I've detailed more about the pregen characters for this. I have five choices for Thrain's family - all of them women. I also have five commoner characters who would help them. The idea is for only five or six characters total, but they'd have choices among the ten.

Royal family

All these are direct family of Thrain, who are the impetus for going to stop him from his destructive war. I'm still working on names, because Tolkien names are a big deal and I'd like to do them right.

Thrain's wife: A shrewd and powerful queen along the lines of Queen Victoria. Popular among her people, and a good administrator and general.

Thrain's daughter: A classic archetype of fairy tales, the young princess who constantly gets into trouble, but has the wits and pluck to get herself out rather than waiting to be rescued. She practices stealth and thievery with the idea of stealing from Smaug.

Thrain's sister: A schemer with a heart of gold, who married the human governor in the land where they are refugees. Inspired by Queen Esther, who schemed to save her people.

Thrain's mother: The noble and haughty older queen-mother, unwilling to relinquish control years after her husband's passing. She is a keeper of secrets, who alone holds details of Erebor.

Thrain's mother-in-law: A strong-willed woman who has lived for years as a hermit, exiled for blaming the destruction of Erebor on Sauron's dwarf-ring and demanding that it be destroyed. She has good survival skills and a raven companion.

Commoners

All of these are ordinary people, who for various reasons were not drafted into the war.

Youth: A twen-age (i.e. still in their twenties) youth who is a naive Luke Skywalker type.

Goldsmith: An old craftsman who all but lost their profession when Erebor was destroyed, and has been forced to work odd jobs since then. Knows a lot of tricks and is extremely handy.

Scholar: Kept out of combat by tradition, and devoted to the cause of dwarven culture. Knows history and stories of Moria and the Misty Mountains, but little practical experience.

Tavern-keeper: A tough barkeep used to breaking up fights, with some old injuries.

Bodyguard: The only martial character per se of the group, retained as a guard to the royal family. Father was a hero of the war killed by orcs.

Quote from: jhkim on July 04, 2024, 02:21:17 PMThrain's sister: A schemer with a heart of gold, who married the human governor in the land where they are refugees.

That's ... weird. I get that interspecies marriage is pretty much assumed in modern fantasy, but outside of the very specific instances of Beren/Luthien and Aragorn/Arwen, Tolkien gives the impression that this is not a thing in Middle Earth. Are we going on the logic here that female dwarves in ME have beards?

Also, the Hobbit is specific that the only survivors of Smaug's attack on Erebor were Thrain, Thror, and a handful of Dwarves who happened to be outside the mountain at the time (including Thorin). You may or may not care, but it's a pretty huge stretch to say that Thrain's entire extended family was among that number.

Thanks for the feedback, ForgottenF. Were there parts that you liked?

In general, about Thrain's family, I wanted to offer several possibilities. It could be only one or two of these would show up in the game. I don't expect that all five would appear, but I wanted there to be different options. The ones that aren't chosen could be assumed to have died in Erebor.

Quote from: ForgottenF on July 05, 2024, 10:08:29 AMThat's ... weird. I get that interspecies marriage is pretty much assumed in modern fantasy, but outside of the very specific instances of Beren/Luthien and Aragorn/Arwen, Tolkien gives the impression that this is not a thing in Middle Earth. Are we going on the logic here that female dwarves in ME have beards?

Tolkien is very reluctant to talk about women and marriage at all. He made family trees that often include no women. Just among the nine Fellowship, there is Aragorn's marriage and Gimli's one-sided love for Galadriel.

Tolkien also has more races than are sometimes discussed. There are the cave-dwelling hobbit-like Drúedain. There are the dwarf-like men of the East ("Not tall, but broad and grim, bearded like dwarves, wielding great axes"). There are half-orcs and troll-men. Gandalf says Smeagol's people "I guess they were of hobbit-kind", which makes the branches of hobbits unclear.

I'm leaving it unknown whether they could have children, but I think dwarves and men could at least intermarry. It's rare because of custom and proclivities, but I'd think that over the centuries of close relation between Erebor and Dain that there were a number of dwarf-human romances.

