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Supersworn Pre-Alpha
Designed & Written by Ben Adams
You can check out this game and many other hacks of Ironsworn here.
Stepping away from my regular routine with these solo tabletop RPGs, I will be playing with a very preliminary but still well-developed fan hack of Ironsworn: Starforged that is superhero themed. I previously reviewed and played with Ironsworn and Starforged; however, superhero tropes are in my wheelhouse more than fantasy ones, so I expect this to go even smoother than those. Supersworn takes these systems and makes some tweaks so a player can be a superhero in a world similar to those of DC, Marvel, or even a universe with a wildly different take on capes.
The superhero you play is meant to be a competent but still fallible character. You are not exactly going out on your first patrol, but how long you’ve been doing this is a player’s choice. Maybe you want to be one of the Teen Titans or, rather, a Justice Society of America veteran. There’s no boundary to play as either.
Ben Adams, the creator, has cooked up some great Assets for this hack, including swapping out the player’s spaceship from Starforged for their Headquarters. For Paths, he’s included expected ones like Secret Identity, Vigilante, and Journalist, among others. While many of the Paths in Starforged can easily be used as Powers, Adams has created some more Powers Assets to help flavor the mechanics and tone of the hack. All your expected abilities are represented, from Invisibility to Super Speed to Flight to Danger Sense and more.
Some of the less developed areas of the Hack are in tweaking the Truths, some Moves, and very basic notes about creating some sort of Nemesis system. I don’t think any of these things hinder play, but having them would help support the flavor of the game more. It’s clearly a labor of love. While Supersworn has not seen any updates since March 2023, I hope that Adams or someone else can keep developing this into a full-fledged game. I am not a big fan of the crunchier superhero RPGs on the market. I am a big fan of Powered by the Apocalypse games, but Masks’ focus on only teen heroes is limiting; however, it works for that particular game. I have yet to check out the City of Mist, but a cursory glimpse feels like that one has a specific tone, and I’m more interested in something like the Ironsworn hacks, which are more open to player flavoring.
So let’s get to our game:
Using the Truths from Supersworn, we begin to build our world. The first truth is about the History of Superhumans. I enjoy the long, rich history of comic book universes like DC and Marvel, so I will be playing in a world that has had these caped heroes around since just before World War II. In fact, one of the first true superheroes, Exemplar, performed a feat that changed the course of history in my world. He intercepted the atomic bomb intended for Hiroshima. Exemplar had been working with the Allies, but once he heard about the development of the bomb and plans to drop it, he could not stomach doing nothing. As a result, he was labeled a “dirty commie” by the American government and disappeared. No one really knew where he came from anyway. Was he an alien? A human from the future using advanced tech? A mutant? To this day, these questions remain.
The result of Exemplar’s brave act was that the Cold War never happened. Exemplar’s actions emboldened the small, at the time, anti-nuclear bomb movement until it became something the world’s governments couldn’t ignore. The Soviet Union still exists today, albeit resembling something more like China. The United States adopted more socialist domestic policies that caused it to resemble modern-day Western Europe in our reality. Mass transit being ubiquitous is one of the most apparent signs this comic universe is very different. Atomic power was harnessed as an energy source rather than a weapon of mass destruction, and the super scientists of this world have figured out ways to convert toxic waste into neutral matter. The moment the communist witch hunts of the 1950s began to rear their heads, the public pushed back, and there were never any hearings led by McCarthy or anyone else. It’s not a perfect world, but certainly a better one.
Next is the Population of Superhumans. There are a few thousand located all over the world. In fact, an entire community of superpowered beings lives on a mysterious moving island in the Pacific Ocean, but they mostly keep to themselves. Every city has at least a couple superheroes, both powered and regular people inspired to do something. Most countries have superheroes that serve as mascots, while even more operate in the dark as part of black ops programs. Just because there was no Cold War doesn’t mean there wasn’t a lot of spying happening in the wake of World War II.
The World’s Governments’ views on Superhumans are favorable but with caution. In the European Union, superhumans are registered and regulated by the government. In the United States, like with most things, it’s a bit of a free for all. China’s superhumans are all agents of the state. The Global South has a mix of state-sponsored metahumans and independent vigilantes.
