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View Full Version : Rant on Middle Earth setting and a cry for help.



Ossian
2007-11-20, 04:23 PM
So, eventually the time to be a GM in Middle Earth has come again. AND IT WAS A SHOCK! I have only recently, and quite brutally, realized what an immense gap there is between how awesome the Middle Earth is as a novel setting, and how impossible it has become for me to invent anything set in there.

I'll be more specific. If I had an adventuring party, things would be just a little easier. Adventuring Parties are the ultimate nonsense: guys who endure poor living conditions, riske their lives and reputations, never make it past age 30 and accumulate zillions of gold pieces while living in poverty but wearing shiny stuff. they could rule the world by the time they are half way into their career (and their village, for sure, a lot earlier) but they are in the hands of we gamers, and thus they become all headless geese chasing monsters and living endless adventurea, like the sum of Conan+Indiana Jones+Hokuto no Kenshiro. Ok, whatever. It's vastly agreed that adventurers do that.

But starting from scratch, at age 30 and above (I mean, the players) with hard core Tolkien fans who would burn all copies of Peter Jackson's trilogy screaming "HERESY!BLASPHEMY!", well....that's a whole different story! If the adventure has to be a one-shot, that is, we play one or two nights and we're done, things become even more impossible!

Well, I'm using the word impossible a little too easily, but two factors concur.

1) I have been playing D&D for years and haven't played Middle Earth in just as much time (say almost 3,5 years). I used to do that fairly often, but always with the same wandering group, the same story arc, and a decent plotline set in 1490 Third Age. Now I consider that an almost miraculous achievement.

2) Some side issues (sort of "health related") totally nuked the creativity district in my brain, which is now howling banshees and smoking ruins....:smalleek:

Now, I know I am just in the writer's block, but I just feel like the players of the "DM of the Ring" (another great webcomic, by Seamus Young). I look at middle earth, and unless we deal with the political strife of the downfall of Arnor, nothing ever happens that the players can be reasonably involved in.

The country is sparsely populated (worse than Tatooine). The places are empty. If you go to a ruined lighthouse you find what you'd actually find: LIZARDS! (2 inches long maximum, lizards). No matter how far you roam, what do you run across? Orcs! is there an Evil guy? Sure, it's SO powerful that he's been layin an unchallenged siege to the world for the last 2000 years of Third Age. His henchmen? Super Sayan Dementors.

I mean, I can't just come up with stuff like "you have to escort this caravan / find out where this caravan disappeared" and I'm honestly finding myself at a loss. The very sobriety of Middle Earth, the credibility of its characters, their deep human characterization, the way the decadence of a once glorious kingdom are presented, are exactly what is preventing me from creating something I could proposed them.

So, ANY help would be great. I don't know how fantastic Tolkien is, yet if you browse the internet there are NO adventures whatsoever set in Middle Earth, save a fistful which I know by heart (and 50% of all of those adventures should be trashed). That has to mean something! I understand D&D is popular, but if none posts Middle Earth adventures there has to be a good reason. I could benefit from your plot hooks, a general campaign setting, a scenario you have written: ANYTHING!

Just a few limitations I had decided to give myself:


The PC have NOT been hired by Elrond for a mission. They don't know who Elrond is or where Imladris is located. Elrond is the wise half elf of middle earth, not an adventures generator and the landlord of a cool base that they can use to launch their missions or where they can go and have a good time between adventures.

The PC will NOT be recovering / destroying any artifact

The PC will NOT be asked to escort/find out what happend to thatcaravan of merchants that disappeared last full moon

There is NOT a deranged wizard that after the downfall of Sauron is trying to set free Melkor from his imprisonment in the Void and the seals that bind him there are still quite operational.

PCs are around a D&D d20 6th or 7th level. They tend to be good guys, genuine lawful legal, but they also tend to build overly elaborated backgrounds, with family trees going all the way up to Hurin and a fully developed social network, which is, the kind of person that DOES NOT go adventuring unless he's lost his mind, which leads me to:

None of their home vilages has been raided and torched by orcs, leaving them homeless and bound to a life of grudge and revenge, hunting dowqn the servants of Sauron (they can, if they feel like, but their villages and beloved ones are ok)

It will NOt be set in 4th age.Or, well, maybe yes, but not too far away, and even then there has to be a connection with third age. Otherwise it's just a fantasy world with fewer species of monsters hanging around.

NO elves are allowed, not even sylvans. I might accept dwarves, possibly. And absolutely NO adventuring hobbitses (they do go adventuring in their nice, English middle class cultivated and kind hearted countrymen style, but they are NOT RPG adventurers, ever)

NO magic in the group. No wiz. No Animist. No druid. No shapeshhifters (they are just nonsense to play in Middle Earth). No cleric. NO rangers with spells. Rangers is a title of the remaining numenoreans of the north.


Thanks for your help folks. You're saving my Reputation! :smallsmile:

Ossian.

PS
If anyone felt like sharing their opinions on how/if Middle Earth can be tough as an RPG setting, I'd love to do that too, if nothing else to vent my frustration.

Toliudar
2007-11-20, 04:37 PM
I feel your pain, but I think that you're missing some ways to open up the options for yourself.

There's nothing that says that something set in the world of Middle Earth needs to be set right at the end of the third age. Fast forward a hundred years, and there's a handful of elves left in the world. The dwarves have either retreated or are busy reopening Moria and open for business. Hobbitses may be retiring and middle class shire-ish, but that doesn't mean there can't be one or two Tookish ones. And the lands of men may have shifted completely. Most importantly: no overwhelming sense of impending doom. Same if you shift backwards forty, fifty, a hundred years. It also takes the setting outside the realm best known to the fanboys.

Further to this, you're going to be doing a crapload of work to immerse them in this setting. The players need to respect and appreciate that. Establish a firm fiat that the players won't give you crap about whenever you - intentionally or otherwise - run counter to dogma.

I LOVE DM of the Rings, which is, I swear, a documentary of our gaming group. Like the long-suffering DM of that campaign, learn when enough backstory is too much backstory. A little sense of Destiny goes a long way in most DnD campaigns.

Altair_the_Vexed
2007-11-20, 04:59 PM
1490 is a good year. The timeline for that decade is empty, but just before it what have we here..?

The Witch King invades Arnor - guerilla war against the Witch King's minions in the north? The Rangers in effect carry this on for millenia, as we know. This gives you spying missions, commando raids, etc, etc. Your adventurers might be displaced northerners living as outlaws - we have a precedent for outlaw bands, remember?
Kin strife in Gondor - a little known attempt to start back on Gondor, perhaps? Then you could have political moves and poisoning attempts, whatever.
The beginning of the Corsairs in Umbar - coastal raids by super pirates, the corsairs trying to mobilise the Haradhrim...
You've also got wainriders out east, the whole of Harad, and the troubled Misty Mountains and Mirkwood to play with.

Yes, Middle Earth is a tough place to run games. It's far grittier than many give it credit for. Most of the land is blighted and empty, the elves are all slightly ashamed of their past, the noblest humans too - it's all so emo.

Plot movers you can use are the Istari, and the Nazgul (like the Death Eaters, they might have been somewhat split in their loyalties to the downfallen Dark Lord - maybe they followed their own agendas while Sauron was so diminished, or at least his hand in their actions must have been imperceptible). Secret knowledge was sought out by the White Council - Saurman didn't amass that library by himself...

6th and 7h level characters are at the beginnings of awesomeness: they will be sought out by NPCs to do deeds of valour. Rather than a caravan of traders being missing, why not the bride / groom party from the neighbouring clan coming to the wedding of the Lord's son / daughter (a PC)? Far more emo and Tolkein. She/he of course has been waylaid by Misty Mountain orcs / Ettenmoor trolls / Mirkwood spiders / etc. Behind this outrage is the hand of [insert minion of evil here], who seeks to prevent the houses of his enemies from joining together.

There are plots, but short ones aren't easy to find, are they? Middle Earth isn't written like that.

I recall sitting down for a game of MERP, playing a minor Noldor in the First Age of the Sun, and the rest of the players deciding to go "wenching at the Inn". :smallfrown: It's just not right to do normal fantasy RPG stuff in Middle Earth...

Azerian Kelimon
2007-11-20, 05:02 PM
It's too bad gods can't be brought back by mortals, a return of Melkor would be the kind of thing for a level 7th Tolkien hero, if we consider the Fellowship to be 5th of 6th level as many think.

Skjaldbakka
2007-11-20, 05:10 PM
Have you thought about using the Middle Earth RPG rules? That would help with some of the discrepancy between D&D magic (flashy and omnipresent) and Tolkien magic (just as omnipresent, but subtle and powerful at the same time).


It's too bad gods can't be brought back by mortals, a return of Melkor would be the kind of thing for a level 7th Tolkien hero, if we consider the Fellowship to be 5th of 6th level as many think.

You do realize that 5 degrees of variance is not sufficient to cover the range of power expressed in the fellowship, right?

Ossian
2007-11-20, 05:10 PM
- it's all so emo.

That was priceless. I cut the quote but there are some hooks which are worth exploring. For one thing, I would have never thought of the Nazguls as being a powerful if a bit unsettling employer, who does not lack gold. That would be awesome to have them hired by this cloaked figure who ust wants "a tiny favor, for which he's more than happy to pay". Blending that with the bride/Groom party and the plot on the thwarted feudal allegiance could be also blended in.

Another point (feedback urgently needed): what about the establishment of the dark forces in Dol Guldur and Carn Dum? Those were dwarven strongholds, right? It must have been a painful transition. can you help me to guess how tough it must have been to kick the dwarves out of their homes? and how long it might have taken? Especially in Dol Guldur, because it was set up for the retuirn of sauron, as the Necromancer, long before by the Nazguls.....hmmm....any clues?

