And the homebrew mechanics you mentioned are VERY cool! I think implementing them properly in this setting would require more game design than I want to put into this project, but if nothing else, it’s great roleplaying advice.

And I REALLY like the connection to the banality of evil; that’s probably something else that deserves some further exploration.

One thing I like in a homebrew design I have for Middle-Earth is a system where a character’s attributes decay as they become corrupted. I linked this to the idea of “the banality of evil”, and the idea that one thing that enables people to do the right thing, or a right thing, in a hard situation can be imagination or flexibility. So, for example, characters have an attribute called Bearing. It is their main social attribute, and it has to do with what other people feel when they walk in a room. Do heads turn? Are the listened to? Can they talk someone down rather than have to fight them? That sort of thing. If a character falls into corruption, Bearing can become corrupted and become Dread. It has a similar function, but is much more limited, and it is like the power that the Nazgul have – they turn heads when they arrive, but for all the wrong reasons. In a similar way Might becomes Force, Wits become Cunning, etc. There is a narrowing of options when one is corrupted.

Just something I thought I’d throw out there, if nothing else than because I like what it says about good and evil :)