I'll try:

Cirdan -- Spirit, 4 cost, 3, 1, 2, 4Hp

At the end of the round, discard Cirdan.

While Cirdan is in play, each unique character gets (choose 1): +2 willpower, +2 attack, or +2 defense.

Thranduil -- Tactics, 5 cost, 2, 3, 2, 3Hp

At the end of the round, discard Thranduil.

When Thranduil enters play, (choose 1): discard a non-unique location or each player may search their deck for a silvan ally and play it as if from the hand for no cost.

One small, wording-Nazi note: the Cirdan ally should have the name "Cirdan the Shipwright" to ensure that you cannot play both hero and ally. 😉

My friends,

Call it a labor of love,

call it boredom from quarantine,

call it inspiration born of disappointment of leaks to the last pack....

But I started on my quest to make my own custom cycle. I have in my mind a little bit of the story for the cycle, a few of the dynamics (we are revisiting some places so I could combine from other quest sets). As for the player cards, I have compiled a combination of cards suggested here, maybe with a few tweaks, with some other ideas I've seen around the web.

I've completed the "Deluxe Expansion" player card text and the first pack. Let me know what you think. They feature a different dynamic by including NO HEROES, but two allies that can be chosen as heroes with interesting synergies.

The cycle revolves around a task sent from Dain Ironfoot II after Sauron tempted an alliance with him, offering the three remaining rings of power. Dain sends the heroes on a quest to steal the remaining three rings from Dol Guldor and to take them to a dragon's lair to have them destroyed by dragon fire. I hope to have some fun twists and turns in the story telling.

Here is a link to the Google Doc:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DV7tyEUJKuu4B7hibFlSARVtvo6AwrdeUjHl6iMtuh8/edit?usp=sharing

Hopefully you feel like your ideas were honored here, and if I haven't gotten to them yet, trust that I will probably get around to it.

Also, if you are keen to create some artwork and really bring these cards to life, that would be amazing!

I'll take a stab at it. I would like to get a deluxe deluxe extension featuring The Battle Under the Trees, The Siege of Dale and the Scourging of the Shire. It would be nice if it had the same amount of player cards as the core set and included the things and people that are still missing from the book like: Hurin the Tall, Goldberry, Lobelia Baggins, Horn, Bergil, Dervorin, Star of Elendil, guarded Anduril, ect. Also, I would like the Blue Wizards. And while I am still dreaming I want a pony and an ice cream cone.

What traits still need to be fleshed out a little bit? I feel like Beorning still needs a little work, but the Skin-changer helped a bit. I wouldn't mind a couple more additions to that pool.

I think I will include some Bree allies as well.

Drunken Prancing Pony Patron Ally

Bree .

Cost 0

0 Willpower

0 Attack

0 Defense

1 Hit Point.

Encounter Action: Put Drunken Prancing Pony Patron into play from your hand, then engage the lowest engagement cost non-unique enemy in play.

Combat Response: After Drunken Prancing Pony Patron exhausts to defend an attack from the lowest engagement cost non-unique enemy in play, if that enemy was dealt a shadow card with no shadow effect discard that enemy.

Not Brilliant, but fun!

8 hours ago, Ely Hill said:

Drunken Prancing Pony Patron Ally

Bree .

Cost 0

0 Willpower

0 Attack

0 Defense

1 Hit Point.

Encounter Action: Put Drunken Prancing Pony Patron into play from your hand, then engage the lowest engagement cost non-unique enemy in play.

Combat Response: After Drunken Prancing Pony Patron exhausts to defend an attack from the lowest engagement cost non-unique enemy in play, if that enemy was dealt a shadow card with no shadow effect discard that enemy.

Not Brilliant, but fun!

Actually sounds very powerful. What sphere?

I have stumbled upon the name Whil Whitfoot, the mayor of the shire at the time of the scouring. Im thinking that will be a great 4th hero of the cycle above.

Whil Whitfoot

Leadership, 6 threat, 2, 1, 2, 2

Each Hobbit character you control gets +1 Defense.

If every Hero you control has the Hobbit trait, Whil Whitfoot gains: "Response: after you raise your threat from a player card effect, lower your threat by one and draw one card. Limit once per phase."

I think he will get a leadership attachment as well that will be the mayor title. Id like it also to synergize with Sam, so maybe on the same trigger give an additional stat boost to a choice of willpower, attack or defense?

