Campaign Material: The Fellowship of the Red Banner

[Woodclaw]

Well, as promised in other topics I'm going to post some material I wrote for my current (first proper) campaign.

Please keep in mind two things:

1. As of this post I haven't read Darkening of Mirkwood and I'm only halfway through Heart of the Wildlands;
2. I haven't planned too much in advance for now, so most of the material will be based on who my character's meet and what is going on at the time.

I know that my vision of Middle Earth is probably far from being "kosher" for some people, but I tend to love stories that are more about character that sacrifice themselves in the darkness so that others don't have to suffer. Sue me for that :p

[Woodclaw]

The elves of the Carad Ehta

The clan of Carad Ehta (Red Spear in the Common Speech) is a recent and quite war-minded household among the Mirkwood elves.

History

When the Necromancer returned to Dol Guldur in the 2460 of the Third Age, five elven clans - with the help of the Woodmen from Rhosgobel - were struggling to reopen the ancient refuges in the southern Mirkwood. They were primarily hunter with sharp, keen eyes and agile warriors.
Unwilling to reveal himself too soon, the Necromancer tried to manipulate the elves and the woodmen into fighting each other, but his subtle whispers failed to dent the bond of trust formed in those harsh lands. Yet, many were his allies, he pulled out of their slumbers some terrible beings that were sleeping in furthers depths of the wood and unleashed them upon the elves.
Many elves felt under the blows of the servants of the Shadow and the survivors were forced North, beyond the Dark Mountains, to the land of Woodland Realm. Once they rest the true measure of their mourn was clear. Five proud clans have been decimated and the survivors numbered scarcely a single clan. In that dark hour the survivors swore a oath, instead of scattering and diappearing among the clans of the Northen Mirkwood, they tighen their ranks and patiently waited for the hour to return and gave their death proper burial and satisfaction.

So it came to pass that in the year 2471 of the Third Age, the survivors assumed the name of Carad Ehta and took their place among the other elves. As time passed elves from other clans and households would join their ranks, out of marriage, personal loss or simple conviction. By the 2946 the clan is now a mixed reality, hosting both ancient survivors and those battle in the Southern Mirkwood, as well as those elves who feel the calling to ward their borders against the tides of the Shadow.

Lands

In the years following the 2471, the Carad Ehta asked and obtain the permission to settle in the territory between the Forest River, the Mountains of Mirkwood and the Long Marshes. While they're not the only elves dwelling in this area, they're the only one actually who live there.
The majority of the territory is still wild and untamed, but the clan built many shelters. These are secret places, which entrances are skillfully hidden and often protected with traps. Their most important outpost is Dolen Nost (Hidden Fortress), a large underground complex build under the roots of ancient trees a long time ago. Today Dolen Nost has been transformed in a military complex that includes many barracks, armouries and secret exits.

Customs

It has been said that the Mirkwood elves are less wise and more dangerous than their noble cousins from beyond the Misty Mountains, in many ways the Carad Ehta are the epitomy of this idea.
Living for many years close the Woodmen gave them a somewhat more pragmatic view of the world. While the Carad Ehta still possess the love for beauty and grace typical of all the elves, they have learned the hard way that - sometimes - beauty have to be sacrificed to protect life. This have brought them to adopt tactics and skills different from the other elves, like the habit of sewing and stitching layers of leaves to their cloaks to improve their ability to hide among the trees. They have proved to be dangerous enemies, relentless warrior and invisible sentinels, who protected the border of the Woodland realm for over 500 years with deadly efficiency
It's a sad fact that many among the Carad Ehta have felt the Calling of Mirkwood and answered it, choosing the fade rather than sailing West to the Immortal Lands. This made them an uneasy subject for other elves, but much closer in spirit to their ancient allies from vale of the Anduin.

[Woodclaw]

Faces of the Third Age: Dame Miriel, Captain of the Carad Ehta

Dame Miriel is a over 700 years old elf, who currently hold the position of captain among the Carad Ehta elves. Miriel is a bit different from the usual picture of ageless grace and elegance of elven ladies. The harshness she had to endure over the century have deeply scarred her. The pain, the loss and the worries are carved in her visage and her hair - once chestnut - are now grey.

