Recent content by Dioltach

You should have learned in the chapters on the Anduin river, because it's used several times there. (I recently listened to the audiobooks, and it took me a while to figure out what these "eights" in the river were.)

"Halfling" is used a lot in Pippin's chapters in Gondor, and it doesn't seem to carry any negative connotations whatsoever.

If I were doing a literary analysis of the scene, I'd say it's a fairly common death-and-rebirth thing. Plunging into darkness, clawing his way out and being delivered into the world naked and helpless. Gandalf doesn't lose his clothes so he can take up white garb, he takes up white garb to...

I'm waiting for an American to make the obligatory Canada joke: "Double-Eh Seven".

As long as you don't have to walk anywhere near trees.

Aha, ceci n'est pas un writing desk.

Last year, when I wanted to cancel my SPOT subscription because it had gone up by 50% within the space of a few years, I learned that they have a non-advertised option of paying a small flat rate per year, plus a monthly fee if and when you're actively using your device. It's saved me about 200...

Is it me, or does it look a bit Hobbit-sized?

"If you tangle up, just tango on." (Scent of a Woman)

Not a play, but Xenophon's account of the actual march of the Ten Thousand that he was on.

Have you ever read Lachamon's Brut? He goes on for 16,000 lines about "the Britons", and King Arthur, and in the very last line all of as sudden it's "And one day Arthur will return to save the English." Not the Britons - the Anglo-Saxons, the downtrodden after the Norman Conquest.

I was referring to the emergence of the trope in D&D. As in, it wasn't drawing on historical or literary sources, but on actual contemporary practices.

Isn't the whole idea much simpler? Bars and taverns have traditionally been places where people gather for food, drink and company. My experience with American bars is limited, but enough to know that there's a very low threshold for someone going up to a complete stranger and interacting with...

It says it travelled through space to arrive on Earth. Sure, it's only flavour, but isn't that the point? As ancient as Earth's history is by that time in Conan's timeline - Atlantis has already fallen, for instance - this alien species is older and stranger.

"The Tower of the Elephant". A sorcerer has captured the alien and uses its power to fuel his sorcery. There's actually a Tower of the Elephant in Cagliari in Sardinia, which is a bit of a disappointment if you're expecting anything like in the story.