Why a Mordor Sponsored Vacation is a BAD idea.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

In that case, skip it, and move on.

[Corgatha Taldorthar]

So, as per the readers vote, we skip Amon Sul and head directly east.

We take the road to the last bridge, where Aragorn spots a valuable beryl. Being stoic hero types, and concerned with the ultimate fate of all Middle-Earth, we waste no time stuffing it into our pocketses.

However, if you bring a ranger with you, it would do well to listen to him, especially if that ranger is Aragorn. The area between the Last Bridge and the Ford of Bruinen is heavily patrolled by Nazgul, so in an effort to cross the distance east without being spotted, we make use of one of the rumors that was floating around in Bree that I was too lazy to copy.


You see, under the last bridge is a crazy statue. I still have no clue who built it. Cardolan wasn't *quite* depopulated by the time that Gandalf came over from the sea, but it seemed hardly the type to build him a statue in the middle of nowhere.

We crawl down the hole, and find ourselves in a cave, it's dark, so Pippin lights up a torch, as we proceed to make our way through the cavern.

crap. Trolls are kind of slow, but they have a *lot* of HP, a little bit of damage resistance, and hit like a truck rolling along at a good clip. Maybe running would have been smarter, but we lower our heads, raise our blades and charge.

We almost manage to bring a troll down before it gets a chance to attack, But at least nobody important was hurt. We should be fi... Ow. But Pippin gets experience which will prove invaluable at the Black Gate.

The other troll only gets one more shot in before going down, but hawkeye isn't a little baby like some people. We feed the wounded man and hobbit some hot food, and ignore the pony's pain as much as possible.

As we wind our way east, we enter a cave Which you know will turn out to be important later. We avoid any more encounters with trolls, and eventually emerge in the middle of nowhere.

Still, we know we need to go east, and we head that way, hoping that we don't stumble across any ringwraiths.  We do come across a bit of old history though. (You can't read paragraph 80 without the manual, but suffice to say, those are the three trolls that Gandalf petrified back in the Hobbit.

We hit the ford, only to find it held against us., Still, there's only one of him and a lot of us, and we pile on him, sustaining a few flesh wounds.

And then we're home free.  Wait a second shouldn't there only be eight?

You're not even given the option to fight, which is just as well, because you can't take all the Nazgul. Instead we use the !Luthien word of power,  and are treated to a crappy cutscene. But the Nazgul are essentially defeated, and we'll be able to proceed without more interference from them. Also, all those areas in Bree and the Trollshaws are now safe. On to Rivendell, to complete assembling our party!

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Okay, couple of problems. One, "crap" is linked to 206 (same as the next link) instead of 205 as I think you meant it. Secondly, the link to Beren's name thingy is using the wrong link, so while it's readable, it's not the same as the others, and takes a while longer to load...

Other than that... I thought the river (I was going to say "of Lothlorien", but that's the forest, isn't it?) wiped out the Nazgul, but only by washing their steeds away, not them themselves; they were made of tougher stuff than that, and merely had to reincorporate themselves and get something new to ride on - so you got a delay, during which you got to run as fast as you can, but it didn't actually stop them, instead merely explaining why they showed up on rakks at the big battle at the end...


Is the game playing it differently?

[Corgatha Taldorthar]

Ok, I think I fixed the thing with the pictures. Thanks for pointing that out, Llearch.


As for the Nazgul not really being dead; yeah, this follows the books pretty closely. We won't see them again till we leave Lorien (definitely the weakest point of the game, but we'll get there when we get there).

As for the books, Aragorn mentions once they're in Rivendell that he and Glorfindel (We'll be looking at him later in the game) drove the steeds and the Nazgul into the river, where they were swept away. The horses are definitely dead. How much that "disrupted" the nazgul isn't exactly clear. In fact, what the Nazgul *are* and what their exact abilities turn out to be are also somewhat murky.

I'm not feeling well enough to go hunting through the book for an exact line, but Gandalf says something about unclad spirits needing to return to Mordor.  So I'm not really sure if they were just temporarily inconvenienced but decided not to cause trouble so near Rivendell, or if they were seriously messed up and had to go back to Mordor and be regenerated somehow.

This game, however, will end before we see the Fell Steeds. (Or Hell-Hawks, or Creatures from an Older World, and possibly another name or title that I'm forgetting). Nazgul here just show up as encounters keyed to certain areas, and they're always on foot, and they're always attacking you without fleeing.

EDIT: I was trying to get this idea across earlier, but didn't come up with the right words.

Personally, I think the ringwraiths are bodiless. The Witch-King is described as wearing a crown floating on nothingness, etc. In some sense, their clothing and stuff that Sauron issues them renders them capable of acting in the material world. Unlike elves, who are present both physically and spiritually, (Look at Frodo's glimpses of Glorfindel when he's fading and being pushed into the "spirit realm"), Ringwraiths are primarily spirits, and thea bility to act physically is "tacked on" by their stuff. Destroying that doesn't "hurt" them, but it keeps them from acting in a physical manner, although possibly they could have attacked Frodo if he put on the Ring or something.

