Tag: forging arda

I’ll admit I’ve been having a rough couple of weeks here and I haven’t produced much, but what I have done is put together a style sheet and some aesthetic reference folders for most of the tribes of Quendi, so I thought I’d share. 🙂

*Caveat: This is mostly intended for my own use in art and writing, so I can keep my headcanons straight. When I reference a real-world culture or phenomenon, it is not because I intend to lift anything wholesale, nor am I trying to paint existing peoples as fantasy creatures. Rather, I am attempting to find situational cognates; examples of lifestyles and aesthetics make sense to me when translated into Tolkien’s world. 

As always, I am probably taking some liberties with canon. That is how I roll. 

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General Notes:

—At Cuivienen the elves were born in great variety. Aside from pointy ears, general symmetry, and height, there is no standard elven phenotype.  

—The distinctive features of the tribes of Quendi (Minyar, Tatyar, Nelyar) are the result of gradual segregation into communities, separation by geography, and interbreeding. No tribe of Quendi is a totally separate ethnicity.

—Elves have developed their own ethnic features that are distinct from any human varieties. These traits are somewhat allegorical, even anthropomorphic, such as the Vanyar having a tendency to look serene, or the Noldor proud, or the Teleri graceful. Furthermore, elves from Aman developed differently than the rest of the Quendi who did not grow in the light of the Trees. The Eldar are a people whose very genetics have been altered by looking up at the gods.

—When I denote “light” or “fair skinned” as a genetic trait, it is not an automatic indicator of White Anglo Saxon features.

—There is a greater diversity of features in the Teleri than either the Vanyar or Noldor.

—The Eldar all have a fascination with light and beauty. Light and the protection of the Valar were the main attractions of Valinor, after all.

—Elves on the continent have varying degrees of obsession with preserving ephemeral beauty, whereas elves from Aman have more of an obsession with the cultivation of beauty. Differences in upbringing.

—Both the Falmari and the Vanyar have traditions of overtone singing.

The Amanyar

Vanyar— Very tall, tending towards slender build; the supermodels of the Calaquendi. They are usually either very, very dark skinned with bluish undertones (like Varda), or very fair skinned, again with bluish undertones. The Vanyar have the trademark on specifically golden fair hair. Blond elves have some Vanya in them, full stop; you can’t get that gene anywhere else. They can also have platinum or golden brown hair. They tend to have prominent, high cheekbones, monolids, strong features, elegant profiles, and long necks. Their eyes are going to be extremely bright, as they spend the most time looking at light and hanging out with Manwë and Varda. Their phenotype is long, tall, serene-looking, unearthly, with an air of piety.

Their modes of dress are either elaborate and huge, with massively intricate ceremonial outfits, or else minimal and elegant, suitable for contemplation and study. They live both near the Trees and up onto the slopes of Taniquetil. Valmar, the city of bells, is very much like a Tibetan monastery, with an emphasis on colorful flags that blow in the wind and thousands of large and small bells, to celebrate Manwë.

They have an affinity with eagles and condors, much like in the Andes mountains. Down closer to the trees, they have a slightly more colorful style, as there are more tropical and forest dwelling birds. Feathers and gold and moon-flowers and rare lilies and lotuses are their main motifs. Also in Buddhist fashion, they favor giant, serene statues of Manwe and Varda out of white marble or carved out of the native rock.

They have honed their skills in Song more than any of the other Quendi. Their voices are powerful and hold a lot of primordial power; though of course not as much as a Maiar’s would. They spend much time chanting low, buzzing, sonorous prayers that carry with the wind in the high altitudes of Taniquetil. As an act of meditation and physical prowess, they practice keeping their balance on poles or walking across ropes stretched over chasms. Their use of spears in battle began as their elaborate staves used for balance, meditative staff-twirling exercises, and mountain climbing.

They keenly study the stars and their rotations, less for navigation (as the Teleri do) and more as a form of worship. They build with wood, stone, brass, and gold. They are intensely interested in both light and harmonics; much of their art is focused around catching and dispersing light, and tuning both natural and invented instruments. They are notorious for having a sweet tooth, favoring fruits and honey in all their meals. The flowering slopes around their cities are often spotted with bee boxes for the cultivation of honey and wax.

