So what is everybody playing?

[Fellfrosch]

I have to admit, that sounds pretty cool. I especially like the way you were able to bring in peaceful versions of the "evil" men, since the movie made them look so cool and fun to play.

[Slant]

Actually my Sunday night post was twice the length that you see it now, but when I tried to send it, the system told me that it was too long.  Soooo, one large edit later, I was still able to convey most of what happened.  

Suffice it to say, we all had a great time.  Even the bloke who played the dwarf had fun.  As soon as his dwarf got the big dirtnap he quickly made a new character: a hobbit called Milo whom the rest of the group ended up meeting when he was tending bar in Korj.  

I'll keep you all posted on the progress of the campaign.  We play every Sunday, so the next day I will just post a very short (which for me is like two paragraphs) synopsis of the session, highlighting the cool parts.

"Take only what you need; we travel light.  Let's hunt some orc."  -Aragorn, TFotR

[Slant]

Last night was our second session, and it went as well as the first.  bearing the arms and armor of their fallen dwarf companion, the company travels through Mirkwood where the elf Erinel is overwhelmed by the silence where once an entire clan of elves dwelt and begins to hallucinate, seeing the elves of old.  Prince Tamar brings her back to reality by asking her about the elves of her homeland and as she talks and remembers, she becomes more grounded and comes back to reality.  They are set upon by restless phantoms and Tark, the man of Gondor, recieves a premonition of his own death that leaves him nearly helpless.  The phantoms are driven off when Erinel invokes the names of the great Elf lords of Mirkwood's past.  

Finally making it to Erebor, they present their dead companion's regalia back to his family.  the dwarves are incensed that their kinsman stood and fought bravely while his companions fled like dogs.  They renounce their ties to Elessil's kingdom and retreat into their mountain, sealing the gates behind them for all time.

Heavy of heart, they travel across the Brown Lands towards Rohan.  They notice that in all the villages they stop at there seems to be a malaise, as well as a strongly hostile distrust of all strange-folk.  Prince Tamar confides that he feels as if dark times are returning and that the king needs to know what is going on as swiftly as possible.  Auric of Rohan leads the company to his family's farmlands just North of Emyn.  From there, he rides alone to Gondor, his horse's hooves given added flight by the magics of the witch-woman.

While at Auric's compound, the witch Ain-Ain recieves a prophetic dream about the Dead Soldiers of a past time, but the dream is vague.  She says that the answers to her dream might be answered within the vaults of Isengard, where Saruman wrote down and collected the histories of all that he had seen in his milennia-long lifetime.  She sets off to the ruins of Isengard despite Prince Tamar's admonishments.  Kogali of Umbar, enamored of the mysterious Easterling beauty, goes with her.  After a long argument Tark also agrees to go, his status as a Gondorian agent beeing needed to get them past the Ents.  In the end, Prince Tamar is unable to resist the idea of reading the hostories of hos own people before they chose to throw in with Sauron and so agrees to go, although he still has misgivings.  Milo, being no damn fool, stays behind at the Rohan compound.

Several days later, they come to Isengard and enter the catacombs of what was once Saruman's bastion.  In the depths, they find countless tomes written in long dead languages.  Erinel recongizes them as a very ancient form of Noldorian and says she may be able to translate, but it will take time.  As they are lost in study, the entire chamber begins to shake and groan.  An Olag-Hai, powerful and cunning far beyond it's brutish lesser cousins, had made the dark catacombs his lair following the defeat of Sauron.  Ten feet tall, wrapped in armor and brandishing a great spiked mace of black iron, it advances towards them.

Back at Auric's keep, Milo awakens in the middle of the night with the odd feeling that his new friends are in mortal peril.  He chalks it up to too much raiding of the larder and goes back to sleep.

That's where we left it for next week.

[Nicadymus]

Sounds like another fun session.  I am curious how well the game functions with the different groups splitting off on their own adventures.  It works for the books, but as far as playability of the game is it smooth, or do you find that a lot of people are left waiting for their opportunity to play?

