Letters to Minuial
I'm currently playing a Middle Earth role playing game. The player group is based in Bree. The time is late in the Third Age. While the game master hasn't told us an exact year, just so we can't anticipate upcoming events with too much precision, ruffians are coming up the Greenway, and a mountain in the far south is reputed to have burst into flame.
My character, Aerlinn Maltheniel, or Goldie Seasong in Westron, is a Sindar elf of the Grey Havens. She is primarily a minstrel, a singer of songs, like many of her people. Her interest is more obsessive than others. Her childhood, her first hundred years or so, were spent wandering the woods, plains and mountains of Lindon in the warm months, while settling down in the havens by the sea in the cold. The summer wanderings moved from harvest place to harvest place, from the high meadows where the sheep are shorn, to the valleys where strawberries grow, to the woods where acorns are gathered. In each place there was a harvest festival, an opportunity for singing.
Later in life, she joined one of the Wandering Companies. As I envision it, the elves and rangers both send parties into the Wild, to know the presence of the enemy, and to sing songs to Elbereth that might drive back the shadow.
When the campaign was started, Ambarquenta's chapter on magic had not yet been written. Aerlinn was intended as a singer first, hunter gatherer second, and warrior third. Yet, to be an elf and a singer might also make one a mage. The songs she sings are often to the Valar, songs of protection to Elbereth, songs of purity to Ulmo, songs of growth the Yavanna, and others. As is correct for Middle Earth, these elven magics are subtle. When I'm at my best, the other players should barely notice they are happening. These are not overt battle magics that help win battles. Yet, they are part of the world and the game.
Most of these pages are The Letters to Minuial, where Minuial is friend of Aerlinn's back in the Tower Hills. Aerlinn is traveling with a handful of warriors, similar to a Wandering company but of mixed race. She is reporting back their deeds and a summary of what is going on beyond elven lands.
The exception is the first page, which is an account of a meeting between Aerlinn and a sherif of Bree.
