2002 News Archives

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News added by month, more or less.

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Dec. 29, 2002
    Links page:
        Renaissance Magazine - info and links to more info about the Renaissance and Middle Ages. Link from Elwing-(V) Listed under Writing/ Medieval, Ancient
        Die Quake Sieten - about Quake, in German. The index title says Doom III, but it's really about Quake. Link from [Win]Elchtest  Listed under Gaming/ Other Games/ Quake

Dec. 25, 2002
    Merry Christmas to All!

Dec. 22, 2002
Sunday Meeting 5pm EST  Irmo did a full meeting report
Attending: report from Lungorthin and Irmo
    Members (17): Alatar, Beor, Daeron, Dain, Elrond, Erestor, FarmerMaggot, Gil-galad, Gwaihir, Gwindor/Gwaindor, Irmo (presiding) fka Salmar, Khamul, Legolas, Lungorthin/Nimraug fka Glaurung, Oropher, Thror, Turgon
    Visitor (1): EFH-HellWarrior (Gwaihir's friend popping in and out of the meeting)
Membership:
    Gandalf has a new email:
JMichaelPatton@aol.com.
    Eonwe may be unable to make it to the meeting tonight, as it seems the Two Towers showing he is going to crosses that time. Have fun, Eonwe!
    Varda was also absent, going to the movies and out to dinner with family for 29th Wedding Anniversary.
    Gwindor tendered his resignation after 3 years, due to difficulties with some of the members. He has also required that all of his many writings be removed from guild pages, a sad loss to the Encyclopedia. This will take some time, but we will honor his wishes and can hope that he posts them somewhere so that they continue to be available to Tolkien fans worldwide.
    Amarie offered to resign, confessing to having cheated her way in, with Azog feeding her the test answers. Since she has been so polite and showed remorse, we ask that she now go read the books and take the test in a proper manner, welcome to stay as a guild friend. Azog was a member at the time and knew better, but was blinded by wanting his lady with him. Azog will be discussed in Council email, so feel free to send your email suggestions if you would like to have them included.
    "Turgon pointed to the fact that tomorrow is the 1st year anniversary of Gwaihir's Maiarhood :)"
    "Alatar has finished his reading of the Silmarillion and expects to be pestered less by Mahtan now!"
Web:
    You know you're in Valar when...: Farmer Maggot has added new fodder
    My Way: Meriadoc suggests this Yahoo-style program as a better way to handle email for the traveling sort, such as himself. (Yes, he uses it.) Can also be for anybody.
    White Demon: Lungorthin completed his Web Tips page and changed all the references to his old Glaurung name to Lungorthin. Even the name has changed from Dragon's Cave to White Demon.
Gaming:
    GameCube: "Beor told that the Two Towers is now also out for Gamecube:) .
     DAoC: Guild is now on Percival/Hibernia. Most there are in the Stormwolves guild, but now working on starting up another official Valar branch there. The Hibernians seem to be closer to our Tolkien theme. The guild symbol currently used on the Bors/Midgard is a black deciduous tree on a yellow and green background, very different from other symbols currently in use. Haleth-(V) did the design.
    D2X report from Irmo fka Salmar:
For the News from DiabloII.net:
 
>>>>>
Patch 1.10 Reference - Gaile [13:37:PST]

Several readers of the Blizzard Insider newsletter have suggested we may wish to share this tidbit with you.
Q: What's up with the Diablo II patch?

A: We are currently in test on the patch and hope to have it out before the next issue of the Insider is released. We are making a LOT of changes to the game in terms of skills, monsters, items, random area generation and even Ladders, so even though we are working on a patch, it requires that we re-test the entire game with the expansion. We know it has been a long wait, but we really think that our Diablo community is going to be thrilled with everything they'll be getting.
 
Now, not to be cynical, but setting a deadline "before the next issue" is darn clever. Since the newsletter isn't published on a regular schedule, the next issue can simply be held as long as necessary. 3rd Quarter 2004, anyone? Just teasing. *evil grin* Cross your fingers -- looks like it may be soon.
<<<<<
 
Merry Greetings,
Sal.

Tolkien:
   From Irmo:
Eonwë's article invited me to call into remembrance the "well-known" truth that Santa Claus is originally a folklore from Holland, the Dutch SinterKlaas was copied and introduced to the USA by the Coca Cola company at the start of last century:)).
Discussion about The Two Towers - of course - and on the old but never tiring questions - brought in by Beor - why dragons were not given wings from the start, and whether all balrogs had wings, and then discussion evolved into the question whether valar and valier really were distinguished by real gender, or just by male and female features.
Dec. 21, 2002
    Tolkien Encyclopedia: Short Stories! "Eonwe's Christmas", by Eonwe-(Valar). Wonderful! Told from the viewpoint of the Eonwe known as Fionwe from the early stories, in which he is Manwe and Varda's son. This was not originally intended for the Story page, but as a joke sent to the Council. It's too good not to share with you all. Enjoy!
    BotMail: Thror has kindly put up the directions for using botmail just in time for Christmas.  :)  See Bot Commands.

        
Dec. 19, 2002
    Tolkien Encyclopedia:
        New articles:
            Maia: "More on Balrogs", by Varda
            Maia: "Gothmog", by Varda
            Places: "Moria", by Varda


Dec. 18, 2002
    Salmar has changed his name to Irmo. He continues to serve as an active Council Vala and to handle the Names page.
    The Two Towers movie is out!


Dec. 15, 2002
    Congratulations to the member formerly known as Beleg! He passed his Maia test and is now known as Draugluin-Valar, werewolf.
    Congratulations also to the once-Glaurung! He passed his Maia test to become the Maia, Lungorthin-Valar, balrog.
Sunday Meeting 5pm EST
Attending:  18
    Members: Ancalagon, Balin, Beleg/Cuthalion, Elenwe, Elrond, Eonwe, FarmerMaggot, Fuinur, Gwaihir, Salmar, Turgon, Varda (presiding)
    Late: Dain, Eru, Glaurung, Gwindor, Mablung,
    Visitor: *gandalf_03 (who is nearing the end of Return of the King)
Membership: 134 with Mablung, 135 with Fuinur
    Elenwe said her few words of introduction  
    Fuinur said his few words
    Turgon announced the 5th anniversary of Varda, who mentioned that Ulmo preceded her into the guild by one day.
    Maia: After the business meeting, Maia tests were held for Beleg and Glaurung, both of whom had perfect scores. Thror did not have time to stay for his, but we hope to catch him yet. Beleg's test was conducted by Eonwe, Eru, Salmar, and Varda. Glaurung's test was held by Eonwe, Eru, and Varda.
    We had a long "after-meeting" and a good deal of gaming.


Dec. 14, 2002
    Fuinur, Welcome to the Valar Guild! He's 14, from Pennsylvania, USA in EST. Daeron and Dain scouted him in a BW game as Erchamion, Varda tested foir a whopping 5/5. He's read the H, LotR, and Sil, currently looking for BoLT. His favorite LotR character is Gimli who broke through one of the major race barriers by his friendship with Legolas. Fuinur plays on bnet daily about 2 or 3 hours. He can be found in SC, BW, WC3, Age of Empires all 3, Empire Earth, and the downloaded rpg Well of Souls. He may be contacted in messengers AOL or AIM as Scion of Kings.

Dec. 8, 2002
Sunday Meeting 5pm EST
Attending (15):
    Members (14): Beor, Boromir, Elrond, Eonwe, Eru, Finwe, Glaurung, Gwindor/Flinding, Legolas, Maggot, Salmar, Thorondor, Turgon, Varda (presiding)
    Visitors (1): Gitd(M)
    After meeting (3): Erestor, Gandalf_03/ChubChub, Gil-galad, NoLimit[40k] after meeting rejoined as Mablung, (see end of meeting for more).
Membership: 132
    New: Elenwe and Farmer Maggot. FarmerMaggot-V said his few words.  :)
    Gwaihir's comp is still in the shop.
    Thorondor is on leave from the army, playing with us in D2X. He told us a little about it, leading a small group while handling a heavy grenade thrower, and learning that "hurry up and wait" is true.

Web:
    Tolkien Encyclopedia:
        New articles by Eru. See Dec 6 for list. He says more are coming. He's going down the wish list at the start of the Encyc.
    Dwarf runes:
        Beor found a web site with dwarf runes, from Dan Smith's Runes page. It includes a font download page to add Tengwar and Cirth runes, as well as the historical runes found in the Hobbit and other nifty info.
    Search program: Farmer Maggot is making yet more progress on a search program for the Encyc. Good luck!

Gaming:
    D2X: Blizzard's new code (went into effect Dec 5) has much improved the gaming experience there: no long lines, games stay up, play is smoother. It's a welcome relief between hack attacks.
    D2X Middle-earth mod: Eonwe reported that week after next the Middle-earth mod guys are getting together for a Quest for However Many Show Up. Email him if you are interested and what would be a good day and/or time for you.
    Age of Mythology: Glaurung and Boromir were having fun playing this one, and Glaurung gave the report. He says it is much like Age of Empires but modified for mythology. Units are built according to which god of which pantheon is chosen, for instance Odin or Loki for Norse. Egyptian includes Ra.

Tolkien live chat:
    Varda's topic: The elves, unlike others, seemed to exist partly in another world without being ringwraiths. Any example or arguments? (part of the discussion below, gist abbreviated from fast notes, went on to almost 7:30 EST)
    Turgon - maybe mostly in their dreams like Legolas.
    Elrond - Glorfindel
    Glaurung - Glorfindel seemed to be affected but... becausse he had seen the light of the two trees.
    Eonwe - Those from Valinor (Noldor) were the most evident examples. In the Sil, the elves were more like to the Ainur than to Men in nature of Spirit.
    Turgon - Feanor's fiery spirit almost matched that of a balrog.
    Eru - Quendi didn't inhabit the wraith world, not even partially.
    Eonwe - wraiths faded into the World of the Unseen, whereas elves walked in both at once.
    Turgon - ringwraiths had to cloak themselves in order to manifest. Elves did not have to do so.
   
Eru - Lotr mentions elves remember past as the waking world rather than a dream. (Gimli said it.)
    Eonwe - "Immortal were the Elves, and their wisdom waxed from age to age, ..." The elves' lives could not have been stretched.
    Discussion of the Rings of Power. Seven to the dwarves starting the Seven Hoards of Gold. Most of the dwarf rings were consumed in dragon fire and some were recovered by Sauron.
    Flinding/Gwindor - Elves' fea is bound to Arda, and is more visible as part of it than say a human is which departs or is not meant to stay.
    Eonwe - all elves could be seen in the spirit world. Had to do with their nature. The rings affected by their elven makers could take wearers there.

    Mablung, welcome back to the Valar Guild! He's been inactive for a while, but has been visiting recently as NoLimit[40k]. He's very active in BW, some SC, and a good bit of CounterStrike. He used to be in DaoC and hopes to be back in D2X, both waiting on a new computer. He's now 15 years old, from Texas, USA in the Central Standard Time Zone (CST). He was tested by Eonwe and Varda, both also from Texas and the same time zone, adding a bit of extra fun. He's read the H, LotR, Sil, BoLT 1&2. He would have preferred the already taken name of Hurin or Feanor, but settled for the ranger of Ithilien he used to be.  His favorite LotR character is Aragorn, for both inner and outer strength, and the flashes of kingliness such as when he stared down Eomer although encircled by his Rohirrim on horses.

Dec. 7, 2002
    Farmer Maggot, welcome to the Valar Guild! He's been visiting for two years as Musics4Me. He hails from New York, USA, in the EST. He originally found our website while looking for an LotR SC map, then stayed. Bombur is a friend of his in the guild, and he made friends with many of us over the last two years. He's 13 and comes in on BW, although he rarely plays. He hopes to play D2X and WC3 in the future. He has read H, LotR, and Farmer Giles of Ham. Varda tested.  His favorite character in LotR is Treebeard. He has AIM: Musics4Me2. Find him on BW account FarmerMaggot-V.

Dec. 6, 2002
    Tolkien Encyclopedia: Eru-(Valar) added these new articles:
        Ents: "Old Man Willow", "Leaflock", "Skinbark", "Quickbeam"
        Non-humanoid Intelligences: "Shelob", "Scatha", "Smaug"
        Orcs: "Gorbag", "Shagrat"
       
Troll page: "Bert, William, and Tom Huggins"
    Gwaihir's computer is in the shop now

Dec. 5, 2002

    Elenwe, Welcome to the Valar Guild! She was scouted by Turgon, and is also in the same European guild with him in Moralltach. Varda tested. Elenwe's read H, LotR, UT, and is trying to get the Sil. She's from the United Kingdom, GMT. She plays about once a day in Europe, some BW and D2X hardcore on East, and may start regular twinked D2X on East with us shortly. She plays D1, D2, D2X, WC2, SC, BW, Half-Life classic, and Deus-Ex. She played NWN for a while but found it boring. Her favorite characters in LotR are Eowyn and Faramir
    Thorondor is playing D2X again while on leave from the army.
    D2X: Blizzard put up a code on all realms stopping the hacking, so now we don't have those long waiting lines, games stay up, and action is smoother! Yay! Thorondor's timing was perfect, showing up right after the code went out.

Dec. 4, 2002
    Letter from Gwaihir:
It's Gwaihir, I can't get into my elrohir_16@hotmail.com account because I can only get online at school and hotmail's blocked by the proxy.
My processor fan broke on Saturday so I won't be able to get on for a while, just e-mailing to let you, and everyone, know why I'll be absent.
Namarie, 
Gwaihir

 Dec. 1, 2002
Sunday Meeting 5pm EST, channel Clan ValarGuild
Attending:
    Members(9): Beor, Curufin, Eonwe/Fionwe, Eru, Finwe, Gil-galad, Gwindor/Gwaindor, Turgon, Varda (presiding)
    Over the shoulder: Sauron
    Too Late: Gildor, Glorfindel, others
    Visitors: BerenCamlost (rude), Elenwe (did the membership info part of test), Musics4Me (programming for us)

Membership
    Beleg sent his regrets, unable to come, via Turgon.
    Glaurung was away from home and his computer at meeting time, sent regards via Turgon.
    Old Mablung dropped by about meeting time, but I missed the spelling on his new name and couldn't whisper. Something like Inkink but not.
    Turgon's primary email is now Turgon_V@swirvemail.com 

Web Report:
    Links page:
      New Links:

   
  Brobdingnagian Bards: Celtic Renaissance duo. Also on MP3.com page, very popular, with the CD, Memories of Middle-earth. Free samples from "Tolkien", "Mordor", and "Shadowfax".
     
Fathom: Celtic rock band. They are also listed on the MP3.com page with the song, "Two Towers", inspired by the Two Towers book. Lyrics. Free download.  Link suggested by Carlos Bermudez
Gaming:
     Turgon hosted a tourney this weekend, four of the twelve who said they would come showed up. 
     Salmar is now on DaoC Europe, expects to be on DaoC USA and on EQ later.
Tolkien:
    Testing: Eru, Eonwe, and Varda went with Elenwe to do a test, but she needed to leave before completion. Turgon joined the testers who had started into a Tolkien chat waiting to see if she could return, and we did not return to the channel soon enough for any formal chat. 


Nov. 29, 2002
    Salmar is now on Dark Age of Camelot - Europe's Excalibur. He's waiting on his ordered USA DaoC with Expansion and EQ. He says not to worry, claiming we'll still see him on bnet too.

Nov. 28, 2002

    HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Nov. 26, 2002
    Tolkien Encyclopedia: new article on the Hobbit page, "SamWise", by Mr. Nicki T. Hansen, aka GWiZ

Nov. 25, 2002
    The Two Towers movie made the cover of Times magazine. See the cover picture and articles at their online location.

Nov. 24, 2002
Sunday Meeting 5pm EST  b.net channel Clan ValarGuild
Attending:
    Members (17): Balin, Beleg/Cuthalion, Beor, Daeron, Dain, Elrond, Eomer, Eonwe (presiding), Finglas/Leaflock, Frodo, Glorfindel, Gwaihir, Gwindor/Flinding, Ori, Thror, Turgon, Varda
    Over the shoulder members (2): Oin, Sauron 
    Visitors (1): Elenwe (would like to join)

Membership: 130 full members  
    Beor: our new member was called on to say his few words of introduction.
    Ori is back! He came in on BroodWar, with Oin in over-the-shoulder attendance.
    Ulfang is also new, but did not make it to the meeting.
During the meeting, Diablo 2X members on East could not enter, receiving a Realms Down message.

    Letter from Eru:

I've been Blizzard product-less for a couple of weeks (gave back WCIII and took a while to get back D2), and when I tried to join the US-East realm for the Sunday meeting on 24th November, I kept getting a battle.net message which claimed that there were no realms available.

I'll keep trying a few times after I send this email.

Hope to speak with you soon!

Kind regards,
Eru Iluvatar, The One.

Web:
    News page: Varda is better and again doing the News page, letting Eonwe concentrate on the Gaming pages.
    Tolkien Encyclopedia: articles this week from Varda on Elf page and Orc page. See Nov. 18 for list.
Gaming:
    EverQuest:
        Fourth expansion now available is "Planes of Power"
    Dark Age of Camelot:
        First expansion coming up is "Shrouded Isles"
    WarCraft 3:
        Trailers showing scenes from WarCraft 3 will be showing at various fantasy and science fiction movies to target the right audience. Movies listed as carrying the trailer are James Bond, LotR Two Towers, Star Trek: Nemesis, and Solaris.
        AMC Theaters has an additional WC3 promotion: patrons buying a large coke and a Butterfinger candy bar receive a CD with a WC3 demo and maps usable on the full scale CD. 

    Diablo 2 Expansion:
        The Rings game first tried out at the 5th Anniversary of the Valar Guild has been re-worked and needs your feedback. The new guidelines are listed on the Tourney page and on the News Nov. 21.
    Turgon's 3rd Anniversary:
        Turgon is hosting a tourney for his third anniversary in the guild. Quest for Three in any Diablo series games are this Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. The Rings game (needs beta testers for the new guidelines) is Saturday. WarCraft 3 is Saturday and already has 7 members signed up. For more details, see Turgon's page
    Non-PC:
        Dain told about the versions of LotR games he's tried out on non-computer playing. They sound like fun.

Tolkien:
    Toys: Elrond-(V), while surfing the internet, came across the toys for the upcoming Two Towers movies at Toybiz. They appear to be of better quality than the ones for Fellowship, notably Legolas and the Easterner. They can be found a number of places, probably including, as Daeron suggested, Electronic Boutique and, as Eonwe mentioned, are now at regular stores, others certainly by Christmas.
    Topic from Daeron-(V): Why was Saruman head of the Istari?
        Lively discussion, including that he had ring knowledge as a Maia of Aule, and liked power. Aule and Melkor had similar abilties, with the difference that Aule enjoyed the making and Melkor enjoyed the having. Saruman became prideful and fell after going to Middle-earth.

    Topic from Eonwe-(Valar): Once the Ainur came to Arda, it was evident the Valar had a purpose. This was to shape Arda and watch over it, protect it. Melor, on the other hand, deemed it his purpose to destroy all that his brethren made if he could not twist it to his own. Which do you think most completely accomplished his purpose?
    Lively discussion, Valar winning. (Talk continued but I unfortunately had to leave and the scroll crashed during supper.)


Nov. 22, 2002
    Blizzard, starting today, is putting a trailer for WarCraft III in such movies as "James Bond: Die Another Day", "Lord of the Rings: Two Towers", "Star Trek: Nemesis", and Solaris. AMC Theaters adds the incentive, that if a patron buys a large Coca Cola drink and a Butterfinger candy bar, he receives a WC3 game sampler CD with a demo of 3 single player missions and new multiplayer maps usable with the full version.

Nov. 21,  2002
    D2X: After some difficulties discovered in the beta test of our Rings game, here are the revised guidelines:
Rings Game:
    In Diablo 2 Expansion, we choose up two teams, preferably 4 versus 4, everyone starting at level one, any class. One player on one team stands in for Gandalf and, on the other, for Sauron. Each team collects rings, up to all 20 from the poem. The rings are not considered collected until they are in Gandalf or Sauron's stash. The rings can be special ones stashed around the game by a teleporter who is not a hunter, but these rings will disappear within an hour, sometimes faster, and the teleporter may put them too deep or stir up monsters excessively for lower level characters to handle. So we suggest finding rings natural to the game. The twentieth ring would be the One Ring, and an automatic win for whichever team finds it, so keep track of the number stashed, perhaps several people keeping a tally paper. Most of all, have fun! This can be a way to start new characters for normal play, or work up mules, or for characters deleted right after.

    Turgon is setting up a gaming event for his third anniversary in the guild. Hey, any excuse for playing! His page has the details.

Nov. 18, 2002
    Ulfang, Welcome to the Valar Guild! He's 29, from New York state in the US, EST. He came in as GrondTheHammer after finding us on the web and emailing. He tested 5/5 with Varda, Glaurung observing. He's read the H, LotR, Sil, UT, Sauron's Defeat. Sil was his favorite. His favorite LotR character is Eowyn. He can be found on AIM as rhaated . He plays NeverWinter Nights and D2, may get D2X in the future. He has but doesn't play SC, BW, and WC3, and is online weekly. He had a laugh when I typed Aiya Glaurung, since he says Aiya in Chinese means "uh-oh". No, he doesn't know a lot of Chinese.
    Tolkien Encyclopedia - new articles by Varda:
        Elf page: "Celebrian", "Lalaith"
        Orc page:
"Orc, the Word", "Orc Types and Gear", "Gorbag", "Grishnakh", "Lagduf", "Lugdush", "Mauhur", "Muzgash", "Radbug", "Shagrat", "Snaga", "Ugluk"

Nov. 17, 2002
Sunday Meeting 5pm EST
Attending:
    Members: Beleg/Cuthalion, Daeron, Gwaihir, Gwindor, Legolas/Greenleaf, Rog, Salmar (presiding), Thingol, Turgon, Varda
    Visitors: *Elenwe - friend of Turgon's from England; *V-Olwe - from Clan Valar, took test after meeting and became *Beor-V
Membership: 128 with Khamul
    Khamul, new member, said his "few words". Has a LotR map for WC3 for all to play with.
    Turgon is excited about his upcoming 3rd anniversary in the guild, would like to celebrate, maybe gaming.
    Balin: says hi. Has to miss meeting
    Eol: comp problems, emailed to say still with us
Web:
    Story page: "Cirdan's Goodbye", by Daeron-V
Gaming:
    World of Warcraft rpg starting next year, not long. We will have a guild there, so please use your guild name. May need to put a v on the end to use the name, such as Orome's using Oromev. We will have Valar guild marks on such things as shields.
Tolkien:
    Discussion of how metal made by the elves in Gondolin or Eregion could glow in the presence of orcs. Possible input from Maeglin, Eol's son, on special techniques with metal infusion.
    Entry test for V-Olwe who became Beor-V, by Salmar and Varda.
   Beor, Welcome to the Valar Guild! Beor is also in Clan Valar as V-Olwe. He's read the H, LotR, Sil, Farmer Giles, and Roverandom. He tested 5/5. He plays WC3 almost exclusively although he does have D2X. He cannot give out his email or AIM address, parental requirement. He's from Illinois in the USA, CST. He gets to be online 7 hours a week.

Nov. 13, 2002
    An email from Eol to let us know he's still with us:

The lack of home internet and a crack-down on internet usage at work has left me horribly out-of-the-loop.  Plans are in the works for me to have online access once again... but it is slow going.  Until then I will peruse the Guild pages as often as possible and email when I can.
Namarie,
Eol

     We also have a new addition to the Story Page: “Cirdan’s Goodbye” by Daeron.  This is a working title at the moment, and may change.
    Khamul, Welcome to the Valar Guild! Khamul has been visiting as V-Mordor, leader of Clan Valar. He's 14, from New York state in the USA, EST. He plays WC3 mostly, and a great many other games. He's read a few chapters of the H, all of the LotR, and part of the Sil. He made a WC3 Middle-earth map which guild members have been helping beta test. His favorite LotR character is Gollum.

Nov. 11, 2002
Sunday Meeting 5pm EST
Attending:
Report by Eonwë and Beleg
    Members (127 listed on the Member page)(11 present): Alatar, Beleg, Daeron, Dain, Eonwë/F.Urion (Presiding), Gwaihir, Gwindor, Mahtan, Rog, Thror, Turgon
    Came in during chat
: Gil-Galad, Ecthelion
    Came in after main chat, but stayed to join in after-meeting chat
: Elwing, Frodo, Fëanor, Meriadoc, Varda
Membership
:  by Eonwë
    Amarie
sends her regards via Turgon.  She regrets she is not able to be on bnet for a while, as she is having problems getting D2 to work with Win XP.
    Cirdan
changed his name to Daeron.
Web
: None
Gaming: by Eonwë
    Warcraft 3 has update 1.04, which changes many things in the game, and at least in my opinion, some of them are for the better :}
Tolkien:

    At first we talked about the upcoming Two Towers movie and how we hope things are in it.  Somehow this discussion steered itself into talking about the Noldor and Fëanor, and how they would fare against Morgoth under different conditions.  After this had died down, some had come in and those of us remaining engaged in a lively after meeting chat :}  Varda reports she received the One Ring and Sting for her birthday :}  Happy Birthday Varda! :}


Nov. 10, 2002
    Cirdan has changed his name to Daeron.
    Thorondor emailed. He's still serving his year in the Norwegian army and says hi. He can be emailed at eagle@welho.com
    Warcraft 3
has a new patch out.
    October’s news has moved to the  2002 News Archives, a clean-up I try to do every month to improve loading speed for current news. 

Nov. 3, 2002
Sunday Meeting 5pm EST
Attending:
    Members (127 listed on the Member page)(16 present): Cirdan, Dain, Eonwe/F.Urion (Presiding), Gil-galad, Glaurung, Gwaihir, Gwindor, Thingol, Thror, Turgon, Varda  
    Over the shoulder : Frodo (Glaurung’s shoulder)
   
Visitors:  We had a couple of visitors near the end of the meeting.  One was Elenwë, an acquaintance of Turgon’s.  The other was a fellow named Elendil[GoM]. Membership:  
   
Glorfindel sends his regards.  He could not make the meeting.
   
Salmar also sends his regards.  Real Life kept him from the meeting.
   
Varda is back from her surgery and was able to show up at the meeting for a few minutes.  Good to see ya, Varda!
Web
:
  
I (Eonwe) am maintaining a temporary News page until Varda is able to do the regular one comfortably.
Gaming
:
   
Nothing to report here.

Tolkien
:
   
Gwaihir reports this on the posters:

Anyone who'd like one of the LotR posters(there're Frodo, Aragorn, Gandalf, and an Orc) in two sizes: large and small, e-mail me(elrohir_16@hotmail.com)... for US residents, it'll be $25 for two posters... with $2 extra per small poster or $4 for each large(on top of the initial two, which can be of either size). This price is for anyone who wants AT LEAST one large poster... if you want all smalls the pricing will be different. I haven't figured out the exact yet, but it'll probably be a fair bit cheaper. I'll give my address for sending the money to when you e-mail me... and when I get the money, I'll send the posters to you. For any Canadian residents... it'll be a great deal cheaper... around 10 I believe... not 100% sure though...
Thanks!

    A person named Elwing (not our Guild’s Elwing) has informed us of a musical project she has been working on.  This is the e-mail she sent:  

    "Back to Middle Earth" is a musical project inspired by the magical realms
created by J.R.R Tolkien. The project is a collection of musical pieces
related to main plot landmarks of the trilogy Lord of the Rings.
    "Back to Middle Earth" is a tribute to the phenomenal work of J.R.R.
Tolkien, It was composed by a dedicated Tolkien fan and it is free for
downloading for all the tolkienians out there...
http://www.mp3.com/elwing
May the Valar protect you on your path under the sky :)

Current track list:
Intro (One Ring to rule them all)
Long Expected Party
Hobbiton
Old Forest
Bree (At the sign of the Prancing Pony)
Rivendell
Treason of Isengard
Way to Caradhras
Khazad Dum
Lothlurien
Anduin
Helm's Deep
Ride of the Rohirrim
Dead Swamps
Minas Morgul
Minas Tirith
Return of the King
More tracks will be added soon...

With love
Elwing

Important notice:
You may reply directly to this message, but it is recommended to contact
the artist through the artist page itself.
In order to listen to these mp3’s, however, you must register at mp3.com. 

Nov. 3, 2002
    Please go to the Temporary News Page for updates. Thanks, Eonwe!
    October News has moved to the 2002 News Archive.


Nov. 2, 2002
    Hi! I'm back from the hospital, hernias repaired, abdominal reconstruction finished, all went very well. I can use the computer for about 15 minutes at a stretch, so these webpages will be updated a bit at a time. Feel free to email, but the response may be a bit slow. The meeting minutes have been updated. See them under Tolkien for Gwaihir's Tolkien poster offer or on the Temporary News page.



Oct. 27, 2002
    Time change! Valar time has been Eastern Standard Daylight Savings Time, today changed to Eastern Standard Time. What was 5pm would now be 4 pm, so if you don't see anyone at the meeting, try waiting an hour.

Sunday Meeting 5pm EST
Attending:
    Members (127 listed on the Member page)(19 present): Alatar, Beleg/Cuthalion, Bregalad/Quickbeam, Cirdan, Dain, Elrond, Eonwe/F.Urion, Finglas/Leaflock, Gil-galad, Glaurung, Gorbag, Gwaihir, Gwindor, Mahtan, Salmar/Nandaro, Thingol, Thror, Turgon, Varda (presiding)
    Over the sh
oulder hello: Fangorn 
    Visitor: Wrath@Azeroth didn't want to join, has read a lot of Tolkien and is polite, working on WC3 Middle-earth game. *Blaze347 popped in and out of the channel, not actually visiting.

Membership:  
    Amarie was attending a family dinner, but sends regards.
    Faramir-ex may be around and will need re-testing. Help him find a Maia or Vala and save his name. He was on the inactive list, not in trouble.
    Gandalf is having computer problems. 
    Guilin-ex is back and will need help from a Maia or Vala to rejoin. Watch for him and help him match up with a tester! He was on the inactive list, not in trouble.
    Legolas was absent to repair a friend's computer. Maybe we need him to drop by Gandalf's place. :)

    Varda will be absent during at least the coming week, going into the hospital Monday, possibly Tuesday as well. Email Eonwe or Salmar if you need something right away during the next two weeks. I'll get back to the computer as soon as I can get away with it!
Web:
    Book List & Reviews:
Review of all 12 volumes of the Histories of Middle-earth, by Franco Manni, in Italian. Translation requested. Glaurung is now handling this page instead of Varda. Go Glaurung!
    Dragon's Cave: Glaurung has added greatly to his page, having now posted his original web weaver tip page and hosting the Book List and Review page.
    Folklore & Mythology: back up and running, now on GeoCities. Barely started, not a guild page but those interested are welcome to contribute. 
    News: Eonwe is handling the Temporary News page, link at the top of this News page.
    Tourneys: Eonwe now permanently handling. New location.
    Turgon's Tolkien Site: New site belonging to Turgon
    Italian Translators: Let Varda know if you would be interested in translating Tolkien papers from Italian, offered by Franco Manni of the Italian Tolkien Society who does the Endore Tolkien fanzine. We could use quite a few people. Gil-galad and Dain volunteered to help out, using web translator programs such as babelfish.altavista.com which Dain says is good (does 150 words at a time). Gil-galad also mentioned www.freetranslations.com as another help. We can run the translations through several programs, as they suggested, to try to come up with something reasonable. They say many translation programs are online we can try out. I and others (maybe Salmar? anyone else good with English grammar and spelling?) could then edit the English into something readable. Turgon is offering space to put the finished translations on, probably has a little under 15MB. We may need more space after a while, if anyone else would like to offer some we can scatter across. Anyone who would like to join in using translation programs, or suggest good ones, or help with grammar, or give more space, email Varda. I may be out for a while, but not all that long!
Gaming:
    WarCraft3:
        PvP Tourney: Team of Elros, Gorbag, and Turgon are working on a Tourney, probably PvP. Besides WC3, they may add SC/BW if interest is shown. Quickbeam is helping out to let them know what not to do, from his experience with FFA Valar group gaming. They are getting together with Eonwe-(Valar) and will be setting it up. They got together after the meeting. Watch the Games page for news on this project which is nearly ready. Also contact any of them if you would like to help plan and try out ideas in practice. Check the Games page for how to join in the Tourney. Report Tourney results to Eonwe.
    More WarCraft3:
        Creating Middle-earth map: Visitor Wrath@Azeroth requested aid with his map project. He took the idea of the StarCraft Middle-earth maps, in which one built an Academy for a better spawn of units and adapted it to WC3. He has it playable and needs beta-testing with some very loose Tolkien story-line suggestions. A group went with him after the meeting to work on it.
Tolkien:
    Posters:
        Contact Gwaihir for these. Here is his report:
"Anyone who'd like one of the LotR posters(there're Frodo, Aragorn, Gandalf, and an Orc) in two sizes: large and small, e-mail me(elrohir_16@hotmail.com)... for US residents, it'll be $25 for two posters... with $2 extra per small poster or $4 for each large(on top of the initial two, which can be of either size). This price is for anyone who wants AT LEAST one large poster... if you want all smalls the pricing will be different. I haven't figured out the exact yet, but it'll probably be a fair bit cheaper. I'll give my address for sending the money to when you e-mail me... and when I get the money, I'll send the posters to you. For any Canadian residents... it'll be a great deal cheaper... around 10 I believe... not 100% sure though..."
    Trivia:
        After the business meeting, Tolkien trivia was held in a separate, quieter channel while each gaming group did its work.


