Hello! This will be the journal of the GM (me) for the Iron Gamers' Guild Tales From Wilderland Adventure path. We are a group of professional adult RPG/Board & sometimes miniature gamers in Upstate New York, capital region. We play every thursday night.

GM: (Me, Rocmisto), about 25 years of pen and paper RPG experience, die hard Middle Earth fan.

Players:

Amroth (a young Elf of Mirkwood using the Emissary to the King template). Played by my brother; casual life long gamer and scholar of Middle Earth. I asked him if he wanted to play, to play an Elf, as he has the most meta-game knowledge of Tolkien's world and would have the least burden to suspend that knowledge in game by playing an Elf. Amroth is also the fellowship's Look-Out Man.

Orin (a Dwarf of the Iron Hills). Played by the founder of the Iron Gamers Guild (Skells) and an all around Tolkien appreciator, Orin is pretty-much a classic dwarf, heavily armoured in mail, carries an axe and shield. He likes smoking on his pipe and is also the fellowship's Guide.

Bogen (Woodman with The Hound Template) Played by the most recent addition to the IGG (Kergara). Bogen started with the Hound of Mirkwood background package and is deadly with the bow. He is a good natured man of the forest and an accomplish healer and hunter. He is the fellowship's Hunter.

Gendry (Beorning). Played by the co-founder of IGG, Gendry is an atypical Beorning. The player is not a huge fan of Middle Earth and was not compelled to create a stereotypical beorning. That's ok; think more Rainman than Beorn. Nevertheless, he goes into battle with nothing more than a great helm and great spear and wrecks whatever he hits. his background is Errand Runner and his Twice-Baked Honeycaked are worth their weight in gold to the party. Gendry is the party's Scout.

Rat (Barding). Played by my oldest friend of 25 years, Rat is a young Barding on the run from a shady thieves' guild-master in Londaroth at the south end of Long Lake. Rat was wrongfully believed to be a worker of alchemist formulae, and then was nearly killed when he failed to deliver on that false perception. Rat is a master of stealth and also keep's party spirits up with his inspiration. He is the Fellowship's Cartographer (a new role I created to give each of the 5 characters a travel-phase role.)

Sounds like a good party you've got there. However, you might want to reconsider the Cartographer addition. The Guide is the only role that can be fulfilled by only one person, all the others can have as many people fulfilling them at once. This means that if a hazard requires one of those roles to succeed, there is a higher chance of success. Equally, I'm a bit confused as to how a Cartographer would deal with hazards :/

Look forward to hearing your playthrough though

Hi Beleg.

Thanks for the interest.

In truth, I've made many many house rules and I'll explore them in the next post before I get into the adventure journal proper.

As the party are travelling along he draws a red line on their map while humming this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=playe...bTpp8PQSog#t=0s

Some changes/house-rules we (I) implemented.

1. Miniature Grid Based Combat. Sorry but I’m a mini guy and most of the group either likes them or is ambivalent to them. So we’ve implemented a bunch of miniatures based rules that I codified into a homebrew players guide. This involved the following:
a. Modifications to stances. (really just rearward)
b. Internal weapons balancing/modifications and a couple additions.
c. Rules for base movement, tied into stances.
2. Giving more Structure to the Fellowship Phase.
a. I really like the Fellowship Phase, but I feel it’s a bit unstructured. So I gave it a duration of 1-3 “terms” (roughly equal to months)
i. Each term allows for one Fellowship Phase action, which are the “undertakings”
b. I gave stats to each Sanctuary. Sanctuaries have different “stats” which help with various things, from XP/AP reductions for certain skills to making it easier or harder to successfully heal Shadow.
c. Gave more structure to Patrons. Patrons are assigned campaign-centric attributes giving some guidance as to how they can be used by players.
3. Allowed for more Character Customization.
a. Introduced a system of “Heroics” (i.e. feats, for those that are familiar with 3.5)
i. Purchased with XP during heroic development.
ii. 3 Tiers, built as a pyramid with pre-requisites.
b. Allowed for a bit wider array of equipment.
i. Made the weapon selection a bit more robust.
ii. Added a couple more armor pieces
iii. Added a standard array of non-combat equipment.
iv. Gave a little more depth to encumbrance and costs, although still kept it as abstract.
c. Introduced languages.
i. I felt languages were a major oversight of this system. With the degree that Tolkien loved languages, I thought communication and language should be a major part of the game system.
4. Overhauled the Travel Phase.
a. I love the idea of the Travel Phase, however I feel the execution is *really* clunky.
b. Still toying with how to exactly implement this, but basically I want to streamline it so that no matter what, all failures to the party roles result in one of the following:
i. Endurance Damage
ii. Fatigue Gain
iii. Shadow Gain
iv. Hope Expenditures
c. I introduced a Cartographer role, tied to the Lore skill for one of my PC’s Rat. I really like mapmaking, and the art and detail of maps are a major part of Middle Earth. I wanted a system to reflect this. So the sum of several Mapping checks will be allowing Rat to add details to his map of where they are, where they went, etc. (Players generally don’t get to map out their route using the game provided maps). This is similar in thought to the “Lore” check that a fellowship is entitled to at the beginning of a journey to map out their proposed path.
d. My specific criticisms of the Travel Phase can be detailed in a different post.

