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Glorelendil wrote:

Middle-earth Way wrote: For example, the Red Elves could be called "Crimson Elves of the North Pole."

I hear they are very jolly. And they make toys.

That's exactly what they do. Father Christmas Letters. The Red Elves of the Third Age diminished by our time (the Sixth or Seventh Age) to become Santa's helpers. Yep!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fathe ... as_Letters

Otaku-sempai wrote:I don't see how things taken from early drafts, such as references to China and the Gobi Desert, that did not end up in the published text are at all relevant. In any case, I put it to you that "Worm-Easterlings" and "Worm-men" are terrible names--just awful."

It just means "Dragon-men." "Worm" is an ancient English poetic name for "dragon." Would you prefer "Dragon-Easterlings" or "Dragon-men"? Fine.

What I can see is borrowing from the language of Manchurian China for person and place-names for the distant East; and perhaps borrowing from Slavic or Mongolian for other regions of Rhûn.

Old Slavic peoples:
•The Axe-Easterlings of the Wide East (Rus)
•The Viniths of Eastern Mirkwood (the Wends: Polabians, Pomeranians, and Lusatians). Implied by the name Vinitharya (Vinith is Gothic for "Wend, Slav").
•The Viniths from South of Mirkwood (Slovenes)

Also other correlations barely hinted at in the RotK Appendix, when King Elessar/Aragorn receives embassies from Men dwelling east and south of Mirkwood, with provisional names from Alfred the Great's Anglo-Saxon Geography of Europe:

•The Ulans from East of Mirkwood (Polish)
•The Maroaros of the Bight (Moravians/Czechs-Slovaks)
•The Horithis of Southern Rhovanion (Croats)
•The Surpe of Southern Rhovanion (Serbs)

Mongols don't come into Western history yet in the 900AD era which the Third Age is modeled on. But yes there would be a quasi-Mongolian Mannish people in the East of East. I would provisionally name them:

•The Men of the Last Desert (Mongolians)

Iron Crown did much the same with MERP, although this was before much of HOME was even published.

Nay, ICE simply ignored the technicalities and invented whatever they wished. That was before the Tolkien Estate and Zaentz/Tolkien Enterprises clamped down. Decipher's work was done after the HoME, and tiptoed through all the legalese. C7 could too.

However, I would guess that for the time being, C7 is going to concentrate on the regions and peoples that were directly involved in the Quest of Erebor, the Battle of Five Armies and the War of the Ring.

I would be fine with the core book covering only the areas which on the official Baynes map...the West-lands and the near fringes of Harad and Rhun.

Fine with me if Aman, Forodwaith, Harad, Rhun, the Dark Lands, and the New Lands each received their own hardcover. C7: let me know if you want help writing the other continents.

I have rough notes here...
https://sites.google.com/site/endorenya/harad
https://sites.google.com/site/endorenya/rhun
https://sites.google.com/site/endorenya ... -southland
https://sites.google.com/site/endorenya ... egendarium

I think, for myself, I would keep anything originating from Tolkien's Christmas Letters out of the mix.

Well, if or when C7 ever details Forodwaith, then the Father Christmas Letters would have to be addressed. I would simply depict Father Christmas as he was before the Christian era, as a Maia. I'd use different names, and only "imply" that its the same place as the Father Christmas Letters, without explicitly stepping on the copyrighted materials. I would depict his North Pole sanctum long before those events take place. His realm would conceivably evolve, after thousands of years, into the locations seen in the Fr. Xmas Letters.

Welcome to the forums!

Could you please give me a reference for the hill elves and mountain elves in The Hobbit? I don't remember seeing them.

Middle-earth Way wrote:It just means "Dragon-men." "Worm" is an ancient English poetic name for "dragon." Would you prefer "Dragon-Easterlings" or "Dragon-men"? Fine.

Those don't really sound much better to my ear. Yes, I know how Professor Tolkien was using the word 'worm' (alternate spelling 'wyrm'). I'm pretty sure that Bilbo, though, was referencing some sort of legendary or mythical monster, which doesn't rule out the existence of one or more dragon-cults in the far East (not unlikely considering the importance of dragon-myths in ancient China and Asia in general). I'll give you credit for doing your research on regional languages in Middle-earth! Quite impressive.

The Adventurer's Companion with its new Heroic Cultures can't get here soon enough. I am anxiously waiting for it to become available for pre-order.

Thanks for the welcome!

bluejay wrote:Could you please give me a reference for the hill elves and mountain elves in The Hobbit? I don't remember seeing them.

