Increasing Eye Awareness from Shadow gain

[Indur Dawndeath]

I need a little help here, as I am introducing Eye Awareness now for the first time.
It says in the rules that the Eye awareness increases with Shadow gain, so if one companion get one or more points of shadow, the Eye Awareness goes up by an equal amount.

What if the entire party get an automatic point of shadow from witnessing an act of evil Orc Butchery, then if the party is large enough, they immediately trigger a revelation episode.

Is this how it is supposed to be, or should the Eye Awareness only increase by one point, if all the party receives one point of Shadow and not by one for each player?

Want to do it right the first time and not have to revise later.

Thanks

[Angelalex242]

Oh, that's easy enough. If they witness orc butchery and fail to shrug it off, the orcs come back to assault the heroes. So, 1 awareness per shadow point gained is still quite fair.

[Falenthal]

Whenever a companion gains 1 or more Shadow
points outside of combat increase the Eye Awareness
level by an equal amount.

Sad, but true. Increase Eye Awareness by 1 for every Shadow Point gained. If it's a group of five, then +5 to Eye Awareness.

[Indur Dawndeath]

Thanks for the feedback.
Was curious if it worked well, done like that. The revelation episodes could become much more frequent than Hazard episodes in some dark areas.
For example a trip through Mirkwood, even on the elf path could easily generate 2-3 Shadow points for every player in an inexperienced party and if the party is composed of 6 players, then we are looking at, at least 2 revelation episodes, just to cross Mirkwood. and any number of hazards as usual.

I was thinking to throw the Werewolf at the party first time they get a revelation, but I guess with this frequency I have to downgrade the encounters

[Angelalex242]

Well, as a GM, keep the 'Sorting Algorithim of Evil' in mind. You don't want to throw evil at the party they can't beat and can't run from. Nor do you want Revelations to be a TPK, as revelations will be a predictable recurring event.

[Indur Dawndeath]

I know
But I want to be prepared to make exiting revelations, not just: By the way, the orc you just defeated, did you notice that it had twice its normal endurance, isn't that odd. Now reset Eye Awareness...

I prepared it like this:
Revelation episode: The Werewolf. (For Questing Beasts)
”You are suddenly in a world of silence. A pressure slowly builds in your ears until the pain is almost unbearable.
A tremor is felt in the ground and in the forest around you. You feel that the forest has been turned against you, it is encroaching on you. The air becomes suffocating and warm.
Through a haze you see an enormous beast, blazing yellow eyes stare at you, its mouth dripping with blood and the remains of a White Deer. The Deer you had chased for many days. The scene is horrifying, pieces of Deer is everywhere. (Roll for Terror) (Gain 1 Shadow each)
The beast turns toward [“Player” and reveals one of his wondrous artifacts as being cursed](Gain one Shadow)
The Werewolf slowly departs with its pray, the White Deer. And leaves its younger brethren to do the fighting, this time… 2 wolves/ player + 1 Hound of Sauron.
(Eye awareness almost up to Hunt threshold again after the revelation)
English is not my native language, so please excuse my grammar)

[Angelalex242]

Hmm.

That's where I disagree. Shadow earned DURING a revelation should not contribute to Eye Awareness, and in fact, Awareness is automatically set to 0 after a revelation, as Sauron arrogantly goes 'don't need to worry about THEM for a while...' Shadow earned during a revelation counts as the Eye directly attacking the party, and the damage he does during such an attack is the Eye dealing damage, not putting a tracking marker on them for next time.

Or so I'd see it.

[Indur Dawndeath]

Shadow earned DURING a revelation should not contribute to Eye Awareness, and in fact, Awareness is automatically set to 0 after a revelation

That is a very good point. Thanks.

[Corvo]

(...)
What if the entire party get an automatic point of shadow from witnessing an act of evil Orc Butchery, then if the party is large enough, they immediately trigger a revelation episode.
(...)

Hi Dawndeath,
only tangential to your topic, but keep in mind that "automatic points of shadow" are usually gained through misdeeds.
Your example seems taken from the table at page 223 (Anguish), but the "1 shadow point" listed in the table is gained only if you fail the corruption roll (page 222, last line).

That said, automatic shadow points are gained even if you "Experience directly the power of the Enemy" (and with that capital "E" I reckon we aren't talking about mere orcs

[Indur Dawndeath]

or by lifting treasures from a Dark Lord stronghold. Hope your fellowship isn't doing such things on a regular basis

Just once, but that is also the only chance they've had. They went into the river to get Lockman's tainted treasure and received the Automatic Shadow for the effort. So I don't know if they've learned their lesson or if they'll do it again...
But now that I think about it, it would have been VERY fitting to throw a relvelation episode at them as soon as they took possession of that treasure.

Cheers