ATM II Planning/Discussion Thread

[piosenniel]

Basic Storyline:

As the King’s Law weakens, the Dweomer becomes more and more unpredictable, and Roggie’s subjects emigrate to Gondor, the political situation is rocky. Several ambassadors must negotiate peace between the countries.

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Additional note:

Apart from precarious treaty negotiations between Gondor and Mordor, the Ambassadors between the two countries must deal with anachronisms, treachery, and whatever surprises that the Spymaster uncovers.

[piosenniel]

The purpose of the story is:

For the political situations in Gondor and Mordor to stabilize.

This means we will know the story is over when:

A treaty is signed and the Blue Wizards and their cronies have been dealt with.

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Starting Location: Mount Doom

Likely destination: Mount Doom or Minas Tirith

[piosenniel]

Timeframes:

This game takes place in the 4th Age at around year 651.

The storyline itself or plot covers several weeks (a summer, perhaps) and will follow a format of week long (game time) “chapters”

This game requires a time commitment of from me, the game owner and from the major players which will most likely vary, depending on players schedules and any subplots thrown into the mix.

[piosenniel]

PLAYER/CHARACTER LIST

Feanor of the Peredhil - Alli Umfuil of Minas Tirith and Mount Doom; Spymaster

JennyHallu - Lola Martinet, aka 'Ms. Martinet'; Second in Command to Alli Umfuil

~*~

MORDOR

Ambassadors

• 1.) Lhunardarwen - Maikaelwen
• 2.) Hookbill the Goomba - Smilog, the Dwarf
• 3.) Kath - Igör
• 4.) Diamond18 - Skittles MacFarlewyn, aka Skitt and Les (real name - Nancy)

~*~

GONDOR

King

• the phantom - Mardil II

Ambassadors

• 1.) Anguirel - Lord Dracomir Malfoidacil of Gondor (aka Master Tom Felton)
• 2.) Formendacil - Hyarmenwë son of Hyarmendil
• 3.) the guy who be short - Angawen Tupsë
• 4.) Boromir88 - Bearugard II

~*~

Cameo Characters:

• littlemanpoet - Anakron Istkon Vayor
• Celuien - Panakeia
• Eomer of the Rohirrim - Aimè the Hunter

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No Elvish characters, please, per RPG proposer's request

[piosenniel]

The game owner will play 1 main character and 2 Cameos.

1.) Feanor of the Peredhil’s Main Character

NAME: Alli Umfuil of Minas Tirith and Mount Doom

AGE: 19

RACE: Human

GENDER: Female

WEAPONS: Deau ex Machina, irresistible flirting skills, razor sharp dagger

APPEARANCE: Alli is 5’7” and slender. She has finally grown comfortable in her attractive and lean body and walks with a quick grace suited both to forests and the halls of kings. Her hair is black and ranges from mussed to appropriately fashioned for the company of nobles. She occasionally wears the styles for the wrong occasions simply to annoy. Her piercing eyes are an interesting blend of colors that lazy people oft term “grey”, though they are mostly blue, containing flecks of gold, brown, and many other tones of that variety. She mostly wears rangers’ garb, but knows how to dress appropriately for her work in palaces.

PERSONALITY/STRENGTHS/WEAKNESSES: Alli has been hurt many times in her life and is open with her thoughts with a very limited number of beings: the king of Mordor, her friend Sai, Aime the Hunter, and Illamatar. She will lie without a moment’s hesitation and straight faced, and has better developed the skill since her first encounters with Mardil II of Gondor. She spends less time than of old wallowing in self pity, choosing now to keep herself occupied with Seeing, negotiating, hunting werewolves, and manipulating people into signing treaties when more ethical negotiation attempts fail. As the king’s spymaster, she is well suited. She is in the process of learning to delegate responsibilities.

HISTORY: Assigned to Mordor at 18 for anakronistically criticizing the government of Gondor, Alli worked as a balrog-winger for quite a while until, unexpectedly, she was granted the opportunity to escape from the place. Though at first she could not wait to return to her waiting family, Alli developed strong ties to Mordor and her former companions and now resides hidden in the borderlands. In the year following her allowed removal from the land, she acquired a small (and possibly illegal) bit of land in Ithilien but was given the job of king’s spymaster in Mordor and moved into the palace instead. She travels regularly and always wishes for her quiet home where she spends her hours pouring over maps, lore-books, and volumes of lupine psychology.

