2001 News Archive

News added by month, more or less.

Jan   Feb   March April   May   June July   Aug   Sept   Oct   Nov   Dec  

Dec. 31, 2001
    Amlaith is also playing as FornostAran_V. He'll be moving soon, so he may have some computer and email problems.
    WarCraftIII will be taking 5,000 beta testers starting Jan 7, 2002. Sign up between Jan 7 at 11pm PST and Jan 8 at 11pm EST. More info at www.blizzard.com. Selected testers may use all four races. The test is playable only over bnet. Let's hear your reviews! Thanks to Eonwe for these news items!
    Dark Age of Camelot:  Maedhros says he is now playing Dark Age of Camelot too! He's a level 8 Thane.
    Dark Age has a buddy list and guild chat. It has around 10 servers averaging 1500 -2500 people. It has 2 role-play servers and a test server to check new features for upcoming patches. The 10 servers are set up the same way with the same characters, classes, etc.
    He is all for starting up a guild branch on Dark Age. He says guild members can have their guild emblem on  your character's armor, shield, and cape, if they have a Tailoring skill or are level 20 for a small price. Members could all pick one server as the EverQuesters do, so they can fight on the same side in the wars, as three realms war with each other. I could  also put up a Dark Age web page for the guild as we did for the EverQuesters, or link to one made by a Dark Age member. that llink would also be attached to the Gaming page.  Maedhros has been snowed under by school and his job lately, but with exams over and the holiday break, he expects to be with us more often. Yay!
    Eowyn has been spotted playing D2X again during the Christmas break!

Dec. 30, 2001
Sunday Meeting 5pm EST
 Attendance: Thror, Flinding/Gwindor, Ancalagon, Gwaihir, Finwe, Deagol (via bro's comp, Primula says hi), Thranduil, Finrod, Aldarion, Amillo ,
Eonwe (presiding), Halbarad, Guilin, Ecthelion, Mahtan, Bard, Luthien, Thingol
 Guests: starcraftnut, IckyPoopy, Morgoth_69, :bilbo_baggins: (came looking to be tested, but is only beginning Two Towers, so you may see him around.  Stayed for the meeting and joined the Tolkien discussion.)
 Discussion Board: Eonwe, Gwindor, Eru, Halbarad, Irmo, Thranduil, Gwaihir

Membership Report (by Amillo):  140 members.  Still waiting to hear from Grima.  Possible Member of honour.  New Member Finrod.
Finrod's "few words"- glad to meet so many with a great gaming philosophy; stumbled across website, e-mailed Varda
Ecthelion may not be around much because he will be moving
Varda missed the meeting, sends regards, out of town watching the Lord of the Rings movie with Elwing and Fangorn.

Web News: I'm (Eonwe's) back, so the Games Page will be updated soon.  I am also accepting reviews for online games to be put on the Games Page.  Give us pros, cons, and your opinions on online games you've played.

Gaming News: Gelmir and Gwindor are playing Dark Ages of Camelot.  Amillo says DAoC will be coming out in Denmark in a month.  Thror reminds us to send in Account names to Eonwe for the Games Page and to Amillo for the Members Page and so he can put them on his bot.

Tolkien Chat
  (forget who suggested this, unfortunately):  What are your feelings about the movie? ( I wanred to be careful about revealing too many spoilers :})
SCnut-thought it was good; likedMoria best
:bilbo_baggins: Tom was gone!
Aldarion: "I believe JRR would've liked it." - understand the need for changes, but wouldn't say it's perfect; visuals were excellent
Thror- liked ancient statues of Kings of Men; Elrond looked too evil
Thranduil- Elrond was arrogant
Thingol-didn't like Elrond
Irmo and Eonwe- yet to see it :}
Eru (on the DB)- despite some misgivings, I enjoyed it

After the discussion died down in the channel, some more of us moved to the DB and chatted with Eru.  We discussed:
 The nature of Gandalf's death (did he die?  Thranduil maintains he didn't; most of us said he did, in the physical sense.  Some quotes were given. "Naked I was sent back,...naked I lay on the mountain top"  The mention of nakedness twice seems to imply two different types of nakedness, the first without form and the second without clothing)
 Thranduil shared his theory on the location of the entwives.  As I recall he thought they could be in the North Downs in/near the Shire.
 Eru also shared a theory of his.  He said there was a possibilty the problems on Caradhras were caused by Manwe in order to have the Fellowship pass through Moria and Gandalf deal with the Balrog.  Had the Balrog remained after Sauron, there would have been problems.  Could the Istari really have returned to Aman without first taking care of the Balrog?
 This led into a discussion on the form-taking ability of Maiar.  The Balrogs seemed to not have taken form again after their physical forms were slain, yet Sauron did it twice.  One thought was that they could only take form a certain number of times.  Another (given by Eru) was that they (Balrogs) could take shape again up until Morgoth was cast into the Void (though this does not explain how Sauron managed it) and that some of the Balrogs may have been on the verge of taking shape again when the War of Wrath began.

After most of the others had left/returned to bnet, Gwindor treated those of us remaining to him singing opera :}

Dec. 28, 2001
Letter from Ecthelion:

 Hello fellow guild members. Just a little note saying that I will not be available online very much in the next
month. I have to move within the next few weeks, and may not have an internet connection once I do, at least for a month or two, I imagine. 
 I am still playing the middle earth mod, and i wholeheartedly suggest it to any who might be bored with classic
LOD. 
 I still will try to make it to sunday meetings as long as work doesn't interfere, which it usually does, until I move.

Namarie for now everyone!
Ecthelion of the Fountain

Dec. 27, 2001
    Finrod Felagund , Welcome to the Valar Guild ! Finrod is 34, an Australian living in Tokyo, Japan to teach English. He's on bnet a few times a week, mostly D2X. He's read the H, LotR, and Sil. He found us through the web pages and liked our gaming philosophy. Testing was by our new and active Maia, Gwaihir fka Glorfindel.

Dec. 25, 2001
    Merry Christmas!!

Dec. 24, 2001
    New screenshots by Eomer on EverQuester Sights .

Dec. 23, 2001
Sunday Meeting 5pm EST
Attending: report by Salmar and Varda
    Members: Aldarion, Amillo/Omar , Ancalagon, Aragorn/Strider, Azaghal, Bandobras/Bullroarer, Boromir, Elwing/WhiteTower, Glorfindel, Gwindor/Gwaindor, Mablung, Mahtan, Salmar/Lirillo , Thorondor, Thror, Tulkas , Varda (presiding)
     Over the shoulder: Sauron, Fangorn
    Visitors: *Kabal409
Membership: report by Amillo
    140 Members
    Grima-V is our newest member, having joined last meeting. Unfortunately Amillo and I have not had any email answers from him and are not sure we have the right address. If you see him, please ask him to email Varda to correct it.
Web:
    New Encyclopedia article under Mankind: " Barrow-wights "
    New Map link on the map page: " Lord of the Rings Maps "
    New on Annals of Arda : Star map. Amillo is asking for any Tolkien info on stars you may have.
    New Links page link under Tolkien: " Moonway " - Russian group interested in fantasy worlds, especially Tolkien. English edition expected to be up next year, but pictures in their gallery need no translating.
Gaming:
    D2X Middle-earth mod : Ecthelion is now playing.
    Dark Age of Camelot : Gwindor is now playing. Gelmir expects to play after Christmas. Only 4 more players needed to form a guild branch there. Players can level alone or in Realm wars.
    LotR figurine painting for tabletop games: Bandobras told us that his Warlocke's Lair folk will give a 10% discount to guild members. Very generous!
    D2X: outsider gifts are generally forbidden, to prevent encouraging the use of items which may be from theft, including pk and hacker account theft as well as dupes. Buying on E-bay is absolutely outside the spirit of game play. Outsider items may be taken if you know for a fact they came from a monster or shop, for instance, the other player kills the monster in your sight and you see the item. Items not yet identified are probably okay on D2X, although there was a hacker way back on Diablo 1 that unidentified items.
Tolkien:
    Maia test for Glorfindel by Salmar, Tulkas, and Varda. Glorfindel has been a very active D2X player in guild games, a fine companion, comes to meetings, team captain in the last Tourney, and maker of quizes and answers for the Quiz page. Congrats Glorfindel, and welcome back in as Gwaihir-(Valar) !
    LotR movie discussion underway on the Discussion Board ! Please warn if you have spoilers in your post.

Dec. 22, 2001
    New Link: Moonway - Russian group in St. Petersburgh, interested in all fantasy worlds, especially Tolkien's as the most developed. In Russian, with an English edition planned to come out in 2002: by Ivan Kotliarov and others. They are interested in adding our Tolkien-inspired stories to their site. Check out the images in their gallery.
    New Tolkien Encyclopedia article : " Barrow-wights " under Mankind

Dec. 19, 2001
    Lord of the Rings Movie , directed by Peter Jackson, hits theaters today! See you there! 

Dec. 17, 2001
    Ecthelion is now playing the D2X mod and hopes you will look him up! Don't forget to add -T to the end of the guild game name. Also be sure Eonwe knows that you are playing the mod for the Games page to help all of you find each other.
    New map website added to the Maps page: Lord of the Rings Maps -  convenient thumbnails with descriptions to help locate the right map. Collection and originals. It also has a map of all Middle-earth showing which parts are in the Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, or Silmarillion. By Jeroen?

Dec. 16, 2001
Sunday Meeting 5pm EST
Attending reports by Salmar and Varda:
    Members: (17) Amillo/Omar , Ancalagon, Beregond, Curufin, Ecthelion, Elendil, Elros/Starfoam, Eomer, Eonwe , Glorfindel, Gwindor/Flinding/Flin, Mablung, Pippin, Salmar , Thorondor, Thror, Varda (presiding)
    Discussion Board: Eonwe
    Visitors: (3) *Ickypoopy, *JACK__THERIPPER (joined during the Tolkien chat), *Skinny(-)Puppy
Membership report by Amillo and Varda - 139 members:
    Amillo is back now that his computer works.
    Eonwe will be traveling for Christmas between the 20th and 30th. Have a good time!
    Welcome to our new member, Grima Wormtongue ! He's from Russia and a fast typist. He passed a test by Amillo, Eonwe, and Varda, then had to go to hockey. He visited under the account name *JACK__THERIPPER (that's two underscores running together.)
Web: report by Varda
    Games page : Eonwe's ftp is now working. He is updating the page with your info and will be taking game reviews for inclusion in January. Start emailing him!
    New Quizes are up for each book of the LotR, done by Glorfindel, reachable from the Quiz page .
    New EverQuesters Sights page is up, with screenshots of EQ by Eomer, reachable from the EverQuesters page.
Gaming: reports by Beregond, Eomer, Gwindor. I'm sorry not to have written down the one from Elros, but hope to pick it up for later inclusion.
    Dark Age of Camelot : Gwindor is now playing Dark Age of Camelot. Look out, Melkor and Orome!
    EverQuest : Eomer said that Verant upgraded so that DirectX 8.1 is required. Windows 95 may be unable to handle the game anymore, with Windows 98 the lowest Operating System that can handle it.
    Soul Reaver 2 : Beregond gave a review on this fun single-player game. He recommends it.
Tolkien:
    The guild-wide story is in progress. Watch your email at least once a week to see if you are one of the 139 being called that week to help.
    Tolkien team quiz by Glorfindel and Thror. Interrupted by dinner and people having to leave.
    Tolkien entry test given, so we now have Grima-V among us! See Membership.

Dec. 15, 2001
    New Return of the King Quiz ! Third installment by Glorfindel-(V), including an answer page.

Dec. 14, 2001
    New Two Towers Quiz ! This is the second installment of the Lord of the Rings quizes by Glorfindel-(V), also including an answer page. Hats off to his long efforts on these quizes. Additions to the Fellowship answer page have been done.
    Guild-wide story progress : Eonwe has begun sending out the first emails for the guild-wide story. If all 139 members contribute, this will be a novel with a zillion twists! Enjoy!

Dec. 12, 2001
    New Fellowship of the Ring Quiz ! Written by Glorfindel-(V), it also has an answer page. Enjoy trying it out and commenting on it to the author. Be sure to thank him for the effort, as he is working on more for us. He is on bnet frequently and his email is on the quiz.
    New page for the EverQuesters: EverQuester Sights . It has screenshots from the game sent in by Eomer.

Dec. 9, 2001
Sunday Meeting 5pm EST
Attending: report by Elwing and Eonwe
    Members (15): Aule?, Azog, Bert, Curufin, Denethor, Ecthelion, Eomer, Eonwe , Girion, Glorfindel, Imrahil, Irmo , Oin, Ori, Thror, Varda (presiding)
    Over-the-shoulder: Elwing
    Discussion Board chat room: Eonwe
Membership:
    Azog is back after being out for about 3 months due to a busy real life.
    Amillo sends regards and is missing the meeting for a Birthday Party. He hopes his graphics card now works and will be trying it out soon.
    Eonwe expects to be absent Dec. 20-27.
    Salmar had personal business to attend, his roll-taking job passed for this meeting to Elwing.
    Denethor may not be playing D2 much now, but is considering the mod. He is eagerly awaiting WC3 and is considering Morrowmead.
    Ori and Oin are active again! Welcome back, brothers! They are sharing the same new email.
    Ugluk will be missing while at sea as he expects no computer access. Our orc friend will try to keep in contact if only by smoke signals from Mt. Doom
    Varda expects to be absent Dec. 18-21, possibly longer.
Web:
    Tolkien Encyclopedia: new articles under the Hobbits section.
    Links page: 3 new
    News: slight format change to see the contents easier
Gaming:
    Middle-earth mod for D2X  Letter from Khan/Fingolfin:

Hail

The new version for the Middle Earth Mod for Diablo 2 is now available for
download on our mainsite. Installation as usual. This version works with
Diablo 2 LoD 1.09d.

Changes are listed in the readme.txt and include:
Magic item drops more frequent
Tristram/Tharbad crash bug fixed
6 new unique items
4 new monsters using D1 Blood Knight graphics

Have fun

Dec. 8, 2001
   Tolkien Encyclopedia : new under Hobbits - "Appearance". Includes what shape hobbit and elf ears had according to Tolkien's Letters.

Dec. 5, 2001
   Tolkien Encyclopedia : new under Hobbits - "Coming of Age", "Origin".
   Links : 3 new ones:
      Decipher - card games including LotR, movie oriented. Link from Amillo-(Valar): by Decipher for New Lines
      HobbitLore - discussion of how reality and Tolkien's world work together: by Paul Payne
      Lord of the Rings - by Ian McKellan. His impressions while acting as Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings films, plus Q&A and photos.: IanMcKellan

Dec. 4, 2001
Letter from Ugluk-(V):

It seems that I may be cast back into the great void very soon (at least for a while) so I thought I'd say thanks for all your help and interesting conversations.....  It's always a pleasure 

Also, you may already know about this but just in case you don't, I thought you'd like to know about the new LoTR games Sierra is planning. I just came across a trailer you might like to check out....It doesn't show much but it's a first glimpse.....I found it by typing in:
Sierra games Lord of the Rings      in to Google search engine. can't tell you the exact address but it's there - takes a while to download - at least for me it did.  Suggests that they will make single player first for the LoTR , the the Hobbit, then the LoTR on-line with in the next couple of years....I think it will be an x-box title but not sure...maybe released in different formats to please all and grab as much cash as they can but I don't know.

Anyways, I hope that eventually I will be raised from the depths again in the near future and be able to participate a little more in guild activities     I do enjoy it when I am able to attend 

I will try to keep in touch from time to time - somehow -(may smoke signals for Mt Doom or if I can get my hands on the planatir...) and I wish you and your family (and all the guild members) the very best for the Christmas season and hope everyone has a happy new year.

Take care,
Jamie (aka Ugluk)
Please forgive my spelling and gramar mistakes - As an Orc, English is my second language 

Dec. 2, 2001
Sunday Meeting 5pm EST
Attending:
   Members : (15) Durin, Elendil, Eol, Eonwe, Gelmir, Girion, Glorfindel, Gorbag, Gwindor, Halbarad, Maedhros, Mahtan, Thror, Ugluk, Varda (presiding)
    Discussion Board chat room : Eonwe
    Visitors : ~Legolas~ (friend of Glorfindel's)
Membership: 139 members
    Amillo is having comp problems, especially with his graphics card.
    Mandos is usually not home Sundays, the reason he cannot be with us at Sunday meetings. Email him or meet him mornings and early afternoon on bnet.
    Salmar sends regrets at having to miss the meeting,
    Tilion , our wayward moon, is back online with us.
Channel:
    Sleepers: we are having too many long-term sleepers in the channel, afk (away from keyboard). They prevent the bots from doing their security jobs and cause some frustration among members and people seeking membership who don't understand why they are not answered. Sleepers might go to a secondary channel during long afks, returning to the home channel after returning. This is not a rule, but a courtesy. Bots may boot sleepers who are there over one-half hour. Short afk's are fine, and it is nice to leave an /away message if only the word "away" or "afk".
    Bots: we had a demonstration of the bots, with a question and answer period.Only official bots are welcome in the home channel.
    Thror was present and told us his bots are named ValarBuddy and ValarBuddy_V. These do not have automatic greetings. He says to use the .help command to learn about commands.  He still prefers Chewbacca bots to Raibots after experimentation.
    Salmar could not be with us but, at Varda's request, left us his bot for the meeting for demo purposes. His is ValarBuddy-V. It gives greetings to you when you enter, which you may edit. Find out how to work it by typing .info accountname. It tells flagletters you can use when you type .help flagletter. A very handy command is to whisper allseen to the bot, and it lists whoever has been on recently with the spelling, so you can add the name to your friends list /f add accountname or type a message using /w name or /m name or /msg name.
    If you have questions, suggestions, or comments concerning the bots, please email the persons experimenting with the bot. Or email Varda who will be able to forward it to the correct person if you mention the name of the bot or who will forward it to both.
Web:
    The Guild-wide Tolkien story is now under way! The how-to and the first installment is up. Eonwe will be emailing guild members (over 130 of you!) to add your own bit to the story, keeping some volunteers in reserve to wrap up the yarn. Feel free to email Eonwe to be a volunteer (anyone who would enjoy contributing). If you don't like how the story is going, you'll have your chance to add an improved twist. New installments will be given a mention here in the News. You can reach the story from the Tolkien Encyclopedia frames edition or from here.
Gaming:
    EQ : no EQ players present to give a report, but they've been lively gaming judging by their emails.
    Middle-earth D2X mod members are having a great time with the new version.
    D2X remains the main guild game.
    BroodWar remains the number two guild game.
Tolkien:
    Varda's topic: Hobbit origins . We looked over the speculations, the reasons, and quoted Tolkien's answer from the book "The Letters of JRR Tolkien" p. 158 footnote. More hobbit info, suggested by Glorfindel-(V), is in Appendix B.
    Secondary discussion: In what age were hobbits first found? The hobbits had already separated into three branches when the Stoor hobbits Deagol and Smeagol took the One Ring from the water where it had left Isildur to die in the Second Age.

top

Greetings, hope this finds its way to Varda, Tilion here, off from another year of being "Wayward", I'm going to try to make another attempt to get in contact with you all, in the spirit of the LOTR movies, please pass a friendly greeting on to anyone who may remember me (Aule, Irmo, Namo, Yavanna...) and if they care to, please have them email me here, Much obliged

With love,
Tilion

  Members: Amroth, Arwen, Bert, Curufin, Durin, Ecthelion, Eonwe, Eol, Girion, Glorfindel, Gwindor, Irmo, Melkor, Oin, Ori, Salmar, Thorondor, Thror, Ulmo (presiding).
  Visiting: *TheGreenDragon (Icky), *Ghettosburg (Shooter), *Dune.
  At Yahoo: Eonwe, Salmar
  Tulkas will be out to sea until Christmas or, if lucky, back by Dec 19.  	 

Short business meeting with Varda and Amillo away, (Varda personal
conflict, and Amillo rebuilding/upgrading comp).

No member updates made.

Eonwe reported on. a couple new links added to pages:
  The Sun and the Shadows - Yahoo Clubs discussion board Tolkien rpg, set in a "what if" a new
dark power rose to replace the vanished Sauron in Morgoth's favor, Feanor's
Curse rose again, the White Council remained to help, and elves stayed behind
to help as they were angered by treachery of one of their own.
  Civil Air Patrol: San Marcos Composite Squadron - news of the search and rescue flight squadron in San Marcos, TX.
Includes teaching materials on aerospace. Meriadoc-(V) is the webmaster aka pilot and Operations Officer
1st Lt. Roland Coyote.

Tulkas has joined us on EQ this past week or so ago, he had a level 7
wood elf ranger going when his duties called him out to sea again.  He
should be back around Christmas.
 
Tolkien: report by Ulmo
Two chat subjects came up:

1. What were each member of the fellowships deeds?  And how if they did,
were they compared?

(answers by members emailed by Eonwe):
  Thror:Frodo-Bearing Ring, uncomparable; Gimli led them through Moria
  Glorfindel:Merry-helped kill Witch King; Pippin-saved Faramir; Sam-saved 
Frodo; Frodo-Destroyed Ring; Legolas-got into Lothlorien
  Arwen:All hobbits had big parts; Aragorn saved Gondor,came with ships
  Irmo:comic interlude when Gimli and Legolas count their kills
  Eonwe:Legolas shot Nazgul steed from Sky
  Ghettosburg(Shooter):  Merry helped kill witch king
  Bert:  Boromir caused Frodo to leave group without which he wouldn't have 
been able to finish the quest

2. Why didn't the Valar intercede directly in destroying evil in Middle
Earth?

Ulmo, Heru Rasa

Hi

There's a horrible drop bug in the latest version 1.4B (all drops are
basically messed totally so you can get extremely good items from act1/eldar
monsters while high level monsters might drop only crap) of the MEmod.
Please download 1.4C which resolves the issue.

Sorry

Khan

Letter from Khan the Beleagured a few hours later:

We just discovered that 1.4C retains some buggieness. We think we eliminated
it with 1.4D.
The new fix for the fix of the new version come in a smaller package and
must be used with the "direct txt" method, described on our site.
Be sure to read it carefully - you must install the new version over the
original patch_d2.mpq from Diablo 2 LoD 1.09c.

Again we are sorry for all this.

Khan

Hi

We have uploaded the new ME version 1.4B which is compatible with Blizzard's
patch 1.09c. The changes are really minor (but still more than those of
Blizzard 

Khan
  

Greetings Valar!

    Burger King has the advertising rights for the LotR movie coming
out.  They have a website with Tolkien trivia and prizes!  The grand
prize is a package trip to a pre-screening of the movie.
the website is: www.lotr.bk.com
     The questions can be answered as many times as you need to get them
right.  Which is good because it's not always easy to get the answer
THEY want on the first. (ie Aragorn or Strider / Imladris or Rivendell) 
Oh, and sorry...  Available to US residents over 18 only 

Good luck from Earendil
  

Like to write Lord of the Rings Fan Fiction?

Then why not participate in a writing contest where you can 50US$ for writing the best story?

Or why not just write a story set in Middle Earth or publish one you have already written at a site dedicated solely to literature with its own Lord of the Rings section.

Go here for more info: http://www.imperial-literature.com/lotr/indexframeslotr.html

Welcome at Imperial Literature

 

Franz
Chief Librarian
www.imperial-literature.com

Hail

The new MEmod version 1.4 is available for download on our site. I strongly
suggest you update to that version as it fixes quite some bugs (WW, Leap, a
rather horrible drop issue at later Valar/5 etc.) and it also upgrades many
uniques (but only if newly found under V1.4)

BTW I'm just re-reading The Silmarillion and must say I knew why I chose
Fingolfin as my guild name 

Khan
  

Primula and I have decided not too continue our interenet service at this time .  Probely wont be on for some time.

Namarie for now 

Deagol and Primula

As I mentioned during the short time I dropped in at last Sunday's meeting, I've spent the week in England.
Having just returned from this trip, which included a visit to Oxford, I thought you might be interested in a picture of Tolkien's old pub, The Eagle & Child .

 

Tolkien, C.S. Lewis and the rest of the Inklings met here every Tuesday both for friendly chat and learned discussions over a pint and a pipe.
This has made the place quite famous - it's mentioned in their biographies and even in tourist material about the city.

I was there Wednesday evening and found it very charming and authentic - a genuinely cozy place.
Even though Oxford, as a city, has changed since Tolkien's day (traffic, tourists, etc) this belongs to a collection of timeless places that retain the true atmosphere.

Greetings from Gondolin upon fair Tumladen!

I would like to formally restate my loyalty to this great and honorable guild, and would like to also say that any and all
disagreements aside (i've had a few, mostly my fault ;)) with my friends are of little consequence to me; i beg their
forgiveness. Its unfortunate that our trusted environment has been invaded, but with a little patience we will regain that
which is now in dispute.

See all of you on Battle.net sometime soon! 
             8)
Ecthelion of the Fountain

In reply to your email I bid farewell. No questions, no turning around, no arguments. What is done is done and we shall move on. This came in good time though.. as I have been deciding whether or not to take a break from Diablo2 and start to study a bit more on school work. So I would like you to just post my farewells in the News page on the Valar site. And just wish everyone good gaming, and I was happy to meet you all.

Farewell, Namarie, Bye, See Ya,

X-Pharazon-(V), ArPharazon-V, ArPharazon_V, Alk, Alkarim Nasser

We have just uploaded the next update for the Middle Earth Mod. The version
number is 1.3B and it features quite some new stuff and changes. Check the
readme for a complete list.
We have also added a Cubes'n'Runes readme to the downloadable readme.zip
file. It lists all available rune and cube recipes as well as the number of
sockets available for each itemtype.
The required version for the mod is the english or german LoD 1.09 or 1.09b.

Have fun

Heya! Wasn't here (as in: in town) for the whole weekend (got back really
late Sun)...so belatedly -

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY, VALAR GUILD !

May your trees grow tall, your waters flow clean, your sun beam warmly, and
your stars shine brightly !

Elwing

  Members:
    Bandobras, Bert, Bilbo, Deagol/Primula (Brandywine), Eärendil, Ecthelion, Eonwë (Urion), Gildor, Glorfindel, Guilin, Gwindor (afk), Irmo, Isildur, Maedhros, Meriadoc, Namo (Mandos), Oin, Ori, Oromë, Pharazôn, Quickbeam, Salmar, Thingol, Thorondor (Torthurion), Thror, Varda (Elentari, presiding).
  Visiting:
    *D.Ripper, *Pickle_Mules, *Ghettosburg, *Mr.BillClinton.

 I am writting this from my work, my own internet connection is down and has
been for a week now and i still do not know when my provider can get it up
and running again.  I have phoned them and they say they will have to come
and replace a box "Skillebox" I do not know what to call it in english 
but no matter what it will not happen during the weekend.  Say hello to
everybody and happy anniversary.

Amillo
  

    Sorry that I didn't make it, I had a horrendous head cold and just plain
forgot.  I still get dizzy when I stand up so sitting at the computer or
laying in bed is pretty much what I am limited to. I'll make a point to be
at the meeting this week to make up for my absentmindedness, if that's a
word. Though I think this weekend is Canadian Thanksgivings but my brain
isn't working very well right now.  If it is indeed this weekend I probably
cant make it, if its not I'll be there with bells on 

    Aule


  

Aiya!

I got the cable today!
Now, I'm ready fly back to bnet with the wings of storm:)

Thorondor

Gefeliciteerd met je verjaardag Valar Guild!
(Congratulations on your birthday Valar Guild!)
Salmar.

!Feliz Aniversario de cuatro años! :}
or
!Feliz Cumpleaños al Valar Guild! :}
Hail and Happy Anniversary! :}

Eonwe

The Standard and the Hardcore Diablo II Ladders for both Diablo II 
and Diablo II: Lord of Destruction will be reset tomorrow, September 
29, 2001. This is a one-day delay from the previously posted notice.

Only characters created after 6:00 PM (PST, GMT -8) on September 29th 
will be eligible for the new ladder.

Aiya

I'm off from bnet until I get that cable connection. The reason is, that I
don't want to get enormous phone bills right now. I also have some problems
with my comps hard drive and the other email-server(Suomi24.fi) is down.

The good thing is, that I'll get the cable soon, prolly, and the hd is
nearly fixed.

I'm sure that the Team Free Peoples will be able to stand without the help
of any animals from the West:) (I'll join you later if/when I can).

Cheers,
Thorondor

New Team: Combined character by Primula and Deagol! Character name is Brandywine-V
    Letter from Deagol:

Primula and I will be making a joint char in honor of our Guilds 4 year Aniversary. The character will be a pally

Primula's favorite:) Not sure on the name yet but it will have some form of both our names in it.:

    Results are posted on the Tourney page as I hear about them. We had members hitting the ladders, a minimum of 6 I'm sure of, with more I didn't know about. Please email me if you made it!

Sept. 28, 2001
    Dain, Welcome to the Valar Guild! And congrats on your timing. Dain was tested by Elros and Eonwe, joining Sept 27. He was -=Kheldar=- . He's 15, from the US, EST. He's read the H, LotR, and currently reading the Sil. Plays D2, SC/BW, Ultima Online. 
    Purist teams for the Anniversary will not be using mules (storage characters). The object is to get as many of the members of the team on the ladder as possible. If we have the same number, add the lvls of the ones who made the ladder together figuring by lvl at meeting time, to break the tie.
    The Tourney page will try to keep updated as we go, so the info will be all in one place. Elros and Arothir are in great need of teammates, so email Elros right away! Email for team organizers is included on the Tourney page.
    We call them "purist" teams, but they're more like Quest for Three teams with 8 people using different classes over several days. True purists are said to play as if they were in single player.

