This standalone, sci-fi evolution of the Ironsworn RPG takes your sworn quests to an exciting new frontier. With story-driven mechanics and a vast array of inspirational generators for planets, people, creatures, factions, and more — Starforged is your gateway to a universe of adventure.
Ironsworn: Starforged
The Sci-Fi Evolution of the Ironsworn RPG
In Ironsworn: Starforged, you are a spaceborne hero sworn to undertake perilous quests. You will explore uncharted space, unravel the secrets of a mysterious galaxy, and build bonds with those you meet on your travels. Most importantly, you will swear iron vows and see them fulfilled—no matter the cost.
Starforged is a standalone follow-up to the Ironsworn tabletop roleplaying game. Experience with Ironsworn is not required to play. Starforged builds on Ironsworn's award-winning innovations to chart a path into an exciting new frontier.
What's Included
- Story-driven mechanics to put your character at the center of their quest-driven adventures
- Inspiring campaign launch exercises to build your setting, create your character, and set off into a universe of perils and opportunities
- Creative prompts to eliminate game prep and push your adventures forward—with or without a GM
- Generators for on-the-fly discoveries of spaceborne locations, planets, settlements, people, creatures, starships, foreboding derelicts, ancient alien vaults, and more
- Extensive advice, examples, and options for exploring the story of your characters and their fateful vows
Three Ways to Play
Ironsworn's acclaimed game modes return in Starforged. Whether you are playing with friends or facing a perilous galaxy on your own, you'll have full support for exciting, no-prep gameplay.
Guided
One or more players take the role of their characters, while a guide moderates the session.
Co-Op
You and one or more friends play together to overcome challenges and complete quests. A guide is not required.
Solo
You portray a lone character driven to fulfill vows in a perilous galaxy. Good luck!
Forge Your Legacy
Character creation is fast and flexible, with a guided exercise to define your background, resources, expertise, and goals. Then, as your campaign begins, your stats and resources help determine the outcome as you perform risky actions.
As you complete quests, make discoveries, and form bonds, you gain experience. You spend this experience to add assets — vehicles, modules, paths, and companions— which deepen your abilities and options.
Explore A Mysterious Galaxy
Your adventures are set within the Forge. Vast clouds of interstellar nebula span the depths of the Forge, interspersed with denser clouds of vibrant interplanetary dust and strange energies. This is a chaotic galaxy wracked by fiery stellar storms and unpredictable gravitational currents. The planets and stars of this place are born of that chaos.
Your people settled here two centuries ago. Today, this new home offers opportunity and peril. Remnants of ancient civilizations hold dangerous knowledge and forbidden power. Your people build settlements on new worlds, but those places rarely offer a safe haven. Conflicts often rage between people and factions. Raiders and pirates prowl the spaceways in search of easy prey. Baneful creatures and dark forces dwell on corrupted planets and in the abyssal void between stars.
Your people settled here two centuries ago. Today, this new home offers opportunity and peril. Remnants of ancient civilizations hold dangerous knowledge and forbidden power. Your people build settlements on new worlds, but those places rarely offer a safe haven. Conflicts often rage between people and factions. Raiders and pirates prowl the spaceways in search of easy prey. Baneful creatures and dark forces dwell on corrupted planets and in the abyssal void between stars.
It's a dangerous life for anyone living on this frontier, and doubly so for the Ironsworn — those adventurers bound to sworn quests.
You can also ignore or adjust the default setting. The Starforged rules are flexible enough to accommodate many forms of perilous science fiction.
Brave A Perilous Future
The default tone for Starforged is gritty, human-centric science fiction on a perilous frontier. People cling to survival on inhospitable worlds and in remote space stations. Much has been forgotten or lost.
Inspiration comes from the quest-driven stories of The Mandalorian, the lived-in aesthetic and fantasy-infused trappings of the original Star Wars trilogy, the workaday exploits of Firefly, the isolated horror of Alien, the mysticism and faction politics of Dune, the retro-tech and desperation of Battlestar Galactica's modern reboot, the cosmic mysteries and class struggles of The Expanse, and the gonzo adventures and fantastic locations of Guardians of the Galaxy.
You are encouraged to make Starforged your own, and to bend the tone to your liking. Your universe will be unique because you’ll define aspects such as the history of your people, technology, communities, lifeforms, supernatural abilities, and more. To help inspire you, Starforged is packed with amazing illustrations by lead artist Joshua Meehan and other artists.
The System
Moves
In Starforged, moves help you decide what happens when you encounter something dangerous or uncertain. There is a move for most situations and challenges you will face. For solo and co-op play, these moves help resolve your actions and trigger new opportunities and complications to keep your story moving.
Starforged moves are inspired by the innovative, fiction-first mechanics of the Apocalypse World system created by D. Vincent Baker and Meguey Baker.
Momentum
Momentum is a special mechanic which is core to playing Starforged. You can gain momentum as an outcome or option when making moves. This represents securing advantages, acquiring new insight, and making progress in your quests. You lose momentum when you suffer a cost which causes a delay or puts you at a disadvantage.
You can use momentum to gain a decisive result — or avoid dire failure — on a critical move.
The Action Roll
When you make a move representing a risky or uncertain action, roll three dice at once: An action die (D6) and two challenge dice (D10). Add your relevant stat and any bonuses to your action die. This is your action score. Then, compare your action score to each of the challenge dice and check for a strong hit, weak hit, or miss. The move will tell you how to interpret the result.
Strong Hit
Your action score beats (is greater than) both the challenge dice. You are successful.
Weak Hit
Your action score beats only one of the challenge dice. You succeed, but with a cost or lesser effect.
Miss
Your action score doesn't beat either challenge die. You fail, or must make serious concessions.
Did you roll a match on the challenge dice? If so, you encounter a surprising complication or opportunity.
Ask the Oracle
In Starforged, oracles are random tools which help determine the outcome of an action, a detail in your world, or a narrative event. These generators and random tables answer questions in solo or co-op games, or provide inspiration for the GM in guided play.
Starforged includes a full suite of moves and oracle prompts designed to lead your story in exciting and unexpected directions — with zero preparation.
You’ll be surprised how often a seemingly random oracle answer feeds directly into your character’s story and the world you’ve established through play. This is the power of your creative interpretation at work!
What will the oracle reveal as you explore the depths of the Forge? Play to find out.
Praise for Starforged
Set a Course for the Sundered Isles
Sundered Isles is an epic expansion for the Ironsworn: Starforged tabletop roleplaying game. It includes new gameplay and character options, inspiring worldbuilding exercises, and a vast array of tools and random oracle tables for a science-fantasy world of nautical adventure.
Welcome to the Forge
Starforged is true to Ironsworn's roots, while incorporating experience and feedback from years of development and play. With story-driven mechanics and a vast array of inspirational generators for planets, people, creatures, factions, and more —Starforged is your gateway to a universe of adventure.
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