Quote from: ForgottenF on July 05, 2024, 10:08:29 AMAlso, the Hobbit is specific that the only survivors of Smaug's attack on Erebor were Thrain, Thror, and a handful of Dwarves who happened to be outside the mountain at the time (including Thorin). You may or may not care, but it's a pretty huge stretch to say that Thrain's entire extended family was among that number.

For this game, I'm taking it that Thror and Thrain brought their wives with them - possibly even a handful of others. Like with anyone, they would have tried for women and children first. So Thorin's verbal description is accurate but not complete. (Like Tolkien's male-only family trees.)

Quote from: The HobbitThe few of us that were well outside sat and wept in hiding, and cursed Smaug; and there we were unexpectedly joined by my father and my grandfather with singed beards. They looked very grim but they said very little. When I asked how they had got away, they told me to hold my tongue, and said that one day in the proper time I should know.

I think it's reasonable to suggest that there were a handful of others with Thror and Thrain, and that their wives were the first people they'd take.

Also, I am assuming that Erebor was a city of over twenty thousand - since it was considered a major city among all of dwarven civilization. So when Thorin says "few of us", he means few compared to tens of thousands, not that there were only 15 survivors total. For the game, I am postulating that there were at least hundreds of refugees. No one escaped from the city center, but there would have been outlying parts of Erebor - side mines, outposts, etc. Any major city will have outlying parts. Over two centuries, most of those refugees integrated into other communities and/or were non-combatant and/or didn't want to re-take Erebor in a crazy quest.

Quote from: jhkim on July 05, 2024, 01:00:20 PMThanks for the feedback, ForgottenF. Were there parts that you liked?

I don't know. Having half the pregens be female members of Thrain's family is definitely not what I would have done, so I'm not really getting the logic there. In general I'd guess that 5 designated female pregens is likely to be a mistake unless you expect a high volume of female players. When I'm doing pregens, I usually go with a male-female ratio of roughly 60-40 or 70-30, but I tend to get almost exclusively male players.

As I said above, what appeals to me about Tolkien's Dwarves is their essential mundanity. IMO they're the closest to the common men of Middle Earth out of any of his demi-humans, so Dwarf royalty and politicians don't much interest me. But I think I regard Middle Earth differently than most people who like it. Outside of the Silmarillion, my favorite part of LOTR is the first half of Fellowship, and I like Middle Earth chiefly for it's homely, down-to-Earth qualities. If I was joining this table, I'd gravitate to the Goldsmith character.

Quote from: jhkim on July 05, 2024, 01:00:20 PMTolkien is very reluctant to talk about women and marriage at all. He made family trees that often include no women. Just among the nine Fellowship, there is Aragorn's marriage and Gimli's one-sided love for Galadriel.

I mean, he talks about women when they're relevant to the story he tells. It's just that the story he's telling is usually about war or other things where women wouldn't have much involvement, given the semi-historical society he's portraying. One of the first things we're told about Bilbo is that he's the son of Belladonna Took, and several female hobbits get called out by name. Women feature more heavily in the Silmarillion, especially in the early parts of it before the war properly kicks off. Feanor having a different mother than Finrod and Fingolfin, for example, is pretty critical to the story.

Gimli's love for Galadriel is I think intended to be platonic. It seems to be somewhere between Tolkien channeling chivalric romances and a Catholic sentiment akin to adoration for the Virgin Mary. I don't think it's much different from the feeling Frodo has on seeing Arwen for the first time. As for the rest of the Fellowship, Boromir and maybe Legolas are the only ones you'd expect to be married. Frodo is explicitly a quirky bachelor and a bit of a loner. Sam and the other hobbits are supposed to be quite young. I believe at least a couple of them do canonically get married after the events of the book. Gandalf is Gandalf. Even Legolas and Gimli are supposed to be on the young side relative to their racial lifespans, though I'll admit they've probably both had enough time to get married if they were inclined.

This isn't canon to Middle Earth, but given the absence of female dwarfs in almost all classic fantasy and folklore, I like the interpretation that there just straight up aren't any, and dwarfs do literally spring out of holes in the ground.

Quote from: jhkim on July 05, 2024, 01:00:20 PMI'm leaving it unknown whether they could have children, but I think dwarves and men could at least intermarry. It's rare because of custom and proclivities, but I'd think that over the centuries of close relation between Erebor and Dain that there were a number of dwarf-human romances.

