The Fellowship of the Fourth Age (Part 1): A New Beginning Discussion Thread - Page 2 - The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

Regin Hardhammer · 06-21-2006, 06:30 PM

Here is the profile for my main character. Thank you Undomie for your advice. I will station my character as an advanced gaurd for the party.

- Regin

NAME: Ishkur

AGE: Does not know

RACE: Orc

GENDER: Male

WEAPONS:

Ishkur has a curved steel scimitar that he keeps in a sheath by his side. He wears an iron helmet, slightly rusted, with a visor that conceals most of his face when it is down as well as a suit of chain mail and an old iron shield emblazoned with the eye of Sauron.

His weapon of choice, however, is his large yew bow, which he is very skilled in using. He also has a quiver made of marsh reeds and arrows that he made himself from the precious few trees that he could find in Nurn. He does not remember where he got the bow, though he has used the weapon his whole life. The bow has intricate and unusual carvings and is unlike anything that other Orcs possess.

APPEARANCE: Ishkur is unusually tall for a traditional orc, around six feet in height. He is strong and muscular, although not as bulky as some of his companions. He has dark brown eyes with large black pupils that constantly dart around to spot trouble. His hair is a wild, thick, dark black mess on the top of his head that looks like an overgrown shrubbery. His teeth have fared fairly well given their age, most of them still hanging in his mouth, sharp and stained a pale shade of yellow. Like most orcs, he detests baths. His ears are large and curiously shaped, causing others to make occasional jokes, which he cannot stand. He wears a faded black cloth shirt, frayed and torn at the edges, long brown wool hose, and a pair of leather boots he scavenged from one of his human victims in battle.

PERSONALITY/STRENGTHS/WEAKNESSES:

Ishkur feels very strongly that he must take control of his own fate and not let others lead him around. He dislikes many orcs and often assumes that they are trying to take advantage of him. As a result, he does not have too many friends and sometimes feel antagonistic toward any who try and help him. He reserves special scorn, however, for his Uruk-Hai commander whom he sees as arrogant and conceited. Ishkur despises taking orders from him and is planning to desert and set out on his own. He hates the Uruk-Hai in particular because, during the late Third Age, these orcs were given the most desirable assignments, yet Ishkur always knew that he was smarter and just as fierce a fighter as any Uruk.

Ishkur never flinches from a confrontation. He is incredibly independent and often completes the task at hand while others delay because they are fooling around. Ishkur is unusually articulate for an orc and even uses words to trick his dim witted competitors. In the course of thousands of years he has indulged in many vices including pillaging villages, eating human flesh, and killing any elf or man that gets in his way.

He does not like that there are so many females in the group that he will be escaping with, but he is willing to travel with them as long as they don’t drag the group down

HISTORY:

Ishkur does not like thinking about his past because he can not remember anything from early in his life. He tries to block out these questions whenever they come to mind. Although Orcs do not have families, most of them can name their mother or father, but Ishkur is totally in the dark. He has seen generations of orcs die from illness and battle wounds, and he does not understand why he still remains alive. Ishkur remains quite secretive about his long lifespan and has never talked about it with anyone.

Ishkur’s earliest memories are of serving Morgoth in the Iron Prison of Angband during the time of the great wars with the elves. Ishkur survived the slaughter in Beleriand and, following Morgoth’s imprisonment, enlisted in Sauron’s service. After Sauron established himself in the black land of Mordor, Ishkur went with him, continuing to battle against Elves and men for many centuries.

For the past hundred years he has not seen much fighting since Sauron stationed him to guard over the slaves of a large plantation in Nurn. After the War of the Ring, when the Easterling landlords took over, many of the Orc guards fled the plantations. At this point Ishkur signed on with a local Orc chieftain. Now he has become frustrated with the stupidity of his group leader and decided to join the rebel faction. In this way, he hopes to stop others from boxing him in and have the chance to chart his own path.

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Profile for Minor Character

NAME: Ungolt

AGE: 28

RACE: Orc

GENDER: Female

WEAPONS: Like most orc women, Ungolt has never been trained to fight with weapons. She has a large oaken club fashioned out of a fallen tree that she uses to kill game. Although Ungolt has not told anyone, she longs to fight with real weapons and wield a sword or spear of her own. She knows that in orc society those who are the best fighters earn the most respect. But she also sees that orcs frown upon teaching women combat and do not allow them to fight in battle so that it is very unlikely she will ever realize her dream.

APPEARANCE: Ungolt stands about 5”2 inches tall with dark grey skin and clear dark blue eyes. Once in a while she will even take a swim in a river and emerge relatively clean. . Her dark brown hair is straight and long, filled with tangles and tight knots. She does not have large muscles, but is extremely quick on her feet and dexterous with her hands. By orc standards she is good looking and sometimes attracts the attention of male orcs, in whom she has no interest.

PERSONALITY/STRENGTHS/WEAKNESSES:
Being confined to orc breeding colonies all her life, Ungolt was forced to toughen up and find a way to survive. Over the years she has become increasingly numb and lost the ambitions she once had. She acts meekly and defers to authority because she was powerless in the hands of the males who controlled her life. Even after her escape, she continues to defer to the male orcs, both out of necessity and habit. She keeps her true feelings and wishes to herself.

All her life, she was forced to steal and lie in order to stay alive. She has no concept of morality and does not realize how her actions affect others. Ungolt always takes the easiest way out of a situation instead of the one that may benefit her in the long run. She has questions about her abilities and potential, yet these remain buried deep inside. Her anger against male orcs has always stayed hidden, but there is some indication that it may surface and explode if she’s forced to work with the men in a small and close knit band.

HISTORY: Ungolt does not know where she was born and does not remember who her birthmother was. From an early age she was working in the fields tilling the soil. Ungolt slowly began to increase her knowledge of crop farming and remember useful details from one harvest to the next. She saw which plants to put where, what kind of food was best for what crop, and what time of year each plant was ready for harvest. She learned these things almost unconsciously at the time, but it is possible they will be of great use later. She was sent to work in the breeding grounds at an early age because of her desirable appearance. Every day she would go to work and come back tired with little memory of what had transpired. The one thing she really missed was working on the land. After the fall of the great eye, she escaped from her farm and settled in a nearby community in Nurn. When she heard that the Easterlings were about to make war with the orcs she decided to join the rebels because she did not want to be hurt.

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Regin Hardhammer's post - Ishkur

Ishkur glared angrily at the small rock that he had been kicking around the dirt path. He was beginning to regret requesting advance guard duty. Ishkur hated waiting for others particularly when he had absolutely nothing to do. His mission as he vaguely recalled was to scout out the best path of leaving the orc encampment and guide others along it until they were safely out of range. A few hours ago, Ishkur had quietly slipped away and found a trail hidden by the cover of a grove of small trees not far from the southern edge of camp. He had told the others and now waited impatiently for the exodus of rebellious orcs to begin.

The minutes and hours dragged on. It was the women, he thought in exasperation. They always took a long time to move anywhere. Most of them were slow and weak and only served to drag down the group. It had been better when they were kept on separate breeding farms. The longer he waited, the greater the chance that their plot would be detected, and they would all be killed. A group of fifteen orcs fleeing the encampment was ample cause for suspicion by even the most inept captain in a bunch of dim witted misfits. Ishkur would have preferred simply leaving with a small group of male warriors, a much faster and safer plan, but such a dream was not to be. Even Ishkur grudgingly recognized that if their group had any hope of surviving on their own they would need more than a few male warriors. Numbers meant strength and safety. Individual orcs had always been regarded with disdain.

In all his years on Middle-earth, Ishkur had never before been part of a group that ran away from the orc band to which they were assigned. Of course, Ishkur was not participating in this little experiment just to be noble. No, he simply could not stand being lorded over by the pathetic Uruk-hai, the arrogant and overbearing leaders that controlled every facet of life within camp. The idiots thought because they could tolerate the harsh rays of the sun for hours on end they held some sort of superiority over the other orcs. His commander barked orders to his men with an air of marked contempt. He treated Ishkur as inferior, a class below him in intelligence, strength, and capability. The plain fact was that Ishkur was probably a match in fighting with any Uruk-hai and definitely had more brains.

Ishkur had tolerated such vile treatment far too long until he had finally decided to act. He would go with this new group, and they would stake out a territory far to the north of Nurn. From the moment he heard whispers about the expedition in the late hours of drinking around the campfire, he knew that he must join them. They would have the opportunity to go hunting and raiding on their own and would have no need for anyone to approve of what they did. He volunteered to be an advanced guard because he did not want to stay behind and help the weaker ones escape, but he found waiting ahead of the group agonizing. Ishkur returned to kicking the rock, hoping that it would be more interesting than staring in the direction of the orc encampment and wondering how quickly the others would come.

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Undómë · 06-22-2006, 12:27 AM

Nice bio, Regin!

My post is now up for the two sisters.

~*~ U

Tevildo · 06-22-2006, 02:16 AM

I have put up the profile for my minor character in my box. I left off the history section, which I hope is alright.

p.s. Correction .... I gave Azhar a two-sentence history. I think it says everything that could be said for anyone living in this situation.

Thinlómien · 06-22-2006, 03:03 AM

Just dropping in and announcing I'm alive (and playing at least one minor character later in the game) and I'm following the thread.

As my character(s) is/are coming in only in August, I assume there's no hurry for me to plan him/her/them. So, maybe nearer to August we could take a look what kind of minor character(s) the story needs.

Novnarwen · 06-22-2006, 10:16 AM

Profile for Major Character -- Slave escapee

NAME Aedhild

AGE: Unknown, though it is estimated to be between 42-52.

GENDER: Female

RACE: Men

WEAPONS: None, except for a sharp tongue (occasionally) and finger nails.

APPEARANCE Aedhild is a slave in appearance; the sufferings she has endured have scarred her. Her head was once covered with dark brown hair; over the last years though, grey strands of hair have become dominant. Due to blows to her head (punishment for inappropriate behaviour, few months after coming to the plantation), hair growth on the right side, just above the ear, has not occurred. This baldness is particularly visible now as her hair is thinner. Her thin face is dominated by her cool, grey eyes, which are abnormally glossy, giving her a sickly look. They appear to have a certain depth; some would perhaps say they reflected the complexity and insecurities of her character, others would claim they merely reflect her insanity. She has a delicate mouth, nicely formed lips, dull red in colour. Her nose is small and the tip is round and slightly asymmetric. Though her skin is rather dark, she appears pale and sickly. Her cheeks have sunk in, leaving her cheekbones as a prominent feature of her face. Figure wise, Aedhild is skinny and rather short. She is dressed in rags of cheap, brown and green fabric, stained to the unrecognizable by mud and other filth.

PERSONALITY: Aedhild’s personality is heavily dominated by her internal struggles. She has no roots and no or little knowledge about her background and family. Her history, her lack of memories of life without the hardships of slavery at a plantation have mainly, but not necessarily restricted to, led to abnormal and strange behaviour patterns; she assumes roles and characters at different times, not being entirely able to control or comprehend it herself. Sometimes she is violent, indeed a danger to herself, but more importantly however, a danger to others. This type of behaviour is most commonly triggered when exhausted from a day’s work or particularly hungry or cold. Under the extreme conditions she has lived her life, this behaviour has occurred at regular intervals, and though she behaves threateningly and is capable of doing unimaginable things, this has saved her lives on many occasions; the spontaneous and determined character she adopts at the same time was ultimately what managed to get her away from the plantation and slavery.

In addition to this illness or syndrome, she suffers from regular fits, which sometimes results in loss of consciousness. These fits started many years ago, after repetitive blows to the stomach and back regions, and the head. (She was beaten as a punishment for her most inappropriate behaviour (threatening one of the plantations guards), and was almost left to die in the field if it hadn’t been for some of the other slaves taking care of her.) The fits, which come irregularly and without warning, have greatly alarmed her when herself (if she ever really is herself), because they do not seem to cease over time; Aedhild might not be aware of how quickly she can change from being a silent, humble patient, but more importantly a vulnerable person, to an angry, violent (at times completely out of control) and irreversibly determined person, she is aware of the danger of the fits that occasionally occur. This weakness and vulnerability frightens her.

These difficulties have also made other people reserved in her presence; although at most times very absent-minded, Aedhild is not stupid; she is perfectly aware of people’s hesitation in approaching her either in friendship or any other relations. This awareness has made her very vulnerable, and she usually isolates herself, not wanting to be part of a bigger crowd. It also seems that her understanding of other people’s fears and hesitation trigger, if not the fits, than at least the more threatening behaviour patterns.

HISTORY: Aedhild has few memories of life prior to working at the plantations in Mordor. She has counted about twenty seven years at the plantations, but know that she was a grown woman, healthy and youthful, by the time she came to Mordor. Estimated age is in the range of 42-52. Although some features of her appearance bear resemblance to that of the Haradrim, it’s doubtful that she is a ‘full-blood’ Haradrim.

Aedhild remembers awakening by screams of horror. Suddenly, she found herself in the grasp of a horrid creature she had never set her eyes on before. Although there were a couple of people she thought she recognized, she recalls being numb and absolutely dumbfounded, unable to utter a single word; shocked by finding herself in the hands of an Orc, her body sore and aching, Aedhild could not do anything but stand still, unable to comprehend what was happening. Taken to a plantation in the eastern part of the region, she never saw the people she thought she recognized, perhaps knew in what seems to her another lifetime. The days, weeks, years after coming to the plantation have been nothing but hard work. When young, she worked in the fields, seeing to the crops and harvesting during fall. When time caught up with her, she was set to do other work, equally exhausting. During the time at the plantations as a slave, Aedhild has endured hardships that have aged her both mentally and physically.

Escaping from the plantation had been a rather spontaneous action; she and a dozen other slaves were to be transported to a nearby plantation. Although the escape seemed to have been planned by some of the other slaves, Aedhild had not been involved in any of the planning, and even to this day, she suspect that there was a hidden agenda behind their decision not to confide in her with their intentions. Regardless of her ignorance, Aedhild managed to escape with some of the other slaves nevertheless; some failed to escape, either killed by the Orcs who were involved in the transportation, or taken alive, their destiny unknown. Quickly, Aedhild found herself alone. Never in her wildest dreams would she imagine herself on her own. However, outside of the plantation, she was struck by the realisation that slavery had imprinted too many marks on her to be solely depended on herself. With no known roots, the discovery that she had nowhere to go was hard to bear; at one point, Aedhild even thought of going back to the plantation, even if it meant death.

One morning, six weeks after her successful escape, she stumbled upon some footprints, which eventually led her to the caves...

~*~

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Novnarwen's post - Aedhild

"Everywhere! They are everywhere! The devils!" Aedhild shrieked and cursed. It was early morning; the wet grass under her feet witnessed of the damp night air. The sun hadn't even rolled over the horizon, and yet, the ex-slave was up, growling. Her shrilly voice echoed; as the sound of her voice hit the stone walls of the caves, it sent out a wave of roars and noise, awakening the rest of the camp. With a peculiar expression, she jumped up and down, sprang from one side to another, twitching and shaking. The excitement reflected in her eyes seemed to belong to a being of another world; her movements were awkward and alien.

Few of the ex-slaves didn’t know that Aedhild was a highly unusual character. Already from the very beginning, they had noticed that she was different from most other they had stumbled upon in life; not only did she act irresponsibly and without thinking, but it had also become known amongst them that it was impossible to predict how she would respond to any given situation. In some cases, they would find her sitting quietly, completely avoiding eye contact, and keeping silent for hours and in rare cases days at a time. Occasionally on those particular days, she would perhaps mutter a few words, but no one could make out their meaning. Other times however, she would scream, curse, yes, act very much in the same way as she was acting now. These times, she would narrow her eyes suspiciously, walk about, and snap at people who appeared in any way she didn’t like or approve of. Unfortunately for everyone else, no one knew exactly what she did approve of. On these walkabouts, threats would roll any of the ex-slave's way, regardless of whether she had set her eyes on them before or not. The rest of the slaves had come to an agreement; though not spoken out loud, everyone seemed to share the same view on this particular matter; in sheer fright that Aedhild would do harm to anyone, or herself, sharp objects such as knives and daggers were kept from her.

“Lice! They are everywhere!” Bleary eyed and tense with excitement, the woman looked wildly around at the small group of people that surrounded her. Pointing fingers at all of them, she cursed violently, accusing each and every of them of conspiracies; her paranoia seemed endless. “You! You traitor! You have come to give us in, you sneaky scoundrel! Hand us over to them, think you are?!” As she spoke, saliva rained from her mouth. Her voice was cool and desperate, the volume increasing by a notch for every word: “He did this!” she continued, pointing directly toward a bearded youngster. “He spread those foul creatures, sent them to drive me mad! You filthy sc-sc...!!!!” Her words drowned in her screams as she sprang forwards; both her arms outstretched, she aimed for him. Terrified by this extreme behaviour and unexpected turn of events, the man named Eirnar took a few steps back, desperately looking around for a helping hand.

