The One Ring Solo Pt.3: The Journey to Morglynd

Idril and Sefa travel to the hidden valley of Morglynd with Jari and Diarmoc while they seek to uncover the truth of the suspicious pair.

To Lady Gilraen of the Dúnedain,

I believe we have found the trail of the Trolls at last, though the tale surrounding it is cloaked in deceit.

Four sunless days have passed since Sefa and I left Bree with Jari and Diarmoc. What we have learned during our travels has both Sefa and I ill at ease. Jari was eager to tell us of the treasure we seek. He regaled us with the story of his uncle Bori, a self-proclaimed treasure-seeker of great renown. According to Jari, Bori unearthed vast riches in the lost Dwarven cities of the Grey Mountains, only to be hounded by the jealous lords of the Blue Mountains. Rather than surrender his hard-won hoard to their demands, Bori buried his treasure in secret and fled. Since then, Jari claims his entire family has been unjustly mistreated by the dwarves of the Blue Mountains due to their jealousy.

Jari claimed to have discovered clues to this hidden hoard and was now leading us to its location. Despite his confidence, the tale seems lacking. His story may explain the disdain of the dwarves at the Prancing Pony but it was clear they distrust Jari for reasons beyond mere envy.

Diarmoc, however, is a puzzle of a darker sort. Sefa quickly noted his garb and manner of speech as hailing from Dunland—a rare sight so far north of his homeland. Why would a man of Dunland travel such great distances in search of treasure? Determined to untangle the web of lies between our companions, Sefa and I resolved to divide them so that each might be observed and questioned alone.

On the first day, I drew Jari ahead under the pretense of learning his “navigational wisdom.” While he prattled on, Sefa pressed Diarmoc for answers. His tale shifted with each inquiry. At first, he claimed he met Jari by chance outside Bree and had been hired to bolster the dwarf’s attempts to recruit adventurers. Yet the next day, his account grew darker. He confessed that the hidden valley we seek, Morglynd, contains no treasure—only a band of foul Trolls who prey upon travelers. These creatures, he said, slew and devoured his family. Lost and broken, he encountered Jari, who concocted the story of treasure to draw adventurers to their cause. Diarmoc claims their real aim is vengeance rather than gold.

Sefa and I conferred that night and she remains unconvinced. She believed this new version of the tale was only a partial truth. Diarmoc seems consumed by guilt, not sorrow. He does not speak of his loved ones as though they are lost. If his family is dead and he seeks revenge why is he not angry? And why would Jari resort to such elaborate deceit rather than seeking honest aid? Sefa did believe him on one account. She believes we now know where the trolls went.

Today, we reached the Weathered Hills, where Jari led us to the edge of a valley he calls Morglynd. At its crest stand the ruins of an ancient watchtower. Jari insisted we camp there, speaking of the protection it offered from the winds and his desire for a fire to stave off the chill. But Sefa and I saw the folly in this plan. The tower’s height makes it a beacon, visible for miles. A fire there would be a signal to every fell beast in the wild. No knowledgeable traveler would choose this place for a camp.

After much argument, we persuaded Jari to move to a more sheltered cave nearby. Even so, his insistence leaves us troubled. Tonight, we have agreed to watch him closely. The truth of his character—and his intent—may yet reveal itself in the dark hours. We will learn if he is an enemy, or simply a fool.

May the stars guide our paths to answers, not ruin.

Idril

A bird’s eye view of the Morglynd valley

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If you're interested in my first solo adventure (using Shadow Dark), you can find that series here.

Notes & Summaries

So there is no weather system in TOR which I find kind of strange. For a game system that places so much mechanical and narrative emphasis on travel, it feels like it is a major missing element. I’m going to use a simple Hex Engine for weather. I’ve placed the image below and if you aren’t familiar with how Hex Engines work Goblin’s Henchman has a great blog on it.

Since this part of the adventure covers travel I’m going to give a brief overview of the mechanics and then break out the summary by day. The solo rules are similar to group rules with a few exceptions that I won’t fully cover. Generally, the group needs to know where it's going before beginning travel. With their final destination determined the group makes a Travel check to see how things go. On a success, the group moves 3 hexes plus an additional hex for each special success on the success die before encountering an event. On a failure, the group only travels 2 hexes before facing an event. Each hex is a day’s travel and events are essentially random encounters. The event isn’t typically a combat encounter and more often just results in another skill check by a player to avoid a negative consequence.

