After a long absence because of this thing called a job, I finally got to get back to my poor, neglected LoTR game on Friday nights. We only got to play twice before real life came stomping down on our Tolkieny fun. I am running the House of Margil intro adventure from the Narrator's Screen.
Anyway, to recap, our heroes are a Noldo Rivendell Loremaster named Avadar, a banished Rider of Rohan named Rouark, a wandering Mirkwood Archer named Taurlince, a doddering old Breelander Hobbit rogue named Nails Brandybuck, and a Noble (Magician wannabe) named Gwenivere.
Long story short, in the first two sessions they met a troll in the Bree Downs, killed it, had some discussion as to what in Eru's name a troll is doing that far west, found a strange wooden amulet with a raven's head and a C-rune etched on it, and decided to head to Rivendell to tell Elrond.
Now, finally back to the game, we had a marathon session! This all took place on one night of gaming on January 16th.
After a few days at Rivendell, Elrond comes to them with the plot hook mentioned in the starting adventure: Margil the Ranger is missing, and after the news of the displaced troll Elrond is worried about him. The heroes provision up, and head north to find Margil.
They made the journey through the Trollshaws easily enough, as I resisted the temptation to throw a troll at them. I didn't want to bog down the session so soon with a big combat like that. The first troll they met proved almost a bit too much of a challenge. Anyway they came to the ravine mentioned as a possible encounter, and decided to climb down and back out rather than find a way around. The Rider of Rohan, not wanting to leave his horse, opted to find another way around. He passes out of this tale for a time.
Nails goes down first, but as he and Taurlince are about halfway down, Avadar sense "great evil in the land here ... as if a shadow lies on the ground itself." As soon as he calls down to those at the bottom of the ravine, a small great spider bursts out from under a web-hinged rock and tries to grab Nails. It misses, and he jumps on the rock and manages to force the spider back down into its hole. Taurlince jumps onto the rock with him as the others scramble down the side of the ravine to help. The spider bursts out again,having rolled extremely high on its Strength check to force the interlopers off its rock. Nails goes for a tumble, but Taurlince rolled staggeringly high on her Nimbleness check, and manages to "surf the rock" move-Legloas style, spin it around, and come up with an arrow at the ready thanks to her Quickdraw edge. A brief combat ensues, as the small great spider has only 6 health. They dispatch it quickly.
Taurlince recognizes that this is a spider of Mirkwood, and like the troll in the Bree Downs, it has no business in this part of the world. They opt to explore the spider's lair. They encounter another small great spider, which succeeds in putting Nails to sleep before they can kill it. After exploring the small cave, they meey the mother of the other two! They speak with her for a while, and she begs them not to kill her ... or any more of her children. More? "Eggs," says Taurlince, "Within a month this valley could be filled with them!" that settles it for Avadar, who has seen too much evil in his long life. Its a difficult fight, but ultimately our heroes are successful. They find a sac full of spider eggs, and destroy them. Nails picks up a point of corruption by secretly stealing one of the eggs and hiding it in his backpack.
They venture back out of the spider hole to find three more small great spiders -- smashed by some unknown hand. They find large footprints leading off down the valley, but do not follow them for fear of what they might find at the other end.
They discover Margil's house, and acutally manage to meet up with Rouark again! He found a quicker way around the ravine, and Avadar made an excellet in-character speech about how it was fate that decided the others had to find that spider lair for the good of Middle Earth, and was rewarding them with an easier path on the return journey. (Actually, what happened was that Rouark's player showed up late! lol)
They begin the chase after the orcs. They find the orcs, scout them out, and return to their camp. There they make plans for assaulting the encampment. Unfortunately for them, all good plans sometimes go awry. As they were sneaking up to the camp, they separated. It was the break Margil was looking for ... Gwenivere never saw him coming. In a thrice, she had his swordblade to her neck and was being marched straight into the orcs' camp. As the other heroes attacked the orcs, Avadar spent a round aiming at Margil. He hit, and Margil threw Gwen to the ground and tried to run off into the woods. Rouark ran him down and nearly ran him through with his spear from a charge on horseback. Rouark was suddenly beset by three orcs and spend much of the time battling them. Margil crept off into the woods, but Taurlince tracked him down. She was so angry by then that she simply fell upon the wounded man and began to beat him senseless with her bare hands. For slapping around a wounded and nearly dying man who was no longer a threat to her, and giving into her rage, Taurlince picked up a point of corruption for herself.