The Public’s View of Superhumans is about as mixed as their views on anything. Focusing on the United States, as that is where my campaign will be set, you have people on the internet who have made being a fan of specific superhumans their whole personality. There are reactionary chuds who don’t like that the new Captain Cosmos is black because when they were growing up, Captain Cosmos was a white Mid-Eastern dude. When the original Cosmos spoke up to support his heir, these same “fans” screamed that he was “woke.” There are openly queer and trans superhumans, both heroes & villains. Some superhumans are internet influencers, including the sorceress extraordinaire The Mystic Maiden, who live streams her exploits on ClipSpot. They have become part of the background for many people who go their whole day without thinking about superhumans. Of course, urban locales are more likely to have superhumans popping up in people’s everyday lives. However, the “flyover” states have their fair share, including The Trojan of Wichita, Kansas.
Regarding the Main Source of Superhuman Power, that would take all day to detail. There are plenty of regular folks transformed by freak accidents. But you also have people building armor and equipment to enhance themselves. Some have intentionally altered their own DNA. A growing number are mutants, people who have naturally developed powers as part of some unknown factor in their genetics. Magic is present and can be harnessed to do incredible things, and it comes in as many varieties as there are belief systems. Some even claim to be gods that walk the Earth and do good or evil, depending on their place in their respective pantheons. The universe is also vast & infinite and has brought alien visitors and more nebulous cosmic figures to the Earth.
We must create our hero for this journey, and I already have an archetype in mind: Spider-Man. I like the character tropes of a young, struggling city-based hero. The tension between identities would be fun to play with, and the delightful variety of foes Spidey fights sound like a great addition to an open-ended game. I’m not going to try and think too hard to scrape off all the serial numbers, so my hero will go by the name of Slingshot. His power set is enhanced agility aided by energy tendrils he can extend from his arms. I’d like powers to develop as we go, so we’ll keep it there for now.
I don’t want him to be a completely independent adult, so a freshman in college sounds about right. Money is tight, so he lives with his aunt and little sister. We’ll randomly roll up a name…Christopher Kelly works. So about a year ago, Chris was in a horrible car accident where his mother was killed, but he survived. Chris’s dad was horribly broken up over this and became more withdrawn as the months passed. Mr. Kelly was Doctor Kelly, a physicist whose work was utterly indecipherable to Chris. One night, a fire broke out at Dr. Kelly’s laboratory, and he was killed, leaving his son Chris and daughter Mari orphans. Their Aunt Mari took them in without a second thought and has been raising them since. Before they sold the family’s house, Chris discovered a box hidden in the walls that his father had put there. There were stacks of scientific data that he couldn’t make heads or tails of. However, there was a folder tracking Chris’s vital signs since the accident and what appeared to be files copied from Chris’s doctors growing up.
Shortly after that, Chris’s powers emerged. He was on the roof, helping Aunt Mari clean the gutters on a Saturday, when he fell. No one was around to see the golden tendrils of energy that shot out from both arms and saved the young man from potentially breaking his back. They responded to Chris’s thoughts and were very unstable at the start. Another strange side effect was that Chris’s hair turned completely white when his powers were active. Inspired by the heroes of Forge City, where Chris lives, he created a makeshift costume and tried to help out in his neighborhood, slowly being drawn into more dangerous conflicts with deadlier foes. A chance meeting with Doctor Improbable of The Improbables ended with Chris receiving a higher quality costume generated by the good doctor in his transmitter stabilizer.
Chris Kelly is a freshman at Forge City University, pursuing a degree in journalism. He writes for The Clarion Call, the campus newspaper, and has clashed with the school’s administrators over stories that put the school in conflict with influential figures in the city. He still lives with Aunt Laurie and Mari but seriously thinks he needs to get an apartment with roommates. However, operating as Slingshot would be difficult in a different way in that setup. Chris is also determined to learn how his father died, what those notes about him mean, and if they are connected to the manifestation of these strange powers. We’ll flesh out the details more as we play.
