What : the Oaths of the Riddermark campaign, Rohan scenarios from Other Minds, and some original scenarios featuring Sarumane and his darkening schemes. I guess it would take years to play but let's be ambitious.
When : As soon as player sheets are ready and backgrounds agreed on.
Where : this very forum.
Why : the campaign fits nicely the play by forum format. It features a lot of social interactions and political maneuverings, with quite few combats.
Who : up to seven companions hailing from any place of Middle Earth, including the cultures from HoF. Rohirrim and Gondorian are of course welcome, and Dunlendings for those looking for a challenge. Note that no hobbits have been seen in Rohan for centuries, and none will be until the reign of Theoden King. I don't want to completely rule them out however, so I allow hobbits as long as they won't proclaim their origin clearly or expect public recognition. At best they will be considered beardless dwarves or very small and possibly disformed humans. In any case, history is doomed to forget them.
Drop a line as a reply below if you're interested and I'll get in touch with you shortly.
Some words about me ; my name is Chris, I'm 41 and I'm Belgian. I've been playing RPGs for the last 25 years now. Legend of the Five Rings and the World of Darkness have long been my favorites, but as a compulsive buyer, I've tried many games. Recently, I've rediscovered French jewels like Agone, Esteren and Nephilim, but also The One Ring obviously.
As a long time storyteller here - I think I will make up a character for your approval to join this game. It will be great to have the chance to just play a PC, too. (Although I cannot not say that Paul did give me a good long break in our own game.)
I will add his PC sheet link here in a short bit.
I present Gárulf - outlaw of the Eastern Emnet (https://rpg.avioc.org/profiles/view.php?id=1321).
His background is dark and if you want me to lighten things up to fit better in your overarching story, I can - just let me know.
Gárulf, son of Gármot, was born on the northern pasture of the East Emnet along the banks of the Entwash in 2927 T.A. The clan to which he was born traveled with the herds of horses that ranged the great plains between the Wold and the Fangorn Forest. He grew to be a great horseman and rider and learned from his father the ways of the squire. Gármot always told him that at times, the King in Meduseld would call and it was the obligation of every Rohirrim to answer the summons. Gárulf, wanting to honor his father, worked diligently in his martial studies, as well, so he might be the capable Rider of Rohan of which his father spoke.
When into his late teens, Gárulf met Marda, a beautiful flaxen haired girl from a neighboring clan that was also coming of age. She would often come amongst Gárulf's folk with a few of her own family and as the men would make trade, Gárulf and Marda would walk the fields around their enclave and speak of love and commitment. The two young lovers made a pact that with the next spring, Gárulf would make his intentions clear to Marda's father and ask for her hand in marriage – he would be 20 years old.
Unfortunately, that day would never come...
When the trades were done, during that fall season, Marda and her father, along with ten others of their folk, mounted to head back over the Entwash and south onto the West Emnet. They would never make it. The group of Rohirrim was set upon by a ranging band of orcs out of the Misty Mountains (truthfully out of Isengard) and all were slain. When they never arrived, their clansmen sent out people to search for them and some of these individuals came back to Gárulf's folk. It was here that he learned of his lover's disappearance and took up the search for her and her father. Gárulf, along with others from both his and Marda's clan finally found the bodies of their kin. They had all been slain, stripped and left to rot under the sun. The decay of the bodies and the impact of carrion feeding upon them horrified the young Eorling and he became shadowed. His heart, he felt, had been torn out and left to die with the woman that he loved.
Amongst the dead, the orcs had also left traces of themselves, thus revealing the culprits of the horrific act. As he laid her body upon the pyre, in his heart, Gárulf swore the most awful pact that he could muster – an Oath to his love that he would bring death upon the orcs (and any that followed or allied with them), a life for a life, one for every moment of time that they stole from him and his beloved Marda.
After the burning of the dead, the winter that followed was cold and cruel to Gárulf's folk. The young Rohirrim began to slack on his duties to his people. He became roguish and in the following spring, when the King in Meduseld called for warriors to muster, he turned his back to the call. Thus it was that Gárulf, son of Gármot, became an outlaw in his own land.