Noldor— It’s all about the lantern jaw for these guys. They’re big on the cheekbones and everyone got tickets to the gun show. Can’t knock these boys over with a pail of water, no sir. There are two big subgroups of Noldor: the fair-skinned, black-haired, monolidded group, and the darker-skinned, red-haired group with creased eyelids and curly/coiled hair. Many Noldor fall somewhere on the gradient of these traits rather than at the extremes. Both groups tend towards having very muscular builds and reddish undertones to their skin. Their faces tend to be angular with chiseled features. A characteristic appearance is an imperious or proud bearing.

Reddish hair with light skin with freckles usually indicates a mixed Telerin heritage— this is where we get our Mahtans and our Nerdanels.

The Fëanorians and royal Finwëans dress similarly to imperial Chinese court dress, at least while they are in Valinor. Overall their fashion is derived from all over east and central Asia. They have an all-encompassing love of the art of metalworking, but also embroidery, and figural sculpture. Sculptors such as Nerdanel might work in jade, ivory, horn, or cinnabar for carving, or marble and cast bronze. In the spirit of Miriel, they have a rich tradition of incredibly elaborate silk weaving, embroidery, and dyeing textiles.Their fascination with the refraction of light and color manifests itself in their skill at gem faceting and polishing. The Noldor’s skill in craft is their strongest tie to the Theme, and their key mode of expression.

As a culture they have a long tradition of intense scholarship; from a young age they are encouraged to hone their skills at poetry, penmanship, language, and debate. They are also the first tribe in Valinor to perfect and study martial arts and tactics (blame Melkor for kicking this off). They value propriety and respect for family, considering patrilineal ties to be nearly sacred. (Except Fëanor, who strongly favored his mother’s heritage.)  

Their musical style is formal, complex, and somewhat formulaic; very controlled and mathematical. They favor stringed instruments for plucking and bowing, and narrative vocals for a single virtuoso voice. They use what we’d think of as an Eastern tonal scale.

Teleri/Falmari—  The Teleri of Alquolondë have light brown skin to pale tan skin, while farther north and elsewhere they run to dark brown. Freckles, dappling, and weathered skin are very common amongst all Teleri. Their hair is usually silver-white or brown-black. It can either be straight or textured. Typically they high contrast between their skin and hair.

Their faces tend to be round, oval or heart-shaped. They are not as chiseled or angular as the Noldor, nor as long and lanky as the Vanyar; instead they are supple and graceful, their features softer and more padded. Their build tends to be a little rounder and stockier than their cousins’, yet exceptionally mobile, favoring swimming and dancing. Their skin usually has a golden, or umber undertone, drifting to ruddy depending on how far north they were born.  They often have monolids, but not exclusively.

The Teleri of Alquolondë favor wearing pearls, carved abalone, walrus ivory, delicate silver filigree, and silk. Farther from the port, their fashion favors fur and beautifully stitched hide parkas and robes. They use shimmering makeup and colorful hair dye to mimic the pearlescent tones and shimmering scales they admire in the sea. Their decor often features blown glass, knot-work, whalebone, scrimshaw, furs, carved shells, coral, and most importantly beadwork. The Teleri’s skill at beading, carving, and glass blowing are unparalleled amongst the Eldar.

Their main industries are ship-building, fishing, whaling, seal-hunting, sail-weaving, rope-twisting, and net-making. They provide the mainland with fish and whale oil, seafood, baleen, pearls, ivory, coral, and abalone. The Teleri take a special interest in perfumes and oils for both cosmetic and industrial uses. They render it for use in food, fuel, scents, preservatives, cosmetics, and lubricants. Additionally they have developed many dyes and pigments from shellfish and other marine sources.

Carving and building sailing vessels and ships for transport is their main occupation, and as a result, they are also very keen on astronomy for the purposes of navigation. The Falmari are the map-makers of Valinor, the only ones with records of the tides and the geography of the surrounding territories, up through the grinding ice. The more far-flung inhabitants are hardy polar survivalists as well as nautical veterans.

