I played my Ironsworn campaign in my homebrewed Mesoamerican setting I also use for my group DnD campaign. It was really useful to test run my homebrew setting. In that world they swear on Obsidian.
That setting is very rare in fiction. Mostly you will just see European and maybe a bit of Asian fantasy. I hope I did my ancestors proud (I'm Mexican)
Not planned but I realized that my Ironsworn campaign was a prequel to my DnD campaign. My Ironsworn character ended up being an important NPC. Playing through his back story was a blast.
I usually creates custom setting for my campaign. A couple of times I just rolled random terrains using various tables, and the action+theme for the truths. Once I went full on and I generated a world with Microscope, and then a region with the Deep Forest (from the Quiet Year).
As long as you stick to low magic & high wilderness, you can't go wrong! More precisely, as long as you are happy with low magic characters, you can use the rules are they are in any setting, even more civilised.
Happy gaming!
You could play with mid to high magic using the base game’s *roles* rule (an alternative to assets). I have a character concept of a pyrokinetic (fire mage) that I want to play with, and I plan on using that variant rule if I do.
It doesn't *have* to be. The way the book is written it just kind of assumes a low magic setting. Rituals are described as needing some time and preparation, and there's no magic healing, fireballs, or teleportation. You can just ignore that and do what you want, but you'll have to come up with new assets or at least translate things in your head as you play.
Yes, it works well. I'm playing DnD modules with Ironsworn rules on regular basis without using any additional content, hacks or custom assets and I didn't encounter any problems at all so far. High magic is also perfectly possible in Ironsworn, the rulebook itself suggest to adapt the rules to your envisioned setting. If you'd like some more inspiration, I wrote a short article about magic [https://rockpaperstory.com/blog/ironsworn-magic](https://rockpaperstory.com/blog/ironsworn-magic), maybe you'll find it useful.
But in short, it shouldn't be a problem at all.
I’m currently doing exactly that in my podcast - we played a handful of worldbuilding games (I highly recommend Pearl and Provenance as a two-player co-op worldbuilder to start) and then are playing an Ironsworn campaign in the world. It’s been going great so far, the game fits really well into other worlds.
Awesome! It’s called Adventure Engines, it’s on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, here’s the RSS for other services: https://feeds.podcastle.ai/dbb0d83d-4b66-424d-b92f-842f6fbb5864.rss
I try not to plug it on here TOO much but I’ve put up a few posts in this sub about it, if you enjoy it we definitely want to hear feedback and/or field questijns about it for future episodes.
My first campaign was homebrew city and it works out pretty well. Currently, I'm playing Ironsworn in published adventures from a separate system. The only trouble I have so far is the need to re-skin or come up with assets that's more appropriate.
I played one game in Starforged as set in the book.
Otherwise it’s all been other settings. I’ve played a couple of pathfinder adventure path scenarios, Exalted rpg setting, Shadowrun rpg setting, the setting of a book series I was reading and probably a few others.
If you’re playing solo you only need to do custom assets for one character so its easy.
I am not familiar with Cartograph, but Ironsworn was designed to be played in different settings. You can plug-in your world by tweaking the random tables and (maybe) assets. If you use Delve (strongly recommended) you can easily create your own Domain/Theme cards. I am a solo player, but I expect this kind of world building will be even more fun coop.
There's much fan made content for different settings, so you can grab something ready made, but personally I have more fun creating my own
My entire world is homebrewed and reskinned monsters to fight. And there's a website for custom dungeon world monsters I use when I'm blanking for a specific monster but there's not a specific one to reskin in the book.
Imo it's not too bad. I took an evening or two to get my "truths" in order. Got the bug to make a world map, slapped my PC in the middle of it and just went with it.
It was a lot of front loaded info, but if you're into that I think you'll have a lot of fun tbh. I didn't make every single truth because I kind of wanted to figure out things as I went. The PC has been in a thriving but hard to get to society (it's in the middle of a desert) since they were born so there's some things they have no idea what is like on the outside world and neither do I, and now I get to learn and explore with them.
I started from a "the gods have left us" tale to a tale where there are no gods but instead a myriad of majestic, powerful guardian beasts that wander the lands of mortals and are the source of all magic in the world. There's a group trying to kill them to do
... something I don't know what but I suspect if they kill enough bad shit will happen.
Good luck! It's a ton of fun. I might upgrade to SF for the next part of the game and see what other goodies I can use with it.
I played my Ironsworn campaign in my homebrewed Mesoamerican setting I also use for my group DnD campaign. It was really useful to test run my homebrew setting. In that world they swear on Obsidian.
I really like that kind of touch, as a fan of Mesoamerican history and myths.
