Hobbiton

THE STATE OF THE HOBBITON RPG

1 factory infested with goblins.

2 goblins running in the dark night.

1 lurker in the shadows

1 dying sorceress

1 Ranger with a lot to do

1 recovering hobbit lass

2 recovering dwarves

1 red wizard, gone away South to aid the archers and rangers

The moon is waning. (I guess.)

We are forcing this to conclude as the book does. Then it's wide open. The hobbits of the Shire know virtually nothing except that The Boss, Lotho Sackville-Baggins (who has been eaten by Grima), has hired men from the South and has bought up and taken over the Shire. They are aware of a man named "Sharkey" who has come and is somehow involved, perhaps to actually help the hobbits!(This is enchantment enhanced propaganda.)

The hobbit-heroes from the books return, SOON, to stir up the hobbitry in revolt. Saruman is killed by Grima.

These things will happen very soon. As of tomorrow (game time) most everything will be in place.

Here are the divergences.

Presently, the problem is a factory full of goblins. There are men holding the partially ruined elven towers. There is a host of thugs, and former soldiers of Saruman coming north to the Shire. A small cavalry of Rangers and the archers of Galdor are poised to harry them and deter them, hopefully to stop them. What the party does not know, is that two goblins are making their way probably a 2 week trip, to Gundabad. Call it another 14 days back to Bree with a brigade of orcs, to meet the bands of men that Saruman hope to throw at Bree simultaneously from the South. This must be discovered if it is to be prevented or thwarted.

How the spectre will play into this, only the shadows know...

*And the group needs to get back to Hobbiton before the Company of hobbit-heros. Else Rosie will be unable to meet her dear Samwise...
Which leaves some clearing up to do. Either our scorceress/minstrel gets slightly well enough to travel soon, or... I don't know. Unless it can be cleared up sooner than we think. We need Shanamir, hope he's got time soon.*

*It seems like a lot of RPG's are dying as of lately, whats going on? I would try to revive this one, but I have not been in it for a long time so I don't know whats going on nor the time to read all the posts. If you want RPG's come to Mithlond, link in my signature.*

Suddenly, Rose saw a strange light in the southeastern sky. "What's all that?" she asked the dwarves. They looked at it blankly, then at each other, and at Shanamir. "No idea".

... were running during the night to Gundabad, when they heard a shrill, unearthly whistle from behind them. A split second later, the path they were on was illuminated with light.

The goblins did not stop to think, but ran twice as fast now, out of sheer terror.

The spectre of shadows sat in the shade of a large tree along the path, attempting to regain his strength.

(OOC: That must have stung)

The pain was ever present, never giving her any rest. She was dying and she couldn't do anything to prevent that. She was a dead weight and they don't need such a thing right now. After few minute of thinking she came pout with the only solution available. She will use her power to transform the pain in magical energy. This will kill her much more quickly but she won't feal the pain and hopefully she will be able to help. Of course the magical enegy will boost the curse and drain her life force, wich mean that when her spell end she will be little more than an empty shell.

She began to concentrate, it took all her training to forget the pain and she was barely able to finish her spell.
But he was now in place and will held until noon next day.
Wich mean she had less than 6h left to live. She now have nothing to lose and that make her a dangerous foe.

She crawl next to Shan and ,taking his face with both hand, kiss him deaply. Immediately after she stand up. Shan was still puzled and obviously alarms.

-I'm fine, everyone get up.Their is little time left and much to do.

In the growing darkness everyone can see her gaze glowing slightely.

Well now, it looks as if things are about to pick back up!

*I hope so, thanks for starting us again Xivigg. I'm in the middle of mid-terms for a while, but we need Sauganast or Shanamir or someone who knows relatively what their doing back.*

In the darkness, Rose watched as their dying friend seemed to grow a little stronger. Her eyes seemed to glow slightly too, probably just a trick of the moon, musn't get myself all spooked about things now.
Drawing a clay bottle from her bag, Rose went over and gave her a sip, it was a simple mix of different herbs and sugars, meant to give extra strength.

*Hope you don't mind Shan*

Shanamir looked about, although Anga was still white and too weary to move on his own, they might now be able to move on. No one was asleep, all were too anxious.
"Alright, lets get packed up quickly. We need to move. Someone make a strecher or something for Anga, we'll have to take turns carrying him."
With new energy, Rose packed her bag, and set to preparing any compresses or medicines they might run low on.

"No need for a strechter," the long silent Congar speaks up and moves from the foot of the tree that he had seemed to taken root on. "I will carry him."
Congar lifts Anga to his shoulder easily and prepars to start out.

Shanamir nodded his thanks to Congar.
"Very well," he said, "lets be off."