Oct. 25, 2002
    Tourney page: Eonwe is now in charge of the Tourney page at this new location, also changed on the Guild index page. When you do your tourney games in between major tounrneys as well as major tourneys, be sure to email him the results. Participation is important to the guild too, not just records.
     Temporary News Page: Eonwe will be doing the News page temporarily, until I can get back to it.
    Turgon's Tolkien Site: new page by Turgon-(V)
    Dragon's Cave: Glaurung has been improving the looks of his site, and is now working on a web tip page which he hopes to put up soon.
     Looking for a page to do? We could use one for other fantasy authors and perhaps a separate one for science-fiction authors. Let me know if you want to set one up and send me the URL for inclusion on the main index page.
   
I'll be under the weather during an operation for hernias and abdominal restoration. The operation is Monday and I may be in the hospital two days, last stitch out in one year. I don't know how long it will be before I can be back to the computer, but you know computer addiction! It will be one of the few things I can do for a while when up and moving again, but probably not for the current long periods of time right away. Feel free to email Eonwe your news or me if you don't mind a bit of delay. (I can forward emails to him if needed, and vice versa, so you will not be forgotten although we may have temporary delays.)

Oct. 22, 2002
    Folklore & Mythology page up again on a new server. It is a work in progress like our Tolkien Encyclopedia, probably until the Last Battle and Arda Renewed.

Oct. 20, 2002
Sunday Meeting 5pm ESDT
Attending:
    (13) Alatar, Cirdan, Dain, Elendil, Eonwe (presiding), Eru, Glaurung, Gwaihir, Gwindor, Legolas, Salmar, Thror, Tulkas, Varda
    Over the shoulder hellos from Frodo (with Glaurung) and Fangorn (with Varda) 
    Later: Feanor, Halbarad, Oropher, Turgon 

Membership:
    Balin had to work, but expects his shift to change letting him show up for meetings soon. He also hopes to be on bnet more with his schedule change.
    Beleg had family obligations and wrote: "
Give my regards to the guild and have a good meeting."
    Boromir went pheasant hunting.
    Feanor had church late, but came to the channel afterwards. 
    Turgon had Mass later than usual during the meeting, but dropped by afterwards for Tolkien trivia.

Web:
    Stories:
        "The Birth of Luthien" and "A Ring is Forged" by Gwindor.
        "The Creation of Glaurung" and "The Voyage of Voronwe" by Turgon.
    Histories:
        Glaurung's History 

Gaming: no reports
Tolkien:
    Testing: Thror was taken aside for his Maia test with an exceptionally high number of Valar: Eru, Salmar, Eonwe, Tulkas, and Varda. He missed by only a half-point and can test again in two weeks. He was close enough to reserve the Huan name for his next test, not usually done and a compliment.
    Trivia: The rest of the membership was started off in a Tolkien trivia game by Cirdan.


Oct. 17, 2002
    Story page:
        "The Creation of Glaurung", by Turgon-(V)
        "The Voyage of Voronwe", by Turgon-(V)


Oct. 15, 2002
    Story page: "A Ring is Forged", by Gwindor-(V)

Oct. 14, 2002
    History page: Glaurung has written Glaurung's History, his time in the guild since Dec. 27, 1999. This may bring back memories of your own.
    Story page: Gwindor has once again proven his ability to uplift our hearts with this new short story: "The Birth of Luthien"


Oct. 13, 2002
Sunday Meeting 5pm ESDT
Attending:
    Members (20): Alatar, Beleg/Cuthalion, Bombur, Cirdan, Elrond, Eonwe/F.Urion, Eru, Feanor, Gandalf/Mithrandir, Gil-galad, Glaurung, Gwaihir, Gwindor/Flinding, Legolas, Luthien/Tinuviel, Mahtan, Thingol/Elwe, Thror, Turgon, Turin, Varda (presiding)
    Visitors: Celeborn_TheElf/Celeborn1893 for the whole meeting and joined in the discussion, *Musics4Me for a short time 

Membership:
    New members this week: Gloin and Oropher, see Oct 11. 
    Feanor said his few words.  :)
    Eru greeted the guild. Thanks to his new isp, he hopes to be present for future meetings as well.

    Dain was out of state during today's meeting, but hopes to be here for the next one.
    Salmar has to be conscious for a special day at work in the morning and couldn't be at the meeting
    Turgon quoted a poem which he wrote about the guild:
Poem about the way I view the Valar Guild

If you enter the Valar Guild,
it seems just another group of fans.
But for those who can see truly,
can see the Valar Guild to be a bastion of hope,
a bright shining light in the gathering darkness.

To the Valar Guild come those,
who want to be part of that hope and light.
To the Valar Guild come those,
who seek to rekindle their darkened souls,
to once again have hope and light in their lives

Out there, there are people who are envious,
envious of who we are, envious of what we stand for.
They try to break what they themselves cannot achieve,
but whatever they do, we will not budge, we will not fail,
for we each hold up a candle, shining bright,
and if one of those candles should waver and fail,
there is always another to kindle it again.
That is why we will persevere and forever be,
a bastion of hope and light for all who are willing to see.

The End
Turgon

Web: 
    Tolkien Encyclopedia:
        Objects: "Mithril", by Cirdan-(V)
        Human: "Beorn", by Cirdan-(V)
        Maiar: "Uinen", by Cirdan-(V)
    Book List and Review:
        New page, including lists of books about Tolkien and reviews of them. Also a list of Tolkien books. by Varda, but a member interested in this can take it over.
    FAQ:
        A new article, food for thought for members considering Maia honor or who already have it, by Elatan-(Valar), fka Amillo
    Links:
        Endore: Italian Tolkien Society fanzine.   
    Dark Age of Camelot:
        New and beautiful page for the DaoC branch of the Valar Guild, by Elatan fka Amillo.
    Dragon's Cave:
        Glaurung has been adding to his page, making a separate page for D2X items and listing future projects.
Gaming:
    WC3 and D2X Middle-earth mod have both had patches this week. Report by Eonwe (see Oct 12)
    NeverWinter Nights: Eru is making a  Middle-earth map, almost finished, and will be needing beta testers in the future. Several were interested.
Tolkien:
    Turin welcomed Eru back using Quenya.
    Turgon's topic: Discussion on the nature of balrogs. How many? What were their origins? What about other fire spirits like Arien? A little on the nature of the Ainur and how many Valar and Maiar there were. More on the nature of the Ainur. Very lively and friendly discussion with many knowledgeable speakers, some quoting, books used ranged across the LotR and Histories.     


Oct. 12, 2002
    Here is a stunning offer to the guild from Italy. If any of you are fluent in both Italian and English and want the book, or to take on this translation project for Endore, please email me. I would be glad to publish Endore if you can send me the translations. I'll scrounge up the space. Here's the letter:
Dear  Lady Varda,
thank you for your appreciation, and for putting my review on you site and the banner as well.
Do not be impressed for my English : I wrote the review in Italian , and then I paid a mother language person to translate it into English !
If you have a tolkienian friend of yours capable to understand Italian, I shall send you a copy of the book Introduzione a Tolkien for having published an English review of it on your web site. In this case you should write me the postal address of that person.
I am not able to get the money to pay a person for translating the issues of Endore magazines into English, but if you find out somebody in your country, I shall send you freely all the word files and give you the permission to publish all the issues either on the web or on paper.
Thank you again
Ciao !

Franco
    FAQ page: Elatan, fka Amillo-(Valar), has a new explanation of Maia honor on the FAQ page, excellent food for thought if you are considering the honor or already have it.
   WC3 and D2X M-e Mod report from Eonwe-(Valar):
A couple of days ago Blizzard brought out the 1.03 patch for Warcraft 3.  It made some unit changes, as well as fixed some bugs, and also gave us the ability to assign different unit sounds to units in the World Editor.  The changes are a bit long to include in an e-mail.

Also, just a few hours ago, V&K released version 1.8 of the Middle-Earth mod.  They were hoping to hold back until 1.10 for LoD came out, but decided to go ahead and release it now.  It contains some changes, some fixes, and some additions.  Of course, since ME 1.8 is out, Blizzard will release patch 1.10 any day now and make V&K have to go back and create v1.9 :)   I'd almost say it was safe to hold your breath,... but I won't :}
   Impostor has no life. If you see anyone using an account for "Varda" with a V instead of a Valar, it's not me. My accounts are listed on the Member page.

Oct. 11, 2002
    Gloin, Welcome to the Valar guild! He came to the guild as *Gimli456@Azeroth, recommended by Leaflock, tested 5/5 with Varda, Thror observing. Gloin plays only WC3 online at this time, but that almost daily. He's 14, from Florida in the USA, EST. He's read the LotR. His typing speed is very slow, a two-fingered or one-fingered the same as JRRT, so just be patient when typing with him. His favorite LotR character is Gimli.
    Oropher, Welcome back to the Valar Guild! Oropher used to be Grimbold-(V), known as Zane and as Morgoth(H)@Azeroth and many other names as he continued visiting and being a guild-friend. His brother Trent_Reznor may pop by now and then hoping for a game. Oropher uses AIM as MJKeenan123. He plays WC3,  EQ in the Dauntless guild, and  Half-Life's Day of Defeat mod. He used to have D2X, but one account was stolen and the other he turned over to the guild when he left. He's 18, living in Indiana, USA, and might be moving to Calfornia at the end of the year, but not sure yet. He plays a few hours every weekend, and perhaps at other odd times; it ties up the family phone line. He has read H, LotR, Sil, UT. He tested with Varda. His favorite LotR character is also Gimli.

Oct. 10, 2002
    Links page:
       
Elfwood - science fiction and fantasy art and fiction. Includes Tolkien, has a Lothlorien section. All pictures copyrighted, but they allow a link to the Elfwood main page, not links to the single pictures as it eats bandwidth.

Oct. 9, 2002
    Amillo-(Valar) is stepping down from working on issues with the Council, but will remain in the guild as Elatan-(Valar), with full Valar honor and our deep affection. He is continuing to aid the Valar Guild by keeping up the Member page, Annals of Arda, and Glittering Caves of Aglarond. He has added to his duties by helping set up and play in the Valar Guild branch in DaoC. He has also set up a beautiful "test" page for the Valar Guild branch of DaoC, not all members yet listed. He will also remain available when Valar are needed for Maia and Vala tests, if given a date and time. Here are his own words.
Letter from Amillo:
Elatan will be my choice of name. The choice of a character, forefather to a line of royal blood who never abandoned the true wisdom and remained faithful to the old Gods.
 As you may have discovered by now I have chosen to step down from the Council due to my lack of appearence on B.net and what follows of that. I have no intensions of leaving the Valar guild and I will keep the Memberpage for as long as it is needed unless you deem it should be done by another.
 I am sorry if it comes at a bad time and I admit I should have done it 6 month ago when I tried to set up a letter but I guess I hoped for some kind of change in my mind.
It has been 3½ year wonderful years in the Council and I will miss the laughs and the at times annoying mailbox-stuffings but the time has come to step down and let another eager soul try his strength.
 
Amillo
    Links page, Book Reviews:
        Book review by Franco Manni, over The Uncharted Realms of Tolkien, by Alex Lewis and Elizabeth Currie, in English. This has started a new page for us, now called Book Reviews for Tolkien Subjects
        Endore - Franco Manni's web site for the "Endore" fanzine, loaded with Tolkien info. It includes info on Tolkien-related books in English. The site is in English, the fanzine in Italian, for the Italian Tolkien Society.

Oct. 8, 2002
   
Dragon's Cave  Glaurung's page news:

I made a few changes to my site... Placed the d2 items on a separate page, and added some text about future projects.

Namarie
Glaurung the Golden

    The dishonorable prankster family of ex-Deagol is showing up as Council members in -V form. Today he used Melkor-V, the other day, Aule_V and Eonwes_clone. He also uses Varda-V sometimes and does fake tests. If you spot some lamb being led astray by this creep, please rescue him as well as preventing another blot on the intruder's soul. The least bit of speaking with the creepazoids may expose their twisted attitude and let you know who it is. They cannot do more to us than annoyance if we continue our normal ways. Happy gaming to you all!

Oct. 6, 2002
Sunday Meeting 5pm ESDT
Attending:
    Members (21): Alatar, Amillo/Lindelome, Beleg/Cuthalion, Boromir, Cirdan, Dain, Elrond, Eonwe/F.Urion, Eowyn, Erestor, Gil-galad, Gwaihir, Gwindor/Gwaindor/Flinding, Mahtan, Salmar/Salme, Thingol, Thror, Tulkas, Turgon, Turin, Varda
    Visitors: *Vardas-friend

Membership:
    Eonwe had to leave the meeting early due to storms. 
    New member this week: Feanor. See Oct 2 for more about him.  :)
   Letter from Feanor:
I can't attend the meeting today because of a family get together. I wish to convey that I am happy to be in the guild and I will try to get more active in it. 
Namarie,
Feanor
    Posters: Email Gwaihir-(Valar). Facials of Aragorn, Frodo, Gandalf, and an orc, now available as extras from an ad campaign Future Shop did for the release of the FotR DVD. This is in Canada, with shipping across to USA being much higher. Thus Canadians can get them for around $10, US citizens for around $25.
Web:
    Tolkien Encyclopedia:
        Elves page: "Gelmir" and "Gwindor", by Cirdan-(V)
        Special Papers page: "Of the Villain Treebeard and the Hobbit Trotter", by Salmar-(Valar)
        Poetry: "Celebrian's Farewell to Elrond", outsider poetry found and brought to us by Amillo-(Valar). He quoted the beginning of this long piece for the anniversary meeting and emailed the rest of it.

    StarCraft/BroodWar Map for Tolkien page by Dior-(V):
        Difficulties with puttng up map files on Dreamweaver, so Dior will email map files to emailed requests. If you know how to handle Dreamweaver, your help to him would be appreciated, perhaps a step-by-step email.
    Games Page by Eonwe-(Valar):
        Updates made from email responses by the guild. If your info is not updated, please email it to Eonwe. New sections added.

Gaming:
    Anniversary week gaming:
        D2X:
            The first Quest for Three in the Middle-earth mod - Team score of 22 by Beleg, Glaurung, and Turgon.
            The first Quest for Three in Hardcore - Team score of 33 by Fangorn, Salmar, and Varda
            New record for Quest for Three in regular (also called softcore) - Team score of 36 by Fangorn, Salmar, and Varda
            The first Rings game - The Gandalf team won by finding the One Ring. The Sauron team found 5 rings, played by Sauron lvl 30, Eonwe lvl 1. The Gandalf team found 3 rings including the One Ring, played by Gandalf lvl 30, Alatar lvl 1, Eowyn/Fangorn lvl 1. Salmar used his sorceress to teleport around Act One to put out the rings.
        WC3:
            No reports in.
        SC/BW:
            No reports in.
        Other games:
            No reports in.

Tolkien:
    Tolkien Moment: Amillo quoted the beginning excerpt from the poem, "Celebrian's Farewell to Elrond", and emailed the rest for posting.
    Trivia game: free-for-all asking a question on LotR or Sil. Whoever answers first correctly gets to ask the next question.

Intruder report as requested by some of the membership at the meeting:
    Ex-Deagol family using, among other names, ElementalDruid/*SheaFoehammer, Ninjasnoopy. Unreal Aule's operating, the SC one may be a victim of ex-Deagol and is Aule-V. One "without a shadow of politeness", possible ex-Df, in WC3 as Aule_V and as Eonwes_clone. The ex-Df's do any underhanded thing to annoy the guild "for fun". Previous members, they know our emphasis on honor and courtesy and try to hit us there and cause divisions blaming innocent members and being impostors, usually very obvious. Generally the best thing to do is ignore them, squelch, ban, or leave them to stew, and move on with normal guild activities. Squelching hits the whole CD-key so the annoying person can change names over and over and still go unheard. They sometimes go to a public channel and tell them to come to one of our channels or games for free stuff. Calmly tell the poor slobs they've been lied to, so the plan generally backfires. In a meeting, we can tag our people with safe tags and lockout others. We will try to learn to do this faster and I apologize to the membership for the inconvenience. Be sure we have your account names listed on the Member page!
    Thror-(V) is commended for amazing typing speed and service in banning masses of undesirables while the tagging operation was going on at the anniversary meeting.


Oct. 5, 2002
    Tolkien Encyclopedia:
        New article under Elves - "Gwindor", by Cirdan-V

    Letter from Dior - SC/BW Map page:
       Well, as many of you who I have talked to have heard me complain about many many times, I am a complete web master failure.  Apparently I messed up on the design of my Map collection, and due to lack of time I am not going to fix it.  Instead that will act as a list, any who wants a map or maps email me the name of maps that you want, and I will reply with an attachment of the items you requested.  Now be sure that the maps are spelled perfectly.  As you can tell there are many similarly spelled maps, so to avoid confusion please be sure the spelling is correct.  Sorry for taking so long to those who have emailed me, but sending an 8 mg file with dial up connection (AOL) takes forever, and I need to have a good hour and half of nothing in order to send.  So it may take me awhile to reply.  My email is AJMfalcon@aol.com 

Oct. 4, 2002
Happy Fifth Guild Anniversary today!!

1pm: Eonwe's Chat. We discussed the Balrog of Moria and whether or not and just how much Sauron and he were working together. Some of those attending were Eonwe, Gandalf, Salmar, Sauron, Tulkas (who's been ill but improving), and Varda.

Ring Game: After the chat, we held the Ring game with all the folks we could find. Rings have been crafted and located by many of the guild during the month, and all are appreciated! Salmar scattered the Rings around the game, then stayed to kibitz - er - referee. Sauron and Eonwe were on one team. Mithrandir, Alatar, and Eowyn (played by Fangorn part way through when she had to leave) were the other team. Sauron's team picked up 5 rings, but Mithrandir's team picked up the One Ring to add to two other rings, and the One Ring is an automatic win. A fun time was had by all. We recommend this game, and suggest trying out a number of versions.

Quest for Three: D2X. Another record! The team score was 36, total 302,230. The breakdown was: Fangorn level 11 (82, 265) using a javazon. Varda level 12 (95, 079), bowazon. Salmar level 13 (124,886), paladin. We had some good fortune with experience shrines.

Tolkien Encyclopedia:
    Salmar has written a new paper in time for the Anniversary.  :)  It's entitled "Of the Villain Treebeard and the Hobbit Trotter", about the early versions of the LotR, quite entertaining and considerately careful not to reveal too many spoilers for the Histories.

Letter from Amillo:
Greetings all and happy anniversary

It has been a long time since I was by B.net. Several reasons for it but none mentioned here :) The Moment has to me always been a great pleasure and something I look forward to hear. Though, when I had to do it, it more and more often ended up in what to me was interesting information from other sources than LotR presented as short, sometimes rather long stories. At least for B.net :)
I intend to get to the meeting this Sunday ( sorry I can`t today ) with a little piece of original poetry I have never seen before : Celebrian`s Farewell to Elrond.
In its true origin it was written in Quenya but Forodrim, a Swedish Tolkien oriented group made a translation into English in 1973 and published it in their journal Palantiren.
This piece is not meant as an topic to discuss, at least not for me. It can stand alone ;) Still, it may lead into a chat of what has and always will touch me, the great lovestories and their often bitter ends.

Hope to see you all Sunday.
Amillo
Report from Eonwe-(Valar) to the Council and to the Membership - "The State of Valar Gaming"
As you all know, I just finished the Mass-Update to the Games Page, in which I declared tabula rasa, wiping all games listings, and asked everyone to send in their gaming info and account names.  After doing so, and having a bit of spare time :}, I decided that I would present a report which I shall call the "State of Valar Gaming" Address :}

Btw, the gaming numbers overlap, so don't be surprised if you try to add them and they equal more than the total of members :}

Before the Update began in September, we had 118 members listed on the Games Page.  Out of those 118, 30 did not have any game listed.  The main games played were: SC/BW by 53 members; D2/LoD with 59 members; Warcraft 3 with 16 members;  Everquest with 15 members; Dark Age of Camelot with 10 members; Diablo with 9 members; LoDME with 9 members; Warcraft 2 with 3 members.  13 members also played other games.  Of course I decided these numbers were old (some going back to gleanings from Makar's Games Page) and needed updating or the Mass-Update wouldn't have begun :}

One month has passed since I announced the Mass-Update and e-mailed (hopefully) everyone or at least one member in any family. That may or may not have been enough time, but I think just about everyone who was going to answer replied by my requested deadline of September 30th.  Since then, no new gaming info has come in (besides member reports).
Out of the 122 members now listed on the Games Page, 54 have gaming info beside their names.  Most sent it in, about 7-8 joined since the update began, and 2-3 I thought I could be 98-100% sure about at least one game they played.  Two members say they play no games actively.  69 have no games listed.  Out of those 69, 7-9 had e-mail problems.
The 54 listed members play games as follows (again, these numbers overlap):
Starcraft/Broodwar: 8Sc+15Bw= 23 members
Diablo2/LoD: 3D2+24LoD= 27 members
Warcraft3: 17 members
EverQuest: 10 members
LoD Middle-Earth Mod: 8 members
Dark Age of Camleot: 5 members
Warcraft2: 1 member
Diablo: 1 member
Two new games have been added to the list of online games we play.  Their numbers are as follows:
Neverwinter Nights: 4 members
Half-life/Half-life Mods: 3 members

Other Games: 9 members
No games: 2

As you can see, as a guild we're still very much into SC/BW and D2/LoD :}  Warcraft 3 is picking up as a favorite.  Everquest has a party :}  And, including Fingolfin, if all the ME mod players got together we could fill a game :}
Diablo and Warcraft 2 seem to have fallen by the wayside as far as actual gaming goes.

I think that shall do it for this address.  I hope this has at least been informative if not exciting :}

Take care and Happy hunting :}
Eonwe

Oct. 3, 2002
    Tourney reports:
        New record: Hardcore Quest for Three in D2X (team score in one hour starting at level one; allow body looting): Game score was 33 (combined levels). (Tie breaker number for the whole team's added experience used in case levels are the same between teams, 265,882). Salmar's assassin hit level 12 (105,001), Fangorn's necromancer hit level 10 (70,701), Varda's bowazon hit 11 (90,180). All survived. We made it to the Jail Level One waypoint..
        New record: Quest for Three in D2X Middle-earth mod! Game score was 22. (Tie-breaker number 98,861).  Beleg's Northman (Barbarian) hit level 7 (32,659). Turgon's sorceress hit level 7 (32,217). Glaurung's Dunadan (Paladin) hit level 8 (33,985). They advanced from "Hobbiton" to the Underground Passage. Glaurung commented, "
We had a fun time, and I encourage more play like this. We all would like to improve upon our experience, especially since a certain wily dragon gobbled up one more experience shrine than the other two! :)"

 
    Letter from Eonwe - Games page, Tolkien discussion:
THe Updated Games Page is now on the web :}  Most notable changes/additions are the addition of two new player listings, NeverWinter Nights and Half-life/Half-life mods, and a new links page, Azeroth and Surrounding Realms.  The latter is for links involing any of the Warcraft series games, and has at this moment links to Blizzards pages on WC3 and WoW, as well as a link to Marn Thunderhorn's WC3 Guide, the WC3 equivalent of the Arreat Summit.

I removed the section D2 mods and the link to the 1.08 Patch on the D and kin page.  Instead, I put a section called D2 Patches and linked it to blizzard's patches page, which has the current patches on the page, plus links to the older D2 and LoD patches(just remember LoD is 1.07 or you'll wonder where all the LoD patches are :})  Since the ME mod (and probably most other mods)  have gone over to LoD, I thought we didn't need to have the 1.08 patch up anymore.

Also, about discussion groups.  I realize this comes a bit late (darn real life :}).  If anyone would like to get together Friday and discuss the Sil or the Histories, I will be glad to host a discussion.  I will try to be on bnet/DB Chat room around 1pm Eastern time.  If anyone would like to attend who does not normally get on bnet I would be most happy to move the discussion into the DB chat room, or even just hold it there.  I will try to bring a few good topics (and have one or two formulating as we speak :}), but if anyone would like to suggest some for consideration that'd be great :}

Take care :}
Eonwe
Oct. 2, 2002
    Feanor, Welcome to the Valar Guild! Feanor is 14, from Louisiana, USA, CST.
He enjoys karate and sports. He plays BW (hopes to get WC3 soon) daily or every other day. He's read the H, LotR, Sil. In AIM, he is Phil1078  His favorite LotR character is Elrond, but he is much more into the Sil. Scouted by Cirdan, he passed his entry 5/5 with Varda. 
    Tolkien Encyclopedia: new article up on "Gelmir", brother of Gwindor, by Cirdan-(V).

Oct. 1, 2002
    Letter from Eonwe: Games page:
As everyone (hopefully :}) knows, the deadline to send in gaming info for the Mass-Update was yesterday (Sept 30th).  The complete updating should be done and up either tonight or tomorrow.  I'd like to say thanks to all who sent in their info for making my updatng easier, and to those who haven't yet that I'd still like them to send it in, preferably sooner than later.

Take care :}
Eonwe
top

Sept. 29, 2002
Sunday Meeting  5pm ESDT, East Realm of bnet, channel Clan ValarGuild
Attending: report by Salmar, Varda
    Members (15):  Alatar, Beleg/Cuthalion, Cirdan, Curufin, Dain, Eonwe/F.Urion, Gil-galad, Glaurung, Gorbag/ElfStone[FG], Legolas/Greenleaf, Salmar/Salme, Sauron, Tulkas, Turgon, Varda (presiding). Other members who showed up after the meeting including Boromir, Elwe/Thingol, Frodo, Glorfindel,
Quickbeam.
    Visitors:  

Membership: 123 with Akhoril, report by Varda
    New members this week (not at the meeting):
        Edrahil
        Amarie
        Akhoril.
    Problems:
        Balin will be missing meetings for a while due to his work schedule.
        Gwaihir's comp is in the shop.
        Melkor is traveling from Colorodo to Maine, back Oct 13.

Web:
    Links page:  Lord of the Rings - Universal Interactive has a collection of videogames based on the books rather than the movie. A player can take the role of Frodo, Aragorn, or Gandalf. They have console games and just came out with a PC game yesterday. They have the only license to the complete Lord of the Rings texts. This is a new link for our Links page.
Gaming:
    WC3:
        Free-for-Alls: Quickbeam is doing free-for-alls in WC3 at 5pm EST with guild members on Saturday. He is available other days as well, but thought this might be easiest for the group. Ask him for a game.   :)
    D2X:
         Rings: A number of us went hunting after the meeting for amn and sol runes and other things we could use in Oct 4's Ring game. We can use groups of 20 rings: crafted (orange easily recognizable, no way the game would drop them), Alatar and Mahtan's collection of over 20 Nagel rings, any collection of 20 rares or uniques that we have spare. We would like to try out the Ring game in at least abbreviated fashion before the Oct 4 special day, to work out bugs. We are having a problem with game crashes that can lose all our rings, so batches of spares need to be kept on hand. We need good teleporters able to spread out the rings over Act One.

Tolkien:
    Trivia games may be held anytime, but it is a good idea to list your time and book(s) discussed in the News for improved participation.
    Tolkien Moment:
    Salmar-(Valar) did a Tolkien Moment in honor of Irmo-(Valar) who has left the guild, the originator of the Tolkien Moment, and as a part of the Anniversary bringing us back to our roots.
    The Moment was in illustration of a major theme of Tolkien, which Irmo pointed out after the last entry test he did with Salmar and Varda: Death.
    In the Moment, Salmar quoted the part after Arwen sees the death of Aragorn, and goes to Lorien to die as well.
    The Moment was used, as originally intended for all Moments, to start a discussion on the theme of Death in Tolkien. This was one of our best recent discussions and I thank all who attended.


Sept. 28, 2002
    Saturday begins the festivities for the Fifth Anniversary! Choose up your teams for Tourney games and send in the results by email to Varda. Let us know you participated! If you're looking for a team at a particular time and need help, email Varda to have it posted to the News page and forwarded to the Games page. Dive into Tolkien trivia games and chats! If you are willing to host a trivia game or chat at a special time over particular books, please email Varda so it can be posted to the News page.

Sept. 27, 2002
    Akhoril, Welcome to the Valar Guild! Akhoril came to us as  dark_templar 264. He's 13, from Georgia, USA in the EST. He plays StarCraft, mostly on Fridays. He's read the H and LotR, testing 5/5 with Elros-(Valar). Akhoril is the name of a ringwraith used in the old card game, listed on the Names page a long time ago since Tolkien didn't name all the ringwraiths for his books.

Sept. 26, 2002
    NeverWinter Nights: report from Turgon about the Middle-earth server, "Lands of Arda"
If you want to enter the lands of Arda (Middle earth) at this moment, you will need to download the 66,9MB hakpak.
You can find it here:

http://nwvault.ign.com/Files/hakpacks/data/1032629952958.shtml

Just unzip the file into your neverwinter nights/NWN directory and then connect to the server 24.68.237.6

I haven't tried the hakpak yet (D/l'd it though), but will do so as soon as possible. Although, at this moment the servers seems to be down. Sindi is probably updating the server with the hakpak, so please be patient for a while.

