[Solo TTRPG with No GM] Ironsworn Actual Play Journal #0 – Character & World Creation

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So, I’m going to try writing an actual play journal of Ironsworn, the GM-less, solo-focused TTRPG I introduced in a previous article.

If you’re thinking,

“Okay, this sounds cool, but how do you actually play it?!”

—then hopefully this will give you a clear idea.

For this first entry (Episode 0), I’ll walk through character creation and worldbuilding step by step.

Since this is meant as an introduction, I’ll be skipping the more advanced rules, so you can relax and follow along.

You can grab the rules from the “Ironsworn Digital Edition Rulebook.”

What you’ll find there:

• A rules summary
• Character sheets and other useful sheets
• Printable asset cards (basically your skills)
• Worldbuilding worksheets

How Character Creation & Worldbuilding Works

Here’s the general flow:

1. Decide what kind of character you want to play
2. Assign your stats
3. Pick three assets (think “skills” in most games)
4. Choose a name
5. Set up your starting resources
6. Define the world
7. Decide your starting region and home base
8. Create three bonds based on your background
9. Swear one vow based on your background
10. Establish the inciting incident for your campaign

That’s the full process.

That said, there’s no strict rule about the order.

The rulebook itself basically recommends tofeel free to change the order, decide things in parallel, or jump back and forth—whatever helps you imagine things more easily.

So yeah, don’t overthink it.

This order is just the default.

For this actual play journal though, I’ll stick to the standard sequence and go through character creation and worldbuilding step by step.

<1> Decide Your Character Concept

First things first—you need a character concept. Nothing starts without that.

Ironsworn is a TTRPG about venturing through a harsh land while carrying a sworn vow.

So if you imagine a typical adventurer from a medieval-style RPG, you’re basically on the right track.

For this run, I’ll be playing using the avatar character I usually use as my icon.

Okay yeah… this character is basically my tastes leaking out all over the place, but—hey, whatever!! It works, right?!!

So the rough idea is:

• Loves books
• Apprentice mystic
• Can use a sword for self-defense… but honestly, not that strong

That’s the core concept. I’ll flesh out the details later.

One important note: in Ironsworn, flashy magic like shooting beams or instantly healing wounds doesn’t exist in the default setting.

In a vanilla Ironsworn world, magic is mostly subtle and supportive—things like foresight, spirit communication, illusions, and wards.

The only magic that can be used offensively is stuff that works specifically against these evil beings called LIGHTBEARERS.

(There is paid content, but in Starforged—Ironsworn’s successor—you do get more flashy options like fire and psychokinesis for combat. If that sounds interesting, it’s worth checking out.)

<2> Assign Your Stats

From here on, we’ll fill things in on the character sheet as we go.

You’ll probably end up writing and erasing a lot while figuring out your build, so I highly recommend using something erasable—or just going digital.

Under the standard rules, you assign 3, 2, 2, 1, 1 across these five stats (higher is better):

Edge
Agility, speed, precision.
Mechanically, it’s mainly used for ranged attack rolls.

Heart
Willpower, courage, social ability.
Used for negotiation, persuasion, resisting mental stress, and recovering while staying in settlements.
Quite a few spells also use Heart—especially ones tied to life and spirits, like summoning or communing.

Iron
Strength, toughness, raw force.
Used for melee attacks, resisting physical harm, and healing your own injuries.
There’s also one combat buff spell that uses Iron.

Shadow
Deception, stealth, trickery.
Interestingly, there aren’t many moves that only use Shadow—but in exchange, there are tons of powerful and versatile assets that synergize really well with it.
Magic tied to Shadow includes things like farsight and invisibility.

Wits
Observation, knowledge, insight.
Not just for gathering information—it also covers survival stuff like safe travel, treating injuries, and finding food and water.
About half the spells in the game use Wits, so it’s basically the stat for a mystic.

I also wrote a separate article where I simulated success rates (a million trials each in Python), if you’re curious about how much these stats actually matter.

For this character:

Since they’re a bookworm and a magic user, I definitely want Wits at 3.

They’ve got some basic sword training for self-defense, so Iron gets a 2.

For the other 2, I’ll go with Heart, just to expand the range of magic options.

So the final spread is:

Edge 1, Heart 2, Iron 2, Shadow 1, Wits 3

Feels like a slow, slightly inflexible spellblade kind of character, doesn’t it?

<3> Pick Three Assets

Assets are provided as printable cards.

