The Darkening of Mirkwood was amazing!

[bluejay]

My group completed the Darkening of Mirkwood tonight. I just want to say what a truly amazing experience this has been. The players have loved every minute of it!

Bravo to Cubicle 7 and everyone involved here, particularly Gareth!

[Glorelendil]

Oooh. I can't wait. We're just about to start DoM in Zed's PbP game and I'm giddy.

[bluejay]

I'm sure you're going to love it! It might take a while though. This was the best part of around 12-18 months of face to face gaming.

[Corvo]

I'm sure you're going to love it! It might take a while though. This was the best part of around 12-18 months of face to face gaming.

I'm envious: I'm just at '54
How many sessions had been, roughly?

Me and my group manage just 1-2 sessions per month

[bluejay]

I think it has to have been around 50+ sessions definitely. We don't play every week but we try to. I think the entire campaign (including Tales of the Wilderness, The Marsh Bell and Words of the Wise) has lasted around 18 months. We also ran the first adventure from Ruins of the North before the finale of Darkening of Mirkwood as it fit well with actions the characters were taking.

Truly a stunning campaign and given the resources available if you have the time to expand upon it (I didn't unfortunately) I genuinely think you could get about 3 years of fantastic weekly play out of it. It's just an amazing campaign.

The team have decided to retire their characters now as they are all around 6 Valour, 6 Wisdom and 6 in their main weapon skills. Very tough characters in the end. The Wood Elf actually killed a mountain troll in her opening volley by using Stinging Arrow twice!

[Dunkelbrink]

Congratulations blujay! I think it might be a first, at least here on the forums. I agree it's an amazing campaign.

We're entering year 2950 soon, this after 20+ sessions (weaving Tales of Wilderland and some other stuff into it) so it's probably going to be another three years or so until we finish.

Could you share how it ended for your group and some of the highlight moments? (Spoiler alert of course.)

[bluejay]

OK MAJOR MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW!!!







First thing is that the finale was shockingly upbeat. The team were certainly exceptionally tough by the end but the dice were on their side last night. They achieved the maximum possible victory and even bested Khamul at the same time. They stood and fought enemy after enemy and beat them down. The Beorning was wounded by the end but took it all in his stride. It was a wonderful end to the campaign to be honest.

As for highlights, I think to put it in context nearly every week of gaming was fantastic. The best thing this campaign does is bring Rhovanion to life. The characters feel real and the politics makes a lot of sense. While the group may try and strive for all free folk they got to understand the partisanship of the various factions involved. Even an adventure largely based around debate with leaders was fun for the group. The Fellowship feels very invested in the whole region.

Still if that's not what floats your boat there was plenty of other truly great adventuring heroism! As for highlights I would say defeating the forest dragon was definitely amazing. The team really pulled out their resources and ingenuity for that. The parliament of spiders was a favourite of mine just because I feel it hits the tone perfectly. The siege of Black Tarn is very evocative with help coming from a somewhat unexpected source. Also rescuing prisoners from Dol Guldur is a real epic.

My absolute favourite is Beorn's spirit quest because it's just a truly wondrous adventure and the ending is really great fantasy. Too much of this would spoil the flavour but that's what makes it great. One thing of this nature in the whole campaign really makes it special and it's a great adventure!

[zedturtle]

Oooh. I can't wait. We're just about to start DoM in Zed's PbP game and I'm giddy.

Yes, Yes. I am also excited to be part of this adventure.

No pressure, right?

[Glorelendil]

Oooh. I can't wait. We're just about to start DoM in Zed's PbP game and I'm giddy.

Yes, Yes. I am also excited to be part of this adventure.

No pressure, right?

OMG why are you on these forums instead of posting to the game?

[zedturtle]

Oooh. I can't wait. We're just about to start DoM in Zed's PbP game and I'm giddy.

Yes, Yes. I am also excited to be part of this adventure.

No pressure, right?

OMG why are you on these forums instead of posting to the game?

Cause I needed to look something up... I'm on my work laptop, and remote accessing my home station seems to be borked for some reason.

Plus, you should check the other forum.