Thoughts on that?

3 hours ago, player3351457 said:

I have stumbled upon the name Whil Whitfoot, the mayor of the shire at the time of the scouring. Im thinking that will be a great 4th hero of the cycle above.

Whil Whitfoot

Leadership, 6 threat, 2, 1, 2, 2

Each Hobbit character you control gets +1 Defense.

If every Hero you control has the Hobbit trait, Whil Whitfoot gains: "Response: after you raise your threat from a player card effect, lower your threat by one and draw one card. Limit once per phase."

I think he will get a leadership attachment as well that will be the mayor title. Id like it also to synergize with Sam, so maybe on the same trigger give an additional stat boost to a choice of willpower, attack or defense?

Thoughts on that?

I would settle for either the first or the second ability. They don't have a lot to do with each other and each of them is absolutely insane by themselves. (The second ability is almost better Galadriel with the right deck)

If you go for the first one, maybe make the major title about hobbit cost reduction. It's a minor synergy but i wouldn't go to crazy with swarm buffs and could help you bring the defense swarm together.
If you go for the second one, i would do a major title like this: Action: Increase your threat by one. Ready a hobbit character. Imo fits into leadership and the flavor.

4 hours ago, Zura said:

I would settle for either the first or the second ability. They don't have a lot to do with each other and each of them is absolutely insane by themselves. (The second ability is almost better Galadriel with the right deck)

I didn't even think of that. Perhaps it makes it less breakable to have it say "hero card effect" which limits it to Fatty, Frodo, and Pippin for the current pool.

12 minutes ago, player3351457 said:

Perhaps it makes it less breakable to have it say "hero card effect"

And a "once per round" limit.

4 minutes ago, Alonewolf87 said:

And a "once per round" limit.

Well if I limit it to once per phase then perhaps there are some crazies who would run fatty and spippin/frodo together.

Should I have it cost 1 resource to trigger? Or is the limit of only hobbit heroes cost enough?

8 hours ago, Bobbymcbobface said:

Actually sounds very powerful. What sphere?

Neutral. It would be a good splash card then. It should also have the text: "He says your beer is always good"-The Return of the King

On 5/21/2020 at 9:27 PM, player3351457 said:

My friends,

Call it a labor of love,

call it boredom from quarantine,

call it inspiration born of disappointment of leaks to the last pack....

But I started on my quest to make my own custom cycle. I have in my mind a little bit of the story for the cycle, a few of the dynamics (we are revisiting some places so I could combine from other quest sets). As for the player cards, I have compiled a combination of cards suggested here, maybe with a few tweaks, with some other ideas I've seen around the web.

I've completed the "Deluxe Expansion" player card text and the first pack. Let me know what you think. They feature a different dynamic by including NO HEROES, but two allies that can be chosen as heroes with interesting synergies.

The cycle revolves around a task sent from Dain Ironfoot II after Sauron tempted an alliance with him, offering the three remaining rings of power. Dain sends the heroes on a quest to steal the remaining three rings from Dol Guldor and to take them to a dragon's lair to have them destroyed by dragon fire. I hope to have some fun twists and turns in the story telling.

Here is a link to the Google Doc:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DV7tyEUJKuu4B7hibFlSARVtvo6AwrdeUjHl6iMtuh8/edit?usp=sharing

Hopefully you feel like your ideas were honored here, and if I haven't gotten to them yet, trust that I will probably get around to it.

Also, if you are keen to create some artwork and really bring these cards to life, that would be amazing!

I applaude your creativity and willingness.

But.

This is something I already was militant with A-Long Extended Party (which I'm an active part of): I think this point of the game, it's not so much about creating new player cards.

Fan-made player cards are REALLY controversial, everyone will think they have a better design for two blue Wizards or whatever. I made my own custom "Deluxe" expansion (with 4 quests). It took me YEARS (and I was motivated). It does include player cards, but I don't showcase them a lot, because I prefer people to be playing the quests I've designed.

Designing a quest for LOTR is actually harder than throwing in a bunch of player cards idea (and again, do not misread me: I've read your Google Docs, you have a lot of good ideas, no doubt about that).

