The war is over. The weapons it made are still walking.
During the war, the Dark Lord took the best warriors from every kin and reforged them into weapons. Five years ago, the war ended and nobody told them what to be instead.
You were one of them. The world calls you Ashborn now. You still remember the village you came from, and the village remembers what you became.
Ashborn: The Long Road Home is a hopeful dark fantasy tabletop RPG about coming home from a war you should never have fought, to people who have every reason to be afraid of you.
- What it is about. Killing machines looking for a place in a world at peace.
- How the rules say it. You carry enormous destructive power, and you win by serving the community.
- What it rewards. Restraint and sacrifice. You grow through connection. There is no experience for killing.
What you actually do at the table
The core loop runs the same five beats, town after town.
- Arrive as a feared stranger. The shutters close ahead of you.
- Serve through taking the jobs nobody else will touch.
- Challenge, where violence is the easy answer and restraint is what earns Humanity.
- Return to town, and your Standing may shift.
- Sojourn to cool the Rage you built.
Then you do it again. Until you are ready to ask a community to accept you for who you are. Until you are ready to Ascend.
What makes it different
- Built on the Ironsworn engine, stripped down to the core. Same two Challenge Dice, same three outcomes. No move list. Everything you need is on the character sheet in front of you.
- Power you don't control. Go far enough and the weapon takes the roll away from you. The only thing standing between the world and that moment is a memory you got back by being kind.
- Standing is trust, not XP. Every town remembers what you did there, and it resets when you walk to the next one.
- The ending is yours to call. Ask a town to take you in whenever you feel ready. Roll Standing and Humanity against the dice to Ascend. Win or lose, that is where your story ends.
Will you make it all the way home?
Illustrated in ink by Joe Porkio
Every piece in this book is drawn by hand, in ink on paper, by illustrator Joe Porkio (@joeporkio). No filters and no shortcuts. It is the kind of linework that makes a monster frightening, and a whole world feel lived in.
Follow along as the art comes in. Mold portraits, the five cities, the world map, and the scenes that carry the heart of the game.
A free quickstart is live right now
Try the game today. The Player Guide and the Game Master Guide will get you straight into the action. Five premade characters, one adventure, no prep, and everything explained as you go. It works for a table that has never rolled a die and for one that has played for twenty years.
Get the free quickstart: DTRPG LINK (ready early September)
From the publisher behind 11,000+ sold games
KR1 Publishing has spent the last two years releasing bestsellers on DriveThruRPG, including West Marches, the Hexcrawl series, and the Sandbox Playstyle Toolkit. Ashborn is the next one, and it is the most personal yet. You'll get to know why closer to launch.
Follow this project to get notified the moment we launch.
Follow this project to get notified the moment we launch.
