Ballads of War 1x40 & 1x41

New funny speaking people joining to the party!

I wanted High Farseer Ellinderelion to look as lordly as possible, and I wanted to depict him really old looking. An aged elf, if you can conceive that. He had to bear presence, gravitas. I won't tell much of him now, as it's better that you see his development in future pages.

I would have loved to show more of the command table the Eldar are using to control the battle on the surface of the planet. It was planned to be totally holographic and would have served to better understand the situation on the ground, with tiny floating icons of the military units deployed, that kind of subtle visual aid. Unfortunately it was totally beyond my abilities with the brush. All the experiments I tried before I actually got it onto the paper were blurry smudges of white and blue, impossible to understand a single thing on them. That's something I need to learn how to do.

More Quenya Eldarissa chit chat. The Elen síla lúmenn' omentielvo greeting was too good to let it go, of course (if by any chance it sounds familiar to you, it's what Frodo says to Gildor Inglorion on their first meeting at the Shire). Another fun fact coming from that very chapter of The Fellowship of the Ring: the name of the ship, Menelvagor, is not made up; it's the name Elves use to refer to the constellation of Orion. Yup, I'm recycling everything I can. But the name was absolutely adequate for a warship so, once again, to good to ignore :D

Mon-keigh is of course a GW word. Clumsy attempt of phonetically tie the term with monkey, as the term Eldar use to talk about all other 'inferior' species, particularly mankind. I prefered to keep the word even when the Eldar are talking each other, hence the clarification. Tough thing is that I had to decline it for a sentence, so I treated it as a plain word.

We now learn that the Farseer and the Harlequin are aquaintances and that he had also met El'Kais before. Hmm, sounds like a story to tell...

Another revelation, Brent does speak Eldarissa! Well, that's a surprise. Apparently he fought in alliance with Saim-Hann back in the day. For some of the then-40Kplayers it was kind of shocking, but those were the things that happened in the old days of RT-2nd Ed, and in fact it is what is happening now again in the game. Not sure though of what the Inquisition would thing about an Imperial soldier learning Xenos language, hmmm... (Once again this is not an idle piece of information, I scarcely do random things. Let it be shrouded by mistery for the moment...)

It is worth to note that Ellinderelion shows his surprise at the fact that the mon-keigh "speaks". Only after that he reckons that he speaks his language. How much it is said with such few words ;)

Best thing is that, while the Farseer is aghast, the Harlequin is pure joy. Life is but a comedy for him, he really celebrates every new surprise.

Well, that's it for now. As usual, HERE you have all the previous stuff. I'll go prepare the next couple of pages!