Reply To: The Taproom

Hello,

Yes, these nazgul names are creations of ICE. And in the MERP books there are occassional sketches in black and white to give an idea of their apperance. Then in the late ’90s ICE created their Middle-earth Card Collectable Game (MECCG) where they hired several of the best fantasy genre artist, many of whom had already done Tolkien related illustrations, to create a remarkably beautiful set of pictures for these cards; many of which had little or no basis in the actual works of JRR or Christopher Tolkien. This is where the image of Khamul with dragon-skin armor originated. For a long time the works of ICE via MERP were refined and spread about the internet on sites such as merp.com (still in existance, although in a much reduced format due to TE’s cease and desist orders) as well as long-running publications like that produced by Chris Seeman called Other Hands (also forced to cease publication due to TE). Gavin, cantact me if you are still interested in contacting Mr. Seeman.

So regarding Dragon-scale armor, etc . . . there is really no way to say based on the actual words in the books. But that allows us to use our imagination, and I think that JRR Tolkien would like that, even if Christopher does not!

Now Gildor, regarding Master Tubb, I can tell you that Theo and Barli are absolutely correct. You can not take his silence personally. I also have had the same experience. PA keeps him very busy, and with kids in college (at university, as he would say), he really just doesn’t have time to respond to every email. Also, he often is asked the same questions by more than one person and relies on us to keep each other informed. there are times when we trade a dozen emails in one week, and then I don’t hear from him for three months. All of a sudden, he sends me another email as though we just talked the day before! So do not think it is personal, I believe he tries to spead things around so that we all get a piece of his time once in awhile. Of course, he has long-time friends who he has known for many, many years who he tries to keep in more regular touch with. I will be patient (he owes me an email for two months now), and suggest you should also.