This is Ironsworn: Starforged — Shawn Tomkin's game of vow-sworn wanderers in a dying colony fleet — played with a Game Master who runs the world for you. You bring a character and their iron vow. The GM brings the Ironlands: its weather, its factions, its debts, and its consequences.
What a session feels like
You travel, you talk, you swear vows, and when the fiction demands it, you roll dice. Rolls are honest: there is no hidden roller. The GM asks you to roll and report the dice — an action die and two challenge dice — and then resolves the result against the actual move you triggered. Nothing is faked and nothing is softened.
Between rolls, the GM narrates: full, sensory scenes at places worth remembering, consequences that follow from what actually happened on the dice, and a world that moves whether you are watching it or not. Your character's sheet is maintained for you — the GM marks your health, spirit, supply, momentum, impacts, and progress tracks as the fiction dictates, so you never touch bookkeeping mid-scene. What you always keep control of are the decisions (more on those in Your Decisions at the Table).
Choose your campaign
Three worlds are configured, each with its own session-zero procedure:
- First Light — standalone Starforged. The classic campaign: the Exodus fleet has arrived in the Ironlands, and your vows will decide what it becomes.
- The First Tide — Sundered Isles. Seafaring variety: sailing ships, holds, and the cursed die of the expansion rules.
- The Tidemark Exchange — Combined Starfaring. Both rule sets interwoven: a Starforged Path on a Sundered Isles deck, for players who want the full mechanical spread.
The mode you pick in the lobby decides which rules govern your character's build, your ship, and your vows. You never need to know the differences ahead of time — the GM walks you through your mode's version of every choice.
The shape of play
Everything hangs on one loop: swear a vow → make progress on it → fulfill or forsake it. Vows are tracked openly — you always know your rank (Troublesome through Epic) and exactly how many ticks of progress you hold. Fulfilling a vow pays into your legacy tracks, legacy tracks pay experience, experience buys new assets and abilities.
Around that loop sit the moves: Face Danger, Enter the Fray, Gather Information, Sojourn, and the rest — each with its own trigger, procedure, and outcomes. You do not need to memorize them. Say what you do; if a move's trigger is met, the GM runs it and tells you only what you need to decide.
Start with the lobby, pick a world, and the prelude and session zero will take it from there.
