So now on to character creation. The first directive we are given are to envision our character with these two implicit statements:
BE AWESOME
Your character is highly competent. You’re smart, brave, and driven. You can hold your own in a fight. When you Swear an Iron Vow, you mean it.
You are not without your limitations. You’ll face hardship. You’ll make bad decisions. You will fail. Overcoming those failures, pushing on, is what makes you heroic.
BE WHO YOU WANT
The people of the Ironlands are diverse. Communities are formed through shared interests, mutual protection, or strong leadership. Respect is still paid to traditions of the Old World, but Ironlanders largely left behind their cultural divisions when they crossed the vast northern ocean. Even within a single community, you’ll find a fusion of Old World and Ironland influences.
You can envision your character however you like—unbound by geography, lineage, sexual orientation, and gender. Your character can be inspired directly by a real-world or historical culture, or you might weave a blend of cultural influences into your concept.
The default setting is human-centric, and these rules do not include specific options to play fantasy races. However, you can adjust to your liking. The mechanics of your character are relatively light and can be themed to support several types of fantasy or historical fiction.
Awesome. Now I am imagining someone out of a western: a wandering gunslinger (read: sellsword) moving from town to town, never settling down too long before the call of the road and adventure comes. Other than that, I don’t have much. So we’re going to hit some randomization options (using the Semi-Random Campaign Setup on page 236).
Name
Pulling out some percentiles (we’re going to be using these quite a bit going forward), I’m rolling on the Ironlander Names oracle (random table). Rolling an 87, I get two options: Althus or Jebran. I like Althus more, so we’re going with that one. Surnames are not commonly used in the Ironlands but titles are, but we won’t worry about that yet since we don’t know much about Althus yet.
Assets
Normally, the implied next step is assigning stats, but I’ve been told via the Ironsworn Reddit and Discord I will probably have a more coherent character if I select Assets first. Using the Asset Master Set, I see that there are 75 possible assets, however, I do not feel like playing a character with mystical abilities, so I’m excluding the 17 ritual assets making the total 58. The semi-random option involves a deck, but I’m just going to roll randomly (using Random.org) five times and then select three from that list.
Using this method, I get: Cave Lion (companion), Herbalist (path), Masked (path), Ironclad (combat talent), Mammoth (companion). I dislike Masked because that would mean bringing the Firstborn into the forefront, so I’m excluding that one. I do not feel like playing the Beast Master, so that means one of the companions needs to go. Cave Lion makes me think of Drizzt which, while not bad, isn’t what I’m going for so instead I go for the Mammoth. That makes the final list Mammoth, Herbalist, and Ironclad.
This gives us an Althus who knows some things about the healing power of herbs, wears a suit of armor (Iron armor?), and has a powerful mammoth (since this is the only asset we have to make a selection for, we’re going to choose Beast of Burden so our mammoth, who I’ve named Cratch from the random tables, will carry a multitude of gear and random junk that Althus has collected on his journeys.
Althus is turning into an interesting character.
Assign Stats
Knowing this, I know I want Iron is my highest stat (it has been recommended to use the Challenging stat array from the Lodestar Rules Reference for solo play) which makes that +4. Being willful and couragous also sound like they fit this character, so I make that one of my +3’s. For the final +3, I choose to let the dice decide. And with a 100, it is wits. This makes Althus’s stats +2 Edge, +3 Heart, +4 Iron, +2 Shadow, and +3 Wits.
Create Your Background Vow
I’m rolling on the Character Goal table and get “Protect a Person.” Since Althus is a wanderer, this means that he likely doesn’t know where this person is. I roll on the character role table and it says they are a Traveler. Finally I roll twice on the Character Descriptor and learn that they are Hostile and Doomed. An interesting combination for someone Althus wants to protect.
Having recently listened to the Myths and Legends Podcast episodes on Arrow Odd, I am reminded of Odd’s prophecy to die at home due to his favorite horse and his shortcutting the prophecy by killing the horse and vowing never to return home. Inspired by this, I imagine Althus was foretold to one day slay one of his kinsmen and it turned their relationship sour. In attempt to avert fate, Althus vowed to leave home and never return so the fate would never occur. Of course, attempting to avert fate has never gone wrong for anyone ever. Rolling on the Ironlander names again, we learn that they are named Zura.
