Land of Darkness Discussion Thread - The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

piosenniel · 06-21-2004, 12:28 PM

Players will need to be familiar with the following section of Appendix B during which time this RPG occurs:

~*~

Quote:

March 3019

14th - Samwise finds Frodo in the Tower. Minas Tirith is besieged. The Rohirrim led by the Wild Men come to the Grey Wood.

15th - In the early hours the Witch-king breaks the Gates of the City. Denethor burns himself on a pyre. The horns of the Rohirrim are heard at cockcrow. Battle of the Pelennor. Théoden is slain. Aragorn raises the standard of Arwen. Frodo and Samwise escape and begin their journey north along the Morgai. Battle under the trees in Mirkwood; Thranduil repels the forces of Dol Guldur. Second assault on Lórien.

16th - Debate of the commanders. Frodo from the Morgai looks out over the camp to Mount Doom.

17th - Battle of Dale. King Brand and King Dáin Ironfoot fall. Many Dwarves and Men take refuge in Erebor and are besieged. Shagrat brings Frodo's cloak, mail-shirt, and sword to Barad-dûr.

18th - The Host of the West marches from Minas Tirith. Frodo comes in sight of the Isenmouthe; he is over-taken by Orcs on the road from Durthang to Udûn.

19th - The Host comes to Morgul-vale. Frodo and Samwise escape and begin their journey along the road to the Barad-dûr.

22nd - The dreadful nightfall. Frodo and Samwise leave the road and turn south to Mount Doom. Third assault on Lórien.

23rd - The Host passes out of Ithilien. Aragorn dismisses the faint-hearted. Frodo and Samwise cast away their arms and gear.

24th - Frodo and Samwise make their last journey to the feet of Mount Doom. The Host camps in the Desolation of the Morannon.

25th - The Host is surrounded on the Slag-hills. Frodo and Samwise reach the Sammath Naur. Gollum seizes the Ring and falls in the Cracks of Doom. Downfall of Barad-dûr and passing of Sauron.

~ from: The Return of the King; “Appendix B”; ‘The Great Years section – March of 3019’; J.R.R. Tolkien

piosenniel · 06-21-2004, 12:29 PM

The purpose of the story is to: Escape Mordor

This means we will know the story is over when: The escapees make it to the Crossroads in Ithilien and encounter the small army left there by the King Elessar in his northward march against the Morannon.
__________________________________

Starting Location: The dungeons of the Tower of Cirith Ungol

Likely destination: The Crossroads in Ithilien

Here are a couple of maps you can use for reference:

Here and Here 2

piosenniel · 06-21-2004, 12:30 PM

Timeframes: March 14th to March 25th during the War of the Ring

The storyline itself or plot covers 11 days.

This game requires a time commitment of three months (12 weeks) from me, the game owner and from the major players.

piosenniel · 06-21-2004, 12:37 PM

DEDICATED CHARACTERS

1.) Amanaduial the archer - Silvan Elf

2.) Alaklondewen – Easterling

3.) Kransha – Dwarf

4.) Durelin - Man

5.) Bêthberry - Southron

6.) Aylwen – Southron

7.) Fordim Hedgethistle - Man

piosenniel · 06-21-2004, 12:38 PM

Amanaduial the archer – Silvan Elf

NAME: Raeis (Ray-iss)

AGE: No idea really. Over two hundred, that much she knows.

RACE: Elf (Silvan)

GENDER: Female

WEAPONS: None, but she fights like a demon with her bare hands, feet, elbows... Also, anything she can pick up. She is, or at least, she was skilled with a range of swords, and is fairly good at using a bow, or a sling.

APPEARANCE: Once, Raeis was a beauty among her people, but that was long ago. Her good looks remain though, in part – her face is high-boned, the structure belying her low birth, and her hair is fine and light brown, flecked generously with gold. Her eyes are dark blue, flecked with lighter blues and white. Her hair is not the wavy, golden abundance it was once though – it was cut short when she was first taken prisoner: having stolen a dagger from one of her guards, she had hacked it off from right close to her scalp. It has grown since then, though, has had plenty of time to do so: it now comes unevenly to approximately just below her ears, but is dirty and unkempt from lack of care. Her skin was always pale, a fine almost alabaster-white, but this is even more accentuated now from lack of sunlight. But despite the lines of pain that are now more obvious on her face, the right side of her face is still beautiful, despite the dark bruise that currently adorns her high-cheek area…but the left is a different matter. A long, thin scar runs all the way down her left side of her face from an inch above her broken eyebrow to her jawbone, crossing her eye and forcing it closed, a vicious, sharp burn made from a heated blade that was pressed against her face. It mars her beauty totally, but she cares little anymore – what does it matter when no one will see it? She stands at about 5 ft 9 and is lean – her muscles have not deteriorated entirely, but beyond them there is virtually nothing else. She is painfully thin and scars, both old and new, cross her body along with bruises, the most obvious the long thin ones that crisscross her back and a long cut running from collarbone to navel. She wears a thin, ragged shirt, the sleeves torn off for practical purposes to leave her arms bare, and a sort of short, ragged skirt.