From those, you’ll pick three that you like.

On each asset card, the abilities marked with black circles are the ones you can use from the start.

The other two, marked with white circles, can be unlocked later by spending experience to upgrade the asset.

If an asset has all three abilities marked with white circles, you can choose any one of them to start with.

For reference, assets are divided into four categories:

Companions
These represent your adventure buddies—hawks, hunting dogs, wyverns, even mammoths.
There’s also an asset called KINDRED, which represents a human partner, so you can totally go on your journey with a reliable companion.

Path
These cover your background, experience, profession, or specialty.
Herbalists, dancers, monster slayers—you name it.
There’s even one called COMMANDER, which represents leading a group. With that, you can basically simulate party-based play even in a solo game.

Combat Talents
These are all about how you fight—your weapons and armor.
Swords, bows, axes, spears, hammers, thrown weapons, even unarmed combat.
You’ve also got styles like dual wielding, shields, heavy armor, light armor, and so on. These directly impact your combat effectiveness.

Ritual
This one might not be a super familiar term depending on where you’re from, but yeah—it basically means magic.
I already touched on it earlier, so I’ll skip the details here.

Trying to fully understand every single asset can get pretty overwhelming.
And if you’re translating everything properly, yeah… that’s a lot of work.

So here are two easy ways to pick your assets:

Pick based on the icon
Super simple:
“Wanna use an axe? Grab the one with the axe icon.”
“Wanna be an alchemist? Pick the one with the flask.”
“Wanna adventure with a dragon? Yep, dragon icon.”

Assets in Ironsworn are very straightforward—they pretty much do exactly what they look like. So honestly, going with your gut works just fine.

Pick based on your best stats
Some assets say things like “roll + ●●”, which tells you which stat they use.

For example, if it says “roll + iron”, that asset uses Iron.

(Yeah, the asset cards use lowercase and the character sheet uses uppercase, but don’t worry about it.)

If you pick assets that use your strongest stats, you’ll get more chances to shine—and you’ll probably grow attached to them as you keep using them.

Alright, with that in mind, here are the three assets I picked this time:

Alright, let’s go over what each of these actually does—quick and simple.

OWL

This is one of those assets where all three abilities are white, so you get to pick one to start with.

I went with the middle one:

When you draw on your owl’s hidden knowledge while using magic, you either get a bonus to your roll or gain +1 Momentum on a success.

Basically, it’s the classic “mage companion.”

Also… solo play can feel a bit lonely in an actual play journal, so I picked it to have a travel buddy.

Since it’s a wise owl, I’m saying it can talk like a human.

Its name is “Gran”, a twist on “Grandpa.”
The protagonist calls him “Jicchan”(grandpa in Japanese.).

INVOKE

This is one of those terms you don’t hear that often, and honestly, the name alone doesn’t really tell you what it does.

So here’s the gist:

• You roll +Wits to charge mystical power
• You can spend that charge to create small magical effects or illusions
• You can substitute the charge value in place of your stat for a roll
• If that substituted roll succeeds, you gain +1 Momentum
• BUT if you get a weak hit while charging, you take 2 Spirit damage

In short: it’s illusion magic.

If you use it well, you can even recover resources—but charging it comes with a pretty serious risk.

For reference, your max Spirit is only 5, and if it hits 0, your character can basically be taken out of play.
So yeah, losing 2 Spirit is no joke.

As for what kind of illusions you can make… the rules are pretty vague.

So I’ll define it loosely like this:

• You can create temporary sounds, lights, or smells
• No physical substance—if someone tries to touch it, their hand just passes through

A lot of magic assets in Ironsworn work like this—they leave things up to player interpretation.
So feel free to tweak things however you like.

LOREKEEPER

I picked this to represent the character’s love of books.

Here’s what it does:

• You have a mystical archive
• You get bonuses when using them for Secure an Advantage or Gather Information
• If you can spend a few hours researching, the bonus gets even bigger
• On a success, you describe some vague but useful knowledge (or ask the Oracle if you’re stuck), and gain +1 Momentum

In short, this lets you go:

“Wait—I’ve heard about this! According to ancient lore…”

—and somehow turn that into a solution.

It’s fantastic for roleplay.

If you can’t think of anything, you can just roll on the Oracle and make something up on the spot—ridiculous theories, weird sayings, whatever works. It adds a ton of flavor.

And funnily enough, despite how gimmicky it sounds, it’s actually pretty strong.