Next Post: The Adventure Begins!

Not that I am in a position to start modifying rules, (I'm just learning how TOR works) but I would like to hear more about grid based combat you speak of. Do you have details? PM me if you care to share those.

My old group is into tactics in a major way and is one of the reasons we haven't already adopted TOR to replace MERP yet.

One fellow on this forum recently mentioned there are tactical opportunities available that might be surprising, I respect that but I want to look at options.

I'm about to start play testing TOR with another group who seem a little more flexible in that regard.

Pre-Game:
I asked everyone in the group to provide a character summary and bring a miniature to represent their model. I provided bonus XP to be used during the first fellowship phase as follows:
1 XP for a background.
+1 XP for a really good/big background with good hooks.
1 XP if you got a miniature for your character
+1 XP if you painted your miniature
1 XP if you drew a picture of your character, or even just googled an appropriate image and printed it off/shared with group.
1 XP for anyone that wrote up a session gaming log/journal.

Players took anywhere from no advantage of these (Gendry) to getting an extra +4 XP (Amroth and Rat)
Unfortunately no players were willing to be party journalists, so I get to write this up myself 

Stay on the Path.
Session 1. The Ruffians. 6/28/2012

Session started with Baldur and his son in Lake-town looking for a few more hands to escort them and their cargo across Mirkwood forest. There were 3 men who had already been hired, and some of the players filled out the group: Orin (Dwarf), Gendry (Beorning) and Bogen (Woodman), all of whom were in Lake Town to celebrate the 5th year anniversary of the defeat of the Orcs at B5A.

As the party left the civilized area of Lake Town, the 3 other men sprung their trap and attempted to murder Baldur and steal his goods. The 3 heroes drove them off, Bogen having killed one man with a fatal arrow shot. Mercy spared the life of one lucky ruffian.

Baldur rafted up the river and met with Elven friends, where he engaged in some trade. In addition, the elves asked to escort a young man promptly from their Woodland Realm prison. The convict, just a young boy, had been caught snooping about the Halls of the Elven King. How he got there or what he wanted was a bit of mystery, but it was clear he was in danger from local thugs in Londaroth, and the deemed that a good solution was to take the boy West, across the forest, far away from his belligerents. To oversee this task, an Elf named Amroth was appointed. Thus the party was fleshed out, introductions made, and plans to move across Mirkwood were finalized!

Session 2: Crossing Mirkwood. 7/5/2012

The party made the predictable journey down the Elf-path, per the edicts of the adventure. During this time, the GM struggled to figure out how to implement the Travel rules. At the prescribed time, Baldur of course waded into (or drank from) the water, went mad, and ran off into the forest.

The party followed and came to a path; albeit one heavily grown over with the thick roots of gnarled trees….angry trees. Trees that would suffer no trespassers. Amroth used his “Speakers” Elven virtue after the party failed to track Baldur, and was told by a woodland squirrel with the temperament of Timon from the Lion King, which way Baldur had run off. Sure enough, Baldur had fled down the gnarled tree path. As if that wasn’t enough, they could tell he had broken through…spider webs? As all my players had read the Hobbit, they surely knew what that meant!

