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Hey all!

The next map is up; it shows Western Gondor and the Enedwaith.

Adventurer's Map
Loremaster's Map

(I've also edited the first post of this thread to make it easier to add new maps or to scroll past.)

I'd think there'd be some changes to cultures in the 4th age.

High Elves are pretty much not there.

Dunedain are better off, and their ability to use fellowship pools would be restored with King Elessar.

Mirkwood Elves either have the Call of Mirkwood Virtue or have left the building.

Angelalex242 wrote:I'd think there'd be some changes to cultures in the 4th age.

High Elves are pretty much not there.

Dunedain are better off, and their ability to use fellowship pools would be restored with King Elessar.

Mirkwood Elves either have the Call of Mirkwood Virtue or have left the building.

Very much so! Here are the cultures I made available to my players:

-Beornings of Eryn Lasgalen
-Dwarves of Aglarond
-Dwarves of Erebor
-Dwarves of Khazad-Dum
-Elves of Eryn Lasgalen
-Elves of Ithilien
-Hobbits of the Shire
-Humans of Arnor
-Humans of Gondor
-Humans of Northwestern Harad
-Humans of Nurn
-Humans of Rohan

...I'd say the Dunedain still deserve their own unique culture. They are still 'high men.'

They probably do, and at this point they haven't descended quite so far as to be the tyrants and despots that the Professor mentioned the nobility of the Reunited Kingdom would eventually become; simply, they just weren't a culture I made available to my players. And no one has chosen a human from Gondor or Arnor in any event.

Well, presumably, the 4th Age game is set during Aragorn's Kingship. That'd pretty much be the Dunedain at their very best. Numenor 2.0, if you will. The first part of it, anyway. But just as Nuemenor descended into madness, so too might late kings of Gondor once Aragorn's just a memory and somebody without his high ethics is in charge.

The campaign is set about 100 years after Aragorn's death, in F.A. 220. His son, King Eldarion, now rules the Reunited Kingdom. Though he is for the most part a just and well-intentioned king, his father's memory does cast quite the long shadow, and unfavorable comparisons are, perhaps, inevitable...especially if they are spread by unfaithful tongues.

...It's true. 100 years isn't anywhere near enough to remove Aragorn's memory from the Dunedain. Who all live 250+ or so. Eldarion is probably still a just ruler and will do cool stuff like give up his life willingly instead of holding on to it till the last dog is hung. Eldarion also has a very healthy helping of elvish blood from his mom, so he's probably going to live a very long life indeed. Longer then his father's, even. And that's with nobly giving the gift back. (I presume the Dunedain ability to perish at will and peaceably is dependent on having 0 Shadow at time of death.)

Angelalex242 wrote:Eldarion also has a very healthy helping of elvish blood from his mom, so he's probably going to live a very long life indeed. Longer then his father's, even. And that's with nobly giving the gift back. (I presume the Dunedain ability to perish at will and peaceably is dependent on having 0 Shadow at time of death.)

Doesn't the story of Arwen and Aragorn in the Appendix of LOTR state that Aragorn was the last to have the ability to give the gift back?

I dunno. Seems to me Eldarion should be able to give the gift back too. If others have greater wisdom then mine I'll bow out, but...

Well, if I were GMing it, I'd let him have the grace of return to sender. Assuming he's 0 Shadow at time of death. But then, I'm a nice GM so...I'd probably let any PC from the Dunedain culture return the gift to sender should they be 0 Shadow at time of death. Reminds everyone else how awesome Dunedain are.


"Lady Undómiel," said Aragorn, "the hour is indeed hard, yet it was made even in that day when we met under the white birches in the garden of Elrond, where none now walk. And on the hill of Cerin Amroth when we forsook both the Shadow and the Twilight this doom we accepted. Take counsel with yourself, beloved, and ask whether you would indeed have me wait until I wither and fall from my high seat unmanned and witless. Nay, lady, I am the last of the Númenoreans and the latest King of the Eldar Days; and to me has been given not only a span thrice that of Men of Middle-earth, but also the grace to go at my will, and give back the gift. Now, therefore, I will sleep.
"I speak no comfort to you, for there is no comfort for such pain within the circles of the world. The uttermost choice is before you: to repent and go to the Havens and bear away into the West the memory of our days together that shall there be evergreen but never more than a memory; or else to abide the Doom of Men."
"Nay, dear lord," she said, "that choice is long over. There is now no ship to bear me hence, and I must indeed abide the Doom of Men, whether I will or nill: the loss and the silence. But I say to you, King of the Númenoreans, not till now have I understood the tale of your people and their fall. As wicked fools I scorned them, but I pity them at last. For if this is indeed, as the Eldar say, the gift of the One to Men, it is bitter to receive."
"So it seems," he said. "But let us not be overthrown at the final test, who of old renounced the Shadow and the Ring. In sorrow we must go, but not in despair. Behold! we are not bound forever in the circles of the world, and beyond them is more than memory, Farewell!"

"Estel, Estel!" she cried, and with that even as he took her hand and kissed it, he fell into sleep. Then a great beauty was revealed in him, so that all who after came there looked on him with wonder; for they saw the grace of his youth, and the valor of his manhood, and the wisdom and majesty of his age were all blended together. And long there he lay, an image of the splendour of the Kings of Men in glory undimmed before the breaking of the world.
But Arwen went forth from the House, and the light of her eyes was quenched, and it seemed to her people that she had become cold and grey as nightfall in winter that comes without a star. Then she said farewell to Eldarion, and to her daughters, and to all whom she had loved; and she went out from the city of Minas Tirith and passed away to the land of Lórien, and dwelt there alone under the fading trees until winter came. Galadriel had passed away and Celeborn had also gone, and the land was silent.
There at last when the mallorn-leaves were falling, but spring had not yet come, she laid herself to rest upon Cerin Amroth; and there is her green grave, until the world is changed, and all the days of her life are utterly forgotten by the men that come after, and elanor and nimphredil bloom no more east of the sea.