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2.) CAMEO

NAME: Roggie of Morgoth

AGE: uncertain

RACE: Maiar, specifically Balrog

GENDER: male

WEAPONS: flaming whip, scimitar, carcinogenic body that can either burn or cause no effect whatsoever with no respect for continuity, and with a little bit of terror.

APPEARANCE: Tall enough to require vaulted ceilings in his castle (the renovated Mount Doom Casino and Resort, now call the Mount Doom Palace and Casino), occasionally flaming, though usually just smoldering, often clad as a pirate with a superfluous eye patch and a much needed peg leg replacing that which King Mardil of Gondor once shot off during a tank chase in the bowels of Lundun. He casts a bit of a scary image, what with being a balrog and all, though it is a bit tempered by the pirate paraphernalia. His most appealing feature is his eyes, lined heavily with black kohl. Utterly wingless as of a year ago when one small Italian plumber werewolf named Mario stole those that Alli, in her former job as Balrog-Winger, had expertly given him.

PERSONALITY/STRENGTHS/WEAKNESSES: Roggie is generally very calm and collected, though his temper is notorious. He listens to very few people and his best friend Alli Umfuil is one of them. He holds grudges. Roggie of Morgoth was an aspiring actor before the events of ATMI thrust him into the position of ruler of Mordor. Now he questions his ability to hold onto his kingdom which makes him consistently irritable. He often over-reacts when it comes to anything Gondorian.

HISTORY: Roggie once worked for Melkor Morgoth in a position much like that of a slave wherein he was given the suffix for his name as well as a very low self-image. Escaping the fate of Morgoth, Roggie took up his abode in Moria for just long enough to realize that his companion, Bill, was a huge wimp that could be beat up by ancient men with sticks. Roggie shifted his attention elsewhere, mainly Mordor. He relocated his home to take up his long desired acting career and was told after his first audition that his lips were too thin, his eyes not dark enough, and he needed wings before he could get any decent roles.

Very quickly he found a Balrog-Winging agency and paid a hefty amount for their services. The winger on duty that morning was none other than Alli Umfuil and they formed a fast friendship. A year and no acting jobs later, Roggie’s wings were stolen by the werewolf Mario and Roggie sought for Alli to help him regain them.

Though she did not, Roggie was caught up in her elaborate escape from Mordor wherein he lost a leg, developed a very bitter rivalry with Mardil, formed a pretty darned good friendship with Sai Onara, and gained control of the country.

A year later, he runs his country with Alli as his official spymaster.


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3.) CAMEO

NAME: Illamatar

AGE: eternal

RACE: Supreme Diety

GENDER: questionable, though encourages the pronoun “He”

WEAPONS: deau ex machina

APPEARANCE: though he is able to change appearance at will and may appear differently to many present in one situation, he favors a guise somewhat reminiscent of a long-necked, deep-eyed, bleating quadruped. Occasionally prefers invisibility.

PERSONALITY/STRENGTHS/WEAKNESSES: Omnipotent, but likes to watch mortals struggle. After all, omnipotence and eternal life get boring. Still, there are times that he considers the action of the world to be similar to an obnoxious commercial playing during an excellent film and feels the need to hit fast-forward, or at the very least record the commercial, upload it onto his Mac, and digitally manipulate it into something far more interesting.

HISTORY: In the beginning, there was the void, a depressing abyss, and Eru was in it and was of it and was, indeed, it. He looked introspectively and complexly both out and in at this void and discovered that, being the void, he was watching himself watch himself. This turn of phrase fascinated him for quite some time before he desired a new plaything… a most dangerous plaything…

He created a group of angelic beings and started a band. His plaything was his baton and it occasionally flew from his divine grasp to hit members of the brass section. It was through this sort of accident that one of his musicians developed a severe mental disorder and decided to ruin all of band’s music before running off to try and take over the world. A few things happened between then and now, but none of them were particularly important. He created both heaven and Middle Earth and his musicians complained that they couldn’t see any of it, so he lit the whole thing up with some glow-in-the-dark stars, threw in some plants and animals, and eventually added some people, just for the fun of it. More importantly though, he was enjoying the performances of his truly kickin’ band.

So it was that Middle Earth got on quite well by itself for a good long aeon or two with only a few truly serious disasters. Once Eru sneezed in the middle of a really smashing metal song and a fairly unimportant island was destroyed, but he barely noticed.