@Skjaldbakka

Have you thought about using the Middle Earth RPG rules? That would help with some of the discrepancy between D&D magic (flashy and omnipresent) and Tolkien magic (just as omnipresent, but subtle and powerful at the same time).
I suppose you mean M.E.R.P. from Iron Crown. Yes, we did, and for a long time. I'd impose d20, but I guess they'll impose the MERP on me. I just cut all the magic professions ans lists, and that' 50% job done. Still, I don't like it anymore, not for levels above 5th when it really starts breaking. Heroes just don't become heroes, only better whatever they were before.

@Azerian kelimon
Correct. I just said that there will be no melkor or any other god return as the players (pretty much like most MERP groups I know) already faced that threat....probably twice. That clearly shows that it is a VERY good plot device, as most DMs went for it without consulting with each other, like it's in our subconscium...


O.

O.

SofS
2007-11-20, 05:15 PM
Just a couple of quick, vague suggestions here. Consider focusing on the grey spots in the stories. How did the riders of Rohan learn their skills? I believe they mentioned skirmishes and the like. Dust-ups like that are really fun for melee parties if they like strategy. Want to tie into the larger story? Maybe a bit of cloak-and-dagger stuff would be fun. Maybe an adventure about dealing with the spies of evil without causing collateral damage would be fun for your players. If they bug you about authenticity, just remind 'em that you're not changing anything major and that what you're doing is consistent enough with the history of Middle Earth. Good luck.

Matthew
2007-11-20, 05:16 PM
I suppose you mean M.E.R.P. from Iron Crown. Yes, we did, and for a long time. I'd impose d20, but I guess they'll impose the MERP on me. I just cut all the magic professions ans lists, and that' 50% job done. Still, I don't like it anymore, not for levels above 5th when it really starts breaking. Heroes just don't become heroes, only better whatever they were before.

I'm confused. So, what system are you using to run this?

Anyway, yeah, I know this problem. Running MERP is very like running Star Wars, in that it can be very difficult to come up with stuff that fits the setting, but doesn't disrupt the timeline or feel too cliched. To tell the truth, that's pretty much why I stopped running both. However, you could try running the game in a less well known locale and keep the identities of any major players hidden.

Of course, if your players have overdeveloped characters then surely that is your best source of adventure hooks?

mostlyharmful
2007-11-20, 05:17 PM
Try runing an expedition to take Moria, either to take it, to re-take it or to burn out the orcs and re-re-take it in the fourth age. Dwarves have got the gymp throughout the entire Middle earth saga.

Or there's always the werebear retake of the misty mountains, try running Bejourn's kinsmen as first scouts into the goblin infested peaks, with stone giants in the background. They don't even need to be werebears, just tribally beholden to them.

Skjaldbakka
2007-11-20, 05:20 PM
If you want to use D&D for middle earth:

1) Remove all classes that have spellcasting better than ranger or paladin

Then fully explore the repurcussions of this:

It now takes epic level characters to make magic weapons higher than +3, and cuts out a large number of magic items entirely. Which means the PCs don't have 'win' spells, and don't have high AC. Which means a large number of orcs remains a viable threat for a long time.

Azerian Kelimon
2007-11-20, 05:20 PM
I disagree. Star wars is pretty easy for inventing nice plots (Gain some notoriety, you are chased by a bounty hunter, but in a spacial skirmish, a freak accident turns him into a living black hole. He is still himself, but functions like a black hole and is basically immortal. Now, the plot is actually finding a way to reverse this, not the classic escape from bounty hunting), but Tolkien is SO outlined (And boring. When you lose 3 pages on an explanation of a family tree, sumthin's wrong), complete, and ends in such a terminal way you really can't do much.

Ryshan Ynrith
2007-11-20, 05:23 PM
You could always try, say, spies or guerrillas sent to Harad or Rhun. There's not much detail there, and a good reason to do many of the violent things adventurers are known for-and if you have to live off the land, scavenging your foes becomes more sensible.

Lord Tataraus
2007-11-20, 05:23 PM
Actually, I created my homebrew LotR D20 to have the default setting being the 4th age for the same reasons. You don't have too much room in the 3rd age, but the 4th age is completely open, you can do almost anything you want! You can have new villains arise, new terrors and creatures. Maybe the elves come back again because Morgoth broke free or something. Your players can't really argue against something if you can back it up because its after everything Tolkien wrote.

Alternately, try to focus on the stuff that is not completely drawn out for, such as the Haradrim and the Easterlings. Neither have much literature on them so you can make up a lot of it.

I hope that helps.

Skjaldbakka
2007-11-20, 05:26 PM
Here is a MERP plotline that I might run sometime. Feel free to steal it.

First, you take Tolkien's alternate storyline from the prologue*. In this timeline, Saruman forges a ring of power with his ring lore, and Aragorn, Gandalf, or Galadriel claims the ring of power to use as a weapon against Sauron, and you wind up with a massive war between three rival corrupted powers.

The PCs are trying to bring back the light of the Valar into the world. The only light left in middle earth is the Silmaril that fell into the bowels of the earth. So the PCs are trying to find it. What happens when they do? Well, the actually power of the Silmarils aren't very specified, which makes for great Macguffins. Maybe it is a power for good on the same scale as the Rings of Power, thus allowing the PCs to rival the three evil powers.

*This was Tolkien's response to the criticism that his story was an allegory of WWI&II.

Ossian
2007-11-20, 05:26 PM
Well, I second on Tolkien, but just game wise. I loved it completely and still do as a novelist, but hey, gaming in Middle Earth is tough, at least for sophisticated players. beginners mught still buy "you've been contacted by this merchant of pelargir who wants you to go to Edhellond to get this item from an elf there".

Star Wars has been ok too. the expanded universe helped a lot, especially in exploiting those "gray spots". BEsides, you can just make up a planet, a system or even a cluster and endanger it with whatever you like, and that's still not going to affect the big picture unless you want it to.

The Moria hook was really good, but unfortunately one of the player's is running exactly that campaign. Ah, they stole my opportunity to be done with that with a "simple" dungeon crawl (and a WINGED balrog too)

O.

Azerian Kelimon
2007-11-20, 05:27 PM
Sadly, that's out. Every single evilly race was made REALLY evil by Sauron's influence. Without him, they're a demoralized annoyance. That's why Middle Earth sucks, because the evil races are completely and utterly defeated by Sauron's fall.


I'd REALLY recommend playing with High Earth (An apocalyptic setting, of any kind), or some real D&D in Low Earth, also known as 0erth.

Premier
2007-11-20, 05:35 PM
As someone said before, you could place the game in the early Fourth Age where there are no restriction. Or alternatively you could place it back in time by centuries if not millenia. There are the great battles between the Elves (and after a while their human allies) and Morgoth in the First Age - even though it might be a good idea to ease the "no elves" rule for that. Then there's the Second Age, dominated by the rise, rule and fall of Númenor.
These eras are detailed enough to give you an idea of what's been happening, where everything is, and what the main historical events are; however, they're still sketchy enough to allow for relatively epic adventuring. As long as it's not overdone, something on the scale of Gandalf's, Bilbo's & 12 dwarves' quest against Smaug could easily fit between the 'cracks' of established history - and make no mistake; even though there wasn't all that much combat there, that quest strongly influenced how the War of the Ring played out in the end.

Then there's the other option of playing small adventures - yup, defending a village from orcs and wolves in the winter, travelling through dangerous wilderness as messengers, small skirmishes, maybe even explorations to the east and the south. Yes, there are relatively low-level things, but that's Middle Earth for you. Remember the old "Gandalf was a 5th level Magic User" debate? On that note, there's an essay out there (sorry, can't the find link now) about just that. The gist of it is that if you compare the abilities of leveled D&D characters to ordinary human beings, then yes, Aragorn, Gandalf and the whole lot of them all cap out at around 5th level, with most of the main characters being 1st or maybe 2nd. If you're thinking about using Middle Earth for a D&D game, it would be really, really good if you could find and read that essay - I'll post it here if I come across it again.

Justin_Bacon
2007-11-20, 05:37 PM
So, eventually the time to be a GM in Middle Earth has come again. AND IT WAS A SHOCK! I have only recently, and quite brutally, realized what an immense gap there is between how awesome the Middle Earth is as a novel setting, and how impossible it has become for me to invent anything set in there.

The trick for this type of thing, IME, has been to literally look outside the box. The difficulty is that the eye is continually drawn back to the one or two stories told in a particular setting, which creates a sense that there's nothing else that can be done.

To take two disparate examples: With THE MATRIX I had difficulty because I was having trouble seeing any stories other than "try to find the One". By contrast, the Expanded Universe of STAR WARS loosened that universe up for me.

So, for me, I try to imagine an Expanded Universe even when one doesn't exist for a particular media property.

In the case of Middle Earth, here are a few ideas off the top of my head:

- The rangers are charged with protecting a "points of light" campaign setting which we know to be filled with fey, undead, trolls, the Old Forest, and dragons.

- The ent-wives are still missing.

- Moria still needs to be reclaimed.

- Speaking of dwarven communities, we know there are at least two of them out there (Thorin's party came from somewhere). Let's say that one of them breaks through into catacombs holding an ancient line of forgotten orcs. War breaks out, but over time it becomes clear that the orcs whisper of an even greater darkness lurking below their caverns...

- The area around and beyond Erebor, Esgaroth, and the Iron Hills are (literally) a blank map. We know that the lands we know are filled with traditions dating back to the tales told in the Silmarillion; it might be fun to read through the Silmarillion and imagine what other traditions and nations and magical creatures might have descended from those tales.

- Speaking of Erebor, Esgaroth, and Mirkwood, though, we know that they took part in the War of the Ring. Sauron sent armies that way and great battles were fought. I've always thought it might be fun to set a campaign around that struggle.

