To the Havens In Glory

 

Most people I've met and talked to about Lord of the Rings seem to think of Frodo as a chump. And if you just watch the movies this is true; movie Frodo is the ultimate of chumps. He inherits the last vestige of evil power from a bygone age, which proceeds to ruin his life. Sacrificing his life Frodo travels to Mordor, where he ultimately fails to give up the thing the had traveled so long to get rid of and returns back to a quiet life, where he is haunted by the horrors he experienced, eventually having to go to Valinor to go find peace. It's a thoroughly depressing story. And completely guts the character from the book, making for a mere shadow of what was intended. I personally hesitate to even call them by the same name. Here's why.

During the Council of Elrond Elrond calls Frodo the equal of the likes of Beren and Turin Turambar. Anyone who knows the Silmarillion knows this is no small praise. Elrond is saying Frodo is a mover and shaker of the world on the same level of the heroes of old! And that's before Frodo gets to Mordor. As Frodo travels he only becomes more and more impressive. With no power he awes the likes of Faramir, holds council with Galadriel as someone on even footing (even if he doesn't recognize it), and is able to channel the Ring to his own personal charisma, cowing Gollum with nothing more than a few stern words. Frodo does fail to destroy the Ring, but this is after a journey that literally no one else in the entirety of Middle Earth could have done. It is presented within Tolkien's framework that no one can hold out against evil for forever, not in this world. But even so, why on earth

It all comes to a clean focus in The Scouring of the Shire, which is emphatically the point of The Lord of the Rings. It is explicit in the text itself. To omit it is to cut out the central conflict of LOTR, nevermind all of Tolkien's Legendarium! It is here where Frodo comes into sharp view. To those of you who still don't know, The Scouring of the Shire was what happened when the hobbits returned to the Shire.. only to find that a vastly depowered Saruman had  taken over their homeland and corrupted it. Merry, Pippin, and Sam manage to organize a resistance and, taking Saruman's henchmen by surprise, bring down Saruman's government. But the most important part of Saruman, his voice and mind, were  not taken away by Gandalf. Saruman can still manipulate and wreck souls, if only they don't know they can prevent it.  All the other hobbits flinch. 

All but Frodo. Up until Frodo nobody had ever gone toe to toe with a maiar with something so simple as conversation. A maiar's power isn't in his physical strength, but in his soul, his mind. Physical power comes and goes and is not something that Tolkien regards as special. But the mind? The soul? Those are completely irreplaceable and are where power truly lies. And no one in the Legendarium has been able to just stand up to maiar and win, not in a duel of wits.

Nobody but Frodo.

Using nothing but the strength of his character Frodo completely dismantles Saruman's evil in front of the hobbits of the Shire. With all the respect and care in the world Frodo counters Saruman's voice, allowing the hobbits to be free from the last enslavement Saruman had put them under. And Frodo does this with absolutely no force, whatsoever. Going to hell and back has not destroyed Frodo, on the contrary: Frodo is one of the strongest beings in Middle Earth. He is certainly unique.

What to make of the ending, then? Frodo is most definitely not broken by his experiences in Mordor. He has evolved a quiet strength that is all but impossible to see. Frodo is hurt by his experiences, of course; he does have his wounds. But the wounds are not all-consuming. But eventually the clock does have to run out on not being home. And Frodo is not home. There is only one place for someone who had been strengthened like how he was, and it is nowhere near the Shire.

Far from being the sacrificial lamb that must go on in misery until Heaven smiles upon him, Frodo winds up being one of the most powerful folk in all of the Legendarium. Able to walk with elves and men equally as easily as hobbits, Frodo became someone that even the gods could not contend with. And when it was time for him to go Frodo left in peace. Far from being a long defeat, Frodo's arc is one of victory in the face of adversity.

Moréna: Session Six

Boros rolled onto the cool flagstones. He was bleeding. He was cold. All was dark. He was ready.

He heard someone else, out there, breathing. "If you're here to kill me, you're a little late." He tried to call out, choking on his own blood, into the dark. A familiar female voice chuckled.