Possible hole in theory: Eowyn and Merry kill the Witch-King, and it's very clearly noted they *killed* him, as in gone forever, with a normal sword and a barrow dagger, neither of which would seem capable of extending into the weirdness that is the realm Frodo saw when he put the ring on.  Really, I have speculation, and the facts I back it up with don't really go anywhere in particular.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

I think the sword and barrow dagger aren't quite "normal", and there's a prophecy somewhere that the Witch-King need fear no man, so there's a whole pile of "interesting" stuff going on in the background there.

As with many things, Tolkien felt it unnecessary to spell out precisely what things were going on where - and I feel his work is the better for it, mostly. Although I did run across someone who feels his work is about on par with Harry Potter, and despises them both; I need to talk to him some more about that, but we were at work at the time, and kinda needed to focus on that. *cough*

[Corgatha Taldorthar]

Ok, we're about to enter Rivendell; where Good Stuff Happens. We'll be assembling the final fellowship, getting a ton of new stat boosts, skills, and items, and generally making ourselves invincible.


But there are two questions for the minmaxation that I want to present to you guys.


Firstly, actual party composition. Like so many things in this game, we can have a maximum of ten fellowship members. Naturally, we want the original nine in the books, but that leaves us one extra. If we want to be "historical" we'd keep Bill the Pony, at least until Moria.


If we want to be tough though, we have two major choices.


Choice #1. Hawkeye. Ranger, relative of Aragorn, and general badass.

Stats are:

Dex 60,
End: 26
Str:24
Luck:50
Will:60

He has no magic, and a skill list focused on sharp eyes, sneaking about, and he's good with a sword and bow.

The other major candidate is  This guy. As you can see, his dex and strength are equal, he has a few less hit points, but his luck is a *lot* higher. He knows the countermagic spell, and his skills are Elven lore, swords, hide, perception, Ride (useless), Charisma, and Herb lore. Sadly, we can only take one with us to the long dark.



Question the second. Arwen. Once we wade through the purple prose, we have the option of giving her a gift. She likes Beryls, gems, and gold rings, which is why we've been delving into barrows looking for the shinies. If we trade one of them to her, she's very happy. In addition to giving us this token, she improves the luck of *everyone* in the fellowship by 2.


Now, here's the chant, I don't really think the game was designed to be allowed to trade her multiple gifts, but you can, getting a +2 luck to everyone each time, but you are capable of such. So......


Option #1. Only give her one shiny, only pick up the luck bonus once. Most "pure".

Option #2. We'll trade her all the jewels we picked up in barrows and bled for, and the beryl, but we'll leave it there. "Balanced option".

Option #3. We amass the party, run back to bree, spend a huge chunk of cash on gold rings and trade them in until the fellowship's luck is at 100, the game's highest allowed. "Minmaxer's delight"


As always, I leave it up to you, my dear viewers. All both of you

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

The choice between the two guys becomes a lot simpler if you just minmax the second one. Does luck really have that much of an effect?

Personally, I'd go for option #3 on choice #2, and that leaves choice #1 down to, well, your play style - are you a sniper or a slugger? Do the other balancing points work out different?

[Corgatha Taldorthar]

Posting this up just to note that I did intend to update, however, I seem to have hit some kind of critical inventory bug, that causes the game to crash when I try to open the guys inventory, not sure exaclty what causes this, as I've never seen anything like it before.


Worst comes to worst, I'll have to restart (which actually will only take an hour or so, if I don't have to re-update, it's the pictures and editing the post that takes a long time)


To (belatedly) answer Llearch's questions. I'm not hugely sure exactly what luck does, it seems to have some kind of effect on how often you hit in combat and are hit yourself in return, but I've never sliced into the code to look myself. I once knew a guy who did do that sort of stuff, and he told me about several game events that it checks against someone or other's luck stat, generally with some bad effect if it's too low. Other than that, I'm not sure what luck does.


Splurging on chainmail makes everyone slightly damage resistant. If you really, really want to munchkin, the luck is a better buy, you have enough money left over to get some armor for the hobbits (they need it the most) and then when you export your characters to the second game, it's easy for Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli to pick up armor and shields.

Anyway, I'm off to storm around and curse a bit.

[Corgatha Taldorthar]

Ok, so, long story short, I couldn't fix the problems, and I wound up reinstalling the game and racing back to where we were. There are probably a few slight differences in the party now, but it shouldn't be anything too major.



So, when last we met we had just passed the ford of Bruinen, and had conscripted Glorfindel into the party. At some point when I'm less murderous, someone remind me to give my spiel about Glorfindel, his transition from the Simirillion is very, very interesting. We take the road east, and then north, stopping when we hear some singing that leads us to Legolas should *not* be tougher than Glorfindel.

Following the track northward, we enter the sanctum of Rivendell. Each time we enter, everyone heals roughly 15 hp, and this effect never runs out, so unless we get cut off, we can always run back to the Last Homely House to heal and re-trench.