As the group left their camp, Rose was seen scurrying here and about, picking up dropped things, and setting things to rights. Once she was satisfied, she fell in with the last of the group, dashing between the dying sorceress and the valiant dwarf, making sure both took to travelling, at least as well as could be expected. After all, they were not strong, and it wouldn't do to have them die part way home.
Shanamir didn't call a halt until the early morning rays of sunlight began to show just behind them. And even then they didn't stop long, but had only a short break, and continued for Hobbiton.

[c] Watch this space for impending Conclus[/c]

WARNING!!! This RPG, having lapsed into silence and being near convergence with actual Tolkien storyline, shall be concluded within a few realtime days.

I purpose, in one massive post, to tie up all existing loose ends and leave Hobbiton as Frodo, Sam, Merry & Pippin found it.

Then, I will ask the Moderators to close this thread for posterity.

If you have any further character development, or subplots, then write them now or forever hold your peace![/b]

Go ahead i think you have everything you need to finish it in some flashy way

p.s. you might need to erase some mind after all Rosie never talk about such event to Sam...

do as you want with my char

Ok for me... I thought It could be good to secure the doors and set fire to the factory full of Orcs... You know, the thick black fumes the hobbit party saw when coming back? he he he
Would be nice to start a POST-hobbiton thread: what happens after.

Shall we close it off and be done with this one then? A post-Hobbiton thread would be nice.

Let Gil finish this one than we'll see about another post-hobbitown game

Well, here we are, at long last at the end of our tale! I found out that I can't quite do it all in one post. (Maybe I can really finish tomorrow! Or the next day...)

[c] ~~~[/c]

On the road to Gundabad...

Urkthai and Thlak ran as fast as their flapping goblin feet could move them through the night, running, running, running to Mount Gundabad, where they would be safe from the pursuing terror. Long into the night they ran and hid themselves by day, panting in gasps, hardly daring to breath for fear that any noise might bring death upon them.

The bright sun drove them cringing into a crevice, where they finally passed into a fitful sleep, from which they did not awaken until its last piercing rays withdrew from the sky above. Without a word, the orcs tussled briefly, and Urkthai forced Thlak to creep out of their rocky refuge to see if it were yet safe to resume their journey.

Thlak peered out into the darkening landscape, and saw the mists gathering as the cool night fell. They whispered a few crude words in their vile tongue and agreed that they could be on their way. Soon, the two goblins crept out of the crack in the rocks and with a speed through the mists and shadows that only wary goblins could manage, they were running again.

The fogs were bewildering, and often they stopped and Thlak would sniff the air, but soon they were hopelessly lost. The craggy rocks and cliffs in which they had hidden were far behind, and the ground had grown soft with grass upon hills and mounds that loomed around them now on every side. Urkthai muttered about the uselessness of little nosers like Thlak. Thlak only stared unseeing into the mirk that gathered so dark and thick that even orcish eyes could not penetrate.

Low and long came chilling laughter as if from spirits of malice that cared not who heard, as long as they knew fear.

The orcs were by now well acquainted with fear and in their horror they stood as still as trolls in sunshine.

Thlak was the first to recover his senses and began running as fast as he could in what direction he could not say. He heard a terrible cry that sounded like Urkthai. He heard the clatter of chains and a whistling sound that ended with a wet squelching noise, terminating Urkthai's horrified scream.

Thlak ran face first into a great standing stone.

Cursing his luck, he held a dirty clawed hand to his bleeding face.

And the laughter began again.

Closer.

The goblin whirled around as the chains lashed out and caught his throat. He uttered no word. Headless, his body fell and this was the last thing seen by the eyes of Thlak, as the goblin's head rolled away into the unearthly fogs.

The chain moved again, and the lurking shadow laughed.

Had any living man been present, he would have perhaps noticed joy in that spectral laugh. And perhaps he would have thought that it came, not from a chain wielding warrior, but from the mounds and barrows that surrounded the upright stone. If he knew the legends of that dead land, he might have speculated that some ancient vow, or curse, was at last fulfilled and some shadow that had lurked for centuries in the land had finally paid its debts and was free.

But there had been no living man in that unhallowed place since the great stone was set upright.

And no living thing ever returned to tell what had become of Urkthai and Thlak. Saruman's messengers never reached Mount Gundabad. The brigades of orcs would never descend upon the Shire.

And Saruman that night dreamed a disturbing dream of mists and shadows. In it, he saw his goblin messengers decapitated. He woke chilled with fear, Maiia though he was, for the haunting laughter still rang mockingly in his ears. For the first time, he felt the insecurity of final mortality, and he finally knew true fear in his ancient heart. Ever and always his writhing intellect had found what it thought was a solution to whatever had presented itself. Ever and through every defeat, he yet conceived how victory might be secured.