"You're not done yet. You haven't accomplished what you set out to do. Why did you decide to do it in the first place?"

"Ungoliant. She took my family."

"No, no she didn't. You're fooling yourself. Remember what happened. Think. And then act."

Something cold was placed into his hand. It wasn't as large as Moréna, but it wasn't a dagger, either. It was sharp. Boros noticed that his bleeding began to slow, and soon he felt well enough to stand up.

It had been a long time since they had left the walls of their village. But today was the day. They were going out, even for a minute, on a picnic. 

She looked sad. 

Boros nudged her. "Is everything alright?"

She nodded hastily. "I'm just worried. There's been so many raids these days. Are you sure we're safe?" 

He laughed. "After all the ones I've killed with my sword? Yes, I'd say we're safe, at least for the moment. The children need to get out. Besides, you've got me!"

A strained smile was the only reply he received.

 They stopped in a clearing, not too far away from the walls. They heard hissing from two of them, as they vaulted out of the trees. He got her and one of the children behind him, but the other one ran away, in a panic. 

He was knocked over and bit. 

Boros charged, dragging wife and child with him. The other child was also bitten, and soon Boros was bitten as well. As he lay there, he began to black out. His wife was standing over him, crying.

That memory wasn't right. Boros could feel it. He concentrated harder.

The kids were crying. She wasn't. And, while he couldn't see anything, Boros realized that he had deliberately not heard her when she asked the spiders. "So, you'll leave the village alone then? This is all you want?"

 Someone was in the room with him. In the ever-present darkness he heard a strangely repulsive feminine voice crying and sniffling "The whips the whips the whips their whips..." The feeling, the atmosphere, of the room became something that he could barely stand. It wasn't that woman who kept showing up, whoever she was. This was someone different.

"Ungoliant?"

"The whips the whips the whips the whips... Boros... together again."

"Why? Why do this to me?"

There was a laughter, stifled by a cry of pain. "Why? The whips! What a stupid question! Ack! Why did you marry her? Why did you have children? Why do anything at all?????"

Boros gripped the hilt of the blade. He couldn't see, but he had to try.

All of a sudden he could feel that someone else was in the room. "Hold up, Boros" said a strong, masculine voice. "We have finally come."

This was followed up by the flummoxed scramblings of someone much smaller, but louder. "Oy! What's going on?? Where's Frodo??"

Boros shouted "I'm with him! What the hell's going on."

"Yes, where's Frodo? We were on the stair, and I was looking at the star. Why am I... wherever this is??"

"There's not much time to explain. The light that's keeping Boros alive is going to fade soon", said the other man, who fished the crystal out of Boros' pocket. "She's afraid of this. And we can kill her with it. Up, Samwise, with your phial, and me, with this uncut crystal's refined sister! We have to get her ready for Boros to finish her off! Quickly now!"

"Whoa, wait a minute! Why wouldn't I use this sword? It's not like dying is going to get me closer to my family, they're alive!"

"Do you really think she told you the truth? I promise, Mandos and they both await you, all in his halls."

There was a pause.

 Boros dropped the sword, grabbed the crystal, and held it aloft. She began to scream, a wretched sound not unlike a dog growling and a cat screeching. The next few minutes seemed like an eternity. But all of a sudden he could feel that the two next to him, one tall and the other no larger than a child, were gone.

"Give meeee.... Give meee that crystal..."

"No"

His hand had gone down a little bit, and all of a sudden he could feel her, physically present, in the room, with him. Her bulk and stench were overwhelming. He held the crystal back up and she screeched! And then... there was the sound of crunching stone, following by a screaming that made the previous sound like soft music in comparison. She kept begging him, between mouthfuls, to stop. But Boros kept his hand up, and began to advance, slowly, achingly. A whoosh over his head and a crash presaged the boulder that fell atop him. Still, Boros, held onto the crystal, the sounds of screaming and grinding stone fading.

He saw a pair of gates ahead of him; he heard laughter, soft and pure, a fountain in auditory form. Boros headed toward it.

