The Ironsworn RPG by Shawn Tomkin is familiar to anyone who has spent time reading The Dragon's Den blog, and my praise of the system and its creator is recorded in many places. The idea of Iron Shorts came to me earlier this year as a way of writing standalone, but potentially shared-world, short stories using Ironsworn's excellent mechanics. I don't have an ETA on the second Iron Short, but there will be one whenever inspiration beats out the Challenge Dice! In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this slightly longer narrative, following Odvain and his warrior's circle as they seek out the missing miners of Rathton Tor.
Creator's Note: I intended this to drop several weeks ago, but things have not worked out that way. Thank you for bearing with me!
Odvain Eldricksson led his men into the longhouse of Rathton Tor, out of the heat of the midday summer sun. The high ceiling loomed above them in shrouded darkness, while the thick support columns flickered in the light of a massive fire in the central hearth. The chieftain, Tormod, was an aging graybeard, with copious wrinkles and a rotund belly. Long were the years of Tormod’s warring against other clans and the wildlings of the Dark Wood, but now pleasure and leisure had done as much as age to strip the once strapping warrior chieftain of his battle prowess.
Odvain, Tormod’s sister-son, had served the old chieftain since he was but a fledgling raider upon the River Ycewaith and now led a raiding party of Tor’s finest warriors: Ivor the Burning Brand, Olga Boulder-Breaker, Knut Proudaxe, and Tora Cloudchaser. These four, under Odvain’s expert leadership, were feared and respected by all along the Ycewaith, and even into the north where the remnants of the legions of Trebia still held sway over the Ironfolk.
“Honored Chieftain,” Odvain said as he approached the dais upon which his uncle’s chair sat. The old man stirred at Odvain’s voice, his furrowed brow relaxing as his eyes refocused upon the kneeling warrior.
“Hail, and well met, Odvain sister-son.”
“Hail, Uncle.” Odvain and his retinue slapped their fists to their armored chests in salute. “Birgitta brought me your summons. We came with all haste.”
“Of all the children my father’s line has produced, you, Odvain Eldricksson, are the most trustworthy and valiant. Indeed, with haste you came, and our village shall be all the better for it.”
“What has happened, Uncle?” Odvain asked. “Birgitta’s missive provided no information.”
“As is her wont,” Tormod said, smiling slightly. “As you are most aware, the mines are running dry. Dagni and her folk attempted to expand along a new vein, but what they found is troubling. They discovered instead a shambling corpse in a long corridor. Dagni and a few of her bravest pushed deeper, while the rest returned to inform me. The watch destroyed this draugr and burnt its corpse, but Dagni has yet to return.”
“I fear the worst, Father,” Birgitta said, having entered from behind the chieftain’s dais.
Odvain noticed Birgitta’s face was creased with worry and her eyes bore dark circles. He had the sense that she had been crying recently, and then recalled that Birgitta’s betrothed worked on Dagni’s team.
“As do I, child.” He reached up and patted the hand Birgitta rested on his shoulder comfortingly. “That is why I sent for Odvain. You must go into the mine and find Dagni and her people, be they alive or dead.”
Odvain knelt again, drew his sword, and gripped the double-edged blade in a bare hand. Blood slowly slipped down the iron blade as he bowed his head onto the flat pommel. “I swear upon the iron of my blade, and upon my honor, that I and my companions will seek out the fate of our people within the mine.”
The blood on his blade began to sizzle as the ancient rite activated the latent magic placed upon the ground, and all that was within it, of the Iron Land.
“It has been sworn. Let the earth of our home bear witness to your oath, Odvain Eldricksson, and hold you to it as we do.”
Swear an Iron Vow
Odvain stood, and with a crisp bow to his uncle, turned and led his companions out of the mead hall and down the low hill where the mine was located. At the entrance, the watchmen stepped back, letting the five warriors enter the dark tunnel. Mounted torches illuminated the tunnel as far as Odvain could see. Two braziers had been set up near this new tunnel, and he made for them as quickly as he could, followed closely by his companions.
