Of course. we can’t come to the city that never sleeps and NOT throw a party!  So on Thursday 10th October we will be holding our annual ‘Ringers Take Manhattan’ event!  This year, we’ll be at a different venue – the charming Oak Cellar at Jake’s Dilemma, 430 Amsterdam Avenue (just down the road from where we were last year).  As ever, we’ll have a generous finger food buffet, and your ticket will also include your first drink and two tickets into our raffle for the evening.

You can buy tickets for this party here.  Tickets can also be bought on the door that night, but will be $5 more expensive then – so it pays to buy in advance!  We really hope you’ll join us – we look forward to seeing many of our fellow fans in NYC in October!

[Buy tickets to Ringers take Manhattan]

Well, now you can meet the talented, and oft-times crazy, volunteers, who diligently delve away in the deepest darkest caverns of Erebor to bring you TheOneRing.net.

*some of the creatures who work here are extremely shy and there is very limited information about them, beyond their names, if you’re extremely lucky you might just spot one as they scurry back into the shadows *

If you like what we do, and would like to see your Tolkien community keep growing and growing, consider making a contribution to our Pledge Drive. Every bit helps defray our costs!

The Four Founders

Tehanu is one of the founders of TheOneRing.net, heavily involved in setting up the site and reporting on LOTR developments as they unfolded around her in New Zealand from 1999 onwards. She contributed a series of articles called Tehanu’s Notes, some of which were published in The People’s Guide to JRR Tolkien, which she also edited. Tehanu is an orchestral musician, publicist, broadcaster and writer in Wellington.

Calisuri is co-owner and one of the original founders of TheOneRing.net. Based out of Philadelphia, PA USA, he contributes most of his free time to handling the business affairs of the website. As a result, you won’t see him that often on the boards or chat, but he is always lurking in the corner.

Corvar is the mysterious man behind the scenes. Our incredibly talented sys-admin is the one cog that’s all-important to a fully functional site — especially when the big news hits. He can sometimes be found idle in Barliman’s chat while trying to find a way to implement Calisuri’s latest crazy idea.

Xoanon is one of our four founders. Though widely believed to be a creation of the other three founders to differentiate them from the three Elven lords by younger staff members, he has, in fact, been missing since he undertook a quest to the Halls of Thranduil to investigate the rumour that this most unconventional of elves had actually employed a female Guard Captain. All attempts by TORn staff to find out his fate have, to date, failed.

TORn Senior Staff

greendragon joined TORn’s message boards back in early 2002; she became a staffer in 2007 and is now honoured to be one of TORn’s Senior Staff.  Her favourite thing about TORn is the many friends it has brought her all around the world, so she loves being involved with planning TORn’s many moots, parties, convention attendance, etc.  A Brit who is now based in the USA, greendragon’s ‘real life’ job is as a freelance stage director, performer and educator.

Alyse is a senior staff member of TORn and a long time Tolkien geek. Having met Calisuri at the Los Angeles line party for The Fellowship of the Ring, she was recruited to help organize week long line parties for The Two Towers and Return of the King. Alyse is also the de facto art curator on staff, having organized and coordinated the art shows for 3 ORCs, 2 ELFs and last February’s An Unexpected Art Show. Alyse also has another passion – building art creations out of LEGO bricks when not working on developing websites professionally.

MrCere came to TheOneRing by way of organizing Line Party events for the LOTR movies. His heart is with the message boards but since visiting the “Hobbit” set for five weeks he stays away so everybody can have fun. He attends conventions, road trips, writes and posts as much as he has time for. He is currently a film student and the Tolkien Track director for Dragon Con and a former journalist.

Demosthenes has been an incredibly nerdy member of TheOneRing.net since 2001 when Calisuri asked him if he’d like to post some stuff on the frontpage. He now helps run the TORn newsdesk and organise feature stories and fan Q&As. He also keeps the TORn chatrooms in a constant state of chaos and enjoys discussing Tolkien and LOTR every weekend in Hall of Fire.

Outside of TORn, he enjoys long walks in the forest, keeping small mutant spacegoats and live music photography. Octopuses, in his opinion, may be the most amazing living creatures ever.