The Teleri of Aman hold Uinen and Ulmo nearest their hearts, and hold Ossë to be more of a vengeful trickster who must be appeased rather than a protective force. The do not have much use for weapons and therefor never developed them, though they do have a broad arsenal of hunting spears, harpoons, arrows, nets, barbs, hooks, skinning knives, clubs, and other hunting weapons that are necessary for their trade.

The Teleri are very musical, though they do not have the same power for Song as the Vanyar. They train their voices for harmony, polyphony, and flexibility, perfect for solo performances or choral arrangements. Some revered Teler singers train their voices to sing overtones. They utilize a wide arrangement of chime and unique percussive instruments like steel and water drums, as well as flutes and other wind instruments.

*A subtle but important aesthetic difference between the Valinor Teleri and the Beleriand Teleri is that the Falmari go ON the water, and the Falathrim go IN the water. The waters around Aman are largely rich in nutrients but freezing cold, while the waters around the Bay of Balar have warm currents and are more conducive to swimming.

The Úmanyar

Teleri/Falathrim— While the Falmari are fishermen and hunters and sail-makers with access to trade with the Noldor and the resources of Valinor, the Falathrim live on the continent, protected only by Ossë and the tide; they’ve have to put up with Orcs and Melkor for thousands of years. This has made them fucking badass motherfuckers with shark-tooth weapons and they will come out of the water like some spooky pirates-of-the-carribbean shit and slit your throat with a sawfish bill.

The elves who stayed behind at the behest of Ossë came from a smaller original gene pool, and are therefor very recognizable even generations later. They much more rarely carry the gene for the silver-white hair that the Teleri of Aman have. Their hair is nominally black or dark brown, with maybe 1 in 20 having the Teleri Silver. Their skintones are more in the reddish range, and often darker than their counterparts in Aman, at least after the rising of the Sun.

They are much broader built, sturdier, and curvier than any of the elves from Aman. You ABSOLUTELY CANNOT knock these boys over with a pail of water. They are tough and muscled and sleekly padded all over, with strong limbs and compact torsos and squarish, roundish faces with great cheekbones. Culturally and genetically they have more in common with the extreme northern portions of the Falmari than with the elves in Alqualondë.

The Bay of Balar receives warm water currents coming in from the south and from around Valinor in the west. Cirdan’s elves are almost exclusively Polynesian looking; taking aesthetic cues from the Maori, native Hawaiians, Fijians, and other native islanders, while up north on the coast of Beleriand they run a little more towards a Viking aesthetic. They do not have the same propensity as the Falmari for pearly cosmetics, metalworking, elaborate silky dress, nor jewels. Their outfits tend to be sparse and practical for wear in and around the sea; even their ceremonial garb isn’t especially delicate, but bristling with feathers and shell and braids. They do use cosmetics, but in the form of ceremonial paint and clay. Their primary body decoration is bold, geometric tattoos, piercings, woven hair, braids, and flowers.

Shipbuilding is essential to the Falathrim’s trade and culture, but their goals revolve less around extensive sea voyages and travel between continents, and more around control over the costal waters and the shoreline of Beleriand. They do not often travel deep into the open ocean, where resources are scarce.

Ossë’s goodwill provides them with rich waters and safety within the Bay; this allows some communities to live completely Orc-free in drifting house-boats and floating communities of rafts. Almost universally the Falathrim are strong swimmers, capable of seeing underwater with perfect clarity, and able to hold their breath for worryingly long lengths of time. Sometimes they even compete to see who can walk across the sea floor carrying an anchor for the greatest distance. Pearl diving and underwater spear fishing are popular professions for this reason.

Their artistry centers on weaving and carving, but they use different materials than Falmari artisans; their primary mediums are driftwood, bone, shell, husks, hardwoods, rattan, reeds, and fibrous leaves. Unlike their counterparts in Aman, they are generally well armed and trained for combat, though without the aid of iron or steel weaponry. Like all the elves on the continent, they have had significantly less access to metalworking technology than the elves of Valinor. The little metal they have is usually got by trade with the Khazad, or as salvage. It is considered highly precious and reserved for essential or sacred uses. Their tools and weapons are made from largely marine materials, hardwood, bone, and sometimes glass or rock.

