Lord of the Rings Fanatics Plaza

Okay so last night we had another game of DnD in middle earth and the group has officially started to mesh beautifully I've built some fantastical maps in Talespire (Erigion and an elf min and some elf mine deeps) the players love looking around the map and I sorta sandbox it sorta linear... The premise is Gil-Galad is trying to keep relations between all groups strong inviting elves dwarves men and even a beornling to help with the work of installing the Doors of Durin... Yes Celebrimbor has made and appearance. As has Annatar. The group is oblivious to who the later is they are not giant lotr nerds they are baby lotr nerds.

Anyways I figure I'd share some of the funniest moment of yesterdays game


The hero's are looking for where the goblin's fled toafter having killed a massive number in a goblin settlement... They aren't finding goblin's in the tunnel though and the one dwarf goes screaming ahead in a tunnel and disturbs a bat colony.

They decide to kill the bats. The bats Crit fail an attack and I use cards... The card pulled was that the bats become trapped attached to the target they failed against so an entire swarm of bats now start roosting in the characters beard who happens to be a raging barbarian who is raging over the fact the first swarm hit the other dwarf near the neck messing up his beard (this was flavour added by the players I loved it) they manage to kill most of the colony but there is still basically an entire swarm in this one dwarfs beard.

Then the line 'im bat beard' is said we're all dying as the other dwarf tries to pull the bats out of his beard he misses decides to shield bash the bats and knocks his friend back (killing a few of the swarm) the elf in the party then decides to help by shooting the bats in the beard. It's decided if she can make the shots and hit the bats without going over the players AC she'll do it successfully. She proceeds to roll 22 and 25. Both over both Ac both get hit however bat swarms are resistant to piercing which arrows are so she does a whole 6 damage to both because blessedly the barbarian is raging. They still have several other Swarms in flight to deal with.

We are all dying of laughter.

The beornling suggests burning them out of the beard. The players character is in an absolute sputtering rage frothing at the moth with two elven arrows sticking out of him with dead bats stuck to his chest. Beornling thinks better of this and kills a swarm flight instead. The second dwarf tries another shield bash and misses... The elf tries to shoot the dwarf again this time getting a 15 and a miss so both arrows go skittering off harmlessly from the dwarf and the in flight swarms are basically dealt with.... The fighter drops his sword and uses his bare hands to attack the bats in the beard... Dex roll gets the bats and a strength roll to kill em both are successes the batbeard is no more. He's back to Scrom he's still in a sputtering blind rage and swings at whatever's closest. Player knowing it's the fighter in full plate isn't worried

Player Crits and puts his ax into other player characters side. Immediately feels bad and calms down. Gets player a poultice to heal.... Elf tries to reclaim arrows Scrom runs away from her refusing to let her reclaim the two arrows. They then run into the newest player starting last night....

Who I swear is playing a cross between an aloof white woman and a very very sensible black man as a Rouge. Who has been dying listening to this bat kerfuffle that was suppose to be a hour max fight that took them 2 hours because several of were laughing so hard we couldn't breath.


In two weeks they've decided to take on a deep creature despite being warned not to fight them if that is what it is directly by a very old elf mine foreman

The Rouge heard the beast and is now doing his best to hide. Failing to realize this is a legendary they should not be playing with that has 120ft blind sense. He proceeded to send in our discord chat every single nope gif he could find. And swore first sign of a fight he was running

Hilarious. Moar, MOAR!

Sounds like fun! Since they don't know who Annatar is, it'll be funny when you reveal him!

I have ALWAYS wanted to play DnD especially a LOTR version... but sadly, I have never had the chance to play it. : I don't own the board game or video game... I think there's an online video game version isn't there? I don't know anyone who likes board games or would be interested, really... is there any way for a single person to play online or are there like public clubs that anyone can join? I think there should be anyway. Like instead of Bingo night at the local community centre... DnD night!

There is LOTR Online which is a MMORPG that is Free to play up until Rohan now I do believe (those expansions went completely free not that long ago and I know myself and a few others on here do play occassionally)

Honestly we're doing 5e DnD with my own homebrew rules (aka I've nerfed magic unless they can give me a practical way of doing the spell) so cure wounds is basically the equivalent of a military medic sliding into the fox hole putting some morphine in you bandaging you up and giving you a slap on the head telling you to keep fighting etc etc)

As for there being public clubs/places like that yeah lots of places. In person if there are game shops where you are go visit those, or if there are hobby groups for your area on facebook put out an inquiry in there so what happens. Most game shops have a game night (I think they cost something to join the table there but that's a space rental sort of deal mostly) If you're looking for online gaming just make sure you're ready to buy a program to play - I play on two different programs - Talespire which I run my games in because I can make massive boards and environments without switching 'tables' every 150 feet, as well as Tabletop simulator. both in general aren't terribly expensive but I'd suggest holding off until you find out which one someone is running because both together at the same time might be a decent chunk if they aren't on sale.

Thanks for sharing @Fuin Elda and let us know what other shenanigans happen!

The campaign I play in, I'm the only major LOTR nerd (the others are baby lotr nerds, including the DM). Friday's session I got a sword of warning and the DM asked if I had a deity and my character doesn't so she says "Well yours will glow blue, because I know you will appreciate that"

Lol I love it @Boromir88 I've got my baby nerdlings watching rings of power with the explicit instructions that while we are same timeline we are not telling those stories. So to look at it for inspiration for how magic works (this far) how the settings look as they only know lotr film locations with dwarf and elf locations in decline

Thanks for the info @Fuin Elda! I will look into all of that, sounds fun :) !