Altaira discovered TheOneRing.net in 2001 and immediately fell in love with the discussion forums. She became a moderator and eventually received the honor of being asked to become a member of the site’s Sr. Staff. While moderating TORn’s sister site, KongisKing.net, she met her future husband who lived half-way around the world in Middle-earth (a.k.a, New Zealand). Together they forged new discussion forums on an updated platform which went live in 2007. As the head of the discussion boards, she currently works with an amazing team of fellow ‘Rangers,’ protecting the boundaries of the forums from trolls and wargs. In her spare time, she works as financial consultant for mid- to large-sized companies and enjoys watching movies (in IMAX 30D whenever possible) with her Kiwi better half.

 Jincey, usually mingling in Barlis chatroom as one of our eagle eyed Moderators, Jincey is currently on sabbatical.

maegwen – though normally found hanging out with TORn’s chatters in Barlis Bar, recent rumours suggest that this shy, yet mischievous creature has now migrated to the Twitterverse.

Parts of the company whiled away the afternoon, and into the evening played exciting table-top games, crafted by the logistic smiths of the mighty Cryptozoic. They shared the good tidings with any and all who sought to go on exciting adventures with Thorin and Company and recreate the glories of an Age long past.

However, a body can only take so much Cryptozoic-induced euphoria without fuel, so they packed-up and headed to dinner with fellow Ringers! If ever there was a setting like Bilbo’s pantry the night before an adventure this was it! They ate, drank, made merry, and sang the pantry song for all to hear.

Drums in the deep sounded from within the bowels of the inn, a calling from some unknown cavern. The Company set out to find the source. What they discovered was altogether unexpected. A vast hollow underneath the building opened to them, filled with the sound of laughter, the boisterous song of the peoples of Middle-earth making merry, irrespective of race, age, or creed.

Thranduil had shown up, adorned with strands of bio-luminescent moss and goggles that shutter the sun and shade the eyes. He danced like the Eldar of old, as if Ilúvatar himself were watching.

Dwarves had hewn this dance chamber, and dwarves dancing there were. From thumping their feet in time, to causing a howling ruckus. They even caused Thranduil to spill his wine, but such was the sense of camaraderie that, in an uncommon show of friendship, he laughed it off and called for more!

When the revelry was over, and the hobbits put to bed. The company, with their newly acquired friends, recalled fond memories of legends by playing a final table-play of Cryptozoic’s Hobbit before retiring.

Are there dark clouds on the horizon? Is there a chill in the wind foretelling a change in the weather? Find out in tomorrow’s installment of “Cryptozoic’s Lost Tales” on The Road to Dragon Con!

Doug Brochu.

If you like what we do, and would like to see your Tolkien community keep growing and growing, consider making a contribution to our Pledge Drive. Every bit helps defray our costs!

For more details, read the article here.

First off was the panel featuring the players of the re-telling of the Hobbit. Graham McTavish, the Blustery Dwalin, Sylvester McCoy, Radagast of the Woods, and Manu Bennett, that Evil Pale Orc Azog.

Then the sights and sounds of the gathering overwhelmed them, and DragonCon had them in it’s sharp talons. They visited Ed Asner, the Patriarch of the floating balloon house. They tarried among the different different vendors, (noticing that The One Ring’s booth was VERY busy, way to go Ringers), and eventually ended up at “An Evening in Bree” — where there was a marriage proposal!

Bree, City of Men and Hobbits! All the free peoples of Middle-earth had traveled from the corners of the realm to bless this rustic city with their culture and kin. There were hobbits a plenty, men in shining mail, elves in cool thought, and dwarves grumbling into their mugs. Even the closely guarded female dwarves were there, taking a break from their merchant duties among the mountain paths.

There was song and dance, after which the guests of honor arrived to inscribe mementos, well wish followers, and judge the varied garments of the festival based on cut and craftsmanship. There was even a mockup of the dreaded fire drake Smaug! So real it had mothers grasping their children, and armed folk clutching their hilts in angry remembrance.

Last on the list was picking up a tabletop re-telling of the beloved Hobbit story from the fine storytellers at Cryptozoic. Tis a fine game that the company will play without ceasing.