    Letter from Elros about a new Purist team:

Heya,
I'm starting a team for the anniversary.  So far its only me (amazon) and Arothir (paladin).  Stick this on the news page so I can get more people

thanks
Elros

    Telephone scams - by AT&T long distance phone company. Includes 809, 284, and 796 area code scam (in the Caribbean so you don't have to dial the international 011, but looks like a US number, so you are charged international rates) and others. Link suggested by Meriadoc.

Sept. 27, 2001
    Tourney page: Purist team lists updated.

Sept. 26, 2001
    New Games page up, by Eonwe-(Valar). Please email him with current news on which games you play and what names you may be recognized by, such as your account names for bnet for the /friends list. His email is on the Games page.
    Tolkien Encyclopedia : New article on "Nornore" by Eonwe-(Valar), under Maiar.

Sept. 25, 2001
    Letter from Boromir:
        This is boromir sorry ive been not coming to meetings but soccer and football kept me buys.theyll be fullyh done in about 2 weeks or 1. .so then ill be more active.i want to play in the contest thing. i also can only play bw
    Note from Varda:
        BroodWar and StarCraft players, see the Tourney page to download official Valar Tourney maps Bridges of Osgiliath and Battle of Morannon. Email team members and time to Varda if you beat the comps.

Sept. 24, 2001 
    My new Netscape 6.1's Composer is very buggy, making the simplest copy/paste or typing a list or hitting enter into a massive chore. Please bear with me.

    Anniversary teams so far. Updated Sept. 27:
      Purists in D2X:
        Team Valar:
             Eonwe - organizer - druid, werebear. 1/1:30 - 8pm EST.
            Melkor - melee assassin. Flexible. Cannot play on Tues 1030 - 1130 or Thurs 0900 - 1600.
            Namo- amazon. Works afternoon and evening.       
            Orome - barbarian
            Salmar - paladin. 2-6pm EST     
            Varda - necromancer. Flexible.
        Team Free Peoples:
            Glorfindel - organizer - necromancer
            Aragorn - assassin
            Ecthelion - paladin
            Gildor - amazon
            Thranduil - druid
            Thorondor - sorceress
            Thror - barbarian    

Sept. 23, 2001
Sunday meeting will include Anniversary planning including picking gaming teams for several types of gaming, results to be reported at the Anniversary meeting. Please come. More suggestions for the Anniversary will be discussed, and we want to hear yours as well. Eonwe has a special guild-wide activity announcement.
  So far, we will have informal dropping into the channel all day on Oct 4, Anniversary Day, to reminisce, talk Tolkien, and game.
  The meeting after Oct 4 will be the Fourth Anniversary Meeting when we report gaming results and perhaps have a Tolkien Quiz team game, LotR questions only so all members can participate. We may also try using the voice chat on the Discussion Board for the fun of hearing each other's voices and perhaps a few songs.

Sunday Meeting 5pm EST
Attending:
    Members: (20 or 21): Aragorn/Estel, Arothir, Azog, Beorn, Bert, Deagol, Ecthelion, Eonwe, Gelmir (late), Glorfindel, Gildor, Glaurung, Gwindor/VinyanorII, Halbarad, Isildur?, Thingol, Thranduil, Thorondor/Sorontar, Thror, Tulkas, Varda
    Over the Shoulder: Fangorn, Sauron
    Discussion Board: Eonwe
    Visitors: *panteraman, *President_Dubya/ex-Grimbold, *H_A_R_V_E_Y
Membership: 131 members + 1 added during meeting
    Welcome to the guild, Smaug! Testing by Tulkas and Thorondor. Report from Tulkas: Came to channel as Panteraman, wearing a space suit. He said he found us through a Tolkien search on the internet. Very polite young man (15) from Berkshire, England. He has read our code of conduct and wishes they applied to all of Bnet. He plays D1, D2, D2 expansion, and BroodWar. He has read LotR, Sil, BoLT, and is currently rereading LotR. He is on Bnet daily for an hour or two and sometimes longer.
Anniversary Planning:
    Many suggestions made earlier by member chat and Council emails were brought up, although not quite all. Hopefully we'll be able to try out everything. Feel free to email suggestions to the News by way of Varda.
    Oct. 4: Anniversary Day. Everyone try to drop by the bnet channel during the day to say hi, chat, reminisce, talk Tolkien, and game.
    Oct. 7: Sunday Meeting after Anniversary Day. Reports by the Anniversary Gaming Teams (see Gaming). Tolkien Trivia team game at the meeting.
    Guild-wide Tolkien-style story . Eonwe will write the first installment, then email the next people to take up where he left off. He will choose randomly, although volunteers have a better chance. Each person has one week to respond. If you miss your time, ask Eonwe to call on you again so you won't be left out and he'll know you're interested. The running story will be kept on a web page for all to check on.
Gaming:
    The ladders reset the evening of the 28th of Sept. So the 29th (EST), our Anniversary Gaming Teams will start playing. This leaves you time to join or start a team until then. Currently we have two purist teams in D2X: Team Valar (email Eonwe or Varda, Valar honor members only), and Team Free Peoples (email Glorfindel or Varda), starting at level one and seeing how far they can bring their team members before the Anniversary Meeting on Oct 7. We can form up BroodWar teams to play the Tourney maps Bridges of Osgiliath and Battle of Morannon which can be downloaded from the Tourney Page, and email their scores to Varda for inclusion on the Tourney page. All players and scores may be reported there, not just top scores, as all participants deserve recognition for honoring the Anniversary. Any of the games on the Tourney page may be played. We have no people signed up yet for D2XME. No one has yet signed up for a single character played by a team on a shared account in Valar games, with a special team name and team storage. No one has yet signed up for any EQ or CounterStrike or other online Anniversary gaming. Pick your game and dive in.  :) 
Tolkien:
    Sauron's Topic: Tell about non-humanoid intelligences, an example being Caradhras. This set off a nice batch of suggestions.
    Glorfindel started a discussion about Rock Giants.

Sept. 21, 2001
D2X Middle-earth mod , report by Salmar:

Aiya!

Lanthahide updated his info on uniques/sets/gems/rune(word)s in the V&K Tolkien D2LoDMod. So if you seek that info and follow the old link on our News page, or on our Diablo and His Kin page, be sure to scroll down to find the updated link. The new class specific uniques are really yummy:). Even for non-(Mod)-playing members it might be nice to take a look at The Palantir of Minas Ithil, the Spirit of Thorondor, Melian's Hands of Doriath, the Scepter of Annuminas, and many more!

Sept. 20, 2001
LotR trailer on TV , report by Eonwe:

Hail! :}
While watching tv tonight(well last night, depending on how you look at it :}), I happened to hear something I thought interesting.  On the WB network (WB33 for me) they said that they would be showing the LotR trailer next week with the Season premier of Angel.  The time to the first movie draws near, my friends :}  Just a nice tidbit of info for those of us waiting to either praise or severely condemn the works of Peter Jackson :}

Sept. 19, 2001
    Herumor finished reading the Silmarillion.

    Links page: Time Magazine archives - search previous Time magazines for articles

    Letter from Tulkas, a forward:

Sept. 18, 2001
Letter from Rog :

Good day,

To explain my latest absence as you could probably guess I've been very busy lately. Just in case anyone forgot I'm a soldier
stationed at Ft. Bragg. We've been on a high alert status over the last week since last Tuesday's terrorist attacks.

Many troops from Ft. Bragg sent to New York and Washington DC as a humanitarian task force. Even a few from our battalion.
While I know I wont be deploying to either of those cities the chance of other deployments are still present if and when they
decide to send any ground troops into Afghanistan.

Chances are good that 82nd Airborne Division would be one of the first to go. Being in COSCOM (Corps Support Command) I'd
be right behind them as support. This is all in speculation and nothing is engraved in stone. I know as much as everyone else
by watching the news. But we are prepared to leave at anytime. Everyone already has their deployment bags packed and
ready to go.

Although this would put a terrible cramp in my lifestyle I am prepared to go out and defend our country and the freedom it
stands for. These cowardly terrorists attacks will not go unpunished and I will proudly serve in my country's name and defend
your rights to be a free people. They have killed Americans. . .But they will never destroy the American spirit.

I understand we have members from all around the world. Not just Americans died in these attacks. People from all over the
world have lost their lives. This wasn't just an attack on America but a defiance to the right of life itself. I ask everyone from all
nations to join me and show support in our fight against a faceless enemy.

"United We Stand"

With fondest regards,

Jonathon R Hart
SPC, USA
Specialist

"Rog"

There have been a few news accounts of a 'small plane buzzing around the
disaster', with assorted distortions appended thereunto. Here's the scoop -
it was the CAP aircraft, gathering realtime pictures for the disaster
relief - not some idiot sightseeing.

Sept. 16, 2001
Sunday Meeting 5pm EST (GMT-5)
Attending Report by Salmar and Varda:
Amillo/Lindelome, Arothir (late), Arwen/Evenstar, Bandobras/Bullroarer, Beorn, Cirdan, Deagol, Elros/Starfoam, Eonwe/Fionwe, Finduilas, Girion (late), Glorfindel, Gwindor, Irmo, Melkor , Ori, Salmar, Smeagol, Theoden, Thorondor/Sorontar, Thranduil, Thror, Tulkas, Ulmo, Varda /Elbereth (chair)
Over-the-shoulder attendees: Fladrif, Oin, Primula, Sauron
Phone-in-hello: Fangorn
Discussion Board: Eonwe, Tom Bombadil, Salmar, others
Visitor: *President_Dubya/ex-Grimbold
Membership Report by Amillo:
131 members; three new members joined during and after last meeting: Bilbo, Theoden, Turin
Theoden said a few words of introduction from Norway.
Irmo had never said his few words so he said his.
Herumor emailed hello and says he's on Chapter 22 of the Silmarillion. His comment: "a very satisfying volume indeed". He's been busy with high school, but hasn't forgotten us.
Web Report by Varda:
Domain name from Aldarion is now linked into the main web pages and usable www.valarguild.org
Annals of Arda now set up on it's own domain name with its own web space, linked into main guild and Tolkien Encyclopedia
Tolkien Encyclopedia updated links to Annals of Arda, Rolozo's Tolkien page, and added links to artwork by JRR Tolkien from Rolozo's.
Links: Mithril Miniatures, with its gaming figurines and collectibles
Gaming Reports by Ulmo, Deagol, Fingolfin (email) and Varda:
EQ Report by Ulmo and Deagol:
Ulmo: 5 guild members now regularly playing on the Zebuxoruk server. Ulmo and Earendil regularly play together.
Deagol: now has EQ
D2X Middle-earth: new update now available for download (see top of News or V&K page)
Third Age M.U.D. requesting writers of Tolkien to act as GameMasters working together on this text-only game. Beta-testers will be trying out the game in November. (Send in Tolkien stories to Varda for publication; send in request to be GameMaster with a link to your story to Nazgum of Third Age.)
The Realm is now sending out information to beta testers, quite a few in our guild. Guild beta-testers, please send reviews of this game to Varda.
Special:
The guild spent one minute of online silence in memory of the dead from the terrorist attack. Tulkas timed our minute. I was impressed as my screen, just shortly before loaded with talk and green whispers, went completely quiet. We had many to remember.
Tulkas also gave us an URL to help us better understand our attackers:
http://home.swipnet.se/islam/articles/jehad.htm
Tolkien:
Amillo of Denmark quoted a Moment from Tolkien, very appropriate. It was the Oath of Cirion and Eorl at Amun Anwar, in which Rohan and Gondor swore aid to each other at need.

Sept. 16, 2001
D2X Middle-earth mod - Letter from Fingolfin:

Hi

We have uploaded the 1.2 update to the Middle Earth Mod for D2LoD to our
site. It mainly fixes some bugs and ups some underpowered skills.
Download it at www.VKmods.de and check the downloadable readme for changes.

Khan aka Fingolfin-(V)

Hi Varda, well I checked out your (Encyc and Annals maps - Varda), and some of the maps are amazing :)
Very nice workers you have there.

In response to your email we unfortunately do not have a web page up, we're
waiting for the game to be more complete to put more detailed information up
on the web about it. And if we use any maps from your site we will for sure
give you guys credit on our game and website.

For further information I can tell you more about what we're doing and some
details of the game:
The world we want to create will be drawn up on a grid map, consisting of
multiple zones. Because of the detail and size of tolkien's world, many
writers will be required to help complete it. Each writer we use will be in
charge of one zone initially, and will be responsible for creating the area,
creatures, items, and events or quests within their zone. They will have to
keep in communication with the writers building the zones around them, so the
areas meet smoothly.
The game has to be very story-intensive, so the primary goal is to
create an environment that allows a lot of roleplaying. The timeline we are
using is from 2600 to 3000 of the Third Age. All events in the history of
Middle Earth up to 2600 has happened. From 2600 onward, the players have the
ability to change the world and the story (Some heroes might take on Bill
Bert and Tom to recover Glamdring and Orcrist for themselves to use against
evil). One of the major aspects of roleplaying we will be focusing on is the
conflict between the Free People of Arda and the Forces of Sauron.
The war is one of the most important parts of the game, and so the system we
use must be very detailed to deal with it. The sides of the game are in
conflict, so while a hobbit player would see another player elf as "Luin the
Sindarin Elf" and could communicate with him, he would see a player orc as
*An Orc*. A warlord system will be used, where you receive points for kills
upon the other side. Players with the most kills will be listed on the
warlords list and seen differently by other players (ex *A Dreadful Orc*).
How the game deals with the players would be affected by this also, a new
player orc might get harassed by fellow mob (game coded) orcs, whereas a
player orc with several kills would demand respect, and the mob orcs might
fear him and bow when he passes. Some quests are only available to those who
have some reknown in the world for their combat ability.
Along with the races, characters can choose their class (restricted by race)
and may be a warrior, weapons and combat expert; a ranger, woodlands survival
and huntsman; a rogue, masters of stealth and thievery; a mage, wielders of
elven magic; or a sorcerer, delvers in the black arts. I don't wanna go too
into detail here on the specifics of everything so I'll leave it at this for
now.

The game is currently still being written, but all of the code required to
get areas up and running in the game is finished. Because we need code and
areas to open for testing, we're recruiting builders now. The goal is to
open around november for player testing, to help weed out bugs and see what
needs fixing/balancing/etc. Player testing will run until the game is good
enough to open for real, at which point we'll begin advertising on the web,
have our website finished, etc

Hope that helps some.
- Nazgum

Sept. 15, 2001
Annals of Arda , Amillo's Encyclopedia which is the companion to the Tolkien Encyclopedia, has moved to a new address using his own domain name. Congrats on all that hard work, Amillo!

Letter from the Third Age M.U.D. developers, looking for writers who can also be game-masters for game to be put out in November:

Ho, Nazgum here.. I was browsing tolkien short story sites looking for
writers to developing a tolkien-based game. We are interested in people who
would enjoy describing areas in Middle Earth or writing game quests. I'll
include some basic info along with this email so you can get an idea of what
is being done.

Me and about 15 friends of mine from around the globe are currently working
to create a tolkien themed roleplaying game. The idea behind the game is
players will create a character from the races found in Middle Earth.
Players can choose to be Elves, Dwarves, Hobbits, Men, Orcs, or Trolls.

The setting for our game will be late in the Third Age (2600 to 3000), before
"the Hobbit" and after Sauron has lost the One ring. We are starting to
create the world from Rivendell and expand outwards to include areas such as
mirkwood, moria, mordor, lorien, bree, etc.

The game will be a multi-player online game with a good vs bad conflict where
the Free People of Arda (Elves, Hobbits, Dwarves, Humans) are at war with the
forces of Sauron (Orcs, Trolls, and Black Numenoreans). Players will be
encouraged to explore the lands, battle the enemy, seek out rare items (such
as Glamdring and Orcrist) and advance in skill and power.

The type of game this will be is a MUD, which if you are familiar with it is
a pure-text game where your imagination controls the game. Because of this a
well written world is required.

If you are interested in this, you would be working with other writers and be
assigned a portion of the world to describe. Story-lines and ideas for
quests or events that will happen in your area is important so you must be
creative.

The game is planned to go into beta in november, where we will have a
player-base (already ready) of 20 to 30 players who will be testing out the
game for us, and from that point on there will be people playing the game and
it will be expanded online.

Those who help in the creation of the world will be assigned Ainur characters
in the game, that will act as the lords of the west who live in valinor and
watch over the mortals. They will have special game commands and the higher
level Ainur will be the management staff of the game. There is no "owner"
for this game and it will be free to play, and those who put in the most
effort will have the higher Ainur positions (Aratar and Valar). Those
players will have more say in what happens in the game and what changes
should be made to it.

Most people who do this enjoy it and find it fun to create ideas and then see
other players live through their creations. If you are interested please
send me and email back, telling me your thoughts or if you like requesting
more information.

Thanks for your time,
Nazgum - Promotions Staff for The Third Age
nazgum@home.com

Meanwhile, back in the air: Airports around the country are getting
certified to the new tougher security standards. General recommendation is
to arrive 2 hours early, don't pack stuff that's embarrassing to have out in
the light of day - all packages and baggage being opened and checked.
Flights can only go to and from the certified secure airports. However,
there have been folks performing Herculean tasks to get everything lined up
quickly, and airports have been getting certified rapidly. I anticipate
that all commercial airports will be certified in the next day or two.
However, any suspicions can get an airport shut down suddenly until they're
checked out. Given the standard hub-and-spoke airline travel method, every
time that happens, it'll send ripples of delays through the system. Just
expect it and be patient. It'll be a while before things settle down and
the new methodology becomes a smooth routine.
For smaller aircraft, the FAA is now allowing private aircraft to fly on
IFR (Instrument Flight Rules) flight plans. This is because aircraft under
IFR have a discrete beacon code assigned to them for identification, and are
in constant communication with Air Traffic Control. There are some new
twists, though. Previously, the pilot could cancel the IFR plan in flight
when the airport was in sight, or could file an IFR plan in the air if the
airport was under the clouds. Now, all filing and canceling must be done on
the ground. That'll also slow the system up some.
There are also some awkward restrictions being placed on even the limited
GA (General Aviation) flights that are occurring. See
http://www.aopa.org/whatsnew/newsitems/2001/010914signature.html
for an example of the restrictions. This is at airports where there is both
Airline and General Aviation activity. For non-towered airports that are GA
only, there are currently more questions than answers.
Fortunately, the Secretary of Transportation, Norman Mineta, is attempting
to move forward and reopen the skies and airports to more normal air
traffic, including the GA aircraft, many of whom are still sitting wherever
they went down when the balloon went up due to the ongoing flight
restrictions.
With the onset of Tropical Storm Gabrielle in Florida, the DOT and DOD also
permitted VFR (Visual Flight Rules) operation (No distinct beacon code) for
the purposes of hurricane evacuation.
Several wings of the CAP (Civil Air Patrol) have been active in the
emergency, more details at http://www.capnhq.gov/Web_Update_Tragedy.pdf

In the city of God, there will be a great thunder, two
brothers torn apart by chaos while the other fortress
endures. The great leader will succumb, the 3rd world war
will begin.

When the great city is burning in the end, a man riding a white horse will
be the apocalypse, this man is named Mabus Inddalin

(Mabus Inddalin can be rearranged to spell Usama Bin Laddin)

Nostradamus Hoax - Letter from Tulkas:

You may want to check this web page out. The quote from Nostradamus is a hoax. Apparently a University Student
wrote a paper back in 1999 and this quote was an extrapolation of part of that paper.
http://www.snopes2.com/inboxer/hoaxes/predict.htm

Regards, Tulkas-(Valar)

Subject: FW: Information Terrorism

Concerning the September attack, by now you may have noticed that several
emails have been circulated on the internet, each featuring quatrains in
Nostradamus' style. These are all false. Even if you believe Nostradamus
did predict many events, you should be told that he did NOT write ANY of
these circulated quatrains. If you don't believe me, go to About.com, a
reputable online site that specializes in debugging rumors. That site will
verify.

If people believe that Nostradamus did write these, what affect would it
have? It would sow doubt and fear, because, if people become convinced that
the WTC attack signifies the beginning of the end of the world, then they
would be less willing to fight the foe. It would wound morale, because some
people would seriously be concerned about the end of the world and hesitate
if they went forward in any counter-attack. These falsehood emails,
therefore, generate unrest and damage moral.

Who would fabricate such emails? Who would gain by them? The answer: the
enemy probably wrote them. The enemy does have access to the internet and
has proven in the past to be smart enough to manipulate some populace
opinion.

I also checked these emails myself, looking up several hardcopy
translations. I found what About.com found. There are no such quatrains.

Even if you believe in Nostradamus, these email predictions of Armageddon
are still completely false. These quatrains were not written over 400 years
ago. They were written in the week of September 11, 2001, with only a few
words borrowed from the original Centuries.

These false emails are most likely designed to create an atmosphere of fear.
They are Informational Terrorism. Without a doubt, their existence is
damaging.

If you are on the Democratic side in this conflict, I beg you to do 2
things:

First, do NOT forward these false quatrains. The more these lies spread,
the more they chip away at resolve.

Second, pass this email on in order to counter the effect of the lies. The
fake quatrains will damage morale unless people are informed of their
falsehood. This email should begin to assure them that the quatrains are
fake. It can block the enemy's manipulation, but only if you send it on.

Information is a powerful weapon for either side. Of this, I am positive.

Thank you,
---Agrimmeer.

Sept. 14, 2001
A Discussion Board thread reacting to the chat reported in the News suggests that in Tolkien's Middle-earth, the Americas more likely were the new lands rather than Aman.
Tolkien Encyclopedia : new paper on "Eonwe" by Eonwe-(Valar) linked under Maia and with a link from the Powers page under Lost Valar. Thanks for getting ready for the Guild's 4th Anniversary in such a lasting way!
Links page : Mithril Miniatures: The Lord of the Rings - sells Tolkien miniatures both for gaming and for decoration/collecting. Has a painting guide. Articles on races and characters.: by Macroom Co. of Cork, Ireland. Under Gaming/Making Your Own Game

Day of Remembrance. When the World Trade Center was attacked, the number of Americans killed was greater than the number in WWII, but these were unsuspecting civilians. Not since Antietam of the Civil War when casualties on both sides were Americans have the numbers been comparable, and those were military. The incredible number and quality of emergency workers lost, including Firefighter Force 1, is numbing. But lest we forget, many people in those Towers were not US citizens, but citizens from many countries who worked alongside each other. All over the US, the situation is like this. People of other countries are here everywhere, helping and creating a world without boundaries, with the amazing talents that only such diversity can provide. Naturally the dangers to such a heaven must be of similiar nature, without boundaries. When seen from space, the world shows no political boundaries but is One, and the Two Towers are not even visible. Let's slap the ants off our collective world clothes, prevent them from getting back on us, and go on with our building of this great new life.

Update from Meriadoc, standing by with air search and rescue in Texas. Meriadoc is a 1st Lieutenant in the Civil Air Patrol, United States Air Force Auxiliary, and my brother.

Things are quiet here. The squadron is still on alert. I've been keeping
track of the various changes in aviation status as the time's worn on. The
grounding of everything in the air was part of a set plan that was already
in place, though I don't think this was what they had in mind at the time.
Getting back in the air again is something that will proceed much more
slowly. Commercial aircraft are being allowed back in the air as long as
they're going from security-recertified airports to other recertified
airports. That's under the newer, more stringent rules. The main centers
are responding rapidly and getting recertified, so it's giving the
commercial aircraft that are flying a place to go. Several airlines are
still waiting it out while they try to figure out what to do next. Their
aircraft, crews and passengers are scattered all over the country.
General aviation (everything from little ultralights to bizjets) is not
authorized back in the air yet. Those who were stranded are going to stay
that way for a while. There's no visible rush on the part of officials to
get that section of aviation back on track.
During this time, emergency flights, such as medical helicopters, transport
of medical and emergency supplies, most fire-fighting activities and some
disaster relief flights have been permitted under special rules.

Still waiting.

Onwards!
Meriadoc

Sept. 13, 2001
US air traffic is still in trouble, although looking out my door I saw an F16 fly overhead. "Smaller" airports will take some time to meet all the new regulations before they can open, such as moving entire parking lots and other structural work. Hotels are swamped around all airports. So the flights going into large airports, such as Chicago's O' Hare, which carry people who need to make connections at other airports have been stopped since no beds are available for new stranded passengers. Airline passengers have been coming up with creative ways to reach their destinations, such as a group that gathered together and chartered a bus. Air mail is going out by truck causing many strange delays. We may be inconvenienced by our own caution, but we are far from stopped.

Sept. 12, 2001
Guild news:
Letter from Eonwe-(Valar):

Sunday night I managed to dislocate my right shoulder (not a whole lot of
fun), and so my arm will be in a sling for a while. This means I won't be
doing much (probably none since I can't reach the mouse all too well.) zerg
or monster killing while my shield arm is immoble (my lvl 85 Pally may be
lvl 85 for a while). Since then I've been taking it easy for the most part.
Typing I can still do, albeit a bit slower than usual, so some of my
projects that involve typing may be delayed a bit (I still plan to make it
to meetings).

Take care all!
Eonwe

Canada: Letter from Aule:

Well they did the same here as they did in the US, they shut down all
airports, accepting only planes that were already in the air without enough
fuel to return to their departure point. They took any planes that were
destined for the US, we basically became an airport depot for the US for
awhile. Last I heard everything was still closed. Neighbor across the street
works downtown Toronto, they closed the CN Tower and told people in the
immediate surrounding area to go home. They closed at least one of the
major highways, the one that leads to the US in fact. So basically it
sounds as though they took similar actions in Canada as they did in the US.

Aule

Hail!
I woke up to this on the news yesterday, and such news is without a doubt
not how anyone would choose to wake up. This is terrible, and I agree with
President Bush when he called the act cowardly. I spent most of yesterday
watching about it, and most of today as well. My thoughts and prayers go
out to those who are affected in any way by this atrocity, especially to
those who have lost a loved one and to anyone forced to experience these
attacks firsthand. My thoughts and prayers also go to any survivors we may
not yet have found. I hope not for revenge, but for justice.
May you all be safe and well, and remain so.
Take care.
Eonwe

Sept. 11, 2001
Terrorist attack:
Today the US underwent a terrorist attack considered the worst in history.
Four jumbo jet passenger liners with identical flight decks were hijacked on the US east coast, already fully loaded with gasoline and carrying many passengers, on a very clear day. The hijackers apparently carried knives or knife-like weapons that slipped past the metal detectors in the airports and made no suspicious bulge in the clothing. They seem to have taken over the pilots' seats and flew very low, maybe just below 1000' to go under radar, each with a particular target for a suicide run. At almost the same time, around 9am EST when most civilians had arrived for work, each went for its target using the plane as a jet fuel-laden guided missile.
In New York, one hit the 110 story tower of the World Trade Center, destroying much of it. This was at first thought to be a horrible freak accident. Rescue efforts commenced immediately.
Inside half an hour, the second jumbo jet crashed into the second 110 story tower of the Trade Center, demolishing it. About 250 firemen and 200 police working inside the first tower, many having gotten as far as the 35th floor, were caught inside, taking out about half the available rescue force. Nearby "smaller" buildings of 40 and 20 stories height were destabilized and I'm not sure how many fell completely during the day. More rescue workers and hundreds of doctors were kept outside the perimeter of unstable skyscrapers and nearly unbreathable air, with not enough able to go inside right away to do the kind of work needed. Camps were set up outside the area for rescue workers, field hospitals and temporary morgues. While most transportation was shut down, refugees were able to walk out on the bridge and to take ferries.
Meanwhile another passenger jet crashed sideways into the Pentagon. This building is of much different shape being low and spread out, so there was much less structural damage, localized to only that area. The reinforced blast wall on the right side had just been put in, saving the building to that side of the crash. To the left, many of the offices were not in full use due to renovations about to be made to add another blast wall. However, a fire started that went under the roof where it could relight itself and, although contained, and has not been put out. People were killed and hurt, but nothing like the scale of the Trade Center.
Another passenger jet crashed before hitting its target, at least three being possible near its route such as the White House, Camp David, and Raven Rock.
All crew and passengers in all four jets died, 266, along with the hijackers. The number of dead in all the buildings and the bystanders and rescue workers cannot yet be counted, and may take months. Try to imagine the height and width of just one 110 story building. Fortunately, most of the 20 and 10 story buildings nearby were evacuated in time.

The US closed all borders and landed all planes at the nearest airports, and all planes have been accounted for. Canada kindly took in a number of the international flights. All high government officials were protected. Security measures went up everywhere, military at its highest alert. Many businesses and colleges closed, events cancelled. Not much could be done anyway with everyone glued to the television. People donated blood all over the US, even with a two hour wait in the sun outside the hospitals just here in Houston, and more donated food to the people in the blood lines. Shelters were set up for stranded airplane passengers who couldn't get a room since all available hotels were already full of other stranded airplane passengers. Much individual help was extended.
The Bin Laden terrorist group is considered by the CIA and Israeli intelligence to be the most probable suspect, about 90% chance, believed to be harbored by Afghanistan which is already in the middle of a violent civil war. That's the reason we saw Kabul, Afghanistan in flames, not a US counter-attack. The US is trying to first be sure of its target, a problem since it's not an easily identifiable country, and the loosely knit organization is spread across a number of countries.
While the Iraqis and Palestinians seemed quite pleased with the events, despite official denials, the rest of the world pulled in behind the US, offering welcome support and protecting their own air space. The pulling together of much of the world even across ideologies has been stunning and admirable, and the US thanks them all for their prayers and help.

