December 5, 2010 Sunday Meeting
5pm EDT (GMT - 5)
AIM: Valar Guild Meetingplace
Back to News
Transcript work by Ar-Pharazon and Varda.
Attending: (5)
AriehnV, ArPharazonV,
Eonwe Valar, Indis-(V)/
karakedi25, VardaValar1
Before-meeting:
Meeting begins
Membership
Web
Gaming:
WoW: Tuesday of the coming week is the release of Cataclysm.
LotRO: Monday the November Update came out.
Eve: war
Guild Wars
Tolkien:
Arien's topic: Dragons. What do we know about them? Where did they come
from?And special importance for our special friends Bilbo and company.
After-meeting:
WoW Cataclysm.
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Before-meeting:
You have just entered room "valarguildmeetingplace."
VardaValar1 has entered the room.
VardaValar1: Aiya Phar :-)
ArPharazonV: Aiya!
ArPharazonV: just got home, so I'll be in WoW for a few minutes to do my daily while in the meeting
ArPharazonV: *daily quests
VardaValar1: Good idea
VardaValar1: I only see Pallando on in my list other than us two.
VardaValar1: and he declined
ArPharazonV: let's see... you, me, galdor and meneldil both on cellphones, bombur, herumor and pallando
ArPharazonV: you don't have the other 2?
Eonwe Valar has entered the room.
VardaValar1: I checked alts and found Bombur, invited
VardaValar1: and saw Eonwe and Arien pop up. :-)
VardaValar1: Aiya Eonwe
ArPharazonV: Aiya!
Eonwe Valar: Heya.
AriehnV has entered the room.
AriehnV: aiya all :-)
VardaValar1: Aiya Arien :-)
VardaValar1: Invited Earendil
ArPharazonV: Aiya
ArPharazonV: Earendil? Am I missing him, then?
ArPharazonV: what name?
VardaValar1: No contact since 2008
VardaValar1: Gelondil2
ArPharazonV: ah
VardaValar1: Glad to see you folks on. :-)
VardaValar1: Phar is in WoW, partly afk.
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VardaValar1: Elen sila lumenn' omentielvo!
VardaValar1: Membership:
VardaValar1: Menelvagor emailed, said he's been having a lot of internet problems. A tech is supposed to come work on his internet tomorrow.
VardaValar1: Any other membership news?
VardaValar1: Gimli dropped by our house today with his family after church. Pleasant visit.
VardaValar1: Fangorn is here tonight, gone tomorrow, finishing up a barbecue right now. :-)
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VardaValar1: Web:
VardaValar1: Some work has been done on the kings section of the
Tolkien Site, but not nearly enough. I'll try to hit it better this
coming week.
VardaValar1: Eonwe, any news on the Games Site front?
Eonwe Valar: Nay.
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VardaValar1: Gaming:
VardaValar1: WoW:
VardaValar1: Eonwe, you had a report, plans?
Eonwe Valar: Aye.
Eonwe Valar: First, this Tuesday is the Cataclysm release.
Eonwe Valar: I expect to have mine Monday night at midnight :}
VardaValar1: (Gimli plans to stand in line for his as well.)
Eonwe Valar: Second, we had a couple of runs this week.
ArPharazonV: Not me. Got CE ordered, 95% guarantee, though I'm expecting it to come a few days late with my luck.
ArPharazonV: My gamecard's running out this wednesday though, so gonna need to buy a new one.
Eonwe Valar: Last Sunday we intended to go to ICC, but didn't quite have enough so we went to Ahn'Qiraj instead.
Eonwe Valar: Our run went mostly smoothly, except for some snags while
we were trying to help Gimli tame two of the three bug bosses grouped
together. He got Vem and Lord Kri, but Princess Yauj proved too much of
a pain.
Eonwe Valar: We also had a bit of trouble with the Twin Emperors, but
we eventually prevailed. C'thun was easy after those two :}
AriehnV: very good
Eonwe Valar: Attending this run were me, Varda, Fangorn, Gimli, Nob,
Bofur, and a rl friend of mine who we'll call Rayearth, after his
Shaman.
