Raiders of the Ruthless East Campaign Log

Raiders 

of the 

Ruthless East

Mordor is where the heart is...or has been cut out.

Mordor is a large and terrible territory.  For general information, much has been already said about the Dark Land.  Novices in Tolkien lore would do well to start here with the Wikipedia entry, and that repository of knowledge has tons of lore in digestible little chunks for your brains to chew on.

Here, we're going to busy ourselves with a few special places unique to this story.  They are, in no particular order:

• The Hole - The smelly, rank warren where our player characters live.  Dug into the rocky plain near Barad-Dur, the Hole isn't what many would consider a safe home base, but it works for the Raiders of the Ruthless East.
• The Forges - Rancid fumes and blistering heat emerge further up the mountain than the Hole.  In this place, the orc taskmasters make sure the slaves and lesser orcs keep pounding away at their metal and anvils, making weapons and armor for the Dark Lord.
• The Pass of Poros - A way out of the dark of Mordor, to the South.  A very narrow pass, it is easily guarded by a small unit of orcs.
• Sea of Nurnen - A huge inland lake filled with briny and bitter waters, the area around the lake is actually quite fertile.  Most of the food that feeds Sauron's armies comes from this single region.

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This is a log for the campaign sessions in the Ruthless East Mordor campaign.

1. Horseflesh Soup - The group is corralled together by Mordor's most vicious taskmasters, and made the lift heavy objects, fight for their lives, and squabble over terrible stew.
2. Chasing Dwarflings - A dwarf smith escaped from the Forge, but not for long.  Our characters were unleashed to find him, and after much adventure managed to head him off.  The dwarf got his revenge by creeping up on two wounded orc players and dispatching them, proving that one should never rest, or try to be compassionate in Mordor!
3. Draggin' tha Sack - The party recoups it's losses and drags the dwarfling all the way back across the plains of Mordor to the Forge!  On the way they encounter feral hobgoblins and kobold traders whose liquor stacks the odds against hungry orcs!
4. Ogre in Ithilien - Forlorn the Toothlord is late in delivering his tribute to Boss Nokk, and he orders the characters to enter the forest of Ithilien and find out why there's been a holdup in the arrangement.  The players navigate the dangers of Ithilien, and at least one or two contemplate running (away from Mordor!!), but the objective is shortly at hand.  A few swings of the blade later, and the party was in possession of a fine set of warglings and an ogre skull for the camp's totem pole!
5. Lake Nurnen - The most murderous time yet, several of the party fall victim to infighting.  In fact, the mortality rate in the Mob is growing disastrously high, mostly due to skullduggery amongst the players themselves!  During a mission south to the huge lake that dominates southern Mordor, the Mob returns to the Forge to find the Uruk-Hai warders less than pleased with their unruly behavior.
6. Gifts of Mordor (Commenced 12/11/2011) - The most unruly and rotten time of all!  The player mob was sent south into Harad to deliver a box of scrolls, 'gifts' of the Dark Lord to one of his vassals.  There was great skulduggery on the trail, and murderous mayhem was engaged in.  Once the PC party arrived at their destination, they realized they'd been had - the box of scrolls was gone!  Lost somewhere, perhaps trampled in the mud or ditched along with a body.  Much sacrifice was made, but in the end the group recovered the black box and delivered it safely to it's correct destination.  

Upon arrival in the Forge, the group receives many accolades for bravery and disfigurement!  A few even managed to gain the lofty level of 3 - never obtained in this campaign!

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The Campaign is over!  Jerry will be bringing us his thoughts on the whole ordeal later this week!  I want to say thanks to everyone who played, everyone was a great sport about the whole mess.  Robbery, extortion, murder plots - this game had it all!  This is one campaign that was actually more about player interaction and group politics, as one had to be cunning and powerful to stay alive.  Everyone had Neutral and Evil alignments, and let me tell you - haters are rampant round these parts!


All in all was a blast, and Jerry Wargate has promised we'll return to Middle-Earth soon in his next game!

Things to Consider About Mordor

Greetings from the Forbidden Zone!

Well, the Mordor RPG game has been going on for about 9 weeks now, and the death toll has been quite high!  We did manage to make it through a whole session without anyone getting killed, so I thought today was a good time to reflect on a few things that make adventuring in the Dark Lands a little bit - trickier, say, than the idyllic forests of the Elf Lands.

As our player characters come and go quickly here, it can be tough to get a bead on how things go.  I've noticed a few things that everyone should remember whilst delving dark secrets in the land of Mordor.

1. Everything is black, even the air.
The land of Mordor is black.  All the rocks are black.  Everyone's clothes are black.  The shadows are blacker than black, but remember - there's a lot of ash and smoke in the air at all times.  Orcs must not live very long, because if violence doesn't take them, the poisonous air of their territory would eventually cause serious problems.

2.  The Food is Scarce
There's only one place in the whole dark land where anything grows - around the Lake Nernen and it's tributaries in the far south.  Amazingly, enough is made there to feed all of Sauron's legions.  However, that doesn't mean they are well supplied.  It's insane how often these resources get misappropriated, though the threat of Sauron's wrath helps make sure everything gets done in a surprisingly orderly fashion.

