Grey-Mountains Lore

[Kullervo]

Hey guys, found a bit of an interesting bit, or at least I think its interesting, in the new Erebor book!

On page 61, there are stats for an Ellaras the Searcher. He is an elf but... He does have a trait that is mentioned nowhere else: Grey-Mountains Lore. I'll confess, I havent read over too many Loremaster character notes, so I dont know if this is an isolated case or not, but it sounds like a neat trait - would you think it should be availible to player characters? Or if Grey Mountain Dwarves have it 'by default' but cannot use it for anything but qualifying for rolls and auto-successes in the idea of 'well, you lived there, you obviously know this'.

Curious to see what your thoughts are!

[Stormcrow]

Grey Mountains–lore is just another version of Region-lore.

[Kullervo]

Grey Mountains–lore is just another version of Region-lore.

True enough, but dwarves dont have any region-lores, so... Then they dont know their own mountains? Or are they auto-assigned this thing? An LM I have says every culture has a 'Culture-Lore' type of invisible trait, which enables them to know stuff about their own culture, their basic knowledge basically. So I was wondering if the game now created one.

[zedturtle]

I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that you've got a trait-like amount of knowledge about your home culture. Regional lore could still be appropriate... Mirkwood is a big place and thus Mirkwood-lore makes sense. A hero that wanted to consistently be able to find their way around a region would probably need to spend an undertaking to get that regional lore. Otherwise the implied trait is enough to get you home (for whatever that means in this case) during Fellowship Phases, etc.; but not enough to find the hidden mine rumoured to be lost since your great-grandfather's days.

[Kullervo]

I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that you've got a trait-like amount of knowledge about your home culture. Regional lore could still be appropriate... Mirkwood is a big place and thus Mirkwood-lore makes sense. A hero that wanted to consistently be able to find their way around a region would probably need to spend an undertaking to get that regional lore. Otherwise the implied trait is enough to get you home (for whatever that means in this case) during Fellowship Phases, etc.; but not enough to find the hidden mine rumoured to be lost since your great-grandfather's days.

Agreed. We usually use it for stuff like 'Oh, theres a common folk story Beornings have, you know it since you're a Beorning.' Question though, with the bolded statement, do you mean to 'trade' one for another, then? Or actually acquire it since they have a piece of it already, of sorts?

[Stormcrow]

Sure, you know the lore of your home region, but you can't make use of that as if it were a specialty. You can get automatic actions, but you can't use it to get advancement points or unforeseen actions.

[Rich H]

And if you really wanted to, you can also swap in some kind of region lore with another speciality during a Fellowship Phase.

[Falenthal]

Ellaras the Searcher. He is an elf but... He does have a trait that is mentioned nowhere else: Grey-Mountains Lore.

Or if Grey Mountain Dwarves have it 'by default' but cannot use it for anything but qualifying for rolls and auto-successes in the idea of 'well, you lived there, you obviously know this'.

This a Trait specially created for Ellaras (although heroes could learn it as any other Trait, by using an Undertaking and swapping another Trait).

Beware what the text about Ellaras says:

he knows a great deal about the lost holds of
the Ered Mithrin; far more, in fact, than many Dwarves
do.

Not because you are a Dwarf, you have the knowledge of the Grey Mountains that Ellaras does.