PERSONALITY/STRENGTHS/WEAKNESSES: In the years since the elf has been imprisoned, Raeis has stopped caring about many things; her appearance for one thing, for what good is it to mourn for her lost beauty when the only ones who will see it are her monstrous captors? In a way, she almost revels in it sometimes, for the ugliness of one side of her face, marring her pureness, puts them off some of their vile sport. She almost managed to block out the physical pain and humiliation which she endures so often, for she has suffered so much that the only respite she gets is to know that she will give them no satisfaction by seeing her pain. But she has not stopped caring about everything. One thing always remains on her mind: escape. It is a wild dream, and one that she barely believes in, but which she wishes for so fervently with every inch of her body and mind that has become something that she would do simply to achieve it, to spite her captors, to cause them some of the beatings she has endured for letting her escape. If she could get out of this cell, she would die spitefully happy – she is past wanting to do much else but feel the sun on her face once more. Indeed, maybe the cell has actually driven her mad: the elf had no-one to talk to for weeks on end quite often, and her own voice was all that stopped her from going entirely insane. That and her thoughts and memories, or what might be memories: she gets confused as to what has actually happened and what is real or not. Reality is, for Raeis, an illusion – if her life in Mirkwood was reality, then this existence cannot possibly be real, but if this life is truly happening, how could she ever have missed the fact it was happening when in Mirkwood? The thoughts and questions as to what is real and what isn’t torment the elf in her silent prison. She is withdrawn and vicious, violent whenever anyone comes too near her (for the only ones that come close are those who want to hurt her) and fights like a cornered wildcat with no regard for herself, only wishing to hurt and deter her opponent. But although the innocent, idealistic persona that she once possessed is obviously destroyed, behind her half-mad, wild exterior there is still probably the softer, gentler being that once lived in Mirkwood, quick to argue, quicker to laugh, ready to love. But what is love now? Is that also an illusion…?

HISTORY: Raeis was born to a hardworking but lowly family Mirkwood, some way from the palace. She lived with her family and worked hard and honestly, carving and sewing with her mother and selling the items they made with her father and two brothers. But she always yearned for something more, sure there must be more to life, and so when she was nearly two hundred she went to work in the palace, with illusions of becoming a fine courtier, close to the king, a loyal advisor to him and friend to the princes… However, such fantasies were soon put straight when she became a maid in the palace. Once again, it was honest hard work, decently paid and not overly hard, but it still left the idealistic young elf to dream about more. But she endured it, gaining promotion and working hard to keep her place and to keep sending the money to her mother. After she had worked there for a few years, her courtship began with another elf who worked in the palace, a chamberlain by the name of Caromanieth (although Raeis cannot even remember her full name, she both cherishes and curses his, burned on her memory with love and regret). He was as idealistic and gentle as she, a dreamer with his head in the clouds but, like her, his feet still on the ground.

But one day, on a sudden whim, the pair decided to search for adventure themselves. It was painfully clear that it was not coming to them, and they both yearned for the ‘more’ that they thought they knew must exist. Within a few days, they were ready to do, eloping together away from Mirkwood and from everything about the old life that they had known, heading South.

But things beyond their control, beyond the control of any, were not stirring further South, and when the pair came to the plains of Rohan, after a few months of happy, blissful, carefree travelling, their life was suddenly shattered. Warg riders. The orcs killed Caromanieth and, in a way, they stole Raeis’s life as well – by taking her prisoner they destroyed everything she had ever and would ever have. Elves were valuable, and they took her back to Mordor in the hope of reward.

Raeis never told them her real name, or her family details – stubborn to the last, she endured many different types of inquisitional torture as they attempted to find out whether they could use the elf-woman as currency, blackmail. Raeis had always been taught to be loyal and faithful, and so she didn’t say a word to help them. All they ever found out from her was the shortened version of her name: Raeis. It was the last word Caromanieth had cried out before he died. ”Raeis, run! Get away, for the sake of…run, Raeis...” Eventually they grew tired of trying to find information from her, but they were not yet tired of her – they kept her alive as a…toy. Something to do. And so her torture continued, both physical and emotional, all sorts of abuse whenever the guards wanted something to do, something to occupy themselves. She fought back, always fought back, at the start anyway…but as she lost track of days and went without company or sunlight for so long, tortured by the thought that her family must think her a callous deserter, she was nearly driven mad, alone and isolated both literally and in her mind…

~*~

Amanaduial’s post

Deep down beneath the tower, in the depths that did not even feel the natural wind through it’s corridors or the run on its hard stone floors, a lone prisoner waited in a cell. Waited, I say, but then, waiting implies hope, and this prisoner has barely any of that left. A lone strand, barely anything at all, remained in her broken and disjointed mind, but it is all she is surviving on.

At the back of the dark cell lay what resembled like a pile of rags, tattered and torn, strewn in a loose pile as if shaken then discarded by some larger-than-life dog. But if you look closer, avoiding the dank smell of rot and blood, both dried and fresh, you would see a body underneath these rags. Another clank from above and the body does not move, and neither does it respond to the drawn-out, agonised scream which is suddenly cut short which floats from high above. The being is barely recognisable now, it’s skin mottled, bruised and torn, it’s limbs broken and disjointed, but one thing is sure. Whatever it once was, the being is dead.

But something in the cell responded.

Near the door, in the darkest, gloomiest corner, something stirred, a brief, sudden movement as a limb spasms and a gasp sounded quietly. One blue eye, old before it’s time, snapped open, and Raeis looked around, her gaze quick and darting. As another rattle, closer this time, sounded from above, and the sound of a man’s voice calls, the elf tried suddenly to move towards the door, but is pulled short suddenly by the ropes binding her wrists above her head to a loop of metal hammered into the wall. Raeis gasped again, painfully struggling once more against the ropes, her legs kicking frantically from the rough stone wall, heedless of the scrapes across her bare ankles, as her nightmare began to come real once more – the nightmare that someone was coming closer and she couldn’t do anything to defend herself. Maybe it was a nightmare…her detached mind drifted through the thought and she ceased for a moment.

Another clank sounded and the elf made up her mind. She was surer than she had been of anything in the past few torturous years – this time, it was real. And despite every instinct that she had developed in that time, she was going to have to do the one thing everything in her mind screamed against.

“H…help.” Her cry was feeble, coming from a throat unused to calling, but, bracing herself, she tried again. “Help…help!”