With regards,

A'dicne neverwinter
Member of Caledonn
The NwN part of Moralltach
With great power comes great responsibility

This is a message regarding the NWN server.
Note that this server has its chars stored on the server, so there is little chance of cheaters :}

Elen sila lumen omentielmo
Turgon

Sept. 25, 2002
    Amarie, Welcome to the Valar Guild! The Lady Amarie is 17, from New York state, USA, EST. Her AIM name is Staind32185, and her outside character who came to the test was larundoffa. She has read the H, LotR, some of the Sil. She plays D2, almost daily, and hopes to be picking up the Expansion soon. She learned about the guild from Azog, her boyfriend. Azog's computer has been broken all summer, but his parents bought him a new one and he's active again. Varda had the honor of giving the test, Beleg Cuthalion observing, and is absolutely delighted to have another girl around! Amarie's favorite LotR character is Gollum, because he's funny and because of the way he talks. She liked how he went from a minor character to the one who decided the fate of the world.
    Edrahil, Welcome to the Valar Guild! He found our website and emailed Varda, looking for friendly players who share his interest in Tolkien. He came to us as Ajunti/*7pstack and took the test with Varda, making a 5/5! He's 29, also from New York state in the USA, EST. He has but rarely uses MSN Messenger. He plays EverQuest and D2X about 5 days a week. He's read the H, LotR, Sil, BoLT 1&2, and the Complete Guide to Middle-earth by Foster. He used those resources to make a Heroes 3 Campaign which has unfortunately bitten the dust since then. He had two favorite LotR characters: Gandalf because of his concealed wise power and the humility and grace to go with it; Tom Bombadil because he represents the power of nature in pure spirit and all its magic and laughter and innocence of youth.

Sept. 24, 2002
    Anniversary gaming and chats (trivia and discussions) have been extended to include the entire weekend before Oct 4 as well as the weekend after, along with that week. Thus, festivities begin Sept 28 and go to the meeting on Oct. 6. This should give everyone a chance to participate. Start getting your teams together now, and pick a date to lead your Tolkien trivia or chat session.
    Gwaihir's computer is going into the shop for repairs. Good luck!

Sept. 23, 2002
    Lord of the Rings - Universal Interactive has a collection of videogames based on the books rather than the movie. A player can take the role of Frodo, Aragorn, or Gandalf. They have console games and just came out with a PC game yesterday. They have the only license to the complete Lord of the Rings texts. This is a new link for our Links page.
    Melkor expects to return around Oct 13. He's visiting Orome and the rest of his family in Maine, a long way from Colorado!
    Ecthelion, please email me, as the email I have for you (
Suilenroco1@hotmail.com) does not seem to be working.
    Anniversary Planning!
    GAMES: Everyone needs to be getting together in teams for their online game. A member of the team needs to be selected to email Varda a report of the team's Anniversary participation and Tourney scores. If you'd like a posting to the News page asking for more team members for your group, please email telling which game and how many more you need as well as who you already have.
    We have been considering trying a Quest for Eight D2X version, using any level one class you like for a one hour game. All stop and stop the clock if any of your team drops, restarting the clock when the group can go on at the same time again.
    We need more spare Crafted rings of any type for the Rings games. I currently have 15. The full game on Oct 4 requires 20 alone. Abbreviated versions using smaller numbers of rings may also be done, preferably including a chosen one as the One Ring.
    D2X Tolkien mod people are now working together to set up their games. If you want to get in with them, email Eonwe.
    Anyone trying to make Tourney maps for various games needs to get with Eonwe. I can also post requests for help in the News if emailed.
    TRIVIA and DISCUSSION:  Anyone willing to lead a trivia or discussion during Anniversary week, please email me with your name(!), date, time, book(s) covered, trivia or discussion, channel name (main playing channel is ok, but may be interrupted by intense gamers, so keep your cool). These will be posted on the News so anyone interested may come.
   
Sept. 22, 2002
Sunday Meeting  5pm EST, East realm of Battle.net, channel Clan ValarGuild
Attending:
    Members:  Aragorn, Cirdan, Dain, Ecthelion, Elrond, Eonwe/F.Urion, Finglas/Leaflock, Gildor/Inglorion, Gil-galad, Gwaihir, Maedhros, Mahtan, Salmar/Ulumcari/Salme, Thror, Turgon, Varda (presiding)
    Vistors: Yodatheelf@Azeroth
Membership News:
 120 members, including Ecthelion
    Balin is working from around 4pm to 11ish Sunday, so the dwarf team will have to try to survive without him

    Ecthelion is our new member this week, having joined after the meeting last Sunday. His email is Suilenroco1@hotmail.com but email sent to this address return as Mailbox unavailable, User unknown
    Glaurung emailed to say that he had to miss the meeting to handle chores. Family first.
    Cirdan is working on a science project that may cause him to miss next meeting. 

Web:
    Games page :
        Updated from emails received. Check to make sure your info is correct.
      D2Experiences page: (see Games page menu)
        "The Complete Dark Elf", by Eonwe, about his D2X Middle-earth mod level 71 dark elf level experience.
    Dragon's Cave :
        by Glaurung. Now has listing of D2X items available from him.
    Tolkien Encyclopedia :
        Articles by Cirdan on Mankind page now number 53.    

Gaming:
    StarCraft: Ghost
        Console game from Blizzard and Capcom will be coming out for multiple type consoles, based on StarCraft.
    NeverWinter Nights
        Turgon tried out the Middle-earth server, Lands of Arda, which is supposed to be able to support 12 people but, after joining, only got a black screen.   

Tolkien:
    Trivia game.
    Although the group voted on how to modify the game, they did not apply their own vote results and chaos resulted. The group began to settle into some order after a while, but by then I had to leave. I had a limited time when electricity could be allowed to the computer area of the house due to wiring work. This chaos was very unfair to the European members who have to pay by time and for whom it was very late at night or in the wee hours of the morning. Gildor, or someone claiming to be Gildor, had to be removed from the meeting for violating channel rules repeatedly even after being asked to stop. In the channel and especially during meetings we do not use all caps (shouting), spam, and numerous other things which you can re-read on the Code of Conduct.
   
Sept. 22, 2002
    NeverWinter Nights update on server from Turgon:
Update on Lands of Arda server:
only 12 people able to play at the same time, which is hoped to expand into more.
direct connect:  24.68.237.6
(directions for server on Sept 19 )

Sept. 20, 2002
    Games page news from Eonwe:
The first wave of people who have e-mailed me are now listed with their games on the Games Page.  The main listing of course shows everyone, with blank spaces next to those who have not e-mailed me yet.  Everyone who has can check the Page to make sure I put everything up correctly :}

Also, I've placed a new paper on the D2 Experiences Page.  It is called "The Complete Dark Elf" and gives my experiences with the Dark Elf in the Middle-Earth mod, and how I got mine to level 71 where she is still going strong (although not yet out of Valar Act 1).  As always, comments, questions, and differing opinions are welcome, the latter even in the form of papers sharing their experiences :}

    Blizzard news from Eonwe:
Hail! :}

Well, they announced something, though for most of us it probably isn't that exciting :}  They're delving further into the console game industry (anyone remember way back when Starcraft64 came out?) with a new game, Starcraft:Ghost.  They say more info will come.  I don't know how many are actually interested so I won't bother with an entire press release.  Here's what they put on the Blizzard front page.

--------------------------------------------------
September 19, 2002
StarCraft: Ghost Revealed at Tokyo Game Show
Today at the Tokyo Game Show Blizzard Entertainment announced its newest product under development, StarCraft: Ghost. In this 3D tactical-action console game set in the legendary StarCraft universe, players will take the role of Nova, a lethal Ghost operative trained in the arts of espionage and tactical combat.

As a Terran Ghost, Nova will employ an amazing array of physical and psionic abilities. Nova will also have access to a host of hi-tech weapons and vehicles, some of which will be familiar to players of StarCraft and Brood War.

Check out the official announcement in our latest press release. You can also see more of Nova, her adversaries, and some of the interactive 3D environments that she'll be infiltrating at our new StarCraft: Ghost Web site.

IGN.com Preview
Check out IGN.com for an exclusive preview of Blizzard's upcoming console title StarCraft: Ghost.
-----------------------------------------------------------

And for those who may wonder "Is this Starcraft 2?"  Blizzard answers them with a "No" in the new Game's web page FAQ.

Sept. 19, 2002
    NeverWinter Nights news from Turgon:

I have good news for the NWN department of the Valar Guild.
It seems someone of Moralltach has found a Middle-Earth server :}

specs for this server:
Server name    : Lands of Arda
gamespy channel: #PW Action
extra info     : make sure "hide server vault" is unchecked

Members of our 2 clans might even meet there :}

Elen sila lumen omentielmo,
Turgon

Sept. 17, 2002
    Ecthelion, Welcome to the Valar Guild! Ecthelion has been visiting for a while as *V-Thranduil and enjoys chatting. He's 15, from NH, USA in the EST. He uses AIM as suilenroco1 and plays online from daily to a minimum of three times a week. Games he likes to play are WC3, NeverWinter Nights, Dungeon Siege, and Jedi Knight. He intends to install D2X soon.  He passed the test 5/5 from Varda, Beleg observing. Ecthelion has read the LotR and Sil, and has reference books on maps and Foster's Complete Guide to Middle-earth. His favorite LotR character is SamWise Gamgee for his faithful companionship even into evil places, bravery as in trying to reach Frodo's boat when he can't swim and is terrified of boats, his attack on Shelob and the daring rescue. Hey Ecthelion, I need your email!
    Dragon's Cave : Glaurung's new page now has his gift items listed and is renamed Dragon's Cave. 


Sept. 16, 2002
    Tolkien Encyclopedia : Cirdan's latest 10 articles for the page of Mankind are now up: Arveleg I, Arveleg II, Tar-Atanamir, Atanatar I, Atanatar II, Ar-Zimrathon, Ar-Sakalthor, Ar-Gimilzor, Ar-Inziladun/Tar-Palantir, and Ar-Pharazon. That brings him up to 53.

Sept. 15, 2002
Sunday Meeting  5pm ESDT, battle.net, East Realm, channel Clan ValarGuild
Attending: reports by Beleg, Salmar, and Varda
    Members: Azaghal, Balin, Beleg/Cuthalion, Bombur, Bregalad/Quickbeam, Cirdan, Elrond, Eonwe/F.Urion, Erestor/Erestar, Finglas/Leaflock, Finwe, Glaurung/Glorund, Gwaihir, Gwindor/Gwaindor, Maedhros, Mahtan, Salmar, Thingol, Thror, Turgon, Turin, Varda (presiding)
    Vistors: yodatheelf@azeroth (participated for a while), MamoRilla@azeroth (stayed briefly, no response), Llamajamma@azeroth (popped in and out), Musics4Me (briefly, some friendly whispers). pothed@azeroth came by earlier, guild-friend who has read Fellowship and working on the next books, plays with Maedhros and Gorbag, would like to join after reading.
    Over the shoulder: Frodo over Glaurung's shoulder  
Membership News:
    Azaghal told us this was his last meeting. Due to school taking his time, he needs to leave. He may rejoin us later when time isn't so tight, and may visit now and then. He was planning on deleting his account after the meeting to make the character name available to others, a considerate act.
    Beleg will be heading out of town this week and may not be able to make the next meeting. Elf team, be ready!

    Gandalf, welcome back from vacation! He's working away on hardcore D2X.
    Gelmir has a new email, since Yahoo gave him too much trouble about his computer's network firewall:
gelmirtheelf@hotmail.com
Web Reports:
    Quiz page still has messed up links. That will be worked on in the coming week.
    Tolkien Encyclopedia : Cirdan has done an astounding amount of work, doing a large number of articles for the "A"'s for the page of Mankind. On top of that, he did a paper on Tom Bombadil, Master of Mystery". He has another big batch in my email and is now eyeing the "E"'s under Elves..
    
Joey's Page : Glaurung is learning to be a web weaver, his learning page having new work frequently. 
    Games page needs your help to be updated before the Anniversary, the requested deadline Sept 30. Please email Eonwe at your earliest convenience, yesterday even better.  ;)
    Dior's StarCraft/BroodWar Maps page needs your input of more Tolkien-related maps and new ones that you are making, as well as rating the 60 already present. Do you have favorites and ones to jeer?
Gaming Reports:
    D2X:
    Glaurung is gifting D2X items for trivia games, during games, and at both his new page (see Web Report) and the Trading Board.
    BroodWar:
    Turgon needs testers and help with triggers for his BroodWar map, LotR evolves.
    WC3:  

    Quickbeam would like to meet with similarly inclined WC3 players on Wednesdays. Please get with him by email or on bnet to set a time you would like to join him for a weekly FFA (Free For All).
    Gwaihir says the WC3 patch description apparently means Blizzard is trying to keep hacks out of games.
Tolkien:
    "Twenty" Questions trivia game. Prizes given out by Gwaihir.
    One person (Gwaihir this time, since he was giving out prizes) thinks of something from Tolkien and called on a team, answering its question or guess. Teams (optional) divided into men, elves, dwarves, and ainur. Each team picked a spokesperson (who appointed a replacement if he had to leave for dinner or whatever). The team gave suggested questions and possible solutions to the spokesperson by whisper, and then the spokesperson had his/her choice of which to pick (hotseat). Gwaihir started us off, with Eonwe leading the next one. We could only ask one question from a team at a time with a yes or no answer, using only the LotR. Turin bravely handles the team for men alone. Thror and Balin were the dwarf team. Beleg, Cirdan, Elrond, Erestor, and Turgon were the elf team. Eonwe, Gwaihir, Glaurung, and Varda were the ainur team. People leading teams at some time were (almost everybody, giving some idea of our coming and going!) Eonwe, Gwaihir, Glaurung, Turin, Thror, Beleg, Cirdan, Elrond, and Erestor. Only the dwarf team remained stable, and Turin who hung in there alone for men.

Sept. 14, 2002
    Tolkien Encyclopedia : Cirdan-(V)'s project continues! Those of you who thought there was nothing left to write, please take note.  :)  Also remember we do take more than one article for any subject. Under the page of Men, Cirdan-(V) now has these 12 entries sent in on Sept 13 and into the wee hours of this morning:  Arathorn I, Arathorn II, Araval, Aravir, Aravorn, Argeleb I, Argeleb II, Argonui, Artamir, Arthad, and Arvedui. More is coming in even as I type this. He is finding a great deal in the Appendix of Return of the King. Arvegil.
    An intriguing plus is that by following the links between father and son on the Dunedain chieftains (now complete), one can follow their history in a chronological storyline. A good project for anyone or any team interested is to fill in the other king lines with articles to give them this same special continuity. The old Anarion did a similar set-up for Rohan under Kings of the Mark.
    New Paper for the Tolkien Encyclopedia, linked to Maiar page - "Tom Bombadil, Master of Mystery" , by Cirdan-(V)
    Description: "Elendilmir" for Objects page by Varda.
    Glaurung-(V) has managed to unravel the mysteries of putting up a web page using DreamWeaver and WS-FTP. His very first experimental page can be seen here at  Joey's Page .
    Dior's StarCraft/BroodWars Maps page has plenty on it and still needs your input of reviews along with new maps. If anyone has a copy of the "Nirnaeth" game, please send it to him!

Sept. 13, 2002
    Tolkien Encyclopedia : Cirdan-(V)'s Sept 12 continued articles (12 more) for the page of Men put on the web today: Aragorn II, Aragost, Arahad I, Arahad II, Arahael, Aranarth, Arantar, Aranuir, Araphant, Araphor, Arassuil, Aratan,

Sept. 12, 2002
    Tolkien Encyclopedia : Cirdan-(V)'s 8 new articles for the page of Men: Anborn,  Tar-Ancalime, Tar-Ancalimon, Angamaite, Angbor, Arador, Araglas, and Aragorn I
    Letter to the Council from Irmo-(Valar), Council member, reprinted here for the guild with his permission:
Hail Councillors,
 
I have decided that after a long time serving on the Council (since the summer of 98) the time has come for me to vacate this Council seat and let some bright new members involve themselves in guild management. Also, I resign from guild membership. 
I am convinced that this will work out best both for the guild and for me, personally.
 
The responses to other retirement mails in the past tend to ask for motives and reasons for stepping down.
That's understandable - after years of service, leaving with some kind of brief explanation is only fitting.
 
As far as I can see, there are two possible reasons: those that have to do with myself and those that have to do with the guild.
 
So, have I changed over the years?  - Inevitably.
Has the guild changed over the years? - From my perspective: inevitably.
Is anybody to blame for either? - Of course not.
 
My life off the screen is considerably more demanding now than it was 4½ years ago when I joined.
I'm at a point now where I have to dedicate more time and effort to finishing my degree at university - delayed because of work (and, on occasion, the opposite :)...) - now catching up on lost courses and papers.
 
I need to focus more on music and singing - recently made it through at an audition and have to follow up with rehearsals and voice training.
 
All in all, a busy schedule - combined with the fact that what little free time I have is rarely spent playing on the computer - leaves little time for active participation in any guild related matters.
 
That's the practical side of things.
 
Another aspect is a dwindling feeling of community and belonging within the present guild. This has to do with commitment and personal involvement in the guild - something I can no longer claim to have. Something I have been aware of for some time and have tried to deal with in other ways than this. But once extinguished, nothing will light the passion I used to feel about guild matters.
 
I think of the years spent in Valar fondly, even wistfully sometimes. But those thoughts are more of yesterday's guild, than today's - and, most essentially, than of tomorrow's.
 
The Valar needs someone passionate and devoted; someone still hungry for what the guild has to offer; someone with the drive to Dream of even better tomorrows than yesterdays.
 
So much for outer reasons and personal motives. As for the guild - suffice to say that nothing stays the same. Membership, guild structure, atmosphere, social aspects - all are dynamic and changeable.
 
I'm not overly nostalgic - in such a long period it would be naïve not to expect certain changes to the face of the guild. However, to a washed-up old Dreamlord (such as yours truly :)... ) the "face" I knew and felt attached to is sometimes hard to recognise. Recent meetings have not failed to confirm this impression.
 
Finally, before stepping down, let me stress that this decision is not motivated by any negative feelings toward any member or councillor.
Quite the opposite... It has been a privilege and an honour to share this project with you.
 
The quintessential quality of the Valar has always been: honour in all things.
Well, for me, given the motives and reasons I've outlined, I feel that stepping down is now the honourable thing to do.
 
Thank you for making it an unforgettable experience,
 
Irmo, Dreamer and Desirer.  (fka...)
 
 
P.S.
Happy 5th when the time comes! :)


Comment by Varda:
    Be sure to write Irmo a farewell if you knew him at all or if you feel moved to. He gave much to the guild, including helping heal the breach Eru left in us, coming from the other side. He is a loremaster, and has added to the Tolkien Encyclopedia. He played much with us. He came quickly  into Vala honor by sheer merit and personality along with problem-solving. He chaired the Saturday Tolkien chats, coming prepared with a mass of stunning lecture material. He gave us many "Tolkien Moments". He continued to come to meetings when he could although it was the wee hours of the morning in Denmark with both work and school the next day. Most of all, he was a dear friend. May he find his Dreams.

Sept. 11, 2002
    Tolkien Encyclopedia : Cirdan-(V) wrote a record 50 articles about people, which will be put up over the next few days as they come in, starting with Adrahil in the A's and working down. We have 11 of them up tonight on the page of Men: Adrahil, Ar-Adunakhor, Aerin, Tar-Alcarin, Aldamir, Tar-Aldarion, Tar-Amandil, Amandil, Anardhil, Tar-Anarion, and Anarion.

Sept. 10, 2002
    Aiya from Glaurung and good luck to him. He's studying for his ACT and trying to pick a university. Good luck on his speech and his calculus homework. :)

Sept. 8, 2002
Sunday Meeting 5pm ESDT, East realm of battlenet, channel Clan ValarGuild
Attending: report by Beleg
    Members (16) : Balin, Beleg (roll), Bombur, Cirdan, Elladan, Elendil, Eonwe/F.Urion/Fionwe (co-chairing), Finglas/Leaflock, Finwe, Gil-galad, Gwaihir, Gwindor, Thror (afk), Tulkas, Turgon, Varda (presiding)
    Visitors (2): GimliElf-friend (after meeting joined as Dain II ), Musics4Me
Membership News: 117, after meeting 118.
    Few words: Members Cirdan, Gil-galad, and Elladan said their "few words" of hello to the guild.
    Maedhros: emailed that his home country of Yugoslavia takes on Argentina (Beren 's home country) in the world championship for basketball at meeting time. If Yugoslavia wins, they set a world record for three consecutive world and euro championships as well as olympic gold medals. Maedhros also has a new email . Update: Maedrhos reports Yugoslavia won, exciting game, woot! Yugoslavia still exists as a country, although smaller since Croatia and Bosnia left.
Web Report:
    Bot Commands : new page by Thror-(V) in answer to the request of the membership last meeting. It came in handy this time!
    Tourney page : info on the upcoming anniversary tourney on tentative new games.
    Games page: updating all members online gaming info. If you didn't receive an email from Eonwe, be sure to email your info to him. (Or Varda for forwarding.)
Gaming News:
    New Tolkien-themed maps needed for Anniversary Tourney, especially for WC3 and SC/BW. Crafted or unique spare rings needed for the Rings games in D2X. Prizes needed.
Tolkien:
    Tolkien trivia game: At the start of the game, we picked LotR, no books for answers although the questioner can use a book to insure accuracy. One person asks a question, whoever answers correctly first asks the next question. If no one can answer, the same person continues to ask. The group started scoring themselves according to teams of elves, dwarves, men, hobbits, maiar, and valar. This teaming was purely for fun, as the numbers were highly misproportionate!
    Request was made for "20" questions trivia game next meeting. The 20 is to give a nod to the 20 questions game on which it is very loosely based. In practice we go for hints until we answer correctly or give up.
    We are practicing trivia games so we will have people who know how to play them for the anniversary and any other time, who can help others play as well. Cirdan and Beleg were particularly brilliant, Cirdan with stumper questions and Beleg with answers.

Dain , Welcome to the Valar Guild! Dain II is 13, from the USA. He has read the LotR, and heard about us from his friend, Cirdan-(V). He plays daily using BW, D2, WC3, Black & White, and CounterStrike. Gwaihir and Sauron tested. His favorite LotR character is Gandalf.

Sept. 6, 2002
    Gil-galad , Welcome to the Valar Guild! He's been visiting and playing with the guild as *V-Ulmo. He had four guild member sponsors at test time. He's 15, from California, USA in PST. He uses AIM and AOL as Xseanzeedisco. He plays about 2 hours a day, in BW, WC3, and CounterStrike mods Half-Life, Team Fortress Classic, and dod. Although he has not yet read the H, he has read LotR and Sil. His favorite character in LotR is Faramir. He tested with Varda, Thror observing, and made 5/5.
    New page: Bot Command - Thror-(V)'s listing of bot commands, made at the request of the membership last meeting.
    Fifth Anniversary Tourney Gaming: The Tourney page now has Fifth Anniversary gaming news. It tells the time and types of some of the games currently under consideration, including a new type for D2X (with abbreviated versions and a special rough one for Oct 4) and new types for WC3. StarCraft/BroodWar needs new LotR Tourney maps. D2X needs rings of unique or crafted type; these need to be spares in case of game crashing, not ones you want to play with. We need recognizable rings to act as elven rings, dwarven rings, mortal men rings, and One Rings, so please start collecting spare unique rings and crafting. We may need several people to keep collections of them as people play at different times and the tourney is a week long. WC3 map-making info is on the Games page. We can use suggestions for other favorite online games as well. Send suggestions to Varda to be passed on to the appropriate people.

Sept. 5, 2002
    Games page Updating!
         Eonwe is now updating all gamers' info on the Games page. Please be sure he has yours, even if he can't reach you by email. Here's his report:
    Starting on Saturday, Eonwe will be conducting an update of the Games Page.  Everyone in the Valar Guild will be e-mailed in groups based upon what game you play (DAoC, D2, etc).  This sweep is not to remove names from the Games Page, but it does have many purposes.  Among them are:
1.) To make sure the most up-to-date and accurate gaming information is on the Games Page.
2.) To ensure YOU know who else plays the games you play.

Everyone will be e-mailed, no matter how recently you joined or even if you have already e-mailed me :} Only online Games will be asked about. It's possible you will get e-mailed more than once (especially if you play more than one game), but if you've responded completely the first time you need not reply more than once.

Responses are appreciated as soon as possible, but I ask that everyone responds by September 30th.

Sept. 1, 2002
Sunday Meeting 5pm ESDT, East realm, channel Clan ValarGuild
Attending: report from Beleg, Varda
    Members: Alatar, Aragorn/Longshanks, Balin, Beleg/Cuthalion, Bombur, Elladan, Erestor, Gelmir, Glorfindel, Gorbag, Gwaihir, Luthien, Maedhros, Mahtan, Thingol, Thorin, Turgon, Varda (presiding)
    Visitors: Whozat (Glorfindel's friend, would like to join, had a time problem); others who did not request to join but wished to observe a while, behaved well enough although they kept popping in and out, were Mamorilla, Mamojamma, Llamajamma.
Membership Report: 117
    New member this week: Cirdan. Not present at meeting. Several members reported meeting him, favorable impressions.
    Aragorn is back, after comp problems.
    Beleg is back, after comp problems.
    Eonwe emailed that he would be unable to attend. (Also known as F.Urion-Valar@Azeroth)
    Gelmir said before the meeting that the guild with the [Honor] mark was started by him with help from others such as Avontor. They are not hostile. Reason was that Gelmir wanted a feeling of power. A number of our guild are playing in that guild now. Multiple guild membership is okay with the Valar Guild as long as the various guilds are kept separate. Always check with the other guild/clan to make sure it is ok with them too.
    Thror has been trying to keep a bot in both our meeting and main play channels. Type .allseen aloud or allseen whispered to see who was on most recently.
    Suggestion made, and well-received by group, that we start the meeting or put somewhere in the meeting a Tolkien trivia question made by someone who has a good mathom to give to whoever answers right first. We may have to do this at the beginning while the most members might be in attendance, but presentation of the prize needs to be quick or after the meeting so the two don't miss anything. Quick is probably the best solution, so have your mathom loaded and ready.

Web Report:
    Tolkien Encyclopedia: Beleg wrote the articles: "Sting", "Ulumuri", "Tol Eressea".
    Bot instructions: Turgon suggested that we need a web page with bot instructions, others agreed. This page is now planned to go up.
Gaming Report:
    D2X:
    Still lots of special gaming for purists, hardcore started, and regular gaming. If you can't find us in regular games, try the specials.
    Purist gaming: Gelmir sugested we do purist tourney game for the anniversary.
    Gelmir reported a co-op, twink/rush legit type of game tried by Alatar, Bert, some others I think, quite fun. Possible for Anniversary playing activity, requires co-op staying near each other to survive. Alatar told more about it. Level characters to 25 (can do by rushing if don't have one, but may have some problems), kill nightmare Baal, then start Hell difficulty act 1 at level 25. There are items that can be used at this level for twinking and need to be set up so that all players are about equal. These items need to be agreed on and collected well ahead of time. We have folks with heavily loaded mules who can give us a start. We need to see what we have available that could be used and try to collect the rest before the Anniversary.
    WC3:
    Need more input from members on the anniversary gaming. Some suggested they would like pvp. We also need more Tolkien-themed maps for Tourney, a tough job at this point, so get started early!
    Glorfindel reported WC3 maps can be found at www.warcraft3files.com. (Site name correct, operational.) Only one of those is a Tolkien rpg at this point, but maybe we can locate or make more.
Tolkien Chat:
    Topic 1: Gelmir started this popular subject. In the movie, Sauron is shown as losing several fingers shorn off by Isildur.
    This, while visually dramatic, was not the book version. In the book, Sauron was already "dead" when Isildur cut off his ring-finger to take the Ring as wergild for his father's death by Sauron. Sauron came back in the movie as a great Eye. In the book, the Eye of Sauron is a palantir. His actual form, reported by Gollum, is the same as the one in the Silmarillion, (Mahtan-V reminded us) blackened by burning, probably still red-eyed, and missing the ring-finger (the part Gollum found most interesting).
    Topic 2:  Erestor had several topics, the one discussed was: Arwen gifted Frodo by giving him her place on the ship to Valinor. Did she have authority to do this?
    Not on her own. She probably cleared the offer with Cirdan. All Ringbearers were cleared to go to Valinor, including Sam. However, Frodo may have been given a more comfortable berth than he might otherwise have had, since it was not being used by the Lady Arwen. This would be suitable considering how much he had aided Middle-earth and Valinor.
    This set off the question, since the hobbits were not elves like Galadriel and Elrond,  nor Maiar like Gandalf, could they remain in Valinor or even set foot there? Hobbits come under the category of a sub-group of men, therefore possibly under the same rules as men. Humans went to Valinor after death for a short time to reflect on their lives, then went beyond the boundaries of Middle-earth and Valinor to be with Eru, their special gift. Hobbits probably did the same. The subject of Gimli was lightly touched, needing more in-depth discussion.
    Topics suggested but not used this time (days still only have 24 hours, needs fixed by the Valar of Time):
        Turgon: Where did the entwives go, what became of them.
        Erestor: Frodo - several suggestions recently used, but bears more in-depth discussion.
 
Please email additions and corrections for the meeting minutes to Varda .




Aug. 31, 2002
    Letter from Aragorn-(V):
Now i have got internet at home so I will try to show up more!My family have also bought a new computer so now i can play Warcraft III on b.net :)

Namarie Aragorn-(V)

Aug. 30, 2002
    Cirdan, Welcome to the Valar Guild! He's 12, from Florida, USA, ESDT. He plays 6-10 weekdays and a lot on weekends in BroodWar and Utopia (text-based). He's read the H, LotR, Sil (currently re-reading), Roverandam, some of the Histories. While in the Public Chat WarCraft, he met Gwaihir, heard about the guild, looked at some other LotR based guilds, then came to our meetings, visiting as his favorite LotR character, *Elrond_Peredhil. He tested a full 5/5 with Eonwe-(Valar).
   
Beleg Cuthalion - welcome back   :)
    Tolkien Encyclopedia -  new articles by Beleg!:
        Objects section: "Sting", "Ulumuri"
        Places section: "Tol Eressea"
    Please bear with your Varda. I have a DSL router connection problem, sometimes on only a few minutes and sometimes off as long as a day or two. The techs are starting to know our names.

Aug. 25, 2002
Sunday Meeting 5pm ESDT, channel Clan ValarGuild
Attending: (partial list)
    Members: Eonwe/F.Urion, Finwe, Gandalf, Gelmir, Gwaihir, Thorin, Turgon, Varda (presiding)
    Visitors: Elrond_Peredhil (would like to join), Aragorn/*Legolas[Honor], Dune[Honor], several from Clan Valar including V-Mordor (leader), V-Gothmog, V-Ulmo
Membership News:
    Beleg's hard drives were wiped when he went off to college, but he hopes to pick up his CD-keys from home later and return. Meanwhile, Glaurung is keeping his accounts alive.
    Salmar back from vacation
    Tuor on two-week vacation
    Many members are back in school or off to universities, unable to be around as much. Good luck and good memories to you all!
Web:
    Dior's collection of Tolkien-themed StarCraft/BroodWar maps is now up on his page
http://www.tenpeaks.com/hosting/dior/  He needs your rankings and reviews for all of them, especially which ones you prefer to play. Knowing what pleases or bothers players can help our guild map-makers (and others).
Fifth Anniversary:
    The guild began Oct. 4, 1997. Oct 4 this year is on a Friday.
    The anniversary activities such as quizes and gaming will be going on all week at least, from the Sept 29th Sunday meeting through the Oct 6th meeting. If some games need longer than that, we can add on more time. Trivia sessions can be done spontaneously at any time. Game practice can be any time.
    We are taking suggestions for activities. No new ones were given at the meeting. Earlier list is below on Aug 21, 2002.
    Trivia and discussions will be held spontaneously at any time. D2X is having problems in channel chats with drops, but SC seems more stable. WC3 seems stable but has fewer chat features. We also intend to have special times for easier meeting, and to set up ones for different books. Suggestions for times need to be emailed to Varda.
    Anniversary Tourney gaming:
    D2X: We will probably be doing versions of Quests for Three, maybe with larger numbers. We can try same class, all different classes, vavorite classes, and any other mix. We can also do team speed runs to major bosses on different difficulties.
    SC/BW: We will be using the old Tourney maps and any new ones which can be made by that time.
    WarCraft 3: current tentative set-up was told by Eonwe, who answered questions at the meeting and is available for more by email. Eonwe's emailed report is below:
Hail! :}
I think that the way in which Warcraft 3 is played and designed is unique enough to present 2 different types of tournament play for the Valar Guild.  The first is essentially like Starcraft, in which we get together to defeat computers, pitting armies against armies.  The second, due to the unique nature of WC3 heroes, being able to level (to a maximum level of 10) and have skills (3 skills that can each get 3 points maximum, with an ultimate spell having only 1 point), we could also have tournament maps similar to our D2 tournament in style of play.  Here are what I propose for guidelines, along with maps/scenarios that could be made under those tournament guidelines.  I have tried not to be too restrictive, allowing for creativity and even the making of custom heroes/units, since we have to test these first for them to be approved for tourneys and will be able to recommend a change where necessary.

