Crystal Serpent - Session One
Inciting Incident
In Session Zero, I set up a sandbox full of magic and monsters and scheming factions. Now, it's time to throw Arabella Cain into that sandbox and watch the ensuing chaos!
In my experience, actually starting a game of Ironsworn/Starforged/Sundered Isles can be deceptively tricky. Maybe it's because I've played so many video games, but I tend to choose starting incidents with a real "tutorial mission" vibe. Which is a problem, because the things that make a good tutorial mission in a video game are not the same things that make a good inciting incident in a solo rpg! In a solo rpg, I don't need to wander around in a rat-filled sewer while I learn the controls, and yet my brain still tries to default to that mode. After a few campaigns with pretty boring openings, I realized that I don't need to start out slow and safe. I can (and should) start with a bang.
So now I make a deliberate effort to make my inciting incidents spicier. For Crystal Serpent, that meant doing some more initial brainstorming. I had already decided my starting location, the busy port city of Goldcrest, and that Arabella has just arrived in the city. I also knew I wanted my starting connection, Captain Bonney "Half-hand" Pierce, to be involved.
But how? I needed some more details to spark a really juicy idea. I started by rolling some more details on Goldcrest. For Settlement Disposition I rolled "Unwelcoming," for Authority I rolled "Ambivalent," and for Details I rolled "An impromptu memorial marks the site of a recent tragedy."
I put these pieces together and decided that something terrible happened in Goldcrest, the local authorities handled it poorly, and now the city's citizens are wary and resentful of outsiders.
From there, I started asking Yes/No questions to fill out the details. After half-a-dozen rolls, I determined that the tragic incident was a bar fight that escalated and caused the death of several innocent bystanders. The fight was instigated by sailors from a ship, the Crested Dawn, flying under the flag of the Hand of Theya. In Crystal Serpent, the gods are dead, but the Hand of Theya believes that the gods will return if sorcery is eliminated. It's not a popular ideology outside of Theyan territory, but that didn't stop these sailors from starting a violent argument about it. Afterwards, they fled the city with the help of corrupt local officials.
When I set up my factions, I established that the Kyrody Dominion (which controls Goldcrest) and the Hand of Theya are enemies. So why would Dominion officials help Theyan sailors? I decided that the captain of the Crested Dawn paid the governor of Goldcrest a substantial bribe. Not because he was particularly attached to those sailors, but because the ship was on a relic hunting expedition and couldn't risk being tied up in a legal battle.
In a dimly-lit tavern, Arabella looks across the table at Captain Pierce. The older woman is hard to read, which makes sense -- she's been the Order's spy within the Dominion for years. Her fancy wig mark her as a wealthy merchant captain, while her sharkhide cuirass and handheld swivel cannon mark her as a dangerous, canny seadog.
"And that's all you know about the Crested Dawn and its mission? Just that the ruin is supposedly on Kiora?" Arabella asks.
Pierce raises a gray eyebrow. "Should I know more? Relic hunters aren't usually in the business of sharing their secrets. I only know this much because those fool sailors couldn't keep their mouths shut once they were drunk and angry. If they were my crew, I would have flogged them, not bribed the governor to save their necks. But this Captain Hadley..." She shrugs. "I don't know him. Maybe he's a fool too. Maybe not. Either way, he's your problem now -- unless the Order isn't interested?"
"Of course we are," Arabella says shortly. This is exactly the sort of thing the Order does. Even if it wasn't, Arabella would be interested anyway. She'll take any opportunity to spike the Hand of Theya's guns.
She pulls out her iron bondstone and rubs her thumb across its ancient, pitted surface. It's been in her family for centuries. But Arabella isn't in her family anymore. Not since the Hand of Theya conquered their home, and her parents chose to banish their "unnatural" daughter in order to keep their wealth and status.
"I swear on this iron to stop the Crested Dawn from completing its mission. Whatever secrets or relics are in that ruin will go to the Order, not the Hand of Theya!"
She can sense the primordial magic of the vow tremble and then settle into place. People say that iron vows are the oldest form of magic. Arabella believes them.
There is no time to lose. Arabella stands and nods to Captain Pierce. "I will be on my way, Captain."
The Captain nods and takes a sip of her wine. "Good hunting, Cain. By the way -- if you get a chance to bring any of those murdering bastards back here to face real justice, take it. It will go a long way to building your reputation here in Goldcrest."
It's always fun to Swear an Iron Vow for this first time in a campaign. It's also nerve-wracking when your player character only has +1 Heart. Even with the bonus from swearing to a connection, I actually rolled a Miss here, but thanks to Arabella's Bannersworn asset, I was able to reroll a die and get much luckier, changing the Miss to a Strong Hit. I gave the vow a rank of Dangerous.
This is exactly the kind of inciting incident I was aiming for. It's got complications, and emotional stakes, and a good chance of blowing up in everyone's faces.
