PART TWO: YOUR CHARACTER
Character Basics
Stats
There are five stats. Each is given a value from 1 to 3. When you make a move and roll dice, you usually add one of your stats to your action die. The move will tell you which stat to add, or give you a choice.
- Edge: Quickness, agility, and prowess when fighting at a distance.
- Heart: Courage, willpower, empathy, sociability, and loyalty.
- Iron: Physical strength, endurance, aggressiveness, and prowess when fighting at close quarters.
- Shadow: Sneakiness, deceptiveness, and cunning.
- Wits: Expertise, knowledge, and observation.
To start, arrange these bonuses across your five stats in any order: 3, 2, 2, 1, 1.
Condition Meters
Set your health, spirit, and supply meters to +5.
Momentum
Set your current momentum to +2, your max momentum to +10, and your momentum reset to +2.
Vehicles and Companions
Any vehicle or companion asset you take at character creation starts at its maximum health or integrity.
Assets
Assets represent your background, skills, traits, companions, and resources. They have abilities that give you additional options and bonuses when making a move — or sometimes act as their own self-contained moves.
Unless an asset specifically defines a benefit for a progress move, you may not leverage an asset ability when making a progress roll.
When you create your character, you pick three assets. You also start your campaign with a Starship command vehicle.
As you mark progress on your legacy tracks, you Earn Experience. This experience is spent to purchase or upgrade assets through the Advance move.
Buying an Asset
Buying a new asset costs 3 experience. All assets include three abilities. The first ability is enabled when you purchase the asset.
Upgrading an Asset
It costs 2 experience to claim the second or third ability for an existing asset. When you spend experience to upgrade an asset, fill in the dot on the asset card to show you’ve acquired the ability. The second and third abilities may be selected in any order.
Asset Categories
- Path — your background, training, and calling.
- Companion — an NPC ally with their own health meter.
- Command Vehicle — your Starship, taken at character creation.
- Support Vehicle — a secondary vehicle carried and launched by your Starship.
- Module — an upgrade or system fitted to your starship.
- Deed — reflects your growing legend and accomplishments. Deeds are earned through play and are not available to choose at character creation.
Vehicles
There are three categories of vehicles.
Command Vehicle
Your command vehicle is your Starship asset, earned at character creation. If you are playing with others, you and your allies share this asset. It has an integrity meter starting at +5, and can suffer from battered or cursed impacts.
Support Vehicles
Support vehicles are assets that represent special secondary vehicles carried and launched by your Starship. They have an integrity meter, and can suffer from the battered impact.
Incidental Vehicles
An incidental vehicle is one you temporarily acquire through the course of your story. Incidental vehicles have an integrity meter, but cannot be marked as battered. When you board an incidental vehicle, envision its nature and assign a max integrity: heavy (4 integrity), medium (3 integrity), or light (2 integrity).
Legacy Tracks
As you complete quests, form bonds, and make discoveries, you advance along your legacy tracks: quests, bonds, and discoveries.
Marking Legacy Rewards
Moves and assets will prompt you to mark ticks or fill boxes on one or more legacy tracks. Legacy tracks do not have a rank, but are otherwise treated the same as a standard progress track — it takes four ticks to fill a box.
Gaining and Spending Experience
When you fill a legacy track box with four ticks, make the Earn Experience move to take 2 experience for each newly filled box. You spend earned experience to gain or upgrade assets through the Advance move: 3 experience for a new asset, 2 experience to upgrade an existing one.
Rolling on a Legacy Track
If a move prompts you to make a test against a legacy track, treat it as a standard progress roll — tally the number of filled boxes as your progress score. As with any progress roll, momentum is ignored.
Clearing a Legacy Track
When you fill all ten boxes on a legacy track, clear it and resume marking legacy rewards in the now-empty track. Once cleared, you gain experience at a slower rate — 1 experience per filled box instead of 2 — and any progress roll against that track is resolved as if at 10 progress.
Character Creation
Work through the following steps in whatever order you prefer.
- Ready your assets. Sort your available assets by category: Paths, Companions, Support Vehicles, and Modules. Set Deed assets aside — they’re earned through play, not chosen now.
- Choose two paths. Pick two Path assets to represent your background, training, or calling.
- Create your backstory. Envision your character’s history — who they were before they took up the mantle of Ironsworn.
- Write your background vow. Swear an Iron Vow to represent your character’s long-term driving goal.
- Board your starship. Take the Starship command vehicle asset and give it a name.
- Choose your final asset. Pick one more asset from the Path, Companion, Support Vehicle, or Module categories.
- Set your stats. Arrange 3, 2, 2, 1, 1 across edge, heart, iron, shadow, and wits in any order.
- Set your condition meters. Set health, spirit, and supply to +5, and momentum to +2 (max +10, reset +2). Any vehicle or companion asset starts at max health or integrity.
- Envision your character. Define one or two facts about how they look, how they act, and what they wear.
- Name your character. Give them a name, and consider a callsign and pronouns.
- Gear up. Note any important equipment or personal items. You’re otherwise assumed to be equipped with a spacer kit and whatever your supply meter represents.