LORE - A Lord of the Rings Adventure Game Retroclone

"I would draw some of the great tales in fullness, and leave many only placed in the scheme, and sketched. The cycles should be linked to a majestic whole, and yet leave scope for other minds and hands, wielding paint and music and drama." - J.R.R. Tolkien

My favorite licensed Tolkien game was published by Iron Crown Enterprises in 1991. It was called The Lord of the Rings Adventure Game (abbreviated, bizarrely, as "LOR"). Because I'm very charmed by the system, I ran some games using an adaptation of it.

When I began the Middle-earth Hexcrawl project, I wrote them with an eye towards this adaptation. The more I wrote daily hexes, the more I found myself co-developing a system to use to run the hexcrawl. 

I've called this system Lore. It is a retroclone of The Lord of the Rings Adventure Game, much expanded and elaborated on and with many optional subsystems. It is what I will use to run the Middle-earth Hexcrawl. 

You can check out the game, here:

Click the picture to get the game!

What's different about this retroclone?

There's lots of retroclones scattered throughout the blogosphere. Why is this one worth your time? I think there's a few things that are cool here!

A setting for a system, a system for a setting

Ever since I wrote my 1937 Hobbit blog post (almost ten years ago, good Lord), I've been making posts with rules that attempt to codify the "Treasure Hunting, Journeying, Singing" aesthetic of the original Hobbit. The Middle-earth Hexcrawl Project and Lore are the culmination of those efforts. 

The hexcrawl allows you to explore a Middle-earth that never was: one where weird stuff is under every hill and around every bend in the road. 

Flavourful characters

The original LOR had a premise I've rarely seen before - it was almost a capsule game. The game was about playing these characters in this adventure. (The adventure was a railroad, but hey.) And there was no ownership over the characters. You could play one character one night and another character on the following night. 

A funky premise, but one that I think is compelling! Lore has a similar default set up: play as a gang of burglars from Bree! 

And if you choose to make your own character using the advanced rules, each character should prove to be totally unique with each culture having 50 random, flavorful abilities to gain (300 abilities in total). I think there's some real gems here!

How to make friends and influence people

"Poor little blighter," said William. He had already had as much supper as he could hold; also he had had lots of beer. "Poor little blighter! Let him go!"

"Not till he says what he means by lots and none at all," said Bert.

I love that exchange between the trolls in The Hobbit: what a perfect summation of the OSR approach to monster encounters. In Lore, there are two twists on classic OSR procedures of languages and the reaction roll. 

Characters in The Hobbit are true polyglots! The dwarves speak the raven language but also understand the crow tongue. Gandalf (and the goblins, presumably) speak the wolf language. And characters can suddenly understand languages in medias res, like Bard understanding the thrush. Similarly, in Lore, the languages you know and don't know are determined during play. If you pass your Understanding test,  you know the language being spoken/if you fail, you don't. Add it to your permanent list of languages known/unknown. 

Similarly, based on your race, characters have a default starting reaction towards you (nobody likes dwarves...). But if you speak their language, you can negotiate with them and improve their reaction. Your Beauty score determines how many times you can make a social faux pas before a neutral reaction deteriorates into a hostile one!

Delightfully wonky combat

The OSR has ruthlessly refined all the wonkiness out of old-school combat, streamlining it and harmonizing it with the rest of the system: roll high, no THAC0, no charts. I think the simplified MERP combat shown in the original LOR was too crucial to its experience to cut! 

Roll on a combat chart to determine if you hit your opponent and how hard. And nested in the chart are super flavourful death and dismemberment results. Armour is important not just because it makes you harder to hit but because it protects your vital spots. For example: "Gash to neck: 10 damage and bleeding wound. If no chest armour, internal bleeding in the throat means that target cannot speak until after rest." 

Experience through travel, just in-time level ups

If The Hobbit (and its sequels) are about journeys, I wanted to make sure that journeys were actually fun. Something that frustrates me with other "Ring" games is it abstracts travel either into a series of random rolls (the Guide randomly has to make a skill check - no choices! boring!) or handwaves travel entirely. 

In Lore, there's a crunchy journey system that makes you have conversations about how you approach the puzzle of travel. 

And, importantly, your company gains experience based on new hexes traveled and new dungeons explored. When your company gains a total of 10 travel points, one member of the company gains an experience point (which is what "levels" are called in this parlance). You can cash in your XP right away to immediately get a new power. Or you can hold on to it and use it when you need it most. If you meet an old man in the hexcrawl, they might be able to teach you a unique skill if you have the XP banked. Or you can spend your XP on enchanting magical items! 

Credits

This is entirely a fan work, like a piece of fanfiction published in the Tolkien Society bulletin. My use of the terms, concepts, characters, names, and texts are not a challenge to the trademark or copyright.

Art and Cartography

• The Middle-earth Hex Map was created through the research and labor of Idraluna Archive
• Art is by Goran Gligovic, used by kind permission

Additional Thanks

• Hope, hexcrawling rules, and certain wandering encounter events are sourced from Arnold K. of Goblinpunch's Hex Crawling v3, shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
• When populating hexes, I frequently relied on the bounty of the blog d4caltrops by Ktrey. You might see some results from his wonderful d100 tables here.
• Special thanks to Elizabeth for her encouragement.

Sprawling, but incomplete

The Lord of the Rings Adventure Game is a simple piece of game design; its rules barely take up 34 pages. Like many old games, it is an imperfect beast but has many good ideas. This adaptation has become swollen—almost bloated like Shelob. It has spoiled the original's simplicity in favour of gluttonously feasting on subsystems that appeal to my sensibilities. Such is the author's prerogative! 

And yet, this game is incomplete. Not only are there subsystems mentioned (e.g., Downtime) that I haven't finished explaining, but the whole thing is unedited. The entire thing was written in a stream of consciousness to get the ideas onto paper with no thought of clarification or harmonization. 

But if I didn't stop working and publish this game on my blog in an unfinished state, it would never be seen by anyone besides myself. I am prioritizing sharing the results of my fever dream labours over presenting something that's, well, presentable. 