Really, it wasn’t up until his musicians stopped having talent and started trying to compensate with a lack of clothing that he actually noticed this Middle Earth that he had created. He glanced quickly, seeing everything, and noticed that two of his band members (second chairs, both of them) had snuck off and gotten the place into a bit of a mess involving another Age. He also spotted a few werewolves running around and decided that he’d been lax enough and needed to help these people just a little since he’d given them the free will to do what they wanted and so, since it was his gift, the results were consequently his fault.

He appeared to a young Gondorian girl living in Mordor in a dream, taking the form of a llama, and so it was that the folk of Middle Earth began to call him Illamatar. He spoke to her in her sleep, giving her information about those in her vicinity, telling her their secrets. Voyeuristic though it may be, he didn’t mind. After all, he was Eru Illamatar, and this was more interesting that Maia Television or Vala Hits One. He fast grew addicted to this anakronistic werewolf game and began to pay far closer attention to the goings on of Middle Earth.

So it was that he would come when Alli Umfuil (for that was the name of she that he came to) called, for he learned that she tended to provide amusement, if only for how miserably her efforts proved to work out for her. He provided her with dreams even after she was appointed the position of spymaster, deciding that this was more interesting than watching his angels lip-synch and dance on infinitely large stages in provocative ways.

[piosenniel]

FIRST POST for the game

“You’ll never prove anything.” He spat in her face, his thin, pale lips parting to reveal yellowed teeth. His sour breath made her stomach turn, but outwardly she was serene, her bright grey eyes unusually cold and calculating. Wiping the saliva from her cheek, she patted him condescendingly on the head with her wet hand.

“You’ve forgotten where we are. I don't need to prove anything to anybody. This is Mordor. Habeas corpus doesn’t apply.” Alli Umfuil, escaped prisoner of Mordor and newly instated spymaster of the king looked down at her desk and the heaps of paper thereupon as the sounds of desperate screams echoed down the dark and foreboding hall through which the unlucky prisoner was now being dragged. She was not about to explain to the man that, as spymaster of the king and confidante of Illamatar, she had access to the sort of information that he’d never in his wildest dreams imagine. With one night’s unsettled sleep, she’d spotted the felon even as he lurked in the shadows of his favorite haunt. The king was unhappy with the rate of unsolved murders in the back allies behind his palace… bad for the tourist industry, as it were. Alli had found the killer and sent her own team of guards to capture him before he could strike again. She knew that criminals must be watched, preferably stopped, but she’d inspected the dungeons of Mount Doom Palace and Casino and found herself pitying those trapped therein.

She poured a basin of water, scrubbing the remnants of spit from her pale hand. She kept her stomach muscles tight, willing herself not to gag as she splashed cold water upon her face as well. Patting her pearly skin dry, she answered the light knock on the extremely large set of double doors into her office. The torchlight cut through the darkness to illuminate shackles on the walls… the former spymaster had had a flair for the dramatic before his yet unsolved death.

“Yeah!” she called by way of invitation. The doors opened and the king entered, his peg-leg clicking on the flagstones. He ducked through the doors, standing fully once inside, the cathedral ceiling accommodating his bulk.

“Roggie,” she greeted with a tired smile and a bow. “What can I do for you?”

“I see you’ve captured the killer.” She nodded, sitting down behind her desk and absent-mindedly sorting papers that her secretary had forwarded to her into ‘look at immediately,’ ‘consider taking a peek at later,’ and ‘conveniently lose in the fireplace.’

“He wasn’t much trouble… injured one of my men, but it wasn’t much… certainly not enough to send him to be checked out by incompetent nurses. I told him to stay off that leg for a few days. Sent him on vacation. I owed him a few days for the extra time he put in to help me set up my contacts. He knows a lot… I’m not sure how comfortable I am with his knowledge of my network. I mean, he only knows the contacts I chose to be my findables… If they’re caught, no biggie. They’ll be helpful in the mean time, you know?”

Roggie sat on the floor, his legs stretched before him, his body comfortably heating the otherwise cold room, his faint burning glow illuminating the chamber with soft red light. It was imprudent to have a wooden castle with a balrogic king, but Alli got cold easily with the inescapable stonework. She was always happy to have Roggie of Morgoth in her presence, both for physical warmth and the ability to share that which plagued her mind.