They have arrived, but the true adventure is just beginning.

Tune in tomorrow for the next installment of “Cryptozoic’s Lost Tales” on The Road To Dragon Con!

Doug Brochu.

Here’s our schedule

Chattanooga – Dinner Monday
Memphis – Supper BBQ
Oklahoma – Breakfast Tuesday
Amarillo – Elevenses
Albuquerque – Dinner
Denver – Dinner Wednesday
…then on to Las Vegas and Hollywood!

Remember you can tune into our continuous live coverage and join the chat yourself at http://theonering.net/live.

DragonCon: There and back again!

Twas a long ride filled with much entertaining and lore-banter via the crystal slab. They talked of the rings of power and heir respective fates, the Line of Durin and what sealed their doom, and of the secret greed of Sauruman, coveter of the One.

As the sun set below middle-earth so did they set down in the bustling metropolis of Atlanta, City of the Sweet Fruit. The company unloaded their precious cargo of outerwear and delved into the fabled convention.

What will the fellowship of “Cryptozoic’s Road to Dragon-Con” encounter on the morrow? Find out live at Theonering.net/live or stay tuned for tomorrow’s installment of “Cryptozoic’s Lost Tales”!

Seriously, thanks to the Ringers who were gracious enough to have us in your home. Your kindness will not be forgotten.

Cheers, Doug.

We’d like to continue to thank Cryptozoic - our official sponsor of our Road to DragonCon! Cryptozoic has an amazing line-up of trading card and traditional games, including their recently released Hobbit Board Game and newly released The Two Towers Deck-Building Game .

Please support our adventures and our 2013 pledge drive!

• Pledge Levels
• Donate any Dollar Amount

Ways to contact our adventurers…

• LIVE Event page
• @theoneringnet #tornlive #road2dcon
• email roadtrip@theonering.net
• call 530.64FRODO (530.643.7636)
• text 530.64FRODO (530.643.7636)
• Map of Route

So without further delay, we’d like to announce our first corporate donation is from  Badali Jewelry – the amazing proprietors of quality hand-crafted jewelry-art, and unique and original custom jewelry. While we know them for their amazing line-up of officially licensed Tolkien related items, they also feature other great properties like  have an amazing offering of other categories. From the wonderfully witty Geek Tags, to their Zodiac offerings.

We need to be clear – Badali has contributed financially to our drive. They are simply supporting TheOneRing.net, just like you have with your pledges. So please take a moment to visit their online store at BadaliJewelry.com and make a purchase. Support those businesses that are sharing in the goodwill of our community and helping keep TheOneRing.net online and thriving for years to come.

As an added incentive, and in celebration of Bilbo and Frodo’s combined birthday, Badali has sent us a 15% off coupon for their entire site. Simply use code BILBO at checkout. It will be good until September 30th.

TheOneRing.net would like to formally thank Badali Jewelry for their continued support of TheOneRing.net!

[Visit BadaliJewelry.com] [Pledge Your Support Today]

Winding country lanes called their name and they answered. Among the winding mountainous roads they found one of Radagast’s hidden dells of unspoilt nature, The Wildwood Rabbitry. The two sisters who call this haven their’s were strong and of the earth, like the Entwives of old.

Among many Shire-like services they did for the community and the land itself, they bred giant Rhosgobel (Flemish Giants) Rabbits, the ones that in times past pulled the woodland sleigh of the Brown Wizard. They fed the weary band with homemade rolls that would’ve made Beorn himself blush, crystal clear spring water reminiscent of the Ent draught of legend, and desert cakes that Bombur could only dream of.

Then they shared lore! Oh the lore! They showed them all different manner of Giant Rabbit, cows in the field, fish in the pond, crops in the garden, pigs in the slop, and dogs on the watch. The sisters showed them their workshops, where they craft wearable pieces of beauty or decaying disrepair, each to the desire of the commissioner.

The Road to DragonCon’s band of merry middle-earthians left with light hearts after a stop in a haven of such hardiness. They then set out to the City of the Elvish Minstrel, Memphis! On the way they stopped at the shop of a Misty Mountain Woodsman. He chiseled and sawed wood into desirable shapes, and the company was pleased.

