Concerning the Beacons of Gondor and Anórien. Here is the best resource I have found on the net for Tolkien details: http://www.tuckborough.net/
This give more details, though less subjects than the Encyclopedia of Ardathat I use to use the most.
They are both better than Wikipedia.
Agreed. I use the Encyclopedia of Arda pretty often.
I pushed the party ahead to near Edoras, I hope I am not going to fast. Let me know here if I am going either too fast or too slow.
Also if I miss something in the game thread, PM me or remind me or if detail is needed ask it here.
The pace seems good to me, if just a touch fast.
Also, a heads up for everyone. I work at a business management firm which means that my day to day job has be severely effected by the current economic happenings. The next few days are going to be a bit hairy for me at the very least. Things might get better by Friday, they might not get better until after October 15th. Just wanted to warn everyone. I will be reading and following along, but my participation might be a tiny bit on the low side.
Jim, I will PM you if it looks like I will need to take a temporary absense, but I don’t think it will come to that.
It’s fine by me; the laws of probability state that we should probably have no more than one fight on the way to our destination.
Oy!, good luck with that. I hope it doesn’t get too bad for you.
If you want to think ahead on returning to Aglarond and either pre-post some things here or PM me on it, I’ll incorporate it into the game thread at the appropriate time.
The only problem with that theory is once you leave Tharbad to get to the Last Bridge, the entire trip has a high probability of Random Encounters as you put it. In fact, as this world is very much about traveling outside and actually seeing the World, they will be almost as common as fully planned missions/dungeons. Though of course, they are not truly random.
Oh, sure, but the trip to Edoras was an area well-known to be safer than most. The journey to Rivendell is an adeventure in its own right (it’s even got its own thread!) and so the “rule” doesn’t apply. It was mostly just a silly connection and a chance to link to an appropriate OOTS strip.
Oh for the love of Eru, please lets not waste any more posts about the damn European ground hogs. It was a toss off remark and not meant to be part of game play. Please. please, please! I’ll put up with almost any unplanned event but not this.
Hahaha, I apologize. Here I was writing that last post, thinking “This is stupid, but What? hasn’t cut us off yet, hmm. Maybe we’re supposed to be paying more attention to the marmots?”
In any event, forget I said anything - the hawks are merrily cutting a swath through their population, which should be closure enough. ^^
Was it supposed to be a reference to the classic Scylla groundhog eradication thread? 'Cause that’s where my mind went.
The marmot who lives under my desk says we should just move along. Nothing to see here.
I have a ground hog problem in my yard. I wanted the equivalent varmint for a Rohan horse trader and I verified the Marmots are common enough in European areas that roughly correspond to Rohan.
I will admit to having to refrain from typing “nuke them from orbit” but other than that, it was not actually a reference to Scylla’s famous thread.
I’m confused. 
Ghân is a specialist in this area and has come up with a workable plan using his spells to assist (without harming any animals). 
Are you referring to the Ranger’s ramblings?
When Sam arrived in the West, did he find Frodo still alive?
I realize this may seem a little out of the blue. The upcoming audience with King Eomer brought this question to mind. I do remember seeing this discussed somewhere on the SDMB. Still, it seems most relevant to know the views of the players in this game, thus the question.
For the record I always believed he did.
Actually if you check the times stamp, I believe 4 more marmot posts happened after my post here. As the ref; I didn’t want to spend 40 posts and a week on the marmot issue. It was in character for Ghân to try and help, but as the ref, I was making a desperate plea to move on. The next morning (for me) I saw the rambling posts and just moved on with a small protest. Occasionally I request the forgiveness of the players to extradite the adventure from very minor side issues that I believe most players (and the ref) would find boring or frustrating.
In one of the letters, Tolkien speculated that Sam would have found at least Frodo alive but that the three Hobbits would not be given Elven immortality. In one of the none game Tolkien threads; I linked to and quoted the letter in question. I think QtM had some additional information on the question.
As the Ref, in this world the three Hobbits were given very long lives in Aman and Frodo Lives!
Additionally I gave Merry and Éowyn extended lives for killing the Witch King and being healed by the Hands of the King. I am not sure if I can justify this textually, but I chose to do so. I think in my Ops that I mention Éowyn looks far younger than Éomer. I know in game I played Pippin (the younger of the two) as much older in physical shape than Merry.
Ok, I found the SDMB thread on this topic. Why am I not surprised that Jim plays a prominent role in it? 
Good thread - sorry I missed it! I, too, would like to think (and strongly suspect JRRT would agree, if he’d ever turned his thoughts definitively to the question) that Frodo was there to greet Sam when he got off the Elven-ship.
It’s canon (from the Tale of Years) that Merry and Pippin outlived King Éomer, at any rate (as you know, but some of the players may not).
Yes to that part and as you know, this is the year Éomer dies of old age.
Merry is older than Pippin, but I have him in much better shape and more likely to live longer or at least not die of old age as soon. Same with Éowyn. That is the part I was talking about. That is the part I cannot support textually but I made a game decision.