A WARNING...

This page gives the main storyline for WITHDRAWN TO MORDOR.

If you are planning on participating as a player in this game, READ NO FURTHER.

You'll spoil the surprise, flatten the souffle, bring us peace without honor, and betray the Empire to the Hunnish barbarians. Worst of all, you won't have any fun later.

Don't say I didn't warn you...now, on with the show!

Does this date sound familiar to you Tolkien fans: Third Age 3019, March 25, around midday?

Anyone?

I'm not surprised. It's the most momentous date in the history of Middle Earth, but few of us actually know what it is. It is, of course, the day that the One Ring was destroyed in the fires of the Crack of Doom; the day Sauron's power was forever ended; the day, for better or for worse, the Age of Powers passed on forever and the Age of Men began. It was the end of History, and the beginning of the Future, for Middle Earth.

I've always been interested in running a Fourth Age campaign in MERP, a campaign that can make use of the incredible background material that the Professor and ICE have so graciously provided WITHOUT all those entanglements in "recorded history." A starting point was required, however, and I wasn't quite sure where and when to begin such an endeavor. I wanted to use the reign of King Elessar, to give the players reference points they could recognize from the books, but I didn't want to stick their characters into any of the standard War of the Ring situations: After all, they knew that the "good guys" would win, so how much excitement could there be?

Then it struck me: Why start out on the side of the "good guys" at all? Some of those seduced to the service of Sauron were bound to have crises of conscience at times: What would happen to the more humane minions and agents when the Big Kahuna went belly-up? Thus, in a flash of inspiration and a month of filling in little squares on character sheets, WITHDRAWN TO MORDOR was born.

The pregenerated characters, all 21 of them, are modeled on minions and agents from the Middle Earth Collectible Card Game, which I frankly and unabashedly adore. My wife Sandy provided some invaluable visualization based on their portraits and their statistics, and the characters sprang to life with relatively little work. If we're all playing the bad guys, I though that those examples provided by MECCG were the way to go.

(Please note that not all the characters are truly minions of Darkness. Four of them, to be exact, are actually good-hearted friends of the West who, for various reasons, are masquerading as agents of Sauron. DORELAS the Scout is not a fallen Dunadan; he is really ADRAZAR, a diplomat and spy for Gondor. ELWEN the Elf Rogue is not really a traitor to her people; she is really ARINMIR Halfelven, agent of Galadriel in the South. EUN the Scout is really VYGAVRIL, Southron devoted to peace, and TARCIL, another Dunadan, is really HALDALAM, Gondor's ambassador to Dorwinion and the East.)

A quick synopsis:
The game starts with the characters celebrating the imminent fall of the West and the complete victory of Sauron. Things go downhill in a hurry when, in full view of the company, the Barad-dur collapses, Mount Doom erupts in fury, and the chief Variag priestess present announces that the God Tumrakhi, Tumrakhi who is Sauron, is DEAD...just before her head explodes.

Earthquakes ensue. Towers and castles fall. The land fractures and remakes itself. Dust and shattered rock and blood get everywhere, and there's no cleaning people due for a long, long time.

The characters are now faced with series of choices. If the GM does a really fine job, some of them may well die during the decision-making process. They have a full complement of weapons and armor (after all, who goes ANYWHERE in Mordor unarmed?), but no food, no water, and no idea which way to go. It's the GM's job to keep them as confused as possible.

The choices the characters make will put them in dire peril regardless. (Ain't it fun bein' the GM?) They will have to deal with marauding bands of Orcs, insane Trolls, and even-more-insane refugees who refuse to believe that Sauron is no more. They will have to round up drinkable water, edible food, and maybe even help to carry their heavier sacks of plunder. Perhaps worst of all, they face danger from spirits of air, earth, fire, and water whose presence has been beaten down by the Will of Sauron and his Ring for more than five thousand years. These spirits will bring Mordor back into the true ecology of Middle Earth, but not without some kicking and screaming along the way...

Regardless of the choices of the players, their characters must be drawn along the path that leads to the pass of Cirith Ungol. The route South will be made deadly by the presence of the freed slaves of Nurn, now some 200,000 in number, armed and armored from the sack of Urlurtsu Nurn and unnumbered lesser fortresses, killing and slaying and killing and burning and killing everything in their path. The Mountains of Shadow are impassible to most of the characters, and the way North is blocked by the ruin of Orodruin and the presence of the army of Gondor at the Morannon. The sensible, the cowardly, and the pragmatic will agree that Cirith Ungol is the way to go.

There is one heck of a surprise waiting for the characters at the base of Cirith Ungol. The Mouth of Sauron has survived the wreck of the Morannon and has come South to gather the ex-minions of Sauron unto himself. He needs numbers and skills to establish himself out East, and he will latch onto the characters as just the kind of cannon-fodder (Sorry, did I say that out loud?) he needs.

The remainder of the adventure takes the company, some by their own free will, and some by compulsion (the Mouth is a 50th level Mage, of course) to the Tower of Cirith Ungol. The Mouth believes he will find a significant store of goods, arms, and armor there, enough to support his fledgling army of Darkness in its quest for a new home. The characters will have to examine their loyalties and their newfound free will and see if the Mouth is someone to be followed...or filleted.