Request for help with a campaign idea (warning: long post)

[Ravenarchon]

Greetings again everyone. I actually wrote this up once before and tried to post it, but the message board ate it after I had spent a good 30+ minutes typing and I was so frustrated by losing everything I wrote I put it off a few more days.

In any case I'm hoping to get some feedback on a campaign idea I'm working on. I've always found designing campaigns for Middle Earth to be hard. I think the loremaster's book even mentions that this is not uncommon as story telling in ME can be intimidating. While settings like Star Wars or D&D or Dragon Warriors always feel open to new possibilities, it can almost feel like I'm intruding or sometimes when I try to tamper with Tolkien's world. That being said, books like Tales from Wilderland and really the TOR RPG in general have really shown me that there are still good, fitting stories that can be included in ME, and reading through Heart of the Wild caused some ideas to click that I want to build a campaign out of, but I also want to make sure it fits in ME. Hopefully you guys can let me know if I'm way off track or if it's looking okay so far, and also maybe give me ideas to rework stuff or flesh it out. If nothing else maybe I'll give one of you an idea you can run with for your own games.

Please note, this is a somewhat lengthy post. I tried to find a BBCode to do the "click to show text" thing, but couldn't find one.

My ideal revolves around the power vacuum left with the casting out of the Necromancer from Dol Guldur, and a number of previously un-influential entities that, through a combination of happenstance, and their own evil designs, have reached an uneasy truce and devised a plan to change the entire balance of power within Mirkwood and the surrounding areas.

The first major villain is an outcast goblin. Disgraced by catastrophic failure he has been banished by his tribesmen - or perhaps fled before meat was back on the menu - and he and his few loyalists (who may also share his blame, or perhaps are with him simply because he scares them) have been wondering around Mirkwood keeping to the shadows, avoiding everyone, including other goblins (perhaps the disgraced wear a noticeable mark showing their failure? A branding perhaps?). The turning point comes when, by chance or evil influence, this particular goblin acquires the capacity to use sorcery. Perhaps he finds a relic of Dol Guldur or writings of the necromancer himself? In any case he finds he has a fair aptitude for it, though it's slow going, as mortals aren't really built for the casting of spells.

The second major villain is an uncharacteristically intelligent and observant Mirkwood Giant Spider. He is not an outcast but almost wishes he was, as he is entirely unsatisfied with... pretty much everything. The queen of his nest is fat and lazy, the Elves treat them like vermin and hunt them to extinction, and his brethren and sisters live like beasts, entirely without ambition, scraping by on whatever foul creature they can scavenge from the forest. Of the two villains I am actually thinking of making the spider the more intelligent and manipulative, but he actually plays on the animalistic preconception most others have about his kind.

At some point prior to the start of the story, these two individuals meet, and rather than killing each other, realize they could both use the other to their advantage. Perhaps the Goblin was taken aback by the Spider's cunning and battle strategy. Perhaps the Spider was shocked to see a Goblin casting spells (or at least trying to). In either case they reach an uneasy truce. They're both actually using the other and betrayal always lurks behind everything they do, but for the moment they are allies.

Their plan is several fold, with the key being to divide the various freepeoples of wilderland, and then overrun them when the time is right. They have several interconnected plans through which they accomplish this.

First, they are slowly gaining allies using each other as leverage with their various peoples. When the disgraced Goblin comes riding back into his old den on the back of a giant spider, the other goblins take notice.

The second part is a primary focus of the campaign. Using sorcery and alchemy they create a poison from the spider's venom, and begin introducing it into the main river near Gundabad that feeds into Mirkwood and runs through the Elf halls before joining with long lake. This poison is subtle, and very low concentration. They know that Elves would notice any attempt to make the water undrinkable, and they also know Elves would likely be fairly resistant to such poison anyway. This poison has been specifically created to every so slightly addle the mind of those infected, causing suspicion, paranoia, and things of that nature. They know the Mirkwood elves are already distrusting of outsiders, and they just want to turn that up a bit.

The last part of the plan is the diversion. In order to keep the elves from noticing their activities, the Spiders are increasing their raids in the southern parts of Mirkwood to draw the Elves attention. Normally this will be suicide as the spiders really aren't a match for the Elves, but as part of the alliance the Goblins have agreed to supply the spiders with armor. Now, Goblins aren't exactly known as master craftsman, and their standard iron armor would be to much of a burden for the spiders. It so happens, however, that the Goblins have managed to capture a number of Dwarven Smiths, and are forcing them to create light weight, flexible armors. This also has the added advantage of basically confirming the suspicions of the now even more paranoid Elves, who are finding Spiders wearing Dwarven made armor. This armor is not of the highest quality and Dwarves can tell instantly that the material is not to Dwarven standards, but to most others it's fairly obviously Dwarven.

