The Redemption of the Feanorians: Essay, Part 2

Of that council held in the high place of Taniquetil, no tale tells; but ere the Sun thrice passed the Gates of Morning, Gandalf in his shining robes came down the green slopes, and hurrying along the gilded streets of Valinor he came even to the Halls of Mandos. And Elrond and Galadriel looked after him and wondered.

Long Gandalf spoke with Mandos; and leaving that place which is called the Halls of Awaiting, he at last made his way to the house of the Valier Nienna, from whom he had learned much of pity and patience in long ages ere the rising of the Sun and Moon. And with her were several figures, cloaked in grey, forlorn as it were amid the splendours of Aman.

"Long your spirits have dwelt in Mandos," Gandalf said. "But rejoice! For you are given life again, for good or ill. Yet it is not without price: for you are not yet given leave to dwell in Valinor, which you forsook long ago. The wide lands of Endor shall be your home again; and you shall find that much has changed since the wars of the Silmarils."

At that some stirred, as if at the memory of some blow. But Gandalf said, "Much is changed, I said: but much also has not. The Age of Men has begun, yet many of the ills that the Black Foe bred linger still to trouble the Kings of Men. You will go to Middle-earth, much as I did, as a counter to those evils. But my work is done. I was the Enemy of Sauron; and though his realm is now ended for ever, and I have returned at last to find rest, work still there is to do. You are sent to finish that work, or perish in the trying; and in that the World may find redress for the evils you wrought upon it, now three Ages ago."

"We will go," they said.

"Good!" said Gandalf. "But do not be too hasty, as a good friend of mine used to say. (You may be fortunate enough to meet him one day.) For you will find little welcome among the Elves, and less so among Men; for the latter for the most part shun the Quendi, and even the descendants of the Elf-friends of old remember your fell deeds in their tales.

"Moreover," he went on, "though you are charged with righting the wrongs of Ages past, yet you are forbidden to meddle in the affairs of Men, or of bringing power to bear against them for your own gain. You will not know the strength you possessed in your youth; indeed, your bodies in Middle-earth shall be a shadow of their beauty here in Valinor. Of material things you shall have only what you may carry, and live as I and my fellow Wizards did for long years, making no permanent abode for yourselves. Your greatest allies shall be secrecy and stealth. Your haunts, the wild places: those forsaken by Elves and Men; though you may at whiles have succour of the few who will know of your errand."

"What, then, is our errand, lord?" asked one.

"That shall be revealed to you in time," said the wizard. He glanced at Narya the Great, the Ring of Fire which he still wore. "I will come to you unlooked-for with counsel, or to those in Middle-earth who have ears to listen to my words. And when your errand in Middle-earth is done, or you perish in the attempt, then you will at last be brought before Mandos, and judged."

The Redemption of the Feanorians: Essay, Part 1

The dawn of the Fourth Age in Middle-earth sees the departure of Gandalf and many of the Eldar; the renewal of the Numenorean kingdoms of Arnor and Gondor; and the end of the realm of Sauron. But though Sauron and the Nazgul are utterly vanquished, yet still the memory of Darkness troubles the lands. The fate of Urzahil of Umbar -- the Mouth of Sauron -- remains unknown. Horrors still walk the halls of Khazad-dum. The Goblin-king of Gundabad still holds the Angmar Plateau and the Gundalok Shelf under his sway. Evil spirits haunt the Tyrn Gorthad, the Barrow-downs, as they have for over fifteen hundred years. And Dragons still lodge in the Grey Mountains, and tryst upon the Withered Heath.

The Age of Men is beginning; but what power can mortal Men bring to bear against these ancient evils, legacies of Sauron and Morgoth? Gandalf is gone and the strength of the Three is but a memory. The remaining Wizard in the West, Radagast, is increasingly tied to his little home of Rhosgobel nigh the eaves of Greenwood the Great. Of the other Istari, Alatar and Pallando -- the Ithryn Luin, or Blue Wizards -- little more is known than a rumour of power and terror in the East of East. The remaining Eldarin lords -- among them Celeborn, Cirdan the Shipwright, and the sons of Elrond -- are more concerned with their own shrinking realms in these mortal lands. And the Valar... well, who beyond the Bent Seas can know the mind of Manwe?

But the thought of Manwe upon Taniquetil has not forsaken Middle-earth. Indeed his thought dwells ever upon it; and the more so after the return of Galadriel to the Undying Lands. And even as Elrond Half-elven walks the streets of Valinor with his kin, Olorin who was Gandalf, Mithrandir the Grey Pilgrim, comes to that high place, and there holds counsel with the King and Queen of Arda.

Dark Times

Borden whole milk is $5.35/gallon at Wal-Mart. Gas is at $3.17/gallon and climbing here in Laurel. The news this morning for the housing market is not good: home values are posting record declines. I'm afraid much of the equity we had in our home is eroding away as I type this.

We in our arrogance thought we could police the world; we believed the military-industrial complex when it told us that war is a necessary evil. Now the war machine is draining us of blood and treasure, with no end in sight.

In our blindness we thought that capitalism is best left unchecked; now the system is devouring itself.

If you're not a gardener, now might be a good time to look into it. That, along with livestock farming. A mule might be a good investment in the near future.

Reverend Wright is correct: the chickens are coming home to roost.

Gotta love the Royal Mail

Checked the mail today, and lo! A white parcel from Essex: Far Harad: the Scorched Land finally arrived unlooked-for. The seller had already pursued a claim with the Authorities. Glad this was resolved to my satisfaction, some three months after the auction close.