The heroes took some losses in health, but no casualties. The orcs were defeated, Margil was to be taken alive back to Rivendell, and the heroes returned to their camp to prepare for the journey back to Rivendell.
The player of Gwen, the noble, is having trouble finding a personality for her character. Right now she is running her like the typical snooty rich brat, but is having difficulty reconsiling that with the life of an adventurer. If she is such a snotty little brat, why is she adventuring? That is so inconvenient and dirty! I don't want her to loose interest in the game because her charater's order doesn't agree with adventuring, so I was glad when they left Margil alive. I have things in store for Gwen ... (evil grin)
The heroes left an orc alive as well, and are holding it captive. From it they learned that the brood mother great spider was carted from Mirkwood across a northerly route. The orc didn't specify the exact route, but Avadar is convinced they came through Mt. Gundabad.
My only regret, looking back, is that I didn't have Margil play the good guy rather than taking Gwen hostage before the battle at the orc encampment. It would have been smarter for him to have not tipped his hand by capturing her and marching straight in with the orcs. But, hindsight is 20/20, I suppose.
It doesn't matter now since they left him alive. I still have plent of chances to roleplay him before they get back to Rivendell with him.
I'd like to add that I have an excellent batch of players. I was worried at first that they -- having cut their gaming teeth on Rolemaster and D&D -- wouldn't get the right frame of mind or character interaction I was looking for. I was wrong.
Avadar
The player of Avadar is the owner of the game shop where we play, and he is a BIG Tolkien fan. I like that he is playing a Rivendell Loremaster, because that spares me from having to give the remaining less-Tolkien experienced players backgrounds and histories. He just gets into character and does that for me. He loves how Decipher is taking great strides to maintain the feel of Tolkien's work,. I think he enjoys the balance there between the novels, the movie, and the game.
Taurlince (S. for "little forest," i.e. Grove)
Taurlince's character is trying to build a female version of Legolas, and she is doing rather a good job of it considering that she doesn't know the system all that well and has never seen Legolas' entry in the FoTR book. She gets a little disappointed when her character can't do things he does, but I remind her that he is older and more experienced than she. Taurlince doesn't have much of a personality yet, but she is getting there. She is an experienced gamer but not much of a role-player. I hope I can help her with that.
Gwenivere
I mentioned a little about Gwen's player in my earlier post. She is desperate to gain an advancement so she can start to get spells. She bought into the Magician order with her free advancement, and feels her character is useless without spells. I tell her that she will soon get into social situations where her skills as a Noble will come in handy. I also see a nice plot element for her -- she is desperate to learn magic, amd Margil knows just the man who would be willing to teach her some. Quick knowledge of magic comes at a price, however. Will Gwen be willing to pay that price?
Nails
Ah, Nails Brandybuck. Nails and Avadar are forming a little bit of resentment towards each other, since the player of Nails is the typical die-hard D&D grab-and-loot player and Avadar's player likes to get into character and roleplay. Avadar once told a tale of Ost-In-Edhel around the campfire, and now Nails wants to go explore it and loot it. (sigh) When Nails' player hears of old ruins, his immediate thoughts are for treasure. I don't like to tell players how to run their characters, and if he wants to be a greedy hobbit with no respect for the past or elvish history, I am not one to naysay him. I've talked a little to him about it, and he says he understands that Middle Earth "ain't D&D," but that he is running Nails true to his character concept. Hopefully that point of corruption he picked up for stealing the spider egg will steer the player in the right direction. Knowing this guy, however, he might think corruption is fun. 9_9
Rouark
I can't say much about Rouark without saying that he is a great roleplayer. He and Avadar are my best players. Rouark is grim, quiet, and brooding. The player came up with a great background for him. Rouark spoke out against Grima Wormtongue, and found himself banished for it. He wandered north, and now here he is without a home, and surrounded by elves and hobbits. The only other human is Gwen, and she is from Minas Tirith -- and you can't trust those Gondorian nobles. The only problem I have with Rouark is that I can't get him off that darn horse! LOL A horse charge with a spear in the hands of someone with Rouark's skill is impressive. Margil barely stood a chance. But the player is, as I said, an excellent roleplayer.
