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I'm soon to start another FTF campaign but this time set on the west of the Misty Mountains in the Lone-lands. While the MMO has a people called Eglain here there doesn't appear to be any such inhabitants in Eastern Eriador as described in the Rivendell supplement. Eglain appears to be something that MERP/ICE happened to toss into the mix based on the name of some hills in Falas. The translation from Sindarin is 'Forsaken' which would certainly apply to the area of the Lone-lands.

Anyway the character options I'm restricting the players to are Hobbits (of course), Men of Bree (reskinned Men of the Lake), Elves of Mirkwood, Dwarves plus Rangers and I was going to reskin Woodmen as the Eglain or Men of the Lone-lands. Now dropping Water legs, Serpent scimitar and Bowmen of the Guild from Lakemen seems appropriate for a landlocked trading culture (I may add some options back in later) but I got stuck on what to substitute for Woodcrafty for the Men of the Lone-lands reskinned Woodman. The Woodmen of Mountain Hall have Moutain Fighter as a replacement Cultural Blessing but my mind has gone a bit blank on something suitable for the Lone-lands.

Now if C7 would get a move on with the Adventurers book I believe that I'd have some choices for other cultures to add in but...

So how about some brainstorming from the folks on these boards to help me out.

Hermes Serpent wrote:Now if C7 would get a move on...

What a lovely turn of phrase to read for all those designers, writers, artists and editors at C7 and beyond who are already hard at work!

Rich H wrote:

Hermes Serpent wrote:Now if C7 would get a move on...

What a lovely turn of phrase to read for all those designers, writers, artists and editors at C7 and beyond who are already hard at work!

They know I love them, but if only they could get the stuff approved quicker I'd be like a pig in honey or whatever your preferred expression of delight is.

Hermes:

Are you just looking for fluffy re-skin names or are you looking to actually replace those things?

A fish in jam!

Re the Eglain, I think the Woodmen are an appropriate model as they are both essentially survivalist. I see the difference as the Eglain having few-to-no homes to defend, while the Woodmen are more established. I was honestly a little taken aback by their appearance in LOTRO, but I suppose a small group of nomadic Men living in the wild is certainly plausible. Wanderer/Treasure-Hunter should be the suggested calling, as there are countless ruins of the various kingdoms in the Lone-lands.

Instead of Mountain Fighter you could have something more like 'Explorer of Ruins' where they get some kind of bonus (either to combat or common rolls) if the land was once settled by Cardolan, etc. Maybe a double Explore/Search roll?

Off the top of my head I see no real gap in their Rewards/Virtues. The only standout might be the hound, as it's become iconic for the Woodmen. If you were doing another pet maybe it could be a bird of some kind? If you want to swap one out, and are okay with the treasure hunting/looting thing I've been going with, perhaps a Virtue would be something like 'Trained Treasure Seeker' (if that's not too Hobbity) where they get some kind of treasure bonus when there's a hoard to be found. Maybe work it in with the new magical items?

Just throwing out some ideas quickly here. Hopefully you can sift out some usable ones

I'm really looking for material that I can use to replace some of the Rewards and Virtues for Lakemen and Woodmen as well as specifically the Cultural Blessing for Woodmen as a new culture - Men of the Lone-lands.

The Explorer of Ruins thing is something that I'd thought of more as a Background that could work for them but I need to also take a look at some of the Ranger material to tune something for Men of the Lone-lands (which I prefer to Eglain really). The Hound is something that I don't think would work, but a horse/pony or maybe another animal might (I need to check out more Tolkien material i.e. HoME to get better ideas of what animals might work).

Now as I originally posted I suspect that a lot of this might be redundant when the Adventurers book is put up for pre-order but I can't be sure that when I start the first session on 3rd October that will be available so I'm planning ahead and not leaving it until the last minute. I'll also be going over some of the old threads where new cultures were discussed. Might be posting my final thoughts here as well for more comments.