Army vs Army (Battles)
The typical tournament play for RTS games.

Human Players:3-6

Enemy: Computers, must have at least an equal number (so 3v3 comp, or 5v5 comp, but never 5v3 comp)
Races comtrolled:  Human Players must control at least 3 of the 4 races in Warcraft 3: Humans, Orcs, and Night Elves.  No more than two players can control the same race.(Undead are hard to fit in a Tolkien atmosphere as goodguys, and not all mapmakers have looked extensively into the Editor yet)
For Computer control, Humans, Orcs, and Undead are the most likely trio.

Number of Player Heroes: 3 maximum per player
  In Tournament games consisting of 3 human players, each hero must be different with different sets of skills.
  In Tournament games of 4 to 6, no more than two heroes can share the same skill set.

Unit and hero graphics and names may be changed, but buildings graphics as well as all stats should remain the same  (not sure if we allowed stats adjusting on heroes in the Starcraft/Broodwar tourney maps,.. if we did then slight adjustments to certain stats would be ok, and in some cases necessary, such as turning Treebeard into a hero unit,.. walking speed and possibly dmg will need adjusting).  Graphics should match the unit type, so if you're turning a Troll Axethrower into another unit, you should make it an archer type unit graphic. Melee units should have graphics exchanged with melee units.  Heroes may have some exceptions when changing the graphics.

Number of Required Quests: 1 (optional quests are of course optional, but the game needs to have at least one goal)

Examples of Battles/Scenarios that could be done this way: Helm's Deep, Battle of the Pellenor Fields, Any of the Wars of Beleriand,  Battle of the Morannon, Second Age battles.

Team Hero Maps
More of a D2 Tourney style play
Human Players: 3-8

Enemies: Lots of computers, hordes of computers, and even a varitable plethora of computers :}  but they are all computers, and all bent on making sure you don't win :}  Orcs, Humans, Undead, Night Elves, and even neutral hostiles, it doesn't matter who they are because they will all be coming at you :}

Player Heroes Rules: only one per player, with each hero having a different set of skills.  No two heroes may share the same Ultimate skill.  Heroes may only have Hero skills, and only 4 of them.  The only exceptions to this are nonhero skills such as shadowmeld/hide, in which the hero either a.) is based on/is the Priestess of the Moon or b.) could be convincingly argued to have such a skill, based on textual references in Tolkien's books.
(Shadowmeld is the ability of Night Elf Women to "cloak" at night; so long as they don't attack they will remain hidden.  Hide is an ability that allows you to make sure the unit won't attack an enemy that comes within its attack radius.)

Other Units allowed under player control: None.  One hero per player and that is it.

How to play:  There are two possible ways to decide record holders on this type of map:
1.)Fight as far as possible an the map, with triggers setting up checkpoints along the way.  If a person actually beats it then the record goes to shortest time in completing the map. For this style we may want to require a replay sent in, so this may not be the best way.
2.) Require the map to be beaten.  Shortest time is the record holder.

Other Rules:
1.)  We could make it hardcore, allowing for no altars to be built at which to resurrect heroes, or we could allow resurrection and make sure that the players have the opportunity to collect gold.  Of course, we could allow both types of maps as well.
This is essentially a group of heroes without armies, like in the D1 days.  This is a team game, and so a team must complete it.  At least 2 members of the team must make it, hence a team winning, but all members of the team will get credit for the win.  A trigger must be set so that when only 1 hero is left, the game ends in defeat (after all, 1 hero against an entire army?  no mortal could pull that off).  For "softcore"  it could be when there's only 1 hero AND no one has enough gold to resurrect a second hero.  This would also encourage teamwork because with resource sharing as you can pass the gold collected to someone who needs to rez their hero, and as long as you can keep two heroes up the game can continue, giving a chance to bring back all the player heroes.

Number of Required Quests: 1 (same thing about optional quests applies here.)
Quests Reward Limits: cannot be units.

Examples of Scenarios that can be made this way: Helm's Deep (all them heroes roaming around doing battle and pushing back the orcs and humans, of course we can have that here :}); Siege of Gondor (can start all the way back with Faramir's rescue after the poisoned dart); Quest to destroy the Ring (Frodo and Sam are givens here, Gollum might be a bit of a stretch, but quest could be to just get the Ring to Mt Doom and let cinematics take it from there :}); Paths of the Dead; Battle of Bywater;  Any of the various journeys, albeit there will be more enemies along the way than in the books;  The Quest for the Silmaril  (Beren, Luthien, Huan);  Turin's exploits; Escape from Gondolin.

Other Notes on both types:  Computer allies can be allowed, but in neither version would Players get control of those units.  They would act independently (and very well can) of the plans of the Players.  In Hero Team play,  Computer allies could be programmed to guard heroes, such as a small group of units following and protecting Tuor or Idril as they gather people to flee Gondolin.  Again, these could not actually be controlled by the Player.

General notes on Tourney mapmaking.
Both types can allow graphics changing (except with buildings in Battles so it is obvious what player controls what race).
In the Unit Stats, there is a line called Suffix (Suffix name I believe) that has no bearing on the name of the Unit when it is placed on a map.  When changing graphics and names, this should be used to note what the unit originally was.
An example of this suffix line in use can be found on the Hero Arthas. When he is weilding the sword Frostmourne, the Unit Editor identifies him as Arthas(Weilding Frostmourne).  However, in the actual game you do not see the part in parentheses.
Example of use in graphics change :
I change a grunt unit so it has a footman graphic and then change it's name to "Soldier of Helm's Deep."  It now looks like a footman and bears the given name.  On the Suffix Line I write (Orc Grunt).  In the Editor I see Soldier of Helm's Deep(Orc Grunt).  During play, I see Soldier of Helm's Deep.
When setting up triggers, please use the section Blizzard provides for commenting on what that trigger does.  It helps both those looking over the map and the mapmaker him/her/themself(ves).
A person does not have to work alone on a Guild Tourney map.  Get together with other guild friends to make tourney maps, as it may improve the quality of the map as well as how fast it is done.  Select/Assign jobs you are best at.  Let the guys who are good at terrain work on the terrain, and those who can set up the triggers do the triggers (but if the person needs help make sure they get it.  Don't leave anyoen hanging.)  Just make sure that on the Title Screen everyone who contributes to the map-making process gets credit.


Aug. 21, 2002
    Dior's SC/BW collection of Tolkien-themed maps is up! See it at
http://www.tenpeaks.com/hosting/dior/ He needs rankings and reviews, jeers and cheers for the games.

    Anniversary Year Five planning:
     The guild began Oct. 4, 1997.
     What's your suggestion or would you like to add to one or more of these?
    Suggestions for the Anniversary so far:
1. Trivia games in channel: Over particular books, Over all books. We already have several trivia game versions and would be interested in others as well.
2. Purist run
3. Tolkien chats, one type over LotR/H and another all books.
4. Reminesce
5. Some kind of activities on a special Sunday meeting, maybe an Anniversary tourney ending at that time so results can be announced then. Gaming and trivia quizes going all during the week before.

Aug. 19, 2002
    Salmar is back from vacation!
    Celebrate! We are taking ideas for the Fifth Anniversary celebration this October.

Aug. 18, 2002
Sunday Meeting 5pm EST, GMT-5, East Realm, channel Clan ValarGuild
Attending:
    Members: Ancalagon, Bolg, Bombur, Dior, Eonwe/F.Urion, Erestor/Erestar, Glaurung/Uruloki, Gwaihir, Imrahil, Irmo/Dreamer, Legolas/Greenleaf, Quickbeam, Thingol, Thror, Turgon, Varda (presiding)
    Frodo said hi.
    Irmo had just sprained his foot in a ball game and was in too much pain to stay in front of the computer for long. Get well, Dreamlord!

    Visitors: *Legolas[Honor]/Avontor(Tarot) (guild-friend), *RsF-Macabre@Azeroth ( says interested in joining)
Membership: 116
Web: Flexnet pages mostly all off now, moved to www.valarguild.org or tenpeaks. Varda's email should be updated on all pages. Please email me if you find missing links.
Gaming:
    D2X Purist gaming: Purist gaming proved surprisingly popular, having started in earnest this last week. It has been great fun for co-op.
    D2X caution: Ex-Deagol and ex-Bard have a D2X pass again, have been seen in at least one regular D2X game, and are trying to sucker people into cursing, impolite talk, and dueling - a win for them if they can taunt anyone to break rules they know very well.
    WarCraft3: Report from Eonwe
    "Patch 1.02 for Warcraft 3 came out a couple of days ago.  Unfortunately, with every major patch to Warcraft 3 (such as 1.01 to 1.02, but not 1.01 to 1.01b), all replays made during the previous patch are rendered inoperable in the new patch.  However, Blizzard has posted a link on their Warcraft 3 Strategy Page
( http://www.battle.net/war3/ ) to another web page that tells you a (fairly) easy way to have more than one version of Warcraft 3 on your computer.  This way, you can continue to save and watch old replays without worrying about losing them in the next patch.  I haven't actually tried this (yet), but I would suggest having separate folders for replays that go with each major patch, i.e one for 1.01 replays, another for replays made during patch 1.02, another for 1.03 etc.
    "And I'm pretty sure you got the part about us still taking input on WC3 tourneys :}"
Tolkien:
    Imrahil: Why did Tolkien in a Homeric fashion list names of undeveloped characters who died in battle, ex Grimbold at the Pelennor Fields?
    Turgon summed up most of the comments when he said it showed that every character grand or small is worth listing.
    Turgon: Why didn't the character, Turgon, leave Gondolin when he could?
    Guilt that he did not listen to Ulmo.
    Not wanting to start another major homeland for a third time.
    Keeping attackers occupied to aid the escape of Idril and others.
    Killed a lot of attackers, also keeping them from hunting survivors.
After-chat chat (not usually listed on News page, but I felt like it :) We often have these.
    Dropping from chat with a frozen computer and error message: Unhandled exception Access_Violation c0000005 happening to Erestor, Varda, and Eonwe, two on Windows XP and one on earlier Windows, I think 98 or 97.
    Building and buying computers economically but still good for gaming.
    *Legolas[Honor] , our old guild friend for about three years often coming in as Avontor(Tarot), told us that he and others have formed a new guild, about 5 or 6 people at present, 5 being their Council. The guild is not Tolkien; he just likes the Legolas name. The channel is Clan HonorGuild, url http://honorguild.cjb.net  Yes, the Valar Guild allows members to be in as many guilds or clans as they wish, as long as they are kept separate. Be sure to ask the other guild its policy, as many have not been willing to share members.
    He also addressed a number of issues on which I would like to hear your feedback, by email or in person. Email has the advantage of being forwarded to the Council and others in your exact words, not relying on my memory or notes. I give the issue, and try to tell the reason for current policy. If you feel we are not meeting our goals and have what you consider realistic suggestions for meeting them, please email! This is your guld too!
    Language: Avontor has not been able to join our guild due to his language, so he now has what he feels is a less restrictive guild, although he still comes ot our meetings and visits. He doesn't think we should try to go for zero cursing and vulgarity, and has a different definition of what those should be considered, although the dictionary seems clear enough.
    The idea in the guild is to act as if we are in polite company and speak appropriately. People needing to type rougher language can use a non-guild character and have all of bnet to roam, while this is a private home area. This does not mean just the use of certain words, but how words are used. People can be unkind while using "proper" words.
    Meeting Queue: He doesn't like that we queue up people to speak at meetings in turn. This long-standing policy is intended to prevent chaos as is done at business meetings in corporations (to which I've been, yes). When we were a small guild, we didn't need it. It is also designed with the intention of letting any member bring up any business he wishes without the concern of it being filtered. He feels this is being treated like a child, although it is intended to be the way businesses do meetings.
    New ideas: He said that he and some members he has spoken with feel new ideas are not allowed here.
    Could this be true? This startled me as we incorporate new ideas rather frequently, the latest being a branch built on Dark Age of Camelot, paid for by Council. We have people making their own pages and collecting or making maps for various games, (some of whom still need to send me the URL, please!). This problem definitely requires feedback from members. Do you feel no one listened to your idea? Do you know how to have an idea acted on? Did it match the purpose of the Valar Guild? What is your idea? Please go through channels so we can all work together on these, by emailing Varda as general contact, and/or other Council members who are handling that area. Remember the Vision rules that govern whether or not we can use an idea.
    Greeting visitors: He also let us know that our guild has a lot of people unpleasant to outside named characters. Instead of whispering or saying a proper guild greeting such as "Hello. May we be of service?", he gets an unfriendly interrogation, especially by a number of the newer members, but he says it's been like that a long time. Not good, guys! You can go for the same answers to your questions in a polite fashion and not alienate the ex-members, guild-friends, and people I sent from email queries to the channel to find a tester. They don't want to stay when they find how unpleasantly people are treated, and it is not what we are about. Remember to keep our atmosphere not only polite, but friendly. If the visitor is rude, crass, or downright villainous, you don't have to stay with the person. That's the advantage of a computer, our many channels, and many game names.
-Varda the Wordy


Aug 16 and 17
    D2X: Some D2X members have added purist characters to their assortment of characters. This is a non-twink, non-rush style. Each quest and waypoint is taken in order, and no items are used from farther along than he/she has played. It is challenging and encourages grouping. It is best done with characters close to the same level, as the difference in power is especially marked at lower levels. Add -P to the game name to signal others that this style is being used, thus Game-P, Game-P2, etc.

Aug. 12, 2002
    Intruders: Ex-Bard and Ex-Deagol have been seen in guild D2X games again tonight. They will try to sucker you into dueling or using bad language or other activities which they know are not supposed to be done by guild members. They also try to divide the guild by lying about other members or claiming to be them. Use oddly numbered games which they can't guess to keep safe. They say they do this for "fun", and try to destroy the pleasant world we of the Valar Guild are trying to create.
    If you meet someone in a guild game acting like that, remain civil but do not engage them in conversation, pick up your things if you want them, and go to a strangely numbered guild game. Feel free to whisper the number to any friends who may be in the game, and rescue any members who do not know to leave by whispering the new game number to them. If you accidentally whisper one of the impostors, rinse that game and repeat the procedure.
    Never give out a password to anyone who claims to have forgotten one, as the chance is too good that he is an impostor. Let him know you aren't allowed to do that and he must email Varda for the pass. Let it be my fault rather than yours if impostors pick it up.
    We of the Valar Guild can and will keep the good world we have created, but only if we work together as we always have.

Aug. 11, 2002
Sunday Meeting5pm EST, GMT-5, East Realm, channel Clan ValarGuild
Membership News:
  Attending:
    Members: Amillo/Lindelome, Ancalagon, Elrond, Eonwe, Erestor, Finwe, Glaurung/Uruloki, Gorbag, Gwaihir, Gwindor, Irmo/Dreamer, Leaflock,   Maedhros, Quickbeam, Thror, Turgon, Varda (presiding)
    Visitors: *V-Ulmo@Azeroth, *V-Olog-Hai@Azeroth, -=Dune=-/ex-Denethor, Xanatos/ex-Herumor
  After meeting: Frodo (had been mowing lawn for nana, excellent reason), Gandalf, SamWise (very brief connection), Tuor (forgot it was Sunday, ahh summer)
  Unable to attend, but emailed:
        Balin is still stuck with his noon to 8pm shift at work, comments that he was able to make more meetings before becoming a member.
        Salmar will be away visiting family until Aug 18.
          Turin has to be away during meeting time.
    News from Irmo:Tom Bombadil
is traveling and the current plan between him and Irmois to meet in Copenhagen at the train station, live, then visit a few days.
Web News:
    Every page on a flex.net server is being transferred to valarguild.org server.
    Varda's email is now varda@sbcglobal.net
    WC3:Gorbag made a WC3 page which he is willing to let the guild use. It will be available from the Games page after he sends us the URL.
    Annals of Arda: Updates to reflect the Encyclopedia moves have been made by Amillo to his links.
Gaming:
    Games Workshop: Report by Ancalagon: British-based Games Workshop has a tabletop LotR board game, based on the movie rather than books.
    WarCraft3:Eonwe announced that a Tourney for WC3 is now under discussion. We need original, Tolkien-based maps, team based at this time. We also need testers. Check with Eonwe for updates and changes and to coordinate map-making.
    NeverWinter Nights:Turgon reports this game has a Tolkien server called Gondolyn.
        Ancalagon reports that he is working on a NeverWinter Nights Tolkien set-up, but has a long way to go.
    DaoC: The Valar guild branch is underway on Bors/Midgard, using a v at the end of the guild name, such as Oromev. We hear that Celebrimbor is addicted to DaoC and needs to join up with the group, making Celebrimborv. Email Varda as general contact, or directly to the DaoC group through Amillo or Melkor. Orome's computer is misbehaving.
 Tolkien Chat:
    Ancalagon: What is Tom Bombadil? The general opinion went with his being classifiable as a Maia.
    Glaurung: In Unfinished Tales, it mentions that the ringwraiths were afraid of water, although the head ringwraith managed to force himself to cross. He asks why was water a problem? Answers: the Music was strongest in the water. Ulmo is the Vala of water, second only in power to Manwe, and most hated by Melkor.
    Glaurung: In Unfinished Tales, Khamul is said to be the ringwraith most bothered by light. Why? We could see why all the ringwraiths were bothered by light, as even Melkor was, but for Khamul to have more of a problem may have been due to some event in his history before he became a ringwraith of which we know not.
    Gwaihir: Discussion of the term, "goblin". It was used in the Hobbit apparently as a slang term for goblins with some slight confusion, used only a very little in the LotR where it was definitely used as another word for orc. Hobgoblins may have been the stronger type of orcs.

Aug. 7, 2002
    Varda's new email is varda@sbcglobal.net

Aug. 5, 2002
    Turgon, my email is acting up.
An elf picture close to the one you requested is at:
http://valarguild.org/varda/Tolkien/encyc/papers/thran.jpg

August 4, 2002
Sunday Meeting 5pm EST, East Realm, bnet channel Clan ValarGuild
Attending:
    Members: Amillo/Lindelomë, Bombur (late), Boromir (dropped by between camps and moms), Eonwë, Erestor/Erestar, Finwë, Gandalf/Olorin, Glorfindel (late), Gwaihir, Isildur, Legolas/Greenleaf, Maedhros, Mahtan, Salmar/Nandoro, Thror, Turgon, Turin, Varda (presiding).
    Early but could not stay: Ancalagon 
    Visiting: *Malyzix/ElBonita (ex-Grimbold), *Gr8shag
    On Vacation: Boromir, Glaurung
    Computer problems: Eol, Folca, Gelmir, Tulkas
    New Member: Tuor
Membership: 116 Members
    Maia honor: recognition for caring about the vision of the Valar Guild more than the ordinary amount shown by any of our members shown by such things as enthusiasm, continued service because he/she likes the guild, strong knowledge of the LotR, ability to represent the guild to the outside, being present frequently in the guild, generally aiding all guild members to play in pleasant games, meet, and enjoy literate pursuits especially Tolkien on whom we are centered.
Web:
    Tolkien Encyclopedia : by Turin-(V): "The Words of Hurin and Morgoth", under Mankind.
    Flexnet server pages are all moving elsewhere, as Varda is switching to a new provider to get DSL. Many have had a double presence for some time. All guild pages may be found by going to www.flex.net and using the index. All folks using the old flexnet links need to change.
    Names page has been updated, after Eonwe was away on vacation for two weeks.
Gaming:
    Dark Age of Camelot: A Valar guild branch is being set up on the Bors server, Midgard realm, USA. We are using our guild names with a v on the end, such as Melkorv, Oromev. Orome, Melkor, and Amillo are Council members who can serve you there.
        Melkor is also guildmaster of "Ravens of Odin" on Bors server.
        Amillo is second officer of "Ghosts of Valhalla" on Excalibur server, Midgard realm.  
    EverQuest: Aule/Taglos, Ulmo, and Varda/Bridhil/Elentari are Council members present for you there.
    WarCraft3: Manwe and Eonwe are Council members present to serve you there.
Tolkien:
    We had a good number of topics suggested, going with:
    Eonwe-(Valar): Most agree Frodo in some fashion responsible for the destruction of the Ring. But could Sam be blamed for Frodo's fall or loss of finger?
    Everyone pretty well leaped to Sam's defense.  :) Discussion continued in lively fashion with much branching.
    We had some discontinuity as bnet and isp's combined to drop many of us for short periods, some several times.


July 31, 2002    Tolkien Encyclopedia under "Mankind": New piece by Turin-(V): "The Words of Hurin and Morgoth". Quote of the confrontation between Hurin and Morgoth.
    Gelmir will be off for about a week, trying to repair a virus in the boot sector of his comp.
    Address book loss prevention, tip from SamWise, formerly Mandos:
Lost addy books are a pain.....thats why I use the "export" function and
drop a copy on another drive or possibly the root directory. I also export
a copy of my WinDoze registry to another place when I install a new game (or
prog) on the off-chance it goes 'poof' on installing.
July 30, 2002
    Tuor, welcome to the Valar Guild! Tuor found us by the web pages, trying to find the etymology of Manwe's name. Turin steered him to me (Varda) for a test. He came in as *Forest_Wraith. He's 15, from Virginia, USA, Eastern Standard Time Zone aka Valar Standard Time. For a gentleman of his age or even much older, he's read a great deal of Tolkien literature: H, LotR, Sil, BoLT 1 & 2, UT, Lays of Beleriand, Tolkien Bestiary, and Creation of Middle-earth. His favorite LotR character is Beregond, his favorite Sil char is Melian. He's being shanghaied for the Tolkien Encyclopedia, between games. He started playing SC/BW a few short weeks ago on bnet. He also plays Dungeon Siege as do some of the rest of you, so look him up. He has D2X not yet installed, and should have DSL shortly. It should be a blast introducing him to the online world in all our games, all of it with that lovely new toy feeling. He plays basketball, currently very into soccer. He uses AIM as Backboard45. The Tuor name came open when our old Tuor switched to Beorn after a long, compless, absence.
    Eol is still alive and having problems with his phone and internet. He did manage to make it onto bnet for a very short time and luckily discovered his D2 characters still existed.  He's re-reading Two Towers before the next movie changes his memory and mental pictures of the story. Eol says hi and recommends the game Angband, at http://thangorodrim.angband.org and says to be sure to pick up the old text version, not one of the new graphic types.
    Folca is having problems coming into bnet due to the evils of real life, but likes the guild still. It may be several months before he will be able to be playing as he would like again.
    Gwaihir is flying high, in the top 400 on WC3! 
    Manwe has been sighted! He's playing WC3 as Sulimo-Valar@Azeroth.
    Dark Age of Camelot (DaoC) news: The Council is setting up an official Valar guild. The Melkor family alone can almost set it up with their eight family members, and with Amillo can now do it. Anyone else interested, please contact Varda or Orome. The place is still being decided, but Bors, Midgard seems to be the strongest current possibility. More news will be coming up.
    All online games have a Valar presence. Remember to use your guild name and behave honorably as you would on bnet, treat your fellow guild folk well. You can set up times to meet each other on the Games page or discuss it at the regular meeting on bnet during Business/Gaming. 
July 29, 2002
    Page changes: In a few days, I'm switching to DSL. This means we will be moving everything off of the Flex.net servers. The pages may all be reached from www.valarguild.org no matter where else they may go. Much has already moved or is currently in two places. I will post my new email address to the News as soon as I know it.

July 28, 2002
Sunday Meeting 5pm EST, East Realm, channel Clan ValarGuild. (Entire report by Eonwe, with only one note and formatting added by Varda. Varda was out of town during the meeting, so Eonwe handled the chair and report.)
Attendence:
    Members: F.Urion-Valar(Eonwe on WC3, presiding), Gwindor, Gwaihir, Thror, Uruloki/Glaurung, Turgon, Elrond, Mahtan, Frodo, Imrahil, Gorbag, Denethor, Quickbeam, Pippin
    Guests: Dune, Xanatos, Cool-Breeze (says she used to come on a long while back as LazyHippy), CrookedHalo, Avontor(Tarot), someone named Torrasque(didn't catch full account)
    Coming in after meeting: Leaflock, who could not make meeting because of storms in his area, Legolas
Membership:
    Rejoining: Maedhros
   Joining: Frodo
   Returning: Feanor, who has now taken the name Turgon.
    Frodo's few words:"Hey I'm glad to be in the guild it has been something I've wanted since StarCraft came out and I'm glad I'm in it now" also added "For the Shire!"
    Imrahil's few words, which he apparently was afk for when it was his turn 2 yrs ago: "Alright, I know I haven't been too active, but we in this guild have something special.  Honestly.  You all know me to kid around alot but I'm being serious.  I don't know of one hateful person or spiteful person in this guild.  People out there who uphold something akin to chivalry comforts my heart and to be a part of it comforts me moreso.  Thanks for being here."
    Turgon's few words, after returning from such a long absence:  "Since I've joined almost two years ago, I've scarcely been online due to irl problems but now that I have returned, have my own home, my own comp, and my own connection, I will be here as much as possible though with the time zone that will be difficult but ever when I don't have to work or have night-shift, I'll be here with the best guys (and girls) I've ever met."
Web News:
    Tolkien Encyclopedia :
         "Orcrist" article by Quickbeam on the Objects page
         "Turin after Death" article by Turin under Mankind
Game News:
  WarCraft 3:
    I (Eonwe) saw Warcraft 3 on the news last night.  They were talking about it being the new "King" of computer games, being now the fastest selling computer game out there.  It included clips from the cinematics as well as gameplay clips.
    As of Meeting time, Gwaihir was 827 on the General Team ladder on Azeroth (USEast) Server on Warcraft 3.  Congrats Gwaihir!
    Imrahil asked about a Guild Warcraft 3 tourney.  I said it is probably too early to plan anything definite with Warcraft 3, but suggested anyone with ideas can e-mail the Council, and we'll discuss it.  Imrahil seemed to be referring to a person vs person tournament for WC3.  Our typical starcraft tournament maps, however, are player vs computer, looking for the fastest time for a team to beat the map.
  Channel Conduct: 
    Avontor expressed that some members are being rude to him, or that he finds it insulting that many of the new members are asking him who he is or what he is doing in our channel.  He suggests that our members go back over our Rules and CoC.  He also criticized my request for people to whisper goodbyes and hellos to those coming in or leaving, saying it does not change the topic of discussion.
    My response, and that of others at the meeting, though maybe not all, is that 15 people saying hello or goodbye can clutter the screen and make it hard to see who said what.  We should not have to scroll and examine our screens closely to read the meeting minutes at meeting time.
    My response, whether others agree or not, is this:  If anyone is being rude to a member, if you cannot do anything else, you still have the power to squelch the person.  Insulting back is not a valid response.  Any member should not be insulting other members or any guests.  If a person asks a guest who he is, it is probably because that member does not know you, and should not be taken as an insult.  If a member asks what you're doing here, it should be because he wishes to help that person. A better way to do this is to say, "Can we help you?"  If a person is causing a problem, he will be dealt with by the chair.  Anyone attending a meeting should remain quiet during a meeting unless recognized by the chair or they have something relevent to the current topic.  Our rules are not here to fetter you, they are here to protect both you and the haven that you have decided to join.  Joining us and being around us is a voluntary action, and all we ask is that while you are with us you follow our rules.  Every member has at one point or another said that they know them and agree with them.
    As for whispering hellos and goodbyes, hellos and goodbyes to the group can be said aloud.  Hellos and goodbyes to that individual should be whispered.  This is out of respect for whoever is speaking at the time.  If you were speaking, I would do it for you, and I would expect others to do it for you, so I ask the same courtesy for myself and other people.
    (Note by Varda: the above hello/goodbye system has been in effect since the very first meeting of the Valar Guild over four years ago, before Eonwe joined. If anyone wishes to change this set-up who is a member, he or she may email the reasons to Varda, asking that it be forwarded to the whole Council for discussion. This forward and discussion will be done.)
Tolkien:
    Tolkien topic: Dragons, did all have wings?
    I didn't get down the discussion on this.  It shifted to talking about dragons in general.  

July 27, 2002
    Frodo , Welcome to the Valar Guild! Frodo is Glaurung's younger brother. He came in as Fubo"4" and tested with Eonwe and Gwaihir. He's 15 now, and will be 16 in December. He plays daily, from Illinois, USA on Central Standard Time, using WC3, D2X, SC/BW, and sometimes NeverWinter Nights. He's read the H and LotR. Quite fittingly, his favorite character is Sam.
Frodo's email is now FrodoBaggins@insightbb.com
    The virus seems to be on Eonwe's machine, rather than mine, chewing at his address book.
     
 
July 26, 2002
    Caution. A virus is sending out emails from the hard drive's own address book. It shows no attachments, but is 140k in size. Eonwe received one, but I don't know if anyone else has. The subject was "a nice game", or "a humorous game" with this message:
This is a nice game
This game is my first work.
You're the first player.
I hope you would like it.
    Turin's article on "Turin, After Death" is up on the Tolkien Encyclopedia, under Mankind.
 
July 22, 2002
    Tolkien Encyclopedia : Quickbeam wrote "Orcrist" for the Objects page. 
    Turgon: Feanor changed his name to Turgon. He now has his own home and internet connection and is able to be much more active, not just emailing. Congrats!
    Maedhros , Welcome back to the Valar Guild! He has been back playing as Anarkky@Azeroth with us, rejoining last night after the meeting, after being dropped for inactivity. He is active now thanks to WC3.  Maedhros made a perfect 5/5 testing with Eonwe. He's 17, from Ontario, Canada in EST. He's read the H, LotR (once in English, once in Serbian), Smith of Wooten Major, and bits of the first 8 volumes of HoME. He plays WC3 (prefers the undead), EQ, CounterStrike, D2, and D2X.

July 21, 2002
Sunday Meeting 5pm EST channel Clan ValarGuild
Attending:
    Members: Amillo/Omar (late), Bombur, Denethor, Elendil, Elladan, Elrond, Eonwe, Finglas, Glaurung, Gwaihir, Gwindor/Flinding, Irmo/Dreamer, Legolas/Greenleaf, Thror, Tulkas/Astaldo (comp barely hanging on but he's ok), Varda (presiding)
    Visitors: *Messtup@Azeroth (ex-Grimbold, guild-friend), Anarkky@Azeroth (Maedhros rejoining after being inactive)
    Also seen: Erestor came by before the meeting. Meriadoc, Fangorn, Gelmir, Gildor, and others came by after the meeting.
Membership:
    Legolas said his "few words" of introduction.
    Balin's workshift ends as the meeting begins, so he expects to be late when he comes.
    Boromir is out of town during this meeting.
    Galadriel has a new computer, an AMD 1800+ with cable now, and hopes to be joining us gaming more often.
    Salmar is on vacation until Aug 3.
    Tulkas is back on a tenuous connection.    
Web:
    Links page: The Township of Bree
    Tolkien Encyclopedia : Glaurung-(V)'s articles on humans aiding Gondor. List on July 19
    News page : moving to
http://valarguild.org/varda/guild/news.html
    Bombur made a site for a school project:
Unnamed_Clan Online   It could be a template for a new clan's web page. The server is heavy with pop-ups. 
Gaming:
    Erestor offered a set item he had recently found in D2X, Milabrega's Robe.
    Glaurung: doing project training potential members in guild-friend games. This would be a good thing for others of us to do, and to include in other online games.
    Salmar reported on the D2Xv1.10 patch. See July 18 News for complete details.
    Thror reported that new LotR games due to the movie are out on PS2, XBox, and PC.
    Eonwe: Universal (not Universal movie house) is owned by Vivendi Entertainment, which also owns Blizzard.   
Tolkien:
    Gwaihir made the guild a generous poster offer: His dad works for Transcontinental, which has a contract with Future Shop which is starting a big ad campaign for the LotR DVD, and has Transcontinental printing posters. These are full face pictures of Aragorn, Frodo, Gandalf, and an orc. They come in two sizes. He gave Gwaihir a batch that he can pass on to guild members who email requests for them, if the members will pay shipping charges. Gwaihir has 10 of each in the large size, 3 of each of the small size. First come, first served.         

