ShawnDriscoll said:
Hopeless said:
The players start off as Frodo, Merry, Pippin and Samwise
I see too many problems with players using movie characters. It's hard enough making them NPCs.
My original plan was just to say thats where they start their characters however are their own, this isn't about replicating the characters from the movie but letting the players run their own characters through the situation which would also be modified to make it original and an adventure they would want to play.
I was figuring they could even change the character's gender since one of my player's is the wife of another player.
The ring is passed down, but their relation has disappeared and the players only know a friend of the family asked them to safeguard the ring but to avoid wearing it since he thinks it might be important but needs to get someone with the expertise to confirm his findings.
What he doesn't reveal is that the ring if passed to any human, elf or dwarf would immediately possess them which is why he refused to touch it as his wizard senses warned him it was enchanted and malevolent.
He asks them to head to the Inn in the neighbouring town where he'll meet them but has arranged for someone to look out for them (the Strider character who as a half elf is similarly protected because being both human and elf the ring cannot possess him directly but he is also unable to carry the ring as he is repulsed by it).
If they're dumb enough to use the ring the riders come looking for them, as long as they don't the trip isn't as dangerous as long as they remain out of sight of the riders BUT someone has obviously been spying on them unaware that the Saruman villain is scrying the halflings by virtue of using the captive gandalf as the focus but he can't tell who has the ring and even if the ring is used it doesn't allow him to confirm who is using the ring only that there are four of them.
Strider takes them to Weathertop and let the players decide what they're doing, regardless of whether they don't start a fire Saruman's scrying leads the riders to Weathertop, but nothing says they have to fight them since the riders require the ring to be in use to pinpoint who has it and if they don't they will split up to chase the halflings so how they handle this will explain who Arwen has to escort to Rivendell so if the wrong halfling is hit she takes him to Rivendell so the others can evade the riders and reach safety.
At Rivendell we learn Elrond is a half elf so resistant to the ring's influence, most of his people were enslaved thanks to the three rings the elves had which is why they're dying out because their lost people were turned into the orcs and the survivors have the choice of staying and fighting or leaving for the far west where their ancestors came from.
Most are leaving but Elrond is the commander of the forces remaining behind to help thwart Sauron and know the only way to destroy Sauron is throw his phylactery the ring into the volcano where it was forged.
Isildur was possessed by Sauron but was slain by mistake with the ring ending up in Gollum's hands who although evil was a halfling and immune to the possession albeit eventually corrupted but the process was halted when Frodo's uncle gained the ring.