Wilderness, Weathertop, and Wild Things Discussion Thread

[Kransha]

Oy, my RPG post requires a manual to understand..

The title of my post is the impromptu name I thought up for the battle: The Battle of Teryggond. Teryggond is Sindarin; Teryg (Troll Pl.) + gond (stone, i.e. Gondor). So, Teryggond technically means "Stone Trolls," and the skirmish can be considered, "The Battle of the Stone Trolls." I can only hope that the title is accurate linquistically. If someone/anyone would prefer it not be in Sindarin, I'll oblige, but the name translated into Elvish has a very eloquent nature, in my most humble opinion, thus my use of it. The wee little skirmish can just as easily be called "The Battle of the Stone Trolls" by non-Elvish speakers, and "Dagor Teryggond" by the Elves of the company. But, I digress...a lot.

~WARNING~ The next paragraph is increasingly boring, but may be interesting to linguists
Other linguistic points: More use of Black Speech.
My post contains two linguistic oddities: Thrakul and Gimbata.
Fear not, canon police, there is method in my madness: Thrakal means "Bring them." Tolkien does not explicitly say this, but it can deduced. In the Ring Verse, which we all most probably have heard, the phrase "thrakataluk" means "to bring them all." I took the liberty of removing the -ataluk suffix, because that denotes that the verb "bring" also entails "them all." Thrakat would mean "to bring" so removing -at from thrak- might, logically, create another connotation of the same verb. Though this is not exactly canon, I sort of assumed that I could make the verb into a second person version of itself by removing that suffix, and adding the new prefix -al, which means "all" (thrakat-al-uk). A similar principle follows with the word Gimbata, which means, via my translation "Find him," from the Ring Verse "gimbatul." Gimbatul means "bring them all," so I again removed the -atul suffix and added *gulp* a word I sort of...made up...Yes, Tolkien never gave us the Black Speech word for "he" so I fabricated it...But it's just two letters. Can it pass, oh mighty mods?

I also put the word tark-dug in there, which is basic, meaning "Ranger-Filth" (remember pio's definition of tark).

Ok, now for the actual battle!

-The battle has begun: all combatants are in play
-Most of the 23 nameless orcs are armed with an array of random weaponry, but take note that there are two with spears, and three are still using their bows.
-Thoronmir's horse is dead. I hope this isn't dreadfully inconvenient, but I didn't want to make my archers out to be totally inept. Plus, this way, Thoronmir can directly engage Bubkur, who is currently gallumphing towards him.
-Osric got tackled off of his horse by a big orc. This orc is free to be killed, and is no threat, he just got lucky. All of the 23 orcs on the field, besides Bubkur and Kransha, can be killed at any time, but if the good guys are going to flee, I suggest they flee from something (which means, don't kill everyone gratuitously, you'll get your chances in due time...but you don't have to be frugel).
-Kransha is scoping out the field for a mark. Beware!

[Nuranar]

"WOW!" <-- Nuranar after reading Kransha's post.


That was nothing short of phenomenal, Kransha. I read your game post first, and I was thinking, "How long will I need to study this to make sure I get the tactical situation straight, much less write about it more?!" Then I got to your discussion post. Boy, did you read my mind! Never was a manual more needed!

I won't presume to critique your linguistics. (Nor will I sic my linguistics friend - who IS a Barrow-Downer - on you. ) The results are fine with me, and the explanation both useful and entertaining. I appreciate you taking that extra effort, although I dare to imagine that it was no hardship.

And a thousand thank-yous for outlining the tactical situation. I hate it when I sketch out a post in my head, then realize I missed something that throws it all out.

No worries about the horses. They make such big targets, it would be the height of unreality for them all to be unscathed. I suggest that we lose at least 2 more horses. Some of us will be riding double on the retreat.

Meneltarmacil and Alaksoron, I suggest you rescue your characters.

Kransha, just how good is Kransha? (Man, does that sentence look stupid. Ahem!) If I recall correctly, he's lost opportunities to make a kill at least twice. But he's a very good marks-orc, correct? Again in the interests of realistic gaming, he ought to hit something this time. Now, if he kills Menecar... But that's another dynamic.

What I'm very clumsily trying to suggest is, How would it be if he wounds Tarondo? The baddies ought to know by now who's the leader, and even a fool of an uruk would know to go for the top man. And Kransha's no fool. Would it offend realism if I employed the Fairy of Fortunate Chance to keep Tarondo from being killed?

Thank goodness for automatic email updates!

I just saw Meneltarmacil's post. All right, it looks like both Bubkur and Menecar are dead, and Thoronmir's taken an arrow in the arm from Kransha (who is again trying to pick off Andas Loudewater). And one of the Stone Trolls has toppled over. Bubkur must have a lot of mass!

Kransha, my offer for Tarondo to take a hit still stands.

Now, Saurreg: Andas is already in the thick of it. If he was up to it, I was going to have him take on Kransha hand-to-hand. Then Menecar would rescue him/distract Kransha and get killed. Menecar's dead now, but someone else can rescue Andas, if you want him to fight Kransha. Your choice.

[Kransha]

Alright, more organization required.

