One of my two campaigns I am running is focused on reclaiming Mirkwood. To me this would imply that as they progress or fail areas would move from being Dark Lands to Shadow Lands to Wildlands or back the other direction. I have several ideas of how to accomplish this, like lessening the level of Enemy influence as the corrupting elements are defeated or driven out.

Just curious if anyone else is running a campaign like this and how they are going about it.

Personally, I don't show the players the Lore Master map, so they don't know the level of Shadow in a given area other than how I describe it. They only use the Player Map for reference. I do give a general idea of what a regions reputation is, but so far their journeys have been on the shorter side. I am trying to build it up slowly.

That's a very nice idea. I remember a SF rpg from some years back, Underground that featured 'parameters' for areas (social, security, wealth...) that could be altered by players during the game, for the best or for worse. Maybe you could come up with something similar?

Francesco

I don't know if this is the track you are on but there were several ideas posted in this thread about Mirkwood..

http://cubicle7.clicdev.com/f/index.php?tr...&showtopic=2171

Thanks Venger there were some great ideas in there. Funny enough I am already doing an several adventure story involving a lost elven spirit. This one is decidedly corrupted by Shadow and the reason one of the areas of Mirkwood is so corrupt.

The lead in is that in two unrelated adventures in the area of the Mountains of Mirkwood, the players will find a piece of elven jewelry in a Troll lair and a weapon in a Orc lair. Both will fill the players with a sense of sadness and make Elves, there are two in my group, feel like they can almost remember an ancient song. When the items are brought together they will make the elves dream of a time in the Second Age. Basically it will be the story of a lost elf that became corrupted by Dragon Sickness and if the items are returned and he is convinced to leave Middle Earth his spirit can be freed. This will require research in the Elven halls or with Radagast to determine what can be done and where the elf's lost hall was. Plus a number of journeys and some Fell beasts that have been drawn to the corrupted spirit.

My idea is that once the characters complete this adventure line it will decrease the area from Dark Lands to Shadow Lands.

Hi Templar,

I'm sure many/most of us are looking towards having our games strongly feature the material that'll come out in The Darkening of Mirkwood, but can't do much about it till that comes out (as Garbar said here.)

Shadow-lore
We have Player-Heroes, many (most?!) of whom follow the 'warden's' calling, having "recognised that there is a shadowy thread unifying most of what is malicious, dark and terrible in Middle-earth, and that the thread is thickening year after year", and "collect this knowledge wherever they can."
'The Shadow' that has invested Mirkwood more and more over the last couple of thousand years is probably the most overt manifestation of this. But what is it? What does it look like? What does it do? 'Stars and Shadows' in the LMB outlines the internal effect that exposure to it has on people. We can infer from descriptions in 'The Campaign', and the optional game mechanic of the Region Table (p. 34) that it makes everything about the flora, fauna and geography become 'queer and strange' and increasingly hostile in their external effects on the wellbeing of members of the Free Peoples.
But the thread that connects these phenomena remains shadowy indeed.

Everyone should stop what they're doing and rush out and buy HoMe10: Morgoth's Ring immediately. It doesn't answer all this explicitly, but it will point your thoughts in the right direction. C7's license doesn't stretch to this stuff, but everyone would be right to trust Francesco not to write anything that would be in defiance of Tolkien's writings found in MR.


The Shadow over Mirkwood
Defeating or driving out the corrupting elements is definitely a right thing to do -- as far as it can go. Liberating the Lingerer spirit of an elf who lost his way would be a good example of getting rid of a concentration of Shadow. Once that critical mass was gone, the fell beasts attracted to it would probably disperse. If not immediately neutralised, they'd then become less of a concentration, and even if still troubling the wider area as 'fallout', would now be more manageable, etc. etc.
But I have a problem that the collective efforts of the Wood-elf nation could only resist the Shadow with a rearguard action as they gradually retreated away northwards. History doesn't tell of Mirkwood being fit to be renamed Eryn Lasgalen until The Necromancer isn't just departed but has suffered his final utter defeat.
I think we should expect our Player-Heroes' efforts at best to prevent The Shadow from encroaching further, continuing the rueful elvish theme of fighting the war that cannot be won, rather than actually turning the tide. In the fulness of a campaign they may exceed that expectation, but I'd personally be wary of writing any shiny victories in until they've proven themselves worthy.