Prologue to our Campaign:
Thunder & lightning. Rain pours in torrents. A helicopter roars into view from the top of the panel. Annie Elcott, the star reporter for WFRG Action News Now!, is doing a live report from inside.
“Chaos in Midtown! An hour ago, an explosion on the Rosen Memorial Bridge sent rush hour into utter chaos. The masked vigilante Slingshot arrived on the scene shortly after drawing suspicion from local authorities that he was connected somehow to the incident. Forge City police have stated many times since Slingshot debuted on the scene that he was not like the city’s other masked crime fighters. They have aligned themselves behind the recent addition to the mystery men & women scene, Blue Bolt. Bolt appeared near Rosen Bridge after Slingshot and engaged him in combat, further supporting the police’s view that Slingshot is a menace to the fair people of our city.”
Slingshot pursues Blue Bolt, whipping his energy tendrils out to grip the structures of this urban jungle and swing forward. His muscles burn as he pushes himself to his limits; Bolt is ahead of him, leading the hero into an obvious trap. Sling knows Bolt must be behind the bombing of the bridge, yet another attempt to frame the teenage hero as a villain to the city.
Bolt brings his hovercycle to a stop on the roof of Eaton Enterprises and leaps off, waiting for Sling to make his own landing. Moments later, Slingshot lands and finds himself mask to mask with this mysterious enemy posing as a hero.
“This ends tonight! You’re playing some sort of twisted game, and I won’t let you keep going!”
Bolt’s voice comes through electronically, intentionally distorted. Laughing. “You still think you are in control of the situation, boy? I used to send lackeys, freaks I’d found or made, to take you down. But I have learned. If you want something done, you have to do it yourself.”
Bolt moves with enhanced speed and strikes Sling in the chest, sending the hero crashing backward across the rooftop. The pain throbs in Sling’s chest, and he lies momentarily on the ground letting his lung fill again with air. He leaps to his feet, still unsteady, muscles screaming from the strain of getting here after saving all those people from the collapsing bridge. Sling throws a punch, which is immediately blocked by Bolt. Another. Blocked. Another. Blocked and punched in the stomach.
“Predictive combat suit. Nifty, huh? Boys in R & D made it for military use. I found that inputting thousands of hours of CCTV footage of you,,, and my own spy drone video made for something that you can’t beat. The suit knows you better than you know yourself and can anticipate every move before you make it.” Warped, electronic laughing.
“Eaton?” Sling says with complete shock. “It’s you.”
The front of the blue mask shimmers, and the electronic screen fades enough so that Ezra Eaton’s face is glimpsed. “Don’t worry, they can’t see me,” he says, pointing to the new chopper making circles around the building. “They can hear us, though, but not what you think. Using AI to feed them a completely different conversation between us using fragments of your little talks to the public after catching the baddies. They’re hearing you confess to the bridge bombing and talking about how the rest of the city is next once you kill me.”
Sling is unsure what to do next but fights anyway. With every swing, he’s blocked and given a brutal strike to his body. He won’t give up until there’s nothing left, though. Sling knows if he falls, Eaton will unmask him, and then everything is over.
(I choose to make the move Battle rather than play out every move of the fight. Eaton will be around for a while, and I only need to know who wins the fight to get to the core of this campaign. I rolled a Weak Hit and had to Pay the Price. I roll on that and get A surprising development complicates your quest.)
Sling finds something in him to fight back and strikes a weak spot in Bolt’s armor, causing sparks to fly off the roof. Bolt stumbles backward, unleashing a staticky roar and then charging with all his might. Sling is knocked over the roof’s edge, plummeting towards the streets below. He weakly throws out energy tendrils, trying to get as much distance between his foe and himself before finally collapsing in an alleyway blocks away. His costume is torn and soaked with rain, his shock of white hair flickering between this color and the light brown it is when his powers are suppressed. Blackout.
A figure emerges from the shadows of the alleyway. It is a bulky shape in a filthy trench coat and fedora, hunched over, a pair of gray-mottled hands extending forward.
“Another fighter for the master,” the figure croaks. “He shall be so happy with me.”
Sling is tossed over the figure’s shoulder, who then lifts a manhole and descends into the bowels of Forge City.
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