Hob and the Sustainers’ arrival at Autumnrush felt like a big transition for the campaign. A new chapter, Part II, the mid-season finale. Partly because she had marked the first tick in her epic vow, but mainly because the tone of the game was inevitably about to shift. A treacherous voyage through the Barrier Islands and Ragged Coast would be replaced with a sprawling port city, the gate inland, and unknowable paths forward. Perella, Mira, and the crew of the Piercing Swan, along with the handful of passing characters from the smaller circles they’d passed through, would be joined by thousands of new people, each bringing their own goals and conflicts with them.

In light of all that, it made sense to set things aside for a time, allow the pieces to subconsciously percolate. I went back to the early journals to reread and polish a bit. And then decided to make a blog and include some of the rough sketches I had been drawing. By the time I returned to actually playing, it had become clear that I needed to do some groundwork setting the stage before Hob could set off and begin exploring it. There were a lot of gaps to fill in. So this first session in Autumnrush ended up being a pretty heavy info dump, a lot of oracle rolls and very few moves. I like how it played out though. The factions and rivalries promised to progress in unpredictable and hopefully interesting ways.

I also found myself in a situation where I could no longer avoid heavy social interaction, being in a city and all. When I GM, I have a joking rule with my players that in order for me to do NPC dialogue (when multiple NPCs are present), one of their characters needs to be part of the conversation since I refuse to to ‘talk to myself’ in front of them. If they just want to watch and witness the NPCs’ conversation without participating, I will just give a summary of what was said and how the conversation ended. So, since I had hang-ups about talking to myself, I started playing Ironsworn under the impression that solo play would not be able to replicate those no-action, full role-play downtime sessions that frequently occurred in the gaming groups I’ve been a part of. Entering Autumnrush, a scenario where most problems cannot best or, at least ethnically, be resolved with a blade, forced me to engage more with the social and I’m thankful for it. Ironsworn’s move set and brilliant oracles made it work. They made it fun, different than spontaneous collaborative roleplaying, but it still felt like I was playing a game moreso than it did a writing exercise.

Additionally, I had some mechanical choices to make regarding the XP I had accumulated (5 and more to come since my failure track, using the Delve optional rules, was almost filled). The obvious first choice was to upgrade the Shield-Bearer asset to help make Hob more survivable, purchasing the ability to sacrifice my shield to avoid harm. I toyed with taking Perella as a companion but it seemed too premature, not fair to either Hob or Perella. I wanted to see if their bond continued to strengthen after the shared trauma of a linear voyage was completed. Would Hob be swayed by the Sustainers’ worldview and convert? If not, what would happen when Hob’s goals diverged from those of the Sustainers? I toyed with upgrading Blade-Bound or purchasing some rituals that fit with the blood-stained blade (Keen or Visage maybe) but it didn’t make sense narratively to do so yet. So instead of choosing a 2nd advancement, I held on to the last three XP, waiting for that moment to arise further along Hob’s arc.

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How did we get here…

Hob, a brave yet untested young woman, left her home, Sota’s Gate, to seek answers about the blood-stained blade. After helping Elstan of Whitbarrow avenge his kin and crewmates by slaying a band of raiders led by a tide controlling mystic, Hob took up with Mira and the crew of the Piercing Swan, a ship of Sustainers (a sect of Iron Priests) on a divine expedition to the Desolate Beacon, one of the ancient Iron Pillars that predates the arrivals, in search of some unknown knowledge. En route, they assisted Brokefall, a settlement besieged by both marauding raiders and the encroaching wilds, clearing a brood of harrow spiders that had slain a foraging party. In the process, Hob began developing a relationship with Perella, a brash and confident Sustainer from the Hinterlands.

In the cavern network below the Desolate Beacon, Perella and Hob became separated from their comrades in the consuming darkness. They overcame a shifting ambushing mass, the stone collector, and eventually discovered the carving chamber and a strange journal containing notes and sketches of the runes carved on the Pillar. They rescued Mira and Mokhel from a stretched skeletal giant whose bones reassembled, and escaped the Beacon.