The players journey through the night; a tough and slow trek through what became a canopy of gnarled, earthy tree roots that formed nearly their own cave system. In the morning, their trek ended in a quiet, though dark woodland glade, with the ruined structure of an old castle or fort. The place looked and stank of death.

Session 3: The Spider Keep, Pt. 1 7/19/2012

True to the written adventure, Baldur was hanging from the ruined wall, encased in spider webs. I chose to have this encounter a bit more dramatic and robust however, being a fan of both miniature combat and the classic dungeon crawls of yester-D&D. So, as GM, I drew up a map of the ruined keep, including an underground basement/dungeon area and a side watchtower about 100' away that was mostly in tact. I placed a BBEG Great Spider in the heart of it, whom I called “the bitch in the pit”.

Drawing upon some composite MERP lore and other Middle-Earth lore, I decided that this keep was the ruined fortress of Amarthobel, an old Elven fort that guarded the way to Caras Amarth, which in turn was the first underground elven stronghold before the shadow encroached and Thranduil moved his halls to the current Woodland Realm.

As such, the party had a brief first excursion with the spiders, but Baldur was knocked from his encased perch into the pit, and rolled into a dark pool of water at the bottom. The players had to continue on if they were to save Baldur! (It’s important to note here that at no point did Rat enter the main courtyard area of the ruined keep…more on that later). They explored most of the top of the ruins, the nearbye tower (which I added, and was in fact in tact), and the first level of the basement which included among other things, an old elven library and some beautiful if not dusty murals. One of these murals depicted a group of Elves gathered around a keep and paying homage to a magnificent tree growing out of the roof of the structure.

Session 4: The Spider Keep, Pt. 2 7/26/2012

The players continued to explore the 2nd basement level of Amarthobel, where they found an old, ruined Great Hall and some jail cells. They also found (but did not open) a set of powerful and intricate doors. Could these be the doors that guarded the way to the caves of Caras Amarth? The party did not explore there. Instead they journeyed further in through the basement and discovered where the wall had been completely blown out and opened into a further pit…a pit that had one Baldur laying at the bottom of it, where a score of smaller spiders endeavored to get across the water in order to fish him out. A race was on then, for the PCs to engage the smaller spiders and try to retrieve Baldur before they did. The spiders unfortunately won this race and delivered Baldur’s spider-web body to their mother: the Bitch in the Pit.

The final scene found the players in the underbelly of the adjoining tower (which was relatively in tact), where she challenged them to a riddle off. I prepared about 6 of my own riddles, and I had asked the players during the previous session to prepare a couple of their own. We took turns engaging one another with home-grown riddles (or googled riddles, for the lazy). Successful Riddle “rolls” allowed the player (or me) to ask for a hint as to the answer. Eventually the players won, as the Spider mother was quite arrogant in her cleverness, and true to her word, she turned over Baldur to the heroes. The players thus rescued Baldur without bloodshed (they would have been grievously outmatched by the Great Spider, and it likely would have been a TPK). After that the players regrouped above ground in the courtyard of the ruined keep. They attempted to scout out the ruined remains, and were on the right track of discovering something that I had intended for them, but ultimately turned away as it didn’t “dawn on them” what I was trying to convey. They took a breather, enjoyed some time going through the elven library books, and then set out to finish the last leg of their journey.

Session 5: Freestyle Play to the Easterly Inn. 8/2/2012

***GM Note: I purposely cut out the bit about the Hermit and the Thing in the Well. I didn't feel it added much to the adventure, it just seemed like 3 random encounters (first spiders, then the hermit, and then the thing in the well) that didn't have a lot of cohesion. So I chose to morph the"Thing in the Well"into the great spider at Amarthobel and used that for the climax of the first adventure.***

Before leaving the Elf Path out of the Western border of Mirkwood, an elven sentry caught up with the Fellowship and delivered some news to Amroth, specifically that he was to continue on with Rat, wherever he went. In addition, it was noted that a group of about 8-12 riders entered the forest on the East-West road at almost the same time that the group had departed from Thranduil’s Halls. They rode, it was said, with a fell urgency.

