Hello all!

In the Loremasters book there is a note that in the year 2943 the master of laketown skipped town with a small treasure. When my players were told this asking around in Laketown they got pretty determined on finding this.

From what I can tell there is no more info regarding this in the standard material or tales from the wilderland.

Is there anything about this in the Laketown source book, either a small adventure or something that gives a little bit more info so that I can construct one myself?

If not, is this just something left in the notes for the LMs to develop themselves or will there be any expansion on this in the upcoming stuffs?


Cheers

There might be more in the Lake-Town sourcebook, but I don't recall it.

I think in the Hobbit they cover this. The Master, succumbing to Dragon Sickness, took some of the town's gold and fled with companions. He was abandoned and died in the wastes.

So there could be people who know where he was abandoned (and someone knows where he died). I doubt they left him with his gold when they abandoned him so it's probably spread thin.

Unless you can invent a reason they would have abandoned him and not taken his gold and have not gone back for it. Maybe someone went back for it and could not find it but found clues of a creature or person who took it. Maybe the party can follow these clues. Or maybe the gold is cursed (or believed cursed) and they did not want to risk it.

He could have wound up in the marsh bell.....more (cursed) gold to be had there!

Actually, the last adventure from Tales from Wilderland discusses this a bit. The Master of Lake Town apparently went North and found the Watchtower on the Heath. There he lived for a bit, and some of his treasure is still there. I don't have the book in front of me so I can't conjure better details than that at the moment.

You are indeed correct! Don't know how I missed that. Probably skimmed the last one a bit too much

Thanks for the fast replies everyone!

At the end of the Hobbit, it is stated that the Master "died of starvation in the waste, forsaken by his companion". It is my understanding that the waste is the region between Erebor and the Grey Mountains.

Spoiler (outline text to read)
I don't think he made it anywhere, although his treasure was brought by the Gibbet King's servants to the watchtower in the last adventure of Tales from the Wild. I believe it is hinted by Whitherfinger the entwife (or whatever she is) that the treasure was carried there by orcs.

At any case, I'd consider the treasure to be cursed for being dragon gold, then brooded over by a greedy merchant-prince who most likely killed for possession of the whole share and ultimately doomed him to die in the waste.

Well, he does make an appearance in TfW, although a very minor one that can be skipped if you want him to be dead or elsewhere.

On the point of "cursed" treasure, how would this apply in TOR?

So lets say my players jack some cursed treasure. Please give me some suggestions, I mean I can think of things but I would like to hear from folks more learned in TOR lore.

Thanks

Cursed treasure is a source of Corruption. It's the 4th one mentioned on page 56 of LB. Unfortunately unlike the first three sources of Corruption this one does not have details in the book.

However the Loremaster's Screen does have a table about cursed treasure. I don't have it with me but I think if you keep it you make a Corruption test (Wisdom) and you gain maybe 1-4 points of Shadow (these numbers are guesses from memory) depending on the level of curse. Smaug's horde, stolen and then in the possession of a servant of the Shadow, would be as bad as it gets, I'd think.

If a bout of madness occurs the actions are pretty obvious.

That's the abstraction of cursed treasure.

For the specifics maybe on certain skill(s) it requires two rolls of the feat die and the player has to take the worse. Two feat die rolls and taking the better or worse is a mechanic used in a few places, notably in Flaws (the opposite of Traits).

So maybe a cursed necklace, while worth maybe 3 Treasure points, causes feat die rerolls of all Song checks (taking the worse) as it causes the owner to weave dark and disturbing sounds or lyrics into their performances. But maybe it causes feat rerolls (taking the better) for Awe. A choice for the player with upside and downside. If the player kept it I would require a corruption test for each time the user benefited as they struggle with the item's hold on their wisdom.

Or maybe the treasure just gives them a Flaw and a benefit while they own it.

I would think selling cursed treasure is a Misdeed.

But it's destruction could lead to an adventure. (Not that that's ever happened before.)

Indeed. And anything purchased using it would continue to haunt the person.

Yeah - I think they made a movie about something like that...



The more things change, the more they stay the same.