    Elrond-(V) kicked off the Tolkien chat commenting that he was reminded by the movie about Saruman making half-orc/half-human crosses. These fighting orcs withstood light better than the uncrossed orcs of Mordor, who were smaller. Saruman's orcs were also fed man-flesh, which may have added to their strength and size by having higher protein diets. Other crossed orcs were like squinty-eyed humans with sallow complexions, as seen in Bree.
    The discussion wandered down paths including types of orcs, half-elves and lesser part elves, who had the Three Elven rings. Erestor threw in the question of whether orcs who were twisted elves who were then crossed with humans were half-elves.


July 20, 2002
    Links page:
The Township of Bree -  book and movie info, movie pictures, LotR cartoons. Suggested by Ms. Kimbo Baggins, site manager.

July 19, 2002
     Balin: work shifts at Denny's (hey! Let's go visit him!) tend to overlap with the start of the meetings, but he may be able to come late. We can always use another dwarf to add to our discussions.
     News page: My ISP which stores pages is acting up, so the News is moving to Alatar's www.valarguild.org server.
    Links page: Tolkien Encyclopedia : Glaurung-(V) has been writing descriptions of humans from the Return of the King for the "Mankind" section: Beregond, Bergil, Derufin, Dervorin,  Duilin, Duinhir, Golasil, Halbarad, Hirluin, Ingold, and Targon.
     Glaurung has been playing training games with folks who would like to join in the future, a great help to us all, along with his writing. 

    Boromir writes that he will be out of town during the next meeting.
    Salmar is heading out on vacation tomorrow and expects to be back about August 3, a Sunday.

July 18, 2002
    Letter from Galadriel:
 sorry to respond so late, i had probs with my computer, but now im up and
running again

new machine (AMD 1800+) and Cable, yeeeehaw ;-) Thank you for sending me the new pw, i will join in D2 games from time to time. Best wishes Galadriel-Valar
    D2X update report on patch from Salmar:
Aiya!
 
Remember that Blizzard anounced the patch 1:10 to LoD for immediately after the release of WC3? News is out now that we will have to wait to late august at the earliest. Of course, none of us is surprised. In fact, we will be surprised if the patch actually is released before october.
Update form DiabloII.net (http://diabloii.net/features/v110-patch.shtml) :

Update - July 16, 2002

A quick update with some new info.  Current patch work is still focusing on skills, and it sounds like there are quite a few changes and balances being made. We don't have any details, but you might want to take a look at the skill change speculation at the bottom of page two if you haven't already.

There will be extensive changes to monsters.  Almost all monsters on Nightmare and Hell are being rebalanced.  We're assuming this means they'll be harder, have more resistances and hit points, possibly do more damage, etc.  In addition, monsters are getting beefed up AI.  Again, we don't know exactly what this means, but they may move faster, react faster, be less distracted by your minions, etc.

Ladder characters have been a topic of discussion, as to whether they'll remain separate when season 2 starts, or go back into the general population.  Many of you have emailed to say you hope they'll stay separate from the current characters, who are of course all full of super items, tons of dupes, SoJ economy, etc.  As of now, Blizzard is planning on returning season one ladder characters to the current population once season 2 begins.  Their reasoning is what we've been saying; they don't want to have a bunch of different groups of characters who can't mix together.

There will doubtless be more discussion of this once the patch is out, and then again once the second v1.10 ladder season is approaching (which won't be until at least 3 months after v1.10) and it's possible Blizzard could change their plans, based on player feedback.  So stay tuned.

With the patch designers still working on the skills (which is a huge project) and with many items and other things to change after that, and then all of the QA testing, we're backing up our patch release estimate. =(  Our not-very-educated guess is now late August at the soonest, and more likely we'll be into September before v1.10 arrives.

Greetings,

Salmar.

July 15, 2002
    Legolas, Welcome to the Valar Guild! He joined as account name Greenleaf-V, as the previous Legolas names are still shown as used on bnet for three months after the last use. He found us through the web site, looking for a legit, non pk guild, and liked the Tolkien theme. He was *Blackened_Aria. He's 22, from Arkansas, USA in CST. He plays mostly D2X, claims to be horrible at SC, not fond of the old WC. Was into MUD's. He plays about 20-25 hours a week, a couple of hours a night. He hates ICQ. At about the age of 10, he started reading Tolkien, and has read H, LotR, and the Sil, and passed his test from Alatar and Varda with a perfect 5/5.

July 14, 2002
Sunday Meeting5pm EST channel Clan ValarGuild 
Attending: reports from Salmar, Varda
    Members (19): Amillo/Lindelome, Balin, Bombur (late), Denethor, Earendil, Elrond, Eonwe, Erestor/Erestar, Finwe, Gandalf/GreyPilgrim, Glorfindel, Gwaihir, Gwindor/Vinyanor, Isildur, Pippin, Quickbeam (briefly),  Salmar/Lirillo/Ulumurcar, Turin, Varda (presiding)
    Visiting: Icky-poopy  

Membership: 113 reports from Amillo, Varda
    New members this week are Ancalagon, Balin, Bolg, and Elladan.
    Balin said his few words: a re-joining member who is glad to be back.
     Regards from:

      Amandil: he's traveling, hit 5 provinces and 5 states in one month. On the way, he picked up a copy of Tolkien's Ring. Amandil hopes to be gaming with us on WC3 in the future.
      Curufin: he's busy with his job and training at the gym for the upcoming hockey season, but asks to be remembered and intends to play with us whenever it's less hectic.
      Irmo: went to the Copenhagen Jazz Festival and listened to his friend play during meeting time, says hi.
    Before the meeting, we had a discussion of proper meeting etiquette, since we have many new members and the meetings were becoming chaotic. Each member who wishes to present something needs to whisper it to the chair,  which is Varda unless she's late or absent, then it's usually Eonwe. The floor is not open for chat during business; rather, the speaker is called on by the chair. During Tolkien, the floor is open to all polite Tolkien fans and they are asked to remember the subject. We may have a couple of other subjects waiting their turn, as happened this meeting.
    In a pinch, Salmar takes the chair but prefers not to since English is his second language and he can't stay long since it's the wee hours of the morning for him. Same for Amillo and Irmo.
    If intruders become a nuisance, we have one Council member handling the gavel (usually Eonwe, who has the option to switch that duty off with Varda or another Council member, especially if he's chairing) while another chairs.
    Varda may be whispered at any time and will pass on the info to whoever should have it, bnet willing. Please be patient as 5 whisperers at a time is average. If we somehow miss your subject, remind the chair! We are mere Valar, not Eru the Infallible, and need your help.

Web:
    MUME - "Multi-Users in Middle Earth". Free MUD, multi-user role playing game, operating since Fall 1991. Link from mwhite1908@attbi.com.

    Tengwar Textbook - How to use the Tengwar runes including what they are, a textbook, use in Quenya and Sindarin. Link from Chris McKay, the author.
    Time Tripper: Jhanabi's fireworks - fireworks according to where you click, with random colors and drifting in the wind. Tells how the java programming is done. Index page for Time Tripper. Link from Melkor-(Valar) for July 4 :by Jhanabi
    The White Council : Elrond's web page for his personal clan with organizational info and some handsome pics, separate from the Valar Guild. They use the {WC} clan mark
Gaming:
    All gamers: if you haven't received an email from Varda for passwords, there is a problem not with you but with the email. Please send an email to Varda. Don't tell anyone the password. Let all mistakes come from the same source, Varda's email, so we can know what happened and handle it. Undeliverable emails are for Durin, Feanor, Gildor, Imrahil (apparently an overstuffed email box needing opened), Rog, Thingol.
    Inactive members who become active again are welcome to rejoin.
    WC3: Game name is Dagor as for all the WC series. All those present who played this new game enjoyed it. We heard a rumor that Celebrimbor doesn't like it, but he wasn't present to say why. People in WC3 have @Azeroth at the end of the name, in case you wonder why your friend list is coming up empty. For instance, Thror-V@Azeroth
     NeverWinter Nights: Amillo reports this game has arrived. Games of our own may be created, very good for working up a Tolkien theme map.
Tolkien:
    Erestor's Topic: Did Frodo fail in his Quest? This sparked an excellent discussion.
    True, Frodo didn't actually drop the Ring in the Crack of Doom himself.
    But Frodo caused Gollum to drop it in by the promise he forced Gollum to make on the Ring, and Frodo's threat with the Ring. Since the Ring was still on Frodo's finger, the Ring was unaware of its danger if it dropped Gollum into the pit. The first oath promising to be good and not let Sauron have the Ring is in "The Taming of Smeagol". The second is a threat by Frodo to Gollum that is in "The Black Gate is Closed", that Frodo would tell the Ring to have Gollum leap from a precipice or be cast into fire if he tried to take the Ring. These two vital commands are often overlooked or forgotten since they are in the Two Towers, with many events between these and the "Crack of Doom" in the Return of the King. Quotes located by Gwaihir and Varda.
    Another part needing clarification was what was Frodo's Quest? Was it for Frodo to drop it in with no help or to get it there so it might be destroyed? No other being in Middle-earth could have brought it to Mt. Orodruin as Frodo did and he was sent with a Fellowship, not alone. There is a strong case to be made that he failed, since the Ring overmastered Frodo at the very last second. The case is also strong that he succeeded. In the last analysis, the Ring and Sauron's reign were destroyed, and would not have been if Frodo had not undertaken the Quest.
    We had little time left but two more topics were intended to be taken.
    Elrond: The choices of all the half-elven, not just the sons of Earendil. This had a lively discussion as well, much of which I missed due to whispers and my eyes blurring from writing stories on the computer all day, so that I had to leave. If someone has a synopsis of this, please email it to me.
    Salmar: no time for this one but we should call on him next meeting for his Moment, which he trusts will spark discussion. 

July 13, 2002
    Links page: new links added:
   
    MUME - "Multi-Users in Middle Earth". Free MUD, multi-user role playing game, operating since Fall 1991. Link from mwhite1908@attbi.com.
       Tengwar Textbook - How to use the Tengwar runes including what they are, a textbook, use in Quenya and Sindarin. Link from Chris McKay, the author.

July 10, 2002
   
Definition of "swept": "assumed inactive, needs to rejoin when active again".
    Links page: 
Time Tripper: Jhanabi's fireworks - fireworks according to where you click, with random colors and drifting in the wind. Tells how the java programming is done. Index page for Time Tripper. Link from Melkor-(Valar) for July 4 :by Jhanabi
    Letter from Rumil-(V):
Greetings,
Rumil-V here, just sending word that I do have
Warcraft III and do intend on playing it, but I don't
know how much and/or how soon. I still haven't beaten
the campaign and I intend on doing so before
multiplayer. Family... issues and work and other
stuff take up a lot of time. But I hope to see you
and the rest of the guild online as much as possible.
Namarie
July 9, 2002
    Undeliverable emails: 
If you didn't receive your email between Monday and today, email Varda please, but look at your Inbox first :)
    Durin <
hunter_105@hotmail.com>, Earwen (I emailed Dior for help, he says email now RenegadeBearclaw@yahoo.com), Elladan (corrected email address July 14 to and re-sent), Feanor <feanor_vg@hotmail.com>, Gildor <akiwalrus@hotmail.com>, Gorbag <elf_stone@frodo.net> (re-sending to <warbrood@hotmail.com>), Imrahil <immylox@yahoo.com>, Rog (emailed Mahtan for help), Thingol <wcarte@bellsouth.net> (now corrected to <dragon_hunter69@yahoo.com> which worked), Tilion (re-sent as I used an old email),  

July 7, 2002
Sunday Meeting 5pm EST channel Clan ValarGuild
Attending:
    Members: Alatar, Bandobras/Bullroarer, Bombur, Boromir, Denethor, Elrond, Eonwe/Fionwe (presiding as chair), Erestor/Erestar, Finglas, Finwe, Gandalf/Olorin/GreyPilgrim, Gildor (came in after the meeting), Glaurung, Glorfindel, Gwaihir, Imrahil, Irmo, Mahtan, Melkorold-Valar/Melkor(Valar) (does not have WC3), Salmar/Nandaro (wielding a Valar-sized gavel for kicking), ValarGuild bot, Varda (handling whispers)
    Visitors:  *Avontor(Tarot),
the kicked Bard-(V) at beginning of meeting, Bard-V/*Bowbard impersonating Bard-(V) banned for bad behavior, *EDC-Magus (tested successfully), *Grand_Templar (tested successfully), *Icky-Poopy, *Lostram (tested successfully), *0Zero0 (tested unsuccessfully) .
Membership:
    A reminder to all guild members and visitors on meeting behavior needs to be given after this chaos. During the business meeting, whisper the chair to be included in the appropriate section to give your comment or suggestion. If the chair opens the floor for discussion, you may all comment in a relevant manner. Private conversations and off-topic items are to be whispered to the recipient. The Tolkien chat is open floor, but try to keep to the topic given and if your topic is very different rather than growing naturally out of the chat, whisper the chair. When the other topic seems to be exhausted, the chair can then bring up a new topic and he/she may have a list of them. The chair has discretion which topic to take next, for instance one related to the previous topic might be used ahead of one that was whispered first.
   
 Security: A member brought up the question of what more could be done to protect against interlopers.  Every member can do their part by making sure Eonwe and Amillo have their account names for the Games Page and Members Page, respectively. Grab your best stuff and leave the game if a non-guild person enters, and then use a high number game he won't guess. You don't need to bother to trade words with the creeps or say one word. Tell the buddies you were playing with, by whisper, what number game you are using. Report by email to Varda if the password is compromised and what the name and account name was if you can catch it. Screenshots can help you remember. Hit the Print Scrn key on your keyboard and then you can look in your game folder for that game for the screenshot. Action will be taken, even if you don't see it.
     Thorondor is going into the army in Finland, hopes to be off some weekends and major holidays. 
     Bardwas kicked from the Valar Guild today.  We now have 110 members.
    Ancalagon , welcome to the Valar Guild! He's 15 from Michigan, USA, EST. He's on bnet daily, playing WarCraft 3 and BroodWar. He's read the H, LotR, and half the Sil. He was *EDC-Magus on BW. Tested by Varda. (member 111)
    Balin , welcome back to the Valar Guild! Balin was a member of the same name a few years back. He's 17 from Canada, EST. He plays BW and D2X, hoping to play daily in D2X in the guild. He's read the H, LotR, and Sil. He was *Lostram on BW. Tested by Gwaihir and Varda. (member 112)
     Bolg , welcome to the Valar Guild! He made it into our company with what may have been the longest test in guild history, with Eonwe. Was *Grand_Templar. (member 113)
Web: report by Eonwe
    Tolkien Encyclopedia: 
Holes in the Encyclopedia found by Glaurung are listed on the News Page.  If you've wanted to contribute to the Encyclopedia, but didn't know where to start, just take a look at the list.  That'll give you a starting point :}
Glaurung also wrote two articles for the Encyclopedia: Damrod and Mablung, both Rangers of Ithilien. , see July 4, 2002 News. 
Gaming:
    The Valar Guild does not war with other guilds nor duel individually.
    WarCraft 3 is being used actively in the guild. Be sure to let Eonwe know you are using it for the Games page. Bullroarer, Elrond, Denethor, Finglas, Gildor, and the new Ancalagon showed up in WC3 suits. Thror also plays WC3. Eonwe needs your game reviews, folks. :)
    Eonwe's report for WC3: 
Warcraft 3 came out this week :}  Many of us are playing it already.  Make sure you e-mail Eonwe if you play WC3 for the Games Page.  Include your account name(s) over there, and preferred race if you want it listed.
Tolkien:  
    
Topic from Finglas- What happened to the Blue Wizards?
    -They went into the East.  What happened to them is unknown, but it's suspected that they started cults.  We attempted to ask Alatar-Valar what happened while he was in the East, but his official response to the allegations is "no comment." :} We discussed the Blue Wizards, then went on to discuss the colors of the Wizards and their symbolism.
    The two? Glorfindels.
    Erestor's topic: Where Gandalf went at "death".
    Four entry tests. 


July 4, 2002
    We currently have 111 members considered active, "eleventy-one, a rather curious number".
    Holes. Glaurung has done a great job of going through the Valar Guild's Tolkien Encyclopedia for the biggest gaps of information, skipping elves where we don't have one line about Legolas . You'll note the Fellowship is badly neglected. We need these articles, folks. We especially need Fellowship descriptions from the books to help DarGab's LotR online anime movie project, something he's asked us for. Pick the ones that interest you and email articles, bad link reports, and where we need more articles to Varda

Trolls:

Bert

William

Tom

 

Ents:

Old Man Willow

Leaflock

Skinbark

Bregalad/Quickbeam

 

Spiders:

Shelob

Attercop used derogatorily

 

Dragons:

Smaug

Chrysophilax

Scatha

 

Orcs:

Gorbag

Shagrat

 

Hobbits:

Farmer Maggot

Gaffer

Gollum (aside from a poem, no character description of any sort)

Pippin

Sam

Merry (aside from a poem, no character description of any sort)

Rosie Cotton

Ted Sandyman

Lobelia Sackville-Baggins

Bullroarer

 

Dwarves:

Thror

Thrain

Fili

Kili

Bombur

Dain

Floi

Oin

Nori

Ori

Gimli

Gloin

 

Mankind:

Beorn

Denethor

Hama

Grima Wormtounge

 

Places:

Henneth Annun

Amon Sul

Amon Hen

July 1, 2002
    Remember that dueling is frowned on in the Valar Guild, not to be done in guild games and preferably not using guild characters. We have another interloper, account 
010011000100010, using such player names as XRandomHeroX and XrandomheroineX. He uses bad language; do not be brought down to that by him. he suckers people into thinking he will give a fair duel, then pk's them ( a pk = a player-killer). He tried to disrupt the meeting before being banned, and has entered at least two guild games on meeting night. Be sure to use strangely numbered games until you receive your new passwords for the peace of you and your fellow players.  

    Letter from Thorondor in Finland:
     
I'll be online much less frequently now. :( The army starts in a week, and
it means that I'm off from there rarely. Some weekends and Christmas, perhaps.

-Thorondor
    D2X: Interloper-V/*Stormrape tried to imitate me in the guild channel again today. He made account Varda-V, char Uarda and the people in the channel laughed at him. Thought the rest of you might get a kick out of that. He and the other interlopers are having trouble with our oddly numbered games and we are playing peacefully.
    Tolkien Encyclopedia: Glaurung added an article put under both Damrod and Mablung, rangers of Ithilien, on the Mankind page.
    Mandos/Namo-(Valar) of the Council has changed his name to SamWise-(Valar) as he has always wanted to go back to his first guild name and saw it come free. He is still an honored advisor of the Council with Valar honor.

June 30, 2002
Sunday Meeting 5pm ESDT channel Clan ValarGuild
    Regards from those who can't make the meeting. Glaurung and his family will be out of town. Boromir's grandmother had a heart attack, so he is going out of town after the meeting.
Attending: report by Varda and Salmar
  Members: Amillo/Lindelome, Bard, Bombur, Boromir, Bregalad/Quickbeam, Dior, Eonwe/Fionwe (helped boot interlopers), Erestor/Erestar, Finglas/Leaflock, Finwe, Gandalf/Stormcrow, Gwaihir, Gwindor, Mahtan, Salmar, Thror,  Varda (presiding)
  Visitors: Lostram (used to be Balin a few years back, would like to rejoin after going back over the books some more), Skinny-Puppy (ex-Grimbold, guild-friend), DrB_Hybrid/*ryan67 
  Banned visitors: *10011000100100 (XRandomHeroX), *Dough_Boy (EricsJavelinZon), *Stormrape (Wench_forHire and others), *SL_Mystical, *xVIx (hYdra_Trix), *gollop (inuterce), *Natchez (Anti-Aux), *doe2, *monkeybonesz
Membership:
    Amillo guesses about 109 members, will have it straightened out later. He just came back from vacation to a stuffed email box.
    Bombur said his few words. Just joined after finishing LotR, long-time visitor wassamattau2001
    Elladan still needs to say his few words.
    Gandalf is our new Maia, was Bert. Congratulations were given from members.  :)
Web:
    Gaming pages previously operated by Varda are now operated by Eonwe, except Tourney and EverQuesters.
        Games page: new review by Glaurung on Dungeon Siege.
        To make your own review, email it to Eonwe, preferably including setting, plot, background story without revealing the ending, comments on game play, pros and cons that you saw, which player types you tried and which you preferred if any. 
    Tolkien Encyclopedia: still up on the old Flexnet server, but is now moved to Alatar's valarguild server, still operated by Varda
        New Tolkien Encyc article: "Beechbone" on the Ents page, by Glaurung
Gaming:
    EverQuesters: Aule is a 57 ranger, Ulmo is a 55. Levels go to 60. Earendil and Varda also play. They welcome any Valar Guild members to come play on Zebuxoruk and are willing to help. See the EverQuesters page for more info and email your EQ name to Varda.
    Dark Age of Camelot: Orome offered to be email and playing contact for guild members interested in USA, Amillo for any guild members interested in Europe.
    Diablo 2 Expansion: the pass was violated the night after the emailing. Stormrape says he guessed it and claims to be a member swept a while back for inactivity.  A new pass will be coming out.  Please remember that being swept does not prevent rejoining and that testing can be done for entry as often as you can find a tester, but it is a good idea to review the books before the next test.
    StarCraft/BroodWar: Lots of folks playing this one. It is not changing pass at this time. We have tourney games listed on the Tourney page, team score vs team score to be emailed to Varda.
    WarCraft3 coming out, same game name as all other WC games.   
   

June 28, 2002 Saturday
    New on Links: fellow Tolkien fans in Peru: Sociedad Tolkien Peruana

    Gaming pages: Eonwe and Varda are through switching links on the gaming pages and index page. If you find spots we missed, let the person know who is handling the page, or tell Varda and I'll pass it on.  

June 27, 2002
    Welcome to the Valar Guild, Bombur-V ! Bombur is our old guild-friend, wassamattau2001. Varda had the honor of testing. :) He is 13, from Florida, USA in EST. He has read the H, LotR, and is working on the Sil. He plays all StarCraft and Diablo series games (that's the handy way he said it that I'm swiping here) and is on bnet daily.  He is concerned that the guild might be in trouble since meetings are so ill-attended. (A problem we've had since the first meeting over 4 years ago, unfortunately.)
    Tolkien Encyclopedia: Glaurung-(V) is still going strong. He sent in an article on Beechbone the Ent for the Ents page.
    Gaming pages: Eonwe-(Valar) will be taking over most of the gaming pages that Varda has been doing except the EverQuesters and Tourney pages. We are in the process now, so please bear with us for a while if the links go weird.
    Discussion Board: The new discussion board is still waiting for completion of work on the server, which should not be too much longer.


June 26, 2002
    The latest pass has been compromised almost immediately. I repeat, don't even whisper anyone a password. The only time one should even be typed is to enter a game or for Varda to email it to a member. This same person is also sending false emails and pretending to be other people in the channel just to disrupt things, including false testing. Use common sense. I would never ask for your account password. Any big news like a new sweep or meeting change would be on this page. When in doubt, email me or another Council member.
    Congratulations to our newest Maia! Bert-V is now Gandalf-(Valar).  We thank him for the huge amounts of time he has put into keeping the D2X gaming part of our guild going and the valuable information he has continuously shared on D2X developments, problems, and security issues. He is a very dedicated gamer and we are lucky to have him! His test was given by Eonwe, Irmo, Salmar, and Varda.


June 25, 2002
    D2X guild game norm had break-ins. Please do your muling in strangely-numbered games and be sure to utilize your friends list. A new password will be sent out soon to those for whom Varda has current emails.
    Undeliverable emails happened today. If you are an active member who didn't receive an email from me, please email me.

    The Tolkien Encyclopedia project of the Valar Guild has now moved to Alatar-(Valar)'s www.valarguild.org site, although the old site on Flex.net has not yet been cleared. We have to show some kindness to Amillo whose Annals of Arda will be suffering link wrecks due to this change otherwise. The old site will be cleared in the future except for the main index page (which has links all over the world, not all of which I'm aware of, which would be lost), due to the original isp dropping our web space from 11 to 2 MB, and having to move my Folklore & Mythology site onto that area due to mercenary tendencies of the once free web page space areas. I don't make any money to support them from these pages. - Varda.

June 23, 2002
Sunday Meeting 5pm ESDT channel Clan ValarGuild
Attending:
    Bard, Bert, Bregalad, Curufin (late from RL), Elladan (too late to give his few words this time, due to RL), Elrond, Eonwe/Fionwe, Glaurung/Uruloki, Gwaihir, Gwindor/Gwaindor, Isildur, Thror (late), Turin, Varda (presiding)
Membership:    
    Amillo had to attend to real life, as did Melkor, but expect to be present next meeting.
    Elladan is our newest member and made it to his first meeting, discovering that we do talk a long time.
    Elrond said he would have to be absent for the next two weeks.
    Members were asked what they would most like to see at meetings. Answers were food and more members.
Web:
    Links page:
        War of the Ring : Fatty Bolger, previously  of LotR Online, let us know that the new site went up Friday. He also offered the guild web space should we need it, and free technical advice for web page makers, very generous indeed!
        Gumby's index page : Science Fiction & Fantasy page, includes info on the Inklings including JRRT. It has part in Swedish, the webmaster's native language. Along with a jokes section, it has info on computers and music.
Gaming:
    WC3: Eonwe reports that WC3 has gone gold.
    D2X: Bert reports nasty visitors in norm trading game. Reminds members never to type the passwords except to enter games. Other members already know such info and don't need told. If they forgot, they should email Varda who is the only one who can email a pass. New passwords are currently in the works.
Tolkien:
    Eonwe: in speech class, Eonwe gave a speech on why people should not see the LotR movie, which he now deems a mistake. His points were the inaccuracies and deletions. Examples were XenArwen and the lack of Bombadil. We may ask him to give his alternate speech for us on why we should go see the movie, which seemed to have been quite popular with those in the channel.
    Glaurung: "Influences of baddies and their offspring." Melkor's influences on dragons was more ally than slave even though he had them bred
    Eonwe: asks where it says Glaurung was Morgoth, since Varda mentioned it but couldn't remember which book. Glaurung's topic kept us lively so that the discussion went on until 8pm ESDT when we had to break up to avoid excessive keyboard face.

June 20, 2002
    New link to a Science Fiction & Fantasy site, including Tolkien: 
Gumby's index page - large areas on literature. Also areas on computing, music, jokes, and in Swedish. Info about JRRT and other Inklings. Section on Science Fiction & Fantasy . Made by Calle
    Letter from Fatty Bolger:

Hi everyone, well it is finally here. After many hours and a lot of work by all concerned the site is now open. I will keep this short and just say a big thanks to all who have and are helping build the site.

We would be honoured if you would stop by and say hello and let us know what you think.

Regards

James aka Fatty

http://warofthering.net

June 17, 2002
    Welcome to the Valar Guild, Elladan-V !  He's 15, from Wisconsin in the USA, CST. He's read the Hobbit, LotR, and a bit of the Silmarillion. He plays D2X about an hour daily. His tester was the mighty eagle, Thorondor.

June 16, 2002

    Happy Father's Day!
   
War of the Rings - book and movie site. Link suggested by Fatty Bolger, previously of LotR Online.
 
Sunday Meeting 5pm EST bnet channel Clan ValarGuild
Attending:
    Members: Bregalad/Quickbeam (late), Dior (late), Eonwe/Fionwe (presiding), Erestor/Erestar, Glaurung (late), Gwaihir, Gwindor, Theoden (before the meeting, had to go), Thingol, Thror (late), Varda
    Visitors: *Acharon, La_Canard_Jaune, wassamattau2001
Membership news:
    Many of us were late (including Varda by a few minutes) for Father's Day activities. For instance, Dior was out golfing with his dad, but came by afterwards.
    Welcome back to our rejoining member, Amlaith. :)
    Isildur is attending his daughter's graduation. Congratulations!

    Letter from Amillo:
Heyas all,
 
I will not be able to attend meeting tonight, going fishing early in the morning and have to get up at 0400 local time so i need the hours.  
Next week ill be on vacation and thus not comming for that meeting either.
 Hope you are all well and doing fine. Take care and group hug :)
 
See you
Amillo 
Web:
    Links page: 2 new ones
        Dagorhir Battle Game s -  Live action as people in appropriate garb and reasonably safe weaponry fight Tolkien and Dark Age Europe battles. Includes locations, photos. Link sent in by Justin Fitzgerald of New Vision Studios
        New Vision Studios -  paints gaming figurines for board playing. Link sent in by Justin Fitzgerald of New Vision Studios.
Gaming:
    Haleth is playing Dungeon Siege with Falathar and his other son, as well as Dark Age of Camelot with Melkor and Orome.
Tolkien:
    Eonwe's Tolkien chat report:
From Varda:1.) Book by TA Shippey titled JRR Tolkien Author of the Century
English professors tell us that the plural forms for Elf and Dwarf are Elfs and Dwarfs.  Words ending in "f" and aren't old usually have a simple "s" ending, i.e. tiff/tiffs and rebuff/rebuffs  In my (Varda's) opinion, it should change over to the common use style

2.)Saruman- "man" means man.  Saru from Old English "Saero" meaning cunning, creating machines, gems, and in sense of a wizard
wassa-look at writing of Saruman, seems sort of like Lucifer , good turned evil
Gwaihir-Sauron works like that too
Varda-interest in crafting became obsessive and found it to be a way to his lost power
Wassa-what about Palantirs?
Varda- not in themselves evil; Sauron had the other end of the communications
wassa-one would think if Isildur's writings on ring were preserved others on crafting and forging would be too
Varda-Saruman studied the Ringlore, most came to him for info rather than look it up themselves
From Wassa: 3.)  Is Treebeard the oldest living thing?
Varda- He and Tom may have appeared about the same time
Eonwe-Fangorn's list includes complete races.  Tom is not a race in himself.  Therefore, he would probably not count.

After the main meeting and discussion was over, many of us stuck around for a long while and chatted on other Tolkien subjects.

    Varda's Tolkien chat report:
    Varda: concerning dwarves and elves as plurals, and the meaning of Saruman's name. Saero = cunning, man = man
    wassamattau2001: Was Bilbo the oldest hobbit? Gollum was, stretched by the Ring. Bilbo was next, then the Old Took. Frodo never died, but did go to the West out of Middle-earth, so he might be considered older than Gollum.
    wassamattau2001: Was Fangorn the eldest living creature?
        Fangorn kept the title in the discussion, barely. Tom Bombadil is still up in the air as he might not be considered a regular living creature. Erestor quoted Letters #153 that Tom came from outside before the Trees. This would make him a Maia. Gwindor mentioned the Silmarillion's "Of Aule and Yavanna" saying when the children awake so shall the thought of Yavanna (shepherds of the trees, ents). Thus Fangorn could be the same age as the Firstborn, no younger.
    But the question of what is evil and good according to how Tolkien shows it in his characters took the rest of three hours before we were variously booted from our computers for real life. We had fun asking any member to tell why his character was considered good or evil and relating it to the general discussion.