“I’m not over-working you, am I, Alli?” he growled concernedly. He looked menacing with his patched-eye and combustible body. Alli reached casually behind her and pushed her window open to let the early summer breeze come through; the room was getting a little smoky and her eyes were beginning to water. She glanced around the area outside her office before continuing, trusting in her privacy precautions to keep their conversation away from the ears of strangers.

“Of course not, Rogs. It’s just… well… I’ve not seen Aimè in weeks and I know that there are at least two werewolves still out there, and the wizards have been causing all kinds of trouble…”

“Actually, you’ve just named why I stopped.”

“Aww, not just to visit with your best pal?” she teased lightly.

“You know I like to visit with you but-“ he stopped, seeing her laugh. “Anyhow… I received a letter from the wizards today. The gist of it was that if I can’t get Mardil to stop being such an arrogant” Alli laughed at Roggie’s impolite phrasing of Mardil II of Gondor’s personality. “Basically, if I can’t work out some sort of something getting Mardil to agree to a few concessions, they’re going to rework the Dweomer into something, to quote them, “far more ominous than mere words can describe!!!!”. Yeah, Alli… they actually used four exclamation points. The darndest thing, really.”

“So what are you going to do?” Her papers were forgotten. She looked across her desk at her friend, their eyes nearly level with him seated on the floor.

“Nothing.” he said.

“So you’re going to let the wizards… do whatever it is they’re going to do?”

“I’m not groveling to that egotist. If it weren’t for him, I’d have both legs still. If it weren't for him, this country would be a lot easier to run and you know it. Just because he felt the need to seize control of Gondor doesn’t mean he has control of Mordor.”

“Oh, Rog, I… I meant to tell you… the King’s Law is weakening ever since Mardil seized power. Every border guard I’ve got’s been sending reports on it. Mardil actually… well… he really kind of does have control. The more power he gets, the less power the spells have to keep your borders closed and your people here.”

“I spotted that illegal emigration is at an all-time high…”

“Yeah, well… it’s Mardil’s fault. If he’d just work something out with the wizards, but he’ll never do it. You know how he is with people telling him what to do.”

Roggie sighed, laying back on the formerly cool stone floor. “Alli, how am I supposed to run this place with my people leaving and a pair of crackpot old Istari changing the rules any time we get them figured out? They’re pressuring me to treat with Mardil and quite frankly, I don’t want to.”

“I’ll do it.”

“What?” Roggie sat up, shocked. “But… even after—“

“Roggie, it’s been a year and he's married now anyhow. And I’m your top advisor. Surely I ought to be living up to my job by doing the things that you can't and telling you when to let me?

"You sure as heck can’t travel to Gondor and work out negotiations with Mardil. Even if you could just up and leave your responsibilities, the Dweomer still has you and nearly every one of your staff members trapped here. I’m better suited for the travel, I’ve got contacts in his palace as well… If you’ll lend me some ambassadors, I can get this worked out in no time flat. Just give me permission, Roggie, and I'll go to Gondor.

"I've been granted the right to freely come and go. I can ride out, convince Mardil to send some diplomats, and we'll all treat here. It will be easy enough for me to do and downright impossible for almost anybody else.”

The king stood, bowing low to his friend. His good eye looked teary, but Alli ignored it politely as good friends sometimes must.

After a short time of visiting, Roggie left, the enormous doors closing behind him with a tiny click disproportionate to their size. Alli looked at her desk again, tears now in her eyes. Why had she offered? She’d never particularly wanted to see Mardil again… now she would be forced to deal with him and knowing his mind for strategy, he'd invite his wife along for the discussions.

Yes, she loved her job… she loved to know things, and having the best job in the kingdom for somebody that likes to find things out kept her content. But negotiating a treaty with Mardil?

She pitied the ambassadors that got between them all.

Unwilling to get out of the comfortable chair it had taken her seven days of combing Roggie’s castle for, Alli called loudly for her secretary. The woman stepped from the shadows near the door, looking severe with her half-moon spectacles and neat chignon.

“Ms. Martinet,” Alli said. “You listened? Of course… I needn’t ask. I did a good day’s work when I recruited you for this job.

"The king will provide you with a list of names shortly. They are the ambassadors he'll have chosen. I’m riding out this afternoon to treat with King Mardil; no need for you to worry about anything on that end. I’ll get names and information on everybody that he picks to accompany me back and brief you on my return.

