Valar Guild

March 23, 2014 Sunday Meeting

5pm EDT (UTC/GMT - 5)
AIM: Valar Guild Meetingplace

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Transcript work by
Ar-Pharazon and Varda.

Attending: (4)
    AriehnV, ArPharazonV, Indis-(V)/karakedi25, VardaValar1 (presiding)

Before-meeting
Meeting begins
Membership:
Web:
Gaming:
Tolkien:
   Chat topic: The first family of sorts would be Eru. He had four sets of children after a fashion. What four were those?
After-meeting:
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Before-meeting
You have just entered room "valarguildmeetingplace."
ArPharazonV: Aiya!
ArPharazonV: Still an hour early here :-)
AriehnV has entered the room.
AriehnV: aiya there
ArPharazonV: Aiya!
VardaValar1: Aiya!
VardaValar1: One clock over here has no DST, the other does, and none match EDT. I'll learn someday. :-)
AriehnV: yeah sorry caught up in ad rp at the moment at the same time a bit trouble brewing with my ER rp folks there
AriehnV: so just a bit much happening at the same time just now
ArPharazonV: Still raiding here, one boss before we quit for the day.
VardaValar1: Okie dokie.
VardaValar1: Most people in the US are in their busy part of the day too.
VardaValar1: *eats sandwich*
AriehnV: eats southern fried escalopesx with fries
VardaValar1: Sounds interesting. What is escalpesx?
VardaValar1: Mine is British bacon between buttered toast.
VardaValar1: Heart attack special.
AriehnV: escalopes
AriehnV: the germans call it "schnitzel"Q
AriehnV: "Schnitzel"
VardaValar1: o ok. :-)
AriehnV: and it has a southern fried coating around it
AriehnV: spicy bread crum coating
VardaValar1: Please feel free to put out the brush fires with your rp group.
VardaValar1: Sounds familiar, that coating.
AriehnV: i ll try to ^^
VardaValar1: Let me know when you two are back. :-)
ArPharazonV: Allright, done with raiding, so will be less afk. I'll do an archeo daily before I log, though, shouldn't take long.
VardaValar1: ok
ArPharazonV: Aaaand we're out.
VardaValar1: Hope it went well. :-)
VardaValar1: I have a LotRO date with Fangorn after the meeting. :-)
VardaValar1: Games are a nice way to keep in touch at a distance.
ArPharazonV: Hah, that's nice! Key to long-distance relationships maybe.
VardaValar1: One of them.:-) He phones daily too.
VardaValar1: Then we do an occasional email.
ArPharazonV: That works.
VardaValar1: Married 40 years, so yep.
VardaValar1: Be 41 later this year. You can find us in your archeo dig.
ArPharazonV: Well after that time, it should be a bit more difficult than mere distance to be a problem for you.
VardaValar1: Aye to that. :-)
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VardaValar1: Elen sila lumenn' omentielvo!
VardaValar1: A star shines on the hour of our meeting.
VardaValar1: Membership:
VardaValar1: I'm still in Arizona, probably well into May, but have most things working now so all should be well.
VardaValar1: Only trick is I'm often working with the baby making gaming tricky.
VardaValar1: Any other Membership news?
ArPharazonV: Hmm, how early is too early to teach a kid about gaming?
VardaValar1: Depends on what game. This two month old is trying to figure out how to stack fist on fist on fist...
VardaValar1: A 9 year old was playing with my hunter on LotRO and got the general idea pretty fast, wiping out wargs like crazy.
VardaValar1: Probably as soon as they're coordinated enough to hit the intended key on the keyboard.
ArPharazonV: Pretty big spectrum between those two.
VardaValar1: So keyboards should be an early toy?
ArPharazonV: Hah, maybe.
ArPharazonV: Give it a small piano and you'll have some entertainment yourself!
VardaValar1: Could use it to teach numbers and letter?
ArPharazonV: at 2 months?
VardaValar1: Maybe bright colored plastic
VardaValar1: I sing alphabet, numbers, and days of the week to him now. No tellng how much he's picking up by accident.
VardaValar1: I figure when he can punch an intended key instead of flailing. :-)
VardaValar1: Supervised gaming of course!
VardaValar1: Doesn't have to be online.
VardaValar1: More Pong!
ArPharazonV: There are plenty of learning games and websites out there.
VardaValar1: Aye to that.
VardaValar1: Any more membership stuff?
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VardaValar1: Web:
VardaValar1: I think I have it all fixed up again so we can handle all sorts of nicely complicated goodies again. Test me!
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VardaValar1: Gaming:

