# Character Creation Challenge 2025: Day 24 - Starforged: Sundered Isles - Crassus Cutter, Mercenary Captain
tags: #articles/CharacterCreationChallenge/2025 #game/rpg/starforged
> [!quote] [[Character Creation Challenge 2025]]
>
> ![[Character Creation Challenge Image.png]]
## Game of Choice
I suppose we need to talk about how we got here.
Actually, no. There was going to be a long discussion and a bit of a personal story, but no one cares about that. Short version: I'm going through my digital RPG library in reverse chronological order and literally grabbing the last 31 things in terms of full RPGs added to my collection.
Here's the thing with that: sometimes RPGs get updated. It's one of the great things about digital distribution. If an author finds typos or wants to clarify a bit of text, they can simply re-upload the PDF with updates to their original host, and then we all get notified there's a new version. We go out, grab it, pull it down, stick it in the library.
However, that means that the latest edition is more recent than when we may have actually paid for it.
![[Sundered Isles (cover).jpg|400]] ![[Sundered Isles - Guidebook (cover).jpg|400]]
Next up is **[[Ironsworn - Starforged|Starforged: Sundered Isles]]**. Yes, I have had it in my hot little tentacles for a while. Yes, it is the inheritor of what I consider one of the best RPGs published in the last decade. Considering how many RPGs are in my library and how many I read on a regular basis, that is quite the claim. Yes, it's true, while we have gone through quite a lot of talking about **[[Ironsworn - Starforged|Starforged]]** and even some partial setting configuration and character generation,[^1] I haven't done a full playthrough on **[[index|Grim Tokens]]** yet, despite the fact doing a real playthrough of **Starforged** was one of the reasons I created the website two years ago.
I blame being a slack bastard.
If *nothing else*, we are going to go through and do at least a basic story setup for Character Creation Challenge 2025 even if it kills me. It may take half the day to do well. We shall see.
In case you haven't been following my work or reading anything that I've written, which is quite possible and I wouldn't blame a single one of you, **Starforged** is in its default setting a science fiction world which can vary between hard cassette futurism and science fantasy depending on the choices you make during your world creation.
My personal preference is more the former in a way that smells a lot like **[[Traveller]]**.
When **Sundered Isles** was announced, I was thrilled. After all, it essentially provides a framework and discussion for moving **Starforged** into the age of wooden ships and iron men.
Not that I was particularly desirous of triple masted sails and rippling water, but more discussion of fleets and new mechanics to expand and expound on trade and the upkeep of your vessels? That's speaking right to *me*.
On top of that, **Sundered Isles** doesn't require that you bring everything down to the planetary surface and throw yourself into cannonades and walking the plank. It's just as happy to leave you among the stars and give you some more tools to play, but there is something compelling about the sea.
There is this somewhat higher fantasy edge that comes across but is not demanded from your play. There are assets which bring new and exciting flavors to the table. And, I cannot lie, I was one of the few people that watched **[Pirates of Dark Water](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101169/)** when it originally aired. I'm not ashamed, I'm proud of what I am.
So while I wouldn't *necessarily* run **Sundered Isles** for myself as it's written, I'm not above playing with the idea in a one-off opportunity like this, especially if I can reference both **Dark Water** and **[[Spelljammer]]** at the same time. **Spelljammer** is, after all, my favorite **D&D** setting and again I am not ashamed. So, let's do some stuff, shall we?
## Acts of Creation
We are going to flip on over to page 68 for the step-by-step on how to get started putting our campaign together and our character.
As expected from **Starforged**, **Sundered Isles** is a beautiful book and makes heavy use of graphic assets and iconography to help guide the eye through the process. Honestly, it's almost unkind to go through this without showing you it page by page, but I think you'll get by. Okay, maybe just *this* page.
![[Starforged - Sundered Isles - Getting Started-Select Your Realm (spread).webp]]
Gorgeous.
### Realms High and Low
As you can see, the first choice that we have is to decide what realm our setting is in. The default is the *Seafaring Realm*, which is big oceans, lots of islands and archipelagos, terrifying creatures at sea.
Then there is the *Skyfaring Realm*, which is your anime-like flying ships with chunks of world floating around.
Finally, there's the *Starfaring Realm*, which is more fantasy-like than the default Starforged but still quite pleasant.
