Well if they weren't, the Lady of the Lake would be real popular!

No, wait, that's Arthurian lore and the only person she gave one too was Arthur...

NOOOO! You have a filthy mind.... She gave him a sword!

Hmmm well I'm going to have a guess at the Cultural Blessing before you put part three up.

It's either something to do with being great at fishing

Or maybe something to do with being cosmopolitan (but not that word something more Tolkien sounding). Gives a bonus to social encounters.

Yes, but are the fishing with a hook and some bait?

Or just a weight with a bit of chewing gum stuck on the bottom within the vicinity of Smaug's Rest (aka fishing for gems).

Now that would have been really useful...!

Nope. Try again!

Francesco

Hmmm what else could it be.


Bonus to bows (because everyone think Bard is cool) No doesn't sound right.

Bonus to shadow point recovery (because Men of the Lake are so laid back)

Erm....

No I can't think of anything else.

Some sword as cultural reward?
There are axes, spears and bows, but (non-short) swords are conspicuous for their absence (oh well, mattocks too, but they are far less common weapon )

So it's a guessing game is it?

I'm going with 'Tolerance', the ability to get on well with other races allowing them to roll the Feat dice twice and keep the best result with Custom skills.

And while we're on the subject of Cultural Blessings.

The Beorning in my group has completed TfW, WttW and couple of minor adventures of my own creation and has yet to get 'Furious'. Only ever been wounded when he was so healthy it did not matter or just prior to being KO'd.

As of next game, he can also become furious if his Fellowship Focus (the hobbit) is wounded or knocked out.

Tolerance - A good guess Garbar. (sounds plausable)

Although I wonder if the Cultural Blessings are things that are used out in the field (I was going to say combat but that's not quite right is it).


I like your idea to buff up the Beornings Cultural Blessing, sounds like a good house rule.

I love the idea that you split them from the men of Dale and that they were always from different roots.

I am excited about the idea that they are more modern and the character that has a helper to adventure with. I am running a Cthulhu Gaslight game right now and all of the players have a main wealthy character and a low class footman or personal lady.

Can't wait to get this in two weeks and fold it into my game. I have a new player that has become a regular in my games, bet I know where her character will hail from.

This is looking very interesting. Really looking forward to this product now, it can't come soon enough for me!

Correct!

Check this out:

Serpent Scimitar (sword)
Exotic blades from the distant South are the most sought after collector’s items among the more fashionable merchants of Lake-town. Most of those that find their way to the North are useless ceremonial blades of cheaply damasked iron, with lacquered hilts and scabbards set with coloured stones. A rare few are the work of truly superior craftsmanship, quick and deadly weapons in the hand of a skilled fighter...

Wrong, but nice! I'll steal it for some other culture!

Mine starts with a 'T' too though!

Francesco

That's cool!

Hmmm starts with T.

Tenacious (or Tough) – Add favoured Body rating to Armour rolls (my thinking being that you don’t want to wear lots of armour when you live on a lake).

Trader/Tradeship?

... Something to do with being cosmopolitan in nature - Travelled?

...and the winner is...: Tenacious!

But how it is described is quite different:

- Tenacious -
They began the planning of a new town, designed more fair and large even than before...
The Men of Esgaroth are quick to find and exploit the positive in everything they experience, however little it seems. Every defeat is a chance to learn, every blow
suffered is a lesson taken by heart.

Nice one, Poosticks! ... I do really like Garbar's Tolerance as well though.

Such tease! Can't wait!

Yay me.

It's a good word is Tenacious.

That sounds like it might affect the way Men of the Lake gain Advancement or Experience points...

Regards,
E

...you guys are too clever for me to play these little games...

Francesco

A blessing which provides an across the board Combat bonus, regardless of weapon, sounds more like a Gondorian cultural blessing. There would be a strong cultural bias toward warriors and combat training as they are always primary foes of the Enemy and his minions. Not to mention the children probably pick up a bit of battle tactics just listening to fireside sagas.

No prize for guessing that the Rohan Cultural Blessing will be a bonus to riding horses and for mounted combat.

I wonder if we could one day get to that point would they add Men of Gondor as a unique and one culture or several like Men of Minas Tirith and Mariners of Pelargir or Men from Dol Amroth etc.

Farinal
Wild conjecture on my part...

My guess is Gondor is 2 years away; SG/C7 have taken Wilderland/Rhovanion to the start of LOTR. Now they're moving into Eriador with Rivendell (probably a Shire/Bree book coming) then an Eriador campaign book which will bring things to the War of the Ring. Lastly, an exploration of Gondor and Rohan.

Despite the decision not to produce three Core Sets, it doesn't mean SG/C7 have altered the original production schema.


As to the blessing, I was unintentionally vague. I said Gondor but meant Men of Minas Tirith. As previously mention in a topic about Dol Amroth, I suggested that the different provinces of Gondor should be handled as separate cultures. This would allow players to seriously explore a Gondor-centric campaign.

Once again, as a complete guess, SG/C7 will produce an "overview" product, which provides some large scale information about the geographic region with a few cultures and s being highlighted. Additional product releases, such as the Laketown/LM Screen, would add detail and new cultures, options, items, etc. With a few adventures and a campaign generated for each geographical region.

