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ShortQuests -- Pocket Sized Adventures! An all-new collection of digest-sized D&D adventures designed for 1-2 game sessions.

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Edena_of_Neith" data-source="post: 488990" data-attributes="member: 2020">If I were running a campaign set in Tolkien's Middle Earth, I would set it earlier in the timeline, and assume the whole timeline after that point is altered irrevocably.  Here is one idea for your players:  have their characters transported from another world into Tolkien's, during the First Age and the Wars of Beleriand.  They find themselves suddenly amidst a large number of spectacular elven nations, and even more spectacular elves.  Great and noble men, the Edain, work with these elves, while other lesser men are wondering who they should support.  Dwarves in their mountains are neutral, unless they feel their underground cities are in danger.  The Ents, are on nobody's side, but certainly they hate the orcs.  Not just any orcs, these orcs of Beleriand.  Not the weak, puny orcs of D&D.  These are the orcs of Morgoth, and into them he has poured his Divine Power, giving them stature, strength, and endurance beyond mortal kin, and filling them with hatred and a lust to destroy, to burn, and to kill.  Did I mention he also gave them neat armor and weapons, magical armor and weapons?  The party, seeing the Fourth Battle erupt and most of the elves and men going off to fight the orcs, and the balrogs, and the fell beasts (and whatever else Morgoth might have, which is everything in the Monster Manuals), might decide to help them against the Great Enemy.  Too late do they learn that these elves are rebels, and all who aid them are caught in their Doom, which is the Curse of Mandos.  What will the party do?  Try to return home?  Try to go to Valinor and talk the Valar out of their anger?  Laugh in the face of the Curse and go on helping the elves?  Run to the far ends of Middle Earth?  Try to steal the Simarils from Morgoth's Crown?  The choice is up to them!  Admittedly, any attempt to superimpose the D&D system (especially the D&D system of magic) onto Tolkien's world, will be like cramming a piece of square plastic through a circular hole.  With about the same messy results, whatever is tried.  Some of Tolkien's themes might not do so well in a D&D scenario.  Elves have about a + 10 to all stats (and that's only the beginning.)  Everyone will want to play the Favored Race of Arda.  Elves eventually leave Middle Earth, which creates a rather dull scenario, if you like elves.  Which means you must annul Tolkien's theme, if you like elves and want them to stay (the Valar did not ask them all to come to Valinor, during the First Age, then!)  Resurrection ... hmmm, wasn't there a rule about the Gift of Death being irrevocable?  If the Valar cannot give life back, how could a mere mortal cleric do so?    For that matter, the Valar (and the One) do not answer prayers in the D&D sense, and do not fill the minds of clerics with spells.  Or, perhaps they do, after all ... if you allow that they do, but if you do Tolkien's conceptions are all but destroyed (the Valar NEVER interfered so directly in Middle Earth's affairs!)    Anyways ...  If you do use Tolkien's Middle Earth, another interesting time lasts from the forging of the Rings to the Last Alliance.  Perhaps the players can defend Eregion and save Celebrimbor.  Or aid the Numenorians (perhaps even stop them from falling!)  Or help the corrupt Numenorians, and aid Ar-Pharazon to conquer Sauron (and talk him out of invading Valinor.)  Yet another interesting time and place is Eriador from the Rise of Angmar to the Fall of Arthedain.  Anytime in Gondor's history from the Kin-Strife on forward could be interesting.  Rhun, Dorwinion, and Harad are mentioned, but not developed.    Sauron is attempting to seize control of these lands.  Can the players stop him?  What lands lie east of Rhun and south of Harad?  In ancient history there was the Land of Culvienion, from whence the elves came.  And the land of Hildorian, from which men came.  If those lands are still around (or even if they are, but much changed) there might be interesting things to be found there.  What about Khazad-Dum?  The ultimate dungeon, after it fell.  Priorhand, the dwarves were always expanding their mansions, and the Misty Mountains were endless (and filled with endless strange things besides balrogs and Watchers.)  Where did the original dwarves awaken?  A question worth answering, and exploring.  Where did hobbits come from?  Where are they, in the First Age?  The Second Age?  Why did they evolve into hobbits?  What special event occurred to create hobbits out of men? (or, are they men?  Perhaps - heresy! - they come from elves or dwarves.)  Where are the Entwives?  Tolkien never answered that.  Can your players?  Just some suggestions.</blockquote>

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