Solitaire: Ion Heart – Pilot’s Handbook

It is fifteen hundred years since the Astral Union was formed and sixty-five years since the Emergence Catastrophe occurred. Nephilim Strand Fleets emerged from the Galactic East and for a decade the Emergence War was waged across the galaxy. Over five decades have passed since and signs of the conflict can be found only almost every planet and in the spaces between. Remnants of the original invasion force, as well as individual Nephilim, can still be found lurking at the furthest reaches of the spatial translation Snap Rifts that bind the planetary systems of the Astral Union together. Bandits and pirates are a threat still, as are corporations running rogue operations. One icon of the war that can still be seen today is the Mech. Before the war, it had been designed as an industrial machine for use in construction and mining, and later developed as a combat vehicle, but the Mech rose to prominence during the defence of the Astral Union. Ion Core technology harnessed the latent psionic ability of all sentient beings using advanced A.I. systems to create a Sync-Bond between a mech and its user, enhancing the precision and dexterity of the Mech and enabling the Mech itself to develop a personality of its own and operate independently, but still linked to its Pilot. Today, Mechs are seen far and wide across the Astral Union, the bond between Pilot and Mech celebrated as if they were a knight and the Mech his steed of old. Together, they adventure and explore, help and hinder, protect and perform, often helping where they can, like itinerant, if hyper-armed, ronin of old.

This is the set-up for Ion Heart: Solo Mech Exploration RPG – Pilot’s Handbook. It is a solo journalling game published by Parable Games, best known for the horror roleplaying game, Shiver – Role-playing Tales in the Strange & the Unknown. In the roleplaying game, the player will take the roles of both Pilot and Mech, who together explore a universe ravaged by war and now recovering, growing together and strengthening their bond. The roleplaying game provides prompts that will drive the story of their adventures that the player will record in short mission logs. These missions typically take the form of an ‘Exploration Loop’—arriving on a planet, discovering a settlement, encountering a Story Circuit, and engaging in combat and travel encounters, as necessary. A Story Circuit is a narrative arc consisting of six parts. The player needs to play through a minimum of three of these before his Pilot and Mech can play out the finale of the Story Circuit, and so complete its narrative before moving. The Story Circuit is pre-written, but the rest is created at the beginning of each loop. To play, Ion Heart: Solo Mech Exploration RPG needs nothing more than some six-sided dice and a means to record a journal.

Ion Heart: Solo Mech Exploration RPG – Pilot’s Handbook includes some background to the setting really intended to provide flavour and detail, rather than mechanical support. This includes the history of the Astral Union, its organisations and what ordinary life is like, an explanation of the Emergent War and who the Nephilim are, and a timeline. Surprisingly, this also includes the various species which a player can chose from. These include Apollonians or humans from the Apollo-Theta system, the reptilian Varziss of the Varziss Triarchy, the bear-like Urvons of the League of Urvo, the winged and nocturnal bat-like Chiros of Chiros Coalition, the centaur-like Kirvae of the Kirvaen Prefecture, and the cat-like Mo’nau of the Mo’nau Republic. In addition to selecting one of these species during character creation, all of this material can be drawn upon when a player is recording in his journal.

The character creation is for both the Pilot and the Mech. The Pilot is defined by Pilot Body and Pilot Presence, whilst Mech is defined by Mech Brawn and Mech Reflex. Pilot Body is his physical capability and toughness, whilst Pilot Presence is his mental fortitude and reasoning skills. Mech Brawn is the Mech’s strength and toughness, whilst Mech Reflex is his speed and agility. All of these start at zero, but are first modified by the Pilot’s Temperament and the Mech’s Weight Class. The Pilot has an Origin—one of the species listed above, a Pilot Goal such as ‘Adventure Forth’, ‘Escape Past’, and ‘Fulfil Destiny’, and Pilot Temperament, which can be ‘Outgoing’, ‘Reflective’, ‘Analytical’, ‘Intuitive’, ‘Mercurial’, or ‘Rigid’. Each of these provide a benefit. For example, ‘Reflective’ means that the Pilot prefers to keep himself and thinks carefully before committing to anything, which grants ‘+3 Max. Mech Shielding’ and ‘+1 Pilot Body’, whilst ‘Intuitive’ means that the Pilot is empathetic, has a poet’s soul, and makes judgements based on what he feels to be right, and that allows his player can ‘Re-roll two failed Pilot Presence Checks per day.’

