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I have been pondering a home-grown campaign arc and have come up with a basic outline but my Tolkein-fu is weak so I'd value any advice on tying things more closely to the world.

I am keen to showcase the journey mechanisms and a traditional fantasy trope with this strength would be hunting for the parts of a magical MacGuffin (a la Rod of the Seven Parts), so I thought I'd go with that but with a little twist.

Here's what I have so far,

King Dain has discovered a ritual amongst the ancient records buried in Smaug's horde which would allow him the re-ignite the The Great Forge of Erebor. This would be a big boost to his prestige and draw smiths from across the dwarven world. The problem is that the ritual requires the participation of the whole High Council of the Kingdom Under the Mountain. Seats on the council are hereditary rights of the senior families in the city but not all the families have returned. Dain could appoint new members in their place but it's 1) time consuming, 2) dwarves are notoriously prideful, if one of the deposed families were to subsequently re-appear the resulting feud would last milenia 3) once it became known that Dain was looking to add new members to the council, the in-fighting to claim the seats might threaten the stability of his new kingdom. So Dain needs to find the missing families preferably without it becoming public knowledge that he's looking - hence a small group of outsiders employed to follow up leads and consult with other communities in the search of news.

Four potential families I had thought of were
1) family still in the Iron Hills, but the clan elder hates Dain for some childhood slight - the party need to learn the cause and heal the rift
2) family retreated to a hidden fastness and are now besieged by orcs completely cut off from news of the outside world - the party needs to escort the survivors to safety
3) family corrupted by the shadow and worked the forges of Dol Guldor -could go lots of ways, perhaps an younger son is still pure and the party can remove the corrupted elders, maybe the family are serving to protect hostages etc.(Maybe fled to a lesser fastness after the necromancer left.)
4) family are destroyed and goblins now infest their hold - the party need to recover proof of their fate. Also the vacancy might allow promotion for a dwarf PC

Any suggestions of good locations, family names, other family fates or any other suggestions would be gratefully received.

Right now I don't have any ideas regarding locations or names, but I do know that in Other Minds issue number 4 contains lots of good stuff about the Dwarves of Middle Earth, right down to the locations of all the different families. You might find it useful

http://www.othermindsmagazine.com/downl ... -pdf-files

(I give you the link to all of them because each and every issue is full of goodies)

This resource may be of help (see entries for dwarf et al): http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/

3) family corrupted by the shadow and worked the forges of Dol Guldor -could go lots of ways, perhaps an younger son is still pure and the party can remove the corrupted elders, maybe the family are serving to protect hostages etc.(Maybe fled to a lesser fastness after the necromancer left.

My Tolkien-fu is a little rusty as well, but dwarves are not "corrupted" by the shadow if I remember close to correctly...??? does not mean that there wasn't a greedy enough dwarf line out there to go work for the necromancer.

BTW this story sounds really fun.

Actually of Durin's Line which would be the dwarves in your campaign none ever willingly served the enemy however they could have been captured and killed by the Necromancer(aka Sauron).Also there would be no feud as dwarves in tolkein;'s world dont do that it would be a grudge instead.Also the only people to infight in middle earth among the free peoples would be men, orcs also do it but they are wholly evil.

Many thanks for the links - wonderful resources I hadn't found.

I take your point on the corruption aspect too; after all, the owners of the dwarven rings came to sticky ends rather than falling under the sway of Sauron like the ring-wraiths. Sounds like a greed/hostage angle would better. Better from a story angle too I think, more ambiguity about the 'villains' and more role-play options that way.

Once again, thanks for taking the time to point me in the right direction with the tone. As I feared too much D&D pollution in my adventure design thoughts

LOTR_Nerd wrote:Also there would be no feud as dwarves in tolkein;'s world dont do that it would be a grudge instead. Also the only people to infight in middle earth among the free peoples would be men, orcs also do it but they are wholly evil.

Actually, Dwarves fight each other as well:

J.R.R. Tolkien wrote:A warlike race of old were all the Naugrim, and they would fight fiercely against whomsoever aggrieved them: servants of Melkor, or Eldar, or Avari, or wild beasts, or not seldom their own kin, Dwarves of other mansions and lordships.
- The Silmarillion.Of the Sindar (my emphasis)

It would be strange if people with Free will would not occasionally (or often) fight against each other. It's normal (even if not good) and of course Dwarves are no exception. I'd be surprised if they weren't. If one house or lordship is of the opinion that they were wronged by another house for whatever reason, they have no problem sending an armed host to settle the matter by force.
What seems to be a very rare exception (as we have no positive evidence) is fighting within one house or tribe though. I'd be interesting to discuss this

Cheers
Tolwen

Arquestan wrote:I take your point on the corruption aspect too; after all, the owners of the dwarven rings came to sticky ends rather than falling under the sway of Sauron like the ring-wraiths. Sounds like a greed/hostage angle would better. Better from a story angle too I think, more ambiguity about the 'villains' and more role-play options that way.

Bear in mind though that in the game there is a system surrounding Shadow and Corruption and dwarves are not exempt from this. So, with that in mind I think you're perfectly entitled to allow them to fail and fall in such ways - especially if it helps your plot and ideas which, by the way, sounds really interesting. When you pull all the information together I'd love to read it. I'm sure other would too.

Tolwen wrote:

LOTR_Nerd wrote:Also there would be no feud as dwarves in tolkein;'s world dont do that it would be a grudge instead. Also the only people to infight in middle earth among the free peoples would be men, orcs also do it but they are wholly evil.

Actually, Dwarves fight each other as well:

J.R.R. Tolkien wrote:A warlike race of old were all the Naugrim, and they would fight fiercely against whomsoever aggrieved them: servants of Melkor, or Eldar, or Avari, or wild beasts, or not seldom their own kin, Dwarves of other mansions and lordships.
- The Silmarillion.Of the Sindar (my emphasis)

It would be strange if people with Free will would not occasionally (or often) fight against each other. It's normal (even if not good) and of course Dwarves are no exception. I'd be surprised if they weren't. If one house or lordship is of the opinion that they were wronged by another house for whatever reason, they have no problem sending an armed host to settle the matter by force.
What seems to be a very rare exception (as we have no positive evidence) is fighting within one house or tribe though. I'd be interesting to discuss this

Cheers
Tolwen

Yes what I was adressing was from a standpoint of two dwarves of Durin's Line,also remind me if I am wrong isn't the Slimarillion written from an Elvish perspective?

Another possibility that might prove more problematic is that such a family could still be living with the Dwarves of the Blue Mountains. Of course, that would require the party to travel west across the Misty Mountains and through Eriador.