Beornings: The One Ring --> GURPS conversion

    The One Ring (TOR from now) is a great game produced by Cubicle 7. This game is set in the area around Mirkwood, a few years after the fall of Smaug (long before the events of The Lord of the Rings). The game relies on a rather low level of power, even if it allows you to play as characters already "heroic" confronted with common people. It places a strong emphasis on Shadow, corruption and the loss of Hope faced by adventurers who decide to deal with the Enemy, venturing out of the civilized lands, in the wilds subject to the influence of the Shadow.

    Many of the game mechanics are truly innovative and full of Tolkenian flavor. It is, without any doubt, a true gem of its kind and, probably, the best Tolkenian RPG created so far.

    It has, however, some major limitations in simulation, and its point of greatest weakness is probably the combat, which is monotonous and repetitive for the players, whose options during an armed conflict are severely limited.

    For many gamers this is not an obstacle, but for others, perhaps accustomed to systems based on d20System or in any case much more simulative, is a strong limit. I just started playing a campaign of TOR with a group used to D&D3.X and video-rpg-games: all of them immediately appreciated the setting, but they were shocked by the combat brutality and limitation and by the unforgiving corruption system. After all they're used to play heroic fantasy, and therefore not to see their characters suffer the psychological effects of fighting Evil (yes, with capital E ^_^).

    For this reason I want to try to convert the campaign to GURPS, so as to present them with a more comprehensive and simulative set of rules, still capable of supporting a high lethality of combat and a psycho/phisical degeneration due to contact with the Shadow.

    GURPS Horror offers a very nice set of rules for corruption, so I'll just use them, tweaking them where I need.

    So, the first step is to convert the races presented in TOR, which are Hobbits, Woodsmen, Bardians, Mirkwood Elves, Beornings and Lonely Mountain Dwarves.

    I decided to start from Beornings, which I am particularly fond of. So here is the template of the people who gathered around Beorn, with a brief description stolen from Lord of the Ring Wiki.

    As always, comments and opinions are always largely appreciated.

Beornings

    Beornings, also known as skin-changers, were a race of men that were able to change into bears. They were descended from Beorn, from whom they inherited their name and their ability to turn into bears. They dwelt in the Vales of Anduin between Mirkwood and the Great River. During the Third Age they guarded the Ford of Carrock from the Orcs and Wargs (though Gloin lamented that their tolls were high) and they also aided the Elves in defending their kingdom in northern Mirkwood.

    Original Beornings are magical shape-changing beings who could take different forms at will. Little is known about them and of their abilities. The only skin-changers identified by Tolkien were Beorn and his descendants (who could take the shape of a man or of a bear). Actually, they're a great community of common men who gathered around the mythic figure of Beorn, becoming the guardian of the areas between Misty Mountains and Mirkwood.

    They had the same life-span of mortal men, and could speak in both the tongue of men and of bears. They did not seem very fond of Dwarves, and were enemies with the Goblins. The people of Rohan shared kinship with them. They hunted neither bird nor beast and lived mostly off of cream and honey.

    The Beornings were well known for their honey-cakes, which they likely made in their bee farms and sold openly to others, at least until the return of Sauron, for then the Beornings no longer trusted strangers and their trade stopped. Gimli considered the Beornings the best bakers he knew, though they were not so willing to give out their cakes to travelers during the days of the War of the Ring.

    During the War of the Ring, while wearing the One Ring at Amon Hen upon the seat of seeing, Frodo Baggins saw many things from afar, including the land of the Beornings aflame. This hints at an attack by Sauron's forces upon the Beornings, though the outcome of this attack is unknown.

    Gandalf believed that Beorn might have come from the mountains, making the Beornings descendants of the men of the mountains. The only known leaders of this people were Beorn and later his son Grimbeorn.

    Racial Template
    Cost: 13.
    Attribute Modifiers: ST +1 [10]; HT +1 [10].
    Advantages: Fearless 1 [2], Hard to Subdue 1 [2].
    Disadvantages: Intolerance (Orcs & related) [-10], Berserker (15) [-5].
    Skills: Two Handed Axe/Mace DX-1 [1], Intimidation Will-1 [1], Survival (Mountain) Per-1 [1] or Survival (Woodland) Per-1 [1] , Tracking Per-1 [1].
    Other suggested traits: Many Beornings have the Animal Empathy or Empathy advantages, and one or more mental disadvantage(s) or perk(s) which categorize them as "grim" persons.

    Every attribute, advantage and disadvantage of the template can be removed by paying/gaining the appropriate amount of points. This template represents just the very common Beorning: heroes are often different from standard.

    A Beorning able to change to bear form is, probably, a descendant of Beorn himself. Such a character will probably be very powerful (and rare): the creation of such a force of nature should be fully agreed with your game master!