Eonwe Valar: Friday night, we made a run through the Molten Core: me, Bofur, Sauron, and Rayearth on his druid.
Eonwe Valar: We took the shortcut through BRD to get the attunement for
a couple of us, then made short work of MC, finishing both in about an
hour and a half.
Eonwe Valar: Having some time left for the night, we decided to hit Ahn'Qiraj again.
Eonwe Valar: Pardon, I apparently missed naming Gimli in this group as well. He was also on the Friday run.
VardaValar1: You got him. : ) Eonwe the Thorough.
VardaValar1: o for Sunday, sorry.
Eonwe Valar: We cut through to the Twin Emperors, but, but we couldn't
quite take them down before they enraged, though we got real close.
Eonwe Valar: The plan is to go back in and finish the job tonight, and if we have enough afterward, make another attempt at ICC.
AriehnV: sounds fun .. warps to us server .. i wish .. sigh
Eonwe Valar: That concludes my report.
VardaValar1: Thank you, Eonwe. : )
VardaValar1: LotRO:
VardaValar1: The November Update came out and is keeping us busy. :-)
VardaValar1: Official Release Notes: http://lorebook.lotro.com/wiki/Release_Notes_November_2010_Update_Official
VardaValar1: Monday we did a couple of Level 65 Great Barrows runs for
Superior Third Marks, required as part of the barter for a lot of nice
things.
VardaValar1: Wednesday We ran the Level 65 Annuminas instance in
Valandil's Tomb and collected marks there as well. O, in the earlier we
also collected the Great Barrows mark.
VardaValar1: Good for different armor sets.
VardaValar1: Arien, you had a LotRO report?
AriehnV: yes indeed
karakedi25 has entered the room.
karakedi25: Aiya!
AriehnV: i ve created a new Loremaster exploring the new intro areas
for elves and dwarves , starting from the elves in my case :-)
AriehnV: aiya Indis :-D
VardaValar1: Aiya Indis :-)
AriehnV: serious fun, serious creepy .. the story sounds lorewise
vaguely familiar but actually makes really sense and is huge fun
AriehnV: do u want to know more or would it be too much of a spoiler :-P)?
AriehnV: oops :-)
AriehnV: wrong smileey
VardaValar1: It could be a spoiler. I for one have been wanting to check it out.
VardaValar1: Mainly, you enjoyed it, and that's what we most need to know!
AriehnV: yuip and andwe helped me on my hunter on tuesday after noon
with my gaunt men and other quests in Cam some or other in the lonelands
AriehnV: and so my hunter sneaked up to lvl 31 and is in need of a Garth Agarwaen or something like that run :-)
AriehnV: been bounty running around there a bit
AriehnV: Eglain rep is rising
AriehnV: this concluedes my report :-)
VardaValar1: Thank you, Arien. :-)
VardaValar1: Indis, are you afk?
ArPharazonV: What if she said yes?
VardaValar1: I see typing going on from her.
VardaValar1: Indis is on her way out for dinner with family, popped in for a sec only.
karakedi25: Hi, Varda said it for me.
VardaValar1: yay, you spoke! :-)
karakedi25: Only thing to add about the update is that the lore-master
changes are a big improvement on a lot of things that used to be a
nuisance.
VardaValar1: Pathing?
VardaValar1: Good to hear.
karakedi25: contributing to fellowship maneuvers from range, summoning
stuck pets, and a variety of other conveniences of that sort
VardaValar1: o good!
karakedi25: oh yes, and two new skills
karakedi25: Namarie, and sorry to be on for such a short time.
ArPharazonV: Namarie!
AriehnV: glad u have popped in :-) Namarie
VardaValar1: Glad you could show! Have a good dinner. :-)
karakedi25: thanks and have a great meeting!
karakedi25 has left the room.
VardaValar1: Arien, you had an Eve Online Report? And I need to pass off the chair to the illustrious Eonwe for now.
AriehnV: Aye , Pallando has joined our war efforts against the wolf
pack groupie's who a bit surprisingly extended the war for another week
AriehnV: i just chatted to him about the situation in our valar guild
channel and he offered his help out of the blue and got in contact with
our offiers there
ArPharazonV has left the room.
