SHADOW OVER THE LAMP OF BALTHI – ADVENTURE

[Meneldor]

Sure it would be just another adventure. Thanks for the wise words, as always. I guess my ego wanted this adventure to be my.. my own... my precious.. That is rather not going to happen anytime soon.

Anyway, I like Rich's idea of having it not as some another dangerous episode taking place while darkening, but as a campaign to finally get rid of humans from the woods. It always kinda bothered me, that Woodmen were able to live so close to Dol Guldur… As if it was a calculated part of Sauron’s foreign policy. When he revealed himself fully as a Sauron, isn’t crushing a few hundred people in those villages just a question of time? It’s hard to believe that humans survived only because they were determined to and thanks to their qualities. After all what does it say about Sauron and his servants’ qualities? Couldn’t he spy out their wooden strongholds and burn them to the ground before? Or were they so unimportant to him to even bother in the past? Hmm… maybe a huge fire of the forest west of Dusky River could be some hazard event for the heroes to tackle? After all the air circulation in the west eves of Mirkwood is much better to spread the flames faster. Fight fire with fire. That might be a nice try to destroy the ancient flame or drive it away from the forest without too much effort on the Werewolf’s part.

[Garn!]

While he's the Necromancer, his inability to adequately remove the Woodmen acts as a smokescreen, deflecting suspicion away from his true identity. Having returned to Mordor and declared himself, Sauron is just too busy dealing with the visible members of the Fellowship (Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli, and the Hobbits), not to mention Saruman's defection. Then Aragorn goes and challenges him via palantir and holds his own - something no Edain has managed to do for centuries. So, yeah, he's a little distracted.

Besides, at some point a wandering group of orcs, trolls or whatever will undoubtedly stop by and pay those Woodmen one last visit. If I recall what... Tolwen?.. said about the battles in the north during the War of the Ring, there was something about multiple attack directions and a sweep toward Lothlorien. Perhaps the Woodmen were left alone so they couldn't send advance word of the impending attacks?

BTW, I do like the forest fire idea. I've been offline for awhile, so perhaps I missed it, but I don't recall anyone else suggesting a forest fire. The River Maidens and a forest fire makes a nice juxtaposition.

[Meneldor]

Interesting! But still, aren’t those distractions happening in the span of many years? How long would it take him to gather a few hundred strong beasts (if not thousands) which are already in Mirkwood ready to answer his call and send them with any of the Nazgul to do the job? I wouldn’t be surprised if in the "Darkening of Mirkwood" campaign we would say a farewell to some of those settlements. Radagast abandoned the Rhosgobel after all, maybe for a good reason.

BTW, I do like the forest fire idea. I've been offline for awhile, so perhaps I missed it, but I don't recall anyone else suggesting a forest fire. The River Maidens and a forest fire makes a nice juxtaposition

I thought about the River Maidens, too! One of the thoughts coming to me is whether a Vampire could disguise himself as a woman to pretend to be such fairy, in order to corrupt and convince the Rhosgobel or Woodmen-town’s fisherman to steal from Great Hall and bring the Lamp to "her". I have a few possible ideas of “why” if it sounds convincing that the shape-shifter could cheat him like that.

[Garn!]

Interesting! But still, aren’t those distractions happening in the span of many years? How long would it take him to gather a few ... strong beasts ... which are already in Mirkwood ... to do the job? I wouldn’t be surprised if in the "Darkening of Mirkwood" campaign we would say a farewell to some of those settlements. Radagast abandoned the Rhosgobel after all, maybe for a good reason.

Yes, there is a huge gap in the years, sorry. Even if those specific events are not distracting Sauron, there is still the chance that other events are doing so.

One thing to really keep in mind here. Tolkien himself admits (somewhere, sorry don't recall the exact source) that Sauron was a more subtle and sly antagonist than Morgoth. So it's not the normal political "deceit within deceit", but several layers of "deceit within deceit".

Let us assume for a moment that Sauron is trying to obtain a specific goal: Remove Woodmen opposition. He might run through a list of options and start mixing and matching situations. Maybe something like this:

A weak willed warrior could be tempted into running away from a threatened village. He heads to a 2nd village claiming to have been sent to request aid. Unbeknownst to this warrior, he is already infected with a slow-acting pestilence that Sauron introduced into the 1st village. So upon arrival, this warrior is only carrying the disease beyond it's initial point of contamination. Now, the Headman for this 2nd village knows the Headman from the 1st village - and doesn't believe the warrior's story. Headman 1 would have sent a teenage boy. So Headman 2 is fairly sure the Warrior is lying, but tries to determine what exact he's lying about.

Meanwhile, in the 2nd Village, a young-ish woman of 30 lives alone but with the aid and oversight of her neighbors. But as a teenager, she had a family, and a sister who was shamed by robbers, before all of the family were supposed to have been killed. But this woman survived. Unfortunately she is not completely sane and the spy Sauron inserted into this 2nd Village has whispered about how the robbers are coming back for her. When the Warrior appears, the woman knows exactly who he is. Later that night, she steals into his sleeping quarters and cuts his throat, quietly, before stabbing him repeatedly for the next hour. Covered in blood and gore, she returns to her own home. Where some smidgen of sanity returns and she rebels at the thought of what she has done, with a yell unlike any heard in the 2nd Village before, everyone is soon awake. A moment of sanity was all she had though. She has regressed and lives in the moments of the attack. All that anyone can get from her are references to robbers attacking her and her family but can find nothing except the horribly mutilated body of the Warrior.

Who attacked whom? And why? Distracted, the 2nd Village Headman must now send a messenger immediately to 1st Village...

With further machinations, maybe we've stirred up a blood-feud among Woodmen who are starting to get sick and die. Some of these villagers might attempt to flee, hoping to avoid infection, but only spread the disease farther. Meanwhile orcs and other servants of evil are watching the whole charade play out, laughing.

