Ironsworn Actual Play Journal #1 — A Story That Begins with the Plan Getting Obliterated

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Picking up from Episode 0, where I made the character, this is the continuation of my Ironsworn actual play journal —a solo-focused TTRPG built to be played without a GM.

If you’re the sort of person going,
“Okay but what does actually playing this thing even look like?!”
then hopefully this will help.

Anyway.
Let’s get this thing rolling.

About Keeping a Record of Your Session

The Ironsworn rulebook recommends that you keep some kind of record when playing solo.

Because it helps the adventure stay with you.

The book suggests a few different approaches:
keeping a text log, sketching memorable scenes with short captions, or publishing a detailed play report on a forum or blog
(which is, naturally, the route I’m taking).

So by all means, use whatever method you like, and carve out an adventure that’s yours alone.

Imagining the Campaign’s Opening

For starting a campaign, the rulebook proposes two approaches:

1. Picture the character’s everyday life, and then have the inciting incident break into it
2. Start right in the middle of the incident itself
   (apparently this is called in medias res, if you want to sound smart in Latin)

Personally, I strongly recommend Option 2.

Because if you start with daily life, there’s a very real chance that “daily life” just… keeps going. Forever.
You end up spending eternity doing slice-of-life worldbuilding while the actual plot politely refuses to arrive.

But with Option 2, there’s no hesitation, no wandering around looking for a hook.
The game starts now.

So that’s what we’re doing.

And There She Was: A Protagonist with Terrible Manners

Kiah

The hell d’you mean Otaan’s getting kicked out of the village?! Nobody told me that!!

Otaan

That’d be because I didn’t tell you.

Kiah

Don’t get smug with me!!
I’m all stocked up on wisecracks already!

Jicchan

Now then, calm yourself, Kiah.

Kiah

Like hell I can calm down!!
We’re marching straight into the giants’ council and kicking the damn door in!

No sooner had she said it than Kiah ran a finger along the flat of her sword.

So yes:
our protagonist is, from the very beginning, alarmingly rough around the edges.

Also, she is currently behaving like the first person to die in a suspense movie.

And, just so we’re clear:
I started this with absolutely no plan whatsoever, so right now I am writing on nothing but live instinct and reckless momentum.

I have, in complete honesty, no idea where this story is about to go.

I Wanted to Swear an Oath. I Really, Really Did.

Once you’ve imagined the opening, the first move is usually a Swear an Iron Vow move.

This is where the long road of the adventure truly begins:
you touch something made of iron, swear to resolve the inciting incident, and set the whole journey in motion.

Kiah

I swear on this sword—
I’ll protect Otaan’s place keeping in peace!!

Kiah

And with that, it’s time to move.

As I mentioned in the intro article, here’s a quick refresher on how resolution works:

• Stat + 1d6 + modifiers = Action Score
• Compare that to two separate 1d10s = Challenge Dice

Results:

• If your Action Score beats both Challenge Dice → Strong Hit
• If it beats one but not the other → Weak Hit
• If it beats neither → Miss

For Swear an Iron Vow, you roll using Heart.

Kiah’s Heart is 2.

Roll 1d6…
→ 1

Because this vow concerns someone she has a bond with (Otaaan), she gets +1.

So her Action Score becomes:

2 + 1 + 1 = 4

Already looking a little suspicious, but let’s roll the Challenge Dice.

1d10 × 2…
→ 8, 10

Her Action Score is lower than both.

Which means—

Miss.

Kiah

Huh?

…Huuuh?

Each move in Ironsworn comes with a rules summary explaining what its outcomes mean.
The full rulebook is more for when you need help interpreting or running the result.

Now then.

If you Miss on Swear an Iron Vow, you run into some kind of obstacle before the quest even properly begins.

You have to imagine what stands in your way
(or ask the Oracle, if you’d like).

Then you must choose one of the following:

• Lose 2 Momentum, deal with the obstacle, and only then begin the quest
• Forsake the vow entirely

Which means that yes—
the campaign is currently one bad decision away from ending before it has even begun.