AriehnV: and they like him :-)
ArPharazonV has entered the room.
AriehnV: thats all i wanted to mention but i find it a great trait of him :-)
AriehnV: his war against them went life today
ArPharazonV: Hmm, that was weird. Did I just leave and come back in again?
AriehnV: yes you did
ArPharazonV: Did I miss anything?
AriehnV: just a bit of my Eve online report ;-)
AriehnV: Pallando joined the war efforts of my corporation
ArPharazonV has left the room.
ArPharazonV has entered the room.
ArPharazonV: Ah, it's because I'm updating my AV to a new version
ArPharazonV: So what did I miss?
AriehnV: ah sounds like it
ArPharazonV: it nuked my internet for a few seconds
AriehnV: a bit of my Eve online report .. :-) maybe third time lucky
ArPharazonV: Last thing I read was "I just chatted to him about the situation.."
AriehnV: Pallando joined in my corporations war against the Wolf Pack Groupie's
AriehnV: offered his help and his war against them went live today
ArPharazonV: oh, no, the last thing I read was me saying "Did I miss anything?" which is a bit odd considering I dcd right after
AriehnV: there was nothing after
AriehnV: since thats all of my Eve online news :-)
ArPharazonV: Allright. I think I need to leave you now, it's asking me to reboot the pc before it's enabled again
ArPharazonV: will save this part, and read the full transcript later on the site
AriehnV: oki do
Eonwe Valar: Have fun Phar :}
ArPharazonV: back in a few minutes!
Eonwe Valar: Last call for any gaming news. Whisper me Tolkien topics as well.
ArPharazonV: Got some gaming, but I'll give it after I'm back.
ArPharazonV has left the room.
EonweValar: I guess there's no other gaming :}
EonweValar: At least not till Phar gets back.
EonweValar: Just as I was about to move on, he comes back on :}
AriehnV: he ll be back any minute
ArPharazon-V (ArPharazonV) has entered the room.
ArPharazonV: Allright, fill me in!
Eonwe Valar: We left off with you.
Eonwe Valar: Time for your gaming news :}
ArPharazonV: Well, I did more Guild Wars, as my main news :D Left Kryta
this week, and heading into the Crystal Desert, where the really hard
missions are beginning! And I think I gave my WoW news earlier. Working
on questing through the low level zones right now.
ArPharazonV: So.. yeah. Can't come up with anything new atm.
ArPharazonV: Gonna get a new gamecard next week, might buy the remaining campaigns for GW while I"m there.
ArPharazonV: Go start Tolkien!
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Eonwe Valar: If there's nothing else, on with Tolkien :}
Eonwe Valar: Arien has dragons on the brain. Unless someone has a
better topic, might as well go with that :} Did you want to discuss
anything specific Arien?
AriehnV: i think no nothing special .. just the usual :-) What do we know about them? Where did they come from ?
AriehnV: and special importance for our special friends Bilbo and company :-)
Eonwe Valar: Well, we know they're particularly cunning creatures, and particularly evil too.
AriehnV: Where did they show this particular trait?
ArPharazonV: created by Morgoth, I recall...
ArPharazonV: first guess would be in mockery of the Eagles, but considering the first ones were wingless, that'd be a bit odd.
ArPharazonV: ..am I still here?
Eonwe Valar: Their cunning and evil were demonstrated by Glaurung and
Smaug. Glaurung also demonstrated a level of hypnosis, convincing Turin
to go after his family instead of after the captives from Nargothrond,
also holding him in place for a long time.
AriehnV: aye you are
ArPharazonV: Ah. Good. Was worried there for a minute, nothing was said.
AriehnV: i cant remember where itr is mentioned that they were created by Morgoth .. do you, Phara?
ArPharazonV: Glaurung was one of his minions, first of the dragons, at least.
ArPharazonV: I thought that was general knowledge :-)
Eonwe Valar: In the Sil.
ArPharazonV: aye
ArPharazonV: What else.. they were rather common in the mountains to
the North of Mirkwood/Erebor, up to a time, and Smaug was a
particularly bad one who followed the dwarves to Erebor.
