These ten adventure seeds are designed as story-starters for your Ironsworn: Starforged campaign. Each seed offers a compact narrative hook, paired with a specific theme, an evocative opening scene, a Paint the Scene question to kickstart the fiction. They can be used to set the tone, stakes, and immediate goals for a new campaign, introduce a side quest or faction subplot, or as a flashback to a past (mis)adventure. You could use a d10 to choose one for inspiration.
1. Echo Protocol
Theme: Mystery—AI
A deep-space observatory has begun transmitting ghost signals from long-decommissioned probes. These signals echo past crew logs—some of which describe events that never happened. As the transmissions grow stronger, hallucinations plague the staff. Will you trace the signal to its source, or silence it before it rewrites reality?
As your ship docks with Relay Station Theta-7, static-laced logs pulse through your comms. You hear your own voice in one: “I told you it would find us. Now it’s inside.” The station interior is lit only by emergency strips—crew absent, log terminals flickering.
Paint the Scene:
What fragment of a false memory, something your character never lived, lingers in the corridor’s flickering monitors?
2. The Resin Pact
Intrigue—Alien
On the jungle world of Garnet, a newly discovered species offers biochemical secrets in exchange for sanctuary. Their sap-like blood accelerates healing, but also induces addictive euphoria. Syndicates want control, settlers want protection, and the creatures only trust you. Who will you betray?
A red mist rises among the roots as the jungle breathes. At your feet, a sap-creature drips amber tears into your hand. “Keep us safe,” it pleads in halting Galactic. Behind you, Blackthorn troops shout, machetes cutting vines as they close in.
Paint the Scene:
What memory of yours is triggered by the sounds of the oncoming troops?
3. Scrap Messiah
Theme: Religion—Construct
A charismatic android has begun converting scavengers in the Maelstrom, preaching transcendence through mechanical “ascension.” Some believe it holds precursor knowledge. Others fear a cult uprising. Do you expose the fraud, or protect the spark of something divine?
You enter the makeshift chapel aboard a derelict hulk orbiting the Maelstrom. Half-machined acolytes chant in binary, while the android preacher lifts its hands toward the stars. “Our creator discarded us. We will remake the gods.”
Paint the Scene:
What strange and salvaged symbol do the cultists use to show their devotion?
4. The Black Veil
Theme: Horror—Precursor
A salvage crew uncovered a shimmering black fluid on an ancient derelict. It seems to move with purpose. Days later, entire decks of Pinnacle Station are quarantined. The fluid wants something. Can you communicate with it—or will you help contain the outbreak?
The medbay lights flicker as containment alarms howl. A crew member convulses, black fluid sliding from their eyes. “It’s learning,” the station AI whispers. “It knows we’re watching.”
Paint the Scene:
What creeping change have you noticed that the fluid is affecting Pinnacle Station itself?
5. A Debt of Iron
Action—Faction
Roland “Anvil” Duval is missing. Word is, he fled Blackthorn Syndicate with forbidden relics from the Maelstrom. Now both mercenaries and pirates want him. Will you bring him in, protect him, or uncover the truth behind what he took?
Roland Duval’s quarters are abandoned, a single artificial arm left on the workbench, fingers still warm. A Blackthorn officer snarls over comms: “You find him, you bring him back—alive. Or we take you apart in pieces.”
Paint the Scene:
What personal item left behind in Duval’s quarters reveals his reluctance to flee?
6. Conspiracy of Silence
Sci-Fi—Mystery
Every ship that passes through a nearby asteroid belt returns with its crew unable to speak—a condition neither physical nor digital. A desperate family hires you to retrieve a lost freighter before the silence claims it too. Can you resist the pull of the Chime?
The belt looms before you—an icy ring glowing faintly with crystalline fragments. You receive a ping: the freighter Anthem’s Echo is intact, adrift… but its beacon emits nothing but soft, rhythmic pulses. You speak aloud. Your voice fades before your ears.
Paint the Scene:
What about this asteroid belt gives the unsettling impression that it’s not a natural formation, but a warning?
7. Bloodbark Harvest
Theme: Survival—Nature
Redhaven’s supply of the heartroot fungus is failing. Aggressive jungle creatures grow larger and bolder, ever closer to the settlement. Something in the mycelial network has changed. Can you descend into the jungle’s shadow and find the cause, before Redhaven starves or is overrun?
Beneath the towering red canopy, fungal lanterns flicker out one by one. A harvest team panics over comms, cut off and pursued by something big, fast, and silent. You’re perched on a gantry, overlooking where their signals blinked out.
Paint the Scene:
What is different now about this jungle that shows the ecosystem is turning hostile?
8. Swan Dive
Theme: Exploration—Survival
Brianna “Buzzard” Keelan went dark on her deepest dive into the Maelstrom. Her ship, adorned with more swirl marks than any other, transmitted a single encrypted word: “Found.” You’re hired to retrieve her—or what she found. Will you follow her trail into the storm?
Buzzard’s ship drifts in a debris stream, engine cold, hull scarred by unknown impacts. The Maelstrom’s currents twist around it like wolves circling prey. Your sensors read one life sign; then none; then one again.
Paint the Scene:
What adorns Buzzard’s ship that shows her obsession with reaching the Maelstrom’s core at any cost?
9. Vengeance from the Ashes
Theme: Revenge—Pirates
Zephyr’s iconic red-winged ship was found adrift, its crew slaughtered—yet no one claims responsibility. The Fire Talon pirates are fragmented and hungry for revenge. Will you navigate the factional chaos, uncover the assassin, or seize control for yourself?
Fire Talon pirate ships crowd into a neutral trade zone, now quiet and tense. Zephyr’s command vessel floats open, airlocks gaping like wounds. A message beacon blares: “You want the crown? Deliver us vengeance.”
Paint the Scene:
What part of Zephyr’s ship has been left untouched by the raiders, and how does it point to who is responsible for this atrocity?
10. The Vessel
Theme: Horror—Supernatural
A sleeper ship from the Exodus era arrives at Pinnacle Station. Every pod is empty. One figure stumbles from the airlock, muttering in dead languages. He claims to be the Vessel, and that something is coming through him. Will you investigate, or vanish him before it’s too late?
The man stumbles through the airlock—naked, glowing faintly beneath his skin. He speaks in dead languages, then in yours. “I bring what sleeps in the dark,” he says, eyes wide with dread and delight. Pinnacle’s leaders want him gone — or vivisected.
Paint the Scene:
What ancient word does the man utter that resonates deep in your memory, as if you’ve heard it in dreams?
The House of Nerdery and Curios 