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Message: <blockquote data-quote="PHATsakk43" data-source="post: 9543093" data-attributes="member: 7041071">I think you're following Mr. Gygax's preferred rendering of the history, which now includes other, older things that make that rather inconsistent.Again, we now know that Gygax was writing Tolkien fan-fic for the game Diplomacy zine Thangorodrim which becomes the basis for D&D's chromatic dragons. It was also not completely without input from Tolkien, as the first of the 'grate wourms' described in Thangorodrim was based on Smaug being a red dragon and having fire breath. Gygax continues this series of columns over 5 issues of Thangorodrim and lays out white, black, green, blue, and the aforementioned red dragons with abilities that continue to this very day.I think it is also somewhat informative to recognize that this was purely "flavor" for Diplomacy, as there aren't differentiation between units. This isn't describing a creature that would be fought on a sand table, but just world building.I include this, as it feels to me that it calls into question some of Mr. Gygax's later opinions regarding Tolkien. He definitely seemed extremely interested in it at a rather formative part of his time as a gamer.It is two separate concepts. Elves rebelling against their gods and taking oaths which lead to the killing of fellow elves followed by self-imposed exile is a much closer concept of late-1970s D&D drow than anything that came out of Sprague de Camp or Pratt. The spider stuff is a separate item of similarity between Gygax and Tolkien. While spiders are prominent in both of the earlier works about Middle-Earth, it is only with The Silmarillion that we fully understand where all these evil, chaotic spider creatures come from. I'm not saying that Tolkien associated spiders with the Noldor or elves whatsoever, just that his equivalent of an elder evil came in the form of a chaotic, feminine spider.I suppose I can expound upon that more. In The Roaring Trumpet I can definitely see the influences that become the Against the Giants series, but the "dark elves" play but a small part and nothing particularly similar to their role in the G-D-Q series. They also are very much closer to description of a dwarf or gnome from D&D, not an elf. Granted, this depiction is because the base of The Roaring Trumpet is the Prose Edda a 13th century mythological Norse work.Had Gygax written the secret masters pulling the giant's strings to have been a proto-duergar or proto-svirfneblin, I would agree with you, but that wasn't the case. The dökkálfar and svartálfar aren't Tolkienesq elves, but dwarves. Gygax made this change, which follows Tolkien doing much the same. Again, it's impossible that both men would change these creatures in almost the exact same way, but it does feel improbable. Which brings this back to Tolkien. Tolkien himself pulled much of his ideas from Prose Edda including many of his concepts of elves and dwarves. However, it wasn't until the release of The Silmarillion did anyone have but a brief understanding of First and Second Age events. Including the other things I discussed like a group of elves rebelling against their gods and kin, feminine spider creatures of great power that come from beyond and hold only the desire for chaos and evil, and the Galadriel/Elistraee (this is a Greenwood thing, which I've never bothered to ask and I have less support than for my theories of Gygax) there is more in The Silmarillion that coincides with even the earliest version of drow than anything from The Roaring Trumpet.Let's take Eöl who was always referred to in The Silmarillion as "the dark elf" who was a dwarf-friend and forger of the black steel galvorn, as hard as mithril but dark black and supple enough to be worn at all times. He also was accused of kinslaying and betrayal and ultimately tossed to his death. His son Maeglin was also a renowned smith who likewise was duplicitous.Again, all of these fiction writers are inspired by the same 13th century mythology, however two made a massive change by incorporating a large part of the dwarfs described in Prose Edda into elves, referred to these elves as "dark", and had them forgers of black steel as hard as dwarven mithril. I suppose that it could be that Mr. Gygax took many of the same elements as did Tolkien, but I find that it a bit of a stretch.Well, late 1980s. I'll admit that I got the date incorrect. I knew it was early in the 2E era, but couldn't remember the exact date.</blockquote>

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