August 23, 2026
5:00pm Eastern Daylight Savings Time
Discord: Valar Guild/meeting_place
[6:11 AM]Eönwë Valar: A Tortollan named "Captain Tokka." Someone watched TMNT2: The Secret of the Ooze before making that character.
[6:46 AM]Eönwë Valar: Apparently I need to remind myself what the point of these new "lairs" are.
[7:17 AM]Eönwë Valar: And now Auros' house is lvl 8 and can be medium size.
[7:41 AM]Eönwë Valar: Ok, here's an interesting thing, the only "glitch" I've found with WoW's housing so far: Don't stand on the threshold of a closet and try to place things. The system won't recognize where you are.
[7:41 AM]Eönwë Valar: You can place stuff from another room, just not from the limbo between a room and a closet.
[3:19 PM]Varda: Potential topic for today's meeting, suggested by Elwing-V: funerary practices in Middle-earth.
[4:01 PM]Sandalf13: Aiya all!
[4:01 PM]Earendil: Thank you! Aiya Sandalf, how've you been?
[4:02 PM]Sandalf13: Surviving! It has been a very hot, very dry summer, and I am ready for the Fall.
[4:02 PM]Sandalf13: What about you?
[4:04 PM]Earendil: Same here sir, waiting for blessed fall.
[4:04 PM]Earendil: Not to bad though.
[4:06 PM]Sandalf13: My vegetable garden endured a terrible summer this year, even though I was able to hand water it..too hot! Very low yield of tomatoes, peppers did not do well, nor did the cucumbers...the only things that did well were the beets and the herbs. Too dry.
[4:06 PM]Varda: Aiya 🙂
[4:06 PM]Sandalf13: Aiya Varda!
[4:06 PM]Earendil: Aiya Varda!
[4:07 PM]Earendil: Sorry to hear that sir.
[4:07 PM]Varda: @Bounder @Guild-friend @Maia @Vala Yay! It's time for the Valar Guild meeting! Chat gaming, Tolkien, and just say hi!
[4:08 PM]Varda: I wonder if there's some kind of shade that would help your garden? A net strung over it? Sounds rough, though!
[4:09 PM]Varda: Elen sila lumenn' omentielvo!
[4:09 PM]Varda: Membership:
[4:09 PM]Varda: Arien just brought her hunter into the kinship on Peregrin: Ariwing. : )
[4:10 PM]Varda: Today we celebrated Elwing-V's birthday at our house with Earendil, Sauron, Fangorn, Elwing, and myself. Fangorn did the barbecue, I did the chocolate cake.
[4:11 PM]Varda: Sandalf is trying to keep his garden alive despite Morgoth heating the area.
[4:11 PM]Varda: Sandalf is winning. : )
[1 thumbs up from Earendil
[4:11 PM]Varda: Web:
[4:12 PM]Varda: Elwing-(V) has new art for the Tolkien Site that is up now.
[4:13 PM]Varda: Back in the times of Middle-earth that we follow, there were the Nameless Horrors.
[4:13 PM]Varda: One at least has since received a name.
[4:13 PM]Varda: Nameless horror, later known as a chimera. Three views. Model assembled and painted by Elwing-(V), photographed by DeepGroover-(T). Posted August 21, 2026.
[4:14 PM]Varda: DeepGroover-(T) is Elwing-(V)'s brother and a long-time friend. : )
[4:14 PM]Earendil: Awesome!
[4:14 PM]Varda: It is towards the bottom of her art section, with three views:
[4:15 PM]Varda: There are also some updated photos of other models coming up, just not yet up. Hoping to have them done this week.
[4:16 PM]Varda: Would that monster be counted towards our Adventures theme for the Anniversary? ; )
[4:16 PM]Varda: Well, maybe not, but it's fun!
[4:17 PM]Varda: Gaming:
[4:19 PM]Varda: EVE Online:
[4:19 PM]Varda: Pallando gave me a fast side comment, as he has to be zooming along right now. And it's a doozy! Here it is:
[4:19 PM]Varda: 4:17 PM]Debes: Just that the AT starts Saturday. I'll be competing and commentating. 🙂
[4:19 PM]Arien Valar: Aiya all 🙂
[4:19 PM]Varda: Arien! Aiya : )
[4:20 PM]Sandalf13: Aiya Arien!