Our own international group, the Valar Guild, can feel events across "distances" in an intimate way, as we have no real distance between us, playing and talking together. A few of the letters from our guild members follow:
Eru
Amillo
Salmar
Irmo
Orome
Elwing
Meriadoc

From Eru in England:

I'm currently offline again in the internet department (accursed phone company), however I've borrowed a friend's PC to send you
(and the guild) this mail:

I'd like to offer my most sincere condolences for the terrible disaster which befell the American people today. Our thoughts here
are with our US friends at this dark time and I desperately hope that all guild members, their families and friends were untouched by
this tragedy. It's clear that the world has changed today, and for the worst as mankind sinks to ever lower levels of despicable
cruelty to one another.
The Valar Guild, since it's conception as an idea was always meant to bridge the many different cultures and peoples of the world
and bring them together in a place where they could find friendship and warmth, without prejudice or barriers. Let us all now take
heart from that ideal and use it to help everyone to recover from such a terrible incident. I lament that I cannot join you at present,
but you are in my thoughts and all of my hopes go out to you in your hour of need.

My very best wishes to everyone.
Eru Iluvatar, The One.

I saw the news today about the detestable terroraction, it is a loathsome disgusting action performed against civilian and innocent people
and nothing can ever justify such horrible things. My heart reach out in sorrow, compassion and sympathy for the dead, their family and
the american people.

Amillo

This morning, I woke up in one world - when I go to sleep tonight, I shall do so in a fundamentally different one.

It is utterly tragic and deeply saddening to witness this shocking realisation of man's potentiality for evil, this contempt for human life. I
hesitate even to imagine the horrible depths of a fanaticism that can justify, to itself and its followers, such acts.
It is a black day in world history.

It is the "Kinslaying" of our Age.

In central places in Copenhagen, great numbers of people have formed spontaneous demonstrations of sympathy, a vast, glittering sea of
flowers and lit candles have been placed before the American Embassy where Danes (many of them young people and children) have
gathered, memorial services have been and are continuing to be given.

My thoughts are with you - as our former foreign minister put it in a speech a few minutes ago - today we are all New Yorkers.

One cannot help but think of Nostradamus' prophecy.
Is this the beginning of the end?

Yours, in shock and sympathy,

Rico.

From Salmar in the Netherlands:

To our American friends, inside and outside the Valar Guild.
All activities in the government building where I work at The Hague, Netherlands, came to an abrubt standstill as we heard of
the horrific news of the monstruous attacks on public buildings in the United States that took place today. Words fail to
describe the enormous shock we felt as we learned of these barbaric attacks on innocent people.
I, and I am sure all members of the Guild, deeply symphatize with you, our American friends, for what what was done to you
and yours today. My heart bleeds for the poor victims and all the american people. My heart bleeds for this day, that will be
remembered forever as one of the darkest days in the history of civilization.
I hope that our governments - ours as well as yours - will have the vision, courage and perseverence to find and wipe out those
individuals and organizations that are behind these atrocities. For let it be clear that any discussion of politics or religion is
completely uncalled for. The only "case" that we can be discussing here is to be described in one word: murder.
As I saw the images on television of people actually dancing in the streets in some parts of the world I fear deeply for the world
that our children will inherit. Rest assured that we - in the Valar Guild, in Europe, throughout the civilized world - are mourning.
Our hearts are with you, our american friends. And we will stand beside you.
Yours truely,
Salmar-(Valar)

It has been a shocking day, the thoughts of our overseas friends are much appreciated. Orome

Guess it's been pretty quiet out in your area with the planes grounded.
Still can't hardly believe it happened for real and not just a "disaster movie of the week".
Better make another goodly size donation to Red Cross...they sure have their work cut out.
Any guild folk closer to caught up in that mess? Prayers to them and all...
Elwing

All is seemingly normal here - except there's not a plane in the sky.
Meanwhile, our squadron is on alert, which doesn't mean much except to stand
by the phone and wait for some news on if the Air Force wants us to do
something. No flying for a while. Anything that goes up right now will
have F16's on it like ducks on a June bug.

Onwards!
Meriadoc

Sept. 9, 2001
Sunday Meeting(times for actual listed members in case you wonder why everyone doesn't show up for meetings! EST is official Valar time) :
2pm PST (GMT-8)(14:00), 3pm MST (GMT-7)(15:00), 4pm CST (GMT-6)(16:00), 5pm EST (GMT-5 hours)(17:00) , 9pm (GMT-1)(21:00), 10pm (GMT) (22:00), 11pm (GMT+1)(23:00), 12pm (GMT+2)(24:00), 1am Sept 10 (GMT+3)(01:00 Sept 10)
Attending : report by Varda
Members:
Amillo/Lindelome, Deagol, Ecthelion, Eomer, Eonwe/Fionwe, Glorfindel, Gwindor/Gwaindor, Irmo, Thorondor/Thortaro, Thror, Tulkas, Ulmo, Varda/Elbereth (chair)
Discussion Board:
No one came from that side. Eonwe kept his presence there just in case anyway.
Visitor:
MackietheAvatar who became Theoden-(V)
)v(aynard_James fka Grimbold
Membership : report by Amillo
128 members at the start of the meeting
Welcome to 3 new members added during and after the meeting. Reports need to be sent to Varda or the whole Council, mine too :) :
Bilbo, same Bilbo from the Discussion Board. He's 16, from Fremont, California, USA, in the Pacific Time Zone. He's on bnet daily, usually in BroodWar. Also plays Tactical Ops. He's about to start D2X after reformatting and adding 4GB to his comp. He's also looking forward to WC3. He has a lot of Tolkien pics he'd like to share with us, around a hundred. He tested 5/5 with Varda and Eonwe. He's read the H, LotR, Sil, and all but the last 2 chapters of UT which he's working on now.
Theoden, Beregond's friend who lives 10 minutes away. He's 18, from Norway, GMT+1. He's read the H and LotR. Tested by Irmo and Amillo. The Valar Bonus Question clause was invoked for the test by Amillo and Irmo due to his excellent behavior.
Turin, met the above Bilbo who suggested he try out too. Eonwe and Varda tested. He's from the USA. He's read the H, LotR, Sil, and Lost Letters. He plays BW.
Salmar emailed his regards; had company and could not attend.
Deagol and Primula are back after solving isp problems.
Tulkas showed up with a comp crippled by lightning, makes it too laggy for gaming.
Fingolfin aka Khan having isp problems, expecting to solve soon. Good luck!
Fourth Anniversary of the Valar Guild coming up on Oct 4, a Thursday, (very close to Tulkas's birthday). Suggested activity: everyone pop in on bnet at least once that day if they can if only for a few minutes to say hi! Congrats to everyone for keeping this group going strong!
Web Report : by Varda
Domain name: www.valarguild.org is now up, but not linked into the rest of the pages yet. It should be when Aldarion has time between working hours. He bought the name and set up space for guild use. If you have a guild page that you would like to move to his space, email him and include your guild name for your personal folder. Eru's www.valar.org is still down.
Trading Message Board: alive and well by Tom Bombadil on his server. To make locating it easier, it's been moved on the guild index to the first entry under Gaming. Tom is still offering free web space to guild members.
News Archives: moved to www.valarguild.org server.
Tolkien Encyclopedia: frames version now completely on flex.net server along with the no-frames version, so it has no ads. It needs articles especially on Fellowship members. It also needs Tolkien's descriptions of all the main LotR characters to help the anime movie project, as well as for helping artists, role-players and information-seekers in general. Email to Varda.
Gaming Report :
Civilization III live report from Deagol:
CIII is on the shelves; Deagol said he saw it in the USA.
D2X Middle-earth mod: email report from Fingolfin/Khan
Version update for Sept 7 available for download
D2X Middle-earth mod: Email report from Salmar
Updated item lists on web page by Lanthanide. .
EverQuest: report from Ulmo live, and helpers including Eomer.
It has a healthy group of Valar in Zebuxoruk server mostly, and some others. They are finding Tolkien fans there as well. We have hope of eventually having enough for our own guild server, but this is difficult as we are so picky about members and the server requires a minimum of 10 people at the same time. Rather than lower our standards, we try to play mostly on the same server, Zebuxoruk. We need your EQ names so guild members can find each other. Email them for posting on the EQ member page. Ulmo played with Aule, Earendil, Fladrif, and Smeagol in EQ. A new expansion for EQ is coming out.
NeverWinter Nights: emailreport from Amillo : (correction to earlier notes by Varda live)
Neverwinter Nights is a single / multiplayer realtime roleplaying game set in the same universe as Baldurs Gate built upon the rules of advanced dungeon and dragon tablegame and it is not yet released.
See neverwinternights.com
Tolkien Chat :
Topic from Varda: The Ainur could choose their own shapes. What kinds of shapes did they choose and was there a noticeable difference between Valar and Maiar forms?
The Valar tended to pick forms like that of the Children of Iluvatar, probably larger to handle their huge jobs and idealized to honor Eru. Interesting that makers of Arda used that shape to do and repair creation. Ulmo, the non-conformist, chose an appearance more like the water element which he sang into being and in which he made his appearance felt.
The Maiar tended to use different styles of forms, smaller since they worked with smaller parts than entire planets, continents, all the waters, all the stars, all the plants and animals. To aid the Vala who had the main general job, they might take forms for the specialized work. Huan took the form of a great dog to be the opposite of Sauron's Tevildo cat form. If corrupted by Melkor, they might take conveniently terrifying forms such as balrogs or pleasing to mislead such as the Annatar form of Sauron. Ungoliant took up most of the chat, proven at last by two quotes from the Silmarillion to be a Maia corrupted by Morgoth, who took the form of a giant spider.

Sept. 8, 2001
Trading: The listing for the Trading message board on the guild index page is now the first entry under Gaming.

Sept. 7, 2001
Tulkas's house seems to have taken a lightning strike, as a number of electrical appliances are misbehaving, including his comp. He managed to get the email to work long enough to let us know, and will be reaching us from work for anything more complicated, possibly around Wednesday. Good luck!
Primula and Deagol are back with us after isp problems. Glad to have you around again!

D2 Tolkien mod:
Letter from Khan:

Hail
We uploaded a new version of the Middle Earth Mod at the usual URL
www.VKmods.de/d2/memodlodzip
It includes bugfixes, some new affixes (Elite Armors may have inherent
damage resist and Elite Weapons may have inherent deadly strike) and 6
Runewords:
Weapons
Man Curu Gurth
Kir Ang Sul
Ereg Sereg Ur Thalion
Armor(includes shields, belts etc)
Anna Tir Maeg
Thoron Ang Sul
Fea Sereg Beleg

Post bugreports in the forum - have fun.

Khan aka Fingolfin
(I am planning to play on Bnet also when my provider fixes some major
stuff...)

Sept. 6, 2001
News Archives moved to Aldarion's server under www.valarguild.org. Links will be improved as I get a bit of time. We're not sure exactly which folder will be the permanent home for the index, from which everything else hangs.

Sept. 5, 2001
Domain news: Aldarion has started a www.valarguild.org domain name for the guild, not yet connected. He does beautiful work, so take a look!
www.valar.org is still unusable at this time.
Folklore & Mythology site now functional on its new GeoCities location. Link updated on the guild index. Contributions welcome.

Sept. 4, 2001
Domain name. We are still working on the domain name. It has not escaped to unfriendly hands, as Eru still owns www.valar.org until 2002. It will eventually be set up properly again, although it may be transferred. The UK registration doesn't like the idea of transferring domain names to the US. We have also been considering www.valarguild.org and other possibilites, so we will have something in place eventually. Meanwhile, a bookmark to the index is your best bet, since it's not leaving it's current location at least for some time, but will probably be in two places at once for quite a while..
http://www.flex.net/~layton2/guild/guild.html

Tolkien  Ensemble: Report from Amillo:
For all you Tolkien lovers over there :) there is news for you from Denmark, I received this newsletter from the Tolkien Ensemble.

Good news from The Tolkien Ensemble.
CD's released in USA!
    The Tolkien Ensemble's two CD's An Evening in Rivendell & A Night in Rivendell has been rereleased in a 2 CDbox under the title:
24 Songs from The Lord of the Rings.
    It is released in USA and run by the chain *Borders Books & Music* (320 stores in America) and *Virgin Megastores* and *Tower Records* sells them too.
    Till now The Tolkien Ensemble has sold 12.000 copies of their CD's.
    The Tolkien Ensemble gives 3 Concerts in Rundetaarn in Copenhagen, Denmark.
    The programme will be both old "hits" and brand new songs to be released on the next CD At Dawn in Rivendell.

Concert-dates:

6 October, 8PM
11 October, 8PM
3 November, 8PM

Tickets: 100 Kroner
Billetnet

We are looking very much forward to the concerts.

All the best wishes
Caspar Reiff
www.tolkienensemble.dk
(Our newsletter is in English only as we are fortunate to have a lot of foreign people on our mailinglist.)

Aug. 30, 2001
    Bnet now has a new feature for finding friends. In the channel, type /friends or /f. It doesn't work in games. This brings up a menu to which you can add friends' account names, for example /f add Elbereth-(V). You can find them with /f list, and their comings and goings will be sent to you even when you are in a game. This also means you need to email Amillo right away and let him know all your player account names (not character names, not mule accounts) so you can be found by your guild buddies.
    Amillo's pages seem to be down this morning.
    New article: "Shadowfax" by Varda in the Tolkien Encyclopedia under Animals. Includes what happened to Shadowfax after Gandalf took ship to the West, from JRRT's Letters.

Aug. 26, 2001
Sunday Meeting 5pm EST
Attending: report from Salmar:
    (15) Arwen (Evenstar), Ecthelion, Eol, Eonwe (Fionwe), Eru (at YDB), Gildor, Glorfindel, Irmo, Maedros, Rog, Salmar (Ulumurcur), Thorondor, Thror, Tulkas,  Ulmo (chair).
    While we wait for more Minutes, please enjoy the news collected during the weekend:
Absences:
    Melkor is going fishing Sunday morning and plans to return Sept 9. Have a good time!
    Boromir will be working during meeting time. He hopes to make enough money to buy D2 and the Expansion. Good luck!
    Varda was out of town this weekend during the Sunday meeting. Hopefully we will have some form of Minutes for the Sunday meeting up later. I returned late Sunday, after attending the Alexandrian Symposium with Fangorn, Meriadoc, Elwing, and Sauron. It was a series of lectures on Medieval Foods and Festivals. We also blew money at a four-story book store in Austin. Did we mention we do things big in Texas?
The Discussion Board side of the Meeting: report from Eonwe:
Attendance: Eonwe, Eru, Irmo, Salmar
Bakshi Movie: I mentioned on both the DB and on bnet about the rerelease of the Ralph Bakshi version of LotR.  This will happen on September 11, and should come out on both VHS and DVD.
Gaming punctuation for accounts: I also mentioned that the only puncuation that would work in names now are - _ ( ) [ ]
I didn't say anything about 2 punctuations side by side not working, since Namo said it worked for him.
On the DB, we had a bit of discussion on what we thought about the Ralph Bakshi LotR.
Gaming: report from Ulmo through Eonwe:
    EverQuest:
    4 Valar managed to play together on the Zebuxoruk server.

D2XME mod Letter from Khan:

Hail

We just uploaded the new update of the MEmod for LoD 1.09.
Download it as usual at:
www.VKmods.de/d2/memodlod.zip
and report any bugs and flaws in the VK-forum or via e-mail
(there sure are some)

Have fun
Khan

Aug. 22, 2001
Wondering what happened to bnet? Here's a report from Salmar:

B.net has completely messed up its own software with the installment of patch 1.09. After - at first - serious
connectivity problems on all realms, players on USWest, Europe and Asia found their chars returned to clvl 1 at a massive
scale.
That's why B.net has had to close the realms for almost a day: to investigate and solve a major mess over there.

Heya Heya Heya Valar Buddies,

Today I am writing this letter to tell a tale. Not a very long one, but just
a memoir of a long-time member. I joined in the summer of '98, and that was
three years ago or more now. I have seen many members come and many members
go, but the feeling in the Valar Guild still lives on.

When I joined, Eru was still the leader. He had set up quite a place, and I
stumbled in because I was looking for a home. I had been a member of another
Tolkien guild but the people had not a tenth of the quality that the people
I found did. I was met in the channel by several friendly faces, namely
Grima-(V) and Ulmo. Ulmo tested me, I remember being nervous in channel
Eldar. I scored a 4/5, missing the last question which was the good olde'
"Who killed the Witch King of Angmar?" I guessed Merry, but Ulmo stood fast
on Eowyn. I am still not sure who it was today, even though the popular
opinion is Eowyn. After that, I played a bit, my name was Beleg Cuthalion,
known as Cuthalion-(V). Soon, I dropped out for computer reasons, but I
still received e-mail from Eru, one I remember was about a cyber-wedding,
another was about a new hierarchy to manage the guild. Then the e-mails went
dead. I came back that December, Christmas Day as a matter of fact, and
found the new council governing the guild. I immediately jumped back in and
worked on achieving my Maiar. I regularly attended the meetings, and did any
extra work that I could, hoping for the now free name of Saurman. The day
finally came, and I went to the Ring of Doom for my test. I do not remember
who was on my board, but I know that Varda was there, supportive as ever. I
answered 5/5 and christened the new name, Tom Bombadil. I have had that name
ever since.

The next few years were filled with StarCraft and Broodwar. I remember
playing many late night games with Aule and Manwe. It took a couple of hours
to build a drone, but it was great fun anyway. We would sit and talk about
all sorts of stuff, from life to cars to B.net. I really had some great
times in the channel during these periods. Then, the Middle Earth Mod came
out for Diablo. The entire PC-playing guild was again hacking away at
monsters below Tristram. I, using a Mac, couldn't use the mod, so again I
slipped into decay as far as meetings go. Finally the cure to my problems
was released by Blizzard. The crown jewel, Diablo II. I was back with
renewed vigor, playing with my Paladin until the end. Soon, I bored of this
also and slipped away. That leads me up to today.

My history is not the point of this letter. The point is just how great a
place the Valar Guild is. I have seen much, but whenever I enter channel
Valar, I meet the same warm faces as before. Some of the new-un's might not
appreciate this as much as us old-timers, but there is no better place on
B.net, or even beyond than the Valar Guild. And without all of the hard
labor done by all of those, past and present, we would not be the place we
are today. Varda with the weaving and marshalling; Ulmo with his Tourneys
and discussions; Aule with his channel-warming; Irmo with his intelligence;
Manwe with is high-spirits and typos; Melkor and his wisdom; Makar and his
ideas and web pages; and not to forget Orome with his whole deal (wink). All
of these Vala and many of the members and Maia have done much for this
guild.

When I think of the Valar Guild and how it has been a regular part of my
life for the past three years, it makes me misty-eyed. We have a great thing
here, and it is our duty to protect it. The Valar Guild is a light of
intelligence. A light amongst the mass of darkness that inhabits the
internet. I hope we all can share and protect it.

Your fellow member,
Tom

Aug. 19, 2001
Sunday Meeting:
Attending report by Salmar and Varda:
Members (15)(9 were members; 6 were Council, a 7th came after meeting; 0 were Maia):
Amillo (Lindelome), Ecthelion (Aegthelion), Eonwe (Fionwe), Gildor, Girion, Glorfindel, Gwindor (Gwaindor), Imrahil, Quickbeam, Orome (Aldaron), Salmar (Lirillo), Thranduil, Thror, Tulkas, Varda (Elbereth)
Visitors:
Staff of Magic (*Dragonspell) - not interested in discussion
Discussion Board:
Eonwe
After meeting chat: (yes, we have a business meeting, Tolkien chat, and informal chat
Irmo plus others already mentioned
Membership report by Amillo:
    128 members, no new ones this week
    Salmar's Lirillo_Valar character is still on the ladder for East Assassins
    Elwing received a D2X CD for her birthday, so we should be seeing her around sometime!
    Letter from Eomer dated Sunday:

My family is going camping for the next week, so my sister and I won't be
able to come onto battlnet. We should be back next monday.

Web Report by Varda:
    Tolkien Encyclopedia: new article "The Golden-Haired House of Glorfindel",  by Eonwe-(Valar)
    Poetry: translation of song sung in Imladris, by Thranduil-(V)
    Links:
        Sindarin Dictionary, translation program found by Thranduil-(V)
        Two MP3's of readings by JRRT, sent in by Meriadoc-(V), also on Tom Bombadil's page under Tolkien's Biography
        The Realm Online, graphical medieval MUD, monthly fee
Gaming report by Varda:
        D2X: patch coming out Monday
        D2X Middle-earth: beta version up at Varaya and Khan's page
        EQ: no report from EQ group, although they continue to be active
        The Realm Online: graphical medieval MUD with monthly fee, asks if our guild would like to come in as a group.
            Individuals also welcome. (Topic did not make it into this meeting discussion.)
Tolkien:
    Amillo discussed the cosmology of Tolkien, bringing in some information from the less discussed Tolkien books starting off with suggestions brought up by an Astronomy teacher who contacted him by email about Borgil.
    Which of Tolkien's stars corresponded to which real stars, and how well did he do this?
    From Amillo-(Valar): "...it has never been the intention that Borgil should be Sirius, Borgil is clearly mentioned as the red rose of the sky and Sirius is a white star but due to our atmosphere and its low position from our point of viev we see his light as a blue/white flicker.  Helluin is Sirius; named as the Bee of Azure ( Bee of Blue ) " .. whom still all may see in autumn or in winter burning nigh the foot of Telimektar.. "  a former name is Nielluin. The suggestion or discussion at meeting was never from my side about wether Borgil could be Sirius or Betelguise. Sirius is positively indentified as the Blue Bee / Helluin but only that Betelguise is the best fitting star for the name Borgil."
    The Books of Lost Tales have mythical and hero tales describing how some of the stars came to be. The Silmarillion gives the tale of Earendil and Elwing.
    Tulkas (ship captain in real life) commented on how to find Polaris, the stable north star, by following the Big Dipper's two stars on the bowl on the side away from the handle, going away from the bowl.
    The stories of the Sun and Moon are told in the Silmarillion, the most recent. Earlier versions are told in the Books of Lost Tales , where the Sun and Moon passed through Doors to go to the other side of Arda.
    A summary of quite a few of Tolkien's stars and their current names is found in the Silmarillion, "Of the Coming of the Elves"
    Online info of a similar discussion was referred to by Glorfindel, link www.forodrim.org/daeron/md_astro.html
    The land masses on Arda corresponded to actual ones intentionally, as JRRT intended his books to be a mythology for England. Middle-earth was Europe, Tol Eressea was the British Isles, Aman was the Americas.
    In the Books of Lost Tales, three ways led between Aman and Middle-earth:
        1. The Way of Mandos. One way. Probably used by swanships, including the one with the Ringbearers.
        2. The Way of Orome/ The Way of the Hunter. Used Vana's hair.
        3. The Way of Dreams/ Olore Malle/ The Way of Lorien/ The Way of Irmo. Dreams pass back and forth

After Tolkien and after the meeting we had the usual informal chat and gaming:
    Gaming talk, music talk

Aug. 17, 2001
    New Link: The Realm Online - official page of the graphic MUD for thousands of players. Monthly fee. If you join, please email Varda and give your review.
    Lirillo-(Valar)'s level 90 assassin on the East Assassin's Ladder is now number 84. See what vacation time can do to you?

Aug. 14, 2001
    Poetry page : new translation of Arwen and Aragorn's song, by Thranduil-(V)
    Tolkien Encyclopedia : New article under Elves, " The Golden-Haired House of Glorfindel " by Eonwe-(Valar), on Glorfindel's lineage to back up the idea of JRRT's intent to use only one Glorfindel.
    Links page: Tolkien MP3's sent in by Meriadoc are now on the Links page and Tom Bombadil's JRRT Biography page.
    D2X Mod: Letter from Khan/Fingolfin-(V):

In some mysterious way an old mod version seems to have crawled into the
updated MEmod for LoD. I can't say how many bugs and missing features are in
it but they are probably counted in the dozens :)

Well anyway, the new and real update is downloadable as usual at
www.VKmods.de/d2/memodlod.zip

Changes:
-Double Throw mana cost lowered
-Summoned Wolves fixed
-fanatiscm slightly toned down
-Druid attack spells mana cost lowered
-Druid gains 2 mana per energy and 2,5 HP per vitality (maybe only affects
new chars)
-Troll Leaders and Dragon Bosses spawn less often.

Khan

Aug. 13, 2001
    Sindarin Dictionary , by Didier Willis. Great link to a Sindarin translation program sent in by Thranduil-(V)!

Aug. 12, 2001
Sunday Meeting 5pm EST (GMT-6)
Attending: report by Salmar (mostly) and Varda
Members (21):
Amillo (Lindelomë), Aragorn, Bert, Boromir, Eomer, Eonwë, Girion, Glorfindel, Gwindor (Gwaindor), Herumor, Imrahil, Irmo, Luthien, Oin, Ori, Orome, Salmar (Lirillo), Thorondor, Thranduil, Thror, Varda.
Over the shoulder:
Oin, Fangorn, Sauron, Eowyn, ex-Fingon, Elwing.
Greetings:
From Ecthelion who had to work during the meeting.
Visiting:
*Ghettosburg, *~][Harvey], *Jason2250, *(V)Alys, *Homeslice|.
Membership : Report by Amillo
    New member: Thranduil. He came to the meeting and told us he has a conflict with his LoR guild not wanting him to be in Valar while they are about to go to war with another guild. He will be giving us his decision.
    Eonwe volunteered to act as liaison between the Discussion Board chat members and bnet chat members. Today was his first day on duty. Thanks, Eonwe!
    Azaghal upgraded his computer with new parts only to find that he still needs a better microprocessor. He hopes to pop by anyway.
    Thror needs members to drop into public chat Valar to go into his bot's online list.
Web:
    Tolkien Encyclopedia , under Elves, has a new article: "Glorfindel's Name" by Salmar. Written Aug 8.
    Keepers of the Fellowship   home page has moved back to their old location. Members have -KF as their guild mark and visit us. See the Gaming Report.
    Tom Bombadil's page is newly designed. On the Biography section for JRRT he added the below MP3's. Thanks Tom!!
    MP3 links to readings by JRRT sent to us by Meriadoc-(V) from www.salon.com:
        The Mirror of Galadriel, poem
        Sam trying to ease Frodo's hunger to let him sleep .
    Tom Bombadil still has some free web space available to pass on to needy guild members. It works for people who use FTP clients that are not packaged with
Dreamweaver. Tom can set it up in about 5 minutes.
Gaming:
    KF (Keepers of the Fellowship): members are still dropping by our channel. Feel free to play non-guild games with them. They are mostly based on West Realm which seems to have less lag, but some are dusting off their East Realm characters for us. Some visitors are Telimektar-KF (*Flammifer), *Marigold-KF, and *Nomin-KF. Their StarCraft characters have a + or ++ in front of the name.

    D2X mod: Letter from Khan/Fingolfin-(V)!

Aiya ar alassë Varda

The Middle Earth Mod for the Diablo 2 expansion is now nearly finsihed and
we have released a 99% complete version of it. It is still called Beta since
it's mostly untested and yet lacks rune- and crafting recipies as well as
new set- or unique items. Download at your own risk at
www.VKmods.de/D2/Memodlod.zip
Installation is the same as with the MEmod and it's also basically just a
MEmod with added LoD features. Thus your old ME characters will work with
the mod. Just be sure to EMPTY YOUR INVENTORY! (not stash or cube) before
you convert. We are using a 10x6 inventory instead of the old 10x10 to not
overpower charms.

'tis time to travel to the Elder Days and once and for all banish the evil
Vala Melkor to the void. Yet I warn thee that the fight will not be an easy
one and Morgoth's Valaraukar and Uruloki will be send forth out from the
bowels of the Iron Mountains to meet your blade.
Draugluin, Gothmog and Glaurung will not qeunch even before you, and even if
you suceed in your battles with the Yrch and Trolls on the burned plains of
Anfauglith...

Khan
Champion FingolfinME level 62 Dunadan, who has yet to defeat him that the
Elves curse forever with the name of Morgoth Bauglir.

Second Letter from Khan:

We just uploaded a first update for the MEmod for LoD (Beta) because there
was a severe bug with shapeshifting Beornings.
Get it again at www.VKmods.de/d2/memodlod.zip

There are also 6 crafting recipies:

Attack weak: Magic Weapon + Jewel + Man Rune
Attack normal: Magic Weapon + Jewel + 2 Kir Runes
Attack good: Magic Weapon + Jewel + Kir Rune + Ereg Rune + Sereg Rune

Defense weak: Magic Armor, Helm or Shield + Jewel + Anna Rune
Defense normal: Magic Armor, Helm or Shield + Jewel + 2 Thol Runes
Defense good: Magic Armor, Helm or Shield + Jewel + Thol Rune + Curu Rune +
Tin Rune

Surprise weak: Amulet + Jewel + 5 Er Runes
Surprise normal: Amulet + Jewel + Ram Rune + Fea Rune
Surprise good: Amulet + Jewel + Ram Rune + Fea Rune + Amarth Rune

Khan

Aug. 9, 2001
    Welcome to Thranduil , our new member! Congratulations on a perfect 5/5 score on Eonwe's test! He's from England, same as JRRT. Time zone GMT+2. He's 15 and has read the H, LotR, and part of the Sil. On bnet about 3 times a week, he is also in these guilds: RA(Wringwraith Assassins), LoR(Lord of the Ring), DR(Dunedain Rangers). He came in for the test as Elrohir(LoR). His favorite LotR char is Legolas, since he acts more like a scout than royalty, and is an archer which is a hobby in Thranduil~(V)'s real life.
    KF: The Keepers of the Fellowship guild are on West realm, while our guild is on East realm.
    Eonwe has volunteered as liaison during meetings between the bnet chat and discussion board chat people.

