Do you think that eventually fans will be able to expand TOR beyond the narrow scope of the main game? I have a ton of stuff for MERP 2e and although the system within it is not very Tolkien-esque the game was amazing in its ability to allow you to play anything from Tolkien's works and in any age. I'd love for TOR to be expanded eventually to allow you to do all the things within the fiction that MERP does.

What do you all think?

Personally, I like the tight focus. I have a lot of old MERP material, and while I used to enjoy reading it, the game was too much of a framework, too loose. I would spend hours reading that stuff as a GM and have major analysis paralysis because I couldn't get enough details out of the material to help me write an adventure. It was too big, too broad, too much.

I really like the more intimate setting of TOR. I read the adventures and materials and I get that up close feeling of being in an Inn in Middle-earth, listening to Dwarves sing of gold and fine things wrought and unwrought. I never got that with MERP; just the 30,000 foot view.

So, while I would love seeing the amount of material increase, I don't want it to lose that intimate focus.

But you can maintain that intimate focus while simultaneously expanding the scope of what can be done/played. I want the entire setting. Not just a tiny bit of it. I hope fans can aid in that.

The game is expanding with each release and there are releases in the pipeline. So, yes.

Will it reach the breadth of MERP? Almost certainly not, but given TOR's quality I would be happy with a lot less breadth than MERP TBH

I'm hoping for the basics in expanded regions. The Rivendell sourcebook should, I think/hope, deal with the Trollshaws/Rhudaur and Eregion/Hollin regions. Possibly the Coldfells and Ettenmoors might get a little more detail, with the goblins of Goblin Town and Mount Gram.

After this, I'm hoping for Bree and surrounds (Cardolan/Arthedain), The Shire, Rohan (their relationship with Dunland, Fangorn, Isenguard & Orthanc), and Gondor (with the threat of Mordor on the doorstep).

Beyond Middle-earth, I've been thinking of the system for the old d20 setting of Midnight (FFG). I think the hope/shadow balance would fit well. The setting seems very reminiscent of Lord of the Rings anyway, a 4th Age if Sauron had won.

You can. But it takes time and energy (well, you can for The One Ring and The Hobbit. Everything else is out of range, so you'll never have a First Age or a Second Age book. MERP could only because nobody was paying intention. Well, it's almost true).


I truly enjoy the tight focus of The One Ring, myself. It helps creating a consistent mood, themes through the books.
I'm sure the scope will broaden with the next books, but I hope it won't be too fast. It would spoil my pleasure (i'm not interesting having a broad view of the middle-earth. I don't need a RPG for that, there's tons of books and encyclopedias about that. What I want in a RPG is informations I can use directly in play, characters of a woodlanders' village, hooks, that kind of stuff).

I am currently working on some ideas for Dunlanders. At the moment they are 'foes' only but, I don't see that it too much of a stretch of the imagination to think that there are many in the western parts of the Dunland who were not seduced by Saruman and who could conceivably form the basis for a Heroic Culture.

Rich has the docs at the moment and is going to post them in the PDF. Rather than simple stat blocks, I have added some background and a Villain NPC.

I hope you guys like them.

I'm really sympathetic to the men of Dunlend, personally. They got dealt a very raw hand when the arrogance of Gondor simply "gave" their land of Calenardhon to the Sons of Eorl. It's understandable that they have a grudge against the Rohirrim. And the late 3rd age alliance with Orthanc would not have been possible if Saruman was not able to easily conjure up that grudge. Gondor and Rohan gave him a lot of material to work with, indeed.

Totally agree Rocmistro, the Rohirrim were not always as lily-white as portrayed in the LotR. Ethic cleansing and a somewhat racist attitude towards the Dunnish are very obvious throughout their history.

@stabz - I'll quote E. Gary Gygax in response: " . . . we urge you to refrain from writing for rule interpretations or the like unless you are absolutely at a loss, for everything herein is fantastic, and the best way is to decide how you would like it to be, and then make it just that way! On the other hand, we are not loath to answer your questions, but why have us do any more of your imagining for you?"

It's your game.