Now, seven years later, Gárulf and a harsh band of compatriots haunt the Eastern Emnet – between Fangorn and the Wold – robbing both friend and stranger, and brutally hunting any orc or orc band. From a small sanctuary that he has made on the Wold, Gárulf ranges the Emnet.
I may be in too.
C'mon, Tom!
What else do we have to do except to hang out on the internet forums? ;) ;D
Chris,
How do you envision Tolkien's world unfloding in this campaign arc? What style of GMing Do you intend to employ? Would you classify yourself as a theme person or a game mechanics person?
I'm not fond of heavy game systems, that's one of the reasons why I like ToR that much, with its simple yet complete system. To me, dice rolls are guidelines for roleplaying. In my table games, I always ask my players to roll first then to roleplay accordingly, and I plan to do just that here. Of course, it implies that the players enjoy failures as much as successes.
As a GM I always favour a good unfolding of the story even if it requires me to "cheat" from time to time. If my troll runs out of endurance one round before it manages to break down the bridge, I give him some extra. I also try to flesh out the characters and the setting as much as I can, I don't like empty characters doing nothing but adventuring, they have a life, they know everyday people without any real connections to the scenarios, they have a job/occupation and hobbies.
I plan to follow the guidelines of the campaign, but I really want to include Saruman and his impeding downfall. We all know how's he's going to end but at the time of play, he's still wise among the wise, and there's much to be told and played about his darkening. Hell is paved with good intentions.
Not much is known of the reign of Thengel King, so my themes will be Rohirrim >< Dunlendings, Downfall of Saruman, and inclusion of as many personal problems and goals of the characters.
I'll take a look in my tomes tonight and flesh out a character idea.
I'm looking forward it. As of now we have two Rohirrim characters.
Egilhir Noble of Dol Amroth and Soldier of Gondor reporting for duty!
My background is pretty brief, he has a few reasons for heading to Rohan, to protect it's king and people from the influence of the shadow and to obtain a horse bred in Rohan to bring home to take his place as a Knight.
Egilhir is the son of the nobility of Dol Amroth, his father a knight of the fair city sent Egilhir to live with distant relatives in Minas Tirith in his early teens to learn of the history of Gondor and Numenor. He fondly remembers being taught how to ride by his father back home, and so in the stone city he spent much of his time watching the riders and messengers of Gondor ride in and out of the city.
As he got older he wished to prove himself to be as brave as his father and fought on gondors borders with Mordor and the south against, both orc and wicked men, making a small reputation for himself as a warrior. Egilhir regularly moved to the defence of his comrades during battles with the agents of the enemy.
The news of his valour reached his father back in the City of the White Swan, and he was presented with a gift, a spear named Foe Thorn, crafted by The Faithful of Numenor to fight their enemies in the second age and passed down his family ever since. Being back in his home city and seeing the knights ride through the city on their shining steeds reignited a passion in Egilhir. A knight however needs a horse, and while the steeds of Dol Amroth are wonderful. Everyone knew the steeds of the Rohirim where greater still.
An oppertunity had arisen however. King Thingol has taken the throne of Rohan. The agents of the enemy may see this new king as a weakness to exploit or test. He knew that both Dol Amroth and Minas Tirith would wish to send emissaries. Who better than a brave young man who has fought the shadow and was familair with the intricacies of fuedal court life.
https://rpg.avioc.org/profiles/view.php?id=1322
Hey Andy,
You will need to go into the Profiler and click the EDIT link on the Characters' page and then APPLY PUBLIC PERMISSIONS if you want everyone to be able to see your character.
Hey Christophe,
In the RPG Profiler, you will want to create a CAMPAIGN.
To do that you must first go under your PROFILE and click the box that says DM Functions. This will expand your available choices within the Profiler.
Next, create the campaign and fill in the pertinent cells that you prefer. Once done, invite our PC's to the campaign. This will provide you with GM control of our character sheets so you can look at them and adjust at need.
The current PC log numbers to invite are:
Garulf 1321
Egilhir 1322
For our new players - I want to help you find your way around and point out the tools we do have.
First - the top menu has a series of buttons - one is Characters. If you double click the button, it will take you to our RPG Profiler where all of our characters are saved. You will need to make a separate login for that site, but the softwares are not linked so feel free to use the same info that you use for our Forum.
