All Along the Greenway
The Journey's of Folco Hornblower, Book IV, Chapter II
It’s been quite a long time since I have played a solo session of The One Ring, and Role-playing Folco. Lot’s has happened gaming and personal wise that seemed to keep me from picking up the Feat and Success dice and rolling on the Journey Tables! So, here we are again, on the roads of Eriador, following our Bree-Hobbit and his trusted Bree-Pony on their intrepid adventures!
It took me a while to get back into the mindset and feel for The One Ring and Strider mode, as of late I’ve been running and playing Blade Runner and ALIEN RPG’s since the last video, and my The One Ring campaign that I run has been on hold since before Christmas. But get back to it I did, and I’m now ready for more adventuring with Folco Hornblower. And I won’t lie, those other two games are immensely fun to play and to try solo, and for those new to my channel and this stack, you can read the notes on how those game sessions are going.
On that note, I also wanted to redo the look of the video’s for my Strider mode play and opted for a more “Old Book” style and feel. Let me know how you find it, I appreciate the feedback.
I started the session by reviewing again the Strider Mode rules once again, the overall journey rules, and so on, just to get my mind settled. I also opted to go the pencil and paper route instead of using Roll20 like I have before. Really enjoyed that tactile feeling of rolling the dice, instead of just hitting the mouse bottom on the Roll20 character sheet.
We start off with Folco adventuring from Bree, post him returning from Archet with the Archet Hunting Bow (see the video titled: The Troll Over Archet)
I took out the paper Journey Log, pulled out the player map and traced out the route Folco was to take from Bree to Tharbad, essentially following along the Greenway road. I then traced out the path on the Loremaster map. Taking out the Feat and Success dice, and my paper copy of Folco’s character sheet, I set off on the Journey Phase to Tharbad. The whole session took approximately an hour, which seems to be my standard length that I’ve played so far (TOR, Blade Runner, ALIEN), and translated well to the creation of each video for the channel. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience and the resulting outcomes of the rolls and the story that developed.
As you can see, the journey had started off very well, with a chance meeting with a fellow traveler. I didn’t want to be biased in the decision of who I wanted that to be, so I consulted and rolled on the Lore Tables, rolling a Feat Die 3 times, getting Action: Evade, Aspect: Flourishing, and Focus: Patron. I decided to just use the Focus in this case as we already have the action being meeting a fellow traveler, and for Aspect, well it just didn’t fit with what I was starting to think. With patron being rolled, I thought it an ample opportunity then for Folco to finally meet Gandalf the Grey, as he after a long winter abroad, was travelling up from the south and to Bree along the Greenway. Now as it was not a Fellowship Phase, I’ve kept Folco’s Patron to still being that of Bilbo’s but now after meeting with Gandalf, the wizard has now become an option for future Fellowship phases!
Event #3 proved to be a troubling one for Folco, and a Terrible Misfortune, with Stalking Enemy as the outcome. Fortunately he rolled just enough (tying his Attribute score!) to succeed and be able to spot the enemy. I rolled on the Ruins Along the Greenway table from the Core Rulebook and the result was this entry:
I would’ve played out the text of the entry and ensuing combat if Folco had failed the AWARENESS roll for the Terrible Misfortune event, but because he had passed, he was quick witted enough to escape and flee from the terrible grasp of the Barrow-wight! Folco was certainly lucky!
Folco rolls another success for his Marching test with Event #4 resulting in him reaching the outskirts of Tharbad. I decided to end the session there, as I really want to read more in-depth the description for Tharbad in Ruins of the Lost Realm and better bring out the feel and flavour of the city, and also the NPC’s.
My plan is to hopefully get to the next Strider mode session in before months end, however I do want to get in another session of Blade Runner and Alien in as well. Either way, my summer is looking good to getting some great gaming in!
As always, thanks for watching and supporting this stack and the YouTube Channel. Very much appreciate what great comments and feedback I’ve received.
Thank you.
Cheers,
Ryan of the North.