I will agree with most of the posters here, though, in saying that I doubt we'll see "official" support for much more than what Valarian posted above. And, that's OK. C7's a small, indie shop and we all agree that the product is quality - absolutely no need for them to dilute that by churning out material that strays too far afield, e.g. PCs taking on Morgoth in the First Age.

However, that's not to say that we don't have ample content to extrapolate into a Marchwardens of Doriath campaign. In fact, I think it would be relatively simple to crib something together and I know the community here would be supportive in terms of providing feedback and play testing.

Personally, I'd love to see C7 add a section for PbP games as a platform for just such experiments and/or serve as additional support to the community.

Yes you can! What are you working on?

Give the community time. I'm sure we'll be adding things for years to come.

Rocmistro, This is truly shocking behavior & sounds like Wormtongue is whispering in your ear

Seriously though, this is great stuff, & I only hope that ToR introduces the Dunlendings at some point. I'm glad to see that I'm not the only fan who appreciates this culture.

Speaking of which, I'm writing some stories that involve the descendants of Freca & Wulf. They infiltrate Freca's former stronghold at the source of the River Adorn during the time leading up to the War of the Ring, & thus prove willing dupes, er, tools for Saruman against Erkenbrand, et al.

BTW, I'm looking forward to Halbarad's write-up.

Hello
I am looking forward to seeing your Dunlendings templates.

Forgive my sparse knowledge of complete histories in Middle Earth.
Most of my ideas in my MERP campaign were based off material from the MERP modules which were dated in the 1600's of the Second Age if I'm not mistaken. Yet we played in the late Third Age, and I had to make some adjustments.

We adventured just to the west of the Mountains of Mirkwood based out of a Woodman town I made there. As an adversary for the Woodmen, I used a culture of men descended from Vidugavia's Kingdom I called the Widu (Vee Doo) who were in conflict with the Woodmen at times.
Later studies proved that late in the third age they were a bygone culture, but I still wish to have a similar culture in Southern Mirkwood for the conflicts I plan in TOR.

I found this website that has a write-up and would like to get your thoughts on such a culture that would dwell somewhat south of the Men-I-Naugrim, would they now be the Easterlings? Remnants of the Wainriders?

I am wondering if the Dunlendings templates might be a good base to start from for this possible culture.


Who were the men of Southern Mirkwood?

Thanks!!

Agreed Valarian!

The North is my fav. I'm stoked about Rivendell, & hope they expand beyond that to include Eriador (The Shire, Bree-land, etc.)

From there, they can write-up Moria (oh yes), Isengard/Rohan/Dunland, you name it. Just imagine the fun having your heroes confront the rise of Saruman. Or for that matter, Sauron's return to Mordor & the war. Uruks in Ithilien, Easterlings, Haradrim, & such. Then, a maritime adventure against the Corsairs of Umbar. Whoa...

We can only hope that C7 continues to expand the game, at least within their license restrictions (which will still rock ).

Hi Venger, I have put together some stats and background for various Easterling and Norhmen groups. My heroic culture - The Marathiuda(Horsefolk of Rhovanion will be appearing in the next issue of Other Minds.
I have three Easterling Cultures completed(ish) and I think that Rich is going to PDF them pretty soon. Each has a short background and about half a dozen templates as well as some new weapons, and abilities. Some of the abilities won't make a great deal of sense until Other Minds14 comes out with my Mounted Combat rules but, an experienced LM should be able to run them 'on the fly'.
The first is a nomadic, Turko-Mongol type race known as the Hunkarim. The second race are the Balchoth Successor States and are known as the Bozorgan. They are a bit like a cross between Dacians and the Sassanid Persians.
Finally, the people of 'Dorwinion', or as they know themselves, The Wendruskja/Druskja. These have a Slavic/Varangian Rus feel and like the other two have been designed with Tolwen's article on populations in Rhovanion in mind. I am fortunate enough to have been privy to the development of this article and it looks like it's going to be pretty darn special.

There might have to be a few naming alterations to the Wendruskja to be made as I cannot convince Tolwen of the viability of pseudo Slavic as a language base for the late third age 'Dorwinrim'....

And Mim too, good to see you're still around mate.

