Mysterious Powders in the Ironlands
A FREE Oracle for Ironsworn players
There’s no shortage of fan-made Ironsworn resources kicking around online, but such is the openness and breadth of Shawn Tomkin’s Ironlands setting, there’s always room for one more.
And the opportunity for these new resources opened up by accident for me last week during my Ironsworn playthrough. Let me explain…
As I mentioned in the narrative, I rolled up an enemy from Duncan Thomson’s Coastal Encounters Random Tables, which is well worth the modest investment on DriveThru RPG. It’s one of an extensive collection of similar collections of tables focusing on encounters found in different terrains.
My narrative and moves enabled me to envisage Olvir stumbling upon the body of a dead ogre lying in a pool of blood on the floor of a subterranean temple. The text noted that the unfortunate ogre was carrying a small quantity of gold—which I gladly shared with my erstwhile companion—and a small pouch containing something called “The Dust of Disappearance.”
I snagged without thinking much about it, until I later asked myself, “What on earth is the Dust of Disappearance?” Two minutes of Google research revealed it’s something from the DnD loot tables—hardly surprising as the author of my tables was likely writing with the DnD in mind.
But how does something which enables the user to vanish into thin air to escape a tight spot fit into the decidedly low-magic setting of Ironsworn? Spoiler Alert: it doesn’t!
That got me thinking of how I could reinterpret such a substance in a way which made some kind of sense in my version of the Ironlands, where traces of magic persist, albeit rarely.
And so the idea for The Table of Mysterious Powders was born.
What if you could find—on rare occasions—mysterious powders on the bodies of slain foes, or in suitable locations, or even on the shelves of particularly unusual traders, a powder, ingredient or elixir, which makes sense in the lore and history of The Ironlands?
This table offers ten possible substances that might be uncommonly present. I stress—these things should be rare, perhaps incredibly rare. Even so, they aren’t game-breaking or “get out of jail free cards.” They are meant to offer modest but real benefits to those who use them.
I envisage them being completely baffling to fighter-type characters, but perhaps those interested in magic rituals can find a use for them. As such, I suggest that only those with a ritual asset amongst their chosen assets should be able to harness their limited powers. To everyone else, they should appear to be little more than junk—albeit with perhaps a decent value in gold coin to the right trader.
If you’d like to try these out, then here is a PDF of my collection of arcane powders. Simply roll a d10 to randomise what you find.
I enjoyed putting this list together and will be adding this to my growing collection of oracles.
If people find this kind of thing helpful, I’d be willing to make more tables of this nature. Let me know what you think in the comments—in the meantime, if you think you could use this, please grab the download. Don’t forget to let me know how it goes for you in the Ironlands.
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Sounds like an interesting resource. I will have to check it out. Thanks for sharing.