Important people and locations in DoM and TfW

[modsr]

I'm starting a campaign within a week. I'm planning to run Marsh Bell (possibly modified a bit), Words of the Wise and interweave about three of the Tales from Wilderland adventures (the first two and Kinstrife) into the Darkening of Mirkwood campaign.

The problem is, I'm in quite a hurry and am not completely familiar with some of the details in DoM (I just got it last week). I have browsed it almost through but I'm not confident I get most of the stuff yet. This is not a problem per se, since I'll be running mainly the other stuff first (which will take a lot of real time). Still, I'd really like to introduce some of the important stuff from DoM already in chargen (so it'll be more believable and the players will also have some personal stake in the events).

For example, I know one of the players will probably play a hobbit and I will pitch him into having something to do with the Easterly Inn (maybe a cousin of Dodi and Dindy or maybe he just took the trip with them). Someone said that you could replace the merchant from the first Tales adventure with another merchant from DoM. This is exactly the kind of stuff I'm looking for.

What characters and locations should I introduce at chargen and the first few sessions? I don't need to (and can't) cover all the important characters obviously, but at least some of them. I think it really adds credibility to everything if they've known someone for a long time as opposed to me going "The man lives in Rhosgobel, so you know him from way back. He's such and such."

I should note, this is the first time I've ever run a game with pre-written adventures (and I've been running games for 20 years). I'm used to doing stuff the other way around, where players establish the places and people close to them at chargen and I build stuff around them.

Thanks!

[Hermes Serpent]

A lot of the material in DoM will not come out in play for (game) years in the future (the book covers thirty years) so you won't need to know that much to start. I'd stick with starting in Lake-town and using the festivals in the Autumn/Fall to bring the company together. If you have the Laketown book (and screen) you can run a lot of material (not pre-written) based on the hooks contained in that. You can introduce Encounters with an easier one than meeting Gloin and later on have the company meet him and do the Marsh Bell a bit later. Moving the invitation to the Eagles to the next year if necessary. That way you can be in a position to introduce Travel later than the Encounters mechanism (the other important leg of the game mechanics is Combat which you can fit in elsewhere). Back in Laketown you can have the company run into the merchant for the crossing on the Elf-path for late Spring/early Summer so they are on the correct side of Mirkwood for the Kinstrife episode. You might have to be careful with Kinstrife as, depending upon player actions, they can all end up dead very easily.

[Heilemann]

Re. Kinstrife, the final battle might be a little harder than it seems. Almost killed my players; I had some Beornings come to their rescue (just name them, and it'll seem less heavy-handed )

[Murcushio]

Also too: you might have to chop and re-work a lot of stuff depending on party composition.

DoM isn't a badly put-together campaign, but it is very much "The Wood-men Show, Guest Starring the Wood-elves", with the occasional special on-the-road episode in Dale.

DoM sort of assumes you'll spend years and years hanging out in Southern Mirkwood with only occasional forays elsewhere. The Beornings especially are given short shrift; their peoples confrontation with the Viglundings took place entirely off-screen, which was a bit "wait... what?".

This isn't to say you can't get a lot of mileage out of it. But your non-Woodmen players may need you to create additional content dealing with them and their home cultures.

[modsr]

Point taken about DoM and its Woodmen-centerism. While browsing I did kind of always wonder why the fight of the Beornings was only told in the yearly news -type of paragraph instead of the detailed adventures the Woodmen got.

I just now discovered Blood in the Waters, a fan-made introductory adventure and I liked it a lot since it is very straight-forward and low-key. Plus it serves as a nice gateway into Marsh Bell (the heroes have a name already). Anyone tried it, and if so how did it work for your group? Blood in the Waters introduces Rigurz, a half-orc. While an interesting character, it'd be pretty easy to introduce some other villain that will come up in the adventures of TfW and DoM. Any ideas on who this could be?

I'm thinking of going BitW, Marsh Bell, Don't leave the path, Of leaves... and I'll try to sneak the Folk Moot from DoM somewhere in there (it seems to be the most important event in the first years). By then I'll probably have a good idea where the game is going. Sound ok?

Thanks!

[Hermes Serpent]

I've run BitW a few times as the starter for various campaigns. It's a great little scenario for two or three sessions and get's people familiar with Encounters, Combat and Travel very nicely. The merchant in that I have used as the merchant for the first scenario of Tales.

I'm not going into who is involved in my extended version of BitW as I currently have a company on the western side of Mirkwood seeking information about that person but as a clue she does turn up in HotW. This company is heading for a Folk moot of the people in the eastern upper vales, the Eastmark.

Your ideas certainly sound very reasonable

[zedturtle]

I'm not super familiar with Blood in the Water, but the relationship between Baldor and Brego (and their history) is an important element of Don't Leave the Path and I think would loose something if a generic substitution was done.

If the characters recover the shard of Wolfbiter, then returning that to the Woodmen could naturally lead to them showing up at the Folk Moot and the chieftains beings willing to listen to them.

An ambitious rewrite could involve Kinstrife and Dark Tidings and the event of 2947... Making Oderic a run-away from (or to) Tyrant's Hill would change the whole dynamic of that adventure, but it might work.

Other things I've done to tie things together: the characters met Irimë when they visited the Elf King's halls in Don't Leave the Path; a departing player's character went off to look into rumours of a man named Viglund and his ambitions to the north of the Beornings; Tholin has recently shown up and offered for the PCs to tag along with him through the Narrows; and maybe other stuff I'm not thinking of right now.

[Hermes Serpent]

The merchant in Blood has a son but is female so there would have to be some adjustment to deal with that but not much I think. Grief for a partner and a parent would be similar regardless of gender.

[zedturtle]

The merchant in Blood has a son but is female so there would have to be some adjustment to deal with that but not much I think. Grief for a partner and a parent would be similar regardless of gender.

Yeah, just give her the same background as Baldor then and you're all set... and/or swap Baldor and Brego in for those two characters.

[Eclipse]

It should be easy enough to switch the characters in the adventure. I just did not want to use characters created by others without permission.