Heroic cultures East and West the Mountains

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Southron
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Heroic cultures East and West the Mountains

Post by Southron » Mon Mar 30, 2015 5:30 am

It strikes me that there would be more hero types in Wilderland than Eridor Wilderland is strongly influenced by a Nordic flavor which has a strong heroic feel to it. Aside from the two cultures in Rivendell it would seem that the heroic tradition in Eriador is sparse at best. Also, it would seem that as I get from LOTR that the Rangers are hard pressed to keep it safe. This is not to say there aren't those with Tookish blood and some adventurous types from Breeland ,but that would truly be quite uncommon compared to the east and south of the Misty Mountains.

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Re: Heroic cultures East and West the Mountains

Post by Robin Smallburrow » Mon Mar 30, 2015 11:20 am

Eriador is sparse compared with Wilderland because of the many centuries of war b/w Angmar & Arnor. You should check out the Other Minds article from Tolwen about Eriador's population (I forget which issue).

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Re: Heroic cultures East and West the Mountains

Post by Otaku-sempai » Mon Mar 30, 2015 3:55 pm

The Great Plague of TA 1636, the Long Winter and the resulting Days of Dearth, and the floods of the late Third Age all had a tremendous impact on Eriador, severely reducing the Mannish population. Bree-land produced few heroes there were no other large population centers north of the White Mountains after the fall of Tharbad aside from Rivendell, the Shire, the Grey Havens and the Dwarves of the Blue Mountains.
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Re: Heroic cultures East and West the Mountains

Post by Falenthal » Mon Mar 30, 2015 10:11 pm

In fact, no region has as many potential heroic cultures as Rhovanion.
How many different cultures are there in Rohan or Gondor? Only one culture each (rohirrim and gondorians, of course), unless you want to dig into specifics. Dunledings might be a fitting culture, but it would mean stretching a bit what we know about them. They should be kept as a non-heroic culture if not for gaming interest. The same goes for Woses. Also, maybe in Gondor the game could include Haradrim as an heroic culture for flavour, because there are probably lots of haradrim who just traded with Gondor and didn't see them as the enemy or didn't buy everything Sauron said.

Compared to them, Eriador has still enough cultures to make it interesting. If by Eriador we understand "from the Blue to the Misty Mountains", then we have elves (two kinds, even three if the Wandering Companies are accounted as playable culture), dwarves, hobbits (various types if needed: Shire hobbits and Bree hobbits, even Bucklanders who are a bit different from the rest), dúnedain (rangers) and men (Bree-landers).
Also some kind or Rivermen (like the eafolc in HotW) could be added, traveling from Lake Evendim to the Lossoth's lands for trade, for example.

In fact, I think the problem we will have is how to play in Rohan or Gondor with a company that's not mostly made of Rohirrim or Gondorians. Otherwise, the supplements for those regions might try to explote the "all players share the same culture" type of campaign that's not normally seen in games. Most of the time we expect gaming groups to be composed of the hobbit thief, the dwarven warrior, the elven archer/magician, etc. Maybe if the Adventurer's Companion includes more options for personalitation, it would be interesting to play an all-rohirrim/ranger/gondorian/etc. campaign.

Southron
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Re: Heroic cultures East and West the Mountains

Post by Southron » Mon Mar 30, 2015 11:22 pm

I may have erred in using the term culture as in the TOR usage. The point being since Rhovanion is based on Nordic influences which seemed to have a strong adventuring culture that there might be more heroes in per capita there than Eriador in the late 3rd age.

As I mentioned about Rangers and Elves and there might be a few Hobbits with Tookish blood, but it seems that in Breeland and the Shire save for perhaps traveling Dwarves, adventuring types would be fewer in number.

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Re: Heroic cultures East and West the Mountains

Post by zedturtle » Tue Mar 31, 2015 1:05 am

To piggy-back on Falenthal's comments, I wonder if we will have two or more cultures for the relevant areas: Rohan could easily be divided into Eastmark and Westmark, with a different set of backgrounds for each. Maybe the same cultural blessing, maybe not. Gondor could easily support three or four: Rangers of Ithilien, High-Born Men, Knights of Dol Amroth, etc. Perhaps that's cutting things a bit too thin, but it seems like a lot to fit under one roof as well.

I do agree that, despite my love for Bree (it's the only place where two hobbits, a Ranger, a dwarf and an elf can be sitting in a tavern when someone busts in saying they've seen the dead walking about and who will save them?), that picking Rhovanion was a brilliant move by Francesco that feels like we have lots more to do there, despite having spent so much time there already.
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Re: Heroic cultures East and West the Mountains

Post by Southron » Tue Mar 31, 2015 1:33 am

zedturtle wrote:.

Bree (it's the only place where two hobbits, a Ranger, a dwarf and an elf can be sitting in a tavern when someone busts in saying they've seen the dead walking about and who will save them?), .
Indeed!

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Re: Heroic cultures East and West the Mountains

Post by Falenthal » Tue Mar 31, 2015 4:43 am

zedturtle wrote:Gondor could easily support three or four: Rangers of Ithilien, High-Born Men, Knights of Dol Amroth, etc. Perhaps that's cutting things a bit too thin, but it seems like a lot to fit under one roof as well.
I could easily see this, too, although more dictated by game variety than by the precedents in the rules. I mean, in the existing cultures there's already some difference between nobles and villains, or even different occupations.
A Ranger of Ithilien might just be a Gondorian's background with favourite Stealth. A High-born man could have Courtesy or Persuade, a Knight of Dol Amroth could have Battle or Courtesy,...

But I would accept some different cultures inside a single culture, like zed proposes.

And yes, Bree is the quintaessential "Town with an inn where heroes meet and a dark stranger approaches you asking for help" from every RPG I've ever seen. :D

As for Rhovanion, we still NEED a series of adventures/mini-campaign that centers in Lake-town, Dale and Erebor, with influences from Thranduil's Halls, Dorwininon and the Iron Hills.
Absolutely need this.

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Re: Heroic cultures East and West the Mountains

Post by Rich H » Tue Mar 31, 2015 12:53 pm

Falenthal wrote:As for Rhovanion, we still NEED a series of adventures/mini-campaign that centers in Lake-town, Dale and Erebor, with influences from Thranduil's Halls, Dorwininon and the Iron Hills.
Absolutely need this.
To be fair C7 could have just had a license for Wilderland and nothing else and been able to produce quality supplements (at a rate of 3 per year) for a decade or two. I sometimes regret the expansion of the game beyond these borders as it means the kind of things you mention above aren't getting done when I want them but it's understandable from a commercials perspective that more regions and cultures are being released.
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Re: Heroic cultures East and West the Mountains

Post by Otaku-sempai » Tue Mar 31, 2015 3:14 pm

Rich H wrote:To be fair C7 could have just had a license for Wilderland and nothing else and been able to produce quality supplements (at a rate of 3 per year) for a decade or two. I sometimes regret the expansion of the game beyond these borders as it means the kind of things you mention above aren't getting done when I want them but it's understandable from a commercials perspective that more regions and cultures are being released.
Possibly, but that doesn't seem likely. The C7 folks are understandably reluctant to discuss the details of their license, but I have to assume that it initially covered all of the locations mentioned in The Hobbit at the very least; and it possibly included all of The Lord of the Rings. The latter seems to be the case now.
"Far, far below the deepest delvings of the Dwarves, the world is gnawed by nameless things. Even Sauron knows them not. They are older than he."

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