Moréna: Session Five

The Umbaran/Boros: The Wanderer character, played by both Lena and I. He's just discovered that his beloved sword  Moréna had been tricking him since the beginning, but without it his undead form will crumble away. He has gone East, toward a massive darkness in the Blue Mountains.

Somewhere in the Blue Mountains a great shadow flowed out from a cave. The Umbaran found this place by periodically putting down Moréna, which allowed him to see the darkness. Sticking his head into the darkness, The Umbaran found that, if he stuck his head in the entrance way, he could see. Without Moréna The Umbaran could see etchings on the walls, in various styles, haphazrdly placed, with the words "The Devourer", with drawings of mouths and teeth liberally sprinkled across the walls. Picking Moréna up The Umbaran entered.

As he rounded the corner The Umbaran heard a noise, something decidedly not eight-legged. The Umbaran drew Mairon. Out of the shadows came two enormous wolves. The Umbaran dropped Moréna, but the wolves continued to exist, and they charged him. The Umbaran swung at one and killed it, but the other wolf bit his arm and clamped down. The Umbaran bashed the wolf against a wall, grabbed its snout with his other hand, and began to push with his arm and hand, trying to break the wolf's jaw. But he slipped, and the wolf bit his right hand off. Pinning the wolf to him with his bloody stump, The Umbaran grabbed the wolf's head with his remaining hand and broke its neck.

All that remained of Moréna began to glow, and the blade's fragments disintegrated, leaving only the hilt. All of The Umbaran's wounds began to hurt, and with each step he took the pain increased.  His human senses began to return, and he found seeing to be more difficult in the gloom.

The tunnel opened up a bit, and the crystals in his pocket began to glow strongly. He took one out, and found that the entirety of the small room he was in had, carved all over its walls, the following:

The loss of infinity creates a need for it. Therefore, we will consume infinitely. Ungoliant is the only answer. She must devour. We are Ungoliant."

There was only one exit, a small tunnel at the bottom of the opposite wall, that stunk of corpses. He dropped Moréna, but nothing changed. Wrinkling his nose, The Umbaran crawled through.

The next room was enormous, and the crystal he held blazed. There was a still pool of dark ichor nearby. There was no shrine, no mother eating a child, nothing else but  the pool. At the back of the room was a crack, with black ichor oozing out of it.

"You've come a very long way" chuckled a familiar female voice.

"Well, they took everything from me".

Her voice rang with laughter. "You've come all this way, just to kill Lona Erehd. Well, here it is!" Barely visible, she pointed at the black pool. "It's been in front of you this whole time. This thing, it itself is Lona Erehd. And your family never died! You really came all this way because you thought they were dead?"

"They are, I saw them die!" He walked up to the pool, took out one of the blazing crystals, and dropped it into the liquid darkness.

The crystal dissolved.

She laughed even harder. "Then you really are a fool. If you want to destroy Lona Erehd then you will need that hilt of yours. Whatever it's worth now, that is".

The Umbaran shrugged, walked up to the pool of ichor, and threw Moréna's hilt in. He heard a chuckle, but ignored it. The crack before him opened up, and Boros walked through it.

There was a large pool of dark ichor in the next room, which began to move as he entered. It formed into a new Umbaran, an exact replica of Boros at the height of his undeath. Walking up to him, Boros eyed him up and down "Who're you?"

"I'm me," mocked The Umbaran. "Who're you?"

The crystal began to blaze, brighter and brighter.

"You're my copy", The Umbaran told Boros. "I sent you out to kill the enemies of Our Lady, so that way nobody could stop her when she went West to suck the light out of the world."

"I will reclaim you" declared Boros. "You're not real."

"Ha!  The copy thinks he's not real!" The Umbaran laughed at him.

Boros drew Mairon, and charged The Umbaran, who pulled a fully restored Moréna out of the pool, and the two began to fight. Eventually Boros backed The Umbaran up, and then swung his blade at  The Umbaran's neck; it went straight through. The Umbaran laughed. Mairon turned into black ichor, and Boros dropped it in shock. The Umbaran caught it.

