To Middle Earth with Sellswords and Spellslingers

I have really been enjoying cooperative games of S&S with Ian, running a D&D style "traditional" party of adventurers. I also fancy some solo games (I often find myself with an hour or so spare, but no opponent) and wanted to do something quite different to the cooperative games. I have always been a fan of Tolkien, and inspired by reading Ethelred the Almost Ready's posts on the Lead Adventurer Forum concerning his Silmarillion set S&S campaign, I  decided to set my solo campaign in Middle Earth.

I've always fancied doing some sort of role-play type campaign in ME, I loved the MERP modules back in the 80s/90s, but never played them, I found standard RPGs to fiddly and time consuming once I stopped being a student. S&S is idea as it's sort of  a role playing game for tabletop wargamers (or is it a tabletop wargame for RPGers?). The thing that popped into my mind straight away was the cover illustration to The Lost Realm of Cardolan module (by the great Angus McBride).

So I decided to set my campaign in the North Kingdom, sometime after the break up of Arnor, either around 1350, shortly after the Witch King has established himself in Angmar but before the destruction of Cardolan, or in the 1640s after the Great Plague and after wights and spirits have occupied the Barrow Downs. I'm probably edging towards the latter time.

My idea is set around the adventures of a Knight of Arnor/Arthedain who is among those tasked with patrolling the eastern borders and keeping the Great Road open. I've always viewed Arnor warriors as looking a bit like those of the Late and Post Roman period. I have a reasonable collection of Late Roman and Arthurian figures, which I'll use for this.

There are a few aspects of the S&S rules which do not gel with a Tolkien setting, particularly the question of magic, so these are the ideas I'm currently considering.

Magic:
I’m a bit concerned that the lack of offensive magic might penalize the characters too much. In most of the “standard” S&S games I’ve played, the ability of a magic user to take out multiple low strength monsters, or to weaken a stronger one before they get into contact has been pretty important in the survival of the group.

One thought to try and balance this that I’m going to try, is to give the party a couple of "faithful followers". These will be just standard soldiers, with no traits. They will be assigned to a specific character and activate when that character does, with the same number of actions that they have in that turn. If they are killed they automatically get replaced for the next adventure.

Potions:
The only potions available will be healing ones, think of it more as a powerful herbal medicine. Potions can be created out of game by anyone with a Healer trait in the same way an Alchemist does in the original rules.

Cleric:
Partly to give the party a chance against undead and spirits, I’m envisaging allowing Clerics as being members of a Priesthood of the Valar. These are more students of ancient mystical knowledge rather than a conventionally religious organization.  PCs with the Cleric trait can also affect evil demonic spirits as they do undead (including barrow wights, ghost wargs, werewolves, etc).  Holy water (needs another name) also affects demons/spirits. I am going to pinch Ethelred's idea of calling the trait Repel Darkness rather than Cleric.

Money:
Cash is quite important in S&S, but I don't think looting the dead for profit really fits in Tolkien's world (at least not for the "good guys"). I'd going to play around with a system of Honour points. This will run parallel with the standard Experience and can be gained by achieving certain secondary objectives. Honour points can either be used as Experience points, or else "cashed in" to get stuff you would normally need money for.

Here are my characters:

Arnor Warband

Hallas: Dunedain Fighter
Sword +1, Armour +1, Leader
A young Dunedain captain tasked with patrolling the Great Road and keeping it open for trade, as well as well as watching for the border for signs of raiders or invasion.

Doltalagan: Dunedain Priest of the Valar
Repel Darkness, Sword +1, Healer +1
Due to the increased sighting of evil spirits, particularly around the Barrow Downs, the priesthood have started sending younger brethren to aid the border patrols.

Iavasonnen: Eriadorian Archer
Archery +1, Sword +1, Buckler +1, Fire into Melee
A veteran scout and crack shot.

Hanar: Dwarf
Strong+1, 2-handed  Axe +1, Armour +1
A younger son of his family, since the captain saved his parent's lives when orcs attacked their camp, Hanar has sworn to serve Hallas until he feels that the blood debt has been repaid.

Soldier: Eriadorian Fighter
No Traits
Rank and file soldiers of Hallas' company.

And some pictures:

 Hallas and Arthedain standards.

 Hallas and some of his unit..

 Hanar, Hallas, Iavasonnen and Doltalagan.

 A Rhudaur hill tribe chieftain and his followers.

 The Rhudaur raiding party get ambushed by our heroes.

 Hanar about to take down a Hillman berserker.

 A bunch of orcs try their luck.

But don't get too far.

I'm hoping to get a game in later tonight.