- The PCs are part of an ambassadorial/exploratory party dispatched by the newly-crowned King Elessar of Gondor to "explore the lands of Harad, Khand, and such sundry countries as may lie beyond". (Or, if you want to give yourself a bit more room to breathe, make it Aragorn's son.) Take a look at the journeys of Marco Polo and similar explorers. The influence of Sauron still lies heavily upon these lands, and perhaps there are still dark machinations coming from whatever dark kingdom still lies at Mordor's heart.

Another option is to look beyond the canon entirely: Page through an esoteric monster manual, pick something appropriately foul, and change it up enough that your players don't think it came from a D&D manual. Then craft a story for it that can be weaved around the Silmarillion, place it somewhere on the edges of the map, and -- presto! -- you've got the equivalent of orcs or a Witch King or a balrog or the Necromancer to work with and a ton of new lore that you can reveal to your players though gameplay.

Justin Alexander
http://www.thealexandrian.net

Premier
2007-11-20, 06:03 PM
Sadly, that's out. Every single evilly race was made REALLY evil by Sauron's influence. Without him, they're a demoralized annoyance. That's why Middle Earth sucks, because the evil races are completely and utterly defeated by Sauron's fall.

I have to disagree with you there. For one, the orcs of Moria and the goblins of the Misty Mountains were, even without serving Sauron, pretty serious local threats - see the Battle of Five Armies, which Sauron didn't have anything to do with personally. It was all just the local goblin leadership.

On a smaller level, there WERE orcs who worked completely independently of Sauron, performing ordinary banditry of the like - this is revealed in an overheard conversation between two orcs in The Return of the King. Such stuff might be only an annoyance to someone who has an entire army with nothing else to do but hunting highwaymen, but but such fortunate kings are pretty much nonexistent during the Third Age.

Skjaldbakka
2007-11-20, 06:28 PM
The gist of it is that if you compare the abilities of leveled D&D characters to ordinary human beings, then yes, Aragorn, Gandalf and the whole lot of them all cap out at around 5th level, with most of the main characters being 1st or maybe 2nd.


Which is a hotly contested point, right up there with "Balrogs don't have wings!". In the interest of staying on topic, why don't we all agree not to de-rail on this point. You can run a MERP with gandalf level 5, or with gandalf being level 20, they both work, so long as you understand that gandalf is not a wizard, and wizards in fact do not exist in the D&D sense of the word, in ME. Gandalf is probably best represented with outsider HD, and some spell-like abilities.

Azerian Kelimon
2007-11-20, 06:42 PM
Premier, before the destruction of the One Ring, Sauron never really died. His current incarnation might have been destroyed, but he still lived. And if you remember the final battle of the last war, once the ring was POOFed, and Sauron died with it, the orcs were demoralized BIG TIME, which was the reason they were soundly defeated by a much smaller force. Care to explain why a fighting force that was much bigger ran to the hills if that's not the explanation?

Subotei
2007-11-20, 06:58 PM
Or alternatively you could place it back in time by centuries if not millenia. There are the great battles between the Elves (and after a while their human allies) and Morgoth in the First Age - even though it might be a good idea to ease the "no elves" rule for that.

A First Age Campaign in Beleriand has so much scope - 500 years of (almost) continual strife: several divided elf kingdoms, hidden cities, thriving Dwarf culture, the appearance of men (lead your tribe to Beleriand?) massive battles, guerilla warfare after the various defeats (go Turin), orcs, balrogs, trolls, dragons (the wingless kind) werewolves, spiders, the original dark elves (Eol and Maeglin), doomed and implacable foes - do not cross the Sons of Feanor...

Best of all though - no Hobbits.:smallsmile:

Azerian Kelimon
2007-11-20, 07:03 PM
Pah, you know something's wrong when there are no annoying little guys in a RP game. It's like a forum which doesn't have a single troll in all of it's existence.

Matthew
2007-11-20, 07:07 PM
Premier, before the destruction of the One Ring, Sauron never really died. His current incarnation might have been destroyed, but he still lived. And if you remember the final battle of the last war, once the ring was POOFed, and Sauron died with it, the orcs were demoralized BIG TIME, which was the reason they were soundly defeated by a much smaller force. Care to explain why a fighting force that was much bigger ran to the hills if that's not the explanation?

Same reason the Imperial Fleet buggers off after the Death Star explodes instead of punding the Rebels into mush?

Azerian Kelimon
2007-11-20, 07:17 PM
That was actually the death of the emperor. Not to say as soon as the FIRST DS was destroyed, a whole lotta ton of planets went into uprising.

puppyavenger
2007-11-20, 07:29 PM
Premier, before the destruction of the One Ring, Sauron never really died. His current incarnation might have been destroyed, but he still lived. And if you remember the final battle of the last war, once the ring was POOFed, and Sauron died with it, the orcs were demoralized BIG TIME, which was the reason they were soundly defeated by a much smaller force. Care to explain why a fighting force that was much bigger ran to the hills if that's not the explanation?

Tolkien had a hand cramp?

Azerian Kelimon
2007-11-20, 07:32 PM
Nah. I think Tolkien, if he had DM'ed, would have thought like this:

"I want a whole campaign based around one objective. Think I'll invent a gameworld with the only excuse of housing that objective and fill the void with family trees and descriptions and backstories of 8 pages each, whoopdeedo. See, it looks like I'm saying something, but I'm not! Now, when a PC accomplishes the one objective I had, rocks fall, everyone dies".


Seriously.


I mean, if I wanted a look at what would REALLY happen when that kind of master fell, I'd yoink from The Battle Of The Icewind Dale.

Matthew
2007-11-20, 07:52 PM
That was actually the death of the emperor. Not to say as soon as the FIRST DS was destroyed, a whole lotta ton of planets went into uprising.

Nah, that was the later tacked on explanation. The reason the Imperial Fleet buggered of after the Death Star exploded was because it suited the narrative structure.

The same is true of the Orcs. It wasn't Sauron who initially controlled or created them, but Morgoth. Sauron's control over the Orcs is never explicitly presented in LotR either. The reason the Orcs go bonkers on the death of Sauron is never fully expalined, but chances are it was a fairly traumatic event for them... but more to the point, it suited the narrative structure for that to happen, same as it did earlier at the battle of Helm's Deep.

To be clear, what I am suggesting is that there is no complete and cohesive reason for the sudden reversal in either case, both were just 'win buttons', predetermined narrative events that signal victory in the face of overwhelming odds [which is to say, they won't necessarily correlate with previous narrative events].

All the Orcs need, insofar as it can be determined 'absolutely' from the texts is to be led. Whether that leader is Morgoth, Sauron or Saruman doesn't really matter.

Azerian Kelimon
2007-11-20, 07:55 PM
True dat. It's the exact same reason I pointed to the Icewind Dale battle. It's what Tolkien's final battle should have been. There, no "rocks fall, everyone dies" explanations were given. An actually consistent explanation was present.

Lemur
2007-11-20, 08:16 PM
I think the Hobbit is probably a better basis for how to run a Middle Earth adventure than the Rings trilogy. The Fate of the world isn't at stake, just the homeland of some dwarves, which just happens to be filled with a ridiculous amount of treasure. All that stands between them are trolls, orcs, corrupted cave dwellers with a penchant for resolving conflicts with riddle contests, a seriously haunted forest, some paranoid elves, some paranoid humans, and a frikkin' huge dragon. Saur-face doesn't even enter into it.

Going from point A to point B in Middle Earth is literally the adventure, not whatever objective the party has set out for. In both The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings, most of the conflict comes from encounters while travelling. All an adventuring party needs is a single objective to go for. While they're walking there, throw everything and the kitchen sink monster at them, and do everything to make their journey as unpleasant as possible (in a good way). That should account for most of the campaign.

horseboy
2007-11-20, 08:27 PM
Mmmm. Middle Earth. I spent like 5 or 6 years of hard gaming in ME with Rolemaster. It helped that the GM had all those books. Some tips:

Undead. You can't go ANYWHERE without hitting undead. Do NOT go into the swamps! The corpse candles will swallow your soul faster than an ex-girlfriend. Barrow-wights, enough said.

Giant Spiders. The elves are leaving Mirkwood. Somebody's got to clean out those damned spiders.

Orcs: They're scattered everywhere and need killin'.It's especially bad what with everyone trying to rebuild everywhere. Less guarding caravans, more guarding workmen trying to rebuild guard towers/towns/roads/what-have-yous.

Fun stuff we did: Raided and recolonized Telpmar. Cause nothing says lovin' like a vault full of Galvorn. Go to Harad and grab Klan and his 80 levels and shake by the lapels. (Check out his +90 sword while you're there). Go on picnics that are ruined by war-trolls. Went on a quest to get back 1/3 of my soul. Found the fountain of youth. There's all kinds of stuff there. Just don't worry about the War part, there's a whole lot else going on out there.

Temp
2007-11-20, 08:40 PM
Care to explain why a fighting force that was much bigger ran to the hills if that's not the explanation?The Emporer took levels in Hive Queen so without him, the Storm Troopers dropped like the soulless husks they had become after The Experiments?


There must be a possible plotline around that somehow...

The_Snark
2007-11-20, 08:43 PM
Why the army broke after Sauron's death?

I... think that's an easy one to explain. Several reasons.

1. The Nazgul turn and run. Suddenly the enemy doesn't have to deal with them anymore. The Eagles, however, are still there, and they're pretty formidable—I think Tolkien described them somewhere as able to fight anything to a standstill on the wing, except for a dragon—and a flock of eagles could have matched a dragon.

2. All Sauron's willpower was bent on the battle, urging his minions onwards and demoralizing his foes with almost palpable evil presence.

