Ruining Sauron's Supply Lines

[Angelalex242]

Taken from another thread...

Assuming a sufficiently highly experienced group of heroes (250 XP seems about right), if you sent, say, 6 of these guys into Mordor to ruin Sauron's food production...(We're talking a bunch of guys with valor 6, wisdom 6, one weapon skill at 6, and their backup (ranged or melee) weapon at 5)

For starters, just what are those orcs eating, anyway? They're mortal creatures, they must be eating something. How is his farming set up? However evil Sauron may be, he does need to feed his army or it'll die of starvation, and that doesn't serve his evil goals.

And after we've determined exactly what Sauron is feeding his orcs and how he produces it, how could these high level heroes sneak into Mordor and start doing the equivalent of burning every farm and field and ranch they can find?

[Tolwen]

Taken from another thread...
And after we've determined exactly what Sauron is feeding his orcs and how he produces it, how could these high level heroes sneak into Mordor and start doing the equivalent of burning every farm and field and ranch they can find?

They might, if they are lucky and really stealthy, but eventually they will be tracked down by Sauron's minions. And then even such high skills are defeated by sheer numbers.
In Mordor, only Gorgoroth is an inhospitable wasteland. The rest (the great territory with the Sea of Nurnen at the center) is land suitable for agriculture, and this is the breadbasket of Mordor. Legions of slaves work the fields that feed Sauron's war machine. It is very likely that there are military camps sprawled across the country as well and an efficient surveillance system in place. And you can bet that the Dark Lord has made preparations that a slave revolt (e.g. sparked by your heroes) is quickly and efficiently quenched.

In a word, such a mission can be fun, but is definitely - even for such guys - a one-way ticket.

Cheers
Tolwen

[Angelalex242]

Hmm. Sounds like the whole team going in better have Stealth 6 and Athletics 6, and probably they should all have the swift trait just to be sure. You want at least a couple guys with craft 6 and fire-making to actually light these farms up and destroy them.

Then you need the party 'face' who's going to be convincing the slaves to revolt and destroy the farms with his massive Inspire and Persuade checks, and the Riddle/Courtesy guy who's going to be telling Sauron's Inquisitors that they are not the saboteurs they're looking for.

Of course, you're probably right...if Sauron's supply lines could be damaged easily, Gandalf or somebody else among the wise would've suggested sending in some badasses like Glorfindel in on such a quest. Nobody does so, which means Sauron's probably pretty good about guarding his rear, even though the Ringwraiths won't be a problem (they're always on the front lines), and it'll be mostly orcs whipping the slaves (who may well be other orcs!)

The task, then, of such heroes is to see how much of Sauron's food supply they can ruin before the TNs to escape get too high even for guys with 6 dice to roll.

[Beran]

I'm sure that an orc will eat what ever it can catch. Including members of its own species.

Sending a unit of 6 men (even ones as highly experienced as you mention) would be like throwing them into a wood chipper; none would return. Even in his weakened state at this point of the game Sauron would have more then enough firepower to wipe out a scouting party of this size before they would cause any problems. And that is assuming the scouts didn't succumb to the blights of Mordor (one doesn't just march into Mordor.) There must be hundreds of little passes in the mountains surrounding Mordor that could be used to bring supplies in from the Southron and Easterling territories.

[Angelalex242]

Well, that's why Tolwen implied these guys better have Stealth 6, every last one of 'em, because if they're found, the jig is up.

I actually think these guys could do respectable damage to the farmland just by starting lots of fires (potentially via flaming arrows) and letting fire do the work. There is another thread about just how hard fires are to put out in the middle ages, even when you've got an evil army trying to do it.

[Beleg]

Even if such a goal was achieved and these guys managed to burn all of Sauron's stuff, as Tolwen has mentioned, they wouldn't get out alive. So then all Sauron would have to do is rebuild it all, something he seems to be rather good at. Personally I reckon a more prudent effort would be to try and cut of the Easterlings and the Haradrim, rather than assaulting Mordor itself

[Angelalex242]

Rebuilding it all is easier said then done. This stuff was probably built before the Ruling Ring was cut from his hand. So burning all the fields would create a massive famine among orckind, who wouldn't be able to sustain their MUCH greater then Gondor's numbers. Sauron may lose over half his troops, as the stronger half eat the weaker half to survive.

So burning all his stuff would actually take Sauron years...2 or 3, maybe even 4 or 5, to recover from. Losing half his troops is a goal worth dying for, considering just how large a number that is. We're talking about 6 guys causing thousands of orcs to starve to death.

[Glorelendil]

An LM can make anything possible if he/she thinks it's going to be fun.

Personally I don't think of commando missions behind enemy lines, conducting mundane sabotage, very Tolkien-like. Maybe Sauron would do that against Gondor, but not vice versa. Perhaps in another RPG.

If my players were very powerful and wanted to adventure in Mordor, here are some ideas (off the top of my head) I might try:
- Rescue 1: an important ally is captured and brought to Mordor; companions must pursue and rescue.
- Rescue 2: information comes to light that an important elf, believed dead for 1,000 years, has been held prisoner in and for the last couple hundred years has been in a remote tower in eastern Mordor. Best approach route is to skirt around, either north or south. Many adventures along the way, and when they arrive the elf isn't the same person they were expecting to find.
- Dragon: a dragon, allied with Sauron, has been growing and lives on/under a mountain somewhere in an awful part of Mordor. To buy the dragon's loyalty, Sauron has given him one of the Dwarven rings. Dain offers the adventurers a staggering reward for recovering the ring. Again, going around Mordor makes more sense than going through, but after they confront (or trick, or flee) the dragon, their return path is blocked, leaving only one option...

[Glorelendil]

We're talking about 6 guys causing thousands of orcs to starve to death.

That's an awful lot of Shadow points.

[Angelalex242]

I dunno. Is it?

Starving orcs to death isn't all that 'Shadowy.' Nobody among the Wise really cares what happens to those orcs anyway. As far as I can tell, even Manwe himself doesn't care what happens to orcs. So they're fair game for whatever sorts of sabotage PCS might want to inflict.

I cannot recall of one instance in any book where good guys show compassion to orcs (or other Shadow creatures) of any sort.