Sorry for these two long posts, but I had a lot to catch up on! We will see if Gwen's player is willing to take the bait Margil is going to offer her!
Not as much combat happened in our last session. Since Margil was captured, the only thing the characters really had to do is return to Rivendell with their captive.
The really big events were:
1) They met up with a stone-giant who had wandered down from the Misty Mountains. He had seen a small band of orcs cross the mountains with a covered wagon, and follwed them out of curiosity. It was he who killed the three great spiders outside the spider lair, and it was his large footprints the heroes discovered. They spend most of an evening chatting with him, sharing stories, and etc. The group insisted on calling him Pebbles, since he said he had no name. I suppose there is a Sindarin or Quenya phrase for "little rocks," so I let the silly name stand. ^_^ I secretly rolled a few reactions for the stone-giant, and got a favorable result. "Pebbles" told them that they can call him a friend and that he would help them should they have need to cross the Misty Mountains in his domain.
2) A new character and player joined the group. I don't recall the character's name, but he is a dwarf of the Iron Hills who heard tales of Bilbo's adventures and of Rivendell and wanted to see it all for himself. So, he took on Bilbo's journey in reverse (i.e Erebor to Mirkwood to Misty Mountains to Rivendell, etc.) His reverse journey was interrupeted when he got lost trying to find Rivendell.
3) Avadar worked for a few days to get info from the captive orc. After questioning and severely Intimidating the orc (with a final total Intimdate roll of somewhere around 30 after re-rolling sixes o_0) Avadar got him to spill his guts as to his tribe's homeland: Gundabad. Avadar made good on a promise he made, and set the orc free after they were 2 days ride from Rivendell.
4) Margil tried to gain the sympathy and trust of Gwenivere, but she didn't take the bait. His line was that he had been given a vision of the three realms restored, and that the elves would have nothing to do with that. He claimed the elves hid away in Lorien, Mirkwood, and Rivendell and barely stuck their heads out of the trees long enough to scent the air and know that the winds were changing. It was a good bit of roleplay, but she remained distant and cold towards him ... only fair, I guess, since he had only recenltly tried to get her head and body to part company.
5) The group returned to Rivendell, told Elrond of the fortnight's events, and Elladan and Elrohir rode out almost immediately to track down the remaining orcs. When they returned a few days later, they reported killing a lone orc, but found no others.
6) Elrond, disturbed at the recent events and distraught over "a growing shadow in the south" spoke to Avadar and told him that he wanted him and his Company to travel to Lorien and return Arwen safely to him. This falls in line with the timeline given in the ROTK novel: Elrond sends for Arwen in 3009. The players opted to travel through the Redhorn Pass, which aroused much interest from the dwarf.
The group began their journey through Eregion. Their mission: to travel to Lorien and bring Arwen safely back to Rivendell.
The dwarf's name, which I could not remember, is Thoramor. We had another new player and character join, but due to her schedule (she is studying to become an RN) she may not be able to make every session. The group is getting large, now, and I don't know if I can handle any more new characters.
The new character is Kelina, a Noldor magician. The player ran a cleric in the Rolemaster ME game that once ran on Friday nights, and she wanted to more or less recreate that character. I explained to her that the LotR game really doesn't have the concept of a cleric in the classic game terms, but she could make up a Magician and concentrate of spells of healing and defense. So she did.
On with the tale then ...
