It's time to begin my second (and final) week of choosing Truths for a solo Ironsworn: Starforged game! Rolling for one a night is letting me stew on each of these truths without feeling like I'm getting too mired in the details. It feels like a little treat to look forward to each night instead of a big homework assignment to slog through (in my experience, doing all 14 all in one go can feel like a lot).
I think this extended approach could work at least as well in a group setting. Scheduling, like, 14 half-hour sessions 14 nights in a row would be next to impossible for many groups, but it would be very play-by-post friendly; you pick a set time each day to roll the next Truth on your Discord server or whatever, then it serves as a focal point for discussion and ideation until the next one drops.
Speaking of discussion, let's roll on the table!
Communication and Data Roll: 71
"In settled domains, a network of data hubs called the Weave allow near-instantaneous communication and data-sharing between ships and outposts."
I'm tired tonight. But I just won't be able to sleep until I know what Medicine is like in the Forge.
Medicine Roll: 61
"To help offset a scarcity of medical supplies and knowledge, the resourceful technicians we call riggers create basic organ and limb replacements."
Had a good session of Girl By Moonlight with my group tonight so I'm gonna try to motor on through this Truth. I'm a little nervous to see if things keep meshing so well!
Artificial Intelligence Roll: 32
"We no longer have access to advanced computer systems. Instead, we must rely on the seers we call Adepts."
This is something I haven't thought about much so far, since I've been picturing conflict between members of the Covenant as backbiting and boardroom dealings. But more open warfare could totally work too. Let's see!
War Roll: 51
"Professional soldiers defend or expand the holdings of those who are able to pay. The rest of us are on our own."
I have a stomach ache :(
But the Truths of this strange galaxy still call to me. The rolls must go on!
Lifeforms Roll: 33
"This is a perilous and often inhospitable galaxy, but life finds a way."
The second Truth can set up this idea of a far-reaching alien civilization (somebody put all these gates here), as it did for my setting. Then it mostly drops that idea until the second to last Truth. This lets your Forge develop with that idea of an ancient civilization still lodged in the back of your head --- not overbearing, but ever present.
I just think that's neat.
Precursors Roll: 78
"The biomechanical lifeforms we call the Remnants, engineered by civilizations as weapons in a cataclysmic war, survived the death of their creators."
This is it! The last Truth! How scary is the Forge, on a scale from "sometimes strange things happen" to "the dead will always rise against us"? Let's find out!
Horrors Roll: 91
"The strange energies of the Forge give unnatural life to the dead. The Soulbinders are an organization sworn to confront these horrifying entities."
"The woken dead are a plague" in this galaxy, most of them hollowed, corrupted, hungry, and hateful. Not all, but most. This might be the biggest curveball yet for how I was picturing the Forge, and I was again tempted to re-roll. How do rampant space zombies not topple this whole sci-fi corporate fiefdom thing I've been envisioning?
The answer's in the prompt, of course: the Soulbinders. Several other Truths have thrown these very fantasy-coded ideas at me and I've mostly reframed them: the Keepers became corporate Arbitrators, the Adepts went from oracles to mutant calcutec Consultants, the mercenary guilds work like paramilitary contractors, and so on. But what if I didn't reframe the Soulbinders?
What would need to happen to my corpo-weird space story for a group of people who call themselves the damn Soulbinders to make sense?
Do they predate the corporations? That would mean they predate the Cataclysm too, but that's fine. Let's say the people of the Milky Way had a zombie apocalypse a thousand years ago then some people put enough wisdom and will together to carve out a new normal.
Everybody was still infected but the dead rarely killed anybody anymore. Undeath went endemic to the Milky Way.
(That begins to explain why our old concepts of religion dropped so easily, too; customs around death fell away first, then the rest. It also helps justify why universal healthcare was a given for states to provide; it was a proactive way to address undeath.)
The chaos of the Forge has made things harder for the Soulbinders. Not everybody turns the same way any more. Some keep steering their ships in circles. Others activate distress beacons then wait for supper to arrive. Others retain a little too much personhood for the comfort or acknowledgment of an organization whose main remit is finding and killing them.
The Covenant corporations pay tribute to the Soulbinders. The Soulbinders keep the dead out of sight. The living pretend the ways that saved us before will save us again.
Alright! That's it for the Truths!
The next step is to create a character. If I go through each step individually like I did here, that will be another 11 days of prep. I also tend to like tweaking earlier choices to fit with later ones when I'm making a character, and that might be confusing to frame properly if I keep going back and forth.
In short, I'm leaning toward "One Move a Night" referring, in this case, to the "20-30 minute" process of character creation. I've already spent more than that just writing this Truth up, so that's not too much of a stretch, right?