Soon after though, they were pursued by sea raiders. In battle, Hob defeated and slew Haf the Raidcaptain, allowing the Sustainers to take and sink his longship. In the stormy shoals of the Broken Isles, Hob’s spirit was shaken by the power and callousness of the Old Gods, but they overcame and reached Autumnrush, the Sustainers base camp and Hob’s original objective, hoping to find a swordsmith that might provide answers about the blade within the prosperous port. 

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Advance: Upgrade Asset – Shield-Bearer (sacrifice shield to avoid harm and take initiative)

Roll: Sojourn, Sustainers’ Camp – Strong Hit => Focus, Consort – Weak Hit; so many oracle rolls

After we arrived at Autumnrush, I stayed in the Sustainers’ camp for almost a week. They had welcomed me and I enjoyed the opportunity to rest and spend time with Pella (Yes, I had taken to a nickname. Yes, the nickname was after Pella the Bronze. Yes, it was dramatic and embarrassing. And no, she did not seem offended that I called her after a goddess she believed to be dead). Time with Pella that didn’t involve shadowy horrors, or harrow infested woods, or pitched battles with sea raiders. But if I’m honest with myself, I was avoiding leaving the comfort of my comrades to brave the overwhelming unknowns of Autumnrush. 

Pella and I were finally able to ask the questions we had held off during the expedition, to take time with the answers without being interrupted by task or crisis. She spoke a little of her family, she had a younger brother whom she had not seen since leaving the Hinterlands. She still dodged questions about why she had left Three Rivers to come south though. I did not push, I had no claim to those answers if giving them would bring her pain. But she did admit that an unfortunate event of some sort had made it so she was no longer welcome there. Her words implied exile but her eyes confessed fugitive. 

Pella was more than open about current topics though. She spoke of the Sustainers and their vision so frequently that I teased her for trying to convert me. She laughed in response but did not deny it. I quite enjoyed it, her spending so much effort trying to help me understand, to win me over. It meant she was fond of me, that she wanted us to share the even closer bond of faith. Her voice would grow excited, her speech flowery. I knew not how much of it was recitation and how much was her own words, but I did know I savored being her focus and the opportunity to see this side of her, more passion, less bravado.

“The Ironlands sustain us but we must learn to sustain ourselves. When the refugee ships arrived, she accepted them. But after, we spent generations trying to recreate the Old World in the new. We have faltered and stumbled, every failure driving us closer to downfall. The rules are different here. The only way to flourish is to learn the ways that they differ, to connect with her, find unity. We need knowledge, we need to learn her stories. Then, if we accept her truths, she will aid us, protect us, nourish us. The Ironlands gave us harbor when we were at our weakest. Before she can help us thrive though, she demands we be at our strongest.”

Her words resonated, the stories of the Old World were grand and plentiful but the new stories, since the arrivals, only spoke of struggle and scarcity. “Still, it’s hard for me to accept that the Gods are not eternal, that Ye Ranna the Unforgiving could somehow perish or wither. I don’t know.” 

“But you said it yourself, you said the Gods had turned against us, that they had wanted us to perish, shattered against the sea cliffs of those ‘Broken Isles’. And yet we, mortals, overcame them. If they are so mighty, so enduring, how did we escape their will? I prefer my truth, that the Ironlands tested us and, in embracing her challenge, we triumphed. She is preparing us, readying us for elevation. Accepting that, I can know no despair.”

I had no good response beyond, “I will think on this.”

When Pella wasn’t proselytizing, she asked about me. About Sota’s Gate, about Uncle Temir and Cousin Bastien, and then, about the blade and why I had left. I told her how I had found the blade. How it had still been on the belt of the warrior that washed ashore along the northern outskirts of the Gate, among the stones I had walked since childhood, since my parents had been taken by the sea, when I wanted solitude. How the body was bloated and unrecognizable, impossible to even tell how he had met his end. How the blade had not rusted. How the dark stains of blood had not been cleaned by the sea. I told her of the impulses and inexplicable knowledge that manifested after I had taken the blade. How I had known the bloated warrior was not its owner, that I was not its owner, that it sought its master still. And I told her how I had then made my farewells to my kin and left the Gate to find a swordsmith, to find answers. Autumnrush seeming like the best place to start.

