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New Fellowship Phase Undertaking: Study Runes of Old (Dwarves Only)

(Fashioned after ‘Study with the Lampmaker', Heart of the Wild, p. 79-80)

When Companions are spending a Fellowship phase in the Lonely Mountain, they may go and study under the tutelage of their elders, who have recovered ancient texts left within the Halls of Erebor. A Dwarf who knows all the spells associated with the Broken Spells Virtue may choose this undertaking and spend an Experience point to learn one of the ancient secrets recovered by the historians.

Shelter of the Earth, Warding Rune: Your Spells of Prohibition and Exclusion have been strengthened, and you can now carve a Warding Rune, allowing the fellowship to rest without worry, even in the wildest lands. Your company enjoys a free attribute bonus to Awareness or Hunting rolls to avoid being surprised. Additionally, you may spend a point of Hope to reduce the difficulty of the next Fatigue test by an amount equal to your Wisdom for all members of your company.

In the Shadow of the Mountain, Rune of Covering: Knowledge of Secrecy and life under the Lonely Mountain have protected your people for centuries. At the beginning of an Adventuring Phase, you may carve one Rune of Covering, and keep it on your person. The rune increases The Hunt Threshold for the company by an amount equal to your Wisdom. During play, any member covered by the rune can expend a Fellowship Point to eliminate raising the Eye Awareness Score due to a rolled Eye of Sauron, or due to Using Magic (as defined under rules for Eye of Mordor, Rivendell pg. 112). When you roll an Eye of Sauron on the Feat Die, or Use Magic, you may choose to accumulate a point of Shadow instead of increasing your party’s Eye Awareness Score. This choice does not raise the Eye Awareness Score of the group, as if triggered by the Shadow Gain rules.

Rich Veins of the Deep, Rune of Resistance: The stubbornness of the dwarves has long foiled the plans of the Shadow. You may carve a Rune of Resistance, and keep it on your person. You may add your Favored Heart Score to Corruption Tests as though enjoying an attribute bonus. In addition, when an enemy employs Dreadful Spells against you, you may spend a point of Hope to force the enemy to spend 2 additional Hate Points when targeting you, or the effect does not take place. The enemy still spends the initial point of Hate regardless. If the Dreadful Spell affects more than one company member, as long as you would be affected, the enemy must still spend the additional Hate points. Your companions do not share the other benefit of the Rune of Resistance.

These are really cool, Jaisin (and welcome to the forums, btw!)

I like each of them, but I think you could remove the following line:

The rune reduces the starting Eye Awareness Score for your party by 1 for each member, to a minimum of 0.

and it would still be really good. Perhaps it just reduces it by 1? (or 2? or 3?)

Thank you, sir.

I had alternately thought of reducing the starting Eye Awareness by an amount equal to your Wisdom score, or instead making it a positive modifier to The Hunt TN by that amount. I couldn't decide. The rules give +2 for using false names and taking steps to be less conspicuous, and +4 under the protection of a Wizard. Perhaps an additional +2 would suffice, making the rune with taking precautions the equivalent of a Wizard's boon, but on its own less so. A bonus equivalent to Wisdom would exceed for experienced characters.

My thoughts were that the company as a whole were dampened by the power of the rune, but modifying The Hunt mechanic accomplishes the same thing. Thoughts?

Note: need to edit 'Sauron' to 'Mordor'; will rectify soon.

I kind of like equal to the Wisdom of the Dwarven character. For most PCs that will be somewhere in the 1-4 range for a good portion of their adventuring life.

And you're right, modifying the Hunt Threshold effectively accomplishes the same thing.

First, I love the idea of having something parallel to Study with Lampmaker for the Dwarves. Would love to see it fleshed out with a character like Ormal.

The one that I'd like to see tweaked is the first one. The benefit applies to fairly specific situations, and even then usually on Journeys, which are supposed to be somewhat abstracted. (I suppose if you roll a Hazard that involves your camp being attacked it could be useful.) Maybe keep a toned down passive benefit, but then add an active benefit.

Something like:
"When you place this ward on your camp all members of the Fellowship enjoy a free attribute bonus on Awareness or Hunting to avoid being surprised. If you spend a point of Hope when placing the ward make a Craft roll: for each success the camp counts as a "safe place" for one night, allowing companions to each recover a point of Fatigue per night."

I like what you're proposing on that one. I tried to keep the ideas within the context of strengthening the prohibitions and exclusions, but your approach is subtler and easier to manage. I wanted something that would give the dwarf and his companions another edge in limited circumstances. Prepping a small battlefield or encampment, warding a door or entryway. I also didn't want to get caught up in small rules on those, having been a lifelong D&D player where small rules matter. I had never thought of the rest/Fatigue advantage on Journeys this would provide.

More on the Ormal equivalent in the next week or two (however time allows). I have an adventure skeleton that's fleshing out to provide the background for this thread, and offer some other Dwarf-themed Undertakings. Aim small, miss small.

I will make changes to In the Shadow of the Mountain to reflect The Hunt mechanic.

Thank you all for the feedback!

Edited original post; changed Against the Tide to Shelter of the Earth. Still not sure I'm happy with it.

Jaisin wrote:New Fellowship Phase Undertaking: Study Runes of Old (Dwarves Only)

(Fashioned after ‘Study with the Lampmaker', Heart of the Wild, p. 79-80)

When Companions are spending a Fellowship phase in the Lonely Mountain, they may go and study under the tutelage of their elders, who have recovered ancient texts left within the Halls of Erebor. A Dwarf who knows all the spells associated with the Broken Spells Virtue may choose this undertaking and spend an Experience point to learn one of the ancient secrets recovered by the historians.

