[Amanaduial the archer]

Here are a few of the original things bandied about in the PMs between myself and Durelin (I don’t have some of the things, as they are on PMs I sent to her, and I therefore don’t have direct quotes etc):

The original story plan along with a little extra from a further PM:

The War of the Ring was battled on countless fronts across Middle-Earth, not only on the Field of Pelennor or the slopes of Mount Doom. One such front, small in comparison to other lands, and with its past greatness quickly fading into legend and myth, is the Elven realm of Lorien. The power of Nenya, one of the Three Rings, that dwells within can only protect it from so much darkness. Orcs come from the Misty Mountains in almost constant waves, drawing closer and closer to penetrating the inner patrolled borders of the forest.

The patrols on the outer borders are slaughtered, and the orcs that remain, a small number in comparison to the beginning force, wait for reinforcements before they push on to the inner borders. As there has been no word from the outer patrols, a scout troop is sent to discover what has made the patrols so silent.

To let you know a little bit about where I'm considering going with this...Well, I was told of an alliance made between the elves of Lorien and Mirkwood, marching against the orcs supposedly on March 30 during the War of the Ring, and this opens up many possibilities which I had not considered before.

I had considered…the scout troop finding the orc army already on the move. For some reason (a. it's too late, b. they can't find a way to get past the army), they cannot go back to warn the inner defences of the forest. And from there....they could call on the aid of Thranduil. There are so many options. We could even…go earlier in the defences, before Frodo even leaves the Shire, for instance.

I do like this idea, and what you have made of it, but I am not entirely sure about using the ‘Houseless’ to possess the elves; it seems a little too X-files rather than Middle Earth. However, as it seems to be a popular idea, and if we could make it work, it could probably prove to be quite interesting.

Just a question: would the Houseless be travelling alone? How would they appear to other elves when they did not have bodies?

It leads onto issue though: character types. We could, of course, keep purely with elves, and this way we already have several different viewpoints. However, what about the bad characters? (I’m getting around to how it joins on, don’t worry ) If we wished to expand, we could have orcs played – or humans. The easterlings were known to join the orcs, and to have some of these Haradrim played would increase the diversity of the game, meaning there were the good elven viewpoints, the viewpoints of the ‘evil’, or enslaved, elves possessed by the Houseless, and, instead of the straightforwardly and almost automatically twisted, brutal and almost beast-like natures of the orcs, you could also have the viewpoint of the humans, on the side of the orcs but not necessarily ‘evil’ so to speak. What do you think?

Now, the link I mentioned:

They can inhabit the bodies of others (And I am assuming Tolkien meant other Elf bodies, though this is not specified) in one of two ways, according to Tolkien:

They either try to drive out the other fëa and take over the body, or they plead for shelter from the other person and if it's granted, they overwhelm the other fëa and enslave both it and the body that houses the fëa.

I am supposing here that they would have the 'look fair, feel foul' air about them to other Elves.

Do you think it would be possible that the Houseless, if they weren’t able to find a suitable ‘host’ elf, for whatever reason, would take over the bodies of the Haradrim? This could also enable some rather interesting twists: these elves would have hundreds of years experience, and would probably even be enable to manipulate the orcs and other easterlings; the chances are that the orcs, and even the humans, would not be able to notice so easily the difference, to identify the ‘look fair, feel foul’ air that the elves would have when they encountered elves taken by the Houseless. Only those very close to the taken easterling/easterlings would know something was different with him/her/them – for example, a brother.

Now, to address a few points you made here, Roa:

[quote] For an example, though we could keep it if you like, we could start with the parties being comissioned.[/quote

There are numerous games already starting in this exact same way – for example, Search for the Lost Messenger, Kidnapped!, Roll Out the Barrels, to name just a few that actually start with elves (the first two actually start in Lorien). I think therefore we might just skip to when they are setting off from Lorien to Mirkwood – there can be references in private thought or in conversation maybe to their sending off, if players wish, and certainly references to the reason: there would be a leader of two of the group, and they would probably feel inclined to make some suitably dramatic and rousing speech in which, hopefully, he(/she - if they were going to Mirkwood to ask for Thranduil's help, rather than purely as a warrior force, I don't see that there is any reason why there could not also be female elves as well) would outline the brief idea of their purpose (just for those who were flicking elastic bands and flirting with the person next to them in the meeting Ok, ok...). But I don't really see that there is a particular need to go through the whole largely pointless and a little samey stage of 'commision', especially as they would be commisioned by NPCs in this case, Galadriel and Celeborn.

The Lorien Elves could find the possessed Elves, and bring them into their party. Then a series of murders and/or attacks could take place. Also, the possessed elves could work as spies in the group. Of course this would only work for so long until the lorien elves figured it out.

This does not fit really with the idea that the Houseless elves would someone have a different, and maybe slightly evil, air about them to other elves. Would we be keeping with this idea, or shall we drop it? I like that concept, it would make the Houseless somehow different, but certainly, as Roa has said, to have them really seeming the same as others could lead to some interesting twists and consequences, such as the spying and attacks Roa mentioned.

What do you think of these ideas? Please bear with my horrifically long sentences and try to make some sense of them