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Eeeh, she would probably fit better in the Hobbit, actually. You know, a super sneaky burglar/assassin helping an expedition of Dwarves to reclaim their homeland and treasure hoard? Not to mention randomly stumbling upon a super powerful Macguffin designed explicitly to tempt you into becoming an apocalyptic monster.
EDIT: There was even a Dragon in the mountain!
Mathilde: "I'm in a new world...I know, let's go help a Dwarf King reclaim his homeland!"
 
Mathilde: "I'm in a new world...I know, let's go help a Dwarf King reclaim his homeland!"
I mean, Gondor doesn't have undead, so this would be a better option than helping Aragorn retake Gondor's throne, which is the closest thing I can see to reconquering Sylvania with Abelheim. Hell, we even had an army of... well, seven armies, followed by a second battle sort-of battle against the Waaaaagh, but it's close enough to the Battle of Five Armies, right? There's also the human polity with the Undumgi, an allied Dwarven nation from Azul who showed up a bit late but just in time for the final brawl, our Dwarf king finally reclaiming his crown after a crisis of conscience... shame there weren't any wood elves. Do the rats count?
 
I mean, Gondor doesn't have undead, so this would be a better option than helping Aragorn retake Gondor's throne, which is the closest thing I can see to reconquering Sylvania with Abelheim. Hell, we even had an army of... well, seven armies, followed by a second battle sort-of battle against the Waaaaagh, but it's close enough to the Battle of Five Armies, right? There's also the human polity with the Undumgi, an allied Dwarven nation from Azul who showed up a bit late but just in time for the final brawl, our Dwarf king finally reclaiming his crown after a crisis of conscience... shame there weren't any wood elves. Do the rats count?
Clan Moulder was aligned with the Druchii.
 
I'll admit that my knowledge of the lore isn't complete, but from what I remember Sauron did, in fact, tie his soul to the ring, hence why it needed to be destroyed for him to die properly and how he managed to reform at least once when it wasn't. That makes it a Phylactery and him a lich by the most basic and all-encompassing definitions. Also, if you were talking about Melkor, a Valar and "lesser god" I might believe he was more powerful than Gazul, but for all that Sauron was the main enemy in the books, he was only an angel in the Middle-earth pantheon, a Maiar, unlike Gazul who is a full, if minor god. In fact, Sauron was the same race as Gandalf, albeit of a higher rank. If anything I would compare him to, say, Nagash or Malakith in power.
As for putting on the ring... eh, maybe. depending on how exactly the magical systems translated her belt might actually protect her from its mind-control, since Sauron used a perverted and corrupt version of the magic in Middle-Earth, much like how Dhar works in Warhammer. If not though, then yeah, Mathilde would be fucked.
Sauron put much of his power in the Ring, not his soul. It's part of why the Ring grants an increasing degree of power to other wielders, starting with invisibility, longevity, spirit sight, remote sensing, aura of command, abilities not generally seen on a phylactery. (It promises infinite eventual power, but I think that's probably a lie just to tempt people.)
Sauron still didn't die after the Ring was destroyed, but suffered major power loss, even worse than when he lost it in the first place. Sauron has baseline immortality due to being an Ainu with or without the Ring.

I'd rank the Valar as "greater gods" and the Maiar as "lesser gods" in comparison to the Warhammer pantheon, both being within the wider category of Ainur. They're sort of like "archangels" and "angels" originally, Eru being the only real "God" in Middle-Earth, but Eru is also somewhat incomparable due to being the one maker of everything which is a bit above the Warhammer pantheon.

