Valar Guild

January 7, 2018 Sunday Meeting

5pm EST (UTC/GMT - 5)

AIM: Valar Guild Meetingplace

Back to News
Transcript work by Varda.

Attending: (5) (7)
    Discord: Arien, Ar-Pharazon, Elladan (After-meeting), Gorlim, Lenwe, Varda (presiding)
    LotRO: Arien, Aranuir, Gorlim, Varda.

Before-meeting
Meeting begins
Membership:
Web:
Gaming:
    General gaming report
Tolkien:
    Topic: Recap of the Battles of Beleriand
After-meeting:
    Flashgaming Reviews by Ar-Pharazon
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Before-meeting
(times are in Central from Varda)

Varda - Today at 3:59 PM
Aiya :smiley:
Ar-Pharazon-V - Today at 4:00 PM
Aiya!
Varda - Today at 4:00 PM
Hi Phar. :smiley: Did you see us talking in Harbor ok?
Ar-Pharazon-V - Today at 4:01 PM
I did, though I thought I'd stick here.
Varda - Today at 4:02 PM
That's fine. I was wondering if you could see it and talk from here.
ArienV - Today at 4:05 PM
Aiya all :smiley:
Varda - Today at 4:05 PM
Aiya Arien :smiley:
Ar-Pharazon-V - Today at 4:06 PM
Aiya!
Varda - Today at 4:07 PM
Poking people. :smiley:
Gorlim - Today at 4:07 PM
poke poke
Lenwe - Today at 4:08 PM
Aiya
Varda - Today at 4:08 PM
Aiya Gorlim and Lenwe :smiley:
Ar-Pharazon-V - Today at 4:08 PM
Aiya Gorlim and Lenwe!
Varda - Today at 4:11 PM
Next time I do that a bit earlier and with more copy/paste! That's a lot. :smiley:
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Elen sila lumenn' omentielvo!
Membership:
Welcome to the Discord meeting set-up. It works in place of AIM, Ventrilo, and often even for the forum or our website. We still use the forum and website though.
Hoping you all find it handy.
Nice that it works across all our games.
Currently on Discord that said something: Arien, Ar-Pharazon, Gorlim, Lenwe, Varda
Currently in LotRO: Arien, Aranuir, Gorlim, Varda.
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Web:
Some tweaks on the Timeline and related articles. Seeing where we need mor articles.
http://valarguild.org/varda/Tolkien/encyc/events/timeline/Complete_Chronology_of_First_Age.htm
Gorlim - Today at 4:15 PM
varda, does golden mallorn have a UC channel? If you dont know ill ask Bera
Varda - Today at 4:16 PM
I don't do a lot with Golden Mallorn, probably should do more. Go ahead and ask. It's a bit hard to relay across a lot of places and be at all active in the chat.
Did put the message in the Valar user channel, no one commented.
We are looking for more articles on some of the battles. Be sure your character is represented by at least a short article (using original book sources) in the Encyclopedia.
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Gaming:
Eonwe could not be here today, but put the Gaming Report online for us.

World of WarCraft:
Wing 3 of Antorus LFR is open: Hope's End.
Check out what's going on this month Inside Azeroth.
See this week's hotfixes.
Any other general WoW news? Sightings of Valar?
I believe Arien and Ar-pharazon were there, Eonwe
Ar-Pharazon-V - Today at 4:21 PM
Still there!
Varda - Today at 4:21 PM
Thanks :smiley:

Heroes of the Storm:
A new patch is on the PTR.
Did you happen to see Fladrif there too?
I believe Phar was playing it.
Ar-Pharazon-V - Today at 4:22 PM
heroes of the storm? No, he usually plays Hearthstone though. And I did see him there.
Says he crafted a pirate legendary card :smiley:
Varda - Today at 4:22 PM
Neat, and thanks. :smiley:

Hearthstone:
The season has begun for Ranked Play.
Ar-Pharazon-V - Today at 4:23 PM
This season comes with frostfire card back, very nice for those of us who play the mage now and then :wink:
Varda - Today at 4:23 PM

Overwatch:
Season 8 of Competitive play has begun.

