gyrovague
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Ruins of the Lost Realm

Fri 22 Apr 2022, 15:23

Leafing through my shiny new PDF. Great stuff!
 
Otaku-sempai
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Re: Ruins of the Lost Realm

Fri 22 Apr 2022, 16:55

Same here. I do find the take here on the Men of Eryn Vorn to be surprising, but original!

EDIT: I might end up tweaking the bit about forgetting how to speak in the tongues of Men. I would rather have them still using their ancestral tongue, though perhaps only among themselves and not in front of outsiders. A similar question arises with the Barrow People of Cardolan (page 27): Just what is "the language of the dead"?
Last edited by Otaku-sempai on Sat 23 Apr 2022, 22:44, edited 2 times in total.
#FideltyToTolkien
 
gyrovague
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Re: Ruins of the Lost Realm

Sat 23 Apr 2022, 15:56

Same here. I do find the take here on the Men of Eryn Vorn to be surprising, but original!
Yes, there's a lot that's highly original. This is exactly what I was hoping for: populating Eriador in a way that is both novel and thematic, instead of just leaving it a big, desolate region, empty of everything except that which is explicitly mentioned in the texts. Or even a middle ground: sprinkling settlements around, but without anything more original than yet another small village of mundane farmers trying to survive in the wilderness.

The creativity, with a sprinkling of magic and wonder, is great.

This portends great stuff from FL in the future! Can't wait.
 
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eternalsage
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Re: Ruins of the Lost Realm

Sat 23 Apr 2022, 16:14

Haven't had a chance to read any of it yet, so that gives me a lot of hope. I wasn't expecting a lot, tbh, as the original pitch for the doc wasn't something I normally would have purchased, but starting to get excited about it.
“It is useless to meet revenge with revenge; it will heal nothing.” - Frodo Baggins, Return of the King
 
gyrovague
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Re: Ruins of the Lost Realm

Sat 23 Apr 2022, 19:29

Haven't had a chance to read any of it yet, so that gives me a lot of hope. I wasn't expecting a lot, tbh, as the original pitch for the doc wasn't something I normally would have purchased, but starting to get excited about it.
I'm sure some people will dislike how it strays from canon (not exactly breaking it, but adding to it) and feel some parts aren't rigidly Tolkien-ish, but honestly I don't know how you keep the sense of wonder and discovery in the books without doing that. It would get extremely repetitive.
 
Vuriche
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Re: Ruins of the Lost Realm

Sun 24 Apr 2022, 00:14

I have, from just looking at the first few pages, the sense that this book might do for Eriador, what The Heart of the Wild did for Eastern Rhovanion - that is expand it into a breathing, living world that is interesting to play in, rather than just a chunk of wilderness. That sets the bar very high, so it'll be a most interesting read to say the least.
 
Dunheved
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Re: Ruins of the Lost Realm

Sun 24 Apr 2022, 10:33

I got the feeling, after first "read-it-all-through", that the landmarks here have many more choices or alternative routes in/through them than those in the source books of 1e.

I like the segments suggested in the "mini-timelines" associated with {EDIT: thanks Gyrovague} Chapter 2 , where one year's adventure will lead into an adventure in a later year. It gives a feel that the rest of the world continues on around the Company, whether the players choose to stay in that part of the region or go to somewhere else, or even simply stay home for a year.

The decision to have "that adventure leads to this adventure" might seem prescriptive: but I definitely do not see it that way. These are merely suggestions to me and any segment can be dropped, ignored or re- written by the LM to create their own alternative route and later to return to a different published segment.

It's both inspiring and helpful to a LM to be offered this framework. My first impression is very positive.
Last edited by Dunheved on Sun 24 Apr 2022, 17:57, edited 1 time in total.
 
Dunheved
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Re: Ruins of the Lost Realm

Sun 24 Apr 2022, 10:35

And what is particularly good about this is that it is backwards compatible. It is so straightforward to use all these ideas with TOR1e that It expands that collection as well.

I hope that Gondor when its appears gets its own landmark book.
 
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Ferretz
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Re: Ruins of the Lost Realm

Sun 24 Apr 2022, 12:58

I really like what I'm reading in Ruins of the Lost Realm. The book is very useful for building a campaign, and it gives me hope that further releases (especially Moria) will be equally good.

If I had one criticism it is the choice to include certain concepts that are lifted straight out of our own history, legends and myths. This is very immersion-breaking, especially at our table. Examples would be "The Green Knight" (pg 84) and even calling an NPC "Ivoch the Boneless" (pg 45), who is even the son of a mighty chieftain. Middle-earth should be inspired by such things, not copy them, I think.

Each group is different, of course, but for our group, such "transplantations" will be so immersion-breaking that they're not useable.
Well, it could be worse. I remember an old Savage Worlds fantasy RPG that was inspired by Norse myth - but they called gods Odin, Loki, Fenris and such! Creativity is better than just copying. :P
 
gyrovague
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Re: Ruins of the Lost Realm

Sun 24 Apr 2022, 15:25

If I had one criticism it is the choice to include certain concepts that are lifted straight out of our own history, legends and myths. This is very immersion-breaking, especially at our table. Examples would be "The Green Knight" (pg 84) and even calling an NPC "Ivoch the Boneless" (pg 45), who is even the son of a mighty chieftain. Middle-earth should be inspired by such things, not copy them, I think.
Yeah, I agree with you there as well. It's not just the names, that are lifted either. I will probably change details in both cases so they aren't recognizable.

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