[Slant]

It works okay as long as scenes switch to different characters after a period of time.  That is to say, the main group would get twenty minutes, then switch to another for a period of time, etc.  The players who choose not to accompany the main group know full well that their character will not get as much play, but they play their characters AS their characters, not acting on player knowledge.  This is how we have always played, and we are al pretty much willing to sacrifice a bit of our own glory in order to tell a credible story.

[Nicadymus]

Currently I have a very small group that I am storytelling for, so it hasn't been a problem for me for several years, but I know that when our group consisted of 12 to 16 members that was happening a lot and several people got pretty annoyed. I was just curious how some of you more experienced, and "mature," players deelt with it.  

[Slant]

12-16 players?  Yoikes.  That's not an RPG, that's a football team.

:o:o:o:o:o:o:o:o:o:o:o:o:o:o:o

[Spriggan]

well i seem to remeber you takeing out a baseball bat and hitting us repeadly when we got out of hand.

[Nicadymus]

Well, Spriggan, sometimes that is the only way that I could get through to you guys.   jk  But, I will admit, that was some of the best games we ever had.  Everyone battling it out in one grand melee!!  However, I will most likely NEVER do that again.  What a task!!  

[Slant]

We played our third session Sunday night and the game is still romper stomper.

it kicked off with the fight with the Olag-Hai, and let me tell you, these creatures are TOUGH!  it disabled the strongest member of the party (Tamar) and laid waste to the entire catacombs before Tark grabbed Saruman's staff (broken in half but still potent) and slammed the olag-hai, creating an arcane explosion and literally bringing the roof down.  Tark miraculously walks out of the rubble.  They set up a guard while Ain-Ain and Erinel peruse the texts.  They find references to armies of the dead in the northern lands during the early part of the third age.  Erinel recalls the story her mother told her about the Witch King of Angmar originally planning to raise an army of the dead to serve him, as they would be more pliable and less distractable than orcs.

Auric arrives in Gondor and learns from riders that his company has gone to Isengard at the behest of the witch woman.  The king advises Auric to keep a close eye on the witch.  Back at Auric's compound, Milo has organized the household staff and is teaching them how to cook "proper" meals and how to keep a clean home.  He takes them to the fields and teaches them how to grow pipeweed and similar substances.

That night, a chill wind howls throughout the land.  King Elessil shares with Auric his nightmare about an entity calling itself the Harbinger who told him that his line would end with him, his kingdom would fall, and all that he'd achieved would crumble into the dust.  The king looks visibly frail and weakened.

The entire company meets back at Auric's compound.  Milo is ticked that the others haven't noticed how efficient the staff has become in their absence.  Ain-Ain unlocks the key to the secret of Angmar: the Witch King had an heir so powerful that Death itself trembled in his wake.  The heir, unnamed in the texts, could only be defeated by one who has been touched by Death's Shadow.  

The company decides to go to the northlands to the ruins of Angmar to judge for themselves how true these histories are and who in fact is behind the evil goings-on.  Unknown to the rest of the company, Ain-Ain has taken from Isengard the White Codex, Saruman's book of secrets and sorcerous power.  She uses a spell that will bind Kogali's life to her own. Kogali readily agrees to the spell, believing that it will make them soul-mates in the truest sense of the word.

Milo begins training several small birds. He jokingly tells Erinel that he can speak Bird.  Kogali says he can speak bird as well, giving the Hobbit two middle fingers.  har har.

It was a short session, mostly because I wanted to see the new episode of OZ, but things are starting to shape up nicely and the players are all growing solidly into their characters.  Once they begin their trek Northwards, the game will take on a much more action-oriented bent.

[Slant]

Session #4: the Mortal Kombat session.

Basically this was a huge combat session.  The party ends up going to Moria to warn the dwarves that now reside there (under the rulership of Thane Durgin the Iron-hearted, a notedly merciless but effective warlord) about the possibility of Angmar's return.  They are imprisoned as soon as they get there by the suspicious dwarves and find out that their party has already gotten a somewhat mixed reputation amongst dwarves (Tamar is known now amongst dwarvenkind as "the Black Prince").  