I do hope you like the Dunlendings. I've named them the Fornochin. It's Irish(deliberately misspelt) for Hillmen.
(Fir - Man. Cnocc - Hill)

I based it on my interpretation that Forgoil is simply a deliberately misspelt and thus disguised Irish phrase. For instead of Fir. Goil instead of Gall, one of several Irish Gaelic words for White and possibly an abstract reference to their Blonde Hair?

Hey Halbarad - I would be quite interested to read these Eastern cultures!! In our first campaign year (about to kick off year two next Friday), the heroes were thrust into a conflict with a horrifying maurader tyrant claiming himself to be "The Last Balchoth" and gathering to him men-at-arms flocking to his banner. I called him Teorthkon.

He proved himself to be nothing much more than a local bandit in Dorwinion region - and extended his pillaging into south-eastern reaches of Rhovanion. The heroes captured him, turned him over to local authorities, and at some point during the next Fellowship Phase, the heroes learned that the government turned him as a POW trade to free several of their peoples who had become slaves.

This Balchoth however got away, thanks to an ambush of those loyal to him, and fled back to regain an army, forever claiming the heroes as enemies.


I would say that your description of what anthropological ethnicities you used mirror precisely where i went with it when the heroes encountered him and his bandits. I also used the Sarcosan human race in the Midnight D20 game to give me much inspiration, as well. I wound up with a cross between horselords like that of the Persians you mentioned, and a twisted roman/greek/germanic tribesmen feel.


You can read about him more here:

http://z6.invisionfree.com/World_Of_Mydian...?showtopic=2219


I always post important NPCs in my campaigns on my messageboards for the players to continue to remember who are important to the campaign.

I have always thought the same, Valarian. I ran a campaign set in Midnight for 2 years, until Pathfinder Rules started their Alpha/Beta testing.

Midnight has been one of my favorite campaign settings I've ever used, and I still refer back to it - due to it's heavy Tolkien-esque feel.

I believe I have every published book that Fantasy Flight released, including an awesome boxed set campaign arc of a war against the elves; which would really be awesome set in Middle-earth - perhaps at a time when Sauron was openly at war with them. (maybe during the fall of Eregion area.....)?

The Sarcosans were my favorite people in that setting.

[QUOTE=Valarian,Feb 26 2013, 08:30 AM]
Sorry - double post.

@Halbarad. These sound great. I like the Irish spin & in particular, your development of the roots for Forgoil. IIRC, MERP portrayed them in a similar light (though perhaps more of a feel of the Britons who fought the Romans than the people of the Five Fifths - I'll have to have a second look). As much as languages meant to the prof, he would have enjoyed your write-up.

BTW, do you remember when you joked with me about my, ahem, borrowing some of REH's ideas? Well, I love what he did with the Picts that fought Cormac Mac Art & thought they'd be fun for a splinter tribe of the Dunlendings from the time of the migrations from the Ered Nimrais northward. Yeah, I know, two different peoples & it's beyond a stretch, but it works for me

@SirKickley, I like your story behind Teorthkon. I've been wracking what's left of my brain envisioning which Easterlings served Sauron at the time of the War of the Ring, & I lean toward making at least one people the descendants of the Balchoth. That in turn leads inevitably toward how to portray them. Have your heroes run into him since the trade & his (effectively) escaping their justice? He sounds like he'll make a solid recurring arch nemesis.

Thanks Mim.

No, the last journey for that year, that they were on is when they encountered T. and his bandits. The only reason they encountered him is:

They were on a quest to find the acting wine-steward (replacing Galion) who had sailed down the Celduin to Dorwinion to determine the cause of wine being late in shipments to the elves - needed for the upcoming Five-Armies anniversary bash. The steward too was overdue and so the PCs who had an elf of Mirkwood offered their services.

When they found the captain of the ship that carried the steward (Ethilion), he complained that his crew and payload were all ambushed and pirated by these bandits. He was drowning his sorrows and pains when they found him. He directed them to one of three dwarven brothers who had been hunting T. The dwarf (Brunil of the Iron Hills) escorted the PCs to the plateaus where the bandits are said to wander. They tracked a small detachment of them to a dead end ravine where they made a temporary base. A battle ensued, a few of the ship mates along w/ Ethilion were freed, and T. was captured. The PCs turned him over to the local authorities.

