#moriquendi

[silmarillion-dnd]

Elvers:

Masterlist

Eldar:

Vanyar:

About: The Vanyar are the smallest host of Eldar, and were all blessed by Manwe who gave them gifts of poetry and song. All Vanyar have + 2 when using their voice, for singing or convincing others and advantage on Intelligence. They prefer to fight with spears and have white banners in battle. They are residents of Oiolossë and Valimar. They speak Sindarin (common) and Quenya (the Vanyar dialect). If they were born in Valinor they glow in the dark meaning enemies might spot them.

Description: The Vanyar all have golden hair.

Noldor:

About: The Noldor is the second host of the Eldar. Noldor means those who know, showing their thirst for knowledge. They are known for being the most skillful of the Eldar hosts and were loved by Aule, whom they learned from. Their most known skills include developing their language, building castles and towns, gem cutting, and smithing. They are also infamously known as being the proudest of the Elvers. They have advantage in Intelligence and Wisdom. As a Noldor you can be devoted to any of the Valar except Namo. They favor swords and shields above other weapons. They are residents of Tirion, Formenos, Nevrast, Hithlum, Gondolin, Nargothrond, Dorhonion, All East Beleriand, and Lindon (all over Beleriand these are just the most known of). They speak Sindarin (common) and Quenya. If they were born in Valinor they glow in the dark meaning enemies might spot them.

Description: The Noldor are known for their black (dark) and a few times red hair, and grey eyes. They are about 7 feet tall.

Teleri:

About: The Teleri is the third and largest host of the Eldar who moved to Valinor. They are known for their fair voices, which they were once named after. They have advantage in Intelligence and Charisma. They are residents of Alqualondë, Isle of Balar, Ossiriand, Doriath, Tol Eressëa, and Mithlond. They speak Sindarin (common), Quenya, Telerin, and Nandorin. If they were born in Valinor they glow in the dark meaning enemies might spot them.

Description: They are known for their mostly silver, and at times dark, hair, and some were said to have skin so pale it was described as white.

Falmari (Sub-Race of the Teleri): The Falmari were the Teleri who took the Great Journey into Beleriand and reached Valinor, and are known for their ships. They are residents of Alqualondë and Tol Eressëa. They speak Sindarin (common), Quenya, and Telerin.

Sindar (Sub-Race of the Teleri): The Sindar, also known as the grey Elvers are good singers, woodsmen, and shipbuilders. Their hair is usually dark. They are residents in Doriath, the Falas, and Nan Elmoth (all over Beleriand these are just the most known of). They speak Sindarin (common).

Nandor (Sub-Race of the Teleri): The Nandor is the Teleri who turned aside from the Great Journey to the Misty Mountains, they are described as having white skin, and dark or brown hair, and are great lovers of nature and animals in the dark and deep forests, and are a very secretive folk. They are called green Elvers. They are farmers out from their name Nandor which means farmer. They are residents of Lothlórien, as the first people there, Greenwood the Great (although that´s first mentioned in the second age, they where the first residents there so they probably where there in the first age too), Belfalas, Ithilien, might have been the first there, and Ethir Anduin, as the first people there. They speak Sindarin (common), Silvan Elvish, and Nandorin (their own language). If you play as a Nandor you automatically have an Elven Cloak (a cloak that can blend into any form of environment and gives you +3 on stealth).

Silvan (Sub-Race of the Nando): Silvan, also known as wood Elvers, are rivals to Dwarves, and descending of the Nandor who choose to live in the Vales of Anduin. They are residents of Lothlórien, Ithilien, Edhellond, Greenwood the Great, and Belfalas. They speak Sindarin (common) and Silvan Elvish (their own langue). If you play as a Silvan you automatically have an Elven Cloak (a cloak that can blend into any form of environment and gives you +3 on stealth).

Avari (Moriquendi): 

About: The Avari, or unwilling according to the Vanyar and Noldor, where the Elvers who refused to take the great journey. Some of them are said to know dark magic (following the letters and drafts it´s either song or rune magic (you can choose only one if playing an Avari)) and others where said to be corrupted by Morgoth or having turned savage in the wild, and their biggest rivals are said to be the Eldar. What is known about them is that they lived in tribes with unique and private cultures and rituals, some big others small, consisting of usually family, although only six tribes are mentioned; Kindi, Cuind, Hwenti, Windan, Kinn-lai, Penni. They are residents of Eriador, Rhûn, Taur-Im-Duinath, and the Vales of Anduin. They speak Sindarin (common) and various Avarin languages (their own languages).

Description: Nothing is said about how they look.

Pros: They have advantage in Dexterity, Constitution,  history, and arcane rolls. They have darkvision and can´t get sick, they are also immune to the spell sickness unless it´s a powerful Ainur who cast it.Cons: A lot of other races can be hostile against them, they are also hostile to each other, and a lot of the time won't want to make alliances. Elvers are also all stubborn, and usually convinced they are the only ones who are right. All Elvers take a quarter more damage in psychic attacks than other races.

[thelandswemadeofpaper]

Disliking an evil character that embodies a 'racist/sexist/xenophobic stereotype,' while acknowledging it was intentionally created like this, is another level of maturity.

[agentlawrencefassett]

A lil screencap of Adar - just because he's perfect.

