MEO RP/Tales of Lore

[Eonwë]

In hopes of providing a little more inspiration than my last post, I have made a new post. Hope that helps get your creative juices flowing :}

Did you still want to join in, Ancalagon?

[ArPharazon]

I'm still interested, writing up my new post now. I'm not sure if Ancalagon still wants to join in, so I'm leaving the whole stealing the daggers part open by saying they *have* been stolen, but if he doesn't, they might just turn up on the street somewhere.

Edit: I have made my post. I added a bit about a note I left before Fainan's room, so as to not conflict with her statement that "the others are gathering even now, and should be with us soon". If she has a problem with that, I'll see what I can change.

[Eonwë]

Reposting some questions and comments from the Rp thread to here to be answered.

fangluin said:

OOC: I am sorry if my question disturbs the rp, but I was wondering if this was open to anyone or to a select few. I am new, so I do not understand all of the rules and what is expected of me. Again, I appologize if I am disturbing the story.

arpharazon said:

These chapters are purely reserved for the RP itself, so I'm sure these posts will be deleted soon. If you have any OOC questions/comments/suggestions concerning the RP itself, valarguild.proboards22.com/index.cgi?board=MEORP&action=display&thread=1078038161 is the place to post them. Or make a new thread in the section, perhaps.

As for your question, I'm afraid I can't answer it, but post it there, and I'm sure Eonwe or Varda will provide you with the answer you seek. But if you're a member of the guild, and your character fits the story/setting (I advise discussing it with the two aforementioned people) it shouldn't be a problem.

Greetings Fangluin and welcome to the Valar Guild!

This RP is open to any member of the Valar Guild with interest in joining in. They should let their interest be known here or at one of our meetings first so that we can discuss the most appropriate time for your character to enter. Most of us are using versions of our Valar Guild names for our characters. For example, I am using Auros, a name for Fionwë son of Manwë, who in the later tales became Eonwë Manwë's herald. Varda's character is Fainan, a name which means "I emit light," quite fitting for the creator of the stars.

Rules are simple. Your character must reasonably exist within Tolkien's world. Please stick to Free Peoples, i.e Elves, Dwarves, Hobbits, Men. No super-elves killing twenty Balrogs with the wind from a punch. Your character can know and do what is reasonable for him to know and do. A Noldo would have access to lore a Hobbit wouldn't, as a simple example. A Silvan Elf from Mirkwood would have a more intimate knowledge of Mirkwood than a Noldo. A Noldo would likely have a haughty streak. A Dwarf may have one too. A Hobbit may not so much.

If you're going to create for your character a background history (not really required unless you want to introduce some of it into the story somehow, though it does help a bit because it helps develop the thought processes of your character) please make it reasonable. You cannot be a long-lost son of Fëanor.

That's not to say creativity is not permitted. Creativity is good, and it can make the story more interesting. Some stretches can be made, but let's try not to break anything. Sometimes we talk about upcoming stuff in this thread, or ask questions about eachother's posts to get a better understanding or feedback. Sometimes we do that at our weekly meetings because person-to-person conversation can be more effective and inspiring.

In the interest of brevity, I'll ask you to refer to a few posts above where Ancalagon was talking about joining in and I made a longer reply, if this does not give you the basic idea. If for any reason I am making this sound more overwhelming than it really is, read the story and skim through this thread to get a feel of what we're actually doing.

Take care.
Eonwë

[Eonwë]

Ok, I've made my post. I put Calion as the last person arriving.

Something I discovered while skimming other parts of the story, that apparently we all had forgotten since when I brought it up at the meeting a couple of weeks ago no one corrected me on: Estarion has a horse!

Look in Part 4: Erebor on page 2. He rode all the way to Dale. He did, in fact, take one of the Mirkwood Elves' horses when we parted at the border. No mention is made of his horse afterwards. If he left it in Dale, Thranduil would probably be annoyed and even less pleasantly greet the Avar whom he had had summarily escorted to the borders of his realm in the first place. Or, Estarion decided to walk to Erebor from Dale, but it doesn't say he didn't lead the horse behind him. I refrained from mentioning Estarion's riding situation because of this.

So, Menel, what are you going to do about this? :}

[Eonwë]

I couldn't resist. I had to post again :}

I'm interested in hearing this "new information." :} Are we going to have to fight to gain through Mirkwood, or take some hidden paths Fainan knows about? :}

[ArPharazon]

My new post is made, fleshing out a great part of the backstory to my little side-arc. I took some liberties, but I don't think it's at great variance with what I have already discussed with Eonwë and/or Varda in the past. As always, if you have problems, bring them up, and I'll see what can be changed.

