Random Maps 4 - Ironsworn Delve

Well, this post has been a long time coming - this week we're going to look at how Ironsworn Delve handles "map" generation.

I use "map" loosely here because Ironsworn (and Delve) do not deal with concrete mapped locations, so much as interconnected narrative settings. Think of it like you're moving from scene to scene in a show or movie - the sets are "connected" in the narrative fiction, but the distance and details of the location are not as important as the impact in the story those places have.

How it Works

The process of creating a Delve is really straightforward - either you pick a theme (Haunted, Hallowed, e.g.) and a "domain" (Stronghold, Tanglewood) and mash them together. You can choose more than one theme or domain if you desire and then let your creativity figure out what that place actually looks like.

For my session, I went with "Haunted Tanglewood" for a couple of reasons: First, I just liked the idea of a Haunted mist-shrouded forest for this session, and second - there's already one of those in the book so I can just hijack its denizen list.

Once that's done, you follow the standard Ironsworn rules to run through locations (either in solo play mode, or GM guided) following a standard pattern. It boils down to "Make the location discovery move, resolve what happens at the location, mark progress (or not) and move on until you're ready to call it a day and find your objective.

I wanted to have a reasonably challenging experience, so I set the challenge level as "Formidable". This means for every progress I mark a single box fully. Here's how the completed sheet looked at the beginning of the game.

Blank map, blank canvas.

Meet our Hero, Ael Frigson

If we're going to do a full on play session, we need a character. I work with some ideas and land on Ael - a haunted man whose wife was killed by a Horror. He blames himself for not being there with her to fight it off, so he's got a hefty dose of survivor's guilt and has sworn to kill as many Horrors as it takes until he finds the one who killed his wife. He has a son, Vul, who will be absent from this adventure. He also has a burgeoning relationship with Naewyn, a mercenary, which he hides because of guilt over his wife's memory.

At the beginning of play, I settle on essentially that he's been poisoned by a Horror, and must seek a cure at an altar in the Aesir Grove - a site of power. There he'll encounter more Horrors, and the Aesir - powerful spirits who are not inclined to let him pass.

Here's how Ael's character sheet looks at the start of play:

Entering the Delve

One of the good things I like about this mechanism of generating locations is that I can forego a roll on the location tables, should I have a clear idea of what the next location I should be - but to start, I rolled "Overgrown Path" - which makes sense for a location of almost impenetrable woods. Ael starts his journey down a wooded path and carefully looks around for the next place to go and he winds up spotting a piece of red cloth tied to a tree branch. Clearly a way marker from someone who had passed here before.

Nothing particularly challenging appeared on the path, so he continues on and follows the alternative path marked by that cloth.

Eventually, he comes out in a clearing (which I randomly rolled). I decide that there's a campsite there as well, since it logically follows that the previous traveler might have stopped here. The dice give me a complication, and well, I already know what's coming. The previous traveler is dead and her severed head is just over yonder.

When Ael discovers this, he has flashbacks to the night of Hildegunn's death and this rattles him deeply. He steels himself and continues on, but it has clearly made it harder for him to survive.

Further Down the Rabbit hole

After standing around for who knows how long, Ael continues along the path and comes across a stream (randomly rolled again, a waterway). The stream is oddly black, almost the same color as the "affliction" that is currently spreading from his leg to the rest of his body. Since he's heard tell that the stream is close to his destination, he hurries along - hoping that his goal is in sight.

Bad move, turns out, as the water contained a hazard. I decide that the water probably saps the strength of any who touches it and boy does that do a number on Ael. He's more cautious after this folly.

At each of these locations, I've been able to mark progress. That's not a given, and I only mark one box at each location, so this could wind up dragging along for a while.

After this, I roll "Waterway" again, so I decide the stream connects to a lake and add it to the map.

Here's how it looks at this point:

Exploring the Lake

Right, so as I'm making the move for the lake I roll yet another complication. I don't know what that complication is, so I consult the Oracle™️. I get "A denizen haunts the area" - Cool. Haunted lake.

It's got to be an Aesir. It appears and has a little conversation about how Ael won't be allowed to pass and that he must turn back. That won't be narratively fulfilling so I spin a yarn about how the Aesir want folks to swear vows to them - and so Ael gains a new quest: Find the Axe of Hulgrinn Wulfsson, and give it to his son Vul. Ael's pretty suspicious about this. One doesn't go rooting through tombs for named axes without being also given some sort of destiny. He's not sure he wants his son having the life of an Ironsworn, but he's also not about to turn around now. We'll figure that out later!

Ending the Journey

I decide the next area just needs to be a giant tree. Just a big chonk, with the altar built in front of it. Unfortunately, it's guarded by a Bonewalker (your run-of-the-mill undead skeleton).

He tries to approach quietly and catch the bonewalker off-guard, but that doesn't work out so well for Ael. He gets into a head-on conflict (using the full fight rules) from Ironsworn and manages to kill the thing with relative ease - though he takes some health damage.

One threat dealt with, he steps up to the altar to figure out what price he's going to have to pay to have his affliction removed, and like everything else today, it's a complication. The altar doesn't want to heal him, and he must prove himself worthy. It forces him to relive traumatic defining incidents of his life. Fortunately for Ael, he's full of Heart and he pushes back against the voice in his head and discovers what he really wants from life. Outstanding.

If you want to see how his escape and meeting with Naewyn, go read the full thing.

By the end, here's how Ael fared:

And here's how the map looks:

Using this to make traditional maps?

You could use the Delve method to make interconnected "narrative" areas by simply using the oracle tables for the theme and domain to generate some rooms and then put those together on a gridded map - just using the oracles for inspiration, but really that's not any different from using whatever other random tables you want for inspiration from many other books.

So, there are some cool Oracles in the book, but in my opinion the Oracles are supplemental to the core gameplay loop and you'd do equally well using something like the Tome of Adventure Design or any of the other books with themed random tables.

If you're reaching for Delve just for room ideas, you'd be missing out on a lot of the narrative gameplay it encourages - so I think playing it as a Solo session is the better way to go.

Wrap Up

Well, thanks for having a look at the 4th part of this random maps series. Next time we're going to revisit Shadowdark - but we'll be using Kelsey's draft Solodark rules to run through a solo play session.

... I think I've turned this into a Solo play blog series, but hey, we'll get some other fun map exercises in eventually.