"Middle Earth - The 4th Age - Moving on.. " Topic

Middle Earth – The fourth Age..
I am toying with the idea of running a skirmish campaign game using Middle Earth as the setting, but moving on from the events in the films and the Lord of the Rings books.
MERP used to recommend basing your adventures in the 3rd age, pre the events of the ring story.
However, I am tempted at this time to go the other way and move on from the 3rd age and explore what came after the war of the ring and the end of the lord of the rings.

I know that I.C.E did an awful lot of expansions for MERP, but cannot find any that really went forward in time from the 3rd age. Did anyone do any? Official or un-officially?

Just curious, as it might help save me some writing.

what came after the war of the ring and the end of the lord of the rings.

As I understand it, it was an era of extended peace!

Think there was mention in one of the Appendices of LotR of Gondor and the Rohir campaigning in the East beyond Rhum.

Can't recall anything in a MERP module about 4th Age but plenty of modules in 'off map' locations to the East and South.

I don't think they covered it specifically in any great depth.

But the Appendices have the timeline of Ellessar and he and Eomer campaigned in the east and Harad.

There would still be orcs and goblins and trolls in the mountains, just with no unified leader and there is the north to pacify away from the few safe towns.

You also have Mirkwood, full of bad things even after the destruction of Dul Guildur.

And Dwarves have plenty of old mines to set themselves to retake, now the guiding force of Sauron has gone.

If you want to add spice a civil war in Gondor over the descendant of Faramir fighting the descendant of Aragorn for the throne, a new Rohan/Dunlending war.

Still plenty to fight over, the big war is gone, plenty of little wars still to come.

These guys should be able to help you Goose.

link

Good discussions and lots of info, they have access to all kinds of Iron Crown/MERP data.

Cheers,

Jeff

Cheers Jeff, shall have a look at that one.

Tolkiem does give the "happy ever after" hint in the story.. but we all know that life is just too complicated for that ;).

Seriously though, I was intruiged, by the fact we hear very little of what happened to Saurons lackies and Leutenants after the war. Some turn to fighting them selves and others just are not mentioned. Some explicitly die, like the witch king.
Though we believe the one ring is destroyed, evidenced by the destruction of saurons tower etc. The question still remains, were the other ring, that tolkien hint he held lost too.? But all that aside..
The issue of the southrons, their leaders, the other supporting nations etc.

Also maybe Morgoroth was working through sauron, or maybe not. There seems to be to me anyhow, a good scope for some interesting RGP or wargames based on the after math and eventual fall out.

I am looking at maybe basing it some 500 years into the fourth age. Time enough to let things change a goodly amount yet still be seen to be connected to the events of history, before they faded into myth etc.

There's plenty of campaigning that can be run in the East and South, I have some MERPs modules that cover that.

The LoTR appendices do say that Aragorn/Elessar and Eomer campaigned in the east against the Men of Rhun….

You should get plenty of help from the group in the link. One member is doing a major review of some modules currently.

If your working 500 years into the 4th Age, plenty of time for Harad, Khand, and Rhun to revive their old hates for the West.

There will always be ORCS !

Cheers

A friend of mine and I put a supplement together for the GW skirmish game, set in the Fourth Age – it was called The Age of the King and is available on the One Ring community website:

PDF link

It's about 2MB in size and requires Adobe Acrobat reader.

It's about 2MB in size and requires Adobe Acrobat reader.

FYI, Acrobat is a PDF generator, not a reader. There are other PDF readers other than Adobe Reader.

Thanks for the PDF link. Good thread!

Have always wanted to do a post war LoTR campaign myself! Sounds like you have some great ideas already. Look in the back portion of the MERP books. Some, not all, have a few small suggestions for adventuring after the War of the Ring. I do not recall any modules that specifically covered 4th age, but there have got to be lots of minor items of power along with some pretty high level nasties! I would read up on the early 3rd age for ideas. They thought evil was gone then too! Good luck.

Wasn't a big project for Elessar the reconquest and establishment of Arnor in the north? You have a lot of room for that. Plus, I was just re-reading the Hobbit, and there may be several other dragons living in the north, of whom Smaug was only one, and they and orcs drove the Dwarves south. You could easily, as someone already suggested, run plenty of "Dwarves retake old cities" campaigns.

The Moria supplement definitely had 4th Age scenarios in it, I believe that the PCs were ambassadors looking to set up trade links with the re-established Dwarven kingdom. The recovery of Moria in itself could be an excellent campaign. There would also be re-establishing civilisation(Gondorian oppression) in places like Eastern Rhovanion, Minhiriath and the Eredwaith and northern Arnor as well as border skirmishes in near Harad and Rhun and with the Pirates of the Pelargir and Belfalas coast. In the 50 to 100 years after the War of the Ring there would be loads that needed doing!

