Foreword
As I'm currently not in my tiny
apartment in the ”culturally enriched” part of town I live in I
have few possibilities to engage in hobby-related activities. I
didn't bring me anything else than 10 daemonettes which I bought as a
rare indulgence before Christmas 2012.
Still, I wanted to make something for
the blog: Presenting you with a schizomaniac's rant about canon and
creation in Middle-Earth. I am satisfied with this piece of text,
even though it is somewhat incoherent – but you should have seen
the first version, wow, was I worried about my mental health. But now
it is tidied up and ready for reading. Ahem:
They kind of stuck with the canon...
Many of us have certainly already
thought about this matter: The canon and the respect for J.R.R.
Tolkiens work. Much have been said about this, by myself and probably
also by you and certainly by a whole slew of other persons over the
years. However, in the wargaming part of the Lord of the
Rings-world, there's a healthy relaxed attitude - with many exceptions, yes, yes - of not taking
these kinds of things too seriously – especially when compared to
historical wargaming [1]. While I generally agree with this take on
things, I still want to say some things on the subject.
Our hobby is in many ways the tip of
the spear when it comes to the aesthetics of mr Tolkien's
creatures and inhabitants of Middle-Earth, or Arda as a whole. The
imagery in our specific hobby – the Lord of the Rings Strategy
Battle Game, War
of the Ring and The Hobbit – are an interpretation of
the movies which in turn were made by hundreds of other individual
interpretations of the texts. These were in turn guided by the
leaders of the production whom in turn were inspired by a great deal
of other things, for example other fantasy worlds and movies as well
as cultures from our own world. For example (the following are GW-design decisions) the Khandish horsemen, which looks very much like the Korean late 16th century horse-archers; or the use of the word mahûd for the badly dressed blow-pipe wielding warriors of Far Harad...
For my part, it is mainly the books
about the One Ring that allow me to really get immersed into the
fantasy world of Middle-Earth. The movies didn't. But the game have
that ability – this extra filter of interpretation of an
interpretation really makes the game something original. Or at least
more personal. Misunderstand me right here: Our gaming world is
”just” greatly inspired by Tolkien's work, it is not an absolute representation of any of the books. Because of this, I and
many with me, have tolerated a great deal of strange things from
Games Workshop – without of course always liking it and sometimes
just barely accepted it, like the orc shamans and some over the top
high-fantasy design decisions like the first Knights of Dol Amroth.
These are naturally just minor bumps
on the road of design and as the years have gone by it is humbling
how well, as a whole, Games Workshop have done with the things that didn't
show up in the movies. Or even the fact that they didn't mistreat the
line totally, which was something I at least was fearing. They kind
of stuck with the canon. And that's the point here: They kind of
stuck with it. The creators of the movies, and then Games Workshop, imbued it with a part of their own culture and
thinking – however limited by contracts and copyrights and
IP-related issues... and so, making something more special and
original, even if many models – most, in fact – are designed
wholly from the movies. The general feeling of the game is, in my
opinion, something totally different from both the movies and the
books. As it should.
This leads me to the conclusion that our hobby is open for change. Small changes. And that it will allow me to expand this new inspired world. But how far can one go?
Personal ideas in regards to ”kind
of sticking with the canon”
So, how far can one go when beating up
the canon when you're creating your own creatures and designing your
own things for Middle-Earth? How far am I stretching Arda's spirit
when I am introducing things like a Crazy King of Rhûn and a Water
Spawn into my games? Quite far, I say – especially when it comes to
the creatures of light. When designing those of darkness, I always
remember Morgoth's lair: It had so many unspecified more or less
living things that one could indeed create a whole line of new
creatures and critters of darkness.
Though, one must remember that there are some sort of
restraint in Tolkien's world however filled with dragons and demons it might be, and I am no longer sure how to look at
this... it would be nice to be able to create new and crazy things at
will – but if one goes to far, it will no longer be something from
Middle-Earth – no matter how much Sindarin one uses when naming the
new creation, or how much explaining fluff is written. No, one need
some sort of "taste" of Middle Earth.
But still, is this the only condition
one need to meet? Good taste? And how to define good taste in a world
of orcs and elves?
Is a High Elf dragon too much? Yes it
is. But if you were to motivate it with a not so convoluted
background story, give it kind eyes (if that's even possible) and
paint it up in some light colours, then yes, welcome to Middle-Earth
little dragon, even if the parallells to Warhammer would be quite
close and the superficial way to ”make it good” would earn you no
price in either creativity or design.