The Last of the Feanorians

I have formulated a new approach for a Middle-earth campaign, one that could span hundreds -- if not thousands -- of years, and allow the player characters to be part of the Tolkien literary canon. Well, kind of.

I propose a Third Age campaign, with a party of adventurers consisting of what are usually a short-lived PC racial type: Noldor. Anyone who has participated in Middle-earth role-playing knows all too well the crippling limitations of a low level Noldo, regardless of profession. Noldor are, as "High Elves," handicapped by a very small number of background options that keeps them from becoming too powerful in the game, something the Turambar (Gamemaster) must be sensitive to, given that the Wise and the Great in Middle-earth -- especially in the familiar Third Age -- are so rare as to be legendary. (Remember Boromir's superstitions concerning the Lady Galadriel, the greatest of the Eldar still in Middle-earth? To him, she was little more than a witch, until he actually passed through Lothlorien.) You just don't typically meet the likes of a child of Finrod Felagund on the streets of Pelargir or Tharbad or (worse) Bree-hill.

That being said, I propose to abandon this careful approach almost altogether, and allow the beginning Noldo PC six (6) background options, instead of the usual two. This is in large part to allow for a realistic fleshing out of the character, due to the circumstances of their lineage; and here I must turn to some grey area, though it is largely an area where JRRT alone has held forth.

It is well known that all Quendi (Elves) can die, but that their spirits do not leave Middle-earth, as do the spirits of Men. Rather, they travel to the Halls of Mandos, until they are released back into the world. How this happens it not perfectly clear, but it can be assumed that they are reincarnated. I have no literary evidence to support this idea, but it is known that the Glorfindel we meet in The Fellowship of the Ring is in fact the same Glorfindel who dueled a Balrog to the death in the Cirith Thornonath. There is no reason evident to suppose otherwise, and it has further been written elsewhere (I disremember where) that he was released from Mandos, and returned to Middle-earth with the Wizards (Istari) in T.A. 1000. It can be supposed that he did not just walk bodily out of Mandos, but that he came into the world again through a natural birth-mother. Just the same, it can be supposed that his spirit was "gifted" a body to house it, the same as those Maiar who would become the Istari gained their bodies. Glorfindel died, but was allowed to come back into the physical world, and was somehow given a body towards that end.

Now, what I propose is a similar circumstance for my Noldo characters: they can actually become Elves that are written of in the Quenta Silmarillion. I am not yet sure just how such elven PC's would come into Middle-earth -- whether they are born to mothers there, or come over Sea after being given bodies again. That, ultimately, may not matter too much. What does matter is that they must be Noldor: for that plays into the heart of the adventure, their raison d'etre: the redemption of the Feanorians, by the last of the Feanorians.

I am not yet certain of the PC's goals. They will certainly have a Quest to achieve, or Quests. But it will be a campaign that could span an Age, and breathe new life into both my own circle of adventurers, and into characters mentioned only cryptically, some in passing, in the mythos of the greatest epic fantasy of all.

Tranquillitas

Leaving for another business meeting in Tuscaloosa today, and will return tomorrow. I suppose I do not mind as much this time around, knowing what is in store -- namely, free meals and free Guinness. Whatever else his shortcomings may be, our company owner/CEO knows how to entertain the troops.

My great-aunt died last week, my grandmother's older sister. She was 92. What a vibrant, strong, forceful woman she was! I had not seen her in almost 20 years, I think, and I did not go to the funeral. Two funerals in six months was enough.

It is an odd feeling now, looking ahead to a springtime minus an aunt, a grandmother, and a great-aunt. There is a strong feeling, mostly unspoken, among my family that there has been a slow generational shift, a turning of a wheel, a turning of a page in our family book somewhere. It is not a bad feeling, just odd. Now it is our parents -- mine and Adrienne's -- who are patriarchs and matriarchs, and it is to us that guidance is looked for more and more.

But the sycamores and cypresses and maples are planted. Soon my Naith will be green with life again, and Belle and I can watch it transform together. Meanwhile, the RT's -- the red-tailed hawks -- have disappeared: nesting. The mews needs building. This may be the year that, at long last, I yield myself up to the hawk.

Whatever else may happen, all is right in the world.

Here It Comes

At last... Issue #2 of Other Minds online magazine is available for download! It's quite large, so get ready to use an ink cartridge or two. The focus is on Numenor, which for me is less than desirable but still leaves it a valuable resource.

The daffodils Belle and I set out last November have come up... nearly all of them! When I showed her, and the memory came back, she kind of stared at them in awe and softly said, "Wow." My little gardener and lover of dirt pies!

So: Halls of the Elven-king arrived this week. Great background info. on the Sindar and Nandor, especially doomed Oropher and the reasons for the various relocations of the center of elven power in the Greenwood over the years. There is too little about Thranduil and his Queen in the primary sources (JRRT's writings). Well worth having for those whose focus is, like mine, on Wilderland. Well, focus for the moment -- that may change to the Morgai or Sturlusta Khand tomorrow.

Saw a red-tailed hawk late yesterday afternoon. Been thinking about the whole hawking thing again. I reread the chapter on squirrel hawking in McGranaghan's The Red-tailed Hawk last night. Sounds like a blast. May need to get Buteos and Bushytails to whet my appetite on the subject for a while, or at least until I get off my ass and get the mews built.