"THE SCOURING OF THE SHIRE"     : A Warlords II Deluxe IBM Scenario
 by Barry W. Brook.
 email: bbrook@rna.bio.mq.edu.au

 14/10/96

Scenario Description:

  A lot of scenarios have now been created that depict the great war of
 the ring (1419 SR). However, since they need to encompass such a vast
 area for their action, a finer resolution of some key areas of the map
 naturally needs to be lost.
  This scenario tackles that problem by focussing on a small portion of
 the entirety of Middle-Earth; the hobbits domain (known as The Shire).
 When Frodo, Merry, Pippin and Sam returned home after the defeat of
 Sauron, they found that Bucklanders to be acting very strangely, and
 soon discovered that a mysterious character referred to as "The Chief"
 or "Sharkey" had taken up a position of power in the Shire, centred
 around Frodo's home town of Hobbiton. He had his own form of secret
 police (composed of both renegade hobbits and men), who called
 themselves "The Shirriffs" (perhaps a corruption of Sherrif), with
 their base of operation located in Frogmorton. Frodo et al. moved
 quickly to Hobbiton, and found out that "Sharkey" (derived from the
 Orcish "Shark-ku" meaning old man) was actually the disgraced
 Saruman (once the white). It is now up to you to put things right,
 and scoure the shire of the evil that has fallen over it...


Map Description:

  The map is based on Tolkien's original map of the Shire and surrounds,
 but a few modifications were necessary. The map has been laterally
 compressed, since the scenario editor likes to start a map taller than
 it is wide :-(  A few places of importance, such as Bree (and it's
 three villages), Sarn Forn, Michel Delving, Delving etc. have been
 placed in slightly erroneous positions; they are actually farther out
 than I've put them, but I wanted to include them in the scenario and
 so had to make some concessions. A few new cities have been added (such
 as The Greenway Inn and the Woolshed), and the ruins generally come from
 my imagination, since they were not greatly discussed in the book.
 The Brandywine rive is navigatable throughout it's course, and can be
 crossed at the Brandywine bridge, Bucklebury Ferry, and Sarn Ford.
 Some of the larger towns (Michel Delving, Hobbiton, Tuckborough,
 Longbottom and Stock) are actually double-towns, to make them centres
 of activity, and reflect more accurately their comparative size. All
 major landmarks are signposted.


Army description:

 You should carefully examine the army set as it is quite new and more
 specific to the Shire than previous Tolkien sets. Hobbits can be
 Quarrymen, Infantry, Pony cavalry and Horse cavalry and are the stock
 troops as you would imagine. People may shout and scream that the
 Black Riders were all vanquished by the time of the scouring of the
 Shire, but heck, they're fun characters, and important in the early
 part of the book around the Shire, so I put them in anyway 8-)
 Heroes have been named faithfully to the book, and accurately fit in
 with the correct sides (eg. Bill Ferney, Hob Hayward, Frodo etc.).

Cities:

 The cities have been slightly redesigned by me, the Hobbit hole is
 very much my own creation, since a hobbit simply *has* to have a
 comfortable burrow to call his own!


Items:

 All items have been made up by me, but are very Tolkienesque in nature...

Players:

 The scenario has been designed for three players, has 52 cities and 24
 ruins. Having more players than this would not have fitted well with
 the actual fantasy-historical events. There is quite enough room for
 expansion.


I hope you enjoy playing this latest Middle-Earth scenario as much as
I enjoyed creating it!

Send any comments, suggestions etc. to: bbrook@rna.bio.mq.edu.au

Regards,
Barry.