June 13, 2002
     Beorn-(V): Already owned Tuor-(V) but changed his name as he requested for after the sweep. Tuor's name is now free. 
    Links page: 2 new ones:

        Dagorhir Battle Games -  Live action as people in appropriate garb and reasonably safe weaponry fight Tolkien and Dark Age Europe battles. Includes locations, photos. Link sent in by Justin Fitzgerald of New Vision Studios
        New Vision Studios -  paints gaming figurines for board playing. Link sent in by Justin Fitzgerald of New Vision Studios.

June 12, 20002
    Welcome back, Amlaith! We hope you're enjoying your new home and have settled in after the move. Salmar tested for Amlaith's rejoin..

June 9, 2002
Sunday Meeting 5pm ESDT  Meeting report by Eonwe, additional roll notes by Salmar
Attendance: Gwaihir, Gwindor/Gwaindor, Thror, Isildur, Eonwe/Fionwe (presiding), Salmar/Salme, Erestor/Erestar, Mahtan, Thorondor, Amandil, Turin, Elendil, Bullroarer, Bard
Gorbag stopped by to say hi, couldn't stay for meeting
Guest: Jason2250 (Beers, guild-friend), Acharon (would like to rejoin)

Membership:109 after Bard rejoined us
Varda will be gone from Sat. to Wed. seeing family and wishes us happy hunting :}
Mablung is no longer in the guild, but remains a guild friend.
Isildur won't be here next week because he is going to his daughter's graduation.  She's getting a BA in music.  Congrats to Isildur's daughter! :}

Web: Tom Bombadil is doing reconstruction on his site, so some pages are temprarily passworded.
Encyclopedia- New Map site link on the Maps page, LotR Maps.  COntains large collections of ME maps, webpage maker Jeroen.(Maps are like those found in an Atlas, not SC/BW maps.)

Games:  Bnet was down June 6 to remove hacks and dupes. Remember not to trade outside with your guild characters.  Only take items you buy, kill (monsters) for, or saw another person kill the monster and they let you have the item.

Tolkien Topic (Given by Eonwe):
I began with this quote The Two Towers, Chapter 10, Book 3, pg 240-
"Saruman's face grew livid, twisted with rage, and a red light was kindled in his eyes.  He laughed wildly.  'Later!  Yes, when you also have the Keys of Barad-dur itself, I suppose; and the crowns of seven kings, and the rods of the Five Wizards, and have purchased yourself a pair of boots many sizes larger than those that you wear now."

The topic was:  Who are the seven kings to whose crowns Saruman refers?
Mathan:  The Seven Valar
Gwaihir: the 7 primary Valar,.. no other set of 7 makes sense,.. everything shown deals with Maiar of higher
Erestar:  The Seven Dwarf Kings
Acharon: agree about the dwarf kings
Salmar:  The Valar aren't usually named kings
Eonwe:  Manwe is mentioned as the Elder King, the others usually lords, such as Ulmo, Lord of Waters
Gwindor: don't think Saruman would name or invoke the Valar,.. would not refer to the Valar as kings,.. he and Gandalf acknowledge only Manwe as king

Eonwe: My hypothesis-  The seven crowns refer to seven races who acknowledge a high crown or high-kingship. These 6 of 7 would be as  best as I conjecture for now:  The Elves, who acknowledge Ingwe the Vanya; Dwarves, who acknowledge Durin the Deathless, the first of all Dwarves to awake;  Men, who would acknowledge the Numenorean/(Gondorian/Arnorian) crown;  Ainur, who acknowledge Manwe as king of all of Arda; Melkor and his servants, who acknowledge only Melkor as their god-king; Eagles, who acknowledge Thorondor and his descendants as a king.(The Ents have no king.  Hobbits fall under men and acknowledge the rule of the King of Arnor/Gondor.)
Added note:  The last crown could also refer to Eru, the ultimate king, and would probably fit in with Saruman's attempt to slander Gandalf.

It was also suggested that it had no real meaning, or that it held meaning only to the Wise (such as Gandalf and Saruman) who would understand such a reference.   

June 6, 2002
    Bard rejoined. Welcome back, Bard! 4/5 tester Varda. 16/M, read H, LotR, Sil, part of BoLT. Different email than I used: evilash.softhome.net. Also long absence but expects to be on frequently now. Using BW and D2, getting D2X. US, CST.
    Bnet was down on D2X for a while to remove dupes and hacks. Reminder, don't trade outside with your guild char. Only take items you buy, kill for, or saw the other person kill for and let you have. There are too many dupes and hacks and stolen items out there.
    Varda will be gone Saturday through Wednesday, seeing family on the other side of Texas a little over 10 hours away. Happy hunting!

June 5, 2002
    Bombadil sites: Tom Bombadil is doing some reconstruction to his site, so some pages are temporarily passworded. A new Trading post board will be up later, perhaps called the Exchange.

June 4, 2002
    Encylopedia: Middle-earth maps page. New map site link:
LotR Maps - large collection of Middle-earth maps collected by Jeroen for fun, site hosted by the Shadows of Isildur MUD, useful to all who need maps. Replaces his old page. Page by Jeroen aka r3t

June 3, 2002
    Mablung is no longer in the guild, but remains a guild-friend.

June 2, 2002
A reminder to our scouts and testers! We do not spam to advertise our guild in public or private channels. Spam is a horribly aggravating thing to have in any channel and does not reflect well on our guild. We do engage likely people in conversation and in gaming to get to know them. This helps us screen out undesirables and bring in the literate, polite people we enjoy playing with for years to come. It also helps keep from wasting the recruit's and tester's time to see if the person has finished the LotR before suggesting joining. If you have been spamming, it is probably because you were unaware of our policy in recruiting. Please consider this note to be a bit more training and continue to enjoy scouting in the Valar way, far more challenging!

Sunday Meeting 5pm ESDT channel Clan ValarGuild
Attending:
    Members: (10) Amillo/Lindelome, Elendil, Elrond (was Thranduil until June 1), Erestor/Erestar, Glorfindel, Gwaihir, Luthien, Thror, Turin (was Khamul, changed name at the meeting), Varda (presiding)
    Visitors: Asushi (pardon spelling, forgot to write it down), Avontor(Tarot), Yukyiota/*Black_Myst, MrMcflurry,
Musics4Me (all interested in joining, some have not finished books such as Avontor and Black_Myst; MrMcflurry is sponsored by Glorfindel)
        A group from a clan came in after the meeting and wanted to challenge our guild thinking it would be some sort of coup due to our longevity, not yet understanding that we don't engage in wars but only in play and chat. Their guild tag at the end is _l)L  (that's a small L) and only showed up in SC/BW. Eru_Iluvatar who has been hanging out in our channel is connected with them and fed them the same public info they could have read more easily on our web pages. The group did not mention their name.
        Another clan is called Valar (not a guild) and claims to be older than we are, may sometimes accidentally come into our channel, and has no interest in any sort of contact at this time. Their guild mark is a V at the beginning of the name.

Membership: 108 from 153 after dropping inactive/unresponsive members. Will be on Member page shortly (Amillo had it set up at impressively high speed on June 3.)
    Amillo's computer with the sweep emails went down, losing the emails. If any were sent to Amillo instead of Varda, they are lost. All info Varda had is on the Active page.

    Name changes: Khamul changed to Turin, Thranduil changed to Elrond.
     Letter from Eonwe:
Hail all! :}
My apologies for missing the meeting yesterday.  The computer I had to use has recently had all its programs deleted and reinstalled, and now for some reason either the internet connector program or modem gives us problems trying to connect to the internet.  I spent the entire 30 minutes before meeting time trying to connect, but to no avail.
    Letter from Irmo:
Aiya,

Unfortunately I won't be at the meeting tonight.
I have a six-hour written exam tomorrow morning, so I'm gonna get some serious dreaming done instead!

Have a good meeting,
Irmo.
    Letter from Beregond in Norway:
I have sad news...as of 2 july this year i have to enter the army for a year. I fear i will have few opportunities to interact with the guild during this time, as i will be stationed gods know where...

But i have hope that i will be able to retain my membership despite this, and if you have patience I will be back :)

Beregond

P.S: I will probably have access to E-mail, but not much more, so I will be able to watch the happenings of the guild, but not participate...
Web:
    Links page: list of books on Tolkien recommended by members
    Encyclopedia:
        Articles by Glaurung: Anglachel, Gurthang, Eowyn, Turin
        Paper by Salmar: "Cirdan: The Valinorean Connection"  

Gaming:
    Dark Age of Camelot: on the European server, Amillo is in the Ghosts of Valhalla guild, about 35-40 members. He would be happy to see the European members from the Valar Guild. Celebrimbor is in the United States server in Hibernia. Melkor, Orome, and Haleth are having a great time in DaoC also.
Tolkien:
    Erestor-(V)'s topic: Did Tolkien keep the Hall of Story Telling from the College of Lost Play? It is possible that the Hall of Fire Gandalf mentions is connected to that. Mostly that entire story line did not come back out, although some form of it may have survived unwritten in his background thoughts.
   

June 1, 2002
    Dropped names are shown in red on the Active page as inactive. If dropped, you will have to take the test over again and rejoin. Do this as soon as possible to regain your name before it is taken or to pick a new name currently open. Green names have no problems with membership. Black names have had difficulty contacting but are believed to be having problems and wish to remain, but might not be sent any new passwords until then. The Members and Names pages will be updating soon.


May 29, 2002
    Links page: Added section listing a few of the books about Tolkien: Books about Tolkien . Recommendations are welcome.
    Tolkien Encyclopedia:
        The hard-working Glaurung-(V)'s new or updated articles are up:
            Objects page under Swords: "Anglachel", "Gurthang"
            Mankind: "Eowyn", long paper on "Turin Turambar"
        Salmar-(Valar)'s well-researched paper: "Cirdan: The Valinorean Connection? " is up, under the Elves section.
    Letter from Fingon:
hail all
 
I have not had internet for the last month and been having major computer problems hope to be up and running soon again fairthee well all.
 
Fingon
 

May 26, 2002
Sunday Meeting5pm Eastern Standard Daylight Savings Time, bnet channel Clan ValarGuild
Attending: report by Salmar
    Bert, Eonwe (presiding), Erestor, Finwe, Fladriff, Glorfindel, Gwaihir, Pippin, Salmar, Theoden, Thorondor, Thror
    Mablung and Herumor (now ex-member but still guild-friend) dropped by before the meeting, then had to leave. Curufin dropped by after the meeting.
    Varda came home unexpectedly too late for the meeting, sends regards.
Membership: 153
Web:
    Encyclopedia: articles by Glaurung on Glaurung, Gurthang, and Anglachel.
    Computer America:
A contest for a free computer is being held by Computer America, for whom Alatar works.  Processor is 2.4 gigahertz, with the other stats not being set in stone yet. Minimum stats are on the Computer America page.
Gaming:
    D2X:
        Alatar and Salmar managed to find a Natalya's Set claw! Congratulations to them.
        Salmar reports that US East realm will be down a long time Monday for work by bnet on the server.
Tolkien:
    Khamul-(V) asked if anyone thought anyone would write a book concerning the final battle.
    Most people felt that since J.R.R. Tolkien is dead and therefore wouldn't be writing it himself, they would rather one not be written.
    This carried a bit into talk about the tales concerning the Dagor Dagorlad(?) and the end of the World. Eonwe shared the paragraph from BoLT 1 where it says that he (Fionwë son of Manwë) shall be Melko's bane, destroying the world to destroy Melkor for love of Urwendi, the Maia of the Sun.  More concerning this tale can be found in our Encyclopedia.

May 22, 2002
    Contest for a free computer, held by Computer America . It is really great for gamers, with a 2.4 GHz Pentium 4 microprocessor in a state-of-the art Gateway 700XL. Final specs aren't set yet, as they are waiting for the end of the contest to make the most up-to-date machine possible, but the minimum specs currently on the page are enough to make Baal quail. (When you read this, "Mark" is Alatar-Valar. Go Alatar!)
     Tolkien Encyclopedia/Objects/Swords - Glaurung wrote two new articles on the swords "Gurthang" and its previous incarnation as "Anglachel".


May 21, 2002
    Tolkien Encyclopedia: Under Non-human Intelligences, new article "Glaurung" by Glaurung-(V)
    Letter from Finrod Felagund:
Still well and fine... still playing and hoping to participate in the ladder team.  Sorry I can't get to meetings - a change to my work schedule just won't allow it.  Thinking of you all...
 
Finrod
 
*also there's a neat photo competition on LoTRonline too...

    Letter from Tuvo:

The old schol diablo times were good ones as were the vk times and my brief glory days with a high-kings axe of haste.   Looking back i think the friendship and fun helped me through those monotonous hours between school and the parents getting home. And i still have good memories of actually getting to know what some of you were like Aule and Morgoth (when i visited you in colorado).  It was definitely a pleasure.  So those of you who remember me wish me luck with life as i go into my 3rd year of college, keep trying to grow up and figure out who i am. Once again, they are, without a doubt, warm memories!

God bless you all,

formerly known as Tuvo.


May 19, 2002
Sunday Meeting5pm EST in channel Clan ValarGuild
Attending:
    Members: Bert, Celegorm, Dior, Eonwe/Fionwe, Erestor, Fladrif/Fladriff, Gwaihir, Thror, Varda (presiding)
    Visitors: Musics4Me, Shagrat-Lok3, La_Canard_Jaune
    Kicked from channel: Eru_Iluvatar for channel discourtesy, not our guild Eru but a young player who mimics him somewhat  

Membership: 153
    Light the birthday candles!:
    Salmar sends greetings. His son is having a birthday and sleeping quarters for guests are set up in the study so that he can't use his comp at meeting time.
    Eonwe's birthday was Friday.
    Fladrif will be 46 in two weeks.
    Fangorn will be 49 on the 25th of this month.
Web:
  
Tolkien Encyclopedia's Poetry page : "the truth about dragons & balrogs - a plea-"  New poem by Celegorm-(V), light-hearted
    Tolkien StarCraft/BroodWars map page: Dior is still setting up the page, has a lot of entries and needs your reviews for each entry you send in. It can be sent by email or by gaming.
Gaming:
    D2X: 
        Fladrif is starting a batch of new characters at level one. Feel free to join him and maybe do a Quest for Three.
        Bert told about project plans he and Alatar are making for the new June patch ladder characters. Gwaihir also expressed interest and more are invited. The plan is that a group of us do a ladder team with single-minded purpose putting in at least 20 hours a week for the first week. Email Bert or meet him in D2X for ladder discussions. June is coming fast, so if you're interested catch him quick!
    StarCraft:
        Musics4Me, who wishes to join the guild, is working on an SC version of Monopoly and needs help polishing up the map. He is asking for beta testers and suggestions.
Tolkien:
    Some discussion on role-playing info for characters whose players were in the channel such as Bert, Dior, and Gwaihir. This was badly interrupted by people wanting to talk about gaming, so it was truncated.

May 15, 2002
    Tolkien Encyclopedia's Poetry page : "the truth about dragons & balrogs - a plea-"  New poem by Celegorm-(V), light-hearted.

May 12, 2002
Happy Mother's Day!
Sunday Meeting5pm ESDT Channel Clan ValarGuild
Attending:
    Members (8): Eonwe/Fionwe, Erestor/Erestar, Glaurung, Gwaihir, Khamul, Mablung, Thranduil, Varda (presiding)
     Later: Amandil
     AFK in another channel: Thror 
     Visiting: Music4Me 

Membership: 153
    Amillo could not attend, but he sent us news from Dark Age of Camelot. See his letter under gaming.
    Galadriel just picked up Dark Age of Camelot and will be playing it in Europe, since the game will not allow him to play America. He sends greetings.

    Irmo sends regards. He had exams and deadlines he has to work on during this very busy time.
    Salmar sends regards. He had Mother's Day activities to attend to.
   Letter from Ilmare:

Hail,

I should have done this long ago. You may count me out of the guild. I leave Ilmare to someone who will make a better use of that name than I did.

I have internet at home now and I tried to get back to the guild. But it seems to me that nothing is much the same anymore in the channel. Or maybe I am the one who changed...

Well, I had a great time with you guys when I used to be there every days (and even nights sometimes), but this time is over now.

Babaille and may Valar Guild have a long existence!

Web:
    Melkor's Domain : New web page for anime art by Khamul.
    Vertigo : New art and game site by Menelvagor and friends 

    Tolkien Encyclopedia : new article, "Anaire", by Vasiliki. New article, "Aredhel", by Varda. More on Finarfin and Fingolfin, by Varda
    Links page:
        LotR link from Eowyn: "If The Lord of the Rings were an Episode from Star Trek: Voyager". This comes from a LotR site with more serious pages as well, including JRRT's poetry, which is in turn part of a larger science fiction/fantasy site including books and shows.  Have fun surfing!
        Free gaming links:
            Synthetic Reality's Well of Souls, from Glorfindel. He plays this and would like you to email him and come in for a game.
            Swirve, from Thingol. He recommends Earth 2025 and Utopia.
            SimCountry, from Thingol        
Gaming:
    
Dark Age of Camelot, Europe: Letter from Amillo:
Heyas,
 
I did not forget last nights meeting but due to a massive huge attack upon our realm, ( Midgard In DaoC ) It was impossible for me to leave the game and my guildmates there for the meeting. A realm wide Call for Arms may not, at my lvl, just be ignored. So I simply had to stay.  
 Well the war went fine, we fended the attackers off and even brought the war into their grounds and took one of their forts.  A great night for Midgard :) 
 
Hope you all had a nice meeting.
 
Amillo
    Diablo 2 Expansion: New record set for Quest for Three, 33, by the fabulous team of Alatar, Bert, and Salmar.See full report on the Tourney page.
   
WarCraft 3: Eonwe reported what Blizzard said are requirements and recommendations for gamers for WC3:
        Required:
            400 MHz processor, 128 MB RAM, 8 MB 3D video card with Direct X 8.1 support, 700 MB space on the hard drive, 4X CD ROM drive.
        Recommended (more probably better!):
            600 MHz processor, 256 MB RAM, 32 MB video card, Direct X compatible sound card. 
Tolkien:
    Varda (me) had to leave at this time to attend to Mother's Day activities, since I'm a mother. I'm hoping for a report from someone who remained.  

May 10, 2002
    Reminder to guild: gaming links you see briefly on the News may be found stored on our Links page, and gaming news in which you are looking for partners is stored on our Games page. Or you can dig through years of archived News files :)
    Letter from Glorfindel:
I noticed that Thingol posted a few links with free
online games on them. Well, I have another one to
add; Synthetic Reality (www.synthetic-reality.com)'s
Well of Souls. It's a RPG that can be played both
online and off. One of its advantages is that you can
bring a single-player character online and not be
penalized.

P.S. If anyone's interested, e-mail me. I'm always
looking for companions when I'm slaying evil
wizard-types :)

Signing out,
Glorfindel
    Letter from Eowyn:
If The Lord of the Rings Were an Episode of Star Trek: Voyager
http://scifi.about.com/bllordofthevoyager.htm
Heehee.  I thought you'd like this.
May 9, 2002
    Letter from Menelvagor: 
It's been a long while I've been away at school for the past six months
working my tail off and having a heck of a good time.
Unfortunately the amount of work I have means I don't get much time to spend
on games. I live with three Tolkien and Star Wars freaks which is a lot of
fun. I am currently well on my way to attaining my animation degree and have
been putting some serious work into my project. I have been going on tours
of animation studios the most recent being an indepth look at Big Idea
Studios the creator's of Veggie Tales. My pal Wonchul and I are hoping to
tour all the game and animation studios in the area in the next few months,
maybe after that we'll head to the west coast and hit Blizzard and Valve who
knows! I'll try and pop onto b.net on sunday to say hi to everyone.

Namarie,
Menelvagor

P.S. The new site me and my friends are working on is up at
www.vertigolabs.org/bbs2 the only functioning section for the next few days
is under - The Work and then under Silencer go to Art . I hope to get the
rest of the site up in the next week. Talk to ya all soon.

May 9, 2002
    Barahir left the guild due to difficulties with bnet. He is back home to Norway from Spain.

May 8, 2002
    Tourney Record!The Quest for Three in Diablo 2 Expansion record has been set today at 33 by the team of Alatar, Bert, and Salmar. See a detailed report by Alatar at the top of the Tourney page , along with the tables for such records at the bottom of the page.
    New Tolkien Encyclopedia article under Elves: Anaire by the Lady Vasiliki, whose questions caused both her and me to update the Encyclopedia.
    Sweep: We are receiving many sweep replies, including Undeliverable Emails. Active members are listed in green. More details are on the Active Member s page.
    Undeliverable emails are endangering these members: Arwen, Bard, Bombur, Fram, Gandalf, Gil-galad, Gorbag, Grishnakh, Guilin, Nori, Turin, Tuor, and Ulwarth. (Names now in danger zone red.)
    We are still waiting to see if 53 more members are active (Names now in black.)

May 7, 2002
    Sweep mails complete.
    Thorondor reports that the virus wrecking his internet connection is now repaired. Diablo, watch out!
    Link to Eorl-(V)'s site: http://www.g-landgames.com/lothlorien.htm with a hearty hail back to him. :) It's been fun reading the battle reports on G-Lands.

 Letter from Girion:
Yes, I want to keep my membership. My access to BattleNet has been extremely limited with finals and whatnot. I will not be on over the summer because I will be studying Spanish in Mexicoand in the fall my ability to participate will also be marginalized because I will be interning in DC. Thanks, Girion

May 6, 2002
    Tolkien Encyclopedia: new and updated articles by Varda: Elves: "Aredhel", "Finarfin", "Fingolfin"; Powers: "Orome" with a Nahar addition.

May 5, 2002

    Letter from Thingol with free game links:

     Thingol here! It's been a while since I've played
online and its been even longer since I've been too a
meeting ;) But, my Valar buddies have never been far
from my thoughts! I just ran across a few FREE
online games that some of our fellow members might
enjoy (They seem to be real-time games). I don't have
time to explain them right now, but I do have the
links. http://swirve.com/ has two really neat games,
one is called Earth 2025 (Futuristic Country/War
Management/Co-Op Game) and the other is Utopia
(Fantasy Kingdom War Management/Co-Op Game) The third
one is called Simcountry (Nuff Said :) This is its
link http://sim01.simcountry.com/browse.html Hope to
be back gaming with you all soon!

Elu Thingol

May 5, 2002
Sunday Meeting 5pm ESDT channel Clan ValarGuild
Attending:
    Bandobras/Bullroarer, Bert, Denethor, Dior, Eonwe (presiding), Erestor/Erestar, Gwaihir, Gwindor/Flinding, Imrahil, Salmar/Lirillo, Thranduil, Thror, Varda
    Visitors were present, but were asked to leave during the business meeting. This allowed us to say some things that we normally could not in front of outsiders. They were welcomed back for the Tolkien chat.
Membership: 153
    The sweep is now ongoing. Inactive names will be removed in June. Be sure to contact Varda to reserve your name, if yours does not show up as Active on the new Member Activity page.
Web:
    Tolkien Encyclopedia Maps page: Huge digital map of the Shire and updated link for the digital map of Arda by Gecko Artist are up. Amillo and Varda agree they are beautiful maps.
    Varaya and Khan's mod page and forum moved to Phrozen Keep's server.
    SC/BWTolkien maps: Dior is working on the Tolkien StarCraft/BroodWar map page, having some difficulties, but don't forget to send him the maps you locate. Your review of maps you send is also a help. Be sure to say so if you made the map yourself, with or without others to credit.
    Member Activity page: new, to help everybody keep track of the sweep, which is going slower than usual.

Gaming:
    D2X: In June a patch will be coming out. New characters made after that time will not be able to play or trade with characters from before that patch. This is intended to aid in game balance and to increase difficulty. The Council has decided to make some new characters over scratch at that time. We will probably keep an old Hell difficulty character available to be able to enter the old style games at need, at least until everyone converts over. At the rate bnet is "expiring" characters after only a few weeks in some cases, we may all be switching over involuntarily after a while. ME mod will be updated for this patch.
    Report on this patch from Eonwe:
  New D2:LoD patch 1.10 slated for June.  Adds a new type of
 character called a ladder character.  It will be made similar to making
 an expansion or hardcore character in that you will have to check a
 box.  You will still be able to play current characters, and make 1.10
 characters that can play will older characters.  These ladder characters
 will be in a separate economy from other characters and will not be able
 to play with normal(pre-1.10 and 1.10 non-ladder) chars. (From what I
 have read, I assume that these chars will become normal chars at the end
 of the ladder season, and so each ladder season will start with a fresh
 economy.)

    D2X Middle-earth: name of games

    Dark Age of Camelot: Celebrimbor is now in DaoC. Look out for the Ring-maker, Melkor and Orome!
Tolkien:
     Erestor: During a previous discussion, a person asked whether the land of Valinor gave power to its inhabitants. Erestor wished to address that question and explained quite well how the Valar brought their own power with them.
    Thranduil: Do you think that Earendil was a good father? He left his children Elrond and Elros, only four years old, and went to Valinor. Elwing left them as well, joining Earendil. Maglor brought them up lovingly.
    The concensus had it that at four years old, the children probably could handle the change of guardianship pretty well. Once they became older, they would be able to understand the enormous contribution their father and mother made, returning the silmaril to Valinor and speaking for both the First and Secondborn Children of Iluvatar, as was awaited in prophecy that had to be fulfilled so that the Valar could once again give them aid. Elrond and Elros could continue daily to see their father and mother as the brightest star and as the dawn, so their separation was not complete.


May 4, 2002

    Celebrimbor is having bnet problems due to a firewall. This is happening to a number of people. If you have this problem on a home comp, try checking your settings and family permission to see if it can be removed or taken down temporarily during play. Celebrimbor is able to come in on friends' computers, but not on Sunday for the meetings.
   

May 3, 2002
    I'm pretty sure some of you guys getting the Sweep mail are active, but I can't prove it on "paper" and need your replies. Thanks. :)
    Azog's computer fried in a power surge, but he hopes for a new one on his birthday May 8. He is still with us. Good luck to you, Azog!
    Bandobras Bullroarer is still with us and says he hasn't been able to bump into fellow guild guys in weeks, although he's been on quite a bit. Look him up, guys!
    Ulmo is out of state, possibly picking up a boat. :) Is he well-named or what?
    Aldor is having internet connection problems, so he is now trying to set up a DSL. He also says his time zone of GMT+2 in Finland causes problems with making it to meetings and finding fellow players.
    Azaghal says hi, could not enter Baldur's Gate II games with others probably due to a firewall. Playing Planetarion mostly now and looking for Valar guild company


April 30, 2002
    D2X patch scheduled for June. V&K will be updating for it.
    Letter from Khan:

Hail

I just wanted to let you all know that V&K Mods changed hosts - we are now
part of Planetdiablo's Phrozenkeep Mod community. The new URL for the D2
MEmod is www.Planetdiablo.com/VKmods and the forum is found in the forums
section of www.Planetdiablo.com/Phrozenkeep Khan

April 29, 2002
    Letter from Gecko Artist (map added to Encyclopedia's Maps page):
Hi!

My digital art map of the Shire is finally finished! The JPEG-file is 2226 x 1995 pixels large and the file size is 1394 kb. (I know - it's huge...).
You can either download it from my homepage (http://www.geckoartist.com/) or directly by following this link:
 
http://www.7up.org/gecko/gallery2/the-shire_big.jpg
 
It took me forever to make it :) and now I want your feedback. What do you think of it? (or as Gollum would have put it: -Pleassse comment! ;)
 
Thanks to everyone who has supported me in any way, by putting my map on their websites, linking to my website and/or encouraging me.
 
Jonatan Alvarsson
gecko@geckoartist.com

    He also has a huge digital map of Arda , included on our Map page.

April 28, 2002
Sunday Meeting 5pm ESDT bnet channel Clan ValarGuild
Attending:
    Dropped in before meeting as he can't stay during meeting time: Amandil
    Azaghal, Denethor, Dior, Eonwe/Fionwe (presiding), Erestor/Erestar, Fladrif, Gwaihir (doubling on DB), Gwindor/Gwaindor, Isildur, Khamul, Thror
    Over the Shoulder: Earwen
    During Tolkien chat: Elros, Smeagol
    After meeting: Glaurung
 Membership: 153
    Eol returned, now that he once again has a phone connection.
    Feanor sends regards, waiting on a new internet connection.
    Luthien is not well. Our thoughts and prayers go out to her.
    Letter from Salmar on April 29, partial:

    My ISP went down yesterday 4 PM my time (10 AM UST) and stayed down until just now (monday morning).
    No games, no meeting, bleh:(.
    Maybe I should try and find a (free) back up option for dial-up connection when the cable fails.
    Salmar.

    Note from Varda: Out of town during the meeting, but sent email to Council before leaving as usual.
Web:
    Articles by Gwaihir: Descriptions on Aragorn(as Strider), Gandalf, Sam, and Boromir.  Thanks to him for doing that digging! :}
    By Eonwe: An article on Athelas, and a paper on Gandalf's death.
Gaming:
    Amandil now has D2X Lord of Destruction.
    Eomer is now trying Dark Age of Camelot.
    Denethor is playing the Middle-earth mod of D2X and says it's great!
Tolkien: report by Eonwe-(Valar)
    Tolkien Chat: Topic from Eonwe (on which I decided I would play "Melkor's advocate" :})
    Should the Eagles be considered one of the Free Peoples?
    Dior: yes, they fought just like everyone else did to protect the "free people"
    Gwaihir: of course, we're sentient
    Eonwe: But why? they are not among the Children of Iluvatar, or the Dwarves whom He hallowed.
    Gwaihir: Manwe created us and we are as sentient as humans
    Dior: If not moreso
    Eonwe:  Are you sure?  Even the lesser birds could talk, yet they are not considered Free Peoples.
    Khamul: well that's just wrong then
    Dior: Eagles fought against the Dark Lord though
    Gwaihir: Ah, but did any of the other birds participate so actively in the wars against two Dark Lords?
    Eonwe: They(lesser birds) acted as spies on both sides of the War.
    Dior: they just flew around and talked but none fought
    Gwaihir: But that was someone's command, we did it of our own volition... or Manwe's
        --Lesser birds were asked to do something, we surprised everyone when we helped

    In this discussion, we lightly touched on whether Huan was also a Free Person, and also somewhat on what constitutes a free person.
    In the end, the concensus seemed to be that Gwaihir and his people may, at least for now, claim the title of "Free Person" :} 

April 27, 2002
    Tolkien Encyclopedia : New articles by Eonwe-(Valar):
        "Athelas ": the article is on the Plants of Arda page with information from the Histories of Middle-earth as well as Lord of the Rings.
        "Gandalf's Death ": link to the paper from the Maiar page under Gandalf.

    Letter from Luthien:
    I would like to apologize for my absence, I have not been feeling well and won't be for awhile.
I am still very interested in staying with the Valar guild and will try to read the webpage as often as possible to stay on top of things.
I hope to return as soon as possible.

Luthien

April 26, 2002
    Letter from Feanor:

Hiya All....


Must've been a long time since I wrote here :( I'm happy to report that I've recently moved to my own home and I'm starting to get things in order. Unfortunetaly my financial sitiution isn't that good, so I'll have to wait before reconnected to the net again :( I just can't wait to get reconnected and talk to all you guys on b.net again. Elen sila lumen omentielmo :) Feanor.

