Sundered Isles - Expansion for Ironsworn: Starforged

Sundered Factions!
6 months ago – Mon, Mar 18, 2024 at 12:52:52 PM

Hello, Ironsworn!

At this moment, I am celebrating that the backer count just ticked over to 2,500. That is an incredibly surprising and gratifying milestone. Thank you so much for the support!

I wanted to offer a quick sneak peek at how I am handling factions in the Sundered Isles. The isles have endured a long history of clashing factions, and foremost among those conflicts is the struggle against the tyranny of imperial powers.

I've reinforced the focus on factions in a few ways...

Setting Truths

The setting truths exercise, which many of you might be familiar with from Ironsworn and Starforged, helps build the reality of your world. It sets the tone of the campaign and lays the groundwork for the dangers and opportunities you will encounter. Depending on your choices, your setting might reflect the gritty reality of our real-world Age of Sail — or feature strange magic, cursed seas, monstrous beasts, and dreadful curses. Or somewhere in between. Your version of the isles will be uniquely your own, generated through these fun, guided exercises. A sandbox of possibilities ready for your characters.

For each category of the truths exercise, I've added prompts for the types of factions that might play a role in your setting. As you are working through your truths, you can make note of any factions of interest.

Then, in a later exercise, you introduce a handful of notable factions to your world, giving each a few bullet points to distinguish their role and characteristics. If you prefer to keep it simple at this stage, you  start with a placeholder description—for example, “Tyrannical Empire” or “Undead Pirates.” Quick and simple.

In short, you are tagging the things that interest you, the aspects of the world that will most influence your campaign. It's just enough worldbuilding to put the wind in the sails of your story.

Revealing Factions

The Sundered Isles Guidebook also offers tips and tools for managing factions within your world once your campaign is underway. This includes tracking faction activities that happen in the background, and revealing the forces and characters that you encounter in the course of your adventures. In solo play and co-op play, this gives the world a sense of place and history that exists beyond your character's immediate viewpoint. For a guide in traditional play, this section offers handy methods you can use to manage the ebb and flow of factions, and to determine how those factions intersect with the protagonists.

There are also around 40 summaries for sample factions that you can lift and shift into your campaign. Of course, they are presented as roll tables.

it's all designed to be simple and immediate. It's not a complex mini-game of faction management. 

Faction Oracles

Finally. I've added a new set of Faction Oracles to Sundered Isles. The Starforged faction oracles are quite good (he said without shame). These generators and random tables take it a step further by offering details across three different faction categories: societies, organizations, and empires. They are broadly system and setting-agnostic and would drop into your Starforged sci-fi campaign without much fuss. Use whichever you prefer, or mix and match.

Ready to Crush an Empire?

There's a lot more in the Guidebook. of course, and I can't wait to set you loose in a few short weeks to wreak havoc upon whatever factions you set your character against.

Thank you again for your support, and please join us at the Ironsworn Discord Community. Tag me there or comment below if you have any questions!

Sundered Starforged!
6 months ago – Fri, Mar 15, 2024 at 07:50:11 AM

I've had a couple of requests to talk about what new toys Sundered Isles might bring to your sci-fi Starforged campaigns, so let's take a look!

Let's proceed with the assumption that you aren't playing in a swashbuckling setting with an overlay of space adventure. So, we'll keep Treasure Planet out of the equation. We're talking fairly traditional adventure sci-fi, as opposed to galleons in space. For now.

New Assets

There are 55+ new character assets in Sundered Isles. Many of which drop right into your sci-fi game.

• A (oft-requested) robotic CONSTRUCT
• A merciless CUTHTHROAT
• An honor-bound DUELIST
• An OVERLANDER, experienced with dirtside missions
• A SOCIALITE, who succeeds through charm and wit
• A SWASHBUCKLER, who fights with flair
• An underestimated URCHIN (Newt from Aliens?)
• New modules suitable for your sci-fi spaceship, including a TROPHY VAULT and MAP ROOM

In addition, there are several new supernatural assets that can be used as-is in a more gonzo gothic sci-fi setting, or rethemed as technologies or genetic abilities

• The SORCERER, wielder of spells
• The JINX, cursed with foul luck
• The UNDEAD, risen to carry out their ill-fated quest
• The DAMNED, remade in a new form by death or desolation 

Next, there are assets that are sometimes rethemed from Starforged (and thus have some overlap). The beauty here is that you're free to pick the variation that best fits your character concept, as long as you aren't lumping two redundant assets into the same character. Two quick examples:

• The SCHOLAR stands in for the Starforged LORE HUNTER. This is a solid template for someone like Stephen Maturin from the Aubrey–Maturin books (Master and Commander).  
• The SPY, a less technology-focused, more cloak-and-dagger version of INFILTRATOR

There are some assets designed more specifically for the seafaring musket and cannon setting, such as SHIPWRIGHT, MUSKETEER, or WATERBORN. But, again, there's flexibility. Want to explore ocean planets as a semi-aquatic species? WATERBORN will do quite nicely. The Sundered Isles DECK CLEANER, armed with a scattergun, would make for a great shotgun-wielding sci-fi character. As much as possible, I use language that isn't overly specific to a time or setting.

Perhaps most importantly, there are some assets for crew and command. But let's talk about that in a moment.

The Sundered Isles Guidebook includes a helpful index of the default curated asset deck, which you'll also find in the downloadable sampler. However, I intend to publish a PDF cheat sheet of all the variations of "deck-builds" you might consider for specific genres, using assets pulled from Starforged core and Sundered Isles. It'll range from harder or industrial sci-fi, to gothic sci-fi, to swashbuckling sci-fi, and so on.