[4:20 PM]Varda: Hope you're having some fun times!
[4:20 PM]Varda: Eonwe talked earlier but appears to have been called away. Probably work.
[4:21 PM]Arien Valar: great model from Deepgrover - T
[4:21 PM]Arien Valar: its really impresive
[4:21 PM]Varda: Actually, it's from Elwing-(V)
[4:21 PM]Varda: DeepGroover photographed it for her though. : )
[4:21 PM]Varda: Siblings.
[4:21 PM]Arien Valar: oh thats what you get when you read too fast ^^ , great work Elwing 😄
[4:22 PM]Varda: Talent runs in the family. : )
[4:22 PM]Earendil: Ah, manual artistic talent like that model is amazing!
[4:22 PM]Varda: : )
[4:23 PM]Earendil: Crafting, painting...never been better than framing myself.
[4:23 PM]Varda: Making frames is not easy! Just keeping them straight can be boggling.
[4:23 PM]Varda: o wait. I've seen you draw, Earendil! You have talent!
[4:24 PM]Varda: I may toss your "Saruman" online even if it is on ruled notebook paper. : )
[4:25 PM]Sandalf13: That is one beautiful piece of arty
[4:25 PM]Varda: We are in Gaming, so I'd better put up these three games from Eonwe's Games Site.
[4:25 PM]Earendil: Ah, I sketch sometimes...
[4:26 PM]Varda: Yes you do! And quite well. Now do it on non-ruled paper, hehe.
[4:26 PM]Varda: World of Warcraft:
[4:26 PM]Varda: This week's bonus event: Battlegrounds.
[4:26 PM]Varda: This week's PvP Brawl: Warsong Scramble.
[4:26 PM]Varda: Midnight Season 2 is live.
[4:27 PM]Varda: Also live: The Venomous Abyss raid.
[4:27 PM]Varda: See WoW Weekly for anything not mentioned above.
[4:28 PM]Varda: Check out this week's hotfixes.
[4:28 PM]Varda: Hearthstone:
[4:28 PM]Varda: Patch 36.2.2 is out.
[4:29 PM]Varda: New class sets are becoming available August 25th.
[4:29 PM]Varda: Lord of the Rings Online:
[4:30 PM]Varda: Image from the Games Site
[4:30 PM]Varda: (That's three of us Valarites in LotRO.)
[4:30 PM]Varda: Eonwe's in the center. Varda's on the right.
[4:31 PM]Varda: Ok, who was the dwarf... I should know this!
[4:31 PM]Varda: Update 49.4 is out this week.
[4:32 PM]Varda: Updates have been made to the timing for the Angmar and Mordor worlds' advancement.
[4:32 PM]Varda: Skirm soldier summons x5 thru Aug 27 LotRO code: HELPINGHAND
[4:33 PM]Varda: Kinmates showing up this past week:
Peregrin branch:
Glamdring branch:
Meriadoc branch:
Angmar temporary branch:
Mordor temporary branch:
[4:33 PM]Varda: StarCraft 2:
[4:33 PM]Varda: Eowyn, Fangorn, Faramir gamed. I should have but didn't make it. : )
[4:34 PM]Varda: Any other gaming news?
[4:35 PM]Treebeard: Hello 🙂
[4:35 PM]Sandalf13: Aiya Treebeard
[4:35 PM]Varda: Aiya Fangorn 🙂
[4:35 PM]Varda: On to
[4:35 PM]Varda: Tolkien!
[4:36 PM]Varda: Elwing-(V) suggested as a topic: Funerary practices in Middle-earth.
[4:36 PM]Varda: Which ones can you think of? Some were more talked about than others.
[4:37 PM]Sandalf13: The death of Theoden was, I believe, the best recounting of a funeral practice in the LoTR that I can recall.
[4:38 PM]Earendil: The barrow downs is an example of a burial ground infected by evil spirits.
[4:38 PM]Arien Valar: I think the rohirrim had mound burials didn t they]
[4:40 PM]Sandalf13: Indeed they did! The only other well-documented was the funeral for Boromir, but as he was left to the waters of Anduin, his final rites did not qualify as a real funeral. There was singing, of course, and placement in his Elven boat.
[4:40 PM]Varda: (Trying to add Fangorn to the Angmar gamers, pardon. Got left out.)