April 22, 2002
    New Tolkien Encyclopedia articles, by Gwaihir! They are descriptions from the Fellowship of the Rings of Aragorn as Strider, Boromir, Gandalf, and Sam. These are very valuable for their own sake as it takes much digging, and for artists doing the anime movie with DarGab, role-playing artists, calendar artists, and other artists as well as word-smiths. Please feel free to send in your own research to Varda for this special project, needed for virtually everything in Tolkien.
    Congrats to Amandil! He now has D2X and showed up ready to play!
    Eol is back, now that his phone connection has returned to life. He may not be on as much as he could be, for the fun reason of a fine lady lighting his eye.
    Luthien is going into the hospital where they will be doing tests. They don't know what is wrong, but have ruled out a brain tumor. Her brother, Eomer, could use our support, and Luthien our prayers and good wishes.
    Eomer is now trying out Dark Age of Camelot. Maybe Orome and Melkor can catch him there.  :) He also plans to try WC3 when it comes out, along with many others in the guild!

April 21, 2002
Sunday Meeting 5pm ESDT bnet channel Clan ValarGuild
Attending: (19)
    Amandil, Curufin/CraftyKnight, Denethor, Eonwe/Fionwe, Erestor/Erestar, Fangorn, Gwaihir, Gwindor, Gwaindor, Herumor, Irmo, Khamul, Melkor, Pippin, Salmar/Nandaro, Thorondor, Thranduil, Thror (handles bot), Varda (presiding)
    Glaurung came by after the meeting.
Membership (153):
    Alatar is our new Maia! He used to be Aldarion.
    Amandil is our newest member. He could not stay long enough to say his "few words", but we'll try to catch him another time.
    Curufin said his few words. :)
    Earwen, Dior's sister, joined after the last meeting.
    Khamul reminded us after the meeting how important it is to show up for Guild activities, to keep a guild together. He has seen other bnet groups break up and expressed concern for this one. For those who can't make meetings, they can check the minutes on the News, discuss Tolkien on the Discussion Board, and email Varda to bring up issues at the meeting or in Council email discussions. The Council does not meet online for discussions, but by email.
    The Guild Sweep has begun. Please make contact with Varda or the Discussion Board before we clear inactive names from the web pages and put them up for new member use. My email is layton2@flex.net
    The Valar Guild is not just a Diablo club. We play all online games and make web pages for Tolkien and all online games. Please remember to let Eonwe know which online games you are playing and use a name as close as possible to your guild name for recognition, even where we have no formal guild in that game.
Web News:
    Links Page: 3 new Tolkien music links:
        Blind Guardian, found by one of our former Bilbos
        Led Zeppelin & Tolkien Relations Page, found by Folca
        Stairway to Middle-earth, found by Folca
Gaming:
    Before the meeting, 6 people were playing together in D2X: Alatar, Bert, Curufin, Elendil, Salmar, Thorondor.
    Pippin is interested in finding fellow players for Counter-Strike's Half-life. Menelvagor and Olwe have been active in this game as well.
    Thursday is the Council's special day to play D2X, for the ones who have the game. Times are mostly afternoon ESDT. Council is trying to get around their many time zones, work, and school to show up. Any others interested in D2X are certainly welcome.
Tolkien:
    Thranduil asked about the character, Rog. Varda told his story, which comes from Book of Lost Tales 2 , of his leading the charge against orcs and balrogs to give time for the evacuation of Gondolin, saving many who would have died. He and his people died to a man, but were the first to prove balrogs could be killed.
The group broke up into games afterwards.

April 19, 2002
    The Sweep begins. This is the sweep of inactive members from our Member pages. Anyone removed has the fun of going back through the rejoining process to re-enter. Contact Varda before the end of May. This means that in June, we will have only active members.
    Methods for contacting Varda:
    1. Email Varda at layton2@flex.net
    2. Show up to a meeting and make sure your name is on the attendance roll on the News. Meetings are Sunday 5pm ESDT bnet channel Clan ValarGuild.
    3. Post to the Discussion Board using your guild name, as Ori has.
    4. Write an article, story, poem, or joke and send it in. Having it published puts your name in the News page.
    5. The bots may or may not register your presence in the channels. Valar is our main playing channel.
    6. With luck, seeing Varda in the channel might get you noted down on a piece of paper.
    How do you know if you are considered to be on the active list? Check the new, perhaps temporary, Member Activity page to see. After June, if you do not show up on the regular Member page by Amillo, you've been dropped and need to rejoin. We are assuming you are not active unless you make some sort of contact.

April 18, 2002
   Congratulations to our new Maia, Alatar! Aldarion passed a test by Eonwe, Salmar, and Varda with a perfect 5/5! We thank him once again for playing long hours daily in the guild, buying our domain name, and hosting so many of our pages on his own server. He is 41, and you can look up more of his info under the Aldarion entry. He's fun to be with; what more do we need to know? :) Ok, he joined March 28, 2001.
    Amandil , welcome to the Valar Guild! This must be the day for brilliance, as he too made a perfect score for entry. Testers were our new Alatar, Eonwe, Salmar, and Varda. His previous name was Nazgul89. He had to contend with lag and drops for all of us that were not there earlier in the day, and kept his cool very well. He is 12, from Owen Sound, Ontario, Canada in the EST zone, and has been emailing Varda for some time as well as visiting the channel and chatting. He's read the H and LotR, working on the Sil which he finds slow. He has been in other guilds and likes this one for its emphasis on Tolkien, courtesy and being organized. He makes SC maps which we hope to be seeing soon! Online 2 or 3 nights a week, he likes to play SC/BW, WCIIBNE, and regular D2.
    Khamul has a new email. It also sends but won't receive. Khamul, please check your settings, maybe phone your email providers again. I looked again myself and believe his email automatically had the "s" truncated from microsoft, preventing replies. This may be on my end, also happens to Amillo.
    Icky, guild-friend, tells us that although the chest hack accounts have been removed, packets are hitting the games very hard causing potential crashes. It's not a good idea to be transferring items on the ground for a while! That seems to be the cause of the lag that hit during Amandil's test. Icky is also requesting suggestions for good Tolkien terms, places, names for the bot's Hangman game. He is also looking for a good, funny name from Tolkien for his bot.
    Dior reminds us all that he needs Tolkien-themed StarCraft and BroodWar maps for the web page he is making for the guild.
    Eonwe reminds us to update which games we currently play for the Games page, and send in reviews for any online game. Tips for game play may be sent to Varda for those pages.

April 17, 2002
    Links page: Folca found these music links for Led Zeppelin which he prefers over Blind Guardian:
    The Led Zeppelin and JRR Tolkien Relations Page , made by Scott Selisker, contents last updated in Sept 1998.  Folca reviews this one as better than the next link, having more in-depth analysis. Each set has an illustration, the lyrics alone, then a breakdown of how the writers believe the lyrics go with Tolkien's stories. It is fun reading, making one think. We can see allusions of our own as well. And yes Avalon is referred to in the Silmarillion as Tol Eressea, the island of the elves between Numenor and Valinor.
    Stairway to Middle-earth Folca says this one looks better, but the analysis is not as good. I preferred the first page's system of letting us read the lyrics for ourselves before taking it apart.

April 16, 2002
    Links page: our former Bilbo found this music lyric link: Blind Guardian - band that made songs relating to Middle-earth, by following Discography/"Nightfall in Middle-earth" (lyrics based on the Silmarillion!).

April 14, 2002
Sunday Meeting 5pm EST channel Clan ValarGuild
Attending: Amillo/Omar, Beleg, Celegorm, Dior, Eonwe, Erestor, Folca, Irmo, Varda (presiding)
Membership: 151 members
    Earwen is our new member, sister of Dior. She is rejoining after a long absence, previously known as Amarie. She passed her test after the meeting. Welcome back! Eonwe and Gwaihir had the honor of giving the test. She is 17, from St. Louis, Missouri, USA, in the CST zone. She's read the H, LotR, BoLT 1 & 2, UT. She plays SC/BW, and D2, looking forward to WC3.
    Khamul! Your email is not working for us. Please check to see if it is set to not receive email or if your box is full.
    Letter from Boromir:

Hey sorry for not being active its just bnet has been boring since i can only play bw. But that will change cause in about a week im getting a new comp.
 1.8 giga hertz and 80 giga bites of mem.and im sure ill buy warcraft3 so that means ill be alot more active seeing is how i can play games with out the lag
 
Namarie
Boromir

Web: no news
Gaming:
    StarCraft/BroodWar:
        Fingon-(V) made a new map: an RPG in which you and four other players are versus the comp to take Frodo to Mount Doom.
        Dior-(V) requests that if anyone finds a Tolkien map to send it to him for a web-page collection we can all share. Tell him in your email that you have an attachment with the file and what it is, so he will know it's not a virus.
    Diablo 2 Lord of Destruction:
        Blizzard has deleted over 20,000 accounts including their CD-Keys, if any one of the characters on it repeatedy used the "chest hack" which has been loading down the servers and creating terrible lag. It opened the chest 100 times, dropping the same items, also creating a lag spike. Any dupes meeting in a game can expect one to disappear, as usual, so it is dangerous to depend on a dupe. Remember that guild characters do not accept outside items unless the guild character buys them from an npc or sees the item dropped by a monster. Outside items may be accepted by your outside account, but do not bring them into the guild.
    Battle.net news:
        April 18 ISP maintenance will take down the East server for up to 6 hours. The date, time, and length of down-time keeps being changed, so you might want to check with the battle.net page for updates.
Tolkien:
    Erestor-(V)'s topic: With the phial of Galadriel, could one sail west for Valinor?
    Discussion: the phial included the light of the star that Earendil steers. Earendil wears a Silmarillion. A silmaril is not what helped Earendil enter Valinor, rather that he was the representative of both the first and second-born children of Iluvatar, coming selflessly, and foretold long ago. 

April 11, 2002
    Fingon reported by email April 6 that he has made a new StarCraft Tolkien map:

I Have made an great new LotR Map for Starcraft it's an RPG were you and four other play against the computer to take Frodo to Mount Doom.
I hope others get to tryt it soon.
 
Fingon

April 7, 2002
Sunday Meeting5pm ESDT (Daylight Savings Time has hit EST)
Attending:
    Amillo/Lindelome, Bert, Denethor, Elendil, Eonwe, Erestor/Erestar, Finwe, Folca, Gwaihir, Gwindor/Flinding, Irmo, Khamul, Salmar/Ulumurcar, Thranduil, Varda (presiding)
Membership News:
    Amillo reinstalled D2 just in time to make the meeting!
    Eonwe finally got to speak his "few words". After about 2 1/2 years, it was time.
    Erestor, our earlier Fingolfin, is back in the guild and quite active again.
    Finrod Felagund, after discussion with a bnet supervisor, has his accounts back which were labeled expired in age. 
    Khamul spoke his few words. Congratulations for making it to the meeting!.
    Khamul's email does not seem to work for me, rather like Earendil's. We are now trying to work around this problem. Khamul, if you have a secondary email, please send that one. We have not forgotten you.
Gaming:
    BroodWar:
    Map making: Khamul would like help from our guild making a map RPG for BW, needing trigger help. He already has a story line for it. He expects to find help from a friend in his previous clan. Map makers and beta testers, please see if you can contact Khamul.
    New map: Thranduil reports beta testing an excellent new BW map called LotR vs Last Alliance. Gwaihir says it came out yesterday on bnet, but is not certain if it is the final version or a leak, and has played a version similar to it twice. Some features Thranduil reported are:
    Sauron has the Ring, adding 500 to his 2100 hit points. If he is killed, the Ring drops and any hero can pick it up, adding to his hit points.
    The dwarves can delve too deeply and unleash a balrog.
    Shelob can dark swarm and wipe out Osgiliath easily.
    One player is Angmar, the Witch-King, Lord of Ringwraiths.  
     D2X:
    Bert reported that Blizzard has taken action against people using the cache chest dupe hack. The hack opened the chest over and over so that the items in it came out a hundred times, causing terrible lag spikes when it happened, along with increased lag from the excess number of items. Those people using the hack have had their accounts deleted, over 7000, not one of them a guild guy.
    Please remember that guild account characters are not to trade outside due to dupes, hacks, and stolen items. This keeps them from being traded around inside the guild with the many attendant problems. It is okay to trade outside with an outside character, of course, but keep it separate from the guild.
     EQ:
    Varda as Bridhil attended a wedding on EQ and learned something interesting about Aule and Ulmo's doings at the same time. More on our EverQuesters News page.
Web:  
    "You know you're in Valar when..." page: joke by Dior added. Feel free to email yours to Varda to be put on the page.
Tolkien: 
    The sons of Elrond - did they choose to be men or elves? What was their eventual fate? Topic brought up by Thranduil-(V).
    The discussion in short: They were not half-elves but 3/4 elves and were counted as elves. They were rangers of the north, working with Aragorn. They stayed behind with Celeborn after Elrond and Galadriel took ship to the West. The brothers remained to help the new age of Men, then eventually took one of the last boats out to the West.
    The group went into trivia questions.
    Valar of Time:
    Varda commented on the Valar of Time, early Valar later dropped by Tolkien, incorporated into other things. Eonwe remembered the name Ranuin. Varda found it in Book of Lost Tales 1 and is now presenting it on this page since it could not be gone into at the meeting. Ranuin is "Month", child of Aluin "Time". Aluin was the eldest of the Ainur, being "Time". His three children were Danuin "Day", Ranuin "Month", and Fanuin "Year", and all look like old, powerful men, their heights according to the length of time they command. Aluin stayed beyond, with Iluvatar, and the three returned to him when they were done with the business of giving Manwe control of the Sun and Moon's comings and goings. In the final version, it was Varda who set their path and time and no Ainur had children.
     The Book of Lost Tales also gives some mention of part of the Last Battle, saying Melko (later Melkor) would cause a quarrel between the Sun and Moon. Ilinsor, steersman of the moon (later called Tilion) would try to follow Urwendi, she who steers the sun (later called Arien) through the Gate into the outer dark. The outer dark escapes the world and death, and hears things mortals are not meant to hear, blocked from the world by the deep blue Wall of Things. The Valar created two gates through the wall, one east and one west. The western Door of Night can only be opened by the word that Manwe told only to Urwendi. This word is reversed to re-enter the world through the Gate of Morn in the east. Ilinsor  is supposed to take another route below the world sometimes slowed by the underground grotto paths, aided by Ulmo who controls the Sea of Vai on which the ship of the world floats. But when the moon follows the sun through the Door of Night (western gate), both  East and West gates would be destroyed and the sun and moon could not return. Then Fionwe Urion (later Eonwe), son of Manwe, for love of Urwendi, would destroy Melko by destroying the world. It is after this that all, Ainur and the Children of Iluvatar, sing together with full knowledge of  what should be, gained from the lives they have spent, to create Arda as Eru intends as was planned from the beginning.

April 3, 2002
    Welcome to Khamul ! Khamul is from Florida, USA in EST. He's read the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. As Lord Ringwraith, he tested with Tom Bombadil for a 5/5 score. Unfortunately even a reply to his email did not work for me.

     New joke for the "You know you're in Valar when... " page, from Dior:
... You know you're in Valar when you answer a question affirmatively in Physics class and someone asks you, "What is wrong with your eye?"  

April 2, 2002
    Welcome back, Erestor! We are happy to have Erestor completely re-entered into the Valar Guild, listed in all the right places at last. We enjoyed his working with us at the Tolkien chat part of the meeting, so that we had a sort of re-entry test, training for all members present, and just plain fun. He used to be Fingolfin, then had to be absent a long time. The name was taken while he was out, so he is now Erestor, Chief Councilor of Elrond. He was using an Erestar version. Playing from Massachusetts in the USA, age 46, he's on bnet about 10 hours a week, so maybe you can catch him.

top


March 31, 2002
    Happy Easter!

Sunday Meeting 5pm EST in bnet channel Clan ValarGuild, since Blizzard decided only channels with a "Clan" name will be allowed ops. Regular channels still used for gaming and chatting as always.
Attending:
    Aldarion, Aragorn, Bregalad/Quickbeam, Dior, Eonwe, Erestor/Erestar, Gwaihir, Salmar/Nandoro, Thror, Varda (presiding)
    Finglas/Leaflock and Glaurung came in way after the meeting, but they are around. Sauron, Fangorn, and Eowyn said Hi over the shoulder.  

Membership: 149
    Some of our Europeans showed up one hour early, since Valar Guild time is EST. It has not yet switched to ESDT.
    Amillo sends regards. He will be at a  family party during the meeting.
    Melkor! A hearty welcome back to you! He has visitors during this meeting, but hopes to be around more now.
    Sauron, Fangorn and Varda traveled this weekend to see Meriadoc, who treated us to the latest release of Fellowship (Fangorn passing out Ent-draughts with popcorn), this time with the trailer for Two Towers after the main show. It was the fifth viewing for Sauron, fourth for the rest.. We had a great time pointing out stuff to each other, generally discussing both movies, and a blast was had by all.  :)  In the trailier, we saw Aragorn get serious, armies, a freckled Eowyn, and Fangorn before Pippin realizes that's not just a tree.
Web:
    Pages are moving. Gaming pages are shifting to Bombadil's TenPeaks server. Tolkien pages are shifting to Aldarion's ValarGuild server. Flex.net now only provides 2MB, GeoCities is about to start requiring payment for FTP. Links can be updated from the main index page for the guild. when you see link problems, please email the page maintainer.
    Tolkien Encyclopedia: new article "Tom Bombadil" by Dior-(V)
Gaming:
    StarCraft/BroodWar: Like to make a review of a BW map, especially if it's Tolkien? Rate it from 1-10, 1 being waste of time and 10 being must play. Email your review to Dior-(V) for his upcoming maps page. This will be linked to the main Valar Guild site and the Games page once up.
Tolkien:
    After a long absence, ex-Fingolfin proved himself under his new name of Erestor-(V), letting himself be used for recruiter training for all members present during the Tolkien part of the meeting.  He also gave a question back to the group: What is the name of Fangorn's home and what type of trees are the two standing in front of the entrance?
    Amarie came within half a point of re-entering the guild. Watch out next time! 

March 28, 2002
    Tolkien Encyclopedia: new article " Tom Bombadil ", by Dior-(V)

March 27, 2002
    Many Gaming pages have moved from the GeoCities server to the TenPeaks server space belonging to Tom Bombadil-(V). This is because GeoCities was taken over by Yahoo and is about to start charging for FTP activity in April. FTP means File Transfer Protocol and is the direct way of uploading and downloading files, very fast, and my preferred method. The corrected addresses are on the main guild index page.

March 24, 2002
Sunday Meeting 5pm EST
Attending:report from Salmar
    (11) Beregond, Bert, Dior, Elendil, Eonwe , Finwe, Gwindor/Flinding, Salmar/Lirillo, Thranduil, Tulkas , Varda (presiding)
Membership: 149
    Quickbeam and Leaflock dropped by before the meeting.
    Aldarion came in after the meeting once he was off work.
    Folca has had internet problems since the beginning of March, but expects to be online early April.
Web News:
    Poetry page : "Song of Beleriand", by Amillo-(Valar)
    Links page : Hideout of Imladris
    LotR Online: 5 members left and will be starting a new page, which we have received email about and will link to when it is ready. We will have links to both.
    Thranduil - asking for volunteers to help him make a page for a personality quiz to show what race a person should have been if he had been born in Middle-earth. Dior volunteered. Thranduil asked for more volunteers for this large project, so email him if you are interested. Besides the main races Thranduil mentioned, some members suggested breaking "elves" down into Noldor, Teleri, and Sindar.
    Discussion Board: Bilbo is setting up a new discussion board which should improve our ability to locate topics we wish to add to. Aldarion has volunteered his server, so we also won't have to put up with ads.
    After the meeting, Dior said that the Bravenet forum is easy to use and free, and that he would be willing to set us up with one and moderate it if something should happen to the above plan. See www.bravenet.com.
Gaming News:
    Falathar is trying to set up an EverQuest server. It might also be used for the new D2X mod.
    Thranduil reported that WarCraft 3 will be using some mithril weapons.
    Aldarion reports that his next radio show will tell about Blizzard.
Tolkien:
    Thranduil commented that little is said about elf children. Bert commented that immortal races shouldn't have lots of children.
    Amarie, Dior's sister, tested to rejoin after a long absence due to an extreme number of extra-curricular activities with which she is no longer involved. She's been reading Lost Tales and had gotten rusty on LotR. Better luck next time! She allowed Aldarion to sit in with Eonwe and Varda to let him train for Maiar.

March 21, 2002
    Poetry page of the Tolkien Encyclopedia: "Song of Beleriand", by Amillo-(Valar).
     Links page: Hideout of Imladris - dictionary, articles, fanfic, poetry, pictures, music 

March 18, 2002
Letter from Folca:

Heyas,
Greetings to all the Valar Guild, I have been having internet problems since the beginning of March and will get my access back at the beginning of April. See you all then!

Namarie, Folca

March 17, 2002
    Happy St. Patrick's Day!
Sunday Meeting 5pm EST
Attending:
    Members: Amillo/Lindelome, Bert, Durin, Elendil, Eonwe, Gwaihir, Gwindor/Flinding, Ori, Thranduil, Thror, Varda(presiding)
    Over the shoulder: Oin, Sauron, Fangorn
    Visting: BarelySkimpy/*Elchuey28
Membership: 149 with new member Thorin
    Regards from these members missing the meeting:
        Curufin - at Wrestlemania, the big event for people like himself who love wrestling.
        Beregond - having bnet problems
        Bombadil - in Paris, France looking for a new home
        Irmo - meeting friends at an Irish pub for St. Patrick's Day
        Ulmo - has new email, comp being upgraded
    Special message to the missing. Bert hopes Ulmo will drop by and play with him.
Web:
    Tolkien Encyclopedia: new Frodo article by Varda
    Gaming pages: being moved onto Ten Peaks since GeoCities decided to drop free FTP. The links are all wiggy right now due to the shuffle.
    Discussion Board: a poll in the channel showed that the Discussion Board was not being used by most of the ones at the meeting (hey, they are in bnet where they can chat directly!). Of the ones who were using it, they found the ads annoying but it would not prevent their using it. Setting up an ad-free, no-pay discussion board was considered the best plan if we can find volunteers in the guild to handle it. Since only 10 of 149 people were at the meeting, this is not a major vote but a small poll. The Discussion Board is being discussed in Council as well. Volunteers please email Varda.
Gaming:
    D2X: Bert reports a rumor that Blizzard plans to nerph Mephisto. He will be harder to find, to kill, (that part's ok), and will drop lousier items (bad, since already the Meph runs can be disappointing).
Tolkien:
    Some movie talk.
    A question came up about knights as they are shown in Tolkien, but received little discussion.
    An after meeting discussion was more lively. Eonwe showed that in the Return of the King Appendix "Tale of Years" that it states that Gandalf "came back to life". Gwaihir located the spot and quoted it in the channel. Eonwe also showed that Tolkien uses the same word to describe the deaths of both Gandalf and Saruman - a passing. In the "Mirror of Galadriel", Gandalf returns to life and lies in a trance. Eonwe plans to send in an article on the subject for the Encyclopedia later on.
    Entry test: better luck next time to *Elchuey28.

March 15, 2002
    The family of Ulmo, Gothmog, and Elanor has a new email . Good luck with the continuing computer re-vamp!

March 14, 2002
    Discussion Board. Yahoo has "updated" our Discussion Board from the way GeoCities used to have it. It is less friendly and forces us to see an ad in the message area taking up half the post space, and sometimes the entire space between messages. The photo albums have only a few words or less than one word left of description.. Never great, it is generally not as good a board as it was, so the Council is looking into a new message board. Bilbo needs to email Varda at layton2@flex.net so we can have a discussion about how to implement the suggestions he made in a Discussion Board post. If anyone else has suggestions, please email Varda as well. Your suggestions will be passed on to the Council. If you wish not to have a change made, please let us know the same way. Comments will also be listened to at the Sunday meeting. If you have expertise in message boards and wish to either advise or help handle it, email Varda.

March 13, 2002
    Letter from Beregond:

I am currently having Battle.net problems of unknown origin,
I have been working on this for a while, and i hope to be with you
again very soon :)
 
Miss you all...Beregond ;)

March 12, 2002
    Tolkien Encyclopedia : new article on the Hobbit page -  "Frodo's Success or How can a Ringbearer Destroy the One Ring?" by Varda-(Valar).

March 11, 2002
    Web news: rules changed on some of our servers, not allowing links off their server among other rules or requiring payment for ftp up and downloads. I'm currently working on jumping to other servers. My HTML editor did not survive the XP upgrade and the Netscape Composer is buggy after being switched to the new hard drive. Images are misbehaving abominably. Bear with me, please.
    Tom Bombadil is looking for a home in Paris, France. He will have email but not games for a while, but hopes to find a cybercafe over there with bnet games.

March 10, 2002
Sunday Meeting 5pm EST
Attending:
    Members: Bregalad, Elendil, Eonwe, Gelmir, Glorfindel, Gwaihir, Gwindor, Irmo, Thranduil, Thror, Tulkas, Varda (presiding)
    Visitors: *GandalfGreyhem
Membership: 148 members
    Finrod is working on computer problems.
    Ghan-buri-ghan says hi from EverQuest. His letter is on our EverQuesters News page (EQ pages have a link at the top of this page)
    Tulkas managed to stay with us in the channel for a while despite a tenuous computer connection.
Web:
    Links: new links to National Geographic, Kalevala. See March 8, 2002 News
    Pages that are free on GeoCities will no longer have FTP service after April. Some of our links are currently not working, that involve GeoCities. That server (under new management by Yahoo) also has a list of rules, some of which may be the cause of some links not working (map downloads on Tourney page) on our giant site spidered over multiple servers. Here are some which may be a problem for a number of us if read harshly:
Pulling files from your GeoCities account to a location outside of Yahoo! GeoCities, such as auction sites, message boards, and other web sites.
Using GeoCities for the sole purpose of storing files.
Using GeoCities for commercial purposes.
Using your GeoCities home page to redirect visitors to other sites.
Improperly promoting your website via email, message boards, or instant message (i.e., spam)
Tolkien:
    Books:
    Thranduil told some book names for Tolkien study, seconded by Irmo:
    The Languages of Tolkien's Middle-earth , by Ruth S. Noel
    The Mythology of Middle-earth , by Ruth S. Noel
    Irmo added this one, currently too expensive for his library so he has it on hold at his university, where he is working on a major Tolkien paper we hope to publish here later:
    Tolkien's Legendarium, by Carl Hostetter and Verlyn Flieger
    Chat:
    Thranduil's topic: Caradhras - was it alive or a figment of the Fellowship's imagination?
    Gwaihir: not necessarily alive, but definitely sentient.
    Eonwe: mountain not alive, but a Maia spirit may have resided there.
    The chat turned into what should be called living. For instance, are the Valar actually alive? (As a Valie, I must say I feel very much alive!-Varda) Can a being which is a spirit be called alive? Does it have to have a body? When is it dead? Can a Vala die? How about a Maia? Since there were differing opinions about what is alive even in Tolkien's universe (confused with comments that involved real life), this question was not resolved. I suggest Thranduil post it to the Discussion Board.
    Entry:
    Our visitor, *GandalfGreyhem, took the entry test after the meeting and passed!
    Welcome to the Valar Guild, Thorin Oakenshield ! He is a friend of Glorfindel's, who gets credit as scout. Eonwe and Varda had the honor of giving the test. Thorin is 12, from the state of New York in the USA, EST. He's read the H, LotR, and started Roverandom. His favorite characters in LotR are Sauron, because he is never vividly described so he can be imagined any way you like, and Boromir who heroically gave his life for Merry and Pippin, making up for his human frailty over the Ring. Thorin came into the meeting on StarCraft. He plays StarCraft, BroodWar, WarCraft2, Diablo1 (Gelmir take note!). He hopes to buy Diablo 2 Expansion before Glorfindel kills him, and WarCraft 3 when it comes out. He likes the guild because of the Tolkien and because Glorfindel is here. He is working with others on a web page they hope to publish when it is finished, probably s under an URL something like www.tradingsystems.net/max/gamingmagonline/index.htm. He hopes to write an article for us on his character, maybe about the Oakenshield. Good luck, Thorin!

March 8, 2002
    Link page:
        National Geographic page about the real life influences on Tolkien's work and on the movie in New Zealand. by National Geographic
        Kalevala: The Finnish National Epic - about the ancient Finnish epic on the Virtual Finland pages, with more links to Kalevala info

March 5, 2002
    Letter from Finrod:

 Just a note from me (Finrod) to let you know that my
computer is playing up on me at the moment...
Hopefully I'll be back online sometime this week, but
no guarantees...

Using this email account as I can't access my
home-email at the mo'!!

Namarie

FF
March 4, 2002
    Some of the guild pages were down for a while, as my isp was down. This was due to a major fiber cut in the Southwestern Bell system knocking out a whole town and many connections going through it. Repairs were feverishly under way and all should be well now or soon.

March 3, 2002

Sunday Meeting 5pm EST
Attending:
    Members: Amillo/Lindelome, Elendil, Eonwe (presiding), Finglas/Leaflock, Fingolfin the old/Gilgalos, Finwe, Gwaihir, Gwindor/Flinding, Quickbeam/JavaBeam/Bregalad, Thorondor/Ramandur, Thror, Varda
    Visitor: *7-icrack-7
Membership: 147 members
    Meetings are now being held in Clan ValarGuild. Playing may also be done from there or our regular channels. The only way to hold the "Clan" channel open is with Thror's bot, so if you don't see it then his bot is probably having difficulties. In such a case, play as usual from the usual channels.
    Fingolfin/Gilgalos is the Fingolfin from before Khan's Fingolfin, currently trying to pick through a long list of new names. The name confusion will be straightened out. Khan/Fingolfin plays in the Middle-earth mods.
    Salmar sends regards. His wife's mother just passed away and he is needed by the family.
    Irmo sends regards. He has been buried under a writing deadline and must miss tonight's meeting.
Web:
    Poetry news: 
        Amillo-(Valar) took third place in the Gollum poetry contest for LotR Online! It is posted on our own Poetry page and on LotR Online here . Congrats Amillo!!
        Thranduil-(V) has a poem up on our Poetry page also entered into the contest called "My Precious".
    Links page: "Tolkien and Middle-earth" by Marina
Gaming:
    Dark Age of Camelot: Amillo found out that Europeans are only allowed on the European server. Fellow European members who wish to join up with him please be a Viking Midgard Excalibur server.
    WarCraft 3 Beta news is up on Blizzard's page.
Tolkien:
    Chat topic 1 by Quickbeam: Why is Eonwe in the Valar Guild a Vala but Eonwe in the Silmarillion is a Maia?
        The names the guild uses are from all of Tolkien's books and history. In earlier versions of the history, Eonwe was the son of Manwe and Varda, a Vala himself. Later Tolkien changed it so that the Valar apparently had no children. Salmar is a like case. For more details, see the guild's Tolkien Encyclopedia under Powers about the Lost Valar.
    Chat topic 2 by Varda: How did different races contribute to the War of the Ring, especially your favorite race? Fingolfin the Old added an interesting additonal topic deserving more discussion: all the races had built up fences around themselves that were brought down during the War.


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Feb. 28, 2002

    Diablo 2X Mod fix: Letter from Khan/Fingolfin

Hoyas

There has been an extremely negative response on the stamina nerf we
introduced in the latest MEmod version (1.6). Since we don't want to split
the MEmod community into 1.5 (weaklings :) and 1.6 users, we decided to give
in and partly remove the nerf in a new version (1.7). Staminadrain is still
more than in CLoD but it's much less then in 1.6.
There are also some new Runewords and minor bugfixes - so be sure to inform
the guild.

Hopefully this version will be one that can be settled with for some time.

