Laid low their towers and houses frail

[bunn]

Continued from...

In the cold winter evening, we came cautiously down the old road that runs across the marshy land of Raku.  Snow was lying on the ground and the wind cut fiercely.  The journey was long, but fortunately uneventful.  Here we are one evening, all huddled around a fire.

Comments

[r_blackcat]

Aw, cliffhanger!
I like the night-and-fire picture most.
When you write "Rhest", how it's supposed to be pronounced? If I remember correctly my "philological studies" of 20 years ago, Tolkien meant his rh and hr as "r in whisper". Is this the case?
"It can't really be said we gave Nurclamac a swift death, since Thorofin put his eyes out" - (puzzled: ) why? I mean, for what purpose?

[philmophlegm]

GM here:

Yes, I think so. Like the Welsh 'rh' sound in, for example, Rhosllanerchrugog, which is near where I grew up. Tolkien uses the same sound in 'Rhovanion' and 'Rhun'.

[bunn]

I *think* that Nurclamac, being a bit tougher / brighter than the first orc we caught, was refusing to tell us anything, and Thorofin was persuading him. It was all a bit disturbing.

The cliffhanger is a bit of a big one because we got a bit scared of Sauron and decided not to go back to Rhest right away. But Sauron is definitely out there somewhere... eeek!

[ladyofastolat]

I think the eyes got put by chance as part of the battle. Thorofin made a very good hit, and rolled "head" on the dice that randomly determined which body part was hit. Technically this should probably have killed him, but we'd said we wanted him to keep him alive for questioning, so this was changed to something dreadful but not quite fatal.

I was playing the character who did the questioning (the dwarf, Thrandin) and by the time I arrived on the scene, the orc was already eyeless. This was unfortunate, since my normal approach was to say quite reasonably (I had awesome powers of persuasion), "look, you're doomed, anyway. Tell us everything you know, and we'll make sure your death is painless and swift." His existing battle wounds made this approach rather more challenging in his case.

[r_blackcat]

Oh, that warriors! Never think of the poor questioner, do they?