But if I were you (and I'm not so in the end, you do whatever you want :)) I would develop first the quests. The narrative, the quest mechanics you want to explore, etc. That is the most important. Quests add a lot of replaybility with the current player card pool.

EDIT: as a side note, it's even better if those quests can be played with just a Core Set (a design mistake I've made, clearly).

2 minutes ago, banania said:

I applaude your creativity and willingness.

But.

This is something I already was militant with A-Long Extended Party (which I'm an active part of): I think this point of the game, it's not so much about creating new player cards.

Fan-made player cards are REALLY controversial, everyone will think they have a better design for two blue Wizards or whatever. I made my own custom "Deluxe" expansion (with 4 quests). It took me YEARS (and I was motivated). It does include player cards, but I don't showcase them a lot, because I prefer people to be playing the quests I've designed.

Designing a quest for LOTR is actually harder than throwing in a bunch of player cards idea (and again, do not misread me: I've read your Google Docs, you have a lot of good ideas, no doubt about that).

But if I were you (and I'm not so in the end, you do whatever you want :)) I would develop first the quests. The narrative, the quest mechanics you want to explore, etc. That is the most important. Quests add a lot of replaybility with the current player card pool.

Thank you for the advice. I think I will follow your advice and design the quests first and maybe develop the story a little bit. I'm worried because my story telling pales in comparison to Tolkien and the creators of this game. It's certainly much easier to immerse oneself in deck building and see what it missing and just fill in the gaps.

However, in messing with the woodland realm/wizard quests this week, I am a bit motivated to try and build synergizing encounter decks. So it might be worth starting with that and building the story around it or in conjunction with it.

I figured there might be some individuals here that would love to jump in with this too, if they are interested.

Of course as I see more ideas here and come up with my own, I think I will continue adding to the Google Sheet 🙂

By the way, I really enjoyed play testing your Light in the East quests. I still need to play #3 and #4, the quarantine has prevented my friend and I meeting to play (and I havent figured out why the OCTGN files don't work), but it will be a blast to finish it up.

I think you can find storytellers on those forums quite easily, just create your own thread! 🙂

I would love some Tactics cards that offer reliable readying outside of the combat phase. At the moment, the only non-hero Tactics card that does that is Hold Your Ground, which is an event that only targets sentinel characters.

Unexpected Courage, Snowmane, Wingfoot, Leather Boots, Steed of the North, Heir of Mardil, etc. provide readying for heroes that were committed to the quest. How am I supposed to ready my heroes in Mono-Tactics decks? Magic Ring?

An attachment like Leather Boots that triggers when an enemy is revealed would be a great addition to the card pool.

8 hours ago, pmdoug said:

I would love some Tactics cards that offer reliable readying outside of the combat phase. At the moment, the only non-hero Tactics card that does that is Hold Your Ground, which is an event that only targets sentinel characters.

Unexpected Courage, Snowmane, Wingfoot, Leather Boots, Steed of the North, Heir of Mardil, etc. provide readying for heroes that were committed to the quest. How am I supposed to ready my heroes in Mono-Tactics decks? Magic Ring?

I guess you are referring to playing mono-Tactics solo right?

Anyway I do not find so strange that Tactics readying options are mainly restricted to combat (in general, even outside the combat phase), it's kinda fitting. If you really have need to ready some characters and cannot rely on other decks keep in mind for general decks The White Council and possibly The Free People, for certain decks Boomed and Trumpeted and Ring of Thror can be good too.

15 hours ago, Alonewolf87 said:

I guess you are referring to playing mono-Tactics solo right?

Anyway I do not find so strange that Tactics readying options are mainly restricted to combat (in general, even outside the combat phase), it's kinda fitting. If you really have need to ready some characters and cannot rely on other decks keep in mind for general decks The White Council and possibly The Free People, for certain decks Boomed and Trumpeted and Ring of Thror can be good too.

A card like Steed of the North could just as easily have been a Tactics cards. I don't see why Tactics shouldn't offer at least 1 in-sphere repeatable ready that doesn't relate to attack and defense. At this point in the game's lifespan I actually find it stranger that this hasn't happened yet. I'm not asking for a universal ready like Unexpected Courage, but some way to consistently ready a hero would be great. It could be limited to warriors only and I'd still be happy to have it.

I understand that there are some neutral readying options, but I was specifically talking about the lack of tactics readying.