Colossus Part II (Ironsworn: Starforged Rules)

 Welcome back to my playthrough of Colossus with Starforged rules! I hope you're enjoying the story so far and that it might even help inspire your own Ironsworn or Starforged games! For Part I, click here.

Without further ado, here is the continuing story of Iris and Sora!

Colossus Part II

Iris suspects Kaito Crowley is still in North Spire, but doesn’t seem to be in the Smokeys. She decides to try the Sable Lands, the city of Arid Acropolis. She and Sora set off for the Sable Lands in the morning. She makes good time to the Sable Lands, where the soil darkens to an almost black color. She sees a tripwire from a distance; she cuts it with her knife and a boulder falls from a cliff onto the path. She easily goes around it and remains vigilant for raiders and robbers.

As Iris and Sora continue on, they see a pack of wolves eating the fresh corpse of a deer. Sora growls and scares off the wolves. The deer is in good condition. They set up camp and eat deer and make jerky out of the leftovers. In the morning the weather takes a turn for the worse. Sora and Iris persevere through it, though it slows their journey down.

They come across poisonous plants that are mutated and moving. Sora and Iris maneuver around them. Suddenly some unstable ground gives way and Sora falls into an old basement. He is not hurt, but it takes some time for Iris to pull him out.

Things get better as they come across some branches that are perfect for fletching into arrows. They come across a settlement. It is a town called Lyric. Iris and Sora resupply and rest there. The town is trying to terraform the land to make it better for farming. The people of the town also scavenge the nearby ruins of the old city of Bard.

Iris encounters Hydrangea in Lyric who has just finished a mission. Iris and Hydrangea talk and Hydrangea asks Iris if she would like company to Arid Acropolis. Iris says the more, the merrier. They set out for the capital of the Sable Lands.

As they reach a fork in the road, a raider shoots at them from cover but misses by a wide margin. Iris immediately reacts with arrows and kills the lone raider. They endure no further incidents and reach Arid Acropolis by nightfall.

Hydrangea offers to help Iris ask around about Kaito Crowley. As they ask around, they learn someone named Kaito matching the description recently traveled to the ruins of an old village named Sung. Hydrangea offers to explore Sung for clues with Iris and Sora. Iris thanks her and they leave the city for Sung.

As they travel along a mountainous path, a sudden rockfall erupts. The two Scouts and Sora avoid the danger just in time. Suddenly a raider jumps out from behind a boulder and claims Iris is responsible for his brother’s death, who died at Enigma. Iris and Hydrangea both shoot. They hit him, but he still charges forward in rage with his machete. Sora tackles him just before the raider can strike Iris. Sora rips his throat out with his teeth.

Iris feels a strange pang of regret, but the Scouts and Sora continue on.

They reach the remains of a terrible rockslide blocking the road. They have to go around, which makes their journey take longer. They pass by an abandoned farmstead and scavenge, finding medicine.

Shortly after, they reach Sung. Sung was a rustic village now in ruins and ravaged by scavengers, raiders, and time. Iris wonders why Kaito decided to come here. They enter an abandoned saloon. Rats the size of small cats scuttle all around. They find an old bottle of wine that might be worth some credits.

They leave the saloon and find an old research lab full of empty animal pens. They find evidence of horrific experiments on monkeys, dogs, and pigs. This place was trying to create a super-soldier serum using animals as test subjects. They find a room where computers and papers had been set on fire. Clearly someone wanted to hide the evidence of this lab’s experiments. Nevertheless, they find evidence that Lotus funded this place.

They enter the living spaces in the lab where scientists and their families lived. The name on the placard on one of the doors to an apartment says Crowley. Iris, Hydrangea, and Sora enter the apartment.

The room is covered in destroyed furniture and papers. From the papers, Iris pieces together Crowley was a scientist who gave himself the super-soldier serum. That explains how he so easily killed Sparrow. But why kill Sparrow at all? What is the connection between the two men?

The Scouts determine they’ve learned all they can from here. They decide it’s time to go back to Arid Acropolis and check to see if Lotus has any missions for them.

On their journey back, they encounter a robber. They subdue him, but not before the bottle of wine they found in Sung’s saloon is smashed. They continue on to Arid Acropolis without further incident.