Delve the Depths
Mark Progress
Find An Opportunity
Oracle
Vow Progress
Odvain’s iron chest plate scrubbed against the jagged wall of the crevice. A claustrophobic panic began to rise in his chest as a lip of stone hung up on the edge of the breastplate, preventing his advance. With much effort, he worked his hand up and was able to push the armor against his chest enough for him to scrape by. He heaved a sigh of relief as the opening widened, allowing him to strafe through the pass comfortably. Impossibly smooth planes beyond the reach of dripping groundwater were the only indication of excavation he could see. The ground, however, appeared to have been rent by an enormous talon.
“Who would carve a passage like this,” Knut grumbled from behind Odvain. The bigger man’s barrel chest and heavy leather jerkin scrubbed loudly against the rough stone.
Odvain chuckled to himself as he stretched a hand back and tugged on Knut’s thick arm. The big man’s chest slid through, and he sucked in a deep breath. “Thanks.”
Odvain nodded to his companion and slipped the rest of the way through the crevice into a small chamber. The roof of the chamber was some fifteen feet above and shrouded in darkness. Stalactites protruded like the fangs of a great beast out of the shadows. Icy water dripped steadily from the ceiling, forming pools on the smooth stone floor.
“Odvain, there’s a shelter,” Tora Cloudchaser whispered.
Odvain looked to where she was pointing. In the light of her torch, he could just make out a tall opening, situated in the center of a smooth wall of stone.
“Why is there a shelter down here?” he asked rhetorically. “Knut, Ivor, Olga. Keep watch. Tora, with me.”
Tora drew her axe and slung her shield off her back, and the other three companions followed her lead. Odvain listened for movement within the hut, but heard nothing. Leading the way, he moved through the opening and stopped in the center of the small, single room hut.
“Hand me the torch,” he said, reaching out his hand. Tora complied, and he thrust the torch forward. Its orange glow revealed a moth-eaten and tattered banner hanging from an iron rod on the back wall of the hut, marked with a sigil of three pine trees.
“Do you recognize this?” he asked Tora.
She scrutinized it carefully. “No, I don’t believe I’ve seen this sigil before. Perhaps Chieftain Tormod will know?”
“I hesitate to remove it,” Odvain said. “It looks as if it might crumble if we touch it.”
“Agreed.”
Ask the Oracle
Oracle
“Return to the others. I will look around for a moment, then we will press on.”
Odvain looked around the small room, taking in the broken-down furniture, rotting hay mattress, and crumbling scrolls scattered across several shelves. As he turned to leave, his eyes fell upon an ancient tome resting atop a moldering table. He took it up and gently opened the cracked leather cover. The first few pages crumbled as his fingers carefully tried to turn them.
The book was full of strange images and runes, written in an odd, brown ink. The few words the pages contained were foreign to him, though the images soon came to make sense. The book he held was a funerary tome, depicting the various body preparation methods and funeral rites. One image, near the back of the tome, depicted what could only be described as an imbuement of arcane energy into the corpse of a figure dressed in armor and holding an odd-looking sword.
It was a barrow. Fear settled over his heart as he slipped the tome carefully into his pack and returned to the chamber and his companions. Recounting the contents of the tome, he watched as the faces of his comrades in arms fell.
“A barrow?” Tora asked. “This close to a mine?”
“It’s clearly ancient, probably before Rathton Tor was settled,” Odvain replied.
“We need more torches,” Knut rumbled. “Only way to kill a draugr is with fire.”
Using the fire from Tora and Olga’s torches, the remaining three companions lit their own. The light in the tunnel blossomed to very brilliant yellow as the five torches illuminated their path. Odvain drew his sword and led the group forward into a wide, smooth-sided tunnel.