In short, remember that 120-crayon box you coveted as a kid? Or was that just me? Anyway, this is that — more shades, more variety. Plus a few of those really cool, sparkly and neon colors.

Crew and Command

In Starforged, you and your allies (fellow players) are assumed to be the sole crew on your ship. When sailing the Sundered Isles, you have the opportunity to command a crew — or even a fleet!

Luckily, the crew-related assets and guidelines port right over to sci-fil Starforged campaigns. They include:

• The CREW COMMANDER asset bolsters your leadership abilities while adding mechanical and narrative detail to your interactions with the crew. It uses a meta-resource, command, to represent the crew strength, loyalty, and morale. Your command will ebb and flow through the course of an adventure.
• When you take the helm of a pirate ship, the PIRATE CAPTAIN path offers boons for hunting for and seizing prizes, sharing the spoils to build rapport with your crew, and using your riches or infamy to gain an advantage when visiting ports. In space, no one can hear you Yarrr.
• By default, connections in Starforged are not a crewmember. They are notable NPCs whose lives only occasionally intersect with your own. However, you can assemble your own bridge crew with the COHORT asset, which makes a connection part of your crew as a specialist.
• Lastly, the FLEET COMMANDER asset is an evolution of your leadership late in your career— you are now a major player in your campaign setting.

Command and crew is largely abstracted, but it's just the right amount of flavor and mechanics to give this oft-requested feature a role in your sci-fi campaign. 

More!

This would be a very long update if I detailed all the ways that Sundered Isles can enhance your sci-fi Starforged campaign, but here's a quick summary of some additional features.

• Guidelines for managing shipwide supply when sailing with a crew
• New (optional) rules for wealth as a resource, including acquiring wealth, spending wealth, and managing the upkeep of your ship and crew
• A procedure for naval battles, which is also handy for naval-style space battles that progress from initial sighting to boarding
• Guidelines and setting-agnostic oracle tables for interludes, which are low-stakes character downtime scenes
• New recommendations for handling factions in the background of your campaign, and some extensive new faction generation oracles which are largely setting-agnostic
• Overland landmark oracles, useful for planetside journeys
• Some handy new general oracle tables, such as the magnitude oracle that can help answer questions related to the scale, extent, or capability of a thing

Check out these two preview videos for a look at some of these features.

Swashbuckling Sci-Fi: Peanut Butter and Chocolate

Lastly, the greatest potential for sci-fi Starforged and Sundered Isles is to build the Treasure Planet-style swashbuckling space campaign of your dreams. It offers endless mix-and-matchability of rules, assets, and oracles. Ready your ironclad exosuit, gather your pirate crew, and prepare for boarding!

Or just set sail and admire the view. Second star to the right and straight on till morning...

Thank you again for supporting this campaign. Whether you are planning on sailing among the isles or taking Sundered Isles with you on your spacebound adventures, I hope you find plenty of new options and tools to make your campaign better. Please don't hesitate to comment with questions!

Credits

• Sundered Isles cover art by Bryant Grizzle
• Spacefaring realm illustration by Joshua Meehan
• Asset icons by Nathen Græy
   

One Minor Clarification: Asset Deck
6 months ago – Wed, Mar 13, 2024 at 11:30:54 AM

Hello Ironsworn!

We've had a few questions about the asset cards in the comments tab. Here's a quick summary! I hope this helps answer any questions. If not, comment below.

First, just for folks new to Ironsworn/Starforged ... Assets are a key component of your character. They represent your background, skills, traits, companions, and resources. Since the bygone Ironsworn days, I've always created them in a poker-sized card format. I like the tactile nature of these cards at the table and the straightforward organization and reference. Plus, to be honest, the size is a gating factor to keep the text of each ability under control. It forces me to be concise with the themes and mechanics in each asset — which is a good thing!

Now, some points to cover. Forgive me for over-explaining! Much of this is old news to most of you. I just want to make sure I cover everything.

• Every pledge tier includes the Sundered Isles Digital Edition (PDFs) at no additional cost, and the print-and-play versions of the asset cards are included in that package. I generally provide several versions of the asset cards for printing: 9 per-page, 1-per page, and individual PNG files.
• Next month, you'll receive the print-and-play assets as part of the Sundered Isles Digital Edition. You'll have everything you need to start playing. If you purchase Starforged as part of this Kickstarter, you'll also get the print-and-play Starforged asset deck at the same time.
• After the game releases, the print-and-play versions of the assets are also a free download at the Ironsworn website.
• The physical asset cards are included with the Sundered Isles Bundle pledge and the Complete Collection pledge, and they are also available as an add-on. If you get them in the bundle, you'll save a couple of bucks. The pre-printed deck will go out with the books later this year.
• The physical asset cards are quite nice and handy (and have a dry-erasable finish!), but are not necessary to play as long as you have some means of printing or transcribing the digital asset cards. In short, they are a nice-to-have, not a must-have.
• If you are getting the physical Sundered Isles asset deck, you'll want to make sure you also have the Starforged deck in some physical form, either printed yourself or the preprinted cards available in the Complete Collection pledge and as an add-on. The two decks are complementary.
•  If you prefer playing digitally via apps or VTTs, the text of the assets falls under a creative commons license. We put it all into a sharable open source database that is used by app developers. In short, making these accessible is job #1.

In short, think of asset cards like a roleplaying game character sheet. Sometimes, a publisher will offer a spiffy pre-printed version of the character sheet. If not, the PDF version is usually available as part of your purchase, and is downloadable from the publishers website. And virtual tabletop and apps will often offer some version of the character sheet in interactive form. Same deal!

Hope that helps! Holler if any questions or concerns.