Scarburg Meadhall Discussion Thread

[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]

Anything you want to know about different kinds of winters and phenomena they might bring forward, just ask a Russian or a Finn...

What g55 said actuallly got me into thinking. Let's say the heavens give 1½ to 2 meters of snow. So without engine-powered modern snowplows it would be basically impossible to get anywhere, well at least without skis or snowshoes.

If the woods were something like less than a mile away it might be possible - with a couple of days of hard labor - to shovel a path and get fresh wood (which actually is pretty bad for burning: normally you'd have to dry the wood after cutting it for a year or two before using it, but the supplies of dry wood would most certainly run short).

But to shovel a riding path farther away in freezing cold and under-nourished... probably not: especially after the snow packs tightly into a snowdrift.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Nogrod

Anything you want to know about different kinds of winters and phenomena they might bring forward, just ask a Russian or a Finn...

What g55 said actuallly got me into thinking. Let's say the heavens give 1½ to 2 meters of snow. So without engine-powered modern snowplows it would be basically impossible to get anywhere, well at least without skis or snowshoes.

If the woods were something like less than a mile away it might be possible - with a couple of days of hard labor - to shovel a path and get fresh wood (which actually is pretty bad for burning: normally you'd have to dry the wood after cutting it for a year or two before using it, but the supplies of dry wood would most certainly run short).

But to shovel a riding path farther away in freezing cold and under-nourished... probably not: especially after the snow packs tightly into a snowdrift.

Yes, basically I think what we are looking for is snowdrifts isolating the local area for a while, and once you can't use carriages and horses to transport the necessary supplies (which is fairly easy to happen), then you are in a bad enough condition.

And Pio, yes, I think that's more or less what we are looking at right now. I am not sure if somebody had mentioned some previous players still being possibly interested in showing up?

[piosenniel]

If any former Meadhall players express interest, I'll be sure to put them on the list...

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

I updated my bio for Hilderinc, so now I can start focusing on all the other things that need adressing. Well, after I get some sleep, that is

[littlemanpoet]

I'll adjust my thinking to simply a bad winter in Rohan (Tolkien said that Rohan is about the same latitude and climate as France, I believe).

I'll facilitate.

With Ginna either gone or a NPC, I will probably let the two blacksmiths pretty much be passive, slipping toward NPC. I think I'd like to start by concentrating my energies with Eodwine and Rowenna. That's enough. Falco is back in the Shire.

If anything is needed from me, let me know.

[piosenniel]

So, just for my sense of direction, is this the Player/Character List we're looking at for now:

Players with their probable characters for this RPG - with XX's designating characters who won't be played from the Meadhall

Firefoot –
Scyld (aka Nydfara)
Léofric
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Folwren -
Saeryn - Eodwine’s wife
Eoghan and Ruari - Saeryn and Eodwine's twins
Thornden
Javan
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Galadriel55 –
Ledwyn and her son Theolain (Theolain – most likely going to perish)
(?)NPC or (?)
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Legate of Amon Lanc –
Hilderinc
NPC Áforglaed+wife
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littlemanpoet –
Eodwine (First Eorl of the Meadhall)
Rowenna (Wenna)

Harreld Smith - possibly an NPC
Garreth Smith - possibly and NPC

XX Master Falco Boffin - has gone back to the Shire
XX Laerdil (Elf) - won't be around. He's probably over the sea by now.
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Nogrod –
Stigend – will be occasionally mentioned/brought in by another character
Cnebba - with Thinlómien
NPC one of Athanar’s soldiers (?) or (?)

XX Athanar – off on an away adventure with Durelin’s ‘Coenred (Coen)’
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Thinlómien --
Wilheard - (now with added trauma; and probably also completed soldier training - he was only 17 and now he's going to be 20 or 22)
Modtryth - possibly as a secondary character
Cnebba - with Nogrod

XX Wulfric – will not be played in this game

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Use this short Character Bio form, please…

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[Nogrod]

Thanks Pio, I think that looks something like it should, with some questionmarks maybe added at this point.

Another thing then is that we have some quite central / visible figures who were either written by someone in our last installment (like Kath's characters) or who were co-written by others (like Garstan and his kids). We should come up with what to do with them (unless the original writers turn up, that is) aka. which ones are going to die or disappear and which will be continued to be written by others.

Anyone doing a kind of update-reading these days (like Legate told he had been doing) might do well to pick up the names of other minor characters we have invented there as it is nicer to use some already defined (or at least named) characters as possible NPC's than go and invent new people every time you need one.

I was thinking about people like this old Raban who was to teach Javan how to make a chain mail as a punishment, or some named soldiers from both Eodwine's and Athanar's troops etc.