Pella had asked to see it so I offered her the blade. Pulling it from the simple scabbard, her face pinched at the sight of the dried blood, Haf’s blood. She gave me a brief questioning look before turning it over and continuing her examination.

“It won’t allow me to clean it.” I awkwardly explained. Not much of an explanation, I realized.

After a brief study, she abruptly resheathed the blade and quickly handed it back. “Holding it makes me feel uneasy. Do you think it is cursed?”

“I do not know.”

“Well your instincts were right anyways, this is probably the place to find answers. There is a swordsmith here, though I’ve never met him. Cadigan. Son of Abella, who I also never knew. I’ve heard he’s skilled but petty, ambitious. It might take some convincing for him to give folk like us the time of day but I will help you find him whenever you are ready.”

I was surprised, having assumed it would be a harder task to find someone in a place of this size. But I guess a competent and ambitious artisan would likely not exactly be in hiding, would probably want his name known. I was also thankful, and I leapt up to embrace Pella, surprising her as well, and forgetting about her injured shoulder. It was healing from the trials below the Beacon but hadn’t mended past the point of tenderness. 

“Ouch.” “Oh no, I’m sorry.” “No, it’s ok, I was just startled.”

I had ruined the moment. I didn’t feel great about it. Intending to share joy but causing pain instead is never pleasant. Thankfully, I was absorbing so many novel sights and learning so much new information about Autumnrush, and the Sustainers, and the Pillar camps, and their Iron Priests, that I quickly forgot about my blunder, something I would have dwelled upon in my past life. 

Even with the healing shoulder, Pella still had duties though. Duties that I wasn’t invited to join since I was not a Sustainer. When I wasn’t with her, I wandered the camp, listened and asked questions, took in my surroundings, and tried to make sense of this weird place.

Roll: Gather Information – Strong Hit; so many more oracle rolls

There were dozens of camps on Pillar Hill, dozens of factions all vying for proximity and access to the Twin Pillars. In the center of the field, closest to and surrounding the Pillars, lay the camps of the three largest sects. The Sustainers, the Gray Sentinels, and the Resurrectors, those who had arrived first. 

Only through Pella’s passionate and patient teachings had I started to make sense of the Sustainers. The Gray Sentinels, on the other hand, were easy to figure out. They coincided with my previous assumptions about all Iron Priests. Simply put, they worshipped the Pillars. They claimed these new Gods (well, ancient gods but new to us, I guess) were bound by their domains, swaying and safeguarding the territories they overlooked. Localized deities and circle spirits were nothing new to me, these were just ones that could be seen. 

The Resurrectors though, they were something different. They shared in the Sustainers’ belief that the Gods of the Old World had perished during our ancestors’ flight. But whereas the Sustainers held that through the Pillars, we could learn the Ironlands’ stories and, in so doing, become accepted by her. The Resurrectors believed the Pillars were conduits. Conduits that would one day fracture the Ironlands, shatter its cruel shell to reveal a paradise, a resurrection of the Old World and the Old Gods. These differences put the two camps at odds with each, vehemently. The Sustainers mocked the Gray Sentinels, but they seethed at the Resurrectors. They spit with any mention of  “scarred Ishana and her annihilators” and their attempts to “unravel all that had been woven.”

Despite these hostilities, there was a tenuous peace. The factions isolated themselves from each other. They left wide avenues between the camps. Two precepts, negotiated when the camps were first established and observed by all, averted any open conflict. “Do not enter or interfere with another camp!” and “Do not touch the Pillars!” I was told that only one man had previously violated either, he had touched a Pillar. And then he and his were forced from their camp and expelled from the hill by all others. Since then, the precepts had been upheld, no faction was willing to risk unifying the others against them.

