Corruption of the Eldar

[Tolwen]

There may have been Noldor and Sindar Elves who Sauron seduced into corruption in his days as Annatar, rather than breaking them by torture and torment. These Elves might still be around at the end of the Third Age and into the Fourth, perhaps controlling regions in the East or the South.

IIRC (I'll have to dig out the quote though) Tolkien says that once the Eldar became aware of his deception, they became unanimously fiercely opposed to him - even those (or especially these) that had believed his tales - and would never ever again listen to him, even if they might fly before his power.

Cheers
Tolwen

[Otaku-sempai]

IIRC (I'll have to dig out the quote though) Tolkien says that once the Eldar became aware of his deception, they became unanimously fiercely opposed to him - even those (or especially these) that had believed his tales - and would never ever again listen to him, even if they might fly before his power.

Cheers
Tolwen

It is not apparent from Tolkien's essay "Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age" published in The Silmarillion that the Elves universally turned against Sauron. It does not explicitly say that any of the Elves who learned from Annatar were corrupted into Evil; neither does it indicate that none were so seduced. Perhaps the passage that you remember comes from another source? In any case, any such corrupted Elves need not have remained loyal to Sauron, but may have had agendas of their own.

[Mim]

GB: Tolwen (as usual ) is correct about the Elves largely opposing the Enemy. Note this passage from The Silmarillion concerning the War of the Last Alliance:

All living things were divided in that day, and some of every kind, even of beasts and birds, were found in either host, save the Elves only. They alone were undivided and followed Gil-galad. Of the Dwarves few fought upon either side; but the kindred of Durin of Moria fought against Sauron.

That's the Second Age, but you can always write an exception into the Third Age that fits your game (such as the great example of the Avari above). You may wish to consider him/her/them as the exception, however, & rare.

Otaku-sempai: You may be able to use Decipher's Moria boxed set, which discusses some of the Dwarven houses from the east. It's not canon, but it's obvious that they tweaked some of the info from the LOTR & HoME .

[Tolwen]

I found the passage that was in the back of my head. That is in the LotR:

[Gandalf speaking] The Elves may fear the Dark Lord, and they may fly before him, but never again will they listen to him or serve him.
-LotR.Book II (Many Meetings)

In connection with the other cited passages that's a fairly good evidence for a fiercely opposed people as a whole

And in UT we have the highlighting remark that Celebrimbor was not corrupted in his heart, but genuinely believed what Sauron as "Annatar" had claimed to be. After finding out the hard way that it was not so, he was full of remorse and took counsel with Galadriel.

Cheers
Tolwen

[Otaku-sempai]

GB: Tolwen (as usual ) is correct about the Elves largely opposing the Enemy. Note this passage from The Silmarillion concerning the War of the Last Alliance:

All living things were divided in that day, and some of every kind, even of beasts and birds, were found in either host, save the Elves only. They alone were undivided and followed Gil-galad. Of the Dwarves few fought upon either side; but the kindred of Durin of Moria fought against Sauron.

That's the Second Age, but you can always write an exception into the Third Age that fits your game (such as the great example of the Avari above). You may wish to consider him/her/them as the exception, however, & rare.

Otaku-sempai: You may be able to use Decipher's Moria boxed set, which discusses some of the Dwarven houses from the east. It's not canon, but it's obvious that they tweaked some of the info from the LOTR & HoME .

Well, there is a large gap in time between the forging of the One Ring and the Last Alliance of Elves and Men, but the passage you cite is pretty convincing. Still, some few Elves might have fallen without allying themselves with Sauron.

Decipher's Moria boxed set does sound like it could be useful. I wonder how hard it is to find a copy and how much it is likely to cost (although I'm sure that condition might modify the latter a bit). EDIT: I checked Amazon.com; it's not as bad as I'd feared. Copies can be had for $35 (US) and up.

[Mim]

IMHO, most of that company's products don't match the prices, however, this is an exception. They did a fantastic job on the set, & if you're interested in the Dwarves of Middle-earth, I'd recommend it. If I didn't already own the set, I'd pay $35.00 for it. Just so you know, I don't normally spend that much money on games - other than this one .

While we're on the subject, you can convert most of what they do fairly easily into ToR. In particular, I pick & choose which material on the seven houses I like for my game. Some of its, well, meh, but most of it fits my own interpretation of the professor's works - & as you can probably tell from my sig, I especially enjoy playing Dwarves.

[Angelalex242]

I don't think you can actually corrupt an elf.

Sauron can, with a really good lie, get them to do what he wants, but if he does, it's only because they believed a lie, not because they actually want to do what he wants them to do.

Any Eldar who believes such a lie is going to go 'oops' and set matters right immediately once given the chance.

The closest thing to a sincerely corrupted Elf there's been is the Faenor types, who ran around obsessed with something they shouldn't be.

[Elmoth]

Corrupted elves have the problem that Heaven does exist in ME. If you break the wishes of Papa Erü, you do not reincarnate AFAIK, and the elves know thast. So, the desire to act against the valar are slim. It can still happen, as illustrated by the powerful elves not wanting to touch the One Ring by a 10 foot pole, though.

Still, that does not mean that all elves agree with the actual policies of the 4 elven groups of NW ME (Mithlond, Rivendell, Lorien and Mirkwood). I can see elves considering all the other races as tools and disposable cannon fodder to achieve their desires and objectives regardless of the origin or race of the race in question. So you can easily have elves living by values that other societies of ME (including other elves) would consider to be really wrong: slavery, torture, and elven supremacist attitudes are easy to represent in ME without breaking the setting at all. The slaves might be *all* the other races, including orcs and humans. Will you collaborate with a bunch of orcs to escape from the elves that have captured you all?

Now that I think of it, having Dol Guldur be a bastion of such elves might be a nice break from cannon to surprise players that are confident that they know about the setting...

Cheers,
Xavi

[Rich H]

Of course an Elf need not be corrupted to serve as the villain of an adventure. Witness the treatment of Thorin &Co at the hands of Thranduil in the Hobbit and the Fellowship's reception into Lothlorien. Elves are not always friendly to other folk.

I think an uncorrupted Elf who sees things very differently to the players could make an excellent nemesis. Especially as he or she would not be evil or an agent of the Enemy, but still an enemy.

I think this is a great point to make. To use an elf as an antagonist doesn't mean that they need to be a servant of The Enemytm, elves can be complete gits to others all by themselves without any external influence. Personally, I think it'd make a great idea, if it could be developed further, creating an extra dynamic to a campaign.

[Tolwen]

I think this is a great point to make. To use an elf as an antagonist doesn't mean that they need to be a servant of The Enemytm, elves can be complete gits to others all by themselves without any external influence. Personally, I think it'd make a great idea, if it could be developed further, creating an extra dynamic to a campaign.

This is also the style of antagonist I prefer. Having a good part of unquestionable evil cretaures (orcs, spiders, trolls etc.) is OK and necessary, but IMO the far more interesting - and challenging - antagonists are those who are neither obviously evil/corrupted and serving the Enemy, but self-serving and scheming (mostly humans) or outright criminals who are interested in their profit and not the least in a struggle for good or evil. It's the shades of gray that make these characters interesting - even in Middle-earth where are much more shades exist than a first glance reveals. Ambiguous motives, difficult moral dilemmas and the like are what makes gaming here the most interesting for me

Cheers
Tolwen