LOTRO Players News Episode 62: Ethel and Ross

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Cithryth left a comment on last week’s show:

“Listened to this while traveling today. So hilarious! Disappointed that I missed such a great origin story. Looking forward to coming back in a few weeks.

STEEL BLUE!”

Emails

Tim sent in an origin story:

“Here’s one for Ethelros. It was a quick little one but I hope it’s to your liking.

Tim

Being the son of circus clowns is not very easy but the son of Ethel and Ross did the best he could with it. They loved their son so much that they decided to combine their names and named him “Ethel” after his mother and “Ros” short for “Ross” after his father. Being clowns they were only physically funny but could not hold a conversation for the life of them.

They moved from town to town showing off their talents at the three-ring circus. Their crowd pleasing grand finale was fighting the fire and saving the damsel in distress way up atop a tall building. Ethelros had to learn to be the fire captain and climb, or as they called it “level,” the ladder to rescue the damsel in distress. No matter how hard he tried, as a captain he could not level. He decided to scrub the captain and move on to another job but what?

After setting up the circus in a town which will not be named, for fear of retribution, there was a real actual fire very close to the circus. The only chance to save the building was if the clowns of the circus could put out the fire. They took it as a sign to be heroes. The clowns started to leave but Ross told Ethelros to stay behind. He did not know how to level and was left behind. They all left to fight the fire but they never made it.

The next morning Ethelros read the devastating news in the paper. The headline read, “200 Clowns Injured When Car Hit Lamp.” Ethelros was crushed. He vowed to avenge his parents against that infamous lamp. Through the week he gathered an unlikely fellowship to battle the lamp. The sleepy man, “BordI’mHere.” The grim bearded lady, “Grimly.” The man who had to be carried in a wagon because he has no legs, “Legless.” The magician, “Randolf.” And there were four little ones, the African one, “Afrodo,” the jerk, “Samwiseguy,” the grumpy one, “NotSoMerry,” and “Pippen.”

As the week ended, they told the ring master they were going to do battle with the lamp. They even gave themselves a name, “Fellowship to Attack the Infamous Lamp,” or “F.A.I.L.” The ringmaster presided over their departure.

“The fellowship is setting out on a quest to destroy the lamp which injured so many of our clowns.”

From the side, Ethel and Ross were sitting drinking tea. “Really, darling, we’re fine.”

“The ringmaster continued, “Those who will travel with him no oath nor bond is laid to go further than you will,”

The mother chimed in, “Really we’re quite fine. Have a spot of tea.”

“May you hold to your purpose and may the blessings of bearded ladies, legless people, and all freak folk go with you.”

The father interrupted, “How about a crumpet with jelly?”

Together, the nine companions marched on the lamp. As they approached it, they could smell the foulstench of battle approaching. They charged on the lamp, running faster than they ever ran before. With the exception of Legless, who was left behind in his wagon, “Hello? Can somebody give me a push?”

They drew their swords, yelling and screaming with the fervor they had bottled up since hearing of their injured comrades. They splashed onto the lamp as it fell over. All of them then stood up. It was completely silent except for the crows circling overhead, looking for fresh meat. They looked at the lamp on the field victory.“Well that’s it, then.” Randalf said. “Good show everybody, good show.”

Ethelros bowed his head in silence, “May we forget those we lost in this battle. Poor Legless”

“I’m quite alright!” A yell came from the distance.

They returned to the circus. They had victory but Ethelros did not feel right. He visited the train car he and his family lived. “I wish I could see them one last time.”

“Ah, Ethelros, we were just thinking of you. Somebody broke that street lamp we hit.” Ross said.

“How is your day darling?” Ethel asked.

“Oh, there you are,” he said with no enthusiasm what-so-ever. “Not bad.” Ethelros said. “I avenged you.”

“Oh, jolly good.” Ross said.

So they all sat there. Nobody spoke for a while.

“I hear they have carp at the market.” Ethel said.

“Oh.” Ross answered.

Silence…

“What’s the price?”

“Doesn’t say.”

“Oh.”

Silence…

Ethelros got up, “I need to talk slightly more.”

“Really, Ethelros,” Ethel said. “You talk too much. Clowns don’t talk.”

“I want to become a podcaster, talk more and show my exciting side.” Ethelros retorted very monotone.

“But you are a clown, dear.” Ethel said. “It’s in your blood.”

“I just want to perform for millions of unseen people.”

