I'm not sure whether I should protest that explicit discussion of anyone's sexual practices is inappropriate for a 13-and-up chat... or if I should mention bifurcated penises.
A good 2/3 of LotR questions seem to be based on the notion that everything everyone says in any of Tolkien's works must be the literal and absolute truth.
No one is mistaken, misinformed, or covering up ignorance. No one speculates or believes too firmly in folk wisdom.
@BESW So LotR answers generally involve letting the asker down lightly with the idea that people in LotR are just as often misguided and possibly quite silly?
That's because it has such a rich legendarium and backstory. People tend to assume that if someone mentions it, Tolkien has written a 20-page epic poem describing it.
@JonathanHobbs Yes, and then being berated by a half-dozen comments about how that's stupid/lazy/wrong and either ALL HAIL TOLKIEN or TOLKEIN'S HIDDEN AGENDA STRIKES AGAIN!
@AvnerShahar-Kashtan Aye, and he's framed it as part of the oral and written traditions, replete with intentional errors based on who the narrator is.
Example: Kingsfoil, or athelas.
It's a healing herb which is especially potent when used by a King of Gondor.
Aragorn proved his lineage using it, because "the hands of a king are the hands of a healer."
Someone's arguing that because it is called "kingsfoil," that means it's more potent in the hands of royalty.
I played in a MERP game quite a while back (well, technically a free-form Middle Earth we called MERP for short) in which the Elven heritage of Gondor's kings played a big role.
Gondorians think of it as a royal-responsive plant, but if that were true it'd be an awful test of Gondorian royalty: any random prince of any realm could wander in to claim the throne.
We are told about athelas (elven for "healing plant") in LotR from the limited point of view of a society of Men who never had the opportunity to see an elf use the plant.
Tolkien's whole world was designed to provide a framework of history for his linguistic and orthographic constructs.
If you wonder why something is the way it is in Middle-Earth, look to the language.
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"Kingsfoil" is little more than an exercise in folk etymology.
The entire subplot of how Aragorn proved his right to the throne is based on playing with an invented linguistic curiosity.
(If language doesn't explain it, look to Northern European mythologies.)
@BESW Exactly. I remember when I discovered that the Akallabeth, the Adunaic word for Downfallen, or the fall (and literal sinking) of Numenor is, in Quenya, "Atalante".
It's like Tolkien created the whole First Age, the reward of man, the raising of the island of Numenor for Men to rule, the corruption by Sauron and the island's sinking beneath the waves, only so he could stick this atlantis pun in.
She had previously "IT'S NOT MY FAULT!" which is something she'd always found herself saying when things caught on fire or exploded. It was akin to Mr. Green in Clue continually saying "I didn't do it!!!" Though in her case, she usually did...
However, due to how Torg works with subplot cards, she always got the Romance card, which means someone takes a romantic interest in her character. It's lead to two different Villains falling for her (one of which had her kidnapped and dressed in a Cheongsam for dinner), and has one vampire coming for her because she stole his ring (not romantic).
So last game they passed a Signifigant Milestone, she decided "IT'S NOT MY FAULT" would turn into "The Girl all the Bad Guys Want".
It is, now! She had to rearrange a bit, because her Trouble was "Black Sheep of the Delphi Council", but because of what happened to cause the Signifigant Milestone, the Delphi Council stopped existing (which was her last chance to use "IT'S NOT MY FAULT!")
Bad stuff happened, and now a Steampunk Aether Fleet has descended upon Houston. It all started with them driving a 1930's gangster car through a mall in Japan...
@BESW Haha... that's the way Torg sessions tend to go. Mostly because players seem to gravitate toward the "action pulp 1920's reality" part, even if their characters aren't all from that reality!
And with the Fate system, each reality has an aspect that can be invoked or compelled on characters from it, or on ALL characters when they're physically in said reality.
The Nile Empire (which is the reality in question) has something called "The Law of Action". Invoked, it gives you a boost to do heroic things. Compelled, it basically says "hey, why are you doing this in such a BORING way?"
There's this question about how to make a gish character and nobody mentioned polymorph spells... is there a reason like "bad in dead magic" I've not considered?
Right now we're entering the tiresome season of TV Show Christmas Episodes.
Since I don't have any particular sentiments towards Christmas myself (again with the not being Christian or (mostly) growing up in a Christian environment), I find those episodes mostly sappy and annoying.