Cheers,
--Os.

Well expressed!

Osric, I understand where you are coming from and agree with some but not all of your points. For one, at least two of my players made characters expressly interested in opposing the Shadow in Mirkwood. Most if not all of my players are very familiar with the history of Middle Earth and painfully aware that Dol Goldur will in a few years be re-inhabitted by the forces of Sauron and the corruption will increase and not decrease. That being said their characters aren't aware of this and they are playing them as hopeful heroes set on doing what they can to make areas in Northern Mirkwood habitable once more.

So in the near future of my game they are going to strive to meet that goal and as a Lore Master that aims to please I am going to give them what they want.

This particular statement,
"I think we should expect our Player-Heroes' efforts at best to prevent The Shadow from encroaching further, continuing the rueful elvish theme of fighting the war that cannot be won, rather than actually turning the tide. In the fulness of a campaign they may exceed that expectation, but I'd personally be wary of writing any shiny victories in until they've proven themselves worthy.",
I TOTALLY disagree with.

I think we SHOULD expect our Player-Heroes to be as heroic as they can be. To say that they can't accomplish great things because it's against canon to me is a non-starter. Also to say that 4 or 5 heroes of Mirkwood can't make a difference just because Tharinduil's forces retreated into their halls is very against the spirit of Tolkien's works. That's like saying 2 Hobbits shouldn't be aloud to carry the source of Sauron's power across the known world and cast it into Mt Doom because the forces of Gondor are unable to defeat the forces of Mordor in open combat.

That being said I in no way expect them to convert every zone on the Lore Master's map to "Free Lands" but I will definitely let them work on converting some specific zones and their success and/or failure will definitely change the little symbols on the map for good or bad.

I also in NO WAY think that the way we are doing things is the "right way". It's just what works for us. One of the things I agreed to with my players before we started was that while I am going to stick to the canon as much as possible I'm not taking anything off the table for the players. I won't allow them to get away with things like, going to Biblo's house and stealing the ring because they wouldn't know about that (and they wouldn't try it anyway), but will definitely let them be involved with what happens to Radagast and Beorn.

Well, I saw Osric's statement not in the way that a particular individual feat is impossible, but that the PC's actions may achieve a victory here or there in a limited area.
The spirit of the theme of the encroaching shadow is that you may halt it here or there (or even push it back) temporarily (which is what a human PC might achieve), but that in the end it will return stronger and make your victory a hollow one in the long run. For a human, freeing a particular for 20 or 30 years is something great, but for the historian (or elf) with a broader temporal scope, this is fleeting.

For me this means that the PC's actions can make a difference and free a , but that this cannot be permanent as long as the One (and Sauron) are not destroyed, though for the character's lifetime (or a few decades) it may last - and seem long-lasting from the perspective of a human's lifetime.

See above. They can and will be heroic and may have success from their perspective, but the Shadow's arm and endurance is longer and in the end their victory will be negated. The destruction of the One is the precondition for any lasting success of cleansing in Mirkwood - be it on a small or big spatial scale.

What such a temporary victory can do however, is to buy a respite for later times. For example, a child may be born and raised in this respite that is destined or capable of playing a key role later (e.g. becoming an importantn figure himself or becoming the ancestor of another important character) and which otherwise would not have had a chance to be born or survive without this temporary victory. Or an important figure may find rest and help here in this limited window of "peace" which would otherwise have been unavailable.

In addition, the Shadow in Mirkwood and the One are different things. The former is like a Hydra with innumerable heads, while the latter is a single thing that might be destroyed forever by a single person (however difficult this is). So you may halt the Hydra here or there, but not on the whole - and not for a long time (see above). The single item is easier in this respect (even if overwhelmingly powerful in itself).

Or to express it in more "medical" terms: In Mirkwood you can only treat symptoms as long as the One lasts. After "treatment", the symptoms will eventually return. Only after the destruction of the One (a causative treatment in itself), will the symptomatic treatment in Mirkwood have a lasting effect (as written by Tolkien - though in other terms of course )

Best
Tolwen