Usually, that's the direction I tend to go. Today, we're going for **Skyfaring**. When I go for high adventure with you guys, I mean we really get high. Not that way, you sicko.
### Truth Shall Set You Free
As usual in **Starforged**, the next step is to go through the Truth categories and decide how we want our world to be formed.
Typically, it introduces a question, gives us three options which we can choose or randomly select and then kicks off with some guidance on things that might be interesting or questions that you might want to answer along with a potential story seed or two.
I'm not going to go through all of the addenda, we're just going to answer the questions and see where we end up. (I can't give away the book for free; it's totally worth paying for.)
#### Sundering: How Did the Isles Earn Their Name?
**Eons ago, a vast cataclysm shattered continents.**
It's hard to get more anime than this. Do we know what kind of cataclysm it was? No, I have no idea at this point, but I don't have to. That was at least 10,000 years ago.
We are the inheritors of a broken world.
#### Relics: What Remains of Lost or Fallen People?
**An ancient civilization of unfathomable power left its mark upon the Isles.**
Yes, they are responsible for the cataclysm, at least as far as anyone knows and as far as the religion of the Isles tells it.
I just couldn't resist the idea of there being ancient vaults of hidden knowledge, perhaps sorceries beyond the ken of man, perhaps technologies which have been lost and never regained.
I love digging through the trash of previous civilizations, especially when it could come to life and destroy everything within hundreds of kilometers.
#### Modern Era: What is the State of Technology?
**It is an age of industry.**
I briefly considered making it an age of wonders full of ancient secrets and super science, but I think I'll save that concept for myself at a later time.
Here, the sky ships and the civilization are leaving the era of simple feudalism and city-states. It is an age of industry coming into its own. Metal ships are new, but not entirely unheard of.
Mines, smelters, and factories not only have a rapacious hunger but reward you for feeding them quite well.
#### Iron Vows: What is the Significance of Iron and Sworn Vows?
**Some see iron vows as a vestige of a more superstitious age, but the tradition persists.**
Interestingly, I feel like stripping the mysticism away from iron and vows. It's great when you are essentially living in the Iron Age but this is moving into the industrial and I want that to be more of the focus of what's going on.
Vows are still important, but they aren't mystical bindings. Iron is just a metal. Its use is going to transition from being a magic item to being a truly useful tool.
#### Navigation: How Are People and Places Connected?
**Bleakmists are a curse upon the Isles, confounding navigation and severing connections between communities.**
I couldn't help myself; I needed *something* mystical going on, and the bleakmists are a fine tool for this purpose. They are a hideous, damnable, sea-bound fog within which ghostly phenomena are often known to be felt; some never dissipate and provide a constant threat. In other places, they come and go with the winds.
I'm going to wager that this is probably a side effect of the cataclysm, but I reserve the right to change my mind later.
#### Empires: How Great is the Threat of Colonization and Conquest?
**The Sundered Isles are free from Imperial control — for now.**
Okay, heads up, I have to be honest with you. On occasion, Tomkin is annoyingly woke. In his defense… actually I don't really have a defense. But since I firmly believe that one should be able to separate the author and the work and because I paid for the book so I can do anything I want with it, I don't hold it against him. Besides, it doesn't come up often enough to be an issue.
One of the things you have to deal with on a regular basis is an anti-colonialist message, which is funny since Western colonization is pretty much the reason that there are any advances culturally in progressive thought anywhere on Earth. But we'll let the facts of our world go for the moment.
If this were going to be something I was playing in personally, I would state up front that we are on the side of the Empire because that's my inclination. Here, and for the moment, this world has no major imperial powers.
#### Piracy: What Influence Do Pirates Wield?
**A burgeoning pirate nation wields great influence.**
While pirates can be merciless raiders, as one of the options, there's a surprising amount of idealization of the life of piracy. Still, I can make real use of this by introducing inter-factional conflicts. It is, after all, one of my favorite things to do in any setting.
#### Religion: What is the Role of Faith?
**The gods are dead.**
Compare and contrast [[Character Creation Challenge 2025 - Day 23 - Ironsworn-Bronzebound|to yesterday]] when the gods were a massive influence on the story to come. Today I think that the massive cataclysm of the ancients may have been responsible for the death of the gods, or perhaps there were never any gods and they were simply a misinterpretation of powerful figures among precursors.