No on knew exactly where Aedhild came from; none of the slaves recognized her from the plantation they'd served, and even Aedhild hadn’t been able to explain in detail where she had worked and about her origins. Of appearance, she was a short, skinny woman, her skin dark, something that definitely could suggest that she was a Haradrim or of similar heritage. Other features gave another impression however, and since most people were growing tired of speculating about other slaves’ origins, Aedhild remained like many others; a slave with no past, who had just recently found freedom, the latter being obviously the most important point of focus. Aedhild was neither remarkably ugly, nor remarkably pretty. Her once perhaps handsome face seemed aged with the hardships she had endured. Her cheekbones had become slightly too prominent in her face during the last couple of years to make her appear beautiful, but her mouth was delicately formed and gave if not a pleasant appearance at least a hint of kindness. Sadly, the pallor of her face was sickly, and her pair of unusually grey, glossy eyes seemed to dominate her face altogether now. As her age was starting to show, her once dark brown hair was thinning with a hurried pace, and the bald spot on the right side of her head seemed to become more and more obvious. Years of abuse and beatings had marked her, more than she would ever come to realise herself.

As she came nearer, she closed her right hand into a fist. Still screaming, she hit him with all her might. It is difficult to say whether it was the power of that particular blow or if it was the shock of being hit by a stranger, a supposed ally, that made Eirnar stagger for a moment; regaining his balance however, he quickly managed to manoeuvre out of her way, avoiding a second blow. With one hand caressing his already red cheek, he grasped a hold of the short woman with the other. Aedhild wailed in horror; she kicked, spat and cursed, trying to loosen the man’s grip; “You traitor! You want to take me back! ”

Their eyes met for second; her grey eyes cool, but still empty of emotions. With a quick blow, Eirnar struck her unconscious. She never heard the man uttering a few words: "That will calm you down." Only those close by could hear the heavy heartedness in the tone of his voice.

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MINOR CHARACTER

Nonarwen's character - ex=slave

NAME: Eirnar

AGE: 29

GENDER: Male

RACE: Man of Gondor

WEAPONS: A rather robust knife he stole from an Orc as he fled. He's also made himself a club/bat-looking object of hard wood.

APPEARANCE: Eirnar is tall and skinny, but yet stout, with broad shoulders. He has a pleasant and friendly face; small, grey eyes, big nose and gloriously red lips. His chin is covered by a short brown beard. Like the other slaves, Eirnar is dressed in rags. He wars a pair of short pants and a grey shirt; on top of it, he wears a long, brown frockcoat of thin fabric.

PERSONALITY: Despite the sufferings he has endured as a slave, Eirnar is considered to be a both positive and outgoing person. Having escaped slavery, he has been given hope for a better future; his sufferings at the plantations have made him realise that he is very lucky to have escaped alive, and he values everything about his new existence, even though life is hard and primitive yet. He has great expectations for the future, and will rather take his own life than go back to being a slave.

Though the Gondorian isn't particularly bright, he is a man of action and very hardworking. Often, he rushes into situations and isn't always able to imagine the consequences of his actions. Sometimes, he isn't as thorough in his work as others perhaps hope he would be. He is on the other hand very humble, and glad to acknowledge his mistakes and do something to make up for them.

HISTORY: During the early years of the war against Sauron, Eirnar and his family were taken from Gondor to serve as slaves at the plantations in Mordor. His parents served at the same plantation as himself, but he was separated from his sister. At first, Eirnar wasn't able to handle his new existence and resisted it. Time after time, he was beaten. Soon enough however, he learned that as long as he was so young and weak resistance wouldn't get him anywhere. Eirnar managed to flee from the plantation some 3-5 years ago (he has lost track of time). He regrets the fact that his mother was too old to be able to follow, that his father died few months before his escape and that his sister seems lost to him forever.

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Durelin, Child - If you want me to change anything, I am happy to rewrite.

Just let me know.

Thanks for your patience,
Nova

PS! I will be away a couple of days in early July, and a couple of days late July. I hope that won't be a problem... I should be able to catch up and write at least a post to insert somewhere...

Durelin · 06-22-2006, 11:48 AM

Nice bio, Novnarwen, and it's really good to see you again!

There's only one issue - the ex-slaves are a gang, you know, a tough bunch, who did routine raids until they ran into the group of slave-escapees. You've mentioned adding something to her history, and perhaps that might fit her into the gang somehow. I'm definitely not saying 'no' to your character, just asking that you fit her into the gang somehow. She could be a woman of any age. The gang's not a horrible bunch. But they're a practical bunch, I'm thinking, and everyone would have had their place until the recent escapees showed up. (Once they showed up, they had all these pesky hapless men, women, and children running around...

)

She probably would have been free for a little while at least (and quite possibly years), and would have a kind of place as a part of the 'gang.' And she quite possibly would also be armed with a knife/dagger of some sort, and not be afraid to use it...remember, practical.

I don't want you to have to make a great deal of adjustments, so if you need help fitting her in somehow, just let me know.

At least, that's how I see things. Please, strike me down Child if you perceive things differently.

Orofaniel · 06-22-2006, 03:31 PM

NAME: Reagonn (Ree-a-gonn) Ex-slave

AGE: In his twenties.

RACE: Human

GENDER: Male

WEAPONS: An old dagger, and a knife he keeps in his belt at all times.

APPEARANCE: Reagonn is skinny and slim, which gives the impression that he is taller than he really is. He is weak and pale, due to the hard work at the plantation for several years. Reagonn looks far older than he actually is because if his grey eyes which are filled with the horrors and cruelty he has experienced in his life thus far. Reagonn wears an old dirty shirt with several holes and rips, and pants that are too short for him. His boots will no longer stay dry when exposed to water, a clear sign that they are worn-out and in need of replacement. His shabby looking appearance dominated by the scars in his face, and the long busy dark hair, might seem intimidating to some.

PERSONALITY: Reagonn is a quite intelligent and when rested and well he is not easily distracted. Under the cruel circumstances in which he has spent most of his life, he has learned to be observant, a skill proven very advantageous to him in the past. Reagonn does not easily trust people, nor does he feel any loyalty to anyone but himself. He cannot help feeling betrayed, or abandoned by his parents, (although it was never confirmed that they actually did abandon him), thus he cannot let go of the bitterness inside of him. Reagonn is a good speaker and can easily get his ideas across to others.

Reagonn gets frustrated in situations where one ought to keep one’s head cool however, which makes him vulnerable and sometimes even weak.

HISTORY: Reagonn has no memory whatsoever about his origins. He knows that he was taken into slavery as a young child. He does not know anything about his parents, whether they are still alive, living on a plantation, dead or whether they joined the forces of Mordor when Sauron still ruled. Nor does he care. He has always felt this sense of being abandoned by them, yet it cannot be confirmed that they actually did abandon him.

Throughout the years of slavery, he lost track of time, which explains he fact that he does not know his exact age.

Shortly after the fall of Sauron, Reagonn and a younger lad planned their escape from slavery. They managed to flee from the plantation in haste, but to their great despair, they were recaptured shortly after. The younger boy, also called Bornir, had been a close friend of Reagon for several years. However, upon their return to the plantation they were both punished severely – which explains the two scars in Reagan’s face, and several on his back. Although their punishments were considered mild compared with others who for instance had their tongue removed, Bornir passed away due to the infections in his wounds and the blood loss. Of course, Reagonn found it difficult to cope with, as it had been his only and closest friend, thus pledged to revenge his death.

Reagonn had started to plan another escape and the revenge of Bornir’s death, but then just a week later a fire broke out on the plantation. The fire spread quickly to the shelters where the slave slept during the night, and full chaos broke out. Many slaves died due to the heavy smoke, but a handful of slaves decided to take advantage of the situation and managed to sneak out and escape from the plantation. Reagonn of course, was one of them. Being preoccupied by the fire, no one noticed the few slaves that escaped and none of them were caught. They parted however, deciding that it was wisest to go different ways in case they were being followed.

A couple of days later Reagonn met Khamir and a small group of other ex-slaves “hiding” in caves. Reagonn was allowed join them and together they struggle to survive.

Reagonn has not fulfilled the pledge he made after Bornir’s death, yet there is still time…

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Orofaniel's post - Reagonn

There was a blaze of heat. Reagonn awoke in his shelter discovering that it was filled with thick, dark grey smoke. He quickly noticed the wave of panic that spread among the slaves and soon cries of agony and horror filled Reagon’s ears. Still half-asleep, he managed to get up and at this point, his instincts were quite clear: he felt the urge, or moreover the necessity, to escape from this place. Nevertheless, as he got up he could feel the years of labour finally sink in, and he became utterly disorientated and confused. The legs beneath his crippled body now seemed to fail to support him, and he fell slowly to the ground with a short thud.

The blaze was now spreading rapidly, and he could feel his senses weakening as he inhaled the poisonous smoke. Feeling suffocated, he witnessed the masses of slaves running past him as they hurried to get out, he tried to cry out for help, but his voice failed to cut through the loud voices and the sounds of cracking building material. The ceiling in the left corner of the shelter now started collapsing, and Reagonn could see two slaves running as fast as they could to avoid being trapped beneath the burning wood – all in vain. They cried out as the heavy material hit them, and although chaos surrounded him and the air was filled with voices, Reagonn could somehow feel the vibrating silence from the left corner of the shelter. As he crawled further towards the exit, he knew his last minutes had come. Feeling trapped, Reagonn felt helpless and utterly alone. Yet, the situation did not distress him, like it might have distressed others. On the contrary Reagonn now felt somewhat relieved; finally, he was to be realised from the pain…the suffering…the agony in which he had lived for years. Reagonn had waited for this moment.

Nevertheless, the fright that suddenly struck him was not at all unexpected.

“Get up,” someone cried.

Alarmed by this command, he came to his senses, and trying to regain his balance, he stood up. Walking more steadily now, he felt that things were clearer. Almost all the slaves had evacuated by now, yet he could still hear cries, although he could not conclude whether they came from inside the shelter or outside. Reagonn turned and watched the flames surround him and the lifeless bodies on the ground; They were victims of this ruthless fire... In the life-threatening situation, Reagonn did not have much time to think, yet he could not help feeling sorry for these slaves. He had laboured with for many years and now he was witnessing the miserable fate they had faced.

Would this be his destiny as well?

Witnessing this he realised that it was time for his second attempt to escape. Not only from the fire, but from the plantation.

**

The palm of his hand felt sweaty against the pale skin of his face. He was half-asleep, half awake. This dream, which he had dreamt so many times before would not leave him. These shadows, these nightmares, from the plantation tormented him, and continued to confuse him. And always, near fully awaking, he saw the same face…the same smile and the very same expression in front of him – in the redish monstrous flames. A younger self started back at him, almost identical, yet some of his features shared no resemblance with his own, whatsoever. He was around Bornir’s age, his only friend in life whom had been brutally punished by the plantation’s master - yet it wasn’t him. Thinking about Bornir he could felt enraged, yet this time he felt a wave of pure hatred and rage build up inside of him like never before. After that was just the bitterness...The bitterness he was used to.

Who was he? There was no answer, just a blur of confusion, a foggy maze with no beginning or end. More questions rose, only to be forgotten again while silently awaking from this horror of a nightmare. Like so many times before he awoke while clutching his knife and gasping for air. His eyes were wide open filled with dread as he felt the pearls of sweat running down from his forehead.

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Minor Character - Slave escapee

NAME: Liviol (Lii-vi-ol)

AGE: Almost twenty

RACE: Men

GENDER: Male

WEAPONS:He has his wit, his creativity and his fists if needed.

APPEARANCE: His skin is rather dark, yet after having laboured at the plantation for so long, he has grown paler and weaker. He is not as skinny as most of the other slaves though, but he is quite tall. His dark hair reaches his shoulders. Some of his more prominent facial features: high cheekbones and a large chin. He wears an old greyish shirt, and some old pants. In his belt, he used to carry a knife, but it was stolen from him.

PERSONALITY: Liviol is creative, and quite imaginative. However, he likes to keep to himself, having had the experience that this is the only way to keep out of trouble. He is not very well spoken, nor is he very social. He is quite egocentric, as he has learned that it is necessary if he wishes to survive. At times, he might seem paranoid, and ill tempered. Yet, overall, Liviol is not an arrogant person, nor is he evil. He has just spent his life on a plantation and has therefore learned that the only way he will survive is to take care of oneself.

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****

I hope it's Ok. Please do tell me if it needs editing.

Cheers,
Oro

Regin Hardhammer · 06-22-2006, 06:36 PM

I put up the post for my minor female orc. It's longer than I expected.

Child of the 7th Age · 06-22-2006, 11:01 PM

Nova - Durelin's suggestions are good ones. I think the revisions should be minor and will only strengthen your character.

And thanks for those dates when you won't be here.

Oro - Looks good. I know your character does not know his exact orgin, but do his looks give us any hint as to where he was originally from? Most of the slaves were likely from Harad or East, but there would have been others dragged there from Rohan, Gondor, or other points to the west.

Also, Oro, do you have any planned vacations this summer?

Tevildo and Regin - Your minor characters look fine.

Nogrod Thanks for giving us a taste. We'll look forward to your return this weekend.

Folwrenand Undomie - It looks as if you are the first ones to complete your two profiles and the post. (You can certainly do a post for your minor character, but it is not required.) Welcome to the game!

Hilde Bracegirdle · 06-23-2006, 10:39 AM

NAME: Carl “Nibs” Cotton

AGE: born SR 1389, has yet to turn 51 toward the end of the year.

RACE: Hobbit

GENDER: Male

WEAPONS: Short knife, a small axe of utilitarian nature and a hunting bow with quiver at his belt. No armor.

APPEARANCE: Thickset and well tanned; Carl’s rough and calloused hands tell of hard work. He has a homespun appearance, wearing trousers of a sturdy brown fabric and open vest of the same. His shirt is a buttery yellow and around his neck is a bit of brightness, a twisted a handkerchief, the color of spring leaves.

Carl is of average hobbit height, with a clean shaven face and an abundance of wavy brown hair, which he keeps cropped so that it falls just short of his earlobes. His eyes are hazel and his lips less than generous and without much color.

A stout Shire pony with the peculiar name of Stumps is his traveling companion, and despite the name and having all his limbs intact, the pony carries Carl’s leather pack, blankets and the rest of the hobbit’s gear. Stumps is a well fed and well muscled creature, reddish in color with a light mane and tail.

PERSONALITY: Carl has a dry sense of humor and is friendly enough. Among his own people he would best be described as a dependable and practical sort. But his close friends know of a well hidden slightly fanciful streak, his suppression of which is to be expected given his place as the youngest son of a farmer known for his common sense.

STRENGTHS: Any strong points are related to his occupation and include agricultural experience, physical strength, endurance and a guarded optimism. But Carl also possesses some skill in hunting, thus having learned the use of a bow.

WEAKNESSES: Chief weakness, besides a sometimes disabling appetite (with its attending ill humor), would be Carl’s obliviousness to, and so apparent disregard of subtle diplomacy.

HISTORY:

Carl Cotton was born in Bywater in the Shire country, where he has lived ever since. He was a fourth son, the fifth and last child born to farmer Tom Cotton and his wife Lily.

As a boy Carl, (who is known as Nibs), as well as his three brothers, developed an abiding friendship with the son of his grandfather’s colleague, a gardener’s son. And together they had shared both in youthful antics and in a love for the land. Though they hadn’t thought on it at the time, these two families had intertwined in the past and were destined to in the future as well, with their friend Samwise marrying Carl’s sister Rosie upon his return from traveling, and Carl’s eldest brother, Tolman, likewise marrying Sam’s sister Marigold.

Now Carl was still in his tweens when Sam had gone off to help Mr. Baggins, and he was there to see it when the Shire was turned on it’s head too. And though his father left him as guard over his mother and sister, rather than have him join in the battle which had quickly followed Sam’s homecoming, he never forgot how fast the tables had been turned once the Shire folk had set their minds to it.

That was in the past, Sam had since become the Mayor, and Carl had turned his thoughts back to working his father’s farm, with his thoughts staying there, for the most part, until a few years ago. Perhaps it started when King Elessar traveled to the northern kingdom, or resulted from the serious talks the Cotton brothers had had with Sam, when the Mayor had begun speaking somewhat wistfully of visiting Gondor. Carl couldn’t be sure.

He did know however, that he had begun thinking about the greater world and it worried him. Deciding it was time to settle down proper, lest this curiosity grab hold of him, he planned to buy a little plot of his own and tie himself securely to it. But confiding his thoughts to Samwise one evening, the mayor suddenly grew thoughtful and requested Carl to hold off a bit, as he had an errand he would like him to undertake first. Thus began another long round of discussions between Sam and the Cottons. And it was during this time that Carl’s eldest brother commented sharply that a Mayor shouldn’t go gallivanting off on long trips when his term was not yet over. Sam looked him squarely in the eyes. “Look here Tom,” the Mayor said. “If the king of Gondor and of Arnor can make a trip to the Brandywine to visit his old friends, I don’t see why the Mayor of the Shire shouldn’t return the favor!” Tom was silent after that, but the roll and gamble of events cast Carl in the role of message runner, and placed his feet on the road to Minas Tirith, with an errand to see if the mayor might pay an extended visit there in the next year or two.