I suspect that as I continue to reread the trilogy every year I will continue to return to these rules and worry at it. Check back in sometime. Maybe you will find some improvements! I hope there is something here that is appealing to you, friend. 

If you end up running the Middle-earth Hexcrawl using these rules, please do let me know.

Random Goblin Advancement

When you level up, you gain a random benefit based on your race or class. Here's what goblins get. You can also use this table for folks like half-orcs or maybe even tieflings, if that's your style of game.

If you prefer your goblins more whimsical and fairy tale oriented, may I suggest Papers and Pencils's d100 Gobbobilities.

Art by Goran Gligović

Goblins

Now goblins are cruel, wicked, and badhearted. They make no beautiful things, but they make many clever ones. They can tunnel and mine as well as any but the most skilled dwarves, when they take the trouble, though they are usually untidy and dirty. Hammers, axes, swords, daggers, pickaxes, tongs, and also instruments of torture, they make very well, or get other people to make to their design, prisoners and slaves that have to work till they die for want of air and light. It is not unlikely that they invented some of the machines that have since troubled the world, especially the ingenious devices for killing large numbers of people at once, for wheels and engines and explosions always delighted them, and also not working with their own hands more than they could help; but in those days and those wild parts they had not advanced (as it is called) so far. 

Roll a d50 to determine what dark gift you manifest. 

1. Mountain Maggot: You can see in the dark. You can operate as if you had dim light in total darkness. If there's dim light, your eyes are no better than anybody else's. 
2. Hardheaded: Your skull is as hard as stone. You can headbutt and deal damage like a hammer. You are immune to head-based Critical Wounds. You gain +1 Defense, but this doesn't stack with wearing a helmet. Unfortunately, the bottoms of your feet are very, very sensitive. Stepping on caltrops deals double damage to you.
3. Bloodhound: You can smell as sharply as a wolf. You can identify people you've met before by smell alone. You can follow fresh trails unerringly.
4. Spidery: You may climb sheer surfaces as if you had a rope. If you ever do fall, treat your fall as if it were 15' shorter.
5. Trap tricky: If you set off a trap during combat, roll a d6. On a 1-2, the trap hits you. On a 3-4, it hits you AND a foe. On a 5-6, it only hits a foe.
6. Singed: You are resistant to fire damage.
7. Long Under the Shadow: You are resistant to fear damage.
8. Packmaster: You gain the speech of wolves (if you don't already have it). Wolves you meet will default to friendly reactions to you.
   ★ - Wolfrider: If you roll this advancement again, it upgrades. Through negotiation and the sharing of meat, a wolf agrees to enter your service and serve as your mount.
9. Crow Gossip: Gain the speech of crows (if you don't already have it). Crows that you meet will tell you a rumour.
   ★ - Messenger Crow: If you roll this advancement again, it upgrades. By sharing a portion of your meat with a clever crow, they form a bond with you. The crow will carry messages for you over distances.
10. List of Grievances: Make a list of foes that have harmed or slighted you. You gain +1 to attack those named individuals. You can have as many people on the list as equal your Valour attribute (minimum 1). 
11. Looks Like Meat's Back on the Menu: At the end of the battle, if you were victorious, you may devour one of your fallen foes and reduce your damage taken by 1d6.
12. Chanter of Black Rites: When you chant, you can conjure phantoms of illusion that baffle the eyes of mortals. Elves are never tricked by these, but other folk may react as if they are true.
13. Cave Ambusher: You gain +2 to any test to set up an ambush while underground. Also, you gain +2 to your attacks during the first round of combat.
14. Indolent Effort: If you can't get a slave to do the task, you'll try and find a way to cut corners. Reduce the time to perform a particular task by 50% by taking 1d6 damage.
15. Where There's a Whip, There's a Way: If you spend a fast action driving and exhorting your fellows, all other goblins fighting with you gain +1 to attacks as well and +2 bonus to Morale.
16. Pitwright: You can forge items of enchantment.
★ -  Delighted by Explosions: If you roll this advancement again, it upgrades. You can now craft fireworks and bombs.
17. Oft Evil Shall Evil Mar: Once per day, after you've seen the result of a roll, you may push a nearby ally into a trap or attack that was going to hit you and have them take the effect instead.
18. Terrible Blow: You may choose to sunder the melee weapon you are wielding to gain a +4 attack bonus for the blow.
19. Revenger: You gain a +1 to attack anyone who has damaged you in combat. 
20. Eater of Foul Things: In a pinch, you can eat food that would make other folk sick: the flesh of speaking peoples, rotten meat, worms and vermin. 
21. Cowardly: Gain +2 Movement in combat if you are moving away from a foe.

22. Flatfooted and Bowlegged: Gain +2 Movement.  ★ - You may gain this advancement up to 3 times.

23. Slave Driver: When serving as the Guide, reduce damage from forced marches for those you in your company by -5 for the first day, -4 for the second day, -3 for the third day, and so on, until you can no longer reduce the strain. 
24. Forked Tongue: When you whisper, you can choose exactly who can hear you--them and no one else. When you shout, you can be heard clearly, even over the din of battle.
25. Sunblotter: When you deal a Critical Wound with an arrow, you may immediately make a second missile attack.
26. Bloodletter: Your taste for blood is preternatural, giving you insights that no one else can understand. You can identify different blood types (allowing you to give transfusions). You can identify who is and who isn't related to each other. If a target is bleeding, you can follow them like a hound.
27. Head Taker: Every enemy you kill during a combat increases the severity of Critical Wounds that you deal by one letter (from A -> B if you've killed 1 enemy, from A -> C if you've killed 2 enemies, etc.)
28. Besieger: Treat your Strength as +4 higher for maneuvers related to smashing down doors, climbing held castle walls, bending bars, or lifting gates. 
29. Poisoner: With a few minutes of sniffing and tasting, you can identify the effects of poisons that you encounter. 
    
