Two weeks ago, I released an early unplaytested version of a TTRPG called The Long Defeat (which I would be honored if you would check out!). The core idea it's built around is "running a Mothership game with the materials from The One Ring." NPC stat blocks from TOR, for instance, are fully compatible, even though the system is different. It is ideally played using the proprietary TOR dice. I really love all the stuff Cubicle 7 and now Free League have put out for the game, but I just have no interest in the actual system. So, I did my best to strip out the engine but keep the body intact. Even if I have to drill the occasional hole in the hood to get it to fit.
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| Matt Ferguson |
Mothership may seem like an odd choice. Alien-style space horror is, at first glance, big leap from Tolkien's world. But in the Warden's Manual, a lot of the advice is almost identical to the sort that I would use for a Middle-Earth game. A few of my favorites:
Most people would rather talk than fight.
Every monster is a boss monster.
Every violent encounter is the worst day of someone’s life.
Defeat doesn’t always mean death.
But the thing that struck me as the most Tolkienesque is that of the TOMBS cycle, "the cycle of Horror from its origin all the way to how it is defeated (and then returns) in five Acts." TOMBS is an acronym for Transgression (what causes the Horror to awake), Omens (the signs that precede the Horror), Manifestation (the Horror revealed), Banishment (defeating the Horror), and Slumber (the Horror "relents... for now"). It's that last one I want to focus on.
The name of my game, "the Long Defeat", comes from a line Galadriel speaks in Fellowship saying, "together through ages of the world we have fought the long defeat." Tolkien himself uses this phrase to describe his view of history:
I am a Christian, and indeed a Roman Catholic, so that I do not expect ‘history’ to be anything but a ‘long defeat’—though it contains (and in a legend may contain more clearly and movingly) some samples or glimpses of final victory.
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| Ted Nasmith |
Prior to the final victory, any victory we achieve against evil will be fleeting. It is not a fight we can win, but one we must fight regardless. Returning to MoSh, this same idea is expressed in the Slumber stage of the TOMBS cycle:
Slumber is an important part of the Cycle, because it shows that the Horror is rarely defeated permanently, just kept at bay for another day. It must always be resisted, and defeated anew day after day, week after week. There is always work to do. The long term echoes and consequences of the Horror’s existence leave scars for a long time to come. Maybe the beast was defeated, but its bite infected a member of the crew. Or maybe the ancient evil was sealed away in a tomb, only awaiting for some other explorer to stumble into it a hundred years from now and start the Cycle all over again.
This almost perfectly encapsulates the idea of the "long defeat". Frodo may have succeeded in his quest but his wounds mean he must head into the West. The One Ring's destruction means the elven realms will die. Several generations later, a secret Satanist religion emerges in Gondor. Arda is Marred and won't be healed until after Dagor Dagorath. Whether due to supernatural evil like Morgoth and Sauron or simply due to the "inevitable boredom of Men with the good", the Cycle will begin again.