That's not to say that there are no religions, of course; you don't need living gods to have worshippers. However, I think the primary form of religion will actually be ancestor worship rather than deity-centered worship. That opens a lot of doors.
#### Magic: What Is the Impact of Supernatural Forces?
**Magic is rare and mysterious.**
I don't want to completely remove magic from the setting because I have some ideas for things coming up, but it should definitely not be a part of everyday life for people.
Technology is ultimately egalitarian while magic is inherently, at some level, an elite. That's not to necessarily make a moral judgment on either, but it's easier to hand someone a gun than teach them to throw a fireball. Of course, it may simply be that technology is what magic becomes when you understand it, which would fit neatly in with everything else going on here.
#### Beasts: What Is the Nature of Extraordinary Creatures?
**Beasts are lost to myth, but the tales persist.**
We aren't talking about normal animals. Normal animals are everywhere. Even abnormal animals, since this is a sky-faring realm, there is probably a broad ecology of creatures which live, breed, and die without ever touching down on an isle.
Tinkering with that idea could keep someone busy for days, if not weeks, of setting design. I'm not getting into that right now.
Beasts are a different class of entity altogether. Dinosaurs, colossal whales, sea dragons, the Kraken — all of these are monstrous beasts, and while they might be here and there encountered rarely, they aren't anything near even an uncommon occurrence.
#### Horrors: What Dreadful Forces Haunt the Sundered Isles?
**The damned and the dead are a plague upon the Isles.**
I needed to depart from our lack of magic in one way, and here it is.
> The drowned and the buried do not rest. Tortured spirits hunt for retribution. Uncounted islands are blighted by dark forces. Cities and villages lie abandoned and forsaken, lost to a malevolent tide. We keep watch, craft wards, and offer prayers to keep the horrors at bay, but it is no use. They are coming.
I also needed to quote directly from the book on this one because I really love how that flows. Yes, there is a nightmarish, undead plague upon our world. Darkness lies everywhere, again probably courtesy of the ancient precursors and their cataclysm. What have they gotten up to?
### Factional Distillation
One of the very nice parts of **Sundered Isles** is that it is extremely good about making sure that you have factions which have opposing or reinforcing ideas right from the beginning. Creating those factions, or at least three or four to get you started, is a solid kickstarter to getting you thinking about what kind of stories can come out of play.
There are multiple random oracles that you can use to put your mind in the right place and get you thinking. I think we're going to go for a couple of those.
#### Makers of the Admantine
> Type: Society
> Influence: Forsaken
> Chronicles: Built a wondrous monument, Founded a great settlement
> Overseers: Shadowy cabals
> Touchstones: Favors a signature weapon, Banishes the disloyal
> Identity: Sept
> Projects: Disrupt the operations of a rival, Build or secure a powerful device
> Quirks: Guided by superstition or prophecy
> Rumors: Hit hard by a recent attack or calamity
I will cheerfully admit that I generated all of these traits with the help of the random oracles and **[[Pocketforge]]**, which saves me a lot of throwing dice around.
But what does it mean? Let's do a little interpretation.
The Makers of the Adamantine are rumored to be the descendants of one of the Houses of the Precursors devoted to making things: truly cunning clockwork and machinery.
In theory, they have a great settlement with an immense clock at the center, but few are invited to go to their isle. Fewer still are allowed to stay, as banishment and exile are considered one of their favorite ways to be rid of dissidents.
No one is quite sure who is in charge of the faction as a whole, but they tend to form small enclaves in the wider world, living together in almost monk-like seclusion.
I have no idea what the rival they want to go up against is, but I'm sure we will have multiple volunteers. Building a powerful device certainly fits in with their nature.
Clearly, these are very religious people who deeply venerate their ancestors. Each of them carries at least a small hammer on them, which serves as both a tool for their craft and a weapon against their enemies.
#### Terion Regents
> Type: Society
> Influence: Isolated
> Chronicles: Exploited by a self-serving faction, Betrayed by a longtime ally
> Overseers: Hereditary rulers
> Touchstones: Lives mostly at sea
> Identity: Fellowship
> Projects: Research an innovation, Rescue or recover a group or asset
> Quirks: Resolves disputes through formal duels
> Rumors: Vulnerable to attack or aggression
Let's have another go. We've got another society here, but its influence is isolated and it's run by hereditary rulers who are fascinated by affluence.
