We have no age, gender, or country requirement. You may have other guild memberships as well.
We currently have two styles of membership: Tolkien-only or Full Member.
Guild-friends: they like our game-style.
Tolkien-friends: they like our Tolkien discussions.
If you do not wish to do online gaming at this time but would like to indulge your inner Tolkien, this is for you.
To join as a Tolkien-only, email Varda (erase the NOSPAM) to say what you're interested in, and then send something that can be added to the Tolkien site. This can be an article, humor, art, poetry, story, book review, or something to do with Tolkien's languages. Varda and others can help you, but the work should be original with you, your very own Precious. Articles must be researched from the books as your last fact check, as non-Tolkien books and the web have incorrect information that others pick up and pass on. Let's not be part of the incorrect information dispersal.
You is best to be familiar with at least The Lord of the Rings, at minimum have listened to the audio books, although having read Lord of the Rings or more is even better. Remember, we are a book club predating those other mediums. "Canon" is considered to be in order: The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, and more or less The Silmarillion, although we also use Histories of Middle-earth.
You may use the Forum and enjoy live Discord chat meetings every Sunday at 5pm Eastern time in Valar Guild's meeting_place. Please use the courtesy of which Tolkien would approve in all communications.
If you've finished reading the Lord of the Rings and enjoy courteous gaming, then email Varda (erase the NOSPAM). Or come to a Sunday Discord meeting, using courtesy, enjoy the meeting and get to know a few of us, and ask to join. Let your helper know which games you are interested in and which Tolkien books you've read. Take a simple entry test to show you've read The Lord of the Rings (LotR) answering four of five questions right. The test can be retaken as often as you can find a tester. Together pick your primary guild name (a Tolkien character from any book not yet taken) not yet used by another member (check Membership page for used names).
You are welcome to indulge your Tolkien Side by contributing to your guild's Tolkien site, but it is not required. (Still, we like it!)
As Valar Gamers, Members need to prefer following Tolkien's values of working together, fair play, trustworthiness, clean language, and literacy. We have a nifty yellow boot for the other sort.
The current main guild games are 1: Lord of the Rings Online. 2: World of Warcraft.
World of WarCraft (WoW) has official branches of Alliance on Lothar server and Horde on Uldaman server;
Lord of the Rings Online (LotRO) has an official branch on Landroval server, of mixed race, light rp. We have a text story running in our Valar Guild Forum in Lord of the Rings Online: "Scouting Ahead" and Discord where you can say hi and tell your guild names and crafting/gaming needs.
We have members playing nearly anything online and try to keep track of this on our Games page and using Discord.
We are an international Tolkien fan club that first came together while gaming in Diablo 1. We made a haven online to join together with trustworthy, clean-spoken players, much as the Valar tried to create Arda Unmarred. Then we created web pages for Tolkien and Gaming, making ourselves a productive guild rather than just a clan or kin. We formed our current system in October 4, 1997 in Battlenet East, using the original Diablo game. We went on to everything Blizzard put out, but now we play all online games, including MMORPGs, with games defaulted to Eastern USA to help us find each other. We default all our times to Eastern Standard time for the same reason.
We are not a movie guild and pre-date PJ's movies, although many of us did see those movies and enjoy chatting about them as well.
But if you really want to know us, see these
jokes
by Guild members (mostly from Diablo players in our early years)!.:
"You
know
you're in Valar when....".
You're kidding, right? If not...
Just ask in-game.
Guild-friends are not members, but are people whose gaming values are the same as those of the Full Members. They might be considering membership, they might not have finished reading or never read The Lord of the Rings, or they did read it but haven't fully joined or rejoined yet.
They can game, scout for new members, and do anything that does not require a password.
In Lord of the Rings Online, Battlenet and World of WarCraft, and Steam (Scatha runs the Steam spot) they can come into the Valar friend channel to find us for gaming and chatting; courtesy required. Friend lists are also helpful.
Guild-friends cannot give entry tests. They cannot go into passworded guild games and areas such as banks. They can join a friend channel with us in any game for contact. They do not have an exclusive guild name (but can be thinking about one!). They can help other folks come in contact with someone who can help. The courteous ones who won't give us a hard time about being Tolkien "nerds"
A guild-friend is like an elf-friend in Tolkien: a trusted companion to elves but who is not an elf and may not be able to understand all things elvish. Best idea? Play with us and read the books over time! It is recommended to read The Hobbit prelude to The Lord of the Rings, but is not required for simple entry. For non-readers, PJ's movies can help a lot with understanding us although the movies are not close enough for Full Membership. The Lord of the Rings books are required for Full Membership
We meet as a whole every Sunday 5pm Eastern/ 22:00 GMT on Discord for business and gaming followed by Tolkien chat. This is not required, but is a great way to speak with an officer or chat about gaming and Middle-earth. Transcript links of past meetings are available from the general News page.
Discord is where we meet as it goes across all games and is good for Tolkien-onlies and guild-friends.
The Forum also helps keep up contact for those who can't make it to meetings and who don't use Discord.
Meetings can be a good place to find out which suit to wear to game with your buddies, as well as talk Tolkien. We often game after the Tolkien chat. OK, some are gaming during the whole meeting with alt+tab and scrolling, or homework, or surfing, but we don't know about that, of course.
Overall guild:
Chairmen > Council of Mahanaxar > Gaming > Valar > Maiar > Full Members > MoH's, and Initiates.