Have fun

Khan - Fingolfin


Feb. 26, 2002
    Diablo 2X Mod news! Letter from Khan/Fingolfin-(V):

Hail

The new version 1.6 final is available at our site (www.VKmods.de).
Installation as usual.
The main changes were made to add more challenge especially to the very end
of the game (act 5 Valar). There are also some balance changes to skills,
some new cube recipes and minor bugfixes. See the readme for a complete
list.

We call it final but that doesn't mean we'll stop working on it. We will
still fix major bugs or even add nifty features. But there won't be changes
to the general gameplay. So you can be sure your Ubercharacter will stay
Uber

BTW due to some financial reasons we'll have to change the forum, probably
reducing it to a single one. In the course of this the current messages
won't "survive". We'll archive the most important stuff and we'll inform you
all in due time.

BTW2 MAC users will have to wait for me to make a patch version of the 1.6
mod or use the current 1.5 downloadable at:
http://khaaan.bei.t-online.de/DiabloIIPatch Have fun

Feb. 25, 2002
    Poetry page: New - "Your Precious", by Thranduil.
    Links page:
  Tolkien and Middle-earth - web page for Discussion Board group including a time line of JRR Tolkien's life. By Marina. Listed on the Links page under Tolkien/Groups, Fan Sites

    Channel news:

Battle.net Update - 2/25/2002
Users will no longer get operator privileges in standard private Battle.net channels. Clan channels, however, will support operator privileges. To become the operator of a clan channel you must create a channel "clan xxx" where xxx is your account name. To learn more about Clan Channels go here .

We made this change to improve Battle.net stability.

-Blizzard Entertainment  

As a temporary adaptation, the Valar Guild used a temporary clan channel last meeting. The name is under Council discussion now, so feel free to email your input to Varda for forwarding to the entire Council. Hey, you have to live there too. One possibility is to use the current channel as always and just use a "Clan" channel for meetings to help keep order, with the more usual channel name after the word Clan, set up by Thror's bot.

Feb. 24, 2002
Sunday Meeting 5pm EST

Attending: Amillo, Curufin, Elendil, "Fingolfin", Finrod/Sadrim, Finwe, Girion, Glaurung, Gwaihir, Gwindor, Halbarad, Hurin, Irmo, Quickbeam, Ori, Primula, Thingol, Thorondor, Thranduil, Thror, Varda (presiding)
    Visitors: Starke/*AvatarofWisdom, Homeslice
    Eonwe was not present during the meeting because he was testing a new member (long time visitor Homeslice), and helped Varda with another test after the meeting for *Avatarofwisdom, and joined into a Tolkien discussion after the main Tolkien chat. What's your excuse? :)
Membership News: 146 members at the start of the meeting, 148 after.
    New members who passed entry tests during or after the meeting!:
    Welcome, Beleg , to the Valar Guild! He joined us after the meeting. Beleg is 18 from Illinois, USA, CST, read the H, LotR, and most of the first half of the Sil. He plays D2X and SC/BW. He tested with Eonwe and Varda, letting us know that his favorite character is Sam, for his loyalty to Frodo throughout the books.  He visited with his level 60 Starke/*Avatarofwisdom. His account is *Beleg-V.
    Welcome to Finglas, aka Leaflock the Ent, to the Valar Guild! He joined us during the meeting, originally scouted by Quickbeam, and tested with Eonwe. He's been visiting as Homey_G_Funk/*Homeslice for around 6 months now, so he knows us well! He is trying to straighten out a problem with his email, which we hope will be soon. he's 13, from Florida, USA, EST. He's read the LotR and is almost done with the Hobbit, which he likes even better. His favorite scene in the Hobbit is the journey through Mirkwood. He plays D2X and BW. His favorite LotR character is Saruman for his confidence, awesome power, and power of persuasion with his Voice.  His account is *Leaflock-V. Go ents!

    Celegorm joined this week. See News Feb. 22.
    Fingolfin from before Khan (who now bears the name) is back after a long absence, keeping his account active in solo play. We hope he will re-test and take a new name. When it happens, it will be posted to the News page.
    The old Denethor dropped by as Cerufin/*-=Dune=-.
    Deagol, Tar-Aldarion and others came in well after the meeting. Al and others work, or have other schedule problems, but can show up for gaming and chat afterwards - sort of after-meeting meetings. The cow level was in considerable peril. At that time, Aldarion told us about a wonderful article he wrote for his radio show (under the name Mark Lautenschlager) about his son, D2, and Tolkien. There's another one about how he felt when his 5-year old daughter discovered the Internet. You can read them here .
     Salmar sends his regards. Real life has been keeping him from us lately.
Web News:
    The big news is the Poetry contest held by LotR Online with jaw-dropping prizes. See News Feb 21 for details and links.
    Poetry page:
      New poems today:
        "Lament for Gollum", by Amillo-(Valar). Entered in the LotR Online contest about Gollum.
        "Gollum", by Jerra, a guild-friend. Entered in the LotR Online contest.
      New poems this week:
        "Dark Caverns", by Finrod-(V). Entered in the LotR Online contest about Gollum.
        "Glîr Thingol ar Ardh în (a song of Thingol and his kingdom)" by Tal
Tolkien:
    Chat - hair color in elves, by Thranduil. Could use an article with good references in the Encyclopedia just on this subject! It could be of help to artists and role-players as well as for interest.
    Chat - special properties of the Blessed Land, where they came from, and could Melkor's Angband also have had special, perhaps Cursed Land, properties? by Eonwe. Also deserves more thought.
    Suggested reading: Irmo highly recommends A Question of Time: JRRT's Road to Faerie , by Verlyn Flieger, and has mailed the author receiving a surprisingly quick reply. Watch for this one!  

Feb. 23, 2002
    Poetry page -  New poems:
        "Dark Caverns", by Finrod-(V). Entered in the LotR Online contest about Gollum.
        "Glîr Thingol ar Ardh în (a song of Thingol and his kingdom)" by Tal.

Feb. 22, 2002
    Welcome to our new member, Celegorm ! He's 15, from Virginia, USA in EST. He plays a few times a week, mostly weekends, on D2X and hopes to soon have StarCraft/BroodWar as well. He passed Gwaihir's test, his favorite two LotR characters being Galadriel and Tom Bombadil. His previous accounts were based on Tolkien, and he came in as *HouseofFeanor. He's read the Hobbit, LotR, Sil, and Tolkien Bestiary.

Feb. 21, 2002
Tolkien poetry contest held by LotR Online . Be sure to read their directions and send the entry to the right place! I am not running their contest and am not doing it for you. Also, please send a copy of your entry to Varda (me) for publishing on the Valar Guild's poetry page too, whether or not you win one of LotR Online's prizes. Their site can also be found from our Links page:

Calling all Poets! 
If you are a poet or want to be one for a day wait until you hear about our great contest we have for you! We have Partnered with Blades by Brown Cutlery, Badali Jewelery and Harper Colins to bring you one contest to rule them all! The winner will recieve an Official Sting Replica, A set of LoTR Movie Cover books as well as a One Ring. Interested? Drooling yet? Click Here for more info! Better hurry! The Contest ends March 1, 2002!

Feb. 18, 2002
    Tolkien Encyclopedia : Poetry section. New poem, "Shelob" by Jerra, Jerra9876@aol.com, non-guild member.

Feb. 17, 2002
Sunday Meeting 5pm EST
Attending: report by Salmar and Varda
    Members: Amillo/Omar, Aragorn/Estel, Azog, Bert, Deagol, Fingon, Finrod, Finwe, Folca, Gwindor/Flinding, Girion, Gwaihir, Halbarad, Herumor/~Xanatos~, Ori, Salmar/Nandaro, Theoden, Thingol/Greymantle, Thror, Varda (presiding)
    Over the shoulder members: Oin (with Ori), Primula (with Deagol) 
Membership: report by Amillo and Varda
    145 members
    Eonwe sends regards, not near a computer at meeting time.
Web: report by Varda
    Links page: FanFiction, includes Tolkien-inspired work
    Varda's FTP has been misbehaving.
Gaming:
    Send times that you wish to join up with other guild members for online games to the Games page.
Tolkien:
    Suggested topics: Scouring of the Shire; Arkenstone; Sports in Middle-earth
    What sports were played in Middle-earth? Suggested by Deagol .
        Azog said "Golf". We had some grins over that one, the sport of Bullroarer!
    Arkenstone: Suggested by Amillo .
        This sparked a number of comments. The Arkenstone seemed to glow with an inner light. All we really know is that it was found under Erebor by Thrain I and was the symbol of the Kingship of the dwarves under the mountain. Why did it glow? Where did it come from? It was called the Heart of the Mountain. Could it literally have been the heart of a living mountain? Caradhras was alive, so why not another mountain? Was it a creation of Aule himself when he created so much of the earth part of Arda? Could it have been made by the Jewel-smithing elves of Eregion at some time?

Feb. 14, 2002
    Happy Valentine's Day!
    A Valar Valentine:

Dear Primula

Thank you for making my dreams come true :)
Happy Valentines Day
                       Love  Deagol

Feb. 12, 2002
    Links page: new link Fan Fiction page. Includes Tolkien-inspired stories. See them under Books/Lord of the Rings. Link contributed by Elaine, non-guild member.

Feb. 10, 2002
Sunday Meeting 5pm EST Report by Eonwe-(Valar)
Attending:
    Amillo, Bard, Bert, Bullroarer, Deagol, Elendil, Elros, Eonwe (presiding), Eru, Finrod, Finwe, Folca, Gwaihir, Gwindor, Hurin, Irmo, Isildur, Legolas, Maedhros, Rog, Shagrat
    Came in during Tolkien chat: Azog, Glaurung, Theoden, Thingol, Thror, Tilion.
    Came by after meeting: Azaghal

    Gwaihir graciously held the double presence in the Discussion Board and bnet for Eonwe. Thank you!
Membership: 145 members reported by Amillo-(Valar)
    No new members this week.
   
Amillo, back from vacation, courageously stayed for most of the meeting after a long drive, but had to leave before the chat  

    Letter from Melkor:

Aiya all,

We're off to play in the sun (Arizona) from Feb 12th 'til Mar 28th -
look forward to seeing you all at the Mar 30th mtg.

Namarie,
Melkor

    Varda sends regards. Had to be out of town during the meeting, but you were in capable hands with Eonwe!
    Salmar's family needed him, so he too had to miss the meeting.

Web:

    Tolkien Encyclopedia :
        Addition to the Men section under Faramir, "Faramir's Name" with a new idea of the origin of his name. Contribution by a Tolkien fan not in the guild, only identified by his email of N10361@aol.com. Addendum Feb 15, the contributor is now going by the name Lady Nan.
    Tolkien-inspired Poetry : "Lament for Gondolin", by Tal, non-guild member.

Gaming:
    WarCraft III:
        Report from Eonwe: Blizzard has completed the selection of the beta testers for the Warcraft 3 beta, and those selected will know shortly (if they don't already).
        Email report from Beregond-(V):

It seems Warcraft 3 is scheduled for release on the 25th of June this year.

I read this on a webpage at "http://www.tothegame.com"
This is a search engine for dates on upcoming games, it is surprisingly accurate, and several large game shops use it as a reference.

Anyhoo...you just choose pccdrom as platform and press search. This will bring up a list of all the games known to man that are supposed to appear in the future. (You can of course search for individual titles as well :)  )

    Note from Varda: More WarCraft 3 news is doled out on Blizzard's pages as well.
Tolkien Chat:
    What is the most beautiful place in Middle-Earth? (any Age, so long as the place is in the mortal realms)
    Irmo - Lothlorien, created as a reflection of Irmo's gardens in Valinor; tranquility and closeness to nature of the West.
    Thror- Lothlorien or Khazad-Dum
    Folca - Lothlorien
    Gwaihir - Gondolin, beautiful mountain peaks, fountains, elves in shining armor, Idril
    Eonwe - Gondolin, replicas of the Two Trees, beautiful valley, great mountains surrounding
    Gwaihir - Land of the Dead that Live. The beauty of Luthien wearing the Silmaril cannot be compared, also it would be a tranquil and serene place

Feb. 3, 2002
Sunday Meeting 5pm EST
Attending:
    Bard, Bert, Deagol, Elendil, Eonwe (presiding Tolkien), Folca, Gwaihir, Halbarad, Irmo, Isildur, Pippin, Theoden, Thranduil, Varda (presiding business)
Membership:
    Three new members:
        Folca - said his few words  :)
        Glorfindel
        Edrahil - we still need your email
Web:
    Guild-wide story - part 2 by Salmar
Gaming:
    WarCraft: Gwaihir reports that WarCraft news is being slowly doled out by Blizzard.
    D2X: Bert has found the complete Assassin set by a stupendous number of Baal runs.
Channel:
    Halbarad brought up his feeling that the guild meeting on bnet is being cheated by having a presence on the Discussion Board at the same time as the battle.net meeting, as he feels the chair is too distracted by the double presence. Eonwe is the liason between DB and bnet, not the usual chair. Eonwe is sometimes the chair. The DB liason was set up for members who cannot enter bnet, and is rarely populated during the Sunday meeting as it is only an emergency measure. If Halbarad and other members are still feeling cheated, please email the Council to let them know and, if possible, explain what should be done instead. Halbard stated that Eonwe had shown real leadership.
Tolkien:
    A suggestion has been brought up in Council to have Saturday Tolkien chats on the Discussion Board chat area. These are not business meetings, just Tolkien chats. Anyone interested feel free to drop by the Discussion Board chat area on Saturdays between 11am and 2pm EST. Times are still under discussion, but this seems to be what we are doing.
    Chat: Thranduil had 2 topics:
        1. Origin of hobbits?
        2. What actually happens to Maia when they "die" in Middle-earth, such as Gandalf, Saruman, and Sauron?

Feb. 2, 2002
    Guild-wide Story Part 2 is up! Thank you to Salmar-(Valar) for this fine contribution!
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Jan. 28, 2002
    Welcome to our new members!
    Hail Glorfindel ! He is 15, from the USA, on Mountain Standard Time. He's read the LotR. He games in D2X and SC/BW and is on bnet daily.  He found us on the web doing a search for LotR Diablo groups. He joined after the meeting yesterday. Tested by Eonwe and Gwaihir, his favorite LotR character is Legolas.
    Aiya Edrahil! He is 13, from the USA, on Eastern Standard Time. He's read the H and LotR. He plays D2X and hopes to have SC/BW soon. He heard about us from a member, possibly Quickbeam. He tested as *Glorfindel105/ArwynTheElf with Eonwe, Gwaihir, and Varda.  He needs email (his old one expired) to complete his membership, but can play in guild friend games until then to build up his guild characters.
    Welcome Folca ! He almost became Hama, but changed to Folca before the webwork uploaded. He wanted this change to reflect his active lifestyle, as he enjoys mountain biking, snowboarding, and cross-country running. He is 18, from Quebec, Canada. He has read the H and LotR. He games in SC (bored with it), D2, and is planning to get D2X, playing on bnet at least 3 times a week. He visited the meeting yesterday but work prevented his testing afterwards. Today, Monday, he tested under the name MrSanchez with Gwaihir and Salmar. His favorite LotR character is the modest but great Aragorn. Due to irregular Sunday schedules, he will have difficulty coming to meetings.

Jan. 27, 2002
Sunday Meeting 5pm EST
Attending: 21 of 142 members
    We remained in the main channel this time.
    Members: Amillo/Nyellolomin, Bert/Burt, Celebrimbor, Elendil, Eol, Eomer, Eonwe, Eru, Fingon, Finrod/Ingoldo, Fladrif/Fladriff, Gwaihir, Gwindor/Vinyanor, Irmo, Luthien/Tinuviel/Nightingale, Olwe, Salmar, Thorondor, Thranduil, Thror, Varda (presiding)
    Visitors: 7-icrack-7 (tested, needs email and name for full membership), Avontor (would like to join in the future), ShAgRaT-LoK3, *WingedNazgul/IceMasterz (would like to be tested), TheGreenDragon (visitor: Icky's bot renamed. Guild friend helping us with bots)
Membership:
    Amillo's report : 142 members, no new members reported this week. (We have a new Glorfindel but the report isn't in yet.)
    Deagol and Primula have an ISP again. Deagol has been seen playing so they must have their comp up and running now!
    Discussion on handling members who may be coming in from non-bnet games:
    It would be best if they had connection to bnet. We once used bots to handle people who had no game disk so they could attend meetings. This no longer seems feasible after how difficult Blizzard made it, but it is something to consider. They can also come to meetings by the chat on the Discussion Board where Eonwe always has a relay. If more people are in the Discussion Board than in bnet, we can move regular meetings over there. We have used IRC before.
    Netsplit caused problems at this meeting. Salmar fell out and never could re-log back in. Discussion ensued of how to prevent netsplit. Suggestions ranged from GreenDragon's of putting everyone on the same server by the registry number (63.240.202.138) to having all meetings on the Discussion Board or IRC, and to the evidently preferred keep it on bnet and put up with it
Web:
    Games page by Eonwe: many updates. See News Jan 23 for details. Make sure your information is updated.
    Dark Age of Camelot needs a web page maker.
Gaming:
    Diablo 1 gamers are playing after meetings. Some members who play D1 are Gelmir, Eol, Gwaihir, Gwindor, Halbarad, Gelmir
    Baldur's Gate 2 people are meeting this coming Tuesday. See details on News Jan 23.
    Diablo 2 Expansion : dupe program has been stopped by Blizzard that had caused a great deal of lag and lag spikes. The mass of dupes continued to lag down bnet but that may be taken care of by the time you read this.
    Discussion on what to do if a member has a dupe or outsider item:
    One: Don't get it in the first place! Avoid the problem!
    If you have such an item, what do you do about it?
    1. Go to destroy it in a game with a Vala Council member to witness on your behalf that you did it.
    2. Make an outsider account if you don't have one and put outsider items on it. Play the outsider account in the non-guild games and don't mix the items. Do not bring the outsider to the guild channel for meetings (your guild name is for recognition of who you are in the guild), preferably not at all into the guild channel, and absolutely don't bring it into guild games.
    3. Keep the item and leave the guild, dropping the guild character name. Email the Council to let other members and potential members know the name is free. You can transfer items to the new outsider account.
Tolkien:
    Chat:
    Thranduil's subject: "I think Eru made elves his greatest creation among the races."
    Eonwe - Yes. Joys of incarnate living, benefits of being very much like the Ainur.
    Gwindor - He acknowledged them as the fairest of his creations. They have and conceive of more beauty than others.
    Nom - Fairest...but greatest? One could say that Man was his greatest.
    Thranduil - Men were independent thinkers but that made it easier for them to become evil and harder to choose the right path.
    Gwindor - mortality was the greatest gift. Luthien was allowed to choose the greater gift of mortality that mankind had.
    Omar/Amillo and others - each race had its advantages.
    Discussion switched over to one about death. Elves going to Mandos and men going on to Eru. Thranduil postulated that being with Eru would be boring, but we are not told what they would be doing with Eru. Elves were bound to Arda, but men could go beyond Arda.
    Testing:
    *7-icrack-7 passed, needs name and email to become a full member. Friend of Quickbeam's who has emailed about membership.
    *WingedNazgul/IceMasterz started to test but ran out of time and intends to return.

Jan. 23, 2002
    Games page news from Eonwe the Hard-working:

I've got the Games Page updated for the most part, and added some new things.  First are the links to Everquesters, Diablo and his Kin, Starcraft/Broodwar pages, D2 Experiences, and the Guild Tournament Page :}
I put the review section up, and now all it needs is a review :}
Also, I've made pages for specific games listings, as well as the main listing that shows everybody :}  There's a page that lists SC/BW players, D2/LoD players, WC2BNE players, ME mod players, EQ Players, and DAoC Players, albeit not as fancy as the main Games Page :}  The EQ listing atm lists the two most used servers (as best as I can tell) and who's on them.  The DAoC Page will also list servers and who is on them,.. as soon as that information becomes available :}  I will probably also add some links to these pages (the link for the SC/Bw stuff on the SC/BW page, D2 Exps and D and his Kin on the D2/LoD page, Everquesters page linked from the Everquest listing, etc...)  I'd be glad to put links to some DAoC pages on my DAoC player listing (pending permission from the web page maker, of course), and more detailed information on player chars etc if the DAoC players want it.
Eventually, any online game we play with at least 3-4 players will get its own listing page.

    Baldur's Gate Event: Letter from Fingon:
This Coming Tuesday Azaghal and I are getting to gether to play Baldur Gate2 or Throne of Bhaal. If any one would like to come play. We are starting at 5:00pm Atlantic Canada time and we will be playing in Game Spy. We will be in  Of the Eldar Room the Pass word will be Elven. So come play it wil be fun for all.
 
Fingon

    Diablo 2 Expansion report from Salmar :

B.net forum link:
http://www.battle.net/forums/battlenet-status/posts/qf/146.shtml
Blizzard is acknowledging that server instability is caused by the massive presence of duplicated items on the Realms. That gives you an idea of how many there are, sigh. But in any case, be advised that it is not your ISP or computer that is having problems, but B.net. So don't start defragmenting your hard disk unnecessarily:).
    Return! Letter from Deagol:
Primula and I just got back online today. Looking forward to
attending the meetings once again and do some serious D2X playing.
 
See you there,  Namarie for now 
Deagol

    Encyclopedia Article: In the Elves section - "Thranduil", by Thranduil-(V)

Jan. 22, 2002
    D2X:   A hack program came out allowing duping (duplicating) of any item. It also caused horrible lag spikes. Blizzard reacted quickly with a patch on their server stopping the duping and lag spikes, but many many dupes are floating about. If an outsider item offer looks too good to be true, it probably is. Please remember our policy on no trading with outsiders unless you see them take the item from a monster. If you just have to take outsider items, please use an outsider character and don't bring its items into the guild. Thank you.
    Links :
    1. Irmo found this fun page with a hobbit name generator. The names aren't from Tolkien but have a similar flavor. If someone wants to try his hand at a similar program with various races and real names, pass me the URL. Enjoy!:
The Hobbit Name Generator - Put your name into the form and it gives back a realistic-sounding made-up hobbit name and a hobbit town you are from. Link contributed by Irmo-(Valar). Web page copyrighted and made by Chris Wetherell
   
2. Gwindor found a name generator for hobbits and other races (and a ton of other good Tolkien stuff) at:
The Barrow Downs .
    3. Elros found a fun site which gives the reader a test then matches him to a similar personality in Lord of the Rings, with a good description of the LotR character in the answer. (He came out like Galadriel.):
Lord of the Rings

Jan. 20, 2002
Sunday Meeting 5pm EST
Attending: report by Salmar and Varda
    Members: Amillo/Omar , Curufin, Denethor, Elendil, Eomer, Eonwe , Eru , Finrod/Ingold, Girion, Gwaihir, Gwindor/FlinNecro, Hurin, Irmo, Pippin, Quickbeam, Maedhros, Melkor, Ori, Salmar , Shagrat, Thingol/Elu, Thranduil, Thror, Tulkas , Varda (presiding)
    Discussion Board: Eonwe, Thranduil
    Visitors: *Minean_HC tried to join, better luck after a re-read..
Membership News:
    Amillo reports 142 members.
    Deagol and Primula expect to back online Wednesday with a new ISP.
    Melkor will be traveling between 2/10 - 3/28
    Tulkas is having computer problems and jokes that it has ebola virus.
Web:
    Irmo found an entertaining URL to a web page that gives pretend hobbit names.
    Varda's FTP still wasn't working in time for the meeting, so the webwork you're now reading couldn't be put up in a timely fashion. Apology extended.
Gaming:
    The Tolkien's Middle-earth mod for D2X was recommended for all Tolkien fans and for those tiring of D2X.
    Melkor says his preferred game is Dark Age of Camelot. Quite a bit of discussion of this game. No takers when I asked if someone would like to do a web page for it.
    EverQuesters have been very active as well on Zebuxoruk server. Varda plays Bridhil (a name of Varda) and has had the opportunity to chat across the world with Ulmo, Aule as Taglos, and Herumor as Shadowkin. Sauron plays Sauronv, Eowyn plays Dernhelm.
Tolkien:
    Active Tolkien chats!
    Thranduil's topic is also on the Discussion Board: Should Sindar elves be considered Eldar? The final decision after much discussion was that they are Eldar and that the Complete Guide to Middle Earth made an error in saying different. A few other small errors received comment, but overall people like the Guide.
    Eomer's topic: Frodo's dreams. The Gandalf dream generated so much discussion that we never really worked on the others that were mentioned. Expect to see them in future meetings. The dreams/visions Eomer brought up were:
    In Crickhollow, Frodo dreamed of a tower by the sea.
    In another, he was on a boat going to Gondor.
    Gondor itself.
    Gandalf pacing back and forth on Orthanc.
    Were the dreams due to the Ring or Valar influence?
    In the case of the dream of Gandalf on Orthanc, one suggestion said that Gandalf called for help to Gwaihir and the One Ring picked it up, partly because of Frodo's personal closeness to Gandalf and partly because he wore the One Ring that may have been more sensitive to Gandalf's Ring of Fire than the other elven rings of Elrond and Galadriel. Gandalf was surprised when Frodo told him he had that vision. Other rings could not hide from Frodo while he had the One Ring, Galadriel's was especially mentioned in that context.
    Tulkas said he felt it was Valar influence. This is our usual answer, so we especially enjoyed the Ring answer for novelty. Irmo could have sent the dream on Gandalf's and Frodo's behalf, so the Ring Bearer would know what had happened to his Ainur helper, that he was not abandoned. Frodo could not help and as Gandalf said, the vision was late in coming.

Jan. 13, 2002
Sunday Meeting 5pm EST

Attending:
    Members: Amillo/Omar, Bard, Celebrimbor, Curufin, Elendil, Eonwe, Eru, Finrod Felagund, Gwaihir, Gwindor, Hurin, Irmo, Thorondor, Varda (presiding)
    Discussion Board: Eonwe
    Visitors: *GANDALF(SCN) tried to join, better luck after a re-read..
Membership news :
     Ancalagon had to change his name to Celebrimbor after his account password was stolen and his items taken. His machine might have a Trojan worm. If you see an impostor Ancalagon in your game, don't speak with him but pack your items and leave immediately, as he is up to no good. After a few empty games, he should be bored and leave. Celebrimbor could use your help.
    Boromir's comp is giving him fits. We sympathize, having all been there! May you find the right glue to put your horn back together and patch arrow holes.
    Hurin joined Jan 7 and gave his few words.  :)
    Salmar sends greetings, had to be absent for family business.
Web News :
    Amillo's Annals of Arda has a new set-up for his Elf page along with new material. I highly recommend looking over his amazing pages, and admiring his artwork such as the leaves decorating his pages.
    Valar Guild's Tolkien Encyclopedia: Salmar added names for Gwaihir.
    Rune Word page under Diablo and His Kin for Diablo 2 Expansion now has a new section for tested rune words, including credit for the player who emails it in    
    Varda (me) now has email, a browser, a web page composer, and games, but the FTP for uploading web pages has a bad file, hopefully to be repaired soon.If you can read this, it's repaired.
Gaming:
    EverQuest : Eomer is back from Dark Age of Camelot to EverQuest. Varda's family is now on it as well as D2X. The main account is Bridhil, which Varda uses. Sauronv, Dernhelm and Maynardjames are on with her.
    WarCraftIII beta testers have done their sign-ups. If you make it in, please email Varda so we can put your name on the News and know why you disappeared. If you can make a review, great!
    D2X : Ancalagon had trouble with a person who pirated his account password stealing his Ancalagon character and stealing the items. So Anc has changed to Celebrimbor.
Tolkien:
    Unusual relationships in Tolkien.

Jan. 11, 2002
Letter from a reader of the guild's Tolkien Encyclopedia. I hate to think what he'll say when he checks the rest of the Fellowship.:

I happened across your Tolkien encyclopedia and noticed that the hobbit section was, shall I say, quite unfinished. It was rather disturbing to see there
was no Frodo listed, though he was mentioned, no Rosie, Fatty Bolger, any of Sam's kids (you could provide basic info on them with the apendix's at
the back of the book) and etc. But NO FRODO?!?!?!! I panicked. I'm wondering whether this is some absurd mistake, or you left him out on purpose?
Please respond!
--Most Broflovskily, Lindsey, the resplendent quintessence of the dystopian Kyle F. Broflovski

Jan 8, 2002
    WarCraft III is signing up beta testers today until 11 pm EST or they reach 5,000. Go to www.blizzard.com. Email Varda to let us know if you made it! Reviews would be nice too.
    Rune Word page: A new page has been added to the Rune Words site within our Diablo and His Kin page, using only tested rune words with a credit for the player(s) who tested it. I know we have members as well as non-members who can email this info in to Varda. Please send it when you can.
    Tolkien Encyclopedia : New! "Names of Gwaihir", by Salmar-(Valar)

Jan 7, 2002
    WarCraft III will be taking beta testers from 11pm PST until tomorrow at 11pm EST.
    Hurin , Welcome to the Valar Guild! Hurin is 16, from Illinois, USA. He heard about us from Bard-(V). Liking the "honest and friendly community" (Hey, thanks, Hurin!), he came to us as *Morgoth_69. Gwaihir the Active did the testing for him. Hurin has read the H and LotR. His favorite character is Smeagol because he's funny and goofy. He plays D2 and SC. He has D2X but has yet to install it.

Jan. 6, 2002
Sunday Meeting 5pm EST (not EDT)
Attending: Reports by Salmar and Eonwe
    Members:  Amillo/Lindelome, Bard, Bert, Denethor, Elendil, Eomer, Eonwe/Fionwe (presiding), Eru, Finrod/Felakgundu, Finwe, Gorbag, Gwaihir, Gwindor, Helm,  Irmo, Mahtan, Melkor, Salmar/Lirillo, Theoden, Tulkas/Astaldo, Ulmo
    Asleep in channel: Boromir, Thror
    Discussion Board : Eonwe
    Visitors: *Wassamatau, *starcraftnut
Membership : Reports by Salmar and Eonwe
    New Member of Honor: Gaffer Gamgee , son of Aldarion
    Salmar and others (including me) report a continuing problem with "sleepers" in the main channel, even at the meeting. Please do your long times away from the keyboard in another channel, such as one for members-only or one you invent for your character.
    Ulmo requested Eonwe take the gavel for this meeting, as he has shown a real talent for chairmanship. He once again did a beautiful job, as Salmar told me by email.
    Varda (me) regrets being unavailable for the meeting. I walked into the study to go into the meeting and saw Fangorn and Sauron over the sideways body of the computer tower. They looked up at me and the clock and said, "Oops." We are attempting to upgrade both hardware and software on our LAN system, with files moving all over to prevent their destruction, so please be patient with us for tardiness and repeats.
    Eowyn was seen during Christmas break on LoD.
    Gwaihir saw Arwen sometime during the week.
    Amlaith will be moving and might not be seen around for a while.
Web Report : report by Eonwe
    Article on Entwives by Thranduil, giving his opinion on where they are.
    Eru has a post on the DB about the Rings.
Game Report : report by Eonwe
    Maedhros is now playing DAoC.  For a price(I believe Melkor said 300 gold), you can register a guild emblem and have it put on your armor, shield, or cape.
    WarCraft: Beta testing begins January 7th at 11 pm PST.  The 5000 testers will get to play all 4 races.  For more information and to sign up, go to www.blizzard.com .
Tolkien Discussion : report by Eonwe
    Suggested by Eru, we discussed Boromir's motives for going to Rivendell and whether he recieved the dream to seek the sword that was broken as Faramir did. 

Jan. 5, 2002
    Pippin is still with us, although he has been grounded for a while. Could it have been those fireworks, perhaps?

Jan. 1, 2002
    Happy New Year!
    New Tolkien Encyclopedia article: On the Ent page: A different opinion on the location of the entwives, by Thranduil-(V)
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