Bubkur is dead, which is good. This makes the battle less confusing. Also, six orcs (including Bubs) are dead, two killed by Thoronmir, two crushed by the falling Stone Troll (who is, if you want to know, named Bert), and one killed by a kick from Luinien's horse. This leaves 19 orcs, including Kransha.

I need to know one thing. At present, everyone wants Kransha for something (no, I have not started speaking of myself in the third person). Here are points to know. Osric will be wounded by Kransha. Tarondo will is also to get wounded by a Kranshanian arrow. Andas may or may not engage Kransha as well

I suggest, all three, (Andas with some hesitation, perhaps) charge Kransha. He can take one down immediately, and then go hand to hand with the other two, He's the best the orcs have got, one of the Gundabad elite, and a better fighter than even Bazzog, the commander. He should, logically, be the hardest to killm though not quite as hard to kill as a troll. I have a full proposal, to accomodate the points above.
1. Kransha, after wounding Thoronmir, sees the 'leader' on the battlefield, AKA Tarondo, and shoots at him, but his vision is obscured by some commotion, and he only wounds him.
2. At this, Osric could charge and Andas with him.
3. The rest ought to be ad-libbed.

So, how's that scenario?

P.S. Despite all these engagements, I'm selfish enough to demand that Kransha remain alive. He deserves a "kewler" death, at a later date.

[Nuranar]

Sounds great to me. Since I take a bit of time to compose my posts, I'll put up a save. In my post, Tarondo will lead Osric & Saurreg up the hill and get shot for putting himself first. No, seriously: That's a crude way to put it, but that's essentially what will happen. Alaksoron and Saurreg, please wait until my save is filled before you post. Tarondo's not going to reach Kransha, so one or both of you will need to continue that part of the combat from where I leave off.

Kransha, Kransha's fate is the one question I forgot to ask. I take it he will he will wind up on Boot Hill after our last engagement?

[Nuranar]

Remind me to never, never write within a scripted scenario again. Ok, maybe not never, and maybe it's only due to my struggles as a writer, but goodness! that was hard!

Ahem. That is to say, my save is filled in. I beg indulgence on it - I slaved for 2.5 hours over those few pitiful paragraphs, and it's simply not going to get any better. Especially not at this time of night. (A kitten who deletes text doesn't help.)

Considerations of quality aside, Tarondo is out of the running (ha ha) and Osric and Andas are proceeding in fine style to their rendezvous with Destiny Kransha. Tarondo's horse is dead, or soon will be. So 2 horses are down out of 8 horses and a mule.

Because of the uncertain passage of time and because Tarondo was slashing from above instead of dueling, it's not specified how many orcs he killed. One of the two orcs with spears is definitely out of it. I'm going to arbitrarily decide that 2 others are dead. Kransha, you can modify that if you like, but if that's fine, we have 16 orcs including Kransha.

I assumed that Osric survived his encounter with the lucky orc. He's probably not wounded at this point.

Alaksoron or Saurreg, care to continue?

Primrose and Fordim, would you like to get some Troll action going? The boulder that threw off Kransha's excellent aim was most likely Harry-propelled, but other than that I was unable to work in any more troll references. I apologize for that.

Signing off before I fall off,
Nuranar

[Envinyatar]

Veryadan is now out of commission - the wound in his left side has reopened; there is an arrow in his right thigh; he's been mashed up against one of the Stone Trolls legs from a blow by one of the Trolls (Harry).

And, last but not least, Veryadan's horse is dead.

I was thinking the Troll Veryadan wounded could be Harry. He has fallen down, from the deep thrust to the back of his knee.

While Harry's down, would someone like to finish him off?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Number of Orcs killed:

Veryadan - 3

---

So now there are 16 Orcs left, including Kransha.

Does this tally look alright so far?

Can each of you who does a battle post put the number of Orcs you've killed in a post to the Discussion Thread?

[Saurreg]

Attention! Attention!

Monsieur Loudewater will now charge at orcs of the line like Marchel Murat at the head of the reserve cavalry at the Battle of Eylau!

Not Kransha.

Vive le farmer!

Consider this - Loudewater is an untrained combatant. The ambush has already taken the wits out of him and hence was only pacing around lost and confused when Thoronmir spotted Kransha from quite a distant and pushed the inept farmer away. Loudewater never saw Kransha.

Should Tarando suddenly appear and order the dazed farmer to go charging uphill to handle a single orc together with himself and Osric, Loudewater wouldn't know what to do and neither will he respond at all to the elf.

However!

At point of time many other lesser orcs under big "B" would have identified the wounded Thoronmir and would be scampering towards him for an easy kill - like hyenas to a badly wounded lion. Loudewater will see them in the nick of time and he will definitely respond. Though totally inadequate, he will buy the wounded ranger a little time before sitting out of this one. This will most certainly increase the rapport between this two and symbolically represent the growing ties between the elite of Arnor and the commoners as widely suggested in the books during the Fourth age.

As for Tarando and Osric, there is already some tension between the both of them. Tarando thinks the young Rohirrm may prove to be headstrong and unreliable while the latter thinkss Tarando is belittling him. The engagement with Kransha l'invincible will resolve that, I hope. Because it is the most fitting scenario.

[Saurreg]

Loudewater takes one down. Chances are, he's going to have fun with that one until the orcs retreat or when someone drags him away.