# 000 - Explanation and Setup tags: #play/the-solofull-fane #game/rpg/ironsworn #game/rpg/shadowdark ![[The Solofull Fane (illo).jpg|600]] It would be unkind of me to actually put together something and then not play it in front of people. Luckily, this is the internet, this is my digital garden, and it was originally designed for Let's Play sort of things. So let's do that. We have a fine example of conversion going on over here with *The Sunless Fane*, originally by Chubby Funster/Greg Christopher, designed for *[[ShadowDark]]*, and the subject of one of my more recent articles where I converted it for use in *[[Ironsworn]]*.[^1] Read that article if you haven't already, and then come right back here because we're going to pick up and make a couple of changes. ## Changing the Conditions Just as discussed before, we're going to keep the bulk of the Truths and setup from my original *[[Ontogeny Recapitulates Phylogeny - World Design|Ontogeny Recapitulates Phylogeny: World Design]]* article. All of that is still pretty applicable here, and there's no reason to make a whole lot of changes. ### Magios One of the things I am going to change is to drop the level of magic because it's really not appropriate to how I envision how things work. Yes, I know, most of the approaches to *ShadowDark* are pretty high magic in general, but we're going to back the lever down a bit, at least for this play. Magic is a relatively rare and generally distrusted thing. A wizard comes to town and they aren't immediately inducted into the local knitting circle. Wise men and women who know the ways of the world come in all sorts of flavors. It just so happens that some of them fling firebolts from their fingertips, and that doesn't necessarily endear them to people. ### Initiation I like the idea that as my character is walking along the road, we actually come upon hobgoblins rustling cattle from the village of Stagkirk. It's a good kicker, and it provides a lot of options for getting into the narrative. You'll note we have no idea who our character is yet. That's by design. We know what happens to get kicked, and that's important. We also know that we are going with the village of Stagkirk that I've already written up, so let's pull some of those elements in here for reference going forward. ![[Stagkirk]] While we don't need him yet, Adda Jardi will be the headsman of the village again. I don't see any reason why not. ![[Adda Jardi]] We’ll get to him eventually. I’m absolutely sure of it. In what context, I’m not exactly sure yet. Everything else looks perfectly fine. The theme and domain for the two parts of the dungeon works correctly. I have done the equivalent of setting up the site worksheet using *[[Pocketforge]]* (which we will talk more about later). Do we have a map you ask? You bet we have a map! ![[Shadowfaner Hills (map).webp]] Should it just come to pass that we want to play a bit more in this space, we certainly have the ability. After all, *Ironsworn* includes the capacity of building out the entire region generatively. So if this goes well and we want to stay with these characters in this place, then we can just generate some other things going on, or decide to wander off into a new region altogether. But for now, the Shadowfane Hills are going to be our place of operation. ## Say Hello to … We need some character generation in the vein of classic inspiration from our source material. I'm going to do something I never do: I'm going to randomly generate this character. You can randomly generate characters in Ironsworn, at least insofar as the assets go, which really define your capabilities. We're going to use the background events table to figure out what our assets are, and whatever falls out, we're going to play. Once we know what the assets are, we're going to pick our stats, using our assets to inspire where those allocations go. ### Assets Let's get started, shall we? D100: **36**. - **PRETENDER (PATH)** You were forced to live under a false identity, and grew accustomed to the deception. Now, you change your name as easily as your clothes. ![[Ironsworn - Asset - Pretender.webp|200]] D100: **94**. - **SHADOW–WALK (RITUAL)** An errant step carried you unbidden into the world of shadow. Now you walk those paths willingly. ![[Ironsworn - Assets - Shadow-Walk.webp|200]] D100: **67**. - **LONG-ARM (COMBAT TALENT)** A broken leg left you hobbled. When you found the elderwood tree still smoldering, split down its heart by lightning, you carved a staff from its fallen limb. Though the injury has healed, the staff remains. ![[Ironsworn - Assets - Long-Arm.webp|200]] Well, that's a hell of a combo. Frankly, not that far off of what I might have created for myself under other circumstances, given the setup. Honestly, I think we can pull this together into a reasonable character. I like it. I'm not sure how good he'll be at digging into the depths and dealing with hobgoblin camps, but that's what you get when you roll