Westernesse: A Númenórean Colony Quest

[x] Getting Started

[X] Getting Started

[X] Getting Started

[X] Getting Started

[X] Getting Started, with elves
-[X] A Source of Stone
-[X] The Smithies: You direct your Shapers to begin focusing their efforts on the great smithies and forges which will serve as the engine of the cities' production. The sooner you can begin binding blade to hilt, the better for your colony and it's benefactors.
-[X] Expand the Farmsteads: The colony's farmsteads are a handful of fields on the outskirts of her sprawling expanse. The majority of it's sustenance arrives over the sea in the holds of Guild ships. You would see your people's ability to feed themselves expanded.
-[X] Establish A Militia: Begin selecting the fittest and hardiest men from among your people and training them to serve at a moment's notice should duty call.
-[X] Establish The Rangers: The men who volunteer for rangings and wanderings are already among the colony's fittest woodsmen. By formalizing their position you can creating an organization which will range, hunt, and hold the woods for your newborn colony. Taking inspiration from the famed woodsmen of the Edain, you name them the Rangers.
-[X] Prepare Walls: Your colony sits defenseless. See to the raising of stone walls which will protect what you have thus far built. You will need a source of stone for such a project.
-[X] Send An Envoy To The Enedwaithrim: The Middle Men of this land are a reclusive, woodland folk. Inzilbeth's great reputation has opened the door for an expedition to parlay with them.
--[X] Inzilbeth
-[X] Send An Envoy To Tharbad: Tharbad, built at the ford of the River Gwathlo, is the nearest Numenorean settlement to your colony, some two dozen leagues to your north. A mighty fortress, it was erected to hold the line against the power of Sauron nearly a thousand years ago, and was the site of a great battle in the War of the Elves and Sauron, where the Dark Lords' armies were turned back from northern Middle-Earth. The garrison of two thousand at Tharbad is the single largest Numenorean military force in the north of Middle-Earth.
-[X] Send An Envoy To Rivendell: Imladris, or Rivendell, is an elvish stronghold deep in the heartlands of Minhiriath. Founded and ruled by the Elf-Lord Elrond Halfelven, it serves as a bastion of wisdom and learning in these later days of the world, projecting Elvish might into all eastern Eriador. The elves of Rivendell are force to be reckoned with, and are great traders and loremasters besides. It would not be unwise to make their acquaintance.
-[X] The Iron Forest: Wild and old are the forests of Enedwaith. A dark power -- though not an evil one -- lies upon these woods. You know something of the tongues of beast and bough, and could, with enough time, discern whatever secrets dwell herein. (Requires Imrazor)
--[X] Imrazor

Its back, i am so happy

[X] Getting Started

[X] Getting Started

So here's a thought: at great expense, we purchased the Shipwright perk at chargen. It stands to reason, then, that we ought to use it (building a harbor --> building ships, etc). The next question, of course, is... what do we use these ships for, if we're going to have a maritime focus? We don't actually want to become tightly integrated into the Numenorean economy (we very much want to stay on the periphery and avoid notice). Perhaps we can go ahead and try to trade with elven realms (since we will actually have a Guild-independent Navy, which opens up interesting possibilities).

Moreover, how do we avoid irritating the Ents & Middle Men when we do so? The Numenoreans have already deforested vast swathes of Middle Earth for the sake of lumber for ships, and insofar as we don't want to make the same mistake we're going to have to go for sustainable logging, I guess?

Anyway, thoughts on avoiding these dilemmas?

Strange9 said:

Anyway, thoughts on avoiding these dilemmas?

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Maybe a tree farm so we grow back what we use and then use that?

We know the elves and Ents can grow great trees within a few years/decades (not on par with quality of course. Perhaps any expedition/meeting with the elves should look to prioritise that.

Or we petition for 'woodsingers' (A few faithful that stilll remember this craft) from Numenor. Won't be as good but it helps bring out more people, and save more lore/craftwork from the Sauron/the kings men/Akallabeth

My thought is that who we are also changes what options we're presented with (if we had full control over actions, we could write in something like "write down all the lore we can think of, stick it in a box labeled "do not open for 2000 years"). The fact that every Numenorean colony so far has vastly deforested their local area makes me suspect our logging operations will not, in fact, be very sustainable. I'm hoping that contact with the local middle men and ends will give Imrazor the perspective to change that.

Strange9 said:

So here's a thought: at great expense, we purchased the Shipwright perk at chargen. It stands to reason, then, that we ought to use it (building a harbor --> building ships, etc). The next question, of course, is... what do we use these ships for, if we're going to have a maritime focus? We don't actually want to become tightly integrated into the Numenorean economy (we very much want to stay on the periphery and avoid notice). Perhaps we can go ahead and try to trade with elven realms (since we will actually have a Guild-independent Navy, which opens up interesting possibilities).