Personal History

When the Necromancer returned to the southern Mirkwood, Miriel was nothing but a young huntress who, along with her parents and relatives, was doing her part to reopen the old refuges in that part of the wood by hunting down wolves and spiders. During her hunts she pushed herself further than many, which brought her in contact with the Woodmen, who became close friends of her.
When the servant of the Sahdow stroke, Miriel fought alongside her relatives to protect their sanctuaries, only see her parents slaughtered in front of her very eyes. This tragedy weighted upon her sould for a long time and is still a open wound.
After the establishment of the Carad Ehta clan, Miriel refused any kind of official role and prefer to gather a fellowship of elves who, like her, had been scarred deeply and lead them into the wild to fight the minions of Dol Guldur. The deed they accomplished are something of an obscure legend, still whispered during long winter nights among the Woodmen, which earned Miriel the nickname of "Grey Wolf". It was only after many years of this dark and wandering life that Miriel found a little bit of peace. During a long winter spent among the clans of the Northen Mirkwood she felt in love with a humble carpenter named Elgir and they married shortly thereafter.

In 2946, Miriel is mother of two young elves and has accepted the duties of captain of the Carad Ehta over a century ago. The happiness has made her less harsh and uncompromising, but she's still very ferocious in protecting her loved ones. Today she's more worried about how to save as many lives as possible, rather than looking for revenge. For this reason Miriel tend to command with the example and prefer not to order people into dangerous mission by the force of her authority, but rather ask for volunteers.

Personality

In spite of her presently more controlled demeanour, Miriel remains a warrior at the heart, she much prefer people who demonstrate to be able to follow their words with decisive actions, rather than those who think that everything can be solved with words alone.
Her friendship with the Woodmen is still very strong and, when her responsibilities allow her, Miriel goes to pass the winter at Woodland Hall. During one of her most recent visits she heard rumors about a mad elf travelling with other former slaves of the Necromancer (Ash from HotW), but her responsibilities and the current agitation among the goblins of the Mountains of Mirkwood prevented her from verifying.

Looks

Miriel is an elven woman of average height with a slim, but strong profile. She has grey hair, kept long with a single braid that circle her forehead, keeping the rest in check. Her face has long and well defined features. A pair of green eyes, surrounded by worries wrinkles, shine in the middle of her visage. Her hand show the callus typical of a trained fighter.
Usually she dress in earthly shades of brown, over whichshe wears a finely crafted leather corslet, reinforced with small burnished steel scales, shaped like leaves. When she roams the wilds, she adds a dark green cape with several layers of leaves stitched to it in the use of her clan.
Her typical weapons are a small yew bow - a gift from her Woodmen friends - and long spear, which shaft was made from the wood of the Southern Mirkwood.

[Woodclaw]

I'm using hybrid NPC sheet for Miriel, usually she's a simple encounter, but she might have to go into battle so I'm providing full combat stats as well.

Miriel the "Grey Wolf", Captain of the Carad Ehta

Set Tollerance

Miriel is a warrior at her core, hence she's more impressed with Valour than Wisdom.
Miriel has deep friendship with the Woodmen and has been a revered guest of Woodland Hall several times. If there's a Woodman present, raise her tollerance by 1.
Reduce the Tollerance by one if there's a Dwarf or a Wayward Elf (opposite to many of compatriots Miriel isn't too prejudiced toward Wayward Elves due their high number among her own clan, hence she ignore the normal penality from the "Call of Mirkwood").

Character Sheet

Attribute Level: 6

• Endurance: 22
  Parry: 5
  Armor: 2d+1

Skills:

• Personality 3 (Persuade 2)
• Movement 4
• Perception 3
• Survival 3
• Custom 2
• Vocation 2 (Battle 3)

Weapon Skills:

• Great Spear 4 (9/9/16/Pierce)
• Bow 4 (7/10/14/Pierce)

Specialities: Beast-Lore, Shadow-Lore
Distinctive Features: Determined, Just

Special Rules: Miriel's Great Spear follow the same rules as a Bitter Spear (Adventurer's Book p.139)

[Woodclaw]

Miriel stas are up. Please let me know if I missed/miscalculated something.

[Corvo]

Miriel stas are up. Please let me know if I missed/miscalculated something.