Iris thanks Hydrangea for all her help. Hydrangea suggests asking Lotus or a Scout scientist for further answers. Hydrangea says goodbye and returns to Lyric for a mission. Iris and Sora set themselves up at an inn.

Iris decides a Scout scientist would be more reliable than asking Lotus directly. She writes a letter to Parrot, who is somewhere in the Smokeys. She asks if he’s heard about a scientist named Kaito Crowley. She sends the message with a courier bot. Now all she can do is wait for his response.

Iris bumps into Goose, who is on his way to a mission. Iris offers to help, but Goose seems to hesitate. He doesn’t know Iris well and prefers to work alone. Finally he tells her a small child has gone missing. He knows the parents personally and would appreciate Iris’s help. Iris asks if there’s any personal effects of the child’s. Sora can try to follow the smell.

Goose presents a rag doll and Sora sniffs it and leads them to the market district. Goose describes the girl to Iris and they split up and ask around. Iris learns the little girl was dragged towards the sewers crying by someone the spectator thought was her mother. Iris tells Goose and the two investigate the sewers.

They find one of the girl’s sandals at the entrance. Sora sniffs it and leads them into the sewers. They quickly find the little girl and a woman about to plunge a dagger into the little girl’s heart. Iris tells the woman to stop. Sora leaps on top of the woman. Sora bites the woman twice as the woman struggles to reach for her dagger. The little girl recognizes Goose and runs to him. Sora bites the woman more. He finally tears her throat out as Goose hides the little girl’s face.

As the Scouts investigate the immediate area they find cult-like paraphernalia. They discover from the woman’s journal she’s part of a cult called the Blessed Martyrs, who abduct children to sacrifice to supposed inter-dimensional beings to stave off the end of the world.

Goose thanks Iris and Sora for helping him. He says he needs to get the little girl back home and then tell the mayor about this new cult.

That night at the inn in Arid Acropolis Iris dreams of the cowboy in black at a beach overlooking the waves next to a campfire. Iris senses the dream is a Miracle. In the morning she finds Goose and describes the beach from her dream. He says there is a village by the coast of the sea called Inlet. She could ask around there.

Goose, to thank her for yesterday, offers to go with her. She says she appreciates the company. They leave Arid Acropolis and start their journey towards Inlet. They find wolf tracks leading away from the road. Sora sniffs at them, wanting to hunt, but Iris urges him onward. The path wanders too close to a cave, however, that happens to be the wolves’ den.

Sora growls at the wolves and bares his teeth, scaring the wolves back into their den. They pass by an oasis and refill their canteens and let Sora get a drink. After the oasis they find a dead scavenger on the road. He is riddled with knife wounds. They leave the body behind and arrive at Inlet by the sea a few hours later.

Goose and Iris start asking if anyone has seen a cowboy in dark clothing with one eye and one ear. Someone says they remember seeing someone like that on the beach, though she doesn’t remember when. Goose and Iris investigate the beach. They find an old campfire that looks like the one from Iris’s dream. They also find a water-logged gun. Iris recognizes it as the gun that killed Sparrow.

She finds a label on the gun: Lotus. Goose and Iris exchange a glance. Only Scouts have guns with the Lotus label on them. Is Crowley a former Scout? If so, why did he kill Sparrow?

Goose and Iris decide to spend the night in Inlet at the inn and leave for Arid Acropolis in the morning. They notice they are getting stared at a lot, which isn’t unusual as they are Scouts. The food at the inn tastes funny. Iris falls into a deep sleep.

She is woken by the sound of footsteps in her room and Sora growling. She hops to her feet quickly and narrowly dodges a blow from a villager with a bat. There are three people in her room wearing robes and wielding bats. She grabs her knife from under her pillow.

She stabs one of the villagers and dodges an attack. She stabs another villager but the third villager swings on her and she falls down. She is hit with a bat but Sora attacks the villager, jumping on him and digging his claws into the man’s shoulders. She gets hit by another bat in the stomach before she can stand up. She stabs upwards and slashes a villager, making him drop his bat. She leaps to her feet. She stabs again, killing him. She dodges another bat swing. She stabs the second villager while Sora kills the third.

Bodies litter the floor of the room. Iris grabs her bow and satchel and she and Sora run to check on Goose in his room. Just as they arrive, Goose cracks a villager’s skull with his bat. Bodies litter the floor of his room also. Goose appears tired but uninjured. He suggests they leave Inlet.