They have a thriving economy of trade with other elves and occasionally dwarves on the continent, and use a shell-based currency.  They export seafood, pearls, coral, and other marine goods, trading them for necessities inland in traveling convoys, or in the extensive floating markets of the Ship Havens.

Their music is intensely percussive and driving; more aggressive, more practical in intent than that of the Falmari’s. It often features large choirs of voices singing in unison, rather than polyphony, led by raw, powerful solo performances and chants. Other songs are inspired by the sea and its habitants directly, often in imitation of them, using the highest, most eery range of vocals and the lowest, rumbling basso tones. For instruments they use conch horns, rattles, skin drums, and long, basso wood winds. They sing to appease Ossë and Uinen, to ask for the blessings of Ulmo, to Manwë for fair winds. They have fierce ritual chants to intimidate their enemies, to set a rhythm to hard work, and to account for everyone in the village as a kind of roll-call: a reminder of the dark, early days of the Great Journey.

Sindar/Grey Elves— The Sindar probably have the widest spread of genetic variety of any of the tribes of elves. However, they do all look like they’re judging you. Like, even the really nice ones seem kind of unapproachable because they could kill you with their eyeliner. They are the Malfoys of the Moriquendi. Always on fleek. Always extra.

Their hair is generally thick and straight, and comes in raven black, Teleri silver, or nut brown; usually worn exceptionally long according to fashion. They are tall, imperious, slender, narrow-faced, and long-limbed. Very occasionally they’ll produce a Falathrim-style muscle boy. (See: Mablung.) They run the whole gradient of Quendi skin-tones, from blue-black to red-brown to tawny to golden-pale to bluish-pale, while they have a slightly more limited array of hair colors and textures.  

The Sindar make great efforts to preserve ephemeral beauty wherever they find it. They selectively cultivate and preserve natural beauty; the are fascinated by the intersection of nature and artistry. The like their trees topiary’d, they like their caves carved like trees, and they like nature to obey their aesthetics. Everything within the heart of Doriath is a garden, even if it looks intentionally wild.

Their jewelry is often made from peacock and kingfisher feathers, butterfly and moth wings, abalone, opals, diamond, platinum, and silver. They obviously have a preference for grey and silver and white adornments, however Melian and her retainers wear exclusively gold and blue. They favor silk and very fine linen and supple leather. There are some materials exclusive to Nan Elmoth and the deepest parts of the Doriath’s forest that retain the bioluminescence that was characteristic of the days before the sun and moon. Some species of insect still weave glowing threads and there are rare deposits of glowing blue and green amber that are prized as much as rare pearls or flawless diamonds.

The Sindar live for court politics and drama. They are occupied constantly by changing fashions, lavish entertainment, and opulent displays of beauty and wealth (tasteful, of course). They place high value one fine wine, grand gestures, noble emotions, and virtuoso talent.

This is as much due to Melian’s influence as it is a development of isolation. Melian and her retinue are the lead trend-setters and her word on taste is final; a sour look or a whisper of boredom from her signals social disgrace for entertainers and courtiers. The queen’s approval is the highest sought commodity in Doriath (second only to Thingol’s approval to marry his daughter).

They are skilled riders and excellent hunters with a talent for marksmanship. Riding and hunting in Doriath are as much a sport as as they are a practical occupation. Elaborate, almost ceremonial hunts take place periodically at important dates, leading to seasonal feasts and bountiful celebrations. They are known for their exquisite wines and brandies, as well as incredible feats of culinary skill (food being the most ephemeral art!). They like to cultivate rare lilies and shape trees into elegant or unique shapes, as well as develop new and ever more tasty variants of their favorite berries, fruits, and vegetables— particularly wine grapes, of course.

