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Auteurs : Divers - 2003 - RPGNet Forum archives


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Vaklam

Ins­pi­red by this thread I remem­be­red that I have had seve­ral requests from my players to run a LoTR 4th age game.

I have a couple of ideas of what the Elves and Orcs are doing but I’d like to steal from er, I mean, hear some ideas from other GMs who have done a 4th age game or who are plan­ning one.

What is your 4th age Middle Earth like ?

Mat­thew

I wouldn’t run a 4th age game unless Sauron won.

My Middle-earth game would pro­ba­bly be set in Tolkein’s alter­nate ver­sion where Saru­man makes his own Ruling Ring.

Elvish Lore

J.R.R. had some notes about a post-Sauron defeat 4th age in which he talked about Gon­do­rian death-cults as a pos­sible menace. They had no real power — magi­cal or spi­ri­tual — but we’re twis­ted by Sauron and after his death and left to their own evil devices.

Ian

Char­le­ma­gne1980

Whe­ne­ver I run 4th age games I stick with these hooks

1 — The two remai­ning sor­ce­rers of the Istari are waging war against one ano­ther.

2 — Saruman’s ghost that’s floa­ting around.

3 — The Bal­rogs are rising EN MASSE upon the detec­tion of Sauron’s defeat who was the only thing kee­ping them down, due to sheer terror of him and the one ring.

4 — Shelob emerges and the spi­ders begin taking over.

5 — Rada­ghast wants to make amends and go to the West des­pite being aban­do­ned for his fai­lure.
He may go insane depen­ding on PC’s actions or desire to wipe out all non-animal life

6 — The Uruk-Hai all sud­denly gain self-will and cosn­cience and feel pain… but are deter­mi­ned not to be wiped out by man.

7 — Sauron is revea­led to have crea­ted a son with a mortal woman. This nephi­lim amongst other magi­cal expe­ri­ments is a black knight uni­ting the people of Mordor to once again menace others
He’s slightly hono­rable ashram figure but the other sauron kids are hor­rible beyond belief

8 — A number of elves have stayed behind and these Feanor types want to take over Middle Earth’s mor­tals and rule them as gods.

9 — Fara­mir and Eomer die in battle, Eowyn decides to claim the ruler­ship of Rohan.… cau­sing a Civil War.

10 — Aragorn’s child is pure evil and it turns out mur­de­red his father with poison.
The line of Isil­dur will come to an end very soon and chaos will abound.
WHO WILL BE KING!?

11 — It turns out the Ent wives are all bound in a magi­cal globe Sauron crea­ted and the PCs have a chance of saving the Ent race.
Even as humans are ready to des­troy all the Ents once and for all after a mas­sacre of a human vil­lage.
Per­pe­tua­ted by a mad ent obses­sed with lone­li­ness.

12 — Ancient Nume­no­ran mor­tals from Tir Na Nog to the West (ame­rica) come back to their home­land to find their ​“dege­ne­rate” mortal cou­sins.
They resolve to conquer Ara­gorn and the others and esta­blish a new king­dom with them at the head.
Frankly I’ve never run a 3rd age or before game with all these.

13 — Morda is relea­sed by his wife whom he sucks the soul-energy the­reout of and returns one last time to Middle Earth.
The Vala empo­wer a number of mor­tals to do battle for a mind-ben­ding conflict that is the ins­pi­ra­tion for the Apo­ca­lypse. :-)

14 — The race of man has deci­ded to claim the Hob­bits ter­ri­to­ries and a party of Gon­do­rian men go forth to burn it to the ground.
Same for Bard and his king­dom of Lake­town.

15 — The Dwarves new King refuses to go down without a fight and makes a ter­rible war with man­kind, deter­mi­ned to have the dwarf race extin­guish itself in battle than fade away.
If the players are lucky, they rea­lize the dwarves will sur­vive in the new race of man along with hob­bits and elves.

16 — The dege­ne­rate men have taken to wor­ship­ping the spi­rits of fire of Mor­goth that still dwell weakly and become bear shirt wea­ring beasts.
These des­cend on Rohan and Gondor en masse.

17 — An elf has dis­co­ve­red a way to res­tore power to the inde­pendent rings.

18 — A new Dragon master gathers the last of them…

har­le­qui­nade

My 4th Age chro­nicle (which began in FA 1) star­ted off as a simple trip into Ithi­lien to help a lore­mas­ter reco­ver some books from his ances­tral home, which had been aban­do­ned seve­ral years. 

It turns out the books contai­ned infor­ma­tion about a lost heir to the king­dom of Nume­nor (the daugh­ter of the last queen, who repen­ted and sent her the Gray Havens when the bad stuff star­ted hap­pe­ning). So natu­rally, they went out in search of her. Along the way, they :

Stantz

War­ning : Thread Hija­cking in pro­gress. Scramble figh­ters !

Well, I found some ideas for a 5th age game.

A Lords of the Rhymes cameo is man­da­tory.

Mat­thew

When asked what age we were in now, Tol­kien figu­red it was the end of the 6th, begin­ning of the seventh. So pre­su­ma­bly each age ends and begins with a big-ass war.

I stron­gly recomment the Let­ters to anyone who wants to GM Middle-earth. Tol­kien ans­wers spe­cu­la­tive ques­tions about his work very much the way a GM would. It’s fun.

