Scarburg Meadhall Discussion Thread

[Nogrod]

Btw. It might be easier also to continue this discussion on this thread and start using the new one Pio opened a bit later when we are clearly in business of doing something for the new Mead Hall.

And following the nice and practical tradition, we could ask Pio to start the thread with the updated character bios & such.

What do you think?

[Folwren]

I like the idea of new storyline going into the new thread and stuff that happens during the 5-year leap going into the old thread. Just wanted to throw my 2 cents in.

I hope to get around to updating my character bios soon.

-- Folwren

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Nogrod

Btw. It might be easier also to continue this discussion on this thread and start using the new one Pio opened a bit later when we are clearly in business of doing something for the new Mead Hall.

And following the nice and practical tradition, we could ask Pio to start the thread with the updated character bios & such.

What do you think?

Sounds absolutely like a good idea to me. And for that matter, however, I think we could still technically put up something basic on the new thread soon, or as soon as we have e.g. at least decent idea about the starting conditions, in order to make it also possible for newly coming players to start thinking about their own stuff (what they want their characters to be like, how to introduce them and so on). But in any case, obviously now we have clear task before us (organizing our own character developments, updating bios, plus deciding on everything related to the shift), so that's good.

[littlemanpoet]

Who shall be Facilitator(s)?

[piosenniel]

Just an FYI for those of you talking about Fell Winters: There were two Fell Winters spoken of in Middle-earth - one in the First Age, the second in the Third Age. There was also a notable winter called The Long Winter, which especially hit Rohan in the Third Age.

See HERE

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by piosenniel

Just an FYI for those of you talking about Fell Winters: There were two Fell Winters spoken of in Middle-earth - one in the First Age, the second in the Third Age. There was also a notable winter called The Long Winter, which especially hit Rohan in the Third Age.

See HERE

I think we might anyway want to come up with a specific name for the winter in question, because we (and the characters) are certainly going to refer to it often. Of course, if it was just the previous winter, we could call it "the last winter" or something like that. Or it could be simply "the winter", and everyone from around Scarburg would know which winter they are talking about. (Just to be clear, I anyway presume that it was a local horrible winter, people somewhere in the Shire or Gondor might not have any idea what we are talking about, but I guess in 90% cases that is not our concern. Meteorologically speaking, the cold front from the East had stopped just short of the Misty and the White Mountains and the revolving precipitation combined with dramatic drop of temperature plagued our part of Rohan for a long period of time...)

I am updating my bio for Hilderinc right now, and posting the edit soon. By the way, I have reread a lot of the previous thread (at least things that were relevant to Hilderinc, because I wanted to re-check his character) and I have to say there was more than I expected... And fairly funny events we've had here, I'd say.

[littlemanpoet]

A few points about this harsh winter.

It's the Fourth Age, the age of humans. No dark lord is to blame for it.

There is no human caused reason for a harsh winter, the technology is not available.

It can only come about by natural causes.

Historically, harsh winters were caused by volcanic explosions. Krakatoa comes to mind; so, to my mind, and would have to be our template. If so, then the winter would not be limited to winter months, but would, depending upon the size of the volcanic eruption, last well into spring, maybe have started the previous summer, and could within reason last longer than a year.

Thus, starvation would be the killer, and frostbite might or might not be an issue. All that would be needed is for temperatures to remain below that necessary for crops to grow.

This means that the sun would be dimmed and ash would have filled the sky for long periods, and would rain down on everything.

If we want a truly harsh winter, this seems like the only way to have it happen. Otherwise, all we could really, reasonably conjecture would be a tough winter that would not entail frostbite, starvation, or anything severe.

The only alternative to this would be a mini-ice age, which lasts centuries; I don't think we want to go there.

[Nogrod]

Agreed on not wishing to have a mini ice-age... let's keep this within some boundaries.

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

Historically, harsh winters were caused by volcanic explosions. Krakatoa comes to mind; so, to my mind, and would have to be our template. If so, then the winter would not be limited to winter months, but would, depending upon the size of the volcanic eruption, last well into spring, maybe have started the previous summer, and could within reason last longer than a year.

Thus, starvation would be the killer, and frostbite might or might not be an issue. All that would be needed is for temperatures to remain below that necessary for crops to grow.

I'm fine with a volcanic eruption somewhere, but I do think we might get away from the cause of the hardship with even less dramatic events.

Like let's say the spring (one year before we start the writing) was just very late. This kind of things happen every now and then. And when people finally got into sowing there was a sudden "back-winter" like we call it here in Finland killing all the crops. So they'd have very thin supplies for the next winter (maybe they managed to grow little something during the late summer) - which would then turn out to be a lot more severe winters are normally. Also those things just happen to happen every now and then. I remember in late 80's there was a winter in Finland when the temperature stayed below -30C for over two months (-22F).