★ -  Learned Harsh Lessons: If you roll this advancement again, it upgrades. You are resistant to poison damage.
30. Edge Grinder: By tending to your weapon and oiling it (costs 1 silver piece/6 marks), you may increase its damage dealt by +1. This bonus lasts until the end of a battle in which you deal damage; afterwards, you must care for it again.
31. Foul Curses: Once a week, you can say at least two rhyming couplets of foul poetry (calling down the wrath of the Night, listing vulgar names, inventing new disgusting epithets) to force the GM to reroll an attack or maneuver an NPC made.
32. Hauler: Add +4 to your Strength score for the purposes of your carrying capacity.
33. Black Legionnaire: Reduce the penalty from your worn armour to your Movement by an amount equal to your Strength score.
34. Unrelenting Hatred: If you would fall unconscious in combat from damage taken, test Strength ΔX, where X is your Endurance - Damage Taken. On a success, you remain conscious and active. This test must be repeated each round as long as your damage taken exceeds your Endurance.
35. Slinker: If you are ever in a position where you are trying to hide from observers, you may take 1d6 damage to find cover in an implausible (but not impossible) manner and hide in plain sight.
36. Sense Hatred: You can clearly identify rivalries and enmities between people. Additionally, if you spend at least an hour in the company of a group, you get a sense of any repressed discontentment. The GM will tell which characters have negative views of each other.
37. Haruspicy: You can spend an hour dissecting and inspecting the viscera of a bird to ask the GM: "If I do X, will Y happen?" You receive a “yes, ”“no,” or "maybe" answer by interpreting the signs at hand.
38. Bane of Elves: You deal +1 damage to elves. Keep a tally of how many elves you have killed. At 50 elves, this bonus increases to +2. At 200 elves, this bonus increases to +3.
39. Caution of Curses: If you spend an hour in contemplation of an artifact, the GM will tell you if there are any curses that lay on it and what manner they are.
40. Songs of the Night: When singing Songs of Power, you may choose to use your Skill attribute instead of Beauty.
41. Dwimmercrafty: You can tell how many charges or uses are left on a limited use item.
42. Wheeling and Dealing: You may use Skill instead of Beauty when trying to influence the reaction of characters when buying or selling, getting a bargain, and closing business deals.
43. Mind of Wheels and Engines: When you tinker with a machine, you may add some basic conditions to its functioning that follows an "If this, then that" pattern. For example, you could rig a trap with conditions like: "If triggered, then wait 30 seconds before firing" or "If stepped on by a goblin, then don't fire." 
44. Still Trouble the World: This virtue is only expressed when you fall in battle. After death, you will become a dark spirit and haunt the place where you fell, extending your hate after your death.
45. Canny to Hidey Holes: Once per day, you may ask the GM "Is there a secret door in my line of sight?" and receive an honest answer.
46. Tomb Robber: Once per day, you may ask the GM "Is there a hidden trap in my line of sight?" and receive an honest answer.
47. +1 Subtlety
48. +1 Strength
49. +1 Valour
50. +10  Endurance

(I usually make these d50 tables alphabetized to make it easy to read, but goblins are so chaotic I didn't bother.)

A note

One of the big reasons I started writing random advancement tables is so that I could update my most popular blog post, 1937 Hobbit as a Setting. Previously, that post linked out to random advancement options on a blog that I no longer want to give traffic to. I've updated the original blog post with the new links.

It's nice to have my own rules to replace them—and I hope they're useful to you! 

Stats as hammer, stats as nails

There's nothing revolutionary in this post, but I think it contains generally good advice and feels worthwhile articulating.

When an RPG gives you something generic, a player skill that enlivens your roleplaying is describing it in a non-generic way. Items are a great place to have fun with this idea.

Instead of a dagger, it's a "wavy dagger with a hilt shaped like a mushroom." 

You can "show, not tell" your character's backstory this way. Instead of a dagger, it's a dissection scalpel used in haruspicy, which is practiced by your people. Instead of a dagger, it's a dueling dirk you won the right to wear when you dueled your half-brother to death.

Here is a list of every item from the gear list in His Majesty the Worm with a few flavorful descriptions for each. 

Alchemy kit

• Cottage Witch Alchemy Kit: Wicker basket with scavenged ingredients stored in frog stomach pouches, cat skulls, and bat-wing purses. Your alchemy isn't "natural science," but a form of folk magic.

Animal feed

• Dog biscuits: Your mom baked these dog biscuits from leftover oats for your animal companion, Rufus.

Armor, light

• Retiarius Armor: The armor of the retiarius-type gladiator: heavy-linen arm guards and a leather shoulder piece. 
• Orc Woad Tattoos: Seablooded orcs favor writing protective runes in woad paint instead of bulky armor that will weigh them down if they fall overboard. 
• Beekeeper Suit: Thick robes and a wicker mask complete the beekeeper's signature apparel.

Armor, iron

• Immortal's Chainmail: A hauberk of chainmail stripped from the body of the eunuch "Immortal" warrior caste of Far-Away, brought as a curiosity by an antiquities trader and stolen early in your career.
• Alien Diving Suit: An extradimensional scientist tried to visit the plane of Flesh and constructed this suit of iron and rubber to survive our inhospitable conditions. He was killed by the inhospitable natives. It smells of ammonia.

Armor, steel

• House Mereswine's Platemail: A set of lobstered steel plate worn by cavalrymen in the guard of House Mereswine. It has a dolphin motif in keeping with their house sigil.

Bedroll

• Mummy Sleeping Bag: When you get in to your sleeping bag, you look like a real mummy--all wrappings and faux-Egyptology designs. 
• Owlbear Hide: You killed the owlbear in your first foray into the Underworld and kept the hide. You made a scratchy blanket out of it that you sleep in.

Bezoar

• Frog Throat Bezoar: The weird guy in the Omphalos Market that sold this to you claims it was from a giant frog. You're not sure you believe him.