Delve the Depths
Weak Hit Table
Delve Progress
Vow Progress
Waypoint Oracle
The tunnel descended in slow turns, its incline gentle and the ground smooth. The torchlight turned the chilling dark of the shaft to a warm light as they pressed on round the next bend. Odvain, leading the group with Tora beside him, held up a hand and closed his fist—the signal to halt.
“Looks like some kind of entrance,” Tora whispered, gazing up at the carved stone edifice blocking their path.
Odvain stepped forward, holding his torch high to illuminate the rest of the gate. He made out carvings of various strange images, along with concentric circles of runes, on the thick stone transom above a wooden door.
“What do you make of these shapes?” Olga asked, coming up close behind Tora.
“Never seen the like,” the other woman replied.
“I have,” Odvain whispered. “In the book I found, there were Images and runes like these written all through it. This must be some kind of sacred entrance, probably to the catacombs themselves. We must be cautious inside.”
Delve the Depths
Reveal A Danger
The companions made a single file behind Odvain, who pushed through the wooden door, its hinges screeching in protest. Within, the tunnel widened to three times its previous width. The ground remained flat and smooth, with only the occasional pile of dust in the corners. Most of the slots lining the walls contained tightly wrapped and moldering corpses of the ancient dead, mummified and lying in state for hundreds of years.
Suddenly, a low keening reverberated down the wide corridor, accompanied by the sound of shuffling steps. A figure emerged from a hidden cubiculum, clad in a moss-covered chain shirt. The figure’s open-faced helm revealed the desiccated face of a corpse, reanimated and angry at the disturbance of its place of eternal rest. The draugr drew a bronze blade from its side, and, with a low keen, charged the companions.
“Shields!” Odvain called out, no longer concerned with keeping quiet. The light shifted as the five warriors dropped their torches to the ground at their feet, sending long shadows to blend with the darkness of the cavernous roof.
The companions moved with well-trained precision, forming a wall of shields between the advancing draugr and themselves.
“Weapons!” Odvain ordered as the draugr’s slow, shuffling gait brought it closer.
The clang of metal on metal, joined with the guttering of the torches and the draugr’s keening, created a haunting opera. Bright swords flashed in the orange light and stabbed forward as the draugr arrived, slamming its bronze blade down on Odvain’s shield. The blow nearly drove the commander to his knees, but he rallied and pushed the draugr back, staggering the creature and opening it up to attacks from the others. The draugr cried out, its keening turning to a loud scream, as their iron blades popped its ancient rings of mail and drove into the creature’s husk of a body.
Yet, despite the number of blows, the draugr advanced again. His bronze blade flashed, and sparks erupted as the sword clashed with the boss of Odvain’s shield. The creature wailed, and retreated from the spark before it could land on the rotten sleeves of its tunic.
“Fire!” Tora yelled, and her sword clattered to the floor as she dropped it and bent to retrieve her torch. Olga, Knut, and Ivor followed her lead.
The draugr fled from the fire, its shuffling feet taking it as far from the torches as fast as it could.
“Advance!” Odvain ordered, and the shield wall began to move forward, slow at first then at a jog as the companions closed on the slow creature.
“Strike!” Odvain called when they were in range of the creature.
Their shields dropped, and they launched themselves at the draugr, slashing and stabbing with their burning brands until, in a wail of pain, the draugr’s dried flesh erupted in flame and it fell to the ground. The creature struggled for a moment but was soon turned to ash, leaving behind only the damaged mail shirt and the bronze blade. Tora, who dealt the final blow, slid the creature’s bronze blade through her belt.
Battle
Resource Update
“A trophy eh, Tora?” Knut asked, nudging his companion with his elbow.
“Aye, you know Kodlak will want to see the craftsmanship.”
“Indeed,” Odvain agreed. “Should we take the mail as well?”
“Nay,” Knut replied. “It is burned and broken. Little use it would serve.”
Delve the Depths
Weak Hit Table
Delve Progress
Waypoint Oracles
Odvain moved down the corridor and investigated the cubiculum from which the draugr came. What he saw sent a chill down his spine. Scattered across the smooth stone floor were the bodies of several men and women, many of them missing limbs or heads. Blood spray covered the walls, running down the stone in small crimson rivers.