randomly. ### Statistically Significant With that kickoff, we have a pretty easy distribution here. Obviously, *shadow* is really important to our character, so *shadow* gets +3. He seems to be sneaky in a way that requires a little bit of intelligence to go with it, so we'll take *wits* at +2. I want a little bit of survivability, so he's in better shape than he looks, making *iron* +2. That leaves both *heart* and *edge* at +1. That doesn't mean that he's bad at emotional connection necessarily, or even bad at ranged combat. It just means that the world doesn't tend to break his way when those things come up. The first makes complete sense. He's used to living under false pretenses. Actual emotional connection could be challenging. *Edge* is just mostly bad luck because the universe happens to hate him. I can live with this. I'm not sure he can, but I can. ### Swearing in the Back All right, a background Val. We know a little bit about this character's history, thanks to our random generation. He's a con man, a sneak. He can literally walk through shadows, and he carries one of the most overlooked weapons in human history, a long stick. I think he has a pretty interesting long-term background vow: *to pull off the world's greatest con.* He doesn't necessarily know what that con is quite yet, and he's always looking for some sort of way to work his way into building it, but it's always on his mind. I think we're doing pretty well here. ### Bonded Having put together the raw numbers, now we need something a little more intimate, up to three bonds. Bonds are personal connections between the character and people, places, or organizations. Basically, things that they might call on and that anchor them to the world—family, friends, contacts, that sort of thing. Our guy isn't the kind to be much of a joiner and probably doesn't have any personal connections of an intimate nature. He seems the sort to come and go like the breeze. However, no one ever said that all your bonds had to be unequivocally positive. A relationship can simply be negative in the sense of someone you know well enough to call on, a rival, even a past con, or a fellow traveler. That gives me some ideas. - **Erin:** A jilted and somewhat scornful ex; they ran a few cons together out west. - **Masias:** The brother of a mark a few miles east in the Hinterlands; didn't like his brother much. - **Parcell:** Leader of a bunch of sneak-thieves that used to be useful. Look, there are three different bonds, all thematic, all appropriate, all with names. That means we have three ticks on our bonds track to start. Four ticks fill up an entire box, so we're well on our way. ### Short Sheeting It's time to put together a sheet. ![[The Soloful Fane - Brynn the Con.webp]] *(You don't actually want to know how long I've been sitting here tinkering with this, trying to get it to look just right. Far too long, frankly. And yet, that's what happens when you start putting together an actual character sheet. For ease of use and for going forward, we're actually not going to use this one for play. We're going to use [[Brynn the Con|a much more straightforward text-based version]].)* ## Forge in Your Pocket That does us entirely for the setup. If you are really lazy, like me, then you probably don't want to set up all this stuff for yourself, even if you want to play *SoloFane*. I'm going to help you out by giving you a setup file for *[Pocketforge](https://pocketforge.rockpaperstory.com/)*, which you can use for absolutely free. It contains not only our good friend Brynn here, but the map, the locations, the denizen matrices, which I talked about setting up in the previous article, and gives you an excellent environment for playing *Ironsworn* right on your desktop. Want something to handle all the dice rolls? There you go. Obviously, I use it a lot. - [The Solofull Fane - Pocketforge Campaign Setup.json](https://odysee.com/@LexTenebris:9/The-Solofull-Fane---Pocketforge-Campaign-Setup:9?r=GXFuFbK7Yj3zUwXExfE2zn19jk7v4Eiu) ## Exunt That's the setup. Next, we get around to this. We start actually showing up and dealing with Hobgoblin cattle rustlers. Do I know what's going to shake out after that? Not even a little. Even having all of the setup information and all of the knowledge that we are going to be drawing from in front of me, I have no idea how it's going to go. The dice are fickle creatures, and sometimes unusual situations decide to rear their ugly little heads. How are we actually going to deal with the Hobgoblin threat? Will we even discover the rest of the temple? Or will we be motivated by some other external force? Tune in next time for session 001 of the Solofull Fane (hereafter to be referred to as *SoloFane* because it amuses me).. [^1]: I know, Lex has changed from making titles **bold** to making them *italic*. What kind of madness is this? Mainly, I just feel like being more in line with the standard style guides of the era, so I guess I'm doing things differently now.