Free League Publishing has just opened pre-orders for a new supplement themed around Saruman the White, for both its D&D 5e based Lord of the Rings Roleplaying system, and The One Ring RPG. Though the supplement has a different name in each game system - Trials of Saruman for D&D, Hands of the White Wizard in The One Ring - both are lengthy campaigns set before the War of the Ring that will see the players keep close company with the head of the White Council. A better excuse for dungeon masters to rehearse their Christopher Lee impressions I have yet to find.
Trials of Saruman contains six adventures, with the players assigned to the service of the White Wizard - though there may be an ulterior motive for them being there. The first adventure takes place in 2965, between the re-awakening of Mount Doom and the birth of Frodo Baggins, and if you choose to play the adventures in sequence as one big D&D campaign, you will go all the way up to the opening acts of the War of the Ring.
So the very first adventure takes place before the canonical corruption of Saruman by Sauron (the turn of the millennium) and the tale will end after the canonical date of his fall. The product description suggests that "perhaps the heroes can change the ending" of Saruman's story, so maybe clever roleplaying can prevent his descent into madness? Though knowing what RPG parties are like, it's probably most likely that he will get there quicker.
Trials of Saruman and Hands of the White Wizard are available for pre-order now from the Free League Press webstore for $45.85. Each purchase of a hard copy also comes with a free PDF copy from the DriveThruRPG webstore.
If you're a big fan of either version of the Lord of the Rings RPG, or you just really like Christopher Lee, we'd love to hear your tales in the Wargamer Discord community.