Rocmistro wrote:
Murchushio wrote:
Elves are already immune to disease. Offering it as part of a virtue package seems dubious at best.
Per canon or per TOR Rules Raw? I don't remember seeing anything in the Core Rules that supports this, despite it being canon. On a related note, one of the interesting things I've noted is that TOR does not necessarily grant powers where canon dictates. For example, I don't believe Elves have any special power to see in the dark. They do start with a great awareness common skill, and access to a couple of other things that makes it easier for them to see in the dark (certain traits, specialities and Folk of the Dusk), but it's not like D&D where you have "Darkvision, 60' " or anything like that. As such it doesn't seem inappropriate to me to have a virtue grant them canonical power which is missing in the RAW.
I did in fact mean per canon, but also in the RAW. Well... kind of.
The core rules, it is true don't seem to really consider disease at all. All of the descriptions of use of the Healing skill and all the Virtues that relate to it seem to deal with "making people who are hurt better" rather than healing the sick.
But in
Darkening of Mirkwood, page 87, it explicitly states that the elves are immune to the plague that strikes Wilderland that year and continues for many more years.
That's not quite the same as giving elves blanket immunity to all disease, as per canon, but it comes pretty close, no? If they can ignore whatever evil witches brew the Nazgul cook up in Dol Guldur, they can probably ignore just about anything.
Rocmistro wrote:Murchushio wrote:
The secondary language of the Dunedain should really be Sindarin rather than Adunaic. Adunaic is both simply an antiquated form of Westron not in use as anything but a lore-language, and, more importantly, the use of it and the turning away from the elven-tongues was associated with the King's Men of Numenor. The Dunedain of the Realms-in-Exile very specifically turn away from studying their lost homeland in-depth, which is regarded as unhealthy and unwise; the only stories commonly known from Numenor are the Akallabeth (which I believe was actually written by Elendil) and the Tale of Aldarion and Erendis.
Interesting...I'd like to hear/read more about this. Do you have any sources? I ask this only because, for all the things ICE got wrong, they did get a lot of the research right, and I seem to remember Dunedain having the opportunity to begin play with Adunaic. That being said, I recognize the dangers of trusting secondary research, etc.
Oh, yes, in MERP a number of the rules for Dunedain character creation let you start with Adunaic. There are probably lots of Dunedain who speak it, in fact! Especially in Gondor, where they still have, you know, a functioning civilization. It would have been more common during the time MERP campaigns were set (MERP really encouraged people to set their games earlier in the Third Age, before the Fall of Arnor and Gondor getting seven kinds of hell kicked out of it) but it certainly wouldn't be unknown to them.
My point, though, was that in crafting them as TOR culture, if you're only going to give them two languages, it seems like Sindar, rather than Adunaic, will be the more logical secondary choice.
As for cites, happy to oblige! From Unfinished Tales, beginning of "Part Two: The Second Age"...
For though the survivors in Middle-earth "yearned," as they said, for Akallabeth, the Downfallen, and never even after long ages ceased to regard themselves as in a measure exiles, when it became clear that the Land of Gift was taken away and that Numenor had disappeared for ever, all but a few regarded study of what was left of its history as vain, breeding only useless regret. The story of Ar-Pharazon and his impious armada was all that was remembered generally known in later ages."
Unfinished Tales has much and more to say about the usage of Adunaic, Sindar, and Quenya in both Numenor and the Realms-in-Exile, but that's the money quote with regard to the topic at hand. Also too, this, from
The Two Towers, "Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit"...
"Close by, just under the dappling shadow of the dark bay-trees, two men remained on guard. They took off their masks now and again to cool them, as the day-hat grew, and Frodo saw that they were goodly men, pale-skinned, dark of hair, with grey eyes and faces sad and proud. They spoke together in soft voices, at first using the Common Speech, but after the manner of older days, and then changing to another language of their own. To his amazement, as he listened Frodo became aware that it was the Elven-tongue that they spoke, or one but little different; and he looked at them with wonder, for he knew then that they must be Dunedain of the South, men of the line of the Lords of Westernesse."
Now, it could be that Mablung and Damrod (the two Rangers in question) are weird, unique Dunedain who both happen to speak Sindar and use it amongst themselves. But it seems more likely that, as men of arms rather than lore-masters, they speak Adunaic-inflected Westron and Sindarin. That seems the most likely combination for Dunedain in general, both north and south; they speak a mannish tongue, and an Elven-tongue, as they did of old in Numenor.
That's just my opinion, anyway.