Obviously, I would like this story to continue existing, so we’re going to create an obstacle and make Kiah claw her way through it.

I didn’t have anything specific in mind, so I rolled the classic combo:

• Oracle 1: Action
• Oracle 2: Theme

(Combining those two is the most generally useful Oracle method in the whole game.)

Results:

• Action 33: Aid
• Theme 53: Land

Aid… from the land?

Hmm.

Maybe if I scale that up a little…

Like…
“the blessing of the earth”?

And Then the World Quietly Mutated in Real Time

Otaan

I’m sorry, Kiah.

Among us giants, there is a law:
those who are not chosen by the blessing of the earth must leave this land.

Kiah

That’s… what?

Kiah

…Hey.
How exactly do they decide who gets chosen by that “blessing of the earth”?

Jicchan

(I have a very bad feeling about where this is going…)

Otaan

I’ve heard it’s decided through a ritual…
but I don’t know the details myself.

Kiah

…A ritual, huh?
Then that’s right in the wheelhouse of a mystic and lore collector like me!!

Jicchan

(Exactly what I was afraid of!!)

Kiah

Jicchan, give me a hand!!
If we’re gonna save Otaan, we need to find out what that ritual actually is!

Jicchan

Well… I don’t mind.

I’d be a bit lonely myself if Otaan were to leave.

Kiah

Hell yeah!!
Thanks!

Jicchan

Hey now! Be gentle when you stroke my feathers!
You’ll ruin the grooming!

Otaan

(They really are good people. Both of them.)

Now then.

I very casually introduced things like “ancient laws” and “rituals,” but for the record:
the rulebook says absolutely none of this. Not one word.

And that’s one of the terrifying things about Ironsworn.

A player has one idea, and suddenly the setting updates itself on the spot and drags the story in a new direction.

Kiah takes the -2 Momentum from the failed vow and immediately begins investigating the ritual.

Current Momentum: 0

A Hidden Fragment of Legend

Kiah

If it’s the “Blessing of the Earth” ritual, then…

probably something tied to mysticism, weather, maybe old folklore?

That’s where I’d start.

Kiah

Lemme see…
Huh? Wait, where did I put that…

Jicchan

Third shelf from the right.
And the rest should be further back on the left.

Kiah

Heh! Thanks, Jicchan!!

Jicchan

At least put things back where they belong.
You’re not a child anymore.

Kiah

Yeah, yeah.
I’ll be careful. I’ll try harder. I’ll do my best. I’ll “look into it.”

Jicchan

This girl, honestly…

Jicchan

Kiah brushed soot from the shelves and began digging through the collection.

Time for a Gather Information move.

This one uses Wits, and Kiah has 3.

Roll 1d6…
→ 6

Since she’s researching lore-related material in a mystic archive, she gets +2 from her LOREKEEPER asset.

So:

3 + 6 + 2 = 11
which gets capped at 10, since the maximum Action Score is 10.

This has gotten ridiculous very quickly thanks to wild dice and asset buffs, but since a Miss can still technically happen, there is no room for arrogance here.

So I rolled the Challenge Dice with just a tiny bit of fear.

1d10 × 2…
→ 3, 10

→ Weak Hit

…See?!
Dangerously close, actually!!!

Still, success is success.

On a Weak Hit for Gather Information, I learn something useful—but the information also complicates the situation or drags me into new trouble.

And because of LOREKEEPER, I also get to describe some vague but useful lore.

That sounds like the exact kind of nonsense I signed up for.

Mechanically, I gain a total of +2 Momentum.

Current Momentum: 2

As for the actual information…

I decided to combine both effects into this:

There was, long ago, some kind of dangerous mystical incident in this land—
and whatever happened back then seems to have never fully gone away.

Now I needed details.

Since Oracle choice is flexible, I picked a handful that seemed useful:

• Settlement Trouble → to decide what drove people into using mysticism in the first place
• Character Goal → repurposed here to determine the ritual’s intended purpose
• Mystic Backlash → to determine what went wrong
• Action + Theme → to figure out the nature of the mystic act itself

And the results were:

• Settlement Trouble → Beast on the hunt
• Character Goal → Build a relationship
• Mystic Backlash → You inadvertently summon a Horror
• Action → Restore
• Theme → Opportunity

Oh, this is getting extremely interesting.