The gigantic swans pulling some sort
of sky-wagon mentioned in Silmarillion [2] are just plain stupid, but
still part of the canon. Would I tolerate a model? Yes, of course, it
is written in the great tomes by mr Tolkien and
as I am writing this I am now honestly considering making my
own just because I think the goodguys still have too few large
creatures and contraptions. Add the feeling and some of the
aestethical ideas of the Panzer Bear from the matiné The Golden
Watch with the descriptions of said swans and voila! Presto,
vulgar Swan Sky Wagon. With some kewl elves riding it. Sort of tasteless, but highly entertaining.
To continue on this, there never were
a description of something like ”the Guard of Orthanc”[3] which
were armed with maces and throwing spears, but I would personally
accept the idea since it is not over the top – and not especially
controversial, even if it never were mentioned in any of the books.
Furthermore, the goblins are said [4] to
be fond of cogweels and mechanical contraptions and I could
even allow myself to make some high-fantasy-weird steampunk thingie
and still feel it would not necessarily be out of bounds (think
Warcraft III!). So, what is then unacceptable? And where to draw the
line? Where do Games Workshop draw the line? With Ogres? Ogres are
mentioned [5]
somewhere or another in the
texts, so why not? Ghouls? Mentioned [6] in the canon and
thusly ”green”. Ghouls and ogres, sky-chariots pulled by giant swans... mechanical goblin beasts...
With the above both omnious and as
well as hopeful lines, I can only end with: Is it so that
Middle-Earth is something better, and perhaps more noble and subtle
than the worlds of other fantasy authors? Maybe, Middle-Earth is in
my opinion a place of morale and kindness and not a cesspool of
spilled guts and dirt and killing and people not giving a crap about
each other. Is this then making it a rigid world, a world that
hampers the creativity of our hobby? I think not, I believe you can
expand it sufficiently without having to go the way of other fantasy
world, taking the easy way of more gore, skulls, dirt and violence.
And it is probably here one would like
to draw the line when brainstorming something new for our hobby: Even
when brainstorming a creature for the badguys, I try to keep it
somewhat family-friendly. Not necessarily because kids are going to
see the creation, but for the simple reason that the canon is
somewhat cleaner, despite its occassional darkness, evil and cutting
of throats...
This is merely an attempt to capture
what I think is the spirit of Tolkien's world when ”translated”
into a wargame. I found it truly challenging to try to find the core
of what I am feeling when playing these games, what makes the
immersion happen...
So, I would like to end with an ironic and not
purposefully humorous statement made by unknown in our hobby's early days at a certain forum [7] – even if I sometimes suspect that
this is the true reason I like the wargaming in Middle-Earth (as
presented by Games Workshop) so much:
When creating something for
Middle-Earth, try to stick with normal sized hands, weapons,
muscles and breasts...
--- --- ---
With this I shall abruptly end and
follow up this little text with part two of Large Creatures and
Contraptions for Lord of the Rings
as soon as possible.
Readers might have noticed I switched to a darker text because my eyes were protesting when I proof-read the text. Dark text on dark background might not be optimal, but it is much better than white text on dark background for a majority of people. Google says so...
--- --- ---
1] It is of course in the
nature of historical wargaming and besides, the minuteae [9] is one of the
enjoyable parts of said hobby.
2] At least I think it was
in Silmarillion. I do not have access to my library at the moment.
3] Name partially stolen
from a PDF published by a BrandyBarrel of Total War-forum.
4] In my badly translated
version of The Hobbit, ”Bilbo
– en Hobs äventyr” printed in 1976. I think... let me come back
on this one...
5]
IIRC, the word ogre was just used as a description of a troll or
something similar, but if you really like to press blood out of a
stone and read the bible like the devil reads it, you could argue
that ogres are a part of Middle-Earth, from that statement.
6]
This is one I am not certain of. I am however certain that Mithril
Miniatures or a company like it, did make some ghouls for LotR –
and whilst this is not an evidence of anything, it suggests that
ghouls have been mentioned. Again, grasping for straws here, just to
make my point.
7] A forum that was resurrected and now lives it days as an ungodly abomination! But in all seriousness, the quote could've just as easily come from a blog, can't remember where...
8] Five gold stars are hereby presented to me for my highly uninformative footnotes/annotations.
9] Unclear spelling...
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