This didn't end the quest, as Ethilion still needed to get to the actual winery to ensure safe shipment replacements. Along the way they were attacked by a small horse-mounted unit who were loyal to Teorthkan avenging their captured leader. They began to see how big an enemy they had made. (that was a fun combat on mounts etc where the PCs learned of their "horselords" mentality).


Later when they did their Fellowship Phase and end of year (including anniversary bash), they learned that the three dwarven brothers offered to return Teorthkan to the east in exchange for many peoples he had captured and were now slaves in the east. Brunil escaped with his life - as planed by T. assurance that the tale of his treachery and escape made it back to arrogantly flaunt it; however the other two dwarves were killed when more of the horselords attacked the caravan escorting the prisoner. He relayed dark tiding to the heroes that Teorthkan will call to himself greater numbers, is seen now as invincible by his people and will return ten-fold to strike fear in the heroes and the free-peoples.


The heroes will be staring year two on Friday - but those quests will be taking them West across the Elf-Path. This will buy T. time to regroup. But there will be future encounters. And yes I intend to use him as a arch-nemesis. I played him, and his men similar to the Hyborian barbarians of Robert E.Howards Conan stories. IF you're trying to figure out how to play a group of Easterlings....try that!

Hopefully this weekend!

Good man Rich.

@Mim,

Glad you approve mate. It was fairly obvious to me that 'Forgoil' was some sort of play on one of the Celtic tongues. Looking at Tolwen's article on population and urbanisation in Eriador from Other Minds 13, I noticed that he had already used a Cymric base for the names of several of his regions in Rhudaur.
I decided then that the language of the Dunnish would need to be derived from Goidelic to maintain a pseudo Celtic feel but be recognisably different from the language of Old Rhudaur. I'm still not altogether sure if there might be kinship between the Dunlendings and the Old Rhudaurians.
On a further note, I'm still not sure that Forgoil actually translates to Strawheads. I feel that there are actually two distinct verbal attacks here. Strawheads, of course, refers to their blonde hair but I cannot help that Forgoil may actually mean something different.

Gall can also be translated into Irish as Foreigner or Stranger. I think we could be looking at something similar to a ME version of the Scottish/Irish term 'Sassenach'. Death to the Foreigners, Death to the Strawheads....you see where I'm going with this?

Thanks Halbarad! I look forward to seeing them!

@SirKickley, you just shared another great idea by having Ethilion travel downriver to investigate the late wine shipments & the subsequent investigation. This links the gap between Galion in The Marsh Dwellers & TfW. I'm going to write-up something similar.

You also point out the Hyborean barbarians & I've actually been leaning increasingly toward them as well - great minds & all that I'm glad to hear that someone else tweaks them accordingly. I've developed a mixed bag of them, including generic types instead of recognizable Cimmerians or such, some steppe-dwellers beyond the Sea of Rhun (proto-Huns instead of Scythians at this point, but I'm still working on them), & so on.

While we're on the subject, I'm torn between making the Variags of Khand somewhat like the Medo-Persians OR the Seljuq Turks/Khwárezm instead of the Sassanids (well, as I say, I'm still working on them )...

@Halbarad, I've also looked at the Cymric base for the Dunlendings & only have a personal reason to hesitate going that route - I'm of Welsh background

Seriously though, you raise a valid point about the possiblity of an alliance of sorts (or at least certainly not strife beyond raiding) between the Dunlendings & the Hillmen of Rhudaur. In fact, I've always envisioned those passages in The Hobbit & the LOTR about the castles on the hills with the 'evil look' & the references in Appendices A & B about their corruption by the Witch-king during the wars that ended the North-kingdom to imply the same. So, we're once again on the same page!

Concerning the word roots, I hadn't considered the 'Sassenach' approach & I'm glad you raise this point. The 'Gall' analogy seems to answer the probability that the Dunlendings not only never forgave the Oath of Cirion establishment of Rohan (just imagine their sense of betrayal!), but also their antipathy for the Rohirrim as 'Foreigners' or 'Strangers'. I'm going to use your idea for my adventures concerning the descendants of Freca & Wulf. They want payback, & they meet this charming chap with persuasive words who lives up in Isengard, so perhaps it's time?

