You can purchase Sundered Isles here.
You can purchase Starforged here.
You can purchase Sea of Sands here.
To say I was happy to see Sean Tomkin’s announcement for the Sundered Isles Kickstarter this year would be an understatement. While I am not a big fan of pirate-y-themed things, any expansion of the Ironsworn ruleset is always good. Rather than just make a second science fiction-themed book, Tomkin developed a third-themed way of play while leaving the mechanics open to be easily reskinned for whatever genre you wish to play in. This is an expansion, though, not a standalone game, so a copy of Starforged is required. It is very well worth it if you don’t have a copy yet.
Sundered Isles puts the player of a sailing vessel in a world made up of an endless number of islands. A sundering of some kind occurred, which, like other worldbuilding elements, gets detailed when the player goes through the Truths phase of game creation. Adding some extra flavor options, the book has players choose if they are seafaring, skyfaring, or starfaring, with details that will help make the game match that particular setting. As someone who refuses to play games as they are presented to me, I wanted to play as part of a crew on a desert planet where we sail upon shifting sands instead of waters. Thankfully, I had a copy of the system-agnostic Sea of Sands, which includes several themed tables and descriptions of creatures easily plugged into Sundered Isles. More on my setting a little later.
Depending on your style, there are many new optional rules to use or ignore. One of these is the dual moons – Cinder and Wraith, the first red, while the other is a cool blue. Tomkin suggests using two differently colored d10s to serve as your moons, which work as manifestations of Fate. Roll your die, and you might get 1 & 8. So, Cinder is low while Wraith is higher. Your reading of this can vary. For me, Cinder represents directness & aggression, while Wraith stands for elusivity & mystery. With that roll, I might say something is happening behind the scenes that my character is unaware of, so she may need to investigate.
Rules are added about differentiating between a ship’s Held Supply and the Equipped Supply of your character. If you play as a Commander, you get rules on managing your crew and using them to accomplish objectives. Sundered Isles expands on travel mechanics by providing more details about traveling across the seas versus the islands. Naval encounters are broken down into four phases: sighting, approaching, engagement, and boarding, with flowcharts that help players understand which moves make sense in which phase.
Some mechanics, like the twin moons, are there to add flavor and twists to play. Interludes are suggested as essential ways to develop character relationships outside of constant adventuring. An oracle table includes such entries as “Confess a Secret” or “Indulge a Vice.” Interludes are prompted by other tables, but the player is encouraged to implement them whenever they feel it would make sense in the story.
Cursed Dice are added to the mix for tables marked with a skull and crossbones. You roll your standard d100 on a table but toss in another d10. If that extra d10 ever comes up as 0 (or 10, depending on how your dice are marked), you consult the adjoining Cursed table, which adds a twisted detail. For example, I am rolling on the Ship Symbol oracle and get “Lion,” but my cursed die comes up with a 0. So I roll on the adjoining Cursed Ship Symbol table and get “Headless Figure.” You could say the Cursed die simply override the first roll. Or you could combine them in some way. Perhaps the symbol on the flag is of a man holding up the head of a lion he’s decapitated, symbolizing the ship’s anti-authoritarian stance. Maybe the flag shows a lion devouring a headless body, which could mean a whole host of other things.
As with everything in the Ironsworn/Starforged family, no mechanics or flavored tables are required. If you play the game in any of its three possible forms – solo, co-op, or GM-ed – you pick the pieces that bring the most fun to your experience. As for my playthrough, I try to use everything (if I remember it) to see how it feels. I know I will certainly be using the Command rules outside of Sundered Isles in Starforged if I want to do something Star Trek-themed as a captain of a starship. The mix and matching between the two are essential as assets can be used interchangeably, with a few exceptions where some mechanics lightly clash.
For my playthrough, I will incorporate this into the ongoing Starforged Universe I created in 2023. This is four regions of space, intentionally abstract in scale & clearly derived from some of the prominent science fiction properties in media. I’ve played out stories in the United Planetary Alliance (my take on Star Trek) and The Old Imperium (my version of Star Wars) but have only mentioned the other two in passing.
My Sundered Isles playthrough, subtitled Sands of Power, will take place in the Trade Enclave, an expansive region of space ruled over by corporate houses whose vital commodity is Essence. This is, of course, a play on Frank Herbert’s Dune. In my version, the Enclave came about from a schism in humanity tens of thousands of years ago. One faction believed technology would liberate them and became the Old Imperium with their vast destroyers, energy weapons, and bots. The other faction believed that the mastery of the inner Self was the path to liberation and destroyed any form of artificial intelligence and transformed humans into living computers. This was accomplished through the ingestion of Essence, a liquid secreted from the worldbreakers of Audun.
Audun is said to have been a lush, verdant world once upon a time. Some unknown events lost to the ages turned the planet into a massive desert with sprawling sand oceans covering much of it. The islands are those rare rocky formations on which humans have forged settlements. Worldbreakers are worm-like creatures that swim in these oceans and, through filtering the sands, draw out moisture dubbed Essence. This liquid unlocks human mental potential in dramatic ways but, over time, can lead to mutations and other physical transformations.
