THE GATHERING STORM
Setting: Middle-Earth, late Third Age
System: Rolemaster Classic
Schedule: Weekly, Tuesday Pacific Daylight Time: 19:00, Eastern Daylight Time: 22:00.
Platform: Discord, Fantasy Grounds.
Notes: I have the “Ultimate License” version of Fantasy Grounds which means players only need the free demo version.Familiarity with Rolemaster Classic is not a requirement. Assuming you are unfamiliar with it, being willing to learn a new system is enough. The sessions will be approximately three hours long and streamed using audio and webcam, meaning having a webcam, mic, and headset/earphones, and being comfortable with participating in a stream are a requirement. This a new campaign for a new party, meaning all the players will all be starting at the same rookie level.
The Premise:
The Gathering Storm is a campaign set in Middle Earth during the lead-up to the War of the Ring. The players will play new recruits into the Rangers of the north, an unsung group who ceaselessly patrol the boundaries of Eriador keeping its inhabitants, like the Breelanders, safe from the forces of the Dark Lord of Mordor. “Unsung” because the Rangers are carefully to ensure those who they protect remain ignorant of their labors, and the fact that without the Rangers, the settlements of the north would long since have fallen under the shadow of Mordor. Or in the words of their leader, Aragorn son of Arathorn, "What roads would any dare to tread, what safety would there be in quiet lands, or in the homes of simple men at night, if the Dunedain were asleep, or were all gone into the grave? [...If] simple folk are free from care and fear, simple they will be, and we must be secret to keep them so. That has been the task of my kindred, while the years have lengthened and the grass has grown."
However, not all the members of the Rangers are Dunedain, or even “Rangers” by character class. For example the Grey Company are an elite group of thirty-one Rangers of the North whose leaders include Elladan and Elrohir, the sons of Elrond Half-Elven. As such the players are not limited to playing High Men, or even limited to the Ranger character class. However, given the role played by the Rangers, it is expected that all characters are strongly motivated to take up the fight against the forces of the Dark Lord of Mordor. In the case of Elladan and Elrohir, their mother had had been waylaid and captured in the Redhorn pass, her escorts scattered by a sudden assault of orcs. In time she was rescued by Elladan and Elrohir, who afterwards took to riding far afield with the Rangers of the North on a ceaseless hunt for orcs, driven by the memory of the “torments” their mother suffered “in the dens of the orcs.”
In the case of the player characters, whatever their motivations, it has led them to Rivendell, de facto headquarters of the Rangers of the north in the late Third Age, in order to join their number and take up the struggle.
The players can expect to be a assigned a series of diverse quests that will require them to range far and wide across Middle Earth. This could mean anything from a reconnaissance mission, to search and rescue operation, to an assault on an enemy stronghold. They players can also expect missions more along the lines of a classic dungeon quests, for example retrieving an artifact of power or a lost tome of knowledge from an orc infested subterranea. As such the players will have ample opportunity for their characters to prove their worth, test their mettle, and hone their skills. Ultimately it is hoped that during the course of the campaign player characters will reach their full potential in time to join the elite arm of the Ranger of the North, the aforementioned Grey Company, and participate as members of the Grey Company in the climactic conclusion of War of the Rings, including the epic battles. Having said this, given the grounded nature of the campaign and the Russian-Roulette lethality of the RMC system, it will be no small feat for players to keep their characters alive from the start to the finish of the campaign; for the same reason, neither will there be any shame in the event a player has to roll up a new character.
How to join: Reach out to me on discord (Zusha) to discuss your character concept after which we can progress to character generation.