I have a hard time believing they'd be sexually attracted to one another, and a marriage of political convenience isn't in keeping with the romantic tone of LOTR. Just seems out of character for Middle Earth to me, but you do you.

Quote from: jhkim on July 05, 2024, 01:00:20 PMAlso, I am assuming that Erebor was a city of over twenty thousand - since it was considered a major city among all of dwarven civilization. So when Thorin says "few of us", he means few compared to tens of thousands, not that there were only 15 survivors total. For the game, I am postulating that there were at least hundreds of refugees.

That's not my reading of the text, but I'll concede it doesn't shatter the canon. It's the approach the Hobbit movies took anyway.

Quote from: ForgottenF on July 05, 2024, 09:00:35 PMAs I said above, what appeals to me about Tolkien's Dwarves is their essential mundanity. IMO they're the closest to the common men of Middle Earth out of any of his demi-humans, so Dwarf royalty and politicians don't much interest me. But I think I regard Middle Earth differently than most people who like it. Outside of the Silmarillion, my favorite part of LOTR is the first half of Fellowship, and I like Middle Earth chiefly for it's homely, down-to-Earth qualities. If I was joining this table, I'd gravitate to the Goldsmith character.

OK. I feel like Thrain's close family are vital to this particular scenario, since the quest is to convince him to give up the war - given that he wasn't convinced by lots of soldiers dying. On the other hand, I might also run a different all-dwarf scenario.

Any thoughts on an all common-born dwarf adventure? Maybe something detailing dwarf action during the War of the Ring? The PCs could try to either kill or deceive the Mouth of Sauron when he appears at Erebor in 3017, maybe.

Quote from: ForgottenF on July 05, 2024, 09:00:35 PM

Quote from: jhkim on July 05, 2024, 01:00:20 PMThanks for the feedback, ForgottenF. Were there parts that you liked?

I don't know. Having half the pregens be female members of Thrain's family is definitely not what I would have done, so I'm not really getting the logic there. In general I'd guess that 5 designated female pregens is likely to be a mistake unless you expect a high volume of female players. When I'm doing pregens, I usually go with a male-female ratio of roughly 60-40 or 70-30, but I tend to get almost exclusively male players.

At my last Savage Middle Earth game at KublaCon, I had 2 women out of 6 players - and one man played a female character, and that's been normal for me. I've run games with all-female and all-male PCs, and had players interested either way. So I tend to create characters based on the scenario rather than expected gender of the players. In this case, the scenario is stopping Thrain from his war -- and I felt like Thrain's female family were a good choice for who to convince him out of war. Also, I am interested in female dwarves since they are established to exist but are never characters in the stories.

Quote from: ForgottenF on July 05, 2024, 09:00:35 PM

Quote from: jhkim on July 05, 2024, 01:00:20 PMTolkien is very reluctant to talk about women and marriage at all. He made family trees that often include no women. Just among the nine Fellowship, there is Aragorn's marriage and Gimli's one-sided love for Galadriel.

I mean, he talks about women when they're relevant to the story he tells. It's just that the story he's telling is usually about war or other things where women wouldn't have much involvement, given the semi-historical society he's portraying.

Quote from: ForgottenF on July 05, 2024, 09:00:35 PMAs for the rest of the Fellowship, Boromir and maybe Legolas are the only ones you'd expect to be married. Frodo is explicitly a quirky bachelor and a bit of a loner. Sam and the other hobbits are supposed to be quite young. I believe at least a couple of them do canonically get married after the events of the book. Gandalf is Gandalf.

Historically, most adult men would have wives at home even if they went to war - especially noblemen who were expected to produce heirs. And in Europe (which LOTR is based on) men would typically remarry after being widowed many years. In Lord of the Rings, though, none of the 18 or so main male characters have a wife at home. One can give reasons for each individual character not being married, but the whole is a very notable lack of women.

Note that it's not just the Fellowship. Elrond, Theoden, and Denethor are all widowed without remarrying. Princes Boromir (41), Faramir (36) and Eomer (28) aren't married. The entire race of ents are missing all of their women, and dwarf women are mysterious and/or scarce.