VardaValar1: Any non-LotRO, non-WoW gaming this week?
VardaValar1: Fangorn played StarCraft BroodWar
ArPharazonV: Bit of flashgaming, and some Hearthstone. Actually got my 3 wins, after a mere 7 tries, so wasn't too bad.
VardaValar1: Grats! Fast.
ArPharazonV: And awaiting my Diablo 3 CE on tuesday! Hoping it all goes well :-)
VardaValar1: Good luck!
ArPharazonV: Thanks :-)
ArPharazonV: That's pretty much it for me!
VardaValar1: Eowyn waves hi as she goes past with the baby.
VardaValar1: Thanks

VardaValar1: WoW:
ArPharazonV: *waves back*
VardaValar1: Any news on the WoW front?
ArPharazonV: Archeology going well. Only a few more achievements and pristines left. I'm one pandaren board away from being done with Pandaren, and one pristine insignia away from being done with Mogu; that'll probably take forever to get.
VardaValar1: Before I forget, Eonwe's Games Site News can be seen by clicking Gaming on our site, or click this:
VardaValar1: http://valarguild.org/gaming
ArPharazonV: And 2 new heroic bossfights won in the last raid, so that's going well too!
VardaValar1: Very good!

VardaValar1: LotRO:
VardaValar1: A correction to the Games Site for LotRO:
VardaValar1: the kin auction is every second weekend of the month, not every two weekends. I was not clear enough, pardon.
VardaValar1: That probably needs clarified on the main News site as well.
VardaValar1: We don't have a lot of regulars coming on at the same time right now, but it's increasing so
VardaValar1: we're making a stab at bringing back the Monday and Wednesday night instance runs together.
VardaValar1: We're still working out times.
VardaValar1: We did manage to get going on the Monday lowbie run, and did Forgotten Treasury, the first real instance and good for learning.
VardaValar1: Some people had gone through it but so fast with others that they didn't really know what was going on.
VardaValar1: So we worked on making sure everyone understood and would be able to teach others as well.
VardaValar1: Wednesday we didn't manage to get together for an actual instance, but did have some duos.
VardaValar1: Today is the last day of increased lootbox drops.
VardaValar1: People are being asked to apply for the Player's Council to help advise the Devs on what they want for the game.
VardaValar1: The player has to actually be active in the game. : )
ArPharazonV: could be a problem for you, then? :-)
VardaValar1: Any other news, comments, suggestions, complaints, kudos?
VardaValar1: lol
VardaValar1: I'm active.
ArPharazonV: Not as active as you'd like to be, apparently!
VardaValar1: Not sure I'd be a good one for the Players Council.
VardaValar1: Agreed, but that will be improved later.
VardaValar1: This is a temporary situation.
VardaValar1: Any other comments, suggestions on anything before we change to Tolkien?
VardaValar1: Do we have any players that would be interested in LotRO rp event making by our kin? Maybe a riddle, fishing party with music and dancing? :-)
ArPharazonV: Only that my gametime's running out tomorrow, and I don't have a new gamecard; deciding whether to take the bus into town or just buy 3 months online.
VardaValar1: Ack!
VardaValar1: Phar without gaming. That just sounds wrong. What would you do down in that hole underground without it?
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VardaValar1: Tolkien:
VardaValar1: The planned chat is about family in Tolkien's works.
VardaValar1: The first family of sorts would be Eru. He had four sets of children after a fashion.
VardaValar1: What four were those?
ArPharazonV: Hmm.
karakedi25 has entered the room.
karakedi25: aiya
VardaValar1: Aiya Indis. Good timing!
VardaValar1: Just started Tolkien.
VardaValar1: Question up is:
VardaValar1: The first family of sorts would be Eru. He had four sets of children after a fashion. What four were those?
ArPharazonV: Well, Elves and Men are the two obvious ones; I'm not sure whether you're distinguishing between Valar and Maiar, or Ainur and Dwarves (his adopted children)
VardaValar1: I figured Ainur as the first group, Dwarves as adoptees then put to temporary rest until the others were born, Elves as firstborn, Men as secondborn.
VardaValar1: I see your point.
VardaValar1: What were some main differences between the four groups? Eru must have done the differences for a reason.
ArPharazonV: Their fate after death, for one. Some were bound to the life of Ea, some were released from it, and some existed before it.
VardaValar1: Agreed.
VardaValar1: That made a huge difference for each group.
ArPharazonV: I also think that Elves and Men are related to the phases of the Music?
VardaValar1: The Ainur didn't have children or actual family relationships, but did ïn the mind of Eru.
karakedi25: Dwarves weren't by Eru's intention; the others were
VardaValar1: Aye, Dwarves were adopted.
VardaValar1: Aule was impatiently wanting to see the new siblings and made his own, but they had no will other than what he put into them until Eru gave it to them.
VardaValar1: Life was given by the fire imperishable/secret fire of Eru.