Creating or building a Mech is slightly—but only slightly—more complex. The Mech has a Class that can either be Light, Medium, or Heavy. This determines whether it favours speed, durability, and powerful weapons, or a balance between the two, and thus its starting values for Mech Shielding and Brawn and Reflex modifiers. Each Mech has a Ranged Weapons System, Melee Weapons System, and an Auxiliary System, which will also help in combat. Since the end of the war with the Nephilim, all Mechs have been reconfigured or designed to have a civilian Specialisation and thus the capacity to be useful out of combat. This can be ‘Shepherd’, ‘Harvester’, or ‘Bridgebuilder’, for example. All of this—for both Pilot and Mech—can rolled for or chosen by the player. Lastly, there is the Ion Core Sync Bond, which represents the connection between the Pilot and his Mech, and in play, determines how many Heroic Actions or Ion Core engagements that can be conducted per day.

Pilot Name: Makwa

Pilot Origin: Urvon

Pilot Temperament: Analytical (+1 to hit in first Ranged Step of any combat)

Pilot Goal: Save Others

Pilot Presence 0 Pilot Body 0

Mech

Origin: Working Relationship

Weight: Heavy

Ion Core Sync Bond 2

Mech Shielding 46

Battle Scars: 0

Mech Brawn +1

Mech Reflex -1

Attacks: 3

Weapons: Scattergun (Damage: 4+D6) [Buckshot: For every hit with this weapon, make an extra free attack with it]; Forge Hammer (Damage: 6+D6) [Crushing Smite: The Meteorite Thunderstrike Ion Core does an additional +4 damage]

Auxiliary system: TN Field Projector

Mech Specialisation: Repair & Rescue

Mech Quirks: 0

Mechanically, Ion Heart is simple. When a player wants either his Pilot or his Mech to succeed, he rolls a single six-sided die and rolls of four or more means the attempt is successful. A roll of one is always a failure, whilst a roll of six is always a success. For the Pilot, bonuses can come from his Presence or Body as appropriate, but if he fails, the player can decide to have his Pilot undertake a Heroic Action. This automatically succeeds, but at the cost of a Sync Bond slot for that day. The Mech can operate by itself when the Pilot is not in the cockpit. In which case the bonuses for the Mech’s own Mech Brawn and Mech Reflex are used, and the roll required to succeed is still four or more. When a Mech has no instructions, it will revert to the Specialisation it has been programmed with.

Combat uses the same core mechanic, but on attacks, a roll of six is critical hit and inflicts more damage. Similarly, a roll of six to defend against an attack is a critical and deflects part of the damage back at the attacker. A round consists of three steps—Ranged, Melee, and Disengage. A Mech’s Level determines the number of attacks per round, but if the Pilot or Mech decides not to attack, they receive a bonus to the rolls to defend themselves. Damage reduces the Mech Shielding, and this is both when the Pilot is out of the Mech and in the Mech. If the Pilot is out of the Mech, it means that Pilot is not taking damage as such, but his ability to pilot the Mech is being affected.

The Ion Core of a Mech and its A.I. means that it can learn over time as it synchronises with the Pilot and it can also overcharge the Mech’s systems. There is no truly safe way to do this, as even if the Pilot and Mech have enough Sync Bond points—which determines the number of times it can be done per day—engaging the Ion Core can still damage the Mech and will damage the Mech if the number of times it is used exceeds the Sync Bond points. When the Ion Core is engaged, it provides the player with a number of choices, such as the aforementioned ‘Heroic Push’, which allows a failed Mech Brawn or Mech Reflex check to succeed; ‘Shields! Full Power!’, which partially restores Mech Shielding; and ‘Meteoric Thunderstrike!’ which enables a single attack that round and has it automatically succeed with extra damage inflicted. In the long term, through play and combat, the latter if the Mech Shielding is reduced to zero and the Mech is disabled, the Mech can acquire Mech Quirks such as ‘Gallant Protector’, which grants a bonus to Defence rolls if Mech Shielding is seriously reduced, and ‘Ocular Misalignment’, damaging its targeting optics! If there is an issue with the Ion Heart: Solo Mech Exploration RPG, it is that it is hard for the Pilot to improve in comparison to the Mech and the Mech is always more interesting than the Pilot as he has no special abilities or skills.