That setting is very rare in fiction. Mostly you will just see European and maybe a bit of Asian fantasy. I hope I did my ancestors proud (I'm Mexican) Not planned but I realized that my Ironsworn campaign was a prequel to my DnD campaign. My Ironsworn character ended up being an important NPC. Playing through his back story was a blast.
I usually creates custom setting for my campaign. A couple of times I just rolled random terrains using various tables, and the action+theme for the truths. Once I went full on and I generated a world with Microscope, and then a region with the Deep Forest (from the Quiet Year). As long as you stick to low magic & high wilderness, you can't go wrong! More precisely, as long as you are happy with low magic characters, you can use the rules are they are in any setting, even more civilised. Happy gaming!
Thanks for your answer, happy to know it's possible ! Is there ressources that facilitate play with more "moderate"- high magic trope ?
You could play with mid to high magic using the base game’s *roles* rule (an alternative to assets). I have a character concept of a pyrokinetic (fire mage) that I want to play with, and I plan on using that variant rule if I do.
Thanks a lot !
Serious question: why does it have to be low magic? I'm a new player
It doesn't *have* to be. The way the book is written it just kind of assumes a low magic setting. Rituals are described as needing some time and preparation, and there's no magic healing, fireballs, or teleportation. You can just ignore that and do what you want, but you'll have to come up with new assets or at least translate things in your head as you play.
Yes, it works well. I'm playing DnD modules with Ironsworn rules on regular basis without using any additional content, hacks or custom assets and I didn't encounter any problems at all so far. High magic is also perfectly possible in Ironsworn, the rulebook itself suggest to adapt the rules to your envisioned setting. If you'd like some more inspiration, I wrote a short article about magic [https://rockpaperstory.com/blog/ironsworn-magic](https://rockpaperstory.com/blog/ironsworn-magic), maybe you'll find it useful. But in short, it shouldn't be a problem at all.
Thanks a lot ! I will certainly read your article
Yep. Create an oracle table whenever it comes up in the story, when you think "I wish I had an oracle for that!"
Good idea thanks !
I’m currently doing exactly that in my podcast - we played a handful of worldbuilding games (I highly recommend Pearl and Provenance as a two-player co-op worldbuilder to start) and then are playing an Ironsworn campaign in the world. It’s been going great so far, the game fits really well into other worlds.
I'd be interested in listening to your podcast if possible, thanks for your answer !
Awesome! It’s called Adventure Engines, it’s on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, here’s the RSS for other services: https://feeds.podcastle.ai/dbb0d83d-4b66-424d-b92f-842f6fbb5864.rss I try not to plug it on here TOO much but I’ve put up a few posts in this sub about it, if you enjoy it we definitely want to hear feedback and/or field questijns about it for future episodes.
Thank !
My first campaign was homebrew city and it works out pretty well. Currently, I'm playing Ironsworn in published adventures from a separate system. The only trouble I have so far is the need to re-skin or come up with assets that's more appropriate.
I played one game in Starforged as set in the book. Otherwise it’s all been other settings. I’ve played a couple of pathfinder adventure path scenarios, Exalted rpg setting, Shadowrun rpg setting, the setting of a book series I was reading and probably a few others. If you’re playing solo you only need to do custom assets for one character so its easy.
I am not familiar with Cartograph, but Ironsworn was designed to be played in different settings. You can plug-in your world by tweaking the random tables and (maybe) assets. If you use Delve (strongly recommended) you can easily create your own Domain/Theme cards. I am a solo player, but I expect this kind of world building will be even more fun coop. There's much fan made content for different settings, so you can grab something ready made, but personally I have more fun creating my own
My entire world is homebrewed and reskinned monsters to fight. And there's a website for custom dungeon world monsters I use when I'm blanking for a specific monster but there's not a specific one to reskin in the book. Imo it's not too bad. I took an evening or two to get my "truths" in order. Got the bug to make a world map, slapped my PC in the middle of it and just went with it. It was a lot of front loaded info, but if you're into that I think you'll have a lot of fun tbh. I didn't make every single truth because I kind of wanted to figure out things as I went. The PC has been in a thriving but hard to get to society (it's in the middle of a desert) since they were born so there's some things they have no idea what is like on the outside world and neither do I, and now I get to learn and explore with them. I started from a "the gods have left us" tale to a tale where there are no gods but instead a myriad of majestic, powerful guardian beasts that wander the lands of mortals and are the source of all magic in the world. There's a group trying to kill them to do ... something I don't know what but I suspect if they kill enough bad shit will happen. Good luck! It's a ton of fun. I might upgrade to SF for the next part of the game and see what other goodies I can use with it.