Middle-earth On Crack

[Falconer]

I wanted to start a new thread about Middle-earth because I feel the other one got dominated with the question of how much you can add or change and still “be able to call it Middle-earth”. So this thread is about starting with Middle-earth and D&Ding the hell out of it, and to hell with canon. If you don’t like it, don’t post here.

I’d like to start by listing peoples’ home campaigns in which they have fleshed out or added areas to Middle-earth and subsequently published:

Stephen Poag: Mines of Khunmar as Moria.
Bob Bledsaw: City-State of the Invincible Overlord (and related products) as “No-Name City” (East?)
Dave Arneson: First Fantasy Campaign (Blackmoor) in the extreme North of Arnor (=The Great Kingdom) (maybe not exactly Arneson’s intent, but it could work!)
Pete Fenlon: The Iron Wind in the Northeast
Terry Amthor: Court of Ardor in the South

Awesome stuff. Any more?

[Falconer]

So how would you place CSIO in Middle-earth? I’m thinking a Second Age, Black Numenorean capital set in a proto-Gondor/Umbar region.

[Finarvyn]

Personally, I use the CSIO as my default "major fantasy city" so I'd probably let it represent Gondor Minas Tirith.



EDIT: Corrected for my stupidity.

[Falconer]

Minas Tirith?

[premmy]

Nov 15, 2010 11:52:17 GMT -6 Falconer said:

So how would you place CSIO in Middle-earth? I’m thinking a Second Age, Black Numenorean capital set in a proto-Gondor/Umbar region.

Could be. Another option might be to make it a large centre of power somewhere in the East. Maybe somehow related to the ultimate fate of the Blue Wizards?

[tombowings]

I like that, using CSotIO as a decadent Minas Tirith.

[Falconer]

Hell yeah, the Blue Wizards would definitely be a force. They have gone “soft corrupt”—like Saruman they are rulers of men, but with some allowance for moral ambiguity, so they are not straight-up slaves of Sauron (and in fact, at least in their own minds oppose him). I would have Alatar-Morinehtar as a LE Wizard Overlord of a City-State, and Pallando-Romestamo as CN, a dark prophet leading hordes of chariot riders.

[Deleted]

I have always liked the original "Waterdeep and the North" and think it would be well placed along the coast of the sea of Rhun. I would replace Khelben Blackstaff with a good aligned Istari that I would create from scratch and make changes here and there to the personalities, creatures, and peoples that inhabit and wonder the many alleys and streets of this great city so that it would better fit Middle- Earth. Waterdeep is also a name that fits Middle-Earth very well and I would not change that. The evirons described in the accessory can also be used to the north with the appropriate changes of course. Waterdeep can also placed along the coast to the west of Gondor or to the north. Perhaps started by Numenoreans long ago...?

more later..

[Deleted]

I started reading through the Mines of Khunmar and it would make an excellent stand in for Moria! Either that or MERPS Moria book. CSIO connected with the fate of the Blue Wizards in the east sounds good to me! Another JG product that I would use is the Frontier Forts of Kelnore. It would be perfect for use in the fallen kingdom of Arnor! All those ruined structures, many of them being forts and can be used for encounters or around whole adventures. The book can be used pretty much as is with only a few changes to the lists of monsters. Say, replacing the lich entry with a Nazgul that has moved into one of these forts to make mischief in the area. His mount is a Nightmare and is stabled in one of the stalls. With him perhaps are a troop of Uruk-Hai and Bugbears who raid the area.
I agree with the placement of The Iron Wind to the east and north and indeed all of the original Loremaster books can easily find homes in Middle-Earth for they are obviously derived from it. I particularly like The Shade of the Sinking Plain! Again, one of the Nazgul can be the Shade and the module can easily be used as is.

More later...

[Finarvyn]

Nov 15, 2010 14:03:53 GMT -6 Falconer said:

Minas Tirith?

Yeah. Brain glitch there. Naturally, CSIO would make a poor nation.

[jasons]

As an alternative to Falconer's schema, how about a mid-4th Age Reign of Sauron campaign using CSIO as the capitol city sprung up around Barad Dur. The Dark Lord's victory has introduced all kinds of chaos into ME, especially Vancian magic. Most M-Us would have to train in the CSIO and return to acquire spells. This also yields a tidy rationale for ME monster ecology on crack, what with the catoblepases, otyughs, ropers, etc. continuously escaping from Sauron's bio-pits in Moria.