Blank book

• Dwarf-Skin Book: An ogre bound this book in dwarf skin. Gross!
• Quipu Yarn: Elves sometimes use a woven language to help keep records. This collection of yarn is like a blank book--you'll weave your story together.

Booze

• Pirate's Hooch: Fermented in a pirate's peg leg, it's strong but nobody would call it good.
• Metheglin: This lavender-infused metheglin was made by your wife. It reminds you of home.

Caltrops

• Toy Soldiers: Your son played with these metal toy soldiers with bayonets that were so sharp they were practically real. You borrowed them for your expedition and throw them out as caltrops.

Candle

• Beeswax Candles: You harvested this beeswax yourself from your home hive. 
• Human-fat Candles: The rendered fat of a murderer went into this candle. It produces a foul, black smoke.

Chain

• Anchor Chain: A length of chain salvaged from a shipwreck that you survived. 
• Ball & Chain (-Ball): You wore this chain in the dungeon that you escaped from. You hammered off the heavy lead ball, but have found the chain useful to keep.

Chalk

• Student's Chalk: The chalk is cheap and quality is poor but it gets the job done. It's intended for students at the Madrasa in the City.

Clothes, rags

• Troll's Tunic: After a slime burned off all your clothes, you were forced to borrow a tunic from a troll friend. It's basically a dress on you. 

Clothes, common

• Ninja: A cool ninja outfit. 

Clothes, finery

Every character should have a signature hat. Seriously.

Click for more hats

Cooking gear

• Senshi's Shield: Once, this was your family's adamantine heirloom shield. But since you're a cook not a fighter, you reforged it into this wok! 

Crowbar

• Thief's Hand: This crowbar is flourished with an open hand.
• Crow Bar: This crowbar is flourished with a crow's head and beak motif.

Falconry gear

• Elven Hawker's Chemicals: Instead of leather tools such as lures, hoods, jessies, etc. to control the bird, elves use chemical compounds in small glass jars extracted from insects. One temporary blinds the hawk, one paralyzes its wings, one awakens its prey drive, etc.

Fishing gear

• Mermaid Hair Net: A mermaid wove this net from her own hair. It is festooned with little sea glass baubles.

Firewood

• Bonfire of the Vanities: This was once a statue of a blasphemous idol, smashed to bits by the axes of the Athleta Mythrii. It is right that such as blasphemy is now used for kindling.

Flint & tinder

• Sacred Firestarter: The shavings of the tinder were taken from fallen wood given by the hearttree of your village and soaked in sacred oil. The flint was harvested and blessed by a law-speaker.
• Tinder Fungus: Instead of carrying spark-makers, you carry live coals nested inside of tinder fungi. You have six of these.

Garlic

• Weird Bulb: The bulb looks like a weird old man's face! Isn't it uncanny?

Grappling hook

• Anchor: Your grappling hook is a repurposed anchor from a ship.

Hammer

• Coffin Maker's Hammer: This hammer's first owner was a coffin maker. It has driven many coffin nails. 

Hatchet

• Orcish Stone Hatchet: The earthblooded orcs still practice the patient art of stone working, including making stone hand tools like this hatchet. 

Helm

• Knight's Helm: Ahhh! The noble knight's helm! A close helmet festooned with a snail crest.
• Prisoner's Cage: Not a helmet at all, but a scold's bridle in fashion of a cage. Still, it might turn a blow.
• Thiollier's Mask: "A mask upon which is carved a tranquil sleeping face."

Really, helms are such an opportunity to play Fashion Souls.

Hermetic bottle

• Old Wine Bottles: You've sealed these old wine bottles pretty tight! They still have the labels on them.

Hourglass

• Novelty Hourglass: This hourglass is shaped like a woman with a real hourglass figure! It elicits groans and eyerolls from your guild mates.

Iron spike

• Crucifixion Nails: These spikes were nails pulled from the hands and feet of crucified criminals.

Lantern

• Medusa Lantern: Each side of the lantern is shaped like a medusa's face, mouth open in a monstrous scream.

Lard

• Scam Soap: This soap was sold by a merchant claiming that 1-in-20 bars had a gold coin inside! You hope this bar is one of the lucky ones!

Leeches

• Tiny Slimes: It's illegal to carry slimes into the City, but you find baby slimes to be much more useful than leeches at extracting small portions of blood from a sick patient.

Lockpicks

• Cat's Whiskers: This set of lockpicks are carried in a case with a winking, cartoonish cat. 
• Skeleton Keys: This brand of thieves tools is called "Skeleton Keys." Each pick is festooned with a smiling skull.

Manacles

• Mage's Cuffs: These iron cuffs clamp onto a sorcerer's wrists to stop them from casting spells. They are not linked together, so the sorcerer still has the use of their hands and arms. 

Mirror

• Saintly Relic: This broken mirror fragment is said to be a shard of St. Jason's famous mirrored shield.

Musical instrument

• Dwarven Carnyx: This tall horn is shaped like a boar and makes a clear, piercing note that can be heard for a mile or more.
• Halfling Panpipes: These panpipes have a false reed that can be used to carry a long-shanked tobacco pipe. 
• Underfolk Common Hymn Book: A collection of traditional Underfolk songs sung at traditional times: births, deaths, weddings. 

Oil

• River Whale Oil: The river whales that live in the River Grey near the City are hunted for their oil and other byproducts. In the City, river whales are associated with death and dreams. Parents tell children that burning a lamp of whale oil will banish their nightmares. 
• Mushroom Oil: Piggy of the Cave is a favored mushroom of Underfolk: its meaty texture provides welcome variety in their diet. It can also be rendered into a smoky-burning oil.

Pick

• Dwarven Mattock: A heavy mattock written with Ancient Underfolk runes reading: WHO'S YOUR DADDY?

Pipe & Pipeweed

• Carven Pipe: A long ornate pipe carved to look like an old sea-captain smoking (recursively) a corncob pipe.

Or, imagining that the pipe is a *feature* of His Majesty the Worm that simply allows you to remove Stress for the cost of a pack slot, you can recast this to be a variety of consumable items.

