16 · A l’aventure dans la Moria !

« Je n’ai pas besoin de carte, dit Gimli, qui s’était appro­ché avec Lego­las et qui contem­plait le pay­sage avec une étrange lueur dans ses yeux pro­fonds. C’est là, la terre où nos pères tra­vaillaient jadis, et nous avons fixé l’image de ces mon­tagnes dans bien des ouvrages de métal ou de pierre, et dans bien des chan­sons et des contes. Elles dressent leur hau­teur dans nos rêves : Baraz, Zirak, Sha­thûr. »

— La Com­mu­nauté de l’Anneau, p. 370

Ce para­graphe donne un cer­tain nombre de notes utiles au maître de jeu rela­tives au dérou­le­ment des aven­tures dans la Moria. Le MJ devra lire en entier ces conseils avant d’étudier et de sélec­tion­ner une des aven­tures qui suivent dans les para­graphes sui­vants.

« Les men­diants qui ne patientent pas aux portes, mais s’insinuent pour voler, voilà com­ment nous les trai­tons ! Et si d’autres de chez vous viennent four­rer leurs sinistres barbes ici, ils subi­ront même sort. Va donc les aver­tir ! Et si les gens de sa parenté dési­rent savoir qui, à pré­sent, est Roi ici bas, le nom est là, écrit sur sa face ! C’est moi qui l’ai écrit. Je l’ai tué ! Je suis le maître ! »
Nár retourna alors la tête et lut, marqué au fer rouge en runes des Nains afin que tous le puissent déchif­frer, le nom AZOG. Et ce nom s’inscrivit depuis lors en lettres de flammes dans son cœur, et dans le cœur de tous les Nains.

— Le Sei­gneur des Anneaux, appen­dices

Choix d’une aventure

Le Cha­pitre 17 – Liste des aven­tures est dévolu à des sites ou des sce­na­rii d’aventures spé­ci­fiques. Les prin­ci­paux plans sont décrits dans le Cha­pitre 12 – Lieux notables. Dis­sé­mi­nés un peu par­tout dans le Cha­pitre 12 – Lieux notables, on trouve des illus­tra­tions et des dia­grammes de pas­sages et de chambres typiques, qui mis ensemble forment une zone spé­ciale dans laquelle les PJ peuvent s’aventurer. Uti­li­sez-les en liai­son avec les plans des Pro­fon­deurs, aussi dans le Cha­pitre 12 – Lieux notables.

Le MJ doit prendre la mesure de la force et de l’expérience des PJ impli­qués dans le jeu et choi­sir l’aventure qui entrai­nera un défi, mais sans être trop dif­fi­cile.

The first thing to decide when selec­ting a tale is whe­ther to rely on a pre-gene­ra­ted story, such as those in Cha­pitre 17 – Liste des aven­tures and Cha­pitre 18 – Epi­sodes, or to conceive your own crea­tion. We sug­gest that, unless you’re expe­rien­ced with theme sub­ject and have a good deal of time, you start with one of the six adven­tures pro­vi­ded in Cha­pitre 17 – Liste des aven­tures. Each-contains a brief tale, as well as cha­rac­ters, set­tings, mis­sions, encoun­ters, etc.

After you’ve tried your hand at one or more of the adven­tures, you may want to try your hand at one the three, somew­hat « sket­chier » epi­sodes in Cha­pitre 18 – Epi­sodes. These three epi­sodes contain only the ker­nels of a good adven­ture. You will need flesh them out. While this will require some serious work, the struc­tu­red nature of the labor should help you later—when you create your own adven­tures from « scratch. »

If you decide to construct your own tale, we sug­gest that you peruse this work and then read select parts of the sources, espe­cially volumes one and three of « The Lord of the Rings ». Pay par­ti­cu­lar atten­tion Part III of Appen­dix A and the latter por­tions of Appen­dices E and F in The Return of the King.

Note that the his­tory of the Nau­grim is one of an often-dis­pla­ced, fre­quently-wan­de­ring folk. Dwarves are prone to embar­king on quests, espe­cially when the jour­ney involves the reco­very of sacred arti­facts or great wealth. Since, even in its most-plun­de­red state, Mona is a rich repo­si­tory, it serves as a natu­ral des­ti­na­tion for Dwar­ven adven­tu­rers.

If your story focuses on non-Dwarves, keep in mind that Khazad-dûm is more than a grand Dwarf-hold. It is the prin­ci­pal cros­sing point for bulk traf­fic tra­ver­sing the cen­tral Misty Moun­tains. During much of the year, it is the only way to nego­tiate the cen­tral Hithae­glir. Groups such as the Fel­low­ship of the Ring, having a com­pel­ling reason to travel the Great Dwarf-road, might elect to under­take the jour­ney through Hadhodrond—even in the face of the legen­dary dan­gers.