Last spring, when I was planning this story-arc (of the wine-steward), I came to the board for some feedback, and I wrote up a lengthy overview of my plans for the campaign storyline; journeying down the Celduin etc for this quest, and I was pretty pleased with how the adventure story was starting to take shape.

The battle at the winery was pretty cool. I took the cardboard back of a legal pad of paper and cut it into various shapes to give the impression of segments of a low-wall, (about 1/2 inch to 2 inches ranging in height with contours at the top) the remnants of the winery house torn down and burnt down to shattered remains. A small snip on the bottom side allowed me to make a small cross piece of card stock to make them stand. I put them on a piece of faux-grass model mat, and decorated it with a bunch of stuff I picked up from a craft store meant for making missionary models etc. Bushes, trees, a well, a plow, a broken wagon, lots of barrels, and some hanging vines on arches. Then I took my plastic minis from D&D of goblins, and wolfs and scattered them about, making sure that some were behind the walls (archers) and one on the wagon, a couple on the vine/arches. (The goblins were pretty inebriated - so they were considered "weary" for the combat and they were easily snuck up on - the PCs ambushed them). Then we played out the combat - using the set-up mostly as visual aid - not for any true tactical movement based combat that you would use in a standard miniatures game.


As for the Balchoth.
I was looking for a culture to host an ultimate arch-nemesis for a while - and wanted to avoid using Angmar as I felt it was too overdone. When I read the story of the Balchoths and their incursions with the Rhovanions, I started to get a mental image of Hyborean maurading brutes, and knew immediately that this is the direction I wanted to go. Since the heroes were already needing to go South and East to Dorwinion, I just found a way to slip the warrior and his gang into the mix, and voila!

Now I have the makings for a good overarching baddie for a year or more to come.

The battle in the ravine was cool. I used the same low walls cardboard stands to represent small fence postings used for defense. The dwarf (Brunil) led the party to the area, and having Mountaineering took two other PCs up to the cliff-top to act as snipers, while the other 4 PCs approached the only true way in or out of the cul de sac. One of the PCs snuck into the slave/prisoner pen, and Teorthkan attacked him there, then continued to stay in the small pen to fight (with archery for a bit) using the captives as cover/shields from the snipers above forcing a PC to have to come into the pen to fight him mano-a-mano). Two captives died from that tactic, and there was shadow applied afterwards to the sniper who accidentally killed the poor guy.

I recall when you first shared your adventure outline well, & I was waiting to see how it played out for you. I didn't expect the Balchoth tie-in, however, so this adds a whole new dimension.

That must be a rough one for your hero having to endure the Shadow point for trying to do the right thing, but you handled it well - I would have done the same. He'll recover in time. IMHO, the way the game handles Shadow, Hope, Hate, etc., is one of its strong points to recreate the flavor of Middle-earth.

You sound very creative with your battlefields - they must look awesome when you integrate all of these scenic aids you tweak.

BTW, we all help each other out in multiple ways, & you've just helped me again. I wondered how to simulate drunk characters & came up with all kinds of complicated answers, without ever considering just making them Weary!

Well as you can see - it played out beautifully. The winery was one of the most memorable combats I've had in an RPG in quite some time. The beorning charged the vine-arch that the goblin was on and bullrushed it over. When he tried to do the other, the goblin jumped to the wagon nearby - had no athletics skill - so needed and eye to succeed. I rolled an EYE! (i do all my rolls on the middle of the table for all to see), everyone made and an audible expletive!!!

At the end of that battle, they found that the goblins worked for a warg that captured the vineyard families. They were tracked to an ancient elven ruined keep set amidst the rocky hills, and entered a cave. A place rumored to be haunted. They freed prisoner, killed the warg but not before the warg taunted the heroes and indicated that his master had tasted the flesh of the dunedain - and killed many goblins, but many more were there as well. They escaped but not before the goblin archers cut down the dwarf PC (unconscious) and Rider of Rohan NPC who was traveling with them, bullrushed the Woodman PC out of the cave to save him while he brought the cave entrance down around himself sealing him and the fallen dwarf inside the cave with the horde of goblins - but freeing the rest of the PCs to escape.

