Last post about ME. I think the Vox Populi choice of system is
really leaning to AD&D but a few folks haven't pronounced yet and should speak their justice. When can start chatting about game rule stuff proper when that's dealt with.
Oh yes, we also going to have a vote one which exact MERP adventure module people will want to play. I haven't ready any so the decision will be fully up to players, and if it turns out to be a dud I got my arse covered.
AQuebman wrote:I honestly know very little of Tolkiens world having not read the books but i'd be interested if someones willing to teach me.
For you and any others who might not be familiar, don't sweat about it. If you have seen Peter Jakson's movies (bad as they where) and read through all the crap I've been typing you are good to go. In a sense ME is much like Hyborea in that you have counterparts for a lot of historical human cultures so its easy to find a niche for the type of character one likes to play.
The Gods of Middle-Earth
As far as fantasy pantheons go Middle-Earth is a bit uncommon. Not only is it quite small, all but two Deities (one of which minor) are Evil. All the 14 Valar are "good guys" who stand one the side of natural order and the will of Eru.
But this does not mean they were are all nice by human standards, they have different personalities and some are not the kind of people you would like to meet in a dark alley at night, or even at all. Mandos was infamous for his stern nature and lack of empathy; Orome could be quite bestial and was given to bouts of wrath and would vengefully track down an enemy to the ends of the earth; Tulkas was weak of council, impulsive, hot-headed and the first to propose warfare as means to resolution of problems; Ulmo was turbulent, wrathful, drowned people when he was pissed and his physical form was terrible to behold; Nienna was in a permanent state of clinical depression and was an hermit among her own kind; Aule had a rebellious streak and was materialistic to the point of concerning himself more about his trinkets than the Fates of the World; Yavanna cared more about plants than the rights and welfare of sentient beings, and Manwe, most exalted among the Valar and their leader, was a punctilious, obedient son of Eru who might have never had an independent thought in his life.
The list of fourteen Valar follows. Originally they were 15 but Morgoth-once-Melkor has long since stopped being counted among their number and is now trapped in the Void, beyond the Doors of Night. His agent in Middle-Earth is Sauron which stands uncontested as the single individual most powerful entity of the continent.
Aule - deity of crafts and material things
Este - deity of healing and caretaker of living
Irmo - deity of emotions and dreams
Manwe - deity of the sky and heavens, king of the Valar
Mandos - deity of fate, visions and the afterlife
Nessa - deity of mirth, joy and happiness
Nienna - deity of mourning, suffering and grief
Orome - deity of the wild and hunting. messenger of the gods
Tulkas - deity of strength, combat and war
Ulmo - deity of water, rivers and oceans
Vaire - deity of chonicles, records and time
Vana - deity of youth, spring, flowers and song
Varda -deity of stars and light, queen of the Valar
Yavanna - deity of living things, nature and plants
These are the true names of the deities, but each culture has their own titles for them.
Religion in Middle-Earth
Crudely put, apart from really primitive religious practices like Animism and Ancestor Worship, religion in Middle-Earth takes one of 3 forms:
Cultural Paganism - among the less advanced cultures religious expression is quite similar to non-Roman Paganism. The pantheon of the Valar is recognizer and paid respect, with specific peoples holding their favorites above the others. The clergy is local and disenfrenchized and the ammount of influence they hold on the community varies from culture to culture and location to location. Temples proper are rare except in locales that are deemed sacred to a specific cult, and even then they mostly take the form of holy groves, artificial mounds or fields of standing stones rather than churches.
There is no concept of universalism of Faith, a foreigner who worships the same Valar will still be considered an outsider in a different community, and most likely that same valar is paid homage to under a different name.
The Gods themselves do not seem to mind this, or even that enemy peoples both worship them simultaneously. Armies march against each other both with praises to Tulkas on their lips hoping the Valar of War favors them in combat.
Enlightened Personal Faith - among the inheritors of Numenorian culture religion becomes a much more personal spiritual exercise. manifestations of faith are usually held in the private and family spheres, and the overall feeling of this spirituality is much less superticious than that of less advanced peoples. A pervading attitude is more "the Gods help those who help themselves" than "we are playthings in the hands of the Gods".
These cultures are also the only ones who have an accurate perception of the nature of deities and know of the existence of Eru Illuvatar the One, who is respected but not worshiped directly as he does not interfere directly in the affair of Arda, leaving that duty to the Valar.
Clergy does not really exist as a purely professional group. Rather, the priests have a usefull profession to the community which intersects with the spiritual sphere, for example: priests of Este are actually members of the Guild of Healers, those of Vaire are librarians and record-keepers and the priests of Mandos keep and maintain graveyards and embalm the dead.