Chapter 8:
"The feasting people were Wood-elves, of course. These are not wicked folk. If they have a fault it is distrust of strangers. Though their magic was strong, even in those days they were wary. They differed from the High Elves of the West, and were more dangerous and less wise. For most of them (together with their scattered relations in the hills and mountains) were descended from the ancient tribes that never went to Faerie in the West."

Otaku-sempai wrote:Those don't really sound much better to my ear.

I went and changed the OP with a fresh name for "Third Age Chinese people": Drake-men. I considered just calling them "Men of the East of East", but there are probably "Middle-earth Koreans", "Middle-earth Japanese", and various "Middle-earth Southeast Asian peoples" too.

I'm glad you like my ethnological research. I feel it's pretty solid. I don't think anyone in the world...including Tolkienian scholars...has really grasped the ethnological framework as well.

I wonder what Cultures will be included in the Adventurer's Companion. In any case, I hope all of them are included in the ME-D&D core book.

Middle-earth Way wrote:Chapter 8:
"The feasting people were Wood-elves, of course. These are not wicked folk. If they have a fault it is distrust of strangers. Though their magic was strong, even in those days they were wary. They differed from the High Elves of the West, and were more dangerous and less wise. For most of them (together with their scattered relations in the hills and mountains) were descended from the ancient tribes that never went to Faerie in the West."

That, to my ears, covers the various Avari... which might be nice to have a Culture of their own, but really don't appear in the primary sources enough to be attested to in any significant way. I'd rather see them treated like Wild Hobbits, with a few things swapped out of the Wood Elf package.

Middle-earth Way wrote:I wonder what Cultures will be included in the Adventurer's Companion. In any case, I hope all of them are included in the ME-D&D core book.

Bree-folk, Riders of Rohan, Dwarves of the Blue Mountain, the Elves of Lorien and People of Gondor.

Quite possibly the Corsairs of Umbar, though I don't know of anywhere where that's been made official and is idle speculation. I'd imagine that Dunlendings would be in there too, as the idea is that Core Book + AC allows players to make any valid hero (in which case, you'd need Rangers, High Elves, Wild Hobbits, Woodmen of the Mountains, Laketowners, etc.). I guess we'll find out when we find out...

I think that the Corsairs of Umbar as an Heroic Culture is likely to show up in a future book covering Gondor, but probably won't be added to The Adventurer's Companion. There is likely to be more than enough included in that book already.

To Middle-earth Way: I think that to the Folk of north-western Middle-earth, the Men of the distant East and South are only known as Easterlings and Haradrim (or Southrons) except for those few tribes or folk that they have had more contact with: the Wainriders; Variags; Balchoth; etc. Anyone more distant should probably be referred to by their own names for themselves in their own language (whatever that may be). Have fun with that!

zedturtle wrote:

Middle-earth Way wrote:That, to my ears, covers the various Avari... which might be nice to have a Culture of their own, but really don't appear in the primary sources enough to be attested to in any significant way. I'd rather see them treated like Wild Hobbits, with a few things swapped out of the Wood Elf package.

I agree that the core book could only briefly cover the Avari, and could meld them into a single package.

Also, the word "Avari" is not used in the LotR, so C7 can't use it. They'd need to say "Dark-elves" or "Elves of the East", or something like that. Since "Mountain-elves" and "Hill-elves" are from The Hobbit, C7 can use those terms.

However...once C7 writes their Rhun continental sourcebook, then every scrap of Avari info will need to be milked for all it's worth, and expanded into distinct character packages. It would be hard, but possible, to re-state all of the existing tidbits of Avari lore (e.g. about the Cuind/Kindi/Windan/Kinn-lai/Penni, and the Twilight Elves of Palisor from the Book of Lost Tales) using non-copyrighted terminology. I myself offer a scheme in my OP which could be stated in non-copyrighted language:

•"Hill-elves of the West of East" (the name "Cuind" is copyrighted.) Their language is Old Irish-flavored Quendian.
•"Mountain-elves of the North of East" (the name "Windan" is copyrighted.) Their language is Old Slavonic-flavored Quendian.
•"Gloaming-elves of the Midmost Region" (the names "Palisor", "Hisildi", and "Hwenti" are copyrighted. The phrase "Twilight Elves" might be copyrighted.) Their language is Gothic-flavored Quendian.
•"Elves of the South of East" (the name "Kindi" is copyrighted. I would invent a distinct moniker, such as "Peacock-elves" or "Saffron-elves"). Their language is Sanskrit-flavored Quendian.
•"Elves of the East of East" (the name "Kinn-lai" is copyrighted. For a distinct moniker, I'd call them "Blue-elves.") Their language is Chinese-flavored Quendian.

So there's five Elven backgrounds for a Rhun sourcebook...but I agree they'd best be folded into one package for the core ME-D&D book.