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Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Game - The Ruins of Annuminas [LotR]
by Kristin "Zetal" Wingo
Finally. After six months of waiting, Decipher finally gives us something new for the Lord of the Rings
Roleplaying Game.
Since I got the Narrator's Guide adventure, I let my brother narrate this adventure, "The Ruins of
Annuminas". He spent a couple days going over it, we created our characters, and sat down to play with it that
Sunday.
My characters:
Besedhel (loosely translated from the Sindarin, and the grammar is probably off, "She-elf") is an Elf of
Rivendell. She's a Sinda Elf loremaster, with emphasis on healing, who came along with the party because
she's become friends with the Rangers through taking care of some of them when they come in to rest in
Rivendell. She has an irrational hatred of Dwarves, even for the Elves.
Rosalinda Mugwort is a Hobbit from Bree. She's a potter who has the somewhat odd combination of traits of
being reckless and craven both. As a young Hobbit, she was a practical joker, which taught her some useful
survival tricks (like running away and sneaking around), and she's the best cook in the party. Even though
she's a scaredycat, she is one of the few Breelanders who likes the Rangers.
Freca is a Dunlending barbarian who's left his home because he doesn't trust Saruman. He fled to Bree,
where he met the Rangers and offered to help when one of them had a bit of a crisis. In Dunland, he grew up
protecting his family's land from wild animals trying to eat their sheep. Despite living on a sheep ranch, he
never learned a thing about ranching, preferring to fight the wolves.
My brother's characters, aside from NPCs, are Puim the Dwarf (who hates Sindar), a Dwarven smith, and
Lhuneneb, the proto-Ranger.
The chronicle starts with Pelegond the Ranger talking to the people he's assembled. He asks them to
investigate a group of Men who came north, because the Rangers suspect they may be graverobbers or worse
stealing from the ruins of Arnor. The Rangers are stretched too thin to investigate themselves, so he's asking
his friends - the PCs - to investigate for him. He explained that the men are Dunlendings, and told them which
way to Annuminas. Already, there were signs of tension in the group, as Besedhel and Puim started taking
verbal shots at each other.
The PCs quickly decided that it would be better to go by the Greenway, rather than taking the straight but
cross-country shot, because they believed they could track the Dunlendings easily. Sure enough, with Freca
and Lhuneneb leading the way, they had no trouble finding the tracks when they got to where the Dunlendings
left the road. They tracked for a few days, getting to know each other as they moved. Besedhel and Puim's
constant fighting got on everyone else's nerves, but other than that, they all liked each other well enough. They
also began hunting and foraging for food, since they had no idea how long their quest would take and wished
to conserve their packed food. The task divided up well, with three people able to find food, one person who
was relatively useless, except for finding some herbs to make the food taste good (this being Besedhel), and
then, of course, the Hobbit cooking.
As they got ready to stop for the night on the (third?) day, they were attacked by a pack of wolves.
Rosalinda was hurt early, and fled. Lhuneneb and Freca managed to wound or kill most of the wolves, with
Puim taking out one or two before running after Rosalinda to make sure she was alright and Besedhel
climbing a tree before pulling out her bow and taking a couple shots down.
After the fight, they found the tracks again and continued moving. The next major obstacle was the
Brandywine River. And this is the first time the chronicle posed a problem for us aside from the ones we
brought in through our characters. None of our party were particularly river-worthy people, although most could
swim a little. After Rosalinda jumped in and got into serious trouble trying to swim across, Freca managed to
build a raft, only to discover that none of the party had a clue how to use one. In the end, the party ended up
going miles out of their way to find a crossing point. I don't know how realistic the TNs are, but they're out of
range of most beginning characters. This is the one thing I didn't like about the chronicle so far.
After roleplaying through the river, both of us were ready to hang up the adventure for the day.
Zetal (zetal@churchofbrad.com)
Comments?
Post on the New WNOHGB BBS!
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