He ran Boros through with both Moréna and Mairon.

The remaining crystal screamed, a sound which resembled the tearing apart of a soul. "She did it!" The Umbaran crowed "Light has been destroyed! The trees and their light will never return!" Boros slumped on the blades that had run him through.

The crystal roared back to life, brighter than it had ever shone before. Brighter and brighter it shone, until Boros' eyes, which were streaming with tears, could no longer keep the light out, even with shut eyes. Clutching the crystal tightly he thrust it into The Umbaran. "I'll never bow to the darkness, never again!" Boros shouted.

The Umbaran exploded and the light blazed. Boros could no longer see it, because he was now blind.

To be concluded...

Moréna: Session Four

The Umbaran: The main character, played by Lena and I. He is currently trying to get into the town hall of a destroyed elven village. He wields a zweihander called Moréna and just lost a short sword called Mairon.

Lona Ered: A mysterious dark force, that seems to take the form of a gigantic male spider. 

The Umbaran went into the building before him, into a great hall. Shadow webs clung to the everything, and the crystal began to flare up in a dying gasp. The Umbaran ignored the flaring up of the crystal. There were many web pods, hanging from the ceiling. The Umbaran cut open one of the pods, and out fell a male elf. He woke up and upbraided The Umbaran. He and the others were trying to become Lona Ered! The elf attacked The Umbaran, who cut him down with a sneer. There was a scuttering sound above him, and a familiar giant bulk hung above him. It was Lona Ered. A lone figure appeared before Lona Ered. The Umbaran pulled out the dying crystal and held it up. The elf before him was unfazed. Webs wrapped up The Umbaran, who could not reach Moréna (and who had thrown Mairon previously). 

Lona Ered dragged away The Umbaran into an adjoining room. The elf came in and, calling The Umbaran "Boros", grabbed the crystals from The Umbaran, cut him loose, and held it up against Lona Ered, who cowered into a corner. The Umbaran taunted Lona Ered, until an elf came running up to him and took  Moréna away from him. The world before him completely changed. Instead of someone holding a crystal with light, it was a ghost, shrouded in darkness. Instead of Lona Ered, it was an elf, with a shrinking aura of light. The Umbaran picked up Moréna and everything became as it was before. He dropped the sword and checked his pocket. The crystals were still in his pocket. Hands burning, he grabbed the crystals and shoved them at the shadowy figure, who screamed. Moréna began to float and pointed at The Umbaran, who held up one of the stones toward it. Moréna's blade split from its hilt and broke in half. The shadowy figure fell apart and the elf who radiated light died.

The Umbaran left the building, but the further he got away from Moréna the weaker he got, until he could barely move. Going back to Moréna The Umbaran became stronger. He picked up the hilt, and the dark webs and the corpse of the Umbaran reappeared. He wrapped up the hilt, but the webs didn't go away. The Umbaran walked back outside, stones in his pocket. He put down the hilt and a darkness appeared in the east. Picking up the hilt again, The Umbaran began his long walk.

Moréna: Session Three

The Umbaran: The Wanderer character, controlled by Lena and I. He wield a zweihander name Moréna and a short sword named Mairon. Last time The Umbaran had killed a gigantic male spider named Lona Ered, who had turned into a shriveled male elven corpse.

The Woman: An apparition of questionable alignment and morality, who apparently is putting The Umbaran through a series of tests.

The Umbaran headed north, up the Gelion river, to where it joined with the Ascarr River. There were plains to the north, the Blue Mountains to the east, and a forest to the west. There was a multi-deck ship on the river, with piles of corpses littering the banks around it. The Umbaran smiled, and went onto the ship.