[hobbitofgallifrey-art]

Avari

[whats-in-a-sentence]

The Sundering of the Elves

"The Silmarillion" - J.R.R. Tolkien

[eerieechos]

Morianar during the First Age, blissfully unaware of the war against Satan going down in Belariand

[caithyra]

Eöl, Aredhel and Noldorin Bias

While my opinions and theories on the Legendarium of Tolkien has always been mutable (particularly on Ungoliant and Tom Bombadil, those two are freakin’ enigmas and I’m coming around to them being the song [and discordance] of the song of the Valar creating the world at this point), there is literally only one opinion I have that has been set in stone since I first read the books: The Silmarillion was written with a Noldorin narrative bias (with some Sindarin bias sprinkled in to elevate them above Silvan/Avarin/Men/Dwarves <- in that order).

It is obvious in how it glosses over world-shattering events and the effects they have on the Noldor’s victims, and in how the Noldor are considered “higher” and “greater” than the native Elven population of the land they invade and take over (and the natives/dark elves/Moriquendi are judged on a scale on how similar they are to the Noldor/Calaquendi).

In the tale of Eöl and Aredhel, we have a particularly egregious case. Yes, I am aware that in earlier writings, Tolkien wanted it to be an unconsenting tale (until he realized that “oops, that means Aredhel dies instead of birthing my Judas character... Lets say she was conflicted and that it was complicated instead!”), but that’s even worse on a meta level, so we will take the “not wholly unwilling” stance that was actually published.

Like, is anyone not reminded of stories of a white lady (Aredhel’s nickname, btw) falling for a native/brown man while being from a white supremacist family, and marrying and having a kid with him, and then regretting it and taking the kid and running back home and telling everyone that she didn’t consent to it to make them forgive and take her back (or the family forces her to stay with her child after a visit and spread the “unconsensual” story to save face, and to survive in their clutches she falls back on how she was raised, and in the story it makes no sense how Eöl could bring a poisoned [elves do not use poisons, from what I can remember] javelin [large and of no use to someone like Eöl, who lives in a forest. Blades, bows and the like would be more in-line with some he would create] to stand in front of the paranoid king’s family. Also, Aredhel’s death is awfully close to an elf-lady whose husband has just been executed and then perished in grief, if no poisoned javelin was used... And we only have a Noldorin account that Aredhel died before Eöl, and Aredhel was noted to have pleaded for Eöl while dying... That could also be a tragic theory which could give Maeglin a very, very good reason to loathe Gondolin, no incest necessary except to villainize him by the narrative and whitewash the royalty of Gondolin...)? (Unfortunately for the lie/story, elves fade and die from unwilling relations, not become fertile and birthing children, so the narrative couldn’t say that Aredhel was wholly unwilling while having Maeglin). Especially with how her best friends are the most racist Noldor supremacists in the narrative (who even harass her husband for being a dark elf), and how she raised Maeglin into a Noldorin supremacist view.

Heck, she could have even convinced herself at first that Eöl was practically a Noldo, what with his close connection to a noble Calaquendi high elf (Elu Thingol), and being a master-smith, until it became clear that Eöl wanted nothing to do with the people who commits genocides against his own people and mistreats him (her best friends, lets remember, does this).

So the story, as written with a Noldorin bias, takes every opportunity to villainize Eöl (and then Maeglin who had to grow up trapped in a land of closed borders that considers half of him inferior), especially his desire to have his son back (and the narrative makes certain to say that he did not even name Maeglin for 12 years, except given how complex the few Elven naming traditions are that we know of that are Calaquendi in origin, and how we know nothing of Moriquendi naming practises before the Noldor showed up, it might be perfectly normal by Moriquendi/Avarin customs not to give a formal name until the twelfth year, especially as Moriquendi has to survive the Dark Lord, and his influences, without Valarin aid and Elves do not reuse names, so many children probably died before their twelfth year. Heck, it might even be considered a challenge to fate to name a child before they have survived for 12 years!), which is in stark contrast to the Noldorin Fëanorians (actual genocidial killers), whose loss is considered tragic and whose greatness wont ever be matched again...

[iminye]

Nuin || The Father of Speech

@tolkienocweek - day six forgotten characters

The wizard Túvo told Nuin that the sleepers he had found were the new children of Ilúvatar and that they were waiting for light. He forbade any of the elves to wake them or visit those places, being frightened of the wrath of Ilúvatar, but despite this Nuin went there often and watched, sitting on a rock. Once he stumbled against a sleeper, who stirred but did not wake. At last, overcome by curiosity, he awakened two, named Ermon and Elmir, they were dumb* and very much afraid but he taught them much of the Ilkorin tongue, for which reason he is called Nuin Father of Speech.

- JRR Tolkien, Book of Lost Tales

*dumb = without language, apparently the men woke without the concept of language and needed someone, in this case Nuin, to teach them.

Honestly Nuin is such a fascinating character to me and I just love the concept of him coming across the still sleeping children of men and that he, despite the fact that his king forbade him and his people to go to them, still went back to watch them. He must have been truly fascinated by the aspect of there being new children of Ilúvatar soon and that he would be able to interact with them. And when he wakes up Ermon and Elmir he realises that they need his help and he teaches them language.

I like to think that he took on a father-role for the earlier generations of men, which might be also because the first men awoke as literal children, not quite teenagers. Nuin must have felt very protective of them, in a way that he didn't just teach them how to speak but also how to hunt, build weapons and shelter - how to survive essentially and that he only stops doing so because he died in the end. This also pairs nicely with my headcanon of him having a wife and a child at some point who both died prior to these events.

Although he gets forgotten by history and doesn't even get the credit he deserves I like to think that Nuin remains a myth amongst men that somehow survived until the Third Age, maybe as a nursery rhyme?

The origin story of the secondborn in general is super fascinating and I really really want to explore this unknown time a lot more in the future.

Tolkien Gateway Article