Aug. 8, 2001
Letter and link from Meriadoc-(V) :

Your humble hobbit of Brandywine and Rider of the Riddermark, Meriadoc
Brandybuck, doth hereby respectfully present a special link:

http://www.salon.com/audio/2000/10/05/tolkien_elvish/index.html

        A Man, of the race of Mortal Men, known in his life as John Ronald Reuel
Tolkien, reads forth in his own voice that poem of life called 'The Mirror
of Galadriel', as spoken by the White Lady at the Leave-Taking of the
Fellowship of the Ring from Lothlorien.

http://www.salon.com/audio/fiction/2001/05/15/tolkien/index.html

        When the Ring-Bearer's companion wished to ease the Ring-Bearer's hunger
whilst Frodo slept.

        Presented in the hopes of gladdening Thy heart...
Meriadoc Brandybuck, Holbyta of Rohan.

Aug. 7, 2001
    Azaghal has been upgrading his computer's video card and memory, only to discover that he also needs a new chip before playing D2X. Ouch! So he will try to drop in to meetings and to keep from losing any more characters as he has lost his mules, but can't play yet. Good luck, Azaghal!

Aug. 5, 2001
Sunday Meeting : 5pm EST (GMT -6)
Attending Report by Varda:
    Members (20): Amillo (Melina), Bard, Bert, Deagol, Elros, Eol, Eomer, Eonwe (Kalmo), Fingon, Glorfindel, Gwindor (Gwaindor), Imrahil, Irmo, Luthien, Mahtan, Orome, Rog, Thror, Ulmo (presiding), Varda (Elbereth)
    Alone on the Discussion Board: Aragorn who had lent out his cd. Looks as if we need to have somebody do the split presence on the board and channel at the same time for these poor souls.
    Over the shoulder hails from Primula, Fangorn, Sauron, Eowyn
Membership Report by Amillo:
    127 members
    Beorn is our newest member, returning after absence.
    The brothers Elros and Gildor are back after computer problems.
Web Report by Varda:
    Tolkien Pages:
    Story page: new one by Maglor, 1st 2 of 3 parts of " Attacks on Lothlorien "
    Poems : four new ones by Maglor:
        Feanor's Doom
        The Silmarils
        Gollum and Shelob
        The Tale of Glorfindel the Golden-Haired of the House of the Golden Flower
    Links page:
        new link: World of Middle-earth - fan site
        updated link for new server: Tolkien's Haven - fan site by JamesThomas fka Anarion-(V)
    Gaming Pages Report by Varda and Mahtan:
    Diablo and His Kin page: D2X section has new links to Rune Words and Crafted Items at the Arreat Summit.
    Rune Words page: Mahtan is building a guild Rune Words page including screen shots of items with working rune words. Members need to send in dated reports to Varda or Mahtan of new rune words, as the Arreat Summit only puts them up after someone finds them. The Arreat Summit does not have screen shots. Dated experiments that don't work are as important to report as ones which do. We also give credit.
Gaming Report by Amillo and Varda
    Irmo is looking for others to play Baldur's Gate 2 with him.
    The Keepers of the Fellowship are members of a legit co-op Tolkien guild five years old, starting before bnet, with -KF as their guild mark, may be visiting our channel. They are friends, so please do not ban. Feel free to play non-guild games with them. Amillo-(Valar) and their leader, Marigold-KF, are in correspondence at this time.
    Sismoplay 's Stan Baraduc invited our guild to beta test their new game, DuelField . You need to register now for the testing starting in September. His letter to us is on the News for August 1.
    Gaming conduct: Amillo is drafting additions to the Code of Conduct for gaming, partly to address the new problems caused by bnet's new gold sharing setup. Some are suggestions to avoid problems; some are normal co-op behavior some people do not seem to be aware of. This is the meeting discussion breakdown:
    1. Ask if it's ok before transferring. It causes lag. The first game in line is usually normal difficulty and good for transfers and trades, but also used for normal diff gaming, so ask.
    2. Quest items go to the Questor. If he/she doesn't want the item, he may sell it or give it away as he chooses. Questors are often short of gold. Let the Questor get in the killing blow for improved items.
        If more than one person is questing, it makes most sense to give the item suited for that person's class to that questor. If it suits none of their classes, they need to decide beforehand how they wish to make divisions between them. Mercenaries may also be taken into consideration.
    3. Ask about partying with people in different acts, since bnet changed its system. It's nice to know how the others are doing by watching the life bar and seeing how to spell the name. Not partying, however, is not an insult.
    Partying is not required, although okay if all agree.
    Partying is best between people doing the same area helping each other.
    Players in a very high act partied with those in a low act, without ever dying, can be treated unfairly, coming out of a game with much less gold than when they went in, due to the weird bnet idea of how to share. Since that high person potentially will share great items and does rescues at request, he does not deserve such mistreatment. No one in the guild deserves such mistreatment.
    When a member needs gold for repairs and resurrecting mercenaries, he may prefer to sell his own junk items to pay for it rather than requesting gold from others. No one should be upset if he chooses to remove from the party for this.
    A person may be trying to save gold for a particular item and not wish to have to ask for it. Let him have his dignity, as you would like to keep yours.
Tolkien Chat :
    On another Discussion Board not belonging to our guild, people claimed that Legolas did not contribute enough to the Fellowship. Our group rallied around Legolas to defend his honor with these comments:
    Thror - Legolas shot the steed of a flying Nazgul
    Eomer - "fetched the sun" for Gandalf (recon)
    Eomer - only one in the party other than Gandalf who really knew what a balrog was. The dwarves only knew that it was a great monster, and from the journal that it was Durin's bane.
    Irmo - unafraid of the shades of men on the Paths of the Dead
    Irmo - aided entry to Lothlorien to save them from the pursuing orcs, especially for the dwarf, Gimli, whom none of them would have left. By the time Aragorn's name could have been sent to Galadriel for an okay and back, they could have been in great trouble.
    Thor - "far sight, soft foot"
    Varda - recon all through the time of the Fellowship. His eyesight was even considered phenomenal among elves, a trait brought in from old notes in BoLT. Aided friendship of dwarves (Gimli became Lord of the Glittering Caves of Aglarond) and elves (Legolas was heir to King Thranduil of the Greenwood).
    Several - the contest between Gimli and Legolas at Moria was great entertainment
    Several - Gimli would never have gone on a swanship to Aman without Legolas' first making a friendship with him, making it possible for him to meet Galadriel.

August 3, 2001
    Welcome back to Beorn . He joined Oct. 1, 1999 with Elros scouting and testing, dropped for inactivity June 7, 2001, and rejoined with Elros's help around July 30, 2001. He's 13, from Austin, Texas, USA. He has read the H and LotR.
    D2X: Rune Words - on the Arreat Summit page: Battlenet. We also have a link from our Diablo and His Kin Page.
    D2X: Crafted Items - on the Arreat Summit page: Battlenet. We also have a link from our Diablo and His Kin Page.

August 2, 2001
    KF: Amillo says we may be having visitors show up in our channel from another Tolkien guild. Such a visitor uses KF as the guild mark, for Keepers of the Fellowship. They are legit co-op online rpg players, in existence five years, currently led by Marigold. Their new home page is called The Keepers of the Fellowship . The old home page is still up for a while at least.
    New Story!: Maglor-(V) wrote the first two of three parts for " Attacks on Lothlorien ".
    New Poems !: Maglor-(V) wrote four poems:
Feanor's Doom
The Silmarils
Gollum and Shelob
The Tale of Glorfindel the Golden-Haired of the House of the Golden Flower

August 1, 2001
Letter from Stan Baraduc of Sismoplay about DuelField beta testers:

I just had a look at your website Valar Guild and was very excited to
witness your involvment in videogames.

Let me introduce myself, I'm Stan from Sismoplay : we are working on a
new online strategy game called DuelField.

DuelField is a turn based strategy game, in which gamers embody a Deity
that controls creatures. The game 's goal is to fight against an ennemy
Deity's creatures, use their various powers and abilities and eventually
defeat your opponent by destroying his squad.

We're putting major emphasis on building a strong gaming community. To
achieve this goal we are relying directly on dedicated people like you
who have a real passion for gaming. We have set up forums where future
players and all those curious about DuelField can post comments and
questions.

The game is still under development, and we're currently taking signups
for a beta testing session that should be held in september. We would be
more than happy to supply you and your website with privileged game
information as well as giving you access to exclusive screenshots and
game graphics. We invite you to visit our website at www.duelfield.net.

I'm going away for another three weeks to work for my uncle. My sister will
still be home, but i may be able to get on at my uncle's house because im
going to bring SC and BW over.
Hoping to see you while playing BW,
Eomer

July 29, 2001
Sunday Meeting 5pm EST

Attendance:  Bert, Eonwe, Boromir, Ulmo (presiding), Glorfindel, Elros, Vinyanor, Mahtan, Beregond, Celeborn, Amillo, Manwe, Eol, Melkor, Tulkas

Membership: (by Amillo)  126 members, newest being Boromir
        Boromir told us a little about himself, on top of the data we have on him, (see previous news article).  He is an avid baseball and soccer player from a small town in South Dakota.

Web news:  www.Valar.org is no longer.  The Council may consider reviving it, but no decision as of yet.  Valar has no money, we do not collect dues or any other monetary consideration as part of membership.
The last year plus of our domain was a gift from Eru.  Any thoughts on whether we should, or how we can buy the domain back can be e-mailed to any/all Council members for consideration.
    Amillo has moved "The Glittering Caves" to geocities, at least for now.  New link on our home page.

Gaming:  Amillo and a few others will be discussing some unValarlylike (ooh, cool word) conduct as of late in D2X and warnings for such impolite playing behavior have and/or will be given.

Tolkien chat:  Glorfindel brought up pronounciation, particularly accenting or stressing of syllables in multisyllable names.  Even with quotes from LotR appendixes (which are quite hard to understand) that which should be quite well spelled out is still hard to determine. ee'-on-wee, or is it ee-on'-wee read us these quotes.  All in all glor'-fin-dels, or is it glor-fin'-dels, hmmm, or glor-fin-dels' subject will most likely come up again.

Ulmo, Heru Rasa and Co-Chair reporting

From Varda, a huge Thank You Ulmo, for this great report!

July 26, 2001
    Glittering Caves of Aglarond is now on GeoCities' server! We're in business! Let's see your original artwork: line drawings, paints, computer art, sculpture, sewing, etc.!

D2X: Letter from Aragorn:

...Diablo II Tomb Of Knowledge homepage have
updated their homepage. Now they have Charm, Rune and Jewel page. On each
page there is a (i dont know what its called in English... maybe)
register for every Charm, Jewel or Rune. Example:

          SmallCharm pr.   Med. Charm pr.   LargeCharm pr.
AmerCharm
          -10-11 resist L.-13-15 resist L.-26-30 resist L.

Aragorn

July 25, 2001
    New link: Aviation Buffs Website , from Meriadoc-(V)
    D2X news: Letter from Mandos:

...another update on the East Server problems. The "fix" of the item
deletion problem isn't quite a fix. Seems any item that is socketed and has
a gem or jewel in it will disappear from a character now. My previously
unaffected druid is now missing 4 socketed jeweled/gemmed items. I am also
missing a belt whuich I THINK was ethereal but I'm not sure what I was
wearing.  :)

                                                                    Mandos

...writing to let you and everyone in the guild know that as of Friday I will be on
a short vacation. I expect to return by Wednesday evening. Hold down the fort for me,
and save a few of the baddies for me to slay when i return.
Namarie!
Ecthelion of the Fountain

I must apologise for my recent absence.  Helen and I took a spontaneous
holiday overseas a few weeks ago and since my return I have been rather ill.
I'm feeling a lot better now though, and looking forward to indulging in
more Tolkien chat with everyone.

Our lives have also been marred recently by the death of our beloved
Bullmastiff dog Kane.  He was suffering from a disease of the blood which
caused his red blood cell count to drop so low that he was a shadow of his
former self...

On a different note, my absence has also seen the domain name www.valar.org
pass from my ownership.  I am very sorry, but as you can imagine I have been
rather preoccupied of late with other matters.  I'm sure if you apply to a
domain name registration company you can buy it before anyone else does.  It
should only cost around $75 as the price has fallen considerably since I
first bought it.

Hope to see you soon,
Eru Iluvatar, The One

    Note from Varda:
        Sorry, I'm broke. Passing Domain question to the Council.

July 24, 2001
Part of a letter from Salmar:

This to tell you that from tomorrow I will be afk for the next weeks, being away on vacation with wife and son, first to visit
grandma (my mother) - who has never even thought of looking at a computer let alone buying one -, then off to the
tranquility of the mountains of the Harz (Germany).
Mara mesta!
Salmar

July 22, 2001
Sunday Meeting 5pm ESDTk 4pm CSDT
Attendance Report by Salmar and Varda:
Members present (18):
Amillo (Lindelome), Arwen (Evenstar), Bert, Durin, Elendil, Eonwe (Fionwe), Glorfindel, Gwindor, Irmo, Orome, Primula, Rog, Salmar (Lirillo), Thorondor (Thorontaro), Thror, Tulkas, Ulmo, Varda (Gilbrennil)
Over the shoulder hellos : Sauron, Eowyn, Deagol
Visitors: *sirstevie came in and out of the channel
Membership Report by Amillo:
    125 members
    New member this week: Legolas. Not in attendance so he has not yet been called on to say his "Few Words" of intro.
The father and son team of Fili and Kili are playing again, may rejoin the guild.
Web Report by Varda and Amillo:
    Glittering Caves of Aglarond , our art collection including our original work, is in danger. Take this link to the letter by Amillo, our gallery host, on the News. Please let Amillo know you appreciate his work enough to make it worth the great trouble of hunting a new server and moving the trove there. Make his counter jump as you look at the guild collection, and then send him original work to post. It doesn't have to be great as no one is ever happy with his work, but make it Tolkien. This can be scanned or be a picture from a regular or digital camera even of sculptures. Attach it to an email with a title and artist credits including your primary guild name, and send it to Amillo/Omar. We currently have a number of ideas on how a balrog actually appears and you can send in your idea of winged/not-winged, maybe show height next to something of known height, or your favorite argument. Original pictures are linked from there into our guild's Tolkien Encyclopedia.
    During the discussion we found out Tulkas carves soapstone of subjects in Alaska, such as an Innuit archer. Primula is an artist. Ulmo may return to carving now that his hands are improving. We have a number of other artists in the guild, sorry I didn't catch all the names, and others of us who just have fun with it. Let's do some Tolkien art!
    Tolkien Encyclopedia:
        New pages: Plants (Olvar), Animals (Kelvar) with a link from Yavanna on the page of Powers.
        Short entries under Powers on Nessa and Vaire.
    Links page :
        New info spot at the top of the page telling what the most recent link is.
        New links:
            Writing/research section:
                Online encyclopedias, many more added. Under Writing: How-to; Markets; Online research
           Medieval Technology - under Medieval and Ancient. Western Europe's technology in Medieval times.
           Imperial Literature - Makes LotR and Warhammer board games with short stories set in each world. The brand new
                LotR story page's Librarian is interested in our guild Story page but currently too swamped to email us again for at
                least a month. That's good since it means we will be seeing more Tolkien stories.
           TheBarrowdowns - LotR fan site.
           Lord of the Rings Fanatics Site - LotR fan site
           The Rings Project - CD ad for LotR music with narration about Tolkien's LotR by Alan Horvath aka Alan Post
            Renradio - under Tolkien/Music, Sound Clips. Has Renaissance and Celtic music like a radio station on your comp
           Fellowship of Lord of the Rings - fan site for LotR movie cast
    Diablo and His Kin page : new link to The Arreat Summit , Battlenet's huge collection of D2X info
During the discussion, Tolkien online was suggested as a fun link: http://www3.tolkienonline.com/thewhitecouncil/login.cfm
Not sure but I think Glorfindel suggested this link. Please let me know who to give proper credit to.
Gaming Report:
    EverQuesters Report by Ulmo:
        We now have 8 accounts by Valarites on the Zebuxoruk server.
        Orome and Gwindor have accounts, but will probably not play much. They do poke their heads in and say hi.
        EQ is more of an RPG than an action game like those on Battlenet, so expect the play to be different.
        $10/month
        Mixed class co-ops are the way to level. Until we have our own place, requiring 10 people, we have to team with outsiders.
        EQ Links page of the Valar Guild has these valuable EQ info links:
            www.everlore.com
            www.eqatlas.com
            These include commands for how to call to friends on the server.
    Diablo 2 Expansion: only a few of the Rune words actually work. Try Diabloii for some updates on this.
Tolkien Chat:
    Which cities had rivers running through them?
    A number of answers were given, most of which were not noted down, sorry. Dale, Osgiliath, and several from the older books. I think Nargothrond was suggested.

July 22, 2001
Warning: We may lose this valuable resource. Email Amillo your comments. See his letter below.
Letter from Amillo about the Glittering Caves of Aglarond , where the guild keeps links to favorite Tolkien art, including Tolkien maps, and publishes original work:

It seems like NBCi, the place where i have the Caves are about to make changes making it impossible to upload and later on to view the files stored there.
I have copied  the message i got from them below.

Uploads to member pages are no longer provided.  Select an
alternative web site hosting provider and ensure that your files
are moved to the new provider before the end of the month.  At the
end of July, we anticipate that you will no longer be able to view
member pages.  NBCi has made arrangements with Homestead.com for web
page hosting and XDrive.com for file storage to help make the
transition a smooth one.

Why on earth is it so hard to find a free place where they just can leave it alone. I am not sure i will bother finding a new place, no one looks at the Caves and no one seems to have any interest in it so maybe it is a better idear to just let it die a silent death. Havent decided yet though.

Amans light be with you
Amillo

July 21, 2001
    Links page: New link under Tolkien/Movies/Peter Jackson: Fellowship of Lord of the Rings - movie cast fan site: by thewhiteladyofrohan (non-Valar guild)

July 20, 2001
    Welcome to our new member, Legolas! He's a friend of Thror's, having visited us a number of times, then known as Aliendood. Orome tested. Legolas is 13, from Miami, Florida, USA. He plays SC/BW, D2, D2X and spends a lot of his summer on bnet.

July 19, 2001
    Links page:
    New link: The Rings Project - narration and songs along with text about the Lord of the Rings , by musician/writer Alan Horvath, fka Alan Post. The text is interesting, but they want your email address before playing the songs. The first CD's are coming out in August and can be ordered at this site or your local CD store, so you don't have to accept their and their sponsors' spam.
    New link: Lord of the Rings Fanatics Site - LotR fan site.
    New link: The Barrowdowns - LotR fan site.

July 18, 2001
    Links page: New Links - "Renradio" under Tolkien/Music, Sound Clips. Has Renaissance and Celtic music you can listen to like a radio while on your comp.
        "Medieval Technology" Western Europe's technology in Medieval times.
    The Links page now has the most recent update listed at the top.

July 17, 2001
    Diablo and His Kin page: link to The Arreat Summit , Battlenet's collection of D2X info.

July 16, 2001
    Tolkien Encyclopedia: new pages: Plants (Olvar), Animals (Kelvar) with a link from Yavanna on the page of Powers.
    Tolkien Encyclopedia: short entries under Powers on Nessa and Vaire.

July 15, 2001
Sunday Meeting 5pm EST
Attendance report from Salmar:
Omentië Lairë-XV Rimbë:
Amillo (Melina), Arothir, Arwen (Evenstar), Eärendil, Elendil, Ecthelion (Aegthelion), Eonwë, Girion, Glorfindel, Gwindor (Flinding), Halbarad, Herumor, Irmo, Luthien, Melkor, Salmar (Lirillo), Thorondor (Thorontaro), Thror, Ugluk, Varda (Gilbrennil) chair.
A Lavalmarion:
MrKungfu (*HomesliceI), Shogunstalker (*Lunarglow), Sin_Shooter (*Ghettosburg).
Membership report by Amillo:
  124 members
  New: Arwen, Glorfindel. Both showed up for the meeting (great start!) and said A Few Words of introduction.
  Member news: Feanor will be offline several months; Aragorn will be on vacation the next three weeks; Galadriel's email isn't working.
Web report by Varda:
    Member page:  Please email your guild account name to Amillo for the Member page to help us find each other now that bnet keeps out the ValarBuddy bot.
    Tolkien Encyclopedia entries: Under Non-humanoid Intelligences: Origin of the Eagles, Origin of the Ents.
    Links page: New link Academy of European Medieval Martial Art
    Folklore & Mythology page: New entries: Freyja/Frigga, May Day, Norn/Norns
    The Rolozo Tolkien site mirrors at Soar and Berkley University may be going down within a month. If you are using images from those locations, that could cause future link problems.
Gaming Report:
    EverQuest: the EverQuesters are active. Herumor dropped in from EQ for the meeting, and reports that Aule couldn't make it to the meeting as he was stuck in EQ. Ulmo may have been there as well. Herumor also reports that Eru has joined the EQ players on Zebuxoruk. Gothmog and Fladrif are also there.
    Luthien reported that she would like to have had the group join her and Eomer on the Xegony server as she has a high level 46 character who could help them. However the Zebuxoruk server has less traffic giving less lag. It is possible to have characters on both servers for the same price.
    Eomer will be out of EQ and D2X for a month while taking computer training at a university.
    Gwindor asks to be removed from the EQ members list as he would rather play D2X at this time.
Tolkien:
    Short plant discussion, including the flower, elanor, and its use as the name of SamWise's daughter, suggested to him by Frodo from their travels.

July 13, 2001
    Aragorn will be gone 3 weeks for summer vacation. He is also having comp problems, only able to enter D2 on open.
    Glorfindel , Welcome to the Valar Guild! Arwen suggested the guild to Glorifindel, and passed an entry test with Eonwe, Mandos, and Varda with a 4/5.
He's from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. He's 16 and has read the H and LotR. He's on bnet daily for a few hours during summers, less often during school. He came in on BW, but also plays D2.
    Rolozo Tolkien site bookmarks may all have to be changed soon. Here's Rolozo's news entry:

3 July 2001 @ 9:30 PST
  It seems that the Rolozo mirror at soar and godzilla.eecs dot berkeley.edu/rolozo might be going away within a month. If you are bookmarked there, you should think about changing the link to http://fan.theonering.net/rolozo or just http://rolozo.org in case the Berkeley site just goes away one day. Hopefully there will be sufficient time for the search engines to cache today's message.

July 11, 2001
Letter from Feanor:

I'm gonna be off-line for a while due to some personal problems.... with any
luck I will be able to e-mail you, but I doubt it.... I still hope to be in
the Guild when I have sorted things out though.

It may take several months for me to reach you again, but when I am able
again I will be back with joy. So please don't delete me from the guild
although I am no longer in contact. I wish you the best of all luck and I
will await my return.

Sincerely,
Feanor

July 9, 2001
    Arwen , welcome to the Valar Guild! Congrats on a perfect 5/5 score on Eonwe's test! She found us through our web pages while looking for a guild home. Arwen is 16, from Los Alamos, New Mexico, USA, Mountain Standard time zone. Arwen has read H, LotR, Sil, UT, BoLT 1 & 2. She plays regular D2 and is on bnet about 2 hours a day. Her favorite book is a tie between Fellowship and Sil. Her favorite character is Frodo and here are her comments on him as relayed by Eonwe:
"He goes on the ultimate quest without complaint; Experiences the ultimate pain with the burden of the Ring and still manages to make it all the way to Mount Doom right under Sauron's nose; Exceptionally wise for a hobbit."
    New articles for the Folklore & Mythology page: May Day, Freyja/Freya/Frigg/Frigga, Norn/Norns by Varda.

July 8, 2001
Sunday Meeting 5pm EST
Attending:
    members (18):  Amillo (Melina), Beregond, Bert, Deagol, Eärendil, Eonwë (Kalmo), Fladriff, Glaurung, Gwindor (Gwaindor/Flinding), Irmo (in
DB chatroom), Maedros, Mahtan, Oromë, Salmar (Salmë), Thror, Ugluk, Ulmo, Varda (Gilbrennil).
(saw Quickbeam and Smeagol gaming after the meeting)
    visitors:  Malachi (*Nice_Guy9667), Sin_Shooter (*Ghettosburg), Elrondhalfelven (*Yourscrewed). Elrondhalfelven was netsplit so that although we could hear him he could not hear us. Visitors, please enter the channel using East realm if you're in D2 or D2X to help prevent some of this. *Ghettosburg is still reading the books, more power to him.
Membership: 122
    New member this week: Elladan.
    Name change: Haldir is now Aragorn. Since we have a new Names Vala, Salmar, the Council had a discussion on the new naming procedure. Conclusion is that the name change may be done only once, apply for it by email stating why the change should be made. As an example, the name Haldir wanted was not available when he joined, he noticed when it came available (News and Member pages) and requested it in a letter for the Council. This allowed an orderly change in web pages handled by three different people and in address books.
    Ex-Dain, who was dropped for non-attendance, has graduated and hopes to have time to rejoin and play with us again. If you see him, please help him locate a tester.
    Rog says Hello! He had to miss the meeting since he is working through that time until at least 9am Monday.
Web:
    New page attached to our Diablo and His Kin page: " A Guide to Rune Word Items ", by Mahtan-(V). This is under construction currently using the Strategy Guide for information. People in chat warned us that Blizzard has not yet activated the runes and might not ever set up the system outlined in the Strategy Guide. In case they do set it up in a future patch, we will have the page ready to use and update it as more info comes in. Surely they won't make us collect those things for nothing forever?
    Page moved: Folklore & Mythology , by Varda-(Valar). The page had to leave its old Homestead server which finally allowed access to the page-makers but is about to start charging for space. Myth has moved to 50Megs.com and is open for new articles again.
    New article for our Tolkien Encyclopedia: " Finarfin " by Eonwe-(Valar).
    New article for the FAQ page: " Name Changing "
    New link for the Links page under Tolkien/Maps: Tolkien maps on the Rolozo Tolkien site.
    New link for the Links page under Writing/Folklore & Myth: " Unseen Creatures: An Introduction to the Beasts of Myth and Legend ". It's a school project on ThinkQuest relating mythical creatures from the past to modern usage.
Gaming:
    EverQuest guild gamers are using the Zebuxoruk server to gather together. Aule is project head and contact person. See the EverQuesters page for more info, also with a link at the top of the News page.
Tolkien:
    Varda: At the time of the War of the Ring, what was Sauron's physical appearance and why was he sometimes referred to the Lidless Eye?
    Boiled down discussion points follow:
Appearance :
    Amillo: a ghost, like a ringwraith without clothes
    Earendil: Gollum saw Sauron, counted his fingers and noted the missing Ring finger.
    Varda: Gollum said that Sauron's form was blackened. As if burned? Sauron interrogated Gollum personally about the Ring. After Eru's sinking of Numenor destroyed Sauron's fair form, Sauron could never appear in a pleasing, seductive form again.
    Ulmo: Sauron would not want to let information about the Ring from Gollum be spread around so he had to do the interrogation personally.
    Gwindor: may have required a physical presence to interact effectively with people of Arda
Lidless Eye :
    Amillo: could "see" what ringbearers thought
    Deagol: crows spied as lidless eyes
    Earendil: constant vigilance. The searching eye seen by Frodo in Galadriel's mirror probably symbolic, as is the name.
    Ulmo: used palantir to see everywhere. Rarely let others see him.

July 7, 2001
    New member! Welcome to Elladan-(V) . He's 29, from Atlanta, Georgia. He expects to be on D2X about 4-5 times a week. He read H, LotR, Sil, UT, BoLT, Giles of Ham. He used to be the character Arda and has a server called Arda. He was going to call his new puppy Merry, but due to flack used the name Happy. I suspect the worst flack comes from his cat. He is on IRC daily, no ICQ though. Congrats on a perfect 5/5 score with scout/tester Varda. His favorite LotR characters are Gimli, followed by Merry and Pippin. Elladan met Mahtan for some Tolkien and was playing a game with Girion by the time I had to leave.

July 6, 2001
    New page! A Guide to Rune Word Items , written by Mahtan-(V) even providing the tables!, using nifty Arial and Arial Black fonts. Webwork by Varda. Work still in progress, but we are off to a great start. Links also from the Home page, Diablo and His Kin page.

July 5, 2001
    Folklore & Mythology page: New address. It had to move to a new server, choosing 50megs.com. The old server, Homestead, finally allowed members to reach their pages again, but said we would have to start paying soon. Sorry, but I can't afford it. Articles are welcome again.

July 4, 2001
    New Article for the Tolkien Encyclopedia , Elves Section: " Finarfin " by Eonwe-(Valar).
    Name change: Haldir is changing his name to Aragorn which was unavailable when he joined. The procedure for name changes is now given on the FAQ page with a link from the Names page, updated as the Council discussion continues.
    New Link: ThinkQuest Library has a section called " Unseen Creatures: An Introduction to the Beasts of Myth and Legend ". This has been added to the Links page under Writing/Folklore & Myth.
    Ex-Dain says Hi! He's graduated and hopes to be around more now. Hopefully he will re-test and be back with us soon.

July 3, 2001
    Tolkien maps on the Rolozo Tolkien site, new link for the Links page under Tolkien/Maps.

