InsaneJournal

Eneldarinwa
Magical pseudohistory of the Eneldalie. Have you heard the word of Tolkein?

With the Rings of Power destroyed the Valar decided it wisest to maintain for those elves remaining in Middle Earth access to the magics of creation and alliances with the Maiar. The Valar decried that any reasonable request for aid by one of the eldar through a magical calling would not go unheeded and Manwe would send one of the lesser Maiar or a worthy spirit kept in his keeping to assist.

The end of the elves at the end of the fourth age spelled doom for all the eldar. Those who could attempted to sail to Valinor through Ilmen but no word has yet returned if they were successful. Those left behind faded into the fifth age. The magical tradition of eneldalie, along with most other traditions of that time, was lost.

The tradition was found again by an Oxford Professor in the early 1900s, one J. R. R. Tolkien. He was responsible for the discovery and subsequent translation of the Red Book written at the end of the third age containing the adventures of its authors in addition to the histories and stories of the elves of that time. While eneldalie had not yet been truly invented as a magical tradition when the Red Book was penned its bases were well known and spoken of in the stories labeled Valaquenta and Quenta Silmarillion with minor mention in Akallabeth. From these ancient stories dating back to the first age of the world Eneldalie was pieced back together into a semblance of its former tradition. Less respected, but that could be changed with time.

At least this is what the Eneldarinwa (Quenya: of the elvish people) believe. They have rejected the “true” elven language of sperethiel, instead using Tolkien’s sindarin for everyday speech and quenya for magical learning. They are shunned by the general elven public for selling out to a mythology rather than embracing their true heritage. The eneldarinwa believe the same of the elven public, pitying them for their adherence to “a dragon’s forked-tongued lies” and pointing to the Sons of Sauron radical political group as proof of the Red Book’s truths.

Because of mutual prejudice the eneldarinwa do not willingly stay in the traditional elven nations of Tir Tangire or Tir na Nog. Occasional street wars between the eneldarinwa and the Sons of Sauron have led them to keep little more than a matrix presence for acquiring new members and spreading their philosophies.

Most members of the eneldarinwa are elves. More recently the eldar have opened their group to humans who claim kinship because of Numenor and orks who claim a wish to “regain their elven heritage”.

Eneldalie reconciles itself with modern magical theory by splitting basic spellcasting into six different branches depending on the spells used and what they’re used for. In addition, enchanting, called tamcorma (quenya: the forging of rings), is a well-respected skill. The most common form of foci used by eneldalie are rings with a few using enchanted swords as weapon foci. The metaplanes have been reconciled as being the location of Valinor. The astral plane has been considered at different times ilman, Valinor, Thangorodrim, the Outside, and the passageway to the Halls of Mandos. The current view is that the astral plane is not really a plane but the first step toward the Halls of Mandos, thus explaining the movement of Maiar and ancestor spirits to Ambar.