Eonwe Valar: It's also talked about in BoLT during the fall of Gondlin,
that some of the "dragons" were mechanical in nature, if memory serves.
ArPharazonV: yes, but I'm pretty sure that was abandoned
AriehnV: mechanical? thats odd
Eonwe Valar: Aye, just thought I'd throw it in since nothing else was being said :}
ArPharazonV: :-)
AriehnV: i seem to remember that one of their worst exemplaries was one Ancalagon i think
ArPharazonV: Let's see.. they breathe fire, they're scaley, they're big, and Smaug at least like to sleep on his treasure.
ArPharazonV: *liked
AriehnV: oh yes .. and they seem to like riddles
AriehnV: or a riddle language
ArPharazonV: Their breath could melt Rings of Power, but not even Ancalagon would have been able to melt the One Ring.
AriehnV: there is also a theory that the Nazgul's mounts were bread or corrupted from dragons
ArPharazonV: Ancalagon was the greatest of dragons, used as a last
defense by Morgoth, but got defeated by Earendil in the War of Wrath.
ArPharazonV: And his fall collapsed Thangorodrim!
AriehnV: ah yes .. i honestly do need to read that tale again but then
i ve got n english copy of the sil .. i hope that will be mended this
chrismas ;-)
Eonwe Valar: Glaurung was the first Uruloki. Ancalagon was the
mightiest of the winged dragons (of his time at least, though that
usually means the mightiest period, hehe).
Eonwe Valar: (his time being the First Age)
ArPharazonV: Considering they were developed rather well by Morgoth
between Glaurung and the War of Wrath, and probably had to survive by
natural breeding afterwards, I'd say him being the mightiest of all
time is a good possibility.
AriehnV: aye
AriehnV: was Smaug possibly a descendant of Ancalagon?
AriehnV: even tho Smaug seems to have been red why Ancalagon is described as black
ArPharazonV: I wonder when Ancalagon had time to breed. And yeah, Smaug was red/gold.
AriehnV: unless that described his personality ;-)
Eonwe Valar: The winged dragons weren't brought out until the War of
Wrath, and there were enough of them to call a "host," so Morgoth had
to have enough time to breed a large group of them.
AriehnV: any pleasant dragons in JRR s books?
AriehnV: ( think a bit around the corner ;-) )
ArPharazonV: Not that I know of, unless it's in non-Arda books.
Eonwe Valar: None.
ArPharazonV: I need a better term for that. How about out-of-universe?
AriehnV: hehe .. there is only one dragon in Bywater and that is green ;-)
Eonwe Valar: Unless chatting with Bilbo instead of just shooting flames everywhere inside Erebor counts as "pleasant."
AriehnV: well it was very cunning of Bilbo of drawing Smaug into a "chat"
AriehnV: certainly not very pleasant
AriehnV: since Bilbo was very excited and shivered more or less with fear and ran away and escaped barely alive
VardaValar1: Aiya
ArPharazonV: Aiya
AriehnV: wb :-)
Eonwe Valar: WB :}
AriehnV: i said think around the corner remember ;-) so any pleasant dragons mentioned somewhere ?
VardaValar1: Earliest version of dragons that JRRT did were the
mechanical ones attacking Gondolin, aye, made at Morgoth's orders. A
bit of the evil industrial world vs the pleasant natural world.
VardaValar1: No pleasant dragons in Middle-earth, although Chrysophilax was *sort of* tamed eventually.
VardaValar1: and he wasn't in the main Middle-earth stories.
VardaValar1: Farmer Giles of Ham.
VardaValar1: The dragons were made intentionally as a weapon for Morgoth, not nice fellas.
AriehnV: thats right
ArPharazonV: hmm, did he write Gondolin before the very first version
of Turin's story? If I recall correctly, in that version there was a
sorcerer who put the forgetfulness on Nienor, and a dragon who, when
dying, removed it.
AriehnV: aye Phara thats correct
ArPharazonV: Wonder if that one was supposed to be mechanical too, then. Though I doubt it, if he's capable of removing a spell.
