Horse-lords of Rohan discussion

[Lara Redleaf]

As for horses... no rules for Dwarven War Ponies... and no entry on the horseflesh table for ponies proper, either. Nor donkeys nor mules. Jim will be sore disappointed that Birok's mighty axe will still have to be wielded from on foot...

Also (unless I've overlooked it) I see no notes on Elven-bred horses.

No, but now that we have core horse(wo)manship rules, other supplements can easily insert new types of mounts. Sort of like now that we have rules for magic items from Rivendell, new adventures/supplements can include examples of such.

The quote above about horses is misattributed, as well, since it was actually posted by Aramis.

I don't think it's much of a problem, though. It'd be pretty easy to re-fluff existing horse stats or tweak them just a bit to your needs. For example, a mule is used for what? Transporting goods, mostly, right? A pack mule? I'd just make the riding modifier 0 and you pretty much have a mule. I'd just use the draught horse or pack horse stats for a pony fit for Hobbits to ride. A war pony, if such a thing exists, seems like it could easily fit under "travel horse" or maybe just take the warhorse stats and change the Size to Medium or Small. It's not perfect, maybe, but it's pretty easy!

As for Elven horses, maybe that's good material for the Adventurer's Companion.

[Indur Dawndeath]

I'd like to see Steed of the Moon statted now.
Is it a mera - King horse or just an extraordinay ridning horse?

[Otaku-sempai]

Dwarves in the Orocarni? You've made me curious, where are they named? I remeber a quote saying in the East Dwarves were the teachers of men (unlike the west, where Elves were the teachers), but nothing specific about the Orocarni or Rhûn.

HOME Vol. XII, The Peoples of Middle-earth (a volume I do not possess!) includes Tolkien's musings on the origins in Middle-earth of the Seven Fathers of the Dwarves.

- Longbeards (Durin's Folk): Gundabad
- Broadbeams and Firebeards: Ered Luin
- Ironfists and Stiffbeards: Northern Orocarni
- Blacklocks and Stonefoots: Southern Orocarni

Of course, I doubt that Cubicle 7 can make use of that as a source. But we do know about the Naugrim of Belegost and Nogrod in the Blue Mountains from the LotR Appendices.

[Lara Redleaf]

Horse-lords certainly has me feeling inspired to run a game, I tell you! If only I could find a game where I could play my character, between the two I would in Valinor!

[Curulon]

Horse-lords certainly has me feeling inspired to run a game, I tell you! If only I could find a game where I could play my character, between the two I would in Valinor!

One day... perhaps the Grace of the Valar will shine upon you!

[Lara Redleaf]

Horse-lords certainly has me feeling inspired to run a game, I tell you! If only I could find a game where I could play my character, between the two I would in Valinor!

One day... perhaps the Grace of the Valar will shine upon you!

Perhaps! Until then, if you didn't see, Curulon got an honorable mention in my thread on the Arferyth.

[Stormcrow]

The editors may want to make a few changes before going to print: accent marks on diphthongs are dealt with inconsistently, with the accent sometimes appearing on the first letter, sometimes on the second.

For instance, the name Léothere appears as Tolkien would have written it, with the diphthong éo having an accent on the first letter. But Beówyrt has an accent on the second letter, which is not Tolkien's convention.

In Old English, which is how the language of Rohan is represented, an accent or a macron is usually used by scholars, including Tolkien (who used an accent), to indicate a long vowel, one whose duration has been doubled. The Angles and Saxons themselves didn't usually write an indication of vowel length, unless it was to write the vowel twice. You usually just knew which words had long vowels. Diphthongs can also be lengthened, and Tolkien's convention is to indicate this with an accent mark on the first letter of the diphthong.

[Glorelendil]

The editors may want to make a few changes before going to print: accent marks on diphthongs are dealt with inconsistently, with the accent sometimes appearing on the first letter, sometimes on the second.

For instance, the name Léothere appears as Tolkien would have written it, with the diphthong éo having an accent on the first letter. But Beówyrt has an accent on the second letter, which is not Tolkien's convention.

In Old English, which is how the language of Rohan is represented, an accent or a macron is usually used by scholars, including Tolkien (who used an accent), to indicate a long vowel, one whose duration has been doubled. The Angles and Saxons themselves didn't usually write an indication of vowel length, unless it was to write the vowel twice. You usually just knew which words had long vowels. Diphthongs can also be lengthened, and Tolkien's convention is to indicate this with an accent mark on the first letter of the diphthong.

Maybe some of them aren't meant to be dipthongs? BAY-oh-wrt? Certainly Tolkien put various accent marks on second vowels in lots of cases. Cuiviénen, Andúnië, Eärrámë, etc.

In any case, I usually email typos and other suggested edits to Andrew. He sees them sooner and has them in one place.

[Stormcrow]

Maybe some of them aren't meant to be dipthongs? BAY-oh-wrt? Certainly Tolkien put various accent marks on second vowels in lots of cases. Cuiviénen, Andúnië, Eärrámë, etc.

Unlikely. Those are all elvish words, which don't have the diphthongs in question. Tolkien uses an accent to indicate long vowels and stress (kooy-vee-EN-en), a diaeresis to block interpreting two vowels as a diphthong or silent (ahn-DOO-nee-ey, not ahn-DOO-nee; ey-ar-RAH-mey, not eer-REYM), and a circumflex to warn the reader that the syllable is not pronounced the way you might think it is pronounced (Khazad-dûm, ends with DOOM, not DUMB; Mîm, rhymes with "beam," not "him"; these not-how-you-think errors are always where you think the vowel is short where it's long) or in Sindarin to indicate an especially long syllable in a monosyllabic word.

Old English, meanwhile, has the diphthongs io, eo, and ea, none of which appear in the elvish languages. Tolkien tells us in The Lord of the Rings:

In Quenya ui, oi, ai and iu, eu, au are diphthongs (that is, pronounced in one syllable). All other pairs of vowels are dissyllabic. This is often dictated by writing ëa (Eä), ëo, oë. In Sindarin the diphthongs are written ae, ai, ei, oe, ui, and au. Other combinations are not diphthongal. [...]

All these diphthongs were ‘falling’ diphthongs, that is stressed on the first element, and composed of the simple vowels run together. Thus ai, ei, oi, ui are intended to be pronounced respectively as the vowels in English rye (not ray), grey, boy, ruin; and au (aw) as in loud, how and not as in laud, haw.

Anyway, the point is that Tolkien has very specific rules for how he uses diacritics, but they only apply to his invented languages to give the reader an understanding of how names and words are pronounced. When writing in real-world languages, Tolkien used customary rules for such words. Either he ignored diacritics entirely (Oin, Gloin) or he used them in the usual scholarly way (Óin, Glóin, pronounced with two syllables each; Old Norse did not have a diphthong oi). When scholars mark long diphthongs in Old English, they put an accent or a macron on the first letter of the diphthong (when they didn't just use æ and œ).

And when one sees eo in Old English, especially beo, you KNOW it's a diphthong. If Cubicle7 wants to indicate something other than a diphthong, they should put a diaeresis on one of the letters, though it won't be a very Old English–sounding name.

This isn't a huge point, but I know that Cubicle7 likes to emulate Tolkien as closely as possible.

[Glorelendil]

Well, I'm persuaded. And impressed.