- Location
- Russia
- Pronouns
- He/Him
We do not. But for me medical care is a right choice.
Westernesse: A Númenórean Colony Quest
- Thread starter Telamon
- Start date
- Location
- Lake Wobegon
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
"Much that once was is lost, for none now live who remember it."
More seriously, they did, for a while. The Third Age was long, and its wars and plagues were highly destructive. One of the reasons we placed Tar Nilon where we did is because the lands around it were among the least visited by the wars of the Third Age (even the site on the Baranduin, probably the other safest site, would have been caught up in the wars that destroyed Arnor), leaving a greater chance for more preservation of knowledge.
As well you should. Arda is Marred, all ends are wrong.
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Fezzes
Knight of King Stannis Baratheon
- Location
- Sydney, Australia
If you say so, I'll believe it, but you've still missed my point.
All you're doing is doomsaying about something it'd be too late to change even if you convinced people, and doing it in a tone that is, frankly, kind of insultingly moralistic with all the talk of "protecting the right choice" and "my conscience is clear". You're ignoring the fact that other opinions on this are equally valid and just stating yourself to be correct. As others have said, this seems like one of those votes that isn't right or wrong, but more tone-setting. See, I happen to think that the consequences of succumbing to the cult of immortality wrapping up Numenor are as dire as the unrest caused from rejecting it. Equally, the benefits of proving ourself to be of the Wise by rejecting Numenor's venom, like increased trust from people like Elrond and Galadriel and starting the long process of humbling ourselves from the heights of hubris which Numenor is stubbornly climbing towards, are things I see as equally beneficial as inviting the Houses to our colony, if not more so.
The fact of the matter is that neither side really has proof. We have speculation. So we're asking you to keep a more open mind, or at the very least stop bullishly asserting that your opinion is the only correct one.
- Location
- Russia
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I never stated this. For me the right choice is "Life, Unending". Some people agree, some disagree, and for them their opinion is obviously right. It happens, people are different, their opinions are different.
It's the point of quests, after all.
- Location
- Lake Wobegon
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Oh, not necessarily. Some of us surely chose among less than appealing options and will be gnawed by doubt ever after. Some of us may have chosen at random. I don't think anyone who voted on the plans or legends abstained on the Doom issue, but I could be wrong.
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Fezzes
Knight of King Stannis Baratheon
- Location
- Sydney, Australia
Really?
This seems like you're saying it's the only right choice. The right choice.
Ah, I think I see what's happening, given your sig. The something tends to be the definitive one and only of that thing you're referring to. So when you were saying "the right choice" it came across as "the only right choice", whereas what you were meaning is more along the lines of "the option that I think is right", but it's just coming across awkwardly because English is a second language for you? I think that's what's going on. A fix for that would be changing "the right choice" to "what I think is the right choice" or something along those lines. That'd make it clear that you mean the only one you see as the right choice rather than trying to make an authoritative statement on what the objectively right choice is.
Personally, I also think "my conscience is clear" in this context came off as very haughty, which I don't know if you intended but which definitely wasn't helping your reception. That sort of thing tends to cross the line from expressing anxiety about the outcome of a vote to outright doomsaying, which people generally don't like. I certainly don't. With tact it's possible to express that you don't think something's going to go well, but generally I think it's better to not even bother trying to say it unless you add something afterwards that contributes to discussion, like thoughts on how to react to the consequences of the vote, because without that it doesn't add anything to the thread other than stirring up disputes. Rather like this one.
Dark Abstraction
Infrequent Participant
- Location
- United States
The argument of what options were "right" is unnecessary and unhelpful. The winning options won, so it's time to sit back and wait to see what fruits they bear, not crack off pot shots at each other. Maybe talk potential thoughts for future turn actions and overall goals; actually constructive discussion.
- Location
- Lake Wobegon
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Will the construction options we were given this turn (for houses of life, death, and worship) come up automatically each turn hereafter, or will they be locked off for a period?
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Well we don't have a clear answer in canon, but I'd speculate for the Faithful they were a persecuted group falling out of favor meaning they lost influence within the guilds as members were executed, or simply left due to ethical concerns, which makes learning guild secrets difficult. For the Black Numenoreans I'd say they were too proud to take steps to backup knowledge outside of Numenor proper beyond what they used on a regular basis, and even what knowledge they had was based around the assumption that they had an Empire to gather resources for their wondrous creations, which rapidly stopped being the case as a bunch of exploited locales started striking back.
That being said there are some things the Faithful retained even into the third age as in T.A 420 they rebuilt, and expanded upon Minis Anor a city that basically was impossible to conquer so long as soldiers with the will to fight manned her defenses. This knowledge likely became less widespread after the Kin-strife in T.A. 1432-1447, and was double tapped by the Great Plague in T.A. 1635-7.
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- Location
- Russia
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I do not know what could be done to mitigate the consequences.
Well, we are going to Elrond this turn, and he definitely has some insights. Maybe this'll help.
And I try to check my posts in google translate, but sometimes usage of articles is not obvious.