But right now, our business is in the outbuildings, specifically the forge. Lindir can take the pieces and make something Quite nice. Aragorn gets the blade, of course. We then leave the pony in the safety of the stable, its noble purpose of absorbing blows that would have hit important fellowship members fulfilled. All nice and organized.  We then find the barmy old wizard waiting for the council outside in the mountains, an action I can only attribute to the potent effects of hobbit weed. Gandalf tells us to hurry, but he's a 2000 year old Istari, and Elrond is about as old as Cyra, so I'm sure we can interpret "Soon" to be "Sometime this year"


So instead we pause, to go visit Frodo's old man (actually uncle, but whatever) Bilbo wants to see the ring. After a brief episode of gollumlike acting, Bilbo feels bad and offers us Sting and the mithril coat. Frodo grabs and uses both. Mithril is the best armor in the game, deflecting 5 points of damage per blow, and not impacting agility at all.  We then head down into the cellers, since appearing drunk before the council that decides the fate of middle earth is a brilliant idea, yes? Get that booze It's awfully strong, causing us to get weird trips.


Inside the cavern complex, we recruit Gimli, and leave Druin behind, now that the token minority has been filled. He'll be happy in the complex, with as much alcohol as he can absorb before his liver gives up the mighty struggle. In the next room over, Gloin babbles endlessly about Khazad-Dum. We flee when he stops to catch his breath.

We go back upstairs, and into the rec room in the northwest of Rivendell. A hobbit thanks us for exercising enlightened self interest. Across the room, we run into Hawkeye's girlfriend, who promptly makes him stop running around on dangerous adventures

With a slot thus freed, we head south and listen to the guys talk. It's exactly the same as in the books, although Frodo's outburst that he will "take the ring to mordor, though I do not know the way", is presented as a "do you want to do this?" option in Paragraph 3. Answering no causes you to lose instantly.. Elrond also sends us out to get the black cloaks of the riders, as proof that they're really dispersed.

So instead we say "Yes", and pick up the final two members of our Fellowship. Gandalf, having more health than any three other party members, is stuck in front as a meatshield. We then head upstairs, to unload our jewelry on Arwen, so Aragorn can see her decked out like a cheap hooker. 3 gems and one beryl later, everyone has a +8 added to the luck score.

We then hightail it all the way back to Tom Bombadil's encountering some rabble along the way. You'd think highway ruffians wouldn't attack heavily armed strangers who outnumber them two and a half to one...... One of them even manages to get a swing at us before they're all slaughtered. Seriously, one of the problems with the game is that with the fellowship fully assembled, were now almost invincible, and that's before pumping up, the current luck regime will make us almost completely unhittable, let alone stoppable.


Remember Goldberry? She wanted us to get her some lillies, which would help her with her illness that left her bedridden. Doing so gives a +2 to all the stats (except strength) to everyone in the fellowship, so in a grand adventurer tradition, we held off until we had more party members to benefit from her blessing. Go us!.

We then swing back through bree, purchasing a grand total of 19 gold rings, lightening our purseconsiderably We head back to the trollshaws, patrolling the river bruinen for black cloaks. We also dig up some ruins, getting us a pair of shields. Also of note is the magic sword in another set of ruins. Why is it that if there's a magic weapon that's designed to slay a certain monster, monsters of that type are always to be found nearby? Despite some reservations about giving him more power, we give the blade to Boromir.

We head back to Rivendell, unload the jewelry to Arwen, propelling everyone's luck to 100, except Pippin's who is at 98. For proof of the black rider's fall, Elrond gives us some miruvor (if only Druin were here) and two more hits of athelas, and a word of power that I'll keep mysterious for now. It's getting late, so I'm going to cut this overly long update a tad short, and we'll handle the rest of our invincibility transformation next update.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

... rest of? Isn't this enough already? ;-]

[Corgatha Taldorthar]

Rivendell has more stuff we can mooch from Elrond. We raid the storeroom, one upping the book fellowship by remembering to take the free rope.
His two sons, Elrohir and Elladan, as well as his adviser Erestor, all offer a variety of skills we can permanently add to the fellowship's roster. It sounds more useful than it actually is. Since if something isn't a combat skill, you only need one person in the entire fellowship to possess the skill, the one and only new lore we manage to pick up is Orc lore, which we give to Pippin.

That's everything in Rivendell directly. (finally) We head south and a bit to the west, coming across some barrows. This guy's choice of words offends the literary snob in me. "The Faithful" refers to the men of Numenor who stayed friendly to the elves before the island sunk. While it is true that they had built some settlements in Middle Earth, I'm certain they never got this far east until well after the term had died out. Anyone of Numenorean stock buried here is likely from the Arnorian successor state of Rhudar, blah blah blah.

But I suppose we should help him anyway. They had some athelas (sorry, the screenshot messed up), which we take, it it'd be rude to take their valuable healing plants and just run off with it. Anyway, the annoying spirit starts whining, but this actually makes a bit of sense. Rings, as a whole seem to corrupt/control spirits, at least far more readily than they do "embodied" people. The elves immediately hid and stopped using their rings when they felt Sauron put on the One, and they're much more "attuned" to the spirit realm than humans and dwarves are. The nine kings who eventually became the Nazgul didn't become fully enthralled by Sauron until they died and "faded". The Dwarves, who seem to have a weird afterlife/soul experience, probably from being built by Aule, were impervious to Sauron's influence, although they did become somewhat more stubborn and greedy.

