Morlas was intended as a replacement for “abandonned” suggestion of November 2006 by Roland “Bombadil” Pastoor : “The Gates of Moria” which had to be cancelled for technical reasons later on though it had won the vote…
On february 2008 when he learned about the project being cancelled because it was too big and complex, Roland decided not to vote and sarcastically said he would suggest a little “black squirrel” so it won’t be TOO big to be produced …
on March 2008 he submitted this suggestion :
“[glow=red,5,500]Black Squirrel[/glow]
“from Mirkwood, without any kind of base, so it won´t become toooo big to get realized! Let´s call it Morlas, which means Black Leaf in Sindarin, prince of squirrels of Mirkwood!
:-[
Of course it did not win… but the idea of a squirrel was also used as a complementary figure for many other suggestions at that time…
On december 2008, as a surprise and compensation, Chris sent Roland four castings of a little squirrel on a branch named “Morlas, Prince of squirrels”… Afterwards Roland wrote to three among us collectors to offer the three other castings besides his to us… Theobald and myself were among them, Axel Schudak was the third one if I remember well…
We discussed the matter on MMP and well there was great enthusiasm about this figurine so I asked Chris if he could do more and he gladly accept to produce more but he had no time to manage the logistics of who wanted one and send them so he sent me the whole batch and I redispatched it until I had no more
Maybe Chris still kept some for himself and gladly provided some later on to those who asked him for one directly which seems to be your case Thingol (unless it was me who sent it to you? )
MS423A also ! Actually I do not know story about original Morlas and recast ones… few guys here, told me that there is no difference between them…
