Sheridanne Kelley on Role Play

Dear Elder Valla and Elder Rumil,  Following on from the previous letter, one reason we set the parameters on the creativity of our role play was based on what Mara experienced every day as an admin/ leader in Aglarond.

There despite having pages and pages of rules and guidelines, anything could change and the rules proved to be unenforceable and frustrating because frequent exceptions for primarily political reasons were made.

Therefore, our land’s role play has a tiebreaker:  “If it is not in the first seven chapters, and within our timeline (based on the birth of Feanor’s sons), or one of the specific allowances (wings on Valar, clan hair colour, etc.) then it is not within our role play”.  This is intended to prevent/ minimise chaos and discontent so prevalent in other virtual lands.

It is more to be:  ‘I have an opinion about what The Silmarillion says’ and ‘you have an opinion about what The Silmarillion says’ and then The Silmarillion says!  In an argument or discussion, our reference for truth is always Tolkien’s book, The Silmarillion.

We hold The Silmarillion the authority and a set reference point that should help minimise/ eliminate political actions and/ or “making an exception this one time”…which breaks hearts, slows participation and creates friction and resistance to involvement and confusion to those newly arrived.  This worked for about six of our years without a glitch.

We must return to basics.  Nevertheless, your combined learned thoughts will help me and are invaluable because people no longer seem as willing to listen to me.  They will to you Rumil and Valla and also to Elea, Torgo and Anaire.

Then there are a few who are simply increasingly discontent, like white ants, who would rather force a change to the goal posts just to see if they can or they threaten to take their ball and go to another field where there are no goal posts.

Because I no longer have the luxury of being in as much we need more individuals sold out to the original ideas, who are strong enough to hold the goals posts in line!

For now, we need to re-establish the goal posts!

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Letter 1 – The Questions

Dear Elder Rumil and Elder Valla,

From a recent Barding session (every Sunday in Second Life from 12:30PM PST (SLT) in Tirion Forest), many issues arose that need validation and clarification.  We are always blessed by your wisdom, especially when barding enters turbulent waters.  I’ve sent you the minutes and a few questions you might have answers to, or thoughts on.

I sense once more that there is more than one “school” of thought regarding the undocumented-by-Tolkien “shades” of his works.  As only the Founding Elders Valla, Bon, Vala and I know, we originally set up our Forest and City and based our role play on the first five chapters of The Silmarillion©[1].

Eventually, realising that some things concerning Feanor would be too far in the future, we stretched out to chapter six and then settled firmly on going no further into the book than chapter seven.

Furthermore, we tied our role play timeline around the birth of Feanor’s seven sons.  Until recently, that was only two sons, meaning we were still VERY early in time, but with the wedding of Finarfin to Earwen, Feanor and Nerdanel had to have had a child in secret that no one, not even Nerdanel or Feanor, knew of.

Regardless, we remain (and will remain) firmly within the first seven chapters of The Silmarillion©.  We believe it is wise and less controversial not rely on the many additional or obscure writings addressing this time, including fan fiction and academic studies that would simply confuse those who come to learn and role play within this time.

We have made some adjustments as visual devices for consistency of role play, that are not exclusively in the book, such as:

• Wings on the Valar to ensure they are not mistaken as simply Elves (unless they chose to be seen that way for a purpose)
• Hair colour – Strict standard hair colour of the three Clans in the book. This is not to be mean but is a costume requirement intended to easily distinguish the Clans and affiliations from each other (Noldor have raven black, with the exception of Mahtan and family which is flame red/ orange), Vanyar have golden honey, Teleri have pure white/ silver (not glowing))
• Dragons – Presently we permit four dragons within our role play. Three of these four were, in our story, hatched from three eggs left in the care of Aule.  He watched over them and raised them to be protectors/ Guardian dragons of the Noldor.  (Note:  No dragons have ever stayed within the roleplay.  Many of the fantasy players within Second Life insist they ARE dragons and wish to play with us – friendly and unfriendly.)  The fourth dragon/ worm is Glaurung, who is sometimes an active antagonist and the owner of the Uhre and a long-time friend of our group.  ALL other dragons are evil and would bite your head off.  They are nothing like the romanticised Medieval dragons everyone thinks might be cuddly, if they could ever just meet one!

Returning to this week’s barding session, here are some issues/ questions that need to be further teased out for maintaining the clarity and integrity of our role play:

1. How many generations have there been thus far in our re-enactment? There seem to be writings that indicate the awakening of only 144 matched pairs of male and female Elves (strangely, the number used in Revelation 7 and 14).  What is the mythology surrounding them in relation to The Silmarillion?   I do not find this in The Silmarillion© itself.  It seems to dictate that Finwe, Ingwe, Elwe and Olwe were not first generation Elves.  Using this resource there seems to be a possible further push into the timeline.  (We see Finwe as generation one – or zero probably to be exact; Feanor as generation two and Maedhros (etc.) as generation three, maintaining early First Age.)
2. What “killed” Miriel? Was it Feanor stealing her spirit from her or her abandoning her spirit by her own will?
3. Did the three Elven Clans split up to be led by three Valar (Aule, Ulmo and Manwe)? I saw this from a different perspective in that the Elves seemed to have “favourite” Valar.  Aule was a special protector of the Noldor; Ulmo loved the Teleri and the Vanyar loved Manwe.  Their leaders were the three kings (well four, but one was lost to love!)
4. The initial topic for the barding was immortality and how we conceived of it as Elves in the roleplay at our stage in this world. Someone posited that you need to experience evil to know good (I suspect because some see a need for more antagonists for excitement in our role play).  This does not seem to be a principle within Tolkien’s writings, but more what is apparent in the world today.

My growing struggle is with maintaining the EARLY First Age time “location”.  We planned the lands to BE peaceful, innocent and inquisitive, with constant discoveries and amazements at what we find…a childlike and kind curiosity and purity that eventually and subtly begins to unravel but NOT yet in our role play.

We spent so much time creating educational quests in the lands that were positive, hope-filling and challenging.  We only, eventually, created the Pass as a fall back for those who craved combat.

We created a “mythology” that since the Halls of Mandos are (unknown to the Elves, of course), situated in the Pass, it would seem natural to have evil creatures (with no breath/ life/ spirit) gather there milling about on the “scent/ sense” of Melkor.  Their intent is, of course, to free him if they can only find him and kill any who enter the valley for spite.

We knew that by the time he is incarcerated there are works of his hands such as Orcs and Dragons and other fell beasts who would be aligned under him.  However, they are leaderless at this time.  We even created a means for Melkor to get occasional messages to his minions in the minds of rats.  Just to satisfy this need for combat.

However, it is my contention that Tolkien created a pristine time…the “Noontide of Valinor”…as a place of perfection.  In our roleplay, it is very difficult to separate our thinking from a world that is so opposite to what those early Elves would have awakened to…the opposite of what his world was slowly deteriorating into.  I aim to preserve this in tribute to him.  Ten years of holding up this standard banner is what our vision was and remains about.

I seek your wise comments and will post them here.

Blessings, Yavanna/ Sheri

[1] © 1977, George Allen & Unwin (Publishers) Ltd., Harper Collins Publishers of the paperback edition 1999, 51.  Written by J. R. R. Tolkien.

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