- Location
- Finland
[X] Plan Hard truths, explorers, and friends
[X] The Men of Sunlight
[X] Doom, Unerring
[X] The Men of Sunlight
[X] Doom, Unerring
Westernesse: A Númenórean Colony Quest
- Thread starter Telamon
- Start date
[X] The Men of Sunlight
[X] Doom, Unerring
[X] Plan Green Shoots of Hope
[X] Doom, Unerring
[X] Plan Green Shoots of Hope
Strange9
hdellaverson@gmail.com
- Location
- Los Angeles, CA
[X] The Men of Sunlight
[X] Doom, Unerring
[X] Plan Green Shoots of Hope
Hospitals are good things to build. Cemeteries are good things to build. Sacred places are good things to build. None of them, however, are answers to this: "Above all desires of the colony now rises one concern to master all others: We refuse. We are the Tall Men of the Gift. We shall not, will not, cannot go into the dark."
[X] Doom, Unerring
[X] Plan Green Shoots of Hope
Hospitals are good things to build. Cemeteries are good things to build. Sacred places are good things to build. None of them, however, are answers to this: "Above all desires of the colony now rises one concern to master all others: We refuse. We are the Tall Men of the Gift. We shall not, will not, cannot go into the dark."
- Location
- Texas
Let's say that your shapers can be split enough to work on both Tharbad and the House construction at once. House construction might take a little longer in universe, but it would still be done in the same turn.
Is not overcoming the fear of death the most important step towards understanding and accepting the Gift of Men?
I think it would be best to address the immediate poison in Numenorian culture, fear itself.
The lasting flame will do well to lighten the hearts of the people and let them start to face the truth of death for Men in Middle-Earth.
That ultimately death is nothing but a transition to a more glorious existence even the Elves envy.
I think it would be best to address the immediate poison in Numenorian culture, fear itself.
The lasting flame will do well to lighten the hearts of the people and let them start to face the truth of death for Men in Middle-Earth.
That ultimately death is nothing but a transition to a more glorious existence even the Elves envy.
Ah, well, then in some sense since we're doing Tharbad anyway, the House/Temple construction is "free" in terms of opportunity cost. Big benefits to having a hundred Shapers in our corner, I suppose. So it really is purely a decision of outlook.
Personally I feel like pursuing Fear, Overcome because of the positive message it represents. As much as I like the grim defiance towards death and fear embodied by say, the Rohirrim, we are not the Rohirrim, and I feel like trying to make our subjects adopt that attitude after a bereavement may not quite have the result we want.
By the way, can Ûrîphêl's design be pursued next turn? When it says it requires a successful Shaper visit, I don't know if that means the visit has to be in the same turn we select the option - I imagine it might have been in the Opportunity section if that were the case, but I'm not certain.
Strange9
hdellaverson@gmail.com
- Location
- Los Angeles, CA
I don't know about you, but I know I, at least, would have an extremely difficult time ever seeing death/old age as being a gift: when faced with the slow withering of years, dementia, aches, pains, and all the endless indignities that time heaps on humans, it seems really difficult to view that as ultimately being good. It's deeply reasonable (again, imo) to look at all of that and ask why your family has to die, why their bodies will fail them, and why a loving creator would call that a gift. I think that it may be asking too much for people to call it a gift. Easier, I think, to acknowledge and accept it (whether as a consequence of Arda being marred or something else)
Hm. I wouldn't be surprised if going to Rivendell unlocks an opportunity to sent people to learn the art of healing from the healers among the elves there, and form a House of Healing in Târ Nîlon. While it would lack the advantage of a trained healer from Numenor it wouldn't come with the main* plant being used for in the house being closely checked by the healer to send reports back to the king, and the ability to send healers to neighbors in need of them is a useful tool for building bridges with them.
*Well technically Athelas didn't originate in Numenor, but it is possible some of the blessings of the isle carried onto what the Men of the West brought to middle earth, or the association is simply a result of the Numenoreans unlike say the elves not particularly caring if a few Athelas plants were left behind to grow where they made camp.
A Nation's Virtue
南國山河南帝居
[X] The Men of Sunlight
[X] Life, Unending
[X] Fear, Overcome
[X] Plan Green Shoots of Hope
[X] Life, Unending
[X] Fear, Overcome
[X] Plan Green Shoots of Hope
- Location
- Canada
- Pronouns
- Him/He
[X] Plan Green Shoots of Hope
[X] Doom, Unerring
I would have liked to call the healers, and believe we should do so at the first opportunity, but generally I believe we need to get on the ''quest to avoid death'' train, which we would implicitely pay lip service to if we call them without doing anything else, and I feel that we can't combine it with other options. Doom, Unerring is incompatible with everything else, building a mini Melatarna would be mostly declaring ourselves one of the Faithful openly, which we probably want to wait before doing.
As for Death, Overmastered, we should recoil at the very thought for the the House of Death must not be allowed in Tar Nilon, not even should the King himself command it, not even if the city would face destruction for its refusal. It is it who bore and transmit the venom that is spreading throughout the Blessed Isle, the venom that would one day lead its last king to venerate the very darkness its glorious ancestor beseached the Valar to come and fight, the venom that would lead Numenor to become everything it once rightfully hated.
[X] The Men of Sunlight
We need the manpower and honestly it feel like it fit the ethos of our city pretty well, so to speak...