Organized Monolatrism - true organized religion with political clout the way that is so common in Earth's history is only really found among the people of the East who have fallen under the sway of The Shadow and worship it above any and all other deities. The most familiar example of these are the Variag who are controlled by a very organized caste of priests of Sauron, whom they call "Tumrakhi"; the Easterling shamans see Sauron as a Great God who has come from the West to lead them to military victories and territorial expansion, while the Angmarim follow a pan-cultural religion who sees Sauron as the God of the Night and the Moon, a guardian deity against the demonic Elves and Dunadan who came from beyond the sea and seek to destroy them.
This information is of use for players who want to run religious PCs. As was mentioned before in the Magic section in Middle-Earth a character can use Chanelling (clerical) magic without being an ordained cleric of a religion, but besides this if a player wants to play a true priest he has a variety of choices. The archetypes of the Cleric and Druid are present in the setting but priestly PCs are not limited to these. The best aspect of ME religion from a gaming point of view is that it removes the proselytistic aspect of religious classes, which tends to be so much of an headhace.
The Nature of the Supernatural on Middle-Earth
Livings things in Middle-Earth, from the highest deity to the lowest life-form are divided into three categories: animals, peoples and spirits.
Animals have no soul and live purely physical existences, their deaths encompass their final end.
People have both a body and a soul. The body cannot live without the soul and the soul cannot exist without a body in the material world unless the being becomes an undead.
Spirits do not have material forms in their natural state, they are purely ethereal creatures. Each is unique, immortal and they not reproduce (among themselves that is, cases of interbreeding with peoples do exist). The spirits are embodiments of the concepts of creation, each of them is associated with one or more elements, actions or ideas.A s purely spiritual beings they have to cloak themselves in a body made of the substance of Arda (called a "Fana") to interact with the material plane and this has very significant effects. First the power of the spirit is greatly diminished, at least by half and often much more than that, and while on a physical form a spirit is vulnerable to all the range of afflictions that plague living creatures: pain, hunger, fear, etc. The personality, perception and even memories of an embodied spirit are also altered and tone-down when compared to his true nature.
But the biggest problem is that spending to much time in a material form can lead to a spirit becoming rooted to that body, tied down to a material manifestation, specially if the spirit spends to much power and goes against the dictates of natural order. This is what happened to Morgoth, Sauron and the Balrogs just to name a few but there are many other examples. Some minor spirits that underwent this process became so diminished that they are now little more than unthinking beasts. Some of the meanest "monsters" of the world are beings such as these.
But the diminishing is not limited to evil spirits, even those who do not violate the natural order can fall to the effects of taking on a
Fana. The best example of this, apart from all the Istari except Gandalf, is Tom Bombadil. Once the most powerful Maia of the people of Yavanna, he was the first of his kind to enter the world and was given domain over the almost entirety of Middle-Earth woods (which at the time was a pan-continental forest). As time passed he became ever more rooted down to the forest and as it diminished so did he; eventually he became trapped in the material form he had taken due to living in it for so long: that of a bumbling, singing, colorful forest hermit. Tom ultimately became parody of his once-great self, ages of playing the role of the Fool of the Forest
made him the Fool of the Forest.
Tom Bombadil. fallen Maia and professional idiot.
No spirit, not even the mightiest of the Exalted Valar is immune to this effect. This explains two fundamental things about the nature of the Divine in Middle-Earth: first, why the Gods are removed and aloof from the world and have increasingly become so as time passes; second, the reason behind the Ban of the Valar that forbade mortal from entering the Blessed Realms even when they where a part of the world. Quite simply, the Valar could not abide the presence of vast numbers of mortals, they would bring with them diminishing effect and eventually negate the power and immortality of the Gods.
Which means, ironically, that the Black Numenoreans where right, at least partly, in their misguided invasion attempt of the Immortal Lands. Mortals where barred from them because the Gods where doing it for themselves and wanted to keep their bling, so to speak. The fact they had to appeal to the Most Highest to get themselves out of that mess also raises interesting implications. If Eru had not sunk Numenor beneath the sea and trapped their army in the Timeless Caves then perhaps the God themselves would have had their arses handed to them in spades...who knows?
Lastly, a spirit wearing a
Fana can be physically destroyed. This will not kill it but will greatly diminish its power and force it to return to the undying lands. Regaining the ability of returning to Middle-Earth cloaked in a new body usually takes centuries. Fallen spirits who are physically destroyed have greater issues, as they will not, or cannot, return to the Undying Lands. Part or all of the power they lost with the undoing of their
Fana is lost forever and in some cases the spirit looses that ability to remake one altogether and passes into the Shadow World. This decay is best exemplified by Sauron.
