The First City: An Ironsworn Actual Play (Session 2)
A bear-y dangerous encounter
A bad feeling, a chance meeting. In the previous session, our hero was attacked by a giant bear! How will she survive?
Welcome back to The First City! This is an actual play of the Ironsworn TTRPG.
New to the series? Check out the introduction.
For an in-depth guide to the story, see the reference guide.
Characters
Lucia: A young woman living alone in the Havens. Skilled with a bow and arrow and burdened with disreputable ancestry, she is as resentful of Ironland society as Ironland society is of her.
Pendry: A young man who stumbled into Lucia while running around lost in the woods. Dressed in merchant’s clothes, he has a soft air about him—hardly the type who could survive long in the wilderness on his own.
Player Character Sheet
In the previous session, Lucia lost 1 point of Momentum and 4 points of Spirit.
Lucia of the Havens
Experience: 0
Edge: 2 | Heart: 3 | Iron: 1 | Shadow: 1 | Wits: 2
Health: +5 | Spirit: +1 | Supply: +5
Momentum: +1
Debilities: None
Bonds: 0
Assets
Archer
Abilities:
[X|_|_]Fated
Abilities:
[X|_|_]Hound
Name: Kormak
Health: +4
Abilities:
[_|_|X]LoyalVows
Found the first city of the Ironlands
Rank: epic
Progress: 0/10
Gameplay
A giant bear has burst out of the trees in front of Lucia and Pendry. An elder beast straight out of legend, it gnashes its teeth and roars with rage.
Lucia tells Pendry to run, and he scrambles away.
The bear charges after him.
Lucia yells at the bear to get its attention.
Face Danger
(react to an imminent threat with courage)
[5] + Heart(3) = 8 >>> <3> <9>
WEAK HITThe bear turns around and charges Lucia instead.
Momentum: +1 ==> 0
The charging bear is faster than its massive size would suggest, and Pendry has fallen and seems to be paralyzed by fear. Lucia is on her own.
Enter the Fray
(enter combat, facing off against your foe)
[6] + Heart(3) = 9 >>> <7> <10>
WEAK HITGiant bear (foe, extreme): 40/40
Lucia takes initiative.
Mustering all of her energy, Lucia runs and leaps over a nearby ravine to safety.
Face Danger
(attempt something risky with agility)
[4] + Edge(2) = 6 >>> <1> <4>
STRONG HITMomentum: 0 ==> +1
Lucia retains initiative.
The bear turns around in frustration and closes in on Pendry, who is still lying on the ground.
Nocking an arrow and lifting her bow, Lucia aims carefully but with a trembling hand. The bear is too big, is too fast, and has almost reached its prey.
Secure an Advantage w/ Archer asset
(take a moment to aim by lining up your shot)
[3] + Edge(2) + 1 = 6 >>> <2> <10>
WEAK HITMomentum: +1 ==> +3
Lucia loses initiative.
With focus and desperation, Lucia lets her arrow fly.
Turn the Tide
(make a last-ditch effort)
Lucia takes initiative.
Strike
(attack at range)
[6] + Edge(2) + 1 = 9 >>> <5> <5>
STRONG HIT + MATCHMomentum: +3 ==> +4
Giant bear (foe, extreme): 40/40 ==> 34/40
Lucia retains initiative.
Match effect: Ravens eventually save the day.
🎲 Matches
During an action roll, if both challenge dice have the same value, that’s considered a match. A match is a trigger to “add a twist, create a new complication, or otherwise mix things up.”
Something “interesting, unexpected, or unusual” should happen, whether it be positive (for a strong hit) or negative (for a miss).
Lucia’s arrow strikes the bear, lodging into its back. The beast is hurt and confused.
Enraged, the bear spins around and wallops a tree near Pendry. The impact rouses the young man at last from his fearful daze.
Lucia calls Pendry to come towards her to safety, and Pendry starts to crawl away from the distracted creature.
The giant bear continues making a ruckus amongst the trees.
In that moment, Lucia recalls her father telling her when she was young that it’s dangerous to make too much noise in the forest, though she can’t remember why.
Pendry reaches the ravine that Lucia leapt across, but he’s afraid to jump.
Lucia tells him he must jump or die.
Compel
(attempt to convince someone to do something)
[2] + Heart(3) = 5 >>> <6> <7>
MISSPay the Price
Pendry's courage fails him.
Pendry stands at the edge of the ravine, paralyzed with fear.
The bear catches up to the unfortunate man and swipes at him with its big ol’ bear paw.
Pendry falls into the ravine.
After witnessing the traumatic scene, Lucia looks up and locks eyes with the bear, seeing its pain and rage.
In that moment, she realizes that the bear is going to jump over the ravine and kill her.