Though the layout and rivalries of the camps had started to become familiar, I had learned much less about Autumnrush as a whole. About the thousands living off of Pillar Hill. I overheard the big things, like that the entire place was on edge. A two year truce between The Three, the de facto bosses of the settlement, had recently collapsed, throwing the port back into political turmoil. There had been an assassination attempt on Lio the Guide. No one knew who was responsible. Some claimed Sayer the Shipbuilder, others, Cera of Longbridge. Lio survived though, and now all three were sharpening their knives, the whole of Autumnrush waiting for the other boot to drop.

The smaller things made little sense though, like news of the arrivals or departures of ships that I did not recognize the names of. I didn’t understand the relevance of the lesser gossip. I would need to learn more before I could do so. I would need to leave the camp.

It was on one of those days, wandering the camp waiting for Pella to finish some unknown chore, that Mokhel found me. I had been idly staring up at the Pillars, reflecting on the realization that they didn’t fill me with the same unease that they had when I first arrived. We chatted a bit about the weather, growing hotter every day now. And then he mentioned that Mira had been looking for me. That she was meeting with Teegan and requested I join her.

I wasn’t sure how I felt about this. In the five days I had resided within the Sustainer camp, I had yet to actually meet Teegan. I had seen him walk the camp though, and seen that all he passed looked up from whatever they were doing when he did so. He was important. A large cloak, edged with burgundy fur and leafy verdant feathers, neither of which came from any beast I had ever known. A man clearly both wise and unapproachable. He was some sort of mystic or scholar, I couldn’t quite tell which. I might have described him as a priest if I hadn’t known that their gods were dead.

Roll: Forge a Bond, Mira => Reroll –  Strong Hit

I bid Mokhel farewell and, meandering through the camp towards Teegan’s tent, I wondered why Mira had summoned me. Mira, it had taken time for our bond to grow. When I joined up with the Piercing Swan, I had been impulsive and uncompromising, I still was. I took initiative and forced my hand, leading to Eos and Namba’s deaths facing the harrow brood. I was sure she still didn’t wholly trust me, thought me unruly and unpredictable. But after the Beacon and Haf’s ship, she could not deny that when our paths were merged, we became near unstoppable. She would not summon me for chatter, there was something she needed. There would be a request.

I reached Teegan’s tent at the edge of the camp, near the Pillars, announced myself, and pulled back the flap to enter. Mira and Teegan were sitting at a table, across from each other, books and maps and notes scattered between them.  I recognized the journal we had retrieved among them. It was opened to the sketches of the Beacon’s carvings.

They stood to greet me. Mira made introductions. Teegan looked older up close, not quite beyond the threshold to elder but getting close. He was civil but cold. He had a hardness about him. He thanked me for assisting the expedition. Said I had done them a great service.

Roll: Compel, Heart – Strong Hit, +1 to Gather Information; Gather Information – Weak Hit

I gestured towards the journal, “Was it what you sought?”

Teegan briefly hesitated before growing a little less cold. “Yes, one of the things.

“Do you know whose it was?”

He flashed Mira a questioning look. She nodded and he continued. 

He told me of Kodroth the Bitter, a mystic. Widely known in Autumnrush. The spring prior, he had taken a boat and went to sea. Nobody knew his intentions or destination. A year passed with no sight or word of him. Until a returning tradeship claimed to have met him in the Western Reaches, preparing to sail even further west towards the edge of the Barrier. Teegan had assumed this meant Kodroth had spent the year investigating the Desolate Beacon before moving on to study Wyvern’s Rest, past the Reach. So Mira and the Piercing Swan were dispatched to find him there, and find out what he had learned. 

Kodroth was not at Wyvern’s Rest though, he had for some reason returned back east to the Beacon, where Perella and I had found his pack and journal, and torn clothes, and blood stains.

