Designing an Ironsworn Module

In which I talk about the origins of, and current progress on, the next Ironbound Adventure module for the Ironsworn RPG

When I first started with the concept of Ironbound Adventures, I generated a handful of ideas over the course of a couple months and logged them all in a Google Drive folder. Each adventure got its own document with a tentative title and a paragraph laying out the basics of the idea. This entry was the third idea I came up with, and the document details say I created the file on March 14, 2025. Interestingly enough, the second idea was not “The Bloody March,” which was the second Ironbound Adventure I released. Its document was created May 4, 2025 (the last of the original ideas). As you can see, I have lots of ideas almost all the time. But the order in which these ideas come to fruition is rarely the same as the one they were thought up in.

Hadley's Beast, part 1

The Bloody March — Session I

“Isle of Bones” combines my love of survival games, dinosaurs, and lost worlds. It is inspired by Jurassic Park, Turok, and the sci-fi duology Dinosaur Planet by Anne McCaffrey. The original description provided the name, depicting a large, skeletal ribcage lodged into the sandy beach. Small, chicken-sized lizards feasted on what meat still hung from the corpse. I cut it from the current description in order to add the impetus for adventure. I try to keep this short and to the point and, while badass, the beach bones took away from that. That said, the remains of creatures great and small are scattered all over the island, both on the sandy beaches and in the interior jungle. It might also be the final resting place of your character’s bones, if the dice gods turn their gaze away from you.

Designing an Ironsworn Module

One of the best decisions I made when starting the Ironbound Adventures project was deciding to maintain the structure of the modules across all releases. That means, since “Hadley’s Beast,” I have had the same basic blueprint. This makes it so that all I need to do is “plug in” the components in their respective outlets. The general structure of an Ironbound Adventure is as follows:

• “System Requirements”

• Brief setting description

• Advice on playing with an established character

• Advice on starting a new character, complete with three archetypes

• Inciting Incident table

• Setting-specific tables and mechanics

• Denizens

This format allows me to, largely, bypass the “failure to start” problem I often run into when trying to start a new design project, be it a module or game. I already know what to put in the first three sections—its mostly a module specific update to what already exists in the previous entries. Where the first steps of “creativity” come into play is with the archetypes I build for newcomers.

Hurdle the First: Archetypes

One of the main elements of my design philosophy for Ironbound Adventures is that they are as welcoming to players new to Ironsworn or Solo TTRPGs as possible. That’s why all of my modules come with these three archetypes, and where I often find my first hurdle. It takes a lot of creative energy to come up with archetypes that are compelling and thematic to the module. As I’m writing this (July 13th @ 10:15am), I have completed the next step (Inciting Incident table) and have only one vague idea for a character archetype.

> Dev Note: By noon on July 13th I’d already written the first archetype—the Fisherfolk—and started on the second—the Wanderer.

Hurdle the Second: Inciting Incident Table

Often, random tables are the most difficult elements to produce in a TTRPG. In the case of this module, however, I found coming up with ideas for the inciting incident table to be relatively painless. There are a number of reasons why a character might go to this strange new island, and I’ve changed out at least one entry since I finished the table a week ago.

I try to fill these tables with interesting ideas that will not only give your character something to do, and a reason to go where they probably shouldn’t and, at the same time, provide a bit of extra flavor to get the player’s creativity firing. I know that, as a player myself, at least three of the six entries have given me ideas for things to do while on the island. Even if you don’t roll a specific inciting incident, there’s no reason why it can’t be a secondary objective while you’re on the island. That’s the beauty of random tables.

Hurdle the Third: Setting-Specific Tables & Mechanics

As I’ve said, tables can be incredibly difficult to make, but sometimes coming up with the concept for a table is even harder. This one, at least for “Isle of Bones,” might be the most difficult set of tables to make. I’m not sure what kind of tables would even be necessary for an adventure on a dinosaur infested island. I’m thinking maybe some waypoints might be a good place to start. I often find that the most difficult part of playing Ironsworn games. Yes, you can roll on the Action and Theme tables, or Descriptor and Focus if you have the new version of Lodestar (or Sundered Isles). But it’s not always easy to come up with ideas, and those can be major roadblocks to a player’s enjoyment.

I have also considered adding some “survival” elements to this module. There is at least one inciting incident that sets you up for needing to find a way to survive the island, though it could be applied to any of them. To that end, not only do I think I’ll need at least one “survival” table, I also might want to add some “crafting” and “gear decay” components. I’m thinking Secure an Advantage is ready made to craft a survival item. Clocks could easily be used to determine the remaining durability of an item (and now I’m inspired to create a survival hack for Ironsworn, similar to Valheim). Something made of stone, like a flint knife, might have a four part clock and a 50% chance to mark the clock with every weak hit or miss using the item. When the clock is full, the item is broken and you’ll have to craft another one. This would be optional, of course, because not everyone would be interested in this kind of thing.

Not a Hurdle: Denizens

This is the easy part! I already have ideas for the things the player will encounter on the island. Dinosaurs, archosaurs, and flying reptiles are present and will not take kindly to the Ironlanders’ encroachment. I have even considered including semi-sentient reptiloids—think saurians from Dragon’s Dogma or xaurics from Pillars of Eternity and Avowed—as either opposition or, if you’re lucky, allies. Maybe they are displaced too, and only want to go back to where they are from.

Since NPCs don’t really impact the game’s mechanics in the way that the player character’s assets and stats do, it’s pretty easy to construct denizens. All you really need is a name, a challenge rank, some details, tactics and desires and you have it.

Hurdle the Last: Final Product

The most difficult element of producing these modules (and any game, really) is finalizing the product. This includes editing, layout, and, most troublesome, art. As someone who enjoys drawing (though I don’t think I would call myself an artist), I find it difficult to allow myself to use stock art or creative commons art. Often, it’s difficult to find art that is cohesive in style when pulling from creative commons. Stock art, at least the good stuff, costs money and, as I don’t charge for these modules and make less than $20 usually, it isn’t “good business” to spend money on these projects. I will never use AI generated art, so that leaves me with drawing it myself or being ok with using pieces that may not match in style.

I still have some writing to do before this Ironbound Adventure is ready to publish, but I’m feeling inspired and excited to play through this island filled with dangerous reptilian predators! I’ll post again with more updates on Ironbound Adventure #3 “Isle of Bones” in the coming weeks with a look at some of the optional game mechanics that I’m excited to write.

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