As the group emerged on the eastern side of the Anduin River, Baldur offered to travel together at least as far as the Easterly Inn, where he said they would enjoy good food and drink for which he would pay. The fellowship saw no reason not to, and so they headed for the Hobbit Establishment.

Before reaching the Inn however, they reached a point of high ground from where they saw far off in the distance 2 groups of about ½ dozen riders heading their way. The fellowship bluffed their way through one of these groups without any fighting, but not before the rider's leader declared that they were searching for their master’s nephew…a precocious boy of about 15 or 16 with sandy hair. The description matched Rat’s appearance perfectly, and it was after this encounter that the fellowship demanded some answers from Rat’s player. He confessed to having had some trouble with a local thug in Londaroth…but not to the extent that he believed the thug would send minions across Mirkwood to fetch him!

The party continued to the Easterly Inn, and as fate would have it, they met up with the remaining riders there. Soon, they found out that Rat was with them, and while they were not willing to start a raucous at the Inn, they made it plainly known that the Fellowship would not get far before having to confront them, for they were watching the path both North and South. (It was also during this time that the seeds were sown for the rescue of Dodinas Took, thus commencing the “Of Leaves & Stewed Hobbits” adventure path.)

Hi Venger!

Yep, I'm willing to share. I have actually started putting together a player's handbook for my campaign. I'm happy to share that with you. Do you have an FTP that I can put it at? If not, I could email it to you.

I too, love tactics, and I didn't want to reinvent the wheel so I basically just ported over a lot of the 3.5 mechanics and structure. Each square represents 5', must be adjacent (except for weapons that have reach, such as the spear, great spear and greatsword)

I have a system of "Feats" (I call them Heroics) which rely on spending your "T" runes on special attacks or maneuvers as you roll them (and I scaled back the extra damage output based on "body")

I was pretty unfulfilled by the "called shots" system that they had. I just needed more. I like tactical options, wargames and strategy and there just wasn't enough in TOR for *my* tastes. Plus, modding rules gives me something to do at work when I'm bored.

Could you post snippets, or complete sections if you like, of these? I'm mainly interested in the 1 and 2 sections.



edit: Ah I see you are doing so.

Of Leaves & Stewed Hobbits.

Session 6: Ratt’s Harassers 8/16/2012.

The party took the arrogant threat from the riders very seriously, and wasted no time later that night in going on the offensive, tackling one group of riders first during their night time camp. The battle went well for the fellowship, and while one enemy rider was accidentally killed, the party showed mercy to the rest, but not before relieving them of their horses and weapons, and instructing them to head back to Londaroth and trouble Rat no more. I awarded the group a bonus XP for not murdering their foes, as I felt that was a very Tolkien thing to show such mercy. With horses and ½ their enemy party routed, the party was able to slip around their remaining foes. Baldur went with them and they parted ways at the Old Ford, where he continued South to Woodmen Town to sell his wares.

After Baldur had left, the party continued across the remains of the Old Ford. They made great time as they were, at this point, on horseback from the riders that they had driven off. This allowed them some wriggle room in terms of failed travel, explore or adventure checks, but still have time to rescue Dodinas (they did not know but I was keeping track of time and excessive loitering could have resulted in a mission failure). Negligent on my part, I did not think ahead that in having Rat pursued by horsemen, that the party might have a stable of free horses as a result…which they did. Oh well, c’est la vie  (Note, later on, during the fellowship phase, when I told them they would have to part with 1 Treasure as a pre-payment to effectively care for their horses for that year, they noted that steeds were expensive…on a related note, it also seems that the treasure rewards seem to be pretty thin, if players are to have any hope whatsoever of raising their standing scores…more on that later).

