Lake-Town Dragon-Foe - The One Ring Theoretical - Company of the Marsh Bell

Plated armor like that isn't really in Middle Earth

The Lake-Town culture is close cousin to the Barding culture and can be found in the Lake-Town Guide. They use similar names but their mechanical benefits are mostly different. Unlike usual for me, I am playing into the stereotypes for the culture by making her an archer. I also did an image search to decide whether her gender and found a really nice picture that isn't quite the right sort of armor and such, but still looks quite nice, so I went with it.

For the culture, we start with the Cultural Blessing of Tenacious. This gives her extra experience if she fails rolls that are exceptionally important representing how the Lake-Town folk persevere in the face of tragedy and learn from it. The Lake-Town folk are unusual for cultures in that they don't have any skill rated at 3 to start. Their Riddle, Athletics, Travel, Insight, Healing, Courtesy, Song, Craft, and Persuade are all decent, with Persuade being favored. Awareness and Battle are basically skilled. The Lake-Town is a Prosperous culture.

For the first choice we have the choice between the line of favored Great Bow 2, Sword 1, and Dagger 1 or Sword 2, Bow 1, and Dagger 1. With the focus on being an archer, I am going to go for the Great Bow line.

This comes to the choice on specialties. Lake-Town have the following to choose from: Boating, Fishing, Swimming, Minstrelsy, Trading, and Swimming. I am going to take Boating and Swimming. Boating is frequently useful in adventures around Wilderland due to the number of adventures that take place in proximity to the River Anduin, the River Running, or the Forest River. Swimming just plays on top of that and may help to cover for emergency situations.

Now, I'm going to look at her background. I want to envision that she was a young apprentice watchman when the Dragon came, but I want to have a quite high Heart with a good Body. Fortunately, the Lake-Town culture prioritizes Heart first and Body second, so all of the backgrounds are appropriate to my desires. The attribute set I really want though doesn't come with the traits I want nor does it come with the favored Skill I want. I'm looking at Masterful Fingers which has favored Craft and makes me re-think changing Swimming to Woodwright; but I'm also looking at Watchman which has favored Awareness. Both have Keen-Eyed. Masterful Fingers has a preferable Attribute spread and some interesting traits like Elusive or Fair. Watchman is closer to my image of her background and has the Grim and Trusty traits. I am going to go for Watchman in the end with the Traits Keen-Eyed and Trusty. That gives her an Attribute spread of 5 Body, 6 Heart, and 3 Wits.

For Calling we are going to Slayer, as is obvious by the title of this entry. This gives a Curse of Vengeance as her Shadow Weakness. This also grants the trait Enemy Lore and I have to choose a specific enemy for it to focus on. Towards that end, I'm going to give her Dragon-Lore. This will not be useful often in the game, but when it does become useful it might very well be life-saving as dragons as extremely dangerous opponents in this setting. She also gets two more favored skills out Movement and Personality. For that I am going to make it Athletics and Inspire.

This brings us to the Valor vs Wisdom choice and in this case we're going to give her Valor meaning we get a reward. The Cultural Rewards for Lake-Town folk include Brazen Armor, which is mail armor that gives additional protection against swords and clubs but less against things like arrows and spears. Given she is going to be back-ranks often that's not useful since much of what she will face will be arrows and spears. There's also a Keening Bog-Stone, which is a stone that can be kept in a pouch or worn on a necklace and will vibrate when creatures that love the dark or hate sunlight are nearby. The last cultural reward is a Serpent Scimitar which is a curious sword from the south which allows a person to ignore shield bonuses to parry. The Keening Bog-Stone is interesting but I think I'm going to go for one of the general rewards. Namely, I am going to get a Cunning Make mail-shirt which reduces the Encumbrance of that item by 2.

As to setting Favored levels, I am going to give +3 to Body to bring its Favored level to 8. Then we will give +2 to Heart for another 8. That leaves +1 to Wits for a total of 4. Her Parry rating and such is not going to very useful.

This brings us to spending experience, we have the normal 10 points. I am going to spend 6 of those to increase her Great Bow skill to 3. This leaves 4 points left. I am going to increase Inspire to 2 for 3 points leaving me for 1 point. That last point will be spent on getting Awe at 1.

Lake-Town have the same starting Endurance and Hope as Bardings, being the same physical stock. That would be 22+Heart for Endurance, 28 for this character, and 8+Heart for Hope, which is 14. There is no other element affecting this so we're going to move on to gear.

She is getting a great bow for certain as well as a dagger. I am considering a short sword as well so that there's something better than a dagger on hand when she gets pressed in close. However, I am going to stick with just the bow and a dagger. That's Encumbrance 3. On to armor, I already decided on a mail shirt with the Cunning Make improvement which is an encumbrance of 10 for a total of 13. I'm going to take a risk and not have a shield. I am going to take a cap of leather and iron though, for 2 more Encumbrance and a total of 15.

Holma daughter of Holgeir

Holma was an apprentice to the watchman when the dragon came and she will always remember that case and running to find as many arrows as possible for the archers standing with Bard the Bowman who would eventually conquer the beast. She remembers all the death both then and later. She has spent her life since then learning all the old tales of dragons she can find and practicing her skill with the bow. She has acquired a reputation for being honest and trustworthy as well as having excellent vision. For a time she manned the boats of the lake-patrols, but now she's decided to take up her own career of adventure.

Culture: Lake-Town

Cultural Blessing: Tenacious

Calling: Slayer

Shadow Weakness: Curse of Vengeance
Standard of Living: Prosperous
Age: 18

Endurance: 28

Hope: 14

Shadow: 0

Valor: 2

Wisdom: 1
Standing: 0

Encumbrance: 15

Fatigue: 15

Parry: 3

Specialties: Boating, Swimming, Dragon-Lore

Distinctive Features: Keen-Eyed, Trusty

Body: 5 (8)

Heart: 6 (8)
Wits: 3 (4)

Personality: Awe 1, Inspire 2, Persuade 2

Movement: Athletics 2, Travel 2, Stealth 0

Perception: Awareness 1, Insight 2, Search 0

Survival: Explore 0, Healing 2, Hunting 0

Custom: Song 2, Courtesy 2, Riddle 2

Vocation: Craft 2, Battle 1, Lore 0

Great Bow 3, Sword 1, Dagger 1

Rewards: Cunning Make

Virtues: None yet

War Gear

• Weapons
• Great Bow - 7 Damage, 10 Edge, 16 Injury, Encumbrance 3
• Dagger - 3 Damage, G Edge, 12 Injury, Encumbrance
• Armor 
• Cunning Make Mail Shirt - Protection 3d, Encumbrance 10
• Cap of Leather and Iron - Protection +1, Encumbrance 2