What have you done with the Lost Tower?

[Summerhawk]

So I've always found the Lost Tower to be a fascinating plot hook. I remember be surprised that it made no appearance in Tales or Darkening. I'm currently working on a sketch of an adventure where the players need to seek out an artifact that will be found in the tower and I began to wonder what the community had done with this interesting and mysterious location. Cheers!

[Otaku-sempai]

Is this the Lost Watchtower in the Vales of Gundabad, or another location?

The most obvious mission involving the Watchtower would be a quest to find the keys, which would logically begin in the West Upper Vales (assuming that the Heroes discover or are told the history of the tower). The reason might be to have the tower manned in order to stop incursions of Gundabad Orcs into the Vales. Or it might be to recover some artefact left there when it was abandoned by Gondor and later by the Éothéod.

[Falenthal]

Thengel might have read about some artifact/royal object/... in the libraries of Minas Tirith while he was learning there. Being interested in both the story of Gondor and Rohan's ancestors, it shouldn't be rare at all.

Now that he's become the King of Rohan, but lacks some confidence from the nobles in his kingdom, his mind has been wondering if the object (or parchment, or ancient banner, or...) he read about in the scrolls of Gondor would grant him some renown and legitimacy among his people.

He is King now, and can't leave his territories and court on some errand based on rumours and very ancient registers. But he could hire some party that has a good knowledge of the Wilderland. Maybe through someone that travels from Edoras to the Vales of the Anduin frequently? Or by sending one of his most trusted knights to the north to avaluate a group for hiring?

[thekingofkings]

It will soon play a major part in our home campaign, which involves the Leofrings maybe reclaiming Framsburg

[Finrod Felagund]

Never played it but some ideas that come to mind:

- Bard wants the Tower scouted out possibly in preparation for it being re-occupied
- Saruman wants to know if the ancient library there still exists
- Thengel has heard that the remains of Leod (Father of Eorl) lie there and wants them brought back to Rohan to help legitimise his rule - variation on Falenthal's idea above.
- Beorn has heard the Viglund has thought about occupying the Tower and wants that checked
- A party of Dwarves wish to see the site of Durin's birth and a rainstorm forces them into the Tower during which time something evil starts picking off the party one by one...
- Ignore all the above: during a drunken conversation at the Easterly Inn, a local worthy tells the Adventurers about this lost tower and the rumours of Scatha's hoard

It's kind of endless really....

FF

[Indur Dawndeath]

I made a long campaign with the Lost Watch Tower as the ultimate goal.
Gandalf aproaches the players after some fishermen discovers an old battlefield, with the tale of the Lost Watch Tower...
The quest takes the player to an old Troll cave to find the remains of the last warden of the tower. From there to the Barrows of the Northmen where they hear from a ghost that the keys were stolen and hidden by a traitor who lured the warden into an ambush.
Clues lead the players to search the islands in the anduin where they finally find the keys on the island of Strangeling Trees.
While searching for the tower in Gundabad Vales they get involved in Nightmares of Angmar, and finally retake the tower and gain the Hill-men as allies...
All in all very epic

[bluejay]

Love the ideas here already and I agree that the tower is a great plot hook. Towards the end of DoM I had the fellowship spend a lot of time in the Vale of Gundabad recognising the strategic importance. Even Bard had begun to wonder whether the tower could be re-occupied. It ended up running into Nightmares of Angmar so the plot thread got dropped as the fellowship ended their journeys in Rivendell but certainly the search for the keys was one of the main threads we were running with before that.

[Ernst-Jan]

I have seeded the Tower throughout Darkening, and some characters have indeed retrieved the Key though they have yet to find out it is meant for the Tower. I'm doing Ruins adventures in Eriador now, but I plan on having the Tower be an important facet in a future Beorning campaign, where we will find out why Beorn is dead or missing during the War of the Ring, and why Gundabad played no part in the same War.

[Otaku-sempai]

I have seeded the Tower throughout Darkening, and some characters have indeed retrieved the Key though they have yet to find out it is meant for the Tower. I'm doing Ruins adventures in Eriador now, but I plan on having the Tower be an important facet in a future Beorning campaign, where we will find out why Beorn is dead or missing during the War of the Ring, and why Gundabad played no part in the same War.

According to Tolkien, Beorn has succumbed to old age by the time of the War of the Ring. He is after-all a Man despite his arcane abilities. Perhaps any enchantment that might have prolonged his life was broken in the Battle of Five Armies.

[Ernst-Jan]

I have seeded the Tower throughout Darkening, and some characters have indeed retrieved the Key though they have yet to find out it is meant for the Tower. I'm doing Ruins adventures in Eriador now, but I plan on having the Tower be an important facet in a future Beorning campaign, where we will find out why Beorn is dead or missing during the War of the Ring, and why Gundabad played no part in the same War.

According to Tolkien, Beorn has succumbed to old age by the time of the War of the Ring. He is after-all a Man despite his arcane abilities. Perhaps any enchantment that might have prolonged his life was broken in the Battle of Five Armies.

I am rejiggering my campaign sketch as we speak