That's a long way of saying that it actually does make sense that a lesser ring could warp and control these spirits in the name of sauron. Hey, it'll provide practice for baking the One


There's a bigger barrow to the north of the one we stumbled into, and there's a small welcoming committee. They manage to do a little bit of harm. The ring is buried in the barrow, so with the use of a shovel we provoke it into forming a ghost to attack us. I don't think the ghost could take a single barrow wight, so we trample over it with no trouble, thus perpetuating the grand RPG tradition that metaphysical problems can be solved by beating up some boss monster. Our good deed of the week done, we get to the important part and loot. Sadly, this is the last stash of silver I know about. We run back to bree and outfit  the hobbits in chain mail.

Then, back across the ettenmoors again. (I justify the time wasted by noting that the fellowship spends about two months lollygagging about in Rivendell in the books, whereas I spent about 4 days.) We follow the books, and decide to head over to Redhorn Pass. Elven booze seems to have some special properties. It actually does protect us from the cold, unlike real life liquor. Unfortunately, we can't pass this way, and we will have to find another, more dangerous route.

The treatment of Caradhras (redhorn) is something that's always intrigued me in the books. Gimli seems to treat it like a living thing, responding the the "assault" of the fellowship by sending snow on their heads to make them retreat. On one hand, this is a fantasy setting, and while I can't think of a genius loci alluded to elsewhere (unless you count Tom in the old forest), you do have some basis for magic using and hostile "things" running about. Old Man willow is the example that springs to mind most readily from the Tom mention, but Legolas mentions Nimrodel (the stream) as having a life of it's own.

However, that in of itself brings the counterpoint, that he was reciting a poem before they entered Lorien, and here too, Gimli might just be speaking poetically/metaphorically. The game does come out on a definitive "answer" (we'll need to get to Lorien to see it), but I actually like that Tolkien kept it ambiguous. Ah well.


Next update, we tackle the mines.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Rivendell has more stuff we can mooch from Elrond. We raid the storeroom, one upping the book fellowship by remembering to take the free rope.

Like this rope?

[Corgatha Taldorthar]

So we backtrack down from the mountain, all of our pumped up stats being useless against the horrible snowdrift. Lacking a clearer direction, we decide to head for the gate of Moria, because everyone knows that in an RPG, if the easy path is blocked by an insurmountable obstacle, only the single most insanely dangerous course is on the railroad tracks.

Along the way, some wargs attack. We crush them without incident. I seem to recall reading in one of the notes that Wargs aren't real wolves, more evil spirits that assume a wolflike shape. But I can't seem to find the official Tolkien statement backing that up, which makes me sad. Also of note is that in this section of the books, Gandalf seemed to be of the opinion that the warg pack was a significant threat to wiping out the entire fellowship, whereas here we can barbeque the things without too much trouble. Bleh.


We march on through the night, until we reach Durin's door. You can't try to solve the lame password puzzle. Either you have the Word of Power !Mellon, or you don't. There are several ways to get it, IIRC, but we filled our quota by doing Elrond's used clothing drive.

It opens the door, but the watcher in the water is less than amused by our actions. Those tentacles are tough and fast, and worse, we can't really pile on the entire fellowship due to the way the terrain is set up. We take them out, but the fellowship gets knackered a fair bit.

Unfortunately, slicing up the tentacles only stuns the monster, not defeats it for good, so unless we want to face a never ending succession of tentacles, we have to dash into the mines, and then get locked in, a la the book. It's dark in Moria, so I have Gandalf use his magic to make some light. Then, to tend to our wounds, we eat some of our lunchables. (I'm trying to save the athelas for real emergencies)


Moria is a twisty], turny, thirteen leveled monster of a ]dungeon. For at least the first phase, I'm going to try to take more or less the route the felloship took through the burg, before breaking off to get all the good treasure.


As we march, we come across a sleeping orc. We sneak up to him and wake him up, and trade him some food so he'll answer our questions. He tells us what we already guessed. Moria is overrun by orcs, they have a dark master who is very powerful. Apparently there are some stone dwarves guarding something, but he doesn't know how to get in. We can't attack him without alerting more orcs, so we hightail it, losing ourselves in more corridors


Eventually, we reach the well room. Pippin drops the stone down the well to Gandalf's dismay. Following his somewhat hesitant advice, we take the right hand passage, gaining some elevation. The path is still fairly linear, and we make our way to some Miner's hall. Moria is overrun with orcs. Usually they attack in twos and threes that we trample without effort, but sometimes larger packs are encountered. We continue climbing, but the orc drums are playing, and that means they gather.

The next set of stairs takes us up to the Chamber of Mazarbul. (notice the crappy book graphic) We stay and read. About the only thing I (personally) found interesting was one of the readings is "paragraph 237" which reads as follows

"Lest it fall into evil hands, we took Durin's mighty Axe and hid it where few would find it, protected by many traps and guardians. So well did we disguise it, that only by means of Queen Galadriel's token would one find it again. This token we cast into the shaft of Durin's Chimney."

Durin's Chimney is this pit that spans several levels in the game map. If you bothered to pay attention, we got a Galadriel token in  the Forsaken inn. The reason I found this passage interesting is there's ever so faint of a hint in the actual book text, right near the start of Chapter 5 in book two, The Bridge of Khazad-Dum.

'Well, I can read no more for a long way', said Gandalf, 'except the word gold, and Durin's axe and something helm. Then Balin is the new lord of moria. That seems to end a chapter.

