Just saw this posted on C7's twitter account, thought I'd repost it here

http://cohorsarcana.blogspot.com/2011/09/g...s.html?spref=fb

That was a great story, amazing...thanks Francesco.

The link in the blog post isn't working for me...

Hhhmm, I just checked and it is working for me at the moment. Is this the one you are using?


http://middle-earth.xenite.org/2011/09/21/...ve-in-mirkwood/

Yep, that link worked, thanks!

That's a pretty great site, I'll have to take some time and look around up there!

Its great I love the essay on why the Elves had to leave Middle Earth it answered a lot of questions for me.

Hi all, the latest post on my blog has something about the upcoming Italian edition, and a small revision to the character sheet.

Enjoy!

Francesco

Thanks for the revised layout! What a way to receive updates, online with immediacy!

And, thanks for a great game. It's one of the best for simplicity and elegance. My wife enjoys Tolkien but shakes her head at thematic RPGs. As a liberal arts major, she seems to find most RPGs based on direct literary sources some mechanistic creation that stole it's lexicon from someone else's work. But TOR has enticed her to the game table to play a Hobbit lass. Between the expectation and constant discussion of the game in our circles, and the fact she can play a treasure-hunter whose treasures are not gold and jewels but memories, tales, and other riches captured in story and song and it still work with the game, she's now an enthusiastic player! LOL

Her Hobbit character is a treasure-hunter seeking and recording the songs of Wilderland's people's. As a character backstory and calling, It works wonderfully with the structure of the common skills and the encounter system. I'm still trying to cast her weakeness of dragon-sickness in terms that make sense for her definition of treasure-hunter. Any suggestions...?

Anyway, TOR a contributor to marital bliss...I never would have guessed!

On the character sheet. I'm afraid I prefer the old one, but each to their own

A Hobbit collector of stories? A great concept. Wondering though whether the Lure of Secrets might not be a better weakness? A need to delve in to the stories and the lure of dark lore. Either this or the dragon-sickness weakness emerges as her becoming ever more annoying as she pesters people for ever more stories. Miserly perhaps in that she keeps the stories for herself, rather than perform them and share.

She might even take it upon herself to make "improvements", selfishly believing that the works aren't up to standard, eventually leading to whole sale plagiarism, copyright infringement and misuse of another's IPR.

Then some hitherto unknown wizard from somewhere near the coast will bring a huge lawsuit supported by the Mouth of Sauron on his legal team, who is doing a law degree by correspondence course.



... I'll get me coat

That paints a wonderful image. What do you think, the Mouth delivers the opening argument and the wizard cross-examines?

Either way, they might be outclassed unless they pull out their un-magical magical abilities.

Awesome character! I immediately thought of the lure of secrets as a shadow weakness too.

I like the new character sheet. Not sure if my players will switch over but I will suggest it for new characters. The one thing I find strangely absent on the character sheet is the character's age.

Thanks for the blog posts. The link to the Woodsmen essay is great.

The Lure of Secrets is a brilliant suggestion. Add to that the potential for generational play. She collects these tales, then maybe one day she'll have a niece or nephew to whom she passes on her treasure. This next generation character could evolve with a Scholar's calling. Not a calling that commonly ignites the adventurous spirit in Hobbits; but, in this case, it is explained in the backstory as part of a specific upbringing.

Thanks for thoughts, to date I have been hesitant to tweak the rules. I want more time with them and with players pushing the envelope of the mechanics. But this is really brilliant.

You have to love collaboration (at least on Thursdays when inspiration is badly needed)!

Out of curiosity, why didn't you cast her as a scholar? That would perfectly suit the concept. Not to mention that the Lure of Secrets would be in place too.

Francesco

By trade she is a memoirist. Her understanding of the craft hasmemories been memories as treasures to be passed down to your children and your children's children. When we were discussing the callings, for her it was an easy step into that of a treasure-hunter who sought wealth of a different sort. Couple that with my desire to stay within the suggested callings first time around, the end result was a creative recasting of the traditional treasure-hunter/burglar.

If she stays with the game to play a Hobbitling to whom she bequeathes her experience, I will suggest a Scholar's calling. (That's assuming she wants to work with the same concept.) After pondering Lure of Secrets, I would have liked to use that as her character's shadow weakness. Then the treasure passed onto her next character could (unknowningly) include the shadow weakness as well as the treasury of tales. The shadow weakness then could be a driving force in her next character's calling being what it is.

That could provide some exciting elements and complexities to a campaign striving to stem the tide of the swelling Shadow.

But, as her character stands now, we are using the traditional dragon-sickness weakness.

Seems like I will need to update my online character sheet.
At last this new layout fixes the problem about the duality weapon item-weapon stat we had.

Francesco,

Love the new sheet.

However... Is there any way to get rid of the aged parchment background? Like enable layers or something? Every time I print a character sheet, i can hear my yellow toner cartridge scream in pain in the other room

The border is fine, its just all that yellow. Plus I could print a sheet on true parchment paper and make the sheets look really old

I am not sure I have a fully layered character sheet file, but I'll see what I can do!

Francesco

Thank you sir!!! I and my printer, salute you!

Jumping briefly back to the Mirkwood story, and being a bit (too) focused on matters visual, I found it very interesting to see the photographs used to illustrate it. I like the choices of buildings very much, but was intrigued by my own feelings that photographs don't really 'do' Middle Earth for me. Somehow I can feel the camera there, where no camera should be. However I actually really did like the reality they brought to a first person narrative. Some food for my own thought there I think.

I guess this relates to some strands in other threads hereabouts where discussion covers how The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings are reported tales, with some degree of unreliability in the witness, and are filtered through several languages.

I find it interesting to contrast a told tale like The Hobbit, with the unfolding events experienced "first hand" by Player Heroes. And how that, via a very meandering path, connects to matters of appropriate illustration and the immediacy of photography.

You can be readily forgiven if you find that sentence almost impossible to parse.






I should say, since this is the internet where a lack of context can lead to misunderstanding, I'm in no way criticising those photographs or their usage - they're well chosen. They did provoke some interesting mental rambles about what works for me personally.

I felt the same way about the photographs. I thought they were the right theme, but the wrong medium. That is one of the things I didn't care for in the presentation of the Lord of the Rings RPG, the movie stills just don't feel right.

This Character Sheet doesn't have the fancy border or title, but it should save on toner.

EDIT: You can get it in the new layout here.

I wondered where the photos were really from?

Also, is there a revised character sheet (with front and back) to download? Also, can someone make a fillable pdf for the revised character sheet?

Mr. Martinez does a fantastic job with his descriptive writing, however, I agree that IMHO the photos seem to lose some of the special flavor of Middle-earth.

None of the links to the new sheet are working for me. Can someone help? Or did everyone pull them down to work on them more?