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Review of Lonely Mountain Region Guide
Blurb from the publisher: 'With Smaug the Dragon defeated and the Dwarves of Erebor returning to their ancient mansion, the land east of Mirkwood resounds once more with the din of hammer on anvil. King Bard has completed the rebuilding of Dale, City of Bells. The furnaces of the Lonely Mountain are relit, and the toy-market is reopened. Travellers, merchants and adventurers turn North once again to seek their fortunes, as hope returns to Wilderland.
Packed with new information on some of the best-known locales and characters described in The Hobbit, this invaluable guide, aimed to players and Loremasters alike, describes the Dwarf-hold of Erebor, the city of Dale, the surrounding regions, and the many different activities to undertake there.
Erebor - The Lonely Mountain features:
• Rules for creating your own Dragons as well as a set of fearsome foes as examples;
• New Dwarven artefacts and enchantments and the art of their making;
• The long history of the war between Dwarves and Orcs and relics from that conflict;
• Two playable cultures: expanded rules for Dwarves of the Iron Hills and the new Dwarves of the Grey Mountains;
• A complete set of journey tables for the region and advice on trips within a city.
Lonely Mountain Region Guide contains material previously released as Erebor The Lonely Mountain for The One Ring Roleplaying Game, fully converted to be compatible with Adventures in Middle-earth and the OGL rules.'
What you get: Your EUR 33,99 or equivalent will buy you the The Lonely Mountain Region Guide, a 144-page full-colour hardcover which serves as a regional sourcebook for Adventures in Middle-earth, the adaptation of the world's most popular fantasy franchise to the world's most popular RPG. With that price the buyer gets both the pdf and the physical version when purchasing either from Cubicle 7's e-shop or from the physical stores participating in the Bits & Mortar programme. The game can also be purchased in electronic format only for EUR 13,45. That would be two different pdf files, one with the book proper and one with the maps for the players and the Loremaster.
Those playing The One Ring remember that we had examined Erebor: The Lonely Moutain together already. Seeing how the two reviews cover the same material presented under a different system, they share many similarities.
Contents: In the wake of its TOR version, The Lonely Mountain Region Guide is the fourth regional book that comes out for AIME. It discusses Erebor, the last great stronghold of the House of Durin. After a short history we are introduced to the kingdom under the mountain and some of its most prominent locations, like The Forges or the Ice Terrace. Notable characters include Dáin the Emissary, Bifur the Trader and Dori the Merchant. Two new Fellowship Phase undertakings are introduced: visiting Thorin's Tomb and paying homage to the Ravens of Ravenhill.
Treasure of the Dwarves is a small chapter expanding on the treasure creation rules that Rivendell Region Guide first introduced. Dwarven items may now belong to one of three dwarven mansions: Nogrod and Belegost, Khazad-dûm, and Erebor. Five new enchanted qualities are presented, as well as six famous dwarven weapons and armour as well as Dwarven-smithing, a new Fellowship Undertaking.
Dale is an almost 20-page gazetteer covering the history and location of the city just before the gates of Erebor. Numerous landmarks and districts are described, along with the people who inhabit them, what to do there, and another five Fellowship Phase undertakings.
The Lands About The Mountain covers the area north of Erebor. The chapter follows a similar format to the previous one, yet from a bird's eye view. The wildlife, inhabitants, notable characters and notable places of five different areas are discussed, including the Waste and the Grey Mountains.
Concerning Dragons is a chapter about the monsters that make D&D what it is. In contrast to standard D&D tropes however, dragons in AIME are not standing there waiting to be hacked. The chapter describes is a five-step process for hatching (i.e. creating) a dragon, with different breeds (cold-drakes, fire-drakes, long-worms), special abilities, personalities (freedom-lover, hoard-seeker etc) and many more. Four great dragons of the Third Age are presented (Raenar and the nameless forest dragon are added to the existing Lytegan and Kibiluzn who first appeared in the TOR version of the sourcebook), as well as their treasures along with rules on the creation of dragon hoards.
The War Of The Dwarves And Orcs is an 8-page history chapter about the eponymous war. This isn't about reminiscing however. A handful of new treasures are introduced, as well as rules about the Dwarves holding... grudges. You read that right: dwarven grudges, and the consequences they have, are now part of the rules.
Exploring the Restored Kingdoms is a chapter that did not exist in the TOR version of the rulebook. It presents twelve Journey Event Tables with numerous different encounters that can be used in urban journeys as opposed to rural ones. The rules are not dissimilar to the ones found for Journeys on the Loremaster's Guide.
The last two chapters in the book describe two different cultures: the Dwarves of the Iron Hills and the Dwarves of the Grey Mountains. There are serious differences there, from the starting skill scores to the different backgrounds that each culture supports. The former dwarves come out substantially more epic and uplifting to their otherwise hardened yet somber cousins. Two fully-fleshed specimens of each culture are also presented.
The book closes with a three-page index.