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Hilde Bracegirdle's post - Carl

It had been two weeks now since Carl had hand delivered a rather bulky packet of papers to the Citadel at the top of the city. As it turned out Sam Gamgee’s carefully folded message to King Elessar had also included a letter of introduction for Carl and, as the hobbit also saw, a note addressed to the king and queen in his niece Elanor’s fine script. Carl was surprised when the King had bid him stay as he took his time over their contents, and after exchanging a few words with the hobbit, to ask Carl questions regarding The Thain for the most part, he smiled his gratitude, telling a tall fellow who stood nearby to make arrangements for this special messenger. He was to be made comfortable and stay as long as he wished before returning home.

Perhaps it was the easiest victory that Elessar had ever had, having won the hobbit over unknowingly within minutes, the monarch’s good-natured ways and Sam’s high regard largely contributing. And so Carl was happy to stay, though he asked if it might be on the Pelennor rather than in the city, for the grandeur of Minas Tirith, with its high white walls of cut stone, had nearly taken his breath away when his pony Stumps emerged from the fields to plod up the causeway. And the hobbit had waxed wide-eyed and apprehensive, upon approaching the tall gates.

After having had those two weeks among the farms in the shadow of Mount Mindolluin, Carl had grown somewhat accustomed to his surroundings, settling in nicely. Truly he enjoyed walking through the fields spending his days learning about new crops and the methods used to propagate them. And his host seemed to enjoy showing the newcomer around, slowly loading the hobbit’s baggage down with hardy and exotic seeds to try once he had returned to the Shire.

But at the end of two weeks Carl naturally began wondering just how much longer he should stay. He had half expected that he might be given some message to take back to the Shire, though the King’s response to Sam’s had been quite clear without it. He knew Elessar would be only too happy to have The Mayor and his family make the long journey south to Gondor. And so Carl sat on a stone outside the farmer’s house, figuring, after his large breakfast, just what he should do, when a fine young man in a heavily embroidered uniform appeared, walking briskly up the road. Heading straight for the hobbit, he stopped with his polished boots just within the shadow of Carl's seat. “Master Nibs?” he inquired.

Carl looked up from the boots, amused that the stranger knew the name, one which Sam no doubt had used in his letter of introduction, he replied, “Yes, that would be me,” as he slid off the large stone. He had noted a scroll in the fellow’s hand from a distance, and was feeling rather more cheerful now. The decision over his departure evidently had been made for him. “Is that for me?” he nodded in the direction of the man’s right hand.

The Gondorian handed Carl the scroll. “A message from the King.”

“Ah, I have been waiting for this!” the hobbit announced, taking the missive and placing it in his trouser pocket.

The man’s expression quickly clouded. “You knew of it? But how could you?”

“I’ve eyes and ears you know. It wasn’t hard to put two and two together,” the hobbit remarked. “To be honest, I thought it might have arrived a bit sooner than this.” At that the man looked puzzled.

“But it is still early,” he murmured.

“Never mind,” Carl said hurriedly. “You may assure the King that I will leave just as soon as I gather what I need for the trip.”

“You needn’t trouble yourself, all preparations have already been made,” the messenger informed him, brightening. “I don’t know the full details, only that you will be traveling with a group the King has himself hand picked.”

“Is that right?” Carl said slowly. He hadn’t planned on being in a group, but it did sound like quite an honor, and he didn’t want to make himself look ungrateful by refusing such gracious hospitality. “Where and when am I to meet this group?”

The messenger hesitated. “We have been instructed that the travelers are to gather outside the royal palace shortly before sunrise tomorrow."

“Then I will be there,” Carl said. "Before first light."

“You might want to look over the message, before you set out,” the Gondorian advised in parting. “To see if you have any concerns.”

The hobbit’s face quickly soured. “Don’t you worry about me,” Carl said gruffly, wondering if it was standard Gondorian practice for messengers to read the letters they carried. He withdrew the scroll from its place in his pocket, turning it over in his hands before carrying it inside and placing it gingerly in his pack, unopened.

His host came over wiping his hands on a rag as he looked out the doorway at the straight back and black uniform of the retreating messenger. “I haven’t gotten you in trouble with the king’s men, now have I?” he whispered.

“Oh, no. He'd come here to deliver this,” the hobbit said, reaching back and withdrawing the scroll again to show to his host.

“Aren’t you going to read it then? It looks important.”

“Read it!" Carl was suddenly fiercely indignant. “Does everyone here always read what is placed in their care? I will take it back to The Mayor, and he can read it!”

The Gondorian farmer reached out and lightly tapped his index finger on the black ink of the document saying meekly, ”But that's your name there Carl, and not your Mayor's.”

"It is?" Carl looked at the parchment, his anger dissolving, “For me? But I never learned to...,” The hobbit didn't finish his thought, in truth he was feeling a bit lost, realizing that he would be leaving soon and empty handed. “Here then, would you be kind enough to read it for me? I can’t for myself you see.”

The farmer willingly obliged, and speaking slowly and haltingly his face registered with emotion as the letter went on.

“Mordor? Mordor!” Carl said weakly when the farmer had fallen silent again. “And here I told the man that I’d go, thinking it only back to the Shire.”

“But it is a noble task you are called to do,” his host said. “Those slaves could have been any one of us, or of our kin.”

“Aye,” Carl breathed. “I am honored to be called upon, but just hope I’m up to such important business.”

“You are, and you must be!” the man said. “The King has called you to be.”

Carl nodded, lapsing into thought.

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Firefoot · 06-23-2006, 12:34 PM

MAJOR CHARACTER -- SLAVE ESCAPEE

NAME: Johari

AGE: 31

RACE: Man

GENDER: Female

WEAPONS: Her fists, fingernails…

APPEARANCE: 5’7”, tough, wiry, and lean. She has medium-toned skin that shows clear signs of having worked as a Mordor slave all her life; her hands are callused and rough. Her hair is dark and coarse and is always held out of her face. She has dark, fierce but wary eyes and an expressive face. Her clothing is simple and worn: breeches, shirt, and tunic. She has no shoes, so her feet are as callused as her hands. Various whip-scars line her body, mostly on her back and the backs of her legs.

PERSONALITY/STRENGTHS/WEAKNESSES: Johari is more passionate than intelligent, more prone to fight than work it out with words, and more likely to act first and think later. She tends to be scornful of weakness. The result of this was frequent trouble with those in charge of her. However, this has grown less frequent as she has gotten older; the futility of her own battles against her situation eventually began to wear on her, and she has sunk down into hopelessness and depression. Apathy has numbed the fiercer parts of her personality. She really has no hopes left from her spirited childhood, only determination to find her “son” (see history) and make life better for him.

HISTORY: Johari was born into slavery; however, her mother had been a captured slave from Harad and would often tell her stories of freedom that inspired Johari and gave her hopes that one day she might be free too. But her mother died when she was ten, leaving her to understand the underlying realities of slavery. Sauron was defeated when she was twelve, raising her hopes once more, only to have them come crashing down around her as she realized nothing about her situation had really changed. Always a fighter by nature, this second crashing of her hopes really set in motion her private war (as she thought of it) with the slave holders. After a few encounters with their whips, she tried to be more subtle, but she was too easily provoked into mouthing off to or even, on one or two occasions, physically attacking the slave overseers.

She continued to fight it until she was about 20, at which point the ferocity and frequency of her miniature rebellions began to slack off; she simply had a hard time finding the point of it any more.

At 24, in an odd turn of compassion she noticed a young orphaned boy Kalin and took him under her care. He was never cut out for a slave’s life, however, being rather frail and sickly (although her affection for him rather blinded her to this; she could not believe such weakness in one so close to her), and without her care he probably would have died sooner than he did; he died when she was 28, although she managed to convince herself in her grief that he had not died but escaped this cruel life of slavery as she had always wished to do. Since then, it has been her only desire to find him and make a better life for the two of them.

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Firefoot's post - Johari

Rebellion, they had said. Escape. Johari hadn’t cared about much more than that, not about how the rest of them planned to get out nor even if they would be successful. Only one thought occurred to her: Kalin. Now would be her chance to find him. She didn’t care about the rest of them, but she would escape. She would find him.

There was no hope involved in her determination. Hope was like water, Johari had once decided: once you learn to live with plenty of it, life becomes all the harder without it. And hope died slowly: it was more like a thousand little deaths that wasted you away until you were nothing. Johari had seen it happen in her mother and had experienced it herself; it was better simply to live without hope. Then you were never disappointed, as you surely would be in this forsaken land that killed all hopes. No, her determination resulted from the conviction that eventually she would escape and that she would find him. If not this time, there would be a next time. There would always be a next time.

It was a fact, and therefore required no hope or effort to believe in. It simply was.

The night came. Chaos reigned supreme. Slaves, singly, in pairs, in mobs, all ran, fueled by the hope and promise of freedom. Only some would make it away – only some would survive; the rest, hopes quashed, would be returned to their barracks and to work the next day. Johari did not think of this. She did not think at all. She just ran.

She avoided their dogs, more out of instinct than conscious decision. She did not stay and fight, she did not stop to help the others. She just ran.

Towards the mountains. Kalin was a smart boy. He would have taken refuge there. Rumors even existed that other escaped slaves were living in those mountains; he might have found them. She shifted her course, practically flying through the fields - not caring whether she trampled the growing crops - into the hills beyond: already farther than she had ever traveled in her life. It was only now as she reached this comparative safety that she slowed her pace. Her legs and lungs were burning, and her make-shift pack thumped uncomfortably on her back. She did not stop completely, though, but kept moving, always listening for pursuit behind her. At one point she heard hoof-beats, but she stayed in the shadows and never saw them anyway.

On into the night she walked, never once feeling the ecstatic rush of freedom that might be expected. For her, escape was not the realization of hopes and dreams. Once it might have been; now it was only fact fulfilled.

In the next days, she found a group of escaped slaves and was welcomed into their fold. It did not occur to them that Johari was content, happier even, to travel by herself. She did not feel heartened by their presence; she did not care that they, too, had escaped. She had a purpose, and these ones would not help her with it… especially when they started discussing settling down and hiding in the foothills of the mountains while they decided what to do. Johari already knew what she wanted; she didn’t care what the rest of them did. Nevertheless, she had reluctantly decided to at least stay the night there with them; she wouldn’t get any farther in the dark.

The next morning they found themselves surrounded. Johari quickly realized, as did the rest of the escaped slaves, that these tough-looking strangers were not trying to capture them but help them. Maybe they would know about Kalin – she would certainly be asking…

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MINOR CHARACTER - ORC

Name: Grask

Age: 9

Race: Orc

Gender: Male

Weapons: A long knife that serves him as a sword, purloined off the body of a dead Orc.

Appearance: Around 4’ tall and a little on the thin side; “lanky” is a word he is growing into, with rather long limbs. Only wears a sleeveless tunic. He is perpetually dirty.

Personality/Strengths/Weaknesses: Like most young Orcs, Grask tries to stay relatively unobtrusive among older Orcs to avoid risking their wrath, and tussle amongst themselves to prove or better their fighting abilities (usually without real weapons). Not being particularly burly or strong, Grask tries to avoid these fights mostly; he is quite competent at looking after himself. Definitely more of a follower than a leader, he takes his cues from those around him. He can also be very curious.

History: Grask has no real concept of his own parentage. He has very vague memories of a mother-figure, though he has no real emotional connection to her. He assumes she died, or perhaps just abandoned him at some point; this doesn’t bother him, though, since this is more the norm than the exception in Orkish culture. Other than that, his history is unremarkable and consists really only of day-to-day survival. It was only by chance that he found out about the rebellion at all, but he immediately decided to join them, feeling that a large battle would be in no way beneficial to him.

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~*~*~

That about completes it.

Durelin · 06-23-2006, 03:08 PM

Hilde and Firefoot - Excellent bios, both of you!

Hilde - Forgive me, but did we ever decide if you were playing a minor character/what kind you were playing?

Child of the 7th Age · 06-23-2006, 04:02 PM

Hi, Durelin!

I believe Hilde said she'd prefer not to take up a minor character at the beginning of the game. She would wait and see if a need for a particular character developed in the course of playing the actual game.

Hilde - If I've not said that correctly and/or you've changed your mind, please let us know. The bio looks great.

Hilde Bracegirdle · 06-23-2006, 04:57 PM

Thanks Child, you are absolutely correct, and I do hope that that is alright. I hadn't been aware the minor character requirement until after I had PM'd you and have been trying to fly below radar since then regarding it.

Child of the 7th Age · 06-23-2006, 05:55 PM

Hilde -

Since we are fortunate in having a "full roster" of posters, I think that this will work.

_______________

If anyone in Rohan is still interested in playing, we could particularly use one more orc.

piosenniel · 06-24-2006, 02:12 AM

My post is now done.

~*~ Pio

Hilde Bracegirdle · 06-24-2006, 05:26 PM

A question oh stalwart leaders. Do we know where and when the fellowships' members are to meet? It would greatly help Mr. Cotton, and Hilde for that matter, to know.

Child of the 7th Age · 06-24-2006, 06:21 PM

Hilde,

This is a good question. We haven't discussed this recently, but this is what I recall.

First, we will do a time condense leap at the start of the game. One problem in many rpgs is that they take a long time for characters to get on the trail and for the different groups to meet up. We've had so many games get bogged down, and we wanted to avoid that, since the focus of this story should be on events in Mordor.

After our first posts are up but before the game officially opens, I will supply a time condense post getting the Fellowship all the way to the Sea of Núrnen. The fellowship will arrive after the two-month deadline that the slaves set. My guess is that Durelin will do a similar post for the slaves stating that they waited 2 months and, when no one came, they set out on their own.

This is what I envisioned for the second post---the point where we start active posting....

1. The Fellowship arrives at the empty caves and looks on in shock. They decide to go forward and attempt to find the slaves.

2. After waiting a full two months, the slaves have already set out to the north, downhearted to have received no help.

3. The Orcs gather at their separate meeting point and then decide to head north on a path that will eventually bring them into a collision course with the slaves/fellowship. Obviously they don't know this!

The fellowship and slaves should meet up quickly (real and game time) , since the fellowship has horses. My hope is that we will have the two groups (Orcs versus slaves/fellowship) come together in the first two weeks of the story. We can discuss that later.

So the short answer, Hilde, would be that you may not have to worry where the Fellowship meets! If you need information, just assume it is at the royal palace, and that Elessar supplies horses and all equipment beyond the personal things that you carry.

Pio, Durelin - was this also your understanding? If I've got it wrong, please advise so we can straighten things out. Does anyone see a problem?

Folwren · 06-24-2006, 08:52 PM

I have another question.

When is the game actually going to be starting, do you know yet? I'm in no particular rush, understand, I just would like to know if I'll be absent during the beginning of the game, or if it will be at a time when I'm home or what.

Also, I'm leaving Monday morning and returning Friday afternoon. If I miss anything important, I'd appreciate if I were alerted so I'd know to go back and read everything. Otherwise, I'd just as soon be lazy and skip all that reading.

I will, of course, read all the bios and first posts that are new, but all the discussion is what I'm talking about. There can be a lot of discussion in five days on a new RPG discussion thread. . .

Anyhow, it's time for me to go to bed. Goodnight, everyone.

-- Folwren

Tevildo · 06-24-2006, 11:55 PM

Piosenniel, Child, or whoever....

I've put up a draft of my post in my box. I may do some editing tomorrow so please don't move it till I give the word. Thanks.

piosenniel · 06-25-2006, 12:01 AM

Nogrod and Tevildo

I'm not going to move your posts - they will stay in your original post boxes until the game opens.

Tevildo

I will note on the 'WRITER/CHARACTER' list that you have written your post.

Nogrod

I did note on the 'WRITER/CHARACTER' that you have a partial post written.

-------

FYI:

The 'WRITER/CHARACTER' list is just a tool used to keep tabs on who needs to get what done.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

EDIT

If you see an 'edited by piosenniel' on your character bio/first post box, it's just me setting your post up for easy transfer to the game thread.

~*~ Pio

Hilde Bracegirdle · 06-25-2006, 06:39 AM

Thanks so much Child. That is and was of great help. Oh and tomorrow morning as a start time was pulled out of the air. If it needs to be changed, just let me know and I will do the needful.

Carl's first post is now on board in block #51.

Durelin · 06-25-2006, 09:50 AM

That is quite what I had in mind, Child.

My only thought now is that perhaps the moving on of the slaves group and the catching up of the Fellowship group might be a bit more than is necessary. But I also think it would be boring if everything worked out smoothly...

piosenniel · 06-25-2006, 10:29 AM

re: post 58 - Child

That looks good to me. And will get us right into the heart of the game.