Much saddness my LOTR game has been postponed until further notice due to two of my players not having internet for the next bit.

I had literally just finished building the Western Door of Khazad-Dum in Talespire pre Door of Durin as that was their next major task was to help deliver and install that while fighting a baby watcher in the water well finding it... This does give me time however to actively build KD itself in talespire now

SO we had a game today officially though it ended up being a one shot based around the herbal primer 1 shot that I got with the herbal book I ordered a year ago? a year and a half ago.

I had a Marine, and a Car Mechanic playing, and one other guy (I believe also a vet but not marine not sure which branch)... I had them ALL turn into small fluffy animals. and run around helping a rabbit get a herb to call Manwe and Ulmo to get more rain for crops.

The rabbit is afraid of the mouse played by the Marine.... because his character is a barbarian dwarf that his first words to the rabbit is I'm gonna eat you before he realizes he's a mouse. The Mechanic is a rabbit as well.... who is yelling at the barbarian for scaring the rabbit. and then the last fellow is a weasel character. On the way to the first thing the barbarian is in a fight and can't get to the next badguy because he's a mouse and he's gonna lose his rage and fortunately Hareris watches the mouse (scrom) attempt to punch himself in the face as he's running buy and then the other rabbit ALSO tries to hit him as he goes buy Both miss. Hareris asks what's going on.... and proceeds to donkey kick the mouse towards the enemy doing 1 damage and kicking him 5 feet away. The barbarian now likes Hareis and nolonger wants to eat him.

They proceed to find wormwood to find out how they can get the herb cause people can't pick it so animals are a must. The wormwood brings out the rabbits great grandfather - Dirty Harey.

The boys all die laughing it is fantastic it takes about 3 minutes for them to recover from the pun. They proceed to get the rest of the stuff which involves 3 pretty basic riddles because I hate riddles.

It ends up each of them gets one. and then Bees to guide them to the flower because of course bees know where the flower is.

The bees are all named things like Beenjamin. because of course they are.

The whole thing works out...

the three players wake up back in their normal bodies with an acorn that they can eat to turn back into their animals.... And Hareris is now their companion and the barbarian has decided to get him SPIKED plate so that the Beornling (who came in 2 hours into the game and has threatened to eat Hareris) can't eat Hareris. The barbarian has speak with animals so he can talk to his pet (and all players with any elvish can talk to him as well) It is fantastic.

Welp we played again. This again with basically no prep and I had about 15 minutes before game where it 2as confirmed I have lost 2 players and a third needed more time to play so again was a 3 man team.

However since this is now probably a more permanent thing I went from a one shot to I'd say about a 3 or 4 game dungeon. That I pulled slabs and boards and slapped together in about 25 minutes and I may have been lazy and stolen a few points from LOTRO in terms of the dungeon and names because 25 minutes toe build and populate and come up with a plot for this dungeon.


So the elves of Hollin have found a long abandoned elven keep and tower that seems to have sickly dwarves as 2 out of 3 if my players are dwarves of Moria the elves send them in case these dwarves are avoiding them because of the elf/dwarf rift.


So they get there and they're fighting spiders and it's going good until the floor collapses under one of them and he falls 10 feet into a lower area. With more spiders. One of them goes down because one of the baby spiders Crits. The other hits as well they both end up rolling max damage and the player misses on both poison saves... Well damn.

He survives despite rolling a 1 during death saves....

They continue further down and find a massive spider and 2 dwarven paladins (both women ) so these guys offer to help these women with this giant spider. The guys fail to realize that the first person to poke their head in and do anything was the human man so theu think the spiders are dwarf foes. Well the paladin dwarves look on in horror as their friend/pet spider is killed.

The guys are then shicjed as the dwarven women call them traitors to their kin and they charge at them to fight... The guys clearly think they've miss heard and go to talk... Frankly I know my players are beat to hell at this point and a 3v2 with 2 paladins is just not the best plan for fun in a straight fight so I decide these women are going to turn these guys into kin... And step one is to have them look right these girls have a 20 strength so their grapples are.massive they grab the first dwarfs beard and tells her sister to bring them in line.

It clicks what's about to happen and dwarf 1 Alaric rips a few hairs out to do it but gets his beard free from her grasp. Scrim the dwarf that had a bat tangled in his beard before leaps to his battle brothers defence and gets himself flanked.

He fails his grapple save. Then fails his escape and then it's the dagger wielding paladin's turn. She starts to cut however thanks to scrim raging she only gets a third of his beard cut.

Acts player states that he's livid that rage and reckless attack don't even begin to define how mad he is as he attacks. He manages to kill the dwarf holding his beard and then shield bashes the second down. alaric is also in a rage because of this and beats In the dagger chick and then their human friend who has understood none of the back and forth as it was all in dwarvish and no time to translate kills dagger Paladin.

They proceed to mourn the 1/3 of scroms beard. The human even offers a potion in an attempt to heal the beard. No. T here is no healing the beard. There are discussions on epitaphs to be made for the beard upon their return. Feasts in memory of it etc... A good 10 minutes of beard mourning. I love my players. One of them finally realizes that these are Dourhand dwarves that followed Morgoth in the first age and that this.... This might be a prison/hall where the elves tried to un program the darkness from these dwarves.

They have not of course figured out these are descendants not actual dwarves that served Morgoth. And since the sisters were paladins these fools grabbed the Warhammers and armor that they were carrying failing to realize that... Well these are weapons that involve paladins previously there is a good chance they are cursed and these fools didn't even think to ask.


I think they were just too shocked I'd cut one of the dwarfs beards