The play of Ion Heart—the ‘Exploration Loop’—begins with the creation the next destination for the Pilot and his Mech. This includes world building, which drills down from system creation through world creation to settlement design. Examples are provided to choose from, but there are tables which a player can use to create his own. The tables are used to create systems, planets, biomes, and settlements as well as encounters that can be friendly, mysterious, or hostile. The latter are backed up with a range of threats that includes other Mechs and Nephilim enemies. What this provides is a broadly drawn environment that a Pilot and Mech can explore and adventure across. It is also the environment upon which the player will map and tell the tale of one or more Story Circuits.

Eighteen of these are detailed in Ion Heart: Solo Mech Exploration RPG – Pilot’s Handbook, taking up half of the book. There are six each of Peaceful, Protective, and Dangerous Story Circuits, and each one is broken down into five scenes, plus a finale. The player has to play through three of the scenes before playing the finale. The Peaceful Story Circuits include ‘The Remembrance Festival’ and ‘Mech’s Birthday’; the Protective Story Circuits include ‘An Ecologist’s Dilemma’ and ‘Volcanic Chaos’; and Dangerous Story Circuits include ‘Our Fight is Not Over’ and ‘Contested Territory’. This is a great mix of story ideas and gives the game a greater longevity than the average solo journaling game.

In addition, Ion Heart: Solo Mech Exploration RPG – Pilot’s Handbook includes guidance on playing it as a two-player game. Instead of each player controlling his own Pilot and Mech, one player roleplays the Pilot and the other player the Mech, and it suggests the players divide responsibilities between journalling and rules referencing, as well as working together to decide on the actions of their shared Pilot and Mech.

Physically, the Ion Heart: Solo Mech Exploration RPG – Pilot’s Handbook is a nicely done roleplaying game. It is fetchingly presented in swathes of soft colours and easy to read and understand.

Initially, Ion Heart is a challenging given that until a Pilot and Mech survive a Story Circuit and can go up a Level, there is not much in the way of modifiers to affect the dice rolls needed for many actions. This is why the Sync Bond and engaging the Ion Core is so important as it can get the Pilot and Mech out of a tight scrape, but it is more important early on in the game when there are fewer modifiers to skill rolls and fewer chances to engage the Ion Core with any degree of safety. However, careful play and some luck will get the Pilot and the Mech through most situations, and it may help if the player goes through a Peaceful Story Circuit first so that his Pilot can gain a Level.

Ion Heart: Solo Mech Exploration RPG – Pilot’s Handbook explores the relationship between Pilot and Mech, much like a knight and his horse. They are both bonded, literally in the case of the Pilot and Mech with the Sync Bond mechanic. What is so attractive about Ion Heart is that although there is danger to be found and threats to be confronted across the Astral Union, the universe it depicts is not a dark one, but one of hope and restoration, as the Pilot and Mech wander from place to place, in peripatetic fashion, ronin-style. Then unlike other solo journalling games, Ion Heart not only comes with eighteen Story Circuits to tell, but leaves the world open. There is no set ending that the player is striving for and when he has completed the eighteen Story Circuits, he is free to create his own and continue the story of his Pilot and Mech, or wait for expansions from the publisher. In other words, it is up to the player to decide when the story of his Pilot and Mech ends.

Ion Heart: Solo Mech Exploration RPG – Pilot’s Handbook is a rather charming journalling roleplaying game, enjoyably optimistic in tone, and with richness of stories to tell.