The fellowship crossed the Anduin River, and the next night ran into Shanker. I chose to play Shanker a little less…slimey…if not as mischievous. He spent the night with the party, and stole some food in the morning before making off. He dispensed with the info that the written adventure requires, if not quite as callously, and while the players guessed as to his purpose, I have a different role in mind for Shanker. (SPOILER ALERT: In my game, Shanker is making multiple cameo appearances. He usually shows up along the West Bank of the Anduin river as that seems to be his turf, and it’s usually to mooch some food or tobacco off the party. Sometimes he tries to steal socks or rations as well. The players seem to have been pretty amused by his presence. What they don’t know, is that I’m using him for a longterm purpose. He’s actually a Ranger of the North, and an old squire to Arathorn. His job is to keep an eye on the East-West road and report news of what goes on the Eastern side of the Misty Mountains. He’s also scouting for some talent to use on a special mission…more on that later.)

After meeting Shanker, the party came to the ruins of the old ruins of the city of Haycombe where they made camp for the night as a chill air set in…

Session 7: The Night Wight and the Troll. 8/23/2012.

As written in the adventure book, the Night Wight struck while sleeping and Rat was the poor soul who it chose to encase in the river bank mud. When this happened, I split the action out into a couple separate sequences. While the rest of the party struggled against the Night Wight, Rat entered a dreamlike state where he was forced to relive the final moments of the man who was slain and turned into “The Night Wight” (readers of the adventure will note that, similar to the Spider Keep, I expanded this chapter of the adventure out to my own designs). In my campaign, the Night Wight was a haunted soul of a man who had been murdered some many years before and pickled in the side of the river like many others before him until the Troll came back to eat. This particularly sadistic Troll-thug enjoyed drowning his victims slowly in the muddy banks of the river, as he felt that their fear made the meat richer. Rat relived the whole experience, including being dragged back to the Troll’s lair a little ways up the river.

Rat survived the encounter as the party vanquished the Night Wight (at least for the time being), and was able to rescue him but not before he endured a massive amount of shadow gain as he was subject to the harrowing experience. However, the dream gave him a prescient sense of where the Troll’s lair was! Revenge and Adventure? Hell yes!

In the morning, the party ventured up the river’s path and found the troll’s lair by a waterfall. Inside, they searched around a bit and when the troll returned, they did battle, overcoming him (and pretty much all being wounded and/or made weary in the process).

But that was not all…I had more in store for them. Being an avid player of Skyrim, the Troll’s lair turned out to actually be a pre-burial chamber, and they found a portcullis that opened into a narrow channel that led even further back to a Catacomb! They opened the portcullis…and waited for the next week!

Session 8: The Draugr and the Ringfort. 9/6/2012

The party ventured into the Catacombs; a large main room with an altar and a holy book which looked ancient (at least by mannish standards). Joining this large room were 6 other passages, each barred by an iron grate. Soon, the party felt the eyes of many undead creatures upon them. They looked upon the party with silent hatred and beckoned them to open the iron gates so that they might destroy those who had defiled them. The party agreed that they were not up to the task of fighting these Draugr, and they had another mission (the rescue of one Dodinas Took) so they left. (Wisdom on the part of the players!)

On the way out, they discovered the rest of the Troll Lair, and found a large pit with the many bones of the victim of the troll over the long years. SPOILER ALERT: Rat gave an insincere and unsympathetic admonition to whatever the Night Wight was to leave him alone. The Night Wight telepathically communicated with him through a dagger in the bone pit: that because of his callousness and failure to show sympathy to the horror it had endured, that he would curse Rat. It threatened Rat to dive into the bone pit, which Rat did, and retrieved his old dagger. Hereafter, it warned, Rat would be oathsworn to slay Trolls wherever he might find them. Though the curse is somewhat beneficial from a mechanical standpoint (Rat gets a bonus to hit and damage when fighting Trolls with the dagger) it will also compel him to go into danger when he otherwise would not. Also, the dagger wielder carries a permanent point of shadow for doing so. Rat claimed the dagger without the rest of the party knowing and so they don’t know that he’s “flirting” with disaster. Worse, this dagger whispers to Rat in the Black Speech, and he is well on his way to learning his first rank in that language. Studying the mind and ways of the enemy is dangerous even for one of the White Council..but will surely bring a young boy to ruin!