Second - here is a HELP post that I wrote for everyone to see what features we have here for Dice Rolling and other icons:
HOW TO USE OUR FORUM (https://rpg.avioc.org/boards/index.php?topic=1577.0)
Third - the RESOURCES button on the top menu is for any maps or other imagery that a GM might want to have available for his players. Christophe, if you need that done you will have to send the image to me via email and I will add the item to the dropdown.
If anyone has any questions, feel free to write me a PM or open a thread on the General Discussion board.
Hello, I would like to join in if that is OK. I already have a Beorning character that I have just created for a ftf game, or I could create a new Rohan character if you think that is a better fit.
Thanks
Steve
To all -
Christophe is currently unavailable as his wife is in the hospital today delivering their child! I would safely assume we will only be getting scattered responses over the next week.
Steve - I cannot speak for Christophe's game, as I am just a player in it, but I would suggest having both types of characters ready for him to see. That way you are covered either way.
Thanks Tom, I've done the edit so it should be viewable now.
If you have a character image and you wanted it hosted here so it can be attached to character sheets, attach it to a thread or email it to me.
I'm going to work on a Man from Bree.
Doug, I'm going to probably work him in to your brigand background
Quote from: Telcontar on Jan 04, 2019, 11:41 AMI'm going to work on a Man from Bree.
Nice, I love Bree ^_^
Quote from: stevelampon on Jan 04, 2019, 08:39 AMHello, I would like to join in if that is OK. I already have a Beorning character that I have just created for a ftf game, or I could create a new Rohan character if you think that is a better fit.
Thanks
Steve
A Beorning would be just fine ! Feel free to play the same character as long as you make him a newbie again ;-)
We'll discuss it further by PM.
My character sheet is filled in and uploaded. Hopefully you can see it – Roderick the Red. The text area for the Shadow Weakness seems to be missing, the SW for Roderick is Lure of Power.
So that's a - Man of Rohan, Minas Tirith, Bree and a Beorning so far?
Quote from: Anarion on Jan 05, 2019, 02:29 AMSo that's a - Man of Rohan, Minas Tirith, Bree and a Beorning so far?
Two Rohirrim actually, one player didn't post on this forum so far, we discussed over his character by PM. One last player contacted me earlier today, applications are hereby closed ^_^
Full human party so far !
Quote from: stevelampon on Jan 04, 2019, 11:37 PMMy character sheet is filled in and uploaded. Hopefully you can see it – Roderick the Red. The text area for the Shadow Weakness seems to be missing, the SW for Roderick is Lure of Power.
For some reason, Steve, your info populated the cells below where each goes. The cells are titled below the lines, so your name should be one up from where it is, as should all the other info.
You will see that Shadow Weakness has its own cell available when you do.
:) Doh, thanks, amended the sheet, and added Roderic's story of how he finds himself in Rohan.
Should we have invites to the campaign? If so I can't seem to find mine.
Ok so I'm back home, sorry for the delay guys. Thanks to your posts and/or PMs, I now have a good overview of your characters, and some ideas to involve them in the campaign. It's gonna be quite challenging to reunite the subgroups of characters in plausible ways, I have a geographic issue I must fix somehow. We probably will start playing in separate groups, meeting along the way and hopefully creating strong bounds of friendship (or at least not kill each other).
Our roster so far :
- Gárulf, outlaw Rohir, played by Tomcat
- A Westfold Rohir rider, played by WaitingCynicism
- Roderic, a Beorning, played by stevelampon
- Egilhir, Soldier of Gondor, played by Anarion
- A Breelander played by Telcontar (I would need some additional infos about that one)
I have two additional players from Loremaster Guild on Facebook. I need to check with them if they're already registered here but in any cases, all positions are now filled since my range was 5-7 players.
Campaign to join is Riddermark (id = 43)
I'll get the guy made up tomorrow with some background.
Hey Christophe,
Just so you know - you have to accept us into the campaign on the Profiler.
For some reason, I only got the character request from Tomcat. It doesn't really matter since we won't use the profiler for much longer, I suggest you fill a sheet and send me the picture or the PDF. I trust you to keep your sheets cheatfree and up to date in the future, I will keep record of the Hope points.