Suspended by her wrists against the wall, her feet about half an inch off the floor, Raeis twisted around the try to see out of the barred slot in the door. The young elf woman had been tied in this position for several hours, and she guessed it was probably morning: the guards had taken the correct number of watches for it to be a few hours from dawn, not that that meant anything down here. But where was the next? The last monster had gone sometime when Raeis was asleep, and another had not yet come – the always rested their spears in one of the holes into the cell, poking the spear through as if to tease her, knowing that she would gladly take it, throw herself upon it…even if just to see if this existence was real. But this hour…it seemed to have stretched forever. Hearing another clank, Raeis twisted again, the ropes biting into her wrists once more and opening up new wounds, but in her desperation she only spared them a moment, biting her lip.

“Help! Please I…” she trailed off, breathing heavily as she writhed furiously, attempting to get out of the ropes although she knew they were done up tight. It was just another form of torturing the elf, to hang her like this. The other rope, which wound around her neck before passing through the loop above with the one tying her wrists, pulled tight every time she struggled, choking her and making breathing and calling hard. Against all sense, she continued to struggle, coughing and choking against the noose as she called, until eventually she saw a shadow cross the door’s slot. For a moment, she thought the dark figure was an orc, another guard, but as it paused and looked in, she saw bright, blue eyes gleaming in what little light was cast from a guttering lamp. Giving another sharp, dry cough, her throat feeling as though someone had taken a saw to it, she twisted her fingers once more, feebly this time, against the ropes, and looked into the man’s eyes with her one, dark blue one.

“Help…” she whispered.

piosenniel · 06-21-2004, 12:39 PM

alaklondewen – Easterling

NAME: Lyshka (LEESH – ka)

AGE: She knows she is close to twenty years, but whether she has passed the mark yet or not, she is unsure.

RACE: Easterling

GENDER: Female

WEAPONS: Lyshka has no possessions whatsoever.

APPEARANCE: Lyshka’s long face is framed by short, thick, uneven black hair that one of the men she had worked alongside chopped with a crude knife in return for a blow she administered to his gut after he touched her inappropriately. Her small, dark-brown eyes peer over a short pointed nose with a visible scar across the bridge. Her lips are full and firmly pressed together. Lyshka wears a stern expression and has not smiled since she was a small child.

Lyshka is tall for her gender and her frame is so thin from starvation combined with hard labor that her dark skin appears to be simply stretched over her bones. The filthy, torn rags that cover her body do not hide her flesh and provide no protection from the elements.

PERSONALITY/STRENGTHS/WEAKNESSES: Lyshka is tough, but she’s had to be. She’s had to protect herself in the fields of Mordor, and she sports several scars as trophies to her grit. Once there had been the spirit of a loving and beautiful little girl deep inside her heart, but now she was hardened, cold, and eroded.

Every person Lyshka trusted in her life betrayed her and she eventually pushed the pain so far down that she was numb. Numb is how she remained. She trusts no one, especially men for they have done nothing but use her.

HISTORY: Lyshka came from a family that lived with a group of wayfarers that traveled in the southern lands of Middle Earth. Her mother was distant and emotionally detached, and her father made his living through thievery and gambling. One night her father made a bad bet to some Southron soldiers on their way to Mordor. Not being able to pay the men and facing death or torture because of it, Lyshka’s father gave them his little girl to pay his debt. Lyshka was only five years old at the time.

The soldiers abused her and took her to Mordor where she was made to work in the fields in the south. As she grew she gained more attention from men, not only guards but those that worked and housed beside her. She had to learn to fight to protect herself from their advances, although she still lost occasionally to them, especially when they would gang up and several would attack her.

One evening as she made her way back to the stall where she slept, a guard waited for her and as she passed him, he attacked her. Caught off guard, Lyshka tried to fight back but he was too big, too strong. They had struggled for several minutes, when her eyes and hands found his short dagger. Before he knew what was happening, Lyshka stabbed the guard several times until she could push his limp body from hers.

The Orc guards that found her considered killing her on the spot, which in truth she would not have minded, but instead, they decided to send her to Cirith Ungol where she would wait until her turn came to be fed to the beast in the mountains.

~*~

alaklondewen’s post

Lyshka had heard the commotion in the tower, but paid it no heed. Her cell was dark with shadows and the floor was cold as she sat against the wall with her long legs tucked beneath her chin. Her eyes stared blankly into the darkness as her mind simply worked to pass the time quickly so her body would not feel the pain of hunger.

Then, her ears began to pick up on a sound that was unexpected…the jingling of keys and the swinging of the iron doors. The prisoners around her called out and the first sounds of joy she had heard in many years flooded the dungeon. Lyshka slowly pushed herself up with her hands and crept to the door. She peaked through the window, but kept herself hidden in the shadows.

A young man was freeing the other prisoners. One cell at a time he inserted the key, turned it, and let the door fall open. Lyshka watched as he made his way one by one to her cell door. She stepped backward. Only her face was not consumed by the darkness. The man stepped forward, and she heard the shift of the lock. Still, she would not allow hope to rise in her, and she touched the door and studied the young man’s face with suspicion. Sensing her movement, he met her gaze with dull blue eyes, and then he turned from her and continued his task.

Lyshka held her breath as the door slowly opened. She knew nothing of freedom and taking a step toward it was one of the most terrifying actions she ever made.

piosenniel · 06-21-2004, 12:41 PM

Kransha – Dwarf

NAME: Brór Stormhand

AGE: 103

RACE: Dwarf

GENDER: Male

WEAPONS: At the moment, nothing, but he fancies himself very good with his fists.