• Bubble Bath: The dungeon is a smelly place. Taking a bubble bath lets you regain a measure of composure and center yourself.
• Brain Licorice: A candy made of dried brain jellies and anise. Eating it smooooothes away the wrinkles.

Pole, 10'

• Shepherd's Crook: A shepherd's crook made of olive wood, especially long, with a nice crook at the end.
• Lamplighter's Snuffer: A basic 10' long bronze and pewter candle snuffer from the Lamplighter's Guild.
• Finglonger: What would it be like if I invented the finglonger?

Poultice

• Prayer Flags: The bandages are linen strips made from prayer flags, each with a calligraphed prayer. 
• Elven Mummy: Extracted from an elven sarcophagus by their direct descendants in a process called Reclaiming, the mummy's wrappings and ground-up flesh are used as medicines. 

Quill & Ink

• Clerical Illumination Tools: A teak wood writing case with tools for illuminating coded books of the Mythraic Mysteries: horsehair bush, knife to scrape the paper, sand to dry the ink, and jars of black, gold, and red inks. 
• Gnomish Librarian's Invisible Inks: A quill from a hoopoe bird and invisible inks (only legible under the moon or stars). 

Rations

• Human Rations: Wicker basket of rations containing: flat bread, olives, pickled cucumbers, dried figs, hard cheese, honey comb, and sausage. 
• Underfolk Rations: Wax paper bundle containing: travel biscuits, carrots, mushrooms, mushroom chutney, dried apple, mole jerky, and piece of toffee. A jug of wine (for dwarves) or tea (for halflings and trolls) included.
• Fay Rations: Clay jar, fire-ready, with a stew of horse meat, succotash, and beans. Corn cakes wrapped separately. 
• Orc Rations: Banana leaf wrapped around: clay jar of barley and oat porridge, clay jar of goat's milk yogurt, pickled herring, and smoked whale jerky.

Religious paraphernalia

• Portable Shrine: A tiny desk with an embedded icon of the Hierophant, a candle holder, and an attached rosary. 
• Stone Idol of Rng: A crudely carved stone face painted half white and half black. 

Rope

• Handkerchiefs: A rope made out of brightly-colored handkerchiefs tied tightly together. 

Salt

• Mined Salt: A wooden box shaped like a dwarven grandmother filled with quarried salt.

Shield

• Church Door: Wielded by a troll, this shield was once the door into the Fane of the Heresiarch. 
• Pickle-Barrel Lid: Wielded by a halfling, this shield is just the round top of a pickle barrel with a handy little handle. It is painted with a bright sun as a heraldic device. 

Shovel

• Gnomish Archaeologist Shovel: The Archaeologist Society within the Court of Redcaps issues this small shovel to its members to help excavate artifacts from stones and soil.

Spyglass

• Opera Glasses: Extreme opera glasses, for watching the play from the tippy top of the nosebleeds.

Tent

• Knight's Pavilion: This brightly-colored tent is emblazoned with the your heraldry--a knight jousting atop a noble snail. 

Tinker's kit

• Grandpa's Tackle Box: A metal boxed inherited from your grandfather. It once held fishing lures, but now holds all sorts of tools and odds and ends: cut pieces of wood, putty, nails, pliers, lengths of wire, etc. 

Torch

• Wedding Torch: Your bride left you standing at the altar, but her family already paid for all these torches. Might as well use 'em. 
• Juggling Torch: These were made by Flavius the Clown, the premier torch juggler of the City. 

Wand of archwood

• Thunderbolt: The archtree was split by lightning. This wand has a thunderbolt design to commemorate the event. Blasts of magic from it have a lightning-like aspect.

Weaponry

• Bearded Axe: The axe is literally bearded: it's shaped like an orcish face with a long, beautiful beard as the blade.
• Sword of the Torturer's Guild: This heavy blade is intended to take heads. As such, it has no point. It has two sharp edged sides: one for slaying men, one for slaying women. A vein of quicksilver in the blade gives overhanded swings extra weight.
• Elven Bow: A bow of yew strung with a single golden elf hair.
• Magnetic Morningstar: This morning star is not connected by a chain. Instead, the spiked ball seems to "orbit" the handle.

Wolfsbane

• Aspergillum of Wolfsbane: An aspergillum of mountain water infused with wolfsbane. In the event of a lycanthrope, you can anoint the beast with the water. 

Bloggies Debrief and Thanks

Another year and the Bloggies have come and gone! I'm very pleased to have taken home some medals in the Best Series category!

Gold: The Designing Dungeons Course, or, How to Kill a Party in 30 Rooms or Less

Silver: The Middle-earth Hexcrawl Project

My colleague and co-author of Designing Dungeons, Warren of ICastLight, has a nice post on the Bloggies that says more than I will. 

> Blogs are like cheese- the one that smells like feet is better than the unoffensive Kraft single. Be the feet cheese.

Let me add a "ditto" to his sentiments.

Let me also thank a few folks! 

First, thank you to this year's host Clayton of Explorer's Design who did a great job. Every one who has inherited the burden of victory in years past has done a great job, and Clayton continued this excellent tradition of stewardship. 

BIG thanks to the community of volunteers who recorded the Bloggie nominees in audio format through We Read the Bloggies! Thank you to everyone who my blog posts--what a big lift! Thanks especially to Jon from 3d6DowntheLine for recording the audio versions of the entire Designing Dungeons Course. (Did you hear that? There's audio versions now -- linked on the course itself!) Thanks also to Nick L.S. Whelan who has been pioneering the blogcast podcast for years with Blogs On Tape.

I want to thank and congratulate Nova of Idle Cartulary, who also won a Bloggie for Best Series. She is an absolute pillar of the community. Her criticism is so important, so valuable, and so appreciated.

And, obviously, thanks everyone who voted for me! Some of these votes were razor thin, so every vote counted! 

Congrats to Elmcat who brought home the Big Bloggie Gold (as its called)! I look forward to them hosting next year!