I believe that the Regents used to have business dealings with the Makers because they had access to significant funding which the makers could use to acquire resources and manpower for larger projects.
Something happened between the two groups relatively recently. The Makers made off with a significant treasure which they would very much like to get back.
Until they do, operations are severely curtailed because they don't have the money and ready funds to push projects forward.
The Regents are a primarily mercantile organization with a strong history of literally living out of their ships for years to decades at a time.
This makes it difficult to pin them down but also means that they are one of the most powerful trading organizations in the limited span of islands they currently reach.
They have a vested interest in keeping their ships afloat and profitable.
We'll go one further.
#### Partnership of the Gleaming Witches
> Type: Organization (Couriers)
> Influence: Notable
> Methods: Operates custom ships, Holds regular gatherings or assemblies
> Secrets: Guided by a shadowy leader, Relies on spies and informants
> Identity: Partnership
> Projects: Subsume another faction, Broaden scope of the faction to include a new focus
> Relationships: Suspicious of
> Quirks: Suspicious of outsiders
> Rumors: Suffering a shortage of key workers or personnel
For a change, the dice actually like me, or at least are giving me things I can work with, because this immediately gives me some ideas.
The partnership of the Gleaming Witches is a much better known, and more influential organization than the Terion Regents, but limit themselves to being couriers and fast messengers rather than major trade vessels that move significant cargo.
They are fond of light high-speed frigates and smaller, generally seriously customized for greater speed. They would very much like to swallow the Regents whole but have never been able to because they can't leverage the kind of financial assets that would be necessary, nor do they have the necessary knowledge of cargo logistics to keep it running in the same way.
That has, however, never kept them from planting spies in the much smaller organization. This is why they know that the Makers have some sort of unpleasant recent experience with the Regents and why the Witches are deeply suspicious of the Hammermen, but they tend to be suspicious of anyone outside of their personal circles.
Unfortunately for the Witches, they have lost several ships recently and are having real problems finding crews to replace them. It's a pity that they are at odds with the Regents because extra money could make the difference between not having crews to run jobs and being involved in very profitable message passing.
There we go, three factions done and some rather intriguing relationships between them as well. A couple of more factions would not go amiss, but certainly this is more than enough to kick off stories which will run in the same cluster of islands for a bit.
The next stop on our whirlwind tour: creating a character.
### Character Building Experience
It's finally time to start assembling the character. I like the fact that the sequence has been slightly modified since the original Ironsworn and I think it flows a little bit better.
#### Conceptualization and Manifestation
We are going to start by envisioning the broad strokes of our character.
What kind of character are they? Is he an ironsworn? Is he just a seafarer? Or is he a rebel against the circumstances or obligations he's saddled with?
In this case, I feel like the best answer is to lean into the seafarer idea. He's not driven by something that pushed him into this. He was born to the sky and he will work in the sky until the day he dies, probably falling endlessly through the sky.
#### To Seek, Perhaps to Find
There are a ton of tables and prompts on the next couple of pages to help us flesh out our character and backstory. So that's the next step.
#### Backstory to the Front
Rolling on the backstory table I do not activate the curse die.
The curse die is something new with **Sundered Isles** and represents uncanny forces influencing the world in general.
Effectively, you just roll an additional d10 on tables which allow for a cursed outcome. And if it rolls a 10, you roll a selection from the accompanying cursed table instead of the original.
But since I paid for the book and I can do with it what I want, I'm just going to decide that our backstory has an element of the horrific about it and I'm just going to roll straight on it.
**Suffered a vision of a horrific fate.**
Well, *that's* good, meaty stuff. We'll see what shakes out of it.
We'll also roll a standard backstory hook, while I'm in here.
**Trying to forget a disastrous love affair.**
If that's not a classic motivation for a young man to tie his fate to a ship and set out on a terrible adventure into almost certain doom, then I've never heard one. Again, quite meaty.
#### Characteristic Behaviour
There is a group of questions which act as prompts along with page numbers to reference for inspirational random tables which are actually really well placed. At this point you may not know who this character is really going to be or you may have some vague concept but not have put together the underlying structure. We have some motivations and that's it.
