Rivendell & Ruins of the North opinion

[Arthadan]

Hi all,

I've just finished reading Ruins and the North and i would like to share my thoughts and hear yours about this book and about Rivendell. This is just my opinion, for what is worth.

Rivendell: I think is "correct", but it lacks the feel of wonder of The Heart of the Wild. Where the last had NPCs and locations fitting and expanding Middle-earth perfectly, Rivendell has just some short pharagraphs for juicy locations such Tharbad or Eregion and not a single map for them. The description of Rivendell is functional, but when I compare it with the colorful and characterful description of Lake-town I find it somewhat lacking. New rules are interesting, but the system is becoming more and more complex (and we still have to get mounted combat rules at very least). New monster were fun, but I'm picky when it comes to Undead.
Overall, I think it provides a solid base, but it misses all the fine and rich details that would have made it shine as previous books.

Ruins of the North: Again, I find it correct if a bit souless. Adventures plots are clever, but sometimes I get the feeling they try too hard to be original. As a result of avoiding classic themes, the adventures are set in Middle-earth but they don't feel (to me) as Middle-earth stories. Either stretching the canon too much or playing with locations and characters that could be easily exported to any other fantasy setting.
Please don't take me wrong here, I think they are good adventures and fun to play and authors deserve all my respect. I just think they feel a bit generic instead of feeling like Middle-earth tales.

I hope to immerse myself in Middle-earth as I did with the first books with every new supplement and I haven't been able to with these.

Just my two cents, what do you think?

[Falenthal]

I'm sorry to say that I agree 100% with your opinion.

Heart of the Wild + Darkening of Mirkwood + Tales of the Wilderland set such a high standard, that whatever comes after them will have a very hard time getting me so excited.

Good supplements, even very good at some points, but not excellent as the former trio.

[Glorelendil]

I partly agree. I don't think the Eriador supplements are lower quality than the core material, but they have a different feel.

What is conspicuously different, of course, is that Ruins of the North is six disparate adventures, not a continuous tale like Tales from Wilderland, nor a thematic context like Darkening of Mirkwood.

Also, bear in mind that Heart of the Wild is a 128-page book, and we get a lot of descriptions of Wilderland in the core rulebook. The analogous part of Rivendell that describes Eriador is only 32 pages long.

Once we have stats for Breelanders and Blue Mountain Dwarves, maybe what we'll need is a fan-made equivalent to TfW: a multi-year "campaign" for new characters set in Eriador.

[Wbweather]

I like the idea of a fan made campaign and have been playing around with some ideas. Maybe I'll get a chance soon to organize them and share what I'm thinking and see what people think.

[Arthadan]

Also, dont forget that Eriador is an empty and desolate place compare to the Wilderland. It's hard to make a fair comparaison between the two.

I think it only gives less room for politics, but more room for old misteries burried in ruins. Also in LotR Aragorn seems to imply rangers are very active protecting Eriador, not only from Barrow-wights.

Things I'd have loved to see, fom te top of my head:
-Maps of the Barrow-downs, another of Tharbad and another one of eregion, full of adventure hooks.
-Some charismatic NPCs in Elrond's house such a Silvan Elf minstrel with a very sharp tongue, a melacholic Elf maiden who can read dreams, the hardened warriors who patrol the surroundings of the Hidden Valley.
-Hint for quests given by Glorfindel to find something from the Old Days (a powerful magic item, or maybe preventing a great evil to come back).
-A very special location in Imladris such the map-reading room in the movies (not specifically that one, but something along those lines unique and magical)... the last refuge of the Noldor deserves something more special than bookshelves and stables.
-Interesting NPCs, such a boy with traces od dúnedain blood who lives in an isolated farmstead and is gifted with premotions (like Malbeth the Seer) but he hasn't have they are things to come and he thinks he's going crazy.
-Something about Giants! They are not covered in Wilderland and they don't appear here either.
- The secret refuge of the Rangers in the Angle.

In short, less rules and more background info, more detail for locations, more adventure hooks... more like its Wilderland counterpart.