~*~ Pio

Child of the 7th Age · 06-25-2006, 11:11 AM

Durelin, Pio,

Sounds as if we're in basic agreement

Durelin, I am not wed to the idea of having the slaves leave first and the fellowship finding empty caves.. I can easily write it the other way if we think we want more time to focus on other plot twists . Let me know what you prefer......

I'll try to take a stab at that post today, although it will probably not be till later tonight. (If I don't hear from you I may do two drafts and see what we like....)

Durelin · 06-25-2006, 12:15 PM

After a little thought: the Fellowship finding an empty cave is the better way to go. A more *exciting* start is best to get things moving.

Regin Hardhammer · 06-25-2006, 01:56 PM

My post is up.

Orofaniel · 06-25-2006, 05:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Child of the 7th Age

Nova
Oro - Looks good. I know your character does not know his exact orgin, but do his looks give us any hint as to where he was originally from? Most of the slaves were likely from Harad or East, but there would have been others dragged there from Rohan, Gondor, or other points to the west.

Also, Oro, do you have any planned vacations this summer?

Oh. Okay. I thought of him as a Harad when writing. I'll edit a bit.

It is likely that I'll be gone all of next week....

Quote:

Ex-Slaves

Orofaniel - Ex-slave, male - SHORT BIO ONLY NEEDED

Wasn't I supposed to do a slave-escapee?

Doesn't really matter though. Any way you want it.

I'm just a bit confused.

piosenniel · 06-25-2006, 05:52 PM

Unconfuse yourself Oro - I've switched you into your correct category of minor characters -- slave escapee.

~*~ Pio

Orofaniel · 06-25-2006, 06:01 PM

Oh. Okay. Lol.

Thanks. Will be up tomorrow.

Cheers,
Oro

Child of the 7th Age · 06-26-2006, 12:38 AM

I need to have my head examined, but I couldn't resist.

I created a minor character---a male orc who is an Uruk-hai. I've put up a bio and short post in my original box.

Firefoot · 06-26-2006, 11:29 AM

I just want to make sure I have this right:

The slaves escape from a plantation somewhere on the northwest shore of the Sea of Nurnen, correct? And now at the start of the RPG, they're camping out in the southern mountains? Does this mean that to get to the mountains they've already travelled about 100 miles (much of it being fertile land, granted), including crossing the west-east river that sticks out of the Sea of Nurnen (that's what I'm getting from looking at my map)?

I'm working on my First Post now; it should be up later today (ah! WW influences butting in... I want to say toDay...

).

Nogrod · 06-26-2006, 11:41 AM

Upgraded versions. 010706

Major character -- SLAVE ESCAPEE:

NAME: Hadith (or ”Apples”).

AGE: 18

RACE: Human.

GENDER: Male

WEAPONS: A crude sling made of a single-layered string and a leatherband, a pouch of pebbles, a selfmade knife that is both dull and impractical.

APPEARANCE: Tall and slender, somewhat skinny indeed. Dark-skinned and brown-eyed. His father was a southern man and her mother a Gondorian from Osgiliath. Only his high cheekbones and ears betray her mother’s blood in him. As all the other somewhat healthy slaves, he’s muscular and agile for the hard physical work they have been forced to do from the age of 10 onwards. Thereare scars all around him, but one is exceptionally nasty. It’s on his right cheek, from years ago when a guard-orc hit him with a whip he had been too slow. He wears basic slave clothing, a dirty tunic and loose trousers of low-quality cotton. As Hadith has lately been working at the masonry he has been given rough shoes and a belt to tie his tunic. His most valuable possession is his father’s headband, rescued by the other slaves in the crude funerals when he died.

PERSONALITY/STRENGTHS/WEAKNESSES: Basically Hadith is an easy-going young man, just like her mother had been. At times the impulsiveness of his father turns on and he can be quite stubborn with his ideas. He’s also quick to laugh and join the fun in a familiar company as his father was, but recent affairs have made him more serious and reserved. Even though some might think of him as a nice person, he seems not to have any close friends. The older slaves have pitied him because of his losses and helped to take care of him when he was younger, but with other slaves of his age he’s not very familiar with.

HISTORY: Hadith was one of the many who were born after Sauron was defeated. A child made with great expectations and hope of the new and free world. But still he had been born a slave. He had been raised a slave and he grew up to be a slave. His identity was that of a slave. Until lately he saw no other future available for him but ending his days as a slave too, maybe getting a child or two with some of the slave girls.

His father died when he was four. He doesn’t remember much of him. He has some vague memories of a bearded dark man giving him an orange – a rare gift indeed – and a remembrance of eyes that shone brightly with love and care. He also remembers the soft voice that said: ”Here’s a treasure Apples, bite and taste the times gone by so that you know…” But that was all there was about his father.

Hadith’s mother had died only a year ago. She had been caught up trying to smuggle some wheat into the barracks. She had been made an example in front of a crowd of slaves. She was old and weary anyhow, so the plantantion owners could afford a little showdown to curb the unrest that seemed to be piling up day by day. Hadith had regular nightmares about the torturing ever since. He had been called up to the gallows to witness her slow, painful and humiliating death. He was seventeen then. There were stains of blood in his tunic even today. That piece of cloth he would never wash or change. That was his oath to himself.

But on that day the seeds of rebellion was definitively planted in him. He would do whatever he could to get out of that terrible condition that was called his life. He made plans and revised them. He turned to those he thought he could trust but found himself disappointed time after another. It was quite near he didn’t got to the gallows himself as one of his ”friends” turned him in in hope of a reward for revealing a mutiny. He still remembered the voice of the Easterling captain as he coldly looked at the two of them in front of a host of others. ”That skinny loser would not be scheming anything! Look at that dull look on his face and the skeleton he call his body! Give him a sightseeing!” They had tied him with a rope to a horse that was then beaten to run all over the camp. The Easterlings and the orcs were laughing, but the slaves looked at the terrible show in silence, their hearts slowly sinking once again with the sight of one of them being mutilated and humiliated. He was bruised all over, he lost two of his teeth and his left arm was broken from the elbow. But he was alive.

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Minor character:

NAME: Gwerr

AGE: Not known

RACE: Orc

GENDER: Male

WEAPONS: His favourite weapon is a Dwarven battle-axe he looted from a battle long ago. He uses it with deadly precision and brutal force. Gwerr also carries a long dagger or a short saber – whatever way you like to look at it. That also is an earlier possession of someone already dead. It used to belong to an easterling captain with whom Gwerr had an argument over a game of dices.

APPEARANCE: Gwerr is a bit short even by orc-standards, but he is sturdy and muscular. He’s just the one you wouldn’t like to pick up a fight with. He has a battered helmet with a visor that covers the eyes and the nose. He wears a fur coat of a black elk tied up with a metal belt and uses his old heavy leather-metal boots of the times of Mordor’s flourishing. He has lost his right eye and the empty eyehole is covered with a metal plate stiched into his skin. He also wears an elven bracelet under his furs, but he doesn’t actually like to show it to others. It’s something that is his and only his secret.

PERSONALITY/STRENGTHS/WEAKNESSES: Gwerr is a walking and breathing example of orcishness: battle-hardened, quick-tempered, dogged, but also resourceful, firm and able. Gwerr has lived too long to be any more a hotheaded berserk that young orcs sometimes are. He may flare up from nothing, but more often than not, he is also able to tone down his primary reactions and to think before he acts. Lately he has fallen to thinking more often than before and his view of his current situation is quite gloomy. The Easterlings have taken just too much power and command over their lives. There was no future for the orcs in this system that was unraveling itself. Alone he could not change it and so other ideas have started to form in his age-old mind. Gwerr is one of the planners of the orc-runaways.

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Nogrod's post - Hadith

Hadith heard of the plan two days before it was going to be put into action. It was not a clumsy one of his own making, but a realistic one embedded in the grander scale rebellion that had been talked quietly for months all over the plantation. Kurrah and Zilin, the influential elders in their barracks were the minds behind it. Their barracks would not take part in the rebellion but would use the opportunity to just go for their own. Kurrah and Zilin thought the whole idea of a common rebellion to be pure madness and fantasy of the hotheads. It would just lead to more suffering: many would die and the rest would in any case be rounded up and the conditions would turn even worse with lots of new tougher rules and regulations, not to talk of some general punishments everyone would have to bear after the uprising. But the general disorder could be used for their benefit. They could sneak out in the overall confusion by first giving an impression to the guards that they were not involved.

The rebellion broke some moments after midnight. All the doors of the barracks were bursted open with the forordained signal from one of the barracks and the angry slaves ran out from them, challenging the guards on duty. There was a general alarm and in an instant the frenzied slaves saw the orc and easterling soldiers rushing in to bring order to the plantation and cut the rebellion down to its beginning.

Kurrah and Zalin had waited a short moment after they heard the uprising had begun and then carefully opened the door of their barracks. As their door had stayed closed when the mayhem started, only three orc-guards were left to keep an eye of their barracks. The others had rushed to help in the fight that was now in full flare. Kurrah and Zilin had distracted the orc-guards by quering them about the situation when the general uprising had begun. While their guards were busy trying to have an eye of the general situation and explaining it to Kurrah and Zilin, the others from the barracks had a chance to sneak out. Soon the guards got hang of what was going on, but then Kurrah and Zilin attacked them with forks and spoons. All items one could call a weapon were left to those who would try to escape. Hadith had not been given a weapon as he was deemed too young to claim one with the shortage of them, but he had his sling and the crude knife that he had made himself in the general anticipation of the rebellion.

Those two older men sacrificed themselves to get the others out that night. And they made it. Some of the other older men – and a few women - had decided to sacrifice themselves too, and that really made the difference as they entered the battle between the two older men and the three orcs. The orc-guards had no chance to report that the “peaceful“ barracks had done a runaway as they had to fight for their lives against a dozen of elderly people armed with kitchen utensils. The heroism of these elders saved the others of that barracks on that night. The fleeing slaves heard their cries as they ran away from the barracks.

Before long one easterling chieftain noted the escape of one of the barracks in the middle of the fight. Even though bringing down the general rebellion tied up lots of the orc-forces and the Easterling guards, some horsemen were sent to trail them too. Soon the escaping slaves heard the horses coming after them. Hadith looked back to see the whole plantation lit and full of movement. Other slaves fought bravely but most of them were fast rounded up and beaten back to their barracks. Two small groups of riders sent after them both were seemingly taking a wrong direction.

Hadith’s heart was thumping and his hands were trembling from excitement. They were free! Or at least they might be! After they had crossed the fields, the small hills and knolls covered them with the aid of darkness spreading over the plains. They had actually escaped! The thought kept crawling into his mind, and everytime he tried to push it away. It’s not sure yet, anything could happen. It was an idea so huge he couldn’t just take it. To be free! To be not pushed around, to be not told what to do. How could he decide what to do? Like for example tomorrow morning? Whether to wake up or not, whether to dress or not? It was fantastic and scary at the same time. Well the remaining elders will tell me what to do and where to go, he thought to himself, a bit saddened and relieved at the same time. There was some order in his life anyhow.

A riding search-party of the Easterlings actually spotted them on the next day, but they were so clearly outnumbered and being so far away from any reinforcements, that they didn’t even try to round them up but let them go. That was the confirmation for Hadith. They actually were free now.

During the same day some individual escapees from other barracks who had escaped the searching parties joined their ranks. They were welcomed, but there were no great hurraahs’ about. After a couple of days they were taken unawares by a small group of other ex-slaves. They seemed a ragged and tough party of people. To Hadith they were heroes – and he was thinking, that he would too become like them. A hero, no longer a slave. A freee man.

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Durelin · 06-26-2006, 12:46 PM

To Everyone:

If everyone would like to simply finish the first post for their main character, the short bio for your minor character can wait until after the game has started.

We can then get things started sooner. We don't want anyone getting bored.

Thanks!

~Durelin

Edit:

Quote:

The slaves escape from a plantation somewhere on the northwest shore of the Sea of Nurnen, correct? And now at the start of the RPG, they're camping out in the southern mountains? Does this mean that to get to the mountains they've already travelled about 100 miles (much of it being fertile land, granted), including crossing the west-east river that sticks out of the Sea of Nurnen (that's what I'm getting from looking at my map)?

Sorry, Firefoot. To answer your question: I was picturing the plantation being more Southeast. I am not sure if I was correct in this, though. I saw the most resonable place for the slaves to escape to to be the Southern range of the Mountains because otherwise they would have to cross the rest of Nurn, which means they would be much more likely to be recaptured.

What were you picturing, Child? And again, a thousand apologies if I've missed something...

Firefoot · 06-26-2006, 01:04 PM

Okay, that would make much more sense. Thanks for the clarification!

Child of the 7th Age · 06-26-2006, 01:43 PM

Durelin - Please clear your pms. when you get a chance.

Can't imagine why you'd have so many....

Nogrod · 06-26-2006, 02:34 PM

I don't know about you, but I felt I needed the lists this way to make myself comfortable with the host of people "starring" the roles in our game. Hopefully it helps you others too...

Btw. Should we have a list of important NPC's too - so of those people who would be in leading roles but would not be the ones we are writing? At least the slave escapees seem to me to be people who are mostly young and inexperienced - and surely there are some that lead those people. I don't think any 12-year old would take the lead.

So should we just name a few leader persons, give them a character in one sentence and then see where we will take them as our common NPCs or something?

The inhabitants of Mordor

The Orcs, total of ?:
Regin Hardhammer - Ishkur, Orc rebel (male)
Undómë - Zagra & Mazhg, Orc rebel, sisters
Regin Hardhammer - Ungolt, Orc, female
Child of the 7th Age - Makdush, Uruk-hai
Nogrod - Gwerr, Orc rebel (male)
Novnarwen - Orc, male
Firefoot - Orc, male

The slave escapees, total of 56(?):
Nogrod - Hadith (aka Apples), slave escapee (male)
Firefoot - Slave escapee (female)
Undómë – Slave escapee, female
Tevildo – Azhar, slave escapee, 12 y/o female
Folwren - Kwell Dunfire, slave escapee, young boy
Orofaniel - slave escapee

The ex-slaves, total of 14(?):
Durelin – Khamir,Ex-slave
Orofaniel - Reagonn, ex-slave (male)
Novnarwen - Aedhild ex-slave (female)

piosenniel · 06-26-2006, 03:01 PM

If the fellowship crosses the mountains where the Poros River originates in the Ephel Duath - then they could have taken a ship to Pelargir (with a fair wind and with the river's current it would be less than 2 days.)

From Pelargir to the mountain crossing is a little over 100 miles on foot -- or horses could also be brought by ship.

~*~ Pio

Undómë · 06-26-2006, 03:08 PM

hmmmmm . . . Nogrod I'm not quite sure what you mean by NPC's.

Are you referring to the players' minor characters?

Nogrod · 06-26-2006, 03:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Undómë

hmmmmm . . . Nogrod I'm not quite sure what you mean by NPC's.

Are you referring to the players' minor characters?

Not indeed, but to the Non Player Characters. If the slave escapees total something like 56 people and there are 6 writers with characters, it means that there are 50 people "coming along" - and some of those would be quite important characters indeed (if we play only the young "hang-arounds").

So what I was asking, was whether we should have something like a shared understanding that f.ex. the leader of the slave escapees is named Quahan and is 36 years old fiery character with a 10 year old child whom he protects over all else - or is she Dûmin, a 56 year old lady, the renowned maid of a chieftain killed long ago... or whatever. So that we would be writing the same people and the same story. Of course we may go on writing and then the first to write about the slave-escapee -leaders will get to invent their names and such, but we could also discuss them before they are actually written into the story...

Anyway you people like it. I'm still only at my second RPG here and am new to the ways these things are handled.