There was no one on the deck, but The Umbaran heard someone below deck. Unsheathing Mairon, The Umbaran went downstiars. He heard someone below, demanding that he not come down. Chuckling again, he walked down. The below deck was also piled high with corpses, and amidst them stood an elf standing over a human. The elf claimed that these humans served Lona Ered. The Umbaran was amused, because he had just killed Lona Ered! But Lona Ered was not just a gigantic spider; it was not possible to kill Lona Ered. The Umbaran laughed and walked up to the elf, telling him that he'd no idea what he was messing with. The elf panicked and killed the human and then tried to kill The Umbaran, who tanked every shot, laughed, and then killed the elf. He set fire to the ship and walked off, chuckling, into the woods.

The Umbaran cut through the thick underbrush of the woods After going down a hill The Umbaran found himself in a shrine, which was very similar to the one where he had killed Lona Ered. Standing on the opposite side of was a statue of The Woman, but with eight spidery legs. Her face had been messed with so it looked like it was eating the young child she was holding. There was a spring here as well, but it was filled with a black ichor that bubbled up from someplace foul, unlike the clean water that The Umbaran had used to kill the giant spider.  There was a malevolent presence in the grove, which The Umbaran taunted. No response. The Umbaran walked up to the statue and pulled out Moréna. He cut the statue in half and it fell to the ground with a crash. No response. The Umbaran puts his hand in the black ichor; the flow doesn't change, nor did it actually cover The Umbaran's hand. Shaking his head, The Umbaran went deeper into the forest.

A few miles later and The Umbaran stumbled into another shrine. This one had a properly beautiful mother statue, with uneaten child, along with a pure spring. The statue of mother and child glowed with a soft blue light, which The Umbaran found slightly painful. But he walked around, examining the area. He took out the stone. It shone extremely brightly, and The Umbaran put it away hurriedly. He found a corpse on the edge of the shrine. It was an elven woman, covered in black ichor, and she had a scroll in her hand. It read "The evil of Gelionunci has been released. Please let Elen Amille know time is of the essence." The Umbaran picked up the

A number of branches landed in front of The Umbaran. Eight legged shadows flitted from tree to tree around and above him. The Umbaran mocked the spiders for refusing to fight him. They dropped down around him in a circle; they were dead before they hit the ground, for Moréna was quicker than they. Some of the spiders got to the spring and belched a black ichor into it. The statue stopped glowing. The rest of the spiders fled. The Umbaran pulled out his stone; it barely shone now. He shrugged, and headed in the general direction the spiders went.

Even deeper into the woods stood a village. Slaughtered elves littered the walkways. Men, women, and children's blood darkened the fauna. Webs were everywhere. The Umbaran cut the webs away with growls of frustration. Walking through the silent village The Umbaran found the largest building, in the center of village. All of a sudden he was stopped: some force prevented The Umbaran from moving any closer to the building. He heard a voice telling him that he couldn't enter. The Umbaran told that voice to fuck off. The Umbaran saw The Woman not very far off, watching him. Hearing little voices begging him to help The Umbaran chucked Mairon at her, and she vanished. All of a sudden he could go nearer the building. Looking around and muttering, he entered the building.

Moréna: Session Two

The Umbaran: The Wanderer character, rotated between Lena and I. He's come from the land of Rhun with a zweihander by the name of Moréna, which glows red from time to time. He's looking for someone called Lona Ered.

The Umbaran was standing outside the tower when he heard a scream from the forest. Out came a wounded man, running and screaming at the top of his lungs. "Lona Ered is in there! Help me!" He fell at The Umbaran's impassive feet. "What are you waiting for? Please help me!" The Umbaran looked down at him with scorn, put his weapon in ready stance, and waited. The man died; The Umbaran kicked him off, filled with disgust.

The Umbaran turned around and tried to walk into the town of Gelionunci, but found himself stopped by an invisible force. Shaking his head and cursing, he tried again. He couldn't walk anywhere nearer the town. He cursed again.

The Woman appeared behind him. "You won't be able to get in that way. Lona Ered's power won't let you."

"What, you think he's that powerful?" The Umbaran sneered.

"I know he is. And he's waiting for you in there" she pointed back into the forest.

"And how do you know that's where he is? What makes you think he wishes to face me at all?"