When Frodo puts on the ring, that's suddenly gone, and Sauron is feeling terrified instead of evilly victorious, because nothing he has can get there in time if they're going to destroy the Ring. Cue sudden disorganization of orcs—remember, this is taking place during daylight, which orcs hate. The Olog-hai are presumably disoriented without Sauron's will pushing them on, if they don't actually turn to stone like a normal troll would have.

The Haradrim and other folk are still holding, but Sauron's army is already not looking too good here.

3. The Ring is then actually destroyed, and everything wrought with it collapses (the things made with the other Rings fade more slowly, because they're only indirectly linked to the Ring, but they're doomed, too). Gollum would have turned to dust. Barad-dur's foundations crumble. There's an earthquake in the books, I believe, which shattered the Towers of the Teeth—no more fortification, the majority of the army is suddenly feeling the effects of the sunlight, and there are giant Eagles swooping about. Most of the evil Men, who are the only ones really able to put up resistance at this point, either surrender or flee.

But back to the topic at hand! Middle-earth is a tricky place to run adventures in, yes. I've always disliked tying things in too closely to events or (to a lesser extent) places in the books, but at the same time, you don't really want to be making up completely new areas.

The fall of Arnor is a nice background, as people have suggested, as is the Wild, as presented in the Hobbit (a more adventuring-friendly environment than the Lord of the Rings itself). There's plenty of things to be done in the Wild. Mirkwood (and possibly less-than-friendly contact with the elves)? Enjoy. Fight raids out of the East on the other side of Mirkwood, carouse in Dorwinion.

Dwarf strongholds that haven't been too heavily covered include the Blue Mountains (which is where the dwarves of the Lonely Mountain fled after Smaug came; rich in iron and steel but poor in gems and gold), or for earlier ones, Mount Gundabad, which was overrun by orcs... although I don't remember when. They also had strongholds in the Grey Mountains, but those contain an unusually high proportion of dragons; generally, nobody goes there.

I don't know that I would run mixed dwarf/man parties; the two don't interact all that much. It's possible, certainly, but I think it tends to lend something to a Midde-earth campaign if the characters come from the same general area—all woodsmen and villagers to the west of Mirkwood, all from Rohan, all from the remnants of Arnor. It works better than a standard adventuring party-scenario for the setting. Of course, characters from Dale and the Lonely Mountain would fit the bill and allow both races, too.

Of course, if you can figure out a good way for a mixed dwarf/human party to have formed, that works too.

F.L.
2007-11-20, 08:44 PM
Sauron wasn't the only corrupted Maiar spirit who served Melkor, there were unspecified others. Failing that, you can always make **** up. After all, what's Tom Bombadil? Where did the cursed ones of the path of the dead get their powers from? Etc. Dragons can also be a hoot as well. Also, aren't there some sunken cities as well? An underwater adventure could be interesting.

Falrin
2007-11-20, 08:47 PM
1) starts in service of Gondor/Rohan.

2) Deliver important, sealed message

3) Get ambushed Goblins

If 3 fails, sneaky goblin tries to steal message (they know)

4) Retrieve message

a) track the goblins that have it.
b) find there town and infiltrate
c) run away from angry goblins

5) Deliver message


A lot will depends on who they'll work for, but there is one generality.


Try this:
Aristocrat tries to gain influence to overthrow crazy/inadequate/... Ruler.
Goblins are informed by Sauron/Sauroman to intercept message.
Crazy Ruler/Worltongue finds out and sends party after them for extra fun.

Zim
2007-11-20, 08:49 PM
Have you considered a different location other than the Northwest? Why not go east of the Lonely Mountain? What about the north? The South? Lots of open space there.

About 20 years ago (gah!:smalleek: ), I ran a Merps/Rolemaster campaign set about 100 years before The Hobbit. I centred it around the adventurers uncovering strange rumours of monsters setting up shop in the area just south of Bree. IIRC the BBEG was just some crazy cultist who got hold of a tainted 1st Age artifact and was up to badness. There were hobbits, redeemed orcs, elves, humans and all kinds of crazy fun, but whaddaya want, I was 15! Still, my friends had fun, and that's what counts.

About 8 years ago, I ran a mini campaign using Harnmaster rules. Basic idea was that the PC's were a band of stalwart (yet unsung, they thought Aragorn is a fink) heroes who were routing out some of the goblin infiltrators from around the watchtowers in the highland area of Gondor. I started the campaign by describing how their party just watched Mordor implode 100 miles away. The campaign centred around a half troll commander who just wouldn't quit. They had to route him and his hordes of orcs out of the area so that the residents of the area could return and rebuild.

Ossian
2007-11-21, 05:41 AM
Well, Death Star 1 was isolated, and went off like a baloon. After that, massive retaliation on the Rebel Alliance. Deat Star 2 was a trap, and the fleet was even more powerful than its mere number and skill would have accounted for. Rumors have it that it was a sith technique, a sort of Battle Meditation that the Emperor was using to coordinate the firepower of godknowahowmany star destroyer. Then they took down the Super Satr destroyer (EXECUTOR). Later on, when Palpy "died", they lost coordination, albeit temporarily, and the the DS2 went off too, with a bigbadaboom.
Seeing all this, the surviving commanders thought wiser to retire. Still, it's all Expanded Universe and videogames here, nothing too certain.

For Sauron, The Snark said it all, qft.

What I am really trying to avoid is the "clean area "A" from type of monster "B" ". Unless, it's just a plot device to start in medias res. That is "While you are well into the 8th month of your ethnic cleansing campaign against the misty mountains orcs...:".

the Froze Wastes of the North have already been explored in a Quest for the Orod Certhas, the pinnacle of runes with all the prophecies embedded on its walls.

I was asked after the opening post if we could use the old characters, the ones that already went there up in the north to the orod certhas and came back.
The year is close to 2000 Third Age. Angmar went recently down, and that leaves a big power void, and many a angry warlord. Minas Ithil, too, is about to fall, which is probably going to be my main Plot Hook.

So, i renew the question (while thanking you all for the priceless hints collected thus far): the fair city of the Realm of Gondor is about to fall.
We have:

Bèreal, an eotheod roaming storyteller with a childhood love for sylvan elves of mirkwood.

Kora, a hunter from near Bree. She's taken over her father's duties as a road guard, and earned the respect of the numenoreans. Heavily "R.E. Howardian" female character. So, yeah, eriadorian ranger.

Caranthir Eldanar, a hardcore traditionalist Numenorean from Fornost, from the fictional house of Eldanar, whose fortunes are just declining. A man of arms and valor.

His more sensible and wiser younger sister, Earwen Eldanar. More into philosophy and poetry, and a competent archer.

What are these guys gonna do with Minas Ithil? Granted, it'll be Minas Morgul pretty soon, but what happened immediately before? An slightly earlier? which could have been the warning signs, if any? Anything in mordor? Where did the host of the Witch King come from? And UHUHUH! Surprise...BUT HE WAS DEAD! I mean...we...defeated him in 1977...is that his (equally) evil twin brother? No...uh, wait. S**T! There are eight MORE like him....we're so sc****d.

That could well be my plotline, but I still need some flesh for this skeleton. Your turn fellas, I'm listening. :smallsmile: (and thnx again, it's reallyu nice to discuss Middle Earth instead of 20th level warblades optimizations for once)

O.

Zim
2007-11-21, 09:16 AM
Well, when a city falls, it it often not by just strength of arms alone. Treachery and corruption are often employed as well. The agents of The Enemy are many and subtle, so you could have all sorts of infiltrators spreading lies and causing unrest within the city, making it ripe for conquest.

If your were starting out at level one, I'd recommend modifying "Within the Circle" from Dungeon (the good in print version, not the DI mockery). It has goblins and the seeds of a nefarious plot (mysterious book, ghost of a long-dead villain).

An additional thought about play in ME is with regards to population density and the number of settlements. I always assumed for RP purposes that only the major settlements were noted on the maps of ME. Minor communities of little import are all over the place.

EG. Gondor can't just be a few cities and a bunch of towers. Someone has to grow the food, so there have to be other communities. Each of the major cities would certainly require minor fiefs and freeholds scattered around it to provide enough food and goods to support it.

I also ruled that each of the beacon towers in Godor were small fiefs unto themselves with their own villages and fuedal lords, rather than just remote ruins. Heresy, I know, but it gave me some breathing room to develope stories not directly related to the LotR canon. YMMV if you have hard-core fans. :smallwink:

Justin_Bacon
2007-11-21, 11:14 AM
And if you remember the final battle of the last war, once the ring was POOFed, and Sauron died with it, the orcs were demoralized BIG TIME, which was the reason they were soundly defeated by a much smaller force. Care to explain why a fighting force that was much bigger ran to the hills if that's not the explanation?

Sure. Those particular orcs, at that particular time, were demoralized and, subsequently, routed.

That doesn't mean that all the orcs in the world suddenly threw down their arms, crept into holes, and died. We know, for example, that it was at least several days (if not weeks, I don't have the timeline in front of me) later before the men and dwarves of Dale overcame what were presumably primarily orcish armies there.

Ossian
2007-11-21, 12:36 PM
And King Elessar was still busy for many years with King Eomer clearing the place of the presence of orcs and other nasty fellows.

I'd say that they were routed at the Black Gate, and that their defeat was utter and final, but only for an overly centralized chain of command (uh, understatement). A backup leadership would have helped them regroup and, in a couple of weeks, be dangerous again. Or maybe just flee from mordor, rearrange in Nurn or Khand, and then rebuild forces in a few years.
The will of those orcs, trolls and wolves was definitely in the Dark Lord's grip, and that was a grip of fear too. So, once the grip was released, confusion ensued, alongside with the typical lack of loyalty that orcs show whenever they're not threatened of death or worse.