So if I connect all of that into an in-world text, it becomes something like this:

Journal of △△, Year XX

(the ink is too faded to read clearly)

In this land, the beast that governs the earth suddenly turned against us.

We attempted to speak with it.
To find some way for both our peoples to once again live here in peace.

Through ritual, we called out to the beast.

…The ritual failed.

The rite of communion did not reach the beast.
Instead, it called out to the Horrors that dwell among the graves.

Their host is already nearly upon us.
I must go.

How did it come to this?
Will someone—anyone—tell me?

Kiah

What the hell…

What the hell even is this…?!

Jicchan

A record of a failed ritual, I’d say.

Kiah

That’s not what I’m asking, damn it…

Wait.
…No, hold on. Something’s weird.

Jicchan

Weird, you say?

Kiah

So “we” here is probably our ancestors, right?

They performed a ritual on this scale, and somehow there were enough Horrors involved for an entire army to be mentioned…

Then why is this the only surviving record?

Jicchan

Oh?

Kiah

The public records for that year just say it was a year of poor harvests.

That means somebody either didn’t leave records…

or couldn’t.

Jicchan

…Go on.

Kiah

There’s something underneath this.
Something rotten.

And whatever it is, it’s connected to Otaan’s sudden exile.

Jicchan

You shouldn’t go making claims based on a child’s speculation.

Kiah

Not speculation.
A researcher’s inference.

(An apprentice researcher, but still.)

Jicchan

…You always do have an answer ready, don’t you.

Now, I wrote that scene like I knew what I was doing, but for the record:
I, the person writing this, also have no idea what actually happened.

I just tied together some Oracle results and suddenly the land coughed up a hidden secret.

To be a little more transparent about my intentions, I deliberately kept the journal vague with words like “we” and “they”, because I wanted it to smell faintly of future misdirection.

For example, maybe this journal—

• wasn’t written by humans at all, but by the giant hero who later became the namesake of the land, writing before his final battle

or maybe

• “they” actually refers to humans, who were secretly plotting with Horrors to bring the giants under their control

Basically, I would be delighted if this somehow lands in the territory of
“blood-soaked swamp war chronicle where every faction is making terrible decisions.”

But honestly?

Who knows where this thing is going.

Quest Start: Protect Otaan’s Place!!

Anyway, we’ve gone from absolutely no leads to at least one suspicious historical nightmare, so I’m ruling that this is enough to officially begin the quest:

Protect Oturn’s place.

This kind of judgment call is left entirely to the player.

If I were to paraphrase the rulebook, it’s basically saying like:

“Zoom in or out on the story however you like, depending on the kind of story you want to make.”

And personally, this felt story-shaped enough, so I’m counting it.

Choosing the Quest Rank

Now then: quest rank.

Quest difficulty in Ironsworn is divided into five ranks:

• Troublesome
• Dangerous
• Formidable
• Extreme
• Epic

The further down the list you go, the harder the quest is—and the more XP you get for surviving it.

Very loosely translated into “feeling,” they’d be something like:

• Annoying
• Dangerous
• Serious Business
• This Is Getting Stupid
• Legend-Level Disaster

You can choose the rank yourself based on the fiction, or use the Challenge Rank Oracle if you want fate to make the call.

As a rough guideline:

• Troublesome → around 3–4 scenes, maybe ~2 hours of real play
• Dangerous → ~3–4 hours
• Formidable → ~6–8 hours

Meanwhile, Extreme and Epic are generally long-term campaign goals.

For an opening quest like this, the book suggests choosing from the first three.

And here?

I picked Formidable without hesitation.

Because this has already become way more of a thing than expected.

Also, and this is important:

I want the XP.

So go ahead and write the quest name and rank into either the VOWS section of the character sheet or the Progress Track Worksheet, whichever you prefer.