"We’ll need suites for them, of course, and private chambers for them all to work in… all of the amenities. And every second they’re in Mordor, I want to know who is doing what, when, and with whom. You know the drill. I'll want logistics taken care of while I'm gone. You'll have about a week before I'm back with Mardil's cronies and we can get this mess fixed.”

“Yes, Miss Umfuil.” Ms. Martinet finished scratching the details of her orders on a yellow legal pad and disappeared once more.

Reflecting, if she’d known it, King Theoden of Rohan (may he rest in peace) upon the brink of battle so long ago, Alli, with her head cradled in her long fingers, muttered softly to herself… “So it begins.”

[piosenniel]

JennyHallu's character:


Name: Lola Martinet, aka 'Ms. Martinet'

Age: 27

Race: Human

Gender: Female

Weapons: Wit and an acerbic tongue, also, and subject to approval, a set of weaponized ballpoint pens in blue and black ink.

Personality/Appearance/All that Jazz: Lola Martinet is perverse, contrary, sly, and gets intense satisfaction out of irritating people. This, combined with a delightfully unorthodox profession, has given her the perfect excuse to create two separate personas, so incredibly different that only a few people have ever managed to connect the two (even as fraternal twins, separated at birth and raised by wild animals and orcs, respectively). Only Alli is aware that her second-in-command is, in fact, perfectly sane.

By day, Ms. Martinet rules the roost at Alli's office. To anyone but her employer she is the secretary from hell. She has perfected bureaucracy into a fine art, developing multiple forms (each to be filed in triplicate) for simple tasks, and delights in filling each out with slightly different information in order to crow over the chaos further down the line. She works on her manicure on busy days, intentionally misdirects callers and visitors, chews bubble gum loudly during conversations, and, when asked to take minutes of sensitive meetings, stares fixedly at a spot in the center of the speaker's forehead, never glancing down at her notebook. For Alli, however, she is quick and efficient, with no delays or complaints. She looks mousy, dresses in dull browns and tans, and glares at people over the rims of half-moon glasses. Her hair is always a tight damp knot of indeterminate color, and her nails the only part of her body to be perpetually perfectly groomed. She plays progressive jazz in the office (you know, the sort with a three-drink minimum) and is always the only person to understand it, much less enjoy it.

By night, sexy, voluptuous Lola is every man's dream. Her blond hair is always perfectly crimped and coiffed, and she dresses in clothes and styles designed to accentuate her curvaceous body (her favorite is a red sequined minidress). She sings her beloved jazz in a nightclub in Mordor--that is, when she isn't completing daring and dangerous missions with Alli in the dead of night. Her starry, near violet eyes make men believe she is promising the moon. She isn't. (Even when she glances up at them coyly through her thick dark lashes.) She is a flirt, a maneater, and a heartbreaker, and delights in it.

History: Lola grew up a prim, proper, and inhibited young lady in Gondor, but was assigned to Mordor when her classical harp music suddenly gained some rather odd chords. She only half-heartedly worked to be able to leave, as she found she loved the chaos and confusion of life in Mordor...it played right into her perfectly manicured hands.

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

PLACED ON PROPOSAL ~*~ PIO

FIRST POST FOR GAME


“You’ll never prove anything.” He spat in her face, his thin, pale lips parting to reveal yellowed teeth. His sour breath made her stomach turn, but outwardly she was serene, her bright grey eyes unusually cold and calculating. Wiping the saliva from her cheek, she patted him condescendingly on the head with her wet hand.

“You’ve forgotten where we are. I don't need to prove anything to anybody. This is Mordor. Habeas corpus doesn’t apply.” Alli Umfuil, escaped prisoner of Mordor and newly instated spymaster of the king looked down at her desk and the heaps of paper thereupon as the sounds of desperate screams echoed down the dark and foreboding hall through which the unlucky prisoner was now being dragged. She was not about to explain to the man that, as spymaster of the king and confidante of Illamatar, she had access to the sort of information that he’d never in his wildest dreams imagine. With one night’s unsettled sleep, she’d spotted the felon even as he lurked in the shadows of his favorite haunt. The king was unhappy with the rate of unsolved murders in the back allies behind his palace… bad for the tourist industry, as it were. Alli had found the killer and sent her own team of guards to capture him before he could strike again. She knew that criminals must be watched, preferably stopped, but she’d inspected the dungeons of Mount Doom Palace and Casino and found herself pitying those trapped therein.

