Let's stay at the Hill of Seeing for a minute.. After the player rolled an EYE and exclaimed that he saw a Nazgul, the skeptical Dwarf in the group (Rabo) sat on the seat and saw his grandfather's axe barring a door in an abandoned Dwarf-hold. Rabo had long been searching for his missing grandfather and the family's axe and had only just learned in a previous Fellowship Phase (Search for Answers) that his grandfather had joined Frar's doomed expedition to reclaim the Greydelve. In my game, Frar made the attempt soon after the Battle of Azanulbizar.beckett wrote: It is the autumn of the year 2969. Earlier in the year, the players were unable to prevent the theft of the lamp. At the end of our last session, the company had a difficult choice to make: Free Woodmen prisoners held captive by Orcs in the ruins of the Black Tarn settlement, or go after the Nazgul who had taken the Lamp of Balthi in the previous session. They decided to free the prisoners...
So they rescued woodmen prisoners and learned that the Enemy planned to take the Lamp of Balthi to Mordor. The Company tracked their adversaries down to an old ruin in the South Undeeps and stole the lamp back, but not before they spied Captain Mormog (from Ruins of the North) giving a terrifying speech to a gathering of trolls about marching on the Men of the Wood.
A little backstory for what happened next: two members of the fellowship are the sons of deceased player-heroes and they desperately wish to speak with or see their dead fathers again. They recently heard rumors about a place called the Hills of Seeing and Hearing and thought, perhaps foolishly, that their wish could be fulfilled. With the Lamp retrieved, they convinced the company to travel south. Meanwhile, (Revelation Episode) Mormog discovered that the Lamp had been stolen from him and went out looking for the heroes with the Messenger of Mordor and a contingent of Orcs. At the Hill of Seeing, one of the players rolled an EYE and saw the Nazgul... and the Nazgul saw him. Terrified and with winter coming, the Company fled north with the lamp. But it's a long way across the Emyn Muil and the Brown Lands to the Lands of the Woodmen. Will they make it to safety before their enemies catch up with them?
So the Company left the hill quickly and, as luck would have it, found a skiff on the shores of the Nen Hither. Since the enemy now knew their location, they decided the river was a better bet than traveling on foot. They rowed north upon the lake and camped on the shores under the trees, always on the watch for the enemy they knew was hunting them. In six days they passed the Argonath and avoided the rapids by carrying their boat over land to calmer waters. Perched high on a branch, a menacing crow watched them as they placed their skiff back in the river. Then it flew away into the east. Convinced that crow was a spy, they deliberated about what to do, all the while, continuing to row north. Soon, they were peppered with Orc arrows from the eastern shores of the Brown Land (Malevolent Hunters hazard from Journeys and Maps). The company quickly came ashore on the western side of the river, ditching the skiff and escaping into the plains of the Eastemnet. As they made their way north in this foreign country, they encountered thieves and cutthroats who tried to rob them while they slept. They dispatched these ill-favored men with some difficulty. Unbeknownst to the heroes, Riders of Rohan were looking to put a stop to this banditry and in a few days the Riders caught up with the Company. At first, the encounter went badly. The men of Rohan were suspicious of these strangers and believed they were the cutthroats. But the courteous Hobbit in the group (Pogo Chubb) saved the day. Up until now these men of Rohan thought of Hobbits, if they thought of them at all, as nothing more than a fairy tale. They found Pogo charming and ended up giving the Company extra provisions and sending them on their way. The heroes made it through the Wold where they disrupted a herd of sheep (a Hazard from the Rohan book). They ended up helping the shepherd gather his animals, befriending the man who allowed them to stay at his cottage the night.
Long story short: They made it to the North Undeeps where they attempted to ford the river but were met by Mormog and Orcs (Revelation Episode!) and driven back into the Wold. The enemy crossed the river and pursued them to the Limelight. Wounded, Weary and desperate, they eventually found a river crossing into the Grey Meadows. It would seem that fate had steered them to the Golden Wood. They fled across the meadows and were rescued by Elves of Lothlorien. The Elves, led by Haldir, swiftly dealt with the Orcs (the heroes were in no condition to do battle). I didn't roll any dice here, I just narrated how the Elves easily cut through the Orcs and when the tide had turned against him, Mormog slipped away. Haldir then returned to the Company and demanded to know who these adventurer's were that had brought the enemy so close to their doorstep. When the company revealed that they had retrieved the stolen Lamp of Balthi and were trying to return it to the Woodmen, Haldir had the Company blindfolded and brought before Lady Galadriel.
To be continued...
