Free League Brings New TTRPG Adventures To Middle Earth With ‘Tales From The Lone-Lands’

Welcome to the table,

I was around nine years old when first read The Hobbit. I remember an older kid talking about it in a way that made it sound as complex as a religious text and as thrilling as a Saturday morning cartoon. I tried to read it and found myself getting lost. The songs were cool, and the woodcut-looking art on the yellowed pages was fun to look at, but the work did not click with me.

A few years later I would see the 1977 Rankin & Bass The Hobbit animated musical television special someone’s older brother recorded from TV on a VHS tape. Upon returning home that day, I would grab the copy of The Hobbit from my drawer and read it cover to cover over the next 24 hours.

Middle-Earth provided this rich fantasy landscape that was nearing the end of its time. While there was still life and danger in the story, the world felt like it was in the sunset of its existence. As readers, we were coming into the story long after all the fantastical things had occurred.

I wanted more. I wanted to see the places the dwarves talked about. I wanted to know what Gandalf was getting into, and I wanted to know who Bilbo’s family was, and if they had dentists.

The wonderful people at Free League Publishing have provided me with an opportunity to answer all those questions and more…. except maybe not the bit about dentists.

For all my TTRPG players (and those who are looking to jump into the hobby), new adventures await you in Middle-earth!

The time has come to explore the lands you have read about in J.R.R. Tolkien‘s work and create your own legends. The adventure compendium Tales From the Lone-Lands for the multiple award-winning second edition of The One Ring roleplaying game, based on the works of Tolkien, is now available for pre-order in the Free League webshop.

This new tome of adventures is also available for The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying, the 5E adaptation of The One Ring, under the title Tales From Eriador. You can pre-order this volume via the official website, alongside Ruins of Eriador, the 5E adaptation of Ruins of the Lost Realm, previously released for The One Ring TTRPG system.

The adventure compendium Tales From the Lone-Lands and its 5E adaptation Tales From Eriador includes the following.

• A Troll-Hole, If Ever There Was One, and Kings of Little Kingdoms are relatively self-contained adventures but still hint at a growing danger.
• Messing About In Boats involves directly one member of the Company, in an unexpected way!
• Not To Strike Without Need and Wonder of the Northern World follow the slow infiltration of spies of the Enemy.
• The Quest of Amon Guruthos challenges the heroes to battle an ancient evil.

The expansions Ruins of the Lost Realm and its 5E adaptation Ruins of Eriador include the following.

• Chapter 1: Fog Over Eriador offers a description of the regions that once were part of the kingdom of Arnor, with a focus on the city of Tharbad.
• Chapter 2: A Gathering Storm provides the Loremaster with a set of narrative elements aimed at building a possible future for the land of Eriador as a whole, including the description of many looming threats, Loremaster characters, and their agendas.
• Chapter 3: Landmarks adds twelve sites of interest in the style of the one presented in the core volume. These locations depict both ‘historical’ sites mentioned in The Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit, and others that have been created specifically for the game.

First released in 2011, The One Ring was hailed as the best attempt at bringing Middle-earth to the gaming table to date. With the praised and award-winning The One Ring Second Edition, the game has entered a new era and brought players further into the Twilight of the Third Age.

If you are looking for a solid fantasy alternative to delving into dragon-filled dungeons, Free League makes some truly wonderful games and The One Ring provides some really fun lore and setting material for a campaign outside the confines of the Forgotten Realms.

Until next time, I played a halfling dentist in a D&D game when I was younger. I collected teeth… like a worrying amount of goblin teeth. It was a blast.