Adventurers seek out fame and power in the hopes of one day banding together an army of heroes and superheroes to rise up and smash the Enemy. Adventurous elves continue to slum it on Middle Earth for this reason while most of their brethren have gone off into the West.

Sauron, unsatisfied by lording it over ME, has gone all introspective in his tower, seeking out a way to whack Illuvatar. With his attention elsewhere, the scattered remnants of the old alliance begin to rebuild, clinging to hidden "points of light" (Keep on the Borderlands) in the conquered and subsequently abandoned north, where hobbits and rangers operate an insurgency. But don't get caught or you'll end up in a Slavelords module.

Former elf enclaves, sacked and pillaged in the war, are now fully qualified dungeons where awesome anti-Sauron treasures may be found (wood elf halls in Mirkwood = Quasqueton or the like). In the Misty Mountains there's trouble with giants and the subterranean Shelob-worshipers behind their raids (G, D series). Sauron's inexhaustible supply of traitors and political prisoners led to the construction of Stonehell prison. Etc.

[Falconer]

Some great ideas, here! Yeah, I had a similar idea for an alternate timeline Fourth Age. Although just making it an alternate timeline doesn’t quite cover the rationale for all the D&Disms I would want to infuse into the world. For example, human clerics of the Valar, Shelob the Spider-god, and whatever other deities they want. But the alternate timeline helps the players know where we got “off track” and therefore be able to cash in on their knowledge of the world to drive their story forward. I would do something like this:

• When the Fellowship of the Ring attempted to cross the Misty Mountains, they successfully crossed at the Pass of Caradhras and so never had to go through Moria. The point of this is to keep the Great Balrog alive in the bottom of the Mines of Moria... but note that Gandalf the Grey doesn’t die.
  
  
• Gollum recovers the Ring in Cirith Ungol; Frodo is dead but Sam is possibly at large in some evil city or megadungeon somewhere, a completely badass Chaotic Good Hobbit Superhero making the bad guys pay.
  
  
• At the Battle of the Black Gate, since the Ring is never destroyed, the good guys completely get their asses kicked. Gandalf the Grey, Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli, and Pippin are all killed. (Since it turns out Aragorn wasn’t the Chosen One, any Ranger PC potentially could be.) (Gandalf may or may not ever be sent back to Middle-earth as Gandalf the White.) With Gondor’s army decimated, the War of the Ring is over. But since Sauron doesn’t have the Ring, his rule does not completely cover the earth. “Points of Light” was always true for M-e, and now definitely even more so, but it’s not that simple.
  
  
• The Corsairs (Black Numenoreans) take over Gondor but refuse to pay tribute to Mordor. The Age of Men has come and they don’t want to be ruled by Orcs. They just wanted to “reunite” the “Great Kingdom”, but this is obviously not the good kingdom of Elendil but rather the realm of the “real” Numenoreans, the evil empire from before the Akallabeth! Mordor is too fatigued and wary to wage open war against them at this time, so there is an uneasy stalemate. Ar-Herumor declares himself Invincible Overlord of Minas Tirth, and forces an alliance with Rohan by making Eowyn his consort, who thus becomes the Corsair Queen.
  
  
• The Witch-King re-establishes his realm of Angmar in the north (duh).
  
  
• The bleakness of this landscape makes it possible for Saruman to reinvent himself as a repentant good Wizard. No-one quite trusts him, but after all, he is free from the Palantir’s enslavement, and compared to everything else that’s going on, the damage he caused isn’t really remembered outside of Rohan. With Gandalf out of the picture, he establishes himself as head of the Istari once more, and his Machiavellian schemes continue.
  
  
• And after the starship Intrepid crash-lands in the far north, Middle-earth will never be the same!

The world is now wide open to progress in any way the PCs want. In every corner of Middle-earth, both “on the map” and off it, here are lots of areas to adventure in, and plenty of spots to establish PC-run baronies! Plus, of course, the Ring is at large and doubtless will exchange hands...

[jasons]

Now you're cooking with...er...crack, I guess! Since the starship has crashed this is starting to sound like the movie trilogy Peter Jackson, in his heart of hearts, should have made!
"Ai! A balrog of Morgoth!"
"Get a hold of yourself, Galafast...arm photon torpedoes and fire on my mark!"