As they exit the inn, they are set upon by more villagers in robes. Iris fires a volley of arrows and takes out some villagers, clearing a path for the Scouts and Sora to run. They jump over the bodies and head for the road out of the village. A villager throws a dagger at them that barely misses Iris’s head. A few villagers shoot at them but luckily they are bad shots and miss. The Scouts and Sora escape the village into the cover of night.

They make it back to the city without further incident, but Iris is stressed and hurting from the bats. She takes some pain pills when they get to the saloon for a drink. Goose tells her he is impressed by her. He didn’t think she had it in her to handle this lifestyle. He makes a toast to her.

Then he gets serious and says it’s clear Inlet has become consumed by a cult, probably the Blessed Martyrs. He makes it his mission to stop the cult from spreading however he can.

Iris, on the other hand, has no choice but to wait for a response from Parrot regarding Crowley’s connection to Lotus. That’s if Parrot even knows anything at all.

Colossus Part I (Ironsworn: Starforged Rules)

 

Hi and welcome back to my blog! Today I’m going to post Part I of my playthrough of Starforged/Colossus. That’s where I played Ironsworn: Starforged with the Colossus setting. A few things to note before I begin:

I have written the playthrough on here much the same as I wrote it by hand in my notebook when I originally played the game. It is written in present tense and is not full of flowery language nor is it written like I would write if I was writing a book. I wanted to present it as raw as possible so that anyone interested in playing Ironsworn or Ironsworn: Starforged could get one idea of how to possibly journal it.

I did not include dice rolls in the narrative. All mechanics and actual gameplay take place behind the scenes. I also did not include any of the character sheets or connection sheet or the map or the progress tracks. I wanted to present just the narrative. Hopefully it forms a cohesive story. I was actually quite surprised when I first started playing Ironsworn how cohesive everything flowed together for me with a combination of my imagination and the mechanics.

If you have not played Colossus, that’s okay! While it’s free on itch.io and drivethrurpg, it’s not necessary to have played Colossus to understand this story. I simply used the setting with Starforged’s mechanics. I’ll explain a little bit of the setting and the characters below.

The Setting:

Long ago, the world as we know it was destroyed in a battle between the people of Earth and an alien species known as the Yaun. The humans used a toxic liquid called miasma to destroy the Yaun, but at a price. The world ended. But then it was reborn. Now, in this post-apocalyptic land known as the Spire, Scouts protect the weak. They are the few who survived being dipped in the mysterious waters of the miasma and lived, and even gained powers called Miracles to help them protect the wasteland.

Leftover from the Great War are robots, cyborgs, and androids. Some even work as Scouts.

Scouts are given code names based on either birds (typically for men), or flowers (typically for women). There are twenty-five Scouts of the Spire, counting the main character of this story, Iris.

The Scouts work for an entity known as Lotus Inc., a scientific corporation with its hands in everything that happens in the Spire. While Lotus is known for certain shady practices, it is the anchor that keeps the wasteland from descending into chaos.

Now, without further ado, here is Part I of Colossus!

Colossus Part I

Iris is a new Scout of the Spire. Her mentor, Sparrow, was killed by a scarred one-eyed man with one ear wearing a black trench coat and cowboy hat. As she protects the wastes of the Spire, she searches for this man to enact her revenge. She is haunted by memories of Sparrow, who she loved as a father. She is accompanied by a tamed cougar named Sora. He is her constant companion.

She arrives in Quiet City to meet with her fellow Scout, Cardinal. He had sent her a letter requesting help with a mission from Lotus. Quiet City is an industrial, walled city. Two robot guards check her identification at the gate and then let her pass through with Sora. She finds Cardinal in his garage, working on a car. Cars are rare and valuable in the Spire. Over a dozen house cats are in various states of repose around the garage. They barely acknowledge Iris and Sora.

Cardinal does, though, and gives Iris and Sora both hugs. Cardinal and Iris trained together at the Scout academy. He apologizes as he had heard about the death of Sparrow. Iris asks him if he knows anything about a man with one ear and one eye in a black trench coat and cowboy hat. Cardinal says he’s never seen or heard of such a man, but he’ll keep an ear out.

