As many of you know, I’m a fan of roleplaying games in general but don’t have the time to run or play as many different systems as often as I’d like to. These days I seem to run a lot of 5th Edition D&D — which is great fun. Sometimes, though, I find myself thinking, “I really like this mechanic from this system and that mechanic from that system. I wish I was running those games instead!”
I bought the original slipcase edition of The One Ring: Adventures over the Edge of the Wild (that’s what it was called at the time) by Cubicle 7 soon after its release in 2011. Much like the books on which it is based, I immediately liked it.
I read and re-read the rules, ran several one shot demos, bought all subsequent releases, formed a Meetup group, and eventually ran a 16 month campaign before becoming a player in a Darkening of Mirkwood campaign being run by my friend Marco Rafalá.
Like a lot of systems, running and playing The One Ring are different experiences. I recently sat down and wrote up my thoughts on what playing the game means to me. The results follow.
Glirhuin is my character for a recently kicked-off The One Ring Darkening of Mirkwood campaign. He is a Woodman of Wilderland and named after a seer and harp-player mentioned briefly in the Silmarillion.
The opening paragraph is a riff on the Fairy Heritage background from The One Ring core rulebook.
Glirhuin’s harp is inspired by this excellent painting by Stefan Meisl.
It was said that Glirhuin’s mother, Idril, was as fair-skinned and dark-haired as the Elf-maiden Luthien Tinuviel and that his father, Berengar, spirited her away from the Wood of Sorcery far in the South. Growing up, Glirhuin often doubted that this was true as there was nothing sorcerous in her true love for him and his father. True love aside, her sharp senses seemed to bring her a deep and abiding grief. She departed one spring morning after Glirhuin had grown into manhood, never to return. His father will not discuss it with him to this day, saying only that she has departed Wilderland, and he should not expect her to return.
Glirhuin travels across the Land of the Woodmen working as a guide, shepherd, and, when the need arises, a warden driving spiders and other fell creatures back into the shadows of the forest. He is never without his traveling harp on which he plays Elven ballads and lays that he learned from his mother and, more recently, from Wayward Elves on nights spent beneath the eaves of the forest gazing at the stars above.
Glirhuin seeks the company of the Wayward Elves of Mirkwood often and has become close with one of their number named Belegorn. He and Glirhuin spend days walking the eaves of the forest singing songs and telling tales of the earlier ages of Middle-earth when the alliances of Elves and Men wrought deeds of great valor. They’re particularly fond of the Lays of Beleriand as they pertain to Beleg Strongbow and Turin Turambar fighting orcs in the northern marches of Doriath.
Glirhuin was born and raised an only child in Woodmen-town and returns to spend his winters there with his father. The rumors and gossip surrounding his mother kept Glirhuin from having many close friends.
Evoric, his friend since childhood, was the one exception. The two remained close into adulthood and regularly traveled and worked together until Evoric went missing early in the Spring of 2947. His body was found weeks later at the bottom of the Well of Tears by Glirhuin himself. That discovery has cast a shadow on Glirhuin.