She poured a basin of water, scrubbing the remnants of spit from her pale hand. She kept her stomach muscles tight, willing herself not to gag as she splashed cold water upon her face as well. Patting her pearly skin dry, she answered the light knock on the extremely large set of double doors into her office. The torchlight cut through the darkness to illuminate shackles on the walls… the former spymaster had had a flair for the dramatic before his yet unsolved death.

“Yeah!” she called by way of invitation. The doors opened and the king entered, his peg-leg clicking on the flagstones. He ducked through the doors, standing fully once inside, the cathedral ceiling accommodating his bulk.

“Roggie,” she greeted with a tired smile and a bow. “What can I do for you?”

“I see you’ve captured the killer.” She nodded, sitting down behind her desk and absent-mindedly sorting papers that her secretary had forwarded to her into ‘look at immediately,’ ‘consider taking a peek at later,’ and ‘conveniently lose in the fireplace.’

“He wasn’t much trouble… injured one of my men, but it wasn’t much… certainly not enough to send him to be checked out by incompetent nurses. I told him to stay off that leg for a few days. Sent him on vacation. I owed him a few days for the extra time he put in to help me set up my contacts. He knows a lot… I’m not sure how comfortable I am with his knowledge of my network. I mean, he only knows the contacts I chose to be my findables… If they’re caught, no biggie. They’ll be helpful in the mean time, you know?”

Roggie sat on the floor, his legs stretched before him, his body comfortably heating the otherwise cold room, his faint burning glow illuminating the chamber with soft red light. It was imprudent to have a wooden castle with a balrogic king, but Alli got cold easily with the inescapable stonework. She was always happy to have Roggie of Morgoth in her presence, both for physical warmth and the ability to share that which plagued her mind.

“I’m not over-working you, am I, Alli?” he growled concernedly. He looked menacing with his patched-eye and combustible body. Alli reached casually behind her and pushed her window open to let the early summer breeze come through; the room was getting a little smoky and her eyes were beginning to water. She glanced around the area outside her office before continuing, trusting in her privacy precautions to keep their conversation away from the ears of strangers.

“Of course not, Rogs. It’s just… well… I’ve not seen Aimè in weeks and I know that there are at least two werewolves still out there, and the wizards have been causing all kinds of trouble…”

“Actually, you’ve just named why I stopped.”

“Aww, not just to visit with your best pal?” she teased lightly.

“You know I like to visit with you but-“ he stopped, seeing her laugh. “Anyhow… I received a letter from the wizards today. The gist of it was that if I can’t get Mardil to stop being such an arrogant” Alli laughed at Roggie’s impolite phrasing of Mardil II of Gondor’s personality. “Basically, if I can’t work out some sort of something getting Mardil to agree to a few concessions, they’re going to rework the Dweomer into something, to quote them, “far more ominous than mere words can describe!!!!”. Yeah, Alli… they actually used four exclamation points. The darndest thing, really.”

“So what are you going to do?” Her papers were forgotten. She looked across her desk at her friend, their eyes nearly level with him seated on the floor.

“Nothing.” he said.

“So you’re going to let the wizards… do whatever it is they’re going to do?”

“I’m not groveling to that egotist. If it weren’t for him, I’d have both legs still. If it weren't for him, this country would be a lot easier to run and you know it. Just because he felt the need to seize control of Gondor doesn’t mean he has control of Mordor.”

“Oh, Rog, I… I meant to tell you… the King’s Law is weakening ever since Mardil seized power. Every border guard I’ve got’s been sending reports on it. Mardil actually… well… he really kind of does have control. The more power he gets, the less power the spells have to keep your borders closed and your people here.”

“I spotted that illegal emigration is at an all-time high…”

“Yeah, well… it’s Mardil’s fault. If he’d just work something out with the wizards, but he’ll never do it. You know how he is with people telling him what to do.”

Roggie sighed, laying back on the formerly cool stone floor. “Alli, how am I supposed to run this place with my people leaving and a pair of crackpot old Istari changing the rules any time we get them figured out? They’re pressuring me to treat with Mardil and quite frankly, I don’t want to.”

“I’ll do it.”

“What?” Roggie sat up, shocked. “But… even after—“

“Roggie, it’s been a year and he's married now anyhow. And I’m your top advisor. Surely I ought to be living up to my job by doing the things that you can't and telling you when to let me?