The Sindar who don’t participate in the court drama lead a vastly different life; these are typically rangers, soldiers, and scouts necessary to maintaining the boundaries of Thingol and Melian’s kingdom and the safety of the realm— because damn do the Sindar live in the middle of Morgoth County. Leaving the protection of the Girdle for trade or diplomatic necessities means scouting ahead for orcs and moving in protected convoys; any business that takes them outside is extremely dangerous.

The Sindar of Doriath exist in a very insular, very baroque society that sustains a high level of internal focus because it has to in order to survive. This internal focus, as well as their compulsion to revere the eternal and preserve the ephemeral, is all a product of living in a relatively small oasis of safety in the midst of great danger and turbulence.

Their music is very courtly and baroque in that it focuses on one or two virtuoso voices with basso continuo accompaniment, heavy on elaboration, ornamentation, and improvisation. They use two different musical modes in Doriath; one that is used for secular music and another for hymns to the Valar. Both are totally different and, it must be said, completely incompatible with the Noldor’s musical scale— for many elves of either tribe, the music of the other is completely unlistenable and foreign.  

Doriath’s court takes its musical celebrities very seriously; the constant rotation of favorite hunters, singers, lutists, flautists, artists, fashion, architects, poets, heroic orc-slayers, and great beauties provides the main source of entertainment for the both the nobility and the gentry. A popular theme for all art is the beauty and glory of Aman, on which the Sindar have a sort of neoclassical fixation. Their perception of Aman, the land they have only heard of second-hand through their king and queen, and later from the exiles, is loaded with fictitious tropes and myths which function as as allegories.

Nandor/Silvan/Green Elves— Okay, you can knock these boys over with a pail of water. They are very fragile, pale, gentle little fawn boys ssshhh please no loud noises.

Their prominent identifying feature is delicacy, lightness, almost uncertainty. They are similar in feature to the Sindar, but tend to be much slighter, smaller, and almost exclusively sport soft, pale Teleri hair; white, light brown, or very rarely red. Their skintones run from almost translucent white to a dusty, feather brown, sometimes freckled or dappled. They are swift runners, with incredible eyesight and hearing. Their instincts are honed for living close to danger; they move silently, quickly, leaving no trace of their presence. They can vanish into the environment at the drop of a pin, and they can track their quarry for days without giving away a single sign of themselves. They are not especially robust fighters, but they are agile enough to make up for it in combat. They use wood and flint arrows and are deadly shots with bow and arrow, but mostly, they just want to grow their tender plants and sing to trees and have a nap in a meadow. Please protect them.

Unlike the Sindar, they tend to leave nature the way they found it. They live semi-nomadic lives, changing residences seasonally. They keep bees and maintain scattered crops, which are more like wild areas of native produce that have been gently encouraged to be abundant, rather than rows and fields of grain. They build almost exclusively with wood, reeds, and thatch, often living above ground in the trees themselves. They have extensive knowledge of native plants and fungi and are adept healers and herbalists. Their knowledge and experience is passed down as oral tradition rather than in writing, though their lore and expertise came to be written down after contact with other cultures.

Their songs are in a scale that sounds eery and mournful to most ears, but they know how to throw killer parties with mead and dancing around a bonfire.

Avamanyar

Lost Avari— Just as the Eldar were shaped by their proximity to the light of Aman, the Avari were shaped by its total absence. They seem strange to the Eldar, but they are so rarely seen it’s hard to say what the typical Avari even looks like. Many are shockingly pale, lacking in pigment entirely, others are as dark as Varda. All have intense, wild eyes devoid of the light of Aman, full of wariness and something unreadable, like an animal. Their features are reminiscent of all the other tribes of elves, but strangely proportioned in various ways, like a wide space between the eyes, or an unusually thick nose bridge, a prominent sloping brow, or a lack of eyebrows. They are quite striking and beautiful in an uncanny way.

They are secretive and quiet; they value camouflage over decoration, though their artistry often blends the two together in very evocative patterns of swirled clay and pigments. Many carry deep scars that seem not to heal in typical elven fashion, indicating some deep psychic trauma accompanied the wounds, likely inflicted by a supernatural source.

Little is known about their society, language, or song, but they seem to travel alone or in insular family groups, keeping to largely uninhabited areas, and making no permanent residence.