Darkening of Mirkwood: Folk-moot at Rhosgobel

[Brandiwise]

Ran the Folk-moot encounter for my group on Friday night. We're only three sessions in but it was important for the rest of the campaign to see how the company would react to this. To give incentive I'd encouraged players to take the advantage of holdings and they have decided to take up Amaleoda's offer to join her at Black Tarn (I had the players take the folk-moot invitation to Ceawin themselves which gave them an opportunity to see the 'lay of the land' and meet both Amaleoda and Ceawin). So far I have a Beorning (with a Woodman mother) who has set up a fishing lodge there, a Barding woodwright / smith who has set up a forge (very useful for a newish settlement) and the Hobbit who decided that he'd settle down and dig a hobbit hole there. Given this they were always going to be pro-Amaleoda but were particularly interested in the link between the Black Tarn and East Bight and further up to Dale which looked like a good trade route.

The players had already captured and questioned Dagmar and by the time Mogdred arrived were set against him so he didn't really stand much of a chance in the moot. When he arrived and demanded tribute etc I allowed a brief 'recess' for the group to influence the audience while Ingomer and the other elders discussed in private (given that Ingomer was shaken by the 'personal' news). The Beorning went all 'Braveheart' and talked of the need for the Woodmen to stand together "For FREEDOM" etc. which got a number of the young bloods going. He was particularly annoyed about the threat to Amaleoda. The Elf Bard sang a song to inspire hearts (I ruled that he sang of the Last Alliance as it seemed appropriate given the setting and what he wanted to say). The best moment, though, was when the Hobbit stood up and gave an extraordinary lesson in manners to those present (whcih of course included Mogdred) culminating in the phrase "Above all, it's just plain rude!" He rolled an extraordinary success! I ruled that a number of the older women at the moot were particularly taken with the polite young gentleman.

Ultimately, the moot agreed to invite both Amaleoda and Ceawin to become formal woodmen groupings (they were concerned that Ceawin's settlement would be taken over by Mogdred if allowed to stand alone) and the Woodmen agreed a NATOesque common defence plan (an attack on one is an attack on all). The players are now all anticipating an attack by Mogdred (who left in high dudgeon). I anticipate they'll want to go to war at some point but I may just allow some brief skirmishes for the time being! Should be interesting!

[Majestic]

Great summary, Brandiwise! It's fun hearing about how it went for others. I never got a chance to play through this one, so it happened "off-screen" as it were. But your results pretty much mirror how I had things happen.

[Andrew]

Last time we got together to play, we played through the Folk-moot. But, because the group was fairly new they were not well integrated enough with the Woodmen to necessarily have a sway or a stake in the outcome.

So what I did was after they'd conducted their own business, I handed them each a card for one of the leaders of the moot, with their goals and personality on it, then they switched to playing them for the duration of the scene. The players really got into it too!

They voted to help Bofri and to send a delegation to Beorn about the tolls. After some indecisiveness over Ceawin (which was great separation of characters for roleplaying, as their own heroes are tight with Ceawin) they voted to let him in, but they would not share the risk. They voted similarly with Black Tarn, but agreed to help strengthen its defences. Finally, they unanimously voted against Tyrant's Hill, with a caveat - they would send a delegation to find out more about them and reconsider in a year.

I'll dig out the chieftain cards to post up if you like!