ArPharazonV: There's also mental power; the Ainur were god-like in their abilities (well, if you compare them to the Classic pantheons), the Elves were strong enough to have a presence in both the "real" world and the shadow world, as well as being difficult to mind-control and pretty much immune to sickness...
ArPharazonV: Dwarves had little mental power but great mental (and physical) resistance, they could not be swayed by the Rings of Power except for their greed;
VardaValar1: Humans could escape Arda after a time, although the others could not.
ArPharazonV: and Men... well... bottom of the pack, in that aspect.
VardaValar1: Humans were the wild cards, not bound. They could help change fate.
ArPharazonV: That is true.
VardaValar1: Of the Ainur, Melkor was intended to be like the older brother helping coordinate the others because he was given a little of the gifts of all the others.
VardaValar1: But he saw that he was missing the secret fire that Eru had, and felt he should have it too.
VardaValar1: To get it, he had to not see that it was a part of Eru but think it was hidden in the Void, that he could search and take it for himself.
VardaValar1: A way of gaining a feeling of completeness, perhaps.
VardaValar1: But he was away from the others so much and being secretive, that he was bent from his original purpose.
VardaValar1: So we have the black sheep of the Ainur family that would corrupt others that might never have gone bad, the weaker-minded, those that wanted power.
VardaValar1: But Eru was ready for that.
VardaValar1: He had the concept of brother.
VardaValar1: Manwe was the brother to Melkor, so that he could step into the space left by the loss of Melkor. And he was closest in mind to Eru.
VardaValar1: So there was need early on of the family concept. We have father, and we have brother.
VardaValar1: Then some naturally had minds that ran to feminine or masculine gender, leading to duos. Thus we have the husband wife concept entering.
VardaValar1: This helped them understand such concepts in their later siblings.
VardaValar1: What about family in the Elves?
VardaValar1: Was it any different for them than for humans?
ArPharazonV: Kids took quite a while longer to grow up, there tended to be less of them, and there was no dying of old age either; so the family structure would've been different as a result.
VardaValar1: Less concern about having an heir for a long time if ever.
VardaValar1: They could be removed from Middle-earth in their wars or by grief, or sailing.
VardaValar1: But they had the expectation of being reunited eventually in Valinor. Good thing they could wait a long time.
ArPharazonV: But they'd still be around, even if it's in Halls on the other side of the world. You know you'll see them again one day.
ArPharazonV: There's never the idea of permanent departure from your own family.
VardaValar1: Aye. In one way, they had a hopeful outlook that's easy to miss in the general gloom.
ArPharazonV: Unless you marry a mortal, apparently!
VardaValar1: That was pretty rare, and a bad idea in most cases.
VardaValar1: Humans would go to Eru, apparently after a short stop off in Mandos to consider their lives. Yet they didn't seem as hopeful of seeing their loved ones even with a shorter waiting time.
VardaValar1: Morgoth and Sauron had put the seed of doubt in them that remained.
karakedi25: humans had no way of knowing what was after death
VardaValar1: They were told they would go to Eru, but not what would happen then. Aye, much more uncertainty, and no one came back to tell them.
karakedi25: and most of the elves had lived in Valinor and knew much much more
ArPharazonV: Did the Elves know, though? How many generations would pass between their being in Aman among the Valar? How long until they started to doubt the stories of their ancestors?
VardaValar1: The elves had three elves who visited Valinor before the main group started heading that way after their report.
ArPharazonV: Even if it was like 3 or 4 generations... it could still cast some doubt.
VardaValar1: Galadriel was born in Valinor and was still present during the War of the Ring, so they had first-hand knowledge.
VardaValar1: They all knew where the shipyard was, a solid thing to see, that humans did not have.
ArPharazonV: That must help, yes.
karakedi25: humans had to take an awful lot on faith
VardaValar1: Agreed, Indis. A hard thing.
karakedi25: Dwarves had their belief in Mahal/Aule.
VardaValar1: One thing the humans did have was seeing elves that had their own certainty of the Valar.
VardaValar1: Aye, the Dwarves expected to go to Aule/Mahal in thier after-life.
karakedi25: OK, back to the raid...
ArPharazonV: have fun!
VardaValar1: We can call it here.
VardaValar1: Good luck to Arien with her rp folks, and to Indis on her raid.
VardaValar1: *hammer makes a dull thunking noise*
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VardaValar1: After-meeting!
VardaValar1: Hmm, wonder if that one was hollow or wet?
VardaValar1: Namarie for now. :-)
ArPharazonV: Namarie!
VardaValar1 has left the room.
karakedi25: namarie
karakedi25 has left the room.
ArPharazonV: Namarie to Indis too!
AriehnV: Namarie
AriehnV has left the room.
ArPharazonV: Namarie!
ArPharazonV: saving and sending
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