06-21-2006, 06:30 PM	#41
Regin Hardhammer Shade of Carn Dûm Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: Tumunzahar/Nogrod Posts: 364	Here is the profile for my main character. Thank you Undomie for your advice. I will station my character as an advanced gaurd for the party. - Regin NAME: Ishkur AGE: Does not know RACE: Orc GENDER: Male WEAPONS: Ishkur has a curved steel scimitar that he keeps in a sheath by his side. He wears an iron helmet, slightly rusted, with a visor that conceals most of his face when it is down as well as a suit of chain mail and an old iron shield emblazoned with the eye of Sauron. His weapon of choice, however, is his large yew bow, which he is very skilled in using. He also has a quiver made of marsh reeds and arrows that he made himself from the precious few trees that he could find in Nurn. He does not remember where he got the bow, though he has used the weapon his whole life. The bow has intricate and unusual carvings and is unlike anything that other Orcs possess. APPEARANCE: Ishkur is unusually tall for a traditional orc, around six feet in height. He is strong and muscular, although not as bulky as some of his companions. He has dark brown eyes with large black pupils that constantly dart around to spot trouble. His hair is a wild, thick, dark black mess on the top of his head that looks like an overgrown shrubbery. His teeth have fared fairly well given their age, most of them still hanging in his mouth, sharp and stained a pale shade of yellow. Like most orcs, he detests baths. His ears are large and curiously shaped, causing others to make occasional jokes, which he cannot stand. He wears a faded black cloth shirt, frayed and torn at the edges, long brown wool hose, and a pair of leather boots he scavenged from one of his human victims in battle. PERSONALITY/STRENGTHS/WEAKNESSES: Ishkur feels very strongly that he must take control of his own fate and not let others lead him around. He dislikes many orcs and often assumes that they are trying to take advantage of him. As a result, he does not have too many friends and sometimes feel antagonistic toward any who try and help him. He reserves special scorn, however, for his Uruk-Hai commander whom he sees as arrogant and conceited. Ishkur despises taking orders from him and is planning to desert and set out on his own. He hates the Uruk-Hai in particular because, during the late Third Age, these orcs were given the most desirable assignments, yet Ishkur always knew that he was smarter and just as fierce a fighter as any Uruk. Ishkur never flinches from a confrontation. He is incredibly independent and often completes the task at hand while others delay because they are fooling around. Ishkur is unusually articulate for an orc and even uses words to trick his dim witted competitors. In the course of thousands of years he has indulged in many vices including pillaging villages, eating human flesh, and killing any elf or man that gets in his way. He does not like that there are so many females in the group that he will be escaping with, but he is willing to travel with them as long as they don’t drag the group down HISTORY: Ishkur does not like thinking about his past because he can not remember anything from early in his life. He tries to block out these questions whenever they come to mind. Although Orcs do not have families, most of them can name their mother or father, but Ishkur is totally in the dark. He has seen generations of orcs die from illness and battle wounds, and he does not understand why he still remains alive. Ishkur remains quite secretive about his long lifespan and has never talked about it with anyone. Ishkur’s earliest memories are of serving Morgoth in the Iron Prison of Angband during the time of the great wars with the elves. Ishkur survived the slaughter in Beleriand and, following Morgoth’s imprisonment, enlisted in Sauron’s service. After Sauron established himself in the black land of Mordor, Ishkur went with him, continuing to battle against Elves and men for many centuries. For the past hundred years he has not seen much fighting since Sauron stationed him to guard over the slaves of a large plantation in Nurn. After the War of the Ring, when the Easterling landlords took over, many of the Orc guards fled the plantations. At this point Ishkur signed on with a local Orc chieftain. Now he has become frustrated with the stupidity of his group leader and decided to join the rebel faction. In this way, he hopes to stop others from boxing him in and have the chance to chart his own path. ________________________ Profile for Minor Character NAME: Ungolt AGE: 28 RACE: Orc GENDER: Female WEAPONS: Like most orc women, Ungolt has never been trained to fight with weapons. She has a large oaken club fashioned out of a fallen tree that she uses to kill game. Although Ungolt has not told anyone, she longs to fight with real weapons and wield a sword or spear of her own. She knows that in orc society those who are the best fighters earn the most respect. But she also sees that orcs frown upon teaching women combat and do not allow them to fight in battle so that it is very unlikely she will ever realize her dream. APPEARANCE: Ungolt stands about 5”2 inches tall with dark grey skin and clear dark blue eyes. Once in a while she will even take a swim in a river and emerge relatively clean. . Her dark brown hair is straight and long, filled with tangles and tight knots. She does not have large muscles, but is extremely quick on her feet and dexterous with her hands. By orc standards she is good looking and sometimes attracts the attention of male orcs, in whom she has no interest. PERSONALITY/STRENGTHS/WEAKNESSES: Being confined to orc breeding colonies all her life, Ungolt was forced to toughen up and find a way to survive. Over the years she has become increasingly numb and lost the ambitions she once had. She acts meekly and defers to authority because she was powerless in the hands of the males who controlled her life. Even after her escape, she continues to defer to the male orcs, both out of necessity and habit. She keeps her true feelings and wishes to herself. All her life, she was forced to steal and lie in order to stay alive. She has no concept of morality and does not realize how her actions affect others. Ungolt always takes the easiest way out of a situation instead of the one that may benefit her in the long run. She has questions about her abilities and potential, yet these remain buried deep inside. Her anger against male orcs has always stayed hidden, but there is some indication that it may surface and explode if she’s forced to work with the men in a small and close knit band. HISTORY: Ungolt does not know where she was born and does not remember who her birthmother was. From an early age she was working in the fields tilling the soil. Ungolt slowly began to increase her knowledge of crop farming and remember useful details from one harvest to the next. She saw which plants to put where, what kind of food was best for what crop, and what time of year each plant was ready for harvest. She learned these things almost unconsciously at the time, but it is possible they will be of great use later. She was sent to work in the breeding grounds at an early age because of her desirable appearance. Every day she would go to work and come back tired with little memory of what had transpired. The one thing she really missed was working on the land. After the fall of the great eye, she escaped from her farm and settled in a nearby community in Nurn. When she heard that the Easterlings were about to make war with the orcs she decided to join the rebels because she did not want to be hurt. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Regin Hardhammer's post - Ishkur Ishkur glared angrily at the small rock that he had been kicking around the dirt path. He was beginning to regret requesting advance guard duty. Ishkur hated waiting for others particularly when he had absolutely nothing to do. His mission as he vaguely recalled was to scout out the best path of leaving the orc encampment and guide others along it until they were safely out of range. A few hours ago, Ishkur had quietly slipped away and found a trail hidden by the cover of a grove of small trees not far from the southern edge of camp. He had told the others and now waited impatiently for the exodus of rebellious orcs to begin. The minutes and hours dragged on. It was the women, he thought in exasperation. They always took a long time to move anywhere. Most of them were slow and weak and only served to drag down the group. It had been better when they were kept on separate breeding farms. The longer he waited, the greater the chance that their plot would be detected, and they would all be killed. A group of fifteen orcs fleeing the encampment was ample cause for suspicion by even the most inept captain in a bunch of dim witted misfits. Ishkur would have preferred simply leaving with a small group of male warriors, a much faster and safer plan, but such a dream was not to be. Even Ishkur grudgingly recognized that if their group had any hope of surviving on their own they would need more than a few male warriors. Numbers meant strength and safety. Individual orcs had always been regarded with disdain. In all his years on Middle-earth, Ishkur had never before been part of a group that ran away from the orc band to which they were assigned. Of course, Ishkur was not participating in this little experiment just to be noble. No, he simply could not stand being lorded over by the pathetic Uruk-hai, the arrogant and overbearing leaders that controlled every facet of life within camp. The idiots thought because they could tolerate the harsh rays of the sun for hours on end they held some sort of superiority over the other orcs. His commander barked orders to his men with an air of marked contempt. He treated Ishkur as inferior, a class below him in intelligence, strength, and capability. The plain fact was that Ishkur was probably a match in fighting with any Uruk-hai and definitely had more brains. Ishkur had tolerated such vile treatment far too long until he had finally decided to act. He would go with this new group, and they would stake out a territory far to the north of Nurn. From the moment he heard whispers about the expedition in the late hours of drinking around the campfire, he knew that he must join them. They would have the opportunity to go hunting and raiding on their own and would have no need for anyone to approve of what they did. He volunteered to be an advanced guard because he did not want to stay behind and help the weaker ones escape, but he found waiting ahead of the group agonizing. Ishkur returned to kicking the rock, hoping that it would be more interesting than staring in the direction of the orc encampment and wondering how quickly the others would come. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Last edited by piosenniel; 06-28-2006 at 08:27 PM.

06-22-2006, 12:27 AM	#42
Undómë Shade of Carn Dûm Join Date: Mar 2005 Posts: 400	Nice bio, Regin! My post is now up for the two sisters. ~*~ U __________________ Young she was and yet not so. The braids of her dark hair were touched by no frost, her white arms and clear face were flawless and smooth, and the light of stars was in her bright eyes, grey as a cloudless night . . .

06-22-2006, 02:16 AM	#43
Tevildo Shade of Carn Dûm Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Curled up on Melko's lap Posts: 425	I have put up the profile for my minor character in my box. I left off the history section, which I hope is alright. p.s. Correction .... I gave Azhar a two-sentence history. I think it says everything that could be said for anyone living in this situation. __________________ Now Tevildo was a mighty cat--the mightiest of all--and possessed of an evil spirit,...and he was in Melko's constant following; and that cat had all cats subject to him, and he and his subjects were the chasers and getters of meat for Melko's table. Last edited by Tevildo; 06-22-2006 at 03:29 AM.

06-22-2006, 03:03 AM	#44
Thinlómien Shady She-Penguin Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: In a far land beyond the Sea Posts: 8,093	Hullo all! Just dropping in and announcing I'm alive (and playing at least one minor character later in the game) and I'm following the thread. As my character(s) is/are coming in only in August, I assume there's no hurry for me to plan him/her/them. So, maybe nearer to August we could take a look what kind of minor character(s) the story needs. __________________ Like the stars chase the sun, over the glowing hill I will conquer Blood is running deep, some things never sleep Double Fenris

06-22-2006, 10:16 AM	#45
Novnarwen Ghost Prince of Cardolan Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: In your mouth... Eeeew, by the way. :P Posts: 517	Profile for Major Character -- Slave escapee NAME Aedhild AGE: Unknown, though it is estimated to be between 42-52. GENDER: Female RACE: Men WEAPONS: None, except for a sharp tongue (occasionally) and finger nails. APPEARANCE Aedhild is a slave in appearance; the sufferings she has endured have scarred her. Her head was once covered with dark brown hair; over the last years though, grey strands of hair have become dominant. Due to blows to her head (punishment for inappropriate behaviour, few months after coming to the plantation), hair growth on the right side, just above the ear, has not occurred. This baldness is particularly visible now as her hair is thinner. Her thin face is dominated by her cool, grey eyes, which are abnormally glossy, giving her a sickly look. They appear to have a certain depth; some would perhaps say they reflected the complexity and insecurities of her character, others would claim they merely reflect her insanity. She has a delicate mouth, nicely formed lips, dull red in colour. Her nose is small and the tip is round and slightly asymmetric. Though her skin is rather dark, she appears pale and sickly. Her cheeks have sunk in, leaving her cheekbones as a prominent feature of her face. Figure wise, Aedhild is skinny and rather short. She is dressed in rags of cheap, brown and green fabric, stained to the unrecognizable by mud and other filth. PERSONALITY: Aedhild’s personality is heavily dominated by her internal struggles. She has no roots and no or little knowledge about her background and family. Her history, her lack of memories of life without the hardships of slavery at a plantation have mainly, but not necessarily restricted to, led to abnormal and strange behaviour patterns; she assumes roles and characters at different times, not being entirely able to control or comprehend it herself. Sometimes she is violent, indeed a danger to herself, but more importantly however, a danger to others. This type of behaviour is most commonly triggered when exhausted from a day’s work or particularly hungry or cold. Under the extreme conditions she has lived her life, this behaviour has occurred at regular intervals, and though she behaves threateningly and is capable of doing unimaginable things, this has saved her lives on many occasions; the spontaneous and determined character she adopts at the same time was ultimately what managed to get her away from the plantation and slavery. In addition to this illness or syndrome, she suffers from regular fits, which sometimes results in loss of consciousness. These fits started many years ago, after repetitive blows to the stomach and back regions, and the head. (She was beaten as a punishment for her most inappropriate behaviour (threatening one of the plantations guards), and was almost left to die in the field if it hadn’t been for some of the other slaves taking care of her.) The fits, which come irregularly and without warning, have greatly alarmed her when herself (if she ever really is herself), because they do not seem to cease over time; Aedhild might not be aware of how quickly she can change from being a silent, humble patient, but more importantly a vulnerable person, to an angry, violent (at times completely out of control) and irreversibly determined person, she is aware of the danger of the fits that occasionally occur. This weakness and vulnerability frightens her. These difficulties have also made other people reserved in her presence; although at most times very absent-minded, Aedhild is not stupid; she is perfectly aware of people’s hesitation in approaching her either in friendship or any other relations. This awareness has made her very vulnerable, and she usually isolates herself, not wanting to be part of a bigger crowd. It also seems that her understanding of other people’s fears and hesitation trigger, if not the fits, than at least the more threatening behaviour patterns. HISTORY: Aedhild has few memories of life prior to working at the plantations in Mordor. She has counted about twenty seven years at the plantations, but know that she was a grown woman, healthy and youthful, by the time she came to Mordor. Estimated age is in the range of 42-52. Although some features of her appearance bear resemblance to that of the Haradrim, it’s doubtful that she is a ‘full-blood’ Haradrim. Aedhild remembers awakening by screams of horror. Suddenly, she found herself in the grasp of a horrid creature she had never set her eyes on before. Although there were a couple of people she thought she recognized, she recalls being numb and absolutely dumbfounded, unable to utter a single word; shocked by finding herself in the hands of an Orc, her body sore and aching, Aedhild could not do anything but stand still, unable to comprehend what was happening. Taken to a plantation in the eastern part of the region, she never saw the people she thought she recognized, perhaps knew in what seems to her another lifetime. The days, weeks, years after coming to the plantation have been nothing but hard work. When young, she worked in the fields, seeing to the crops and harvesting during fall. When time caught up with her, she was set to do other work, equally exhausting. During the time at the plantations as a slave, Aedhild has endured hardships that have aged her both mentally and physically. Escaping from the plantation had been a rather spontaneous action; she and a dozen other slaves were to be transported to a nearby plantation. Although the escape seemed to have been planned by some of the other slaves, Aedhild had not been involved in any of the planning, and even to this day, she suspect that there was a hidden agenda behind their decision not to confide in her with their intentions. Regardless of her ignorance, Aedhild managed to escape with some of the other slaves nevertheless; some failed to escape, either killed by the Orcs who were involved in the transportation, or taken alive, their destiny unknown. Quickly, Aedhild found herself alone. Never in her wildest dreams would she imagine herself on her own. However, outside of the plantation, she was struck by the realisation that slavery had imprinted too many marks on her to be solely depended on herself. With no known roots, the discovery that she had nowhere to go was hard to bear; at one point, Aedhild even thought of going back to the plantation, even if it meant death. One morning, six weeks after her successful escape, she stumbled upon some footprints, which eventually led her to the caves... ~~ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Novnarwen's post - Aedhild* "Everywhere! They are everywhere! The devils!" Aedhild shrieked and cursed. It was early morning; the wet grass under her feet witnessed of the damp night air. The sun hadn't even rolled over the horizon, and yet, the ex-slave was up, growling. Her shrilly voice echoed; as the sound of her voice hit the stone walls of the caves, it sent out a wave of roars and noise, awakening the rest of the camp. With a peculiar expression, she jumped up and down, sprang from one side to another, twitching and shaking. The excitement reflected in her eyes seemed to belong to a being of another world; her movements were awkward and alien. Few of the ex-slaves didn’t know that Aedhild was a highly unusual character. Already from the very beginning, they had noticed that she was different from most other they had stumbled upon in life; not only did she act irresponsibly and without thinking, but it had also become known amongst them that it was impossible to predict how she would respond to any given situation. In some cases, they would find her sitting quietly, completely avoiding eye contact, and keeping silent for hours and in rare cases days at a time. Occasionally on those particular days, she would perhaps mutter a few words, but no one could make out their meaning. Other times however, she would scream, curse, yes, act very much in the same way as she was acting now. These times, she would narrow her eyes suspiciously, walk about, and snap at people who appeared in any way she didn’t like or approve of. Unfortunately for everyone else, no one knew exactly what she did approve of. On these walkabouts, threats would roll any of the ex-slave's way, regardless of whether she had set her eyes on them before or not. The rest of the slaves had come to an agreement; though not spoken out loud, everyone seemed to share the same view on this particular matter; in sheer fright that Aedhild would do harm to anyone, or herself, sharp objects such as knives and daggers were kept from her. “Lice! They are everywhere!” Bleary eyed and tense with excitement, the woman looked wildly around at the small group of people that surrounded her. Pointing fingers at all of them, she cursed violently, accusing each and every of them of conspiracies; her paranoia seemed endless. “You! You traitor! You have come to give us in, you sneaky scoundrel! Hand us over to them, think you are?!” As she spoke, saliva rained from her mouth. Her voice was cool and desperate, the volume increasing by a notch for every word: “He did this!” she continued, pointing directly toward a bearded youngster. “He spread those foul creatures, sent them to drive me mad! You filthy sc-sc...!!!!” Her words drowned in her screams as she sprang forwards; both her arms outstretched, she aimed for him. Terrified by this extreme behaviour and unexpected turn of events, the man named Eirnar took a few steps back, desperately looking around for a helping hand. No on knew exactly where Aedhild came from; none of the slaves recognized her from the plantation they'd served, and even Aedhild hadn’t been able to explain in detail where she had worked and about her origins. Of appearance, she was a short, skinny woman, her skin dark, something that definitely could suggest that she was a Haradrim or of similar heritage. Other features gave another impression however, and since most people were growing tired of speculating about other slaves’ origins, Aedhild remained like many others; a slave with no past, who had just recently found freedom, the latter being obviously the most important point of focus. Aedhild was neither remarkably ugly, nor remarkably pretty. Her once perhaps handsome face seemed aged with the hardships she had endured. Her cheekbones had become slightly too prominent in her face during the last couple of years to make her appear beautiful, but her mouth was delicately formed and gave if not a pleasant appearance at least a hint of kindness. Sadly, the pallor of her face was sickly, and her pair of unusually grey, glossy eyes seemed to dominate her face altogether now. As her age was starting to show, her once dark brown hair was thinning with a hurried pace, and the bald spot on the right side of her head seemed to become more and more obvious. Years of abuse and beatings had marked her, more than she would ever come to realise herself. As she came nearer, she closed her right hand into a fist. Still screaming, she hit him with all her might. It is difficult to say whether it was the power of that particular blow or if it was the shock of being hit by a stranger, a supposed ally, that made Eirnar stagger for a moment; regaining his balance however, he quickly managed to manoeuvre out of her way, avoiding a second blow. With one hand caressing his already red cheek, he grasped a hold of the short woman with the other. Aedhild wailed in horror; she kicked, spat and cursed, trying to loosen the man’s grip; “You traitor! You want to take me back! ” Their eyes met for second; her grey eyes cool, but still empty of emotions. With a quick blow, Eirnar struck her unconscious. She never heard the man uttering a few words: "That will calm you down." Only those close by could hear the heavy heartedness in the tone of his voice. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MINOR CHARACTER Nonarwen's character - ex=slave NAME: Eirnar AGE: 29 GENDER: Male RACE: Man of Gondor WEAPONS: A rather robust knife he stole from an Orc as he fled. He's also made himself a club/bat-looking object of hard wood. APPEARANCE: Eirnar is tall and skinny, but yet stout, with broad shoulders. He has a pleasant and friendly face; small, grey eyes, big nose and gloriously red lips. His chin is covered by a short brown beard. Like the other slaves, Eirnar is dressed in rags. He wars a pair of short pants and a grey shirt; on top of it, he wears a long, brown frockcoat of thin fabric. PERSONALITY: Despite the sufferings he has endured as a slave, Eirnar is considered to be a both positive and outgoing person. Having escaped slavery, he has been given hope for a better future; his sufferings at the plantations have made him realise that he is very lucky to have escaped alive, and he values everything about his new existence, even though life is hard and primitive yet. He has great expectations for the future, and will rather take his own life than go back to being a slave. Though the Gondorian isn't particularly bright, he is a man of action and very hardworking. Often, he rushes into situations and isn't always able to imagine the consequences of his actions. Sometimes, he isn't as thorough in his work as others perhaps hope he would be. He is on the other hand very humble, and glad to acknowledge his mistakes and do something to make up for them. HISTORY: During the early years of the war against Sauron, Eirnar and his family were taken from Gondor to serve as slaves at the plantations in Mordor. His parents served at the same plantation as himself, but he was separated from his sister. At first, Eirnar wasn't able to handle his new existence and resisted it. Time after time, he was beaten. Soon enough however, he learned that as long as he was so young and weak resistance wouldn't get him anywhere. Eirnar managed to flee from the plantation some 3-5 years ago (he has lost track of time). He regrets the fact that his mother was too old to be able to follow, that his father died few months before his escape and that his sister seems lost to him forever. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Durelin, Child - If you want me to change anything, I am happy to rewrite. Just let me know. Thanks for your patience, Nova PS! I will be away a couple of days in early July, and a couple of days late July. I hope that won't be a problem... I should be able to catch up and write at least a post to insert somewhere... __________________ Scully: Homer, we're going to ask you a few simple yes or no questions. Do you understand? Homer: Yes. (Lie dectector blows up) AUS Blog Last edited by Novnarwen; 06-29-2006 at 10:46 AM.