LotRO:
Currently the Yule Festival is running, stopping tomorrow Jan 8 at 3 a.m. /servertime (EST).
Hobnangians is running.
The current box run is The Maze 6-man.
High levels are running a lot of dailies for Allegiance halls.
Any other LotRO general comments?
LotRO kin mates on this past week were:

Aranuir
Arien
Bregalad
Dis
Eonwe
Fangorn
Gorlim
Ioreth
Luthien
Nar
Thranduil
Varda

Any other general gaming news, business of any kind that you'd like to bring up?
That's a wide-open question for any of you. :smiley:
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Tolkien:
Does anyone have a Tolkien question or moment they'd like to bring up before you get one from me?
ArienV - Today at 4:30 PM
none at the moment ..
Varda - Today at 4:30 PM
Thank you.

While going through the Timeline on our site, the battles of Beleriand came up as something we haven't talked about in a while. Some were full-fledged, named battles, others a bit smaller, but all were important.
Beleriand, as a reminder if anyone needs it, was the land west of the Ered Luin (Blue Mountains), settled by elves and those that would become Numenoreans. Most of it wound up underwater.
In the Silmarillion, the index points at the first battle of Beleriand as the Kin-slaying at Alqualonde, in Aman.
That's not in Beleriand, but got the animosities set up for later battles.
Ar-Pharazon-V - Today at 4:35 PM
Wasn't there another battle before the Noldor arrived?
Varda - Today at 4:35 PM
Yet when we hit the Silmarillion text, it says the first battle of Beleriand was the one against the orcs by Thingol's Sindar and Silvans, with help from Denethor's Green-elves, and the Dwarves.
Aye.
That one.
The kinslaying at Alqualonde was 1495.
Ar-Pharazon-V - Today at 4:36 PM
Right :smile:
Varda - Today at 4:36 PM
Thingol's battle was 1497.
Ar-Pharazon-V - Today at 4:37 PM
Aha!

Varda - Today at 4:37 PM
Somewhere between 1497 and before 1500 (I need to check more closely on that), was the Dagor-nuin-Giliath ("The Battle under the Stars")
Morgoth had sent out his orcs in large numbers overrunning large areas. Feanor and his warriors easily beat them at Mithrim.
Feanor and his host move on to Angband, Morgoth's fortress. Feanor is killed by the Balrog Gothmog. Maedhros is ambushed and taken to Angband.
Before Feanor's death, he makes his sons reaffirm their oath to take back the Silmarils even from a Vala like Morgoth or any other person.
Would have been a good time to release them from that instead, maybe?
Ar-Pharazon-V - Today at 4:41 PM
Didn't seem like him.
Varda - Today at 4:41 PM
Aye. Too much ego, hubris.
The Moon and Sun are made.
Fingolfin and the survivors with him come to Middle-earth as the Moon first rises.
Ar-Pharazon-V - Today at 4:42 PM
It would have been like admitting his death was for nothing, perhaps?
Varda - Today at 4:42 PM
Maybe so.
Or saying it was too much to ask of his sons.
Ar-Pharazon-V - Today at 4:43 PM
Admitting that they couldn't defeat Morgoth.
Varda - Today at 4:43 PM
That should have been a given, heh.
Ar-Pharazon-V - Today at 4:43 PM
The arrogance of the Noldor, eh?
Varda - Today at 4:44 PM
Well, of the Feanorians at least.

First Age, year 60: The third battle of Beleriand, the Dagor Aglareb, is fought.
Many elves are taken prisoner. Men first meet the Dark Elves
That means "the Glorious Battle".
Ar-Pharazon-V - Today at 4:46 PM
Doesn't sound so glorious when you describe it like that.
Varda - Today at 4:46 PM
Here's what they accomplished:
The main battle took place at the March of Maedhros where the High King of the Noldor, Fingolfin, along with Maedhros, Fëanor's eldest son, swiftly defeated the main army of the minions of Melkor. At the same time, several elven squads killed some groups of Orcs that were separated from the main army.
Afterwards they started the Siege of Angband, bottling the baddies up for 400 years.
Ar-Pharazon-V - Today at 4:48 PM
There we go :smiley:

Varda - Today at 4:49 PM
455 FA was called the Fell Year. That was when they fought
The Dagor Brollach, the War of Sudden Flame
The plains of Ard-Galen are burned and renamed Anfauglith. The Free Peoples are forced to retreat and are beaten back with heavy slaughter, losing much territory. In this battle Glaurung emerges in his full might.
Ar-Pharazon-V - Today at 4:50 PM
There was a name I remembered, at least. The battle, that is. The dragon too, of course.
Varda - Today at 4:50 PM
Fingolfin in wrath of the loss rides alone to the gates of Angband. That was the big moment when Morgoth actually was injured in the fight.
456 FA is when Fingolfin made it to fight Morgoth solo.
After that, Fingon becomes the lord over the Noldor, and sends Gil-galad to the Havens.
Barahir forms his outlaw band of humans versus Morgoth.
Includes Gorlim among those heroes. :smiley:

The fifth battle of the War of Beleriand was the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, translated "Tears Unnumbered" and "Unnumbered Tears". It was also referred to simply as the Nirnaeth.
That was 472 First Age.
Maehdros assaults Angband from the East and the West. The Union of Maedhros is utterly defeated because of treachery, impatience, and foul play.
Just after this time is the Turin Turambar story.
ArienV - Today at 4:55 PM
thats correct .. i built Aranwes story into this battle
Varda - Today at 4:55 PM
There you go.
503 F.A. Eärendil Half-elven is born to Tuor and Idril.
Go ahead, Arien. Pardon. :smiley:

506 F.A. was the second Kinslaying (first after the one at Alqualonde)
ArienV - Today at 4:57 PM
i ll just give you the link
Varda - Today at 4:57 PM
From the Timeline: The sons of Fëanor attack and destroy Doriath at unawares in the Second Kinslaying.
Thanks, go ahead.
ArienV - Today at 4:58 PM
to the story if you want to know a bit more#
http://valarguild.org/varda/Tolkien/encyc/fiction/authors/Arien/stories/IntotheLight.htm
Varda - Today at 4:58 PM
yay fan fic. :smiley:
ArienV - Today at 4:58 PM
:smiley:

Ar-Pharazon-V - Today at 4:59 PM
Also a few sieges at that time: Nargothrond, Gondolin. Attack of dwarves on Doriath.
Varda - Today at 4:59 PM
Gondolin falls 510 F.A. aye
Varda - Today at 5:00 PM

538 F. A. The sons of Fëanor, driven by their oath, destroy the Havens of Sirion in the Third and Final Kinslaying.
That's when Elrond and Elros are taken captive.
Elwing takes the silmaril and jumps into the ocean to keep the Feanorians from profiting from the kinslaying and protect it.
She's turned into a bird by Ulmo and flies to her husband, Earendil.
The two of them sail to Valinor with the Silmaril.
They don't reach Valinor until 542 F.A. though.
540 F.A. The last inhabitants of Beleriand take refuge in the Isle of Balar.
The Valar are very glad that Earendil finally manages to bring the three groups of Eru's children together and bring in the Silmaril. This frees them from their oath so they can go against Morgoth.

