The One Ring Chapter 4 Sec 2

The One Ring
GM
Erik
Game Time
4th Saturday of the Month
Starting Year
Third Age, 2946
Current Year
Third Age, Summer 2950
The Fellowship
Adonniel Aegir Wüdsworth Bilbanes Broadfoot Dindraug Lissiriel Theodwin of Woodland Hall Ulrik Foehammer Brand

In a hole in the ground there lived a Hobbit. Four Hobbits, in fact, with a fifth coming to join them. The Hobbit in question was one Dodinas Brandybuck, for merly of Buckland in the Shire, but now a resident of Wilderland. Above the newly-dug hole there was a newly-built inn, so new it still smelled of sawdust and glue, and the white- washed walls were actually white and not yellowed with pipe-smoke and spilled beer. He lived in the hole with his wife Agatha and his two young sons, and there was a branch of the hole awaiting the arrival of his brother Dinodas.

Dodinas – or Dody, as his friends called him (and he had a knack for making friends) – once considered himself to be a well-travelled Hobbit. He had gone as far as Bree, which for most Hobbits constitutes about twice the journey of a lifetime, and dined out on his tales of strange, exotic folk and unusual customs. On one trip to Bree, in the common- room of the Prancing Pony, he met another Hobbit – the famous (or infamous) Bilbo Baggins. The two fell to sharing stories, and for once Dody was the one who was flabbergasted and entranced by the other’s stories of distant lands. Compared to Bilbo’s journey There and Back Again, Dody had hardly stepped outside his front door. After several hours and several pints, Bilbo invited Dody to visit him at Bag End for dinner the following Sunday. Dody brought his younger brother Dindy and his wife Agatha along. The dinner involved several bottles of wine and more tales of Wilderland, as well as innumerable courses. Dodinas declared that he was determined to outdo Bilbo, Dinodas climbed on the table and sang a story about giants, Bilbo enthusiastically showed them his collection of maps and diaries, and Agatha... well, Agatha sipped her wine and thought about practicalities. When Agatha Took married Dody Brandybuck, everyone assumed that the steely young Hobbit-maid would drum some sense into the notoriously eccentric and wild Brandybuck, and ensure that he found a business or craft to occupy his days. However, Agatha was a Took, and there is a latent streak of adventure and wanderlust in that family.

None of the three Hobbit gentlemen could quite remember how it came to pass – again, a good deal of wine was involved – but a curious plan was formed. Since the successful Quest of Erebor and the defeat of the Dragon, a new era of peace and prosperity had fallen on the North. There was much more traffic on the Forest Road than before, thanks to the watchful eyes of the Beorning- folk and the revived Kingdom of Dale. These travellers and merchants would need somewhere to stay along the road. The plan was that the two brothers would build, open and run an inn on the road between the Old Ford and the Forest Gate – quite close to Beorn’s Hall, where no evil thing dared go.

Bilbo gave the two brothers some money to start the inn, as well as several letters of introduction to various dignitaries and persons of importance he met on his travels. The two brothers set off from Buckland a few weeks later, still slightly dazed. They crossed the Misty Mountains without incident, and presented themselves at Beorn’s house. Beorn ignored the letter of introduction, but was amused by the Hobbits’ presumptuousness (the barrel of beer carried from the Golden Perch also helped matters), and gave them leave to build their inn.