[X] Doom, Unerring
I would have liked to call the healers, and believe we should do so at the first opportunity, but generally I believe we need to get on the ''quest to avoid death'' train, which we would implicitely pay lip service to if we call them without doing anything else, and I feel that we can't combine it with other options. Doom, Unerring is incompatible with everything else, building a mini Melatarna would be mostly declaring ourselves one of the Faithful openly, which we probably want to wait before doing.
As for Death, Overmastered, we should recoil at the very thought for the the House of Death must not be allowed in Tar Nilon, not even should the King himself command it, not even if the city would face destruction for its refusal. It is it who bore and transmit the venom that is spreading throughout the Blessed Isle, the venom that would one day lead its last king to venerate the very darkness its glorious ancestor beseached the Valar to come and fight, the venom that would lead Numenor to become everything it once rightfully hated.
[X] The Men of Sunlight
We need the manpower and honestly it feel like it fit the ethos of our city pretty well, so to speak...
- Location
- Sweden
[X] The Men of Sunlight
[X] Doom, Unerring
[X] Doom, Unerring
- Location
- Lake Wobegon
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Hrm. If we may expect no construction delays other than those already being caused by the diversion of Shapers to Tharbad, I may be persuaded to change my vote to Life, Unending. I still don't like the reactionary decision-making posture, but the material benefits of a house of healing (not least to our neighbors!) may outweigh that.
Another point to consider: would the Men of Sunlight (since they seem to be running away with the legend vote) adopt Numenorian mummification and entombment practices if we were to build a House of Death? Would the Numenorians permit them to do so if they wanted to?
Well yeah, but it is a gift, in Middle-Earth death really is a transition and all the suffering one might experience genuinely is discomfort before the greater existence free of the decaying and marred Arda.
That bad things happen is basically due to Morgoth and his arrogance.
Whatever our positions on old age and death in the real world (personally I'm pro-transhuman immortality) the truth in Middle-Earth is that old age and death really are just an uncomfortable part of a greater life-cycle. Fear of age and death is natural and understandable of course, but it's ultimately a baseless fear.
Death really isn't a thing to fear for Men, not in truth, old age is basically a sort of 2nd puberty before metamorphosing into a greater spiritual being.
It's not an easy thing to grasp certainly but it's the truth of existence, it's literally how the universe actually works and it's far healthier spiritually if Men can come to terms with their own nature.
- Location
- Lake Wobegon
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Again, we're supposed to have been spared those things. They came creeping back in as Numenor squandered its blessings.
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If you're gonna go with Life but have those reservations, I might stick in Fear, Overcome to kinda balance it out? I think they both resolve in the same time period either way?
The fear of mortality is apparently a great productivity tool for construction projects.
Looking at Inuit burial practices for a guide, it seems like the men of Forodchel might wrap their dead in hides/sealskins, and then build cairns for them? (Hard to dig through permafrost, and not a lot of soil in many cases in the high arctic anyway.)
This is an important point actually! Living a virtuous life generally leads to better aging for all Men, especially Numenorians.
Spiritual health directly leads to an easier aging and passing.
- Location
- Texas
Warning: Tolkien Tangent ahead
Death itself, as an ending of mortal life, is wrapped up in the Gift, but I will note that dementia, breakdown of the body, cancer, failing organs, and all other physical ailments are not. This, like all other decay, is part of the corruption of Morgoth. The first Dark Lord poured himself into the earth, the air, the sea, the sky. His essence is in everything that breathes and lives, from the food you eat to the ground you walk upon, impelling all things towards rot and ruin. When your liver fails without reason? Morgoth. When your shoelace frays and snaps? Morgoth. When a horse throws a leg and needs to be put down? Morgoth. When a baby gets bone cancer? Morgoth. Suffering? Morgoth. Fear? Morgoth. Pain? Morgoth.
As Sauron poured himself into the One Ring, so Morgoth poured himself into Arda. All the world is Morgoth's Ring — when Tolkien says Arda is marred, he means it is fundamentally, metaphysically, existentially wrong. Nothing about existence as mortals or elves live and understand it is right.
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When you write an effortpost and think it was saved in drafts, but discover that the forum ate it?
Morgoth.
Morgoth.
- Location
- The Void
Morgoth is not Evil
Evil is Morgoth
Evil is Morgoth
bookwyrm
Doom of Public Libraries
- Location
- Wichita, Kansas
And then you get into all the predestination and theodicy debates with the Third Theme of the Music of the Ainur- wherein verily Eru lifted both hands and took the braying discord of Melkor and rewove it back into His own song of Arda and left even that mighty one utterly silent with the final resounding chord. So in such a way Eru allowed Arda to be Marred, allowed the notes of sorrowful wails and plunging dirges to become part of His concert, and so does He not take some responsibility for the beauty He intended to give His children becoming so much more dear?
- Location
- Canada
- Pronouns
- Him/He
There is like sooo many political comparaisons I could make if I did not want to avoid derailind the thread and flamebaith...
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- Location
- Great Khanate of Scotland
- Pronouns
- She/Her
It's more like, Eru couldn't[1] undo Melkor's work but he could turn it to beauty (heroism in the face of darkness and all that).
[1] As to why he couldn't, he directed the Ainur to create Arda and they fucked it up, so I would argue this is a case of Eru not being fully omnipotent due to giving authority of Arda over to his creations. Kind of like a king going away and leaving a steward in control.