Campaign idea; feedback welcome!

I've been thinking about running a game in Middle-earth lately. I think I've got a few players interested, and am kicking around a few different ideas for it.

One of the ideas I'd had was to be about the refounding of Dale. It was originally conceived as a Pendragon-like generational campaign, starting at the Battle of Five Armies, and playing all the way through the Battle of Dale from the end of the War of the Ring.

Would be cool, but I must admit to myself I'll never be able to pull something that epic off, unless I broke it into much smaller chunks. So, instead I'm thinking of focusing on the end-stages of the original idea.

Basically, what was going to happen was to start with the coronation of King Bard's grandson (Bard II? I'll have to look it up). Things go okay for a while, but then the new King starts turning into a real asshole. Overtaxing his subjects, creating strange new laws, outlawing people for minor infractions, etc.

What's happened here, is that the King has been 'gifted' with one of the 7 rings of the Dwarf Lords. Specifically, one that had been fed to Smaug to try and destroy it (the 7 were fed to dragons back in the first age, if I recall, in an attempt to destroy them). After Smaug's carcass rotted away over the years in the Long Lake, the ring was recovered, and gifted to the King. So, it starts working it's magic on him. Gives him some abilities I've not yet determined, and at the same time makes him... 'dwarfy'... starts becoming obsessed with wealth, with hoarding treasure, and delving into the deep places of the world. He becomes agoraphoibic, never leaving his keep, except to visit the King Under the Mountain occasionally to covet his treasures.

That, basically is backstory to the early few chapters of the campaign. My thought was to have the PCs go on some basic starting adventures, while slowly disseminating this information to them. Over a few sessions, they hear more and more about the King's madness. And then, eventually they do something which causes them to become outlaws. At this point, they may either find out about the King having the ring, or will find out about it soon after that.

So, from here, starts a Robin Hood-esque 'Outlaws' campaign, with the PCs fighting for the rights of the subjects of the Kingdom, while the King becomes more and more mad. And that's basically all I've got for now. I think at about this point in the campaign, my role as GM would become much more reactive than proactive, letting the PCs hatch whatever nefarious schemes they come up with, and dealing with them as they arise.

Thoughts?

The other campaign I've thought about would be something "Earthsea"-like. I don't know how to describe it more than that. Something maybe on the west coast of the map, with lots of sea voyages, quiet, misty beaches, and strange Sinbad-like adventures to be had.

Perhaps I can combine the two somehow. Maybe take the basic plot above, but remove it from the Dale setting entirely? Beats me. I'll have to think about it.

The rings weren't around in the First Age. Just the late 2nd Age, and most were captured by Sauron or his servants. I don't know if all of the locations were identified, so I think that you could probably have one in Smaug.

However, you will have a hard time keeping that fact from the dwarves!

I think that it might be better to remove the plot from Dale altogether because the presence of the elves and dwarves make it rather difficult to have that happen.

You could have it happen in Dunland, or southern Cardolan. Cardolan would be a great location in the early 4th age, or the middle 3rd age before it was completely unsettled.

Still, in the later Third Age (WOTR era), you could have it happen along the coast of Cardolan, because there was probably still some smaller towns there.

I like the sound of it on paper. What would the players be? What kind of characters?

Not really sure about the player types yet, to be honest. If I do the game around Dale, that opens up possibilities for dwarves and elves to logically fit into the group.

One of the ideas I'd also had, was to do sort of a Robin Hood-esque outlaw campaign. In this case, I'd like one of the PCs to be the heir to the throne of Dale (looks like it'd be Brand, grandson of Bard). In this case, his father (Bain, son of Bard) would have fallen under the influence of the Dwarf Ring. For some infraction, Brand would be outlawed, and driven from the kingdom. He would then meet the other PCs and start sort of a guerilla war to reclaim the kingdom, and save/heal his father's madness.

So, in many ways, sort of taking the relationship with Eomer/Theoden/Wormtongue placing it elsewhere, and making an entire campaign about that.

That's pretty cool, actually.

Thanks!