You get both:

• A boost to success rates
• AND resource gain on success

So yeah… it’s secretly a top-tier pick.

<4> Choose a Name

You can come up with a name yourself—or just let the Oracle decide.

The rulebook actually includes name Oracles, so let’s use those for fun.

• Pages 184–185: General names
• Page 186: Elf names
• Page 187: Giant, Varou (basically werewolf-like), and Troll names

Pick whichever you like, then roll 1d100.

There are optional rules for rerolls or tweaking results, but they’re super loose—use them if you want, ignore them if you don’t.

Also, in the Ironlands, there’s no concept of surnames or gendered names.
So yeah, don’t worry about that at all.

Anyway, let’s keep it simple and roll on the human name table.

1d100 → 28

→ Kiah or Sayer

I kinda like how Kiah sounds, so let’s go with that.

Alright—meet Kiah.

Kiah

Kiah

Nice to meet you—both of you. Let’s make this a good journey, yeah?

Jicchan (Gran)

Jicchan

A bit of a loud one, this girl… but humor her, will you?

<5> Initialize Your Resources

On your character sheet, mark things in a way that you can easily erase or update later.

Here’s what to do:

• On the right side, mark +5 for Health, Spirit, and Supply
• On the left side, set Momentum to +2
• At the bottom-left, write:
  • Max: 10
  • Reset: 2

And that’s it. Nice and simple.

<6> Define the Setting

You’ll use a dedicated worksheet to shape the world.

For each category, you can either:

• Pick one from three preset options
• Or just write your own custom idea in the blank space

The rulebook even suggests borrowing settings from your favorite games, movies.
You can also base it on real-world history if you want.

It’s a pretty long section, so honestly, just throwing it into AI for translation makes life easier.

Under each set of choices, there’s something called a Quest Starter.

These are examples of quests that could happen in that kind of world.

They’re super useful when:

• Deciding your character’s background vow
• Setting up your opening scenario
• Or when you get stuck and need something to happen

Basically, they help you generate events that actually fit the setting.

For this run, I picked from the three options, then tweaked the wording a bit to better match my taste.

Here’s the final setting:

• A plague swept through the Old World, driving people to scatter in search of refuge. Among the lands discovered during that desperate exodus was the Ironlands.
• The Ironlands are cold and unforgiving. Crops barely grow, and storms and snow cut off most routes of travel. At some point, someone said, “Only people made of iron could live in a place like this.” And that’s how the land got its name.
• Long before the Ironlanders—or even the Firstborn (ancient races like elves)—something else lived here.
• Ruins of that unknown civilization can be found scattered across the land.
• Human population is sparse. Most people rarely interact with anyone outside their own village, and outsiders are met with deep suspicion.
• Forms of governance vary from place to place. Some are ruled by powerful families, others by councils of elders. There are settlements led by priests—and even ones where the winner of a duel decides everything.
• Resources are scarce, and maintaining organized armies is difficult. When danger comes, people have no choice but to defend themselves.
• Some say magic is used to bless newborns or pray for a good harvest. Others fear it and reject it outright. But most believe that true magic—far greater than what exists now—has already been lost.
• A few Ironlanders still cling to old rituals and prayers. But the majority believe the gods abandoned them long ago.
• The Firstborn live quietly, guarding their ancient lands.
• Beasts—creatures like leviathans and basilisks, more like mythical monsters than animals—roam the Ironlands. They usually stay within their territory, but sometimes they come to hunt near human settlements. And when they do, it’s not just livestock that gets taken.
• Deep within dark forests and swamps, undead horrors lurk. Only a fool would try to cross such places at midnight.

…Yeah. This place is brutal.

And no, this totally isn’t influenced by my love for Made in Abyss… probably.

<7> Decide Your Starting Region & Home Base

(1) Choose Your Starting Region

Pick your starting region from pages 112–121 of the rulebook.

You can choose freely—or roll on the Oracle.

…so yeah, let’s roll.

Check ORACLE 3: REGION (p.176)

1d100 → 81

→ Tempest Hills

So, our journey begins in Tempest Hills (p.119).

Picture this:

• Jagged cliffs and scattered hills
• Strong winds howling between the slopes
• Watchful giants observing human settlements from afar
• Mammoths grazing across the plains

Nomads travel with their herds in search of grasslands,
while settlers make a living mining iron ore.

That iron gets processed and sold to the relatively prosperous southern region known as the Havens.