Originally he was fair and a consumate shape-changer that could alter the aspect of his
Fana in a moment. Under the beautiful guise of Annatar the Lord of Gifts he wa able to fool and seduce many of the elven smiths of Eregion. It was under this appearance that he surrendered himself to the Numeroreans and eventually corrupted them too with fair words and lies.
No one can draw ME characters as well as Liz Danforth.
I bet Annatar gets all the girls.
When Numenor was sunk beneath the sea his body was destroyed and his spirit fled to Mordor.
He was able to remake a new Fana quite quickly (due to the power of the One Ring and it being tied to Middle-Earth itself) but he lost the ability of shape-change and could not appear fair again, looking for all time as tall, dark and terrible lord.
Finally! Someone drew Sauron as he looked beneath that full suit of dark plate.
When this form was killed by Gil-Galad and Illendil it took him about 1,000 years to be able to regain physical shape and he was even more weakened due to having lost the One Ring. His form was now a humanoid shadowy outline that could not be perceived by normal mortals, and to interact with these he has to use an ethereal projection that took the semblance of a huge, lidless burning eye.
The Great Curse of the Elven Race
Tolkien was one of only two authors (that I know of) that got Elves right. Unlike the Mary Sues of 99% of RPGs that make the eyes of any person with a minimum of standards for his suspension of disbelief roll in disgust, Middle-Earth elves actually
make sense
There's a reason why they spend so much time making things of beauty and there's a reason why they act, on the one hand, as quasi-angelic beings, and on the other as complete, arrogant arseholes. The truth is, while undoubtedly the most powerful of all the Children of Illuvatar (on individual cases, not speaking of races as a whole), the Firstborn pay a very, very high price for their perks.
You see, the same degeneration that affects Valar and Ainur in Middle-Earth also affect Elven immortality. "Undying" is not a quality that can exist forever in the Material Realm. In Arda, Elves slowly fade, until at last they are naught but wraiths and pass on to the Shadow World. Granted this takes a long time, but the process is accelerating the older the World gets. Only in Valinor is this fading delayed, which is the reason all Elves have no choice but to go to Valinor in the end or pass from existence. One of the special abilities of the Rings of Power was that they could delay time, and as such were used by Elrond and Galadriel to preserve their realms. When the rings are rendered powerless after the One Ring is destroyed the elves had no choice left, and therefore in the Fourth Age the Eldar left for Valinor. Those that didn't where consigned to diminishment and nothingness...a fate worse even than that of the Nazgul.
Finwe and his brothers take a terrible oath swearing to return to Middle-Earth to fight Melkor,
thus bringing the Curse of the Noldor upon themselves. Elven stupidity at its best.
But it gets worse. All the things of beauty wrought by elves, all the singing, music and merry-making hides a horrible truth: the
soul-crushing boredom and despair of their lives. In fact, it is quite possible many elves would be among the greatest users of mind-altering drugs to keep the horror at bay if their unageing bodies weren't resistant to them. Anything to dull the pain...
Honestly, imagine all the bad crap that has happened in your life. Multiply it a thousand-fold because you have been alive for centuries. Imagine you can remember it all just fine AND imagine you can't even get stoned or drunk to keep the mental pain and anguish away. Imagine you have seen the progression of history as a process of decay from of Age to the next, lost glories upon lost glories, friends dead and departed forever, the lengthening of years bringing more victories of the shadow and only momentary phyrric victories to your side; the inexorable spread of darkness, bit by bit, land by land, year after year, after year, after year, after year, after year...
ad nauseam et ad infinitum.
Oh, and suicide is not really an option because you know what will happen, the Halls of Mandos and Ages upon ages upon ages of boredom until the Breaking of the World, the Final Battle and the End of Everything.
Is it any wonder Elves are so f*cked up in the head? So alien, so frivolous at times and so self-centered?
This is also why Elves, more than any other race, can die from lack of will to live. Despair or lassitude can literally make the unageing body an elf die on the spot and his soul leave it to travel to the Halls of Mandos.
There is a reason why death is called "The Gift of Man":
It truly is. The only escape from the Fate of Marred Arda into whatever glories the One God has set aside for Men.
The Elves were born first, but Eru loves Men more.
Of course, elves PCs need not be afflicted by this as they can be young enough (less than a century or two) to not have started to feel this dreaded ennui.
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