The rules state that the fellowship pool of Hope is replenished at the beginning of each session. Obviously we can't apply that, so the pool will be replenished when you reach millstones roughly equal to the chapter an average group would reach in more or less 5 hours. I will also consider to fill the pool once every week or maybe twice a month.
The last player should join us shortly. Our final roster will thus include six characters, and we should be able to start shortly. There will be at least two subgroups to start with ; the "outlaws" featuring the Rohir of Tomcat and a Breelander, and the Edoras group featuring a Rohir rider and a Gondorian. I still have two characters to fit somewhere.
Awesome I'm looking forward to this. I filled out the profiler but I'll use a form fillable one since the profiler is going down shortly and send a screenshot via facebook? Is there a name for the other Rohir that will be with my Gondorian in Edoras? They'll likely end up being my fellowship focus. As I have a love for horses and a respect for the Rohirim due to that.
So far, you're not a fellowship. You will become one after some days spent together sharing the same fire and facing the same troubles, hopefully overcoming them together [<
WaitingCynicism still has to provide us with the name of his Rohir :-)
I'm glad to announce that thanks to our sixth player we won't have a full human party ;)
We're not 100% set on his origin but in any case, I can tell you he's gonna be more of a poney rider
Was wondering about that, we where very much shaping up to be all human. A dwarf or hobbit interesting. :D
As Tomcat adequately said, Rohan is mostly human country. Despite the vicinity of Lórien, Galadrim rarely leave their forest to visit their neighbour, and as a result elves are still shroudred in mystery and superstition. Hobbits have not been since in ages and are considered to be fairy tales. Dwarves have left the White Mountains a long time ago...
So yeah, Rohan is among the least fantasy of Middle Earth.
Nashan,
I had a busier day at work than anticipated. I'll try toget a backgroun and at least the start of a character sheet tomorrow.
There's no rush, take your time.
I seem to have missed the character profiler going down. I don't suppose there's any way to see my sheet another way to copy it over to a form fillable one. If not I can remember near enough what I had.
https://rpg.avioc.org/boards/index.php?topic=1587.0
Scroll down a bit, Tomcat has saved them as pdf.
So far I have three sheets ; Garulf, Egilhir and Roderick. Three to go.
I am the person who asked to join on Facebook and was allowed to play. I am playing a dwarf envoy from Erebor, Lore-Master where do I submit my character sheet to?
Raghnall Stoneturner
Took a notion into his head to follow the Greenway south. His family had been in Bree for a few generations, but in the reckoning of Bree folks they his family was still somewhat new. His desire to go wandering proved their point.
Raghnall always had a quick eye and a keen intellect and was able to make friends easily. When the wanderlust grabbed him he was able to find someone who was moving south along the road. He has heard of the once ancient bridge at Tharbad and desired to see it and the mighty river that it spanned. His wanderings soon brought him further south and he met a few of the Dunmen when he took up with some traders. He was a valuable companion both for his appraising eye and his willingness to do menial and basic tasks around a campsite.
For a time he explored the area around the Greyflood. He attached himself to caravans and merchants they gained the benfiet of his services and he gained the opportunity to see new things. Once in fact his caravan was set upon by bandits. Instead of being robbed and left for dead he was able to convince them to take him instead. Raghnall demonstrated that his true worth was in his appraising eye and his willingness to work. In the begining some would have thought him a slave to bandits. But in time they looked jpon him more as a peer. Sure he wasnt the type to rob folk or do that kind of dirty work. But he had an eye for the worth of a thing and that had been of more value to the group.
Among the Bandits he made friends and learned a great deal but always the wander lust pulled him to keep going. After a time in one place the gnawing to see something different would come upon hom and he desired to see new sights.
Quote from: LOTR_nerd on Jan 08, 2019, 01:32 PMI am the person who asked to join on Facebook and was allowed to play. I am playing a dwarf envoy from Erebor, Lore-Master where do I submit my character sheet to?
Pick any format you see fit and send it to me (Messenger, for example) or post the link here :-)
I have updated the CHARACTERS drop down above.
First, I have added both games.
Second, if you click your PC's name, it will take you to your characters' info block post.
If it doesn't work, it means I do not have any info on your PC and no where to point the link to.