Random Hobbit Advancement

When you level up, you gain a random benefit based on your race or class. Here's what hobbits get.

You can either roll a d10 for your culture to get a result from a tightly-bound part of the table or roll a d50 to get anything from the entire table.

This is ostensibly for the Middle-earth Hexcrawl project but I think it can be broadly applicable to any fantasy adventure game with halflings in it. 

- The random dwarf advancement table is here.
- The random human advancement table is here.
- The random elf advancement table is here.
- The random elf-friend advancement table is here.

Note: When you roll an advancement option twice, you can either select the option above or below the rolled benefit. However, a few advancements can be upgraded several times or unlock a new art entirely. These are noted in the text.

Art by Goran Gligovic

Harfoots

The Harfoots were browner of skin, smaller, and shorter, and they were beardless and
bootless; their hands and feet were neat and nimble; and they preferred highlands and hillsides.

1. All's Well that Ends Better: When you Carouse, you may roll twice and take either event.
2. Elusive: In combat, as a fast action, you can make a specific enemy unable to hit you if they are also engaged with another foe.
3. Gaffer's Wisdom: Ask the GM if you're forgetting something and receive an honest reply.
4. Neat and Nimble: Once per week, you can declare that a sprung trap doesn't affect you because of your small size: blades whizz over your head, you're too light to set off pressure plates, etc.
5. Out with the Frying Pan: You can wield tools and trinkets as improvised weapons (stats a dagger): frying pans, cooking ladles, long sausages, etc.
6. Patient Packer: You may use your Skill instead of Strength to determine the number of your carried items.
7. Slumberous: Ignore up to 1 bane each camp. Additionally, if ever put to sleep magically, you may choose to wake up.
8. Where There's Life There's Hope: When you heal from Hope, you always reroll the Hope dice if you roll a 1 or 2.
9. …And Need Of Vittles: At camp, if you participate in the cooking and merriment, you may spend a point of Hope and have everyone in the company benefit from the healing.
10. Wrapped Tight: Fresh rations will keep for a week in your pack.

Stoors

The Stoors were broader, heavier in build; their feet and hands were larger; and they preferred flat lands and riversides.

11. Climb with Hands and Feet: You may climb sheer surfaces as if you had a rope. If you ever do fall, treat your fall as if it were 15' shorter.
12. Extra Padding: Wearing armour never imposes a penalty on your Subtlety rolls.
13. Finder: If looking for something that you or someone you're with has lost, you always have a sense of which cardinal direction it's in. Things never directly owned by a person ("My ancestor's magic ring, to which I have a claim") don't count.
14. Fox Trick: If you are ever in a position where you are trying to hide from observers, you may take 1d6 damage to find cover in an implausible (but not impossible) manner and hide in plain sight.
15. Riddle Master: You get a number of "free" guesses for riddles equal to your Understanding. These are asked to the GM and represent your thought process. If your guess is wrong, you don't really guess that.
16. Stone Skipper: The range of your thrown weapons and slings doubles. Also, you can skip a stone 2d100 times.
17. Storyteller's Memory: You can recall specific images very well. You can ask the GM questions about the details of anything you've seen or heard.
18. Tricksy: Once per day, if a foe misses you with an attack, you may say that they've driven their weapon into the earth and gotten it stuck. It takes 1 turn to free.
19. Underfoot: If you are engaged with two foes and one misses in their attack against you and the dice rolled is even, you may force the GM to use that result against the other enemy.
20. Voice of Birds: You can whistle any bird song you've heard before so faithfully even birds are fooled. Audible at great distances. If you try to call a bird in, roll a d6: 1) None are in the area; 2-4) 2-4 normal birds endemic to the area come to you; 5-6) A magical or intelligent bird comes to your call.

Fallohides

The Fallohides, the least numerous, were a northerly branch. They were more friendly with Elves than the other Hobbits were, and had more skill in language and song than in handicrafts; and of old they preferred hunting to tilling.

21. Brave in a Pinch: You are resistant to fear damage.
22. Button-Busting Feat: Once per week, if you would fail an attribute test, you may choose to succeed instead.
23. Hobbits Stick Together: You inspire a +2 bonus to Morale to all NPC hobbits in your service.
24. Lucky Number: When the entire company must make a test to avoid some doom, everyone gains +2 if you pass the test first.
25. Lustrous Toehair: +3 Beauty tests to determine reactions with other halflings.
26. Merry: You heal +2 damage from Hope.
27. Smoke like a Dragon: If you have an active pipe going, you can take 1d6 damage and finish the pipe to generate enough smoke to create a fog cloud that obscures your entire general area.
28. Rustic Courtesy: Although nobody knows of hobbits, you make a positive first impression. Once a day, you can cause an NPC to default to a positive reaction instead of a neutral one.
29. Weather Songs: The first time you travel in a type of weather, note it down. At the end of the day, you may make a traveling song specifically for that type of weather. Write at least four lines of poetry. The next time you travel in the same weather, you may sing your song. Every member of the company gets +1 to all tests related to their jobs that day. Keep track of all your weather songs.
30. Wrassling: You gain a +2 bonus to Maneuvers.