[4:40 PM]Varda: It was also not just any singing, but to the winds of each cardinal direction except the East.
[4:41 PM]Treebeard: Yes, I believe the Rohirrim gathered bodies counting and Orc funeral pyres, but I didn't remember what was done with their own in the same area.
[4:41 PM]Sandalf13: As Gimli noted!
[4:42 PM]Earendil: I can't remember off hand, what were the practices of gondor?
[4:43 PM]Sandalf13: The Kings were installed on the Silent Street, but only after, I am sure, a public viewing and numerous speeches and orations.
[4:44 PM]Sandalf13: Denethor's death can hardly be counted as a funerary practice! Much too dramatic.
[4:44 PM]Earendil: Dramatic indeed...
[4:44 PM]Earendil: 😆
[4:46 PM]Varda: Denethor reverted to the ancient ways, not the normal practices of his time.
[4:47 PM]Earendil: If the burial practices of various cultures in Middle earth are meant to speak to there cultures and peoples, what do the standouts like Denethor say about those characters? Are there others I'm not thinking of?
[4:48 PM]Varda: Denethor wanted to go back in time, miserable with his own time.
[4:48 PM]Varda: Sauron had filled him with despair, and he wanted out of that.
[4:48 PM]Earendil: Huh, hadn't thought of it like that.
[4:49 PM]Varda: He didn't want to be alone, wanted to take his only son who was left with him.
[4:49 PM]Varda: Maybe considered it a kindness.
[4:49 PM]Treebeard: Yes, the Palantir. He was not sane. Faramir was not dead yet.
[4:49 PM]Varda: Aye, he was not yet dead! Neither was Denethor. Just ewwg.
[4:51 PM]Sandalf13: "You may triumph on the fields of Pelennor for a day, but against the Dark Lord there is no victory...." or something like that. Pretty gloomy, indeed.
[4:51 PM]Varda: Another was Feanor. His fea consumed his hroa like a flame. But then the Sil mentions a clue for what was normal: but he had neither burial nor tomb
[4:51 PM]Varda: So that gives a clue for Elves.
[4:52 PM]Sandalf13: We do know that the Elves and Men buried Turin above the chasm.
[4:52 PM]Varda: Glorfindel had a stone cairn even though those fleeing were in haste.
[4:52 PM]Treebeard: ... burials, tombs...burials in tombs,.,., burials without tombs
[4:54 PM]Varda: Turgon built a cairn for Fingolfin, although that was more of a battle grave than normal.
[4:54 PM]Earendil: One commonality seems to be Sauron finding ways to make a funeral or burial ground or the specter of death itself something worse than it should have to be.
[4:54 PM]Sandalf13: That is a keen insight!!! Bravoi!
[4:55 PM]Varda: Good point.
[4:55 PM]Varda: Warriors killed in the Dagorlad were buried. Although their bodies seem to have been washed into the marshes, as Gollum showed Frodo and Sam; those were more ghostly though.
[4:55 PM]Sandalf13: Never forget that Tolkien called Eru's creation of death for the second-born as "The Gift of Eru..."
[4:56 PM]Treebeard: Bodies of all types were viewed beneath the waters surface and Frodo was almost lost to them and almost became one.
[4:56 PM]Earendil: Another gift the enemy hated I guess.
[4:56 PM]Sandalf13: With his devout Catholicism, I am sure that Tolkien viewed "The Gift" as a gift indeed, and not something to be feared.
[4:56 PM]Varda: The death of the Second-born let them leave the Circles of the World, which could tire a spirit trapped there too long.
[4:56 PM]Varda: It appeared that they went to Eru.
[4:56 PM]Treebeard: ...an ancient battle field indicating that the bodies weren't recovered.
[4:57 PM]Varda: Aye, Treebeard.
[4:57 PM]Varda: Being buried in a swampy area isn't too great. : )
[4:57 PM]Sandalf13: And do not forget that the Battle of Unnumbered Tears, the dead were so numerous that they were simply piled up and left behind.
[4:58 PM]Varda: Morgoth wanted humans to be afraid of death, partly as a way to make them come to him for a way out.
[4:58 PM]Treebeard: It was a dangerous area into which searching for a specific person very perilous.
[4:58 PM]Arien Valar: Death was never meant to be feared i think, its just a part of life , for some a well earned rest from toils , for others a relief from illness but no .. it was never meant to be feared
[4:59 PM]Sandalf13: Did not Rian go to the hill of the dead and search for her husband, Huor? There she herself perished.
