High Holidays, related quests and crafts

[Varda]

The Faithful of Numenor held Eruhantale on a mountain, intended to give Thanks to Eru, and to honor him.
Our people could expand on that. We could have Eruhantale be the Highest celebration, held in the place of honor in the last month (Gregorian calendar to cut down on confusion) during Christmas month in real life. We would have to quest for a mountain to hold the celebration, fight to make a place safe enough for a celebration and protect the celebrants, maybe swapping off. We could have our bakers, brewers, and candlemakers bring their celebration items. We could offer our crafts or personal armor to Eru to be blessed and to take his blessing with us into the world. We could do special quests for things to take to the celebration to honor Eru.

Then add this. Every month we have a particular Vala such as Ulmo to honor. We have to find a place suitable such as by the sea, a lake, a river, and quest for things suitable to honor him. To keep it all inside one year, we can have two Valar honored at once, such as Aule and Yavanna since they are married. Both have to have their particular honor items, maybe particularly named foods and items made of their section of the world, or to have a quest completed in their name as an honor to present.

With Eru last, we could have the year start with the "lowest" Valar (like calling a star low!), and work our way up, so that Manwe would be the month before Eru. We need to decide who and when, then try to stick to it for planning. Can you imagine the month of Mandos, for instance?! It should be hairy trying to fit in all the Valar, and we might even consider how to celebrate the Lost Valar, maybe a special month for all of those.

The Melkor shadow group, if we have one, could have their special time as well, at the same time as a regular Vala's and under cover of that celebration. They might hold it a different weekend and change up the month each year.

I suggest the last full weekend of each month to be the actual High holiday for the Vala/Valar of the month, with those who can't come having someone pre-selected stand in bringing the gift and telling about the quest done in honor.

We can collect suggestions for the place of honor, and select one member at a meeting by lot to have to choose where it will be. He may choose on his own or call for a vote at his discretion, which could give us greater variety. Decisions affecting the group need to be posted, maybe here and/or on Elatan's web page.

This is sort of like having a monthly theme party and quest set and crafting set.

Some people/characters will have a naturally greater affinity for one Vala/Valie than another. If we have several characters with affinities for different Valar, we would have even greater variety in our gaming.
In any case, this could give our crafting and questing special direction, and could carry over into our other gaming as well.

So, if you like this, how about starting to figure out which Valar and when on which month? Modifying big suggestions like this needs to be done early on, with micro-managing easier to re-work later.

I trust everyone understands this is just a game, that we don't really "worship Valar".

[Eonwë]

Even understanding that, I'm not quite comfortable giving offerings to the Valar. A quest sort of in the name of that Vala I can deal with better. A celebration in their honor at a place they would "frequent" works too. Here's an interesting thought: sprinkling items along our party place for needy travellers. Not like just unloading our unneeded/unwanted stuff, but actually leaving stuff (maybe even good stuff!) there to be found by whoever comes by once we leave. Or perhaps a random member is chosen for this honor instead of dumping a whole bunch of stuff on the ground and making it look like we want a horde of item sharks to follow in our wake every month.

Hoiw would we do Mandos and Irmo's months then? Perhaps together as the Feanturi? The month of Feantur :}

For a couple of weeks I thought it might be interesting to have a "Valar Calendar" based on the Numenorean Calendar, month names fitting etc with day one/year one being our Founding date. Who'd want to do the math on that? :} Would make for an interesting conversion program to be linked to web pages as an alternate date display :}

Anyway, take care :}
Eonwë

[Varda]

You have a point. Ixnay on the offerings.
How about we see if we can do "blessings" in the name of the Vala/Valar? These could be intended for the "faithful", members and guild-friends in other words, not every passer-by. That would be like upgrading an item, giving buffs, mathom-passing. It's an especially good time to pass around mathoms that have names or functions that seem to go with the Vala type. Crafted or summoned food and drink could be part of the blessings. Paying or trading for items might be done at the border of the meeting area? A random member could be stuck with items unusable for the character or profession type, as we ran into with Diablo 1 tourney prizes.
Maybe we could use that time to get together for a heavy-duty quest that requires a larger than usual group, or several quests according to the levels of the members present.
Feanturi month is a good way to handle the brothers, and maybe toss in the sister too.
If someone wants to work out the various calendar times, they could be put on the forum calendar by the person so he/she/they wouldn't have to wait on anyone.

[Varda]

How about calling ourselves those beings who believed we should encourage the Valar to look upon Middle-earth with favor?
Maybe we could pick a Vala or two (such as Feanturi month? Lost Valar month?) to do a (preferably group) quest for each month. Suggestons for who on which month would be welcome.
We could still end the year with Eruhantale, the Numenorean Faithful's thanksgiving to Eru around December.
A party complete with passing mathoms around the guild, crafting food and beverage, could be set either as part of the monthly quest or at least for Eruhantale.
We need something to set us apart from all those other honorable Tolkien groups and a reason to continue calling ourselves the Valar Guild. We also still have the Encyclopedia with its articles, stories, poems, and jokes, but it's not inside the game.

