The Fall of the North Planning/Discussion Thread

[Mithalwen]

Without a squeak ie without a squeak of protest - I meant that given the Elves were united in their opposition to retreating to the Ered Luin as a course of action I am surprised that they would have meekly trotted of there without a murmur when from all I could follow of the route their abduction would have brought them relatively close to Mithlond.

[Amanaduial the archer]

Apologies, I meant to post a regular 'disclaimer' of my post but church called so I didn't have time. Mithalwen - is my handling of Erenor alright in my last post? Please PM me if you wish me to edit etc

[Nuranar]

My Save, she is filled.

Osse, Aman, and Nornarwen, please let me know if there's anything you wished changed. I did my best, but they're your characters, not mine.

[Garen LiLorian]

Just a quick post from a public computer to let everyone know that I am not, in fact, dead in a ditch somewhere.

I am, however, on a family vacation and without the services of my trusty laptop (Airport baggage handlers... ) I will try to check in as often as I can over the next week, but I would be very pleased if Angore could be carried along until next Sunday or so, when I shall once again be able to post.

Thanks much,
Garen

P.S. Great posts by all in the last week or so! Really a pleasure to read.

[Osse]

Nuranar - your handling of Carthor was excellent, no issues there.

[Saurreg]

I am thinking of enlisting the invaluable aid of Osse's character in my post. The background of his character (experience and training) makes it the best candidate as military advisor and if not, joint-commanding officer of the military contigent. What say you Osse?

I should think that the complexity of the dwavern tunnels will prove to be a navigational problem for the Dünedain survivors, especially with the threat posed by Novnarwen's horde (wonderfully written intro!). So I wonder if it would be alright to Amanaduial and all writers with elven characters that I also enlist your life-like characters in the same post as leaders of advance scouting/reconnaissance kampfgrüppens (teams)? My character would be hoping that superior elven senses would allow the survivors to make sense of the labyrinth they are in and interprete some sort of a pattern in the network of tunnels.

Permissions? Objections? Suggestions? Counter-suggestions?!

[Osse]

Save = filled!

[Nuranar]

From page 2 of the discussion:

In reference to Saurreg's comment that only 100 of the Rearguard are left:

Originally Posted by Nuranar

Point of information: If there's only about 100 fighting men left, how many civilians are there? And how many of these are councillors/courtiers/something to do with government?

Originally Posted by Kransha

There are more civilians than soldiers, but not much. The exact number is up to you or anyone else who cares to throw a number about, as long as its not too many (remember, a lot of the poorer civilians lived in the outermost sanctum of Fornost, which was completely destroyed, and many in the second level were slain. All courtiers and ministers save a few survived, though. There are probably 50 people who have ties to the King (courtiers, etc), but that's not definitive.

Originally Posted by Nuranar

And thanks for the answers, Kransha. So, there's around 100 military types, around 50 king-civilians, and, say, 75 plain civilians? I can work with that.

Those numbers for the civilians were estimates to help me in visualizing the situation. I reach them by a sort of mental algebra:

1. Kransha said there are more civilians than soldiers. Thus the Number of Civilians (X) must be greater than 100. So X > 100.
2. 50 out of the X are courtiers and so forth. Logically, the ordinary civilians would outnumber those. So the Number of Ordinary Civilians (X-50) > 50.
3. I arbitrarily chose (X-50) = 75. Therefore X = 125. (X-5) is significantly larger than the number of courtiers, and X is larger than the number of soldiers. Therefore X, total civilians, outnumber the soldiers, but not by much, as Kransha stipulated.

Keep in mind, these are round numbers - approximations only.

If we take Saurreg's estimate of only 50 soldiers left after the orc-fight, we're down to a total of 175 people, with the civilians now forming more than 70% of that. However, that's not calculating any civilian deaths along the way. Illness, poor and diminishing food, harsh weather, continuous travel and exertion, and accidents, just to name a few, should have killed a number of civilians - particularly young children, the weak/sick, wounded, &c. The cumulative nature of most of these factors will mean that more are likely to die. ALSO, these are far more likely to be plain civilians than courtiers. After a little consideration, I'd say we'll have lost a good 10-20 civilians, only a couple of them courtiers. This could easily be more, if accounted for by an outbreak of a specific illness. By specific, I mean something contagious and exacerbated by cold and weakness (influenza??), instead of simply lots of pneumonia.

How's that for trivializing the momentous and complicating the obvious?

[Kransha]

Nuranar, it seems to me that you must have a Ph.D in trivializing the momentous and complicating the obvious - you're very good at it. Of course, under these circumstances, such talent is a good thing.

Humbly, I step out of numerical controversy, Nuranar, Saurreg, and Osse seem to be handling the organization of the matter better than I ever could. Obviously the level of organization:disorganization is what is necessary, and confusion in the caverns is a must. Perhaps the real life confusion can be drawn upon to aid character confusion, but I digress. Soon enough, another series of entities altogether will arrive and [attempt to] set things straight. Dwarves are notoriously geometric, but centuries of isolation has left them a little loopy, so the Dunedain/Elves might do best to sort matters of combat and order out before the Dwarves arrive and upset the best laid plans of mice and men...not that John Stienbeck knew anything about crazy Dwarves.

I won't, however, intrude directly. The Dwarves are meant to be a bit of deus ex machina (yes, I am using unecessarily complicated explanations; so?) but not save the day. Their armor isn't shiny enough to do the job in proper fashion anyway. It does stand to reason that the Dunedain/Elves will not be able to take out all the trolls, but they can do what they can do. I'm not going to dictate what must happen in this encounter, even though I am going to plop my newly introduced dwatves into the picture in a few days, if possible.

[Mithalwen]

Originally Posted by Amanaduial the archer

Apologies, I meant to post a regular 'disclaimer' of my post but church called so I didn't have time. Mithalwen - is my handling of Erenor alright in my last post? Please PM me if you wish me to edit etc

No major issues as things stand but I will PM a couple of minor edits to make ERenor slightly warmer - she is steely but not quite so cold as all that

[Amanaduial the archer]

Thanks - and here was me thinking maybe I had made her a little too friendly! Typical....

[Osse]

Carthor, I think, would shy away from the responsibility at first - but the role fits him. A little look at the group he'd help lead would give him a shove in the right direction I think... Belegorn would only have to prod slightly for Carthor to take the role...

So yes, I'm more than happy for Carthor to take the role of military advisor/second in command.

[Nilpaurion Felagund]

I think the Elves--well, at least Bethiril and Erenor--, having recovered from grief, weariness, or stress, will now try to do what they did back in the North Downs--bother your King.

Fellow Elves: If he is presumptive, let him know. I enjoy watching him deflate.

[Osse]

Deleted my save, will let everyone organise and post about events before the start of the journey before I go off and move us all along by a week or so, or at least a few days. Will write up a small post, a 'teaser' if you like, for now.

EDIT: Posted... it's a little larger than I intended, but that's always my way.