Well, I guess I can live with a few Easterlings
-- but I've got to keep banging the seduced Elf drum here:
There does seem to be something of a bias in the Downs toward Elves -- which is understandable, I suppose, seeing as they are pretty cool and the nearest and dearest things to Professor Tolkien's heart; but they are far
far FAR from perfect beings! Feanor himself -- he of the Silmarils -- led the Kinslaying for heaven's sake!! And Celebrimbor was so keen on making the Rings of Power that he didn't even notice that the person who was helping him to do so was Sauron. And let's not forget Galadriel who came pretty darn close to taking the Ring for herself when given the chance -- if we are simply to dismiss the idea out of hand that the Elves can be seduced by the forces of darkness, then we utterly undo the victory scored by Galadriel at that moment. If there's no 'real' danger of seduction by the Ring, then what's the big deal in her being able to resist it?
So if Galadriel can be threatened with seduction by the Ring of Power, then I don't see why a lesser Elf could not be threatened with seduction by a dark spirit. There's a big difference between seduction and corruption -- a good person can be seduced into doing something very bad of which they later repent (like Feanor). A good person can be seduced into doing something that they don't even know is bad (like Celebrimbor). A good person can be seduced to the point of thinking about doing something bad and then pulling back at the last moment (like Galadriel). It's even possible for a good person to be seduced into doing something evil and having to depend upon Providence to intervene and save him (like Frodo). In none of these instances has the good person been corrupted or rendered 'evil'.
And wait a minute! I just remembered orcs -- they were 'made' by Morgoth who took some captured elves and then, and I think I'm quoting here, "corrupted" them!!
It's precisely for this reason that I like LotR so much (now getting wildly off the topic of planning an rpg. . .) It's not a story of perfectly-unbelievable goodies (Boromir? Saruman? Denethor?)fighting utterly-unredeemable baddies (Gollum? The Haradrim that book-Sam/movie-Faramir speculates about?). There is good and evil, but EVERY character in the whole mythos of Middle-Earth is a moral agent who must make the choice between good and evil him- or herself. Sure it's probably extremely rare -- especially in the Third Age -- for an Elf to be seduced by evil, but if it were
impossible then wouldn't it have made a whole lot more sense to give the One Ring to Elrond or Glorfindel rather than leaving it to a hobbit??
As to the problem of how to write this sort of conflict -- I would think that it would be easy to do some very interesting things as two minds argue with one another, decieve one another, trick one another (Gollum-Smeagol comes to mind here. . .) Anyone who has even been seduced, or done some seducing, can attest to how interesting the whole process can be. . .
(I can see Durelin's point, though, about having two writers for a 'single' character (fea and host) -- it would be cool, but would probably introduce more difficulties than not. . .)
At any rate, I think I might have got that out of my system. To sum up:
1) I like the idea of Easterlings
2) I would really like to have some Houseless fea seducing some Elves (but I am happy to play the game without this element should people be dead-set against it)
3) I'm ambivalent to one group of Elves from Lorien versus two groups from Lorien and Mirkwood; whichever is going to work best in whatever scenario we end up with
4) I really like the 'happy ending' proposal by Durelin; the ceremony would be a good chance to wrap up the story lines I suspect
5) I don't like the idea of the spiders
6) I'm never going to be able to keep track of all this
7) I'm having fun