On the whole, direct power rankings are perhaps inappropriate when the Middle-Earth Legendarium is less about big warhammers and heavy metal album cover faceoffs, more about poor decisions and their consequences.
Like when the Númenoreans invade and defeat Sauron the first time, and in CK2 terms Sauron goes "Look at my Intrigue score, you should make me your Spymaster" and a bunch of the Númenoreans fall for it because Sauron's Intrigue score is in fact really good. And then Sauron persuades the Númenoreans to invade the Elvish semi-afterlife and take their immortality, and poof goes Númenor.
Or the whole Beren and Luthien story, which, while very romantic, is also a severe case of a man doing dumb things for love: " :D yeah I'll go carve a Silmaril out of Morgoth's crown to prove my worth for the woman I want" and then the woman following up: "🤔hmmmm my beloved is missing, last seen sneaking up on Morgoth in pursuit of a Silmaril ... I'd better go help him".
 
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I mean, Gondor doesn't have undead, so this would be a better option than helping Aragorn retake Gondor's throne, which is the closest thing I can see to reconquering Sylvania with Abelheim. Hell, we even had an army of... well, seven armies, followed by a second battle sort-of battle against the Waaaaagh, but it's close enough to the Battle of Five Armies, right? There's also the human polity with the Undumgi, an allied Dwarven nation from Azul who showed up a bit late but just in time for the final brawl, our Dwarf king finally reclaiming his crown after a crisis of conscience... shame there weren't any wood elves. Do the rats count?
Well, Gondor has Mordor to reclaim, but that would be utterly unwise for 10000 different reasons. The other points are very good in favor of the Hobbit, so yeah.
 
Sauron put much of his power in the Ring, not his soul. It's part of why the Ring grants an increasing degree of power to other wielders, starting with invisibility, longevity, spirit sight, remote sensing, aura of command, abilities not generally seen on a phylactery. (It promises infinite eventual power, but I think that's probably a lie just to tempt people.)
Sauron still didn't die after the Ring was destroyed, but suffered major power loss, even worse than when he lost it in the first place. Sauron has baseline immortality due to being an Ainu with or without the Ring.

I'd rank the Valar as "greater gods" and the Maiar as "lesser gods" in comparison to the Warhammer pantheon, both being within the wider category of Ainur. They're sort of like "archangels" and "angels" originally, Eru being the only real "God" in Middle-Earth, but Eru is also somewhat incomparable due to being the one maker of everything which is a bit above the Warhammer pantheon.

On the whole, direct power rankings are perhaps inappropriate when the Middle-Earth Legendarium is less about big warhammers and heavy metal discography faceoffs, more about poor decisions and their consequences.
Like when the Númenoreans invade and defeat Sauron the first time, and in CK2 terms Sauron goes "Look at my Intrigue score, you should make me your Spymaster" and a bunch of the Númenoreans fall for it because Sauron's Intrigue score is in fact really good. And then Sauron persuades the Númenoreans to invade the Elvish semi-afterlife and take their immortality, and poof goes Númenor.
Or the whole Beren and Luthien story, which, while very romantic, is also a severe case of a man doing dumb things for love: " :D yeah I'll go carve a Silmaril out of Morgoth's crown to prove my worth for the woman I want" and then the woman following up: "🤔hmmmm my beloved is missing, last seen sneaking up on Morgoth in pursuit of a Silmaril ... I'd better go help him".
eh, fair enough, although I would like to point out that individually at least, Sauron and Gazul have very different levels of achievement. One made a really nice ring that could do lots of personally powerful stuff, but also cost him most of his power in the process, had little large-scale abilities, and was unrecoverable when destroyed. (To be fair, Sauron was always supposed to be a smith first, warrior second, but still.) The other, however, literally cut an entire realm from the Aethyr, after conquering it with, as far as we know, little to no help. Also, we just saw him sever the souls of half a million beings in less than a second with no visible sign of exertion, although some blame for that could be laid on our assistance. Considering it took what, a year or two for Sauron to corrupt one halfling who was wearing the ring around his neck the whole time--and actually using it on several occasions--not to mention him walking it into almost the center of Sauron's power. Sauron was about middling/upper tier for his setting, while Gazul is lower/middling for his, but given the disparity of power between the settings, they don't really match up. It also doesn't help that LOTR powers tend to be a lot subtler than Warhammer, even on the higher end of the scale.
TL;DR You're right that it's really difficult to compare the settings, but individually Sauron is hardly more powerful than Gazul.
 