An additional thought about play in ME is with regards to population density and the number of settlements. I always assumed for RP purposes that only the major settlements were noted on the maps of ME. Minor communities of little import are all over the place. EG. Gondor can't just be a few cities and a bunch of towers. Someone has to grow the food, so there have to be other communities. Each of the major cities would certainly require minor fiefs and freeholds scattered around it to provide enough food and goods to support it. I also ruled that each of the beacon towers in Godor were small fiefs unto themselves with their own villages and fuedal lords, rather than just remote ruins. Heresy, I know, but it gave me some breathing room to develope stories not directly related to the LotR canon. YMMV if you have hard-core fans.

Yep. Lack of population = major problems for GMs, or at least, less options available. While I kept the beacons isolated and of very difficult access (their safety is top priority, so only super trusted soldiers can man them) I did increase size and number of smaller settlements, especially in the halifirien area and in the lands of the Morthond.

Now, today I had a sort of inspiration. What do you think of an espionage mission in the ruins of Angmar shortly before they siege to Minas Ithil is laid? The forces of orcs have already conquered Cirith Ungol, and threaten the town, but they are considered as a relatively small danger. Little they can suspect that the Witch King is in fact a Nazgul, and CANNOT be killed. Not only that, but he has returned. After all, more than 25 years have past since
his defeat at Fornost. They knew he fled, but who would know he's already returned? They'll have to cross 90% of the map to get there in time, and warn the city of the entity of the danger. Fair enough, palantìr and town are doomed, but the PCs can still make a difference.

I wonder, who would be in charge? King Earnur? Or a vice-roy? After all, the line of Anarion and Meneldir should be still intact....

O.

Draz74
2007-11-21, 12:59 PM
I think it sounds like what you want is a game where the characters are all part of the Gondorian military. (Or mercenaries who have temporarily allied themselves with a troop of Gondor soldiers.)

Make the "home base" for the setting in Dol Amroth. Noble Prince Imrahil (or his father, if you want the game to take place a little earlier before the War of the Ring) is the "big cheese" that the characters may occasionally see and greatly revere.

Gondor's ongoing skirmishes with the Corsairs are a largely-untouched source of interesting stories in the Middle-Earth setting. So focus on that ... it will largely be a seafaring campaign, where the Gondor navy clashes with the Corsairs on the Bay of Belfalas regularly. Make sure to have them, at some point, land in South Gondor and adventure in the area around Umbar (the seat of power for their Corsair adversaries), since conflicts with the Corsairs' land-based allies, the Haradrim, are equally untouched.

Other adventure ideas could include:
- At a moment when the Corsair threat is lower than usual, the characters get called inland to Erech, to investigate some report of trouble there. It turns out some of the populace there has been exploring the White Mountains a little too aggressively, and there have been some disappearances as people have wandered into the Paths of the Dead.
- Penneth Gelin and Druwaithe Aiur and Andrast and probably even the western areas of Langstrand/Anfalas are all historically part of Gondor's empire, but are largely unpopulated and arguably even unexplored. Perhaps the characters could race a crew of Corsairs to explore this hilly area in search of something (a mine, a monster?). This option is appealing because this is a geographic area that will allow you a little more liberty to make up new monsters to encounter, other than just orcs and humans and Mumakil.
- If they adventure enough in the lands of Harad, the characters could even travel through Khand and enter Mordor and explore it through the east (where it isn't surrounded by those awful mountains). Of course, Gondor isn't at war with Mordor unless the time period is quite close to the War of the Ring, after The Hobbit, so I don't know what purpose would be served by "sneaking" through this "back door into Mordor."

Like any RPG using D&D rules in Middle-Earth, this should be a low-level campaign. Even Prince Imrahil probably is only Level 7-9 or so.

Draz74
2007-11-21, 01:08 PM
The idea of setting a campaign around Dale and the Iron Hills is also good. Dwarf PCs would definitely have to be allowed. The Easterlings would be the main foes (although orcs and wargs from the Grey Mountains are prominent too), and they are described in the books even less than the Corsairs and Haradrim, so you could make up a lot about them. Exploring the vast lands of Rhun would be a major theme.

As a capstone adventure to the campaign, you could even have the PCs go on a quest to find the lost Blue Wizards, Alatar and Pallando, and find out how they have "failed" in their duties as Wizards, and whether they are still alive out in the distant East. Rhadagast could be a major recurring NPC that encourages them toward this goal.

Reasonable class options:
Gondor
Fighter, Rogue, Swashbuckler, Ranger, Knight, maybe Paladin

Dale
Fighter, Rogue, Barbarian, maybe Ranger or Bard

skyclad
2007-11-21, 01:13 PM
I've read this topic cos I love ME and I want to wish you good luck with your adventure. One thing I found really cool is that you have a character named "caranthir" cos I just started playing LOTROnline and named my character "Carantir" :D Pretty cool coincidence.

Zim
2007-11-21, 01:37 PM
Gondor's ongoing skirmishes with the Corsairs are a largely-untouched source of interesting stories in the Middle-Earth setting. So focus on that ... it will largely be a seafaring campaign...

OOOH! Why not run The Savage Tide Adventure Path using the Corsairs as the pirate fleet that was just driven out of the city? Pick a Gondor-controlled port in the more southern regions and you're golden. Of course, you'll need to modify the encounters to be more Middle-Earthy (Middle-Earthican?), but it could work.

As an aside, why no primary spellcasters in your campaign? IMO Each race has some sort of arcane and divine magical tradition. With elves, magic is so entwined with their daily lives that they don't even think of it as magic. Dwarves have great powers of artifice and humans would have inherited the knowledge of the elves and high men. Even the hobbits are mentioned as having earthy and subtle forms of magical talent. Just because the magic is more subtle or rarely mentioned in the books doesn't mean that it doesn't exist.

Ossian
2007-11-21, 01:47 PM
OOOH! Why not run The Savage Tide Adventure Path using the Corsairs as the pirate fleet that was just driven out of the city? Pick a Gondor-controlled port in the more southern regions and you're golden. Of course, you'll need to modify the encounters to be more Middle-Earthy (Middle-Earthican?), but it could work.

As an aside, why no primary spellcasters in your campaign? IMO Each race has some sort of arcane and divine magical tradition. With elves, magic is so entwined with their daily lives that they don't even think of it as magic. Dwarves have great powers of artifice and humans would have inherited the knowledge of the elves and high men. Even the hobbits are mentioned as having earthy and subtle forms of magical talent. Just because the magic is more subtle or rarely mentioned in the books doesn't mean that it doesn't exist.

Well, let's say it's just a matter of "sources". If I had the time to devise a new magical system for MERP, that would work. No fireballs, no "reattache severed limb", no "pass stone" and lots of ugly stuff that, had it actually been available, would have made the passage through Moria (random example) 1 or 2 hours long (just blast your way through it, and turn invisible for as long as you have Mana Points, and if all else fails, use MP to go 4x speed and block arrows like you are powering a Deflector Shield from Jedi Knight).

If I could use d20, that'd be gold, as I'd just use 200% of what Lord Tatarus posted. So, I'm afraid I'm going to make stuff a little bit harder for the players. No magic healing (no signs in the book, unless you spend time in magic "location" or under the magic "influence" of its lord, but lost eyes still don't regrow and fractured bones heal in weeks), no elemental magic available unless you are really a badass wizard directly in touch with the Istari, and even then, you don't just go doing the cheap version of Gandalf/David Carradine, meeting people, getting into adventures, walking the Earth.

I can fairly well allow some low power magic for specifically royal dunedain PCs, stuff that gives insight bonuses on knowledge, craft, decipher, spot and listen, but that's it. Still pretty awesome if you witnessed it. Imagine this 100kg swordplayer that just produces a faint healing light from his hands. I'd elect him President of my country that very day.
Same goes for SOME of the elves (and definitely no elves below the level of a Noldo). They might even get better magic, but this isn't happening because elves, esp. noldor in late third age, don't go adventuring (assuming they have ever done something so D&Desque)

O.

Zim
2007-11-21, 02:26 PM
I think the main reason that people were not tossing around major magic in LOTR had more to do with drawing attention to oneself. Sauron's spies were everywhere and the mission was supposed to be secret. When the gloves came off, Gandalf let loose with some pretty big guns (what exactly do you think he did to that Balrog? I bet his sword was not a big contributor).

There's also the matter of the style of the tale to consider. It would not have been an epic quest if Gandalf had just teleported to Mt. Doom and dropped the ring in. :smallsmile:

Have you ever looked at the magic sytem from Harnmaster? It favours very subtle magic and even has laws of conduct for the primary practicioners of the craft with regards to throwing around flashy magic. It's worth a look if you've not heard of it before.

BTW kingsfoil appears to be a material component for "Heal". :smallwink:

Just random ramblings. Sorry.

Telonius
2007-11-21, 02:47 PM
Second-Age Middle Earth would probably have a more traditionally "D&D" feel to it. There's more "epic" things going on, a larger elf and dwarf presence, and more factions and infighting.

Subotei
2007-11-21, 05:54 PM
There's also the matter of the style of the tale to consider. It would not have been an epic quest if Gandalf had just teleported to Mt. Doom and dropped the ring in. :smallsmile:


Don't forget the Tolkein Deus ex machina of the Eagles:

"You mean we coulda ridden giant eagles all the way to Mount Doom, Gandalf?"

"Yup, Frodo - they're friends of mine - used 'em before a couple of times."

"Gandalf - has anyone ever called you a complete f%£$wit?"

