Return of the King supplement Pre-Gens

When I get out from under the big pile of stuff that needs doing (soon!), I want to work some more on the Return of the King RPG supplement.

I would love to do more supplements, but time is growing rapidly shorter. So ROTK is probably the second-last thing I'll work on for the CODA system (The Anduin Saga being the last).

One of my vague plans for ROTK is to create some pre-generated characters, and updates of the existing Pre-gen characters for a vague campaign outline (also to be found in the Appendix). I further plan to commission an artist to make the fix or six sketches for the book. Why? Why not?

Ingrid - Lesser Dunedain warrior and loremistress

(Stats both for Ingrid in 3007 and 3019)

Aelfwine - Rohir bard and minstrel

(A sort of in-joke: stats for both 3007 and 3019)

Eldamir - Noldo elf Loremaster

The last Noldo elf born in Middle-earth. I was going to reserve him for Hither-lands, but I can use him for both.

Eleth Stormcaller - Sindarin elf Mariner and Magician

An Arwen archetype, a lady of the Grey Havens, with stats for both the 3007 era and 3019.

And one or two more. Probably an artisan or another noble, to round out the list.

Pictures

A Rohan Command company. And a random piece of scenery, because I find it helps with the focus on the camera.

In the foreground a rider of Rohan with banner (from Mithril) and a Royal Knight of Rohan.

and some undercoated guys in the background.

Apparently, I wrote this:

http://www.guildcompanion.com/scrolls/2009/may/merpquickanddirty.html

It's dead useful, so it is.

In other news: still not entirely finished January's Tale of Nine Gamers submission. I just threw up my hands at the lousy light in the office. Something must be done about this. Tomorrow, they shall be finished. Maybe.

Worked on the Hither-lands gazetteer and an adventure for the other thing. Not terribly fast enough.

In related news, this:

http://www.nbos.com/products/mapper/mapper.htm

is one of the most amazing things ever.

Hither-Lands

Well, I just updated the HL page with the Cubicle 7 news. Yes, it was a week late. Yes, its been a long week.

http://www.hither-lands.com/

I was busy.

Later tonight, all being well, I'll try and finish the experience notes I had for HL.

I still hope the Hither-lands website becomes a useful source of news for all Middle-earth roleplaying gaming. This small update was a very small first step.

Well now:

http://www.cubicle-7.com/

News

20 January 2010 - Cubicle 7 Entertainment and Sophisticated Games announce that they are developing The One Ring: The Lord of the Rings® Role-playing Game.

Cubicle 7 Entertainment and Sophisticated Games are proud to announce that they are jointly developing The OneRing: The Lord of the Rings® Role-playing Game.

This puts a new spin on things.

I wonder could I complete the Middle-earth campaign trilogy idea I had for this new system? (Over the Misty Mountains Cold - the old Lord of the Rings Adventure Game, then Away Shall Fade, and finally Palantir Quest?) The Lord of the Ring adventure game series was never completed by ICE. The system is crude and charming and the storyline is very Hobbit-ish.

Anyway, I just volunteered to play-test.

Fingers crossed.

Lord of the Rings Adventure Game/MERP Sample Characters list

I am stealing these characters, and their depictions from Middle-earth: The Wizards

Annalena Sulhiril

Arinmîr

Beretar

Haldalam

Galva

Wacho?

The point of this list will become clear in due course, I hope.

Progress Report

Well, I have completed painting:

4 Rohan Royal Guards

(With four more Riders of Rohan coming along slowly).

I finished the War of the Ring supplement work. I think. Maybe.

The Realm of Battle is half painted. It's painted enough to be usable, but it needs a lot more flock and so forth. I ran out.

The Appendix for the Dwarf book is complete, though I am less than sure if anyone likes the maps (I am thinking "no" - they look a bit ragged when shrunk down.)

Now I find myself at oddly loose ends, so instead of doing the sane thing, I am going to clear out more of my to-do list. This time I am going to clear out something from the dark abysms of my document folder. I'm weird that way.

Its an RPG adventure. I figure I have three options, maybe four. Write it as a MERP adventure (a side quest to "Away Shall Fade") or write it as a Lord of the Rings Adventure game adventure (maybe a prelude to the trilogy idea I dreamed up); write it for the CODA game rules or write it for the forthcoming Hither-lands game? Well, I don't know how Hither-lands will work, exactly, so that's out. For now at least.

I think the piece was abandoned because the tone was all wrong. It certainly has a more MERP-ish air to it than a CODA one. Now making it as MERP-ish as possible may be yet another challenge.

We shall see.

Eomer (or someone) and some Rohan infantry.
Knights of Rohan

Above - the Rohan Infantry - Royal Guard and fyrd-men. Effectively a glimpse of the whole force as it stands.

Onwards and Upwards

Well, I've sort of painted the Realm of Battle board

And I've undercoated the Tale of Nine Gamers Rohan figures

But progress has been deathly slow. To be fair I've had a nasty cold, had some serious cleaning to do on the house and some occasional entertaining and so forth. "Undercoating the Rohan figures" was a simple thing to type. In reality it involved hunting down wire brushes just before the shop closed, scrubbing the last horrid grey undercoat from the new Mithril Miniatures Helm's Deep Warriors of Rohan figures. The figures have been in various stripping chemicals for several months now. Then I had to cut the bases off with my last jeweller's saw blade. Then glue the bastards onto washers with five minute epoxy and then use the last of my black spray paint and some of the grey spray paint to undercoat them.

Finally, with the fever peaking, I was trying to take photos of the undercoated figures. Undercoated figures are not terribly interesting to look at, or easy to take photographs of. Especially at night.

And the shagging tripod has snuck off someplace.

In slightly less annoying news, I've undercoated and based my entire Grey Company force (I think, mostly) and many of the metal dwarves recovered from the stripping jar.

Anyway, here are some deeply exciting in-progress pics I will then have to share on The One-Ring

The Project List

The list of things that need doing looks something like this:

- Paint the Realm of Battle Gameboard

- Complete Experience allocation system for Hither-lands

- Finish the Appendices for the Dwarf book

- Layout the Dwarf book

- Finish War of the Ring supplement (two adventures to go)

- Finish Return of the King supplement (lots to go).

- Begin my Tale of 9 Gamers submission (2000 points of Rohan)

A first post

It's 2010. Feel old yet?

Fully six years since the Pelennor Fields supplement for the Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game.

Four or Five years since the Helm's Deep supplement was published by Decipher.

This is the year I hope to finish a bunch of gaming projects that have been bouncing uselessly around my skull. It's time to structure these things and time to finish them.

This blog is to be my personal record of attempting this faintly Quixhotic task.