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Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Agback" data-source="post: 1296245" data-attributes="member: 5328">Do you count the mind-control spells that Grima cast on Theoden? The powerful spell by which Luthien enchanted Morgoth and his court? The curse that Isildur laid on the men of Erech?What about the fires with which Gandalf burned wolves in The Hobbit and while the Fellowship was marching south through Eriador?Most 'magic' in Middle-Earth represents the crafts of the Elves and Numenoreans, which consist basically of doing things really, really well. Elvish swords, rope, boats, waybread, camouflage gear, &c., and Numenorean fortification walls are fantastically good, almost perfect, swords, rope, boats, hard biscuit, battledress, and masonry. But they aren't more. And they are made by smiths, ropers, boatwrights, bakers, gardeners, and masons, not by spellcasters. Similarly, elvish lullabies are fantastically good at putting people to sleep, elvish lyric and epic singing is fantastically good at evoking its subject (it produces what we might term mental illusions), and Saruman's arguments are fantastically good at swaying people to the courses he espouses. This 'magic' (which the elves in Lorien tell Sam they don't consider to be magic) requires absolute mastery of the underlying craft, consists wholly of mastery of the underlying craft.Somewhere above this is the creative power of the Valar, the maiar, and such extraordinary people as Fëanor, Telchar, Celebrimbor, and possibly Galadriel. Notable, such feats as growing the Two Trees, making the Silmarils, the palantirs, the Great Ring, and possibly making Frodo's luminous glass and Galadriel's garden, were not repeatable, even by the people who had done them originally.  This may be because they had to invest a portion of their native power (experience points?) in the creations. I believe that Gandalf's fire magics are in this class, and possibly Saruman's and Grima's persuasive spells.Then there are 'the deceits of the Enemy'.Regards,Agback</blockquote>

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