He tells her he needs assistance on a mission to escort a farming caravan from Quiet City to the Village of Nodd. He says it’s not difficult and the distance isn’t far, he’s just concerned about a new group of raiders who have made themselves known in the Smokeys recently. Iris says she’ll be glad to help. Cardinal thanks her and they prepare for the journey.

There are three farmers’ wagons in the caravan. Cardinal takes the rear and Iris and Sora take the front and start their journey out of Quiet City. As they approach a shadowy cave, two figures jump out from inside. They are raiders. Cardinal engages in combat with one, and Iris and Sora enter the fray with the other.

Iris quickly fires her bow. She hits the raider with two arrows. The raider gets in close with his machete and swings, despite blood pouring from his wounds. Iris dodges. She pulls out her knife. She slashes his throat, killing him. She hears a yell and realizes Cardinal is in trouble. She joins his side in his battle against the other raider. She fires an arrow from her bow. She hits the raider in the chest. The raider dies. However, Cardinal is injured. Iris uses her first aid kit to clean and wrap the wound. Cardinal thanks her.

Leaving the corpses of the raiders behind for the buzzards, the Scouts and the caravan resume the journey. They pass a petrified forest. Vultures lurk in the branches. Sora licks his lips hungrily at them. After a while the farmers are tired and the caravan takes a break. Iris cleans her knife. Cardinal plays with Sora. They continue on and find the giant bones of a Dragon Squid. Iris wonders what killed it. Dragon Squids are rare but dangerous, mutated, titanic land beasts. She recalls Sparrow telling her about the time he had to flee a Dragon Squid. Sadness pangs in her heart at his memory.

They pass by an ancient building that is now mostly rubble. It has already been scavenged. Cardinal notices Iris’s sadness and makes jokes to get her to laugh. The moment is interrupted by a giant flying wasp buzzing around the wagons. Iris fires an arrow at it. She kills it in one shot. Cardinal and the farmers are impressed.

In short time, they reach the Village of Nodd. The elder of the village personally thanks the Scouts with thirty credits each. He also feeds them and lets them stay at the inn for free that night. Iris takes the time to ask around about the cowboy with one eye and one ear. One person in the village says a man was here about a year ago who matched that description. But he left into the wastes without telling anyone where he was going. Iris at least knows the one place the cowboy isn’t is the Village of Nodd. That night Cardinal writes to Lotus that the mission is complete. He sends the message to Crystal Heights by way of a courier bot.

The next morning Cardinal and Iris and Sora head back to Quiet City. They reach it just before nightfall with no issues. As soon as they pass through Quiet City’s gates, a courier bot approaches Iris with a message from Lotus. She is to retrieve an important package from Fury Town and deliver it to the courier in Quiet City. The details of the package are classified. Cardinal also receives a mission to work on an airship engine. The two friends go their separate ways.

Because of the raiders she encountered on her last mission, Iris thinks it would be wise to check the saloon to see if any Scouts are in town to aid her in the mission. She goes to the saloon. She sees Wren there, drinking by himself. She pulls up a chair next to him and introduces herself. He says he knows who she is. She’s “Sparrow’s whelp”. Iris perseveres past his rude behavior and asks for his assistance with her mission. He agrees, but only because of the risk of raiders. He says he enjoys shooting raiders with his crossbow.

The two gear up and leave Quiet City. They come to a bridge over a chasm. The bridge is rickety. They carefully cross one at a time. This slows them down and some rations fall out of Iris’s satchel over the side of the bridge.

Just as they cross the bridge an ambush is sprung and five raiders jump out from the shadows. Wren and Iris quickly take cover. A raider manages to get a shot to graze Iris’s arm. Iris jumps out of cover momentarily to fire her bow. She hits a raider but doesn’t kill him. A raider takes advantage of her being in the open and throws a knife, stabbing her in the shoulder. Iris fires again and this time kills a raider. She feels emboldened and fires again, killing another raider, but she has left herself exposed.

A raider shoots at her. She ducks, but feels her heart racing. She realizes she is scared. Wren fires his crossbow and kills a raider. He ducks back down behind cover. There are two raiders left. Wren and Iris look at each other and nod. Then they both fire their weapons and kill the remaining raiders.

Wren uses a first aid kit on Iris’s wounds and staunches the bleeding. They move on, wary of any more ambushes. As they continue on their journey, they get the sense they are being watched. They keep their weapons ready.

