I am going to run a short game that runs parallel to the opening of The Fellowship of the Ring. You should already be very familiar with the following:
One morning the hobbits woke to find the large field, south of Bilbo's front door, covered with ropes and poles for tents and pavilions. A special entrance was cut into the bank leading to the road, and wide steps and a large white gate were built there. The three hobbit-families of Bagshot Row, adjoining the field, were intensely interested and generally envied. Old Gaffer Gamgee stopped even pretending to work in his garden.
The tents began to go up. There was a specially large pavilion, so big that the tree that grew in the field was right inside it, and stood proudly near one end, at the head of the chief table. Lanterns were hung on all its branches. More promising still (to the hobbits' mind): an enormous open-air kitchen was erected in the north corner of the field. A draught of cooks, from every inn and eating-house for miles around, arrived to supplement the dwarves and other odd folk that were quartered at Bag End. Excitement rose to its height.
Bilbo Baggins called it a party, but it was really a variety of entertainments rolled into one. Practically everybody living near was invited. A very few were overlooked by accident, but as they turned up all the same, that did not matter. Many people from other parts of the Shire were also asked; and there were even a few from outside the borders. Bilbo met the guests (and additions) at the new white gate in person. He gave away presents to all and sundry . the latter were those who went out again by a back way and came in again by the gate. Hobbits give presents to other people on their own birthdays. Not very expensive ones, as a rule, and not so lavishly as on this occasion; but it was not a bad system. Actually in Hobbiton and Bywater every day in the year it was somebody's birthday, so that every hobbit in those parts had a fair chance of at least one present at least once a week. But they never got tired of them.
On this occasion the presents were unusually good. The hobbit-children were so excited that for a while they almost forgot about eating. There were toys the like of which they had never seen before, all beautiful and some obviously magical. Many of them had indeed been ordered a year before, and had come all the way from the Mountain and from Dale, and were of real dwarf-make.
When every guest had been welcomed and was finally inside the gate, there were songs, dances, music, games, and, of course, food and drink. There were three official meals: lunch, tea, and dinner (or supper). But lunch and tea were marked chiefly by the fact that at those times all the guests were sitting down and eating together. At other times there were merely lots of people eating and drinking continuously from elevenses until six-thirty, when the fireworks started.
The fireworks were by Gandalf: they were not only brought by him, but designed and made by him; and the special effects, set pieces, and flights of rockets were let off by him. But there was also a generous distribution of squibs, crackers, backarappers, sparklers, torches, dwarf-candles, elf- fountains, goblin-barkers and thunder-claps. They were all superb. The art of Gandalf improved with age.
There were rockets like a flight of scintillating birds singing with sweet voices. There were green trees with trunks of dark smoke: their leaves opened like a whole spring unfolding in a moment, and their shining branches dropped glowing flowers down upon the astonished hobbits, disappearing with a sweet scent just before they touched their upturned faces. There were fountains of butterflies that flew glittering into the trees; there were pillars of coloured fires that rose and turned into eagles, or sailing ships, or a phalanx of flying swans; there was a red thunderstorm and a shower of yellow rain; there was a forest of silver spears that sprang suddenly into the air with a yell like an embattled army, and came down again into the Water with a hiss like a hundred hot snakes. And there was also one last surprise, in honour of Bilbo, and it startled the hobbits exceedingly, as Gandalf intended. The lights went out. A great smoke went up. It shaped itself like a mountain seen in the distance, and began to glow at the summit. It spouted green and scarlet flames. Out flew a red-golden dragon, not life-size, but terribly life-like: fire came from his jaws, his eyes glared down; there was a roar, and he whizzed three times over the heads of the crowd. They all ducked, and many fell flat on their faces. The dragon passed like an express train, turned a somersault, and burst over Bywater with a deafening explosion.
At this point Gandalf gathered four about him, four whom he knew to be brave and courageous and worthy of a great responsibility, and he drew them into the darkness behind the Grand Pavilion.
"I have spied some movement to the north," he said in a quiet and somber voice. "For better or ill Mr Bilbo Baggins has invited practically everybody to this little party of his, so there should be no movement and no lights to be seen, not here, not in the North Farthing, not anywhere in the Shire. Make haste and uncover whatever it is that..."