The strong points: As much as D&D's dwarves have borrowed from their Middle-earth counterparts, their differences are visible. This is not about grumpiness for grumpiness' sake, but about ceremony, customs (long-winded at times) and protocol that most humans would find tiresome. The text is not identical to that of the book's TOR iteration, most of the times however the changes are cosmetic in nature or help the text flow better. The book is bigger (yey!), thanks to the Journey Event Tables that can turn an otherwise standard urban landscape into a living and thriving city. Expect the usual very high Cubicle 7 quality standards when it comes to clarity, immersiveness, and the amount of the information that the Loremaster obtains. One might have some trouble assimilating this information from the get-go if this is his first exposure to Middle-earth, this however is to be expected. Some minimal understanding of the source material is required (hint: there is this relatively known book called The Lord of the Rings you might want to read first). However, you do not need to be a Middle-earth scholar. In fact, even Middle-earth scholars might find it hard to immediately separate Tolkien's creations from the one that the writers inserted in this product.
I enjoyed many of the new rules found in this product. AIME has no qualms about its fluff and how it trumps that of D&D. Nobody would expect to see the colour palette of dragons found in a standard D&D game, on the other hand however I never expected to see a line-specific, non-WotC created rule about dragon creation in the D&D system. AIME might be the only line audacious to pull this off with a straight face and still come ahead. Expect mighty beasts which feel like a crossover between the most ruthless of mercenaries, the most cunning of financiers, and the gods themselves. Of course you can fight them at the end of the day, this is hardly however the objective. Each dragon's backstory is a unique tapestry, a challenge for the Loremaster to reveal it all slowly, in easy-to-chew parts to the players, revealing the richness of the world at the same time. I can see DMs borrowing elements of this dragon creation system for their standard D&D game.
And this is only one example of rules-crafting that intertwines the crunch and the fluff. Unless I am forgetting something, AIME might be one of the only D&D lines that is not scared to increase the dwarven characters' charisma; the dwarves of the grey mountains are friendly folk after all. Like in TOR, the process of treasure creation has been dwarvenized, accenting the character of each of the three dwarven mansions. Not everybody is as good in making one item or another, and there is a reason each mansion takes pride in its craft.
I feel I sound overly repetitive when commenting on the production values of the line, or indeed the production values of any Cubicle 7 sourcebook nowadays. I am under the impression that there is more text and less art in this book than usual, the pieces however are strong. The goblin head on a spear can readily adorn a custom made Loremaster's screen, and even more so when combined with the orc's cut head that has been haphazardly thrown to the ground. The dwarves definitely send a message, and it is neither innocuous nor hidden. The map making is once again superb and generously provided for both the Loremaster and the players. I have to underline the distinction, seeing how the same map is provided in the frontal inner cover as a player sketch, while in the rear inner cover it has been coloured and overlayed with a hex grid for the ease of the Loremaster. That's what every publisher out there should do.
The pdf is of a very high quality, and in line with practically all other Cubicle 7 releases. Everything is right where you expect it to be, including bookmarks for all the chapters, sub-chapters and boxed texts. Pictures are extractable, for you to use as you wish. The table of contents and the index do not have live links, this is however is not a biggie.
The weak points: I start being concerned about the non-standard layout the line follows in its sourcebooks. This is not a weak point of this item in particular, were one to juxtapose however these sourcebooks with, say, the Modiphius Conan ones, the latter would come out as more formal, more holistically planned, more choreographed if you wish. In my eyes that is a very strong point, since it helps a wary Loremaster keep track of what is where. Take the undertakings as an example. They are cool indeed, yet if you don't remember where you saw what you are searching for, you really have to dig for it, be it in different sourcebooks or even a single one.
Just like the TOR sourcebooks, the AIME sourcebooks contain adventure hooks in their texts, yet they have to be first extracted and subsequently and worked upon. The more a Loremaster is acquainted with the original LOTR material, the more he might be disappointed by the lack of additional detail here at times. There are clearly many things that could have been better developed. Erebor has to have an expanded, ultra big map, with some guidelines on how to fill in the spaces. Idem for the Dale. Incidentally, maps should be friendly for both Loremasters and players, something that was the case in previous TOR adventures. On the other hand, I am the first to understand that were one to expand the material and the projections it makes about Erebor, he might end up with a 500-page tome.
The pencils of the dwarven portraits at the beginning of the book were lacking in the TOR version of the book already, yet they are repeated here. As I had first stated in that review, they are not bad, yet they are average, and AIME has been nothing but until now.
Conclusion: The Lonely Mountain Region Guide manages an extremely hard feat. It deals with numerous subjects and somehow excels in all of them without overbearing its reader with its focus and micro-management. There are a dozen reasons to buy this book, the rules however to create memorable dragons in D&D might be the only one you need. More of a 4/4,5 when compared to its TOR brother due to the inclusion of the Urban Journey Event tables, I retained the same grading for reasons of consistency. Make no mistake however; this book deserves to find its place in your D&D/Middle-earth library.
For more info on the Lonely Mountain Region Guide, Adventures in Middle-earth overall and Cubicle 7 visit its website at https://www.cubicle7games.com.
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