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Showing posts with the label middle-earth

Adventures in Middle Earth for D&D 5e pre-ordered

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I just  Pre-ordered Adventures in Middle-earth Player's Guide and Loremaster's Guide  from Cubicle 7. Probably the first pre-order I've ever done as I normally like to wait for reviews. I am dead excited about this one. I bought The Heart of the Wild  from them, knowing I would likely never play it, just to see their take on this type of area as a gaming setting - and loved it. I have admired the craftmanship of ToR for a while, but also know that my gaming group dislikes spending time on learning a new system and convincing them to switch would be next to impossible. Adventures in Middle Earth not only allows me to pitch a "Middle Earth Done Right" campaign with 5e - But from looking at  their FAQ , it seems they plan on re-tooling classes and backgrounds to suit Middle Earth. Presumably making them much less overt and more setting-grounded flavourful than the 'sling fireball / epic smite'  style of D&D. I am also eagerly anticipating what

Fantasy Map Review I: Middle Earth

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For links to all instalments in this series,  go here. We're off to a somewhat lacklustre start with perhaps the most iconic fantasy map of all - J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle Earth First impressions: Love the style, it is immensely flavourful and says something about kind of world Middle Earth is. It makes me want to dig into its pockets and see what mysteries have been scribbled on to this piece of lore. Second thoughts - As a setting map, Middle Earth is, geographically speaking, dull as dishwater. Just a slab of land with a coastline, a few mountains and woods dotted here and there. For an entire setting, it doesn't give you much to explore or evoke many impressions about the realms there and how they relate to each  other. Some will argue that there is more to Middle Earth than this, but not effectively so. This is the main campaign map the same way the Flanaess is the main area of Oerik and Faerun is the main area of Toril. As a setting map, it falls flat - Ju