Since you are asking... Bitter Spear reward is just for normal spears, not Great Spears (obviously, you can house-rule it at leisure).
Nice character, by the way: an elf with connections to the world of the Men, and an immortal who underwent changes during his life... Something often forgotten, imo.

[Woodclaw]

Since you are asking... Bitter Spear reward is just for normal spears, not Great Spears (obviously, you can house-rule it at leisure).

Okay, my bad, I HR it for a character a while ago and completly forgot about the RAW, I'll run a couple of tests to see if it works this way.

Nice character, by the way: an elf with connections to the world of the Men, and an immortal who underwent changes during his life... Something often forgotten, imo.

Thanks. I always worked under the impression that Wood Elves should be less detached than Sindar and Noldor, due to their deeper connection to the Middle Earth.

[Woodclaw]

Okay this was the first "big" opponent my group faced. It didn't last long due to the an opening volley Edge with the longbow of the Lakeman and a Edge with the axe of the Dwarf (both Armor rolls spectacularly failed by your truly).

The Creature of the Long Marshes

Perhaps only the Wise of the Third Age would be able to divine the origin of the creature, but its lineage was once very well known to the Northmen in the old days. A long time ago his kin breed true in the North of Middle Earth. They were giant of great size and huge strength, whose roaring stroke fear in the heart of men and elves. They spread destruction across the settlements of the Northmen, mangling powerful warriors with impunity and eating their flesh.
This was before the days of fire, before the dragon plunged from the sky spreading more misery than a thousand of them ever could. As powerful as they were, their strength was useless against the dragon, in those rare moment he came within their reach, they discovered in blood how thick his scales were. So they fled in depth of the Marshes.
Once powerful beasts, they were reduced to feeding upon unsuspecting fishermen and the occasional raft-elf. As the time went on the started to disappear until only a handful of them were left.
He wasn't the biggest, nor the strongest of his kind, so he liked to be alone, away from the others. Yet, he was also cunning and daring, on moonless nights he slipped in the water and made his way outside the Marshes, spying the human villages in the distance, hoping to score a better meal. Yet the Northmen were slowly disappearing and he had to push himself further and further to find them.
It was in that time that she came. She wasn't of his kin, but she knew of him. She told him that the days of fire were over and that the Northmen were returning to their homes. Over several nights she weaver her spell, enthralling him to her will, until some adventurers came from the North and vanquished him.

Looks

The creature is an Ogre of unusually small size. While he's not small by any mean - he's still 3 meters tall - he's shorter and stockier than his kind once was. His skin it's of dark grey hue, with texture and hardness similar to a rock, and it's covered in several layers of moss and water plants. This combination of colours allows him to hide effectively in the depth of the Marshes.
His massive strength is very clear in his arms, which are long and layered with thick muscles. So long, in fact, that on the ground the creature sometimes moves as a knuckle dragger. His huge hands grant him a horribly powerful grab, capable or wracking a man in armour with ease.
The most hideous element of the creature's appearence his the face. While humanoid it appears like an exagerated parody. A thick jawline, a beaky oversized nose, small eye deeply recessed, strangely long earsflattened against the side of the head form a grotesque picture, yet still human enough to be frightening.

Tactics

Being more cunning than the normal Ogre, the Creature tend to ambush his preys from underwater, by using his moss covered skin to hid in shallow waters and toppling their boat. On the ground he tend to rush head first into the fight, favouring elves over men and dwarves as primary targets, due to their more tender meat.

The Creature uses the normal stats for a Marsh-Ogre (see Lake-Town page 24), plus the following:

Covered in Moss: when inside the Long Marshes the Creature automaticly adds his Attribute level to Stealth Checks.

[Woodclaw]

A little vignette from the last game I run on Sunday.

The fellowship is currently exploring an area of the Mountains of Mirkwood on behalf of the Carad Ehta clan. The mountain goblins are fleeing their lairs - without any apparent reason - and the fellowship is trying to figure out why, before the outpost of the Carad Ehta are overrun.

