Old Forest Road Question/Opinions

[Arthur Fisher]

The text for Restoring the Old Forest Road in the Darkening of Mirkwood states:

The deed requires the companions to dedicate at least one Fellowship phase for each of the following undertakings

Do you take this to mean the entire company must spend their Fellowship phase doing each task, as with Open New Sanctuary? Or do you take this to mean that each task requires one hero to spend one Fellowship phase performing the task, as with every other Fellowship task?


It also states:

Should the company accomplish this great deed, they will share in the tolls collected by Bofri, giving them a valuable holding

Do you take this to mean that each companion who helped build the road receives a holding? Or that the company as a whole receives one holding they share?

[Lifstan]

For me the entire company must spend their Fellowship phase doing each task, as with Open New Sanctuary. The book is not clear about it, but I think it makes the rebuilding of the old road more "important" as an event like that. Otherwise it would be very easily done...

As for the holding, I didn't think about it yet, but depending on how my group plays the reconstruction of the road, I would give it to the one player that seemed the more invested in doing it (the dwarf of the group by default, if he doesn't have an holding yet?).

[guver]

It's very complicated to have all the fellowship agree on the same task during 5 fellowship phases.
What I did is I split each task in X subtasks. (Where X is the number of players in your fellowship).
There are 5 tasks (listed in the book) and each has 6 subtasks (in my table there are 6 players).
Then each player is free to do whatever he wants. Every time one player spends a fellowship on the road, a point is added to the pool of 30 point.
Points are assigned from task 1 to task 5 in order. Only when task 1 has 2 point you can assign a point to task 2, and so on.
For example, right now they have:
Clearing the forest - 4 points
Recovery the forts - 3 points
Restoration of the road - 2 points
Patrols in the woods - 1 point
Sending messengers to attract trade - 0 points.

Once they reach the 6 points for a given task that task is considered completed and it affects whenever they traverse the road. An incomplete task may also affect but in a lesser way.
For example now with 4 out of 6 (66%) complete of the clearing, I do let them run easier when going through the path. Instead of 2 out of 3 days in the road are considered severe terrain instead of daunting (and hard instead of severe in some areas).
Out of the 4 forts in the road (I think in some part they name 4 forts) I consider 2 of them safe (so they can rest safely) and 2 of them not safe yet.
And so on...

[Majestic]

Nicely done, guver. I like this subsystem you've come up with!