All Hobbits

31. +1 Skill
32. +1 Subtlety
    • You may gain this advancement up to 3 times.
33. +5 Endurance
    • You may gain this advancement up to 3 times.
34. Art of Smoking: When you smoke for an hour, you can ponder riddles. Tell the GM about something that you believe to be true. They will say: "You don't doubt your guess," "Close to the mark, but not quite" or "You're not sure that's right."
35. By the Hair of your Toes: Once per day, when taking a Critical Wound, you can roll twice and choose which effect to receive.
36. Comforts of Home: You may take on the jobs of both cook and quartermaster at the same time.
37. For the Shire!: Once per combat, you may make a Melee attack as a fast action instead of a fell action.
38. Good Cook: When you take the job of cook, the company gains 1 boon while camping.
39. Gourmand: You have exceptional taste. With just a tiny taste of food, you can tell what the ingredients are (e.g., if there's a little extra poison in there). You can also follow your nose to kitchens, root cellars, inns, larders, etc.
40. Hole Dwellers: You gain +1 to tests while underground.
41. Laughing People: Once per session, if you tell a joke in character that makes the table laugh, the company gains 1 Bonus Hope.
42. Light of Step: You may use your Skill attribute instead of Strength when it comes to matters of climbing, acrobatics, and moving swiftly.
43. Plain Hobbit Sense: When there's a choice between two (and only two) equally weighted options, you may ask the GM for their opinion.
44. Shields for Serving Bowls: If wearing no armour, set your Defense to +2 from your small size and agility.
45. Shortcut to Mushrooms: When you take the job of herbalist, on a successful test, the GM will give you a mushroom from the region's herb table (if available) in addition to a randomly rolled herb.
46. Shy of the Big Folk: You may always act in a surprise round if you are surprised by creatures larger than you.
47. Six Meals a Day: Eat a ration to heal 2 damage. You can do this up to six times per day.
48. Sure at the Mark: You may use your Skill rating instead of your Valour rating when using thrown weapons or slings.
49. Tough as Old Tree Roots: When you've taken damage equal to ½ of your Endurance total, gain a +1 bonus on all attack and attribute tests.
50. Tough in the Fibre: Whenever you camp, you always heal at least 3 damage taken.

Unblocking Yourself: Dungeonize your Home

Sometimes when you're writing a dungeon room, it can feel like pulling teeth. The empty space and the stocking result of "Trap with Treasure" mocks you.

Here's a technique to unblock yourself. Look around you. Put cogent details that you can see into your dungeon. 

Things I can see from my computer desk chair:

• The Mordant Arcana tarot deck
• A pipe
• The Fantasy Prompt Generator zine from Norn
• A helmet with antlers on it
• A hedgehog figurine
• My diploma
• My college honor pledge saying that I would not steal (that I stole)
• A bow

And that's without turning my head. Just looking around in my field of vision, I already have some prompts for a room with that stocking result. Let me see if I can put them together...

The Wizard's Study

A small study. Inside, there is a cozy leather armchair and a small end table with a hedgehog statue (worth 10g) holding a pipe. On the walls is a tapestry of a dweorling with magnificent antlers carrying a bow that slightly ripples in an unfelt breeze and a framed diploma from the Unseen University. 

• Pipe: The pipe can create a fog cloud 1x/day.
• Tapestry of a dweorling: The tapestry is enchanted; a gift from the wizard's father-in-law. It will make one missile attack (+4) per round against anyone who enters the room that isn't the wizard.

See? Pretty easy! 

Now, go see if you can put together an entire dungeon just using your favorite things from around your house! 

While I have you...

Did you have a chance to check out my Dungeon Design Course from last year? I wanted to share an update! Jon from 3d6 Down the Line was kind enough to record audio versions of each chapter! You can now listen along to the exercises! 

If you took something away from the Dungeon Design Course, I hope you'll consider voting for it as Best Series in the Bloggies. Voting is happening now until 2/27/2026!

Vote now!

Random Elf-friend Advancement

When you level up, you gain a random benefit based on your race or class. Here's what elf-friends get.

What are elf-friends? Well:

The master of the house was an elf-friend—one of those people whose fathers came into the strange stories before the beginning of History, the wars of the evil goblins and the elves and the first men in the North. In those days of our tale there were still some people who had both elves and heroes of the North for ancestors, and Elrond the master of the house was their chief. He was as noble and as fair in face as an elf-lord, as strong as a warrior, as wise as a wizard, as venerable as a king of dwarves, and as kind as summer.

- The Hobbit

So, you know, folk like Elrond and Aragorn. You might call them half-elves.

You can either roll a d12 for your culture to get a result from a tightly-bound part of the table or roll a d50 to get anything from the entire table.

This is ostensibly for the Middle-earth Hexcrawl project but I think it can be broadly applicable to any fantasy adventure game with half-elves in it. 

- The random dwarf advancement table is here.
- The random human advancement table is here.
- The random elf advancement table is here.

Note: When you roll an advancement option twice, you can either select the option above or below the rolled benefit. However, a few advancements can be upgraded several times or unlock a new art entirely. These are noted in the text.

Elf-Friend

Art by Goran Gligovic

North

1. Bane of Un-dead: You deal +1 damage to the un-dead. Keep a tally of how many un-dead you have killed. At 50 un-dead, this bonus increases to +2. At 200 un-dead, this bonus increases to +3.
2. Barrow Blessing: If you kiss the brow of a fallen companion, no evil will despoil their body. They will never raise as un-dead.
3. Bolster Hearts: As a fast action, say a line of poetry or boldly shout your war cry. All companions who can hear you gain +2 to their rolls until your next turn. (If you never get another turn because you fall, the bonus lasts for the rest of the combat.)
4. Far Strider: If you are unarmoured when you serve as a Scout, a successful Skill test allows you to choose two effects (instead of one).
5. Heir of the North: Can always sense the direction of true north, even if underground. If you ever fail a test as a Guide to orient, you gain a +1 bonus the following day. This bonus is cumulative with itself for each day you fail orienteering.
6. Master Herbalist: Gain Herb Lore if you don't already have it. (If you already have it, you gain another random Lore.) On a journey, when you act as an herbalist and successfully find an herb, the GM rolls twice to determine what you find; you gather both herbs.
7. Pursue Foes: On a journey, if you serve as the company's Guide, you may spend 2 movement points to deliberately seek foes to challenge. When making a wandering encounter roll for the day, the GM will roll 3d6 and drop the lowest dice (instead of rolling 1d12).
8. Resourceful Herbalism: When using an herb, a single use can be stretched to benefit two targets simultaneously.
9. Rumours of the Earth: If you act as the company's Scout, instead of following the normal procedure, you may spend 2 movement points and gather rumours by listening to the earth instead of roving afar. Make a Skill Δ10 test. On a success, the GM reveals a sound clearly detailing one entry on the local events table (if any). The GM will tell you if there is another local event in this hex. If there is, you may immediately spend 1 movement point and gain another clue about this encounter. This Art cannot be used at the same time as Far Strider.
10. Skillful Archer: You may make Maneuvers from afar using a missile weapon. To perform a ranged maneuver, test Valour against a Δ8 + your target's Valour. If successful, you deal a significant setback to your foe.
11. Student of Ruin: When you study a Numenorean artifact or visit a site important to the Men of the West, you can sing a song that tells of its history. Roleplay a few lines. If you do so, gain 1 Hope.
12. Wise of Ways: You gain a +2 bonus to Skill tests related to Scouting.