Premier
2007-11-21, 06:23 PM
Now, today I had a sort of inspiration. What do you think of an espionage mission in the ruins of Angmar shortly before they siege to Minas Ithil is laid? The forces of orcs have already conquered Cirith Ungol, and threaten the town, but they are considered as a relatively small danger. Little they can suspect that the Witch King is in fact a Nazgul, and CANNOT be killed. Not only that, but he has returned. After all, more than 25 years have past since
his defeat at Fornost. They knew he fled, but who would know he's already returned? They'll have to cross 90% of the map to get there in time, and warn the city of the entity of the danger. Fair enough, palantìr and town are doomed, but the PCs can still make a difference.

Just brainstorming, how about a variation of this: it's around 2000 Third Age, and the Nazgul have just started the attack on Minas Ithil (which will still hold out for 2 years); or maybe the initial attack is imminent, with the Enemy marshalling forces in Mordor. The characters are sent to Angmar in pursuit of the rumour that a powerful weapon of the enemy is there. Captured and returned, it might turn the battle. They leave on fast horses and head north. If, for some reason or other they decide to go through Moria (maybe the Gap of Rohan is blocked by a Dunlander uprising), they get a run-in with the new management - "oops, I guess not hearing from them for 20 years was not just dwarven isolationism as usual!"
They somehow make it through and make it to Fornost - at about the same time as the Lord of the Nazgul shows up as well with a retinue. Turns out the powerful weapon rumour is true and he came to fetch it for use at Minas Ithil. If the PCs can get the weapon first - probably with the aid of the Dúnedain -, they must either use it in a stand against the Nazgul (who'll just retreat angrily if beaten) or run and hope he doesn't follow them through the entire continent. If they're too late, they could still try to wrest it from the Witch King's hand - again, with Dúnedain aid -, or try to rally the Dunédain and start stirring up trouble in the hopes of delaying the With King from the Minas Ithil siege, or convince some Dúnedain to come south and help Gondor, or go to Imladris for help. Or whatever they can come up with.

captain_decadence
2007-11-21, 06:36 PM
The Emporer took levels in Hive Queen so without him, the Storm Troopers dropped like the soulless husks they had become after The Experiments?


There must be a possible plotline around that somehow...

There is a plotline around that. It's in the books. The emperor totally took over the brains of the imperial army (okay, maybe just helped them be better) and without him they just kinda ran away.


I think that for a middle earth campaign, you have to somehow deal with the fact that travel is really important in middle earth (as mentioned by a few people here). While in normal D&D, most people just have people skip from one town to another, the feel of Middle Earth has lots to do with travel and the struggles (both personal and scary-monster-type) that you face.

Total_Viking_Power
2007-11-21, 08:52 PM
Hmmm... III-2000... Minas Ithil...
Here's a go at a storyline.

I'm assuming you have gathered your PCs from the start... old characters, right?

Ok. Starting in Gondor. The PCs learn of the recent attack on Minas Ithil, but the true magnitude of the siege is not yet apparent.
A great deal of military strength is mustered in Minas Anor, and the party is drawn there (if not in the city allready).
They speak with some officials, and learn more of the horrors unfolding eastwards.
They are hired by an officer to go north to keep an eye on Dol Guldur, since it is feared that the Siege is a diversion for a grand assault on the heartland from that direction. The official would normally have regulars to do this, but the siege is drawing all available personnel to the front, and he has no power to influence military policy dictated by the King.
The PCs travel north, encountering some menaces if you like (marauding Orcs from the Grey Mountains, no soldiers to keep them in check as usual), but nearing the Dol. They can possibly hook up with some local friendlies, even Galadhrim Elves, who can inform them of changes in Mirkwood, as if the power of Dol Guldur has been diminished slowly during the last couple of decades. The locals are sure that something is up, but are not willing to enter the blighted forest. They will however aid the PCs to their best ability, if they should decide to infiltrate the tower.

If the party decides to go forward:
The party penetrates the weakened outer defences of the Dol, and find the tower intact but somehow dormant, allowing them to either return with this limited intel, or try to bust into the tower itself, a much harder task. If they succeed they might find crucial clues about the identity of the Witch King, and even some hints of his Nazgûl nature (the characters won't understand it themselves, but a sage might). Here's a great opportunity to battle creatures similar to barrow-wights.
If time allows, the next step could be a race against time to get intel to the right ears in Minas Anor, and maybe special orders from there to the front line.

Skjaldbakka
2007-11-21, 10:43 PM
"You mean we coulda ridden giant eagles all the way to Mount Doom, Gandalf?"

"Yup, Frodo - they're friends of mine - used 'em before a couple of times."

"Gandalf - has anyone ever called you a complete f%£$wit?"

I have an idea, lets ride the eagles over to Mount Doom!

Two reason thats a bad idea, Frodo. 1)Nazgul 2)big freakin' eyeball

Zim
2007-11-21, 11:34 PM
Two reason thats a bad idea, Frodo. 1)Nazgul 2)big freakin' eyeball

If the Nazgul were in the Shire looking for Bagginses, they would not be anywhere near Mordor in time to stop a flight of super eagles. That, and Sauron has no other (known) air power and cannot take any direct action himself (no body, just a swollen eyeball).

But still...secret mission...use expendable goons...fall back on eagle plan if they fail. It's all good. :smallbiggrin:

Ossian, I wonder what sort of story you could come up with if the characters were not directly involved in military action. What kind of intrigue plots would your players find fun? How about diplomacy missions to Mirkwood or Moria that lead to adventures within themselves? Just throwing out some ideas...

dyslexicfaser
2007-11-22, 03:24 AM
A campaign I'd like to try running in Middle Earth sometime would be set during the late reign of Ecthelion (the Steward of Gondor before Denethor) and Denethor's early reign, before Boromir's birth.

You're a minor captain, or even just a recruit, in the service of Gondor, and it's your job to keep Gondor together during attacks from pretty much on all sides. The orcs attack Gondor regularly during this time. The Corsairs are raiding up and down the coast and for every raiding party Dol Amroth manages to catch, two more slip through, do their business, and slip out. Osgiliath is under Gondorian control again, but who knows for how long? On top of all this, the nobles of Gondor squabble and are generally useless sods. It's all you can do to fight a holding action against all the enemies out for your blood, and you lose more men with every attack. It all seems so futile.

If you feel like trotting out the prestigious names, Aragorn is in the area (named Thorongil for some reason or other I don't remember now), and Gandalf stops by for a chat every now and then.

I'm sure there'd be more than enough material to work with.

dyslexicfaser
2007-11-22, 03:26 AM
If the Nazgul were in the Shire looking for Bagginses, they would not be anywhere near Mordor in time to stop a flight of super eagles. That, and Sauron has no other (known) air power and cannot take any direct action himself (no body, just a swollen eyeball).

I like to think that the Eye of Sauron could fire laserbeams out of its Eye at anyone who had the bright idea of riding eagles into Mordor. But that's just me.

Kami2awa
2007-11-22, 03:31 AM
Try runing an expedition to take Moria, either to take it, to re-take it or to burn out the orcs and re-re-take it in the fourth age. Dwarves have got the gymp throughout the entire Middle earth saga.

Or there's always the werebear retake of the misty mountains, try running Bejourn's kinsmen as first scouts into the goblin infested peaks, with stone giants in the background. They don't even need to be werebears, just tribally beholden to them.

I was going to point out that there are plenty of shapeshifters in Tolkien; indeed an entire race of the them (the Skin-Changers). The only one to appear in the books to my knowledge is Bjorn; but there could be any number of them (the name Bjorn means bear, so possibly the Skin Changers can each turn into different animals (mumakil anyone?)).

Kami2awa
2007-11-22, 03:32 AM
I like to think that the Eye of Sauron could fire laserbeams out of its Eye at anyone who had the bright idea of riding eagles into Mordor. But that's just me.

Probably, or mind control them to rip each other to bits. Its his domain, made to his desires; virtually the equivalent of a deities home stronghold in D&D terms.

Remember, a huge area of Middle Earth was never mapped in any detail by Tolkien; the whole Eastern and Southern lobes of the continent are uncharted beyond a few mountains. Players can easily go off into the South for Arabian Nights adventures with the evil Southerlings. The sea and the realms beneath are similarly unknown aside from being full of Kraken (such as the one guarding the Moria Gate).

Aquillion
2007-11-22, 04:25 AM
Some quick tips.

Avoid the major confrontions and battles from the books. Not only do these suffer from the fact that their overall scope is already written, they also tend to be, well, battles. There's less adventuring in most of them.

Overall, focus more on setting than on overarching plots. Yes, sure, you should try and have a good story, but overall if the players are playing a Middle Earth game it isn't so they can take part in your story; it's so they can have fun in Middle Earth. It's fine to have your plots just be an excuse to put them in the more dangerous places of Middle Earth, because chances are that's what they want anyway.

And Middle Earth has plenty of dangerous places. Mirkwood, Moria, various swamps filled with undead... you say that your ruins are empty, but there's no reason why they should be empty. You can't go five feet in Middle Earth without tripping over horrible spiders or wolves, after all. There's lots of orcs left. There are ghosts, wraiths, and undead everywhere. There are random pools with tentacle monsters in them. And in some places the trees will actively try to eat you; almost every old forest in Middle Earth is dangerous in some way or another.

Assuming you're setting it shortly (a generation or so) after the final fall of Sauron, there is still lots of mopping up to do. Moria is still there, and (at least according to Tolkien's timeline) the dwarves don't manage to reclaim it for several centuries yet. There's no more Balrog, but there are plenty of orcs and other nasty critters in there. The Dwarves would certainly be interested in sending in expeditions to map the area, maybe beat specific threats they've realized, etc. You could run an entire campaign out of successive missions deeper and deeper into Moria, mapping it as you go and clearing out the various nasties that have taken root... and, of course, there's bound to be treasure to be had (although the Dwarves might object if the players try and take any with them, especially anything Mithril.)