Personally I've gone through some changes of mind in the past year, and am starting to get quite tired of this substory of mine, and the importance I have given it in *our* RP. I was reluctant to make important changes in the beginning of Scouting Ahead, but have since then gone quite over the top on the other extreme. I have 2 more events planned for Calaron, and will be glad when they are done with, though at the rate that our posting has been going it could take a while still. I will be focusing more on Calion and the main party now, and try to come up with more ideas independent to all of this. I even have a concept of a story taking place after Angmar, but I don't want to give everything away yet, and it's only in the early stages still.

Be patient with me, I'm almost done mangling Tolkien to a greater extent than PJ

[ArPharazon]

Reading the transcript of last Sunday, I just found that apparently we camped on our way back from Erebor. Of course this makes a lot of sense considering the distance, but I had not taken it into account for my post, and will have to add another day to it if this is the case. Can anyone confirm that we *did* camp, and if it was once or more times?

[Eonwë]

We didn't have any camping posts, but given the distance we are travelling from Erebor to Mirkwood, it makes sense if we stopped to camp a couple of times. While Elves may have excellent night vision, I'm pretty sure horses are about as well off as humans in that department, i.e., not all that great generally speaking, and we wouldn't want any injured horses because they stepped in a hole, got bit by a snake, or anything like that.

That's of course besides the obvious we can't push on 24/7.

Just for fun, I decided to use the Atlas of MIddleEarth (the one I and pretty sure most of us have been referring to since the beginning) to get an idea of what we might be looking at. Karen Wynn Fonstad gives the following estimations on travelling speeds based on their respective distance travelled vs how long it took:

Using mph (miles per hour)
Ponies: 3.4 mph, jogging
Horses of Rohan: 6.7 mph, galloping
Horses of the Dunedain: 7.0 mph, galloping
Shadowfax: 20 mph, galloping

Considering I've read horses can get up to and over 40 mph (extended gallop), Shadowfax's estimated speed doesn't seem all that impressive. I haven't read how long a horse can hold that speed, but I don't imagine it being near 100 miles.
Though, from what I've read, a standard gallop puts the speed between 8 and 16 mph, so I guess if 20 mph is Shadowfax's standard gallop it's fairly impressive after all (though it sounded in the book like Shadowfax would be going all out, putting him in the range of extended gallop). I suppose terrain and group size would also affect these estimates.

Horses from Rivendell would probably be closer to the 16 mph upper bound than the 8 mph lower bound. What we really need to judge this is a race between Asfalaoth and Shadowfax :} I'm not sure where Mirkwood's horses would fit in on the scale, but since we're being paced by the pony I don't think we'd be going much faster than 5-6 mph if the pony is at standard gallop.


Anyway, based on the Atlas' maps and scales, it's roughly 50-60 miles from Erebor to where we exited Mirkwood, as the crow flies. Auros "did not push them too hard" so let's say rather than my estimated 5-6 mph for a pony at standard gallop, we went about 4.5 mph. That would be approximately 13 hours and change of travel, so let's round up to 14 hours to account for rest stops. Further, they did not leave Erebor as early as Auros had hoped, so let's estimate somewhere between 9 am and 11 am for departure (normal would've probably been somewhere between 7 am and 9 am). Let's say that as a result we travelled roughly 9 hours that day, the latter hour or so being at a slower speed just to press on, but it was nearing sunset so the slower speed was for an easier time watching where they were going. We made camp, got up and began our journey again sometime between 7 am and 8 am. We travelled the last 5 hours, came to Mirkwood probably in early afternoon. Let's say we went through the woods a little faster going in than we did coming out, so we reached Thranduil's Halls somewhere around 4-5 pm, still early enough for daylight, but late enough for us to definitely stop for the night.

This is all just estimation to try and fit the best. Really, I didn't bother crunching numbers on our way from Mirkwood to Erebor, but I would add another day or two of travel estimation heading in that direction since we didn't go "as the crow flies."

Short version: we stopped, probably only once if the Atlas' estimations are correct.

Oh, Phar, here's something I think you might be interested in:
"Although not particularly swift, a wolf can maintain a lope (my note: think gallop) of 8 to 10 mph for hours on end. Overnight hunts of 15 to 20 miles are routine."

I pulled that out of my Encyclopedia, the same one I'm getting my information on horse speed. Thought that might give you a better idea of how fast a Warg might go. Based on Mrs. Fonstad's estimations, a Warg could probably keep pace with Rohan's horses, or the horses of the Dunedain. Elf horses (specifically horses used by the Noldor from Rivendell) would probably outpace the wolf enough to get a good lead. A warg would be eating Shadowfax's dust, and all mearas could probably outpace Wargs at least as easily as the Elf-horses mentioned above.