APPEARANCE: Brór has narrow, brown eyes almost hidden between a bulky brow and thick eyebrows. His skin is rough and darkened tan from time spent in the sweltering outdoors, but that only serves to augment his already dark composure. He has a long, bristly black beard, speckled with the first strands of misplaced grey, unkempt hair of the same color which has grown long, reaching to his shoulders now, and a stony face, seemingly capable of only a few expressions. He is relatively sinewy, just as most dwarves are, sturdily built and stands with his head high, even in his current state, reaching a height impressive to some dwarves, roughly five feet and one inch off the ground, but it still not very imposing to higher-headed folk. He wears nothing but an extensive layering of multicolored, tattered rags shoddily slapped together.

PERSONALITY: Once a very jovial, merry, and talkative dwarf, imprisonment somewhat subdued his common nature. Like most dwarves, but more so than some and less so than others, he is stubborn and prideful whenever he gets the chance to be. Despite his irksome obstinacy, Brór is always staunchly loyal when he finds something to be loyal to. He is secretive about what he knows, but tries to discuss as much as he can about the old times with other dwarf prisoners, though he rarely gets a chance to so away from the watchful eyes of orcish captors. When set on a cause, he follows it through to the end, but will sometimes take dreary hiatuses from any goal, especially during his imprisonment in the Tower of Cirith Ungol. He is quick-tempered at times, and does not take insult or scorn lightly, with his fiery temperament and strength to back him up. Bror sometimes acts before thinking, but has done this much less since the date of his arrival at Cirith Ungol.

HISTORY: Brór was born in year 2916 of the Third Age, among the ranks of Durin’s Folk in exile, lorded over by their exiled king, Thorin Oakenshield. He was too young and inexperienced to fight very much, or very well, when the dwarves reclaimed Erebor, but soon became one of the many revered dwarven warriors in the halls of Erebor. He trained himself in the ways of war beside his brethren at the Lonely Mountain.

In 2989, Brór followed Balin from Erebor with a troop of dwarves to retake Khazad-dum. On the route south, a raid by goblins, barely a skirmish, resulted in the capture of Bror and several of his brethren, much to their chagrin. The few dwarf prisoners were taken at first to less well-guarded orcish camps and made to work for them, Since the goblins were an unorganized band, relying on brutality to keep order, one of Brór’s close friends who’d been captured as well began devising a plan, which he indoctrinated the rest of the dwarves and prisoners in the camp into. The prisoners rebelled but the orcs proved more powerful than before and quelled the uprising. All the ringleaders, including Brór’s companion, were brutally tortured and slain in cold blood by the orc forces, but the others were spared. Bror, determined to die with just as much honor as his friend, attempted to rally another uprising shortly after, but it was quelled with more ease.

Realizing Brór’s purpose, the orcs decided it would be best not to kill him. Instead, he and the last dwarves in the camp were taken to the dungeons of Cirith Ungol, where he was again imprisoned. Before his first month, almost all of his brethren had succumbed to the strain of life in the tower. There were not many dwarves in the dungeons, and Brór did not seek to make friends with the men and elves. The dwarf hoped eternally that he could do something so vile that it would provoke the orcs to give him to spider that lurked in the pass nearby, thinking optimistically that he might take the beast with him, but his captors never did. He spent most of his time not working for his captors trying to keep his knowledge of Khuzdul, the tongue of the dwarves, sharp in his mind, as he began to forget as years passed. He spent 19 years in Cirith Ungol, and developed two goals, each an alternative to the other. He resolved to either die fighting the orcs, or somehow manage to escape…

~*~

Kransha’s post

Bror sat, as he always did, leaning in cold and solemn silence against the rough-rocked wall of his cell, the back of his thick skull pounding, a resonating beat thumping like a drum in the back of his head as he sat, his eyes firmly shut with heavy eyelids sealed as if they were sewn together. There was very little light to let in, but the checkered shadows around him let in slim plumes of light whenever they were absent, though Bror had discovered that this was mostly a silhouette drama fabricated by his own mind, which was gnawed at daily by the insect of tedium. Even though that invisible spider was not as lethal as the monstrous being who skulked through the jagged rocks of the pass of Cirith Ungol, its omnipresence in Bror was just as painful.

‘Baruk Khazâd. Khazâd aimênu.’ He chanted slowly in his head, hearing the melodious thunder of the dwarven battle-cry pounding incessantly in his ears, the blast of it increasing as the dragging moments passed, roared by a hundred of his folk at least, a chorus that lingered in the blank corridors just before his eyes, beneath his nose, under his beard, and out of his reach. He breathed deep, the beard hair around his mouth blowing about as a sail would in a calm sea breeze. His eyes beginning to open, his ears quivered sensitively, listening to the murderous, raucous cries that rained down on him from the levels of the tower above.

There were sounds, not that there ever weren’t, but these sounds held a strange feeling in them that wafted like smoke through the rusted bars of Brór’s cell. He lips parted as he began mouthing the words inaudibly to himself, thinking even in his tongue, although he feared he would never need the language again. He knew that no one else in Cirith Ungol knew the words he spoke of save the other few dwarves, and he had long considered attempting to teach it to the other prisoners, just so he would not be alone in the knowledge, but it was a miserably foolish thought and his secretive nature would not allow him even to speak it aloud, coupled with threats from the orcs, who didn’t appreciate their prisoners saying things that they couldn’t understand. One dwarf had made that mistake and paid a most terrible price, but sights such as that no longer haunted Bror.

He managed to shift from his position, inching his way forward through the dank cell that contained him. His eyes widened weakly, his furrowed brow easing up as he looked through the bars and peered out, circumspect, observing his surroundings which he was so familiar with. Sounds of vicious mayhem had been rattling and clanging above him for a long time now, but those sounds had drifted away, out of his hearing, and he suspected that whatever struggle had occurred, it was now over. Suddenly, his keen eyes flitted to a figure scurrying down the damp hallway, busying himself with the unlocking of cells. At first, Bror could not fathom what was going on, as he ceased thinking in Khuzdul and reverted involuntarily back to the tongue so oft used in Cirith Ungol, being the only one that all races within new and were fluent in.