[Heilemann]

I don't disagree either. While most of the material is great on its own, I think what's missing is a sense of cohesion, maybe because both books were assembled from several authors working apart? To be clear, I don't know if that's the case, but it feels like it.

Similarly, I feel the same way about the rising complexity level. There's a lot to keep in mind, especially because each book brings about more fellowship phase undertakings and additional rules. Maybe the upcoming Maps & Journeys release will help some of that, but it's definitely something to keep an eye on.

As a point of comparison, I played the X-Wing miniatures game for a while, but as they've been piling on new expansions at a rapid rate I've all but given up trying to keep up (and I'm considering selling everything I have )

[poosticks7]

I thought the adventures in Ruins of the North were of good quality and suitably Tolkien in tone. I'm not sure why you would think otherwise, can you explain further?

I thought they covered a range of interesting subjects and each had a interesting story to tell. I would be interested to know why you think they are lacking (and not just - they are done by different authors).

[Glorelendil]

Just looking at the map a minute ago, and I do wish there were fewer "Lone Lands" and that those places were filled in with more color. I realize it's hard because those areas are supposed to be largely empty, but for centuries...millennia...they were not.

[Arthadan]

I would be interested to know why you think they are lacking (and not just - they are done by different authors).

For me, a collection of self-contained adventures by different authors works as well as interliked ones by the same authors. Here you a more detailed list of what I think of each.

Disclaimer: I think all the adventures are good and fun to play and I do respect the work of the authors. I don't pretend to be right about everything I say, nor I think I can do it any better. This is just my opinion based on my personal preferences and my interpretation of Tolkien texts.


******SPOILERS AHEAD, BE WARNED!!









- Nightmares of Angmar: Perfectly fine with this one. Not too keen on the crab-like description of the Lurker of the Valley, but certainly it does not contradict canon and I like the way of handling the heroes actions impact on Essylt with key moments mechanic. One thing that caught my eye was the name Heddwyn because -wyn means "joy" or "joyous" in Old English as in the name Éowyn. Needles to say Hill-men speech is not related to Rohirric (or its mother tongue). I'm no languages expert, but the other Hill-men names sound fine to me.

- Harder than Stone:
* Mormog: As an Olog-hai he can endure sunlight only as long as Sauron's will is directed to him:

Unlike the older race of the Twilight they could endure the Sun, so long as the will of Sauron held sway over them.
Lord of the Rings Appendix.

Taking in account that Sauron is vanished from Dol Guldur in the late summer of 2941, went to East to recover and the goes to Mordor in 2951, I have a hard time he could direct his will to Mormog while still recovering from several miles away in the east.
Then Mormog should have come from Southern Mirkwood which is quite a long journey, specially if he can't resist the sun.

*Feredrûn:
- Serving willingly the Dark Lord -or doing any kind of evil for the matter- is corrupting. So if a "good" spirits decides to ally himself with the dark Lord and do his biiding, from that moment he's corrupted to some extent. It's quite debatable if being already corrupted and forced to do more evil acts doesn't make you fall further down in the corruption pit.
- She's suppose to serve Oromë but come from the Void. If she's outside Eä, how can she serve one of the Powers of Eä?
- Manwë decided after the War of Wrath that the Valar will not go again to Middle-earth as the cost of the war was devastating, nor the Maiar with the exception of the Istari. So Sauron should have trapped Feredrûn before the War of Wrath, quite strange she wasn't set free after the war.
- I find strange none of the Wise was aware of such a powerful spirit using magic. For example:

At last reluctantly Gandalf himself took a hand. Picking up a faggot he held it aloft for a moment, and then with a word of command, naur an edraith ammen! he thrust the end of his staff into the midst of it. At once a great spout of green and blue flame sprang out, and the wood flared and sputtered.
`If there are any to see, then I at least am revealed to them,' he said. 'I have written Gandalf is here in signs that all can read from Rivendell to the mouths of Anduin.'
The Fellowship of the Ring

So if starting a fire with magic does that, what would do using magic/magical skills all the time? I asume Mormog uses her because she can do magic, otherwise it would be just like having another mortal servant.

