Awesome....*happy feets*

Wait a minute...

Are you talking about The Darkening of Mirkwood and The Hearth of the Wild?

No, he's talking about the screen and lake-town sourcebook.

I was wondering about Darkening of Mirkwood, Heart of the Wild, and the Rivendell book. Are these all slated to be released in 2012?

JHolland,
I realize that you're looking for an official response, and I'm not it, but generally C7 doesn't provide an ETA of any kind until they're getting product from the printer or they are shipping the product out to consumers.

Having said that... Rivendell's release was a bit up in the air.

Rivendell is known to have been delayed due to Middle-earth Enterprises reviewing SG/C7's proposed product and requesting that a substantial number of outright additions be made. Jon specifically stated that this meant the addition of a rather substantial amount of material that was not originally intended for publication within the Rivendell product.

Of course, having created this material, they have to re-submit the product for review. This might entail further alterations, etc. At which point it gets re-reviewed and re-edited, in an endless loop, until MeE accepts the results without requesting further changes.

Sorry Garn I think you must be misremembering something else: I have never said anything at all about the Rivendell book, or anything to do with it's approvals, and none of what you say about it is the case.

Heart of the Wild and Darkening of Mirkwood are currently tentatively slated for Q1 2013 release.

Nooooooooooooooooooo I hate delays.

Well Jon I might have mistakenly attributed you as the source, but someone at C7 mentioned all of the above. Although I'm sure I didn't quote them verbatim.

This is very strange, since none of the mentioned Rivendell book related events have actually happened, and it's not an accurate description of the approvals process. So someone has a crossed wire somewhere.

The only thing I can think of that is something like this is the announcement that Darkening of Mirkwood was to be split into two books (by our own choice) so more detail could go into both the region sourcebook and the 30 year campaign.

Very odd. Still, no harm done. Rivendell is still very much in development.

Thanks for the info Jon. I know you can't do dates so I was just curious what quarter you were expecting.

Keep up the good work!

Steff does his happy dance. Which is way less camp than George Takei's.

What months constitutes Q1 2013?

And, if this is the case, would you consider updating the Release Schedule on your site so as to better manage our expectations? The Release Schedule shows Winter 2012 for The Heart of the Wild and The Darkening of Mirkwood.

Many thanks for all great work on TOR.

Is there a reason for the delay?

Jan, Feb, and March. The first quarter of the year.

You are definitely getting the Rivendell book and Darkening of Mirkwood/Heart of the Wild situation mixed up Garn. I check here regularly and all we have had on Rivendell so far is that it will have Rangers of the North and Elves of Rivendell as cultures, that's it on the news for that product whereas with the other two we learned the material for the 30 year sourcebook that is Darkening of Mirkwood proved too much for one book so Heart of the Wild came into existence.

Shame on the news about the next two books being in 2013, I was hoping we'd get more than two products this year for TOR. Seems to have been a year of delays, mistakes and issues for Hobbit-based stuff - I guess the film coming out has affected stuff already out there or in development which is not linked with the film itself. I hope 2013 will be more productive and I am hoping that the two adventures we would have seen in the Gencon book will eventually work their way into some other product too.

So color me confused. AMAZON shows Heart releasing 11/14 and Darkening 11/21; I just ordered them earlier today and they show shipment date for both 11/28.

Are they hallucinating? Are they robbing me? Have I been burgled by Bilbo?



Here's another question - does C7 or whatever entity they use for their sales, offer PDFs with purchase of these (or pre-ordering) directly from them?



Any help/answers would be much appreciated.

Thank you,

Ignore Amazon, they're pretty much clueless when it comes to RPGs.

Not anymore. C7 are no longer allowed to produce PDFs of their products due to various legal issues most of which are conjecture but will most likely come from Middle Earth Enterprises (or some arm of them) putting a stop to C7's electronic RPG media for this game.

Okay thank you. I was getting excited that I would have my books in the next two weeks. Looks like I have more like 2 or 3 months instead :-(


I'm sure the no PDFs has something to do with the letter Arrrrrrrr!!!

