Diary of a Tolkien Fiend
For those of you who may not be aware, the
Lugburz Message Board has a
roleplaying forum. Previously this forum was only for Middle-earth roleplaying, but I've decided that other types of RPGs should be allowed. So whether your interest is in D&D campaign worlds like Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms, or other fantasy worlds (or even sci-fi worlds) you can start your own RPG there if you wish. You can also discuss anything having to do with roleplaying. As always, registering an account with
ezboard is recommended, but not required (registration is free, but you will need a valid email address in order to register). If you're not registered, just leave the password field blank when you post a topic or reply to an existing topic.
I've updated the
links section of my
home page.
I've been playing
Baldur's Gate for years, but I've never finished a game, because I keep getting bored with the character I've created & end up having to start over again with a new character. But this time I decided to create the ultimate party, the one I would finish the game with. So I started a new game with a party of six characters (you can do this by setting up a multi-player game & then assigning control of all characters to yourself). I decided early on that all six characters would be from
The Lord of the Rings. Luckily, I found all the LotR portraits & sound sets I needed at
FilePlanet. My new party consists of Aragorn (Human Ranger), Gimli (Dwarven Fighter), Legolas (Elven Ranger), Arwen (Half-elven Fighter/Druid), Gandalf (Human Mage) and Frodo (Halfling Thief). If you want to use these custom portraits & sound sets also, or see what other LotR characters are available, you can find them
here (scroll down; the files are listed alphabetically, so Aragorn is the first one you'll see). The sets I recommend are the ones created by CLAY-DOGG and DOGG-HOUSE Studios. You will need WinRAR to open these files (this is an archiver similar to WinZIP, but more powerful). You can get a free trial version of WinRAR
here. Believe me, it's well worth it; the files contain lots of different portraits of each character for you to choose from, and the sound sets are most excellent. My only criticism is that Arwen's soundset didn't include my favourite line of hers: "If you want him, come and claim him!" But I shall forgive them.
Ah, Thanksgiving. The warmth of family and friends gathered together in celebration, the smell of turkey roasting in the oven, the frantic preparation of the rest of the meal, the obligatory alchohol-fueled bickering culminating in the occasional death-threat, the exhausting clean-up after everyone has gone home, and of course the mother of all hangovers you have the next morning...
I have some news to report concerning
The Dark Legion. As many of you may know, previously the Legion was only accepting dark Tolkien sites as members. Recently, however, Shagrat decided to include metal sites as well. In addition, the Legion has a brand new
message board. It's not an ezboard, so members of the original
Durthang will have to re-register. I've already registered (as Mouth of Sauron, of course), but I haven't gotten a chance to post there yet. In other news, tickets for
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King are now on sale. Witchking and I will be seeing it at midnight on December 17th, so hopefully I'll be able to post my review of it by the 18th or 19th. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.
For those of you who have been living under a rock, the extended edition DVD of
The Two Towers is in stores now. If you're interested in what I thought of it, you can read my review of it
here. In other news, I've finally bought the new 3D
Castlevania game for PS2. My review of
Castlevania: Lament of Innocence will be added soon, as promised. Another game I will probably review soon is Sierra Entertainment's
War of the Ring, a real-time strategy game based on
The Return of the King. I am also working on the archives section of my
home page, which I hope to have ready by the end of the year.
Well, Halloween is over and all the participants in the Fourth Annual Lugburz Halloween Masquerade have been unmasked (either by other participants, or by themselves). I have to say that despite the depressing turnout, this year's Masquerade was better than last year's. As I recall, even I wasn't around much last year, because during the last few days of October Witchking and I were both in Salem, Massachussets for the Haunted Happenings festival. Unfortunately, Witchking couldn't attend this year's Masquerade either because he was sick. But even despite his absence, our chat party (which took place on Halloween night) was a lot of fun and I definitely want to schedule more chat parties in the future. At one point, we had four members in the chat room at once, which I think may be a record for us. Once again I would like to personally thank everyone who came to our Halloween festivities, especially those of you who "dressed up." I am looking forward to doing this again next year, but hopefully with a few more people attending.