Moria is also the focus of an age-old feud bet­ween the Nau­grim and the First­born. (See Cha­pitre 02 – Vue d’ensemble de la Moria). Once the main link bet­ween the old Elf-king­doms of Ere­gion and Lórien, it remai­ned shut throu­ghout the war bet­ween Sauron and the Elves during the middle years of the Second Age. The Elves, espe­cially the Noldor, remem­ber the clo­sure as one of the grea­test betrayals in his­tory. Their ani­mo­sity toward the First House of the Nau­grim is las­ting, deeply-seeded, and broadly home. Nearly every Elf car­ries the bit­ter­ness of the quar­rel somew­here in his/​her heart. Thus, dis­dain and revenge may serve as motives under­lying Elven expe­di­tions into Khazad-dûm. Such pas­sion pro­vides plenty of pre­texts for game­mas­ters in need of a good hook for a tale around which to construct an adven­ture.

Telling a tale

The legends sur­roun­ding the Black Chasm are legion. Moria’s tur­bu­lent his­tory gives birth to poems, songs, and epic sto­ries in every quar­ter of nor­th­wes­tern Endor. This makes it easy for game­mas­ters who, having found or spun a tale, need to impart their story.

We’ve sprink­led pas­sages from various chro­nicles throu­ghout this work. They serve as examples of the bits of lore that might entice adven­tu­rers into Khazad-dûm, or help them find their way once they enter the under­ground world. Use them as tools for tel­ling your tale, or create your own legen­dary excerpts. Then, fund a context for the infor­ma­tion. The PCs may hear a mins­trel, find a book, or come across a broken tablet that embo­dies this lore and peaks their inter­est.

Pro­tec­ted by the ravages of wea­ther and hewn from rock, Moria is a won­der­ful store hold for old ins­crip­tions and other­wise per­ishable tomes. Many, like the scor­ched, has­tily-ren­de­red diary entries of Balin’s com­pany, sur­vive cen­tu­ries, even in the face of the Balrog’s occu­pa­tion. Others, like the sym­bols ins­cri­bed in the stone of the Doors of Durin, wea­ther eons of his­tory. Let these and other records help tell your tale. Let Khazad-dûm speak for itself.

Choix d’une période spécifique

Ceux des MJ qui dési­rent une simple aven­ture ne sont pas concer­nés par une période par­ti­cu­lière. Ils peuvent, cepen­dant, avoir plus de sou­plesse et ajou­ter un plus à leurs des­seins en choi­sis­sant une période tem­po­relle en dehors du champ de toutes celles men­tion­nées ici. On doit consi­dé­rer ces aven­tures comme des his­toires qui carac­té­risent le lieu, rien de plus. Ayez tou­jours pré­sent à l’esprit qu’il n’y a pas d’autorité qui puisse aller à l’encontre du cours de l’histoire. Si vous pour­sui­vez une séries d’aventures pen­dant une ère spé­ci­fique, toute aven­ture dans la Moria vien­dra natu­rel­le­ment prendre place dans ce temps. Ce module est conçu pour s’accomoder à vos besoins. Des aven­tures spé­ci­fiques sont arran­gées dans l’ordre chro­no­lo­gique. Le MJ doit toutes les lire avec atten­tion pour voir com­ment elles s’organisent et com­ment se font les chan­ge­ments dans le domaine poli­tique. Consul­tez la Chro­no­lo­gie dans le Cha­pitre 02 – Vue d’ensemble de la Moria pour plus d’informations.

Characters

« He was a little crazed per­haps with age and mis­for­tune and long broo­ding on the splen­dor of Moria in his forefather’s days ; or the Ring it may be, was tur­ning to evil now that Es master was awake, dri­ving him to folly and des­truc­tion. »

— LotR III p. 438

Sec­tions Cha­pitre 05 – Les Nains de la Moria, Cha­pitre 14 – Le Royaume du Balrog and Cha­pitre 15 – Les créa­tures de l’ombre contain a wealth of back­ground mate­rial concer­ning Moria’s tra­di­tio­nal occu­pants. This data should help you create many of the cha­rac­ters in your adven­ture, be they PCs or NPCs.

PCs

When selec­ting an adven­ture from Cha­pitre 17 – Liste des aven­tures or epi­sode from , take into account the strength and expe­rience of the par­ti­ci­pa­ting PCs. Choose an adven­ture that will pro­vide them with a chal­lenge but not prove so dif­fi­cult as to be impos­sible. For ins­tance, a low-level party should not even think of attemp­ting the « The Explo­ra­tion Expe­di­tion » (see Cha­pitre 17–3 – The Explo­ra­tion Expe­di­tion), for the Balrog and its minions would make short work of them.