Moria is under a constant attack by weird spider-goblins that have been pouring out of the deepest pits and mineshafts by the thousands, but the prideful Durgin had refused to ask for help from the humans.  As the combat continues to swell, Tamar offers the services of his group against the spider-goblins.  if they die, then the dwarves have lost nothing.  Durgin lets them loose and the whole session becomes a slash-fest that felt really really GOOD to run.  We tested out the rules for poison, falling, acid, biting, rending, etc.  EVERY combat rule got a good workout.  The party decided that fancy plans weren;t going to work this time, so they just waded into the goblins with weapons drawn.  Tamar, still injured from the cave troll from last week's game, fights with his big scorpion-king scimitar and just keeps spinning and spinning because he knows that he will be killed if he gets hit just a single time.  Kogali finally gets to be the hero rather than just the overbearing loudmouth and literally plugs up a hole where the goblins are emerging with seven dead goblins.  Auric, Erinel, Ain-Ain and Kogali all fall, but none die outright (the game stresses the need to keep the heroes ALIVE).  The spider-goblins are driven back into the pits and dwarven sappers pour molten lava down upon them, pretty much ending the threat.

After that, Thane Durgin is a LOT friendlier to the company and when he is warned about the possibility of Angmar's resurgence he is told that the dwarves of Moria will come, if needed, at the behest of not King Elessil, but of the Black Prince of Harad.  I figured it was good that the company gain a potentially valuable ally after what happened at Erebor.  They were all really chuffed over how it turned out, feeling like they had really accomplished something important.  The bloke playing Tamar was really well pleased.  He was like "The Black Prince, ally to the Great Dwarf Thane.  YYYYYESSSSS!!!!!"

Anyhow, in case you haven't figured it out by now, I LOVE THIS GAME!!!  Go buy it and play it!

[Slant]

session5


Starts out in Moria where the dwarves are having a huge victory celebration.  They yave a drinking contest that is won by, of all people, Erinel with her supernatural elf constitution.  She sings songs of dwarven victories of ages past far into the night.  Auric overhears Ain-Ain and Kogali talking about using the White Codex pilfered from Isengard to help oust whomever is now in Angmar and to take over thelselves, setting Angmar up as a bastion for the Outlaw Nations of Rhun, Harad and Umbar in the North to help gain political and military strength in the Gondor/Rohan allied areas.  They do not know Auric has overheard them.

The next day they leave the dwarves and venture into Dunland where they find white-robed pilgrims accosted by Dunlanding warriors.  The company attacks the warriors but are attacked from behind by the white-robed ones who are also Dunlandings.  They capture the company and they take off their robes to reveal tunics decorated with the design of great fanged jaws painted in blood.  they say it is the sign of the Red Maw, who they now fight under.  The prisoners are taken to a crude fort where the local Dunlanding sorcerer chief comes to interrogate them.  The sorcerer takes one look at Tark of Gondor and dies of a massive heart attack on the spot.  In the ensueing confusion the company fights back the Dunlandings, now easily beaten without their leadership, and send the survivors scattered to the four winds.  They capture one of the survivors who reveals that a lynx-eyed man had come from the North with orders that the company was to be captured and slain.  The Dunlanding doesn't know the man's name or why he wanted them dead, merely that he was also in the service of the Red Maw.

The company continues to make their way through Dunland, avoiding all the forts.  The land is barren, and has a strong charnal odor.  At nightfall they make camp.  As the sun goes down, they see nearly a hundred Dunlandings observing them from a mesa.  The company puts up fires and Erinel keeps watch.  Auric forgoes sleep to also stand watch.  The Dunlandings come no closer.  Erinel tells Auric she had never planned to die ragged and hungry and done in by savages.  Auric promises her he will not let her die such a death.  When the sun comes up the next morning, the Dunlandings are gone.

End of session.

[Fellfrosch]

I love reading these; it makes the drudgery of work go by so much more easily.

[Nicadymus]

You're preaching to the choir, Fell.  

[Mr_Pleasington]

I've always enjoyed "Story Hours" myself.  If you enjoy reading ones like Slant's you can read a whole slew at ENWorld and KenzerCo.