VardaValar1: Removing the forgetfulness was no kindness.
AriehnV: Glaurung removed the forgettfulnesspell of Nienor after she had wed Turin as Neniel and was pregnant by him
AriehnV: .. upon which she jumped into the waterfall
ArPharazonV: I was mostly referring to Varda saying that the earliest versions of dragons were mechanical.
AriehnV: ah right
AriehnV: well ok lets pull together then
VardaValar1: Dragons bad. : )
ArPharazonV: *grin*
AriehnV: Dragons were created by Morgoth , were very bad, very cunning firebreathing and destructive
ArPharazonV: Started without wings, got wings later
VardaValar1: First ones couldn't fly, flying ones later. Aye.
AriehnV: and as mechanics
VardaValar1: The idea of being mechanical was dropped.
AriehnV: ah of cours non mechanical then :-)
AriehnV: makes more sense anyway
AriehnV: but there were inns called after them ..#
VardaValar1: hehe
AriehnV: Red or Green Dragon
AriehnV: and there was the fire work dragon made by Gandalf at the party when Bilbo left
VardaValar1: There were drakes, cold drakes for instance, not so big as a full dragon.
ArPharazonV: Probably because inns were a good place to lose your money, those Dragon inns liked to hoard their treasure too!
ArPharazonV: or well, *spend* your money
AriehnV: hehe are cold drakes mentioned anywhere in the books?
VardaValar1: Yes.
VardaValar1: Morgoth was very big on ice, might be why he came up with cold drakes.
AriehnV: ah
AriehnV: welll i think that covers dragons quite well
AriehnV: or anything to add ?
Eonwe Valar: Morgoth was big on both fires and ice.
VardaValar1: Aye, Eonwe
VardaValar1: Just tried to hit Non-humanoid Intelligences to see what we had, and it went to Animals. argh, must fix.
Eonwe Valar: His purported reason for coming to Ea was to "control the extreme heats and colds" he'd made in the Music.
ArPharazonV: And so he did.
Eonwe Valar: Amusingly, yes.
AriehnV: thats it :-) "hands gavel back to eonwe"
Eonwe Valar: I do think we've come to the end of the chat, aye :}
VardaValar1: Now it works. :-)
VardaValar1: http://valarguild.org/varda/Tolkien/encyc/nonhuman.html
Eonwe Valar: Yay Varda :}
VardaValar1: Lots on dragons there. :-)
VardaValar1: Ancalagon, Chrysophylax, cold-drakes, Glaurung, Scatha, Smaug.
ArPharazonV: Scatha. Mentioned where?
VardaValar1: Under dragons:
Eonwe Valar: Here's a fun one to puzzle: Shouldn't Ainur count as
"Non-humanoid intellginces"? After all, they only take humanoid form to
interact with humanoids :}
VardaValar1: http://valarguild.org/varda/Tolkien/encyc/articles/s/Scatha.htm
Eonwe Valar: *intelligences
VardaValar1: Not much on cold-drakes. Could use more.
VardaValar1: Part-time humanoids!
VardaValar1: Actually I think you asked me to drop Non-Humanoid Intelligences and make them separate sections.
VardaValar1: Possibly what I should be working on instead of Kings. :-)
ArPharazonV: oh, he's from an early Rohirrim legend...
VardaValar1: ?
ArPharazonV: I was wondering where Scatha was mentioned.
VardaValar1: http://valarguild.org/varda/Tolkien/encyc/articles/s/Scatha.htm
ArPharazonV: Yes. I read that. But it didn't give a source.
VardaValar1: Aye, Eru was bad about that. :-(
Eonwe Valar: I'm wondering where the info on the Dwarves settlement
called "Silverplunge" comes from, since we don't seem to have any
sources on that article.
ArPharazonV: So I wondered why you linked me an article that, while being about Scatha, did little to answer my question :-)
VardaValar1: Might need to go back over all of Eru's articles and rewrite. He used a lot of strange sources we learned later.
ArPharazonV: can't find anything else about Silverplunge online
VardaValar1: *sigh* Good ol' Eru. I know he got it somewhere, but it could have been non-canon.