…yeah, that’s the vibe.

It’s got this nice mix of peaceful pastoral life and harsh, cold atmosphere—honestly, a perfect starting point for an adventure.

(2) Choose Your Starting Settlement

Next up: your home base.

This is where your character gets pulled into some kind of trouble—and that’s what kicks off the whole journey.

That said, you really only need to decide the name.

You can flesh out the details however you like.
And honestly, even if you don’t decide much now, the setting will naturally grow as you play.

Of course, we’re using the Oracle again.

There are settlement Oracles on pages 176–180.
(You can also use these anytime you discover new locations during your adventure.)

First, let’s roll for the type of location.

ORACLE 4: LOCATION (p.176)
(If it were coastal, we could use the coastal one instead.)

1d100 → 88

→ Hill

Next, let’s define what kind of hill.

ORACLE 6: LOCATION DESCRIPTOR (p.177)

1d100 → 39

→ Big

So… a big hill.

Given the region, maybe it’s tied to mining?
Or a nomadic camp?

(…it’s not smack in the middle of a giant’s territory, right? …right?)

Now, let’s name it.

We can either:

• Go detailed with ORACLE 7: SETTLEMENT NAME (p.178–179)
• Or quick and simple with ORACLE 8

Let’s go all in with ORACLE 7.

1d100 → 95

→ Something Else…

Uh oh. Things just got interesting.

Roll again.

1d100 → 56

→ Based on a Firstborn race name (like “Elfbrook”)

Wait, what Firstborn do we even have again?

Flipping to Chapter 5…

From p.142 onward, we’ve got various Firstborn races,
and on p.143—giants show up again.

Turns out:

• Giants are quiet, introspective, and intelligent
• About twice the size of humans (or more)
• Every five years in spring, they sing songs of great giant heroes

Alright. New idea:

Let’s say this place is named after some ancient tale—
something a giant once did.

When you need inspiration like this, there are two super handy Oracles:

• ORACLE 1: ACTION (p.174) → verbs
• ORACLE 2: THEME (p.175) → objects/themes

Let’s roll them.

ACTION → 30 → “Focus”
Hmm… kinda abstract.

THEME → 19 → “Death”

Okay, that escalated quickly.

“A place focused on death”…
A graveyard? A burial site? A place of mourning? Meditation?

Then it clicked:

“Giants’ Graveyard.”

And wait—this place was a huge hill, right?

Giants have legends of great heroes…
Some of them even bigger than normal giants…

What if—

That hill itself is actually the remains of a massive ancient giant hero?
Over time, soil and grass piled up over the bones, forming the hill.

“A hill made from the bones of a giant.”

…that’s peak fantasy. I love it.

So, Kiah’s home base is:

“Giants’ Graveyard”
A settlement built on part of a massive hill—
which may actually be the remains of a legendary giant.

People here live in a quiet balance with the nearby giants…

…until one day, something happens—and that’s what sends Kiah on her journey.

Alright, now that the outer framework of the character is coming together, let’s move on.

<8> Define Bonds from Your Background

Here, you decide three bonds—people or communities your character has close ties to.

From experience, having clearly defined relationships makes storytelling way easier.

Like, if you’re doing a quest to gather herbs from a dangerous cave, it hits way harder if your character actually has someone they want to help.

Mechanically, bonds are also super useful.

When you stay with someone you have a bond with, you get bonuses to Sojourn (basically resting/staying somewhere), making it easier to:

• Recover health and spirit
• Resupply

In RPG terms, it’s like having a free, no-questions-asked inn.

Alright, let’s pick them.

Bond #1: Gran

First one goes to Gran.

Yeah, it technically takes up one of your “safe resting spots,” but—

I really want this journey to start with a trusted companion already by Kiah’s side.

So this one’s non-negotiable.

Bond #2: Giants’ Graveyard

Second bond is with Kiah’s home itself:

Giants’ Graveyard

This is her place to return to—her roots.

Bond #3: …a Giant?

Now for the last one.

Let’s dig a bit deeper into Kiah’s backstory.

She grew up being told:

“Don’t get too close to giants.”

But what if…

She actually had a secret friendship with one?

Like, ever since she was little, she’d sneak away from the settlement to go visit this giant in secret.

And then—

Something happens involving that giant.
Kiah gets caught up in it, tries to help…
and that’s what kicks off her long journey.

Yeah. That’s a really strong hook.