July 1, 2001
Sunday Meeting 5pm EST
Attending:
    Members: Amillo/Melina, Balin, Deagol, Eonwe/Kalmo, Haldir, Gwindor/Gwaindor, Irmo (in the Discussion Board chat room), Mahtan, Melkor, Salmar, Thorondor/Cilthoron, Thror, Ulmo, Varda/Gilbrennil (chair)
    Visitor: *Ghettosburg/Shooter/Sin_Shooter
Membership:
    Deagol and Primula's anniversary is today! It's also Deagol's birthday.
    Makar is having difficulties due to a wrecked D2 play disk.
Web:
    The Names page has passed from Varda to Salmar, our Vala of names. Salmar does so much name research that this is more efficient. Please email Salmar your game names.
    Members page: please be sure your email is updated. Please send updates to Amillo.
    The Tolkien Encyclopedia has new articles by Salmar: the two Glorfindels, the two Galdors, some of the Valar who were in earlier notes by Tolkien but dropped for the Silmarillion called the Lost Valar: Amillo, Salmar, Nieliqui, and Telimektar.
    Scatha's pages moved to a new server but not yet uploaded.
    Tom Bombadil's pages are moving, links changing on the Home page as the info comes in. The Trading message board is remaining in the same place.
Gaming:
    D2X is out and many of the guild dived into it.
    D2X Tolkien Mod will be made, according to Khan.
    EverQuest: Aule is the EverQuest project head and contact person. Most of the guild gaming is being done on the Zebuxorak server. EQ gaming news can be found on the EverQuesters News page, link at the top of this page and on the Home page.
Tolkien:
    Ecthelion-(V) spoke of the Steward of Gondor named Ecthelion, apparently named after the elf Ecthelion. This was a fairly common practice among the Stewards showing their friendship with the elves.
    Lord of the Rings movie: the trailer shows promise for the movie being well done. Most if not all of us will go see it out of curiosity and so we can give informed comments and mostly because we are Tolkien nuts.
top

    Names page has changed hands. Salmar-(Valar), whose work is with names, will be taking care of that page for us. Thank you, Salmar! Please change your bookmarks and let Varda know if a page hasn't had the Names page link changed yet.

    D2 Mod! Letter from Khan:

Hoy

The new version of the Middle Earth Mod for Diablo 1.08 is now available for
download. It is still two downloads but both are mpqs (no more D2M). The
smaller one (2.5meg) is an easy do-it-yourself version and the other one is
the full 5.5 meg mpq.
As always: be sure to read the readme for changes.

Have fun

Khan aka Fingolfin-V

    New Encyclopedia articles: all by Salmar-(Valar) on the Lost Valar (as in dropped by Tolkien when he wrote the Sil_ and at least one who was retained: Salmar , Amillo , Nieliqui , and Telimektar . Articles from Salmar-(Valar) on lost Valar: Salmar, a Vala in Tolkien's earlier tales. Telimektar (a son of Tulkas!) and on Nieliqui (a daughter of Orome!).

    New Links for Tom Bombadil's upgraded pages as he constructs them:
Splash page stating the construction and a link to the old pages.
Still the web board and "won't be goin' anywhere".
Old pages link

June 26, 2001
    New Tolkien Encyclopedia articles: Salmar-(Valar) wrote two articles for the page on Elves : Galdor and The Tale of the Two Glorfindels , both articles about the twice-used names and the confusion they caused with an answer from JRRT's own letters..

June 25, 2001
Letter from Scatha concerning links:

...all those links you have to my pages can be removed (they're all
dead).. i'm looking for a more stable server with some room on it (~500
megs+) and unlimited bandwidth..  Couple freinds and I are starting a LAN
party and hardware/software/you name it review's page.  Server fist, page
later - I've learned! 8-)

Tom Bombadil also writes to let us know he's still here, reading the News. Hi Tom! He's been away from the comp but hopes to be back sometime soon.

Salmar has written an article concerning the two Glorfindels and another on the two Galdors. I hope to put them on the Encyclopedia this week. Watch for their links in the News.

June 24, 2001
    EQ : New news and links and member info on the EverQuesters page, from Earendil-(Valar). The Zebuxoruk server is the main one Aule, Earendil, Herumor, and Gwindor have been using until we can set up our own. We have people scattered across other servers as well.
    Sunday meeting 5pm EST.
    Varda missed the meeting. Sorry not to have made it back in time and you deserve the reason. Our church is on a hill and during the recent flooding was inundated from 3 to 30 inches deep, so for an irregular service we did repairs and cleanup from morning until supper time. Thanks to the people who kindly sent in the info on what happened at the meeting!
Meeting Report by Salmar:
Present:
    Arothir, Aule (came in at chat), Deagol, Durin, Ecthelion, Earendil, Elendil, Elwe (Elu), Eonwe, Eru (at Yahoo DB), Gwindor, Haldir, Mahtan (asleep?), Melkor, Rog, Salmar, Thror, Tulkas, Ulmo.
Gaming:
Meetings started with a discussion on the changes made in the D2 patch 1.08.
Eru has computer problems and cannot connect to b.net, but was mediated by Eonwe and Salmar between the DB and B.net.
Eru gave the membership the following warning: When uninstalling Halflife/Couterstrike, the uninstall programm will ask you if you want to uninstall some "shared files". Do not type "yes"! Eru did that and the result was the deletion of numerous applications, even including windows device drivers!
EverQuest [Report from Ulmo:
A short discussion regarding EverQuest occured.  Seems several are playing, but with mixed emotions about it, ranging from addictive fun to "I wish I hadn't bought the 6 months for $50.00".  It seems that just a few more are needed to get our own server.]
D2X mod [note from Varda: Khan says D2X will have a Tolkien mod, as the Blizzard team kindly provided the info to do so.]
Web report:
The web pages focus this week on the D2 patch 1.08, and the problems that are caused to the Middle Earth Mod. The Mod is restricted to single player at the moment. (E-mail Salmar if you need help?)
A polish director is making a Tolkien based anime movie and has asked the Guild for help.
(E-mail Varda if you want to help out?)
[Note from Varda: check DarGab's message board to note progress or to email him. His connected links explain more. I offered help from the guild with Tolkien research, and tried to explain to him in an email that I meant only help on tough spots, not do it all for him as he seemed to think. It is a movie done in Anime over the LotR.]
Membership:
The membership is unchanged at 121. No new members reported this week.
Tolkien:
Ecthelion introduced a very interesting topic: Are Glorfindel from the Lord Of The Rings (Rivendel) and Glorfindel from the Silmarillion (Gondolin) one and the same elf? How is this possible as Glorfindel supposedly died against the balrog after the fall of Gondolin? Ecthelion became interested in this topic, as his character (Ecthelion) was also at Gondolin and also slew - and died against - a balrog.
Salmar gave a theory that the two Glorfindels are unlikely to be the same, starting from the colour of his hair as reported in The Lord of the Rings (golden). This theory was very nicely falsified by Eonwe, who argued that the Glorfindel at Gondolin also could and would have had golden hair.
Ecthelion will post this topic at the Yahoo Discussion Board, where we will dive into this matter further.
(After the meeting Salmar even digged up an article by JRR Tolkien himself, where JRRT explicitly adresses and elaborates this question!)

Varda missed the meeting. Sorry not to have made it back in time and you deserve the reason. Our church is on a hill and during the recent flooding was inundated from 3 to 30 inches deep, so for an irregular service we did repairs and cleanup from morning until supper time.

June 23, 2001
    Ori and Oin, the brothers, say Hi and that they're still with us.

June 21, 2001
    D2X: Battlenet announced that the D2X, Lord of Destruction, has gone gold with over 2 million copies pre-sold already.
    Letter from Salmar on Tolkien Mod:

Good news from Khan: the panic about the Mod was premature!
Quotes from his post at the V&K board (titel "1.08 Mod problems SOLVED):
"Yes, it seems all our woes about 1.08 making modding impossible were stupid. Peter Hu just
provided the knowledge to create or convert mods for 1.08 (...)
I can't really say how delighted I am that it's so easy and it shows Blizzard still cares
about all the community, even us modders!
A big HipHipHOORAY to Peter Hu and the Blizzard crew!"
So: we can expect a new patch to the ME-mod in the foreseeable future:)
Greetings,
Salmar.

It seems that so many gamers have been protesting the hardness of the game under 1.08 and
the harshness of the monsters, that Blizzard ... will take back some of the
changes. See: http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/patch108.shtml
The changes will not be implemented by a new patch, but by a server side change.

Due to summer holiday travelling and such, I will be offline for the next month. I will prob. be able to check mail and guild news
from time to time, but i won't be getting the chance to play much.

Regretfully
Beregond

June 20, 2001
(semi-message board going here! :)  )
    Letters from Salmar about the new Blizzard patch 1.08's effects on D2 and the D2mods:

Last night Blizzard implemented patch 1.08 and the changes are hugue and many. It is clear that this patch is meant as a
getting-ready-for-the-expansion patch.
For the mod-players it makes it necessary to swap files before and after connecting to b.net. (I did not and downloaded the
patch first time in vain, hehe)
  Salmar.

The new patch is two-in-one (we never went through a separate 1.07 did we?)
and it is colossal, probably the biggest patch to the game ever. I am sorry
to say that my prediction about Blizzard finding a way with the D2mods has
been validated. To quote one of the modmakers at the V&K board:
"RIP, mod-making. It's dead. Just try it. .D2m does not work. -direct -txt
does not work. Goodbye, modmaking."
The mod-wizards will find a way eventually, but for now we face the same
situation as a year ago in D1: the Tolkien mod is for now reserved for
single play only:(.
It is back to classic D2 realm playing for me, but from what I see it might
be quite a challenge. From this mod I would not be surprised if the
Expansion hits gold in a week or so.
  Greetings,
  Salmar.

You can still use the Mod for single play, but you would have to switch
between d2game.dll files every time you change from mod to classic and back.
New patch from D2 is only downloaded when you have the d2game.dll from 1.06
(may 16th) active.
When you keep the Mod files in a separate dir there is no problem.
  Salmar.
 

They are now using bin files instead of txt files. This means we can't make mods until someone writes a bin-txt
converter program.

This will probably take some time so I would suggest you keep two installation of D2 (one with 106b for mods and
one with 108 for Bnet play) until this matter is solved.
I wouldn't say modmaking is dead yet, but it's severely hindered and doubtful to recover.

  A 1.07 patch modification is listed on Blizzard's page on D2 patch info, even if we didn't see it flash by. It's included in the 1.08 as are all previous fixes, possibly one reason 1.08 looks so huge.
  A lot of people seem to really like the new patch when playing regular D2.
  The new patch is designed partly to give some of the expansion features to people who will not be able to go into the expansion for quite a while, increasing the longevity of the game. Their version of a mod? :)

June 19, 2001
    EverQuesters! We have enough people to potentially run our own realm now, as only ten are needed. If you are interested, please email Varda who is currently contact person and we'll start organizing. Please remember to include your current EQ name and server for the EQ Players page.
    Aule-(Valar) plays EQ now and is project head and contact person. Varda is currently web person. Naming needs to be discussed.
    Our page for EverQuest has a link from the Home page under Gaming and at the top of this News page.

June 18, 2001
    LotR Anime Movie: Dariusz Gabryelewicz, aka net handle DarGab is trying to make an anime movie for free distribution on the net and is looking for help with his project. We might be able to help on the research end, so he has been invited to our Discussion Board to ask any question he needs answered. His discussion board is called LotR New Anime Movie , and links to his pages are available from there, some in English. Dariusz is an actor, director in The Dialog Theatre and is an acting teacher in Actors' Studio of The Ochota Theatre in Warsaw.

June 17, 2001
Sunday Meeting 5pm EST
Attending: report by Salmar and Varda
    Amillo (Lindelome), Amlaith, Aule, Bert, Deagol, Eru, Gwindor (Vinyamar), Halbarad, Herumor, Isildur, Maedhros, Mahtan, Rog, Salmar, Thror, Ugluk, Varda
    Primula said hi over Deagol's shoulder.
Membership: report by Amillo and Varda
    121 current members
    Celeborn and Eonwe are on vacation.
    Gelmir is collecting gold for a new phone line so that he can return to the Internet.
    Thorondor has the early shift tomorrow and couldn't make it to the meeting, says Hi.
    Thror, after the meeting, started moving his computers to the new house. "So carefully! carefully with the" comps!
Web: report by Varda
    Ecthelion article for the Elves page in the Tolkien Encyclopedia and more of his names for the Names page.
    D2 Tomb of Knowledge with much D2 info including a Horadric Cube Recipe page. On the Diablo and His Kin page under D2.
    LotR movie trailer 45 seconds long on Mediatrinity.com. On Links page under Tolkien/ movie.
    Games page. Scatha, Makar's brother, is trying to collect the files for this page and update it with new script. He will be the one to contact with which new games you want to play online with guild members. Varda can also be contacted as general contact person and will forward the info to the correct person for any project.
    Virus Alert page now has a link to check out virus hoaxes, on the page AFU & Urban Legends Archive.
Gaming:
    New Diablo 2 Middle-earth mod 1.6 available from the Varaya and Khan page!
    Some regular D2 players of high lvl in the guild advise that their fastest way to level is to play solo in a game full of players, staying in norm diff through lvl 35, and staying in nm diff through lvl 55.
Tolkien:
    Deagol as a father was reading to his young one and they had reached the "Paths of the Dead". This set off a lively discussion about why Elves such as Legolas were not afraid of the shades of Men, and another discussion after that about why Dwarves such as Gimli were afraid. Most of the group had gone by the time we reached the dwarves, so it may be discussed at a later date, but we also have less info on the subject. Boiled down it went thus:
    Elves live in both the waking and spirit worlds normally.
    Melkor and Sauron made Men fear Eru's gift of death, while Elves were spared this since they knew exactly where they were going.
    Men's shades staying as ghosts was an abomination, a curse on those trapped.
    Dwarves may have had a racial memory problem since in ancient times evil spirits loosed by Melkor made Middle-earth a scary place, some of which still remained in the barrows.
    Dwarves also knew underground monsters such as the Balrog could be terrible, and might associate underground shades with this combination of memories.
June 16, 2001
    Mediatrinity's LotR movie trailer - only 45 seconds, great reading by Ian McKellan's Gandalf. Also on our Links pages under LotR movie.

June 15, 2001
    Worm. The worm (like a slow virus chomping through files and renaming them, so it is not noticed right away) attached itself to my comp and sent itself to everyone on my email list, probably the entire guild and anyone ever associated with it. The subject line says "US PRESIDENT AND FBI SECRETS=PLEASE VISIT=>" and gives an email address. Hopefully you didn't open this attachment like I did in a moment without coffee. It didn't seem to do anything at first, but it was eating all the jpg files, cascading sheets, and starting to delete music files. Eowyn is doing a great job removing this crud. It is a recent version of the ILOVEYOU virus. If you get an email from me, remember that I mention any attachments in the body of the letter and I don't shout in subject lines as it seems rude. If you opened it, possibly anytime after May 30, 2001, you need to clean it out right away! McAffee seems to have been the most help to us. Sorry guys.  :(

June 13, 2001
    Elves page: New article under Ecthelion by Salmar with help from Amillo on Ecthelion's names.
    Games Page. Scatha , Makar's brother, has started handling the Games page, if you would like to update which online games you play. Remember to play honorably as your guild character and to work with fellow Guild members (against them by consent only, and hold no grudges!). He is rebuilding the page now, but it has not yet been re-uploaded.
    New Gaming link for our " Diablo and His Kin " page from Haldir-(V): Diablo II: Tomb of Knowledge by Caliber Connections Corp . It has D2 and D2X info.
Haldir's letter of review for this link:

Hi
Yesterday i found this wonderful page. http://diabloii.calcon.net/
It has everything: gem genie, skill page, horadric cube, item prefixes and more.
(it hasent any cheat page, and that pretty good i think)

bye, Haldir

June 12, 2001
    New link for Virus Alert Page: The AFU & Urban Legends Archive about which "virus alerts" and sob stories are hoaxes. Try using the handy search, typing in "virus" or "computer" for lots of info.  Other entertaining bits here as well. Link sent by Eol-(V), which could save us a lot of spam annoyance
    Letter from Gelmir:

Hey Guys,
     Im not going to be on b-net or anything for
awhile, My internet privliges have been revoked by my
father. :( I'm tying up his phone line to much lately,
I can how ever still send and recive e-mail, and
hopefully will be allowed to attend the sunday
meetings. I'll get the internet back as soon as I get
a job, (already got one lined up) and buy my own phone
line. Which will allow me to be on more, when im not
working. What good timing ehh? 24 days before the D2
expansion. What a pain, anyway I guess Ill see you
guys sunday, or in my mail, BTW It's
Gelmirv@yahoo.com.
Have Fun and think of some good Tolkien chat to umm
chat about sunday.
Peace Out.
Gelmir

June 10, 2001
Sunday Meeting 5pm EST
Attending: report by Aule, Varda
    Members (18): Amillo/Dusksinger, Amlaith, Aule, Celeborn, Deagol, Ecthelion, Eonwe, Eru (on DB), Gwindor/Flinding, Halbarad, Haldir, Irmo (on DB), Mahtan, Orome, Thror, Tulkas, Ugluk, Varda
    Visitor: *Pickle (currently reading the Fellowship for the first time, the lucky stiff)
Thanks to Aule and Eonwe for relaying between the bnet and DB chat!
Hellos from Azaghal, Beregond, Finduilas, Galadriel, Salmar who would have liked to attend but were prevented by work or comp problems.
Hello from Ulmo who was at the school-year's end celebration with Elanor. Hi from Melkor who did not make it back from the lake in time for the meeting.
Membership: report: by Amillo
    Sweep completed by Amillo and Varda with much help from Aule's ValarBuddy. This week 40 members were dropped for inactivity and lack of response, one joined, so we went from 160 to 120 to 121.
    Account names: Amillo asked that we email our account names to him for inclusion in the Members page to help us get together.
    Welcome, Celeborn , to the Valar Guild. Thanks for saying a few words of hello to the group.  :) Celeborn actually joined a few days ago, but the report came in a few minutes before the meeting. Better late than never, as has been known to happen! Celeborn is from Pennsylvania, USA and is 15. Disillusioned with the foul mouths of his previous guild, he met Thror in a channel and learned of us. Aule tested and he made a perfect score! His favorite character is Gandalf.
    Makar retired honorably from the Council, and we hope will choose his new name soon. Much luck in your new endeavors, Makar, and thank you for the long time of service with the Games page, Council issues, testing for entries, and Maia and Vala honor testing!
Web: report by Varda
    New links:
        "Force of Hobbit: An Insider's Guide to the LotR" about the upcoming Tolkien movie by Peter Jackson, sent in by Eowyn-(V)
        "Tolkien Computer Games", sent in by Beregond-(V)
        Article on Tolkien's Lord of the Rings being chosen by the people as the Book of the Century, sent in by Finduilas-(V)
        Tolkien fan get-together live in Chicago, link sent in by Menelvagor-(V)
    Menelvagor invites talented modelers from the guild to apply to him for a job working on the new games his development team is doing.
Gaming: report by Varda
    ValarBuddy bot. Blizzard has tried to remove bots from the channels to cut the annoying spam among other things. Our ValarBuddy bot handled by Aule was removed, but has managed to show up in a new form in the West Realm, but not the East Realm yet in our home channel. He is still working on it.
    Without the bot, we have more difficulty getting together, making our private channel and guild game names even more important. If you don't know the members-only, alternate guild channel names in case of annoying outsiders, please email Varda for the info. Same if you need to know game names.
    To help us get together more easily, Amillo offered to add our account names to the Members page. Please email yours to him right away. We used to do much the same thing with the old account numbers, no longer in use the same way.
Tolkien Chat:
    Lively  :)
    Ugluk-(V)'s surprise appearance (access to a new comp) prompted a discussion on the nature of orcs, evil from having been twisted, and the nature of the other twisted slaves mostly done by Sauron on Melkor's behalf. Generally the creatures were made from strange crossings and mistreatment. Many were crosses between Ainur (who were seduced into Melkor's service by his being the greatest Vala in power at the beginning) and creatures of Arda who were often innocent animals or unwilling elves, or both willing and unwilling humans. Dragons, who started off flightless, could have begun from great snakes and been crossed with balrogs. Orc/human crosses are referred to in the LotR as appearing like squinty-eyed men, such as the hobbits met at Barliman's inn.

June 9, 2001
    New LotR movie link, suggested by Eowyn-(V), " Force of Hobbit: An Insider's Guide to the LotR ". E! Online puts out the page.

June 8, 2001
    Article   in Salon.com by Andrew O'Hehir on Tolkien's LotR's being chosen as Book of the Century, link sent by Finduilas-(V). We may have fun agreeing and disagreeing with the author over various comments, some of which are right on and some as if the author didn't read the LotR. Here are some reader responses to the article, also a link from Finduilas-(V).
    Finduilas can only come to meetings in the Discussion Board's chat room right now, since the stress test realms don't overlap and her bots have been banned as were all bots from public and private channels.

June 7, 2001
    New link from Beregond for the Links page: Tolkien Computer Games
Sweep: name drop now completed. Drops have already been done for these pages: Members, Names, Recruiting. If you still wish to be in the guild, please rejoin right away before your old name is taken. We had 160 members, dropping 40 to put us at 120.
    Names being dropped. Weren't seen for over 3 months (93 days) at the beginning of the Sweep, then did not contact the guild during the month following:
        A: Aegnor (232 days), Amrod (269 days) undeliverable mail, Ancalagon (beyond VB), Aragorn (Oct 00) undeliverable mail, Arathorn (beyond VB), Arminas (115), Arwen (beyond VB)
        B: Beleg (beyond VB, Dec 22, 99 rejoined), Beorn (both) (beyond VB, not on pages since 1999), Bilbo (305 days), Boromir (beyond VB)
        C: Carcharoth (185), Celeborn (beyond VB) undeliverable mail, Celebrimbor (195)
        D: Dain (beyond VB), Denethor (left Feb 4, 01), Dwalin (153)
        E: Elladan (beyond VB)
        F: Fili (253), Finarfin (293) undeliverable mail, Finrod (336)
        G: Galdor (308), Glorfindel (beyond VB), Grima (beyond VB), Grishnakh (beyond VB),
        H: Helm (214), Hurin ( beyond VB, Daeron's brother)
        I: Indis (beyond VB)
        K: Khamul (121), Kili (beyond VB)
        L: Legolas (beyond VB) undeliverable mail,
        O: Old Gaffer (beyond VB, possibly naming problem),
        P: Pippin (beyond VB, computer access problems therefore undeliverable mail, no contact in any fashion)
        R: Radagast (beyond VB) undeliverable mail, Ragnor (beyond VB, had internet problems a long time ago)
        S: Smaug (beyond VB) undeliverable mail
        T: Theoden (beyond VB) undeliverable mail, Thrain (300), Thorin (beyond VB), Turin (beyond VB)(Cirdan's father)
Borderline but still in. Please email Varda when you can:
    Bombur (106 days)
    Elrond (196, last meeting Oct 22, 2000, Encyc contributor, waiting for return email from Ingwe to find out the situation)
    Guilin (85, prolly active) undeliverable mail
    Luthien (active EQ player, 119, Jan 7, 01 meeting)
    Olwe (189, prolly active on CounterStrike) undeliverable mail
    Shagrat (75, prolly active) undeliverable mail, Horadric Cube Recipe page unreachable which is possibly related.

June 4, 2001
Letter from Menelvagor:

Aiya Varda,

    I found out they're having a Tolkien bash in Chicago in August for anyone who's interested. I will probably be
attending so i thought I'd let ya know. Here's the link to the site where people can
register http://www.theonering.net/barlimans/barlibash/

    In other news not really Tolkien related my development team
and I will be licensing the Tribes 2 engine to develop the game we've been working on which is a composite of
C-Strike, Team Fortress Classic, and Tribes 2. The game is based on World War 2 battle locations but the time
frame is around the year 2731 A.D. We're currently changing internet hosts so I don't have a new link yet, but here's a
piece of concept art to show the calibur of our work. (Availble from Varda or Menelvagor by email if you're interested.)
    This is a submersible APC  for transporting troops and vehicles to enemy locations. The front end will run up onto
beaches and open up to allow the units to be deployed. Just to let ya know we are looking for any very talented
modelers to join those on our team if anyone in the Valar has the ability they can give me a buzz on ICQ or email.
Catch ya later.

Namarie,
Ben Love
a.k.a Menelvagor a.k.a. Rockhound

June 3, 2001
Sunday Meeting 5pm ESDT
Attending: (report by Salmar including Quenya, and Varda)
Omentië "june 3rd":
Amillo/Dusksinger, Amlaith, Arothir, Aulë, Balin, Deagol, Earendil, Eonwe, Galadriel, Gwindor/Flinding, Halbarad, Maedhros, Osse, Quickbeam, Salmar, Thingol, Thorondor, Thror, Tulkas/Astaldoe, Ulmo, Varda.
A Lavalmarion:
*Ghettosburg/Shooter/Necroshooter/MeleeShooter has the LotR now and is reading it  :), *Sampan, *Dragonspell/ComingofDeath
Membership:
   Amlaith, new member, said a few words of introduction.
    Beregond still seems to be having problems coming online.
   Eol couldn't make it to the meeting but says Hi!
    Haldir was at a friend's house and couldn't make it, but said Hello and (although he shouldn't and isn't required due to his age and the time in Europe), will try to make the next meeting.
    Maglor is having unexpected problems with internet access while visiting Berlin and will be there another month. He hopes to have poems and stories to share with us on his return!
    Hello from the Layton host folks Eowyn, Fangorn (on a drilling rig but phones hi), ex-Fingon (re-reading LotR), and Sauron who can't use this comp at the same time as Varda. Also hails from Elwing and Meriadoc (still working on comp).
    New emails for Galadriel, Imrahil, and Quickbeam. Thanks Amillo for keeping up with all this!
    Sweep drops will commence around June 7 if we have not heard from you. Check to see if your name is on the A-Z sweep list on this page and contact Varda by email right away!
Web:
    Aule's guild pages are on a new server, so a number of links from guild pages to his may be incorrect, although our home page should be right. Feel free to email Varda to repair these. You might also check to make sure you have his new email which is on the Members page.
    Diablo and His Kin page with the Diablo, Diablo II, D2mod, D2X links has a new link for D2 items. It's written by Lanthanide who sent us the link and is for Diabloii.net.
    Horadric Cube Recipe page is still down.
    News Archives had to be moved by Varda to another server due to room problems. More pages may have to be moved in the future, but not for a while now.
    Poetry page has a new poem, "Ainunya" in English and Quenya from Imrahil. It's a love poem from Tolkien's Prince Imrahil to his beloved.
   "You know you're in Valar when..." joke page has additions by Gloin.
Gaming:
    Bots: Blizzard intends to restrict most bots to the Tech Support and a special bot channel, mostly due to the extreme amounts of spam they tend to create in public channels. If our ValarBuddy bot disappears, you'll know what happened.
    Chaos Sanctuary: Earendil said this page is showing a lot of good info now.
Tolkien:
    Exceptional non-netsplit allowed an exceptionally lively Tolkien chat on bnet! Yay! We even had topics left over for another time.
    Amlaith-(V) kicked it off with how the One Ring affected its many bearers. We didn't even make it through all of them, mostly concentrating on Gollum and Bilbo before people had to start leaving. Sauron, Isildur, Frodo, and Sam did at least get a small mention.
    Some of the many comments made and condensed and put into some kind of order were:
    The One Ring held part of Sauron's power and self, bridging between worlds of the material and the wraith/ghostly, drawing the bearer from the material to the wraith over time set by the person's resistance. In the wraith world, the bearer could be seen by fellow wraiths but not by those left in the material world. The bearer retained much connection to the physical, although those who had gone completely into wraiths such as the nazguls had to rely greatly on their steeds' senses for information on the material. Wearing the One Ring let them see the bearer easily, and vice versa.
    The One Ring also stretched out the life of the bearer, rather than giving more life, perhaps to increase the time the vehicle could serve it to bring the Ring closer to Sauron. The more the bearer wore it, the more the Ring could affect the mind and body.
    The One Ring protected itself by making itself so attractive to the bearer that the person could not stand to see it come to harm or leave. Thus, to shift to a better vehicle, it had to resort to trickery such as making itself too large for the bearer's finger at an inopportune moment such as Isildur's swimming the river under orc arrows, or Gollum's being in a dark tunnel.
    Gollum was a problem for the One Ring. Although he seemed a good vehicle with his petty meanness and Stoor hobbit toughness, he hid himself deeply beneath mountains instead of traveling to Sauron, and rarely wore the Ring, preferring to keep it safely in a hole on his tiny hidden island. In the cavern darkness mostly fishing, he rarely needed the invisibility given by the Ring. It found itself unable to pass on to the orcs in the area above Gollum.
    All hobbits were of such tough fiber and so disinterested in gaining power over others, that the One Ring had difficulty with such bearers and found itself stalled on Gollum, Frodo, and Sam. This meant the nazguls were forced to personally search for it without a wraith bearer in their world to guide them. Thus the "insignificant" hobbits went unspotted for long periods of time and were the perfect tools of the Valar to rid the world of the corrupted Maia Sauron and allow Eru's children to inherit the world as they were destined, with an increase in strength and solidarity from fighting evil.
    (A topic not gone into showing how far afield we traveled was the parallel of Morgoth's and Sauron's being taken to justice, topic from Amlaith, possibly for next time.)
    (Another topic from Salmar for another time or the Discussion Board: "Was it a wise decision by the Numenorean kings like Minastir and Aldarion to aid elves and men in Middle-earth against Sauron in the Second Age?")