“I recognize Cami,” Tora whispered, pointing to a young woman with bright red hair and a freckled face. “She was a friend.”
“Aye, and that looks like Lomond,” Knut added, staring down at the burly corpse at the base of a sarcophagus. The ruins of the lid were strewn all over the floor.
“Do you think that draugr did this?” Ivor asked.
“Looks that way. The shattered lid is under their bodies. The draugr woke and broke free. Perhaps they were resting and couldn’t react in time?” Tora answered.
“Does anyone see Dagni?” Odvain asked.
“Nay,” Knut replied. “She’s not here.”
“Then we must press on. Be wary, there may be more of these undead fiends down here,” Odvain said, sadness filling his chest as he turned away from the sight of the carnage and began to move down the corridor.
Delve the Depths
Find an Opportunity
Delve Progress
Waypoint Oracles
The catacombs twisted and turned, leaving Odvain feeling oddly out of sorts. They walked for what seemed like ages, surrounded by mummified remains reposed and uncaring. The walls began to feel like they were closing in on the group of warriors, and Odvain’s chest began to heave as he fought against the rising panic. Tora and Olga also seemed to be uneasy, their breaths deep and fast behind him. Knut and Ivor were too far behind them, serving as rearguards, to be heard.
“Did you hear that?” Tora whispered, pausing.
“Just your mind playing tricks on you,” Olga replied.
“No, I hear it too. Something’s up ahead,” Odvain interjected. The adrenaline provided by the knowledge that another draugr might be ahead helped him push past the claustrophobia.
As they approached a junction in the path, they heard the clear scrape of booted feet on stone and saw a flash of orange light. Odvain lifted his shield and leveled his sword over the rim. They advanced slowly, warily, until a voice rang out, echoing off the walls of the catacombs.
“Stop there, foul fiends!”
“Dagni? Is that you?” Odvain called out, relaxing his defense.
“Who’s there?” the voice called again.
“It’s Odvain and my circle. Chieftain Tormod sent us to find you and your crew.”
A bloodied and limping woman stepped into view. “Thank the gods, Odvain! I thought for sure I was a goner down here.”
“We found your crew. We thought for sure the draugr had gotten you too.”
“They nearly did, more than once. Gods be praised that I lived this long.”
“Indeed. Come, we must leave this place.”
“Not yet, come with me. There’s something you should see.”
Odvain followed Dagni around a corner and into a large room. Two massive iron gates hung on hinges as long as a person’s arm. Inside, Odvain found a rectangular stone box, topped with a lid carved into the likeness of a woman. The woman’s face was fierce, with sharp cheekbones and an angular jaw. On her head, she wore a crowned helm. Her gauntleted hands gripped the hilt of a long sword, with a leaf-shaped blade.
“Who was she?” Odvain asked, admiring the skill of the ancient stonecutters.
“No idea. Some kind of queen?”
“She certainly seems to have been,” Odvain agrees, nodding. “What did you want me to see?”
“This,” Dagni replied, lifting a perfectly preserved tome wrapped in smooth black leather.
Odvain took the tome and opened it. Unlike the leatherbound book he discovered in the stone hut, this one appeared to be undamaged by the passage of time. Its pages were crisp, and the binding was strong. The black, inked words were easy to read, even if foreign.
“I can’t read this, Dagni,” Odvain said, looking up at the haggard foreman.
“No, I suspect you do not. But I thought perhaps you’d recognize the runes as belonging to the Firstborn.”
“The woodfolk? They’re a myth.”
“Perhaps they are now, but they were once very real, and they called the whole of the Iron Lands their own. I suspect this is an important Firstborn warrior-queen, and this tome likely reveals more about their lives, beliefs, and practices than we can imagine. Of course, it does us little good. We can’t read it, but my grandfather used to tell me stories of the barrows of the Firstborn. He said they placed spells on their barrows to keep interlopers from invading the sacred spaces. I think the draugr awakened to protect their queen when my folk broke through the barrier, separating our mine and the old tomb. If we return to the mine and seal the entry, perhaps the dead can sleep once more.”