[4:59 PM]Earendil: It does seem like either morgoth or sauron hated the solice that a funeral rite could bring as much as the gift of death itself.
[5:00 PM]Varda: Hobbits were supposed to be like the people of the English countryside, and seemed to go with burials.
[5:00 PM]Varda: Aye, Earendil. Although that solace suggested a power outside themselves that they could not admit to.
[5:02 PM]Varda: Dwarves appeared to do underground burials. Like going back to Mahal/Aule.
[5:02 PM]Sandalf13: In the Athrabeth, Andreth states the belief that Men originally thought that they were created to be immortal, but that Melkor took that away from them.
[5:03 PM]Earendil: Truly there is no discoverable square inch of Tolkiens villains that seems redeemable when you think about the cruelty of twisting something so important.
[5:03 PM]Sandalf13: Finrod disagreed, because to accept that would be to admit that Morgoth had even MORE power than the Elves attributed to him....Finrod concluded that no one could take away a gift from Eru him/herslef.
[5:04 PM]Varda: At the Battle of Azanulbizar, the dwarves had to burn their dead, considered unusual and not a good thing. But because of the special and heroic battle they did there, having an ancestor who was one of those "burned dwarves" was an honor.
[5:05 PM]Varda: The dwarves are also mentioned carrying off their dead king in a singing procession, very solemn.
[5:07 PM]Earendil: I do remember that part, but I didn't mean as in he/they succeeded, but as in how vile to even try twisting the rites or meaningful funerals of others. It takes REAL evil to even try right?
[5:08 PM]Varda: It does.
[5:08 PM]Sandalf13: Jawohl.
[5:09 PM]Earendil: ...and people think THANOS was truly evil, compared to Morgoth and friends he was barely rude.
[5:09 PM]Varda: It takes wanting to grab all the credit, the power, at the expense of everyone else.
[5:09 PM]Varda: hehe, aye.
[5:09 PM]Varda: We have reached the hour.
[5:09 PM]Sandalf13: Already? The time flew by!!!
[5:09 PM]Varda: gavel kabams!
[5:10 PM]Varda: After-meeting:
[5:10 PM]Varda: Free chat, even about what we were talking about. : )
[5:10 PM]Varda: Aye, Sandalf. Having fun makes time fly!
[5:11 PM]Arien Valar: like a trusted friend sleepyness grows at this time of night ^^]
[5:12 PM]Arien Valar: so Namarie , valarites L(
[5:12 PM]Arien Valar: 🙂
[5:12 PM]Treebeard: Namarie
[5:12 PM]Varda: Namarie! We hail the beautiful setting of the Sun.
[5:12 PM]Treebeard: Nice to see you all. Good gaming.
[5:12 PM]Earendil: Namarie!
[5:13 PM]Arien Valar: nice to see you too , Fangorn 🙂
[5:16 PM]Sandalf13: Namarie all! I must away ere the break of NOT day, but evening!!! heh heh
[5:16 PM]Varda: I hope folks did scroll down the art page shown for Elwing-(V). There's a lot!
[5:16 PM]Varda: Namarie
[5:18 PM]Earendil: Namarie everyone!
[11:44 PM]Ar-Pharazon-V: Aiya, reading up. 11:46 PM]Ar-Pharazon-V: Happy birthday Elwing!
[11:47 PM]Ar-Pharazon-V: Chimera looks good 🙂
[12:01 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: Good for future archeologists though!
[12:13 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: Theoden's funeral, and the Barrowfield, always made me wonder... if each line of Kings got a new row, would Eomer get a third line of barrows, and for how many lines would this continue? Do you end up with dozens of rows of unequal sizes?
[12:14 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: How much long term planning actually goes into a project like this?
[7:31 AM]Eönwë Valar: As I recall, Eomer did start a third row, yes.
[8:24 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: Yes, see, I thought I'd read that as well, but I couldn't actually find it in the book last night. Even so, I've wondered at how many rows that would going to end up at in a few millennia.
[8:32 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: Personal gaming report:
[8:35 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: For (non)flashgaming, a new game for you with even newer badges: Minesweeper 3D – Think Fast. Think Deep. Think in 3D! by Verstand2Go
[8:38 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: 3d minesweeper, which is a bit disorienting, and it'll probably take some time to get used to the overview in your head. But some patterns from normal minesweeper are definitely transferable if you play carefully, and the game shows you if there's a logical next step.