Moreover, how do we avoid irritating the Ents & Middle Men when we do so? The Numenoreans have already deforested vast swathes of Middle Earth for the sake of lumber for ships, and insofar as we don't want to make the same mistake we're going to have to go for sustainable logging, I guess?

Anyway, thoughts on avoiding these dilemmas?

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

See, I wouldn't go as far and I would argue a degree of integration would be unavoidable to be successfull. At the end of the day we need to do two things:

I. Stay out of the politics of the motherland.
II. Ensure that we are in good enough shape by the time Numenor goes down the deep end to isolate ourselves further.

Making the Elven Realms our main trading partner this early is bad for I. since it would mark us too strongly as Faithfulls too early.

At the end of the day I'd say the business guy who whent to meet us and that we turned down part in the second update has the right of it: due to our geographic and has we aren't too tightly attached to one side or the other we are well placed to be a crossroad between the northern (Faithfull) and southern (King's Men) colonies. Moreover, as tensions rises our importance as such will only rise as well, since they will still have economic interests to trade with one another but hate each other too much to do it, and making ourselves indispensable to some King's Men will also give us at least something of a shield against the worst kind of retribution when we will have to piss them off to not loose our souls.

Appart from that I'd say diversification is the way to go, as it ensure we won't be dependant on anyone too much. Lets trade with the Dwarves, the Middle-Men, the Elves, Numenor, the other colonies, etc... As long as somebody hasn't fully succombed to the darkness we can do business with them.

[X] Getting Started

phil03 said:

The main issue here is that short of embracing the whole Morgoth-worship thing we will probably end up pissing off the King's Men pretty badly. Mind you, some might see this as a good reason to not overly care about what they think but I lean on the opposite direction: by keeping some goodwill from that corner we can hopefully have enough marging of manoeuver when the time come that we would be to avoid a complete break between us and the metropolis, or at least delay it as much as possible.

It might be a bit too much of have your cake and eat it thing but an ideal world I'd like us to be able to play with our relationships so that we can welcome some Faithfull refugees, who would normally be forbidden from leaving when Numenor would have gone to the deep end, because we would have had a special dispensiation or something, or at the very least have the Crown turn a blind eye to us smuggling some of them out.

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phil03 said:

See, I wouldn't go as far and I would argue a degree of integration would be unavoidable to be successfull. At the end of the day we need to do two things:

I. Stay out of the politics of the motherland.
II. Ensure that we are in good enough shape by the time Numenor goes down the deep end to isolate ourselves further.

Making the Elven Realms our main trading partner this early is bad for I. since it would mark us too strongly as Faithfulls too early.

At the end of the day I'd say the business guy who whent to meet us and that we turned down part in the second update has the right of it: due to our geographic and has we aren't too tightly attached to one side or the other we are well placed to be a crossroad between the northern (Faithfull) and southern (King's Men) colonies. Moreover, as tensions rises our importance as such will only rise as well, since they will still have economic interests to trade with one another but hate each other too much to do it, and making ourselves indispensable to some King's Men will also give us at least something of a shield against the worst kind of retribution when we will have to piss them off to not loose our souls.

Appart from that I'd say diversification is the way to go, as it ensure we won't be dependant on anyone too much. Lets trade with the Dwarves, the Middle-Men, the Elves, Numenor, the other colonies, etc... As long as somebody hasn't fully succombed to the darkness we can do business with them.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

This raises some really good points.

As the situation back home worsens, there are likely going to be increasing numbers of Faithful refugee looking to flee to any colony where they may be able to escape persecution. Being known as somewhere which is Faithful-friendly (if not capital-F Faithful) could be a real boon to immigration, and help us grow faster. It is also likely to mean we get marginalised by the King's Men back home, but as things move towards the "open Satan worship" phase, this is probably not the worst thing... It's a long way off, but a big influx of new citizens could allow us to grow pretty rapidly, and save more people from the Downfall.

In the immediate to medium term, I think that our goal should be to retain lines of communication with the Guild and back home for as long as is practical, so that we can have an avenue for our goods and for skilled crafts and labour, and for military aid if need be. During that time, we should work as hard as possible on building strong alliances and trade links with our immediate neighbours - Lond Daer, Tharbad, the Enedwaithrim, and the Dwarves. Then, when things begin to become untenable, we should basically work as hard as possible to become seen as a boring backwater from the perspective of the metropolis, hopefully allowing us to ride things out.

As far as the Elves go, I think we should absolutely remain in covert contact, but we're actually far enough away from Elven settlement to make large amounts of trade impractical unless it goes through intermediaries, which is helpful because it gives us a degree of plausible deniability. Any trade with Lindon is probably going to go through Lond Daer, and trade with Rivendell is likely going to be mediated through the dwarves of Khazad-Dum. The one nearby Elven neighbour might be Lorien, but I'd need to check on what their situation is at this point in the Second Age. What I think is more likely in terms of contact is basically bands of our elites going and spending time with their elites and having cultural exchanges - trips to Rivendell and suchlike - which we can probably be circumspect about.