Like Rich says, I would never expect Amazon to have this before it's even set to pre-order on C7's store. I can't find the thread, but Jon said we'll see it hopefully in the first few months of 2013 (so the upcoming items page needs to be edited as it was saying Autumn 2012 when I last looked). Books so far have gone up for pre-order and then taken quite a while to go from that to actually being shipped.

Rich - I'm not sure if the pdf issue is purely a TOR issue, other lines/products seem to have book+pdf bundles still.

Not sure what you mean here timb. It is just a TOR issue though and as we're in the TOR forum, talking about TOR products, I didn't think it necessary to qualify it all the time. At the end of my comment I wrote "... for this game", therefore meaning just TOR. Hope that clarifies?

To be fair to amazon, i did have my Laketown supplement in middle to late October as opposed to this week..

Sorry Rich I was rushing to type and shut the laptop down, it doesn't read right - I mean to say that the PDF issue is purely a TOR issue, as you have just said, but I read "C7 are no longer allowed to produce PDFs of their products" as possible other lines too, so I was trying to clear that up and failing with an Eye of Sauron die roll

I know there's been a lot of hooplah being discussed over upcoming items for Eriador, Rohan/Gondor, Rivendell, etc.

What about Shire? My first choice by far would be a supplement all about adventuring in The Shire and of course the culture itself as it relates to TOR.

I have a feeling w/ The Hobbit set to release in one month in theatres, there will be a great deal of interest in all things Hobbit-ish and Shire-ish.


Anyways, just some musings and hopefulness from a true "all things hobbit" fan.

I would love to see The Shire and Bree areas. I lament the decision to go away from the 3 core set plan - looks like it's going to take longer to get regional supplements out.

Good to hear about Darkening of Mirkwood and Heart of the Wild. I am looking forward to them both.

With those books done I hope the RPG expands its coverage. We have had a couple of years of the Wilderland. If we get a couple of years for system book (like Rivendell sounds like it might be sans the Men of Bree Culture), a setting book, adventure book and campaign book for Eriador, followed by the same again to Gondor/Rohan, then I will remain a happy TOR fan.

I originally expected the three core sets to be two years apart (not 1 year as initially stated) so the pace is not an issue to date, given the quality and usability of the books and assuming C7 stays the course.

I wonder why C7 didn't stick with the 3 set release. If they changed their minds about including the rules in each (which was a good idea BTW) could they not be released as a large sourcbook instead, just sans the rules?

I think thats where we end up though. If take out the mechanics from the core set of TOR, you end up with Cultures and some additional rules. Rivendell sourcebook seems to do this. The summary of the setting (along with another Culture ot two) will no doubt be subsumed into the Errantries of the King campaign book and setting book equivalents of Heart of the Wild and Darkening of Mirkwood. The introductory adventure may still be in Rivendell, or in the Eriador adventure book equivalent of Tales from Wilderland.

All in all, I suspect that we are getting the equivalent of the second core set, just without the duplication that a core set would have created.

Just seems that there's going to be more books and a slower release. Making it both more expensive and more frustrating. Granted there's the swapping of a box set for softback supplements but, unless there's only two supplements released for each planned corebook the cost will be more.

TBH it was going to be slower in any case. This shift did not cause the slow down.

As for more books, as said, I think this approach reduces duplication and will actually mean less books in the long run. Rather than a setting summary in a core set and then a setting book we just get the setting book, rather than a campaign outline in the core set and a campaign book we get just a campaign book, rather than an intro adventure in a core set and an adventure book we just get an adventure book etc

Do you only play TOR? C7 does have other ranges that needed to be treated fairly. For myself I am much more interested in Ygggdrasill and Qin then TOR, so I would like to see their supplements sooner then Rivendell or other TOR sourcebooks. Were all in the same boat. Which would you prefer a bit of a wait between TOR releases or quick and shoddy releases?

The One Ring has been the regular game over the last year. Two campaigns (Oct-Jun, July-date) and not really tiring of the game as yet. I've got Primeval, Dr Who, Starblazer, Legends of Anglerre, The Laundry and Victoriana from C7 as well. Yggdrasil and Kuro are on the wishlist. The next favourite game system is FATE - Dresden Files and Bulldogs being the favourites there. I buy too much

"I buy too much."