From that passage it's not even clear whether the axe is a literal axe or a name of a location in Moria, or whatever. But in the game, the axe is a nice little artifact, and we're not leaving till we get our grubby little hands on it.

Of course, staying to read in the middle of an orc infested pit has some consequences, and we fight off a party of orcs, and then decide to scarp it. (staying means we get to pick a fight with the Balrog. We flee back whence we came, and plot our next move for a new update.


EDIT: I seemed to have goofed something up, when replying the game due to my mess up mentioned earlier. I don't seem to have remembered to pick up the Golden Wheel in this playthrough. I think we can still get Durin's axe without it, but if we can't, we're going to have to wait till wwe escape the mines, double back, and then get it. *grumbles*

[Corgatha Taldorthar]

So after running from the Balrog, we head back down the stairs, and into an annoying little maze. Endless stills of similar looking corridors are boring, so I didn't bother to take any, but we do eventually ascend, and reach another memorial hall. This is a bit weird, but I don't remember my Tolkien history on the early dwarves very well. But I believe the dwarves of Belegost were Broadbeams, wheras  the dwarves of Moria were Longbeards, differing "ethnicities" as it were. Just seems odd that there'd be a memorial here. OTOH, they aren't as divided as say the elven kins were. Towards the eastern end of the chamber, we have more exposition. I suppose this is possible; Moria was still held by the dwarves when the Istari came over, and Saruman was ever one to love machines and contraptions, so staying with Durin's folk would have suited him.

The statues do have a use in acquiring Durin's Axe, but we're going to sidestep them, get the word of power in an alternate manner. Instead we head north, quickly heading up a level

We're now on the sixth level, because we've found the healing pools that I didn't bother transcribing from Gloin's spiel. One of them fixes us up, and the other two give permanent boosts to Endurance and Willpower, to the order of one point each.  We then head west, coming to a kind of  stone seal. Acting on the obvious hunch, we slam Durin's pick into the thing.

Doing so teleports us to a strange chamber. Despite the warning that only Naugrim and their friends may pass until we return the golden tools (yeah, like we have time for that.) we step up anyway, with no ill effects. We then use the !SignofSeven word of power using the pick on the seal gave us, yielding something nice.. I would like to point out, by the way, that "Naugrim" is a Sindar word, meaning "Twisted folk". I highly doubt that's what the Dwarves would call themselves. In addition to being a kickass magic axe, (gimli tosses away his old one), getting the thing boosts everyone's endurance and will by 3.

We then head out the south end of the chamber, and through a lot of really---- strange (the stairs don't go anywhere!) stuff. Eventually, we come to a dead end but can climb our way back to the mines proper. Here is the stone troll that was mentioned earlier. Showing him the token calms him down, not  that he's that tough to just blitz past.  (Crud, the screenshot got corrupted, and I saved over it. There is a troll there.)

We then head downward, since we want to raid the armory, and that is on the 5th deep. While en route, we find some fungus growing on the wall, and being both slightly injured and adventurers, we scarf the stuff down. Here we are. (note the crappily drawn anvil). There is however,  a smidge of resistance. Sometimes the game gets weird like this, when it tries to place large groups of enemies in "constricted" terrain. You're really supposed to trigger 6 uruk-hai. But if it places them in walls or "off" the battle screen, they just don't fight. After more orc stomping, there is loot and with perception, better loot. We got all we came for, so we head up a long winding stair that brings us back to the first level, eventually returning to a site of Pippin's foolishness..

This time, we take the middle path, and run smack dab into wait, Gandalf got a bad feeling about *this*?. Onward, onward, ever eastward, until we hit da bridge and are home free. Shit.


Now, there are two ways out of this mess. We can go "You cannot pass" mode, which loses Gandalf. Or we can try to fight the Balrog. We actually can probably beat the monster, but it doesn't really matter. As you might have noticed, this game isn't nearly hard enough, so we don't really need the big guy. He doesn't transfer over to the next game either. I've got a save logged in case anyone wants to see the blow by blow if we fight, but for this game, I thought we'd go "historical" at the bridge.

So we use Gandalf's staff, and we get to experience the joys of 1993ish "cinematics"

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

*snerk* Historical accuracy is all well and good, but didn't we already use a bug in the game to boost everyone to max luck? Or was that on another playthrough?

[Corgatha Taldorthar]

No, we still have the uber-luck. Mostly I really picked the bridge dropping option so I could show the videos instead of a really boring frame by frame fight of attrition.


Anyway, we stick Aragorn back in front, and bravely march down the path leading from Moria. Three Uruk hai attack. The idea of a trio of Uruks taking the 9 of us is absurd enough that the fellowship is busy enough laughing that one of them hits Merry. We ignore the piffling wound and march eastwards, bumping into more orcs and taking in the scenery. The trees look different on the other side of the mountains, and it seems to get darker at night.


And now onto the Stupid, and I'm going to have to cut this update short after the rant because yes, it annoys me that much.

We're heading east, towards Lorien, when something bad happens. Real bad.


