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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mannahnin" data-source="post: 9542994" data-attributes="member: 7026594">Chain of borrowing from Tolkien (in broad strokes) goes:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><a href="https://playingattheworld.blogspot.com/2016/01/a-precursor-to-chainmail-fantasy.html" target="_blank">Leonard Patt's Middle Earth wargame in The Courier</a> becomes known to Gygax.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Gygax expands on that to incorporate some elements of Elric and Conan and other fantasies he liked, and tweaks it for compatibility with Chainmail, and that becomes the famous Fantasy Supplement at the back of Chainmail.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Dave Arneson uses the Fantasy Supplement as his initial rules basis for his "medieval Braunstein" which became Blackmoor.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Blackmoor gets really popular among the Twin Cities gamers, Dave shows it to Gary, and Gary (with some feedback from and collaboration with Dave) turns it into D&D.</li> </ul>Remember that as I covered in a <a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/drow-as-in-cow-or-drow-as-in-snow-where-did-the-dark-elves-come-from.708406/post-9539933" target="_blank">previous comment</a>, Gary also expressed that Tolkien was one among a bunch of influences as early as 1974, well before the Tolkien Enterprises lawsuit.  The description of dark elves with black skin is a direct lift from Pratt and de Camp's The Roaring Trumpet.  <a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/the-gygaxian-origins-of-drow-and-some-thought-on-their-depiction-as-villians.672996/" target="_blank">Gary himself wrote in Dragon 31, in 1979</a> they were inspired by that book. Where in Tolkien are you getting the kinslaying Noldor being associated with spiders?  Given Gary's repeated and consistently expressed opinion over decades that LotR was too slow-paced for his tastes, the idea that he actually read The Silmarillion seems dubious to me. As you noted, Galadriel is a Noldor, among many other Noldor in Middle Earth, and they're all on the side of good, living above ground, and have no association with spiders or major physical differences from other elves.  <a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/drow-as-in-cow-or-drow-as-in-snow-where-did-the-dark-elves-come-from.708406/post-9531330" target="_blank">Issue 142, Feb 1989.</a></blockquote>

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