Essence has been used to develop the Mindmothers, a sisterhood devoted to shaping the social development of the Enclave. The Thought-shaman have used the Essence to become capable of breaking down the wall between science and magic and serve as key advisers to those in power. The Flight Syndicate has used Essence to no longer rely on FTL drives but on the concentrated will & vision of the pilots to fold time & space. Blood Druids are warriors unlike anything seen in the other regions of space, fueled by a chemically enhanced Essence cocktail so that they feel no pain in battle.
One could argue that these groups are the actual rulers of this space-faring society. After all, no one travels between planets without the Flight Syndicate’s approval, and no royal marriage is allowed without the consent of the Mindmothers. Those who claim to rule are the corporate Houses. Many minor houses fade or merge with larger ones. The ruling Major Houses are Enganosa, Linnaeus, Verfault, and Majstor. There were brutal wars between them centuries prior, but that has been settled with an expansive contract that rotates management of Audun and the Essence extraction operations.
When our story begins, House Linnaeus has been in charge of Audun for almost ten years. That followed a brutal eighty-year tenure of House Verfault. The culture cultivated by House Verfault has always been one of sadistic order. Their rulers believe that whoever is willing to kill anyone & everyone between them and their goal is the most worthy to lead. This has led to only surface-level trust among the royal family members because killing someone senior to you has always been a path to power. This mentality has trickled down through their homeworld of Xanthous, where a strict, cruel hierarchy is maintained from the supreme ruler to the lowliest gutter rat. House Verfault brought this hierarchy with them when they took control of Audun.
Audun is home to several ethnic groups, but the largest among them are al Raml, who claim to be the world’s indigenous population. Anthropological evidence has found the oldest traces of humans on the desert world are al Raml. As with all insidious colonial regimes, forced breeding occurred so that there are subsets of al Raml who may or may not identify with that label. Some have been socialized, especially if they live in the polar corporate capital of Dhaknour, to see themselves as Khaleej, a racist construct meant to demean the al Raml. The three most significant hurdles to corporate domination of Audun have always been the worldbreakers, the desert, and al Raml, which are all interconnected in complex ways.
With this setting in mind, I went through the character creation process outlined in Sundered Isles and rolled up these details, adding flavor based on the direction I wanted for the story.
Jadyn Farani
Goal: Prevent war from breaking out between al Raml and the Trade Houses
Background: Escaped unjust captivity, home destroyed by disaster or war
Look: alluring, wounded
Role: Sailor – First mate
Trademark accessories: loyal animal companion, braids strung with colorful beads
Trademark weapon: Iron-shod staff whispering irresistible commands (cursed)
Character details: criminal, confident
Goals: Serve the will of a leader, steal a valuable object
Tokens: letter of pardon
Paths: Scoundrel, Diplomat
Command: No command, serving under another
Some of these, like stealing a valuable object, I’m still figuring out and will let emerge from the story, but overall, I really liked the outline I ended up with here.
For my ship, this is what I rolled up and detailed.
The Erasmus
Captain: Deke Hardin, chief smuggler
Ship History: Obtained in trade for a precious object
Ship size: small, 20 crew, troublesome/dangerous
Ship first look: low-profile, large harpoon cannon
Ship symbol: Noble figure
Ship details: hung with charms & talismans, hidden capabilities, provisions quickly putrefy (cursed)
Cargo: coffee, dyes, medicinal herbs
Crew characteristics: refugees from far away, finding a new home
Factions are more developed in Sundered Isles, but nothing is overly complicated. For my game, I will focus on three factions with the option for more to emerge as we go on. These factions are:
House Verfault: Hundreds of loyalists stayed behind when Verfault returned to their homeworld. These loyalists intend to sabotage House Linnaeus while working with Essence smuggling networks to increase their private surplus.
The Flight Syndicate: The Flight Syndicate doesn’t like how House Linneaus runs things and believes they haven’t been harsh enough on the smugglers.
Khazeera: A tribe of al Raml that lives on the edge of the Great Burrow. This massive ancient worldbreaker burrow is lined with a crystalized form of Essence used in sacred rituals. It is very potent and thus coveted by Verfault and The Flight Syndicate. Al Raml guards it with their lives.
I rolled up the region where our story will take place, The Crimson Gulf. There are three distinct islands – Malau, The Barrier Islands, and the pair of Raven Isles. The main Raven island is where the Khazeera live in their city of Jahar, a crescent-shaped society right on the rim of the Great Burrow.
Using the tables in Sundered Isle, here are the details I rolled up
- Settlement – Jahar (The Burrow)
- Location: inland
- Size: city (thousands)
- Focus: Mysticism, Exploration
- Faction: Khazeera
- Aesthetics: Grand (majestic structures), Garish (tacky adornments)
- First Look: Expanding with new construction, under attack
- Details: A nest of Verfault insurgents conspiring against the Khazeera reside here, and refugees from other communities seek sanctuary here
I also used some settlement-building tables from Sea of Sands that added details. Some of these were quite unexpected and made me tweak my original ideas in ways I liked.
- Government: Military dictatorship – al Raml have adopted some of the more destructive practices of the occupying force
- Characteristics: Monastic, Debaucherous
- Taboo: Inhospitality
- Landmarks: Ritual Labyrinth, Holy Mount
- History: Seat of Power
- Surplus: metals, liquor
- Scarcity: spices, scrap
So, I tossed all these bits and pieces into the pot and let them stew. In part two, we will put it all together to build our backstory and kick off this adventure in the deadly sand seas of Audun.
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