This is just a tiny thing which is maybe only amusing or interesting to me, but I do find it funny in retrospect that I chose "Green Shoots of Hope" as the plan name because of the various vaguely hopeful options in it, and then for our Doom option we went hard on "FROM DUST THOU ART, AND TO DUST THOU SHALT RETURN".😅
Just goes to show that Eru looks at our best laid plans and laughs, I suppose.
Although I suppose in some sense it is still apropos for Doom, Unerring:
From death and despair, flowers grow.
Just goes to show that Eru looks at our best laid plans and laughs, I suppose.
Although I suppose in some sense it is still apropos for Doom, Unerring:
Article: By the command of Morgoth the Orcs with great labour gathered all the bodies of those who had fallen in the great battle, and all their harness and weapons, and piled them in a great mound in the midst of Anfauglith; and it was like a hill that could be seen from afar. Haudh-en-Ndengin the Elves named it, the Hill of Slain, and Haudh-en-Nirnaeth, the Hill of Tears. But grass came there and grew again long and green upon that hill, alone in all the desert that Morgoth made; and no creature of Morgoth trod thereafter upon the earth beneath which the swords of the Eldar and the Edain crumbled into rust.
From death and despair, flowers grow.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Are the Numenoreans still outnumbered by the Orcs, considering the former apparently boast hundreds of thousands at arms?
- Location
- Canada
- Pronouns
- Him/He
The Orcs were very much quantity over quality so I would say yes. Like, take the example of the War of the Last Alliance: the host who gathered to fight under Elendil and Gilgalad is implied to have been the most magnificient seen in Middle-Earth since the might of Valinor itself came ashore, with the possible exception of the army Ar Pharazon brought to Mordor, 600,000 warriors. And yet, reading about it one get the clear impression that the orcs were outnumbering them several time over.
It's also worth noting that even at the end of the Third Age, Gondor was still a place of marvels, something which I think does not get enough play in popular conceptions due to the rather underwhelming portrayal in the films. At one point, I think just before the journey home to the Shire, the hobbits are casually given enchanted walking sticks with a "virtue of finding and returning". This is not treated as an especially big deal by the Gondorians. They are still a strange, magical people, markedly different to more normal Men like the Rohirrim.
But yes, that being said, an apocalypse, three thousand years of slow cultural drift, a civil war and then a terrible plague will do some work.
- Location
- Lake Wobegon
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Just to clarify, these were Faramir's gifts to Frodo and Sam, given when they left Henneth Annun. They lost them soon after in Cirith Ungol.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I love the Nazgul lore @Telamon .
In this Age do they ride on dread beasts not Yet driven to near extinction, remnants of the First Age, perhaps even the dragons the Numenoreans made super ballista to kill?
How do they fare in dread might compared to in final days of the Third Age, where Sauron was so weak comparatively and thus logically so too were they, tied as they were to him?
In this Age do they ride on dread beasts not Yet driven to near extinction, remnants of the First Age, perhaps even the dragons the Numenoreans made super ballista to kill?
How do they fare in dread might compared to in final days of the Third Age, where Sauron was so weak comparatively and thus logically so too were they, tied as they were to him?
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- Location
- Texas
The great strength of the Nine has always been that they are not bound to the waxing and waning of Sauron himself. They were men once, and are men still in spirits and the power which amplifies them was made in Eregion before it's fall. In the long years when Sauron regained his power after the War of the Last Alliance, the Witch-King acted in his stead in the north, working to destroy the kingdoms of the Dúnedain from his realm of Angmar.
The power of the Nine has never been in strength of arms, though they are mighty combatants, or in magic, though they are fell wizards all. They are creatures of fear first and foremost — the sound of their shrieking may make the hearts of even the most valiant fail, may make armies weep and turn to doubt, may make noble kings abandon hope and stalwart cities surrender to certain death. Hopelessness and dread ride with them, and they scream with voices of death. They delight in riding above besieged cities or sleeping armies, sapping their enemy's will to live with each horrid screech.
Few things on Middle-Earth might resist one of the Nine, in this age or any other: the dwindling High-Elves and their Lords, who have seen the Trees and do not fear death, or any among the Maiar, for much the same reason. The Dwarves have the stubbornness and strength of stone, and though their hearts might fail, would never retreat before the Black Riders, as they would never fall to Sauron. The line of Elros might resist, for theirs is the old blood that is strong, and those warriors of Númenor deep enough in age and skill to be compared to Elves.
For this reason, the Nine are enemies above all — as Sauron is an enemy above all — of the race of Men, of mortals doomed to die, who hear in their howling the one thing which they have always feared.
Yet even then, it is said that the Nine have no power over those rare few among mortals who have no fear of death in their hearts, who laugh to see the darkness and who go singing to ruin and the world's ending.
- Location
- Lake Wobegon
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Edit: GM
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- Location
- Texas
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Extremely impressive for a non-Numenorean to slay a Numenorean Nazgul. Even Eowyn needed her gender, prophecy, help, a very specific barrow-blade, and the distraction of agony and surprise.
Strange9
hdellaverson@gmail.com
- Location
- Los Angeles, CA
It absolutely is, though I'd be very wary of underestimating non-Numenoreans. Khamul himself apparently had Sauron beaten on the battlefield, and of course all of the Edain of the First Age lacked such advantages.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
@Telamon the priest who blessed our voyage, of what Faith are such holy men where the Valar are increasingly disliked and worship of Morgoth not yet established?
