The recent announcement of Darkening of Mirkwood and more specifically, the fact that it spans 30+ years has got me thinking about future generations of heroes.

Dwarves and elves can function for longer, so it may not be an issue for them, but human and halflings have a shorter adventuring life.

Now I know that my players have time yet before their characters retire, but if they want to pass on the adventuring blood to to their son or daughter, they need to get started....

It strikes me that the Fellowship Phase is perfect time to for them to court a potential wife or husband, but treating it as an Undertaking seems a little unfair, as that means sacrificing other, more useful, undertakings.

Unless of course, the finding of the soulmate were to be considered a way to Heal Corruption, which to me seems reasonable. Instead of Singing or Crafting, perhaps they use Courtesy to 'woo' their companion, with success putting them one step closer to marriage (and removing Shadow Points), while failure gains them neither and an 'eye' perhaps ruins the relationship!

The actual courting process would require number of successes over several Fellowship Phases, culminating in marriage and subsequently children.

Although Courtesy seems an obvious skill for wooing the bride (or groom), other factors may be Wisdom, Valour, Standing and Standard of Living.

Personality, Custom and Vocation skills seems most appropriate.

And lets not forget the parents of the potential spouse, who may want a respectable partner for their son/daughter. A good reputation and a steady income are important.

If they character sets his standards high, trying to marry into a noble house or setting his sights on an elven maid (for a human), then he may face other challenges before getting permission to marry.

Anyway, i have rambled on for a long time on this subject....

Any thoughts?

This is a really great idea!

I had thought about this question and talked to my players before my campaign began (2 of the 3 are humans), but I never realized it could be so elegantly tied in with the Fellowship phase!

With your blessing, I'm stealing this!

I've been thinking about this, as well.

My thoughts have been more about the realities of pregnancy and child-rearing. That means that whilst a male character might well have offspring during his adventuring career, a female character most likely will not. In addition, with a male character, you can much more easily bring in the "child he never knew he had."

Of course, generational adventuring need not pass from parent to child. Think about the most famous pair of generational adventurers in Middle-earth: Bilbo and Frodo. They're distant cousins, really, but nonetheless Frodo is Bilbo's heir. If you went over multiple generations, you could easily do something where your second character is your first character's nephew, for instance, and maybe a third character who is your first character's son.

Still, what you are saying about courting is quite interesting.

This is a fantastic idea, especially the bit about using courtship to heal corruption! Much more rewarding to plan all that ahead as opposed to saying "hmm, my character's getting kind of old, perhaps I'll give my sword to the son that I've never mentioned before..."

I like the idea of tying the relationship/family creation into the Fellowship Phase, of course they could meet their bride-to-be whilst adventuring, maybe even a recurring NPC. In that case the courtship could be roleplayed out during the Adventuring Phase, but you could still use the Fellowship Phase to add to it, such as increasing Standing or spending Treasure to buy a house and property, maybe even hire nannies or NPCs you meet on the road to help teach and train your heir.

Also, as mentioned, the heir need not be a child, they might not even be of the same race! Your players might not want to play another Hobbit, or Human. You could meet a young NPC whilst adventuring, or during Fellowship. Someone who has heard the tales and songs of their epic deeds and actions and want to follow in their footsteps. You now have someone to train and raise as a successor, they could even be like a Squire, coming along on the occasional adventure to get some 'real world, on-the-job' training. This way when the character retires they can pass on their legacy to a worthy hero.

Very interesting idea.

I'm not sure how the mechanics would work out with the Eye and all. Perhaps Failures occur too often, killing too many relationships?

A ladder-like system with these steps might work:Never!,(re-)Start, Introduction, Interest, Flirting, Dating, Officially Courting, Affianced, Marriage.

Move a relationship to the next step with each success (or great success) and moving things back a step if a Failure is indicated? This would represent a relationship's ups and downs (although it might need a couple more steps between Interest and Marriage). Up until things get Official, either party could break things off without too many hard feelings.

Maybe in a Horrible Failure (2+ Eyes on one roll) things immediately cease & desist, along with some kind of negative effect? Maybe Endurance is adversely affected, or it's treated like the death of a family member and adds a Shadow point?

Lots of good ideas to work with.

Running the courting during actual adventuring is perfectly acceptable, but some people are uncomfortable with 'romance', particularly when it's occurring between friends on different sides of the LM screen

The Fellowship Phase is downtime between adventures and if the character is not at home amongst family and friends, they are in a town or sanctuary filled with potential spouses, which is why I thought it would be a good time to do it.