As they continue on, they share a close moment where Wren apologizes for calling her “Sparrow’s whelp”. He says she really proved herself in that last battle. Shortly after, they reach Fury Town, a small town built both near and on top of a lake. They receive a small brown wrapped package from the mayor with strict instructions to keep it safe and not open it.

They set a course back to Quiet City and reach it without any incidents. They find the courier’s office and hand over the package. The courier gives them each fifty credits. Wren and Iris go their separate ways.

Iris visits Cardinal. They spend time together and Cardinal’s jokes amuse Iris. Iris then goes to the market and barters to resupply. She then asks around the market about a one-eyed, one-eared cowboy. Someone says they heard about someone like that passing through the city about a week ago, but knows no more than that. At least she knows he’s not in the city. She runs into Jasmine at the market. Jasmine requests Iris’s help with a mission.

A small settlement to the south of Quiet City needs help fending off a pack of raiders. She asks for Iris’s help in standing with the villagers against the threat. The village is called Enigma. Iris has never been there before, but agrees to help.

As they leave Quiet City, Sora growls and Iris senses they are being watched. She believes there is an ambush up ahead. Iris fires a volley of arrows and a raider falls out from behind cover, dead. Jasmine and Iris both fire their weapons. They each kill two more raiders. The rest of the raiders run away. Iris realizes she has likely been marked for vengeance.

They settle in a ways away and make camp for an hour. Sora doesn’t seem to sense anymore raiders or enemies. After they get moving again, the path becomes less rugged. They make good time. They reach Enigma. However, the village has just been raided and spirits are down. People want to leave instead of fighting back.

Iris and Jasmine manage to compel people to stay and fight, but a few people choose to remain hidden during the next raid, including the village elder. Jasmine and Iris help the villagers get equipped with weapons and set up barricades for cover. That night everyone gets into position as the raiders arrive.

Iris unleashes a volley of arrows at the raiders, striking several down. Iris is then forced back behind cover as the raiders unleash bullets. During a lull in the gunfire, Iris fires some more arrows, picking off a few more raiders. Jasmine and the villagers do the same with their guns. Soon the raiders are outnumbered. The dozen or so remaining raiders flee into the night.

The villagers and Scouts cheer. They are victorious. The village holds a huge celebration that night. Iris uses the time to question about the cowboy in black. Unfortunately, no one has seen or heard of such a man in Enigma. Jasmine tells Iris to relax and just have fun, so Iris does. Children pet and play with Sora. Iris dances and tells stories while Jasmine drinks.

The village elder apologizes for not standing with them against the raiders and steps down, allowing his son, who did fight, to become village elder. The celebration continues into the morning, but Iris is asleep long before then.

The next morning Iris and Jasmine set a course for Quiet City. They make it there without incident. Jasmine says Iris impressed her, as she wasn’t expecting much with Iris being a new Scout. She promises to ask around about the cowboy who killed Sparrow for Iris, and then the two women go their separate ways.

Later that afternoon, the mayor of Quiet City calls Iris to her office and says something is scaring the denizens of the city’s underground. The reason the mayor is upset about this is because those “denizens” are homeless or are defective robots and cyborgs causing a stir on the surface because they can’t return to their home in the “underground”, or the sewers. Iris vows to investigate.

She decides to check the saloon first to see if any Scouts are there and willing to help. Surprisingly, Posey is there. Posey rarely leaves the city of Zebulon. Iris asks Posey if she will help, and Posey says yes, but only if she can pet Sora. Iris laughs and says of course.

They make their way to the entrance of the “underground”, or the sewers. They descend into the depths. Posey holds a flashlight in one hand and a barbed whip in the other. Iris has her bow at the ready. Immediately they are confronted by a giant flying roach. Iris and Posey both attack. They kill it. The two women high five, but Sora growls as another roach flies past. It’s going towards the exit. Iris fires an arrow at it before it can escape. She kills it.

Posey says it almost seems like the roaches were running from something. As they move on they encounter an injured mutant lying in a pool of his own green blood. Iris uses up almost all of her first aid kit equipment healing him. She wraps his wounds and gives him some painkillers. The man is terrified. Iris asks him what did this to him. He says it was a mad android who somehow slipped into the underground through a hidden back way. The android was mumbling something about purity and kill all humans. It attacked him with a giant sword.

