Solo Tabletop RPG Review & Actual Play – Ironsworn: The City of Eternal Night Part One

You can buy Vaults & Vows here

You can buy Feats & Favors here

Read Part Two here

In March 2023, I played through a short game of Ironsworn for the first time. I loved it, but there were definitely some wrinkles Starforged helped iron out (no pun intended). I did want to revisit Ironsworn, though, with some tweaks. This was mainly an interest in seeing how some additional fan-made products worked when attached to the core system. My story hook came from my Dungeon World Solo series, and while that was very fun to play, Ironsworn’s brilliant progress mechanics stand head & shoulders above any solo system I have encountered. If the goal is to create a sense of exploration and surprise, you don’t get better than this system. 

The first piece I wanted to try out was the Vaults & Vows assets created by Ludic Pen. These aim to emulate the tropes you might find in a classic Dungeons & Dragons game around character creation. It’s quite a significant addition to the base with 106 new assets, including 9 ancestries (elf, dwarf, orc, etc.), 13 backgrounds, 71 class assets (11 base, 60 paths), 13 magic items. The instructions include tables to roll randomly on if you want fate to decide your character. They also advise not mixing and matching Ironsworn’s assets as there is an overlap between the two. If you want Ironsworn’s gritty Iron Isles setting, stick with those. If you want some high fantasy, then Vaults & Vows provides that both thematically and mechanically.

The second piece I’m including is Feats & Favors by Satan Bouchuncoin. This supplement aims to add mechanics to factions in your world. Additionally, there are layers of complexity you can choose to include or not. I used just the fundamental elements because this is my first time playing with F&F. If I like it enough, I’ll delve into the advanced mechanics and incorporate them in the future. The supplement builds a reputation system that can be tracked for each vital faction in the game. These organizations get a rank the same as any progress track (formidable up to epic), and depending on what your rep is, you can purchase favors. As your rep increases, more and better favors become available. If your rep decreases enough, you become a faction target. The more advanced rules provide tools for determining a faction’s current projects, tracking those, and allowing factions to grow in power over time.

The world of this game is a continuation of a world I started with my Lineage playthrough and continued in my Dungeon World Solo play. The core component of this fantasy world is the once-dominant Eastern Empire. I set my DW game, and now this Ironsworn one is centuries after the Eastern Empire has fallen, but the world is marked by its reign. Using the recent solo worldbuilding tool included in Mythic Magazine #38, I delved into the background of this universe. 

One of the threads I came up with was that the Eastern Empire decided to crack down on the liberal use of sorcery in their territories, which sparked a grand alliance of mages. They congregated in Kronholm, where a rite of shadow magic was enacted to hide the city. It went very wrong. A rift was formed between the material plane and the shadow world, allowing darkness to ooze across and envelope the city, slowly spreading into the environs around it. This led a once verdant land into becoming an arid desert, and as the centuries passed, people forgot what it once was like. Now, Kronholm is known as the City of Eternal Night, where a battle is fought without progress between the humans wishing to reclaim their home from the shadow entities that seek to consume it.

For my character, I took inspiration from an ending moment I came up with on the fly in my Dungeon World playthrough. I’ve always been interested in the discourse surrounding orcs and the racial metaphor they have come to represent. The orc as a mindless killer trope feels dull, and I liked having an ancient orc mage as a supporting character in DW. The idea that there are tribes of orcs peacefully living off the land unless provoked by outsiders appealed to me – elements of the indigenous experience mixed with some high fantasy ones. I see the orcs as having once had sprawling communities of their own by the Eastern Empire that saw an end to that when they refused to bend the knee in their first encounters. There might still be flourishing orc kingdoms somewhere in this world, but for the purposes of this adventure, our hero is going to be a young orc outlander part of a desert tribe who is drawn into the mystery of Kronholm.

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Two centuries past, Uram of the Greywolf’s kin found refuge within the desolation of the Silent Wastes. Once, the orcs reveled in the majesty of grand cities and boasted some of the realm’s most formidable sorcerers and warlocks among their ranks. Alas, the relentless advance of the Eastern Empire imposed its cultural dominance upon the lands, shattering the orcish civilization. The thriving Greywolf tribe, once ensconced in the lush green of Silezia’s forests, faced expulsion. Driven from their ancestral home, they sought solace upon the plains until humanity’s expansion pushed them to the fringes of known lands. 

In the arid expanse of the Sajir Desert, the Greywolf orcs found an unlikely sanctuary. Nomadic by necessity, these once-city dwellers adapted to the harsh terrain, surviving amidst the shifting sands. The remnants of their once majestic civilization faded into the parched landscape, and a feeling of quiet peace settled upon the outlying realms. Here, beneath the relentless sun, the orcish tribe eked out an existence, a testament to their resilience in the face of displacement.

But they were not far enough away from the kingdoms of men to be too safe. Like the haunting echo of distant cannons, whispers of slavers rolled through the land several moons past. Greywolf scouts and traders wove chilling tales, recounting the ominous sight of marauding bands astride swift horses, cruelly dragging shackled orcs & other beings across the arid expanse toward a city on the other side of the dunes. In the city of Kronholm, shadows cast by the nefarious slave trade lengthened, staining the streets with the taint of wicked commerce. The shadow magic had begun a corruption of the city & people and saw its zenith in how little they valued their own dignity and failed to see it in any other living creature. The Greywolf tribe remained untouched by the chains of subjugation, but its specter loomed. 