The rest of the night played out as the adventure book declares. The party reached the Ringfort where the remnants of Dodinas’s caravan were holding out just as the sun was setting. The ensuing battle went well, but Tom Lumpyface was slain. (poor Tom!) Bill the Bowman and Andy were also captured, along with Dody, as I wanted to make sure that the party didn’t endeavor to use the NPC’s in some other way. The company tracked the Goblins to their cave mouth, and we broke for the night..

Session 9: The Rescue. 9/13/2012.

As per the Adventure book, the company tracked the Goblins through the caves and eventually came to the Goblin Warrens where Dody was being held captive. This part of the adventure played out as you might expect….with some beginning sneakery before the whole plot was blown wide open. To be perfectly honest, my memory is foggy on how exactly they got Dody and the others out. I do remember that my players were positively incredulous that they couldn’t simply hack through steel chains in typical D&D fashion with hardness and what-not (Cursed D&D paradigms!)

On the way out, Orin got separated from the rest of the party due to a hazard, and I used this opportunity to seed him with a personal sidequest. He met a dwarf who was trapped behind a blocked passageway, (presumably some long forgotten cave extending out from Goblin Town) who gave Orin a strange iron key and told him to take it to the 7th door of the 34th chamber of Erebor. (more on this later). The party regrouped and exited the goblin caves. They then escorted Dody and his hirelings out of the mountains. They parted ways at the Old Ford of Anduin, as Dody and his group pressed on the Easterly Inn, now safely in Beorning Lands. Meanwhile the party decided they were going to double back to the Troll Lair and check out the catacombs again…

Session 10: Return to the Crypt. 10/11/2012.

After taking a month off due to me getting married, we regrouped to see the party head back to the Troll Lair and the adjoining catacombs. (Ah but for the foolishness and valour of adventurers!) They went in through the same portcullis, but this time the iron grates of the 6 passageways were open! They were quickly ambushed by a host of Draugr (intelli-zombies, if you will). An epic battle ensued, and the fight was joined by a terrifying presence…a figure..man sized, maybe taller but also hunched, dressed in nothing but tattered black robes and wielding a fell longsword of ancient black iron. The party attempted to retreat at this point, but Rat was seized upon by the terrifying black presence and stabbed in the chest. Just as the party thought Rat was to meet his doom, the black figure recoiled in…fear?? And all heard him cry out something, though only Amroth could understand the language he spoke when he declared “Lost Blood of Doriath!!” As the shadow retreated, the fellowship rallied and beat back the Draugr long enough to flee the catacombs, but most certainly the worse for wear. Oh and “Lost Blood of Doriath??” what the hell was that all about?

After the fight at the crypt, the party was pretty beat up. They decided to return to the Easterly Inn and lick their wounds. They were treated to a hero’s welcome by Dindy and Dody, and decided to begin a well deserved and lengthy Fellowship Phase after 4 months of adventuring over the summer.

Fellowship Phase Part 1

Session 11: The Party Divides. 10/18/2012

For the first fellowship phase, the party decided to split. Ratt decided to stay on at the Easterly Inn where he was treated to a hero’s hospitality; free lodging and food for the rest of the year and winter. The rest of the party, however, all turned their attention to the Spider Keep where Baldur was webbed in Stay on the Path. It turned out this keep was none other than Amarthobel; the fortress that guarded the secret underground entrance to the original Woodland’s Realms kingdom seat of Caras Amarth. The players noted that something was buried in the ruined collapse of the center keep, and spent part of their Fellowship Phase excavating this. What they found buried beneat the rubble was an old tree; bent over and withered but still alive. Nothing of interest occurred until the end of the winter.

While at Amarthobel, the party recuperated and underwent their Heroic Development. Most of the players elected to get a 3rd skill rank in their primary weapon, except for Ratt who prefers smaller weapons and who trained himself in Dagger (rank 2). Players also had enough XP to purchase a 3rd rank in Wisdom (most of my players prefer Virtues to rewards). Ratt picked up the Virtue: King’s Man (we modified the fluff to fit his current ); Orin picked up “Stiff Neck of the Dwarves”. Amroth, the Elf, decided on “Stinging Arrow”, Gendry learned the “Great Strength” Beorning virtue, while Bogen, the Woodman, rifled through the old elven Weapons at Amarthobel, and dusted off a Grievous Great Bow, thus replacing his older weapon.