This cycle continues until the group reaches their destination and they tally up fatigue based on the number and kind of events they encountered. Finally, each character rolls another travel check to reduce their fatigue. On a success, their fatigue is reduced by 1 + 1 more for each special success on the success die.

While this may not seem like much, it’s worth remembering that Fatigue is tied to HP (sort of). TOR doesn’t really have HP, instead, they have Endurance. Endurance is reduced when you are hit by weapons and if it is ever equal to or less than your current load you become weary. Fatigue increases your Load, and weary is a condition that means any 1-3 rolled on your success die count as 0. If your endurance is ever reduced to 0 your character falls unconscious.

Yep, I’m aware that’s a lot of stuff and potentially confusing so let's look at an example. Sefa has 29 Endurance and a current Load of 18 thanks to all her gear. Let’s assume she has finished a long journey and gains 8 Fatigue, because of that her Load is now treated as being 26. If she is in combat and takes 8 points of damage her Endurance lowers to 21 and she becomes weary as it is lower than her Load. Despite this, she doesn’t fall unconscious unless she takes 21 more damage.

With that covered it’s time to start making checks.

Travel Check 1

Travel Roll: Success, 3 days travel, 1 day left
Event (in Dark Lands): Despair / Fading Vigor. Hunting check to find food or gain 2 Shadow Points (Dread)
Hunting Roll: Success+ (I’m using the special success to Gain Insight as a way to try and find out the truth from Diarmoc)
Result: +2 Fatigue

Day 1

Weather: Rain

As we begin our travels Jari regals us with stories of his family. He claims that his family has always been unjustly mistreated by the jealous Dwarves of the Blue Mountains and that his uncle Bori was a traveler and treasure-seeker of great renown. He even entered into lost Dwarven cities in the Grey Mountains, and found fabulous gems and jewels he found there! Furious, the Dwarf-lords of the Blue Mountains threatened to take Bori’s hard-earned gold with fines and taxes, and rather than yield up his treasure to them, Bori buried it. Recently Jari found clues in letters from his uncle and determined where Bori hid his treasure. He tells us it will be an easy job for so much gold. This could explain why the dwarves at the Prancy Pony seemed to despise Jeri but the story sounds far-fetched like something a braggart would concoct.

Sefa recognized Diarmoc’s garb and speech to be from Dunland. While travelers from Dunland are not unheard of they are incredibly rare this far north. Dunland lies almost a month’s travel to the south. Why would a man like Diarmoc be searching for treasure near Bree? We decide to try and split the two and carefully interrogate each of them. Sefa will talk to Diarmoc and Idril will talk to Jari.

Sefa Travel Roll to recognize Diarmoc’s origin: Rune Success+
Rune success means we rolled a Gandolf rune and in Strider Mode, there is a table you can roll on. Rolling on that I got Gain Favored Ground and for the special success (the + symbol) I’m going to choose Build Advantage. Together I’m ruling this will grant +1d (+1 success die) for any rolls Sefa makes to persuade or understand Diarmoc for this journey.

TT: Is Idril able to separate Jari from Sefa and Diarmoc during the trip? YES! (Gandolf Rune). I think this means that not only are they able to separate Jari, but they will be able to do so through the journey unless something changes.

Idril is able to get Jari away from the other two by scouting ahead with Jari. She pretends to let him lead her and teach her how to navigate the land better. While going along with this ruse frustrates Idril it does mean that Sefa has plenty of time to talk to Diarmoc.

While Idril is with Jari, Sefa confronts Diarmoc about his story. Sefa is Fierce and Cunning, I think this means she verbally corners him rather than being his friend. Diermoc admits that he met the Dwarf on the road outside Bree and that Jari paid him to bolster the Dwarf’s attempts to recruit adventurers. Diarmoc claims that Jari fears there may be dangers in the hidden valley, and so he had Diarmoc enter Bree separately as a ruse to ensure that the Dwarf would be able to recruit a goodly number of adventurers.

Sefa doesn’t fully believe this story. It’s clear that he’s still holding something back and the tale lacks conviction. Sefa resolves to continue trying to uncover the truth during the journey.

Sefa Insight Roll: Success

Day 2

Weather: Overcast

Once again Idril is able to pull Jari away to “help her navigate” and Sefa confronts Diarmoc on the gaps in his story. He admits that there is more to this quest than was said at Bree. The hidden valley contains little treasure — “it’s home to a band of foul Trolls who capture and eat people.” They waylaid Diarmoc’s family and devoured them. He met Jari as he wandered, bereft and lost, and Jari came up with the tale of the lost treasure in order to recruit some stalwart adventurers. Their real goal is slaying the Trolls, not finding Dwarf-gold.