NPCs

Get to know your NPCs. Read over the text concer­ning each of the major NPCs, inclu­ding any major mons­ters the PCs may meet. Try to unders­tand the cha­rac­ters’ moti­va­tions and beha­vio­ral pat­terns.

Tables in Cha­pitre 19 – Tables pro­vide all the hard gaming sta­tis­tics you will need when run­ning NPCs. You may even want to pho­to­copy and high­light them with a marker, so that when needed you will be able to find cha­rac­ter stats qui­ckly. These sta­tis­tics com­ple­ment the text des­crip­tions, giving you dif­ferent and often revea­ling clues about the cha­rac­ters (e.g., how power­ful a mighty Dwarf-lord is, or how much damage it takes actually to fell a Balrog).

Settings

Moria contains a broad array of adven­ture set­tings. Out­side the com­plex, Aza­nul­bi­zar and the Great Dwarf Road beckon tra­ve­lers cros­sing the Hithae­glir. Inside, bolder visi­tors can choose to explore the City or the Mines, the Levels or the Deeps, Endor or sub-Endor. Gene­rally spea­king, of course, the fur­ther away from the Outer Doors the more « remote » the set­ting. Remo­te­ness trans­lates to dan­ge­rous­ness in the case of des­cents into the Deeps, for the closer you get to the Under-deeps the more likely you will dis­co­ver catas­trophe.

Using maps and layouts

All of the adven­tures and epi­sodes des­cri­bed in this work refer to the prin­ci­pal floor­plans detai­led in Cha­pitre 11 – Orga­ni­sa­tion de la Moria, Cha­pitre 12 – Lieux notables and Cha­pitre 13 – Les Sous-Pro­fon­deurs. The former sec­tion fea­tures illus­tra­tions and dia­grams of typi­cal pas­sages and cham­bers which fit toge­ther to form the various sec­tions of Moria in which PCs may find them­selves. Use them in conjunc­tion with the maps of the Levels and Deeps situa­ted in Cha­pitre 12 – Lieux notables. Thus, you can create any loca­tion within Moria in suf­fi­cient detail to satisfy your players.

Moria is far too exten­sive to allow a com­plete set of maps and des­crip­tions, even in a work of this size. This means that the onus of kno­wing exactly where things are falls squa­rely on the gamemaster’s shoul­ders. In many of the adven­tures, it’s not so impor­tant where cer­tain encoun­ters occur, so long as they actually happen. Be as flexible as you can, and let the PCs wander as it suits them. Just remem­ber that people who stumble around m the dark without any idea of where they are going are even­tually going to find them­selves in an unte­nable situa­tion.

Using traps

The layouts in Cha­pitre 12 – Lieux notables include frequent refe­rences to traps and locks. Consult Cha­pitre 10 – Thèmes archi­tec­tu­raux for details about the uni­quely Dwar­ven traps found in Moria. It is often up to you to figure out which sort a par­ti­cu­lar trap is. Remem­ber to make the traps some­thing the PCs can find and some­how cir­cumvent, at least if they are care­ful. Other­wise, the adven­ture will qui­ckly grind to a stand­still.

Note that trap disar­ming and lock picking maneu­vers are hand­led accor­ding to the gui­de­lines in ICE’s MERP or Role­mas­ter games.

Be judi­cious with the use of traps. While the Dwarves of Moria were fond of them, they also needed to move about without fear of acci­den­tally trig­ge­ring a device that would cap­ture or kill them. Traps are found most often near large concen­tra­tions of trea­sure that the Dwarves had the time and incli­na­tion to pro­tect with auto­ma­tic devices. They are also placed in random cor­ri­dors, ready to cap­ture the unwary. Resi­dents would know not to pro­ceed down these pas­sages, but intru­ders would not, pro­vi­ding the Dwarves with a hapha­zard sort of secu­rity, amply sup­ple­men­ted by stolid guards.

If the PCs find that they cannot defeat or bypass a par­ti­cu­lar lock or trap, they can always resort to brute force to either break the lock or acti­vate the trap. Keep in mind, howe­ver, that doing so may cause a lot of noise and alert any deni­zens of Moria that might be nearby. Although at times such tac­tics are requi­red, the subt­ler ways are always best

Sojourns

Even in the safest of times, jour­neys into Moria are fraught with danger. Unless you happen be to a res­pec­ted Dwarf of the First House tra­vel­ling before T.A. 1980 or after F.A. I, you will enjoy very little free­dom and/​or safety of move­ment. Sen­tries, traps, and other tra­vails await you and, should you hope to suc­ceed in the face of such trials, you will need plenty of nerves, skill, and luck.