Listing Out Quest Checkpoints

Pages 200–201 of the rulebook recommend sketching out the outline of a quest.

Not a rigid script.
Just a list of possible checkpoints.

The idea is simply to give yourself material to work with later, so the story doesn’t stall out when you hit a blank stretch.

Since I wanted this to feel like a mystery-solving story, but also still wanted combat because I am only human, I built the plan around investigation with occasional violence.

So for this quest, I came up with something like:

1. Investigate what the current Blessing of the Earth ritual actually is
2. Learn what the earth-beast from the past ritual really was
3. Find out where the Horrors went
   (and ideally fight some of them here because that sounds fun)
4. Investigate the connection between the old ritual and the crop failure
5. Uncover why the truth of the old ritual was hidden
   (ideally leading to a fight with some faction trying to bury history)
6. Learn why failing the current ritual leads to exile
7. Reveal the connection between the past ritual and the current one
8. Some kind of dramatic turning-point boss battle
9. Solve Otaan’s problem

This was built on the extremely scientific creative principle of:

“If the past and the present collide, that’s kinda romantic, right?”

So yes, the checkpoint list contains a very noticeable amount of wishful thinking.

But the rulebook itself more or less says like:

“Make it more interesting. Put in the things you want to see.”

(That is, admittedly, a paraphrase.)

So naturally, I made myself a greedy deluxe platter of plot hooks.

Checkpoint #8 is vague because, to be blunt,
I had not thought that far ahead.

I’m already planning to introduce two separate hostile forces, so I figure if I just make the boss battle “one of their bosses,” it’ll probably hold together as a story.

…Probably.

…Right?

Well.

It’ll be fine.
Probably.
Yeah. Totally. We’ve got this.

And Then the Plan Collapsed with an Audible Noise

Jicchan

So then, what now?

Should we dig around in the archive a bit more?

Kiah

No.
First, I want to investigate the Blessing of the Earth ritual itself.

It still exists in the present, right?
So this is fieldwork now.

From a pure LOREKEEPER asset efficiency perspective, Kiah would be better off staying in the archive.

(If she isn’t doing focused, seated lore research, the bonus gets worse.)

But from a story perspective, I wanted movement.

So outside she goes.

This is exactly what the rulebook describes as Fiction First:

Prioritize what is natural and interesting for the story over strict mechanical optimization.

Kiah

Let’s go talk to one of the giant elders

Jicchan

So not storming in for a brawl, then?

.

Kiah

Not this time.

This is an investigation.
Not a fistfight.

Jicchan

That mouth of yours says otherwise…

And so Kiah and Jicchan went to seek an audience with a giant elder.

The Quest Suddenly Became Extremely About Fight

(Giant Elder)

…What business has little one with me?

At the place they were led to, one elder sat waiting—
far larger even than the other giants.

Each time he exhaled, the air itself seemed to thicken and resonate.

He wore a warm, almost cheerful smile.

Kiah

I want answers.

About the Blessing of the Earth ritual.

(Giant Elder)

…And why is that?

And now: a choice.

For this kind of negotiation, you roll Compel.

• Use Heart if you’re persuading sincerely or making an honest appeal
• Use Iron if you’re threatening or provoking
• Use Shadow if you’re lying

Since I didn’t particularly want Kiah to go in openly hostile here, I chose to try Heart.

Kiah

…Because I want to save Otaan.

That’s why.

(Giant Elder)

Save him, you say?
A little one… saving a giant?

Roll:

• Heart 2
• 1d6 → 1
• No modifiers

Action Score:

2 + 1 = 3

Challenge Dice:

1, 9

→ Weak Hit

On a Weak Hit for Compel, you gain +1 Momentum, and the NPC helps you or gives you information—

but demands something in return.

If the move is being used to gather information, you then make a Gather Information roll at +1.

So first:

Momentum +1 → Current Momentum: 3

Then:

Gather Information

• Wits 3
• 1d6 → 4
• +1 from Compel

Action Score:

3 + 4 + 1 = 8

Challenge Dice:

3, 10

→ Weak Hit

Which means:

• Momentum +1
• and I learn information that further complicates the situation

Current Momentum: 4

At this point, I was starting to get mildly concerned about whether this story was still recoverable.

