Lord of the Rings Elven Racial Template

[Gavynn]

Originally Posted by Agemegos

I think you want a separate 'Calaquenda' lens for individuals who, regardless of race, 'came into Aman in the days of the Two Trees'. (There is some indication that such individuals literally glow, and can be seen to do so in the dark, eg. Frodo's encounter with Gildor in Book I chapter 3.)

and from another thread...

Originally Posted by LoneWolf23k

A good exemple could be to have most elven clothing enchanted with Soilproof, thus making them unnaturally clean-looking even under the worst conditions. Of course, there's also the fact that Tolkien Elves seemed to Glow in the Night.. I suppose Continual Light at the Moonglow level might work for this..

Would someone mind pointing me to the Continual Light ability? It may not be in the books that I own. Is this the appropriete way to model a creature that emits light?

Thanks

[Kelly Pedersen]

Originally Posted by Agemegos

[snip] it is worth noting that the names of th descendants of Finwë were revised after this was written: he was claiming descent from the character named as Fingolfin in The Silmarillion, not his son Finrod Felagund.

Actually, Finrod Felagund was the son of Finarfin, at least according to the Silmarillion, and Finarfin was the brother of Fingolfin.

[Kelly Pedersen]

Originally Posted by Agemegos

Fair enough, I got the sons of Finwë muddled. Point is that Gildor was not claiming descent from Finrod but from his father. He is not supposed to be the rightful High King of the Noldor.

True enough. Mind you, I'm not sure Gildor was actually claiming descent from Finrod (or Finarfin) at all - "of the House of Finrod" could simply mean that Gildor's familiy was one of those who had sworn loyalty to Finarfin, rather than one of the other sons of Finwe.

[Gavynn]

Originally Posted by Agemegos

I was referring in particular to The Fellowship of the Ring, Book One, chapter 3, where Frodo, Sam, and Pippin first see Gildor and his company. "They passed slowly, and the hobbits could see the starlight glimmering in their hair and in their eyes. They bore no lights, yet as they walked a shimmer, like the light of the Moon above the rim of the hills before it rises, seemed to fall about their feet."

Thank you very much. I was actually looking for a reference to the GURPs ability though. LoneWolf23k spoke of "Continual Light at the Moonglow level" as if it were a GURPS ability somewhere I could reference, but I cannot find it to reference its mechanics and its point cost. Could it be in Bio-Tech? I have not ordered it yet? Maybe this elven ability could be built on some kind of bioluminescence, but I do not see that in the GURPS books I own either. Does anyone have a reference for an appropriate ability in a GURPS book?

Thanks again!

[Mercator]

Originally Posted by Gavynn

I was actually looking for a reference to the GURPs ability though.

I'd say a Perk at most. The glow of the Calaquendi looks more like a poetic device to show their "exalted" nature than like a literal light ability with precise effects. Maybe they get 1-point benefits comparable to Shtick or Honest Face (I recall that humans instinctively trusted friendly Calaquendi because they were attracted to the light), but nothing more.

Maybe the glow terrorizes evil creatures (especially orcs) as well; that would be likely Terror (only against servants of the Dark Lord). Or maybe the True Faith (Turning) in your templates apply only to those that have the Light of Aman in their eyes . . .

Hope this helps,

M.

[Gavynn]

But if it is an actual glow they have, and they cannot turn it off, it would make it harder for them to hide and such...

[Mercator]

Originally Posted by Gavynn

But if it is an actual glow they have, and they cannot turn it off, it would make it harder for them to hide and such...

In the books, they never seem to have problems to hide because of the glow; whole caravans of Elves travelled through the forests of the Middle-Earth to the Grey Havens without anybody seeing or hearing them.

I Interpret the light of Aman as being too faint to see unless you know what to look for, and even the only if the Elf in question wants to be seen. In short, a poetic metaphor; unrealistic but very beautiful and inspiring. I'd wouldn't take it very literally.