Was it possible? Were the prisoners being freed? Was this some sort of mass feeding session for the spider in the pass? He considered as quickly as he could, his dulled mind sharpening upon the whetstone of spontaneity in the span of an instant. He stepped back from the icy bars, half in shock and half in a pooling mixture of horror and glee, as the man, a black-haired being, lean and with the same look as many human prisoners, but with an odd glint in his eye, unlocked his cell door and hurried off as the barred object that had held Bror in this forsaken place for 19 years swung open, limp and useless, as if it were nothing. Staggering with a weight that had never been before, and another weight removed, Bror walked out, through the threshold, and into the hall.

06-21-2004, 12:29 PM	#2
piosenniel Desultory Dwimmerlaik Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Pickin' flowers with Bill the Cat..... Posts: 7,779	The purpose of the story is to: Escape Mordor This means we will know the story is over when: The escapees make it to the Crossroads in Ithilien and encounter the small army left there by the King Elessar in his northward march against the Morannon. __________________________________ Starting Location: The dungeons of the Tower of Cirith Ungol Likely destination: The Crossroads in Ithilien Here are a couple of maps you can use for reference: Here and Here 2 Last edited by piosenniel; 06-24-2004 at 04:58 PM.

06-21-2004, 12:30 PM	#3
piosenniel Desultory Dwimmerlaik Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Pickin' flowers with Bill the Cat..... Posts: 7,779	Timeframes: March 14th to March 25th during the War of the Ring The storyline itself or plot covers 11 days. This game requires a time commitment of three months (12 weeks) from me, the game owner and from the major players.

06-21-2004, 12:37 PM	#4
piosenniel Desultory Dwimmerlaik Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Pickin' flowers with Bill the Cat..... Posts: 7,779	DEDICATED CHARACTERS 1.) Amanaduial the archer - Silvan Elf 2.) Alaklondewen – Easterling 3.) Kransha – Dwarf 4.) Durelin - Man 5.) Bêthberry - Southron 6.) Aylwen – Southron 7.) Fordim Hedgethistle - Man