Iris helps the mutant to his feet and directs him to wait at the surface. Posey and Iris exchange a glance. A mad android finding its way under the city was dangerous. If a mad android could find a secret route under Quiet City, so could the city’s enemies. They needed to kill this mad android and tell the mayor about this development.

They continue on and come across corpses of cyborgs and mutants and debris from dead robots. Small shacks that were once homes have been destroyed. The two women and Sora search for survivors, but there aren’t any. As they search, Sora growls. Iris looks up in time to see the mad android approaching slowly with his giant sword. Iris unleashes a volley of arrows at the android. He dodges most of them with inhuman speed and is only hit once. A small trickle of gold blood pours from the wound.

Iris and Posey attack together. Posey binds him with her whip while Iris hits him with another arrow. He growls at them in frustration. Posey keeps him bound and Iris hits him with yet another arrow. The android falls to his knees, bleeding out but still alive. Iris draws her knife and stabs the android in the forehead, killing him. Posey unwraps her whip from around the android. Iris cleans off her knife.

They make their way back to the surface and to the mayor’s office, and tell the mayor of the android, the deaths, and the secret entrance the android found. Of all of these, the mayor is most concerned with the secret entrance. She gives each Scout one hundred credits and thanks them for their service.

Back at the saloon, Posey and Iris celebrate with a drink and a meal and Posey invites Iris to come party with her in Zebulon sometime. Iris asks Posey to keep an eye out for the cowboy in black, and Posey vows she will. They go their separate ways.

Iris spends that night at an inn thinking back to the day Sparrow was murdered. Sparrow seemed to know the man in the black trench coat and cowboy hat from sometime before. Sparrow even said his name, though she can’t remember what it was. She racks her brain and finally sits up in bed. His name was Kaito Crowley. Now she has a name with a face and her investigation should go easier.

 

Well, that’s it for Colossus Part I. Check back soon for Colossus Part II, as Iris’s search for the man in the black trench coat, now known to be Kaito Crowley, continues!

I'm Back! Also, Ironsworn and Ironsworn: Starforged!!

 

Hi and welcome back to my blog! I know it’s been a while since I last posted. I’ve been trying out lots of new TTRPGs and I’ve found some that I really enjoy and that have inspired me to start writing and creating again.

For a while, I was completely into Mork Borg and Mork Borg-inspired games, like Frontier Scum and Pirate Borg. I also started playing around with The One Ring a little bit. Then I found the experience I’ve been looking for since I started solo gaming: I found Ironsworn and Ironsworn: Starforged.

For over a month now every single morning I have played either Ironsworn or Starforged. I have several games going on at once in various settings. I enjoy the settings already in place for Ironsworn and Starforged, but I realized I enjoyed the games even more when I played in my own custom settings. For example, I have a Starforged game going on in my setting of Colossus. I use the overland tables from the Sundered Isles expansion a lot for that one. I also have a space setting using my game Aethership with Starforged. That one has been a lot of fun. I also have several other games going on at the moment with more custom settings using either Ironsworn’s rules or Starforged/Sundered Isle’s rules.

It has really opened up my creativity again, and I would love to post some of my completed Starforged/Ironsworn adventures here on the blog. I might even get around to posting my Mork Borg playthrough on here too.

I’m still working on new games and supplements for my already existing games. It’s just gotten a lot slower now that summer has been over and I have other duties to attend to. I plan on updating my blog more regularly though, especially with solo playthroughs, and maybe even a review here and there.

How I Play Solo (And You Can Too)

 Welcome to How I Play Solo (And You Can, Too)! We’ll be discussing my solo roleplaying techniques that I use to play games that are normally group-oriented. In eight easy steps, you can start soloing any game!

Step One: Read The Book

First, and most importantly, read the book of the game you want to play from cover to cover. There’s a chance that there’s already tips for playing solo inside. Even if not, it’s good to familiarize yourself with the systems.

Step Two: Create Tables

Once I’ve read the book and have a pretty good handle on the vibe of the setting, I create three of my own d100 tables for Urban Events, Wilderness Events, and Dungeon Events if the game does not already provide tables for these events. These can help me when I get stuck. I just roll on one of the tables, depending on where my characters are at, and it helps me get moving. The events should be generic enough to fit into any setting, but detailed enough that they can trigger a quest or a scene.

