Lord of the Rings: the Northern Defense

[Red Thunder]

The Lord of the Rings:
the Northern Defense​

Background:
Tolkien's the Lord of the Rings has always had a special place in my heart. Reading his trilogy is what cemented in my both a love of literature and a love of the fantasy genre. And I'm willing to bet it did much the same for many of you.

While the movies did a (mostly) phenomenal job of conveying the journey of Frodo, Sam, Aragorn, and the others, the War of the Ring touched so many more lives than those of the main characters. The movie of course, due among other things to runtime and money constraints, don't elaborate on this...at all, now that I think about it. But I want to.

Basic Plot:
While Sauron was attacking Gondor and Mina's Tirith, he was also staging a war in the north against Lothlorien, Erebor (aka the Lonely Mountain), and the human kingdom of Dale that neighbored Erebor. This is the environment and set up I want to play with. There is so much room for a great deal of wonderful stories for unique characters, and I would love to explore that with likeminded RPers.

Provisos:
Now every good or exciting thing has a catch or two; here's mine.
First, please please please for the love of all that is holy have a grasp on English grammar. I get making mistakes (I make several myself in every post I do), but those mistakes should be far and away the exception rather than the rule.
Second, I live and die by internal consistency, up to and including the source material. I am certainly all for changing things to turn out non-canonical with Tolkien's story (the players will only start in canon; what they do afterwards is up to them), but the details of the world need to remain consistent with Tolkien. For instance, as a historian (because that's honestly what he was; I won't stand here and defend his sometimes awful narrative skill), Tolkien paid a fair amount of attention to culture, and the way the males and females of each race approached life. Battles in particular get tricky, from race to race. Elves and dwarves are extremely tough races; both shrug off all but the worst injuries, they don't get sick, and they live a generously long life (or for the elves, forever). As such, there's less concern culturally about the females of those races going into battle. With humans and hobbits, however, you see a very different story: both are extremely fragile races, succumbing to wound or sickness with relative ease, and both live pretty short lives. As a result, there will be a severe cultural resistance to allowing those races' females to enter battle. That's not to say such things can't happen; Tolkien wrote some badass women. But they always had a very specific, very personal reason that they left their homes to fight. If an RPer wants to play a lady Hobbit or a woman, they need to defend their choice in the CS by articulating why in their character's history.
Third, as you probably picked up from the point above, please have some amount of knowledge of Middle Earth. I'm not asking for experts, but you ought to have a general idea of where some of the relevant locations are and what race inhabits them, as well as some other things. Basically, if you've seen the LOTR trilogy (and ugh yes, even the Hobbit trilogy) and kept up with locales and whatnot, you should be just fine.

Conclusion:
Okay, so. I hope this has grabbed the interest of some of you folks out there. I look forward to diving into Tolkien's "expanded universe", if you will, with you! Happy RPing!


@fyrelily @SpaceCowboyEin

 

[Effervescent]

Interested!

Question: The Fellowship and the conglomerate of races working together was extremely rare. Will this have a plan to bring whatever races we end up choosing together, or will players be split into locational clusters based on their race?

Also, will you be accepting any movie canons or will it strictly be from the books? I'm not sure how much random facts will end up in your plot concerning what we as readers/viewers know, but things like the elves being at Helms Deep during the Battle of Hornburg didn't exactly happen in the books.

 

[Red Thunder]

Question: The Fellowship and the conglomerate of races working together was extremely rare. Will this have a plan to bring whatever races we end up choosing together, or will players be split into locational clusters based on their race?

It will! The relationship between the Mountain and the Wood is never really shown to be in a good way. Gimili in fact being admitted into Lothlorien was the first act of good will toward dwarves that kingdom had ever made. So yes, the players will definitely be in part doing the whole ambassador thing. And not only for that reason; both Erebor and Dale are described as seriously considering the olive branch Sauron extends to them, mostly out of fear. This will definitely also come into play during their diplomacy.
Players are definitely welcome to start off in their races' homeland. But the idea will be to bring everyone together. I'll work that bit out later.

Also, will you be accepting any movie canons or will it strictly be from the books? I'm not sure how much random facts will end up in your plot concerning what we as readers/viewers know, but things like the elves being at Helms Deep during the Battle of Hornburg didn't exactly happen in the books.

Unless I'm given a helluva good reason that someone is going to do something unique with them, there'll be no canon characters. The location is question, however, does benefit from the fact that there of the four races are grouped relatively closely. Hobbits I'm making available because it's not completely unfeasible to me that some adventurous Took found their way East.

Your comment about the elves in Helm's Deep is well appreciated tho, as I'd forgotten to mention: in the case of discrepancy between movies and book, the book always always wins out.

 

[rissa]

*dances*

 

[Effervescent]

Oh I had no intention of using a canon character. I meant the differences between book and movie canon. Apologies for the confusion! Thanks for the prompt answers!

 

[Red Thunder]

This is a very simple skeleton. Please feel free to expound on it however you want; all I want is the information provided. Just please use a Tab format when coding your CS, as it can pretty reliably be viewed on mobile. If you do wanna be fancy and leave the ugly Tabs behind, that's fine: just include a Tabs CS as well for those of us (me) restrained by the phone.

[Hdor]Character Name[/hdor]
[Tabs]
[tab=Character Name/Title]
Name: Race:
Age:
Height:
Weight:
Appearance: (description and photo-realistic drawing or faceclaim. NO ANIME)
Personality:
Character Strengths:
Character Weaknesses:
Biography:
[/tab]
[Tab=Gear and Skills]
Weapon of choice: (description and/or image)
Clothing/Armor: (description and/or image)
Skills:
[/tab]
[Tab=Other] (use as necessary for pertinent info you think important: employment, goals, notable connections or relationships, etc. Use this for anything not otherwise covered) [/tab] [/tabs]

 

[mr_pibbs]

If you're still looking for people, I'd love to play a young human from Dale (not unlike our old friend Bard) who's willing to stand against Sauron's forces and not compromise his morals/identity for self-preservation.

 

[Red Thunder]

If you're still looking for people, I'd love to play a young human from Dale (not unlike our old friend Bard) who's willing to stand against Sauron's forces and not compromise his morals/identity for self-preservation.

Absolutely, pibbs! Take a look at a more detailed look at the plot and setting, and post your CS here:
the Lord of the Rings: the Northern Defense
If you have further questions, feel free to direct them on this thread!

 

[mr_pibbs]

Updated my 'claim' post with my finished sheet XD

 

[Spectre]

Saw this was just updated. Is this still a thing? I'd love to drop into the shoes of a jaded sylvan elf.

I've got an itch that this is going to hopefully scratch. Unfortunately a lot of my Middle earth lore has been lost with the ages, but i can certainly brush up.

 

[Red Thunder]

Saw this was just updated. Is this still a thing? I'd love to drop into the shoes of a jaded sylvan elf.

I've got an itch that this is going to hopefully scratch. Unfortunately a lot of my Middle earth lore has been lost with the ages, but i can certainly brush up.

It is! Drop a character sheet on this link, and I'll take a look!

 

[Red Thunder]

Unfortunately a lot of my Middle earth lore has been lost with the ages, but i can certainly brush up.

And don't worry about a huge compendium of knowledge. If you're familiar with the six movies, you'll basically be good to go.

 

[Spectre]

And don't worry about a huge compendium of knowledge. If you're familiar with the six movies, you'll basically be good to go.

Haha okay
Currently running errands. When im done, I'll get to working on my CS and post it up as soon as able!