It's not so much underestimating them as looking at a one-on-comparison with Numenoreans in general, and appreciating his ability to triumph when adding the power of a Nazgul and likely lacking any sort of holy blessedness.
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Lore: On The Fifth of the Nine
- Location
- Texas
The man who would be the fifth of the nine was the greatest of the heroes to ever emerge from the windswept plains of Khand. His people, the Variags, were mercenaries in theory only — for one master alone they could not refuse, and though the pay was great and lavish, his hand was terrible over them. A captain there was among them, a man who had journeyed to the Far East where the sun scorches the world as she sinks, who had toasted dead men in the sunless halls of Haben-Harath and learned the art of the sword-dance from the elves of the East. He had fought for Númenor and for Mordor and for kings and masters of which Sauron and the Tall Men alike had never heard, and he returned home with a strange and wonderful idea: Freedom.
The Variags rallied around him, for his wagons were high with wealth and splendor, and moreover there was a thunder in his voice that could move hearts. For longer than their stories stretched the power in Mordor had had it's hand over them, and for longer than memory their sons had marched west to suffer for the Dark Lord. But were the ever-glorious Variags of Khand not the mightiest of all the warriors of the world, he said? Did the tall men out of the sea not cry out in fear at the sight of their banners on the wind? Were they not famed in the deeps of the Harad and the far reaches of the world? Why should they, the conquerors of all the earth, tremble and shake before the Eye?
From east to west he rode and his voice was like a torch and in his wake all the realms of Khand rose in fire after him, and many of the Easterling tribes as well — among them the dread Khundolar and the fearsome Bharath. By time rumor had reached Mordor of dissent in the east, he was already hailed as king, and armies marched to his beck and call. With all his other captains occupied in the west, Sauron sent forth the latest and cruelest of his Nazgul, Imraphor. A conqueror unmatched he had been in the Harad of old, a Captain of the armies of the Númenóreans, and the south-men had suffered terribly under his hand even when he was a man. Now he was dead without death, and his cruelties were multiplied hundredfold.
War came to Khand. They say that the king of the Variags readied himself long to face his foe. He took up a great shield of black iron, which had been forged by East-Elves on the shores of the great sea of Rhûn. He wrote his skin all over with words of power from far Harad, words to give a man the strength and heart of beasts. He armored himself in the great-armor of his people, which had been blessed by all the priests of all the cities of Khand, and donned a mighty helm wrought for him by the Dwarves of the Folk of Rhaz, who dwell under the Red Mountains in the sunlit lands. It had a hideous face carved upon the mask, and was laid with runes of protection and power. Last of all he took up his sword, which was a blade of Númenor, made in the days of her glory. The hilt was of mithril, and the spells that were on it were spells high and old for the ruin of the Enemy.
And at last, the King of Khand rode to face the host of Nazgul on the green plain of Nurn, and there was fire and death and thunder at their meeting. At the Ringwraith's fell voice, the army of men broke, and the orcs fell over them, and there was slaughtering and wailing, but in the blackest hour the Variag-King met Imraphor the Conqueror in battle, and his laughter shook the hills. Great was the skill of the king, and dauntless his heart, but his enemy was terrible, and wicked, and his eyes were a cold fire. Long they struggled on the battlefield, and his shield was cracked in ten pieces and his armor was rent from him by the strength of his foe, and even his terrible helm was cloven in two. But his sword was a blade of Númenor, made in the days of her glory, and the hilt was of mithril, and the spells that were on it were spells high and old for the ruin of the Enemy, and as it drove through his heart the Nazgul was undone.
The skies cleared, and the orcs wailed and wept and ran, and the mortal man stooped, and from the lifeless robes he took a golden ring.
That was nine hundred years ago.
The king of the Variags lives still. He bears a terrible helm reforged in the black pits of Mordor, and a shield of black iron remade by slaves and cooled in the black waters of the black land. His sword is a witch-blade of Mordor, made in the days of Sauron's glory, and the blade and the hilt and the crest are wrought of a nameless metal whose bite is as death. His voice spreads still through all the land of Khand, but now it is a voice of terror and woe, and men tremble to hear it. The numberless armies of the east march always before him — the dread Khundolar and the fearsome Bharath and at their head the ever-glorious Variags of Khand. He is merciless and terrible and his eyes burn with a cold fire.
He, alone of the Nine, remembers regret.
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Yea I imagine the King of the Variags regrets picking up the golden ring long ago, or failing that finding some way to destroy it. Well the latter requires the wisdom to there is a difference in how much of a backdoor one is giving Sauron into your thoughts between wearing the ring on a finger versus on a necklace.
Also I imagine we'll need to diplomacy the dwarves to get some mithril unless they're willing to give a discount for materials meant to be used against the chief servants of the one who harmed their friends.
Also I imagine we'll need to diplomacy the dwarves to get some mithril unless they're willing to give a discount for materials meant to be used against the chief servants of the one who harmed their friends.