VardaValar1: Thanks for helping me see this problem.
Eonwe Valar: Sounds like everyone in the guild needs to go reading
through the Encyclopedia for any non-sourced articles, and do the
research to replace them with sourced articles.
VardaValar1: Articles written in the early days of the site.
Eonwe Valar: With 150ish people doing it, it'd go alot faster than just a handful.
VardaValar1: yep
VardaValar1: Please note we had more than a few helpers. See http://valarguild.org/varda/Tolkien/encyc/contribs.htm
VardaValar1: Could use more doing it now though.
Eonwe Valar: Aye.
VardaValar1: ok, guess I kinda killed the chat. Apologies to you all.
Eonwe Valar: The chat was dead already.
VardaValar1: therefore,
ArPharazonV: We were running out of chat already.
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VardaValar1: After-meeting!
Eonwe Valar: All that's left is for me to bang the gavel.
Eonwe Valar: *bangs gavel*
Eonwe Valar: And now not even that :}
VardaValar1: *jumps*
AriehnV: lol
AriehnV: thanks folks for the discussion and contributions
AriehnV: as always very educative
ArPharazonV: After-meeting question, for each of you!
Eonwe Valar: Time for me to make my way to WoW.
ArPharazonV: Hyjal.. or Vashj'ir? [Note: The Laytonrim went to Hyjal.]
ArPharazonV: Where will you go first!
Eonwe Valar: I'll figure it out when I get there :}
AriehnV: Have fun t :-) and good luck
ArPharazonV: I've got my CE coming, I hope. But I'll be surprised if it actually arrives on the 7th.
AriehnV: i hope mine will .. they promised it
Eonwe Valar: I had mine sent to a local Best Buy, so it better be there.
AriehnV: i ve had a look in some of the new starting areas , especially on horde which was quite entertaining
AriehnV: i should continue a bit on my human hunter now :-) but i want a worgen rogue and ad once cata arrives
ArPharazonV: As there's no new character slots on the servers yet, I think I'll make my worgen and goblin on other servers.
ArPharazonV: And they probably won't get past the starting zones.
AriehnV: up to you but defo worth having a look
AriehnV: theres some really new quests to level up which are great fun
AriehnV: and i wont spoil them running them with an eighty ;-)
ArPharazonV: Aye. I've had a bet going with one of my comm-mates for
1000 gold since before the announcement of Cataclysm, that the next
expansion would have a 3-headed monkey reference.
ArPharazonV: If I'm going to win it, it'll probably be at the Lost Isles :P
AriehnV: hehe
ArPharazonV: I wonder how I can *lose* the bet, anyway. I mean, it might still be added later, and still be this expansion!
ArPharazonV: I don't even know if the other guy still remembers the bet :-)
AriehnV: what bet was that?
ArPharazonV: ...the one I mentioned 3 lines earlier? :-)
AriehnV: =ah yes lol sorry pharzie i am getting defo too sleepy
ArPharazonV: Aw :-)
AriehnV: thousand gold .. sigh could use that alas
AriehnV: well better five actually or 4500 ..
AriehnV: i wonder how much flying in azeroth will cost
ArPharazonV: Should be a decent amount. I hear the camel will cost 80k.
AriehnV: camel mount hehe
AriehnV: nice
AriehnV: price is less nice tho
AriehnV: we shall find out :-)
AriehnV: Namarie for now :-)
AriehnV has left the room.
VardaValar1: Belated bye :-)
VardaValar1: My attempt at a transcript has spaces between lines that
can be removed. It has names that aren't the ones we intended to show
in AIM such as real names or names in my notes.
VardaValar1: It'll work out after some work.
VardaValar1: WoW group is now forming after some patching.
ArPharazonV: Well you're gonna need to fill the gap I left, anyway.
VardaValar1: Elwing took two weeks on the long patch, has dial-up.
VardaValar1: Aye, Phar. :-)
ArPharazonV: Impressive. Spending the two weeks between 4.0.3a and Cataclysm to download 4.0.3a.
ArPharazonV: Going for ICC now?
ArPharazonV: saving and sending transcript
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