Now, while that isn't too complex, lengthy or involves too many of his resources, this is exactly the kind of situation that Sauron would excel in. (BTW, I'm PM'ing a smallish list I was going to post instead of the story, but it's an indented outline and the forum will play havoc with the formatting.)

I didn't write the above as something I think you should add (although feel free to do so), but as a generic example of how underhanded Sauron is in manipulating others to achieve his goals.

One of the thoughts coming to me is whether a Vampire could disguise himself as a woman

I cannot be certain, but I think Tolkien did have female vampires. If not, I think you can add them without too much opposition or "it's not canon!" arguments. So you've got a female vampire. Depending on what the River Maidens are and do under normal circumstances, she might be able to imitate one of them. Or you could just use an evil River Maiden. But I like the subterfuge involved with the vampire myself.

[SirKicley]

LOTS OF GOOD STUFF

Pure wicked genius-ness there! Thanks for sharing, Garn. Even if it's not exactly as written, this truly provokes much inspired thoughts of these sorts of machinations by the Dark Lord.


Robert

[chairlead]

Maybe its an intermittent fault?

[Meneldor]

Garn thanks for reminding me about that perspective. I think you should definitely write it out as an adventure! That, plus the goodies you’ve PMed me is a great material for an investigative scenario/s with so many layers and twists. I wouldn’t do a good job at that. You would better put those ideas to use for all of us here! Also, if not as a scenarios, I would love at least to read it as a TOR fan fiction short stories!

So you are saying, Sauron would be less straightforward than Morgoth relaying mostly on the strength in numbers? I guees Dark Lord would be more cunning and deceiving but ultimately aren’t almost all of his great strategies sooner or later come to either his defeat, retreat, change of approach (not the adjust and adapt ability but trying out different ideas almost like had a problem to decide which solution to apply) and finally relaying on the same power of sheer physical force, military aggression yet not always with the best timing?
I guess I don’t see how Woodmen could be so important for him to play cat and mouse games. But you might be right. Maybe for his wicked sense of humor he would first pull the delicate strings to see if we can eliminate Mirkwood human guerrillas from within. And when it leads to nowhere or not the desired ends, he could always crush them with the conventional attack of his minions. Since probably a very important to him is what “evil” in the bigger picture he can pull out of destroying the Woodmen or chasing them out of the woods, I think he would love to pull the strings dividing rather than uniting the Free Peoples. And therefore I was hoping the Lamp could be such heirloom artifact having a significant meaning not only for the Woodmen but also Elves who might feel the flame should belong to them as rightful owners (again, if the Lamp is more than just one of many bluish lights with a healing powers the Elvenking has hanging all around his Palace). But it would be too obvious without the deceiving web of intermittent shorts in the system like chairlead just have nicely put it in the post above.

[Mim]

Concerning your question about including the vampires, Tolkien did include a brief reference or two. Here's one from Of Beren and Lúthien in The Silmarillion (ToR can't use that book but note the vampires in the LG):

But Lúthien heard his song, and she sang in answer, as she came through the woods unlooked for. For Huan, consenting once more to be her steed, had borne her swiftly hard upon Beren’s trail. Long he had pondered in his heart what counsel he could devise for the lightening of the peril of these two whom he loved. He turned aside therefore at Sauron’s Isle, as they ran northward again, and he took thence the ghastly wolf-hame of Draugluin, and the bat-fell of Thuringwethil. She was the messenger of Sauron, and was wont to fly in vampire’s form to Angband; and her great-fingered wings were barbed at each joint’s end with an iron claw. Clad in these dreadful garments Huan and Lúthien ran through Taur-nu-Fuin, and all things fled before them.

[Meneldor]

Ha! So that why vampires are called the “Secret Shadows” in LG. Thuringwethil - “Woman of Secret Shadow”. Thanks for that reference! I didn’t know that the werewolves with the vampires goes together a long way since Beleriand. Hopefully the Hart will give some expanded info about the River Maidens.

[Garn!]

Meneldor,
Morgoth was sneaky, but also very militant. So Morgoth was just as likely to scheme as to attack. Whereas Sauron always schemes first. Sauron is most likely to obtain a goal by careful use of speech to try to tempt, entice, undermine, disrupt and mislead his targets (example: Emissary). If these fail to work he will attempt a mix of words and actions by others, directly (Merchants) or indirectly (Young Woman) controlled by him, to reinforce his previously stated position. Failing again, now Sauron is likely to take the brute force approach, committing attacks and other direct acts of war.

I think he would love to pull the strings dividing rather than uniting the Free Peoples.

This absolutely says it all. I think Sauron might enjoy misleading others into ruin for themselves, friends and family, and the communities which they serve. I think the fall of Denethor illustrates this idea. Not simply because he is a major opponent, but because Denethor is reduced to a pitiable state: a bereft father, hopeless, believing murder (of Faramir) and suicide (for himself) are better than continued life serving a King - which the Stewards have been waiting centuries to return! Thus, at the end, Denethor is not just rejecting life, but everything that the Stewards of Gondor have worked for since they became regents of Gondor. As Denethor's pyre burned, Sauron was probably dancing a jig in the halls of Barad-dur.


As for the idea of creating an adventure out of the suggestions I made, or writing it up as fan fiction, I have to say at the moment I cannot. I have a few other things I'm working on. Besides, my comments and suggestions were meant to be helpful to you, they were not meant to make you give up on the project. If the story seems too complex all you have to do is build it in layers - like a cake. Put two things together and once you're happy with it, add a third (or more) until you're happy with the next result. Once you've completed the first draft, the real writing begins - polishing the words and phrases to make the adventure the best it can be. Hard? Yes, but not impossible.