So the unhappy combination of frostbited crops in the summer and severe winter would produce enough hardship - people who are not well nourished tend to be weaker against extreme cold as well.

And they would have fex. needed to have made a dramatic decision whether to eat their (already very low supplies of) seed grain during the winter to survive...

[Folwren]

I just did a little research to see what needs to be added to our timeline.

It looks like Eodwine returned to Scarburg at the end of the December/early January.

Saeryn will have her delivery in May.

Nogrod, when do you think Athanar will leave the hall?

What other events need to go on the timeline? We could note Scyld's departure, just to have it there for future reference, if need be.

[piosenniel]

If you all are wishing for me to do a quick-link type of post on the new RPG Discussion thread (like this one in Scarburg Mead Hall Discussion thread) - please do make sure all your character edits go into your original character bio posts - links for the Scarburg players/characters are found HERE.

Any new character bios should be placed on the new, So Far Unnamed RPG Discussion Thread - HERE

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

I also think you let yourself overreact to the words "Fell winter", Lmp We are talking about awful winter in local parts of Rohan, or at most in the whole Rohan and, say, bits of Gondor. Really awful winter, but that happens and used to happen in our history just by very unfortunate combination of weather effects. Besides I daresay volcanic eruptions would be much more uncanonical than anything else we might conjure.

What Nog and especially G55 said was exactly what I was imagining (although Rohan I daresay can't be compared to Finland, but evil winters can come also elsewhere. I'd compare Rohan perhaps to Ukraine, lot of it actually is similar in terms of climate, vegetation, and surrounding biotopes, with perhaps the difference that Rohan is even more land-locked, which makes the climate less mild. Imagine, you get mostly eastern winds from the desert-ish lands beyond Anduin, and they get stopped by Misty Mountains, and if you get a dry summer and, by unfortunate accident, a very early dry frost, you're in for a bad start. Anyway, point being, a bad winter in such area is imaginable, and let us bear in mind we don't probably have amazingly extensive farming).

I'd actually be for G55s account being used as the real explanation, as that sums up a nice chain of events that might have caused the main problem: bad harvest, early frosts, some snowstorms for isolation, heŗe we go.

[Nogrod]

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

Who shall be Facilitator(s)?

I'd say it should be you lmp.

I'd be both ready and willing to take a rear-seat once again as my work seems to be a bit erratic or unpredictable aka. I might have shorter and also longer periods when I'm unable to contribute not to talk of taking care of things. That was one of the reasons I wished to write lord Athanar off from the story leaving myself only Stigend and (half of) Cnebba.

I might take something like a co-facilitator's role though, at least in the beginning as I kind of feel it to be my duty to help the new Hall getting started as smoothly as possible. Also, if you writers wish / agree on it, I might think of starting to develop those local lords and their stories, possibly then intertwining them with the future of the Mead Hall.

[piosenniel]

Originally Posted by Nogrod

I'd say it should be you lmp.

I'd be both ready and willing to take a rear-seat once again as my work seems to be a bit erratic or unpredictable aka. I might have shorter and also longer periods when I'm unable to contribute not to talk of taking care of things. That was one of the reasons I wished to write lord Athanar off from the story leaving myself only Stigend and (half of) Cnebba.

I might take something like a co-facilitator's role though, at least in the beginning as I kind of feel it to be my duty to help the new Hall getting started as smoothly as possible. Also, if you writers wish / agree on it, I might think of starting to develop those local lords and their stories, possibly then intertwining them with the future of the Mead Hall.

If you don't mind, I'm listing you as lmp's able assistant - that way, if I can't get hold of lmp for something, I can bounce it off of you. Does that sound alright?

[littlemanpoet]

Originally Posted by piosenniel

If you don't mind, I'm listing you as lmp's able assistant - that way, if I can't get hold of lmp for something, I can bounce it off of you. Does that sound alright?

I would like that.

[Nogrod]

Originally Posted by piosenniel

If you don't mind, I'm listing you as lmp's able assistant - that way, if I can't get hold of lmp for something, I can bounce it off of you. Does that sound alright?

That sounds good.

[Firefoot]

pio - I do intend to keep writing Leof so he can stay linked on the character list.

Lommy - I wonder if in the absence of his brother a more grown up Wilheard might start making friends with Leof? They are the same age at any rate, even if they differ quite significantly in temperament. Something top think about anyway...

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Leof onboard!!!! ~ pio