eh, fair enough, although I would like to point out that individually at least, Sauron and Gazul have very different levels of achievement. One made a really nice ring that could do lots of personally powerful stuff, but also cost him most of his power in the process, had little large-scale abilities, and was unrecoverable when destroyed. (To be fair, Sauron was always supposed to be a smith first, warrior second, but still.) The other, however, literally cut an entire realm from the Aethyr, after conquering it with, as far as we know, little to no help. Also, we just saw him sever the souls of half a million beings in less than a second with no visible sign of exertion, although some blame for that could be laid on our assistance. Considering it took what, a year or two for Sauron to corrupt one halfling who was wearing the ring around his neck the whole time--and actually using it on several occasions--not to mention him walking it into almost the center of Sauron's power. Sauron was about middling/upper tier for his setting, while Gazul is lower/middling for his, but given the disparity of power between the settings, they don't really match up. It also doesn't help that LOTR powers tend to be a lot subtler than Warhammer, even on the higher end of the scale.
TL;DR You're right that it's really difficult to compare the settings, but individually Sauron is hardly more powerful than Gazul.
I'd like to argue that the higher end of the scale for LOTR is the beginning of Silmarillion, which is filled with all kinds of Bullshit, from Melkor shattering a planet in two to Fëanor making the Silmarils and the Sun being powered by the light of one fruit.
 
I'd like to argue that the higher end of the scale for LOTR is the beginning of Silmarillion, which is filled with all kinds of Bullshit, from Melkor shattering a planet in two to Fëanor making the Silmarils and the Sun being powered by the light of one fruit.
I've never actually read the Silmarillion, but that does, in fact, sound like bullshit. How did it go from that, to pretty mind control/invisibility ring with some army buffs if you know how to use it right? Like, the disparity is ridiculous.
 
I've never actually read the Silmarillion, but that does, in fact, sound like bullshit. How did it go from that, to pretty mind control/invisibility ring with some army buffs if you know how to use it right? Like, the disparity is ridiculous.
The main theme of LOTR is that as Ages pass, the powers that be lose their power. The Elves of the First Age were powerful enough to contend with the above-mentioned monsters, and by the Third Age Galadriel was the only one who could do shit(she shattered a hill with a punch). Melkor himself lost a lot of power by corrupting Arda in its entirety (he poured his power into the planet until it became Melkor's Ring, so Melkor cannot be killed so long as the world still exists). And in the first Age there was an Elf who fought mano-a-mano with Melkor's diminished form, Morgoth, who was still stronger than Sauron.
 
The Silmarillion is a mythic saga. LotR ... isn't. Also, Tolkien possibly had little problem in accepting that 'in the older times, stuff was more epic' considering his catholicism, which is full of that extravaganza to woo the boredom. You know, like Abraham lived 9 centuries and other bizarre unneeded fantasies.

edit: he formalized the idea into the above post.
 
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I've never actually read the Silmarillion, but that does, in fact, sound like bullshit. How did it go from that, to pretty mind control/invisibility ring with some army buffs if you know how to use it right? Like, the disparity is ridiculous.
The Silmarillion is essentially a creation myth vs Middle Earth's fantasy novel. This is the same kind of disparity you get if you try to compare Hercules to the primordial chaos, or Jesus' resurrection to God creating the world in seven days. Or really, the Old Ones terraforming the entire world to Mathilde's relative party tricks.
 