Perhaps the 'eye' ruining relationships would occur too often. Which I why I think I will be stealing Garn's 'Ladder' from him!

As some of you mentioned, the child need not be a direct heir. Could be an orphan rescued during a quest and need not even be of the same race.

Imagine the possibilities if a Beorning marries a Woodman, adopts an orphan Hobbit child and raises them as their own in an Elven community! What traits, virtues, distinctive features and skills would that child have?

Don't forget, even if the child is the same race as their parents, they may have different traits, distinctive features, favoured skills, attributes and chosen calling.

How different are you from your own father? Your education, occupation, friends and a myriad other factors shape your personality and role in life.

Why would the son of a Beorning by a clone of his father? If anything he's more likely to be the opposite... rebelling against his fathers choices! Isn't that what we did as teenagers?

Got a feeling I'm going to need a half elf template at sometime. Two humans in my group of players and there's a pretty elf that they rescued....

Just some ideas while walking the children in the park,
starting from Garn's Love Ladder
Every degree of success got a step up on the ladder (great two steps, exceptional three).
Failure is a step down in the ladder. Eye runs is a step down in the ladder, indicating some external, painful complication in the blooming relationship (we known these things happens).
So, a great success with an Eye rune is a net +1 on the ladder (+2 for great success and -1 for eye).
Every step up on the ladder is -1 shadow, every step down is +2 shadow. Botched relations are hard on the ego, and epic heroes are subjects to bout of madness for love.

Viable? Too mechanic?

This is fantastic idea but I'm not sure about the mechanics being proposed. They do seem a little too 'crunchy'.

I suppose there are two potential reasons for a character to choose this undertaking.

The first is to remove corruption, as described by Garbar above. This, however, is already covered by another undertaking.

The second is to provide an heir. This is purely for roleplaying purposes though, as there is nothing to prevent the character from naming a nephew(for example) as his heir.

There have been a number of arguments for and against an undertaking to replenish Hope. This is the first time I have read an idea from someone that makes me think that it would be reasonable to include such an undertaking.

I agree that this is an undertaking that should probably occur over several fellowship phases and it would be an idea if the greatest benefits were reserved for those who let true love run it's course.

I would suggest that it take place over four, not necessarily concurrent, fellowship phases.

Perhaps as follows

FF1. Character is introduced to soul mate. Character may increase current hope points by 1pt
FF2. Character courts soul mate.
FF3. Character weds soul mate.
FF4. Soul mate presents son and heir(or daughter and heir). Characters maximum Hope increases by one point and current hope is increased to the new maximum.


I don't think that random rolls should normally affect this procedure. The character is undertaking the courting of a Soul Mate. The sort of things which split up relationships do not affect soul mates(at least in game terms). We are not talking about casual relations or a roll in the hay here.
Likewise, if the four step plan is followed the love will never be unrequited.

As the King once said 'wise man say, only fools rush in'. I think that characters might be able to side step phases 2&3 and move straight from 1-4 in two consecutive phases. This is risky though as in this circumstance, the character may find that hs/her 'perceived' soul mate betrays him or her or that the love is unrequited. Not only would the characters lose the benefits of the soul mate but shadow points would be in order.
Furthervattempts to meet a soul mate would take twice as many phases and the character would not risk taking shortcuts.

Good point Halbarad, this could work for Hope rather than Shadow.

When a relationship is strong and happy, you forget some of the toils of life. That could just as easily be increased Hope as it could reduced Shadow.

And when things go wrong in a relationship, loss of Hope seems more appropriate, but a bad break up can sometimes lead to dark thoughts, which is Shadow.

I must ponder some more...

I wonder if it mightn't be easier just to use the existing Virtue system for this. If your character takes Confidence as a Virtue, you can simply explain that the Hope increase came via the relationship and/or production of an heir. I'm generally all for keeping mechanics "as is," and just altering the in-game explanations of what is going on.

The problem with the virtues are that the number of slots is limited and that each time the Confidence Mastery is taken, it also costs EP's.
I envisage this as an alternative, one off, method for restoring your hope. It s spread over four Fellowship phases as 'true love' should not be entered into lightly and should not be achieved too easily. Also, it is my belief that a soul can only ever have one mate and thus,this can only happen once.
As I said in my previous post, this is the first time I have come across a viable explanation for including an undertaking that can replenish hope.
I see this as the character finding hope where previously none may have existed. Also can produce an heir for the generational aspect of the game and can potentially open up whole plot lines for an LM.