The Woman pointed at Moréna: "What does your sword tell you?"

"What do you know of my sword?"

"Only as much as you do."

The Umbaran cursed and walked past The Woman. "Not because you tell me to. I just want to check it out." The Woman smiled as he walked back into the forest.

The forest he chose to walk back into was crowded with underbrush. Moréna was used to hack it down, and The Umbaran continued to push his way through. He found himself in a clear with many rope-thick webs. Dark shadows began to jump around him, and a spider the size of a dog jumped down on The Umbaran, who hewed it down. A web attached to his foot and Moréna. The Umbaran pulled the web loose from his sword, but the web attached to his foot went taut and he flew into the air. A branch went through his torso and The Umbaran hung upon it, sword still in hand. Coughing on the black fluid that was once his blood he croaked "Is this the best that Lona Ered can do to me?" He spat black ichor. Quick as a wink he was pulled off the branch and dragged bodily acrost the forest.

The spiders let go; The Umbaran flew in the air a good ways, hit a tree, and rolled through underbrush, coming to rest in a clearing at the bottom of the hill. He stood up slowly and looked around. He was in an area with a bubbling fountain and the statue of a female elf with a child. What little light there was vanished. The Umbaran looked up: down came a spider the size of a large temple. The Umbaran almost didn't get out of the way in time, as Lona Ered came crashing down onto the ground. Some of the water from the fountain fell on Lona Ered and burns appeared on him. He jumped back, out of range of the fountain, and then chuckled. "Back for more, are we? Weren't you satisfied with what happened the last time?"

"No, not remotely" said The Umbaran.

"I did kill your family. And you" hissed the Lona Ered. "You want to do it all over again?"

"I'd much rather just kill you this time around." The Umbaran brandished Moréna.

"I don't believe you." Lona Ered lunged at the The Umbaran and knocked Moréna from his hands. The gentle bubbling of the fountain could still be heard and The Umbaran felt calmer looking at it. He jumped for Moréna instead. The blade's dull red glowed turned into a bright scarlet, which fed into The Umbaran, making him stronger.

The Umbaran jumped forward and cut deeply into Lona Ered, killing him in one stroke. The gigantic spider shriveled into a mass of shadows. At the center was a male elf. Moréna stopped glowing. "Heh, that's a lot to do for a good night" said the Umbaran. As he walked away his blade began to glow again. The small crystal he had became a little dimmer.

Back under the banks all the web cocoons began to shudder. And then break open. Little, soft voices whispered "We're free" simultaneously.

The Woman, who was nearby, smiled. "The first test is complete."

Moréna: Session One

In the perpetual twilight, before the sun and moon, The Umbaran strode onto the shore of the shore of the Gelion river, beside the town Gelionunci. A web shot out of the water and pulled him down into the river. The Umbaran found himself in an air pocket beneath the river, he was under the bank, where a little cave wound back into it.

He was also being attacked by a spider the size of a small dog.

As he fought the spider he heard a small voice, further back. He ignored it, and continued to fight the spider. The small voice failed. He killed the spider. The Umbaran went into the back, walking past a series of webbed-up pods. They were still. At the back of the cave he found a small pod that was still swinging back and forth. He cut it open, and a small elven boy fell out. The boy looked deep into The Umbaran's dead eyes and died. The Umbaran searched the boy's body, but he didn't find what he was looking for. He searched around, and then found a stone. He pulled out a smaller crystal, which had been hewn from a similar rock, but smoothed down. The Umbaran compared them, perplexed. He walked around again, checking the room once more. He came back to the crystal rock, broke off a part of it, and pocketed both the smoothed down crystal and the new one.

The Umbaran went back to the river, swam back up to the bank, and pulled himself out. To his right was a forest, to his left was the town of Gelionunci. The Umbaran held up his crystals, and they both glowed equally. He headed for the forest. The underbrush in the forest was uncommonly thick, so out came Moréna and down went the underbrush. The Umbaran found a a clearing, with a gigantic tree. In the tree was an arrow. The Umbaran became frustrated and called out for Lona Ered, demanding that he come out and face The Umbaran. There was no answer, only a dark chuckle, coming from somewhere in the forest. Moréna's edges began to glow red.