06-21-2004, 12:38 PM	#5
piosenniel Desultory Dwimmerlaik Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Pickin' flowers with Bill the Cat..... Posts: 7,779	Amanaduial the archer – Silvan Elf NAME: Raeis (Ray-iss) AGE: No idea really. Over two hundred, that much she knows. RACE: Elf (Silvan) GENDER: Female WEAPONS: None, but she fights like a demon with her bare hands, feet, elbows... Also, anything she can pick up. She is, or at least, she was skilled with a range of swords, and is fairly good at using a bow, or a sling. APPEARANCE: Once, Raeis was a beauty among her people, but that was long ago. Her good looks remain though, in part – her face is high-boned, the structure belying her low birth, and her hair is fine and light brown, flecked generously with gold. Her eyes are dark blue, flecked with lighter blues and white. Her hair is not the wavy, golden abundance it was once though – it was cut short when she was first taken prisoner: having stolen a dagger from one of her guards, she had hacked it off from right close to her scalp. It has grown since then, though, has had plenty of time to do so: it now comes unevenly to approximately just below her ears, but is dirty and unkempt from lack of care. Her skin was always pale, a fine almost alabaster-white, but this is even more accentuated now from lack of sunlight. But despite the lines of pain that are now more obvious on her face, the right side of her face is still beautiful, despite the dark bruise that currently adorns her high-cheek area…but the left is a different matter. A long, thin scar runs all the way down her left side of her face from an inch above her broken eyebrow to her jawbone, crossing her eye and forcing it closed, a vicious, sharp burn made from a heated blade that was pressed against her face. It mars her beauty totally, but she cares little anymore – what does it matter when no one will see it? She stands at about 5 ft 9 and is lean – her muscles have not deteriorated entirely, but beyond them there is virtually nothing else. She is painfully thin and scars, both old and new, cross her body along with bruises, the most obvious the long thin ones that crisscross her back and a long cut running from collarbone to navel. She wears a thin, ragged shirt, the sleeves torn off for practical purposes to leave her arms bare, and a sort of short, ragged skirt. PERSONALITY/STRENGTHS/WEAKNESSES: In the years since the elf has been imprisoned, Raeis has stopped caring about many things; her appearance for one thing, for what good is it to mourn for her lost beauty when the only ones who will see it are her monstrous captors? In a way, she almost revels in it sometimes, for the ugliness of one side of her face, marring her pureness, puts them off some of their vile sport. She almost managed to block out the physical pain and humiliation which she endures so often, for she has suffered so much that the only respite she gets is to know that she will give them no satisfaction by seeing her pain. But she has not stopped caring about everything. One thing always remains on her mind: escape. It is a wild dream, and one that she barely believes in, but which she wishes for so fervently with every inch of her body and mind that has become something that she would do simply to achieve it, to spite her captors, to cause them some of the beatings she has endured for letting her escape. If she could get out of this cell, she would die spitefully happy – she is past wanting to do much else but feel the sun on her face once more. Indeed, maybe the cell has actually driven her mad: the elf had no-one to talk to for weeks on end quite often, and her own voice was all that stopped her from going entirely insane. That and her thoughts and memories, or what might be memories: she gets confused as to what has actually happened and what is real or not. Reality is, for Raeis, an illusion – if her life in Mirkwood was reality, then this existence cannot possibly be real, but if this life is truly happening, how could she ever have missed the fact it was happening when in Mirkwood? The thoughts and questions as to what is real and what isn’t torment the elf in her silent prison. She is withdrawn and vicious, violent whenever anyone comes too near her (for the only ones that come close are those who want to hurt her) and fights like a cornered wildcat with no regard for herself, only wishing to hurt and deter her opponent. But although the innocent, idealistic persona that she once possessed is obviously destroyed, behind her half-mad, wild exterior there is still probably the softer, gentler being that once lived in Mirkwood, quick to argue, quicker to laugh, ready to love. But what is love now? Is that also an illusion…? HISTORY: Raeis was born to a hardworking but lowly family Mirkwood, some way from the palace. She lived with her family and worked hard and honestly, carving and sewing with her mother and selling the items they made with her father and two brothers. But she always yearned for something more, sure there must be more to life, and so when she was nearly two hundred she went to work in the palace, with illusions of becoming a fine courtier, close to the king, a loyal advisor to him and friend to the princes… However, such fantasies were soon put straight when she became a maid in the palace. Once again, it was honest hard work, decently paid and not overly hard, but it still left the idealistic young elf to dream about more. But she endured it, gaining promotion and working hard to keep her place and to keep sending the money to her mother. After she had worked there for a few years, her courtship began with another elf who worked in the palace, a chamberlain by the name of Caromanieth (although Raeis cannot even remember her full name, she both cherishes and curses his, burned on her memory with love and regret). He was as idealistic and gentle as she, a dreamer with his head in the clouds but, like her, his feet still on the ground. But one day, on a sudden whim, the pair decided to search for adventure themselves. It was painfully clear that it was not coming to them, and they both yearned for the ‘more’ that they thought they knew must exist. Within a few days, they were ready to do, eloping together away from Mirkwood and from everything about the old life that they had known, heading South. But things beyond their control, beyond the control of any, were not stirring further South, and when the pair came to the plains of Rohan, after a few months of happy, blissful, carefree travelling, their life was suddenly shattered. Warg riders. The orcs killed Caromanieth and, in a way, they stole Raeis’s life as well – by taking her prisoner they destroyed everything she had ever and would ever have. Elves were valuable, and they took her back to Mordor in the hope of reward. Raeis never told them her real name, or her family details – stubborn to the last, she endured many different types of inquisitional torture as they attempted to find out whether they could use the elf-woman as currency, blackmail. Raeis had always been taught to be loyal and faithful, and so she didn’t say a word to help them. All they ever found out from her was the shortened version of her name: Raeis. It was the last word Caromanieth had cried out before he died. ”Raeis, run! Get away, for the sake of…run, Raeis...” Eventually they grew tired of trying to find information from her, but they were not yet tired of her – they kept her alive as a…toy. Something to do. And so her torture continued, both physical and emotional, all sorts of abuse whenever the guards wanted something to do, something to occupy themselves. She fought back, always fought back, at the start anyway…but as she lost track of days and went without company or sunlight for so long, tortured by the thought that her family must think her a callous deserter, she was nearly driven mad, alone and isolated both literally and in her mind… ~~ Amanaduial’s post* Deep down beneath the tower, in the depths that did not even feel the natural wind through it’s corridors or the run on its hard stone floors, a lone prisoner waited in a cell. Waited, I say, but then, waiting implies hope, and this prisoner has barely any of that left. A lone strand, barely anything at all, remained in her broken and disjointed mind, but it is all she is surviving on. At the back of the dark cell lay what resembled like a pile of rags, tattered and torn, strewn in a loose pile as if shaken then discarded by some larger-than-life dog. But if you look closer, avoiding the dank smell of rot and blood, both dried and fresh, you would see a body underneath these rags. Another clank from above and the body does not move, and neither does it respond to the drawn-out, agonised scream which is suddenly cut short which floats from high above. The being is barely recognisable now, it’s skin mottled, bruised and torn, it’s limbs broken and disjointed, but one thing is sure. Whatever it once was, the being is dead. But something in the cell responded. Near the door, in the darkest, gloomiest corner, something stirred, a brief, sudden movement as a limb spasms and a gasp sounded quietly. One blue eye, old before it’s time, snapped open, and Raeis looked around, her gaze quick and darting. As another rattle, closer this time, sounded from above, and the sound of a man’s voice calls, the elf tried suddenly to move towards the door, but is pulled short suddenly by the ropes binding her wrists above her head to a loop of metal hammered into the wall. Raeis gasped again, painfully struggling once more against the ropes, her legs kicking frantically from the rough stone wall, heedless of the scrapes across her bare ankles, as her nightmare began to come real once more – the nightmare that someone was coming closer and she couldn’t do anything to defend herself. Maybe it was a nightmare…her detached mind drifted through the thought and she ceased for a moment. Another clank sounded and the elf made up her mind. She was surer than she had been of anything in the past few torturous years – this time, it was real. And despite every instinct that she had developed in that time, she was going to have to do the one thing everything in her mind screamed against. “H…help.” Her cry was feeble, coming from a throat unused to calling, but, bracing herself, she tried again. “Help…help!” Suspended by her wrists against the wall, her feet about half an inch off the floor, Raeis twisted around the try to see out of the barred slot in the door. The young elf woman had been tied in this position for several hours, and she guessed it was probably morning: the guards had taken the correct number of watches for it to be a few hours from dawn, not that that meant anything down here. But where was the next? The last monster had gone sometime when Raeis was asleep, and another had not yet come – the always rested their spears in one of the holes into the cell, poking the spear through as if to tease her, knowing that she would gladly take it, throw herself upon it…even if just to see if this existence was real. But this hour…it seemed to have stretched forever. Hearing another clank, Raeis twisted again, the ropes biting into her wrists once more and opening up new wounds, but in her desperation she only spared them a moment, biting her lip. “Help! Please I…” she trailed off, breathing heavily as she writhed furiously, attempting to get out of the ropes although she knew they were done up tight. It was just another form of torturing the elf, to hang her like this. The other rope, which wound around her neck before passing through the loop above with the one tying her wrists, pulled tight every time she struggled, choking her and making breathing and calling hard. Against all sense, she continued to struggle, coughing and choking against the noose as she called, until eventually she saw a shadow cross the door’s slot. For a moment, she thought the dark figure was an orc, another guard, but as it paused and looked in, she saw bright, blue eyes gleaming in what little light was cast from a guttering lamp. Giving another sharp, dry cough, her throat feeling as though someone had taken a saw to it, she twisted her fingers once more, feebly this time, against the ropes, and looked into the man’s eyes with her one, dark blue one. “Help…” she whispered.

