Moria

[poosticks7]

Drums, drums in the deep.

'Eek.'

'Awesome.'

'We're dead.'

'Run!'

[Dedicemancometh]

Sublime! Tour de Force.

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Now that we are talking about Moria and the Balrog, there is something that has always had me curious. Did the Balrog show up to confront the Fellowship just because Tolkien was using it to advance the story or did Tolkien theorize that the Balrog came out because it either sensed the power of Gandalf, or the power of his ring, inside the mine once it had been awoken? If the latter, even if we get any kind of stats for the Balrog, would it even bother with something as minor of a bother as a party of regular PCs?

[Falenthal]

It's amazing the amount of discussion the wings (or not) of the Balrog suscite. In fact, I don't expect or even want the Balrog to appear at any moment during any adventure or even campaign in Moria. If I were to develop a RPG supplement about Moria, the Balorg would be designed as a Presence, as a sort of Eye of Sauron, that might make everything more dangerous for the heroes, but never showing up himself.

[Terisonen]

Something grip my heart, something in the deep. It's here, somewhere, like a presence you can feel but always flee when you want to see it. A shadow in the shadow, just beyond your field of vision.

[Terisonen]

Cover's like Zimbabwe granit, thought.

[DavetheLost]

Now that we are talking about Moria and the Balrog, there is something that has always had me curious. Did the Balrog show up to confront the Fellowship just because Tolkien was using it to advance the story or did Tolkien theorize that the Balrog came out because it either sensed the power of Gandalf, or the power of his ring, inside the mine once it had been awoken? If the latter, even if we get any kind of stats for the Balrog, would it even bother with something as minor of a bother as a party of regular PCs?

Tolkien does not seem the sort of author who does things "just to advance the plot" or "just to show off a cool creation" so the balrog probably showed up for a reason.

It does not appear from the text that Balin's ill-fated mission encountered Durin's Bane. Gimli seems a bit taken aback that the legends are true,

Interestingly, both Aragorn and Gandalf had pssed through Moria before and neither had encountered the balrog, nor any sign of its presence.

My guess is that it was te influence of the One that stirred the balrog. Gandalf only sensed the power and presence of the balrog through the door of the Chamber of Records, and did not know what it was, only that its counter spell "nearly broke [him]".

In any case I do not believe that a Fellowship of adventurers would attract the attention of the balrog. Indeed if they were quiet and careful, and chose the right paths they might be able to also avoid orcs altogether.

[Stormcrow]

Tolkien does not seem the sort of author who does things "just to advance the plot" or "just to show off a cool creation" so the balrog probably showed up for a reason.

If you believe that, then you have not carefully read the History of the Lord of the Rings books. In the early stages of drafting, Tolkien had no idea whatsoever what his story was going to be about, and he threw in ideas randomly just to see if they would stick. Scary Black Rider shows up on a lonely road? Actually, that was originally going to be Gandalf, because Tolkien wanted something to happen but he didn't know what. Merry and Pippin finding Treebeard and setting in motion the downfall of Saruman? Originally some hobbits were going to be separated from the Fellowship in a wood and meet the evil giant Treebeard, because that would be an exciting, random adventure to have.

Tolkien's REAL genius is his ability to tie things together and retro-fit old ideas into new meanings. He can take a bunch of unrelated material and give it a coherent, consistent narrative, as if they had always meant to be that way.

But he's not perfect at it. One of the elements that slips through the cracks is the question of who exactly is hindering their passage of the Redhorn Gate. Maybe Caradhras the mountain spirit is part of it, but they also accuse Sauron of playing a part, and the crebain come from Saruman's stomping grounds though they're never explicitly linked to him. It's pretty clear that Tolkien himself added these threats in without clearly identifying who was behind them. He wanted to add exciting plot elements, and didn't get around later to clearly figuring out what they were all about.

Originally, the Balrog of Moria was going to be a big troll. As the story gained more and stronger connections to his Silmarillion legendarium, the troll was promoted to a balrog. Its motivations remain mostly unexplored. But it was, in origin, just a threat to throw at the Fellowship for the sake of an exciting story.

[Falenthal]

... it was, in origin, just a threat to throw at the Fellowship for the sake of an exciting story.

What we would call, "a very nasty Revelation episode".

[Majestic]

I was reading this book to my 4-year old:

in which the younger sister has an invisible friend, Soren Lorenson. In a few of the pictures there's a blank spot (e.g., in between the two sisters on the sofa) where Soren Lorenson is supposedly sitting.

My son claimed he could see the invisible friend and I kept nodding and saying, "Uh-huh..." but he kept pointing. Eventually I realized that he was in fact there, in a white that had a slightly different reflectivity from the rest of the page. You could only see him by angling the book to the light. Soooo cool.

I bet for a minute you were thinking your son was seeing something that wasn't there.