Let's answer a couple of questions for our character.
- *What is your former or current profession?*
That's actually a really good question. I was originally thinking that this character might themselves be a trader - but then we went through the faction generation process and ended up with two major factions in the area being devoted to cargo transport and courier work. It seems as though that area is pretty well filled.
Maybe the solution here is to roll on the table and see what falls out. In this case it's actually a series of tables with some rather fascinating options. I'll cut to the chase this time.
**Combatant. Mercenary.**
That is surprisingly straightforward and honestly more of a blunt solution than I would have gone for, given my own inspirations. However, it fits really well with what's going on around the area that we're in.
A mercenary with his own ship could definitely be a very good resource to have on hand. A sellsword is always appreciated for people who would like to buy swords.
I can go with this. This works out really well for me.
- *If you are armed, what is your favorite weapon?*
Not surprisingly, there is a table for that. Cheerfully enough, that table is also potentially cursed, and a quick check actually shows that it is giving whatever weapon that we have a cursed aspect as well.
**Double-barreled pistol. Burning with intense flame.**
Well, that's metal as *fuck*. A double-barreled pistol which glows and burns with the flames of hell. Does it actually do anything inappropriate? Who knows, maybe! I do know that it's going to be damned hard to keep a low profile if I ever have to draw that beast, which could explain a few things now that I look at it.
- *What are less obvious or hidden aspects of your nature?*
I think the broad strokes have fallen out for us here, but let's think about possibilities for things which aren't as obvious.
Yes, there's a table for that. And yes, there's a cursed option.
**Cautious. Indebted.**
Neither of those came up cursed, but a cautious mercenary is a long-lived mercenary. I'm all right with that. Indebted, on the other hand, I think that ties in neatly with one of our factions. After all, the Regents are typically really good at handing out money. They like to invest. Putting your hands on a whole ship, even a small one, is no tiny investment and probably outside the reach of a random mercenary, especially a young one.
We could owe a significant debt to the Regents, which explains how we could be here in the first place. It also gives us a real solid hook for getting into the action once play begins. The system works!
I think that's actually enough for now. We know considerably more than we did when we started.
#### The Path Not Taken
Time to bust out the asset cards. This is where the real mechanics truly begin. We are specifically instructed to take two path assets from the deck.
There are different kinds of assets, and paths in specific refer to ways in which your character can interact with the world. They define the specific kinds of things that you're good at and directions in which you may evolve.
Let me dig through these cards.
![[Starforged - Assets - Gunslinger.webp]] ![[Starforged - Assets - Mercenary.webp]]
Let's be honest with each other, it was kind of a foregone conclusion what our two path choices would be given our particular setup. Interestingly, neither one of them is specifically from the **Sundered Isles** set, which is a little sad, but it is what it is.
We absolutely needed to have **Gunslinger** for our double-barreled hell pistol. The ability unlocked by default is particularly nice for getting in there and opening up with something truly shocking. And by that I mean a giant double-barreled pistol that is on fire.
I really think one of the early things we would be unlocking would be the last ability, which means that if we threaten someone by holding them at the point of a giant flaming double-barreled hell pistol, they are more likely to capitulate and we are more likely to improve our general position. I think it almost goes without saying, really.
**Mercenary** gives us the mechanics of getting some cash in our pockets in exchange for actually having an iron vow to see it done. That incentivizes us to make doing mercenary work an active and aggressive part of our storytelling because those legacy tracks are quite nice.
The middle ability, which makes finding someone to sell our sword to easier, is great, but the really interesting thing is that a strong hit with a match throws us into our own history and gives us the opportunity to get more ticks on that legacy track.
Strong hits with matches aren't common, but they do happen, and when they do, it's nice to have something really neat you can pull out.^[Foreshadowing!]
#### Name That Tune
Yes, it's a little bit funny that we haven't actually given this character a name until now, but frankly, I think this is about the right place for it. Names are powerful things.
Sometimes a name being at complete odds with what the character does and is can be good cognitive friction. Sometimes it just gets in the way of play.
You know enough about the character and the world to decide what a good name is. I'm going to roll something here and see if it falls out in a way I like. We also have the option for a “moniker” or nickname, which is perfectly appropriate to the genre.