Uram, a young scion of the Greywolf tribe, bore the mark of adolescence upon his sturdy shoulders. His moss-green skin, adorned with the tribal insignia etched in ash, spoke of heritage and resilience. A cascade of braided obsidian locks framed a face marked by the earnest gaze of curiosity. He had not seen much of this strange world he was born into, but Uram wanted to step farther than ever. It was tempered by the terrifying stories told over firelight each night since he had been a child.

Uram carried an insatiable hunger for knowledge, a trait not commonly associated with his kin since the Great Fall. Uram’s inquisitive spirit sought to unravel the mysteries that whispered across the sand, whether the rustle of desert winds through the dunes or the secrets hidden within the ancient glyphs of their nomadic artifacts.

A profound loyalty anchored Uram to the fabric of his tribe. His heart beat in rhythm with the collective pulse of the Greywolf clan, and every decision, every pursuit, was woven with threads of devotion to his people. His actions spoke volumes of a commitment to safeguard the legacy of his kin from the encroaching shadows that lurked beyond the shifting dunes.

However, a subtle tremor of fear tinged Uram’s spirit. The vast expanse of the human lands, a realm whose complicated interior was mainly unknown to the Greywolf orcs, instilled a primal unease within him. These were alien landscapes existing only as stories, things he formed in his mind, and he often wondered how closely his fantasies adhered to the truth of these men. In his heart, Uram felt the fear of the unknown clashing with the steadfast loyalty to his people, causing his approach to adulthood in his tribe to be fraught with so many unknowns. He often wondered if all he ever knew would be these sands, the stark blue sky, and that water would be a rare treat against one’s lips.

Uram found himself entangled in the precarious dance of fate during a foraging expedition. Driven by the pursuit of sustenance, he roamed over dunes that undulated like the breath of a slumbering titan with two dozen of his tribe. A curious distraction presented itself in the form of a Bhaajan lizard, its small, yellow form adorned with black speckle spots blending seamlessly with the desert sands. This creature feasted on the sapaya root—a potential boon for Uram’s tribe upon their return.

The sapaya root, a hidden gem within the harsh desert, bore testament to the resilience and adaptability of nature. Its rugged exterior was coated in a dusty patina mirroring the sun-baked terrain, the life-sustaining elixir concealed beneath the surface. A sturdy tuber, the sapaya root presented in a vivid palette of earthy hues, ranging from deep ochre to amber. The sapaya root harbored a succulent core, life-giving moisture that defied the relentless thirst of the desert. Its crisp and mildly sweet flesh was a vital source of hydration for those wise enough to unearth its buried treasure.

For the Greywolf orcs, the sapaya root symbolized more than mere sustenance. Their teeth pierced the outer layers, revealing the juicy interior, providing a fleeting reprieve from the unforgiving environment. The tuber’s hydrating essence and natural sweetness replenished the orcs’ strength and vitality. It served as a reminder that not all life was the constant struggle of survival but provided times when one could relax and savor the earth’s kindness to her children.

Yet, in this seemingly mundane excursion, the threat of slavers cast a foreboding shadow. Unbeknownst to Uram, the dance of the Bhaajan lizard on the shifting dunes would soon be overshadowed by the brutal ballet orchestrated by the slavers, intertwining the fates of those who tread upon the unforgiving sands and those who lurked in the shadows of Kronholm.

The distant rumble of hooves resonated through the desert air. This sound stirred Uram from idle musings to immediate alertness. Without thought, body reacting instinctually, he dropped to the sandy ground, sinuous as the serpentine dunes beneath him. Inch by cautious inch, he slithered up the dune’s crest, his keen eyes fixing upon a harrowing tableau unfolding on the other side.

Silhouetted against the canvas of the desert, slavers emerged, shrouded in midnight-hued robes that billowed like ominous shadows of smoke in their wake. Their scarlet horses, thundering hooves kicking up dust trails, corralled the beleaguered orcs. In a cruel ballet, the captors wielded force, knocking the once-proud orcs to the earth with a brutality that caused Uram to look away momentarily, unable to bear seeing elders treated in such a way.

Shackles clanged, the metallic lamentation a song for the lost freedom of Uram’s kin. In a matter of breaths, the enslaved orcs were forced back onto their feet, beginning a reluctant march that etched a trail of despair toward parts unknown. Hidden behind the dune’s protective embrace, Uram bore witness to the heart-wrenching spectacle.

As the sun cast its final, fiery benediction upon the horizon, Uram grappled with a decision. Home beckoned with the warmth of the hearth, yet the solemn duty to his people gripped his heart and pulled him towards a direction he’d kept from traveling his whole life. Beneath the cloak of night, he emerged from his concealment, sand spilling off his jade skin like water. A shadowy odyssey through the unknown, with the stolen silhouettes of his brethren marching ever northward, leaving the whispers of their path on the desert breeze. Uram raised his head, sniffed the area, and took off across the wastes.

To be continued…