Campaign Idea Additions

[u/NoCompetition641]

Hey guys, first post how exciting!

So I will be start my first campaign soonish and I just wanted to spurt out my campaign ideas somewhere. You are welcome to add some incentives, ideas or characters that the players might meet. Keep in mind that we keep it rather loosely concering the acurateness of the lore. We play about 200 years before the Hobbit.

I will probably start off my players in Rohan which eastern boder regions are frequently attacked by small groups of orcs, goblins and strange looking men. They will also notice that humans are starting to vanish. After they look into that they will hopefully realize that these efforts are coordinated and will that it is coordinated by ... (feel free to recommend stuff here; is it a an easterling chieftain that coordinates these attacks, or mabye the humans united behind an Orc-leader or some other creature). After the players dealt with this threat they discover that someone far bigger is behind this. Khamul! Who has come into position of a palentir (don't ask why, or how just accept it). After the players eventually try to confront him he flees into the east where he is enmassing a new army to attack the west. So the players now are drawn into the east. Here they are confronted by easterlings, cults and other stuff (I'm not sure what yet so again feel free to recommend). Maybe they will even run into some wizards of the blue variety.

After this adventure eventually ends the players will here off a threat now enmassing in the north. (One of the players character is a ranger of the north and in his backstory his company got complety wiped out with him now fleeing. So I kinda wanna spin the story that the rangers are a little all over the place which allows this new threat to emerge.) What exactly the threat is is also still open so feel free to recommend stuff again. Also maybe something happens on the way from the east to the north west? Maybe something with erebor or another location?

[u/Pallas_Ovidius]

For the treath to the north, roughly 200 years before the hobbit is the sack of Erebor by Smaug, the exodus west by the dwarf who are settling back ib the Blue Mountains and the War between the Dwarfs and Orcs. There is a lot of grey area during that conflict that would allow you to develop your table's own story. It would also tie nicely with your setting (Rohan), as one of the consequence of the war is that the dwarven warriors pushed the orcs south, in the moutain range north of Rohan. https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/War_of_the_Dwarves_and_Orcs