Long travels make late arrivals, and this journey is no exception. When the company arrived in The Singing City the hour was late. Luckily a warm-hearted family of the race of Man had opened up their home for the company to rest their weary heads. They ate and celebrated friendship at a local eatery, and toasted to good health.

The company went to sleep like stones, no willows scratching at the windows could rouse them from their slumber.

What awaits them at the Dragon Con the following day? Wait and see.

This story (and journey) has been brought to you by Cryptozoic!

Wildwood Rabbitry

https://m.facebook.com/WildwoodRabbitry?id=583834518316936&refsrc=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Fsearch&_rdr

Gwen Grim’s (Jennifer) deviant art
http://frocktarts.deviantart.com/

Inkubus’s (Alanna) deviant art
http://inkibus.deviantart.com/

Cheers, Doug.

We’d like to continue to thank Cryptozoic - our official sponsor of our Road to DragonCon! Cryptozoic has an amazing line-up of trading card and traditional games, including their recently released Hobbit Board Game and soon to be released The Two Towers Deck-Building Game (Aug 28th).

Enjoy the pics below and as always, please support our adventures and our 2013 pledge drive!

• Pledge Levels
• Donate any Dollar Amount
• Request a Topic
• Feed or Fuel the Team
• Personalized Shout-Out

Ways to contact our adventurers…

• LIVE Event page
• @theoneringnet #tornlive #road2dcon
• email roadtrip@theonering.net
• call 530.64FRODO (530.643.7636)
• text 530.64FRODO (530.643.7636)
• Map of Route

Just look at some of these numbers.

33,467. News articles, spy reports and features published on the TORn front page since 2007 alone.

22,300. Spy photos, movie screencaps and fan images in the old TORN scrapbook, and the new one.

616,739. Posts from 9,981 TORnsibs on the “new” TORn gossamer forums since 2007.

700. Megabytes of plain text people have written in our Barliman’s chat since 1999. That’s several million lines of type from thousands of visitors.

These numbers are constantly growing. And it’s all from the passion and enthusiasm of the TORn community.

Your community is an enormous patchwork of brilliant, clever and Tolkien-literate people from all around the world who are passionate about Tolkien and love the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit movies.

And they love sharing that passion with each other — through stories, anecdotes, events, videos, music and fan art.

The TORn community is you

We don’t simply mean TORn staff. The community is you, the message board posters from the USA, Canada or France. It’s you, the chatroom regulars from Finland, the Netherlands or New Zealand. It’s you, the folks from Australia, Singapore and Brazil who participate in Hall of Fire and watch TORn Tuesday each week.

If you’ve ever sent in an article, submitted a photo or report, posted on our messageboards, visited our chat, or commented on our twitter, facebook or g+, you’re the reason TheOneRing.net is among the largest and most-respected pillars of the Tolkien community on the web.

Keeping all this afloat, though, takes as much money as it does love and passion.

For new servers. For software upgrades and social media integration apps. For web hosting bills.

If you’d like to make a Pledge to help TORn cover bills to help your community continue to grow, we’d be grateful and appreciative.

Just use the links below.

If you can’t, that’s ok! Keep on contributing to your community whichever way you can — through your thoughts, comments and recommending TheOneRing.net to your friends!

Make a Pledge today

General Pledge Pledge anywhere from $5 to $20!

Bronze Pledge Pledge $25. All Bronze Pledges are listed for one year on TheOneRing.net’s ‘The Tale of Honour’ web page.

Silver Pledge Pledge $50. All Silver Pledges are listed for one year on TheOneRing.net’s ‘The Tale of Honour’ web page and receive a TORn supporter t-shirt!

Gold Pledge Pledge $75. All Gold Pledges are listed for one year on TheOneRing.net’s ‘The Tale of Honour’ web page and receive a TORn supporter t-shirt and a commemorative pin!

Platinum Pledge Pledge $150. All Platinum Pledges are listed for one year on TheOneRing.net’s ‘The Tale of Honour’ web page and receive a TORn supporter t-shirt and a commemorative pin + MORE COOL STUFF!

