New Adventures in Middle-earth

Embark upon all-new adventures in Middle-earth with two new standalone scenarios, The Ruins of Belegost and Murder at the Prancing Pony!

Originally designed as special The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game scenarios for Gen Con Indy 2015 and the 2015 Fellowship Event, both The Ruins of Belegost and Murder at the Prancing Pony introduce unique mechanics, encounter sets, challenges, and rewards. They carry your heroes to realms outside the scope of the standard expansions and Saga expansions, and they require only the Core Set to be playable. Moreover, they are now both available via Fantasy Flight Games's in-house manufacturing.

For more information about these intriguing scenarios, we turn to lead developer Caleb Grace.

A Word from the Developer

2015 was a good year for The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game. The community continued to grow, and the game grew significantly with the release of The Lost Realm deluxe expansion and the Angmar Awakened cycle, both The Treason of Saruman and The Land of Shadow Saga Expansions, and a whole host of Nightmare Decks. Finally, to top things off, fans of The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game were given the opportunity to participate in two special events, one at Gen Con Indy and the other at the 2015 Fellowship Event. Both these events marked the debut of a challenging custom scenario that was designed to stand on its own and stand up to the challenge of multiple plays. And now, if you were among the players who were unable to attend those events, you can enjoy these scenarios and share in the fun.

The Ruins of Belegost

The Ruins of Belegost was designed for the 2015 Gen Con The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game special event. For the fourth year in a row, the sold-out event drew a crowd of gamers eager to meet other The Lord of the Rings players and see what new adventure awaited them, and they were not disappointed. Attendees had a blast exploring the flooded ruins of the ancient Dwarven city, Belegost, in search of forgotten treasure.

The scenario was designed as a classic dungeon crawl, in which the players must find a certain number of Artifact objectives in order to win the game. To help give the scenario a real treasure-hunting feel, we introduced two new keywords: Loot and Discover. The Loot keyword appears on the Artifact objectives and prevents them from entering play normally. If an objective with the Loot keyword is revealed from the encounter deck it is discarded and another encounter card is revealed instead.

The Discover keyword was created as a way for the players to find the Loot objectives, and maybe a few nasty surprises. The Discover X keyword appears on each of the locations in The Ruins of Belegost as it represents the progression of your heroes' search through the ruins. When you travel to a location with the Discover X keyword, you discard X cards from the top of the encounter deck. If a Loot objective is among the discarded cards, it is attached to the active location. When that location is explored, the first player takes control of the objective and attaches it to a hero, gaining a powerful advantage. However, if there are any number of encounter cards with the Hazard trait among the discarded cards, the first player randomly selects one to be revealed. These Hazard encounter cards represent all the hidden dangers waiting for the heroes in the dark places of Belegost: enemies, monsters, and traps.

To make the scenario even more interesting, we made sure there would be multiple paths through the quest deck, and we added a vicious, fire-breathing Dragon to stalk your heroes from the moment they enter the ruins. You can do your best to avoid the Dragon, but you must ultimately defeat it if you hope to claim the loot. At Gen Con, only a few tables managed to reach the Dragon’s lair, but everyone expressed their excitement for the scenario and their desire to play it again.

Murder at the Prancing Pony

Murder at the Prancing Pony proved to be another high-water mark for The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game as attendees of the 2015 Fellowship Event expressed their enjoyment of the scenario’s murder mystery theme. In this scenario, you and your teammates have to work together to solve a crime by tracking down the correct Suspect enemy and Hideout location. To permit your exploration, the scenario directs you to create an Investigation deck built of all the Suspect enemies and Hideout locations (except for the Suspect enemy and Hideout location randomly set aside at the beginning of the game), and it introduces the Investigate keyword to represent your heroes’ search for the culprit and his hiding place.

The rules for the Investigate X keyword explain that when the active location is explored, the first player shuffles the Investigation deck and looks at the top X cards. Any enemies or locations viewed this way can be recorded on the Investigation List to help players narrow the number of possible suspects and hideouts. In this way, the players can discover the true identity of the killer and his whereabouts by traveling to various locations throughout Bree-land and narrowing the list of potential killers by process of elimination.

Meanwhile, as your heroes scour the village of Bree for clues, they are hampered in their efforts by a gang of local brigands. If they persevere and advance to the final stage, they can travel to the Hideout location and confront the Suspect enemy. Since there are five different Suspect enemies and five different Hideout locations, there are many possible outcomes for the last stage, making Murder at the Prancing Pony one of the most replayable scenarios in The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game.

Pack Your Adventuring Gear

Both The Ruins of Belegost and Murder at the Prancing Pony have been received with nigh-unanimous praise and are must-own scenarios for all serious fans of The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game. In addition to providing two wildly different, engaging, and thematic game experiences, these scenarios come ready to play, requiring no other encounter cards. They throw you into adventures challenging enough to push even the most die-hard veteran to the limit, but they also include “easy mode indicators” to make them more accessible for players who prefer a slightly more relaxed gaming experience.

Will you head first to the watery caverns of Belegost or the troubled village of Bree? Either way, you'll find fantastic new adventures await you. Order your copies of The Ruins of Belegost and Murder at the Prancing Pony today!