Don't we all. I think you shold like Yggdrasill, it has placed on my top 5 favourite games. Have you played the Dresden Files before? I like the background and the books, but I was little "meh" on the rules of the game. It definetly is not a game you play at the drop of the hat if you have to make characters.

I've run Dresden Files on two occasions and run/played other FATE games (Starblazer, Legends of Anglerre, Spirit of the Century, Bare Bones FATE). The characters can be constructed in about 10 minutes, you don't have to go through the cooperative game session. But you do get characters that play off each other more with the cooperative character building session. I've found that the setting is best done by the GM rather than the cooperative city building session that is suggested in the rules. I think perhaps take this to PM if you want to go in to more detail.

Anyone from Cubicle 7 aware of this event that Hawke is running??

See the link below:

http://tolkienmoot.org/news/the-hobbit-mov...e-one-ring-rpg-


Robin S.

I think it was a good decision to change the releasing schedule from 3 sets to 1 set and regional sourcebooks.

I'm enjoying Wilderland, and waiting to complete this cycle with TDoM and THotW. Many fans wants something similar to future regional scopes, so "Rivendell" (Rivendell, Trollshaws, Ettenmoors; Elves of Rivendel and Rangers) doesn't sound as big as Erranties of the King (plus Eriador, 'Arnor', Angmar, The Shire, Bree, Grey Havens; Men of Bree, Dwarves of Ered Luin, Elves of Grey Havens).

I guess some people (including me) want a 'core' set like Adventures Over the Edge of the Wild but without the ruleset. We don't want to go too much modular, because it could be 'unplayable' in some point in the future.

Well what is it left when you take out the rules from the core set? It is a regional sourcebook. I don't understand what do you mean when you say you want a core set without the rules but not a sourcebook for regions?

Sorry farinal, It's hard to explain in english. >_>

Let's forget about 3-core model, and forget about the rules. At this moment we have:
Adventures over the Edge of the Wild

• Adventures over the Edge of the Wild (Basic)
• Lake-Town Sourcebook (Addon)
• Tales from Wilderland (Adventures)
• The Darkening of Mirkwood (Campaing)
• The Heart of the Wild (Sourcebook)

So, I expect a 'big' supplement, around 250 pages, maybe hardcover, to begin a new cycle, a new region, being the 'basic' starter book. It would include every core culture, initial Tales of the Years and broad regional information. So we can have the same model: basic, addon, adventures, campaing and sourcebook. They could even change background color from brown to green or blue, to remark that these books belong to another setting.

But considering C7 announcement it seems we will have 2-3 'small' supplements trying to cover piece by piece (starting with 'Rivendel'). That will be a lot of books, time and money.

This is my humble appreciation. Anyway, I'm supporting TOR no matter what.

But why do you want to pay for the same information? Every core culture, tales of years entries etc.

The Rivendell book for example could be also very long and full of information about Trollshaws, Rivendell, elven culture and traits and history and magic and many Rivendell npcs also the rangers etc. I can think of a lot of chapters for that book.

I mean core cultures from the "second cycle": Men of Bree, Dwarves of Blue Mountains, Elves of Grey Havens, Elves of Rivendel, Rangers of the North (I don't know if 'Ranger' would be a culture or a calling, being Dunedain the culture instead), Hobbits of the Shire (We have this already and maybe Hobbits from Bree will be the very same). Maybe I'm forgetting one.

The same with Tales of the Years. I expect a wide Tale about whole west. Otherway, information will be too spread around many books.

My players say: Let's play Wilderland! Ok... you can be a Beorning or a Dwarf of Lonely Mountain, etc. You can travel from Withered Heat to Dol Guldur (just an example! off course no one could be that insane)

But with Rivendel supplement, what can I do? I can't create adventures and travels for a mixed Company of heroes, because is just Imladris area and elves and rangers. If someone wants to be a common man, he can't... well he can be a Beorning crossing Misty Mountains, but that will attack the narrow world feel that The One Ring proposes. I'm not saying we can't build cool stories, but we can't do a really epic campaign with that.

How many 'Rivendels' will be needed to complete Middle-earth? I know Tolkien licences are expensive and C7 wants to exploit it as much as they are allowed. But publishing management must be a priority too, or we will need a librarian to reference our 'The One Ring Library' at the end if they follow the 'small and narrow supplement' way.