OSR, elves, and a mini

              [Gildor and the Wandering Elves (Max Carr)]

Moldvay wrote that elves love 'frolicking in wooded glades.' Some, Tolkien says, 'lingered in the twilight of our Sun and Moon. Others lived ages in the 'Faerie' West and grew 'fairer and wiser and more learned'. Here are elvish songs and magic items, and some elves I've lately met.

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The songs of elves are filled with nightwalks, stars, and memories of beauty.

Gildor and the wandering elves sang of Elbereth the Starkindler:

Gilthoniel! O Elbereth!
        Clear are thy eyes and bright thy breath!
Snow-white! Snow-white! We sing to thee
         In a far land beyond the Sea.

Beside the river Nimrodel, the wood-elf Legolas sang 'in a soft voice hardly to be heard amid the rustle of the leaves.'

Where now she wanders none can tell,

       In sunlight or in shade;

For lost of yore was Nimrodel

       And in the mountains strayed.

***

Norman's Old School Essentials says 'elves of any level may spend time and money on magical research.' In Tolkien, the list of elvish magic items is long, but most were made for safety.

Remember Elrond reading the runes - ‘Orcrist’ and ‘Glamdring’ – on elvish swords Thorin and Co. found in troll lands? No one noticed the Bilbo's blade.

…a knife in a leather sheath…only a tiny pocket-knife for a troll, but…good as a short sword for a hobbit.

Near danger, Bilbo found it glowed ‘pale and dim.’

...feeling all round himself for matches his hand came on the hilt of ...the little dagger that he’d gotten from the trolls...It shown pale and dim before his eyes. ‘So it’s an elvish blade too,’ he thought; ‘and goblins are not very near, and yet not far enough.’

***

I can tell of elves I've lately met.

In a solo game, I met Sylara, a wandering elf, 'searching for the rare Whispercap Fungi' (The Meadery Mishap). She's first level, knows hold portal, and is neutral, like wandering elves in Holmes. For reasons all her own, she joined my party.

In a novel, I met the wandering Sierva, who befriends Thistle, a gnome in Drew Hayes' novel, NPCs. She's good with knives and can cast a 'cold spell' - blue light that erupts in freezing shards!

In time spent painting, I met Celeborn, Lord of Lothlórien and husband of Lady Galadriel. I painted the Bakshi-Celeborn - maybe the most noble that Max Carr sculpted. Michael Thomas carefully molds these early 70's minis. See his classicminiatures.net.

 

[Celeborn in my front yard (Max Carr)]

Thanks for reading!