By the way, Gavynn: great work with all the templates. Do you have acess to ICE's Middle-Earth Role Playing game? It has descriptions and racial rules for all the races and sub-races of elves, humans and orcs. They should be very easy to convert to GURPS. I don't have my book with me at the moment, so I can't give you specific details, but if you are serious about converting LOTR to GURPS and can find a cheap one at eBay, it would help you a lot. And the (very generic and rules-light) supplements are just beautiful. Get as many as you can ;-)

Cheers,
M.

[Gavynn]

Originally Posted by Mercator

In the books, they never seem to have problems to hide because of the glow; whole caravans of Elves travelled through the forests of the Middle-Earth to the Grey Havens without anybody seeing or hearing them.

I Interpret the light of Aman as being too faint to see unless you know what to look for, and even the only if the Elf in question wants to be seen. In short, a poetic metaphor; unrealistic but very beautiful and inspiring. I'd wouldn't take it very literally.

True. It might could just me modeled as a perk. And possibly something the elf did have control over. Sometimes they radiate a soft and unnoticeable glow and sometimes something brighter. Maybe brighter when they are trying to intimidate their enemies or inspire their friends. But this might just me made a feature about why they have their bonuses to those checks, rather than a reason to increase the bonuses. Either way, I might say that even the brightest glow might be barely visible in direct sunlight. More of an evening/night thing to me.

Originally Posted by Mercator

By the way, Gavynn: great work with all the templates. Do you have acess to ICE's Middle-Earth Role Playing game? It has descriptions and racial rules for all the races and sub-races of elves, humans and orcs. They should be very easy to convert to GURPS. I don't have my book with me at the moment, so I can't give you specific details, but if you are serious about converting LOTR to GURPS and can find a cheap one at eBay, it would help you a lot. And the (very generic and rules-light) supplements are just beautiful. Get as many as you can ;-)

Thank you for the compliment. I got into MERP with second edition and have most of the second ed books at my fingertips. I also have all of the Decipher LotR RPG books that came out a few years ago and then dried up when Decipher did - well, whatever it is doing. But GURPS is my favourite system, and I have wanted to do something like this for a while.

My intention is basically to put together a LotR supplement to run my games - a trilogy (of course) that I am going to write up and put online as well (as a GM document). The game will start during the WotR time, and the second installment will start in the Fourth Age. Since you are familiar with MERP, have you read Palantir Quest? That is going to be the second part of my trilogy, but I am going to expensively rewrite it to be more Tolkien and less D&D like I felt it strayed at more than a few points.

[Kelly Pedersen]

Originally Posted by Agemegos

Possibly, although I would expect Tolkien to use 'household' in that sense. He was a stickler for distinctions like that.

An excellent point.

Originally Posted by Agemegos

He didn't actually mean that the character was a descendant of Inglor son of Finrod (after subsequent revisions Finrod son of Finarfin), a character who was at that stage of his conception in a separate work.

Heh. In any case, if we're using the Silmarillion as canon, Finrod doesn't have any descendants. Or, at least, none that he had before or during the Exile. Of course, he was re-embodied, so I suppose he could have married his Vanyar sweetheart, and had a kid or two, who later emmigrated.

Originally Posted by Agemegos

Let me tell you, the Názgûl were right to run from Glorfindel (in Tolkien's revised concept of him). This was an elf who had killed a balrog in hand to hand combat. He was killed in the process, it is true: but after a while he decided that being dead was a waste of time, resurrected himself, and walked back from the afterlife. This is not somebody that anyone takes lightly. Anyone short of Sauron himself says 'Aiee! It's Glorfindel!'

'Tis true. Frankly, I suspect that if Glorfindel had been at Moria with the Fellowship, it would have been the Balrog running, not the heros...

[JAW]

Originally Posted by Gavynn

True. It might could just me modeled as a perk. And possibly something the elf did have control over. Sometimes they radiate a soft and unnoticeable glow and sometimes something brighter. Maybe brighter when they are trying to intimidate their enemies or inspire their friends. But this might just me made a feature about why they have their bonuses to those checks, rather than a reason to increase the bonuses. Either way, I might say that even the brightest glow might be barely visible in direct sunlight. More of an evening/night thing to me.

Well this sounds like several points of charisma to me. The glow might be totally unphysical - ie not actual photons but sort of illusion created in obserwers mind.