There are still orcs and many humans who allied with Sauron, as well as some stranger creatures. The King is probably going to want those things hunted down. Even if he doesn't, they can cause all sorts of problems... if a group of orcs or bandits who used to work for one of the big bads from before has set up shop in an old ruin somewhere, they can cause all sorts of problems for travellers. Someone eventually has to go and deal with that.

There are still dragons out there somewhere. Dragons with huge hordes of treasure.

There are in theory three surviving Dwarven rings, which were in Sauron's possession before his defeat. Those could be used as plot hooks if you're interested. A dwarf would do nearly anything to get one of them back, and it's easy enough to say how they fell into the hands of one of Sauron's servants. Their powers will fail now that the One has been destroyed, but the books make it clear that this is not an immediate thing; the elven rings, which will also fail, retained some power at the time when Gandalf left Middle Earth, and even if they've become completely powerless their value to the dwarves is immeasurable. Even if you don't want the players to be on a quest to retrieve an artifact, they could still be used as a plot hook in all sorts of other ways... if one retains even a little power for a while after the One's fall, a minor bandit chief or orc-lord who got their hands on it could use the wealth it grants to become something of a nasty local threat, or (even powerless) someone could use it as a bargaining chip to get the Dwarves to do various things.

Freelance Henchman
2007-11-22, 04:39 AM
Never mind.

Justin_Bacon
2007-11-22, 04:37 PM
Don't forget the Tolkein Deus ex machina of the Eagles:

"You mean we coulda ridden giant eagles all the way to Mount Doom, Gandalf?"

"With Sauron right there with a couple dozen ways of blasting them out of the sky? Not so much, no."

"But the Nazguls were all some place else."

"What made you think we were omniscient and knew that? Besides, during the day and a half when we knew the Nazgul were just outside of Rivendell -- the only time in this entire novel where we actually DID know where they all were -- you were unconscious in a coma."

"But--"

"And even if that hadn't been the case, we still would have had to send for the eagles."

"But--"

"And even if the eagles had been right there and the Ring-bearer had been conscious and we'd been willing to take the risk, the Nazgul's flying mounts -- the things that could have actually stopped the eagles -- were still in Mordor."

"But--"

"And what makes you think the Nazgul and their mounts were the only anti-air defenses Sauron had in Mordor?"

"Then why were you able to come and rescue me with the eagles?"

"Because Sauron had been destroyed and his defenses were in chaos. And it still wasn't a sure thing. Try to keep up, kid."

"Why didn't you mention all of these scenarios at the Council of Elrond so that the anal retentive and short-sighted among us wouldn't obsess over this 'oversight' for the rest of eternity?"

"There are a lot of complete untenable ideas we didn't discuss there. Now shut up. You're boring me."

Justin Alexander
http://www.thealexandrian.net

Skjaldbakka
2007-11-22, 04:46 PM
There are still dragons out there somewhere. Dragons with huge hordes of treasure.

:smallconfused:

I was under the impression that Smaug was the last of the dragons. It was a big deal that he was killed. Just think what would have happened if Smaug had been alive and kicking when the War of the Ring started up. The Lonely Mountain is pretty close to Rivendell. It takes a lot to kill a dragon. Bard was descended from a line of heroes, had the Black Arrow, and got tipped off as to where to aim.

Also, if there was a dragon somewhere else, it would have participated in the War. Sauron drew all the evil creatures of the world to him and bound them to his will.

That being said, you could probably still get away with a dragon in the far-off unexplored reaches of Middle Earth.

Matthew
2007-11-22, 04:59 PM
No, I don't think Smaug was the last of the Dragons. It's possible, but I don't recall Gandalf remarking on it in The Hobbit. We don't really know what Sauron was cooking up, he might have had Dragons in his service somewhere, or maybe not. They're pretty powerful servants and he might not want them around too often.

[Edit]
Certainly there were a bunch you could seek out and slay in the MECCG...

Dervag
2007-11-22, 05:16 PM
Remember, a huge area of Middle Earth was never mapped in any detail by Tolkien; the whole Eastern and Southern lobes of the continent are uncharted beyond a few mountains. Players can easily go off into the South for Arabian Nights adventures with the evil Southerlings. The sea and the realms beneath are similarly unknown aside from being full of Kraken (such as the one guarding the Moria Gate).And who says all the Southerlings are actually evil?

All we know is that Sauron managed to rope a lot of them into his service. We don't have to assume any particular thing about how. Maybe he got their armies to obey him by threatening their homeland, in which case there might well have been neutral or good nations contributing troops for fear of destruction. Or maybe he recruited among the Southerlings by taking some portion of their male children into slavery like the Ottoman Empire's Janissary corps.

Ossian
2007-11-22, 05:26 PM
Many people say it was a long and careful plan of subjugation carried out by one or two of the Nazguls, over centuries or at least decades. Corruption through power, threats, slow mind poisoning, and the evergreen plot device (who hasn't used it at least once?): the Lesser Rings.
Give a fistful of those "test rings" (the ones Gandalf mentions to Bilbo in the beginning) and you're done.

On the other side, rivalry with Gondor has never been uncommon, further stirred by the presence of Black Numenoreans and Corsairs. Loot and pillage are a good reason to wage war pretty much everywhere, without making a whole nation "evil".

O.

GolemsVoice
2007-11-22, 06:50 PM
*ChrmChrm* *Best DM Voice*
"As the threatening shadows of Mordor are defeated, and the evil clouds no longer gather in the realm of Sauron, Gondor's eternal vigil finally reaches it's end. Now, the biggest problems are wandering bands of orcs, quickly put to the sword by the awakening might of the now free-breathing Gondor. But as the courage of men is no longer called for, their hybris awakes, and after the dams of danger fell, mortal greed and desire spills out like a fountain and again poisons the High Halls of Minas Thirit. Now, no longer in the shadow of elves and dwarves, man begins to turn on itself. King Ellesar has a hard time jugding and carefully guiding his country out of hazard's way. But, as unrivaled as his wisdom may be, there are always voices who claim they could do better, if only given the opportunity. Behind closed doors, wealthy nobles discuss the future of Gondor, and in dark alleys, even darker plans are forged."

In Tolkien's stories, only few man could be considered strong willed and morally right. They were known for treachery, arrogance and a hot temper, which for example lead to the downfall of Numenor. Now, the heroes must prevent the same thing from happening to the flowering Gondor, as no sane man would be interested in a civil war. (or, if they are, just reverse the plot.)
Let the players have a adventure that does not involve their swords (not much, anyway) but their wits, guts and morals.

puppyavenger
2007-11-22, 07:31 PM
Pretty sure that the Hobit said that Smaug was one of the greatest dragons not the last one.
As for ideas simple Who says the balrog from moria was the only one left alive? and Dragons are pretty intelligent so maby one decided fill the power vacum in the east left by the fall of Mordor, or maby take over the orcs in moria, They need a new god right?

SquireJames
2007-11-22, 08:07 PM
WARNING: This is a "fresh response" from reading the initial rant and none of the intervening pages. I may be repeating stuff other people said, or suggesting something you already said "no" to. Which is part of what I want to talk about. Don't say "no" to nothing!

Ask yourself "What If", or better yet ask your players for "What If's", and give your players complete freedom to screw up the world more than Peter Jackson ever dreamed of! THAT, in my opinion, is the only way to play a "book setting" and have fun!

My best Middle Earth adaptations have been "what if" scenarios. Go back to 5 years before the Lord of the Rings, enter the player characters as big players. Maybe they know Frodo. Maybe one of them got adopted INSTEAD of Frodo! Maybe the Ranger DOES know Elrond. Maybe the Elf in the party is one of Elrond's sons. Use the history and rich background from the Appendices, but toss the main books!

What if the party does something that kept Saruman from going bad, but made Gandalf angry enough to do something rash?

What if the PC's befriend an orc (or, more likely, a Uruk-Hai)? Maybe that orc IS a PC? It's obvious orcs are not necessarily obliterated on sight, though an orc will obviously have problems walking in Minas Tirith in daylight. What if it's a Fourth Age game, where the idea of a non-evil orc might not be so ridiculous?

What if the PC's were an elite group of really well-armed dwarves (not those unarmed fools who travelled with Bilbo) tasked to take care of Smaug a bit early? What if the dwarves swallowed their pride and asked for direct help from the elves (who granted it from the sheer novelty of the asking)?

What if Elrond sent the PC's out to collect additional people for his famous 50-page Council? Surely they could convince someone from Rohan to come, and bring in a Beorning or two. Perhaps they could even find a "fifth column" Easterling or Southron group who earnestly wished Sauron wasn't controlling things? Perhaps one or two is a traitor, and it's a bad idea to take him to the Council...

I can go on some more if you like!

Falrin
2007-11-22, 08:16 PM
Just to pick in on the 'eagles fly to mordor' thing:


http://www.howitshouldhaveended.com/Divx%20links/LOTR.html (http://www.howitshouldhaveended.com/Divx%20links/LOTR.html)


Could you imagine what it would be like if w walked the entire way?

puppyavenger
2007-11-22, 08:18 PM
Wait aren't orcs eliminated on sight, I mean there the "evil minion" race of LOTR and the RPG even says to not make goood orcs/

SquireJames
2007-11-22, 08:18 PM
Replying to that old chestnut about why the Eagles didn't fly them into Mordor to drop off the Ring.

The strongest reason is because it would have made the Lord of the Rings a lot shorter and a poor story. Let that one slide for now.

The eagles weren't exactly the bravest beings in Middle Earth. In the Hobbit, they limited their activites based on what MEN WITH BOWS can do to them. They might come CLOSE to Mordor and fight because times were desperate, but I'm pretty sure they wouldn't have flown IN as long as Sauron was still in there!

Caledonian
2007-11-22, 08:23 PM
The only reason Frodo and Sam made it in was because Sauron was convinced that he knew where the Ring was, and was going to retrieve it from Minas Tirith by force.

