayal of his uncle’s desire for peace. The Wealds will see it as a betrayal of the village’s fallen. 

• Finally, I rolled on the Settlement Trouble oracle and asked the main action/theme oracle What else is going on in the region at the moment. I got beast on the hunt and break quest. I decided rumours have come up the river from the south about villages being terrorised by a wolf pack led by an enormous wolf. They say it’s an Elder Wolf - a creature of legend - and that some people have taken to trying to placate or even worship it, after a band of warriors were sent to kill it and were torn to pieces.

And with that I felt ready to get started.