06-22-2006, 11:48 AM	#46
Durelin Estelo dagnir, Melo ring Join Date: Oct 2002 Posts: 3,063	Nice bio, Novnarwen, and it's really good to see you again! There's only one issue - the ex-slaves are a gang, you know, a tough bunch, who did routine raids until they ran into the group of slave-escapees. You've mentioned adding something to her history, and perhaps that might fit her into the gang somehow. I'm definitely not saying 'no' to your character, just asking that you fit her into the gang somehow. She could be a woman of any age. The gang's not a horrible bunch. But they're a practical bunch, I'm thinking, and everyone would have had their place until the recent escapees showed up. (Once they showed up, they had all these pesky hapless men, women, and children running around... ) She probably would have been free for a little while at least (and quite possibly years), and would have a kind of place as a part of the 'gang.' And she quite possibly would also be armed with a knife/dagger of some sort, and not be afraid to use it...remember, practical. I don't want you to have to make a great deal of adjustments, so if you need help fitting her in somehow, just let me know. At least, that's how I see things. Please, strike me down Child if you perceive things differently.

06-22-2006, 03:31 PM	#47
Orofaniel Mighty Mouse of Mordor Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Lands of the North, where no man can reach.... Posts: 823	NAME: Reagonn (Ree-a-gonn) Ex-slave AGE: In his twenties. RACE: Human GENDER: Male WEAPONS: An old dagger, and a knife he keeps in his belt at all times. APPEARANCE: Reagonn is skinny and slim, which gives the impression that he is taller than he really is. He is weak and pale, due to the hard work at the plantation for several years. Reagonn looks far older than he actually is because if his grey eyes which are filled with the horrors and cruelty he has experienced in his life thus far. Reagonn wears an old dirty shirt with several holes and rips, and pants that are too short for him. His boots will no longer stay dry when exposed to water, a clear sign that they are worn-out and in need of replacement. His shabby looking appearance dominated by the scars in his face, and the long busy dark hair, might seem intimidating to some. PERSONALITY: Reagonn is a quite intelligent and when rested and well he is not easily distracted. Under the cruel circumstances in which he has spent most of his life, he has learned to be observant, a skill proven very advantageous to him in the past. Reagonn does not easily trust people, nor does he feel any loyalty to anyone but himself. He cannot help feeling betrayed, or abandoned by his parents, (although it was never confirmed that they actually did abandon him), thus he cannot let go of the bitterness inside of him. Reagonn is a good speaker and can easily get his ideas across to others. Reagonn gets frustrated in situations where one ought to keep one’s head cool however, which makes him vulnerable and sometimes even weak. HISTORY: Reagonn has no memory whatsoever about his origins. He knows that he was taken into slavery as a young child. He does not know anything about his parents, whether they are still alive, living on a plantation, dead or whether they joined the forces of Mordor when Sauron still ruled. Nor does he care. He has always felt this sense of being abandoned by them, yet it cannot be confirmed that they actually did abandon him. Throughout the years of slavery, he lost track of time, which explains he fact that he does not know his exact age. Shortly after the fall of Sauron, Reagonn and a younger lad planned their escape from slavery. They managed to flee from the plantation in haste, but to their great despair, they were recaptured shortly after. The younger boy, also called Bornir, had been a close friend of Reagon for several years. However, upon their return to the plantation they were both punished severely – which explains the two scars in Reagan’s face, and several on his back. Although their punishments were considered mild compared with others who for instance had their tongue removed, Bornir passed away due to the infections in his wounds and the blood loss. Of course, Reagonn found it difficult to cope with, as it had been his only and closest friend, thus pledged to revenge his death. Reagonn had started to plan another escape and the revenge of Bornir’s death, but then just a week later a fire broke out on the plantation. The fire spread quickly to the shelters where the slave slept during the night, and full chaos broke out. Many slaves died due to the heavy smoke, but a handful of slaves decided to take advantage of the situation and managed to sneak out and escape from the plantation. Reagonn of course, was one of them. Being preoccupied by the fire, no one noticed the few slaves that escaped and none of them were caught. They parted however, deciding that it was wisest to go different ways in case they were being followed. A couple of days later Reagonn met Khamir and a small group of other ex-slaves “hiding” in caves. Reagonn was allowed join them and together they struggle to survive. Reagonn has not fulfilled the pledge he made after Bornir’s death, yet there is still time… ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Orofaniel's post - Reagonn There was a blaze of heat. Reagonn awoke in his shelter discovering that it was filled with thick, dark grey smoke. He quickly noticed the wave of panic that spread among the slaves and soon cries of agony and horror filled Reagon’s ears. Still half-asleep, he managed to get up and at this point, his instincts were quite clear: he felt the urge, or moreover the necessity, to escape from this place. Nevertheless, as he got up he could feel the years of labour finally sink in, and he became utterly disorientated and confused. The legs beneath his crippled body now seemed to fail to support him, and he fell slowly to the ground with a short thud. The blaze was now spreading rapidly, and he could feel his senses weakening as he inhaled the poisonous smoke. Feeling suffocated, he witnessed the masses of slaves running past him as they hurried to get out, he tried to cry out for help, but his voice failed to cut through the loud voices and the sounds of cracking building material. The ceiling in the left corner of the shelter now started collapsing, and Reagonn could see two slaves running as fast as they could to avoid being trapped beneath the burning wood – all in vain. They cried out as the heavy material hit them, and although chaos surrounded him and the air was filled with voices, Reagonn could somehow feel the vibrating silence from the left corner of the shelter. As he crawled further towards the exit, he knew his last minutes had come. Feeling trapped, Reagonn felt helpless and utterly alone. Yet, the situation did not distress him, like it might have distressed others. On the contrary Reagonn now felt somewhat relieved; finally, he was to be realised from the pain…the suffering…the agony in which he had lived for years. Reagonn had waited for this moment. Nevertheless, the fright that suddenly struck him was not at all unexpected. “Get up,” someone cried. Alarmed by this command, he came to his senses, and trying to regain his balance, he stood up. Walking more steadily now, he felt that things were clearer. Almost all the slaves had evacuated by now, yet he could still hear cries, although he could not conclude whether they came from inside the shelter or outside. Reagonn turned and watched the flames surround him and the lifeless bodies on the ground; They were victims of this ruthless fire... In the life-threatening situation, Reagonn did not have much time to think, yet he could not help feeling sorry for these slaves. He had laboured with for many years and now he was witnessing the miserable fate they had faced. Would this be his destiny as well? Witnessing this he realised that it was time for his second attempt to escape. Not only from the fire, but from the plantation. The palm of his hand felt sweaty against the pale skin of his face. He was half-asleep, half awake. This dream, which he had dreamt so many times before would not leave him. These shadows, these nightmares, from the plantation tormented him, and continued to confuse him. And always, near fully awaking, he saw the same face…the same smile and the very same expression in front of him – in the redish monstrous flames. A younger self started back at him, almost identical, yet some of his features shared no resemblance with his own, whatsoever. He was around Bornir’s age, his only friend in life whom had been brutally punished by the plantation’s master - yet it wasn’t him. Thinking about Bornir he could felt enraged, yet this time he felt a wave of pure hatred and rage build up inside of him like never before. After that was just the bitterness...The bitterness he was used to. Who was he? There was no answer, just a blur of confusion, a foggy maze with no beginning or end. More questions rose, only to be forgotten again while silently awaking from this horror of a nightmare. Like so many times before he awoke while clutching his knife and gasping for air. His eyes were wide open filled with dread as he felt the pearls of sweat running down from his forehead. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Minor Character - Slave escapee NAME: Liviol (Lii-vi-ol) AGE: Almost twenty RACE: Men GENDER: Male WEAPONS:He has his wit, his creativity and his fists if needed. APPEARANCE: His skin is rather dark, yet after having laboured at the plantation for so long, he has grown paler and weaker. He is not as skinny as most of the other slaves though, but he is quite tall. His dark hair reaches his shoulders. Some of his more prominent facial features: high cheekbones and a large chin. He wears an old greyish shirt, and some old pants. In his belt, he used to carry a knife, but it was stolen from him. PERSONALITY: Liviol is creative, and quite imaginative. However, he likes to keep to himself, having had the experience that this is the only way to keep out of trouble. He is not very well spoken, nor is he very social. He is quite egocentric, as he has learned that it is necessary if he wishes to survive. At times, he might seem paranoid, and ill tempered. Yet, overall, Liviol is not an arrogant person, nor is he evil. He has just spent his life on a plantation and has therefore learned that the only way he will survive is to take care of oneself. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ** I hope it's Ok. Please do tell me if it needs editing. Cheers, Oro __________________ I lost my old sig...somehow....screams and shouts ..............What is this?- Now isn't this fun? >_< .....and yes, the jumping mouse is my new avatar. ^_^ Last edited by Orofaniel; 06-28-2006 at 05:54 PM.

06-22-2006, 06:36 PM	#48
Regin Hardhammer Shade of Carn Dûm Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: Tumunzahar/Nogrod Posts: 364	I put up the post for my minor female orc. It's longer than I expected. __________________ For once I myself saw with my own eyes the Sibyl at Cumae hanging in a bottle, and when the boys said to her: 'Sibyl, what do you want?' she replied, 'I want to die.'"

06-22-2006, 11:01 PM	#49
Child of the 7th Age Spirit of the Lonely Star Join Date: Mar 2002 Posts: 5,133	Nova - Durelin's suggestions are good ones. I think the revisions should be minor and will only strengthen your character. And thanks for those dates when you won't be here. Oro - Looks good. I know your character does not know his exact orgin, but do his looks give us any hint as to where he was originally from? Most of the slaves were likely from Harad or East, but there would have been others dragged there from Rohan, Gondor, or other points to the west. Also, Oro, do you have any planned vacations this summer? Tevildo and Regin - Your minor characters look fine. Nogrod Thanks for giving us a taste. We'll look forward to your return this weekend. Folwrenand Undomie - It looks as if you are the first ones to complete your two profiles and the post. (You can certainly do a post for your minor character, but it is not required.) Welcome to the game! __________________ Multitasking women are never too busy to vote. Last edited by Child of the 7th Age; 06-23-2006 at 07:04 AM.