Step Three: Make Items

If the game doesn’t already have items, I also make at least a d20 list of items so my characters have some treasure to find after fighting enemies or discovering a treasure chest. Most games have magical items built into them, but there are plenty of system-agnostic books out there that detail magical artifacts if you’re looking for more ideas.

Step Four: Lore

Next I create the lore for my world if it doesn’t have any already. Games like Perils & Princesses don’t have much lore, but games like the One Ring have tons of established lore. Either way, this is the time I write down notes about the game world in a document, create characters, make maps, and plot locations.

Step Five: Map 

When I make a map of my game world, I write down notes about different locations to try to help me figure out what kind of encounters I might have in that area, or what kind of people I might run into. I also write down any potential quests in that area.

Step Six: Enemies

Most games include a bestiary, but if you’re like me, there’s a few monsters and/or enemies you just have to have in your game. This is the time to follow the outline of the monsters in the book’s bestiary and make your own creatures to fight. I am thoroughly creeped out by spiders, so giant spiders are always a must in my games, for example. I tend to make all of my unique enemies have medium difficulty. I don’t want to go too easy on myself, but I also like a bit of a challenge.

Step Seven: Create Your Team

Once you’ve made your world, your map, your events, maybe homebrewed some rules, now is the time to create the characters you’ll be roleplaying as in the game. Almost as a rule, I always create at least four characters to roleplay as solo. That’s because if you’re playing a game intended for a group, you need to simulate a group on your own. Four characters usually provides a good balance for most games. I print out four character sheets for the game I’m playing and fill them out. I might draw pictures or symbols of my characters. Then I write out their backstory and how they connect to the world I’ve created, or to the world that the game is set in.

Step Eight: Grab Two Notebooks

After that I grab two notebooks: One for chronicling my adventure and one for notes and combat logs. I like to keep these separate so my writing in my adventure chronicle will look smooth, while my other notebook will look like a lot of erratic notes. I love to read back over my adventures again and post them online on my blog.

I also keep a lot of notes on my phone, as well as a dice roller app. Depending on where and when I’m playing, the dice roller app may just make things easier. Like when my son is asleep; I really don’t need to be rolling a lot of loud dice then!

I keep the rule book by my side the entire time I play. PDFs are useful, but I prefer physical copies because it’s easier to flip through a physical book and bookmark it than to scroll up and down a PDF. I’m checking the rule book constantly as I play, especially in the beginning, to make sure I’m keeping up with the flow of gameplay and the overall vibe of the setting.

That’s how I get ready to play roleplaying games solo. All of this is to immerse me into the game more. It may seem like a lot of prep, but prep work is part of playing and/or GMing any roleplaying game. In order to start my story, I usually come up with an inciting incident that my characters find themselves in the middle of, like a bandit attack on their village or a delve into a cave searching for treasure. If you place yourself in the middle of the action, it’s a lot easier to get started playing solo.

Remember: Have fun! Solo roleplaying is about freedom and creating your own story with your own rules with no restrictions and without someone telling you “No, you can’t do that”. If a rule doesn’t work for you, tweak it, or dismiss it entirely. If you like a mechanic from another game, try applying it to the game you’re currently playing and see how it works out. Experiment, experiment, experiment! And try lots of different kinds of games, whether they were intended to be solo or in a group! Journaling games may help you discover prompts to move your adventure game forward. Adventure games may help you turn the journaling game you’re playing into a kind of sandbox. There are no limits to your creativity when all the restrictions are turned off.

Forever Witchy

Hi everyone! I'm back with a new game and a supplement for the new game! The game is called Forever Witchy. In it you play, you guessed it, Witches! The Witches in Forever Witchy are being hunted down by Witch Hunters as the technologically advanced kingdom of Marten has invaded your rural home, the land of Ruth. They have brought with them pollution that has upset the natural balance of the land of Ruth, causing the elemental guardians of the temples that watch over Ruth, the Daemons, to go mad. The Daemons, in their madness, have corrupted Ruth, turning the fae folk into ravaging killers and mutating the animals into terrible beasts. Ruth cries out for heroes. What it will have instead are Witches.

As some of the last few Witches, you will join together in a coven and enter the temples, braving traps and solving puzzles, to defeat the guardian Daemons and bring purity and balance back to the land of Ruth.