If anyone wants to refine my estimations, feel free, but I think this at least gives us an idea of what we've got.

Hope that helps, Phar.

[ArPharazon]

This is great, thanks, I don't have that book myself. I really should!

If we've camped once during our return trip, I'll add another day, which would also make sense for my post, since Mirkwood is a big place. Also, if we're staying the night at Thranduil's Halls, it gives Calaron all the head-start he needs to set up what's coming next.

It would seem wolves are unfit to really keep up with our Elven horses, but if we still have a pony going with us, it wouldn't really be much of an issue, because looking at these speeds, a wolf has no problem outrunning a pony. If there's an Orc escort too, on foot, it would go a lot slower, but as I said, there's a head-start. Speed really shouldn't be a problem for me.

This is some great info, I'm sure we'll be able to use it more in the future

[Eonwë]

Just thought I'd mention my next part is coming soon, likely within the week. I've been trying to decide where Auros would be during the events of Pharazon's last post, and I've finally decided. I wasn't quite sure on the first couple of reads how much time was supposed to have passed between our arrival and the events of said post, but after my latest reading it seems that enough time has gone by that we, or just Auros and possibly Calion (though not mentioned in Phar's post), and likely Frali since he is also has a direct interest in getting to Rivendell safely, would be hearing about this new information, or perhaps even beyond that point. I imagine reasons could be had for all members of our group to be there.

[Eonwë]

At this week's meeting, we had a lengthy discussion about the RP, particularly the time frame. We tried to lay down the time frame a bit firmer, get a better idea of how much of the available time between the Council of Elrond and the departure of the Fellowship we've used up.

It looks like we have approximately 5 weeks between October 26th (the day after the Council of Elrond, which for ease we'll say is when Auros left, since it's the later day) and December 10th, which we're estimating is approximately when the scouts started coming back in, with the last scouts returning to Rivendell at the latest on the 18th.

According to calculations by myself and Pharazon, we've used up approximately two of those weeks in the journey from the Forest Gate to Erebor and back(this includes the time from Thranduil's Halls, where we are now, back to the Forest Gate, which we have not actually written about yet).

According to some number crunching I did afterwards, it can take approximately one week from the Forest Gate to Rivendell, using the same estimations I made on the return from Erebor to Mirkwood to account for Frali's Pony. Assuming that, though he could've travelled much faster on his own, Auros had one week from his departure from Rivendell to his arrival at the Forest Gate (for whatever reason), that still leaves us a week to account for.

Thoughts/Comments/Other?

Here is a link to the Discussion in the meeting minutes:valarguild.org/varda/guild/transcripts/2008/tranJuly6_08.htm#Tolkien

[Varda]

An elven horse could help prevent Frali's falling off and the party members could help the dwarf on and off the horse. Also, the dwarf could mount a horse from a high place such as a fallen log, hill slope, ruins, or (a bit nutty here) rig a knotted rope or other ladder-type? This would increase our speed. Our Avar buddy is willing to lead a horse when it isn't going faster than he can go, and attempt to ride when the party is in clear areas allowing a gallop.

Thranduil is trying to get us to go to Angmar's ruins to find "the crooked staff" aka "staff of unlight" that is adding fear and death into the creeping darkness. The trip would require passing by the place where Calaron was taken and through Rivendell. That should let us handle both of the other parts of the story as we go.

[Eonwë]

While Auros would probably like anything that shortened his trip, we need to spend time, so Frali continuing on his pony helps. Plus, it gives our young Dwarf a chance to learn a bit of horsemanship along the way, to where even if as most Dwarves he'd prefer standing on his own feet, at least if the need arises he can handle a pony.

[Shelob]

To let you all know, I'm not leaving the RP after all. All that had I needed was Varda's sure-footed boot up my hiney *wink*.

Varda and I tried to get our heads together to see if we could work up something that would explain my "absence", but between all the things that happened in the time I was over, we never got around to it. Hopefully I'll have better luck with Eonwe tomorrow

Hope to see you again soon and look forward to meeting Eonwe

[Shelob]

Ahem... Sorry for taking so long to return to the RP. I read up today (being monday) and figured a good reason for not showing up at the gathering at Erebor.
Basically I spent the few days between the council of Dain and my "new" arrival in Mirkwood letting the other Avari scouts in the area know of my findings and my resolve.
More of this will of course show in the story itself, as I have already made a start at. And a perfect place for Auros to be I dare say!