Out in the field, it can be tough.  Outside of rations appropriated at the Forges, there isn't much out there.  Hunting is not really an option, because nobody wants to eat a giant spider.  Those things are rancid.  In fact, it's much easier to eat a fallen enemy - or in a pinch, a comrade or two.

3. The Water is Poisonous
Like food, water is quite scarce in the dark land.  Any free standing pools of water are probably so acidic the water would likely kill anything foolish enough to consume it.  Most drinkable water comes from underground grottos watched over by jealous taskmasters.  Also, dark terrors sometimes rise from the depths and claim a few lives before being driven off, making those very underground water holes as terrifying as they are treasured.

Lake Nernen provides fresh, drinkable water as well as it's other bounties.  Aside from carrying water from Nernen, it's advisable to make sure there are at least a few days worth of water rations for each orc, though orcs tend to drink noticeably less than men or elves.

4.  Everything and everyone hates you.
Life is rough in the Dark Land.  It's also cheap.  Swords and food are not cheap.  Therefore, you might at any given point be killed for your gear, flaps or maybe just to be eaten by starving orcs.

Everyone is a hater in Mordor.  Orcs kill each other in petty squabbles over trinkets or rights to booty all the time.  In fact, the Uruk-hai at the Forge area must patrol in full battle gear just to make sure the rabble doesn't get out of control, and they'll haul offenders off to toil away at the Forges beneath Mt. Doom.

Great care must be taken by war leaders not to ever show weakness - i.e. getting knocked unconcious, or maimed and nearly killed.  Orcs aren't known for their loyalty, and just a few flaps or the promise of a good chunk of leg can change the course of a promising warlord in a flash.  Look out for yourself, and for your gear.  Coins have a mysterious way of disappearing, along with anything else valuable, in the company of raiders from the east.

5.  The Great Eye is Upon You
There is one thing, and one thing only, that compels orcs to be as orcs.  The Great Eye, Sauron, is alive and well in Mordor.  His spirit is the will that drives the actions of the Nazgul, his undead lieutenants, and marshals the armies of evil against the Free Peoples of Middle-Earth.  His eye is real, and it's looking at you.

Shamans of Sauron's power exist in the orc clans, nearly religious demagogues who give the orcs something to look forward to.  It's sort of like church (of Doom) where Salvation is reached through domination of others.  One thing is driven into the masses - Sauron will not be denied.

Some orcs can feel the Eye more than others, in the way some Men are more spiritual than others.  Most just accept that if they step out of line, someone with a red eye design on their armor will beat them into submission.  No matter how close to their dark deity they feel, one thing is for certain - the light of they Eye can be seen and felt.  For his slaves in Mordor, there is no denying the Dark Lord's presence.  There is no escape from the pressure of his will.

That's enough out of me for today.  The playing the morally bankrupt servants of Mordor in Ruthless Raiders of the East has been an absolute blast!  Middle-Earth is one of our favorite settings, and we have tons left in store for this hapless universe!  Have fun this holiday season, and we'll try to keep the posting regular!

Evil Middle-Earth Roleplay in Full Swing!

Today, Jerry Wargate updates us on the state of affairs in Mordor, where our group has been playing a different sort of game...the Evil game! 

Captain Video shows his enthusiasm for Evil Roleplay.

Our evil heroes to be started their campaign just a stones throw East of Orodrim, in a place called The Forge. All Orcs started as grunts in the Dark Lords army. The mighty warlord Boss Nokk made sure to work, starve and beat the recruits into a battle-ready unit over three weeks of grueling trudging through the South of the Morgai.

Capturing escapees from the forges, battling packs of wild dogs, and extreme marches under the darkness of the Moon were part of the rise to Soldier rank. Nokk gave the soldiers rank and mark of the red eye as reward for service and slavery to his Dark Majesty.

Not all recruits have made it alive. Three have died in total, one death resulting from internal squabbles within the Unit.

This last weeks' adventure found Nokk ordering the Unit to stalk into Ithilien in search of Forlorn the Toothlord, an Ogre who was behind in his tribute to the Eye. Our group ran into a few unexpected happenings but came out in the end Victorious over the Toothlord, ensaring his wargling tribute in capivity to be sent back to Mordor.

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As Snurg the Droop removed his axe from Facebiter's ruined head, he turned to address his fellow orcs in the unit.  He'd made an example of the insolent Facebiter, and fully expected to be killed immediately by the rest of the unit.  However, he fully expected to kill one or two more before they got him.


No one moved.


"That's it!" Snurg bellowed, looking intently at all the orcs clustered around Facebiter's corpse and all the silver flaps he had in the chest.  The Droop kicked at the chest savagely, spilling flaps everywhere.  
"What this lot needs is a propa' boss!  You weedy lot bicker and dribble snot, and I've had my fill of your rabble!" 


Snurg looked to the north, and could see the fire of Mt. Doom.  "Can't you feel it?!" he continued, half-delirious with whatever passes for religious conviction in orcs.  "The Great Eye is upon us!  No more fighting, no more stealing...stick with Snurg, and I'll make sure that we get our fair share!"


Snurg the Droop cast about, looking for dissension, clutching his axe and buckler.  His hunched form, with it's comically long nose and ears tended to be the subject of many jokes, and now that he had challenged for leadership, he knew he had to drive the point home. After long moments, he let forth a strong bellow.


"I get two shares!"