06-21-2004, 12:39 PM	#6
piosenniel Desultory Dwimmerlaik Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Pickin' flowers with Bill the Cat..... Posts: 7,779	alaklondewen – Easterling NAME: Lyshka (LEESH – ka) AGE: She knows she is close to twenty years, but whether she has passed the mark yet or not, she is unsure. RACE: Easterling GENDER: Female WEAPONS: Lyshka has no possessions whatsoever. APPEARANCE: Lyshka’s long face is framed by short, thick, uneven black hair that one of the men she had worked alongside chopped with a crude knife in return for a blow she administered to his gut after he touched her inappropriately. Her small, dark-brown eyes peer over a short pointed nose with a visible scar across the bridge. Her lips are full and firmly pressed together. Lyshka wears a stern expression and has not smiled since she was a small child. Lyshka is tall for her gender and her frame is so thin from starvation combined with hard labor that her dark skin appears to be simply stretched over her bones. The filthy, torn rags that cover her body do not hide her flesh and provide no protection from the elements. PERSONALITY/STRENGTHS/WEAKNESSES: Lyshka is tough, but she’s had to be. She’s had to protect herself in the fields of Mordor, and she sports several scars as trophies to her grit. Once there had been the spirit of a loving and beautiful little girl deep inside her heart, but now she was hardened, cold, and eroded. Every person Lyshka trusted in her life betrayed her and she eventually pushed the pain so far down that she was numb. Numb is how she remained. She trusts no one, especially men for they have done nothing but use her. HISTORY: Lyshka came from a family that lived with a group of wayfarers that traveled in the southern lands of Middle Earth. Her mother was distant and emotionally detached, and her father made his living through thievery and gambling. One night her father made a bad bet to some Southron soldiers on their way to Mordor. Not being able to pay the men and facing death or torture because of it, Lyshka’s father gave them his little girl to pay his debt. Lyshka was only five years old at the time. The soldiers abused her and took her to Mordor where she was made to work in the fields in the south. As she grew she gained more attention from men, not only guards but those that worked and housed beside her. She had to learn to fight to protect herself from their advances, although she still lost occasionally to them, especially when they would gang up and several would attack her. One evening as she made her way back to the stall where she slept, a guard waited for her and as she passed him, he attacked her. Caught off guard, Lyshka tried to fight back but he was too big, too strong. They had struggled for several minutes, when her eyes and hands found his short dagger. Before he knew what was happening, Lyshka stabbed the guard several times until she could push his limp body from hers. The Orc guards that found her considered killing her on the spot, which in truth she would not have minded, but instead, they decided to send her to Cirith Ungol where she would wait until her turn came to be fed to the beast in the mountains. ~~ alaklondewen’s post* Lyshka had heard the commotion in the tower, but paid it no heed. Her cell was dark with shadows and the floor was cold as she sat against the wall with her long legs tucked beneath her chin. Her eyes stared blankly into the darkness as her mind simply worked to pass the time quickly so her body would not feel the pain of hunger. Then, her ears began to pick up on a sound that was unexpected…the jingling of keys and the swinging of the iron doors. The prisoners around her called out and the first sounds of joy she had heard in many years flooded the dungeon. Lyshka slowly pushed herself up with her hands and crept to the door. She peaked through the window, but kept herself hidden in the shadows. A young man was freeing the other prisoners. One cell at a time he inserted the key, turned it, and let the door fall open. Lyshka watched as he made his way one by one to her cell door. She stepped backward. Only her face was not consumed by the darkness. The man stepped forward, and she heard the shift of the lock. Still, she would not allow hope to rise in her, and she touched the door and studied the young man’s face with suspicion. Sensing her movement, he met her gaze with dull blue eyes, and then he turned from her and continued his task. Lyshka held her breath as the door slowly opened. She knew nothing of freedom and taking a step toward it was one of the most terrifying actions she ever made.