Tolkien Site:
Chairmen > Council of Mahanaxar > Tolkien Site > Web masters > Full Members, Tolkien-onlies, MoH's, and Initiates.
Initiates are grand-fathered in, no longer given out as promises to read tend not to be done once the person has access to gaming with others. MoH (Member of Honor) is a family member under 18 years old who is sponsored by at least a Full Member relative who has had at least The Lord of the Rings read to that person.
Special ranks only for a single game branch:
World of WarCraft:
Lord of the Rings Online:
Overall Valar Guild:
We recognize each other by a specific Tolkien character name as our primary way of reference, as if it were your "real" name, like "Joe". It might be considered a "background" name rather than a played character name. This name is used to refer to each other and give credit for articles and actions. (You do want credit!) It is not required to use a version of the character name in-game, although that can add to the fun.
Weekly meetings are intended to be helpful for both the member and overall guild, to take care of the monthly contact and to give each member a chance to comment and make suggestions or vote in polls. It's your chance to make your opinion or suggestion known in live chat in a civil manner. Officers are present and can be of immediate assistance. This is the member's guild. It will be what the members help make it to be. Meetings are not required, due to the problems of time zones, work, and school. They often include a "before" and "after" meeting for those with time problems or just to hang out. Also, the member can leave a text message on a workable day for the guild to see when they come to the meeting.
The Council is composed of the Valar Honors during the time that they server. This group coordinates guild projects and handles issues. Council members must be Valar honor. Vala honor can handle tests singly for Full Member and in twos or more for Maia, and Vala.
Current Council:
Varda is the senior co-chair of the overall guild, contact person for everything, does overall web page co-ordination, and started and continues numerous web pages including the Tolkien and Community sites. She games mostly in Lord of the Rings Online, some Starcraft 2.
The Tolkien Site includes Articles, Stories, Poetry, Translations, Art, Humor, and Reviews (Review page handled by Arveleg until he disappeared). Varda and Eonwe are Forum administrators, and they are admin for Discord. Varda is branch master for Lord of the Rings Online for all the branches (Landroval, Crickhollow, Treebeard, Angmar, and Mordor).
Eonwe is co-chair of the overall guild. He is branch master for World of WarCraft (all branches: Lothar and Uldaman) and helps on Lord of the Rings Online. Eonwe is the main Forum administrator, Varda acting as helper. Eonwe does a lot of programming, including the Tolkien articles' Search Engine and the entire Games Site, both of which he programmed from scratch. He is bringing the coding of the Tolkien Site into the 21st century so that is changing over time. He plays World of WarCraft as his main, and Lord of the Rings Online.
Pallando handles Eve Online gaming and provides the web space for most of the Valar Guild's web site. See the Contacts page.
Valar honor members are required to sit at least for a time on the Council, but can then retire to just gaming and Tolkien while retaining the Vala honor. Sometimes they pop in to aid the Council. Any Vala Honor can scout and do any test, including entry, Maia, and Vala. As Council, they handle security with member and Maiar help, handle issues, start, join, and handle projects. They must be able to email or otherwise contact the other Council members to be effective. After retiring from the Council, they retain Valar Honor in recognition that they have given great service and commitment to the overall guild, and proven strong knowledge of The Silmarillion as well as The Lord of the Rings books. They may continue as Advisors, return to the Council later, or finally rest.
Maiar honor members help the Council, start (coordinating with Valar), join, and handle projects, scout and test for entry, and bring in new members reporting in email to Varda to let it be known on the web pages for everyone. They have given service and commitment to the overall guild and show strong knowledge of the LotR in a live test by Valar honor members. Service is weighed higher than book knowledge, but book knowledge is necessary to be good as entry testers. A Maia can be invited to test for Vala honor.
Full Members can start projects (coordinating with the Valar Council) or join projects and scout for possible members. They can do everything a Tolkien-only does plus game. Members of all honors help with scouting and security. Full members can apply for or be invited to test for Maia honor if they have shown commitment, service, and knowledge of the LotR books. They give suggestions which have been known to change the whole course of the group. They are the major strength of the guild.
Tolkien-only members can join and can start Tolkien-related projects (coordinating with Varda so it can go online and be linked to the main site), and scout for possible members. Their main job is to help with the Tolkien site , which includes articles, poems, stories, translations, humor, book lists, book reviews, and art. They can join the Forum and Discord meetings.
Members of Honor are usually children of Full Members. The full member sponsor has
read the LotR to the MoH and makes sure the MoH plays honorably. They are one reason our guild requires all gaming members to keep their language clean and generally be role models of how to behave as an honorable person
should. Due to difficulties and to make the ability wider, this has been dropped; see instead "guild-friend" below.
Guild-friend. Anyone, not just a family member, who is courteous and is tolerant of fans of The Lord of the Rings books is welcome. This includes Tolkien-friends who do not game or add to the Tolkien Site but enjoy discussions about Tolkien's legendarium. They may join the Discord channel and meetings. They may join the friend channel in any of our games even though they can't join the actual branch as a Full Member, to allow chat and coordination of effort.
If you want the Rules and Code of Contact spelled out, instead of just saying "courteousy and fellowship", we can oblige you. Hop to the following! :)
Rules, Code of Conduct - rules in gaming and chat behavior: page by Elatan-(T) fka Amillo-(Valar).
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