Canceled Rohan Traitor Story Revealed

Over the past few days details have been released on the forums about an unfinished plotline in Rohan.

 

*Helm’s Deep Story Spoiler Alert*

Stasik started a thread on the topic:

“… In Chapter 6, we find in Stoke that there is a traitor in Rohan, someone who is apparently working for Grima Wormtongue. We find that this traitor was impersonating a guard of Stoke (whom we find dead). He escapes and we deduce that he probably escaped to the Stonedeans. We are tasked with delivering this information about the traitor to the leader of Woodhurst. In fact, this is basically our only task. However, when we arrive at Woodhurst, we seemingly immediately forget this and get caught up in the internal affairs of that hold. It could be argued that the story writers simply forgot, or that this was an oversight, except that a few quests later it’s alluded that we had not yet caught the traitor.

So, my question is, is this issue resolved anywhere further along, either in a side quest, or otherwise? It’s been killing me that we haven’t gotten any closure on this, so if someone, either an observant player, or maybe even MadeOfLions, could provide some info, that would be amazing!”

MadeOfLions replied back:

“I had more plans for the traitor, but I didn’t like how some of the quests in Rohan ended up giving the impression that there were more traitors in the kingdom than good people, so I shelved it. I might bring him back in some form, but it seems every Riding had a traitor and I thought the theme might have gotten a little overdone.”

Later Stasik asks how the story was to be resolved and MadeOfLions answers:

“… Think of this as a deleted scene, considering that it didn’t survive to the final cut of the Epic.

The Man With the Blood Eye Brooch was recruited by Grima in furtherance of Saruman’s plans for the Kingdom of Rohan, alongside some others (who you root out while working in Edoras). Unlike those allies of Wormtongue, however, this man’s true allegiance is to Sauron and the Black Numenoreans who follow him — his loyalty is unknown to Grima, though Saruman would have been able to discern it fairly easily. The extent of this man’s evil is rather deeper than most of Wormtongue’s lackeys, as is his cleverness, and he has a glut of false names he uses as he travels: Ednoth, Góding, Ianbert, Merewit.

The player loses his trail after the town of Stoke, partly due to his ability to travel safely among the Uruks, but also because he can blend into the populace of Rohan, given his similar complexion. As a result, he easily joins the defenders at Helm’s Deep, and would be one of the characters players interact with during the preparations for defending the Hornburg. Players would piece together his identity shortly after the fighting begins, and we would have gotten some tension out of the knowledge that someone on our side of the wall is working for the Enemy to sabotage the defence. When Gimli is separated from our heroes and ends up in the Glittering Caves, the idea had been that Our Traitor would be there with him, getting ready to stab him in the back when the opportunity presented itself. Obviously the attempt on Gimli would fail, but the traitor would have managed to slay some other defenders in the attack.

I know we sometimes get dinged for ‘tricking’ players, especially when we plant enough seeds that you guys can say ‘But *I* knew this was the traitor! I would never have trusted him!’ so I think ultimately removing this part of the storyline was a good idea. The Man With(out) the Blood Eye Brooch therefore lives to possibly complicate things in the future, but in the story as implemented he disappears after Stoke and his whereabouts are unknown.”

I was wondering what happened to this traitor as well and so it is good to finally have conclusion to a great story.

I wish this story would have been left in the game as it seems to be the ultimate traitor story in Rohan.  That being said, due to other events in the glittering cave, the story could have become crowded and overcomplicated.

Should this story have stayed in the game?  Let us know in the comments below.