Strange9 said:

So here's a thought: at great expense, we purchased the Shipwright perk at chargen. It stands to reason, then, that we ought to use it (building a harbor --> building ships, etc). The next question, of course, is... what do we use these ships for, if we're going to have a maritime focus? We don't actually want to become tightly integrated into the Numenorean economy (we very much want to stay on the periphery and avoid notice). Perhaps we can go ahead and try to trade with elven realms (since we will actually have a Guild-independent Navy, which opens up interesting possibilities).

Moreover, how do we avoid irritating the Ents & Middle Men when we do so? The Numenoreans have already deforested vast swathes of Middle Earth for the sake of lumber for ships, and insofar as we don't want to make the same mistake we're going to have to go for sustainable logging, I guess?

Anyway, thoughts on avoiding these dilemmas?

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

Strange9 said:

So here's a thought: at great expense, we purchased the Shipwright perk at chargen. It stands to reason, then, that we ought to use it (building a harbor --> building ships, etc). The next question, of course, is... what do we use these ships for, if we're going to have a maritime focus? We don't actually want to become tightly integrated into the Numenorean economy (we very much want to stay on the periphery and avoid notice). Perhaps we can go ahead and try to trade with elven realms (since we will actually have a Guild-independent Navy, which opens up interesting possibilities).

Moreover, how do we avoid irritating the Ents & Middle Men when we do so? The Numenoreans have already deforested vast swathes of Middle Earth for the sake of lumber for ships, and insofar as we don't want to make the same mistake we're going to have to go for sustainable logging, I guess?

Anyway, thoughts on avoiding these dilemmas?

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

Thanatosra said:

Maybe a tree farm so we grow back what we use and then use that?

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

ImperialBriton said:

We know the elves and Ents can grow great trees within a few years/decades (not on par with quality of course. Perhaps any expedition/meeting with the elves should look to prioritise that.

Or we petition for 'woodsingers' (A few faithful that stilll remember this craft) from Numenor. Won't be as good but it helps bring out more people, and save more lore/craftwork from the Sauron/the kings men/Akallabeth

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

Strange9 said:

My thought is that who we are also changes what options we're presented with (if we had full control over actions, we could write in something like "write down all the lore we can think of, stick it in a box labeled "do not open for 2000 years"). The fact that every Numenorean colony so far has vastly deforested their local area makes me suspect our logging operations will not, in fact, be very sustainable. I'm hoping that contact with the local middle men and ends will give Imrazor the perspective to change that.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

This raises some really good point.

We invested a lot into our capacity to be a shipyard, and we should make use of that, which needs timber. Personally, I'd though of our action to go and visit the woods as mostly for personal interest - but actually, this and better relations with the local Middle Men could be vital for developing more sustainable forestry practices. Something like medieval coppicing, for example (but influenced more by local Middle Men and perhaps even Elven practices) might well prove vital towards managing our forests so they last through the longer term.

Getting sustainable forestry established, and negotiated with the local tree shepherds and Middle Men (who may not take kindly to unannounced logging camps), should be our next priority along with expanding our harbour to properly handle ships, I'd say. Then we could start exporting tools to Lond Daer, perhaps in exchange for their mutton and wool (since there is a large cleared area of heath and moors around Lond Daer now from all the logging of the last millenia), as well as them acting as a middleman for potential future trade with Lindon.

Well Numenor still has forests, so they likely have their own means to regenerate forest within a reasonable (for them) timeframe; subpar of course compared to ents or elves.

I'm mainly surprised that the Faithful of all Numenoreans were the ones that stripped the north of its trees; you'd have thought they'd have been more considerate/forward planning, especially seeing as how few colonists they had there (in the high tens of thousands to nearly hundred thousand when Saurons purges started).

There is definitely a strong anti-imperialism message with the story of the Downfall Numenor, and the environmental changes and deforestation wreaked on Middle Earth are a part of that. Numenorean colonists may not have had the same regard for the woodlands outlying their colonies as they did for those back home, and also, back home presumably someone would own the woodlands and might legally object to clear-cutting. The local Middle Men may also have been expanding and changing their ways of life over the same period, which might explain why the forests did not grow back in for example Eriador. A lot of the actual tree-cutting itself may well have actually been done by the Middle Men, in exchange for traded goods from the colonists.

Also, I would be somewhat hesitant about going for a hard and fast rule that "Northern = Faithful" and "Southern = King's Men". For example, we know that Tharbad, which is the most northerly settlement, is a military garrison directly under the authority of the King, whilst Dol Amroth/Belfalas, which seems to have been established by the Faithful, is quite far to the south and basically next door to Pelargir. It is possible that by the time you get to Umbar, it is entirely King's Men colonies, but for all we know there could also be a Faithful settlement in Middle-Earth's equivalent of Africa or Asia.

