Do you mean Arda or Varda? Either way, they each have their own representations already: Varda sits on Mount Taniquetil with her husband Manwe, and Arda is, well, the earth itself. And there's no such thing as an "Erdu," there is only Eru, the One, whom the Elves call Illuvatar.

Bombadil's powers don't directly concern the earth....he loves growing things, to be sure, but his strength seems to stem from the fact that he knows all the old songs, the songs that told how everything was made and their entire destiny. He knows the song for Old Man Willow, he knows the song of the Barrow-Wight, and he is above and beyond the Ring. Whether this points to a Maia or an aspect of Eru, though, I can't be sure.

The Balrog could be pretty much anywhere that hasn't already been searched. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Oh, and there's at least one other Maia still in Middle-Earth: Shelob. (Whether or not she is a true Maia is debatable, but her mother Ungoliant certainly was.)

Ok, I've finished it. I basically said "to heck with it" and just created the Thac0 bonus EFF files, and included both the bonuses vs evil and vs extra-planar creatures.

I've done some minor testing. I created a pally, gave her Anduril and some good equipment in Chateau Irenicus, moved her to the nearby lightning room, and then cheated in various sorts of monsters and observed the to hit rolls and damage. There's no doubt that against different monsters, there's a different bonus than against other monsters. That said, BG2 doesn't provide enough onscreen info (i.e. a full breakdown of the various thac0 bonuses, AC, and damage bonuses) to be able to fully know if all of the thac0 and damage bonuses are completely working as intended.

But that said, the weapon was confering Bless and Protection from Evil (or at least the icons were showing up on the portait). I didn't remember to check to see if the CHA bonus was there.

And I don't know if the Vorpal ability was working. A 5% chance is pretty darned small it would take a while to accumulate enough attack rolls and hits to get a vorpal hit. That said, I implemented the Vorpal ability exactly like its implmented for the Silver Sword, except with a lower probability.

And I've written the WeiDU installation script. That's how I installed Anduril into BG2 for the test. The Item Description and Name show up properly, along with the appropriate BAM images.


ElfBane, PM me your e-mail address and I'll send you the ZIP file that contains the Anduril installation package.

It's a 238 KB file (nearly all of which is WeiDU, the scripting and installing utility; the actual game files are tiny).

[ 01-10-2005, 01:38 PM: Message edited by: Magness ]

Rangers and Paladins

Regarding Bombadil:
He is said to be the first and last of middle-earth. It seems clear that he is in himself a being. He is not a maia nor a Valar, as they would take interest in the affairs of the world, and Bombadil does not, nor is it likely that he would live in middle-earth. He could be another ainur, but then why come to middle earth?

It seems to me that it would be a reference to a mythological creature, contained within a legend of one of this world's cultures. Tolkein was a lover of mythology, the LOTR enable him to write his own and there exist other references to our myths.

Re: Balrogs
Why is such a detailed justification relevant, you are never going to be able to fuse two stories together, anyway it is irrelevant as the weapon is not to guarded by a monster. Balrogs don't have to live underground, this is just where Durin's Bane happened to be.

Any chance that i could get a copy of the finished sword please?

Re. Bombadil:

Enjoy a whole essay on the subject:

http://tolkien.slimy.com/essays/Bombadil1Intro.html

Six: Except Shelob got killed by Sam.

I doubt a Maiar would *willingly* live in ME. Sauron and Shelob had no choice. The Istari were sent there.

But hey, LotR is all about exceptions to the rule right? I don't see why Tom can't be one of those.

But you'd think that Gandalf would have some sort of personal knowledge of Tom if he really was a Maiar. That in itself can be construed as evidence that he isn't.

An interesting discussion really.

Sam did indeed defeat Shelob (a victory that even tops Turin vs. Glaurung, in my mind), but LotR implies that she survived, and even grew back the eye that he'd stabbed.

Middle-Earth is hardly a purgatory for naughty Ainur, Riftmaker. It's less glamorous and lofty than Valinor, to be sure, but plenty of the Valar and Maiar had reasons for being there. Orome went to ride and to hunt, Melkor and his followers went for dominion, the Istari went to provide guidance against the Enemy, and perhaps Tom went because he liked the quaintness of it.

Shamrock's link is quite interesting--to those who find that sort of thing interesting, of course. I personally hold that Tom was a Maia (or perhaps an unaffiliated Ainu), and Goldberry was a nature spirit (as she says, the daughter of the river Withywindle, thus likely making her either the child or grandchild of a Maia of Ulmo). Maia are known to breed with lesser creatures and produce viable offspring, although it is interesting that the only three such offspring mentioned by name are all female: Luthien, Goldberry, and Shelob.

That's quite interesting Six - the possibility that Shelob was a Maiar had never occurred to me (largely because Sam defeated her, even if with some indirect help from Elbereth).

The encyclopedia of Arda interestingly, even disputes the race of Ungoliant, claiming it is unknown. Are they just plain wrong in this case?

http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/u/ungoliant.html

[ 01-10-2005, 09:16 PM: Message edited by: shamrock_uk ]

That's one cool website.

I've always held that Ungoliant was a Maia because, really, at that point in time, what else could she be? True, Tolkien does describe a population of "monsters" in Middle-Earth during the Ages of Darkness....but if those monsters are neither Elves nor Men nor Dwarves nor Ents, and all the Valar are accounted for, then they were probably Maiar. Besides, I doubt any simple "monster" could have killed the Two Trees.

My mental jury is still out on whether an offspring of a Maia is considered a Maia. I'm inclined to say no, as Maia are pretty much immortal, and immortal beings cannot be born. And Luthien, though half Maiar, is always described as being an Elf.

I would agree with Six. Offspring of Maia are not Maiar. However, they usually have some "special" abilities not normally conveyed by their other half.

Luthien's magical song for instance.

This brings up the question of the relationship between Melkor and Ungoliant. I honestly don't believe that Melkor would "ally" himself with a lesser being, especially on equal terms. Melkor and Ungoliant were, basically, allies, and maybe even friends in some twisted way.

Of course this can all be related back to good ol' Tom. If Ungoliant isn't a Maia (which is entirely possible) just some dark, evil, evil monster, then what is Tom? We're using the same rule on both of them, the process of elimination. They aren't anything else, so they have to be Maia.

I can't think of any other creature that can be placed into this category. The origins of every other living thing are clearly defined in JRR's texts. This is very odd. If anyone else can come up with another critter other than Ungoliant and Tom that aren't defined at all, please post.