"You sure as heck can’t travel to Gondor and work out negotiations with Mardil. Even if you could just up and leave your responsibilities, the Dweomer still has you and nearly every one of your staff members trapped here. I’m better suited for the travel, I’ve got contacts in his palace as well… If you’ll lend me some ambassadors, I can get this worked out in no time flat. Just give me permission, Roggie, and I'll go to Gondor.

"I've been granted the right to freely come and go. I can ride out, convince Mardil to send some diplomats, and we'll all treat here. It will be easy enough for me to do and downright impossible for almost anybody else.”

The king stood, bowing low to his friend. His good eye looked teary, but Alli ignored it politely as good friends sometimes must.

After a short time of visiting, Roggie left, the enormous doors closing behind him with a tiny click disproportionate to their size. Alli looked at her desk again, tears now in her eyes. Why had she offered? She’d never particularly wanted to see Mardil again… now she would be forced to deal with him and knowing his mind for strategy, he'd invite his wife along for the discussions.

Yes, she loved her job… she loved to know things, and having the best job in the kingdom for somebody that likes to find things out kept her content. But negotiating a treaty with Mardil?

She pitied the ambassadors that got between them all.

Unwilling to get out of the comfortable chair it had taken her seven days of combing Roggie’s castle for, Alli called loudly for her secretary. The woman stepped from the shadows near the door, looking severe with her half-moon spectacles and neat chignon.

“Ms. Martinet,” Alli said. “You listened? Of course… I needn’t ask. I did a good day’s work when I recruited you for this job.

"The king will provide you with a list of names shortly. They are the ambassadors he'll have chosen. I’m riding out this afternoon to treat with King Mardil; no need for you to worry about anything on that end. I’ll get names and information on everybody that he picks to accompany me back and brief you on my return.

"We’ll need suites for them, of course, and private chambers for them all to work in… all of the amenities. And every second they’re in Mordor, I want to know who is doing what, when, and with whom. You know the drill. I'll want logistics taken care of while I'm gone. You'll have about a week before I'm back with Mardil's cronies and we can get this mess fixed.”

“Yes, Miss Umfuil.” Ms. Martinet finished scratching the details of her orders on a yellow legal pad and disappeared once more.

Reflecting, if she’d known it, King Theoden of Rohan (may he rest in peace) upon the brink of battle so long ago, Alli, with her head cradled in her long fingers, muttered softly to herself… “So it begins.”

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The edited first post. Hopefully that's clearer.

I have one or two comments for everybody before we start posting, but they can wait until the thread is open.

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

On Mordorian Ambassadors: Players are free to choose characteristcs based on the Assigned to Mordor thread; meaning almost anything goes, but use your discretion wisely. The reason I nixed Elves is because this is 4th Age and there should be a distinct lack of them running around.

On Gondorian Ambassadors: Roles should be as canonical as possible. Keep 'em human, keep 'em believable.

On Cameos and Sides: I've sent that information via PM.

The rest looks good.

[piosenniel]

Any of the gamers whom Fea has OK'd to play in her game

Please post your Character Descriptions to this thread as soon as you can

~*~ Pio

[Hookbill the Goomba]

CHARACTER DESCRIPTION FORM

POSTEDTO THE PROPOSAL ~*~ PIO


MORDOR

Hookbill the Goomba's character

NAME: Smilog -- Mordor

AGE: 690

RACE: Dwarf

GENDER: Male

WEAPONS: Axe, knife, helm.

APPEARANCE: A short and rather fat fellow with grey hair and a bright red beard. His eyes are small and shifty, with green pupils. He wears a dark blue tunic over which is a large (maybe too large) black coat buttoned with green buttons. He wears blue boots and a short helm. He has a red face and a grumpy look about him.

PERSONALITY/STRENGTHS/WEAKNESSES: Miserable. That’s what most people would say. He grumbles a lot, when not staring into space with a look of anger and regret plastered all over him. He gets angry quickly and tends to have a "Don't touch me" attitude. Only attribute being an unusual intelligence for a dwarf and an unhealthy obsession with anything that goes faster than a horse.

HISTORY: Avoided being assigned to Mordor the first time around by the skin of his teeth. By that, I mean, he hid in a barrel. In his youth he had been rather unpopular and has since taken to a life of being solitary. He only became an advisor to Roggie because no one else would take him on. His parents are said to be 'disappointed'.
Smilog is not well liked, in fact, even the other advisers treat him with contempt, but this he has brought very much on himself, being rude, callas, incredibly short tempered and not a little foolish.