But Ironsworn is, in part, a game about figuring out:

“How do I create a satisfying resolution from this increasingly cursed mess?”

Which means this is, in fact, exactly where the game starts getting good.

(Giant Elder)

What an amusing thing for such a little one to say!!

…Very well.
There is a condition.

Hear that, and perhaps I may tell you what you wish to know.

Kiah

What is it?

Tell me. Please.

(Giant Elder)

Well said.
Come here, then.

You see, my back has been troubling me these days…

Now then.

For the price he demanded, I rolled:

• Action: Scheme
• Theme: Trade

And for the information he gave, I rolled:

• Action: Attack
• Theme: Home

Which led to this.

Kiah rushed forward almost eagerly, stepping close to the giant elder.

(Giant Elder)

…This giant graveyard, you see, originally belonged to us giants alone.

But the little ones have multiplied too much.
And on poor soil, food is a finite thing.

Kiah

…Oi.
What exactly are you getting at?

The elder’s breath rolled over Kiah’s whole body.

Jicchan

(Kiah!!)

Kiah

(Wait for my signal.)

Jicchan

(This idiot child…)

(Giant Elder)

I’m hungry…

I want tender meat… sweet meat…

Kiah took one step closer.

Kiah

Then go hunt a deer or something.

(Giant Elder)

Mm. Deer is good.

Very good…

But I would prefer something softer. Sweeter.

By now, the two of them had drawn close enough to whisper.

(Giant Elder)

…The Blessing of the Earth ritual, you see, is a blessing granted once every hundred years.

It is the rite by which we, the people of the giants, are permitted to take and eat the young of humankind.

A true blessing from the heavens.

Otaan, that fool, grew too close to the little ones.

The elder snorted.
There was saliva in the sound.

(Giant Elder)

My choosing not to name him was an act of mercy.

You should be grateful.

Kiah

Well, wow.
That’s mighty generous of you.

Really proving what a model person you are.

The elder’s voice dropped low.

(Giant Elder)

Offer up every human in your village.

And I will spare you, at least.

Kiah

Yeah, no.
That request’s a hard pass!!

We run!! Jicchan!!

Jicchan

You’re hard on old bones, child!!

(Giant Elder)

The little one flees!! After her!
Do not let her leave alive!!

Heavy, dull reverberations rose from all around them.

They were the footsteps that marked the end of a time that had once been
quiet, kind, and gently uneventful.

Closing Thoughts

HOW DID IT TURN INTO THIS?!?!

I was fully, sincerely, genuinely planning for this to be

“a thrilling mystery scenario about uncovering ancient wonder and forgotten history”

but at this point, this is very clearly turning into

“blood-soaked full-scale war against giant”

Where did the plan go?!

Would someone please explain this to me!!!!!

…And that, in a nutshell, is one of the joys of Ironsworn.

It’s a system where, if you just keep following the chain of associations,
the story starts drifting out of your control and auto-piloting itself into madness.

As long as you surrender yourself to the Oracle, it will keep handing you unexpected developments from the void, one after another.

Which makes it fantastic for solo play.

So if any of this has sparked your interest, I’d love for you to check out:

An Introduction to Ironsworn – You Can Play Alone! No GM Required! A Free TTRPG!! – Kaburanai Games, and try setting out on an adventure of your own.

I’ll keep writing more of this actual play journal at my own slow, shambling pace, so if the mood strikes you, feel free to come back and check in on the disaster.

So then—

Enjoy your gaming life!!!

And thank you so much for reading all the way to the end!

If you enjoyed this article,
buy me a healing potion. 👇

(Optional support to help keep this adventure going.)

This link will take you to my Buy Me a Coffee support page.

And over on X, I post article updates, in-the-moment play impressions, and whatever game-related nonsense is currently rattling around in my skull.

It is, on average, about 1.3 times louder than the blog.
(According to internal company research.)

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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/).