I'm assuming that this first post is up to date with changes, apologies if that's not the case.

Shelter of the Earth, Warding Rune: Your Spells of Prohibition and Exclusion have been strengthened, and you can now carve a Warding Rune, allowing the fellowship to rest without worry, even in the wildest lands. Your company enjoys a free attribute bonus to Awareness or Hunting rolls to avoid being surprised. Additionally, you may spend a point of Hope to reduce the difficulty of the next Fatigue test by an amount equal to your Wisdom for all members of your company.

This is powerful, but nice. There is some inherent balance, since Dwarves have some of the lowest Hope scores around.

In the Shadow of the Mountain, Rune of Covering: Knowledge of Secrecy and life under the Lonely Mountain have protected your people for centuries. At the beginning of an Adventuring Phase, you may carve one Rune of Covering, and keep it on your person. The rune increases The Hunt Threshold for the company by an amount equal to your Wisdom. During play, any member covered by the rune can expend a Fellowship Point to eliminate raising the Eye Awareness Score due to a rolled Eye of Sauron, or due to Using Magic (as defined under rules for Eye of Mordor, Rivendell pg. 112). When you roll an Eye of Sauron on the Feat Die, or Use Magic, you may choose to accumulate a point of Shadow instead of increasing your party’s Eye Awareness Score. This choice does not raise the Eye Awareness Score of the group, as if triggered by the Shadow Gain rules.

Huh. This seems needlessly complicated... I'd simplify to either spending Fellowship Points or gaining Shadow, not allowing both options. Again, I'd actually recommend using Hope... this is a powerful effect (reducing significantly the chance of a Revelation).

Also, is it any member of the fellowship that can take the Fellowship Point cost, or just the one carrying the rune? FP points towards anybody, but I wasn't sure about the 'covered' language.

Rich Veins of the Deep, Rune of Resistance: The stubbornness of the dwarves has long foiled the plans of the Shadow. You may carve a Rune of Resistance, and keep it on your person. You may add your Favored Heart Score to Corruption Tests as though enjoying an attribute bonus. In addition, when an enemy employs Dreadful Spells against you, you may spend a point of Hope to force the enemy to spend 2 additional Hate Points when targeting you, or the effect does not take place. The enemy still spends the initial point of Hate regardless. If the Dreadful Spell affects more than one company member, as long as you would be affected, the enemy must still spend the additional Hate points. Your companions do not share the other benefit of the Rune of Resistance.

[[ Note typos bolded. ]]

Again strong, but balanced by the Hope cost.

- - - -

For clarity's sake, for dwarves that know all the runes is it supposed to be "pick one of these three at the start of the Adventuring Phase and that's it"? If so, then that's another balancing factor in their favor.

P.S. Good stuff and very thematic... don't take my feedback as being dismissive, I think this is really well done.

Well done! I really like where you're going with these.

My apologies for the delay; all the weeks are long in these days.

I wanted to explore some of the nature of the dwarves and how it would manifest, given the rule-set for the culture.

The Rune of Resistance, for instance, granting the bonus equal to the dwarf's favored heart score to corruption tests being an extension/similarity of/to their Cultural Blessing. With Heart being the lowest stat, this has some inherent balance while deepening the relation with how that Attribute shapes the Dwarves of the Lonely Mountain.

With the Rune of Covering, dwarves have a natural stubbornness and reaction to the effects (thank you for the grammar-shaming; mine eyes were lowered for days ) of the shadow, and also a close community mindset. The option to gain a point of Shadow instead of spending Hope I thought dovetailed nicely with Stiff Neck of the Dwarves, showing the temptation of the shadow and not going too far over into madness. With a low Heart, low Hope, and more options to spend Hope, the combination of them makes choices related to Broken Spells and these Runes of Old an interesting new dynamic to the role the dwarf plays. I think I'll stick to the general Hunt Threshold and the Shadow only option. Trying to decide if adding a limitation about the rune crumbling with a resultant immediate elimination of the Hunt modifier if the dwarf succumbs to a bout of madness during the adventure phase.

My vision for the Rune of Covering was creating a way for deep forays into enemy territory and blighted lands, providing some small relief from the Eye of Mordor until well within the lands of the enemy. They 'd have to still get out.

It was my intent that the dwarf could learn all three, and have all three 'active'. Keep in mind that to do this, it would require no less than 5 Fellowship phases dedicated to the expansion of Broken Spells, with 3 Undertakings and Experience devoted solely to the study of the new Runes. I see the low Heart/Hope scores of the dwarves the main balancing factor, as they would have to choose carefully when to spend Hope, monitor their Shadow, and decide on when to Heal Corruption during Fellowship Phases (conversely keeping a balance with Stiff Neck, if they also had that Virtue). I also intended them to be learned in order. So that the boon to Corruption Tests was learned only after experiencing the ability to 'absorb' Shadow - a growth in wisdom and power realized, and a redemptive turn of their obstinate nature few have the dedication to achieve.

The weakest link is the first Rune, as I originally just expanded upon the Prohibition and Exclusion spells. I think the travel dynamic that was suggested is a more passive and general benefit that fits better than what I was thinking. I can't make up my mind about that one.

Thank you all for the feedback and suggestions! I'll keep working on succinctly patterning the vision with the wording and rules. It's a new adventure for me.