[vito]

Kinda reminds me of John Boorman's Lord of the Rings.
forum.barrowdowns.com/showthread.php?t=12786

[geoffrey]

Nov 21, 2010 16:31:53 GMT -6 @vito said:

Kinda reminds me of John Boorman's Lord of the Rings.
forum.barrowdowns.com/showthread.php?t=12786

Whoa.

[vito]

Nov 21, 2010 17:33:45 GMT -6 geoffrey said:

Nov 21, 2010 16:31:53 GMT -6 @vito said:

Kinda reminds me of John Boorman's Lord of the Rings.
forum.barrowdowns.com/showthread.php?t=12786

Whoa.

Yeah. I don't think it would have made for a very good Lord of the Rings movie, but there are some ideas in there that I'd like to mine for D&D.
I kind of like the idea of dwarves being able to access their racial memories by being buried in holes.

[geoffrey]

A few further thoughts:

1. Bilbo wrote the Silmarillion and the Hobbit. Frodo wrote the Lord of the Rings, with the appendices penned by (amongst others) Merry and Pippin. Thus, none of the canonical tales are told by an omniscient narrator. All of them are told by limited, fallible narrators. Who's to say that honest errors haven't crept into the texts?

2. Look at how accurate/inaccurate pre-modern maps are. The same can be said for the maps of Middle-earth.

3. I don't think shoe-makers are mentioned in Tolkien's works, but there is no reason to suppose that they do not exist on Middle-earth. The same can be said for black puddings, beholders, potions of gaseous form, evil high priests, etc.

[Finarvyn]

Nov 22, 2010 12:07:33 GMT -6 geoffrey said:

Bilbo wrote the Silmarillion and the Hobbit. Frodo wrote the Lord of the Rings, with the appendices penned by (amongst others) Merry and Pippin. Thus, none of the canonical tales are told by an omniscient narrator. All of them are told by limited, fallible narrators. Who's to say that honest errors haven't crept into the texts?

Wait ... the two characters just mentioned ... Bilbo and Frodo ... weren't they under the control of the One Ring? Who is to say that there are "honest errors" at all. One could argue that if they authored each text it could be with an agenda.

What I'd love to see is the War of the Ring (actually both the Second and Third Ages) as told from Sauron's perspective. He starts out trying to hustle the Numinorians, gets caught when Morgoth gets overthrown, then slowly changes from a silver-tongued diplomat into the dark lord of the books. Perhaps he doesn't see himself as a bad guy at all, but is trying to unify Middle-earth under one banner. When the Free People win, they get to write the history. If Sauron had won then perhaps the "Free People" would have been seen as rebels and traitors.

Just a thought.

[vito]

Nov 22, 2010 12:43:02 GMT -6 Finarvyn said:

Nov 22, 2010 12:07:33 GMT -6 geoffrey said:

Bilbo wrote the Silmarillion and the Hobbit. Frodo wrote the Lord of the Rings, with the appendices penned by (amongst others) Merry and Pippin. Thus, none of the canonical tales are told by an omniscient narrator. All of them are told by limited, fallible narrators. Who's to say that honest errors haven't crept into the texts?

Wait ... the two characters just mentioned ... Bilbo and Frodo ... weren't they under the control of the One Ring? Who is to say that there are "honest errors" at all. One could argue that if they authored each text it could be with an agenda.

What I'd love to see is the War of the Ring (actually both the Second and Third Ages) as told from Sauron's perspective. He starts out trying to hustle the Numinorians, gets caught when Morgoth gets overthrown, then slowly changes from a silver-tongued diplomat into the dark lord of the books. Perhaps he doesn't see himself as a bad guy at all, but is trying to unify Middle-earth under one banner. When the Free People win, they get to write the history. If Sauron had won then perhaps the "Free People" would have been seen as rebels and traitors.

Just a thought.

Heck, maybe the orcs weren't all that bad. Maybe the portrayals of orcs in LotR are racist caricatures. Maybe real orcs were just like people who lived and loved and fought to defend their families and their freedom.

