Blighted places

[Wbweather]

So while I feel I have a decent grasp of the rules for blighted places, I was hoping to get some input as to how you all determine the number of corruption tests to require.

I ask, because traveling through Mirkwood in general could easily get overwhelming. For instance. The shortest route through the Narrows is an 80 mile trek through daunting terrain in a Shadow land. This would require 12 days and 12 corruption tests from each player. Not only would just performing all the rolls bog the game down, but also could very quickly raise a characters shadow score to an unmanageable amount. Considering the existence of Sunstead in DoM, this is a route that the players might make fairly often.

Traveling the length of the Old Forrest Road would be much worse, requiring something like 44 corruption tests.
(70 miles through Western Mirkwood:9 days, 2 corruption tests + 140 miles through the Mountains of Mirkwood: 21 days, 42 corruption tests)
I know the rules state:

It is left to the discretion of the Loremaster to determine
whether a place is considered blighted or not. It is
possible for an area found within a region classified as
Wild, Shadow or even Dark not to require any Corruption
tests to traverse.

So how are other loremasters handling this?

Also, how do you set the TN for corruptions tests due to traveling through blighted places?

Most of the time, the Target Number for the roll is 14, but it
can be raised or lowered by the Loremaster depending on
the severity of the source of corruption.

[zedturtle]

Remember the clarification in Laketown... not every terrain area that might be Blighted is actually blighted. In other words, the characters might be able to weave their way around dangers. Make rolls to determine if they hit a blighted place, and then roll for Corruption.

Doesn't solve the 'lots of rolls' problem, though instead of make four 1-in-12 rolls, you can make one 4-in-12 roll instead (the math isn't exactly right, but that should be close enough for what TOR requires).

[Seosaidh]

On page 223 of the Revised Core Rules, it states that whether a land is blighted or not is at the discretion of the LM, but if the LM isn't sure, he can roll on a table labeled 'Blighted Lands'. A d12 is rolled according to the number of times on the table for the land the characters are in, and if an Eye result occurs, the land is blighted, and the companions must make a Corruption test. I believe the TN is to be set to the same TN as the travel checks (based on what type of land).

[Wbweather]

I understand the rules as written, I was asking more about how other LM's chose when to count areas as blighted. When do you decide to use the x many corruption tests a day, vs the roll to see if the areas is blighted rule, vs the this is a dark part of the story and something bad is about to happen "roll a corruption test" option.

I've generally tried to tie the corruption tests into the story as needed, or if they are definitely in a very bad place (i.e. in the Mountains of Mirkwood). As far as a group passing through the Narrows with an active settlement at the Black Tarn Hall and Sunstead, I tend to consider the place no longer blighted at that time in history.

Is this how other of you are running things?

[Hermes Serpent]

You seem to be confusing the area is blighted thing with a whole region. A blighted are is a small area that something horrible has happened in. The whole of the Narrows was never blighted either in the original books/slipcase or the revised rules.

I tend to have certain hexes as Blighted because something horrible occurred there not a a matter of course because it's in an area that is Shadow Lands.

[Wbweather]

Okay. I get that. And that's how I run my games. Just making sure I was doing it correctly.