AusJeb

I am pre­pa­ring to run a 4th Age game set around the Sea of Rhun. It will be during the later years of Elendil’s reign. Former agents of Sauron are regrou­ping in the moun­tains next to the Sea of Rhun and are hat­ching plots against the lords ins­tal­led there during Elendil’s cam­pai­gns. Some of the PCs will be the chil­dren of knights and war­riors that rode east with Elen­dil.

Jeb

Smior­gan

I would never run a 4th Age game. The end of the Third Age is the end of the Eldar and all sto­ries and songs. GAME OVER.

The mun­dane Age of Man finally begins. There’s no room for heroes and epic quests, only for buil­ders, far­mers and res­pon­sible family men.

I think this was approxi­ma­tely the way Tol­kien saw the whole thing. At least when he finally deci­ded to defi­ni­ti­vely dis­card his pro­ject of a LOTR sequel.

Smior­gan

Char­le­ma­gne1980

hehehe

[I think this was approxi­ma­tely the way Tol­kien saw the whole thing. At least when he finally deci­ded to defi­ni­ti­vely dis­card his pro­ject of a LOTR sequel.]

Sort of like the novels and Star Wars huh ? :-)

Charles Phipps

Dave Shayne

Quote :
Ori­gi­nally posted by Char­le­ma­gne1980
9 — Fara­mir and Eomer die in battle, Eowyn decides to claim the ruler­ship of Rohan… cau­sing a Civil War.
10 — Aragorn’s child is pure evil and it turns out mur­de­red his father with poison.
The line of Isil­dur will come to an end very soon and chaos will abound.
WHO WILL BE KING!?

The rest of those are all good stuff but these two just totaly offend my Tol­kien sense.

For option 9, I just don’t see Eowyn doing any­thing that would cause strife to her own people. Per­haps she could be per­sua­ded to return to Rohan in such a situa­tion to stop a civil war from occu­ring but I don’t see her as an ins­ti­ga­tor at all.

For option 10, it has always been a bit of an uncha­len­geable bit of mytho­lo­gi­cal truth that the line of Beren will conti­nue unbro­ken to the unma­king of the world. By the time of LOTR Ara­gorn is the last of the human des­cen­dents of Beren and Luthien.

You could I sup­pose save this by having a grand­child spi­ri­ted away from the influence of his evil father but there your trea­ding a tad to close to Star Wars for my taste.

Unre­gis­te­red

Quote :
3 — The Bal­rogs are rising EN MASSE upon the detec­tion of Sauron’s defeat who was the only thing kee­ping them down, due to sheer terror of him and the one ring.

Now that’s an amu­sing twist. Espe­cially with no elf lords around to wade through those Bal­rogs.

vgunn

IMO, The Fourth Age should really not involve any Istari since their pri­mary duty (to help the Free Peoples of Middle-Earth rise up and defeat Sauron) has been com­ple­ted and the Valar would even­tually remove them from the world. 

I would cer­tainly use ele­ments of what Tol­kien brought forth in his musings in THE NEW SHADOW :

« I did begin a story placed about 100 years after the down­fall of Sauron, but it proved both sinis­ter and depres­sing. Since we are dea­ling with Men it is inevi­table that we should be concer­ned with the most regret­table fea­ture of their nature : their quick satiety with good. So that the people of Gondor in times of peace and jus­tice and pros­pe­rity would become dis­con­ten­ted and res­t­less — while the dynasts des­cen­ded from Ara­gorn would become just kings and gover­nors — like Dene­thor or worse. I found that even so there was an out­crop of revo­lu­tio­nary plots, about a centre of secret Sata­nis­tic reli­gion ; while Gon­do­rian boys were playing at being Orcs and going around doing damage. I could have writ­ten a ​“thril­ler” about the plot and its dis­co­very and over­throw — but it would be just that. Not worth doing. » 

–JRR Tol­kien

I think a pos­sible link of Heru­mor to the Mouth of Sauron would be inter­es­ting as there is much spe­cu­la­tion over his origin and fate after the one ring was des­troyed.

We know that Mirk­wood and Dol Guldur were clean­sed as well as re-​establishing/​establishing Moria and the Glit­te­ring Caves. Howe­ver, there is an inter­es­ting pos­si­bi­lity for explo­ra­tion and re-colo­ni­za­tion for Mount Gun­da­bad, since that holds a spe­cial place in Dwar­ven hearts being the bir­th­place of Durin. There would be great moti­va­tion, at some point, to cleanse the foul orcs and other minions from this once sacred place. Gondor may lend sup­port as they too would like to see this region of Arnor (Angmar and Carn Dum) clea­red of any remai­ning wicked­ness.

Explo­ra­tion of the « deep places of the earth » also pro­vides some nice adven­ture seeds. What hap­pe­ned to the Wat­cher in the Water for ins­tance. Also could any other minions of Melkor be unear­thed.

Shelob is ano­ther pos­sible cam­paign sce­na­rio. She was woun­ded and pre­su­med to have star­ved to death. Howe­ver, once again, this is spe­cu­la­tion. What if the Mouth of Sauron mana­ged to sur­vive by hiding in the deep caves of the Ephel Duath. There he finds a woun­ded Shelob and tends to Her. They form an alliance kno­wing Her hatred for those who caused Her so much pain.

Eles­sar and Eomer do see exten­sive action in the East, with a number of bat­tles and adven­tures pos­sible.

PALAN­TIR QUEST from ICE was an very well writ­ten, epic 4th Age Cam­paign for the MERP system that could be easily ported over to Decipher’s LOTR RPG. It involves the fin­ding of the lost Palan­tir.

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