"Everything in it is very much more alive, more aware of what is going on, so to speak, than things are in the Shire. And the trees do not like strangers."
–Merry, The Fellowship of the Ring

When Revealed: If the number of locations in the staging area is less than the number of players in the game, search the encounter deck and discard pile for a location and add it to the staging area. Shuffle the encounter deck.

Forced: At the end of the round, discard a random location from the victory display.

Forced: After placing progress as a result of questing successfully, if there are X or more total victory points on locations in the victory display, advance to stage 3A. Otherwise, advance to a different random stage 2A. X is the number of players in the game times 5.