Crystal Serpent - Session Zero
Truths
For this campaign, I want to focus on the fantastical. This is a chaotic, perilous seafaring realm of brimming with magic, beasts, and horrors. The gods are dead, and imperial forces vie for dominion over the Isles using the secrets of the ancient world and wondrous modern inventions. The seas are plagued by bleakmists and the Dread Court pirate nation.
I'm taking a lot of aesthetic inspiration from the video game Path of Exile (speaking of which, this mix of Path of Exile 2's soundtrack makes great background music for Sundered Isles). Another big inspiration was the Arcanist class in Elder Scrolls Online. Delving into forbidden knowledge and getting entangled with eldritch entities? Hell yes.
Factions
The first thing I created was a faction: the Order of the Crystal Serpent, named using the fantastic Sundered Isles faction oracles. Since I wanted the campaign to focus on exploring ancient ruins for dangerous knowledge and magical relics, I decided to use a faction to drive that action. The Order's mission is to keep dangerous relics and ancient knowledge out of the hands of imperial forces. They recruit mystics and scoundrels alike and train them to explore ancient ruins, retrieve artifacts, and sabotage imperial efforts to do the same.
For the rest of my factions, I just picked from the premade examples in the book. This is one of my favorite parts of Sundered Isles -- it makes starting a new campaign so quick. I chose the Kai, the Cynosure League, the Forsaken Fleet, the Hand of Theya, the Kyrody Dominion, and the Bloodmarked League. If I was creating all of my factions from scratch, I definitely wouldn't start with this many! But since they're premade, I can just plug them into the world like Legos as I need them.
Player Character
For my character, I chose the assets Bannersworn, Sorcerer and Scholar (Field: Ancient History). Arabella Cain is a pale, unassuming young woman with dark hair, dressed in expensive but worn clothes. She carries a bone-handled dagger, hidden beneath a long leather coat, and wears her iron bondstone on a long chain tucked into her shirt. She is cunning, ambitious, and bitterly estranged from her wealthy family, who banished her to maintain their own power and status after the Hand of Theya conquered their home. She joined the Order of the Crystal Serpent afterwards, partially out of spite, but also because she thinks they're the best chance she has to fulfill her background vow to find the pre-Sundering grand library that haunts her dreams. She has +3 Wits, +2 Iron and Shadow, and +1 Edge and Heart.
I chose the default starting option with the incidental Sailing Ship. It's a single-masted sloop called the Swiftsure, entrusted to Arabella by the Order. The crew are old salts brought out of retirement, which is good, because Arabella doesn't know a damned thing about sailing. At least, not yet! We'll see what the future yields.
Locations
I decided to begin this campaign in the Myriads, though I expect Arabella may end up exploring the farthest reaches of the Isles in her adventures. I rolled up basic details for four islands, three notable locations, and a name for the local seas: the Gilded Main.
My starting location is the city of Goldcrest on the island of Solene. Goldcrest is one of the Kyrody Dominion's strongholds with its industries of fishing, shipbuilding, and trade. It is also the home of Bonney "Half-hand" Pierce, captain of the schooner Windswept. Officially, Captain Pierce is a respected merchant captain sailing under the Dominion's flag. Unofficially, she is a double agent for the Order of the Crystal Serpent who gathers information and smuggles relics for them. She is Arabella's starting connection.
Conclusion
With that, my Session Zero was complete! I've got a nice sandbox to play in, with plenty of elements to bounce off each other and create interesting conflicts. I've also got a character with a lot of motivation. In my experience, Ironsworn and Starforged games really sing when your player characters want things in a way that pushes them out into the world. A lot of my early attempts to play fizzled out because my characters were too passive or cautious, so now I always make sure that my PCs have powerful incentives to accept the call to adventure. Arabella's got a big dramatic background vow, a messy history, and a whole bunch of enemies. I can't wait to see what kind of trouble she gets into!