Ironsworn Solo Game

[insomn14 (Mike)]

Last time, we made some friends with mixed results and booze was imbibed. Now on troll country.

After camping we’re doing a lot better on the Spirit and Supply front and we’ve got a +1 to our Delve the Depths check, so we’ll go ahead and roll +wits. We get a strong hit (9 vs. 7, 6) while travelling over an overgrown path, which means we Find an Opportunity. Rolling on that Oracle, we see the terrain favors us, which I think means we gain +1 Momentum (one of the choices for Find an Opportunity).

I think with the benefit of a clear path and the fact we’re 6/10 for progress Delving the Depths, I think now is a good time to try and Locate Our Objective (Delve, pg. 44). We roll the Challenge Dice and get a strong hit (6 vs. 1, 4). This gives us either +1 Momentum or the opportunity to make another move now and add +1. I think it’s time to Compel what’s owed.

Sarria and Lestara travelled the old road through the Living Woods. Neither knew the path but trusted Namba to get them to their new home. He had made this journey several times before and, while his services came at a high price, he had proved himself worth the cost several times over by now.

An inhuman cry came from the woods and Namba readied his spear.

“What was that?” Sarria asked, fear barely creeping into her voice.

“Skulde raiding cry,” Namba said as he wheeled his spear around, looking for the threat, “but we’re too far inland for those bastards.”

The group descended on the travellers all at once. Pearce was first, loosing an arrow that stuck in the haft of Namba’s wooden spear. Next Nadira and Saskai appeared out of the trees behind Sarria and Lestara, axes ready.

Lestara started to say something, but was cut off by the sudden crash of trees as Cratch bowled his way out of the forest onto the path. On the mammoth’s back, Perella continued to hoot and holler attempting to jeer the mammoth onward, but Cratch only walked so far as to get out of the trees. In Cratch’s wake, Althus followed his hands at his sides.

“What is this,” Lestara finally shouted once the noise of the falling trees subsided, “a shakedown?”

“No shakedown ladies,” Althus said, his voice loud but not shouting, “just getting what’s owed for your former trail guides.”

Namba was the first to look back at the two ladies, which was then followed by Sarria turning to Lestara.

“What’s owed,” Sarria repeated with a bit of surprise in her voice, “I thought you paid them?”

“Well if I paid them, we wouldn’t have had money to pay Namba,” Lestara said, gesturing to their disgruntled guide.

The two began to bicker, but Althus swiftly cut that off. “Ladies, how about you pay my friends what you owed them and then give Namba whatever you have left as a severance for services already rendered. I think our good sir Namba would agree that would agree that is a fair compromise.”

Namba’s eyes went from the Northerner, to mammoth and its wild Skulde rider, and then to the bandits surround him and, with only a slight hesitation, said, “No, that seems fair.”

We rolled +heart with our +1 from Locate Your Objective and got a strong hit (7 vs. 1, 2). Since we knew that the daughters had a guide escorting them, I Asked the Oracle if they would go along with what Althus was asking as well and it said yes (I figured it was a likely outcome, but sometimes people surprise you).

This puts us at 9/10 progress to get our bandits their money back, which means we can finally Fulfill Our Vow (pg. 101)–that only took 8 sessions . We roll the Challenge Dice and get another strong hit (9 vs. 4, 7). This completes our vow with no complications and gets us XP equal to the difficulty of vow: 1. It might now sound like a lot, but a couple XP means a lot in this game.

So now that we’ve completed our quest, it’s time to convince the daughters to return home (in a hope to restart our quest to the Baron).

As Namba walked down the path counting his coin, Lestara turned to the Northerner and stared at him. Or perhaps through him, for her gaze shot deadly daggers. “So you’ve taken all our money and given it all away, Northerner. What now? Plan to leave us here alone on the road?”

“No,” Althus replied, ignoring Lestara’s obvious disdain for him. “I was asked by your father to return you home. You as well, Lady Sarria.” Both the daughter’s faces went pale at that statement.

“My father?” Lestara questioned, all the venom having ran out of her voice. “But how did he know…”

“He didn’t,” Althus cut her off. “No idea where you ran off to. So you could keep running without any consequence. For yourselves, at least. The people of Wyvern’s Rest will pay a mighty price when her mother shows up looking for her.”

“She wouldn’t do that,” Sarria spoke up. “She wouldn’t hurt anyone, especially not just because she thought…"

“Thought what?” Althus said, “That some other baron had stolen you away? Kidnapped you and could be doing anything with you right now? You think your mother wouldn’t do anything if they thought that’d happened their child.”

“Oh,” was all Sarria could say to that.

So we rolled +heart for Compel and get another strong hit (9 vs. 2, 1). Looks like the girls are going along with Althus. Now to check with the bandits and Perella. We’re just going to Ask the Oracle for all of them. I’ll say Perella’s Likely to stay with him, he’s still recovering so that factors into it. Oracle agrees. The bandits are less likely, they got what they want but they also know Althus will look after them, so we’ll say that’s a 50/50 chance. Oracle also says yes.

Also since we’ve completed a vow for Pearce and Nadira, we’ll try to Forge a Bond with them (with a +1 from having completed the vow). We get a strong hit (8 vs. 7, 5) so we’ll mark a tick for each of them. Nice.

So now to Swear an Iron Vow to the Daughters to return them home to their parents. We’ll call this one Dangerous, roll +heart, and get a miss (4 vs. 10, 5)… I think this is a perfect time for the troll to show up.