Going by that informational post by Telamon about Numenor and the World, diplomatic contact with Rivendell is unlikely to harm us, due to the respect even the King's Men have for Elrond.

Could someone please make a map where the location of our colony is marked? I don't know exactly where we are and I would like to know more about that.

[X] Getting Started

Havalt300 said:

Could someone please make a map where the location of our colony is marked? I don't know exactly where we are and I would like to know more about that.

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We're pretty close to where Isengard is located in the books, although I think we might be slightly closer to the main river Isen so that ships can arrive more easily - I think this was discussed previously and would need to check.

I'd say getting at least some access to other guilds would be usefull, both in the near future but also eventually as a potential shield to the King's Men (since the Shapers are associated more with the Faithfull) would be good. The Venturers are a no deal with the Striders and the business types could be brought onboard (the latter have a big potential as an eventual shield).

Side note: I don't have much criticisms against Tolkien's worldbuilding but one of my biggest one is that it simply don't make any sense for the King's Men vs Faithfull dichotomia to have lasted to the end. Like, the sheer fact it took Sauron's so long to get to the end of his plan prove that, for all his power, he couldn't just decide to control the whole of Numenor like he was doing with his own servants.

Therefore, I simply can't imagine that they're wouldn't have been some Numonereans who had been fully down with the King's Men program but who, upon seeing the human sacrifices, forbidding of long held tradition and burning of Numenor's national symbol wouldn't have gone ''Ok, we might not have much love for the Elves, Elf-lovers and the Valars but lets not get crazy either! Speaking of which: isn't Sauron our ennemy and a prisoner? Why are we listening to him again?'' A third parti should have logically come into being as a result.

The point would have become all the more relevant when they would start to speak about attacking Valinor...

Havalt300 said:

Could someone please make a map where the location of our colony is marked? I don't know exactly where we are and I would like to know more about that.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

The colony is located exactly at the mouth of the Isen, where it opens into the sea, between Minhiriath and the White Mountains.

phil03 said:

I'd say getting at least some access to other guilds would be usefull, both in the near future but also eventually as a potential shield to the King's Men (since the Shapers are associated more with the Faithfull) would be good. The Venturers are a no deal with the Striders and the business types could be brought onboard (the latter have a big potential as an eventual shield).

Side note: I don't have much criticisms against Tolkien's worldbuilding but one of my biggest one is that it simply don't make any sense for the King's Men vs Faithfull dichotomia to have lasted to the end. Like, the sheer fact it took Sauron's so long to get to the end of his plan prove that, for all his power, he couldn't just decide to control the whole of Numenor like he was doing with his own servants.

Therefore, I simply can't imagine that they're wouldn't have been some Numonereans who had been fully down with the King's Men program but who, upon seeing the human sacrifices, forbidding of long held tradition and burning of Numenor's national symbol wouldn't have gone ''Ok, we might not have much love for the Elves, Elf-lovers and the Valars but lets not get crazy either! Speaking of which: isn't Sauron our ennemy and a prisoner? Why are we listening to him again?'' A third parti should have logically come into being as a result.

The point would have become all the more relevant when they would start to speak about attacking Valinor...

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Click to shrink...

The corruption of Numenor begun long before Sauron. The dwindling of the Men of the West will take millennia, and will stretch for countless lifetimes. They will turn inwards as their empire spreads outwards. They will abandon fair tongue and fair thought and fair work to seek life unending and mastery over death itself. In their wars against Sauron in the distant South, their works will grow mightier and more awful yet, and to fuel their engines of war they will scour the land bare from shore to shore and make slaves of lesser Men. The old prayers will be forgotten, the old temples will be boarded up, the high peak on the Meneltarma will be climbed by priests no more. The Númenoreans will grow cruel and terrible in their pride, a race of conquerors and slavers, tyrant lords with shining eyes and endless days. There will be black centuries when, caught between the White Tree of Númenor and the Lidless Eye of Mordor, the men of Middle-Earth will turn to the Eye for mercy.

The White Tree, deathless, shall fail and begin to blacken long before it drowns — only the tender and loyal care of the Faithful shall preserve a cutting of a sapling to survive the downfall.

When the Númenoreans turn their proud ears to the Dark Lord at long last, it will be less of fall and more of a completion.

Telamon said:

The colony is located exactly at the mouth of the Isen, where it opens into the sea, between Minhiriath and the White Mountains.

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I was very confused for a second before I realized it's called Angren on the map.

UwU said:

I was very confused for a second before I realized it's called Angren on the map.

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Welcome to tolkien land, where everything remotely important has a minimum of three names, each one of them with different meanings in different languages.

Tolkien really loved his invented languages.