In the end, they saved Ethilion, who is now with his own troublesome mind to sort out. They endeared themselves to Galion (who is Ethilions cousin) for saving his kin, and Galion became much more amicable to the PCs. They are now allowed to use the Elf-Path to travel to the west. The wine is now flowing again.

But they wound up with at least five more plot hooks that they can follow up on

1) The dwarf and the Rider of Rohan are not necessarily dead
2) Teorthkan and his bandits are sure to return
3) What is this ruined elven keep? Is there more to it? Is it really haunted? Why? (it's definitely a tainted place).
4) Who is this warg's master that tasted the flesh of the Dunedain?
5) The spear "Beard-Cutter" that the PCs recovered - they should bring it to dwarves of the Iron Hills as a trophy - earning great respect.
6) Also borrowing a lead in hook posted by someone else here a while ago - Brunil the dwarf that hunted down Teorthkan mentioned one called "the hobgoblin" (a Great Goblin) in the hills near his home in the Iron Hills.

It was rough - but the player is very good about accepting that as part of this setting. In his fellowship phase, he burned his now "cursed" bow, and crafted a new one (his action to move shadow points from his character). I thought that was VERY cool tie-in.

Thank you - I try. I will give a lot of credit to Paizo for my creative battles. Ever since they started writing Dungeon Magazine for 3rd edition, they have marveled me with their creativity in organizing a cool combat layout. It's not just what you fight - it how and where you fight it. Their modules, and adventure paths always have unique dynamic features of a combat that the players interact with as much as they fight the creatures. I learned a lot from them, and now incorporate that into my stories. If we liken it to movies - action sequences are always enhanced when the environment threatens the protagonist as much as the villain. Whether it's the rock crusher in Temple of Doom, the truck convoy in Raiders of the Lost Ark, the steel melting plant in Terminator II, or the fear of blowing up the reactor core in Aliens. These are integral part of the action.

Nowadays I don't plan a lot of combats, but usually I'll have one big one planned for each game, and I spend a great deal of time imaging how to organize, and visualize it from a cinematographers' perspective. How would I as a movie-watcher enjoy seeing this play out? What tricks, maneuvers, etc, will the baddies reveal? What cool quotes, and lines will they use to taunt or intimidate the heroes with?

I've learned over the years that "less is more". Sometimes the most complicated things to resolve have the simplest of answers that just seem to evade us. Less is more. Most of the time, the system is there, we merely have to find ways to use it instead of trying to re-invent the wheel. It may not always be mechanically all that sound - but honestly....who cares? It's close enough and works simple. The notion of lending a success dice to other heroes for things....i've used that in MANY ways, and works fantastic. Simple, intuitive, and most importantly not unbalancing.

You sound as if you have a great game!

I've been mulling over some of your plots & several leap out at me like a ravenous Warg.

1) If they pursue this lead, it can introduce them to additional friends via the Dwarf & the Rider of Rohan - a gret lead in to a Fellowship Phase followed by adventure.

2) As we've already discussed, Teorthkan rocks as a foe.

4) The Warg's master adds a chilling twist that captures the corruption of the Shadow nicely.

5) & 6) They can deliver the spear "Beard-Cutter" to the Dwarves of the Emyn Engrin & suddenly find themselves in the midst of the hunt for "the hobgoblin" (a Great Goblin).

At any rate, good stuff

the wargs master who has "tasted the flesh of the dunedain" is a hound of sauron gamewise.
it killed the ranger exploring that region many years ago which in amd of itself creates new mysteries and plothooks for the pcs to explore.

who was he? why was he there?

i havent yet answered those myself....dont know yet what events or timeline im going to tie the ranger being in that region yet.


right now the pcs as i said are gojng west. when the players all made their characters i had each kne of them include something important to each one that tied themself to middle earth lore and geography and tying this to their calling. Four of the six required crossing mirkwood so tbey spent the first year working to help the elves to be able to use the elf path a d now finally they are going to fullfill many of their backstory goals.


im using the tales of wilderlands stray frkm the path to play out their journey but there will plenty more for them to do once they get there. and plenty more when they decide to head back.: