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.

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 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, Fighter, 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. Merry and Pippin wind up in Gondor, a formerly prosperous city, 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.

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.

Gallery

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  How the heck did a little hobbit beat this?