“That’s as good a theory as any. Regardless, our only path is back to the mine. Even if the draugr do not sleep, we can block the rift and keep them from escaping the barrow.”
“Agreed,” Dagni says, clutching the tome to her chest. “I would like to take this with us, see if I can find a scholar who can decipher the language.”
“Do you think that wise?” Olga asked from the doorway.
“I don’t think the dead will mind if we take something that might keep their stories alive. It’s not like we’re making off with treasure.”
“Very well, Dagni. The barrow took your folk, it is meet that you should have restitution. But let us go, and quickly.”
Vow Progress
Ask the Oracle
With all haste, Odvain and company retraced their steps from the mausoleum of the ancient Firstborn queen to the stone hut at the opening of the passage the Rathton Tor miners had opened.
“Should we seal the doors to the barrow and leave this space open?” Odvain wondered aloud.
“It could serve as an outpost and mining office,” Dagni replied.
“Or it could keep the dead from their eternal rest,” Knut rumbled.
“The choice should be left to the Chieftain,” Ivor said, receiving a nod from both Tora and Olga.
“Valid thoughts all around,” Odvain replied, scratching his bearded chin. “We must put something in place to keep the draugr contained, but we will let the Chieftain have the final word. Knut, can you barricade the barrow door?”
“Aye.”
“Ivor and Olga, remain with Knut. Tora and I will escort Dagni to the chieftain.”
“As you say,” Ivor said, bowing slightly.
“Let us go, then, Dagni.”
“Yes, I’ve had enough of the mines for a few days.”
Odvain chuckled and led the way into the mineshaft and back to the surface. The guards at the mine entrance spotted them and raised a cry of victory. The villagers stopped their labor and turned their attention to the mine as Odvain led Dagni into the light of day.
“Odvain Eldricksson!” a booming voice called from the hilltop. “Glory, have you reaped this day! Well met, sister-son! Attend me.”
“What of me, Chieftain?” Dagni called back.
“You have earned some time off, I think,” the Chieftain boomed, a broad smile on his face. “Go and rest. I will send for you in a day or two.”
Dagni bowed to the Chieftain and turned to Odvain. “Thank you, Odvain. I will mourn my people, but I am grateful to be alive. All because of you and your circle.”
“I’m just thankful we found you alive,” he replied. “If you’ll excuse me, I must attend the Chieftain. Tora, with me.”
The two of them made their way up the hill from which the village received its name and bowed before the Chieftain.
“Up you get, sister-son,” Tormod said. “You have brought honor to our family this day.”
“Thank you, uncle.”
Odvain proceeded to tell Tormod the theory Dagni presented. The Chieftain listened intently, his eyes widening in surprise as Odvain described the mausoleum of the Firstborn queen. “What say you, uncle?”
Ask the Oracle
“Close it all down. Mark the area with my sigil. No one is to dig within two dozen feet on either side of that sigil. We cannot allow the risk.”
“As you say, uncle,” Odvain bowed, then turned to Tora. “Gather a few miners and tools and return to Knut. Bring the Chieftain’s orders and see them carried out.”
Tora snapped a salute to Odvain and bowed to the Chieftain before moving off in search of miners.
“Come, sister-son, let us drink to your success,” Tormod said, laying his arm across Odvain’s shoulders and steering him toward the mead hall.
Fulfil Your Vow
Thank you for reading! I have ideas for a second Iron Short, but that will be a while off as September is a busy month for me. That said, expect a new series soon! I'm going to try something fellow solo gamer, SGH of PTFO, does often: a reader poll! Vote below for the system we play for the upcoming series.
What system should we play next?
0%Ironsworn
0%Dungeons & Dragons 5e
0%Dragonbane
0%Tales of the Burned Stones
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