June 3, 2001
Letter from Maglor:

For the past two months I have been in Berlin, Germany, and I will be here for
another month.  When I left I had expected more time on the internet so I could
continue to regularily speak with you good people but alas, I was left without a
connection for quite some time.  As soon as I get home I will pick up where I left
off and will again be present at meetings and such.  I have not been lazy though and
have written some poems and stories that I would love to share when I return.  Well,
farewell for now,
                            Maglor

June 2, 2001
    Beregond is back online today! He's been having troubles with his dialup connection, now presumed repaired.

June 1, 2001
    New poem: " Ainunya " in both English and Quenya by Imrahil-(V) , who has a new email.
    New jokes:  " You know you're in Valar when... ":  from Gloin-(V)!
    New link on the Diablo and His Kin page: D2 Items by Lanthanide on Diabloii.net.
     New email for Quickbeam .
top

May 30, 2001
    News archive move. The pages ran into a room problem, the reason the News page has been down. Therefore some files such as the News archives are moving to Yahoo Geocities web space and all should be well.
    The new link for Aule's Valar Guild page is now on the home page under Member Info, including Rules, Code of Conduct, Files, Movie News, Member Bios.

May 29, 2001
    Haldir , welcome to the Valar Guild! Haldir found us through the web pages and emailed Varda. He found Ecthelion in the channel who located Salmar. Amillo came in and helped out since Haldir is Swedish and has some difficulty with English. That's teamwork! It bodes well that this 13-year old can speak not only his own language but use another well enough to game in. On top of that, he had a perfect score on his entry test! He had already read the Rules and CoC and picked out an unused name. May his tribe increase. For him our meetings start at 11pm, not a good time, although he hopes to make it sometimes. He plays SC and will be with us in D2 after his loaned CD returns (good luck, CD), and is on bnet about 1-4 times a week.

May 28, 2001
    Welcome to the Valar Guild, Amlaith! More about Amlaith under the May 27 meeting news "Membership" section.
    Beruthiel says Hi! She hopes to be online more now that summer is coming up.
    Aule is moving his web pages to his new ISP, as soon as they set up his web space and he is able to get to them all. This will take a while, so the Rules, CoC, Files, and a goodly number of other pages will be unavailable for a bit. Please bear with us, and recruiters just try to explain the rules for now.

May 27, 2001
Sunday Meeting 5pm EST
Attending:
    Members: (23) Aldarion, Amillo/Dusksinger, Azog, Bard, Bert, Deagol, Earendil, Elendil, Eonwe, Eru, Galadriel, Gwindor/Flinding, Halbarad, Irmo/Dreamlord, Melkor, Quickbeam, Shelob, Thorondor/Sorontar, Thror, Tulkas/Astaldo, Ulmo, ValarBuddy, Varda
    Visitors: (3) Vidugavia, Azog~middleEarth, Ghettosburg/Sir Necro_Shooter. All asked to join, then East realm decided to go down and other fun netsplits occurred. Azog was not seen again, but testers please watch for him later. Ghettosburg will be reading the LotR for another shot at the test.
Membership: 158 members
    Barahir hopes to be back home in Norway around June 30th, so we should be seeing him again then.
    Rog is at a wedding tonight. Suppose he'll catch the garter?
    Salmar has to be at work early in the morning, so he had to skip the meeting tonight.
    New Member: Despite the bnet madness, Vidugavia aka Amlaith aka Bradhimante managed to pass his test and is now Amlaith-(V) ! Welcome to the Valar Guild, Amlaith of Fornost, First King of Arthedain.  :)  Amlaith scouted himself, finding us through a friend who found us on the web pages. Should we give him his own scouting credit?  :)  He had read the Rules and CoC already. Thorondor and Earendil tested, Earendil reporting. Amlaith-(V), formerly known as Amlaith/Vidugavia and other names, is 27 years old, from Tucson, Arizona in the USA. They're not on Daylight Savings time yet, but are on Mountain Time which comes out the same as Pacific Standard Time. He's read the H, LotR, UT, Farmer Giles, Leaf by Niggle, most of the Sil, and probably others. Amlaith's favorite Tolkien character is Aldarion, and his favorite LotR character is Aragorn. "He always knew what he would have to sacrifice to obtain his  legacy, & his love, & always saw the pain those sacrifices caused in others.  Despite his empathy, he was never swayed from his course."
Web Report:
    New short story: " Finarfin's Lament " by Eonwe-(Valar)
    New poem: " Elbereth " by Valkir, who would like to join
    Set and Unique page for D2 Middle-earth mod: updates made for 1.5 from actual items, more needed. You collectors out there, take note! Earlier info was extracted by Lanthanide for the 1.3.
Gaming: You bet we do.
Tolkien:
    Tolkien chat was held on the Yahoo Discussion Board chat room. Eonwe kicked it off with this topic: The Valar forced Melkor into the Void, a place forbidden to the Valar. Was this a violation of Eru's edict that they were all bound to remain with Arda (the world) after coming in to build it according to the Song and Vision?

May 25, 2001
    New short story! " Finarfin's Lament ", by Eonwe-(Valar).
    Rog will be at a wedding this Sunday and sends a hello for the meeting!
    Barahir expects to be back home in Norway around June 30th.

May 24, 2001
    New poem! " Elbereth " by Valkir, a poet and rpg player who would like to join the guild after his return from a trip.

May 20, 2001
Sunday Meeting 5pm EST
    Plagued with netsplit from the outset, we tried to move to the Discussion Board chat room. Some of us using the old Netscape could not come in and had to switch to Explorer, including Ulmo and Varda. Since this took a while, a number of members had to leave before the actual meeting started. Special thanks to those who stayed!
Attending:
    Some were probably missed due to netsplit and crossing the meeting between the bnet channel and the Discussion Board chat room. Chat room practice outside meetings is suggested for all, including me.
    Amillo, Aule, Bert, Deagol, Earendil, Ecthelion, Elendil, Eonwe, Eru, Glaurung, Gwindor, Halbarad, Irmo/Dreamlord, Maedhros, Orome, Primula, Quickbeam, Rog, Salmar, Thingol, Thorondor, Thror, Ulmo, Varda
Membership: 158 members
    Our newest member is Primula Brandybuck Baggins who came to the meeting. We hope that next meeting she will have a chance to say a few words of intro and hello to the group.
    The sweep removing disinterested members is underway, the News page trying to stay current and using a link from the top to that section for your convenience. If you know of someone who should be listed as active, please save them and the record keepers trouble by emailing Varda. Rejoining can be a pain and sometimes forces the choosing of a new name. At the meeting, Thingol told us Finwe is having computer troubles. Thingol is having trouble with his CD drive. Gwindor told us at the meeting that he has been having trouble with a corrupted hard drive. Emails are still coming in.
Web:
    The D2 ME mod Sets and Uniques pages by the Valar Guild are being updated as we receive information. Thorondor started us off, Salmar added Clvls (character levels). Right now we need damage and defense, and anything else you notice that is missing or needs correction. Email Varda to make additions.
Gaming:
    The Diablo 2 Middle-earth mod has been updated again today, this time with a handy mod version number under Celebrimbor at the beginning (along with other changes).
Tolkien: If everyone can come up with a topic next meeting, we can make a list for the News page and play with them at meetings or on the discussion board or both.  We could  also try to role-play more just for the fun of it. For instance, what is your character's relationship with other players' characters and how would he react to the ones he wouldn't have known from his life? This could also give us more topics as we ask each other at the meetings about things helping us role-play.

May 19, 2001
    D2 and D2mod players: Ulmo suggests being sure your DirectX is updated to 8.0a. He noticed fewer computer stalls afterwards.  Blizzard's tech support has a link to it or you can go from here to the DirectX home page .
Drivers can also be updated from there and may help.

May 18, 2001
Letter from Beren:

Heya!

Here I am... I haven't entered or participated in the
Valar Guild as of lately because I am in College
now... studying Astrophysics if you can believe it ;)
Thanks for the personal letter, but the problem is
that I have no access to a computer, rather than an
ocassional visit to the Faculty facilities (not very
often). I'd like to remain in te Guild but, but I
don't think I can be around often for a long time...
If I ever get the chance, I'll pay a visit, I am
holdin a long debt with my Tolkien :)

Anyways, I'm glad to hear you are growing and in good
shape as always.

The Best of Lucks, Beren/Lord of Lag/David

May 16, 2001
Letter from Feanor:

Hail!

I am indeed still in the Guild, but due to me moving to Eindhoven, I haven't
got any Internet connection anymore, so please just put me on leave, I'm
saving for a new comp and a connection to the Net, but it might take me a
while. I hope to be back to my friends of the guild as soon as possible. I'm
really missing out some great discussions about Tolkien's books. I hope to
join them again as soon as possible, also because I've had some great ideas,
but they have been lost due to the great gap of absence. Really hope to be
with you again soon.

Namarie,
Feanor

May 15, 2001
Update D2 Middle-earth mod for May 13, version 1.4, on the V&K page .
Letter from Khan aka Fingolfin, answering a question about identifying the version of D2 that we happen to be in; New update:

hmhm yes we thought about this too. I think we'll add some version info in
something that an NPC always says or the like. Or we'll just redo the intro
picture every time a new version gets released.

BTW we released another update at sunday. I recommend you all download it
since it fixes a severe problem with low droprates and should be an overall
improvement to the game.
To check if you got the current version you could go to Primula Brandybuck
(Akara) in Eldar difficulty and see if she sells minor potions. If you got
the old version she will only sell lesser pots.

Khan
(FingolfinME level 39 Dunadan who didn't even kill maiar Morgoth and is
shredded by act4/maiar monsters at a daily basis :)

Hail again Varda, we have been sundered too long!

I am back online but not quite back in business!  My (mostly) new PC is shaping up nicely and I
hope to be able to chat or even use D2 if I'm lucky for this Sunday's meeting.
I've been missing my online Tolkien a great deal, so I'm looking forward to seeing everyone and
chatting again. :)

Please convey my fondest regards to everyone in the guild.

See you on Sunday,
Eru Iluvatar, The One.
 

 
Hey all!

EQ is still taking up much of my time(and my sisters), but as I am getting
higher, the game takes much more time, which I do not have. So I will
probably coming back on bnet more frequently soon, for sure when the
expansion for D2 comes out. My mage is 48 and my sister got 40 on her pally.
Also, this is my new email address. The old one got too cluttered up with
junk email. I'm not sure about my sister's one at the moment but ill try and
get it to you as soon as possible.

Eomer

Sunday Meeting 5pm ESDT
Attending:
    Members (11): Durin, Eonwe, Glaurung, Irmo/Dreamlord, Maedhros, Melkor, Rog, Salmar, Thorondor, Quickbeam, Varda
    Visitor dropping by: jason2250
    Realms kept going up and down so that we netsplit badly or dropped entirely. Mother's Day also cut attendance. Work knocked out a number of members such as Amillo, Mandos, Manwe. We probably should have gone to Yahoo chat, but didn't.
Membership Report: 157 currently on Members Page
    Thranduil passed his Maia test and has become Thorondor! More power to you!
    Salmar's son celebrated his first communion today. Congratulations. Salmar couldn't stay long as he had a houseful of guests, but dropped in long enough to cheer us with the good news.
   Three members dropped this week, asking to leave because they were no longer on bnet: Daeron, Erkenbrand, Fuinur. Good luck in your future endeavors.
   Emails: Many members who have do not show as active recently were also not reachable when asked about their membership due to incorrect emails. Everyone, please update your email address by sending an email to Varda (contact person) and/or Amillo (Members Page).
    Bot use: Continued improper use of a bot can hurt the entire guild and is therefore a kicking offense. If you need to use a chatbot due to problems that won't allow use of your guild character, turn off the auto-respond and auto-join, don't leave it unattended for long periods in the channel. Don't block ValarBuddy's function. Sometimes Aule requests another person's bot to aid ValarBuddy for a time.
    Naming: Account names should have a primary name of the character rather than an obscure one which is fine for the character names used from the account. For the account name, please use -(V) for regular members or anyone, -(Valar) is preferred for those who can test new members to make them easier to identify, such as Maiar and Valar honor members. There is no rule requiring the use of V or Valar, but this is the kindest use of the name we could come up with so far. This is in answer to a question which came up during the meeting.
Web Report:
    New pages for the D2 Middle-earth mod: Thorondor fka Thranduil collected info for a Uniques page and a Sets page.
Gaming Report:
    D2 ME 1.3 Version: Khan/Fingolfin-(V) sent letters which are quoted on the News page. Go to the Varaya & Khan page to download the 1.3 version of the Diablo II Middle-earth mod. Characters in different versions of the mod will face difficulties and instability. More details on the V&K page and the read me file.
    Diablo II Expansion Stress Test Report: Princess Finduilas is doing the test and kindly emailed us the following report:

Well, I tried to make last week's meeting, but silly me--I didn't realize
that not only is the beta a different realm, but the channels are completely
separate too, so when I went to Valar I was all alone. I tried Yahoo chat,
but didn't see anyone there. Today I will be missing as my wonderful kids
are taking me to the zoo for Mother's Day.
Anyway, thought I'd give you a short report for the guild. The best place I
know of for detailed info is diabloiilnet.
As for my impressions, I've got a lvl 37 assassin who defeated Baal on
normal level, so is now known as Slayer FinduilasB-V. The assassin is a lot
of fun. She has martial arts moves which make melee much more complex and
interesting. She has charge-up attacks (1-3 charges depending on which
outcome you want) that are combined with a regular attack or a special
finishing move to release the charges. You can choose charges that give huge
physical damage or various elemental damages. Her shadow disciplines include
claw mastery and claw blocking,  which allows two claws to act like a
shield--very useful. She also has some psychic damage skills that I haven't
used. One of the best shadow skills is shadow master, which is like
valkyrie, but much better. The master uses many skills and is quite
powerful. Don't put more than one point into shadow warrior (the
prerequisite) because master is better and you can only have one or the
other at a time! I haven't used any of the traps, but have heard they can be
very powerful and some assassins specialize in them.
My husband is playing a druid and the one tip I can give you is that druids
cannot use shape-shifting (turn into a werewolf or werebear) and elemental
attacks at the same time, so don't use both trees. Minions can be used by
either type though. Shape-shifting druids are much more common than
elemental druids on the beta.
One of the best changes is that hirelings are useful now! You can equip them
(but only with limited items: for example the barbarian you can hire in act
5 can hold one sword and that's it, no other weapons, shields or anything,
so obviously a 2H sword is the way to go). You can drop a healing on their
icon (but I wish there was a hotkey for this!). They can follow you to the
next act. You can ressurect them (cost based on level). My lvl 36 barb (his
name is Khan!) costs about 25000, but he's well worth it. You can only have
one at   time and if you hire a new one then you no longer have access to
the previous one.
I've heard that there is now an experience bonus for being in a party (or
maybe its a penalty for not being in a party). I don't keep track of these
things closely enough to notice, but it seems much more common in the beta
for people you don't know to invite and accept invitations. One
party-related change that had a lot of testers suspecting a bug was in money
distribution. Now when you sell an item, the proceeds are split with all
party members in the same act. I guess this was to put a stop to people who
grab all the good stuff before the end of a fight. Of course now those same
people just go to another act to sell stuff or quit the game and come back.
There's quite a few item changes. There are lots of new character specific
items: claws for assassins, special helms for druids and barbarians, orbs
for sorceresses (one-handed-yes!), shields for paladins and necromancers
(preserved heads-yuck). I don't remember if there's one for amazons, but
probably. I found a nice rare amulet that adds +1 to shadow skills for
assassins.
I've really missed playing with the guild, although on the plus side, the
beta testers seem to be a bit nicer on the whole than the general population
of D2 players. I've played with a few really nice people who made a great
team, and have encountered a few who come in saying "PLEEZ GIVE ME SOME
RINGS AND AMULETS.    I NEED MONEY GIVE ME SOME GOLD PLEEZE" And I'm
assuming its an adolescent male on the other end when everything is
"gay"--like "This lance is so gay.....I need an amulet, I don't care how gay
it is....that quest is so gay" Pretty funny. Well, the hordes are calling me
to go to the zoo, so hope to see you all soon.
(And yes, I've actually done a few bug reports along with mostly having
fun!)

Namarie,

Finduilas

May 12, 2001
    Congratulations to our new Maia, Thorondor , the Member previously known as Thranduil! He will be starting his new characters right away. We thank him for his continued help in the gaming pages over the years, his regular attendance at meetings, scouting that brought in the Members Aldor, Amroth, and Fram, and his pleasant behavior in the channel and games. From Finland, he joined March 11, 2000, brought in by his friend, Elendil-(V). The Maia test was conducted by the Valar team of Aule, Irmo, Salmar (sponsor), and Tulkas.

May 11, 2001
    New link for the Links page under Tolkien Images, and on the Tolkien Encyclopedia's Contributor's acknowledgement page.: Spiderweb Art Gallery - Includes Tolkien pictures. It is the official site of the Hildebrandt brothers, including other artists as well. Greg Hildebrandt owns the site. They do request that people using their artwork post a copyright notice on the page somewhere and link to their site. They are about to start a section called Art Source, great for fan use on their web pages!
    The Hildebrandts have some nifty new stuff coming out:
1. 2002 Tolkien wall Calendar ­ The Brothers Hildebrandt, Their Tolkien Years
2. Art Book ­ Greg and Tim Hildebrandt, The Tolkien Years
3. Art book ­ Limited edition ­ Linen, slipcase
4. Tolkien Posters ­ Smaug, The Fellowship, Eowyn and the Nazgul and The Siege of Minas Tirith

May 10, 2001
    New page: The Sets of the Diablo II Middle-earth mod. Info collected by Thranduil-(V).

May 10, 2001
    New page: The Uniques of the Diablo II Middle-earth mod, collected and searchable. Info collected by Thranduil-(V).

May 9, 2001
    Bot use. We've had some confusion over the proper use of bots in our home channel and yes there is a proper use. We have one authorized bot for handling channel duties: ValarBuddy. Sometimes Aule (who runs ValarBuddy) authorizes another bot to help, as he recently did with Thror's bot temporarily. It is ok to use bots to chat with other members, remembering to turn off the auto-rejoin and auto-respond. The chatbot is generally used when no other Blizzard program is available to allow the person to come into the channel. Please let ValarBuddy do its job, as it records channel activity keeping your name active in the guild as well as giving helpful info on who's around for you to play with. Continual misuse of a bot hurts the whole guild and is therefore an offense which can require the person to be removed from the Valar Guild.

Letter from Khan aka Fingolfin-(V):

Ho

There was a slight problem with the new version of the MEmod but it was
fixed only an hour after the initial upload. The version of the MPQ should
be dated May 8th 2001 (the one dated May 7th is buggy).
I am telling you this just to avoid any confusion

Khan

Hoy

We have just uploaded a new version of the Middle Earth mod. It includes
multiple minor fixes and should add to the challenge (not without reward if
course :)
For a full list of changes download the mod from
http://www.vkmods.de/d2mod.html and take look at the readme.

This version is 1.3 for D2M format and dated May 7th 2001 for MPQ users.
Only play with people using the exact same version.

Khan

    New " You know you're in Valar when... " from Rog-(V)!

Sweep begins. Inactive members will be removed. Show up in our home channel so ValarBuddy will have a record of you, or show up at a meeting long enough to be on the roll, or do webwork and have it reported on the News as Rog did above, or email Varda. Look busy.  :) If you were seen by ValarBuddy in the last 60 days or found in the last 2 months on the web page such as for meeting attendence or letter of a problem or for webwork, no letter should be sent and you can tell me about it!
    Leaving: No longer on bnet and asking to be removed from membership: Daeron, Erkenbrand, Fuinur (EQ only).
    Undeliverable mails These emails need updated by sending an email to Varda , please! Undeliverable emails came back from Amrod, Aragorn, Celeborn, Finarfin, Galadriel, Guilin, Legolas, Luthien, Olwe, Pippin, Radagast, Shagrat, Smaug, Theoden
    Long time since seen (over 60 days), not in the 2001 News pages, and haven't answered (possibly coming in under a name I haven't tried) If your name is here, please email Varda to prevent paperwork for rejoining later and possibly having to get a new name:
        A: Aegnor (232 days), Amrod (269 days) undeliverable mail, Ancalagon (beyond VB), Aragorn (Oct 00) undeliverable mail, Arathorn (beyond VB), Arminas (115, prolly ok), Arwen (beyond VB)
        B: Beleg (beyond VB, Dec 22, 99 rejoined), Beorn (beyond VB, not on pages since 1999), Bilbo (305 days), Bombur (106 days), Boromir (beyond VB)
        C: Carcharoth (185), Celeborn (beyond VB) undeliverable mail, Celebrimbor (195)
        D: Dain (beyond VB), Denethor (left Feb 4, 01), Dwalin (153)
        E: Eldarion (117, last meeting Jan 7, 01), Elladan (beyond VB), Elrond (196, last meeting Oct 22, 2000, Encyc contributor)
        F: Fili (253), Finarfin (293) undeliverable mail, Finrod (336)
        G: Galdor (308), Glorfindel (beyond VB), Gloin (76 prolly active)(Feb 16, 2001 as Gloin_(V) having comp probs), Grima (beyond VB), Grishnakh (beyond VB), Guilin (85, prolly active) undeliverable mail
        H: Helm (214), Hurin ( beyond VB, Daeron's brother)
        I: Indis (beyond VB)
        K: Khamul (121), Kili (beyond VB)
        L: Legolas (beyond VB) undeliverable mail, Luthien (active EQ player, 119, Jan 7, 01 meeting, new email we don't have yet)
        M: no problem  :)
        N: no problem
        O: Old Gaffer (beyond VB, possibly naming problem), Olwe (189, prolly active on CounterStrike) undeliverable mail
        P: Pippin (beyond VB, computer access problems therefore undeliverable mail)
        Q: no problem
        R: Radagast (beyond VB) undeliverable mail, Ragnor (beyond VB, had internet problems a long time ago)
        S: Shagrat (75, borderline, prolly active) undeliverable mail, Smaug (beyond VB) undeliverable mail
        T: Theoden (beyond VB) undeliverable mail, Thrain (300), Thorin (beyond VB), Turin (beyond VB)
        U: no problems
        V: no problems
        no other problems
    Replies by still active members who wound up on the sweep list and mentions of problems by the non-sweep-endangered:
    (The ValarBuddy bot check done by Varda did not always pick the name versions currently being used, and emails and comps don't always cooperate, so we need your howdys.)
    Bandobras Took's (Bullroarer's) computer was struck by lightning and he has been very busy with his miniature figure painting business, but he hopes to return.
    Barahir should be back home in Norway around June 30th.
    Beren (195 days). In a university studying Astrophysics, has very rare access to college's computers, but wishes to remain in the guild.
    Beruthiel says Hi! She's been very busy and expects to be more active now that summer is coming.
    Chrysophilax says hi and that he's staying.
    Eol cleared enough room on his hard drive so that he hopes to be able to join us on D2 as well as SC. Between work and his lovely girlfriend, he is not able to be online as much as before, but expect to continue seeing him.
    Eorl is swamped with work right now. Here's a Hiya to Eorl! I hear you actually read this News page!  :)
    Eowyn says hi and that she's staying. Watch for her Barbarian.
    Eru is re-building/upgrading his comp, and made it to the May 20 meeting.
    Faramir from Turkey is still with us, having trouble connecting to the internet very often. He says he enjoys reading the Discussion Board through the email.
    Feanor, after a move, is trying to get a new comp and internet connection, but keeps up his emails.
    Feathalion hit that "not authorized" message in the channel in January and thought he was kicked (he wasn't). We never kick people that way, guys! Check the Members page and Names page to see if you're still listed; don't trust bnet that far! Anyway, he actively plays EverQuest now. Take note, fellow EverQuesters!
    Fingon says hi, swamped in work even on weekends. He hopes to be able to come up for air and see us again.
    Finwe is having computer troubles.
    Fladrif is still with us, mostly waiting for D2X.
    Gwindor (active) is having trouble with a corrupted hard drive.
    Huor is very active, playing CounterStrike with Menelvagor, a guild activity hard to check on bnet or the News page.  :)
    Ilmare is having trouble getting the internet at home right now, although that may be helping her studies. :)  She hopes to have the internet again soon. (Thanks for reading this page, Ilmare!)
    Luthien is active, playing EQ with Eomer, has a new email.
    Maeglin will be around more for the summer, mostly in StarCraft, and hopes to find fellow star folk available.
    Manwe was on the web page but somehow missed, and shows up as Sulimo in the channel. Others may have been missed the same way.
    Meriadoc figured that his 28 MB of memory is what is giving him problems with D2.  :)  For sure! He plans to pop by again soon.
    Osse has a new email.
    Pippin: may still be having computer access problems.
    Samwise expects to return after exams. He plays only a little SC now but would like to join into Baldur's Gate 2 games.
    Thingol (very active) is having trouble with his CD drive.
    Tilion has a new email and hopes to be in the D2 mod after finals are over.
    Tobold didn't have any Blizzard games for a while.
    Tuor (beyond VB) active and still with us. Bnet is not letting him make an account.
    Tuvo hopes to send more artwork in the future for the Glittering Caves. As he finishes up his finals, he expects to come into the D2 mod.
    Ugluk is getting a new comp, so he may no longer be in competition for the Lord of Lag title.
    Maeglin will be around more for the summer, mostly in StarCraft, and hopes to find fellow star folk available.
    Manwe was on the web page but somehow missed, and shows up as Sulimo in the channel. Others may have been missed the same way.
    Voronwe is still with us, having finished moving to Richmond, Virginia and having been mistreated by Verizon over dsl, is now coming in hopefully via modem and maybe later by cable. He has D2 and plan on picking up the D2X when it comes out.

 I apologize to all who were mistakenly mailed, and ask that you be sure to contact me by email and straighten it out before you are accidentally removed and have to go through the paperwork to be reinstated.

May 6, 2001
Sunday Meeting 5pm EST
Attending: Amillo/Dusksinger, Aule/ValarBuddy, Elros, Eonwe, Melkor, Orome, Quickbeam, Rog, Shelob, Thror, Tulkas, Ulmo, Varda
    Conditional member until name and bot can be straightened out: *-Aragorn-
    Elwing, over the shoulder, helping Varda keep roll in the netsplit. Some members we never could see but may have been in attendance.
Member Report:
    161. 162 when -Aragorn-'s problems are straightened out.
The meeting shifted to the Discussion Board chat room.
Gaming Report:
    Not given in the netsplit. The only news here is the great letter from Finduilas which is on May 4 News.
Naming characters:
    The Fellowship names were supposed to be shifted to Maia honor a while back, but had not been cleared to do so. This subject is going into Council discussion. The Council now has a number of new people and conditions have changed, so the decision needs to be re-worked.
Tolkien Chat:
    Amillo had researched the problem of how old dwarves get with additional commentary from members in the chat room, using info from the LotR Appendix and Morgoth's Ring:
    Dwarves rarely reach 300-350 years. In Ages 1 and 2, they may have reached 400. The lifespan dwindled with the ages. Most 3rd Age dwarves lived 240-250 years.
    Dwalin was 340.
    Manhood was at 30 years. Around 90 was the usual marriage age for those fortunate enough to find one of the rare dwarf women and convince her to marry. Dwarves were old at 200, but before 200 they kept their wit and strength.
    Instead of illness, they tended to become fat.

May 4, 2001
    Letter from  Finduilas:

Sorry I've been absent so long...it's just been one thing and another. I
have kept up with the news and downloaded the new mod, but now it looks like
I'll be busy beta testing! I'd love to know if there are any other guild
members in the beta. I will make my char name "Finduilas(B)-V" if I can.
Also will try to show up at next meeting and will answer any questions I
can.
Namarie!
Finduilas

April 29, 2001
Sunday Meeting (5pm EST)
Attending:
    18 members: Amillo/Dusksinger, Aule/ValarBuddy, Balin, Bard, Deagol, Earendil, Ecthelion, Elendil, Elros, Eonwe, Gelmir, Halbarad, Rog, Salmar/Lirillo, Thranduil/ElenLome, Tulkas, Ulmo, Varda (chair)
    Visitor: Circe-XXI
Membership Report (from Amillo): 161 members
    Rog joined us during the meeting last week and said a few words of introduction.
    Valacirca has become the Vala Eonwe.
    Irmo is working 10 hour shifts and could not make it to the meeting. Sympathy was expressed to be passed on.
    Eru's comp is down and will be most likely until it can be repaired with upgrades.
Web Report:
    Links Page: new link to Writer's Market, giving a comprehensive searchable list for markets for writing (subscription needed) and a free writer's terms encyclopedia.
Gaming Report:
    The new Tolkien's Middle-earth mod has been tested by many of the Council and some members. We recommend it as another guild game.
    It is harder than regular D2, but some people report that it seems better balanced between the classes. It has many enjoyable features, the greatest being the Tolkien theme. The journey starts in Hobbiton and you get to meet such notables as Rosie Cotton, Sam's girlfriend. The One Ring must be destroyed at the Forge where it was created. You get to fight Tolkien's villains such as Shagrat, Tom the Hill Troll and the vampire Maia Thuringwethil in the first Act.
    How-to for loading up the free mod is below. Also check out the letters from Khan below and the Read Me in the files which you will receive. Enjoy!
    Yes, a D2X Tolkien mod is planned.
Tolkien Chat:
    Balin-(V) introduced his topics:
    1. Who were some famous dwarves? This included some discussion of the famous dwarves mentioned.
    2. How long did dwarves live? They are supposed to live longer than men, yet actual dwarves whose lives we looked up lived around 250 years.