06-21-2004, 12:41 PM	#7
piosenniel Desultory Dwimmerlaik Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Pickin' flowers with Bill the Cat..... Posts: 7,779	Kransha – Dwarf NAME: Brór Stormhand AGE: 103 RACE: Dwarf GENDER: Male WEAPONS: At the moment, nothing, but he fancies himself very good with his fists. APPEARANCE: Brór has narrow, brown eyes almost hidden between a bulky brow and thick eyebrows. His skin is rough and darkened tan from time spent in the sweltering outdoors, but that only serves to augment his already dark composure. He has a long, bristly black beard, speckled with the first strands of misplaced grey, unkempt hair of the same color which has grown long, reaching to his shoulders now, and a stony face, seemingly capable of only a few expressions. He is relatively sinewy, just as most dwarves are, sturdily built and stands with his head high, even in his current state, reaching a height impressive to some dwarves, roughly five feet and one inch off the ground, but it still not very imposing to higher-headed folk. He wears nothing but an extensive layering of multicolored, tattered rags shoddily slapped together. PERSONALITY: Once a very jovial, merry, and talkative dwarf, imprisonment somewhat subdued his common nature. Like most dwarves, but more so than some and less so than others, he is stubborn and prideful whenever he gets the chance to be. Despite his irksome obstinacy, Brór is always staunchly loyal when he finds something to be loyal to. He is secretive about what he knows, but tries to discuss as much as he can about the old times with other dwarf prisoners, though he rarely gets a chance to so away from the watchful eyes of orcish captors. When set on a cause, he follows it through to the end, but will sometimes take dreary hiatuses from any goal, especially during his imprisonment in the Tower of Cirith Ungol. He is quick-tempered at times, and does not take insult or scorn lightly, with his fiery temperament and strength to back him up. Bror sometimes acts before thinking, but has done this much less since the date of his arrival at Cirith Ungol. HISTORY: Brór was born in year 2916 of the Third Age, among the ranks of Durin’s Folk in exile, lorded over by their exiled king, Thorin Oakenshield. He was too young and inexperienced to fight very much, or very well, when the dwarves reclaimed Erebor, but soon became one of the many revered dwarven warriors in the halls of Erebor. He trained himself in the ways of war beside his brethren at the Lonely Mountain. In 2989, Brór followed Balin from Erebor with a troop of dwarves to retake Khazad-dum. On the route south, a raid by goblins, barely a skirmish, resulted in the capture of Bror and several of his brethren, much to their chagrin. The few dwarf prisoners were taken at first to less well-guarded orcish camps and made to work for them, Since the goblins were an unorganized band, relying on brutality to keep order, one of Brór’s close friends who’d been captured as well began devising a plan, which he indoctrinated the rest of the dwarves and prisoners in the camp into. The prisoners rebelled but the orcs proved more powerful than before and quelled the uprising. All the ringleaders, including Brór’s companion, were brutally tortured and slain in cold blood by the orc forces, but the others were spared. Bror, determined to die with just as much honor as his friend, attempted to rally another uprising shortly after, but it was quelled with more ease. Realizing Brór’s purpose, the orcs decided it would be best not to kill him. Instead, he and the last dwarves in the camp were taken to the dungeons of Cirith Ungol, where he was again imprisoned. Before his first month, almost all of his brethren had succumbed to the strain of life in the tower. There were not many dwarves in the dungeons, and Brór did not seek to make friends with the men and elves. The dwarf hoped eternally that he could do something so vile that it would provoke the orcs to give him to spider that lurked in the pass nearby, thinking optimistically that he might take the beast with him, but his captors never did. He spent most of his time not working for his captors trying to keep his knowledge of Khuzdul, the tongue of the dwarves, sharp in his mind, as he began to forget as years passed. He spent 19 years in Cirith Ungol, and developed two goals, each an alternative to the other. He resolved to either die fighting the orcs, or somehow manage to escape… ~~ Kransha’s post* Bror sat, as he always did, leaning in cold and solemn silence against the rough-rocked wall of his cell, the back of his thick skull pounding, a resonating beat thumping like a drum in the back of his head as he sat, his eyes firmly shut with heavy eyelids sealed as if they were sewn together. There was very little light to let in, but the checkered shadows around him let in slim plumes of light whenever they were absent, though Bror had discovered that this was mostly a silhouette drama fabricated by his own mind, which was gnawed at daily by the insect of tedium. Even though that invisible spider was not as lethal as the monstrous being who skulked through the jagged rocks of the pass of Cirith Ungol, its omnipresence in Bror was just as painful. ‘Baruk Khazâd. Khazâd aimênu.’ He chanted slowly in his head, hearing the melodious thunder of the dwarven battle-cry pounding incessantly in his ears, the blast of it increasing as the dragging moments passed, roared by a hundred of his folk at least, a chorus that lingered in the blank corridors just before his eyes, beneath his nose, under his beard, and out of his reach. He breathed deep, the beard hair around his mouth blowing about as a sail would in a calm sea breeze. His eyes beginning to open, his ears quivered sensitively, listening to the murderous, raucous cries that rained down on him from the levels of the tower above. There were sounds, not that there ever weren’t, but these sounds held a strange feeling in them that wafted like smoke through the rusted bars of Brór’s cell. He lips parted as he began mouthing the words inaudibly to himself, thinking even in his tongue, although he feared he would never need the language again. He knew that no one else in Cirith Ungol knew the words he spoke of save the other few dwarves, and he had long considered attempting to teach it to the other prisoners, just so he would not be alone in the knowledge, but it was a miserably foolish thought and his secretive nature would not allow him even to speak it aloud, coupled with threats from the orcs, who didn’t appreciate their prisoners saying things that they couldn’t understand. One dwarf had made that mistake and paid a most terrible price, but sights such as that no longer haunted Bror. He managed to shift from his position, inching his way forward through the dank cell that contained him. His eyes widened weakly, his furrowed brow easing up as he looked through the bars and peered out, circumspect, observing his surroundings which he was so familiar with. Sounds of vicious mayhem had been rattling and clanging above him for a long time now, but those sounds had drifted away, out of his hearing, and he suspected that whatever struggle had occurred, it was now over. Suddenly, his keen eyes flitted to a figure scurrying down the damp hallway, busying himself with the unlocking of cells. At first, Bror could not fathom what was going on, as he ceased thinking in Khuzdul and reverted involuntarily back to the tongue so oft used in Cirith Ungol, being the only one that all races within new and were fluent in. Was it possible? Were the prisoners being freed? Was this some sort of mass feeding session for the spider in the pass? He considered as quickly as he could, his dulled mind sharpening upon the whetstone of spontaneity in the span of an instant. He stepped back from the icy bars, half in shock and half in a pooling mixture of horror and glee, as the man, a black-haired being, lean and with the same look as many human prisoners, but with an odd glint in his eye, unlocked his cell door and hurried off as the barred object that had held Bror in this forsaken place for 19 years swung open, limp and useless, as if it were nothing. Staggering with a weight that had never been before, and another weight removed, Bror walked out, through the threshold, and into the hall.