But after ages of fortune and war, in the midst of that dark night, dread had at last somehow found his heart. And he never found out from whence it came.

The Cavalry of Eriador

Meanwhile, down in the lands south of the Shire, came a force of Men from the Dunlands, mingled with Easterners who had fallen into Saruman's service, and sallow orcish men who escaped the Fall of Isengard. They were hungry for the good life promised by Sharkey, ruling a land of halfling slaves. They were thirsty for the fine beers and ales and wines promised by Sharkey. They looked forward to a life of ease and conquest.

They came heedlessly, recklessly.

When the vanguard had passed far into the rocks and rills of bare Eregion, sleeping without watch, drunken and besotted, Galdor's elves from the Wandering Companies and a dozen or so Rangers mustered hastily from Eriador, came upon them.

Those who escaped, died with Elvish arrows through their necks.

The next day, the main body of the invading host came, and they were too many, far, far too many, for the slender bows of the Elves and the straight swords of the Rangers. In wave after awful wave of brutish humanity, and worse, the desperate invaders broke upon their defenses. But the ambushers had become the ambushed, reckoning not on the great numbers that Saruman's wickedness had summoned.

Still, they were resourceful and had gathered weapons enough to fight many times their numbers. But they had no hope against an army. Yet they fought on, leading them this way and that, falling back from one position to another, delaying, always delaying, the hordes that threatened the Shire. They knew not if their deaths might purchase freedom for the halflings, or merely grant a few days reprieve from the barbaric suffering that descended upon them. Still, they fought on and delayed the host for nearly three days. And then they had reached their last resort.

They had lured the horde at last into a box canyon and were defending themselves in the last narrow finger of it. The horde was forced to come in smaller numbers between the high narrow walls. The Rangers could not climb out, and the Elves could not do so before they were shot down. Here they made their final stand together.

A huge orcish man with a heavy club fell with a cry gurgling in his throat. Galdor had shot his last arrow. Elf lord though he was, he looked about grimly in his last desperation. Already, the masses of the invading army were crushing in upon their last defense. There was nowhere left to go. Several, who had looked forward that very year to sailing into the West, had fallen to the foul assault. A handful of the Rangers remained standing.

They might have died there in that hour had not the sound of horns broken through the savage cries of the invaders pressing in upon this last stand of Elf and Man.

One of the Rangers cried aloud and then blew a blast upon his own horn in answer.

Sudden confusion and fear took the host as they turned to see, riding hard upon them, the Cavalry of Eriador, the close kinsmen of Aragorn, son of Arathorn, Elessar Telcontar, King of Anor and Gondor!

Some days past, he had become aware of troubles in the Shire, when Shanamir was brought from the door of death by Galdor. The King had turned his gaze, through the Palantir of Orthanc, once the tool of Saruman, and learned much of what transpired. He sent forth his cavalry from many distant leagues, they who had ridden through the Paths of the Dead and the Darknessof Sauron, and they came hard upon the heels of the unheeding host just in time to save Galdor and his elves, and the rangers who stood with them.

Their wrath was as the heat of the forges of Orodruin in its last fiery rage and they fell upon the evil host with dour hands and singing steel. They cut through the brutish horde and ran them down and stampeded them one upon another in the box canyon

Their fallen were carried away in honor. They had indeed purchased freedom for Anor, and their memories were ever bright in the songs of the Elves. Their brave stand delayed Saruman's invaders until Aragorn's cavalry could decimate the squalid host.

Their unburied carcasses fed the carrion fowl for weeks.

Leaving their foes unburied and unplundered, the Elves and the Rangers went their separate ways. If any ever heard else of Galdor and the Wandering Company, it is not written here. As for the Cavalry of Eriador, upon finishing the deed, as was the fashion of the Rangers, they returned then over the following days, singly, and in small bands, to their appointed rounds to resume the guarding of Anor.

They looked much the same as they had, when they set out with the sons of Elrond to the War. But somehow, they sat straighter in their saddles, and stood higher in the people's esteem as gradually the subjects in these far reaches of a forgotten kingdom came to remember who they were.

For now the weatherworn Rangers rode not merely for Aragorn, Chieftan of the Dunedain. They rode now for King Elessar and, with them, the rule of the King had returned.

[c] ~~~[/c]


Now that the easy parts are out of the way, I'm going to put away the keyboard and try to come back tomorrow.

*Bravo Gil! I believe you wanted me to close it off when you are done? Just let me know when.*

Not much else to do at this point, now, is there? :P

And I've quite frankly had a little writer's block over it!

I like Shanamir's idea of roasting the goblinses in the factory, but I haven't quite figured out how to do it! If you guys want to have a go at this, then please do!

Then, I might get unstuck! Otherwise, I'll try again when inspiration strikes.