tolkein loremastering panel

[jamesrbrown]

I just finished listening to the panel discussion in its entirety. Very interesting comments by everyone. Rich, thanks for the kind words about my Mythic Battles document. I'm really hoping one day to share further development.

Also, Chris, thanks for the book recommend about names and language. I guess what I would really like to know is specifically where to look for names for a particular culture. This is perhaps the most difficult thing for me. I find myself just going with names from the core rulebook so often. I wonder what guidelines Francesco uses for coming up with names for the various cultures in TOR and what materials and sources he gets them from. It would be helpful to have a chart of cultures and where their names come from, especially the cultures of men.

[zedturtle]

I just finished listening to the panel discussion in its entirety. Very interesting comments by everyone. Rich, thanks for the kind words about my Mythic Battles document. I'm really hoping one day to share further development.

Also, Chris, thanks for the book recommend about names and language. I guess what I would really like to know is specifically where to look for names for a particular culture. This is perhaps the most difficult thing for me. I find myself just going with names from the core rulebook so often. I wonder what guidelines Francesco uses for coming up with names for the various cultures in TOR and what materials and sources he gets them from. It would be helpful to have a chart of cultures and where their names come from, especially the cultures of men.

Yeah, I have the same book that Chris has, though I don't use it quite so often.

I use Old English for the human cultures and kind of change things as appropriate. I also do the same trick as Chris, as an in-joke to myself if no-one else:

E.G. Wida the Wise: 'wisa' is 'leader' in OE; I changed the 's' to a 'd' to make a bit stronger sound. Or 'myndleás' became Vindeleas and then Vineleas in the game.

[Boronind]

Yes, thanks to you Garett and Rich H for the panel.

To the question asked about what could/should somebody understand/read that might help either LM or a play a character in TOR, I just remembered Letter 131 of Tolkien writing to his publisher Milton Waldman in circa 1951. This letter is perhaps the most revealing and concise statement by JRRT on his Secondary World.

The remarks about Fall, Mortality, and Machine early on are very instructive on the "ethos" of Middle Earth.

While it can be found at the beginning of the Silmarillion, it can also be found online in two places:

http://faculty.smu.edu/bwheeler/tolkien ... ers131.pdf

http://www.e-reading.club/bookreader.ph ... olkien.pdf