[8:41 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: It looks like the backgrounds and probably music are "AI slop" as they call it, as well as some premium cosmetic things, but if you can tolerate/ignore that, the puzzling might keep you busy for a while 🙂
[8:42 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: Blizzard gaming:
[8:45 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: Hearthstone:
[Level 77 on the reward track now. Going kinda slow right now.
[8:46 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: Did get enough gold to buy a new skin, and got the V-07-TR0N rogue skin, complete with card back.
[8:47 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: And looks like the new class sets are coming in a few days, so it's a good thing I've saved up to 4k gold before buying a skin.
[8:49 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: Also completed the Zuramat's Rampage quest event, once again containing the void lord, with the ending text mentioning Maiev not being in the fight. I wonder if the next event shows us what she's up to to stop the jailbreak!
[8:51 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: Brawl is The Great Amalgamation! (say that 10 times fast)
[8:51 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: Every minion counts as all minion-types, so you can combine type-buffs to great effect.
[8:52 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: I've kept it rather simple, with the warrior quest to summon pirates, as well as a lot of murloc-buffing, and minions to draw cards. Should keep the momentum going. It's not the most overpowered, and I'm sure other classes work as well, for example I've seen paladins use the repeatable murloc quest as well. But it works well enough.
[8:54 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: Warcraft Rumble:
[No new collection level, though did get a bit of progress.
[8:55 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: Got enough experience on the Deep Breath spell to complete the 37500 track, putting it only one level behind the others. Well, one and a half level, really, which ends up being two thirds of the way to the maximum level from here. But I'd like to think it's slowly catching up.
[8:56 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: The August login reward track is coming to its end, and I got the Tirion Fordring Epic Skin from it.
[8:58 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: It is indeed, as could be kinda seen from the tiny preview, a white/silver and purple version of his outfit. Very noble colors.
[8:59 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: Indeed, it appears to be the same color scheme as the Royal Arthas skin.
[9:00 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: That should be the last login reward cosmetic that was missing for me, and possibly my last cosmetic missing except for the pure gold skins from heroic sieges and raid.
[9:00 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: But who knows, they might add more in the future 🙂
[9:01 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: Also completed the pvp reward track, getting a bunch of gold, an epic core, and a bunch of stars.
[9:03 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: Throughout the various sources, I've gotten enough stars to get a new leader to legendary, Thrall! Being one of the newest leaders, he's caught up quick 🙂
[9:03 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: 84 legendaries to go!
[9:04 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: With both reward tracks at its end, progress should be a bit slower again for a while. But we'll keep going and save some more gold for legendary cores.
[9:05 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: WoW:
[9:06 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: Raiding's started, with the start of season 2 for the Midnight expansion. We went in normal, and got the first 4 bossfights down. No gear upgrades for me yet though!
[9:07 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: Weekly is battlegrounds, which gave me some trouble, but got 4 wins in the first 4 days of the reset, so that's fine.
[9:07 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: It got me enough honor to complete the August trading post as well, so I visited that next.
[9:10 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: Got the free reward Midnight Outlaw set, bought black (Midnight) and white (Snowy) sweatsuit ensembles that I apparently hadn't gotten the first time around, and went on to a few headpieces. Midnight and Snowy springflowers, as well as some Gunslingers' Lids, Snowy, Midnight and Carrot. Not sure why I'm focusing on hats. Cheaper than the sets, I guess.
[9:12 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: Also got the Badlands Lawbringer set, which I'm thinking might fit my vulpera gun-user, or partially my outlaw worgen. We'll see.
[9:15 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: Slowly working my way through the intro quests towards the Coiled Isle, having finished the Harandar section. Zul'aman section is a bit longer though. We'll see how long it takes.
[9:17 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: Did get a new mount from the Harandar part, the Dusk Grimlynx!
[9:17 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: And that's my report for the week!
[9:17 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: Namarie 🙂
[8:53 PM]Eönwë Valar: Should be in Appendix A or B.
[9:35 PM]Eönwë Valar: YouTube - The Tale Tinkerer: "George R. R. Martin Was Wrong About Aragorn's Tax Policy".
