The Fellowship of the Fourth Age: A New Beginning Planning Thread

[Child of the 7th Age]

Aiwendil's profile is in the proposal box. It is gargantuan, and I will try and edit/hack tonight. But the poor fellow has a real history that I felt compelled to include.

Aiwendil breaks all the rules for characters but that is because of who he is. He really did have a staff and the ability to change shapes. However, since he is a modest fellow who tends to shrink from responsibility and Manwe has instructed the Istari to remain low key, I do not think he will use these powers very often, at least not in public.

Pio - thread name looks good!

[piosenniel]

Lovely!

re: Orcs

I think the bases of those two arms of the mountain ranges that nearly cut off Gorgoroth from Nurn could sustain huntable animals - some small wily mountain goats, wild pigs in the scrubby growths of the foorhills, near the water sources. And yes - they would love to raid the gardens and fields. There might even be the occasional small hunting cat.

I do think that perhaps there would be tasty lizards and rodents of some sort available. The Orcs could keep guinea pig like animals, too, as a source of meat.

[Child of the 7th Age]

Tasty lizards and rodents....yum! Those dainties sound like the type of dish that could get to be a favorite in the absence of human flesh.

Guinea pigs?? Please. I once had a cavy who won first prize at the state fair. No orc is going to get his hands on him.

[piosenniel]

Now, now - about guinea pigs:

Originally Posted by Wikipedia

Guinea pigs, or cuy, cuye, curí, were originally domesticated for their meat in the Andes.

As food, the guinea pig is described as a combination of rabbit and the dark meat on chicken, though in colour, taste, and the fineness of bones the gourmet will be reminded of quail. It is high in protein (21%) and low in fat (8%). Due to the fact that they require much less room than traditional livestock and reproduce extremely quickly when compared to traditional stock animals, they can be raised as a source of food in an urban environment—unlike most western livestock animals.

To this day, cuyes continue to be a major part of the diet in Peru and Bolivia, particularly in the Andes Mountains highlands, where they are an important source of protein and a mainstay of Andean folk medicine. Peruvians consume an estimated 65 million Guinea pigs each year, and the animal is so entrenched in the culture that one famous painting of the Last Supper in the main cathedral in Cusco, Peru shows Christ and the twelve disciples dining on guinea pig.

Guinea pigs are also consumed in Ecuador, mainly in the Sierra region of the country, but are not depended upon as a staple source of protein.

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A question on the character list:

What is the difference between an Ex-slave character and a slave escapee character. I'm too tired to look for it at present.

~*~ Pio

[Child of the 7th Age]

A slave escapee is one of the group of 50 people who just escaped from the plantation and have run down to the river to hide in the caves.

An ex-slave is one of a group of about 15 people who escaped from a plantation some time ago. They have already been hiding in the caves for a while, but their numbers have been severely decimated by frequent Orc attacks. They are the ones who advise the slave escapees that it is not wise to stay in the area, and they must all find someplace to go.

The two slave groups will be posting together from the beginning of the RPG so there's no problem about that. The second post of the game will be the meeting of the slaves and ex-slaves with the members of the Fellowship. (We will obviously skip over the journey, either with a few words or in a single post.) The group that will be posting on its own at the beginning is the Orcs, which is why I am concerned they have some steady writers.

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Lizards and rodents are fine but I draw the line at guinea pigs. And if anyone takes a swipe at my cat, he will surely die......

[piosenniel]

But . . . guinea pigs are rodents . . . well, ok - we won't call them "guinea pigs".

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And did we decide the slaves would be Men only or a mixture of men and Elves?

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Here, kitty, kitty, kitty . . .

[Child of the 7th Age]

We had only discussed Men as slaves.... That's generally what we were thinking of. However, if someone was dying to play a slave who was an Elf (perhaps even as a minor character), ad we had enough posters in the other roles, I personally would not have a problem with that. But Durelin and I have never discussed this.