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The main theme of LOTR is that as Ages pass, the powers that be lose their power. The Elves of the First Age were powerful enough to contend with the above-mentioned monsters, and by the Third Age Galadriel was the only one who could do shit(she shattered a hill with a punch). Melkor himself lost a lot of power by corrupting Arda in its entirety (he poured his power into the planet until it became Melkor's Ring, so Melkor cannot be killed so long as the world still exists). And in the first Age there was an Elf who fought mano-a-mano with Melkor's diminished form, Morgoth, who was still stronger than Sauron.
The Silmarillion is a mythic saga. LotR ... isn't. Also, Tolkien possibly had little problem in accepting that 'in the older times, stuff was more epic' considering his catholicism, which is full of that extravaganza to woo the boredom. You know, like Abraham lived 9 centuries and other bizarre unneeded fantasies.
That's.... understandable, I suppose. Completely counter to my own favored take on age increasing the power of things, but understandable. Still seems a little ridiculous though. I might have actually tried reading the Silmarillion before if I knew that was what was in it. Before, I was under the impression that it was just a fancier and more complicated version of LOTR.
 
That's.... understandable, I suppose. Completely counter to my own favored take on age increasing the power of things, but understandable. Still seems a little ridiculous though. I might have actually tried reading the Silmarillion before if I knew that was what was in it. Before, I was under the impression that it was just a fancier and more complicated version of LOTR.
It is a good book, truly. Just, if you read it, don't expect things to go as in LotR. For one, the "good guys" often act like villains, and then there's the power disparity compared to LotR, like those two elfs who killed balrogs.
 
Well, it's not like it was irrelevant to the plot. For instance, the race of men, as usual for human supremacist legendariums, was the 'inheritor of the earth' and death was a 'blessing'. They were originally much more longlived and talented, including in sorcery, and were, from what i can remember not supposed to get weaker and diminished in any 'Age'.

Only they trusted Sauron, bam, permanent debuff.
 
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I've never actually read the Silmarillion, but that does, in fact, sound like bullshit. How did it go from that, to pretty mind control/invisibility ring with some army buffs if you know how to use it right? Like, the disparity is ridiculous.
Part of the themes of Tolkien's works is how diminished the world is in comparison to how it once was

By the time of the Lord of the Rings there are merely the remnants of fading Elves and Dwarves, in comparison to what the world once was in the Silmaril the adventures of Frodo and company are downright mundane
In ages past Maia once walked the Arda and it was once possible to sail to their land, Men of Numenor were 6'4, had lifespans measured in centuries and were capable of heroic feats of strength and wisdom compared to Men of the Third Age
 
I've never actually read the Silmarillion, but that does, in fact, sound like bullshit. How did it go from that, to pretty mind control/invisibility ring with some army buffs if you know how to use it right? Like, the disparity is ridiculous.
A bunch of people above gave mostly literary and OOC answers. I'd like to add an IC answer, which is mostly: Blame Morgoth.

In the finale of the Silmarillion, after all the good guys united to kick Morgoth's ass for the last time and throw him into the void, the book ends:

...Yet the lies that Melkor, the mighty and accursed, Morgoth Bauglir, the Power of Terror and of Hate, sowed in the hearts of Elves and Men are a seed that does not die and cannot be destroyed; and ever and anon it sprouts anew, and will bear dark fruit even unto the latest days. Here ends the SILMARILLION. If it has passed from the high and the beautiful to darkness and ruin, that was of old the fate of Arda Marred; and if any change shall come and the Marring be amended, Manwë and Varda may know; but they have not revealed it, and it is not declared in the dooms of Mandos.

Morgoth was sabotaging stuff out of pride and arrogance more or less from the start, and much of the Silmarillion is working out the consequences and seeing how much damage Morgoth* does in the process, and what kind of wreckage is left behind, and the general issue that it's easier to break things than to repair them. If we stretch the definition a little, Lord of the Rings might even be called post-apocalyptic fiction.

*And a bunch of Morgoth's friends and servants, like Ungoliant the primordial-void-spider being, Morgoth's lieutenant Sauron, Morgoth's creations the dragons, etc.
 
Well, it's not like it was irrelevant to the plot. For instance, the race of men, as usual for human supremacist legendariums, was the 'inheritor of the earth' and death was a 'blessing'. They were originally much more longlived and talented, including in sorcery, and were, from what i can remember not supposed to get weaker and diminished in any 'Age'.