"You of the West," Malik said, "think of time moving in a straight line, from past to present to future. Your eastern brothers regard time as a circle, returning endlessly in a cycle of decay and rebirth. If you were to combine geometrically the movement of the circle with the movement of the line, what would you have?" He snapped his mouth shut and peered at me with an uncanny resemblance to my old schoolmaster. "The spiral?" I ventured. "Yes, yes. Or the helix. They are our models of the passage of time.
We passed through another door and entered a chamber inside the spherical dome. A creaking wooden device, powered by water, turned a gigantic stone pillar, and as it revolved, a mechanism climbs up the spiraling ledge, reading with its sensitive fingers a series of notches and carvings. At intervals, colored flags would rise, whistles would sound, or pebbles would drop down on brass bells. "What time is it?" I asked, reaching instinctively for my pocket watch. Malik took a step back. "Time for Kentrosaurus to hatch. Time to plant the millet. Time for the magnolia buds to open. Professor Den…
Ummm. Avoid the YA novels and the TV miniseries at all costs.
but really, the best thing you can do is surprise her with something she wants, that she told you about 6 months ago that she things you forgot. And for that, you've got to take notes
@ProfessorLokiCaprion Indeed just remember small things that she mentions. A good example was my ex told me she had never done bumper cars before. We went to a carnival a few months later and I saw bumper cars so we got in and rode them like 5 times. She was ecstatic!
There are gifts which are useful and show you know the person's habits--like a maulstick--and they're great. But the truly best gifts are the ones which combine personal effort with evidence that you pay close attention to the person.
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Like adding an origami dinosaur you folded yourself to the Dinotopia gift.
Well... anyway... apparently, I'm going to be a Rogue-type, since the only way a spellcaster would fit in the group is to be a Druid and I do NOT WANT TO DO THAT.
So, um... what can Rogues do? I know about as much about Pathfinder as I do about art.
@ProfessorLokiCaprion The rouge in our group is a ninja. He built his character around being able to sneak up on a foe and kill them with one blow. He prestiged into an assassin class and now has the ability to literally kill any foe he sneaks up and hits if they fail a fort save.
My bad I am not into the sneaky sneaky classes. I play a character who wields a Huge (Literally Huge size category) Hammer so he can't sneaky sneaky with THAT on his back.
On an entirely unrelated note, I am saddened that none of the 101 Dalmations films ever did anything with the scene from the book where they break into Cruella's house and the walls were papered to look like meat and they shredded all her furs and when Cruella discovered it she was so stressed the white part of her hair turned green and she had to pretend she'd dyed it on purpose in order to save face.
@JoshuaAslanSmith I'm okay with it. Their choices of what to draw out are a little weird, but it's not like the original Star Wars trilogy would've been much longer on paper in the same style.
Eh I dont know if I feel that is an apt comparison simply because empire and jedi are cash-in sequels from the standalone star wars despite lucas' plans thats what they were. The hobbit has an extremely strong heroic journey arc and splitting it up doesnt do it any justice
This question honestly has nothing to do with hats, but... I saw that there was a hat award called "Marauder".
What is a marauder? Whilst I do have access to this site, I can't find any dictionaries or etymology sites on the interwebz...
Thanks.
Im also ultimately of the opinion that the hobbit should be a childrens movie (but not in the way they are popularly thought of) given the source material
Can I just say that dungeon world may have supplanted fate as my new favorite system
while there is still that huge paradigm shift from a game like 4e http://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/15847/is-there-the-equivalent-of-a-skill-check-in-dungeon-world
I find that its easier to transfer people into than fate as narratively its a similar game
@ProfessorLokiCaprion Prestige classes aren't as important as in 3.5, since the base character classes have a lot of alternate options and choices, so you can differentiate between two different Rogues, even mechanically, right from lv.1.
@ProfessorLokiCaprion I thought the party didn't want any more spellcasters.
@AvnerShahar-Kashtan Next time I play Rock Band, I'm naming my group "Backstabbing Wizard Monkeys". I'm pretty sure that'll be one of the names of Andy's band in Parks & Recreation.
This question honestly has nothing to do with hats, but... I saw that there was a hat award called "Marauder".
What is a marauder? Whilst I do have access to this site, I can't find any dictionaries or etymology sites on the interwebz...
Thanks.