Guard movements

Look over the layouts of the com­plexes in Cha­pitre 10 – Thèmes archi­tec­tu­raux and Cha­pitre 12 – Lieux notables and note where guard sta­tions and weak points are. No doubt the PCs will want to exploit these points. Moria’s defen­ders may want to rein­force them during the adven­ture, so it is also very impor­tant to track the asso­cia­ted flow of sen­tries and other war­ders. It makes things easier for eve­ryone if you know where the sol­diers are, or will be, posi­tio­ned. This adds a great deal to the adven­tures’ veri­si­mi­li­tude.

Random events and discoveries

Take random events into account as well. Just because a map indi­cates a room is empty does not mean it is always empty. Par­ti­cu­larly, it does not mean that the PCs can depend on it being vacant when they want it to be. Even the best-laid plans run afoul of unfo­re­seen com­pli­ca­tions.

Save the high-powe­red magic items and heavy arms for the adven­tures climax. Simply ente­ring Moria and snea­king around will be a dif­fi­cult enough task for most adven­tu­rers. Still, if the PCs do not seem to rea­lize this, do not hesi­tate to chase them out the East-gate with their tails bet­ween their legs. Unless they have truly erred, they can always regroup and try again later. Of course, this time the defen­ders will pro­ba­bly be ready for them.

Rencontres

La Moria n’a jamais été sans vie. Même pen­dant les périodes oû les Nains n’étaient pas à sa tête, les aven­tu­riers ren­con­tre­ront vrai­sem­bla­ble­ment quelqu’un ou quelque chose dans ses Halls. Bien que la Moria soit un énorme com­plexe, des choses tra­versent habi­tuel­le­ment les che­mins, sur­tout quand elles se meuvent sur de grandes dis­tances.

La Maître Table des Ren­contres du Cha­pitre 19 – Tables aide le MJ à savoir quand et où une ren­contre se pro­duit, ainsi que la nature de celle-ci. Quand un PJ reste ou voyage dans la Moria, le MJ peut consul­ter cette table, note la zone où le groupe se trouve (par ex., la Deuxième Pro­fon­deur de la Cité) et jette les dés pour déter­mi­ner s’il y a une ren­contre. Les tirages sont faits sur une période tem­po­relle fondée sur la dis­tance que le PJ par­court ou sur le nombre d’heures écou­lées depuis le der­nier jet de dé, en pre­nant le laps de temps passé le plus court. Un résul­tat sur 1D100 infé­rieur ou égal à la Chance de ren­contre pour la région consi­dé­rée entrai ne une confron­ta­tion.

S’il y a ren­contre, un autre tirage est fait pour déter­mi­ner quelle sorte de créa­tures ou de choses est impli­quée avec le PJ. Pour cela, le MJ peut consul­ter les tables et les textes appro­priés pour plus d’informations. La Maitre Table Mili­taire (Cha­pitre 19 – Tables), la Maître Table des PNJ (Cha­pitre 19 – Tables) et la Maître Table des Bêtes (Cha­pitre 19 – Tables) donnent des sta­tis­tiques et un résumé suc­cinct de tous les enga­ge­ments. De plus, le MJ doit se repor­ter au Cha­pitre 04 – Les plantes et les ani­maux de la Moria pour les détails concer­nant le carac­tère des ani­maux sau­vages, ou au Cha­pitre 15 – Les créa­tures de l’ombre pour les habi­tants malé­fiques.

Mais comme il y a aussi une « vie » dans beau­coup de méca­nismes légués par les Nains, la table inclut aussi les ren­contres avec les pièges. Le fonc­tion­ne­ment des pièges typiques ainsi que quelques indi­ca­tions pour l’utilisation de ces dis­po­si­tifs peuvent être trou­vées dans le Cha­pitre 10 – Thèmes archi­tec­tu­raux.

Sounds

Sound tra­vels excee­din­gly well through the carved halls and pas­sages of Hadho­drond, and often it plays tricks on the ears. Noises that seem to be right around a corner may ori­gi­nate hun­dreds of yards away. Conver­sely, some halls have baffles built into them that muffle all sounds going in and out, making it dif­fi­cult to hear someone’s foots­teps until they are almost on top of you.

The evil crea­tures that dwell in Moria before, after, and along­side the Dwarves are not known for subt­lety. They use the halls of Moria as a mas­sive echo cham­ber to magnify their omi­nous war chants and the drum­ming of their battle drums. This tactic can be ter­ri­fying, because the rever­be­ra­tions sur­round inten­ded vic­tims, confu­sing them as to the direc­tion from which they are being approa­ched. Of course, they also make it dif­fi­cult for the deni­zens of the Under-deeps to track their prey, but sheer num­bers balance the scales in their favor. Moving for­ward on waves of sound from their bea­ting drums, they simply swarm through entire sec­tions, even­tually fer­re­ting out any that might be trying to hide from their wrath.

(See Cha­pitre 10 – Thèmes archi­tec­tu­raux for more infor­ma­tion about sound in Khazad-dûm.)

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