Adventure Introduction Battle of Five Armies & The Third Age of Middle-Earth The current year for our Middle-Earth campaign is set during the year of 2946 of the Third Age. Inspired By J.R.R. Tolkien

Ah, welcome, friends. Come in, sit down by the fire. I have a tale for you, a story of these lands we walk upon, of a time not so long ago, yet forever changed. The year is 2946 of the Third Age. Five years have passed since the North breathed freely once more.

The shadow of Smaug the Golden, the Chiefest and Greatest of Calamities, the last of the great fire-drakes, had lain heavy upon the Wilderlands for too long.

He slept on Durin's gold under the Lonely Mountain for nearly a century and a half. But he awoke . . . and he fell. At Esgaroth "commonly known as Lake-town" upon the Long Lake, a man, a simple mariner named Bard, loosed the Black Arrow. With that single shot, the beast was slain, and a long age of fear ended. Five years later, the land begins its slow recovery.

Hope returns once again, timid as a fawn in the forest. Trade routes reopen, and the sounds of merchants on the road bring life back to forgotten paths. People return to the lands around the Mountain and the Lake, rebuilding their lives. The shadow of Mirkwood still looms, but even in its dark embrace, light finds a way.

This story does not begin with kings or great battles. It begins much smaller, as most important stories do. It starts in the western regions of Mirkwood, in the settlement of Woodmen-town.

It is now spring, a time of waking. The folk of the town are busy, shaking off winter. Men and women drag rugs and blankets outside, beating the dust from them. Ashes from fires are cleared from the hearths, and the collection of firewood for the next year begins. Life goes on, simple and good, in this isolated settlement. Here, in this small corner of a world that is slowly healing, a few wandering destinies are about to cross paths. The great tale that will spring from these humble beginnings is yet to be discovered.

We begin in the early hours of the morning as a storm rages outside . . . in a messy room on the second floor of the Nightgate Inn. A bleary-eyed, rugged Dwarf slowly wakens from his lengthy slumber . . .