Given the explanation for why they decided to split the Men of the Lake off into a different culture from the Bardings, I'd say you're on to something. I can imagine a supplement containing 3 or 4 Gondorian cultures (Minas Tirith, Ithilian, Lebennin (Pelargir), and Belfalas (Dol Amroth)), as well as the Rohirrim, of course, and likely the Druedain.

Now they will be an unusual culture! Not on the best terms with Rohirrim as they hunt the Woses as I recall.

Not sure that Rangers of The North will be a single culture. Don't think they are all Dunedain are they?

Well there must be a lot of Middle Men in their ranks I don't think all of the rangers have Numenor blood. In fact probably very little.

Perhaps Dunedain will be a a Ranger "Cultural" virtue, or something like that.

I'm going off memory here and could be mistaken, but it's actually the reverse. The Humans who declare themselves to be of Dunedain ethnicity may have little or no Numenorean blood. While the Rangers are composed, almost exclusively, of northern Dunedain peoples who are substantially of Numenorean descent.

It must be remembered that there are two groups of Dunedain: Arnorians and Gondorians. Arnorians are predominantly of Numenorean descent when examining their ethnic make-up individually. This is true even as late as the start of the LOTR. Note that I am not saying that all Arnorians are 51%+ of Numenorean descent. I am saying that if you could perform a DNA test and determine the percentile of each person's genetic make-up to an impossible degree in the real world (basically country/cultural differentiation), the largest slice of pie would be Numenorean genetics. So a person might be 30% Numenorean, but that is the dominant genetic source; all other genetic sources/cultures make up less than 30% each.

This is not the case with the Gondorians. Although the Kinstrife brought to light a bias against cultural contamination via interbreeding with lesser cultures of Men, it did not stop it from taking place. Gondor may very well have been similar to the U.K. around the height of the British Empire with a natural assumption of cultural superiority. The U.S. performed similarly with regards to African-American slaves. With Gondorian culture it wasn't so much as the "Numenoreans bred down" (ie, diluting their blood by taking spouses of lesser cultures) as the "lesser men bred up" (ie, gained an increasing amount of Numenorean genetics). [This is an attempt to explain a racist (on the part of the Gondorians of the time) point of view and I hope I can be forgiven potentially offensive terminology.]

The Rangers are a military or para-military organization among the Arnorian descendents. They were supposedly open to Gondorian recruits, but none ever requested entrance (if I remember correctly). So the Rangers are almost exclusively made up of individuals that have a very high percentage of Numenorean blood. So the Rangers do have 51%+ Numenorean genetics.


Farinal mentioned Middle Men. Honestly, the way that Tolkien has arranged things kind of precludes any extraneous cultures from known portions of Middle-earth, which I think is a serious error. It simplified his story line, but it also means their is no one to interact with, whether culturally, commercially or genetically. He did allow for the absorption of lesser men by greater cultures. I don't think that is ultimately acceptable.

Personally I am exploring the idea of minor pockets of non-historically vital Middle Men cultures. The idea being that these cultures left little or no evidence of their existence and had little impact on the recorded history of Middle-earth. This is true whether they've died off or still exist.

Consider Ghan-buri-ghan of the Woses/Druedain, if Aragorn didn't bestow the forest to these people there would be no official proclamation of ownership and likely no official information ever recorded about them at all. Their existence, from a historical standpoint, would effectively be null. For instance, 100 years after the War of the Ring, I bet his existence is totally forgotten. Quite possibly that of his culture as well. At some point in the future the Druedain either die out or are absorbed by Rohan/Gondor or whomever is in the area at the time. (Yes, I'm aware the Druedain play a part in the pre-history of the Edain. But that is also an almost forgotten footnote in history, remembered only by the most thorough of Scholars, and thus moot.)

Can we at least get a sneak peek of one side of the screen???

Not yet!

But you can have part three of the interview with Francesco!

http://youtu.be/2FCNpVm4GgQ

Excellent stuff! ... New monsters and herbs! And all the other stuff. Very cool! ... All in 32 pages?!?! Have you used font 1 to do that or something!??! Will it ship with a magnifying glass so we can read such small print?!

Jon, what might we expect from Heart of the Wild? Another adventure book or supplement...?

My guess is its to do with the Darkening of Mirkwood so it could be a bit of both, maybe?

We'll be telling you all about it closer to release. And that's all I can say for now.

I tell you what, we weren't joking when we said it's packed full of material. It really is.

That idea about Men of Gondor is quite a bomb! About Druedain, I imagine them more NPC than a playable culture.

Great interview, looking forward to getting the Book and LM screen.

Intrigued by new monsters.

quoted from Dom:

"The Heart of the Wild is a region sourcebook for Mirkwood and the Vales of Anduin.

We're trying not to talk too much about products until the book is in graphic design so that it doesn't take too long from announcement to release, but that is sometimes incompatible with the business side of things - we have to give distributors a lot of notice that products are on their way.

We'll update you with some more details once we are finished with the final edit

Dom"

Great videos chaps: enjoyed them very much and delighted about release.

Eager to hear of more undertakings in Fellowship Phase and like the sounds of the virtues and rewards for the Lake Men.

To pick up on a few points, my sister had her chips eaten by gulls on Paignton beach in the UK, so Jon's concerns are valid.

I thought Francesco's hair was superb.