A Solitary Cabin

What follows is the beginning of a fictionalization of my new game of Ironsworn.

The Ironlands are not young.

They are merely the last to die.

When the Old World tore itself asunder in fire and madness, our ancestors crossed the black water with iron in hand and sorrow in their hearts. They did not come as conquerors. They came as survivors. They clawed into the frozen earth and made villages where the forest did not scream, built walls where the dead did not walk, and whispered oaths to the gods they no longer believed in.

And still, the Ironlands were not tamed.

Winter here does not end. It only hides. The land is cruel and silent, haunted by beasts of elder blood and half-buried ruins that mutter in forgotten tongues. There are no kings—only warbands, seers, and clan-thanes, bound by iron and oath, ready to shed blood for barley, sheep, or pride. Trade is bartered by firelight. Law is the edge of a blade. The old roads are broken. The forests remember trespass.

And yet, there are those who would carve meaning from the frost.

Drakken was born beneath a dying moon and raised by a war-singer mother who taught him the old tales—not of glory, but of vows. It was his grandfather, Thain-Elder Jorund, who taught him the sword. A man of grim honor, Jorund had slain many, led the Stonehollow to victories, and borne the weight of command with the silence of a glacier. When his limbs failed and his blood thinned, he called Drakken to his side.

And so was made The Final Vow.

By ancient rite, the old warrior must die not of age or sickness, but by the edge of his own blade—wielded by one who bears his blood and honor. The act seals the soul, binding it into steel, and from this union is forged a Kin-blade, a weapon that remembers.

Drakken wept. But he did not falter.

That night, by the light of the hearth and the silent eyes of his kin, he drove the blade through his grandfather’s heart and laid him low upon the ironstone. The sword, now named Vowkeeper, was quenched in the old man’s blood. It sings still, they say, when drawn near the unjust.

It has been three winters since.

And so was born Vowkeeper, the soul-steel sword that would not sleep until bound again by fire and deed.

But the blade does not serve a boy. Not yet.

Drakken has taken his first oath as a Swordmaster-in-training. The priest Mattick, his father’s old friend, now stands in judgement over his trials. To be worthy of Vowkeeper, he must complete Nine Steps—quests of danger, trial, and revelation. Only through these rites can the bond be sealed, and the blade awakened.

His sister, Joa, burns with a jealous pride—she too wished for the blade, but it did not choose her. His uncle, Jihan, whispers promises of gold and ruin beyond the mountain passes. And by Drakken’s side pads Grimm, the great hound he raised from a pup, a creature of silent loyalty and fierce teeth.

The blade waits.

The land waits.

And Drakken steps forth—into wind, into darkness, into the path that will either break him…

…or bind him forever.