“But it’s so far home,” Sarria said, doubt ringing in her voice, “it took us a week to get this far, even with help. How could we get home in time to do anything?”

“Do not worry,” Althus said, kneeling on the ground and grasping his iron shirt. “I will see you both home safely on my life.”

The daughters looked at Althus with gratitude, but swiftly their faces twisted into fear. The Northerner began to ask what was the matter, but then a massive hand gripped around his whole torso and lifted him from the ground.

“Troll!” Nadira shouted, a bit too late to be of any help.

Time to Enter the Fray. Our Troll is of the Formidable sort (pg. 145) so this will not be easy at all. We were ambushed, so we’re rolling +wits and get a weak hit (5 vs. 5, 4). This gives us the option of bolstering our position (+2 momentum) or taking initiative. We’ll take the Momentum (we’ll need it, I suspect).

The troll’s grip tightened around Althus but as it did, the Firstborn’s skin also began to boil burn at the touch of the Northerner’s iron shirt. No longer able to force itself to keep its grip, the troll released Althus and he crashed to the ground in a heap.

Dragging himself to his feet, Althus reached down to his belt for his short sword, only to find it not there. “That’s right,” he thought, “the tree.”

“Althus,” Saskai shouted, reaching back for a throw with her axe, “catch!”

Since we lost our weapon helping Perella earlier, let’s use a new move from Delve to see if we have something useful against this troll: Check Your Gear (Delve, pg. 42). We roll +supply (which we get to use Cratch’s health in place of, due to his Asset benefit) and get not only a strong hit but an opportunity (10 vs. 1, 1). We’ll say that the axe Saskai has thrown Althus is iron which, while normally a deadly weapon (2 harm), is particularly useful against the Firstborn (3 harm). Very good for this situation. The move also grants us +1 Momentum, getting us back up to +6 total.

Since the troll has the initiative, we’ll Clash with them. Since this is close combat, we roll +iron and get a strong hit (10 vs. 6, 5). We’ll find an opening to get a good hit on the troll, dealing 4 harm total (+1 harm from the strong hit). Against a Formidable foe, this translates into 4 progress. The strong hit also allows us to take the Initiative.

Since the troll has a lot of height and reach over us, I think we should try and Secure an Advantage, possibly by getting up on the troll’s back to get some more devastating hits in. Since this is all about speed, agility, and precision, we’re rolling +edge and get a miss. We lose the Initiative and I think the most obvious outcome for Pay the Price is the troll kicks the little iron man away. Which is going to hurt (3 harm, bringing us down to +2).

Time to Endure Harm. Since we’re Lightly Armored (from our Ironclad asset), we take +1 and roll +iron (since it is higher than our current health) which is a weak hit so we press on and take +1 Momentum (also from our Ironclad asset). I imagine the troll has kicked Althus into a tree and luckily it was the tree that broke in that exchange. But now the troll is trying to follow up with another stomp into the tree. If we’re good, we can roll under the foot and cut the tendon in their heel. If we’re not good, we’re going to get flattened. Sounds like a Clash.

We roll +iron and get a weak hit (6 vs. 4, 6) but we can totally turn it into a strong hit with our Momentum (currently +2). We’ll do that and deal 4 harm again (8/10 progress). With a strong hit, we can also try to End the Fight, which is good because I don’t know how Althus would deal with another exchange here.

We roll the Challenge Dice and get a weak hit (8 vs. 9, 6), so we probably only ran the troll off, not killed it. But we’ve also got another downside to choose. I think Cratch is spurred into the fight to make the save and takes a hit as well. This means we get to check out the Companion Endure Harm move (pg. 94). So just like Althus, Cratch takes 3 harm and now has to roll the higher of +heart and Cratch’s health (+2), We get a weak hit (4 vs. 10, 2) which means they’re battered, but this doesn’t have any further effect as they’re above 0 health. Good.

Althus rolled off the tree and tried to dash forward, but his legs wouldn’t carry him fast enough. He saw the troll’s incoming foot and braced with the iron axe held forward, but the strike never came.

Instead a mighty bellow echoed through the forest and Cratch stampeded towards the troll, Perella trying his damnedest to dislodge himself from the top of the mammoth. Cratch and the troll collided and tumbled to the ground. The troll grabbed the mammoth’s trunk with one hand and threw a couple of wild punches with the other.

Althus ran forward, reinvigorated by the sight of his mammoth in danger, and chopped at the troll’s grasping arm with the iron axe. The troll recoiled from the iron’s touch and released the mammoth’s trunk. Within moments, the two we disentangled and the troll trudged slowly for the treeline, a few errant arrows for Pearce’s bow following him before he disappeared completed into the dark forest.

Sarria was the first to approach the Northerner while he petted and checked on his mammoth companion. “Are he okay?” she asked before quickly adding, “Are you okay?”

“We are getting out of this damn forest right now.”

So now it is time to Escape the Depths (Delve, pg. 46). We roll +wits and thankfully get a strong hit (9 vs. 8, 1). We escape the Living Forest without further difficulty and get +1 Momentum. And after all that, I think leaving the Living Forest is worth some progress towards our Vow to get Sarria and Lestara home safely (as a Dangerous quest, each milestone is worth 2 progress on that track).

And now that we’re free, I think Althus is about ready to collapse so we’re going to Make Camp again. And we were doing so well there before the Troll showed up. But I think that should be saved for next time.