545-587 The War of Wrath, also called the Great Battle.
The armies were commanded by Eonwe.
The Teleri after the Kinslaying still refused to fight to help the Noldor, but were willing to sail their ships to carry the army.
The forces of the Valar, including the Vanyar in their one return to Middle-earth, did battle with Morgoth and ended his harm against the First and Secondborn
and o yeah, those dwarves.
Angband is destroyed, along with almost all of the Balrogs, Ancalagon the Black, and the entire host of Morgoth. Sauron captured but escapes. Eonwë takes the Silmarils from the Crown of Morgoth and beats the crown into a collar for his neck as Morgoth is bound.
A side effect and one reason the Valar don't normally fight around the others:
Beleriand is destroyed and sinks beneath the waves.
Two silmarils from Morgoth's crown (the other was taken by Beren) go to Eonwe.
Ar-Pharazon-V - Today at 5:07 PM
They don't hold back, do they?
Varda - Today at 5:07 PM
They were freed to fight, aye. :smiley:
Maedhros and Maglor are the only surviving Feanorians and Eonwe doesn't prevent them from stealing the Silmarils, although they are warned.
Ar-Pharazon-V - Today at 5:08 PM
Even so, sinking the land beneath their feet...
Varda - Today at 5:09 PM
The stones are hallowed, and the Feanorians are too tainted to hold the Silmarils without terrible pain.
Maedhros throws himself and his Silmaril into a chasm of fire into the Earth and dies.
Maglor throws his Silmaril into the Sea. He walks along the seashore singing sadly for a very long time.
So the Silmarils go to the elements. One in the air with Earendil, one to fire and earth, and one to water.
Morgoth is cast into the Void by the Valar.
Thus ends the Battles of Beleriand, as there was no more Beleriand.
But also no Morgoth on Arda.
Ar-Pharazon-V - Today at 5:11 PM
That'll do it, yes.
Varda - Today at 5:11 PM
A swap.
If you guys want to look at these things on our site sometime, you can hit the Timeline and find the battles.
http://valarguild.org/varda/Tolkien/encyc/events/timeline/Complete_Chronology_of_First_Age.htm
http://valarguild.org/varda/Tolkien/encyc/articles/b/Beleriand/BattlesofBeleriand.htm
These both link to more battles.
Any further comments on the Battles of Beleriand? Hanky blowing? Or other?
*the hammer marches to the hammerpad to the beat of the drum*
*thunk!*
*the hammer marches back to the shelf*
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After-meeting!
Free chat.
Feel free to return to Harbor, sleep, game, or whatever you may already be doing. :smiley:
I hope it was a good reminder of the battles, all in one spot.
Ar-Pharazon-V - Today at 5:15 PM
It was!
Varda - Today at 5:15 PM
Yay!
Been a while. Seemed time.
Message from Elladan-V:
Wyrrm - Today at 5:15 PM
Sorry. Was making dinner (surprise there, right?) And I am gonna shower and get in bed. Feels like I'm coming down with something. Tell everyone I said Aiya/Namarie!
Ar-Pharazon-V - Today at 5:16 PM
Aiya!
ArienV - Today at 5:17 PM
Aiya Elladaan
Varda - Today at 5:17 PM
Relayed

Ar-Pharazon-V - Today at 5:21 PM
Personal gaming!

For flashgames, a warning that one of the sites I go to has taken the habit of linking directly to the games on other websites rather than embedding it themselves, for some games.
So there'll be a third website used now and then :smiley:
This one, mostly:
http://www.freewebarcade.com/game/of-a-feather/ is the first game! Sort of.. physics, obstacle, platformer game. Fly your bird in the air by holding the up key, recruit other birds in your gang
Get enough birds, move to the next level, with tougher obstacles to avoid, and more birds to collect.
Try not to get hit or eaten by many dangers, such as alligators in the trees :smiley:
Ar-Pharazon-V - Today at 5:48 PM
http://www.onemorelevel.com/game/kostka is the second game, puzzle platformer, time your click and release on the square to aim it in the right direction, hit the goal without killing yourself on the obstacles, with as few moves as possible.
Kostka - OneMoreLevel.com

For the third... https://www.kongregate.com/games/netgrind/snakes-on-a-cartesian-plane will do. Pretty sure I've linked it before, but it came up as a badge I hadn't earned yet, so there you go. Snake game, but with several different versions, and completing objectives and scores will unlock others. This time I had to unlock a certain snake for the badge that required beating a developer's score, which was actually quite tough to figure out which one was the easiest.
Kongregate
Snakes On A Cartesian Plane
The mother of all snake games with 28 variations on that game you played on your candy bar cellphone. COLOR BLIND PLAYERS You can change the color pallet...
:Since some snakes are obviously tougher than others, but for those the scores would be lower too.
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Blizzard gaming!
Diablo 3: Finished chapter 4 of the season journey, getting all the rewards I wanted, including the new cosmetic bird wings, very fancy :smiley: With the right legendaries it was indeed easy enough to complete the last greater rift needed. I can abandon D3 again until the next season!
Hearthstone: slowly pushing all the classes forward again. This week's brawl was fun and random, choose a class, get a deck of random cards which cast random spells on random targets when played. Much randomness indeed. Luckily I won the first one already, but it really could've gone either way many times :smiley:

ArienV - Today at 5:59 PM
heading to bed i think .. i have to work tomorrow even though not too early thankfully