The party also managed to trade with Elves who wandered along the Elf-path and selected the “Re-outfitting” special Fellowship Action. This allowed them to trade their old armor for new (lighter) stuff. (Most players universally agreed that the armor they began with, almost all mail, was too heavy for them). As such, they traded their mail for leather, and indeed, picked up a couple more points of treasure in the process! Some players turned to books and poetry to heal their sorrows and lessen their spiritual burden. No one increased their Standard of Living or Standing score, as their Sanctuary was too far out of the way to do that. All players recorded “Amarthobel” as a new, open Sanctuary, except Rat.

Fellowship Phase Part 2
Session 12: Reunited. 10/25/2013

To determine the length of Fellowship Phase, I had each player roll 4d6 (1d6 +1d6 per fellowship undertaking they wanted to take, to a max of 3, thus, 4d6). Since the players spent their Fellowship Phases in separate areas, I took the highest roll, in their case 16, and that was determined to be the number of weeks that their fellowship phase actually lasted, to include time getting to and from wherever it was they were trying to go. So, 4 months from October put them at the end of January, at which point they were rested and prepared to strike out into the Wild again. Rat left the Easterly Inn and re-joined the party at Amarthobel, and when he did, a curious thing happened.

When Rat came in the proximity of the old tree, it began to awaken! An Ent was buried there in the rubble, and he came alive with a stir when he “smelled” rat approach:

“Ah, there you are my little acorn…I thought, perhaps I had dropped you back by the seven rivers. That would have been a long walk back, and I must confess I was not looking forward to that, but then again, I was just about to wake up and go looking for you. But like all good things that are buried, they turn up eventually…Well then, now that you are found, I’ll be returning to my nap. Very tired these days. Yes, very tired indeed. Be a good lad now and don’t get lost. She’d have some cross words for me if she thought I’d lost you again. Where is your mother, by the way…or is it your grandmother now? I have not seen her in some time…you mortals and your genealogies….so very confusing with how quickly you grow up and have new saplings. Make sure she sends me one of her fair white blossoms. Going to sleep now….going to take a nap. Rouse me if you need anything urgent…..”

And having said that, he fell back asleep. This no doubt gave the party curious pause. The following week, while the party was still attempting to figure out what to do next, they were visited by an entourage of Elves from Thranduil’s halls. Legolas was with them, and also Glindir, Amroth’s Liege-lord. Also with them was an elf-maiden named Irime. Legolas bade them to escort Irime to Rivendell, while Glindir and other craftsman took over the repair of Amarthobel. The party was eager to go, as they felt perhaps that Elrond would be able to answer questions about this Ent. Seven Rivers? Rat the…acorn and sapling? What did that mean.

The party accepted the journey in Mid to late February and Irime asked to make haste, as the previous year she had sent messengers to Rivendell, asking for Elrohir and Elrohan to meet her on the Eastern side of the High Pass by the vernal equinox. That left about 5 weeks to get to the High Pass. Easy enough, except of course, when things go wrong….
[B][I]

What I especially like about what you're doing is how you tweak each of the parts to fit your heroes & plots. For example, the 'bitch in the pit,' the dagger, the Ent & 'acorn,' etc.

If you can continue to write & play these with this much flavor, you should have a very successful & intriguing game.

Hi! Do you have your notes (house rules) written down, and would you like to share them? If so I would love to take part of them.


/Yours Khamul

It would be nice if you could post the above (and other bits) here within the TOR community, like others share stuff. Thanks.

Rich, would love to but not sure how to link to an open Dropbox account that everyone can reference. Did you guide me how to do that before? If so, could you do it again?

Cross my fingers, would love to get my hands on your notes hehe

*CORRUPTION!!!*

It really is very easy and intuitive. If you've installed dropbox then you should have a 'getting started' pdf, just read that and it will tell you how to upload and share documents. Link here in my dropbox public documents:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/7954177...g%20Started.pdf

You need to install dropbox though.