[Eonwë]

Gatherers of lore, defenders of good, bane of evil, servants of the Valar. Not to mention party animals :}

I'm not sure how you mean "look upon Middle-Earth with favor" as they have not disfavored it. Do we believe they abandoned ME and we need to convince them to come back?
Perhaps rather we are those who believe the Valar should take an active part in Middle-Earth, whether through emmisaries, visions/messages, or coming themselves?

Gotta love discussion :} Anyone else care to jump in? :}


Take care :}
Eonwë

[Varda]

"Perhaps rather we are those who believe the Valar should take an active part in Middle-Earth, whether through emmisaries, visions/messages, or coming themselves?"

Aye, Eonwe/Auros. That's better put.
We see the Shadow coming on us and, as usually true of the somewhat religious, figured we'd better ask for help in dangerous times. Remember us as well as the great ones.

The shadow rose in Dol Guldur, and although Sauron left to his newly prepared home in Barad-dur, many of his minions remain to plague us, the normal residents of M-e. We see other signs of danger as well, as the barrow wights have been stirred up, plus the evil denizens who took over Moria have been upset and are on the move.
Thanks. I'm trying to find a way to word our purpose for the MEO kinship.

[Elatan]

Heyas, BUMP.

There are several festivals we could RP, some for the Elves, some for Humans and some for the hobbits.

Nost-na-Lothion, the festival of Birth of Flowers, held once a year in Gondolin for the good promise of the comming year. No date found for it but probably in the beginning of Tuilë. ( Spring ) This festival may also be the celebrating of the New Year and happen the first day ( Yestarë ) of the new year ( Right after Yestarë begins Tuilë )

The Gates of Summer or Tarnin Austa Festival, An annual festival for the Elves held once every year in Gondolin. It was a festival greeting the summer. No actual date found of it but most likely the last day of Tuilë ( 54 days after newyear ) or the first day of Lairë ( Summer )

Then we could, as I would expect the Elves to do, celebrate the Yén, the Elves Full Year = 100 Human years ( In LoTr it is 144 human years )

Basicly I think Elves would celebrate each of the six seasons but for some relaxation and playing in between ;D we might just go for the named and the really high-ones.

Yuledays or the Yuletide for the Hobbits, a six day long merrymaking ending the old year and starting the new.

Lithedays. The Lithedays and especially the Overlithe was days of merrymaking for Hobbits. Lithedays were always added after midyears day ( the 183 day ) and in years with the Overlithe ( every fourth year )this day became the 184 day.

If we want to pick some of the high holidays scattered around in all the books we would need a calendar to fill them in. Info about whatever Ingame Time MeO will provide would make us able to set up a calendar starting by the first live-game day of the server and plot in high holidays and festivals.

[arathorn]

Hmmm... what of dwarf festivals? I've taken a look around but haven't found anything that springs out regarding their celebrations?

[Varda]

Dwarves were very secretive, not letting others in on their language, let alone their festivals. You can bet they had them with plenty of ale and/or beer. : ) Could be an especially good time for crafter get-togethers, but we may have to be inventive.

I wouldn't expect the whole guild to get together for every celebration, but it could be fun for the ones who can. With enough celebrations, crafting get-togethers, combined probably with raids and starting off together on quests from there, it should be fun. They would mainly be excuses for gaming together even if we are different races.

[arathorn]

er... do you mean once we start gameplay in MEO? Can you elaborate on "crafting get-togethers" btw?

[Varda]

Aye, after the actual MeO game starts.

Crafting get-togethers I hesitate to define before the game comes out, but it could be a little group helping each other craft, or trading/gifting crafted items between each other.

[Elatan]

As for holding festivitas in MeO we have run into a minor problem The time in MeO is fixed The game will run in a Time Pocket / Time-loop. This means time can go forward and odly enough ( but sane enough in the games term ) backwards.

This is due to the fact that the history unfolds right after the Fellowship leaves. Leaves from where ? well right before you came to any destination.

If you reach Rivendell NPC`s wil tell you the fellowship "just left" Then you can go back to Bree and there the NPC`s will again tell you you just missed it, the fellowship "just left"

This is of cause because you never will be able to move infront of the fellowship or do anything that can compromise the real history but it also means there is no real timeline in the game. It is always right after the fellowship left ANY destination no matter where you go, back or forwards.

If we want to we can make our own timeline but it will be out of accordance with the gametime more and more as time goes by.

My suggestion is we set the date of release of the game as new years day and plot our game-festivals into a rl calendar according to how they "should" have been if a real game time existed. All we need is a calendar.

Maybe it is possibel to create a calendar in connection with this board where it is possibel to fill in happenings ? Anyone knows ?

[Varda]

This Forum has a calendar. So does our Yahoo board.

We can do a regular monthly Valar Guild celebration with different themes, independent of the MeO timeline, especially since they have no straightforward timeline.

If it looks fun and feasible, we might extend the celebration to all games, perhaps even with a cheery extra on our web pages for the special day or weekend.

The themes could be varied. Eruhantale, of course. Maybe a tribute to Fingolfin's personal battle with Melkor, with a sword theme. Or Finrod's song battle with Sauron, with a song theme. We'll take suggestions. Thanks to Tolkien, we have enough great themes to handle us for another age of the sun before we have to think hard.