Ar-Pharazon-V - Today at 5:59 PM
Heroes of the Storm: Still 239? Eh. Just mentioning it so I have something to compare with next week. Did play a few lower levels such as Genji and Sergeant Hammer, fun to play.
Varda - Today at 6:00 PM
Namarie, Arien. :smiley:
Ar-Pharazon-V - Today at 6:00 PM
Namarie!
ArienV - Today at 6:00 PM
Namarie all :smiley:
Ar-Pharazon-V - Today at 6:00 PM
This week's brawl is Blackheart's Revenge again, a 2-round match, blow the ship to pieces while the other team tries to stop you, and the other way around.
Lost both matches, but still fun!
Ar-Pharazon-V - Today at 6:02 PM
Starcraft II: Part 2 of the war chest is open! Once again I'm doing one training match every day for the free 100k xp for first win of the day. Always the same scenario, same instructions, same map, but it's quick, and nice to see if I can smoothen the process and consistently beat the game in 15 minutes.
WoW:
Still no new pets from the old raids for me, though we did get our third pet from Cho'gall, which means we can once again cut off half a raid. At least it's going faster every week!
Still working on fel-spotted eggs, had a few more duplicate pets that I couldn't use because there's a maximum of 3 you can have for each pet. Ah well. Last mount will show up eventually.
Making progress in the raid, killing the last few bosses of Antorus on normal difficulty thanks to a completed shortcut, and getting our first High Command kill on heroic. That got me one of my missing leatherworking recipes, as well as the tier cloak. Very nice, upped my overall ilevel by 2!
Ar-Pharazon-V - Today at 6:08 PM
Got my guardian artifact to level 75, second one to reach that, unlocking the last relic trait in the netherlight crucible. Combined with the improved gear, putting me at 942 ilevel, I should be ready to tackle the mage tower challenge. Mage tower construction is currently at about 90% and I cleared a bit of my schedule for tomorrow, so tomorrow evening I'll put a few hours towards the challenge, hopefully done sooner though since I'm now overgeared :smiley:
Continuing Argus stuff, now on the quest to level my champions to 950. First one done already. Also unlocked the possibility of getting missions for the most powerful champion equipment, hoping to get them all as powerful as possible :smiley:
Also on Argus, I killed the 6th Greater Invasion boss this week, out of 6, completing one of the achievements. I'll have to kill em all again for unique loot appearances, though.
Other than that, doing more world quests on Argus, fighting a few new legendary pets, including a couple of tough team-scenarios, and getting more rep with both factions there. The new class hall missions also help.
Speaking of rep, completed Talon's Vengeance! Took me about 3 months total to get to exalted, but with the help of some friends, including someone who let me kill 9 of his alts last night, I made it to exalted.
This got me a new fancy white hawkstrider mount, like the one from Kael'thas in Magister's Terrace, but without armor.
Also rep, I farmed all the remaining Heavy Junkboxes needed with my rogue, including 210 of them on the last night. Was so close, I didn't want to stop :smiley:
Sent em all to my main druid who delivered them, getting exalted with Ravenholdt, and finally, after 8 years, completing the Insane in the Membrane achievement!
Ar-Pharazon-V - Today at 6:17 PM
That's the one for grinding exalted with all the Steamwheedle goblin factions, Ravenholdt, Darkmoon Faire, and honored with Bloodsail Buccaneers. I got the Buccaneers to exalted also just because, and also get Shen'dralar to exalted when it was still part of the achievement, though it since got removed.
So now I've got the title "the Insane" and I wear it with pride :wink:
With that entire section of factions closed, as well as Talon's Vengeance, I now find myself at 93 exalted factions. 2 more to go!
Oh, mustn't forget, weekly quest this week is/was winning 4 battlegrounds, that came in really handy as they're a good source of marks for Talon's Vengeance, and I got all 4 casually as I went through.
And finally, with all that done, I got to work on some more side projects :smiley: Collected Pepe with goggles in Dalaran, to add to the Pepe collection, and got back to work on archaeology. I'm missing 2 pristine artifacts for Legion, both of them demonic, and a double demonic-fragment week just started this reset, so I've got quite a bit of time to work on them. I hope I get them in that time.
In the meantime I also did some research into future projects, such as checking out the Argus rares that drop pets and toys which need to be manually summoned, and all the major sequences of riddles and exploratory journeys across Azeroth that give mounts, and in one case a really special pet. That's all lined up for the future, but now I've got a better idea how to handle them :smiley:
And that's my report for the week!

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