(Spoilers) Darkening of Mirkwood - Players took the Bow of Penbregol

[blankrubix]

Ran 'The Questing Beasts' adventure for my group recently. I wanted to get some opinions on how to deal with some fallout from the session, if you lovely people don't mind.

So on meeting Ruthiel the players noticed her ornate bow, and the scholarly Hobbit recognised it as The Bow of Penbregol; and knew that it was crafted by a Dwarf smith long ago. The Lonely Mountain Dwarf has a hatred of Elves (His background being that the Elves of Mirkwood held him prisoner for trespassing for many years, releasing him following the battle of five armies as a sign of good faith to Erebor) and was immediately sure that devious beings that Elves are, Ruthiel must have stolen the bow from the Dwarves.. And began to convince the Hobbit that they should find a means of bringing her to justice (The Beorning huntsman stayed out of it, only interested in the hunting of the White Deer)
Shortly after they find the bow at the bottom of a pit. And when her captors Polin and Pomin appear the group quickly make a deal to keep the bow in exchange for their silence.
Now this is all fine and dandy, the book is already pretty clear on the consequences for Ruthiel. She eventually escapes and becomes a wayward elf. And if Thranduil finds out about the whole thing he's certainly not going to be happy.

What I wanted to ask about is how Dain Ironfoot would react. Because the group intends to head straight for Erebor and hand over the bow with a "Ta da! Look what we got back for team Dwarf". The book doesn't really say, but I think its pretty likely that the bow was originally a gift from Dwarves to Elves.
So when Dain is given this ancient Dwarven weapon.. Is he angry or pleased, or somewhere inbetween.

I figure he'd be angry about it, for the potential it has for diplomatic incident if the elves find out who took the bow and where it was taken.. But then he isn't fond of Elves, and maybe would even reward them for it, as long as the whole ordeal was kept secret.

[Otaku-sempai]

It doesn't seem accurate to say that Penbregol is dwarven-forged. It is a Woodland Bow and was crafted by an Elf (besides wooden bows are not made by metal-smiths). What the description says is that the 'Bow of Sudden Fury' was "strung with mithril by the Dwarf-smith Gamil Zirak in the depths of time." The Dwarf crafted the mithril bowstring, not the bow itself and represents a time of better relations between Dwarf and Wood-elf.

Maybe someone should point out the error in your Hobbit's lore and the flaw in the Dwarf's reasoning. Dain should charge the company with returning Penbregol to the Elves (and for the player-Dwarf to hand it over to Thranduil personally with a sincere apology for taking it to Erebor in the first place).

[Dunheved]

Maybe someone should point out the error in your Hobbit's lore and the flaw in the Dwarf's reasoning. Dain should charge the company with returning Penbregol to the Elves (and for the player-Dwarf to hand it over to Thranduil personally with a sincere apology for taking it to Erebor in the first place).

I really like this suggestion. It seems to be exactly what Dain would do: I see Dain as the most diplomatic and noble of all the Dwarf leaders described by Tolkien. It means that the player can have their character decide to follow the king's command willingly or resentfully; or even to go against that command. As a LM this would give so many openings for Shadow or reward and even produce a sub-quest to bring Ruthiel back 'on-line'.

It's a great twist on the DoM outline. I'd like to learn how it all turns out.

[Kirppu]

I can see a surly dwarf PC interpreting that the bow is 'Dwarf-made' and laying claim of ownership on it, theres certainly that streak in their character in the canon. Then petitioning Dain to accept that, since so much spectacular work was done to the bow by 'Great smiths of old', 'With arts now lost to our people' ( you know the kind of thing) the bow is more dwarf-made than not and therefore should be kept in the hands of the Dwarves -
'What would it be without such work? A mere unadorned bow little different from any Mirkwood twig!' ( Add in filigree work, mithril leaf upon it, crafted so thin the techniques are now long lost and its therefore a national treasure - that kind of thing to help enable the dilemma ) That could also put the Hobbit character in difficulty if he learns during all this a little more about the bow and how much claim is credible and how much is embellished. Also this is potentially putting Dain in a hard position depending on who else is there to listen or other politic pressures ( if you have any like that). Plenty of parallels to similar occurrences in J.R.R.T's books, maybe they are even brought up as evidence to either either backup the claim or warn against it. Sounds like, which ever way you go you have tons of opportunity for fun with this incident.

[blankrubix]

Sorry guys, the game was delayed a while and I forgot to post the aftermath when we actually got a chance to play.
So it all turned out a little unexpectedly, the hobbit seemed to have a change of heart pretty quickly in the audience. When Dain asked how they obtained the bow he just told him 'they found it in a pit' and neglected to mention any of the intricacies of the situation.
I had riddle rolls made, and courteseys etc for the rest of the conversation, and they did very well (both in dice and generally wriggling around the issue). Felt it called for corruption tests too, which were passed.
So yeah, it ended up with Dain not knowing much of the story.. As such he was left dubious of the story, but decided not to grill them further. He did take the bow and told them it would be presented back to The Woodland Realm though.
I figure now this will be something that comes back to haunt them in later years.

[Rich H]

Felt it called for corruption tests too, which were passed.

Why did they roll for Corruption? If its a Misdeed (ie, willfully lying for greed/protecting self interests, etc) then that's automatic Shadow gain. The LM can warn the players that doing so would lead to such a gain but it's automatic and, as per the RAW, should result in 2 points of temp shadow.

[blankrubix]

Why did they roll for Corruption? If its a Misdeed (ie, willfully lying for greed/protecting self interests, etc) then that's automatic Shadow gain. The LM can warn the players that doing so would lead to such a gain but it's automatic and, as per the RAW, should result in 2 points of temp shadow.

Ahh, that'd just be my misunderstanding of the rules there. I'll be sure to harsher on their misdeeds in future.

[Rich H]

Ahh, that'd just be my misunderstanding of the rules there. I'll be sure to harsher on their misdeeds in future.

It's an easy mistake to make but is really critical to how certain types of behaviour are managed within the game.