06-23-2006, 10:39 AM	#50
Hilde Bracegirdle Relic of Wandering Days Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: You'll See Perpetual Change. Posts: 1,480	Hilde's character - Carl NAME: Carl “Nibs” Cotton AGE: born SR 1389, has yet to turn 51 toward the end of the year. RACE: Hobbit GENDER: Male WEAPONS: Short knife, a small axe of utilitarian nature and a hunting bow with quiver at his belt. No armor. APPEARANCE: Thickset and well tanned; Carl’s rough and calloused hands tell of hard work. He has a homespun appearance, wearing trousers of a sturdy brown fabric and open vest of the same. His shirt is a buttery yellow and around his neck is a bit of brightness, a twisted a handkerchief, the color of spring leaves. Carl is of average hobbit height, with a clean shaven face and an abundance of wavy brown hair, which he keeps cropped so that it falls just short of his earlobes. His eyes are hazel and his lips less than generous and without much color. A stout Shire pony with the peculiar name of Stumps is his traveling companion, and despite the name and having all his limbs intact, the pony carries Carl’s leather pack, blankets and the rest of the hobbit’s gear. Stumps is a well fed and well muscled creature, reddish in color with a light mane and tail. PERSONALITY: Carl has a dry sense of humor and is friendly enough. Among his own people he would best be described as a dependable and practical sort. But his close friends know of a well hidden slightly fanciful streak, his suppression of which is to be expected given his place as the youngest son of a farmer known for his common sense. STRENGTHS: Any strong points are related to his occupation and include agricultural experience, physical strength, endurance and a guarded optimism. But Carl also possesses some skill in hunting, thus having learned the use of a bow. WEAKNESSES: Chief weakness, besides a sometimes disabling appetite (with its attending ill humor), would be Carl’s obliviousness to, and so apparent disregard of subtle diplomacy. HISTORY: Carl Cotton was born in Bywater in the Shire country, where he has lived ever since. He was a fourth son, the fifth and last child born to farmer Tom Cotton and his wife Lily. As a boy Carl, (who is known as Nibs), as well as his three brothers, developed an abiding friendship with the son of his grandfather’s colleague, a gardener’s son. And together they had shared both in youthful antics and in a love for the land. Though they hadn’t thought on it at the time, these two families had intertwined in the past and were destined to in the future as well, with their friend Samwise marrying Carl’s sister Rosie upon his return from traveling, and Carl’s eldest brother, Tolman, likewise marrying Sam’s sister Marigold. Now Carl was still in his tweens when Sam had gone off to help Mr. Baggins, and he was there to see it when the Shire was turned on it’s head too. And though his father left him as guard over his mother and sister, rather than have him join in the battle which had quickly followed Sam’s homecoming, he never forgot how fast the tables had been turned once the Shire folk had set their minds to it. That was in the past, Sam had since become the Mayor, and Carl had turned his thoughts back to working his father’s farm, with his thoughts staying there, for the most part, until a few years ago. Perhaps it started when King Elessar traveled to the northern kingdom, or resulted from the serious talks the Cotton brothers had had with Sam, when the Mayor had begun speaking somewhat wistfully of visiting Gondor. Carl couldn’t be sure. He did know however, that he had begun thinking about the greater world and it worried him. Deciding it was time to settle down proper, lest this curiosity grab hold of him, he planned to buy a little plot of his own and tie himself securely to it. But confiding his thoughts to Samwise one evening, the mayor suddenly grew thoughtful and requested Carl to hold off a bit, as he had an errand he would like him to undertake first. Thus began another long round of discussions between Sam and the Cottons. And it was during this time that Carl’s eldest brother commented sharply that a Mayor shouldn’t go gallivanting off on long trips when his term was not yet over. Sam looked him squarely in the eyes. “Look here Tom,” the Mayor said. “If the king of Gondor and of Arnor can make a trip to the Brandywine to visit his old friends, I don’t see why the Mayor of the Shire shouldn’t return the favor!” Tom was silent after that, but the roll and gamble of events cast Carl in the role of message runner, and placed his feet on the road to Minas Tirith, with an errand to see if the mayor might pay an extended visit there in the next year or two. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hilde Bracegirdle's post - Carl It had been two weeks now since Carl had hand delivered a rather bulky packet of papers to the Citadel at the top of the city. As it turned out Sam Gamgee’s carefully folded message to King Elessar had also included a letter of introduction for Carl and, as the hobbit also saw, a note addressed to the king and queen in his niece Elanor’s fine script. Carl was surprised when the King had bid him stay as he took his time over their contents, and after exchanging a few words with the hobbit, to ask Carl questions regarding The Thain for the most part, he smiled his gratitude, telling a tall fellow who stood nearby to make arrangements for this special messenger. He was to be made comfortable and stay as long as he wished before returning home. Perhaps it was the easiest victory that Elessar had ever had, having won the hobbit over unknowingly within minutes, the monarch’s good-natured ways and Sam’s high regard largely contributing. And so Carl was happy to stay, though he asked if it might be on the Pelennor rather than in the city, for the grandeur of Minas Tirith, with its high white walls of cut stone, had nearly taken his breath away when his pony Stumps emerged from the fields to plod up the causeway. And the hobbit had waxed wide-eyed and apprehensive, upon approaching the tall gates. After having had those two weeks among the farms in the shadow of Mount Mindolluin, Carl had grown somewhat accustomed to his surroundings, settling in nicely. Truly he enjoyed walking through the fields spending his days learning about new crops and the methods used to propagate them. And his host seemed to enjoy showing the newcomer around, slowly loading the hobbit’s baggage down with hardy and exotic seeds to try once he had returned to the Shire. But at the end of two weeks Carl naturally began wondering just how much longer he should stay. He had half expected that he might be given some message to take back to the Shire, though the King’s response to Sam’s had been quite clear without it. He knew Elessar would be only too happy to have The Mayor and his family make the long journey south to Gondor. And so Carl sat on a stone outside the farmer’s house, figuring, after his large breakfast, just what he should do, when a fine young man in a heavily embroidered uniform appeared, walking briskly up the road. Heading straight for the hobbit, he stopped with his polished boots just within the shadow of Carl's seat. “Master Nibs?” he inquired. Carl looked up from the boots, amused that the stranger knew the name, one which Sam no doubt had used in his letter of introduction, he replied, “Yes, that would be me,” as he slid off the large stone. He had noted a scroll in the fellow’s hand from a distance, and was feeling rather more cheerful now. The decision over his departure evidently had been made for him. “Is that for me?” he nodded in the direction of the man’s right hand. The Gondorian handed Carl the scroll. “A message from the King.” “Ah, I have been waiting for this!” the hobbit announced, taking the missive and placing it in his trouser pocket. The man’s expression quickly clouded. “You knew of it? But how could you?” “I’ve eyes and ears you know. It wasn’t hard to put two and two together,” the hobbit remarked. “To be honest, I thought it might have arrived a bit sooner than this.” At that the man looked puzzled. “But it is still early,” he murmured. “Never mind,” Carl said hurriedly. “You may assure the King that I will leave just as soon as I gather what I need for the trip.” “You needn’t trouble yourself, all preparations have already been made,” the messenger informed him, brightening. “I don’t know the full details, only that you will be traveling with a group the King has himself hand picked.” “Is that right?” Carl said slowly. He hadn’t planned on being in a group, but it did sound like quite an honor, and he didn’t want to make himself look ungrateful by refusing such gracious hospitality. “Where and when am I to meet this group?” The messenger hesitated. “We have been instructed that the travelers are to gather outside the royal palace shortly before sunrise tomorrow." “Then I will be there,” Carl said. "Before first light." “You might want to look over the message, before you set out,” the Gondorian advised in parting. “To see if you have any concerns.” The hobbit’s face quickly soured. “Don’t you worry about me,” Carl said gruffly, wondering if it was standard Gondorian practice for messengers to read the letters they carried. He withdrew the scroll from its place in his pocket, turning it over in his hands before carrying it inside and placing it gingerly in his pack, unopened. His host came over wiping his hands on a rag as he looked out the doorway at the straight back and black uniform of the retreating messenger. “I haven’t gotten you in trouble with the king’s men, now have I?” he whispered. “Oh, no. He'd come here to deliver this,” the hobbit said, reaching back and withdrawing the scroll again to show to his host. “Aren’t you going to read it then? It looks important.” “Read it!" Carl was suddenly fiercely indignant. “Does everyone here always read what is placed in their care? I will take it back to The Mayor, and he can read it!” The Gondorian farmer reached out and lightly tapped his index finger on the black ink of the document saying meekly, ”But that's your name there Carl, and not your Mayor's.” "It is?" Carl looked at the parchment, his anger dissolving, “For me? But I never learned to...,” The hobbit didn't finish his thought, in truth he was feeling a bit lost, realizing that he would be leaving soon and empty handed. “Here then, would you be kind enough to read it for me? I can’t for myself you see.” The farmer willingly obliged, and speaking slowly and haltingly his face registered with emotion as the letter went on. “Mordor? Mordor!” Carl said weakly when the farmer had fallen silent again. “And here I told the man that I’d go, thinking it only back to the Shire.” “But it is a noble task you are called to do,” his host said. “Those slaves could have been any one of us, or of our kin.” “Aye,” Carl breathed. “I am honored to be called upon, but just hope I’m up to such important business.” “You are, and you must be!” the man said. “The King has called you to be.” Carl nodded, lapsing into thought. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Last edited by Hilde Bracegirdle; 06-30-2006 at 10:43 AM.

06-23-2006, 12:34 PM	#51
Firefoot Illusionary Holbytla Join Date: Dec 2003 Posts: 7,547	MAJOR CHARACTER -- SLAVE ESCAPEE NAME: Johari AGE: 31 RACE: Man GENDER: Female WEAPONS: Her fists, fingernails… APPEARANCE: 5’7”, tough, wiry, and lean. She has medium-toned skin that shows clear signs of having worked as a Mordor slave all her life; her hands are callused and rough. Her hair is dark and coarse and is always held out of her face. She has dark, fierce but wary eyes and an expressive face. Her clothing is simple and worn: breeches, shirt, and tunic. She has no shoes, so her feet are as callused as her hands. Various whip-scars line her body, mostly on her back and the backs of her legs. PERSONALITY/STRENGTHS/WEAKNESSES: Johari is more passionate than intelligent, more prone to fight than work it out with words, and more likely to act first and think later. She tends to be scornful of weakness. The result of this was frequent trouble with those in charge of her. However, this has grown less frequent as she has gotten older; the futility of her own battles against her situation eventually began to wear on her, and she has sunk down into hopelessness and depression. Apathy has numbed the fiercer parts of her personality. She really has no hopes left from her spirited childhood, only determination to find her “son” (see history) and make life better for him. HISTORY: Johari was born into slavery; however, her mother had been a captured slave from Harad and would often tell her stories of freedom that inspired Johari and gave her hopes that one day she might be free too. But her mother died when she was ten, leaving her to understand the underlying realities of slavery. Sauron was defeated when she was twelve, raising her hopes once more, only to have them come crashing down around her as she realized nothing about her situation had really changed. Always a fighter by nature, this second crashing of her hopes really set in motion her private war (as she thought of it) with the slave holders. After a few encounters with their whips, she tried to be more subtle, but she was too easily provoked into mouthing off to or even, on one or two occasions, physically attacking the slave overseers. She continued to fight it until she was about 20, at which point the ferocity and frequency of her miniature rebellions began to slack off; she simply had a hard time finding the point of it any more. At 24, in an odd turn of compassion she noticed a young orphaned boy Kalin and took him under her care. He was never cut out for a slave’s life, however, being rather frail and sickly (although her affection for him rather blinded her to this; she could not believe such weakness in one so close to her), and without her care he probably would have died sooner than he did; he died when she was 28, although she managed to convince herself in her grief that he had not died but escaped this cruel life of slavery as she had always wished to do. Since then, it has been her only desire to find him and make a better life for the two of them. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Firefoot's post - Johari Rebellion, they had said. Escape. Johari hadn’t cared about much more than that, not about how the rest of them planned to get out nor even if they would be successful. Only one thought occurred to her: Kalin. Now would be her chance to find him. She didn’t care about the rest of them, but she would escape. She would find him. There was no hope involved in her determination. Hope was like water, Johari had once decided: once you learn to live with plenty of it, life becomes all the harder without it. And hope died slowly: it was more like a thousand little deaths that wasted you away until you were nothing. Johari had seen it happen in her mother and had experienced it herself; it was better simply to live without hope. Then you were never disappointed, as you surely would be in this forsaken land that killed all hopes. No, her determination resulted from the conviction that eventually she would escape and that she would find him. If not this time, there would be a next time. There would always be a next time. It was a fact, and therefore required no hope or effort to believe in. It simply was. The night came. Chaos reigned supreme. Slaves, singly, in pairs, in mobs, all ran, fueled by the hope and promise of freedom. Only some would make it away – only some would survive; the rest, hopes quashed, would be returned to their barracks and to work the next day. Johari did not think of this. She did not think at all. She just ran. She avoided their dogs, more out of instinct than conscious decision. She did not stay and fight, she did not stop to help the others. She just ran. Towards the mountains. Kalin was a smart boy. He would have taken refuge there. Rumors even existed that other escaped slaves were living in those mountains; he might have found them. She shifted her course, practically flying through the fields - not caring whether she trampled the growing crops - into the hills beyond: already farther than she had ever traveled in her life. It was only now as she reached this comparative safety that she slowed her pace. Her legs and lungs were burning, and her make-shift pack thumped uncomfortably on her back. She did not stop completely, though, but kept moving, always listening for pursuit behind her. At one point she heard hoof-beats, but she stayed in the shadows and never saw them anyway. On into the night she walked, never once feeling the ecstatic rush of freedom that might be expected. For her, escape was not the realization of hopes and dreams. Once it might have been; now it was only fact fulfilled. In the next days, she found a group of escaped slaves and was welcomed into their fold. It did not occur to them that Johari was content, happier even, to travel by herself. She did not feel heartened by their presence; she did not care that they, too, had escaped. She had a purpose, and these ones would not help her with it… especially when they started discussing settling down and hiding in the foothills of the mountains while they decided what to do. Johari already knew what she wanted; she didn’t care what the rest of them did. Nevertheless, she had reluctantly decided to at least stay the night there with them; she wouldn’t get any farther in the dark. The next morning they found themselves surrounded. Johari quickly realized, as did the rest of the escaped slaves, that these tough-looking strangers were not trying to capture them but help them. Maybe they would know about Kalin – she would certainly be asking… ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- MINOR CHARACTER - ORC Name: Grask Age: 9 Race: Orc Gender: Male Weapons: A long knife that serves him as a sword, purloined off the body of a dead Orc. Appearance: Around 4’ tall and a little on the thin side; “lanky” is a word he is growing into, with rather long limbs. Only wears a sleeveless tunic. He is perpetually dirty. Personality/Strengths/Weaknesses: Like most young Orcs, Grask tries to stay relatively unobtrusive among older Orcs to avoid risking their wrath, and tussle amongst themselves to prove or better their fighting abilities (usually without real weapons). Not being particularly burly or strong, Grask tries to avoid these fights mostly; he is quite competent at looking after himself. Definitely more of a follower than a leader, he takes his cues from those around him. He can also be very curious. History: Grask has no real concept of his own parentage. He has very vague memories of a mother-figure, though he has no real emotional connection to her. He assumes she died, or perhaps just abandoned him at some point; this doesn’t bother him, though, since this is more the norm than the exception in Orkish culture. Other than that, his history is unremarkable and consists really only of day-to-day survival. It was only by chance that he found out about the rebellion at all, but he immediately decided to join them, feeling that a large battle would be in no way beneficial to him. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ~~~ That about completes it. Last edited by Firefoot; 06-29-2006 at 12:58 PM.

06-23-2006, 03:08 PM	#52
Durelin Estelo dagnir, Melo ring Join Date: Oct 2002 Posts: 3,063	Hilde and Firefoot - Excellent bios, both of you! Hilde - Forgive me, but did we ever decide if you were playing a minor character/what kind you were playing?

06-23-2006, 04:02 PM	#53
Child of the 7th Age Spirit of the Lonely Star Join Date: Mar 2002 Posts: 5,133	Hi, Durelin! I believe Hilde said she'd prefer not to take up a minor character at the beginning of the game. She would wait and see if a need for a particular character developed in the course of playing the actual game. Hilde - If I've not said that correctly and/or you've changed your mind, please let us know. The bio looks great. __________________ Multitasking women are never too busy to vote.

06-23-2006, 04:57 PM	#54
Hilde Bracegirdle Relic of Wandering Days Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: You'll See Perpetual Change. Posts: 1,480	Thanks Child, you are absolutely correct, and I do hope that that is alright. I hadn't been aware the minor character requirement until after I had PM'd you and have been trying to fly below radar since then regarding it.

06-23-2006, 05:55 PM	#55
Child of the 7th Age Spirit of the Lonely Star Join Date: Mar 2002 Posts: 5,133	Hilde - Since we are fortunate in having a "full roster" of posters, I think that this will work. _______________ If anyone in Rohan is still interested in playing, we could particularly use one more orc. __________________ Multitasking women are never too busy to vote. Last edited by Child of the 7th Age; 06-23-2006 at 07:20 PM.

06-24-2006, 02:12 AM	#56
piosenniel Desultory Dwimmerlaik Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Pickin' flowers with Bill the Cat..... Posts: 7,779	My post is now done. ~*~ Pio __________________ Eldest, that’s what I am . . . I knew the dark under the stars when it was fearless - before the Dark Lord came from Outside.

06-24-2006, 05:26 PM	#57
Hilde Bracegirdle Relic of Wandering Days Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: You'll See Perpetual Change. Posts: 1,480	A question oh stalwart leaders. Do we know where and when the fellowships' members are to meet? It would greatly help Mr. Cotton, and Hilde for that matter, to know.

06-24-2006, 06:21 PM	#58
Child of the 7th Age Spirit of the Lonely Star Join Date: Mar 2002 Posts: 5,133	Hilde, This is a good question. We haven't discussed this recently, but this is what I recall. First, we will do a time condense leap at the start of the game. One problem in many rpgs is that they take a long time for characters to get on the trail and for the different groups to meet up. We've had so many games get bogged down, and we wanted to avoid that, since the focus of this story should be on events in Mordor. After our first posts are up but before the game officially opens, I will supply a time condense post getting the Fellowship all the way to the Sea of Núrnen. The fellowship will arrive after the two-month deadline that the slaves set. My guess is that Durelin will do a similar post for the slaves stating that they waited 2 months and, when no one came, they set out on their own. This is what I envisioned for the second post---the point where we start active posting.... 1. The Fellowship arrives at the empty caves and looks on in shock. They decide to go forward and attempt to find the slaves. 2. After waiting a full two months, the slaves have already set out to the north, downhearted to have received no help. 3. The Orcs gather at their separate meeting point and then decide to head north on a path that will eventually bring them into a collision course with the slaves/fellowship. Obviously they don't know this! The fellowship and slaves should meet up quickly (real and game time) , since the fellowship has horses. My hope is that we will have the two groups (Orcs versus slaves/fellowship) come together in the first two weeks of the story. We can discuss that later. So the short answer, Hilde, would be that you may not have to worry where the Fellowship meets! If you need information, just assume it is at the royal palace, and that Elessar supplies horses and all equipment beyond the personal things that you carry. Pio, Durelin - was this also your understanding? If I've got it wrong, please advise so we can straighten things out. Does anyone see a problem? Last edited by Child of the 7th Age; 06-24-2006 at 06:37 PM.