During the last fight with a goblin patrol the elven bowmen - Tyrion, yeah I know - was hit by a poisoned arrow. The fellowship retreated to a safer spot and the healers examined the wound. Bernie, a hobbit wise in the lore of herbs, determined that there were some mountain herbs that they could use to prepare an antidote. While Ai . the dwarf - searched for the herbs outside, Bernie and Ulrika - a Beorning - started a small fire and boiled some water.
As Ai returned, they started preparing the poultice and Bernie noticed that there was some leftover water, so he decided to make himself some tea. Unfortunatly, he noticed that he has nothing to go with it, so Ulrika offered him a couple of Beorning honey biscuits (not the Twice-Baked kind, but still good) from her own pack.

So I want all of you to realize. These guys are deep into the Mountains of Mirkwood, with something so powerful and dangerous that is scaring the living hell out of the goblins, and this hobbit found a way to have a tea with biscuits in the middle of it all.

Sometimes, I just love my players.

[Woodclaw]

Faces of the Third Age: Eor son of Wulfgar, the Hand of the King

Eor son of Wulfgar is a shout looking Barding whose face was burned by the fire of the dragon. Once a commander of the watch in Esgaroth, he's now king Bard's right hand man and most trusted couselor. While he rarely appears in Dale, the people have learned to trust him , in spite of the fact that he never remove his helmet in public.

Personal history

Eor was born in Esgaroth, second of five children of a skilled but poor weaponsmith. Even since his youth he had a tough but generous temper and a restless arm. While his siblings did what they could to tend the family forge, Eor was more interested in fighting. By the time he was 13 he was notorious in his neighbourhood for being a strong and skilled brawler, easily capable of picking on people twice his age. Unable to control him, Eor's father asked for help to one of his friends: an old sergeant-at-arms of the watch.
Shapig Eor into a proper soldier turned out to be quite the hard task. The old sergeant could tell that the boy had his heart in the right place but, unfortunatly, his hands were often faster than his brains. Once he punched the drill instructor for yelling at another recruit. Even after becoming a full-fledged watchman, these behaviour never truly left him. In spite of these problems Eor liked being a watchman and climbed steadily through the ranks alongside another young soldier of the same age with whom he made a fast friend: Bard.
Like Bard's, Eor's life changed when the dragon returned to burn Esgaroth, but in a very different way. While Bard and his archers tried to held they ground against Smaug, Eor was in charge of protecting the people fleeing from the burning districts. One moment changed it all, a lance of fire erupted from the skin, just a few steps ahead of Eor. His entire world exploded in a cloud of pain and burning red, while the dragon's fire burned his face. He recalled falling from the dock into the cold water below and nothing more.
A year and half passed before anyone heard of Eor, until one day a man with his face covered by a full helm appeared at the gates if Dale and demanded a private meeting with the king. It turned out Eor had survived, but his face was now so horrible scarred that he was ashamed of being seem without his helm. Bard welcomed back his old friend and started to send him out on very secret and important missions.
Or so the chronicles told ...

The truth is far more complicated. As far as Bard and a few other trusted friends known, Eor died at Esgaroth. The man who currently pose as Eor is none other than Bard himself. After becoming king, Bard quickly realized that he would no longer enjoy the same freedom he had as a simple captain of the guard. Still, old habits die hard and he often felt the need to take a more direct approach to problems. Since no sign of his old friend had been found, Bard decided to use his name as a disguise.
What the king of Dale doesn't know is that Eor is actually alive. The wounds he suffered during the battle of Esgaroth caused him to lose his memory and now he lives as a simple farmer not far from the mouth of the Forest River.

Looks

In his prime Eor was a imposing Northmen, tall and broad shouldered, with a light brown beard and hair. He was famous for being an excellent swordmen, fighting with a longsword in one hand and a massive shield in the other.
Today when posing as Eor, Bard wore a helm with thick cheekguards and a "spectacle" guard and a chain shirt completed with leather braces, a black wool cape usually complete the look and help disguise the fact that Bard is thinner than his later friend.

LM Notes

I created Eor to circumvent a campaign problem. One of my player obsessed over the idea of having Bard as a patron from the start. Something I'm not too comfortable with. So I created the figure of a Dalish captain to act as a temporary patron for the fellowship, until they had mustered enough fame to meet the king. The idea of making the captain a secret identity for Bard to travel in disguise came along much later.