Note that the moniker is a potentially cursed roll and there is an entire table of cursed names. I'd really like to get one, but we'll leave that to RNGesus.
**Crassus Carver.**
Damn, talk about a name that goes hard. And for the moniker …
**Silvereye.**
I don't hate it, but I don't love it. Just as an experiment, let's roll on the cursed moniker and see what there is to see.
**Bloodskull.**
Neither one of those goes nearly as hard as just the guy's name, so we are going to stick with him just being named Crassus Carver. Does it get any more rocking than being referred to as Captain Carver? As a mercenary? No, no it does not.
#### I Solemnly Vow
We've fetched up to the background vow at this point I've written about vows enough times that I feel like it's redundant to do so again, but I like where this is in the revised character generation flow.
We are only putting in our background vow. It tells us to look at the character goals and the oracle on page 193 if we need or want some inspiration, and that might be nice. However, I think I know already what this vow is and what its rank should be. Just for giggles, I'll see what the table comes up with.
Oh look, it has a cursed option as well! How terrible. Unfortunately, it doesn't come up cursed. Instead, we get a goal of *"Find a Person."*
I don't care for that.
Our background vow is going to be **"Pay off the debt to the Regents for funding our mercenary company."** I don't want it to be almost *utterly* unreachable, so the rank won't be Epic. **Extreme** will do.
#### Run the Stats
I think it's safe to say that we've been here a few times. The stat layout is the same as always, because I don't mind a little ridiculously over-the-top difficult survival. We'll just get that laid out right here.
| Edge | Heart | Iron | Shadow | Wits |
| :--: | :---: | :--: | :----: | :--: |
| +3 | +1 | +1 | +2 | +2 |
It's not exactly the stat layout that I wanted for this character, but by necessity, some corners must be cut. I definitely wanted him to be able to sling that pistol with the best of them. So, having Edge at +3 was correct.
It's Heart and Iron being at just +1 that makes me hesitate. Really, the thing to do here is figure out why those things are what the universe uses to screw with him.
In the case of Iron, he is a slight, lanky, not particularly physically well-endowed individual.^[No jokes. Okay, make the jokes. The pistol is clearly over-compensating.] He suffers no lack of aggressiveness, but close quarters combat tends to involve him being thrown around and physically overmatched, a great reason to avoid it whenever possible.
As for Heart — well, he has dedicated himself to his cause, and that cause is putting money in his pocket.
He's courageous enough when there's coin on the line, and he's loyal just as long as no one makes a better offer (or at least that's what the stories say about him).
It's not a good idea to get close to people in his line of work anyway. They tend to either die or end up on the opposite side.
There we go, I think that straightens things nicely.
Of course the meters all get properly set as well so health, spirit, and supply get set to 5, momentum starts at +2 with a max of +10, and the momentum reset is +2. Easy peasy.
#### No Poop On the Poop Deck
We are almost done. There is just one exercise to complete, and that is taking command, which is where we decide many things about our ship and finally get around to that last asset.
We have three options for our type of command, and that is whether it is a *novice command*, a minor vessel of little repute, a *worthy command*, which is a flagship vessel, or *no command* at all with no ship to our name.
I think it's safe to say that the third option is completely off the table and I don't really want to start with a flagship class vessel. We didn't take out that big a loan.
We're going to start with a **novice command**, and that means that we end up with the incidental Sailing Ship asset. It is perfectly fine and lets us get from place to place with our crew but doesn't have any particular mechanical refinements and can't take modules. That's okay, we will get there in time.
![[Starforged - Sundered Isles - Assets - Sailing Ship.webp|400]]
We'll go with a Light Ship with a mere 3 Integrity. Fast, light, capable of transporting a handful of mercenaries about, but not a big cargo hauler.
Now we really get into talking about and thinking about the ship's characteristics. What kind of a ship is it? What does it do? How does it look? Just like the character, we'll go through and ask a couple of questions and maybe roll on a couple of tables.
- *What size is the ship?*
I've already decided that it's a fairly small ship, so we will go with the idea that it is a lightweight military cutter with a dual wing design and a pusher prop.
No, I didn't forget that these things have to fly.
- *What aspects of the ship's look or nature are obvious when first sighted?*
That's also a really good question and since this was a salvaged ship from the Regents I really don't have a whole lot of input into what it looks like. Luckily, and I know that you're going to be surprised by this, there's a table for that. Happily for me, it's actually potentially a cursed table.