If you are playing solo, you will create a coven of four Witches. If you are playing in a group, each player will create one Witch. Don't worry, character creation happens over the course of simple minutes. You can create an entire coven in under half an hour.

There are six magic disciplines to choose spells from: Elementalism, Radiance, Daemonic, Necromancy, Chronomancy, and Druidic. At the start of the game, each Witch will select one spell from each magic discipline. After that, how your Witch or Witches advance is up to you.

The game uses a Skill-based system instead of leveling up. You spend XP to buy new Skills that may increase your Ability Scores, upgrade your wand, learn a new spell, or increase your HP. It's a simple, rules-light system for character progression.

You can also brew potions and cook meals. Potions do much of what spells do, although there are a few that are unique. You can cook meals in order to give yourself boons.

I've also released Forever Witchy Beldam's Bedlam. The story of the coven of Witches continues in this installment as you head to the kingdom of Marten for the first time to eliminate the invasion at its source: by defeating the Councilmen who rule over Marten. 

It comes loaded with 18 new spells and 20 new potions, as well as a new map to create and new enemies.

I really love the Forever Witchy series. It's been such a blast working on it and doing research into historical witches. I'm using public domain art in the core book and the supplement, and it was awesome combing through old pictures and paintings of witches and witchy women.

I hope you will give this game a try. Forever Witchy is $4.99 on itchio here.

Forever Witchy Beldam's Bedlam is free and can be downloaded on itchio here.

 

Superhero Game!

 

Hi everyone! I spent half my vacation working on an idea that just wouldn't rest. To start, I LOVE superheroes. I'm mostly a DC kind of girl, but I like Marvel, too. I mostly read DC though. My favorite hero duo is Blue Beetle and Booster Gold, followed closely by Fire and Ice, and a third is Superman and Batman of course. I don't have an ultimate favorite superhero, but I really love The Flash comics (mostly because his Rogue's Gallery is my favorite, though).

I wanted to create a journaling game where I could make my own in-depth superhero by simply answering a few prompts. I wanted the superhero I made to be able to fit in whatever superhero IP I wanted, or maybe I could make my own superhero universe.

The plan worked! I had a great time making this journaling tool. It's not really a game, per se. It's more to set you up for success for a game like Mutants and Masterminds or for making your own well-rounded superhero for your own comic series or novel.

Anyway, I succeeded in coming up with the perfect prompts to answer about your superhero to make them a fully developed character. I even included tables. I'm especially proud of the d100 table I came up with for superpowers. You don't have to use the tables in the book. They are just there if you need a little inspiration.

The game has 22 prompts that ask questions like: What is your background? What are your powers? How do your powers affect your everyday life? Who is your archenemy? What makes them more significant than your other enemies?

I also ask if you have a no-kill rule, who your love interest is, and if your alter ego is a secret to those you love. If some of these questions don't apply to your character, feel free to skip them. Only write about what is relevant to your character.

Have fun making your characters! And feel free to post little blurbs about them here on my blog in the comments below!

You can buy My Hero for $1.99 on drivethrurpg here or on itchio here.

Upcoming Game

Hi everyone! Now that I have 20 published products under my belt, what's next? Well, I've been working on a journaling tool for superheroes that's in the same vein as Cosmic Creator where you answer questions and use prompts to create your very own superhero characters. It's perfect for writers and tabletop players who are using any superhero game system. The system is completely agnostic so you can create heroes for any heroic universe, or make your own. 

I'm currently on vacation, but I'll be back in a few days. The game should be ready by then, if not then a few days after I return. I'm really excited about it! I made a d100 list of super powers that I'm especially proud of! 

As for what projects I'll work on after this, I don't really know. I know there's much more creativity in me, I just need to find my spark of inspiration. I was thinking of doing a supplement for Aethership. Maybe another supplement for Colossus. I really love Colossus. I think it's the game I play tested the most because I just had so much fun with it. 

As a side note, I've play tested my superhero journaling game on the ride to my vacation destination and it has been a lot of fun! Super easy to play in the car! I have a dice roller on my phone so that helped with rolling on the tables I made.

As I am still on vacation and neglected to bring my laptop, please be patient with me. The superhero journaling game is coming soon, I promise! For now, there's 19 other PWYW games I've designed and 1 paid game I've created for you to try out! All are solo friendly games.