The Lord of the Rings
The Lord of the Rings, sometimes shortened to LOTR, is a trilogy of books written by JRR Tolkien in order to expand on the world he created for his shorter novel The Hobbit. He found that the setting he had built was far too interesting to abandon after a simplistic quest storyline, an experience common to modern GMs.
The trilogy consists of the following books:
- The Fellowship of the Ring
- The Two Towers
- The Return of the King
You have, of course, read them. If you haven't, gtfo and read them. And don't you even dare just watch the movies. Although awesome films, they aren't the same experience.
The epic story
If you have read them (which you have) but it's been so long that you've forgotten the details, here's a brief refresher:
Bilbo Buttocks Baggins, the protagonist of The Hobbit decides to leave home, and entrusts his magic ring to Frodo, a relative of his. Problem is, it turns out the Ring is a sort of quasi-phylactery for Sauron, Lord of Mordor and all around titanic douchebag. Gandalf the Grey, a wizard and close friend of Bilbo's, realises this and sends Frodo, along with Samwise Gamgee, a gardener and incredible badass, to Rivendell, where a council of races will decide what to do with it. Since there's no other way to destroy it, they decide to throw it into the volcano where it was forged, which happens to be right in the middle of Mordor. The party for this quest consists of:
- Frodo Baggins, Ringbearer, Halfling.
- Samwise Gamgee, Fighter/Gardener, Halfling
- Meriadoc "Merry" Brandybuck, Rogue, Halfling
- Peregrin "Pippin" Took, Fighter/Rogue/Fool, Halfling
- Gandalf the Grey, Wizard, Celestial
- Aragorn, Son of Arathorn, Fighter/Ranger, Human (Numinorian)
- Boromir, Fighter, Human
- Legolas Greenleaf, Archer, Elf
- Gimli son of Gloin, Fighter, Dwarf
So, off they go. After a few detours and sidetracks, the fellowship is split into three (even though you should never split the party). Frodo and Sam go off directly to Mordor, as Frodo's the only one who really needs to go and Sam is too much of a bro to abandon him. Pippin and Merry wind up in Gondor, a formerly prosperous kingdom, and Rohan, a nation of vikings on horseback, respectively, after having adventures with Ents. Boromir dies in an ambush but has a pile of corpses to show for his troubles and gets a river funeral. Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli form a Human-Elf-Dwarf triple threat team and fuck evil's shit up for the rest of the trilogy, with Gimli as Dennis Rodman.
Despite having their own problems to content with, somehow the members of the divided fellowship seem to get involved with everyone else's mess and need to sort shit out. Their list of game achievements include and are not limited to; surviving a dungeon filled with insane number of goblins and a big motherfucking demon lord; foiling the plans of a wicked wizards and his orc army; saving not one but two human nations (and the entire world for that matter); winning a whole campaigns worth of scenerios and battles; and defeating the big bad evil guy of the setting with enough time to go home for tea and crumpets.
Finally Frodo, after going around the most fuck me way possible to get into Mordur, climbs a great big volcano and drops the one ring in. Oh no wait he wasn't going to but Golum happyily bit his finger off and got the ring, not realising that there was a volcano behind him....was this guy always so thick?
Of course GW couldn't let such a profitable venture pass them by...
Back in the early 2000s, GW made a tabletop game based around this premise and called it The Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game. Because they ran out of short titles.
While it let you play out your favourite scenes from the movies (in the way YOU imagined them going), it failed to light the world on fire.
Gallery
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How the heck did a little hobbit beat this?
See also
The Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game for the tabletop skirmish game.