Mithril Pledge Pledge $400. All Platinum Pledges are listed for one year on TheOneRing.net’s ‘The Tale of Honour’ web page and receive a TORn supporter t-shirt and a commemorative pin + SUPER COOL STUFF!

Or make a custom pledge

The day-to-day operation of the website, and the events we host, require a lot more resources than when we first started nearly 15 years ago. We sometimes find it hard to ask our readers for the help we need to keep running, so we began discussing what it is that makes TheOneRing.net worth helping out. It started out as a search for the Top Ten Moments of TORn, but the list got so long because each staff member had their own idea of important moments in TORn history. Here, instead, is something more encompassing: Ten Ways TORn helps serve Tolkien and Lord of the Rings fandom (listed in no specific order).

And, if you enjoy what we do, consider a donation (no amount too small, because every bit does help!) to keep us running!

If you can’t, that’s fine as well — keep reading, commenting and contributing. Because TORn is as much you as it is us!

If you’ve ever sent in an article, submitted a photo or report, posted on our messageboards, visited our chat, or commented on our twitter, facebook or g+, you’re the reason TheOneRing.net is among the largest and most-respected pillars of the Tolkien community on the web.

• Spy Reports

• Spy reports were a big part of our content when the website first started. From casting announcements to secret location pictures to leaked images of important plot points, spy reports were our bread and butter stories. Some of the reports were from random, anonymous sources, while others were official leaks from cast and crew. In fact, there were many production members who said they used TheOneRing.net to keep track of what some of the other filming units were doing. Other spy reports were just someone stumbling upon a film location and sending in a story or images and then we’d all try and guess what location it actually was. Some of our biggest spy reports were of Arwen at Helm’s Deep (which subsequently didn’t happen), Saruman’s prone body on a spiky wheel (which did happen), and TheOneRing.net was given the honor of introducing Thorin to the world. And very soon, we will be seeing stories from MrCere’s visit to the set from his Production Embed last year.

• Hall of Fire Chats and the Message Boards

• Literary discussions on the message boards and Hall of Fire chats – From the very beginning of TheOneRing.net, discussions of the books, chapter by chapter, has been a hallmark. After all, while we waited for news on who would be cast, where filming would take place, and rumors of what might be cut out, we had the books to talk about. Discussions worked by talking about one chapter at a time, and luckily, there are enough books with enough chapters, to keep those discussions going on for a long while. Since the beginning, we’ve looped through the books several times, but luckily, there are always new readers joining the discussion, and new interpretations to be had. And for something a little more dynamic, there are the Hall of Fire chats in Barlimans. Sometimes the talk is about a specific chapter, or a certain character, and sometimes it is about current events, such as new character images or reviews of a recently released trailer. No matter which forum you use, there is always someone to talk to about some aspect of Tolkien, the books or our fandom.

• TORns Live Videos

• We began with TORn Live, which consisted of Red Carpet interviews at premieres, awards ceremonies and special events like Cannes 2001 and SDCC. These would be recorded, edited and released online a few days or weeks later. But technology now allows for live streaming interviews and vlogs and the like. Quickbeam hosts a weekly TORn Tuesday event with interviews and discussions, while he interacts with a live chatroom. The Happy Hobbit ladies record and post their vlogs and post them within a day or two of their recordings, for a much quicker turnaround on video content. And right now we have the Road to DragonCon in full swing with live streaming from across the country.

• Conventions

• Convention appearances – Calisuri and Quickbeam hosted a panel at San Diego Comic Con in 2001, before the release of FOTR, and since then barely a year has gone by that TORn hasn’t had a presence at at least one convention. At many of the conventions we appear at we also have a presence on the exhibit hall floor where we have sold some of our classic TORn shirts. We love it when we get up on stage for a panel and half the people in the audience are wearing some of our older shirts.