Let’s go with that.

Now, let’s name the giant using the Oracle.

ORACLE 15: OTHER NAMES (p.187)

1d100 → 77

→ Otaan

So, the giant’s name is Otaan.

Stubborn, but maybe surprisingly easygoing… probably.

Since we’re here, let’s also define who Otaan is.

Using:

• ORACLE 10: CHARACTER ROLE (p.182)
• ORACLE 11: CHARACTER GOAL (same page)

ROLE → 46 → Adventurer
GOAL → 31 → Find a home

Oh, this just got really good.

Otaan is a former adventurer, now retired—
searching for a place where he truly belongs.

Kiah, ever since she was a kid, would visit him again and again,
begging to hear stories of his past adventures.

Never knowing that one day…

She’d be the one setting out on a journey of her own.

…Yeah, that’s almost too perfect.

Which is exactly why I’m using it as-is

Head down to the “BONDS” section under your stats, and draw three lines—just like in the example image.

This section tracks the total number of bonds your character has built over their life and adventures.

Each box fills up as you draw lines:

• Once you’ve drawn four lines in a box
  (like completing it with a diagonal from top-right to bottom-left)
  → that counts as one filled box

After that, you move on to the next box to the right and keep going the same way.

When you’ve built up enough progress in Bonds, and you (the player) decide:

“Alright, it’s time.”

—you can trigger the Write Your Epilogue move.

That’s when your character retires from adventuring…

…and the story reaches its ending.

<9> Decide Your Background Vow

Now it’s time to choose the vow that defines your character.

This isn’t just any quest—this is something they might spend years, decades… maybe even their entire life pursuing.

It basically becomes the core of their motivation.

Looking back at everything we’ve built so far, Kiah clearly has a strong sense of curiosity.

On top of that:

• She’s a book lover
• A mystic apprentice

The setting is full of ancient ruins scattered across the land,
and she grew up listening eagerly to Otaan’s stories of adventure.

So what’s the thing that really drives her?

What’s that inner desire she just can’t ignore?

…Yeah.

She probably wants to uncover the mysteries of those ancient ruins with her own two feet.

It’s simple, but it’s a powerful and pure motivation—perfect for an adventure.

So her background vow is:

“Uncover the secrets of the ancient ruins.”

Now, realistically, there’s no way one person is solving all the mysteries of history.

So for the quest rank, we’ll go with the highest tier:

Epic

This time, the vow came together pretty naturally.

But if you ever get stuck, here are a couple of ways to get unstuck:

• Just use ORACLE 11: CHARACTER GOAL as-is
• Take inspiration from the Quest Starters in the setting or region

And honestly? Don’t overthink it.

Trust your gut.

<10> Decide the Inciting Incident

Let’s figure out the event that kicks everything off.

According to the rulebook, a good starting incident should be:

• An urgent problem for the protagonist, and
• Something that will get worse if they don’t act

You can use:

• ORACLE 11: CHARACTER GOAL
• Or the Quest Starters

Another easy option is to have someone you’re bonded with fall into trouble—like getting sick or falsely accused—and have the protagonist step in to help.

There’s also ORACLE 9: SETTLEMENT TROUBLE (p.181), which lists problems that can occur in a community.
You can straight-up use one of those as your starting quest.

So this time, I’ll go with:

“A problem from ORACLE 9 happens involving Otaan, and Kiah takes action to resolve it.”

Let’s roll.

1d100 → 02

→ Outsiders rejected

Hmm…

Who counts as the “outsider” here?

• Otaan?
• Kiah?
• Or some completely new third party?

After thinking about it a bit, let’s go with the straightforward option:

A harsh winter has made food scarce around Giants’ Graveyard.

The giants’ community no longer has enough to spare—

…and Otaan, being an outsider, is no longer given any share.

So now the question is:

What does Kiah think when she sees this?
And what does she decide to do?

And with that, we finally begin the actual campaign.

That wraps up the Character Creation & Worldbuilding section!!!

Closing Thoughts

So—how was it?

I walked through the entire setup process step by step, including rule explanations and my actual thought process as I went.

I’ll be continuing this actual play journal at a relaxed pace, so feel free to check back in whenever you feel like it.

Alright then—

Enjoy your gaming life!!!

And thanks for reading all the way to the end!

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This work is based on Ironsworn (found at www.ironswornrpg.com), created by Shawn Tomkin, and licensed for our use under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).