Tag Archives: History of Middle-earth
Azain Silverbeard
My pleasant surprise at realizing that Brok Ironfist actually has a name rich in Tolkienian lore has now been matched by disappointment that our latest unique FFG-created Dwarf ally, Azain Silverbeard, appears to have no grounding in the Professor’s work. The prefix ‘Az-‘ may mean ‘war axe’ (related to our English word ‘adze’) which is […]
Mariner’s Compass
Here’s a nifty gadget, but is there such a thing in Middle-earth? In our world, a magnetic compass was invented by the Chinese, though it took another 1000 years before they used it for navigation on the sea. The first mention of a compass in Western Europe dates to the late 12th or early 13th […]
Mugash
Orcs ought to be regarded with a great deal more mystique and intrigue than we grant them. To many of us Orcs and Goblins are strictly sword-fodder, small black and green people of pure evil there to be destroyed with little thought put to the task. Really that does make sense: until we get a bit of […]
Brok Ironfist
One of the distinctive features of the LOTR LCG community has been that we often give as much attention to bad cards as we do to the good ones. Some of the worst get even more. It is like a hobby within the hobby to fixate on a few awful cards until they become an […]
Anticipating Angmar Awakened: The History
The Lost Realm is ‘on the boat’! Let us hope that the boat carrying our cards is not doomed like the one that bore the last King of the lost realm during his final retreat from Angmar! No, assuming safe passage through the Ice Bay of Forochel, we should be mere weeks away from exploring […]
Prince Imrahil
One thing is clear about all of Tolkien’s writings: less is more. Referring to Tom Bombadil in a letter, the Professor wrote: “As a story, I think it is good that there should be a lot of things unexplained (especially if an explanation actually exists)” So it is with many of the characters and places […]
The Dunland Trap Encounter Cards
It’s been about four months since our heroes stumbled out of Fangorn Forest and back to Saruman with the wizard’s prize, a fearsome orc named Mugash, in tow. But now, at last, we are finally ready to set out once more in the service of Orthanc to seek the secrets of Celebrimbor, the Elven-smith who […]
Special Feature: The Others
Derek recently brought to my attention a cool idea posted by user Ozil23 on the FFG forums, and I couldn’t resist falling down the rabbit hole. In short, what if our duplicate versions of unique characters aren’t actually the same person, but rather other people from other eras of Tolkien’s legendarium with the same name? […]
Narvi’s Belt
Elves and Dwarves. They are the Hatfields and McCoys of Middle-earth. Their grudge match runs deeper than the Yankees versus the Red Sox, features more characters than DC versus Marvel, and has more products in dispute than Apple versus Samsung. Their selective recollection of history brings to mind Israel and Palestine while their rivalry has […]
Beravor
The Rangers of the North. Who in Middle-earth has inspired more intrigue? Who can match their wiles and prowess? Who has a higher cool factor? Not many. They’re hooded figures wandering the wilds of the North, sparing ignorant Men and Hobbits alike from the evils that go here and there, ready to destroy all good […]
Master of Lore 