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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mycanid" data-source="post: 3073665" data-attributes="member: 40370">One more caveat on this from someone who has read the Silmarillion and the Books of Lost Tales, etc., etc., etc. ...The "Istari" were actually invisible beings known as Maiar - Sauron actually is one too. Istari is the name of the wizards given by the elves. ZSutherland's guess on this is a pretty good take IMO.There were five of them and they were sent into Middle Earth primarily to counteract the influence of Sauron after Sauron's master Melkor (one of the seven chief Valar who fell away from his original purpose and brought several of the maiar along to his purposes) was imprisoned.The Istari's actual names were Curinir (Saruman), Olonir (Gandalf), Aiwendil (Radagast), and Morinehtar and Romestano (these two were the blue wizards and apparently Tolkien did not indicate which bore which of the names men gave them).Among men the Istari's names were Saruman, Gandalf, Radagast, and the two "blue wizards" Alatar and Pallando who "went to the east" and were never heard from again. In one place Tolkien said that they greatly helped in the War through their influence in the East, although in another place he hinted that they also fell away from their original purpose and that the black arts of men had their origin in them....Btw RC - good post on summarizing Tolkien.And Buzz also hit on an important thing. Middle Earth was made by one man and not specifically as a game setting. The other three were specifically so made and had many people involved therein. Of course there will be a difference! <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /></blockquote>

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