Sadly, no cursed traits came up, but we did get one that I think is really quite interesting: **Ironclad Hull**. This works with the growing industrial aspect we've already introduced with the setting.
It's going to be terrifying enough to see a small ship clad in metal flying along in your direction, so let's go with that.
Now we have a ship, so that ship comes with a certain amount of history. It's also a table with a possible cursed option, so let's see what comes up.
You know I don't really *like* any of these ship histories that I'm rolling despite the fact that they are kind of inspirational. They just don't fit with the history that we've already established for the character, so I'm going to make a command decision and roll on the *cursed ship history* — and that turns up something kind of interesting:
**Found adrift in perfect condition with no sign of the crew.**
Maybe that's why they let us have it for a song (albeit a very loud song). The Regents knew this thing was just washing around, missing a crew, and they didn't want to take on the thing themselves. Of course, perfect.
Finally, the *name*. Let's see what the Regents issued it with:
**Stormchaser.**
I think this will do for the ship of a mercenary who will often be riding headfirst into violence, blood, and screams. It's a good start.
#### Characteristic of a Crew Like That
A man can't sail a ship this size alone. He needs a crew, even a crew that only exists as largely a fictive construct.
But being a fictive construct, that gives them certain powers and abilities to do things one could not do solo, like run a flying ship. Let's see what kind of a crew we have.
**Glory hunters, looking to make a mark.**
Well, at least they aren't cursed. As part of a mercenary company, this will do. Though, they might decide to get a little out of hand once in a while. Ain't that always the way?
#### The Final Countdown
It's time to get that last asset, which could be a support vehicle, path, or companion. There are a lot of choices, and all of them are pretty flavorful. I have a weird idea that I want to focus on the crew of the ship as my fellow mercenaries and there is a specific asset for that.
![[Sundered Isles - Assets - Crew Commander.png|400]]
I find this particular asset *fascinating* on multiple levels, in part because taking it gives you an additional resource of command that you can use to improve a miss to a weak hit or a weak hit to a strong hit, and gives you an additional pool of resources that you can lose as a result of paying the price.
It is a complicated mix of positives and negatives, and I, for one, am here for it.
It does provide a certain level of difficulty for Captain Cutter here, since he has +1 heart. This is going to make rallying the crew, even with a notable reward, an interesting opportunity for complexity. Still, I'm curious as to how this is going to shake out.
I see a lot of being careful with momentum in order to make this come together at the right time.
On the positive side, these guys are going to be *brutal* in mercenary operations under his command, and that's awesome.
#### Making Connection
Technically, we would have needed to go through and make the local island group where we would be starting, but I'm not feeling *that* motivated today.
If there's interest or if there is some sort of strong compulsion, I can always come back later and get us kicked off. Instead, we're just going to decide who our local connection is because it's going to be quite necessary to have one.
Interestingly, this person does not start as a bond for our character, just as a contact. If we wanted to turn them into a bond, we would need to actually do the Forge a Bond move.
Right, so who is it? I'm deciding it's our local contact with the Regents. It's the guy we pay in order to try and get ahead of our debt. And it's the guy who attempts to keep an eye on us and maybe provides a contract here and there in order to make sure their investment isn't wasted.
I'm going to make his rank dangerous because I don't want it to be incredibly difficult to forge a bond and I don't want him to be a huge player in the overall story. Let's see, what are his personal goals? I get *build a relationship* and *avenge a wrong*, which is kind of interesting. This guy may be very, very unhappy with the Makers.
I suspect he's *actually* really interested in building a relationship with us in order to have mercenaries on tap for his own personal vendetta. I like this; this is good motivation.
He also needs a name. **Dorian Shinn** is good; I like this name.
Let's see, is there anything that stands out about him on first glance? Those are some interesting outcomes, *visibly disabled* and *grim*.
This is a world of cruel undead and sky pirates after all, let's go with something classic. He has a peg leg and he's not thrilled about it; it's a very nice bronze and brass chased peg leg, but it's still a peg leg.
It's quite likely that his own personal vendetta has something to do with it, but it very well might not. I feel like we are going to grab one character detail off the table and then call Mr. Shinn done. *Vengeful*.