As they rode out of Rivendell, they were stopped by Elladan and Elrohir, the twin sons of Elrond. They bade Avadar to take good care of their sister, insisting that "she must not suffer our mother's fate!"
After they had ridden for a few hours, Nails asked what happened to their mother. Avadar told the sad story of Celebrian, the wife of Elrond, and how she was poisoned so horribly by an orc arrow that she had to leave for the Undying Lands in the West lest she die.
They travelled south, and Avadar told tales of Eregion, and pointed out many ruins as they passed by. They camped by an old bridge at the end of the first day, and Gwenivere and Nails decided that they would go hunting.
They failed several Stealth tests, and disturbed a brown bear. Gwen insisted that she could outdo Taurlince by killing a bear, so she and Nails made the fateful decision to attack it. Needless to say, they were unsuccessful in hurting the bear much, despite several successful attacks. The elves, hearing the roars of the bear and the screams of Gwen and Nails, ran to help. They were all rather irritated that the arrogant human and the greedy hobbit wanted to kill a great bear for no good reason, so the scene soon broke down into two characters trying to kill the bear and two others trying to stop them from doing so. Eventually, Kelina put the bear to sleep with a Slumber spell, hoping that if it were not attacking then Gwen and Nails would back down. That failed to work as she planned, since Gwen, Thoramor, and Nails felt it would now be easier to kill the bear! This further infuriated Kelina and Avadar, who woke the bear so it would have a chance to run away. Kelina, using soothing words, the Elvish Beast Skill, and an amazing roll on a Bearing test managed to calm the bear and get close enough to heal it.
Finally, Gwen, Nails, and Thoramor were convinced to back down and leave the bear in peace, and Avadar and Kelina sternly lectured them that, in the presence of elves, they have nothing to fear from the natural beasts of the land.
Several days later, the party were camping amid a few ruined stone buildings. The elves sensed great tragedy there, and Avadar, with a successful Lore: Eregion test, recalled that this was the site of one of the last stand battles after the fall of Ost-in-Edhel. The spirits there were restless, and the three elves sang a great song of the grandeur and tragic losses of Hollin and Ost-In-Edhel. The ghosts there were soothed, and disturbed the living no more that night.
Later, they heard wolved howling in the night, but the wolves never came close to the camp. In the darkness, Kelina and Taurlince were able to make out a large form attacking the wolves -- Kelina recognized that it was a bear, and surmised (correctly) that it was the bear she had helped repaying the debt. Nails went about looking for loot, as I expected him to do, and I let him find a fine Elvish blade. I haven't quite decided what it is yet, but I will think of something.
One thing I noted is that Kelina is making frivolous use of her Slumber spell. For example, when Nails is complaining or in general being annoying, she promptly puts him to sleep. They were about to start the ascent up Redhorn Pass, and I decided it was a good spot to teach the player a lesson about rampant and needless spellcasting.
The next time she cast Slumber on Nails, she woke up Caradhras the Cruel.
A terrible storm broke on the land, with a great downpour of rain, high winds, and lightning to split the skies. In one particularly dangerous section of the pass in which there was a sheer drop, the winds coming down from the mountainside picked up to such high gusts that they threatened to blow them to their doom.
Thormaor surmised (with a Lore: Misty Mountains roll) that something had to have awakened the demon Caradhras, but he did not know what it could be. I let Avadar and Kelina make Wits tests, which they made, and realized that Kelina was the one who disturbed the mountain. Buring a courage point, she stepped forward away from the others, and shouted into the winds. She begged for mercy from Caradhras, trying to appease the angry spirit of the land to let them pass. She was successful, and the storm eventually abated.
I had thought she learned her lesson, but I was wrong. At the midway point across Redhorn Pass, they were assailed in camp by Dunnish bandits who had followed them up from the lowlands. Again, Kelina resorted to her slumber spell. The finally managed to rout the bandits, and that is where we stopped the session that night.
On our next session, they will start back down the other side of Redhorn Pass, and Caradhras is really irritated now. Things are going to get interesting.
Once they fetch Arwen, they may have to take another way back. (evil grin)
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