South

13. Bane of Orcs: You deal +1 damage to orcs. Keep a tally of how many orcs you have killed. At 50 orcs, this bonus increases to +2. At 200 orcs, this bonus increases to +3.
14. Brave: You are resistant to fear damage.
15. Captain of Men: During combat, you may use a fast action on your turn to shout a command to an ally who can hear you. They may make an extra action that turn.
16. Hands of Healing: In combat, you may use your action to forestall a Critical Wound that results in death—as long as you minister to them, they will not die (if the death was not instantaneous). During a journey, your job can be "Healer." Each day spent ministering to a companion reduces one of their Critical Wound in severity and speeds their recovery—the GM will determine exactly how this works.
17. Keen Eared: Gain +2 bonus to any tests related to listening. If you spend a turn listening, the GM will tell you if there is any breathing creature hiding in your immediate area. (This ability bypasses the normal roll made in exchange for time.)
18. Keen Eyed: You see as well under the stars as you do under the full moon.
19. Pursue Secrecy: On a journey, if you serve as the company's Guide, you may spend 3 movement points to attempt to avoid pursuit. When making a wandering encounter roll for the day, the GM will roll 2d12 and use the lower result.
20. Skirmisher: If wearing no armour heavier than leather armour, gain +1 to damage.
21. Student of the Enemy: If you study a character for a turn, the GM will tell you how many Endurance points they have. Once you've made your assessment, you can ask for the updated number with a glance.
22. Tall: Add +4 to your Strength score for the purposes of your carrying capacity.
23. Victory from the Jaws of Defeat: When you miss an attack roll, gain +2 to your next attack roll against the same creature. This bonus cannot be cumulative with itself.
24. Walker on the Dead Marshes: You gain a +2 bonus to Skill tests for orienteering as a Guide.

All Elf-Friends

25. Artifice: You can forge items of enchantment.
26. Bane of Wolves: You deal +1 damage to wolves and werewolves. Keep a tally of how many wolves you have killed. At 50 wolves, this bonus increases to +2. At 200 wolves, this bonus increases to +3.
27. Estë's Gift: Your healer's arts may stall or delay a death. In combat, you may use a fast action to forestall a Critical Wound that results in death. As long as you continue to minister to them, they will not die (if the death was not instantaneous). After combat, an Understanding test (with a difficulty set by the GM) might be needed to permanently stabilize the victim.
28. Evermind: This virtue is only expressed when you fall in battle. No evil creature will despoil your body. You will not rise as un-dead. Your corpse will be preserved for many weeks. Flowers will grace your grave.
29. Far Ranging: Choose a type of region that you are familiar with: forest, hills, mountains, swamps, or wastes. When you serve as the company's Guide, treat these hexes as normal terrain, not difficult terrain. The difficulty for you to orient the company in this region is Δ6.
    • You may gain this advancement up to 5 times, selecting a new type of region each time.
30. Friend to Horses: When you serve as the hostler, you may care for three steeds instead of two. All steeds in your care gain +2 bonus to Morale tests.
31. Grief of Ruined Lands: You can sense the level of Shadow in your current hex. You may ask the GM if there are servants of the Enemy on the wandering encounter table for the greater region; they will answer truthfully. If a hex has a hidden feature related to the Shadow, you can find it without needing to Explore the hex.
32. In the Lands of My Fathers: On a journey, you gain a +2 bonus to any job you do if you are within the ancestral lands of your people. For Northern Elf-friends, this is within the bounds of Arnor. For Southern Elf-friends, this is within Gondor's historical bounds.
33. Inspiring March: Reduce damage from forced marches for allies by -5 for the first day, -4 for the second day, -3 for the third day, and so on, until you can no longer reduce the strain.
34. Seer: Once per month, you may undo the consequences of a particular action that you or an ally have just taken, declaring it to be just a vision.
35. Tracker: If you spend a turn studying footprints, the GM will tell you what creatures made them, about how many there were, and about how long ago they were there. (This ability bypasses the normal roll made in exchange for time.)
36. Pathfinder: When the company Explores a region, the GM will roll 2d6 for the local event and let you see the two dice. You choose which dice roll to use. 1s tend to be ill fortune. 3s tend to be interactions with the wild. 6s tend to be encounters with the Free Peoples.
37. Royalty Revealed: While wearing the heraldry of your house, NPCs that you lead into battle gain a +2 Morale bonus. Additionally, you may use your Skill attribute instead of Beauty to determine the Morale bonus for NPCs in your service.
38. Staunching Song: Directly after combat, remove 1d4-1 damage from one companion.
39. Vanish: Gain +2 bonus to tests to hide and move silently while out of doors. Additionally, if you stay completely still, a woodland environment always provides you enough cover to conceal yourself.
40. Vigilance: While traveling, you can spend 2 movement points to serve as a Lookout in addition to a secondary job.
41. Wanderer: You take only 5 damage (not 10) if you make a forced march without resting.
42. Wingfoot: Gain +2 Movement.
    • You may gain this advancement up to 3 times.
43. Yavanna's Bounty: When applying healing from an herb, you remove +2 more damage.
44. +1 Valour
45. +1 Strength
46. +1 Beauty
47. +1 Skill
48. +1 Subtlety
49. +1 Understanding
50. +5 Endurance.
    • You may gain this advancement up to 3 times.