It never even entered his mind that the forces aligned against him would destroy the Ring - he assumed that they would try to use it against him directly. If Gandalf and Frodo had tried to fly in, Sauron would have realized what they were trying to do and stopped them, and then all would be lost.

Draz74
2007-11-22, 08:27 PM
That, and Sauron has no other (known) air power and cannot take any direct action himself (no body, just a swollen eyeball).

Um, Saruman in the movie says that "he [Sauron] cannot yet take physical [non-eyeball] form."

Even if you trust the traitor Saruman and his information, that's only the movie. The books say nothing of the sort.

On the contrary, in the book, Gollum at one point is remembering his torture sessions in Barad-Dur and, in terror, mutters about the one missing finger on Sauron's hand. Sauron in the book was well capable of taking some kind of action during the war (although somewhat of a cowardly overlord, he preferred to stay in his protected tower). Indeed, Aragorn at one point (conversing with Merry and Pippin) expresses his doubts that Gandalf (the White, not the Grey) would be able to come off victor in a one-on-one match with Sauron.

SmartAlec
2007-11-22, 08:29 PM
I see MERP got a mention here, but has anyone brought up the rather more recent LotR RPG offering from Decipher?

http://lotrrpg.decipher.com/products.htm

I looked it up expecting an overly filmocentric product, but it's considerably more faithful to the spirit of the book than even MERP was, imo. And it has a few good ideas for stories in there.

Not to mention that the races, classes and spells are actually pretty good representations of Middle-Earth, or so I thought anyhow.

Edit: I enjoyed the book just for the essays it has on Tolkienesque storytelling and translating that feel into DMing.

puppyavenger
2007-11-22, 08:52 PM
I see MERP got a mention here, but has anyone brought up the rather more recent LotR RPG offering from Decipher?

http://lotrrpg.decipher.com/products.htm

I looked it up expecting an overly filmocentric product, but it's considerably more faithful to the spirit of the book than even MERP was, imo. And it has a few good ideas for stories in there.

Not to mention that the races, classes and spells are actually pretty good representations of Middle-Earth, or so I thought anyhow.

Edit: I enjoyed the book just for the essays it has on Tolkienesque storytelling and translating that feel into DMing.

Oh Isn't that merp? Oh oops.

SmartAlec
2007-11-22, 08:57 PM
Nah, this is MERP:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle-earth_Role_Playing


A subsequent Middle-earth based RPG, the Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Game, was published by Decipher Inc. Except for the original source material, the Decipher game shares no link to ICE's MERP and uses an entirely different rules system.

Ossian
2007-11-23, 06:05 AM
I see MERP got a mention here, but has anyone brought up the rather more recent LotR RPG offering from Decipher?

http://lotrrpg.decipher.com/products.htm

I looked it up expecting an overly filmocentric product, but it's considerably more faithful to the spirit of the book than even MERP was, imo. And it has a few good ideas for stories in there. Not to mention that the races, classes and spells are actually pretty good representations of Middle-Earth, or so I thought anyhow.
Edit: I enjoyed the book just for the essays it has on Tolkienesque storytelling and translating that feel into DMing.

Hmmm....worth more than just a passing look. Do you know of any website that explains/gives a tutorial on the mechanics? It says it works with the CODA system. Anything like a CODA equivalend of the d20SRD?

O.

SmartAlec
2007-11-23, 06:56 AM
Not that I can find. However, there are some downloadable ideas for adventures here:

http://lotrrpg.decipher.com/downloads.htm

I do still recommend the book. Their take on Magicians is particularly apt; making Magicians reasonably capable fighters with a variety of utility spells, for things like lighting fires, talking to animals, locking doors, providing a boost to healing (the closest the LOTRRPG comes to a 'healing spell' is one that gives a character +10 to his healing skills for a short time) and inspiring others. It's down to the DM to provide situations where these can come in handy. There are a few attack spells, but they either tend to be wearying - so repeated use leaves the Magician exhausted - or Sorcery, which is the province of servants of the Shadow.

It's also refreshing to find an RPG with multiple races in which some races are in fact more powerful than others, but the Elves in this RPG do have a series of advantages. All races have their quirks and unique touches, but Elves - especially the Noldor - stand above the rest, with everything from a bonus to animal-handling, to immunity to fear generated by ghosts.

Justin_Bacon
2007-11-23, 07:00 AM
I was under the impression that Smaug was the last of the dragons.

Nope. Nothing of the like is ever implied, and Gandalf explicitly confirms that dragons still exist during the Council of Elrond. (He also confirms that the great wyrms are all dead -- with a fire capable of destroying Elven rings (but not the One Ring) -- but that happened long before Smaug's death.)

Justin Alexander
http://www.thealexandrian.net

Skjaldbakka
2007-11-23, 08:56 AM
Nope. Nothing of the like is ever implied,

No. It is never explicitly stated. It is most definetely implied, given the lack of dragons evident in Sauron's forces. Unless the nazgul mounts count as some kind of lesser dragon.



and Gandalf explicitly confirms that dragons still exist during the Council of Elrond.

I don't recall this.

Also, the father of the dragons (I forget his name, Gothmaug?), would probably have been able to destroy the One Ring. Gandalf speculates that Angmar, the mightiest of dragons in the 3rd Age, would not have been able to.

Ossian
2007-11-23, 09:04 AM
The dragons you're mentioning are Glaurung/Glorund, the crawling and fire breathing wyrm that cursed Turin and his sister. Cruel and powerful, he was still but a geko next to Ancalagon the Great, biggest and baddest among the winged wyrms that could breathe fire.

That there can be wandering wyrms in the frozen wates of the north does not seem to be too strange. They probably have no interest in what lies south of the Iron Hills anyway. Still, Smaug's descent wasn't that much before the war of the ring, and I'd find it odd that he descended as the last living dragon anyway.

A bit like everything in ME, even dragons are less powerful than they used to be. Still, Gandalf wonders if even Ancalagon the Black could have destroyed the One Ring. The only way the One Ring could be destroyed was to throw it into the fires of Mount Doom where it had been forged.

SOURCE (http://www.tuckborough.net/onering.html)

BTW, I'm reading the downloadable material from the decipher website, and it looks cool and with some degree of sobriety. I'm still a bit disappointed that there are never rust monsters, beholders and gelatinous cubes under the mounds, only wights, but hey, ME is known for its consistency!

O.

PS
Gothmog is composed of the word goth meaning "dread" and the word baug meaning "tyrannous, cruel, oppressive." It was the Lord of Balrogs in First Age and the lieutenant of the Witch King during the last days of the War of the Ring. he might have been one of the Nine, or a men, or an orc (the book won't say it). In the movie, it was a molten-wax faced orc.

Skjaldbakka
2007-11-23, 09:10 AM
The dragons you're mentioning are Glaurung/Glorund, the crawling and fire breathing wyrm that cursed Turin and his sister. Cruel and powerful, he was still but a geko next to Ancalagon the Great, biggest and baddest among the winged wyrms that could breathe fire.

I might have got my names crossed, but the dragon that cursed Turin and his sister was the greatest of the dragons. He was in fact the father of all dragons. Ancalagon is a more recent dragon (the biggest and baddest of the dragons of the 3rd age).



Gothmog is composed of the word goth meaning "dread" and the word baug meaning "tyrannous, cruel, oppressive." It was the Lord of Balrogs in First Age and the lieutenant of the Witch King during the last days of the War of the Ring. he might have been one of the Nine, or a men, or an orc (the book won't say it). In the movie, it was a molten-wax faced orc.

Also, the Lord of the Balrogs was destroyed in the Silmarillion, by Glorfindel (who also died).

Ossian
2007-11-23, 09:33 AM
I might have got my names crossed, but the dragon that cursed Turin and his sister was the greatest of the dragons. He was in fact the father of all dragons. Ancalagon is a more recent dragon (the biggest and baddest of the dragons of the 3rd age).

Also, the Lord of the Balrogs was destroyed in the Silmarillion, by Glorfindel (who also died).

Sorry to be picky. Just my input.
Ancalagon and Glaurung were both in 1st age. Which of the 2 was the most dangerous is disputable, granted, but I'd vote for the mighty Ancalagon. He wasn't even fully grown when Morgoth had to play him as a trump card, being sieged by...the VALARS! (wow...tough luck on him).

Ancalagon was slain by Earendil on board of the Vingilote flying ship, and falling down he shattered a few mountains (heavy bastard)
Glaurung was killed with a cheap shot by Turin. Not that I blame him. The dragon was 300 times his size. Even with the best sword ever (which he had, Gurthang) fighting a dragon on your feet is something that can be only in D&D :smallbiggrin:

Gothmog the balrog (who, btw, banded with a few of his nasty kind and killed Feanor, (big accomplishment and a fine example of flanking) in an earlier battle) found his demise at the hand of Echtelion, the Champion of Gondolin. Echtelion also died, as he charged head down, skewered the Balrog's thigh with the spike he had on his helm, and dragged the monster over the edge of a balcony (if that isn't improved grapple...). They fell to their deaths several dozens of feet below, smashing their bodies in the fountains (but at that stage property damage wasn't really an issue for king Turgon). Just as a testament of the Balrogs' sheer power, there was yet another one in Gondolin who chased the refugees; this one was fought by Glorfindel, another mighty champion of light, who killed him at the cost of his life.

Moral of the story: Balrog only die if they fall down a cliff....

O.

Skjaldbakka
2007-11-23, 10:41 AM
My geek-fu is weak. Looks like its time to check those books out again.

Yahzi
2007-11-23, 01:11 PM
"There are a lot of complete untenable ideas we didn't discuss there. Now shut up. You're boring me."

Such as... what if the King of Eagles had been like Boromir instead of Aragorn?