Despite this drastically different story something still seems wrong. Diarmoc seems more guilty than he should. It’s guilt, not sorrow that eats at him. If his family is dead and his quest is to defeat the trolls why is he not more angry or filled with sorrow?

But…at least we may know where the trolls are. However Diarmoc’s attitude continues to worsen, it is hard to keep one’s spirits up around him.

Sefa Insight Roll: Success
Sefa Enhearten Roll to raise Diarmoc’s spirits: Failure

Day 3

Weather: Heavy Clouds

The lands northwest of Bree are barren and the weather feels turned against us. We haven’t seen the sun in days and the constant dampness leaves us cold and wishing for a hot meal.

We spend most of the day hunting to find food and aren’t able to spend time questioning either Jari or Diarmoc. As Idril and Sefa eat that evening they compare what they know and can’t help but wonder why Jari wouldn’t simply ask for help. Is he so greedy for gold that he only wants the barest available help? Is he willing to risk his life for gold?

Diarmoc is clearly guilty and afraid of something. The question is whether it’s Jari that he’s afraid of.

TT: Does the group press Jari for answers? No, they think that pushing too hard could make things worse.

Travel Check 2

Travel Roll: Success++
Event: Arrival. Given there was only 1 day left I’m going to say the Special Successes can be used to gain +1d to the travel roll to reduce fatigue for both Sefa and Idril.
Fatigue Travel Check: Sefa: Success+, Idril: Success+
Journey Result: 4 days of travel. Idril and Sefa +0 Fatigue

Day 4

Weather: Slightly Overcast

We have finally arrived at our destination in the Weather Hills. Jari has led us to the ruins of a long-lost watchtower on one of the hills. He says that the hidden valley of Morglynd, our destination, lies only a few miles to the east.

Incredibly he wants to camp here! Sefa is especially opposed to this plan as it is a terrible place to camp. Except for a small ruined wall, the camp would be completely exposed to the elements and a fire here would be a signal to any fell beasts within miles. The ruins are that of a watchtower, designed to be visible for miles. A campfire here is beyond even a semblance of good sense.

Sefa Travel Roll to determine if this is a good place to rest: Success, it is not

TT: Does the pair openly confront/push Jari? No, instead they opt for a subtle approach.

They decide to secretly watch Jari that night and see if he does anything suspicious.

GM Thoughts

All of this post was basically travel and I feel like it gave me a good look at how TOR approaches its journeys. I feel that it does a really good job of balancing the mechanical/skill parts of travel with a narrative style. The downside of this is that if you or your group doesn’t put in the effort to describe travel it would be easy to simply roll and move on. This isn’t a bad thing if that’s what your group is looking for. Think about how often a week-long journey in The Lord of the Rings is just a short description broken up by a few major events. That’s what this system emulates and I think it does an exceptional job of pulling it off. I genuinely like that it allows the GM and the table to decide how descriptive they want the journey to be. Even better, because the system doesn’t change based on your level of narration, it’s easy to change from journey to journey. Maybe you have a week-long journey trying to track down those hobbits that got captured by orc and you mostly want the travel segment to be abbreviated, easily done! But maybe once you rescue them and slay all the orcs you want a more detailed narrative journey through the Murkwood. You get it. I actually like the system enough, that I immediately wondered how I could translate it to other systems.

This travel system would not be good for a hex crawl though. And they make that very clear upfront. Just the fact that you have to have a destination in mind is enough to deter a GM from using this system for a hex crawl.

If you want to read an amazing article on travel systems across different TTRPGs you should check out A Survey of Overland Travel by Beau Rancourt.

My only major nit-pick about the part of the adventure I played through this time is that Jari tells the adventurers the hidden valley/treasure is a week away, but it’s clearly only 4 hexes/days away. I’m not sure why there is a discrepancy there but it was jarring for me to think the group had 7 days to figure out what was going on, and then only needed to make 1 travel check.

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This is all still kind of a new format for me so I would love love love to get feedback from anyone that has thoughts.

Do you like the letter style? Am I including too much in the Notes & Summaries section? Should Idril have just stabbed Jari because obviously he’s a villain?

Hopefully, Gilraen will get another letter soon. Until then, stay curious.