So we are going to make Althus’s background vow: “I must never return home, to avert my fate to slay my kin Zura.” We aren’t required to Swear an Iron Vow for this vow (but could), so we’ll skip that part.
Create your background bonds
Next we’re going to create three bonds with some NPCs. Rolling on the Character Role chart again, I get a Performer, a Vagrant, and a Farmer. Next we’ll roll on the character descriptor table (and maybe some others) and find out more about them.
For the performer, we see they are careless and deceitful. Perhaps a travelling skald whom gets themself into danger? Rolling for Disposition, we see they are Suspicious of Althus. Rolling for a Character Goal, we see they are looking to restore a relationship. Perhaps they were part of Althus’ circle and they were not told why he left and so tries to trick him into returning home, suspicious of Althus not wanting to speak of why he left? It’s a good opportunity to bring up Althus’ home, so I’ll keep that. Their name is Deshi the Serpent-Tongued (I said titles were a thing and I feel like if anyone would have one, it’d be a performer).
Next is the vagrant. They are quirky and charming. I am already imagining an old drunk at a tavern always telling made-up stories that never happened but occasionally they do give out some nuggets of wisdom. I love it already, so I’m just going to add a name (Vigo) and the tavern they… inhabit (The Broken Bottle). Perfect.
Finally the farmer. They are infamous and manipulative. Not a combination I would have expected, but now I’m imagining some evil ranch owner from a western. Rolling for the character goal, I can see they are motivated to protect the status quo, which tracks with what I already had in mind. Esra (rolled for the name) is a baron in all but name. Their farm is responsible for all the food in their area (Bleak River) and so they command untold power. And they use that power to keep the people of Bleak River from leaving or having any other options. I can imagine in some rougher times Althus worked for Esra, but did not care for the experience. Rolling for area, it seems that Esra’s farm is in the Deep Wilds, perhaps on the periphery, but maybe being deep within the Wilds allows them to corner some rare resource. I think we’ll go with the second one unless anyone else has some fun ideas.
That finishes up the bonds which brings us to…
Inciting Incident
Rolling on the Settlement Trouble, we get “in the crossfire.” Rolling for a settlement name, we get Wyvern’s Rest. Given my previous pivot into the Barons and their bannersworn warbands, it sounds like this village is caught up between two warring Barons who both claim dominion over it. But why is Althus getting involved? Rolling on the Goal table, we get Find a Home. Althus settling down in Wyvern’s Rest doesn’t sound right, but what if he’s looking for join one of the Barons? Not what I had in mind when I originally started, but it does lead to some interesting possibilities. However, the rules tell us:
This is your inciting incident. Make it personal. Give it teeth. It’s not a situation you can just walk away from. You must set things right.
So what can we do to give this situation more teeth? I will mull this over, but I also welcome recommendations for you all. Until then, we’ll not worry about Swearing an Iron Vow or setting difficulty.
Bookkeeping
In addition to all this, we have a couple more stats to set. Althus’ health track, spirit track, and supply track are all set to +5. Additionally, his current momentum is +2, his max momentum is +10, and his momentum reset is +2 (pages 33-35).
Wrap Up
Althus was a young healers’ apprentice until one day a travelling warlock pronounced that he would kill his younger cousin Zura, eldest daughter of the Circle Chief. This caused a strife in his Circle until Althus volunteered to exile himself so that he could never cause harm to Zura. Before he left, they gave him a newly forged shirt of Iron chain and a young mammoth (figuring he’s probably eat the beast when he inevitably became lost in the winter snow).
Althus left the cold north of the Tempest Hills south into the Havens and Deep Wilds, where he worked as a sellsword for many years, being known as the Northerner. And today the Northerner heads east to Wyvern’s Rest…
And that’s a character, at least until we can settle on an inciting incident. Thoughts?