As the bear makes ready to charge, Lucia hears the distinctive call of a raven.
Suddenly, a cloud of darkness engulfs the bear as a massive flock of ravens flies out of the trees and barrages the elder beast's head.
Lucia remembers her father telling her stories about the ravens of the forest when she was young. Those birds aren't afraid of anything.
With the bear distracted, Lucia looks down into the ravine and sees Pendry lying at the bottom. In all likelihood, he is dead, but she can’t be sure.
Lucia considers whether to run and save herself before the bear can charge her again, but she decides that trying to save Pendry—if he is, in fact, alive—is the right thing to do.
Lucia climbs slowly down the side of the ravine.
Face Danger
(attempt something risky with endurance)
[5] + Iron(1) = 6 >>> <1> <8>
WEAK HITHealth: +5 ==> +4
Endure Harm
(face physical damage)
[3] + Health(4) = 7 >>> <6> <8>
WEAK HIT
During her descent, Lucia hears the giant bear retreat into the forest, still pursued and battered by the persistent birds.
She’s scratched up and exhausted by the time she reaches the bottom of the ravine, and it's dark and difficult to see.
Lucia takes a torch out of her bag and lights it, searching for Pendry by the flame’s weak glow.
She hears the croak1 of a raven behind her and turns her torch toward the sound.
A raven has landed near Pendry’s still form.
Lucia thanks the raven for its help, and it flies away.2
Lucia kneels by Pendry’s side. He is alive but grievously wounded from his fall.
Pendry is surprised that Lucia risked her life to save him, seeing as how the two of them have just met.
Oracle: Settlement Name
<30>A manmade edifice.
<57>"Timberwall"
Surrounded by wooden walls; insular and distrustful of outsiders.
Believing he’s about to die, Pendry asks Lucia to get his body home to his family in Timberwall.
Despite her own pains and antipathy toward anything to do with Ironland society, Lucia thinks of what her father and mother would have wanted her to do.
Grasping an iron trinket that she finds in Pendry’s bag, Lucia swears to Pendry that she will bring him home to Timberwall.
Swear an Iron Vow
(swear upon iron to complete a quest)
[2] + Heart(3) = 5 >>> <5> <5>
MISS + MATCHLucia has never been in this part of the forest before. She’s lost and doesn’t know how to get out.
Momentum: +4 ==> +2
Bring Pendry home alive to Timberwall (vow, dangerous): 0/10
Match effect: It starts to snow.
Overwhelmed by the task before her, Lucia is desperately considering how she and Pendry can find their way out of the forest when she feels a sudden chill and sees a few flakes of snow fall to the ground.
Commentary
Folks, I did not make up that “strong hit + match” dice roll on our Turn the Tide move. When it happened, I was shocked, relieved, gratified, energized… That’s Ironsworn, baby! What a climactic, cinematic moment. It certainly made up for the two misses we started with in session 1.
I’m pretty happy with how this combat scene went. It had twists and turns and left us ready to enter a new phase of our story. I hope the ravens coming out of nowhere wasn’t too weird. Our match roll on Turn the Tide kind of obligated me to make our story take an unexpected turn.
Ahh, terrible luck with that miss + match on our iron vow! I think the journey ahead of Lucia will be difficult enough without there being snowy weather too. But alas, the dice have demanded a complication, and so a complication we shall have.
Challenge Progress
For our Quest Starter challenge, we need to incorporate into our narrative every Quest Starter associated with our truths and starting Ironlands region.
We made no new progress in this session.
[X]1: The Old World - During character creation, we described Lucia as having Skulde ancestry and being ostracized by Ironland society as a result.[ ]2: Iron[ ]3: Legacies[ ]4: Communities[X]5: Leaders - During character creation, we said that Lucia is haunted by dreams of a wondrous city, and we defined her background vow as being to found the first city of the Ironlands.[ ]6: Defense[ ]7: Mysticism[ ]8: Religion[ ]9: Firstborn[ ]10: Beasts[ ]11: Horrors[ ]12: The Havens
Coming Up Next
In session 3, we’ll find out whether Lucia can reach Timberwall in time to pull Pendry back from the brink of death.
I had to do some internet research to find out whether ravens caw or if that’s just crows. As it turns out, crows caw and ravens croak. Who knew?
I’m trying to set up this raven as a future NPC companion for Lucia. The Raven companion asset has an ability triggered by the Face Death move that could interact nicely with the first ability of Lucia’s Fated asset.
I find it interesting the way you set the elder bear's progress bar to full and then reduce it. I'm not sure how you went from 40 to 34 though. Extreme foes get 2 ticks for each progress/harm, so you should have been at 36. I'm just curious, and perhaps I missed something.
Really fun read! Looking forward to more.