Gandalf's face stiffens suddenly, and he pauses a moment. "Gather your weapons and go, but do not bring any concern to these people here. I intend to leave the Shire by morning, so look for me at the inn of the Prancing Pony in Bree in two days hence. I want to know what it was that you uncovered."
And with a swirl of his cloak Gandalf leaves and disappears into the pavilion.
Core Rulebook only, this includes No traits, no archetypes, no racial variants.
20 point buy (scores from 8-18 before racial adjustments)
Hobbit or Dwarf only
Average starting gold
Characters level 1
Max hp
Backstory is not essential but a love of Tolkien is.
I do expect a good knowledge of the rules. For example, casting Mage Armour on the guy in breastplate will be a wasted spell as I won't be retracting it.
Magic will be present though low-key, and perhaps even mundane in appearance, as much as possible (picture Gandalf setting off some small fireworks in the back of his wagon, or Aragorn attempting to heal Frodo with a poultice.) That being said I do not want to handicap casters.
Daily posting is ideal but even I will not commit to that. I prefer to take my time with posts rather than rush them and make mistakes. I have seen many games find their groove at 3-5 posts per week.
This will be a party of four so AWOL players will be greatly missed. I expect that you would ask a fellow player to post for you should you be absent for more than three days as I prefer to not GM and post for missing players.
I am aiming for a short game of about 6 encounters. After that I will consider Further Adventures.
Dotting for interest. I'm going to work on a Halfling Cleric and try to flavour it a little differently to fit into the Tolkien theme.
Dotting for interest, as well. Tentatively making a dog-riding Took (cavalier)... if that would be allowed; by core rules a cavalier can't take a dog as a mount unless they're 4th level. But hobbits riding on dogs are cute!
Never mind, just saw that you're accepting Core Rulebook only, so no Cavalier anyway.
Meh, I'll think about something else.
Dwarven fighter with war axe and tower shield planned. Party tank and grumpy drinker with a tendency to insult others.
Consider me Tolkien literate. Why did Tom bombadil not make the movies?
16 str 16 con 14 dex 6 cha 14 Wis 10 Int. -- shield focus + dodge feats.
Skills= profession soldier and profession miner
Also hoping to see 'the pass' restarted now that I see Drake posting. :-)
Hey, Jobo, you still haunting these boards?
So, a cleric, a fighter, a rogue.... Sounds like we are building towards a classic party of four, not that we 'need' a wizard specifically.
Think I might try a halfling sorcerer. It'll take a day or so to stat up.
Here he is getting started as a work in progress. Hopefully I'll be able to finish him while I'm at the library today. One dwarven rogue coming up for adventure.
I'd like to throw together a halfling ranger, probably built with an archery bent.
Ok, should be good to go now.
Kip84: halfling cleric
dien: thinking about it
Jobo: dwarven fighter
Cutlass: Khazak Ironaxe: dwarves rogue
trawets71: halfling sorcerer
GypsyMischief: halfling ranger
Okay guys, I'm sure we'd all like to get this game started. I would like to see completed characters as soon as possible for review.
Nice of you to say so, John.
Here is the sorcerer submission for Trawets71.
Here's Kip84s Cleric. I'll get some more info in the alias profile later
I'll have a good look at the character sheets in the next 24 hours or so.
Grifo, your page four is.... Interesting.
Whoops. That's from a different Character and shouldn't be there... I'll get rid of it...
Okay, I intend to get this started today, many apologies for the delay: mostly technology troubles and a family get-together has waylaid my posting.
I'd like to take:
Grifo Hedgehopper, halfling cleric
Tobold Cotton, halfling sorcerer
Khazak Ironaxe, dwarven rogue
And GypsyMischief's halfling ranger
My apologies to Jobo, though I will PM you if we need a replacement character
Thank you for taking me. I'm looking forward to this. Can't wait to get started.
Looking forward to it. :-)
Okay, I've started the Gameplay thread and the Discussion Board too.
Just popped on, glad to be a part of the adventure, I'll be statting out my hero tonight.