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Message: <blockquote data-quote="mmadsen" data-source="post: 5680578" data-attributes="member: 1645">The magic of The Lord of the Rings is not integrated into the setting?  Really?  I guess I don't understand what you mean, because those elements all seem extremely well integrated into Tolkien's world of Middle Earth, with elaborate histories explaining how everything came to be and how everything's tied together.In The Hobbit, our hero does not follow your formula and find a short sword of dragon slaying.  He finds an elf knife, long enough to serve as a hobbit sword, and its powers -- especially glowing in the presence of goblins (orcs) -- make perfect sense for a weapon left over from an elf-orc war, and don't perfectly match his immediate needs.Is your complaint that none of the magic permeates the setting -- that it's rare and costly -- or that it doesn't fit in the setting?Because the monsters in Conan are, for the most part, exotic beasts found in faraway lands, and the magics are exotic mysteries that require years of research to unearth, years of study to decrypt, and unspeakable costs to unleash.Perhaps you have a different definition of controllable.  The One Ring practically defines uncontrollable.  (Stormbringer also comes to mind.)  The wizards in many Conan tales clearly risk their lives and their sanity pursuing supernatural power and esoteric knowledge.</blockquote>