Only they trusted Sauron, bam, permanent debuff.
Men became the "Inheritors of the Earth" because the elves done fucked up. See the Feanorians.
 
I've never actually read the Silmarillion, but that does, in fact, sound like bullshit. How did it go from that, to pretty mind control/invisibility ring with some army buffs if you know how to use it right? Like, the disparity is ridiculous.
We don't know exactly what the ring does, but consider that the "passive effect" from the elven rings is to preserve the power and glory of their race against the decay of the world.
The rings mostly seem to work as power boosters, so a hobbit just becomes invisible (because mortals fade when in possession of the rings) but Galadriel was confident she could take on the armies of Mordor and rule middle earth. Also, a lot of the powers of Galadriel (limited omniscience), Elrond (Healing) and Gandalf (Dominion over fire) come from the rings they wear, thought we don't know to what extend.
And if you consider the Shadow of Mordor games canon, then the one ring can literally grant the power to mind control armies (more effective on the weak minded), and the protagonist wrestles control of the orcs away from Sauron and takes over Barad-Dur until the ring betrays him.

As for the decay of the world, magic tends to fade, Elves carry power in their souls and this power passes to their children, and they can consume it to create stuff, but once used it can never be recovered, they are forever less and through thousands of years of heroes and craftsmen they are pretty diminished.
Middle earth is cut off from Valinor and the Valar (gods) will no longer intervene in Middle Earth, as the last time they did they shattered like, half of the worldm so most high level players are out of the game.
Sauron's boss, Melkor, suffered a fate pretty similar to what i described happens to elves, he used his divine power to create orcs, trolls and dragons, he empowered balrogs and invented engines of war, and through eons of war he too lost most of it, and was eventually captured and cast out of the world, his dragons destroyed and his armies scattered.
 
Sadly the only humans that can do that with a good chance of surviving is a different Order.
Rip our dreams of being Gandalf.
Great Eagles are sapient.
Buy books from the Dwarves, Brettonia and Empire specifically relating to Great Eagles.
That gives a preparation buff. Then after you find them, hire a College specialist to perform diplomacy for six months.

It even counts as part of Mathilde's Loremaster portfolio, and as setting up intelligence networks for both the Karak and the Empire.
Getting the Eagles to report on matters of mutual interest like Ork and Skaven activity in the mountains allows the Dwarves to mount extermination missions, which makes it a safer area for Eagles to raise their chicks.

And gives the Empire advance warning.
 
We don't know exactly what the ring does, but consider that the "passive effect" from the elven rings is to preserve the power and glory of their race against the decay of the world.
The rings mostly seem to work as power boosters, so a hobbit just becomes invisible (because mortals fade when in possession of the rings) but Galadriel was confident she could take on the armies of Mordor and rule middle earth. Also, a lot of the powers of Galadriel (limited omniscience), Elrond (Healing) and Gandalf (Dominion over fire) come from the rings they wear, thought we don't know to what extend.
And if you consider the Shadow of Mordor games canon, then the one ring can literally grant the power to mind control armies (more effective on the weak minded), and the protagonist wrestles control of the orcs away from Sauron and takes over Barad-Dur until the ring betrays him.

As for the decay of the world, magic tends to fade, Elves carry power in their souls and this power passes to their children, and they can consume it to create stuff, but once used it can never be recovered, they are forever less and through thousands of years of heroes and craftsmen they are pretty diminished.
Middle earth is cut off from Valinor and the Valar (gods) will no longer intervene in Middle Earth, as the last time they did they shattered like, half of the worldm so most high level players are out of the game.
Sauron's boss, Melkor, suffered a fate pretty similar to what i described happens to elves, he used his divine power to create orcs, trolls and dragons, he empowered balrogs and invented engines of war, and through eons of war he too lost most of it, and was eventually captured and cast out of the world, his dragons destroyed and his armies scattered.
Hmm, I suppose. In the meantime, this has gotten way off-topic, and as I'm the one who dragged it there, I feel it necessary to be the one to put it back.
 
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