    D2 Tolkien's Middle-earth  mod How-To. This game is in addition to the other games we play, not taking the place of any. Council members have happily tried it out and give some warnings at the end of this how-to.
    It is played on Open bnet using our regular game name in this form:  Gamename-T#. No hacking, other cheating, or outside trading.
    Go to your Diablo II folder and make a new folder inside it, labeling it for easy recognition such as ModSwap. Inside the new folder, make two new folders, one for regular D2 and one for the Tolkien mod.
    In your new regular D2 folder, copy two files: your old D2Game.dll and patch_d2.mpq
    To download the mod into your new TolkienMod folder, using the mpq system (modmanager not available with 1.08 D2), go to your browser and click or copy/paste from here:
http://www.vkmods.de/d2mod.html
    Get a cup of coffee or a cola and let it load for about 15 minutes or less depending on your connection.
    Unzip the new .zip file into your new TolkenMod folder. You'll get a Read Me file, a new D2Game.dll and new patch_d2.mpq. Keep these in this handy folder for later swapping.
    Read the Read Me file. (You read the Lord of the Rings, so you can read a Read Me file!)
    Ready to try the game? Copy (not cut) the new D2Game.dll and new patch_d2.mpq onto the main Diablo II folder. When the dialog box asks if it's okay to replace, say yes. After all, you have a copy of what you're replacing in the D2 folder you made earlier.
    You can close all those windows.
    Open your D2 game on Open bnet.
    You can use your regular account. Name your new level 1 character using -VT, the V for Valar membership and the T for Tolkien mod. Why add the T? To tell this special character from the others saved on your hard drive from single player and LAN in regular D2. The different versions do not play together without losing or morphing items and destabilizing the game. This is not saved on Blizzard's server, but yours.
    Play the Tolkien mod and have a great time!
    Whoops. You want to play the regular D2 again? Go back to your Diablo II folder. Go to the new D2 folder you made earlier. Copy (not cut) the D2Game.dll and patch_d2.mpq back onto the Diablo II folder. They're easy to remember because they're the only files in the new folder. Say ok when the dialog box asks if you want to replace. You're back!
    Warnings: Since the new D2 mod is on Open bnet, when the game host leaves or crashes, the game crashes and everyone else with it. Our usual policy of leaving rares and other goodies out for anyone by the campfire can be hazardous. It is suggested that people with rotten connections (such as mine), or who need to leave soon or suddenly, play higher number games when hosting or give fair warning. People who can stay a while and have good connections can host games through number five (or higher if we have a mob). The first game is still supposed to be reserved for norm diff (which is the same as Eldar diff). If this feels like D1, aye, it's similar!
    Suggestions for improvements should be addressed to Varaya and Khan (Elrohir and Fingolfin on our Members page), mod makers, on their forum at their website.

April 26, 2001
Letter from Fingolfin aka Khan answering some questions on the Middle-earth mod:

You have to start a new char or if you insist on using an old character you
would have to strip him of any unique and set items at least (the rest is
luck) but since all your items would morph and formerly unusable skills
would now be usable (as well as overpowered skills becoming "balanced"), I
don't think it's a good idea to continue with old chars.
Patches and updates for the mod would not require you to make new chars. The
only time when you will probably need to do this is after we converted the
mod for the expansion.

For further information just check the readme that's included in the zip (if
you are unsure about what D2M is I suggest you download the MPQ version)

Khan

April 25, 2001
Letter from Fingolfin aka Khan:

Hail and well met!

Tis been a long time, eh?
Anyways I just wanted to inform you that our Middle Earth Mod for Diablo 2
is now finished for release. We didn't update our site yet (should be done
in the next days) but here are the URLs for the download:

For the D2M version (usable with Archangel's modmanager - downloadable at
www.phrozenkeep.com for example):
www.VKmods.de/d2/d2_memod.zip

For the MPQ version:
www.VKmods.de/d2/d2_mempq.zip

It was quite a stretch to fit the D2 world to Middle Earth - take a look and
judge yourself if you can live with Akara as Primula Brandybuck :)
Check the readmefile included in the zip for further information and if you
link the URLs on your site be sure to tell the folks that they absolutely
NEED to overwrite their current D2game.dll with the one provided by us. The
mod is currently only usable with version 1.06 and only in open Bnet and
Singleplayer of course (no mod will ever be usable in closed Bnet)

may the light of the Valar shine on your path

Khan

April 25, 2001
    New Link: Writer's Market - searchable comprehensive listing of markets for writers (subscription required), plus free writer's encyclopedia.

April 22, 2001
Sunday Meeting: (5pm ESDT)
Attending (17): Amillo/Dusksinger, Aule/ValarBuddy, Deagol, Ecthelion, Elendil, Halbarad, Irmo/Dreamlord, Mahtan, Melkor, Orome, Rog/Mahtan's nephew, Thranduil, Thror, Tulkas, Ulmo/Bairos/Linqil, Valacirca, Varda (chair).
    Badly netsplit, so may have been others not seen.
Membership: 161 with Mahtan's nephew today during meeting
    Welcome to our new member, Rog ! Congrats on a perfect 5/5! He's Mahtan's nephew, so Mahtan gets scouting credit. Amillo tested. Rog is 20, stationed at Fort Briggs in North Carolina, USA, so he's in the EST. He's read the H, LotR, and some of the Sil.
Web:
    New Plant page, not guild page but made by guild member Varda. Any plant nut may contribute.
Gaming:
    Polling and voting is ended on D2, D2X. Results below (reported by Ulmo as Council Co-chair and Tourney Master and super nifty guy):
    Diablo II:
        Trading: No outside trading.
    Diablo II Expansion (D2X):
        Game name: Email Varda or other person who was at the meeting for the main game name.
        Trading: No outside trading. Items have been hacked and stolen, and it will happen again eventually. We want no part
            of them.
        Conversion: Full conversion allowed of D2 characters with all items to D2X, since no outside trading
            will have been done in D2.
    Additional games (D2, D2X):
            [game name]-H# for hardcore playing.
            [game name]-P# just for a fun challenge: Must start in D2X as level one: purist gaming with special rules (listed
                    in detail) in this separate game name.
                    One, more or all of your characters can try this, but the character must be made completely according to the rules,
                        just as if in a hardcore game or Quest for Three.
           [game name]-high number for Tourney games is suggested but not required. Please email Varda with results for the
                    Tourney web page. Using an abbreviated character name is suggested but not required, to prevent loss
                        of regular names.
Tolkien Testing:
    Valar Test: Valacirca took the test for Vala Council member and passed 5/5! His new name is Eonwe-(Valar). Testers were Aule, Irmo, Melkor, Ulmo, and Varda. (Amillo was testing Mahtan's nephew at the same time. Salmar, Manwe, and Namo were working. Makar was unavailable.)
    Entry test: Mahtan's nephew joined as Rog , not the Barahir name version but the Noldorin elf lord of the House of the Hammer of Wrath that was destroyed defending Gondolin.
    Thanks Amillo, for your selfless act of entry testing during the wee hours of your morning when you could have been in a Vala test or getting some sleep before work!

                                                            We will try to develop our characters without using any "twinking" techniques (see
                                                            Salmar's note and link in news page for definition of twinking).  In
                                                            short we will be using only what we find ourselves, or in coop with
                                                            another.  We will accept no gifts from other games, others playing ahead
                                                            of us in the same game, or even our own other characters.  Depending on
                                                            how others play the expansion we may use [game name]-P# as our game name to
                                                            avoid getting help, regardless of the good intentions, from converted
                                                            characters.  This is a choice for how to play.  I do not mean to imply
                                                            that to do otherwise is "cheating".  It is a challenge we who choose
                                                            this option put upon ourselves. Some have said they will have both
                                                            purist and non-purist characters.  All I ask is that those who wish to
                                                            join in this challenge honor the rules for entering [game name]-P.
 
 

April 18, 2001
Letter from Azaghal:

Hail,

I am afraid I cannot be on Bnet for a while, currently I am not able to run almost any game, and I suspect it is my Video card (currently a
Nvidia Riva TNT2 model 64 pro - if that says anything to you).

I am going to a buy a Geforce 2 MX when I get the possibility, but I cannot say when at this point. Maybe it will take a lot of time, or maybe next week.

Azaghal.

April 15, 2001
Sunday Meeting (5pm ESDT)
Attending: (thank you to Salmar for emailing the roll!)
    Members: Aulë, Balin, Barahir, Deagol, Elendil,  Girion (briefly), Halbarad, Herumor/(~xanatos~ chatbot), Irmo/Dreamlord, Manwë, Melkor, Menelvagor, Oromë, Salmar, Thror, Tulkas/Astaldo, Ulmo/Bairos/Linqil, Valacirca, Varda
    Visitor: Jason2250 as the Beers: German_Beer, Danish_Beer, others. He's still working on the trilogy, problem with the library book having been checked out by some other Tolkien fan.
Membership: (159 members)
    No new members this week, although we have some emailing who would like to join and may show up in the channel.
    Eru is still suffering from fried comp and is looking for upgrade stuff to repair it or replace the whole thing, which he built.
    Tom is still having problems with wet Internet wires.
    Tulkas will be heading out to sea Thursday, once again captain of his own ship, on search and rescue duty at a new station. So if he leaves abruptly while playing a game with you (via satellite), he asks that you please be understanding that he is not being intentionally rude.
    Manwe's picture was up only two days at work before the web master took down all the pics for page restructuring. The picture page will return soon. Some of us were quick enough to see his smiling face.  :)  Eorl's picture was also up, looking rather similar to Manwe!
Web:
    Story Page:
    New story: Numenorean Diary Part I , by Salmar-(Valar), tells the destruction of Numenor from the point of view of Tar-Miriel. See Salmar's description on the April 12 News
    Links Page:
    New link:  link suggested by Salmar-(Valar) back on April 4, 2001 but buried in the emails, sorry. "Which Game are You Playing?" Article on reverse twinking. It has neat ideas for very challenging purist play that Sirian's been doing. (No, Sirian is not a guild member.) It used to be on his main page, Sirian's Diablo 2 Page , but went out of print until now. Some of Salmar's comments:

Twinking is everything one can do to make the game easier than it already is: skipping
quests, getting help from much more powerful friends, receiving and using items that you are not
likely to having been able to find with that character at that stage etc..
A very good - both emotionally and rationally argumented - article on twinking I have attached.
The author of this article Sirian is one of the most colorful D1/D2 players. He was so kind to mail
me this article, since the Web page where I read it no longer had the URL to it. Sirian is renown
in the Diablo community for his stories about the way he puts the most heavy challenges on his
characters (e.g. his sorceress Ember had to reach Ladyship, killing NM Diablo, using only firebolts
as a spell in Hardcore:)), and the adventures of these characters to reach their goal. He is a
gifted writer.

April 14, 2001

Letter from Manwe:
Heya heya heya,

Speaking of meeting people in the guild, you guys remember last month I told
you about a website me and my RL buddies are hosting. Well we put up a bio
section and my pic is there. Hehe if ya'all are curios to see the face
behind the Words Of Wisdom go to...

www.g-landgames.com
click on "warhammer40k" section
click on battle reports
click on player bios
Im Jeff Russell
Eorl-(V) is David Steele

ehehehe my buddies were making me crack up laughing when they took the pic,
you think you guys give me a bad time, well you aint got nothin on these
monkeys! Naw but those guys up there on that page are my best bros.

Anyways we just did a massive gaming session last Saturday and soon under
the battle reports you can see the army I have modeled and painted for
WarHammer 40k.

Thought ya might wanna know.

Take care Valar buddies
Manwe Sulimo

April 12, 2001
New story: Numenorean  Diary Part I, by Salmar-(Valar). His description follows:

This is Part One of the diary of Tar-Miriel, the last queen of Númenor.
Part One gives us pictures of her childhood years, of her growing up
together with her cousin Pharazôn and her friend Elendil in the years when
her father Tar-Palantir is king. Subsequent parts, which will appear later,
will subsequently describe her being forced into marrying her cousin
Pharazôn, Pharazôn usurping her scepter, the coming of Sauron to Númenor,
the turning of the people of Númenor to worshipping the Dark, the efforts of
Amandil, Elendil and his sons to oppose Ar-Pharazôn, and the eventual
Akkabalêth. Please feel free to e-mail Salmar-(Valar) your reactions to this
sequence, whether negative or positive.

April 10, 2001
    Letter from Eru:

Unfortunately my once-mighty PC is once more down and I'm resorting to using a friend's to let you
know that I am still around, though lost in the Void somewhere. :)

As I built it myself, I can't simply return it to the store for repairs but have to use trial and
error to find the problem (which can be costly).

I am considering saving for a complete upgrade rather than trying to repair what is already
obsolete in PC terms, so I have no eta on my return as yet. :(

Best wishes to yourself and the guild, and I'll see you soon!
Eru Iluvatar, The One.

April 9, 2001
    New link: Hero Machine - make pictures of heroes for board games. Link suggested by Eol-(V)
    For those asking, you can add Links to the Links page by emailing Varda. Page maintainers for the guild pages are usually listed on the page, generally at the bottom, and include an email link. Generally, the plain yellow pages for fast loading are by Varda.

April 8, 2001
Sunday Meeting (5pm ESDT)
Attending (21): Amillo, Aule/ValarBuddy, Balin, Bard, Bert, Deagol, Elendil, Elros, Eol, Finduilas, Gwindor/Vinyanor, Halbarad, Herumor/~xanatos~, Mandos, Thingol, Thranduil, Thror, Salmar, Ulmo (chaired), Valacirca, Varda
Membership: 159 by Amillo's report
    No new members this week
    Tom Bombadil is having trouble accessing the internet whenever rain or other water is on the isp lines.
    Herumor is having CD trouble, coming to the meeting channel with his ~xanatos~ bot.
Web: no news mentioned. Be sure to email about your latest news on your web page or to tell the chair you have some at the meeting.
Gaming:
    Diablo II Expansion Stress Test sign-up underway since April 4 going through April 11. Sign from the Blizzard page. Only 2,500 will be accepted, rather than the 100,000 last time. A FAQ about it is also available on the Blizzard page. If you are accepted, please email Varda to be wowed over on the News page  :)
    D2 Expansion Discussion. The main points are listed on the April 1 News and a link to it is provided at the top of this News page.
    Two members say they have not emailed the Council about the D2X discussion because they expected a mass email telling them to. The News is our mass form of communication, to which any member may contribute. Please email your poll letter on the D2X discussion to Varda , general contact person, for forwarding to the Council where it will be considered with great care. No matter how it goes, some will be unhappy with the final decisions and some will be pleased. The points to discuss are outside trading and conversion of characters and the game name.
    The main reason for discussion is tainted items. A number of members have innocently been trading outside and then traded with members inside. Early on, trading outside was allowed since there were no hacks or dupes. Since then, hackers have found ways to steal from accounts, steal whole accounts, and fence these items on public bnet. Other items were stolen by pks. Stolen items are not dupes. Also, a number of glitches allowed duping, only one of which was the rollback. We can only guess at which items are duped, knowing the common glitches.
    Valar Guild Drop idea is toast.
    Outside trading. At this time, it appears that outside trading will be banned for the D2X. Discussion is underway, and we need a poll of the membership for or against. Many of us would also like to stop outside trading for D2, but this is being contested by part of the membership.
    Conversion. Full conversion is a possibility if we clean up our items now. The full conversion players would have the main game name. Purists who start out at level one and take nothing beyond their level will be in [game name]-P. Hardcore will be (as it is now) [game name]-H.
    Game name: during the meeting, two game names for the D2X considered by the Council were mentioned but the membership made no comment on either. One is the original Diablo game name which is no longer in use and currently favored; the other is a version of that. Feel free to comment on the game name in your email.
    Please understand that although the Council will make the final decision, they request your thoughtful input in order to reflect the desire of the guild as a whole. (The list of current Council members is on the Names page. Contact with the Council is usually made through Varda for quickest forwarding, but any Council member can do this service.)
Tolkien chat:
   Remained in the bnet meeting channel, since it was stable. Hey! It happens!
    Thror-(V)'s topic: Did the 7 rings for the dwarves corrupt them?
    Deagol-(V)'s topic: Why no rings for the hobbits?
    Wandering of the topic to: Effect of rings on wearers and how Sauron could corrupt them. Why and how rings were made. Celebrimbor warned by Galadriel. Sauron's keen understanding of what motivated people.
    After the meeting, quite a few of us gamed together.

April 5, 2001
    No Valar Drop will be made.
    In D2 Expansion (not meaning the stress test), no outside trading will be allowed. Please don't bring in any outside items from a D2 character. This can best be done by removing any of your items which you personally know to be currently questionable and stopping outside trading now. At the very least, don't pass outside traded items on to other members.
    Starting level for D2 Expansion. We will have certain characters who will start in the D2 expansion at level 1 and take no items from the pre-expansion, even though it means zero trading with most people. Most of the guild during channel talk seems in favor of full conversion of characters leveled in D2 along with their items, so we may be running three types of games possibly with different names, as we do now with hardcore players. Please email Varda with comments or suggestions to be passed on to the Council.

April 1, 2001
    Valar Guild Time change! EST is the guild's official time which switches today to Daylight Savings Time. This means tonight's meeting is one hour earlier than last Sunday's. The Eastern Hemisphere rejoices!

Sunday Meeting 5pm ESDT
Attending (28): Amillo, Angrod, Aule, Azog, Bard, Bert, Cirdan, Deagol, Earendil, Elendil, Elros, Eol, Finduilas, Fingon, Gimli, Girion, Gwindor, Halbarad,
Imrahil, Irmo, Orome, Quickbeam, Salmar, Shelob, Thror, Ulmo, Valacirca, Varda.
Membership Report:
    New: Tar-Aldarion
    Tom Bombadil is having ISP problems.
Web Report :
    Story Page: Balin named his story "Of One's Own Accord"
Gaming Report :
    Diablo II Expansion Stress Test sign-up April 4-11 from the Blizzard page.
    D II and Expansion Discussion: Questionable items from hackers stealing from others' accounts, duping, and other cheats. To avoid taking questionable items from a number of members who do outside trading into the D2 Expansion with us, a number of propositions were suggested and currently under discussion. Amillo kindly boiled these down for us. These come under two headings, Trading and Conversion:
    Trading.
        1. reinstatement of the old rules from D1 : no trading outside , neither in  D2 regular or D2 Expansion
        2. no trading in D2 expansion but in Reg.D2 reg trading outside may continue.
        3. Trading continues in D2 expansion as it has been allowed in D2 regular.
It seemed like most of the people at the meeting, at least from what was said, never knew trading outside in D2 was allowed and those who did know
never practisized it a lot.
    Conversion.
        1. Full conversion; members may convert as they like. With or without items.
        2. No conversion at all. Every member has to start anew and create chars from scratch in order to play the expansion.  You can keep your regular D2
char but not convert it into D2 expansion.
        3.  You can convert you char into D2 expansion but will have to drop any item it may posses and leave those items in regular D.
        4.  Members may convert 1 char of free choce without item

    Another suggestion later was "The Valar Drop". The entire Valar Guild could go into public bnet and drop all items for the general public in unpassworded games we name perhaps as an activity during a meeting and another pre-determined drop on a Saturday, publicizing the problem of duped and cheated items. Then we could keep the cleaned out characters with all their levels, lose no names, and trade only inside the guild.
    Suggestions and comments (and perhaps a poll if enough members respond) may be emailed to Varda to be forwarded or at least summarized for the Council discussion.
    My comp overheated dropping me from the discussion, so I am indebted to Amillo, Salmar, and others for their help with this Meeting Report..
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           For answers to any additional questions, please consult the Diablo II: Lord of Destruction Beta F.A.Q.

    Sadly, Ar-Pharazon, usually know as Pharazon, had to be removed from the guild. This is due to breaking rules of the Code of Conduct for behavior in the channel and in games.

March 28, 2001
    Tar-Aldarion , welcome to the Valar Guild! He's going by Aldarion, the way Ar-Pharazon is using Pharazon. The Tar and Ar tell us that these are Numenorean kings and whether or not they were friendly to the Valar. (This really is Aldarion, not a misspelling of Eldarion.) The Tar- and Ar- could be used on the account name for the various Numenorean king players, and dropped for a variation for a player name, quite handy. Aldarion-(V) is a friend of Mahtan-(V)'s who gets scouting credit, and was tested by Earendil-(Valar). He got a brag-worthy 5/5! Aldarion's 40 from Florida, USA, and plays D2 several times a week. Quote from Earendil: "He is a radio co-host and co-web page editor for Computer America http://www.computeramerica.com  (he's the one named Mark).  His show is nationally syndicated, but his radio spot runs through the meetings so he will not be able to attend them."  Maybe we can listen in live sometime! We can also read his column about computers on the website or listen to archived programs if we miss them from being in the meeting. He's also owner and president of Silicon Beach Consulting, mentioned in his column section.

    Greetings and farewells. New folks, it is considered traditional for us to greet other members and to give them farewells in the channel and games, not just ignore their existence. Even a quick g2g for got to go is ok. You will often hear Aiya, which is Quenya elvish for Hail, and Namarie, which is Quenya elvish for farewell. We also often use Hail and Farewell for atmosphere too. Hi, Heya, and Hiya, are all used a lot. Some even have a line of Quenya for this use. During meetings, the individual says hail and farewell aloud to the group, but the group needs to say hi and bye with a whisper to prevent the screen from being taken over by constant hellos. Imagine 20 hello's every few seconds as people show up! Enjoy coming up with your own style of greeting or farewell, perhaps related to the character you are playing.

Letter from Elros:

Heya Valarbuddies,

I sit down on the first day of spring break intending to get  a bowazon to
level 50.  My cd-drive then precedes to break disabling my use of all
Blizzard games.  This means I won't be able to be on as often (my
poorly-made bot works!).  Hopefully I will be able to get a new computer or
get my current one fixed.  Until then I will be unable to get on very much.
Seems like all the macboys are grounded :)

Elros

March 27, 2001
    Channel behavior: gavel. When a person has the gavel in one of our guild channels, he is expected to act responsibly and honorably, as befits the nature of our guild. If the temptation to misuse the gavel (banning members for fun, expecting others to listen to disgusting jokes and language) feels overpowering, hurriedly pass it to someone else who you think can handle it. If you don't know who that would be, pass it to a Maia or Vala honor member. If ValarBuddy is around, and it's not a meeting, it should have the gavel. Abuse of the gavel is abuse of the guild and is a kicking offense. If the person has been warned once, he knows better, so a second time is enough for a Council member to use the option to remove him/her from the guild. Generally the Council member will already be aware of at least one previous occasion where the person has been warned, as email is very fast and the Council keeps in touch. Other Council members will back him/her up. Remember how we feel about outsiders who do this? A member who does it is even worse, since he knows our feelings. A word to the wise, my friends.
    To pass the gavel, type /designate [name] then type /rejoin.

March 26, 2001
    Story page: Balin picked a name for his short story which is now called "Of One's Own Accord".
Letter from Tom Bombadil sent on Sunday:

Aiya Varda et. al.!

    Recently, my internet connection has been acting up and I am only able to
get net access for like ten minutes at a time. This is on top of the
problems that my old computer is having... I am afraid that I can't be all
that active for a week or two, until my ISP decides that it is time to fix
my problems. Anyway... I hope that there will be a speedy solution and that
I can return :) (Just don't tell Aule :) )

Tom

March 23, 2001
    Eorl-(V) is back after months of the fun of moving to a new home. Welcome back  :)  Under the name of David Steele, he is also a fellow culprit on the G-Lands game developer page that Manwe-(Valar) is into.
    And a welcome back to Melkor-(Valar) who has returned from far travels, active once again.
    Congrats to Earendil and Valacirca for their showings on the Silmarillion quiz. They chose their prizes today and this letter from Salmar tells what they picked:

Aiya Varda!
Today Earendil and Valacirca received their prizes due to co-winning the Silmarillion quiz. Earendil chose a Stone of Jordan (unique ring)
and Valacirca chose Goldskin (unique armor).

March 22, 2001
    Shelob , welcome to the Valar Guild. I think you've been around about a week already, so happy belated howdy! Shelob is 16, actually male although with a Tolkien female's name, from Ontario, Canada in the Eastern Standard Time zone. He's read the H and LotR.
    Items: There has been some confusion about how the picking up of items is normally handled. We quite often all pick up the items since inventory is a problem. If it looks any good after identification, it is generally offered to the one who most probably needs it or stored if storage is available. A person can say ahead of time if he's looking for a particular item and others enjoy questing for it. Often the same good items are already stored by someone so, if it is accidentally sold, might be replaceable. If a person needs gold, he can ask and if it's available will usually be given it. New nifty items come up all the time and are not worth getting upset about.

March 21, 2001
    Article! " On Dwarvish Names " by Salmar-(Valar) is now up in the Dwarf section of the Valar Guild's Tolkien Encyclopedia.
    Girion, welcome to the Valar Guild! Girion was recruited by Thror, tested by Ulmo (who is ready for a raise after 5 tests in a week!). In Ulmo's words, Girion "is a 19 year old philosophy major at the University of South Carolina Honors College.  He came to Valar under the acct. name "deontological", a very cool word for philosophy buffs  :) "  He's 19, from South Carolina, USA in the Eastern Standard Time zone, and read the H and LotR.

March 20, 2001
    Translation! Fingon-(V) translated " The Fall of Gil-galad " into Quenya, now up on the Poetry page.

March 18, 2001
    New story! " Balin ", a novella by Balin-(V).
    New poem! " The Muster of Rohan ", by Meriadoc-(V)

Sunday Meeting 5pm EST (GMT-5)
Attending (18): Amillo/Dusksinger, Ar-Pharazon/Pharazon, Aule, Balin, Deagol, Dior, Elendil, Eru (netsplit), Fingon, Halbarad, Isildur, Mablung, Mahtan, Orome, Salmar, Saruman, Thror, Valacirca, Varda. Meriadoc helped keep roll as an over-the-shoulder attendee; Salmar sent in his weekly roll. Astarant (Tolkien member) showed up in the chat, but his comp freezes every time he starts to say hi.
Membership : Amillo reports 159.
    New: Ar-Pharazon, Deagol, Mahtan. All showed for the meeting and said a few words, which may be a record.
Web :
    Stories: "An Unfound Door" by Irmo-(Valar)
                "Balin" by Balin-(V)
    Poems: "The Muster of Rohan" by Meriadoc-(V)
    Links: G-Lands, a game development site for rpg's and tabletop games by Manwe-(Valar) and others
    Games Page: If you can use the menu links, please tell Makar or Varda (who will forward to Makar) and say which browser and version you are using.
        Please update your information on which online games you play by emailing Makar, as his email was wiped out during a hard drive re-format to remove a virus.
Gaming :
        Baldur's Gate II: contact Fingon-(V)
        CounterStrike: contact Menelvagor
Tolkien :
        Discussion Board re-invites were sent out to Mablung, Halbarad, and Meriadoc. Meriadoc showed all his names taken, so he came in as skylark_of_valeron in case you wonder who that is.
        Discussion Board attendees: Astarant (attempted), Aule, Balin, Elendil, Eru (attempted), Mahtan, Thror, Varda
        Balrog discussion

March 17, 2001
    New Link! Manwe-(Valar) is part of a group putting out new role-playing and table-top games, as well as giving info on older ones.. Check out their web-site in progress at G-Land Games .
    New short story! Irmo-(Valar) wrote An Unfound Door .

March 16, 2001
    Makar lost his emails due to having to reformat his hard drive to clear out a virus. He is able once again to take email. Please help him update the Games page with your info!
    Varda also has been having a few email problems due to difficulties with the ISP which is beginning to wonder if it is under hacker attack. Some emails have been bouncing back although the server is not overloaded. However after the week away from the computer, I found a large batch of email guild jobs waiting for processing. If I don't answer you by Monday, please email me again. If you are associated with a web site, let me know your guild name and send me the URL for a link if you like.

March 12, 2001
    Deagol , welcome to the Valar Guild! Deagol is Bard's real life brother. Congrats on a perfect 5/5/ score, with Ulmo testing. Deagol's 28, married, with a 5-year old son. From Illinois, USA he's read H, LotR, some Sil and Lost Tales. Sam is his favorite LotR character.
    Ar-Pharazon , also welcome to the Valar Guild! He visited as the amazon Bowchicka of acct ] [v] [Guardian. Ar-Pharazon was tested by the team of Earendil and Valacirca, Valacirca reporting. He's 16, from Canada, and read the H and LotR. Time zone is EST. His favorite LotR char is Aragorn. He plays Diablo II and CounterStrike.

March 11, 2001
    Herumor, the email address I was given by the tester did not work. Please email Varda with the address at which you would like to receive guild email. He did and it's being corrected. Thanks, Herumor!
    The Sunday meeting for business will be held on bnet as usual, then the Tolkien chat will move to the Discussion Board chat room. We are supposed to have some live readings by guild authors of Tolkien-inspired short stories, especially Gwindor who has the best sound and most stories. If you need an invitation to the Yahoo Clubs Valar Guild Discussion Board, please email Varda. Alternately, any guild member may invite any other of the members.
    Letter from Mandos:

Hail all,
    I won't be at the sunday meeting (March 11) because I will be working. (insert tears here)  :)

Mandos

March 10, 2001
    Makar's Games page is on a new server. The menu works for some people but not for others. Please give him feedback letting him know what browser you are using and what does or does not work for you. We can use this page to find other guild members to play with online, made easier if you use your regular guild name where possible. It's based on going to the game then finding the people, rather than going to the person and finding which games he plays.
    As you probably don't need reminded, always play honorably (no cheating or impolite language) when using your guild name and be ready to aid or ally with other guild members. It's best to agree to clobber each other in a friendly fashion beforehand, but if it happens anyway, forgive each other in the spirit of the game.
    Old Games page
    New Games page
    Welcome to the Valar Guild, Bard and Herumor! See March 8 for info on our nifty new members. The items are placed there since that is when they joined, although I heard about it today. Confused yet?