And so proceeds a buildup. The alliance grows more powerful by the day, the Elves less trusting of outsiders, to the point of being entirely intolerant of their presence in Mirkwood, and the Goblin and Spider plan for their final push to take Mirkwood, while studying the sorcery, and possibly even trying to teach it to more Goblins and Spiders (with various degrees of success).

I have several major event possibilities planned for the story, like including the Hill-men of Gundabad (perhaps they are dumping the alchemical toxin into the water because the Goblin has claimed it is a charm or hex that will make the water safe for them again), animals that are showing signs of paranoia, the involvement of Radagast, even the players being captured and imprisoned by hostile Elves. Or course saving the Dwarven smiths should at some point be on the to-do list as well.

So what do you guys (all of your who read this far) think? Does it sound hokey, or otherwise lack a suspension of disbelief? Does it fit into ME? Any ideas for fleshing it out or making something work better? Any input is welcome. I basically came up with this when I got the three basic ideas of "Spiders in Armor," "Goblins with sorcery," "poisoned Elves" and have been working on it since.

[Otaku-sempai]

I think that you've got a really interesting idea here. I especially like the idea of the Spider being the power behind the throne and possibly the true mastermind of the plot.

The Heart of the Wild reveals Powers in Southern Mirkwood that are the equals or superiors of your villains, which they will have to deal with for better or worse. Will they want to form an alliance with Zimraphel, the Sorceress of Mirkwood? Both Mogdred in Tyrant's Hill and Maghaz commanding Fenbridge Castle have the potential to become either rivals or allies. The outlaws commanded by Geirbald Kinslayer could pose a serious threat to your plans; Geirbald could be Robin Hood to your Prince John (so to speak).

Outside of Mirkwood proper, Gorgol, the son of Bolg, holds similar ambitions. You might want the support of the Warg Nagrhaw or at least a pledge of neutrality. You may wish to gain the favor of Viglund and/or the new Great Goblin by presenting either of them with a plot that targets Beorn or his Beornings. Vidugalum of the Toft would insist that you give your loyalties to him. Beorn, Radagast the Brown and Thranduil of the Woodland Realm can all be counted on to be your hated enemies.

[Mordagnir]

Rather than have the armor manufactured by captured Dwarven smiths, I recommend adding a subplot involving Dwarves selling the armour to the Goblins. In THE HOBBIT, we learn that occasionally, Dwarves are known to have commerce with Goblins. From the Appendices, we learn that Durin's Folk never had truck with the Enemy. That leaves six houses of Dwarves from which you can pick your bad apples. You can find inspiration for your evil, or at least not unambiguously good, Dwarves in MERP and LOTRO or come up with something on your own.

That should give you one or more adventures and a pretty meaningful subplot as the heroes look for help against these evil Dwarves without deepening the rifts between the Free Peoples.

[Beleg]

At the moment I think your idea sounds brilliant. The only issue I see is that I seem to recall that Elves in Middle Earth are actually immune to disease and poison. On the other hand, with a sufficiently sorcery poison, you could probably get away with that too. I look forward to seeing how this pans out

[Otaku-sempai]

At the moment I think your idea sounds brilliant. The only issue I see is that I seem to recall that Elves in Middle Earth are actually immune to disease and poison. On the other hand, with a sufficiently sorcery poison, you could probably get away with that too. I look forward to seeing how this pans out

Elves are immune to normal diseases, but I'm not so sure against poison. Elrond's wife Celebrian was poisoned by an Orc-arrow. She was soon rescued by her sons, but her spirit never fully recovered from the poisoned wound and she sailed West to the Undying Lands.

[Ravenarchon]

I think that you've got a really interesting idea here. I especially like the idea of the Spider being the power behind the throne and possibly the true mastermind of the plot.

The Heart of the Wild reveals Powers in Southern Mirkwood that are the equals or superiors of your villains, which they will have to deal with for better or worse. Will they want to form an alliance with Zimraphel, the Sorceress of Mirkwood? Both Mogdred in Tyrant's Hill and Maghaz commanding Fenbridge Castle have the potential to become either rivals or allies. The outlaws commanded by Geirbald Kinslayer could pose a serious threat to your plans; Geirbald could be Robin Hood to your Prince John (so to speak).

Outside of Mirkwood proper, Gorgol, the son of Bolg, holds similar ambitions. You might want the support of the Warg Nagrhaw or at least a pledge of neutrality. You may wish to gain the favor of Viglund and/or the new Great Goblin by presenting either of them with a plot that targets Beorn or his Beornings. Vidugalum of the Toft would insist that you give your loyalties to him. Beorn, Radagast the Brown and Thranduil of the Woodland Realm can all be counted on to be your hated enemies.