Let's hold this up to the light, shall we? Not a few miles outside both Moria and Lorien, a Nazgul is able to swoop down, without a struggle incapacitate the ENTIRE fellowship, and abduct  Frodo and Sam. Remember in the books, when the Nazgul attack weathertop? There it's 4 of them, plus the Witch-King, against Aragorn and four useless hobbits, and they're not able to carry Frodo off, only wound him with that morgul-blade that messes him up. Earlier, when I talked about Glorfindel, I mention how the Nazgul don't really exist in the same material world that people do, and part of the reason putting on the ring is so dangerous is it puts you in their world, where you can be seized.

NAZGUL CAN'T CARRY PEOPLE OFF.

That's point one. Point two. Moria is unfriendly territory to Mordor. Sure, there are Orcs, but in the Two Towers, when Merry and Pippin are captured, the orcs are in three bands, all of them pretty hostile to one another; Saruman's group, the ones from Lugburz (Barad-Dur) and the northern orcs, from Moria. There, the moria orcs are the runts of the group, but until about 5 minutes ago, Moria was also home to the Balrog, a Maiar spirit on the same order, if probably not quite as powerful, as Sauron himself. I truly doubt the Nazgul  would be safe near the place.

Oh, and there's Lorien. You know, with all those elves? And Galadriel? Nenya? Keeping the whole of Mordor on their side of the river? Oh, and while it's a minor spoiler, it gets better. Turns out they dragged our Hobbits off to Dol Guldur. (which should be impossible) So we need to assault Mordor's fortress in the north to get them back.

Here's the problem See this map? It's roughly 100 miles from Lorien to Dul Guldur. I don't really know how fast those winged beasts fly, but let's say it takes them 2 days to get back. There's no way we can visit Lorien, travel to the fort, dodge whatever defenses they have, in the incremental time it would take to realize Frodo has the ring (since the Nazgul can sense it)  and for them to cut open the Hobbits and fly back, the nine of them, to Mordor. Not possible. That they don't do this and give us a chance is Bad Guy Stupidity of the first order, and even the SECOND GAME IN THE SERIES IGNORES THAT THIS STUFF HAPPENED. That's how you know you have a *moronic* design story.

In their weak defense, Dol Guldor is awesomely fun to tromp through, and we'll get to meet Radagast.

Now I must drink fluids to replace those lost by spitting in inarticulate rage.  Stupid railroad game.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

To be fair, the Nazgul did manage to balance Gandalf himself, in the movie at least. In part, this is because Sauron was still backing them - but that still applies here, too.

The scene I have in mind is this one; it's been long enough since I read the books that I've forgotten just how accurate that is to the original story, though. It'd mean the Nazgul would be less scared of the Balrog than you'd think - although I'm not so sure about the Elves, and I'd have thought that the Elves - with the power of one of the three rings, which I seem to recall is floating about in there - would be enough to keep the Nazgul cautious...


And as for the carrying off - well, if he put on the ring, they'd be able to carry him off, then. So we can grant a little licence that the ringbearer got scared and the ring slipped on - after all, that's what happened on Weathertop, wasn't it?


Overall, I agree - silly railroad game. But... I have to make some conversation, don't I? ;-]

[Corgatha Taldorthar]

Ugh. Way too much time lapse. Been busy with finals and heading out for vacation. But now I have some time.


So after Frodo and Sam were abducted, we stumble eastward in the dark, trying to find sanctuary in Lorien. We find Mirrormere, a lake formed by a river whose name I can't quite recall at the moment, and since the  water is alive with the light of Earendil's star (a Silmaril, if you never got around to reading the Silmirillion), so figuring some of this stuff can be valuable, we put it in one of the bottles we've been carrying.

I wonder how it will turn into the phial of Galadriel. (It'll just show up in the second game; they don't really transition well from their ending.) Anyway, Lorien is to the north, so we follow the river bank up. Along the way, we somehow get lost, and find this standing stone. Paragraph 232 claims that it was from here Durin first looked on Mirrormere (where we just were), judging from the screenshot, his eyes must have been better than ours, but since gimli gets a +1 Will, (morale?) it's not all bad. (Crud, sorry, lost the screenshot)


We keep heading north, and eventually come across a bridge. It's guarded, however, and the sentry only lets us pass if we tell him that "Elrond" sent us. They take us to a hill with some backstory, if you care to read it. More amusing for me, is that if we climb to the top of the hill and use perception, we find the elfstone. Remember in the movies that green gem Aragorn always fingers, the one Arwen gave him?.......... Yeah, this is it. No wonder he's taking up excuses to wander all the way across Middle-Earth, he basically lost an engagement ring that's also been a family heirloom for thousands of years.

Onward, northward, through the gates. Entering Caras Galadon (the spelling is interesting. It changed to Galadhon after the first edition of the book, and those original copies are *very* hard to come across) heals everyone, and like the Rivendell trigger, we can reuse it as often as we like.

Our first (and only for this update) stop is Galadriel's flet, which we figure is just the biggest tree-house around. We find it, and step up the gray rope ladder....

boy, she was a lot of help, huh?. She also gives us a stupid fetch quest, although we've already stumbled across 2 of the five items needed. We conscript her husband, who is actually quite strong. He also carries around a load of Lembas, which we'll put to good use.

[Corgatha Taldorthar]

Yeah, I promise, things will get better once I'm back in school, paradoxically.


