I'm a huge Tolkien fan. Have been since my teens, back in the early 70's. I never thought I'd have a chance to live there, or visit the places that Tolkien wrote about so convincingly. Yet now I do live there for a good portion of my time; when my mother, who is mostly an invalid and who has never come to terms with old age, is driving me batshit crazy with unreasonable demands, an escape to Middle-Earth is all that keeps me sane.
My favorite Tolkien characters have always been the dwarves. They resemble me more than Tolkien's other races do: grim of temperament, suspicious, quick-tempered, not overly noble. I have a family of dwarves in the game, and by way of apology for not posting this weekend, I think I'll introduce you to them.
The father dwarf (he has two sons) is named Blarni Stoneskull. Trying to find a perfect dwarf name, I thought of the Disney dwarves, named after emotions: Happy, Sneezy, Grumpy. I noticed that many of Tolkien's dwarves' names ended in -i: Gimli, Fili, Kili. Combining the two concepts I came up with a perfect way to name dwarves in game: take adjectives ending in -y, and change it to a terminal -i, e.g., Thorni, Raunchi, Horni. Some are hilarious: Stinki, Spanki, Cranki, Funki. In any event Blarni Stoneskull is the father of the group. He fought with the dwarves against the orcs in the battle of Azanulbizar, when the dwarves fought the forces of Azog the Goblin to avenge the death of Thror, King of Durin's Folk. During the battle an orc swung an iron bar at Blarni, breaking his iron helm, but not shattering his skull. Blarni, stunned, still managed to kill the orc, and defended himself valiantly until some of his comrades came to his aid and moved him to a quieter part of the battlefield. Blarni was given the name Stoneskull in recognition of his hard skull, and ever since has gone into battle without a helm, a practice his sons follow out of a rather confused sense of honor. Blarni, unusual for a dwarf, suffers from claustophobia, and spends most of his time outdoors as a hunter, providing fresh meat for the dwarves with his bow.
Here's Blarni Stoneskull:
Blarni's elder son Sporki was born in the Lonely Mountain after Thorin, Bilbo and the rest won it from Smaug the dragon. Blarni actually named Sporki after a tool that he devised, a combination fork an spoon that he called a spork. The spork was popular with dwarves who had lost hands or entire arms in battle. Sporki is rather embarrassed about being named after a tool, but has become resigned to the ribbing he gets from friends on occasion. Or maybe not; look at this image of Sporki Stoneskull and you will see that he has his teeth bared, perhaps in anger, perhaps in impatience over how long it was taking to paint his portrait:
Sporki's younger brother Snarki was also born in the Lonely Mountain. He's rather grim even for a dwarf, and has a sarcastic tongue that has gotten him into fights on more than one occasion. Since he's large for a dwarf and extremely quick with his hard fists, he's won most of those fights. Snarki makes weapons for the dwarves, and wants to one day return to claim Moria for Durin's folk. Snarki Stoneskull:
The family, rather than the usual dwarf-dwelling, bought and dwells in a hobbit-hole in the Shire, living alongside hobbits, who are wary of such noisy, hard-drinking (but well-behaved, nonetheless) neighbors.
No comments:
Post a Comment