* The tunnel beneath the river Hoarwell: Ten years digging a tunnel with many more to go seem a huge waste of time. Specially if you don't have a ramy to use it. On the other hand, if you do have an army its presence is going to be noticed so just build a bridge (which is significantly faster) and cross the river. I may have missed something about this.

Also not a fan of the open end, I would have prefered more information about Mormog's plans.

- Concerning archers: Two words: Hobbits ghosts. The whole notion of Mannish spirits forced to stay because unfinished tasks (I also remeber an old man south of the Grey Mountains who tries to get back home and turn out to be a ghost) is against canon. Sure we have Ringwraiths enslaved by Rings of Power which were meant to be used by Elves and a cursed army of Men out of the Paths of the Dead. But being trapped by your own oath seems a bit silly to me. The general rule is this:

“But the sons of Men die indeed, and leave the world; wherefore they are called the Guests, or the Strangers. Death is their fate, the gift of Ilúvatar, which as Time wears even the Powers shall envy. But Melkor has cast his shadow upon it, and confounded it with darkness, and brought forth evil out of good, and fear out of hope.”
-The Silmarillion: The History of the Silmarils, Chapter One “Of the Begining of Days”

-The Company of the Wain: it can be perfectly extrapolated to any other fantasy world with little effort. I can't find any elements or themes exclusive of Middle-earth. Things like fighting a renegade Rohirrim or facing villagers in Road's End.

- What lies beneath: I can buy Húldrair as some kind of wraith created with a Morgul blade. My concern here is making the heroes face and maybe even kill a bunch of kids doesn't sound like my kind of Middle-earth tale.

- Shadows over Tyrn Gorthad: This is the one I like the most save for the main plot. Barrow-wights strolling under midday sun is wrong in so many levels for me. First it's against the very essence of what a Barrow-wight is (an evil spirith inhabiting a dead corpse in a Barrow), then is not compatible with the canon. We don't have undead armies in Middle-earth (please note ghosts unlike Wraiths and Wights, are not created through Sorcery and there is just one case of them). In fact Barrow-wights are destroyed by sunlight:

Tom stooped, removed his hat, and came into the dark chamber, singing:
Get out, you old Wight! Vanish in the sunlight!
Shrivel like the cold mist, like the winds go wailing,
Out into the barren lands far beyond the mountains!
Come never here again! Leave your barrow empty!
Lost and forgotten be, darker than the darkness,
Where gates stand for ever shut, till the world is mended.
At these words there was a cry and part of the inner end of the chamber fell in with a crash.Then there was a long trailing shriek, fading away into an unguessable distance; and after that silence.
The Fellowship of the Ring.

I know the adventure is supposed to change the way these Undead are defeated, but that's too game-changing for me. The light of Sun is sacred, as it comes from the last fruit of Laurelin and such it's a bane for every evil creature, specially the Undead. Even the Ringwraiths are greatly hindered by it.

I could add that if that's possible we should have massive armies of undead coming from the east, that the Witch-king should have chosen any other burial place to create Wights where the won't be trapped for milenia (eriador was fairly populated at the time), that such an event would have made the East Road to have bad reputation and being avoided from Bree to the Shire for decades to come and that it makes the Ringwraith nothing special at all. then having an army in the middle of scarcely populated Eriador doesn't seem like it should be a priority in the Dark Lord plans.

[Otaku-sempai]

- Harder than Stone:
* Mormog: As an Olog-hai he can endure sunlight only as long as Sauron's will is directed to him:

- Concerning archers: Two words: Hobbits ghosts. The whole notion of Mannish spirits forced to stay because unfinished tasks (I also remeber an old man south of the Grey Mountains who tries to get back home and turn out to be a ghost) is against canon. Sure we have Ringwraiths enslaved by Rings of Power which were meant to be used by Elves and a cursed army of Men out of the Paths of the Dead. But being trapped by your own oath seems a bit silly to me.

Olog-hai: I don't think that Sauron has to give the Troll his personal attention for it to be able to withstand the sun. It is enough (in my opinion) that Sauron is active in Middle-earth.

Mannish ghosts are completely within canon, or have you forgotten about the Oath-breakers from the Paths of the Dead?