We have a rich one-legged pissed off guy that we technically owe money to and who wants to use us for his own little personal revenge run. You know what, I like it. I'm here for it. I'm excited about the whole thing.
#### Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?
The local area needs a name. This is why we have random tables. **The Veiled Coves**, that's a pretty good name.
We are in the last run of it, now.
### The Scene is Set
The finish line is within sight. All we need to do is figure out what the status quo is and what our inciting incident is.
I think the status quo is essentially the time between mercenary contracts, which for Crassus generally involves people calling him *"Hey, kid,"* because he looks really young, because he *is* really young, and trying to get anyone to take him seriously enough to give him a mercenary contract.
The group of guys who has his back certainly helps, and I'm sure it does attract a little bit of strange attention that there's this 17-year-old kid walking through the docks with a group of clearly sky-seasoned thugs at his back.
But that's the way it goes sometimes. Crassus really doesn't want to, but he really only has one choice at the moment. Go and see Shinn about one of his little errands.
So far, they've been pretty minor — barely enough to keep upkeep on the ship and the crew and make some token payback to the Regents, but maybe today will be different.
It turns out that today *is* different. Shinn wants Crassus to go and do some digging into the activities of the Makers on a nearby island. Something's up. Unusual cargo deliveries have been dropped off on a regular basis, and Shinn really wants to get in the way.
The idea is for Crassus to take his ship and crew and watch the straits, making note of who's coming and going. It seems like a bit of a milk run. But nothing is ever really what it seems, is it? Something will go horribly wrong—that's the nature of the world.^[Foreshadowing!]
Crassus takes the contract and swears to surveil the island straits for a week, then come back and report.
I know this is not a huge deal, but certainly has the *potential* to go seriously sideways, so I set the rank as Dangerous.
Remember how I said everything had the potential to go sideways in a moment? Well, this is one of those moments.
In the process of swearing the iron vow, which is a move, we made the roll — and had a significant miss. And when I say significant miss, I mean a miss with a match. And that match came up, …
**Miss**: 6 + 1 (heart) + 1 = **8** vs **8**, **8**. Match event: **Betray Strength**.
Shinn fucks up. Unfortunately for him, he gets worked up enough to let it slip that he knows the makers are bringing military supplies in through the strait and that those supplies are going to be seriously guarded by men of a particularly paranoid bent.
He doesn't seem to recognize that he let it slip, but Crassus is no dummy. He suspects that Shinn is using him as a cat's paw, perhaps even a disposable one (though that is not the case).
There's no way that he's going out there until he pulls a little bit of extra security, and that's probably going to eat into the profit margin. Still, any profit is better than no profit.
However, that's where we start looking around to see if we can find some sort of additional horsepower, manpower, or gunpower for dealing with what our contractor tells us is supposed to be a milk run but knows is going to throw us directly into the teeth of military vessels.
A great way to start your day no matter who you are.
Welcome to the Sundered Isles, kid.
## Exunt
Even without building the local area, this article has gone on for 7,000 words and yet it's still compelling. We've assembled not just a character that's interesting, but a setting that's ready to be explored and obviously is willing to push back just as hard. There's so much meat to be had in here that I can't pretend I'm not a little intrigued by this variant of the setting itself.
I knew that I had been tinkering with **Sundered Isles** before, and it took until I was looking around to see if I had already extracted some asset cards for me to discover, yes, I had been tinkering around with it before, and even run through an entire Setting and Faction Creation:
- **[[The Q-Ship - Obsidian Trident|The Q-Ship: Obsidian Trident - Q-Ships in Starforged]]**
If you haven't read it already, check that one out, and I think that you will find it equally as interesting.
As for me, I'm going to start thinking about dinner. Though a reasonable argument can be made that I'm always thinking about dinner one way or another.
Until next time, friends. Avoid the maelstrom.
Love, the Kraken
[^1]: In fairness to me, I *did* do **[[Thoughts on Dungeons and Dragons 2483|Thoughts on: Dungeons and Dragons 2483]]** and **[[Thoughts on Dungeons and Dragons 2483 - Character Builds|Thoughts on: Dungeons and Dragons 2483 - Character Builds]]**, which are pretty extensive imaginings within **Starforged** and using some **Sundered Isles**.