I have yet to finish reading Darkening, so I'm not sure how I'll use all of the characters listed in it. I will probably include a few as an aspect of ME games is the multitude of characters, but I don't know which. I know I liked the three named giant spiders, and was even thinking of making the queen spider the one that my spider dislikes. Also I was considering adding in Wargs, so I'll have to look into Nagrhaw especially.

As for Beorn I was actually tossing around the idea in my head of him actually ending up poisoned as well, and the poison causes him to be unable to change out of bear form and makes him somewhat feral - so the players have to figure out what to do with the not-so-friendly werebear they can't kill. I confess I don't know enough about how Beorn's skinwalking ability works to know for sure that's a good idea though.

Rather than have the armor manufactured by captured Dwarven smiths, I recommend adding a subplot involving Dwarves selling the armour to the Goblins. In THE HOBBIT, we learn that occasionally, Dwarves are known to have commerce with Goblins. From the Appendices, we learn that Durin's Folk never had truck with the Enemy. That leaves six houses of Dwarves from which you can pick your bad apples. You can find inspiration for your evil, or at least not unambiguously good, Dwarves in MERP and LOTRO or come up with something on your own.

That should give you one or more adventures and a pretty meaningful subplot as the heroes look for help against these evil Dwarves without deepening the rifts between the Free Peoples.

I was considering going this direction at one point, and even wrote up a ton of notes for a subplot involving a crooked Dwarf merchant in Dale that was working as a go-between between certain less-reputable Dwarves in the Iron Hills, and the Goblins. I was having trouble making it work though so it didn't seem convoluted. The campaign has changed some though... Hmm... I'm almost thinking what if these Dwarves are REALLY dirty, and have actually sold some of their own into slavery with the goblins. Then I could have both plots. Rescuing the captured Dwarves and finding their own people who sold them to the Goblins. I'm a little unclear, however, on what exactly the Dwarves would get out of the deal. I can't imagine Goblin wealth would be anything extreme, and I would think trade with the Elves and Erebor/Dale would be more lucrative.

At the moment I think your idea sounds brilliant. The only issue I see is that I seem to recall that Elves in Middle Earth are actually immune to disease and poison. On the other hand, with a sufficiently sorcery poison, you could probably get away with that too. I look forward to seeing how this pans out

I actually wondered that myself, and ended up trolling around the internet to find an answer. I eventually found a rather heated and long discussion on one of the main Tolkien forums about weather or not Elves could be poisoned and people were pulling refs out of The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales and the like, and eventually the consensus reached was that yes they can be, but they're highly resistant to it. Or something like that. As you say, I figure with a fair amount of sorcery it would work either way, especially since the poison is designed to simply play up a natural tendency of these Elves and not kill them dead with a single sip.

Thanks for replies everyone, these have already helped a ton.

[Otaku-sempai]

The TOR rules don't adequately deal with the issue of disease, but Elves should be immune to normal illnesses. That does not mean that Sauron or other evil Powers could not magically augment an illness so that can effect Elves.

I find nothing in TOR that gives Elves any special bonus or resistance against any form of poison. Nothing in Tolkien's legendarium indicates that Elves should have an immunity from poison unless one counts the toxins generated by becoming diseased.

[Beleg]

Elves are immune to normal diseases, but I'm not so sure against poison. Elrond's wife Celebrian was poisoned by an Orc-arrow. She was soon rescued by her sons, but her spirit never fully recovered from the poisoned wound and she sailed West to the Undying Lands.

Ooops, my mistake. I wasn't entirely sure if they were immune to poison as well or not

[Robin Smallburrow]

Check out "The Dragon's Ring" in my sig for a similar idea about a sorcery-using goblin allied with a great spider! Your idea has merit, although I think for the 'poisoning' plot to be effective it would have to be the actual river that issues (I think) from the Mountains of Mirkwood and runs past Thranduil's Halls, so I would think that your villains would be bases in the Mountains of Mirkwood somewhere...

Robin S.

[Ravenarchon]

Check out "The Dragon's Ring" in my sig for a similar idea about a sorcery-using goblin allied with a great spider! Your idea has merit, although I think for the 'poisoning' plot to be effective it would have to be the actual river that issues (I think) from the Mountains of Mirkwood and runs past Thranduil's Halls, so I would think that your villains would be bases in the Mountains of Mirkwood somewhere...

Robin S.

I... think I have a PDF of The Dragon's Ring. Was it ever made for the CODA LotR RPG? I may be thinking of a similar setting but it looks familiar.

As for the River, I suppose I could use the Enchanted River, but I was actually going with the Forest River, which runs from the Grey Mountains, and through the Elf Halls before joining Long Lake. I thought the Hill-Men of Gundabad, who live a bit west of the River's origin, were interesting and want to include them in the plot somehow.