So, Lorien is big, full of bonuses, and a pain to wander around. Lots of elves all over the place, but most just make annoying small talk. We head back to the entrance to pick up Celebrith and Haldir. I think I'm going to try to get Haldir killed for his role in the travesty that the Peter Jackson movie made out of Helms deep.


Let's see how many bonuses we can rack up. Directly south of Galadriel's treehouse, is an elf named Bragolhir.. Winning the footrace he challenges us too (automatic) gets everyone 1 dexterity. Further west, is an elf named Aldawen, who has an abnormal reaction to us breaking into her home. We grab the proffered crown and flee before this can be turned into a bad porno scene.


Our blind panic brings us to what could possibly turn into another lousy porno, but despite our reservations, we let Aragorn wrestle with the elf. Doing so gets the entire fellowship 1 strength. (incidentally, the only strength boost in the game)

We then head into another treehouse. Why can't more guys in RPGs be helpful like this and give us magic items for free? Tinalin, an elven seamstress, is of a similar mindset. We go east next, where another dumb elf can re-forge that ring we got back in the old forest. Presumably the reforged ring does something, but if it does, I've never figured out exactly what.


And I'm called away. Growl. I'll finish up Lorien and environs...... sometime.

[Corgatha Taldorthar]

Lorien, in the books was a place of respite and healing for the beleaguered fellowship. Possibly in an attempt to apologize for making Moria so wimpy, here, Lorien is an overgrown tree-house beset by monsters. Perhaps foolishly, we step outside of the gates of Caras Galadhon, and almost immediately run into an ominous sort of burial site. Being adventurous sorts, we nab the scabbard, and wonder exactly how Galadriel knew about an heirloom of one of Boromir's ancestors being buried right outside her city.


We keep going east until we hit the anduin and then head north. There's a dock, but right now there aren't any ships. Heading north, we pass a swamp, and stumble into an orc assault force.


Really, they hope to threaten Lorien with this? Three dead orcs and one dead troll later, we drive them into the river. (Note, Sometimes I get 1 orc, followed by one Uruk, followed by 1 uruk and 1 olog-hai. Other playthroghs, it's 6 orcs, then 6 urukhai, then 3 urukhai and three olog-hai. I'm unclear as to why sometimes you get only 1/6th of the invasion force, and given the gravity that is associated with this, I think the large force is intended.)

Still, our "glorious victory", gives everyone 2 endurance and life, so it's not all bad.  Further west, we head to the mountains and come across some book-accurate dwarven ruins.  Perception yields us some loot, the last item Galadriel needs for her fetch quest.

Wandering south, we head near the tail end of Redhorn pass. Gripped by curiosity, (There's actually a guy in Lorien who gives a quest relating to the pass, but I couldn't find him; also, he's annoying.), we head up the "wrong" way.

Hey, we're back here. Searching the immediate area finds a place we can climb up, and we enter an icy cavern. To the left, we find an interesting lair, with a key inside. Heading up north, we find a staircase, which leads to the lair of Caradhras.

I'm torn about the idea of making Caradhras an actual mini-boss. One on hand, Gimli's statements do seem to imply a kind of will to the mountain, possibly some vengeful spirit. OTOH, that would probably be more like a literal will of the mountain, and not something that you can kick its ass in a sword fight.

We kick its ass in a sword fight.  I let him kill Haldir, because I'm still mad about that stupid scene in the Peter Jackson movies. A torch frees the little bird he imprisoned, (the screenie describing the bird didn't survive for some reason)  which gives everyone 2 more hit points, as well as clearing the pass back to Rivendell, if we wanted to go back for some reason.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

BTW, your link for 378 is broken. Other than that... Haldir?

[Corgatha Taldorthar]

Thanks for the save, Llearch.


I don't have my volumes in front of me, but Haldir is a fairly minor character in the books. He's one of the guards in Lorien, and he's the one who the fellowship shelters with in that brief part between getting chased out of Moria and being received in Lorien proper.


In the movies, Peter Jackson expanded his role to this. Haldir's the elf leader, with a contingent of archers from Lorien. I hate the scene, I hate the symbolism, and I cheered when that orc chopped his head in. There's a very strong theme in the books that for all the elves' power, they are either unwilling or unable to really extend themselves outside of their enclaves. Their time is fading, and it's for humans to defend and exert themselves in middle earth. The free peoples of middle earth really do *not* come together to fight Sauron, and that's something that Jackson undercuts with his bizarre addition to the films.


So, since he's in the game, I took the opportunity to make sure he gets rubbed out

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Granted, the squishing of Elves into there is not in line with much of the rest of the books, and I agree with you about the licence taken and the issues you have with it... (and didn't I see Darth Sidious in the crowd about 30 seconds in?)

... however, in the books it's taken for granted (and explained elsewhere, and not in a way you can show in a movie) that the Elves are excellent fighters, exceptionally well trained, and lethal, for all their unworldliness. I can see why Jackson chose to put them in here; other than a few purists like yourself, he's not going to raise too many hackles, and the viewers get two things from the experience; one, an idea of just how lethal Elves in large numbers (or even small numbers) are in battle, and two, some idea of how fraught the battle at Helm's Deep was, and how close a thing it was.

I really should dig the books out and read them again.

