Ashes of Embers has been released!

[Annatar]

In the hobbit they were referred as ''Earth Men'' IIRC, a greater and more bulkier form of Orcs.

The in Lotr seen Orcs are mostly Uruk-Hai (Uruks/Hobgoblins), the more advanced version of the Orcs.. they could withstand the hellish face of the Sun (for orcs a great burden)

In the Moria Mountain, there were the smaller races of orcs (goblins)... there are many species and evolved states of Orcs and Goblins (though they are all of the same origin and life-line, but they adept to there home ground and atmosphere)

Saruman and Sauron used an advanced version of the Orcs, the Uruk-Hai and the greater Goblin kinds (the lackeys seen in Sarumans tower, Orthanc)

[Malthaussen]

Just a couple of points...

JRR seems to use "goblins" and "orcs" interchangeably in his books. IIRC, he doesn't use "orc" much in The Hobbit, and doesn't use goblin much in LOTR. The Uruk-Hai would appear, from the text, to be a mixture of man/orc created by Saruman. This mixture accounted for their relative immunity to the sun's rays. It does appear that Sauron has some tougher orcs, also, although Saruman's are superior. Both seem to be tougher and nastier than your run of the mill mountain goblins, however.

Maybe the difference lies in the original elf kindreds Morgoth corrupted into orcs/goblins. Who knows what JRR had in mind?

Note that in the Final Battle, JRR has Sauron muster some "Olog Hai," which are trolls who don't turn to stone in sunlight. It would appear that "Hai," in this context, means something like "improved version." [img]smile.gif[/img]

As for the cleric thing, clerics were forbidden in the original D&D rules to use anything other than blunt instruments for play balance and nothing else. Gygax rationalized this arbitrary decision by saying it was because clerics were "forbidden to draw blood." Obviously, Gygax never saw somebody's head crushed with a blunt instrument... I always thought the restriction was cheesy, and in my campaign clerics have always been restricted to weapons sanctioned by their god's ethos.

Multiclass humans doesn't quite render half elves useless, as they do have a number of useful advantages over the pure bloods. This is another traditional restriction that never seemed to make much sense to me. Of course, if you pick up a copy of the original D&D rules, you'll discover that the non-human races were incredibly restricted compared to pure humans, so I guess the TSR folks decided (arbitrarily) to restrict humans from multi-classing in pursuit of the ever-elusive "play balance."

-- Mal

[Annatar]

Originally posted by Malthaussen: Just a couple of points... JRR seems to use "goblins" and "orcs" interchangeably in his books. IIRC, he doesn't use "orc" much in The Hobbit, and doesn't use goblin much in LOTR. The Uruk-Hai would appear, from the text, to be a mixture of man/orc created by Saruman. This mixture accounted for their relative immunity to the sun's rays. It does appear that Sauron has some tougher orcs, also, although Saruman's are superior. Both seem to be tougher and nastier than your run of the mill mountain goblins, however. Maybe the difference lies in the original elf kindreds Morgoth corrupted into orcs/goblins. Who knows what JRR had in mind? Note that in the Final Battle, JRR has Sauron muster some "Olog Hai," which are trolls who don't turn to stone in sunlight. It would appear that "Hai," in this context, means something like "improved version." [img]smile.gif[/img] -- Mal

The true meaning of Uruk-Hai in Mordors Langauge (Black Speech) is Orc-People, Hai means People (seen as a improvement, for they can withhold the face of the sun.. just like the Olog-Hai in the final battle).

They were first seen in the Mordor, later in Isengard... they are former elfs that were corrupted by Sauron in the Second Era, mutilated and filled with Saurons anger and hate towards the elvish kind.. transferring those feelings, they got corrupted.

Its indeed true that Tolkien hardly uses the word ''Orc'' in the hobbit but uses more the '''Goblin'' word, also because the inhabitants of the Orc/Goblin Mountain were seen as ''Spirits said to dwell in mines'' (the true meaning of Goblin/Kobald), the mountain consisted out of tunnels and mines (just like the Moria Mountain/Mines).

Uruk-Hai is frequently used in the Lotr serie because both Sauron and Saruman use the corrupted dark elves for their twisted battle to gain control over middle-earth, goblins are only mentioned in the first book of the Lotr Serie (The Fellowship) and that is in the Moria mines.

[ 05-01-2003, 02:15 PM: Message edited by: Annatar ]

[Russ]

Nice!

Scale and banded armours are way overdue. Cool.

For you Tolkien fanatics, the cosmology behind all the different monsters is much more complex than this thread would really allow... but real basically, Gandalf is more akin to some kind of Angel (in fact, given Tolkien's cosmology, which is as Catholic as it gets for his era of fantasy, he IS an angel) than to any mortal wizard class... if anybody's really serious, email me at russnanna@yahoo.com, and I'll let my wife the tolkien fanatic give you more info than you really will ever need...

scale armour... cool....

Russ
(1/2 of the medieval milhist/absurdly overTolkiened Mitchell household...)

[Annatar]

You can probably say that Gandalf was an Angel, he was one of the Istari (Wise Ones/Wise Wizards) and a Maia of Manwë and Varda.

But we weren't really talking about Gandalf weren't we? [img]tongue.gif[/img]

Don't we just love Tolkiens work [img]smile.gif[/img]

[add] Tolkien used the term ''Wizard'' only for those of the Istari, not in the context of ''spell caster'' but in the term ''wise one'' and ''chosen''

[ 05-01-2003, 03:00 PM: Message edited by: Annatar ]

[Ghreyfain]

First off, I would like to say how cool, intelligent, and non-flamey the posters here seem to be (except for the small matter of hijacking my thread with Tolkien stuff [img]tongue.gif[/img] ).

A mage wielding a two-handed sword is still as ineffectual as when he was wielidng his dagger, except that rare hit will actually kill a wolf or gibberling or something. Hehe.

A cleric may not wield swords due to his ethos/ethics, but that's up to the player to decide, not the rules in my opinion.

But here's the quote I like the most: "There is ultimately no correct or incorrect way to RP. The idea is to release your imagination not burden it with excessive rules. Rules are made to be broken. If you don’t wish to use the mod then don’t." - IronDragon

You hit the nail on the head right there. If you don't like a specific component, don't install it. It's as simple as that.

And thanks for all the encouragement and insightful critiques, everybody.

One last thing, if you'd like to be amused and see what a flamey criticism thread looks like, go here: http://s3.cgi.gamefaqs.com/boards/ge...&topic=7775065 (Which, at the time of this posting, is actually down because of problems at GameFAQs, but it should be up some time in the future.)

[ 05-02-2003, 01:44 AM: Message edited by: Ghreyfain ]

[Trau]

I can't wait to try it!

[LennonCook]

Originally posted by Ghreyfain: One last thing, if you'd like to be amused and see what a flamey criticism thread looks like, go here: http://s3.cgi.gamefaqs.com/boards/ge...&topic=7775065

I see what you mean... GameFAQs must have some lax administration...

[Xero279]

Originally posted by Ghreyfain: But here's the quote I like the most: "There is ultimately no correct or incorrect way to RP. The idea is to release your imagination not burden it with excessive rules. Rules are made to be broken. If you don’t wish to use the mod then don’t." - IronDragon You hit the nail on the head right there. If you don't like a specific component, don't install it. It's as simple as that.

EXACTLY! It's up to you to roleplay. Ghreyfain was just helping us out by developing a mod that gives us more possibilities to roleplay with.

Xero