March 9, 2001
    Baldur's Gate II players: Quickbeam , Thranduil , Makar

March 8, 2001
    Welcome to Bard , from Illinois, USA! He's 15, read the H, LotR, and half the Sil. Congrats on a perfect entry test score from Ulmo!
    Welcome to Herumor the Ringwraith, our new member from North Carolina, USA! He's 13 and read the H and LotR. Tested by Ulmo.

March 8, 2001
    Baldur's Gate II players: Quickbeam is asking who the other BGII players are as he's interested in joining them. Makar also plays. Varda would like to know for posting on the News and Makar needs to know for the Games page. Emailing Varda will get the info sent to the others as well.
    You know you're in Valar when ...: additions from Thingol.
    Diablo 2 Experiences second installment called Rants 2 from Elros. D2 advice on how to gain levels and gold, along with comments.

March 4, 2001
Sunday Meeting 5pm EST (GMT-5)
The business meeting was held on bnet, most of the Tolkien chat and a following gaming chat was on the Discussion Board chat room.
Attending : (24) report from Salmar and Varda
    Amillo, Arothir, Aule, Azaghal, Balin, Barahir, Elendil, Elros, Eol, Finduilas, Fingon, Gwindor, Halbarad, Irmo, Mablung, Makar, Nimrodel, Osse/Falman, Salmar, Thranduil, Tulkas, Ulmo/Linqil, Valacirca, Varda/Gimilnitir (chair)
Membership : report from Amillo
    Eol makes member # 151. He tested just before the meeting with Varda. He's 26, from Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA in the CST time zone. He's read the H, LotR, and part of the Sil. He plays D2, SC, and BW. He has a minor in Comparative Literature.
    New: Aldor and Eol are new full members. Eol, who finished the test right before the meeting, said a few words.  :)
           Nimrodel is our new member of honor, daughter of Finduilas, and spoke with us in the voice chat in a sweet, clear voice befitting her part. She was tested
            by Orome-(Valar) over the Hobbit.
    Tulkas will be in the middle of moving but can still be reached by his hotmail address. The comp will therefore be up and down for a bit.
Web :
    Silmarillion Quiz by Salmar: two members are co-winners, getting 14 of 15 questions right. (Answers are now posted on the Discussion Board.) The co-winners are Earendil and Valacirca. They may choose from a collection of fine Diablo II objects for their prizes.
    Links: news article on the non-government space clipper which runs by solar power scheduled for a test launch this year, another going to Pluto if that experiment works.
Games :
    Baldur's Gate II is forming up with Valar members. We have two asking for more to join their party. Someone please remind me who those two members were for News posting. Email Varda if you are interested in trying to find a particular time for play so this can be relayed. All Baldur's Gate people need to be sure Makar knows that you play it so he can list you on the Games page and you can get together at will.
Tolkien : (most of the chat was in the Discussion Board chat room which not everyone could reach. Please email Varda for an invitation. Mac comps cannot do the sound, but can type)
    1. Balin-(V)'s topic: Could Sauron be turned back to good? It went on to all other bad guys and whether they could be turned to good. The general agreement seemed to be that once they were in too deep and let their ego rule them, they were sunk. Grima tried to turn back to good and Osse did do so. No ringwraiths nor orcs were known to have done so. Sauron almost returned to Valinor, but his pride and fear prevented it, and his motives were not good enough.
    2. Tulkas-(Valar)'s topic: What was the source of Denethor's madness and why did he believe he could fight it? Tulkas had to leave and the topic was only briefly discussed, hoping to have Tulkas back to be in on it, perhaps next meeting. Denethor's madness came from more than one source, if those things which weakened him into it are all counted such as the death of his preferred heir, Boromir.
    Next time we may have readings from our Tolkien short stories by some of the authors such as Gwindor.

March 1, 2001
For Star nuts such as Varda, a news article from the Guardian, located by Meriadoc-(V):
    " American and Russian space clipper to set sail "
    Used this to add more Space links on our Links page under Writing resources.
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Feb. 25, 2001
Sunday Meeting 5pm EST (GMT-5) Held in the Discussion Board Chat Room
Attending : (14 seen either on Bnet or Discussion Board; some could locate Ulmo but not contact)
    Azaghal, Aule, Balin, Earendil, Eowyn, Finduilas, Fingon, Gwindor, Irmo, Thranduil, Tom, SamWise, Valacirca, Varda (chair).
Membership : 149 members
    Salmar and Amillo were unavailable for the meeting, Salmar was out of town and Amillo was exhausted from night shifts. Bad netsplit so we moved into the Discussion Board chat room. Not everyone would have known about it so not everyone is shown on the attendee list. Three invitations were sent: SamWise, Elendil, and Finduilas. Hit the request for enabling voice chat. Ulmo seemed to be online but we had difficulty contacting him to let him know where we went.
Web :
    Aule's new set-up for the LotR Movies page was well-received.
Games :
       Blizzard is being attacked by idiot hackers again. This does not necessarily mean disaster. I thought my acct was wiped, but it turned out that one of the kids had been trying out the VK mod for D2 and hadn't switched it back.
Tolkien :
    Quiz deadline extended another week. Salmar and family will be attending a regional festival for the next 4-5 days. Silmarillion fans take note and squeeze in another answer. He's from the Netherlands.
    Two songs were sung and we had one reading aloud. Advantage of voice chat. The songs were "Troll sat alone on his seat of stone": by Varda-(Valar) and "The Lay of Gil-galad": by Fingon-(V). The reading was of the misunderstanding that the Corsair ships coming meant disaster: by Varda-(Valar). Other people are out hunting microphones so we should have even more voice next time.
Poll :
    People seemed to like having the meeting in the chat room, so please send in your feelings on the matter by email to Varda for the poll. Should we continue meeting there or stick with the regular channel? If you need an invitation to the Discussion Board, please email Varda and include your guild name.

Feb. 22, 2001
    Lord of the Rings Move Page by Aule-(Valar) : you have to take a look at this totally revamped set of pages. Aule has done a truly incredible job in content, looks, and navigation. Take a bow, Aule!

Feb. 18, 2001
Thanks to Ulmo for sending in the meeting info! Varda was out of town.
Sunday Meeting 5pm EST (GMT-5)
Attending : (17) Report by Ulmo and Salmar
    Amillo/Omar, Azaghal, Balin, Earendil, Elendil, Elros/Starfoam, Fingon, Gwindor, Halbarad, Irmo, Makar, Salmar, Thranduil/OfMirkwood, Thror, Tulkas, Ulmo/Linqil (chair), Valacirca
Membership : Report by Amillo
    149 members
    Mablung joined last Sunday. We still need his corrected email address.
Web : Report by Ulmo and Elros
    New articles by Salmar on Beren and Luthien, New rants article by Elros.
Gaming : Report by Ulmo
    Lively chat about which character in D2 is the best.
Tolkien : Report by Ulmo
    Amillo started a couple topics: "womens roles and their independance" and "the common man/other race and heroism"
    Irmo started one "Who is the least important/least impact if omitted member of the Fellowship in regards to their Quest.

Feb. 16, 2001
    Notice from Blizzard Entertainment:
         To avoid losing your Diablo II items and characters or your
                   Battle.net account, you should:

                   1. Never give your password or CD-key to anyone for any reason;
                   Blizzard employees will never ask you for this information.

                   2. Never use programs such as trainers, hacks, or cheats. These
                   programs can install viruses as well as "back door"
                   programs that grant hackers the ability to manipulate or remove
                   data from your computer remotely.

Feb. 14, 2001
    " Luthien ", new Tolkien Encyclopedia article by Salmar sent in on the 12th, a fine pair of articles to celebrate Valentine's Day, the day of lovers.

Feb. 13, 2001
    " Beren ", new Tolkien Encyclopedia article by Salmar sent in on the 12th.

Feb. 12, 2001
Post by Salmar from the Discussion Board:
Aiya Valar Guild and other Tolkien Fans out there:)

   Demanding families, busy jobs, multiple hobbies bad/beautiful weather, playing B.net:)
   Ok, we understand and have decided to prolongue the deadline for your entrees on the Silmarillion Quiz.
   Look under message nr. 644 on this Board (Jan 26th)
   The new deadline is now one hour before meeting of Sunday Februari 25th (5 PM EST, 23:00 GMT+1. Remember that (co)winners not
   being council-members will be rewarded with D2 prizes (uniques). Choice of Goldskin, Wormskull or Culwen's Point.

   Greetings,
   Salmar.

Feb. 11, 2001
Sunday Meeting 5pm EST (GMT-5)
Attending : (News Report by Salmar and Varda)
    Members: Angrod, Aule (Taglos), Azog, Balin, Barahir, Bert, Elendil, Elros, Fingon, Gorbag, Gwindor, Irmo (Dreamlord), Maedhros, Makar, Namo
(Mandos), Orome, Salmar (Tyalangan), Thror, Tulkas (Astaldo), Ulmo (Linquil) (chair), Valacirca, Varda (reports). Dior came in after the meeting.
    Visitors: *Radagast, *-KOB-Odysseus, *{PDC}NavySeal (joined after the meeting as Mablung, Ranger of Ithilien)
Membership: 146 members reported on Amillo's Members page
    Oin, Ori's brother, is back.
    Gloin is back, still having comp problems but able to play the original Diablo.
    Tulkas will be going out to sea Wednesday.
    Welcome to Mablung-(V)! After the meeting, our visitor {PDC}NavySeal joined the guild as Mablung, scoring a perfect 5/5 with Valacirca and Varda testing. Thanks Oin, for sending him our way! He's 13, from the great state of Texas, USA, read the H and LotR, and picked Gandalf as his favorite LotR character. He has SC/BW and hopes to have his comp able to handle D2 on Monday or some time soon after. Good luck!
Web:
    Tolkien Encyclopedia: New article "Balin" by Balin-(V) this week.
    Quiz on the Silmarillion: Salmar was asked to continue the quiz another week by some of the contestants. No one has sent in their answers yet. We generally give Diablo II prizes only to non-Council winners, so don't worry about having to compete with them.
Gaming:
    Naming characters in all games: the -V and -(V) are preferred for showing membership. A V with no - is often used as a Roman numeral for storage. Sometimes it is necessary in cases of very long names, but not preferred. The -(Valar) or -Valar is usually used by honor ranks such as Maia and Vala to help locate testers. While it is legal for non-testers, it does cause confusion sometimes. It may be necessary due to the lack of number of names, but make a try at asking Salmar for help with alternate names before using this last resort. It would be kind to send these alternate names to Varda for the Names page, but not required.
    Diablo II:
        Trading and taking gifts outside: best not to do it. Thefts, rollback dupes, gambling sniffer additions have put a sizable number of questionable items out there.
Tolkien: Lively discussion!  :)
    1. Ulmo-(Valar) asked who was the individual in all the books who was the most honorable and unselfish of all the free peoples and why?
    (These names are in no particular order.)
    Earendil, Finrod Felagund, Frodo, SamWise, Luthien, and Faramir were the most defended.
    Cases were made for Gandalf (Maia, not free people), Elrond, Balin, Beor the Old, Glorfindel, Hurin, Aragorn (he was considered so obvious that he was almost left out! Some said he was so highly rewarded and motivated to gain the high kingship and Arwen that he could be left out), Thror, Old Gaffer, Grishnakh (ok it was a joke), Ghan-buri-ghan, Gwindor, Farmer Maggot, Fatty Bolger, Merry, Pippin, Beren, Beregond, Legolas, Gimli, and Fingon.
     This would make a great continuing chat topic in the Discussion Board. Go defend your own choices.
    2. Highlights by Gwindor-(V) came from Morgoth's Ring , highly recommended to hear inside comments from Tolkien's Valar.
    He quoted from the discussion on the lawfulness of allowing Finwe to marry Indis after Miriel's death, since Miriel had the capacity to re-enter the world. This decision would also touch other decisions and had to be carefully thought through. Mandos (in the book) realized that they were now in Arda Marred and made his contribution. These are excerpts from Gwindor-(V)'s excerpts:
    Mandos: "We may indeed in counsel point to the higher road, but we cannot compel any free creature to walk upon it. That leadeth to Tyranny, which disfigureth good and maketh it seem hateful. Healing by final Hope, as Manwe hath spoken of it, is a law which one can give to oneself only."
    Manwe: "Neither must ye forget that in Arda-Marred, Justice is not Healing. Healing cometh only by suffering and patience, and maketh no demand, not even for Justice... Thus the Statute was just, but it accepted Death and the severence of Finewe and Miriel, a thing unnatural in Arda-Unmarred... Healing must retain ever the thought of Arda-Unmarred and if it cannot ascend, must abide in patience."

Feb. 10, 2001
    New: Tolkien Encyclopedia article, " Balin ", by Balin-(V). More power to Balin!
    Welcome back! Oin, Ori's brother, missing from the guild since November, showed up tonight and chatted with Aule. The name confusion on the web pages between the brothers is now over. Ori joined Aug 19, 2000 and Oin joined Aug 23, 2000.

Feb. 9, 2001
    Lord of the Rings - tabletop game under construction. Deal made by Games Workshop. Link found by Elros-(Valar), now on the Links page under Gaming/Other Games

Feb. 4, 2001
    New poem by Balin-(V): " The Last Moments of Balin's Colony ". It is on the Poetry page and linked from the Dwarves' page in the Encyclopedia.

Sunday Meeting 5pm EST (GMT-5)
Attending :
    Members (22): Amillo, Aule (pron: Owl-ay:)), Balin, Barahir, Earendil, Elros, Falathar, Fingon, Guilin, Gwindor, Halbarad, Haleth, Irmo (from DNK-1),
Maedhros, Melkor, Orome, Salmar, Scatha, Thranduil, Tom, Ulmo (chair), Valacirca, Varda (comp froze as meeting started, so Ulmo chaired. Thanks! Varda came back in time to give reports.)
    Visitors (2): *NecroZealot2 (DominusMei) (joined after the meeting as Angrod-(V), *~xanatos~ (Gwindor's friend, who would also like to join), *-Dunedain- (ex-Denethor), *Lord_Thomas (Denethor's friend)
Membership : 146 reported by Amillo at the start of the meeting.
    Earendil is now a Maia named Earendil.
    Balin joined this week.
    Denethor left this week due to personal problems.
    Angrod-(V) joined the guild after the meeting. Welcome! He passed Elros's test 5/5! He's read the H, LotR, and Sil. He's 17 from Norway. We still need his email, so please ask him to email Varda if you happen to see him.
Web :
    Chat: Salmar and Varda were also present in the Discussion Board chat room during the meeting.
    Quiz page: Salmar's quiz deadline is one hour before our next meeting.
    Poetry page: Balin-(V) has a poem up: " The Last Moments of Balin's Colony " with a link from the Dwarf page in the Encyclopedia.
    Home page: new look which should make the index more readable.
Gaming :
    Diablo II:
    The official position of the guild is that use of the gambling sniffer or of the rollback dupes is cheating. For this reason and because some people found a way to steal items by robbing accounts and leaving them empty (as happened to some of our members a while back), we prefer not to trade outside. The sniffer has brought in unfair items already to the Realms, the rollback brought in many dupes, and stolen items, well garn! Most people at the meeting said they didn't trade outside anyway and that it wouldn't affect them. We try hard to keep duped, cheated, and/or stolen items out of our guild. If you must trade outside, please use an outsider character and don't bring him/her into the guild..
Tolkien :
    The subject was a very likely origin for Tom Bombadil, whether or not Tolkien intended it or commented on it, as shown in the Silmarillion. Salmar introduced Tom's Discussion Board topic to the meeting, and Tom has generously agreed to do an article on the subject, requesting your input at the chat. The subject was a statement by Eru in the Silmarillion in "Of Aule and Yavanna" in which he says, "When the Children awake, then the thought of Yavanna will awake also, and it will summon spirits from afar, and they will go among the kelvar and the olvar, and some will dwell therein, and be held in reverence, and their just anger shall be feared. For a time: while the Firstborn are in their power, and while the Secondborn are young."
    Manwe then stated, "...before the Children awake there shall go forth with wings like the wind the Eagles of the Lords of the West." And he said, "...in the forests shall walk the Shepherds of the Trees."
    This is obviously partly telling of the making of the ents which shepherd the trees. The "spirits from afar" may be Maia as they do not seem to come from nearby which would be Arda, the world. Only "some will dwell therein" rather than all, implying others than the ents. This could very well be the time Tom Bombadil could have entered, an enigma, not exactly a Maia, not an ent, but a spirit from afar doing Yavanna's thought. He guarded the Old Forest and could not be ruled by the One Ring. Politics was not his interest, but the Old Forest alone. This also leaves room for yet other nature spirits.
    Balin-(V) asked about his new character in the books. How is his name correctly pronounced in dwarvish, and what is his age? Balin lived in the Third Age from 2763 to 2994. The pronunciation was in some doubt as we were looking at elvish rules for pronunciation. He hopes that it is Bah-lin rather than Bay-lin since he feels that sounds better.
    After the meeting some of us joined Irmo at DiabloRetailDNK-1 for continuing Tolkien chat. Irmo was unable to join our private channel, but we could join his public channel. Unfortunately, right after instigating this wild run to Denmark, Varda fell off bnet and had to leave. Hopefully someone will email what the continued chat subject was.
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I now have a page up on my site explaining my free web space proposal. The
page is availible at:
http://www.tenpeaks.com/hosting/valar/inside/offer.html
Or through a link at my home page.

Jan. 28, 2001
    Welcome, Balin-(V), to the Valar Guild! Balin is 16, from Ontario, Canada. Congrats on a perfect 5/5 score on Tom's test! He joined after the meeting.
    Congrats, Earendil-(Valar), for a perfect score on your Maia honor test. Earendil-(V) kept his name as a Maia, since Earendil in the books went into service as a Maia would have, although not actually a Maia spirit.

Sunday Meeting 5pm EST (GMT-5)
Attending (roll from Salmar and Varda):
    Members (21): Arothir, Aule, Azaghal, Barahir, Beregond, Denethor (late), Dior, Earendil, Elros, Feanor (late), Fingon, Gwindor, Halbarad, Melkor, Quickbeam, Salmar, Thranduil, Thror, Tom, Tulkas, Ulmo (chair), Valacirca, Varda (reports).
    Visitors (3): Mr.$mith (Soulgrave), *urbreathsmells, *KingOfSam.
Membership: 146 current full members, no new this week.
Web:
    Quiz page : new quiz over the Silmarillion by Salmar. Also shown on the Discussion Board .
    Tom Bombadil's Valar Guild Site : working again, re-done, new Trading Message Board for D2, and an offer of free web space for guild members.
    Folklore & Mythology page: server working again, so new articles are again being accepted.
    Links page: new link found by Earendil listed under Languages - a Quenya/English dictionary called Quettaparma Quenyanna
Gaming:
    Channels:
    Channel Eldar is now being used by a pleasant Spanish guild, so please move to the next channel.
    Channel Ea is now being used by a guild called Elite Archers with a bot, so please don't use that one either.
    Channel Shire is also in use by another guild.
    Diablo I:
        Quickbeam and ex-Fingon answered question from Halbarad: A bard and barbarian style warrior are available from hidden files on the Diablo I CD. If you want to try them, use command.txt and type bardtest or barbariantest
    Diablo II:
        Trading is being done in the first guild game in norm during the hour before the meeting, as well as the usual anytime. Also, you can post trading news at Tom Bombadil's Trading message board. (see Web section above for link or use the main guild index page to his site index)

Tolkien:
    Two Tolkien tests: one for entry passed by Balin (who visited as *KingofSam), and one for Maia honor passed by Earendil who kept his name as a Maia since the book Earendil became the morning star that watches against Melkor.

Jan. 27, 2001
    Tom Bombadil's Valar Guild Site is back in action. He is also offering free web space to Valar Guild members who use Cute FTP (see Web Team page for getting this free program). Please email Tom-(Valar) concerning this kind offer.

Jan. 26, 2001
    Silmarillion: quiz on Silmarillion trivia by Salmar. It can be reached as a Quiz page or from the Discussion Board for 1/26, but please email answers to Salmar-(Valar) rather than posting them. Maybe the questions could also suggest new articles, stories, poems, or jokes as well.
    Folklore: The Homestead server has solved its problems at last, so the Folklore & Mythology page is back in action.  :)  Your articles are welcome, remembering this is not an official Valar Guild page, but a personal site.

Jan. 24, 2001
    Tom Bombadil's Valar Guild Site is temporarily located here if you're trying to find those SC maps and other goodies. He hopes to be have his page up possibly late Sunday in the normal location. He's been having some modem and other comp probs. Hang in there, Tom!

Jan. 22, 2001
    New link: Quettaparma Quenyanna - a Quenya/English dictionary found by Earendil-(V). It can be found on our Links page under Tolkien/Languages

Jan. 21, 2001
Sunday Meeting 5pm EST (GMT-5)
Attending:
    Members (21): Aule/Taglos, Azaghal, Barahir, Denethor, Earendil, Elros/StarFoam, Finduilas, Glaurung, Guilin, Gwindor, Maedhros, Melkor, Orome, Quickbeam, Salmar, SamWise, Thror, Tulkas/Astaldo, Ulmo/Linqil (chair), Valacirca, Varda (reports)
    Visitors (2): BSM2000/T-Maxx, Tarotbuddy
Membership:
    146 current full members on the Members page. No new members this week, although we have applications.
    Eru and Grishnakh are having computer problems.
Web:
    Articles, stories, poems, jokes and any other contributions are requested.
    If you have news about something happening on your page, please email Varda to have it written up on the News page and mentioned at the meeting.
Gaming:
    1. Diablo II trading: trading, gifting, and mathom-dropping can be done in the hour before the meeting. It is also done frequently in the first Diablo 2 guild game and at any time.
    2. Baldur's Gate II "Shadows of Amn": Fingon is looking for guild members in their Tolkien names to join him online. Please email Fingon for synchonizing guild member games.
Tolkien: (Chat plagued by netsplit. Chat room use suggested for such problems.)
    1. Varda-(Valar's topic: Why was Beregond, a non-royal, included in the story?
        Tulkas-(Valar) said someone had to save Faramir from his father's madness. Also, despite being banished from Minas Tirith for disobedience, he got some perks out of it! Varda-(Valar) mentioned that Beregond gave another expression of the theme of loyalty despite great risks, and from a family man at that.
    2. Tulkas-(Valar)'s topic: When did one of the Ringwraiths get closest to Frodo?
        Earendil answered correctly Oct 6. In another way of looking at the question, some answered that Weathertop and the Ford were the two places they came closest physically to Frodo.
    3. Earendil-(V)'s topics: Do Tolkien's elves have pointed ears and what is your reason for thinking so? Do Balrogs have wings? Both were controversial and no answer was proven well enough to satisfy everyone. Most people felt elves had pointed ears and that balrogs had something like wings, not necessarily functional.

Jan. 19, 2001
    Grishnakh says hi from a friend's comp. His folks took their computer with them when they moved, leaving Grish compless. Hopefully he'll have at least intermittent access to email thanks to his friend. He still wishes to remain in the guild and we hope he has good luck finding a new (or used) comp.

Jan. 17, 2001
    Letter from Eru:

    Sorry to say that I'm having continued PC trouble, mostly around getting anything to run with my
graphics card.  I can't play D2 or EQ at the moment, but I'm hoping to have the problem fixed by
the weekend.
    Best wishes to all of the guild, and I'll see you soon (hopefully)

Jan. 12, 2001
    Virus alert. Don't open an email attachment titled "It takes guts to say Jesus" as it wipes documents from the hard drive. New, no remedy known yet. Virus Alert page for further info. No first or second hand experience to report.

Jan. 11, 2001
    Homestead server: To web people and Folklore enthusiasts, Homestead's server continues to give the message that it will be down indefinitely due to a small group who abused the service with large pirated software files. The Folklore and Mythology page will most likely be moving, possibly to 50Megs to allow graphics.

Jan. 8, 2001
    New link on Links/Nifty: The World According to Squarf - humor page link sent in by Meriadoc-(V)

Jan. 7, 2001
Sunday Meeting 5pm EST (GMT-5)
Attending (Report by Salmar):
    Members (15): Amillo (chair), Aule, Azog, Bert, Denethor, Earendil, Eldarion, Elendil, Elros, Eomer, Luthien, Melkor, Salmar, Tom, Valacirca.
        (Melkor appointed Amillo as chair. Varda and Ulmo were not home.)
    Visitor: -KoB-Odysseus
Membership (Report by Amillo): 147 current members
    New (Info from Varda from Recruiting Page):
      Eldarion joined Jan 6
      Fingon joined Jan 1
      Azog joined Dec 27
      Celebrian joined Dec 23
      Guilin joined Dec 16
      Dwalin joined Dec 3
Gaming (Report by Amillo):
    Diablo II:
    Melkor had a question about a bug specifical for Paladins and their Smite skill, no solution were found but it apperantly did not
bother his play much.
    The Council reminded the meeting about the legitness and honour of our Guild to aid in decisions about the coming rollback.
Tolkien (Report by Amillo and Earendil):
    Earendil had two topics for Tolkien chat:
    1. Why was Elwing, a non-Noldorin Elf, punished for breaking the Ban of the Valar?
    2. When the Numenorians sailed the far seas, did they sail to the eastern edge of the world?
    There was no final answer given to that. Even Tales tells of the Numenorians looking at the Walls of the Sun from their high bows.
    Denethor's topic:
    3. If Boromir said he could have the power of Command wearing the One Ring, why didn't Isildur?
    Earendil's answers to 3: "He already did." "He didn't have time to practice."

Thank you to all who came to the meeting, and to those who gave it organization! Melkor for appointing a chair, Salmar for taking roll, Amillo for chairing and his info on the meeting for the News, Earendil for sending in the Tolkien topics.

Jan. 6, 2001
    Welcome to Eldarion! Scouted by Imrahil, he was tested by Gandalf and Orome. He's 21, read the H and LotR, and lives in New Jersey, USA as a Rutgers student. He started out as Mablung, but upon finding out that the Aldarion name was available, took that instead. His favorite LotR character is Sam.
    Testers, if you are uncertain if a name has been taken, check the Members page for names already used in alphabetical order. The Names page tells that by race and gives a few suggestions for names as well. The index for LotR and and Sil are fast ways to pick up some more names and check the spelling.
    Aegnor writes to tell us that he has been traveling to Baltimore and Europe, thus unable to be with us in the guild for a while. He has returned and hopes to be a more regular member now. Have fun helping him catch up!
    New: You know you're in Valar when by Earendil.
    New: link to Evolution 3D . Menelvagor did not do the site design nor screenshots but he supplied graphics and game description documents. Menelvagor is Ben Love, the Lead Project Designer. The site is looking for a 3dsmax world designer and lead modeler.
    Blizzard is looking for 3D level designers .
    Tolkien Movie News from Earendil:

Preview comes out on January 12th on the JFK movie "Thirteen Days".
It will also be shown during the Superbowl on the 28th.
New Line is good at putting previews/trailers on the apple.com trailers page

Jan. 4, 2001
    Letter from Halbarad:

I am back after a long absence, and was unable to properly and effectively
communicate this. First, our computer died a slow death by stages, then I was
caught up with the Canadian Election and its aftermath (I a riding
association treasurer and had to file two returns to Elections Canada
afterward). By this time, after all of us in the family went through the flu,
and fasting in Ramadan (no fun allowed!), we decided to get a new computer
for Eid (last week), and so, I am finally coming back into active guild
membership.

Anyway, I did try to E-mail you from an Internet cafe in early November, but
it may not have gotten through, and I also got onto B-net later in November
and asked a fellow Valarite to pass the news along, but I was in a hurry, and
likely failed in this , too.

Could you please post some of this on news, or at least pass on that I missed
everyone and hope to be a regular again by this coming weekend.

Jan. 3, 2001
    Poetry Page : two new poems about the fight with the Witch-King from Merry's point of view, by Meriadoc-(V).
    From Blizzard:
    The process of restoring Diablo 2 hardcore and standard characters will begin on Sunday January 7th, 6:00 P.M PST (GMT  -8). This process requires that the realms be shut down for 24 hours, Asian for 30 hours. For more info, see Blizzard .

Jan. 2, 2001
Letter from Amillo:

    ll just let you know the Caves are up again at Xoom ( Free Space made me choose that place ) the new address is
http://members.nbci.com/amillo_valar/

    Happy new year, happy new year, may we all have a vision now and then of the world where every neighbour is a friend.
    Happy new year, happy new year, May we all have the hopes and will to try, if we don`t we might as well lay down to die.

    Amillo

Jan. 1, 2001
    Welcome to the guild, Fingon ! Having a new member is a great way to start off the new Milennium! Fingon located us while searching for LotR sites, then emailed Varda. Impressively, he passed Valacirca's entry test with a perfect 5/5! (Favorite LotR char is Boromir.) He's 22 from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada (Mountain time). He's read the H, LotR, and Sil. He plays Brood War, Baldur's Gate, and Baldur's Gate 2. He went by the name [DK]Feanor outside. He's written a play about the fall of Fingolfin in the battle between Morgoth(Melkor) and Fingolfin, and is trying to learn an elven language.
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