[Corgatha Taldorthar]

We head back to Galadriel's flet, and get the bonus for turning in the five items. That shells out 1 endurance, 2 luck, and 2 will to everyone in the party, bringing even the official fellowship weakling, Pippin, into reasonable badassitude.


With nothing left on this side of the river, we head over to Galadriel's birdbath mirror. In there, we have a vision, telling us what we already kind of knew. We run back to the docks, where a boat is waiting for us, and approach the endgame. (once we cross the river, we can't go back.)


The game makes a bit of a mockery with geography, because a road thus described probably wouldn't exist. Rhosgobel and Dol Guldor are about 200 miles apart; and Radagast's whole angle (Rhosgobel is his home) is a sort of druidic nature boy. Since he's both in hostile territory and kind of opposed to civilization, it's hard to see why there'd be a road leading to his digs. Still, it helps us find the way there, and we head north.


Sure is more cheery than Sauron's fortress in the north. Still, as we head inside, something doesn't seem quite right. On the next floor, the animals are in cages, which is also decidedly odd. When we let them out (picklock) they flee the building. As we head up to the staircase to the top, a pair of wolves attack us, and we regretfully chop them up.


We hit the final stairway, and we run into Radagast. We ask him why the cages are in place (To lock them up for their own good, the Dark Lord enslaves animals), and he claims the brown bird in the cage right next to him is a spy of Saruman's. I can understand locking up a spy; but doing so in a place where it can see everything you do? Odd. Not like Radagast at all.


So, like any good adventurer, we attack and discover he's actually a werewolf. He's got a lot of hit points (60, I think), but he goes down pretty fast, although he gives Glorfindel a nasty bite. Incidentally, werewolves *do* exist in Tolkien canon.  However, you'll note they're more evil spirits inhabiting wolfish bodies, and not the shapeshifter we're used to seeing. At the very least, I've never seen them shift shapes. The only two I recall reading about directly are in the Simirillion (Drauglin and Charcaroth) and they seem to be wolves all the time.

Nevertheless, once he's defeated, we pry open the cage, and free the bird, which turns out to be the real Radagast, whom we promptly conscript. Turns out he's no Gandalf, but worth having, as we finalize our preparations for the assault.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

"He's no Gandalf"; well, of course not.

Gandalf was the leader. Radagast was one of the led. (Saruman was the previous leader whom Sauron corrupted, but that's by the by...)

[Corgatha Taldorthar]

And, interestingly enough about Sauron and Saruman. They're each Maiar, a kind of powerful magical spirit; Maiar are all lead by a Valar, a more powerful spirit "of the same order". Sauron was in the service of Aule, the Smith. (Created Dwarves, responsible for the earth and making, etc.) In the course of the Simirillion, Melkor corrupts Sauron, and pulls him over to his side to be *his* right hand man.


So Aule needs a new right hand guy, and he picks.......... Curunir, better known as Saruman. I have wondered about it; there is a line in the Simirillion that Melkor's and Aule's thoughts were the closest of any two Valar, and they both are builders, forgers, creators of things of stone and metal. Perhaps Tolkien is implying a kind of vulnerability here, that once a certain sense of possessiveness takes in, it's very easy for someone who is obsessed with his toys and projects to turn into a would-be conqueror with them.


Blahdeblah.

[Corgatha Taldorthar]

So, with our new beta wizard in tow, we head out of Rhosgobel, pausing only to transfer Celeborn's goods to the nature boy. As we saunter over to Sauron's stronghold,  Celeborn says that maybe we should stop and then leaves the party before the heavy fighting.

As soon as the poncy boy leaves, we catch sight of an annoying little sneak. Using the word of power "!Orome" freezes him in place, where we stop to conscript him. He's kind of useless in a fight, but having him in the party triggers some useful information.

We get off the road, running parallel to it from the south. We head generally eastwards, and Gollum sees something interesting,  but we have a little errand to run before taking the secret entrance. We follow the road east until it bends north, but take a little track into the woods. A few feet in and we run into an old friend. I think it's somewhat anti-lore, since most spirits in the LOTR setting (think the Dead Men of Dunharrow) don't seem to be able to directly fight or move around much on their own initiative. We temporarily drop Celebrith to pick up the Ghostking. He's quite nice, although his portrait still seems to be holding up the ceiling from his crypt back in the shire


We head towards the barrow, and the Ghostking scares off the outer guards. The ones inside have stiffer spines though, and we wind up fighting a gang of six barrow wights. We pick up some assorted hits during the fight, but outside Pippin, who winds up taking 7 points of damage, it's not bad and it's spread around the party.

Having defeated the wights, Amonar is satisfied and leaves, but the barrow contains an interesting piece of magic glass (Screenshot fizzled out for some reason ), which we give to  Radagast. We head out, pick our elf back up, and head back to the secret area that Gollum pointed out.


It's a lot like the Old Forest, a maze with several nuisances that do one or two points of damage, but nothing really terrible or dangerous. A few spiders make up the only monsters that we run into here. Eventually, we find an exit. Once we're out, Gollum gives further directions It's actually a short walk north to the stone, and once we're there we get inside.


Next update, we do the daring breakout.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

So... what was the shiny glass bauble that you gave to Radagast?

[Corgatha Taldorthar]

It's literally just called a "magic glass". It'll come in handy later

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Oh. How... specific. >.<