“It is unfortunate that he is gone but I am grateful that his final observations and meditations were rescued from oblivion.”

At that, Teegan picked the journal up from the table, closing it and holding it to his chest.

“Did the journal have the information you had hoped for, is it helpful?” I was curious, I hadn’t had an opportunity to look at it before we handed it off to Mira. I wondered if Koldroth had known the runes on the carvings.

“We believe it will be.”

Civil, but curt. It seemed clear that he was being careful to avoid discussing the actual contents of the journal and why they sought it. I dug no further. I had learned more from Teegan in that first few minutes than I had from Mira over the weeks that I had known her. But there were apparently goals and purposes that only Sustainers could know, and I was still not a Sustainer. More concerning was the realization that Mira had known what they sought but had withheld the information from her crew, or Pella at least. A ship sent to find a man, a man who nobody seemed particularly broken up over the death of, and a crew in the dark. It felt a bit sinister. It was a side of Mira, and the Sustainers as a whole, that I had not previously seen and did not like.

Teegan returned the closed journal to the table and moved on to their reason for summoning me.

“A camp this size requires supply, we need food. Surrounded by settlement and with limited trade goods, we have grown to rely on a benefactor, Cera of Longbridge. She knows the value of our work and, considering the sheer amount of grain her clan sends southward to be shipped out of Autumnrush, donations for our needs are negligible to her. So she has been providing regular shipments since the camp was established. The last was two weeks ago and the next should have arrived days ago. There has been no message or explanation for the delay and stores are diminishing. So we need somebody to contact her, identify the issue, and hopefully resolve the disruption. Preferably before hunger becomes a problem and we need to resort to other methods to avoid abandoning the camp.”

I nodded that I was following.

Mira took over, having remained silent since our initial introductions.

“You’re aware of what’s going on out there, right? The assassination attempt?”

“I had heard talk, yes.” I admitted

“It’s a risky course. The whole settlement is taught as a bow and The Three are brewing for war. But the power games of the Port do not benefit us, they don’t interest us. There’s little to gain and much to lose by getting tangled up in it all. If one of our own is seen to approach Cera, we will appear to be involved. Appear to be her allies in whatever it is that is about to occur. And then, we may be acted upon and forced to actually become involved.

“But we do need those supplies. So we were hoping you could go see her in my place. You haven’t left the camps since we got here. Those of the Port do not know you. You’re still a stranger to them, easily forgotten and, most importantly, not a Sustainer.”

She was right, it did sound risky. A dangerous route through unfamiliar waters. “I follow, but I’m not sure I’m the right person. If the path is so precarious, how can you be certain I won’t misstep? I don’t know this place, I wouldn’t know where to start…”

Mira interrupted, “Hob, just explain your piece, remind her of our needs, and find out what the problem is. I don’t know, tell her one of your stories or something. When you talk, people tend to listen. I don’t have much advice. I’m asking you because you’re capable of figuring it out.”

Then Teegan, “She speaks truth. You are the right person to act today. We cannot afford the delay to find another intermediary. Once Autumnrush erupts, it will become even more dangerous to approach her. Just remind Cera that she values what we are doing, we need her supply to continue doing it, and ask that said supply be delivered discreetly. If you do this, we will owe you an even greater debt.”

Then Mira again, “Also, approach her alone. Perella can not join you for this.”

I could not withstand their volleys. Too many words, too much information, too flustered to argue further. I capitulated and took the vow. And as I stepped back into the camp and the tent flap closed behind me, I was flooded by all the questions I should have asked and tried to make sense of what had just transpired.

Roll: Swear an Iron Vow, Resupply the Camp, Dangerous – Strong Hit

I did remember one detail clearly though. Mira had forbade me from bringing Pella to the meeting. But she had said nothing about her accompanying me off of the hill and into the port before I, alone, approached Cera. Prior to doing this, I would need to scout the port, understand the terrain, and learn about Cera. And for that, I would need a guide. So I went to find Pella.