All of a sudden the trees began to sway, back and forth, back and forth. Yells and screams heralded the arrival of men wielding swords. The Umbaran cut them all down in astonishingly brutal fashion. One of them reached up and grabbed The Umbaran's ankle, calling him "Boros" and that the men were bewitched and he could still be saved! The man was killed; The Umbaran didn't care. The trees began to sway back and forth again. A black liquid began to bulge out of their roots. Black liquid came from the the men and crawled towards the nearest tree. The Umbaran cut down the tree, and the black liquid went to another one. The Umbaran examined the men, and sighed deeply as he recognized each and every one of them.

The Umbaran headed towards Gelionunci. As he walked he saw a watchtower, which was situated in front of the wall. A gleam from the West hit the white stones of it, and it shone, briefly, in the twilight. The watchtower itself was immaculately clean, but there were dark webs in the windows. The Umbaran stared at the tower, gleaming there in the twilight, and eventually walked inside.

The entire place was covered in dust. Quivers arrows, weapons, the worn floor, all covered in dust. The ground floor was a single room, with windows facing the town and forest. The forest window had a magnifying lens in it. A stone stairway led up to a second story. It was simple stone, but polished. The Umbaran climbed these stairs cautiously, sword ready. There were no webs inside the windows, but on the outside, contrary to what he had seen outside. There were many more weapons up here, especially bows, which were without strings. He cut through the webbing on the windows and the twilight shone through. He looked through, at the clearing he had just been in. There was a creak in the floorboards behind him and he whirled around. There was an elven woman standing there. The Umbaran told her she had one minute before he attacked her. She disappeared. A blade fell down, behind from where she was. The Umbaran picked it up and read the inscription on it: "Mairon", it read. It glowed red, just like Moréna. The Umbaran chuckled drly and sheathed it in his belt.

The Umbaran left the tower and heard a little voice cry out. It was the boy from earlier. The Umbaran went behind the tower and found the boy. He turned around and found himself facing The Woman from before, with hundreds of other elves, begging for release from Lona Ered. They vanished in a blink.

Moréna: Session Zero

Lena is someone that I knew from my time at Benedictine College. She and I had played in a few games together, particularly one of the best games I've ever been in, a World of Darkness campaign called "Unspent", GM'd by Andy. Her family and mine had met up at a park so the kids could play together, and we got into talking about RPG campaigns and whatnot. I told her about my late-night games and how much I wished others would be up at 10 PM and on so I could play with them. Lena said she was a night owl and she missed playing! After a few logistical hoops were jumped through we decided that we wanted to eventually get to a 2nd Age Middle Earth Burning Wheel game. I flat out refused to do it as of now, mostly because I'm already GMing two Burning Wheel games already and the strain would probably kill me.

So I suggested Bleak Spirit, which is so intensive it might kill me anyway!

So this is what we've drawn up. Lena, being a huge LOTR nerd (there is no "k" in Evlish) wanted to play in the First Age of Middle Earth. We decided it would when the Trees were bringing light into the world, before the sun and moon, so everything is in a perpetual twilight. Melkor, enemy of the world, is still grabbing random elves, who haven't gone West yet and are terrified of the darkness that is their world. We're putting the game on the Gelion River, near the area that eventually becomes river, in a town named Gelionunci, a mostly abandoned town.

The Wanderer we made is The Umbaran, a revenant human from what eventually became the mysterious land of Rhûn. An undead on a special mission that only he knows about, The Umbaran dresses in worn fine elvish clothes he probably picked off an elven corpse from somewhere, and wields an enormous zweihander called Moréna. This blade is the source of his power. It increases his physical strength, anger and focus. For his part The Umbaran is a very focused personality, chasing his goal with uncompromising vigor. Distracting him is a bad idea, for The Umbaran has a bad temper and will not stop until he gets what he has been chasing this whole time.