It isn't a crime or anything, but the lack of women isn't motivated by historicity. It's actually quite odd for history. I love Tolkien's work, and one of the cool parts of role-playing is to focus in on stuff he glossed over.

Quote from: ForgottenF on July 05, 2024, 09:00:35 PM

Quote from: jhkim on July 05, 2024, 01:00:20 PMAlso, I am assuming that Erebor was a city of over twenty thousand - since it was considered a major city among all of dwarven civilization. So when Thorin says "few of us", he means few compared to tens of thousands, not that there were only 15 survivors total. For the game, I am postulating that there were at least hundreds of refugees.

That's not my reading of the text, but I'll concede it doesn't shatter the canon. It's the approach the Hobbit movies took anyway.

Fair enough. I hated the Hobbit movies, but that take wasn't one of my problems. They shattered the canon in so many other ways, and completely diverged from the core of the book by being fighty action movies.

Quote from: jhkim on July 06, 2024, 03:11:57 PMAny thoughts on an all common-born dwarf adventure? Maybe something detailing dwarf action during the War of the Ring? The PCs could try to either kill or deceive the Mouth of Sauron when he appears at Erebor in 3017, maybe.

Is it confirmed that that's the Mouth of Sauron? I always read that as one of the Ringwraiths.

I haven't put an abundance of thought into it, but here's some spitballing. I wouldn't use the Erebor dwarves. Instead I would go with Dwarves from either the Blue Mountains or the Iron Hills. And then I'd go with an "accidental heroes" setup, so my party would just be a bunch of tradesmen, miners or merchants or whatever, who are going about their usual business and stumble into an adventure.

If we're talking about Blue Mountains Dwarves, there's a lot of options. My first thought was to go in a direction having to do with the ruins of Arnor, but some quick wiki-ing indicates that the ruins of Belegost might have survived into the Third Age. The Belegost Dwarves were the makers of those anti-dragonfire Iron Masks I mentioned upthread, so if I wanted to rope in the Erebor plot, I could have my party of miners encounter an Erebor exile who's trying to obtain First Age armor out of a crazy scheme to equip an army and take Smaug head on.

If I wanted to do Iron Hills Dwarves I'd have to do a lot more research on what is known about Rhun, but the first idea that comes to mind is that a party of Dwarf merchants is trading somewhere out east, and runs afoul of a cult of Morgoth/Sauron which is busy building support amongst the Easterlings for Sauron's impending return.

In either case, I like the idea of the adventure leaning into the vibe of the Barrow Downs section of Fellowship and going in a slightly horror direction. That's a largely unexplored angle of the books and it suits an everyday schlub party. 

Quote from: jhkim on July 06, 2024, 03:11:57 PMNote that it's not just the Fellowship. Elrond, Theoden, and Denethor are all widowed without remarrying. Princes Boromir (41), Faramir (36) and Eomer (28) aren't married. The entire race of ents are missing all of their women, and dwarf women are mysterious and/or scarce.

Eomer is the character that I find it most conspicuous for him not to be married. Thematically, Tolkien seems to use a lack of family life and children as a signifier of a race in decline, so it fits for the Ents, the Elves and Gondor. (Again, we see more romance involving the Elves when they're in their golden ages in the Silmarillion). Faramir finding love is one of the early signs that Gondor is beginning to bloom anew with the return of Aragorn. Rohan, on the other hand, I take to be representative of a younger, more vibrant race of men, the kind of people who will probably inherit the Earth with the departure of the Elves and the waning of the Numenorean bloodline. In that framework, you'd expect Eomer, who of all characters most represents that aspect of Rohan, to be married. Apparently in canon he does meet and wed the daughter of Prince Imrahil after the events of ROTK, so maybe that's intended as a symbolic parallel to Faramir and Eowyn and a joining of two kingdoms.

I also wonder it the conspicuous bachelorhood of a lot of the main characters is Tolkien subconsciously drawing on his experiences in WWI. Given the draft age at the time, you have to figure a lot of the men he served with would have been unmarried.