Calendar Worldbuilding
At this point, I went off on a tangent as I remembered something I wanted to try with this campaign: keeping a more detailed calendar. In my previous IS/SF/SI games, I just handwaved time, which was certainly easier, but I frequently found myself asking questions like "How long has this trip taken? What season is it? Is it morning, or night?" and having no way to answer them besides asking the oracle. As those questions piled up, the world began to feel fuzzy and shallow, which did not make for a satisfying experience.
For Crystal Serpent, I wanted to make the world feel more like a real place, and that means paying attention to time.
(The ghost of Gary Gygax drifts out of a shadowy corner and speaks in a fell, booming voice. "YOU CAN NOT HAVE A MEANINGFUL CAMPAIGN IF STRICT TIME RECORDS ARE NOT KEPT." I throw salt at him until he goes away.)
Now, I could just use our modern Gregorian calendar, but that's boring. If I'm going to track time, I want it to be flavorful, so I rubbed my brain cells together and came up with something interesting.
In my Sundered Isles, there is a dry season and a rainy season. Each season is three months long, and each month is sixty days (divided into six ten-day long weeks).
The year begins with the first month of the dry season. The dry months are Spark, Fire, and Smoke. The rainy months are Storm, Flood, and Bloom.
There are two major festivals celebrated throughout the Isles. In between the third and fourth weeks of Fire is the Cinder Festival, when celebrants burn offerings of food, flowers, and wine to bring good luck and prosperity. It is a popular time for proposals and weddings. In between the third and fourth weeks of Flood is the Wraith Festival, when celebrants wear masks to ward off evil spirits and throw coins into the sea for their dead kin.
The duration of each festival varies, in order to keep the calendar accurate to the solar year, but they usually last for two or three days. If the festival's moon is bright in the sky, it is considered a good omen, while a faint or absent moon signals woe and strife.
It's a pretty simple calendar to start with, but I have plenty of room to add in more holidays. Most importantly, it gives me a structure to work with, so I can do things like say, "In two weeks, this thing will happen," or "It's now Storm, so the weather is a lot more dangerous." I decided that Crystal Serpent begins in the fourth week of Spark.
Setting Sail
Armed with my new calendar, I got back to the game proper. My next move was to Ask the Oracle for some details about the crew of Arabella's ship. I rolled up a sailing master named Rowena Zhou, who will be the "face" of the crew. She's an aged and scarred woman, her old wounds patched with metal, and she carries a broad-bladed machete. For her Disposition and Details, I rolled Persuadable, Oblivious, and Talented. I decided to interpret that as meaning that she's an excellent sailor who takes orders from Arabella without complaint (despite Arabella's landlubber-ness). She also seems oblivious of the Order of the Crystal Serpent's true nature and mission, even though she was hired by the Order. Is this ignorance genuine, or is Zhou only pretending she doesn't know anything? Perhaps Arabella will learn the truth over time.
I then Set a Course for Kiora. I rolled a Weak Hit and chose to Lose Momentum rather than deal with a complication, since I want to stay focused on my current objective.
When the Swiftsure arrives at Kiora, the Crested Dawn is already there.
Arabella looks through Master Zhou's spyglass at the Crested Dawn. It's larger than the Swiftsure -- two masts, probably thirty crew. It's armed with heavier cannons than most ships of its size, and it has the blood-red sails that are so popular on Theyan ships. It's flying a red flag, too, with a yellow sun.
Arabella can't see very many people on board. Presumably most of the crew is on shore, assisting with the expedition. That would be useful if she was targeting the ship...but her target is the expedition itself, and whatever ruin it is exploring on this desolate rock.
Arabella can hardly take out the entire expedition on her own. The Swiftsure crew could assist her, but there's only a dozen of them, and though they may be skilled sailors, they aren't mercenaries. Arabella can't reasonably expect them to follow her into a pitched battle against twice or thrice their number.
Arabella recalls a lesson with one of her childhood tutors about the art of war. All warfare is based on deception. When able to attack, you must seem unable. When weak, you must seem strong.
In this situation, she is weak. So she will appear strong, and use that deception to become strong in truth.
She hands the spyglass back to Master Zhou. "Master Zhou, make ready. We are going to take that ship."
Conclusion
This is a cliffhanger ending, which I do all the time in my solo games -- it really makes it easy and exciting to come back and play another session.
One of my favorite additions to Starforged from the original Ironsworn is the session moves. I love the reminders in End a Session to mark progress on vows or relationships, and the +1 momentum for making a plan for the next session. For the session, I marked progress on Arabella's starting vow and her connection with Captain Pierce.
Arabella is in a pretty perilous position! Once she arrived at Kiora, I had to stop and think for a while about what she could actually do. She isn't the kind of character who charges in headfirst, so I had to come up with a clever plan for her. Luckily, a Sun Tzu quote popped into my head, and I realized that if Arabella couldn't go after the expedition itself, she could go after their ship instead.
If this goes well, it might be the start of Arabella's career as a pirate. We'll find out in the next session.