“How will you know they are there?” Ross questioned.

“That’s the great thing. You don’t.” Ethelros replied. “And that’s what I like about it.”

“Well you have fun with that, dear.” Ethel said. “And please, stop being such a blabber mouth.”

So Ethelros became a podcaster. He spoke more than ever before. A full 0.00001% of the podcasts is him speaking. The rest is history.”

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Final Thoughts

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5 comments

Scoedt / September 2, 2014

Apologies if this should have been posted elsewhere. If so, feel free to scrub it from here and put it where you wish.

No need to read this comment out loud in LPN (as I ramble and my comments generally don’t make for good vocal reading), but I would love to hear your guys discuss your thoughts about Produktion_Malphunktion’s comment about us adventuring “a few hundred miles to the east of Frodo”.

Here’s the link to the post : https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthread.php?&postid=7228643#post7228643

And here’s the paragraph which he began with “Mount Doom.”:
Mount Doom. The plan is already there and has been for years. It’s awesome. But yes, we very obviously do not follow Sam and Frodo since in the books they don’t have any population where we can hide players. Sure I guess we could do ‘the forward guard for Frodo’ or the ‘cleanup crew’ but that is kind of lame, and very forced.
But there is a war a few hundred miles to the east of Frodo that fits what is needed for an MMO-towns, conflicts, good guys, bad guys, places to explore. This gives breath and space for YOU to be the hero for a while, not the baggage handler for Merry and Pippin. It is fun to run alongside Legolas, but it is not fun to watch Legolas do all the work…if you get what I mean.
Would a Frodo and Sam game be cool someday…sure, but not as an MMO. That would just turn into Frodo and his Amazing Friends!

Now my questions is, am I taking things out of context, or does this seem to indicate that in the future we may be adventuring in Rhûn (or possibly Khand, but my money is on Rhûn)?

If we’re “a few hundred miles to the east of Frodo” while he and Sam are in the vicinity of Mount Doom, that puts us far past Barad-dûr, which is only some 30 miles east of Orodruin, and probably well past Nurn and its environs. Rhûn, I think, is to the east and northeast, with Khand to the southeast?

I like the idea of Rhûn. We’ve been running into Khamul (2nd in rank of the Nasgul, and a sorcer-king of the Easterlings) since lvl 65 when we started raiding Barad Guldur. At 75, we found the Brown Lands in the Great River full of Khundolar Easterlings. And at 85, we see many Jangovar Easterlings in that instance cluster around the Lonely Mountain. They seem to have become a reoccuring foe, without us noticing just how often they are featured as our enemies.

Additional thoughts : I’d like to further explore the interactions we had with the two factions of blue sorcerers we met in the Great River, and see just how they are related (possibly) to Pallando and Alatar, and find out more about just what Saruman might have done when he visited there. And I believe Aragorn has been there in the past as well? Also, I’d enjoy exploring around the inland Sea of Rhûn! Dorwinion might be the referred to “good guys” as it seems they at least are still connected to the trade network that runs back west … we’re getting that Dorwinion Red and White still, right?

Lastly: I’m disappointed to read that we may not be adventuring into Mordor. I’d really enjoy that. I figured that since we were storming Orthanc and beating up Saruman in his own house at the peak of his power and long before the ents humbled him, Turbine would be ready to bend things enough to allow us to adventure there, desipte that also taking liberties with the lore. It seems like that will not be happening this time?

Anyways… To Rhûn! To Rhûn?

- Andang / September 2, 2014
  
  My guess is either they meant to the west or you are correct. We have never heard even a mention of Rhûn before this but maybe that has been part of the plan or is now.
  
  - Scoedt / September 2, 2014
    
    West would make far far more sense.
- Andang / September 2, 2014
  
  Wherever we go, it is still several years away as we are in Gondor still in 2016 per the roadmap by Rowan.
  
Tim / September 2, 2014

Andang, thank you so much for reading my origin story to the millions of unseen people. It was great hearing it voiced by somebody other than myself and you just made it funnier in my opinion. Ethelros, thanks for being a great sport. Hopefully you liked it and not have the feeling of send a devastating blow my way. Oh, no you can’t, your captain isn’t leveled.
I liked that everybody laughed and had a good time. It’s a nice feeling of validation because you don’t know how well your jokes will be received.
Again, thanks for reading it 🙂
Tim

LOTRO Players News Episode 62: Ethel and Ross

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