On reflection, I'm changing the exiled wild woman to not be Thrain's mother-in-law, but instead be a commoner known for her wisdom... and she predicted that the ring would cause doom before Smaug's attack, and was exiled for it and thus safely out of the mountain. That makes her a stronger character, and it cuts back on the noblewomen side. (4/10 instead of 5/10.)

I also might add two more commoners so that two-thirds of the characters are common, but I don't have ideas yet for who to add.

Quote from: ForgottenF on July 07, 2024, 10:56:39 AM

Quote from: jhkim on July 06, 2024, 03:11:57 PMAny thoughts on an all common-born dwarf adventure? Maybe something detailing dwarf action during the War of the Ring? The PCs could try to either kill or deceive the Mouth of Sauron when he appears at Erebor in 3017, maybe.

Is it confirmed that that's the Mouth of Sauron? I always read that as one of the Ringwraiths.

I had pictured it as the Mouth of Sauron, but on checking, I think you're right. At least, this article makes a convincing case that it is a Ringwraith.

https://middle-earth.xenite.org/is-the-messenger-sent-to-dain-a-black-rider-or-the-mouth-of-sauron/

This is quite possibly the Lord of the Nazgûl. I like the idea of having one or two of Bilbo's friends get caught up with some random others outside of Erebor, and upon hearing that he is there to find Bilbo, they have an opportunity to do something about it. Having the Witch-King around normal people is a good potential horror plot.

It makes sense to me that the Witch-King didn't come to Erebor just to openly offer the three dwarf-rings, and when he was rejected he just gave up and went home. He would have also tried underhanded tactics to get the information he wanted, which would be the basis for the adventure.

Quote from: ForgottenF on July 07, 2024, 10:56:39 AMIf we're talking about Blue Mountains Dwarves, there's a lot of options. My first thought was to go in a direction having to do with the ruins of Arnor, but some quick wiki-ing indicates that the ruins of Belegost might have survived into the Third Age. The Belegost Dwarves were the makers of those anti-dragonfire Iron Masks I mentioned upthread, so if I wanted to rope in the Erebor plot, I could have my party of miners encounter an Erebor exile who's trying to obtain First Age armor out of a crazy scheme to equip an army and take Smaug head on.

The armor sounds interesting, but I'm not clear from this what the meat of the adventure would be. For my one-shots, I've been trying to pick pretty high-level stories. That doesn't necessarily mean the PCs are high power, but they're dealing with events that are very important to the world.

Quote from: ForgottenF on July 07, 2024, 10:56:39 AMIf I wanted to do Iron Hills Dwarves I'd have to do a lot more research on what is known about Rhun, but the first idea that comes to mind is that a party of Dwarf merchants is trading somewhere out east, and runs afoul of a cult of Morgoth/Sauron which is busy building support amongst the Easterlings for Sauron's impending return.

In either case, I like the idea of the adventure leaning into the vibe of the Barrow Downs section of Fellowship and going in a slightly horror direction. That's a largely unexplored angle of the books and it suits an everyday schlub party.

I like that. You might do something else with it, but I'd probably pull it into my idea of dealing with the Witch-King. So they're a traveling dwarf band, and they run across the Witch-King's diplomatic mission by accident. It is spooky and mysterious at first, but eventually they figure out who it is and what he wants. They'll then move into trying to deceive him and/or kill him, while he's trying to capture and interrogate someone who knows Bilbo.

Quote from: ForgottenF on July 07, 2024, 10:56:39 AM

Quote from: jhkim on July 06, 2024, 03:11:57 PMNote that it's not just the Fellowship. Elrond, Theoden, and Denethor are all widowed without remarrying. Princes Boromir (41), Faramir (36) and Eomer (28) aren't married. The entire race of ents are missing all of their women, and dwarf women are mysterious and/or scarce.

Eomer is the character that I find it most conspicuous for him not to be married. Thematically, Tolkien seems to use a lack of family life and children as a signifier of a race in decline, so it fits for the Ents, the Elves and Gondor.

Quote from: ForgottenF on July 07, 2024, 10:56:39 AMI also wonder it the conspicuous bachelorhood of a lot of the main characters is Tolkien subconsciously drawing on his experiences in WWI. Given the draft age at the time, you have to figure a lot of the men he served with would have been unmarried.