[Falconer]

Nov 22, 2010 12:07:33 GMT -6 geoffrey said:

1. Bilbo wrote the Silmarillion and the Hobbit. Frodo wrote the Lord of the Rings, with the appendices penned by (amongst others) Merry and Pippin. Thus, none of the canonical tales are told by an omniscient narrator. All of them are told by limited, fallible narrators. Who's to say that honest errors haven't crept into the texts?

Even better, look at it as mythology, like Tolkien intended. It’s an ancient, ancient tale passed down through layers upon layers of storytellers and versions and editions, written down and codified as we know them only relatively recently. Bilbo wrote The Hobbit about as much as Moses wrote Exodus! The version we have is santized and vaguely Christianized (like the Prose Edda or The Mabinogion and ultimately the Arthurian legendry). Obviously different story cycles from many different traditions got drawn into it—for example, the true nature of the Hobbit-gods “Farmer Maggot” and “Tom Bombadil” are only very thinly veiled, and obviously originally had their own myths that had nothing to do with Frodo and the Ring (as you can see from the remnants in The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, along with the mysterious Old Man Willow, Goldberry the River’s Daughter, and other such ancient and forgotten elements).

[Deleted]

How about Judge's Guild, "The Citadel of Fire", located in the far east and associated with the fate of the Blue Wizards. Yrammag is part the long line of Wizards that goes all the way back to the two Blue Wizards that started this order! One of many.

[arcadayn]

Wow. That would have been one trippy movie! Not LOTR by any stretch of the imagination, but I'd like to see it just out of curiosity.

[Falconer]

My ideal megadungeon is Moria. There is no one creator of it. It’s massive and ancient, with so many areas that were forgotten and rediscovered and forgotten again by waves of different inhabitants. As you go deeper and deeper into it’s like a journey into the past. There are areas that date back to Balin, and there are areas that date back to Azog, and there are areas that date back to Narvi and Celebrimbor, and there are areas that date back to Durin “the Deathless”, and at its lowest depths it is a full-on Morgothian balrog-land that predates even the awakening of the Elves. What if Gollum got the Ring back, and he’s down there in Moria somewhere? Gandalf never had a showdown with the Balrog, but he (and/or Saruman) decided to stick around and set a lot of traps, Zagig-style...

[Valandil]

Nov 22, 2010 12:43:02 GMT -6 Finarvyn said:

What I'd love to see is the War of the Ring (actually both the Second and Third Ages) as told from Sauron's perspective. He starts out trying to hustle the Numinorians, gets caught when Morgoth gets overthrown, then slowly changes from a silver-tongued diplomat into the dark lord of the books. Perhaps he doesn't see himself as a bad guy at all, but is trying to unify Middle-earth under one banner. When the Free People win, they get to write the history. If Sauron had won then perhaps the "Free People" would have been seen as rebels and traitors.

Just a thought.

¿Do you mean something like this?

The original author is Kiril Yeskov.

[Mr. Darke]

I had an idea about making an alternate timeline where certain things did not happen or happened differently. I am working on a list of what-ifs that have been interesting. Here are some of them:

*Beleriand is not destroyed in the War of Wraith and becomes the powerhouse elven nation.

*Morgoth survived the War of Wrath and locked the Valar out of Middle-Earth. He deceives the Noldor of Feanor's line and they become the Drow.

*There were more Istari than what was known. Some fell and became the Nazgul. The Witch-King is actually one of the Blue-Wizards.

*The Istari are basically agents in a 'Cold-War' between the Valar and the agents of Morgoth/Sauron.

*The ages unfold as written but the One Ring was actually a gate of sorts for Sauron to channel the power of Morgoth. The Ring's destruction weakens Sauron but does not 'kill' him.

*The Ring was made as the first step in a plan to release Morgoth.

*Sauron rebels against Morgoth and founds Mordor. He takes Saruman as an apprentice to to aid in the war against Morgoth.

* The Istari teach Men the art of magic to aid in the downfall of the dark lord(s).

This is just a small list and I am sure there are more ways to change things up so you could keep a Middle-Earth setting but have a justifiable reason for the D&Disms to be included.

[ravenheart87]

This reminds me the roguelike TOME2. Now that's what I call Middle Earth on crack! Believe me, Middle Earth is totally awesome once you can play as eg. an ent monk, a dark elf sorcerer, a high elf paladin, and add D&D monsters and stuff to all the Middle Earth goodness.

[Falconer]

That’s the spirit!