So far I have made some adjustments to starting skills, moved 1 rank in Battle to 1 in Lore and 1 from Healing to Hunting. I written up six short form backgrounds and given appropriate spreads of Body, Heart and Wits (as Woodmen but arranged mostly to cover the Favoured skills), and Favoured skills (Travel, Stealth, Insight, Hunting, Healing and Lore). I left Endurance and Hope as those for Woodmen and am now working on Cultural Virtues and Rewards. I kept the Hunter's Resolve from the Woodmen culture as I felt that was appropriate. I also snagged Natural Watchfulness although that's not really what I want, just something similar in effect. That leaves one more Virtue and three rewards. The Virtue might be some form of animal, a hawk or a horse, or something that aids in the recovery of lost lore/artefacts from the past.

I've given Weapon skills as 1) (Swords) 2, Spear 1, Dagger 1 and 2) Bow 2. Sword 1, Dagger 1, mostly as I felt that swords were most appropriate and a normal bow was probably more useful in the rolling hills and occasional clumps of trees that seem to characterise the Lone-lands. With a frugal culture rating I'm thinking some form of leather armour would be appropriate, with that, a sword and a bow or a spear for Rewards.

In the thread about Wolves attacks, Ferretz wrote an interesting rule for warg-riding goblins that can be ported to horsemen. Maybe you can give a look at it, if you plan to use horses as rewards/virtues.

Thanks. There are a ton of things relating to horses and riding from back when discussing Riders of Rohan was a thing. There are several options relating to mounts to consider that were discussed then.

Looking at Cultural Virtues and Rewards I've been studying the material already in place.
There are usually Five Virtues and Three named Rewards relating to weapons and armour for a culture.
Bardings (7 of 8 are weapons)
Primary Weapon Skills (Swords), Great Bow
Fierce Shot - Great Bow
King's Men - Sword, Long Sword, Spear and Great Bow
Swordmaster - Sword or a Long sword
Dalish Longbow (Great bow)
Spear of King Bladorthin (Spear)

Beornings (3 of 8 are weapons or armour)
Primary Weapon Skills (Axes), Great Spear
Giant-slaying Spear (great Spear)
Splitting Axe (Axe or Great axe)
Noble Armour (leather armour)

Dwarves (2 of 8 are weapons or armour)
Primary Weapon Skills (Axes), Mattock
Axe of the Azanulbizar (great axe)
Dwarf-wrought Hauberk (mail armour)

Elves (5 of 8 are weapons or armour)
Primary Weapon Skills (Spears), Bow
Deadly Archery - Bow
Wood-elf Magic - Stinging Arrow
Bitter Spear (Spear)
Spearman’s Shield (buckler)
Woodland Bow (Bow)

Hobbits (4 of 8 are weapons or armour)
Primary Weapon Skills Short Sword, Bow
Fair Shot - Any missile weapon (presumably thrown spear or bow)
Bow of the North Downs (Bow)
King’s Blade (Short sword)
Lucky Armour (any armour)

Woodmen (3 of 8 are weapons or armour)
Primary Weapon Skills (Bows), Long-hafted Axe
Bearded Axe (Long-hafted axe)
Feathered Armour (any armour)
Shepherds-bow (Bow or Great bow)

Lakemen (4 of 8 are weapons or armour)
Primary Weapon Skills Great Bow, Sword
Bowman of the Guild (Bow or Great Bow)
Shield Fighting (Shield)
Brazen Armour (mail armour)
Serpent Scimitar (sword)

With this in mind I have (Swords) and Bow as the Men of the Lone-lands Primary Weapon skills resulting in a need for one Cultural Virtue that is weapon/armour based and three Rewards that are weapons/armour based. With (Swords) and Bow as weapons skills I should have a Reward involving a Sword or Long sword, one Bow related and one leather armour related.

I'm thinking of the Bow option as excluding the Parry shield bonus. The (Swords) option as maybe giving a Parry bonus relating to the Encumbrance of the sword and the armour as giving a bonus to Stealth.

The (Swords) option I could associate with Arthedain, Rhudaur or with Cardolan as the three kingdoms that cover the area of the Lone-lands post the breakup of Arnor. The bow similarly and the armour could be a relic somehow associated with those old kingdoms but the timespan between 1974/5 and 2946 is really too great for anything physical to survive. It is possible for a style of weapon or armour to continue being made and that is probably the way from me to go.

Also possible is the use of a relic of the old kingdoms similar to the Lakemen's Keening Bog stone in place of the armour Reward.

I've got my first cut for the Men of the Lone-lands culture sorted.

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id= ... sp=sharing

Let me know what you think.