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Old 01-11-2013, 09:35 PM   #41
Johnny1A.2
 
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Default Re: Fourth Age of Middle Earth gaming

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Originally Posted by jason taylor View Post
As I said there is room for gaming. The problem is that the good guys are now the top dog and it gets to be more like "Kipling with spooks and spirits" then Tolkien.
Interesting comparison, because one of Kipling's recurrent worries was that the British Empire (and Western Civilization more generally) might be too strong to be destroyed from without, but that even so they could still decay from within, morally and spiritually, making their short-term physical power a moot point.

For an example, see: Recessional

For gamers with a taste for political and social storylines as well as combat, a Fourth Age setting could deal with the struggle to remind the peoples of the Reunited Kingdom, 200 or 300 or 400 years after the War of the Ring, of what it was all about and why, and that the Kingdom exists for reasons greater than maximizing profits or comfort or self-aggrandizement. Kipling would feel right at home.

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Whatever can be done, the new Numenorean empire can't be overthrown.
"This thing all things devours,
birds, beasts, trees, flowers,
gnaws iron, bites steel,
grinds hard stones to meal,
slays king, ruins town,
and beats high mountains down."


The Reunited Kingdom is by no means immortal.
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Old 01-12-2013, 02:07 AM   #42
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Default Re: Fourth Age of Middle Earth gaming

Or you can be the people of the East, fighting colonial aggression from the heirs of Elessar.
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Old 01-12-2013, 11:32 AM   #43
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Default Re: Fourth Age of Middle Earth gaming

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Or you can be the people of the East, fighting colonial aggression from the heirs of Elessar.
That would rule.


It might just be the similiarity of the names Variag and Varyag, but I like to imagine the Variags of Khand as a little bit like the Norse/Rus of Kiev.

Yes, I'm well aware that LotR is not a historical allegory. Tolkien might have had a certain vague similiarity in mind-- or maybe he just liked the sound of the word.
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Old 01-13-2013, 01:41 PM   #44
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That would rule.


It might just be the similiarity of the names Variag and Varyag, but I like to imagine the Variags of Khand as a little bit like the Norse/Rus of Kiev.

Yes, I'm well aware that LotR is not a historical allegory. Tolkien might have had a certain vague similiarity in mind-- or maybe he just liked the sound of the word.
It might lie halfway between, JRRT did visualize the world of the Third Age as being our world in an imaginary past. For ex, it always struck me as likely that in Tolkien's world, very ancient, pre-dynastic Egypt probably had considerable cultural influence from the Dunedain of Gondor and Umbar. It's in the right place, more-or-less, since Gondor and Mordor are probably under what is now the Mediterranean Sea, and there are some similarities.
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Old 01-13-2013, 03:30 PM   #45
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Default Re: Fourth Age of Middle Earth gaming

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It might lie halfway between, JRRT did visualize the world of the Third Age as being our world in an imaginary past.
Yes, and that's true even before LotR. The Hobbit opens with a discussion of how hobbits are now rare and seldom spotted, which implies "this is in the past when hobbits were more common and less hidden from Big Folk." And his elven mythologies and epics were implied to be in the remote past even when they stood entirely on their own and had not gotten tangled up with hobbits.

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Old 01-13-2013, 04:16 PM   #46
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Default Re: Fourth Age of Middle Earth gaming

I wonder how long ago Middle-Earth was supposed to have been?
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Old 01-13-2013, 04:59 PM   #47
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I wonder how long ago Middle-Earth was supposed to have been?
I would guess that the world is catastrophically rearranged again, about six thousand years ago.
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Old 01-13-2013, 05:08 PM   #48
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Default Re: Fourth Age of Middle Earth gaming

doesn't seem long enough. it doesn't explain what happened to the horses,either.
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Old 01-13-2013, 05:08 PM   #49
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I wonder how long ago Middle-Earth was supposed to have been?
I'd say ''a long time'' and leave it at that. I don't think a numerical figure is meaningful or necessary. Middle Earth exists in 'mythic time', not on a historical timeline.

But that's just IMO.
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Old 01-13-2013, 05:39 PM   #50
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I'd say ''a long time'' and leave it at that. I don't think a numerical figure is meaningful or necessary. Middle Earth exists in 'mythic time', not on a historical timeline.
On the contrary, the change from mythic time to historic time takes place in the history of Middle-Earth itself, with the downfall of Numenor. Elvenhome was removed from the circles of the world; in the same way, the memory of the Elder Days was taken away, leaving only Bilbo's translations from the Elvish.

Bill Stoddard
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