Wasn't the 4th Age supposed to be the "Age of Men," with the other races like elves and dwarves diminishing into the background? If that's your interpretation, it seems like the humanocentric factions could all be fighting and jockeying for power in the new era.

Of course, that wouldn't be any fun for us fantasy gamers with loads of dwarf and elf and orc miniatures.

Tolkien, hints in some of he letters that all may not be that well for the Age of Men, even those that term was coined by Sauron, and something similar uttered by Saroman.. Its quoted in the first coulpe of pages of the MERP rulebook.

I will check my Moria book and see. I would rather keep the geography the main middle earth area from the films, to the main. As I want the players to feel they know what roughly to expect in terms of style/geography and layout. Its the finer details, like which kingdoms still stand or didn't which are at war with which. What the bad guys are upto!

And yes, there will be always be Orcs and Goblins and the occasional troll, giant spider and wraith to kill..

As I recall, Tolkien mentioned evil rising again in the Fourth Age in connection with a Lieutenant of the Tower. Now the only one mentioned is Gothmog, but he is not named as that lieutenant.

IIRC correctly quite a few of the MERP supplements did suggest adventures for the early 4th Age, mainly along the lines people have suggested above, but also a couple for evil groups as well, I think, if you want to get your orcs out on the table…

Regards

Tolkien started writing a book about the Fourth Age called 'The New Shadow' but gave up after a few chapters as he reckoned it'd just be a 'thriller' rather than adding much to the Legendarium.

It's set in Ithilien in the reign of Aragorn's son, Eldarion. There are hints of Dark goings-on amongst the generations born after the War of the Ring. Some sort of backsliding towards Sauron/Morgoth cults much like Numenor??

The story starts in Gondor with Borlas. This created a problem with timing because the book is during the reign of Eldarion, making Borlas around 200 years old.

Borlas becomes concerned with a secret society formed among the boys of Gondor. They have taken to dressing up like Orcs and doing Orcish things such as cutting down trees with no reason. There are also rumors about a man called Herumor, which is Quenya for "Dark Lord", the leader of the cult. Tolkien called it a Satanic cult, so it was presumably a revival of the worship of Morgoth, Sauron, or both.

The story continues to a point where Borlas receives an invitation from Saelon, a young man his son grew up with, to attend a secret meeting. The meeting is presumably with the cult, though it's unknown whether Saelon is a member or wants help to destroy it.

The possibilties for a new evil rising in the south could be explored, as one of the Istari wandered into the south, Far Harad/Khand and was never heard of again. Being that it was never said what level this member of the Istari was if he was on par with Saruman or Gandalf one could imagine the possibilties.

One of the big themese in the books that can go un noticed is the one of "power corrupts".., the istari were seekers of knowledge, but Eru, said that knowledge can lead to a danagerous path. I think there is still plenty of scope for lots of ideas, depending how you wish to go and where.

Its nice to know some of these may have been discussed else where.

I know Aragorn led Gondor in battles against the forces of the East. I'm not sure how long that lasted though.

Battles against the Men of Rhun or even a new invasion of Wainriders from the east would make for good campaigning.

Aragorn/Elessar has pretty much conquered Rhun and Harad by the time he died.

Tolkien says as much in The History of Middle Earth, vol XXII.

But, as has been mentioned, someone was trying to pick up the Torch of Morgoth and Sauron.

It is a pity that Tolkien abandoned it, as he may have been able to substantially add to the legendarium had he given it some more thought.

After all, there were still plenty of leftovers from the First Age wandering about (Thuringwethil comes to mind – I hope that I spelled that correctly – the Winged bat-bitch of Sauron's in the First Age). Aside from her, there was still the issue of the Blue-Wizards, and several Dragons left over… Plus, we don't know that the Balrog of Moria was the only one to have survived the destruction of Beleriand in the First Age. Nor do we know how many minor Maia in the service of Morgoth were left after the First Age either.

We only know that the most powerful (Sauron) was wreaking havoc until finally cast down by Frodo & Co.

There might have been a group of them remaining (less powerful) who did something remarkable for the baddies in Middle-earth and team up to create a sort of Black-Council.

There were still two Istari remaining in Middle Earth that could have been both responsible for these baddies, and attempting to atone for their mistakes and helping the "Good Guys" to beat them.

I think Thuringwethil, was killed in the first age, or so a quick search of the next leads me to believe.

I was reading the MERP Guide to Valar & Maiar, it goes into how basically with each passing age, the "power" levels of each side decrease and it also hints at a few ideas for adventures etc. It explains what happened to the Istari and the balrogs, and yes, it is perfectly possible that not all the corrupted spirits morgoth created, were destroyed.

Lots of scope for evil rising, just in slightly different ways and methods.