•  

  

  Baggins Birthday Party sign

  Line Parties and Fan Events

• Line Parties and other fan hosted events – TheOneRing.net has always been a grass roots type of fan-site and that is no more apparent then looking at the Line Parties of years past. Whether it is just a few friends, or some hundreds of people signing up on the website to attend, fans like you all over the world hosted Line Parties. A few even took place over several days, and included costume contests and trivia games for prizes. Other fan hosted events over the years have been the Hobbit Day/Baggins Birthday Bash events on Sept. 22, the Tolkien Toast on Jan. 3 and the Tolkien Reading Day on March 25. TORn staff in Los Angeles have been hosting a Baggins Birthday Bash party for 11 years now, but there are fan groups around the world that have hosted similar events. Smaller moots happen around the world all the time, there is a very active group in Wellington and one in Croatia. If you are hosting a fan event in the next year or two, please feel free to tell us about it.

• The Oscar Parties

• Originally conceived as a fan event to help raise funds to buy TORn a new server, who could have imagined the Cast and Crew actually showing up to the FOTR oscar party? Even more surprising, who could have imagined the ROTK sweep and all those Oscars on stage at a fan hosted party?

• O.R.C and E.L.F.

• TheOneRing.net hosted conventions – The One Ring Celebration on the West Coast (O.R.C.) and the Eastern Lord of the Rings Festival on the East Coast (E.L.F.) were co-productions with a professional convention company, but they definitely had a TORn stamp on them. The conventions allowed us to combine our love of the films by interacting with cast and crew with our love of the books through academic discussions, the art shows and costume displays. We really did break the mold on how a commercial scifi convention is run and hope everyone who attended had a blast.

• Academic essays and editorials

• TORn has long standing relationships with many in the academic community who have posted guest essays and editorials. Over the year several staffers have posted in depth analysis to fan questions on the site as well. In fact, we have a whole section on the ‘old TORn’ (pre-crash) called Green Books for academic posts. This section had so much good stuff in it, we published a book called “The People’s Guide to J.R.R. Tolkien” and a sequel book as well.

• Driving fan initiatives

• After Return of the King was done and Peter Jackson moved on to do King Kong, the fans waited to see what would happen with The Hobbit afterwards. Months turned to years and still no word while studios went bankrupt, copyrights issues got tangled up and various lawsuits were filed for missing payments. Finally, a few fans decided they had had enough and started a petition to ‘Make the Hobbit Happen’. They brought it to TORn and we got thousands of you to sign so that a big pile of names was delivered to TPTB. A similar thing happened when there was talk that the production would be moved out of New Zealand. The fans could see no where else as Middle-earth, so the ‘Keep the Hobbit in NZ’ campaign was born, but this time on Social Media. And most recently, there was an explosion of Tolkien fan love over the #Votebilbo twitter event prompted by an MTV Audience Award.

• TORn Community

• This list compiles many of the things that TheOneRing.net does to keep you informed, entertained and engaged, but there is really just one thing that makes TheOneRing.net so important to keep around. And that is the community of fans that convene on our message boards, in Barliman’s chat, on Facebook and Twitter.

This site was built by fans getting together to discuss what they hoped for from Peter Jackson long before FOTR ever saw the light of day. The fact that a long existing fan-base gathered here meant engaged and informed discussion began from day one, including analyzing all the spy reports about casting and location details. We didn’t have to wait for the release of the films, or for several episodes of a new show to take off before we could discuss the minutia of every detail because our fan base was already well established.

And what is ‘fandom’ if not a community of like minded people passionate about the same thing. Sure, everyone has their own opinions, so every time a new image was released, or a new trailer appeared, the message boards and chatroom erupted into heated discussions. But as the years wore on friendships were made, some turning into marriage, and we all began meeting up at various moots, conventions, concerts, premiere events, trips to New Zealand or just coffee and a movie. How many of you newer fans were galvanized by the #Votebilbo campaign and now have a wider array of Twitter friends because of it? The fact that TORn was able to continue to exist during all those lean years between film productions is due mostly to you, the readers, sticking around to discuss anything and everything to do with Tolkien, and sometimes other bits of pop culture. We know that after the release of The Hobbit: There and Back Again we will see another decline of readership, but we also know that the community is strong, the friendships have been forged and all of you take that fandom with you where ever you go next.

So again, if you are so inclined to help support us and keep the website going, please do make a pledge or bid on one of the many cool auction items we’ve been posting about the past few days. On behalf of the All Volunteer Staff at TheOneRing.net, you have our deepest gratitude for all the support over the years.