06-24-2006, 08:52 PM	#59
Folwren Messenger of Hope Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: In a tiny, insignificant little town in one of the many States. Posts: 5,076	I have another question. When is the game actually going to be starting, do you know yet? I'm in no particular rush, understand, I just would like to know if I'll be absent during the beginning of the game, or if it will be at a time when I'm home or what. Also, I'm leaving Monday morning and returning Friday afternoon. If I miss anything important, I'd appreciate if I were alerted so I'd know to go back and read everything. Otherwise, I'd just as soon be lazy and skip all that reading. I will, of course, read all the bios and first posts that are new, but all the discussion is what I'm talking about. There can be a lot of discussion in five days on a new RPG discussion thread. . . Anyhow, it's time for me to go to bed. Goodnight, everyone. -- Folwren __________________ A young man who wishes to remain a sound atheist cannot be too careful of his reading. - C.S. Lewis

06-24-2006, 11:55 PM	#60
Tevildo Shade of Carn Dûm Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Curled up on Melko's lap Posts: 425	Piosenniel, Child, or whoever.... I've put up a draft of my post in my box. I may do some editing tomorrow so please don't move it till I give the word. Thanks. __________________ Now Tevildo was a mighty cat--the mightiest of all--and possessed of an evil spirit,...and he was in Melko's constant following; and that cat had all cats subject to him, and he and his subjects were the chasers and getters of meat for Melko's table.

06-25-2006, 12:01 AM	#61
piosenniel Desultory Dwimmerlaik Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Pickin' flowers with Bill the Cat..... Posts: 7,779	Nogrod and Tevildo I'm not going to move your posts - they will stay in your original post boxes until the game opens. Tevildo I will note on the 'WRITER/CHARACTER' list that you have written your post. Nogrod I did note on the 'WRITER/CHARACTER' that you have a partial post written. ------- FYI: The 'WRITER/CHARACTER' list is just a tool used to keep tabs on who needs to get what done. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ EDIT If you see an 'edited by piosenniel' on your character bio/first post box, it's just me setting your post up for easy transfer to the game thread. ~~ Pio Last edited by piosenniel; 06-25-2006 at 09:19 AM.*

06-25-2006, 06:39 AM	#62
Hilde Bracegirdle Relic of Wandering Days Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: You'll See Perpetual Change. Posts: 1,480	Thanks so much Child. That is and was of great help. Oh and tomorrow morning as a start time was pulled out of the air. If it needs to be changed, just let me know and I will do the needful. Carl's first post is now on board in block #51. Last edited by Hilde Bracegirdle; 06-27-2006 at 10:02 AM.

06-25-2006, 09:50 AM	#63
Durelin Estelo dagnir, Melo ring Join Date: Oct 2002 Posts: 3,063	That is quite what I had in mind, Child. My only thought now is that perhaps the moving on of the slaves group and the catching up of the Fellowship group might be a bit more than is necessary. But I also think it would be boring if everything worked out smoothly...

06-25-2006, 10:29 AM	#64
piosenniel Desultory Dwimmerlaik Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Pickin' flowers with Bill the Cat..... Posts: 7,779	re: post 58 - Child That looks good to me. And will get us right into the heart of the game. ~~ Pio __________________ Eldest, that’s what I am . . . I knew the dark under the stars when it was fearless - before the Dark Lord came from Outside. Last edited by piosenniel; 06-28-2006 at 07:54 PM.*

06-25-2006, 11:11 AM	#65
Child of the 7th Age Spirit of the Lonely Star Join Date: Mar 2002 Posts: 5,133	Durelin, Pio, Sounds as if we're in basic agreement Durelin, I am not wed to the idea of having the slaves leave first and the fellowship finding empty caves.. I can easily write it the other way if we think we want more time to focus on other plot twists . Let me know what you prefer...... I'll try to take a stab at that post today, although it will probably not be till later tonight. (If I don't hear from you I may do two drafts and see what we like....) __________________ Multitasking women are never too busy to vote. Last edited by Child of the 7th Age; 06-25-2006 at 11:15 AM.

06-25-2006, 12:15 PM	#66
Durelin Estelo dagnir, Melo ring Join Date: Oct 2002 Posts: 3,063	After a little thought: the Fellowship finding an empty cave is the better way to go. A more exciting start is best to get things moving.

06-25-2006, 01:56 PM	#67
Regin Hardhammer Shade of Carn Dûm Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: Tumunzahar/Nogrod Posts: 364	My post is up. __________________ For once I myself saw with my own eyes the Sibyl at Cumae hanging in a bottle, and when the boys said to her: 'Sibyl, what do you want?' she replied, 'I want to die.'"

06-25-2006, 05:52 PM	#69
piosenniel Desultory Dwimmerlaik Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Pickin' flowers with Bill the Cat..... Posts: 7,779	Unconfuse yourself Oro - I've switched you into your correct category of minor characters -- slave escapee. ~*~ Pio __________________ Eldest, that’s what I am . . . I knew the dark under the stars when it was fearless - before the Dark Lord came from Outside.

06-25-2006, 06:01 PM	#70
Orofaniel Mighty Mouse of Mordor Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Lands of the North, where no man can reach.... Posts: 823	Oh. Okay. Lol. Thanks. Will be up tomorrow. Cheers, Oro __________________ I lost my old sig...somehow....screams and shouts ..............What is this?- Now isn't this fun? >_< .....and yes, the jumping mouse is my new avatar. ^_^

06-26-2006, 12:38 AM	#71
Child of the 7th Age Spirit of the Lonely Star Join Date: Mar 2002 Posts: 5,133	I need to have my head examined, but I couldn't resist. I created a minor character---a male orc who is an Uruk-hai. I've put up a bio and short post in my original box. __________________ Multitasking women are never too busy to vote.

06-26-2006, 11:29 AM	#72
Firefoot Illusionary Holbytla Join Date: Dec 2003 Posts: 7,547	I just want to make sure I have this right: The slaves escape from a plantation somewhere on the northwest shore of the Sea of Nurnen, correct? And now at the start of the RPG, they're camping out in the southern mountains? Does this mean that to get to the mountains they've already travelled about 100 miles (much of it being fertile land, granted), including crossing the west-east river that sticks out of the Sea of Nurnen (that's what I'm getting from looking at my map)? I'm working on my First Post now; it should be up later today (ah! WW influences butting in... I want to say toDay... ).

06-26-2006, 11:41 AM	#73
Nogrod Flame of the Ainulindalë Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Wearing rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves in a field behaving as the wind behaves Posts: 9,308	Upgraded versions. 010706 Major character -- SLAVE ESCAPEE: NAME: Hadith (or ”Apples”). AGE: 18 RACE: Human. GENDER: Male WEAPONS: A crude sling made of a single-layered string and a leatherband, a pouch of pebbles, a selfmade knife that is both dull and impractical. APPEARANCE: Tall and slender, somewhat skinny indeed. Dark-skinned and brown-eyed. His father was a southern man and her mother a Gondorian from Osgiliath. Only his high cheekbones and ears betray her mother’s blood in him. As all the other somewhat healthy slaves, he’s muscular and agile for the hard physical work they have been forced to do from the age of 10 onwards. Thereare scars all around him, but one is exceptionally nasty. It’s on his right cheek, from years ago when a guard-orc hit him with a whip he had been too slow. He wears basic slave clothing, a dirty tunic and loose trousers of low-quality cotton. As Hadith has lately been working at the masonry he has been given rough shoes and a belt to tie his tunic. His most valuable possession is his father’s headband, rescued by the other slaves in the crude funerals when he died. PERSONALITY/STRENGTHS/WEAKNESSES: Basically Hadith is an easy-going young man, just like her mother had been. At times the impulsiveness of his father turns on and he can be quite stubborn with his ideas. He’s also quick to laugh and join the fun in a familiar company as his father was, but recent affairs have made him more serious and reserved. Even though some might think of him as a nice person, he seems not to have any close friends. The older slaves have pitied him because of his losses and helped to take care of him when he was younger, but with other slaves of his age he’s not very familiar with. HISTORY: Hadith was one of the many who were born after Sauron was defeated. A child made with great expectations and hope of the new and free world. But still he had been born a slave. He had been raised a slave and he grew up to be a slave. His identity was that of a slave. Until lately he saw no other future available for him but ending his days as a slave too, maybe getting a child or two with some of the slave girls. His father died when he was four. He doesn’t remember much of him. He has some vague memories of a bearded dark man giving him an orange – a rare gift indeed – and a remembrance of eyes that shone brightly with love and care. He also remembers the soft voice that said: ”Here’s a treasure Apples, bite and taste the times gone by so that you know…” But that was all there was about his father. Hadith’s mother had died only a year ago. She had been caught up trying to smuggle some wheat into the barracks. She had been made an example in front of a crowd of slaves. She was old and weary anyhow, so the plantantion owners could afford a little showdown to curb the unrest that seemed to be piling up day by day. Hadith had regular nightmares about the torturing ever since. He had been called up to the gallows to witness her slow, painful and humiliating death. He was seventeen then. There were stains of blood in his tunic even today. That piece of cloth he would never wash or change. That was his oath to himself. But on that day the seeds of rebellion was definitively planted in him. He would do whatever he could to get out of that terrible condition that was called his life. He made plans and revised them. He turned to those he thought he could trust but found himself disappointed time after another. It was quite near he didn’t got to the gallows himself as one of his ”friends” turned him in in hope of a reward for revealing a mutiny. He still remembered the voice of the Easterling captain as he coldly looked at the two of them in front of a host of others. ”That skinny loser would not be scheming anything! Look at that dull look on his face and the skeleton he call his body! Give him a sightseeing!” They had tied him with a rope to a horse that was then beaten to run all over the camp. The Easterlings and the orcs were laughing, but the slaves looked at the terrible show in silence, their hearts slowly sinking once again with the sight of one of them being mutilated and humiliated. He was bruised all over, he lost two of his teeth and his left arm was broken from the elbow. But he was alive. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Minor character: NAME: Gwerr AGE: Not known RACE: Orc GENDER: Male WEAPONS: His favourite weapon is a Dwarven battle-axe he looted from a battle long ago. He uses it with deadly precision and brutal force. Gwerr also carries a long dagger or a short saber – whatever way you like to look at it. That also is an earlier possession of someone already dead. It used to belong to an easterling captain with whom Gwerr had an argument over a game of dices. APPEARANCE: Gwerr is a bit short even by orc-standards, but he is sturdy and muscular. He’s just the one you wouldn’t like to pick up a fight with. He has a battered helmet with a visor that covers the eyes and the nose. He wears a fur coat of a black elk tied up with a metal belt and uses his old heavy leather-metal boots of the times of Mordor’s flourishing. He has lost his right eye and the empty eyehole is covered with a metal plate stiched into his skin. He also wears an elven bracelet under his furs, but he doesn’t actually like to show it to others. It’s something that is his and only his secret. PERSONALITY/STRENGTHS/WEAKNESSES: Gwerr is a walking and breathing example of orcishness: battle-hardened, quick-tempered, dogged, but also resourceful, firm and able. Gwerr has lived too long to be any more a hotheaded berserk that young orcs sometimes are. He may flare up from nothing, but more often than not, he is also able to tone down his primary reactions and to think before he acts. Lately he has fallen to thinking more often than before and his view of his current situation is quite gloomy. The Easterlings have taken just too much power and command over their lives. There was no future for the orcs in this system that was unraveling itself. Alone he could not change it and so other ideas have started to form in his age-old mind. Gwerr is one of the planners of the orc-runaways. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nogrod's post - Hadith Hadith heard of the plan two days before it was going to be put into action. It was not a clumsy one of his own making, but a realistic one embedded in the grander scale rebellion that had been talked quietly for months all over the plantation. Kurrah and Zilin, the influential elders in their barracks were the minds behind it. Their barracks would not take part in the rebellion but would use the opportunity to just go for their own. Kurrah and Zilin thought the whole idea of a common rebellion to be pure madness and fantasy of the hotheads. It would just lead to more suffering: many would die and the rest would in any case be rounded up and the conditions would turn even worse with lots of new tougher rules and regulations, not to talk of some general punishments everyone would have to bear after the uprising. But the general disorder could be used for their benefit. They could sneak out in the overall confusion by first giving an impression to the guards that they were not involved. The rebellion broke some moments after midnight. All the doors of the barracks were bursted open with the forordained signal from one of the barracks and the angry slaves ran out from them, challenging the guards on duty. There was a general alarm and in an instant the frenzied slaves saw the orc and easterling soldiers rushing in to bring order to the plantation and cut the rebellion down to its beginning. Kurrah and Zalin had waited a short moment after they heard the uprising had begun and then carefully opened the door of their barracks. As their door had stayed closed when the mayhem started, only three orc-guards were left to keep an eye of their barracks. The others had rushed to help in the fight that was now in full flare. Kurrah and Zilin had distracted the orc-guards by quering them about the situation when the general uprising had begun. While their guards were busy trying to have an eye of the general situation and explaining it to Kurrah and Zilin, the others from the barracks had a chance to sneak out. Soon the guards got hang of what was going on, but then Kurrah and Zilin attacked them with forks and spoons. All items one could call a weapon were left to those who would try to escape. Hadith had not been given a weapon as he was deemed too young to claim one with the shortage of them, but he had his sling and the crude knife that he had made himself in the general anticipation of the rebellion. Those two older men sacrificed themselves to get the others out that night. And they made it. Some of the other older men – and a few women - had decided to sacrifice themselves too, and that really made the difference as they entered the battle between the two older men and the three orcs. The orc-guards had no chance to report that the “peaceful“ barracks had done a runaway as they had to fight for their lives against a dozen of elderly people armed with kitchen utensils. The heroism of these elders saved the others of that barracks on that night. The fleeing slaves heard their cries as they ran away from the barracks. Before long one easterling chieftain noted the escape of one of the barracks in the middle of the fight. Even though bringing down the general rebellion tied up lots of the orc-forces and the Easterling guards, some horsemen were sent to trail them too. Soon the escaping slaves heard the horses coming after them. Hadith looked back to see the whole plantation lit and full of movement. Other slaves fought bravely but most of them were fast rounded up and beaten back to their barracks. Two small groups of riders sent after them both were seemingly taking a wrong direction. Hadith’s heart was thumping and his hands were trembling from excitement. They were free! Or at least they might be! After they had crossed the fields, the small hills and knolls covered them with the aid of darkness spreading over the plains. They had actually escaped! The thought kept crawling into his mind, and everytime he tried to push it away. It’s not sure yet, anything could happen. It was an idea so huge he couldn’t just take it. To be free! To be not pushed around, to be not told what to do. How could he decide what to do? Like for example tomorrow morning? Whether to wake up or not, whether to dress or not? It was fantastic and scary at the same time. Well the remaining elders will tell me what to do and where to go, he thought to himself, a bit saddened and relieved at the same time. There was some order in his life anyhow. A riding search-party of the Easterlings actually spotted them on the next day, but they were so clearly outnumbered and being so far away from any reinforcements, that they didn’t even try to round them up but let them go. That was the confirmation for Hadith. They actually were free now. During the same day some individual escapees from other barracks who had escaped the searching parties joined their ranks. They were welcomed, but there were no great hurraahs’ about. After a couple of days they were taken unawares by a small group of other ex-slaves. They seemed a ragged and tough party of people. To Hadith they were heroes – and he was thinking, that he would too become like them. A hero, no longer a slave. A freee man. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- __________________ Upon the hearth the fire is red Beneath the roof there is a bed; But not yet weary are our feet... Last edited by Nogrod; 06-30-2006 at 07:52 PM.

06-26-2006, 01:04 PM	#75
Firefoot Illusionary Holbytla Join Date: Dec 2003 Posts: 7,547	Okay, that would make much more sense. Thanks for the clarification!

06-26-2006, 01:43 PM	#76
Child of the 7th Age Spirit of the Lonely Star Join Date: Mar 2002 Posts: 5,133	Durelin - Please clear your pms. when you get a chance. Can't imagine why you'd have so many.... __________________ Multitasking women are never too busy to vote.

06-26-2006, 02:34 PM	#77
Nogrod Flame of the Ainulindalë Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Wearing rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves in a field behaving as the wind behaves Posts: 9,308	I don't know about you, but I felt I needed the lists this way to make myself comfortable with the host of people "starring" the roles in our game. Hopefully it helps you others too... Btw. Should we have a list of important NPC's too - so of those people who would be in leading roles but would not be the ones we are writing? At least the slave escapees seem to me to be people who are mostly young and inexperienced - and surely there are some that lead those people. I don't think any 12-year old would take the lead. So should we just name a few leader persons, give them a character in one sentence and then see where we will take them as our common NPCs or something? The inhabitants of Mordor The Orcs, total of ?: Regin Hardhammer - Ishkur, Orc rebel (male) Undómë - Zagra & Mazhg, Orc rebel, sisters Regin Hardhammer - Ungolt, Orc, female Child of the 7th Age - Makdush, Uruk-hai Nogrod - Gwerr, Orc rebel (male) Novnarwen - Orc, male Firefoot - Orc, male The slave escapees, total of 56(?): Nogrod - Hadith (aka Apples), slave escapee (male) Firefoot - Slave escapee (female) Undómë – Slave escapee, female Tevildo – Azhar, slave escapee, 12 y/o female Folwren - Kwell Dunfire, slave escapee, young boy Orofaniel - slave escapee The ex-slaves, total of 14(?): Durelin – Khamir,Ex-slave Orofaniel - Reagonn, ex-slave (male) Novnarwen - Aedhild ex-slave (female) __________________ Upon the hearth the fire is red Beneath the roof there is a bed; But not yet weary are our feet...