Shortening the period between the phases risks heartache, doubt, unrequited love and betrayal. At best it may lead to minuses to standing or wisdom as the characters judgement is called into question. At worst it invites the embrace of the shadow.

In short, I believe that it is perfect for an undertaking(not necessarily my explanation orvrules for it though).

Good points all, Halbarad.

Thanks Brooke, I'm looking forward to seeing what Garbar comes up with.

Aw crap!

You expect me to work out the mechanics of this?

I was hoping the forum would do all the work for me!

King Arthur Pendragon and the Great Pendragon Campaign detail a span of about a century Nd a half and the fortunes of several generations of player characters and their lineages. Rules for courtship, marriage, childbirth, and expanded family generation are all included.

It is a fact that for a female adventurer her days of adventuring a likely over when she has children. Even male characters will find their ability to go chasing off on mad adventures limited.

I expect that adventuring is mainly the job of the young, with a few older or outcast members joining in. Thorin and Co are motivated by revenge and are also (appearantly) unmarked at the time of their great adventure. We know that at least Gloin has mature son by the time of the War of the Ring. Elves are long lived enough that marriage and family are likely to be rare events. For Hobbits and Men marriage and family are most likely to be a source of complications.

The suggestion of Frodo as a generational successor to Bilbo is a great one. Thorin seems as much successor to his grandfather as to his father. Boromir although the younger son is the favored one.

Someone better get writing....

Catch me on a bad day, and I might tell you that for a woman everything is over once she has children

Seriously, though, as I play exclusively female characters, this is something I've given some thought. As I mentioned early, with a male character you can always pull the "child he never knew he had" card. Not really an option here. Women kinda know when they've had children. I think that I'm pretty much limited to playing something other than my present character's daughter. I don't know yet how I'll make it work, but I'm sort of hoping that by the time I need a new character, the Lake-town sourcebook will be out, and I'll find a way to play a (Wo)Man of Lake-town.

Well, most of the time they do ... but sometimes they don't....

I ran a D&D 3.0 campaign wherein one of the PCs agreed to serve a very powerful mage (based loosely on Enos Yorl from Thieves World) for a year-and-a-day on behalf of the ENTIRE group. This PC had been sent to negotiate for the group and agreed to the first terms offered ... didn't even TRY to bargain! The group finished up what they were doing (the reason they decided to make a deal with said mage) and suddenly each woke up in a bed in a set of rooms in an inn none recognized. No one had any memory of how they'd gotten there ... their last memories were of finishing their last mission. After asking some questions of inn patrons, they discovered a year had passed ... they'd evidently served that year-and-a-day's duty and had no memory of what all they'd done. Even more strange (and to the point of this thread), one of my two female players woke up to the sound of a baby crying. It seems she'd given birth sometime during the past year and had no memory of the event! Now, this was NOT something I'd sprang on her without cause ... she and a male member of the company had been knocking-boots for a few weeks and she was pregnant BEFORE the deal with the mage occurred (pregnancy rules from The Book of Erotic Fantasy were utilized to determine chance of pregnancy) ... she just didn't know it.

Okay, barring magical intervention a la DnD, women kinda know when they've had children.

Extreme weight gain... eating weird stuff... intense pain... stretch marks...


On a more serious note, I am contemplating an Undertaking for Courtship, but i want to run it by my players and test it first, so may be a while yet.

On a tangentially related note, my nephew, who plays in my group, and I were the other thinking that it would be funny if we could work out a way that my next character is his current character's niece.

I'm not sure how to make it work, though. After all, why is my character part of his character's legacy like that?

I'm not sure I understand your request Brooke. If you just need to account for the family connection you can try any of these:

1) Niece inherits because she is the Uncle's favorite.
2) Niece is the only other family member who has an adventurous personality.
3) Uncle never has offspring.
4) Uncle has offspring but they pass away.
5) Uncle has offspring and they're all stay-at-homes.
6) If both your current characters are the same Race (and possibly Culture), perhaps your character's families intermarry? Perhaps your character's sibling marries his character (or his sibling)? Kind of results in a dual-inheriting character.

Yes, we're thinking something like that, probably. The point is that my character would have to somehow be plausibly my successor, but also his current character's niece, so as long as we can come with a convincing back story, I think it'd be fine.