These both sound plausible as explanations. I don't claim to know why he did it, but for whatever reason, he did have a lack of women in Lord of the Rings to an ahistorical degree. But it makes women (especially dwarf women) one of those neglected sides of the background that I find interesting to think about.

Quote from: jhkim on July 09, 2024, 07:23:47 PM

QuoteIf we're talking about Blue Mountains Dwarves, there's a lot of options. My first thought was to go in a direction having to do with the ruins of Arnor, but some quick wiki-ing indicates that the ruins of Belegost might have survived into the Third Age. The Belegost Dwarves were the makers of those anti-dragonfire Iron Masks I mentioned upthread, so if I wanted to rope in the Erebor plot, I could have my party of miners encounter an Erebor exile who's trying to obtain First Age armor out of a crazy scheme to equip an army and take Smaug head on.

The armor sounds interesting, but I'm not clear from this what the meat of the adventure would be. For my one-shots, I've been trying to pick pretty high-level stories. That doesn't necessarily mean the PCs are high power, but they're dealing with events that are very important to the world.

That's the adventure I'd go with if I wanted to run a dungeon delve, so the meat of the adventure would be exploring some section of the ruins of Belegost, probably looking for some kind of armory or storeroom, with the chief adversaries being some combination of the "older and fouler things than orcs" which supposedly haunt the ruins of their old strongholds, and some dwarven equivalent of the barrow wights.

Here, I think our preferences just diverge. If I'm going to run an established literary or film setting, I'd prefer to keep my adventure outside of the timeline and/or events of the main story, partially to have a freer hand with it, and partially to avoid the feeling of playing through what is necessarily a side-story. Oddly, I've been thinking on this lately because I have an inclination to run a Narnia campaign. I might do a thread in this style about it if the urge sticks around long enough.

Quote from: jhkim on July 09, 2024, 07:23:47 PM

QuoteIf I wanted to do Iron Hills Dwarves I'd have to do a lot more research on what is known about Rhun, but the first idea that comes to mind is that a party of Dwarf merchants is trading somewhere out east, and runs afoul of a cult of Morgoth/Sauron which is busy building support amongst the Easterlings for Sauron's impending return.

I like that. You might do something else with it, but I'd probably pull it into my idea of dealing with the Witch-King. So they're a traveling dwarf band, and they run across the Witch-King's diplomatic mission by accident. It is spooky and mysterious at first, but eventually they figure out who it is and what he wants. They'll then move into trying to deceive him and/or kill him, while he's trying to capture and interrogate someone who knows Bilbo.

I was picturing this one as a setup for a social adventure, perhaps in the vein of a film like The Wicker Man, where a traveler (or group thereof) finds themselves trapped in a strange town which appears harmless on the surface, only to find out there's something sinister going on beneath the veneer of relative normalcy.

Quote from: ForgottenF on July 09, 2024, 08:49:47 PM

Quote from: jhkim on July 09, 2024, 07:23:47 PMFor my one-shots, I've been trying to pick pretty high-level stories. That doesn't necessarily mean the PCs are high power, but they're dealing with events that are very important to the world.

Here, I think our preferences just diverge. If I'm going to run an established literary or film setting, I'd prefer to keep my adventure outside of the timeline and/or events of the main story, partially to have a freer hand with it, and partially to avoid the feeling of playing through what is necessarily a side-story. Oddly, I've been thinking on this lately because I have an inclination to run a Narnia campaign. I might do a thread in this style about it if the urge sticks around long enough.

It's tricky no matter what, I think. The feeling of being a side-story is going to be there even if you're playing through unrelated events. One can certainly play through a dungeon crawl somewhere in Middle Earth distant from the major events that Tolkien documented. I've played a number of games like that, but it's had a very different feel of Tolkien's stories for me.

What I've been going for with the Savage Middle Earth games is an epic feel, of momentous events happening. I've run my first Savage Middle Earth adventure three times now, and the players have been enthusiastic in play. How I've approached canon is making it clear from the start that this is a deliberate divergence point, so their actions will change what happens in the stories.

The trick, for me, has been picking a setup that still feels like a Middle Earth story even though it is different from the canonical storyline.