Buoyed by their educational experience from the day before, Cryptozoic and TheOneRing.net’s Road to Dragon Con fellowship set out in high spirits. Before hitting the road proper, they stopped at a treasure trove entitled Toys R Us to seek out jointed, miniature busts of their favorite heroes and villains, not to mention replicas of legendary weapons.
On the way out of the trading metropolis of Denver they picked up a new member, Katalena! A master of masks and trickery, makeup and mirrors. She joined them to be a player in the masquerade that is Dragon Con.
The flat, empty, fly-ridden plains of Kansas opened up like a hungry maw before them, they had no choice but to enter and cross. All across the never-ending plains they shared stories with their companions watching via crystal slab, and chatted awhile with Cliff the Unmoving, The Adamant Wizard.
Finally the weary band made their way in the outskirts of Kansas City, where after multiple tries they found an inn to rest their weary heads.
What is next in store for the Fellowship of the Dragon? Moridan himself can’t tell you that secret.
– Doug Brochu
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!
Tolkien’s love of Anglo-Saxon history is well-known, as are his influences from such Nordic works as Beowulf and the Finnish Kalevala. His passion for these cultures is evident in every race he created for Middle-earth, including the dwarves. Yet as has been highlighted in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, some of the inspiration for the dwarven race may have come from an understated influence: the Celts. Continue reading “Dwarves: A Celtic Connection”
If you have a Tolkien/Middle-earth inspired poem you’d like to share, then send it to poetry@theonering.net. One poem per person may be submitted each month. Please make sure to proofread your work before sending it in. TheOneRing.net is not responsible for poems posting with spelling or grammatical errors.
Over the next couple of weeks TheOneRing.net is conducting a pledge drive to raise funds to keep our servers running. We have some unique auctions going on over at ebay, including something very special and truly one of a kind that highlights a key event that TORn put on for fans earlier this year — a signed canvas with autographs and drawings by many of the artists who participated in our “Unexpected Art Show”.
We were proud to present this one night only gallery exhibit held on February 22, 2013 at Lot 613 in the historic arts district of downtown Los Angeles. In this cool space, we featured a variety of artists who use many different mediums and are creatively inspired by J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth universe. The all volunteer TORn staff spent hours setting up the space, coordinating and meeting with artists from around the world, and cleaning up after a wonderful night of music and artwork. We then had to hurry over to help set up for our next event — the Oscar party we threw the very same weekend! As you can imagine, it was quite tiring but very rewarding to see and meet so many fans admiring the beautiful artwork and having a chance to mingle with such an incredible group of talented artists. It was a true celebration of how much J.R.R. Tolkien’s works mean to all of us.
Acclaimed artists Tim Kirk, Donato Giancola, and Jerry VanderSelt were on hand to meet fans, sign prints, and in the case of Tim, get a portrait of yourself drawn as a playful Hobbit! They also took the time to autograph and draw on a special TORn stretched canvas panel for us. Tim drew Smaug, Donato drew Gandalf, and Jerry sketched Strider. Eleven other artists who attended the show also signed the canvas including LEGO artists OneLug, graphic artist Nancy Steinman, stained-glass artist Christie Wood, and more. You can own this truly unique and one of kind piece of artwork from this spectacular TORn event by bidding today!
The Road to DragonCon team is frolicking around the mountains of Colorado today on their way to the first fan meet-up in Denver. Details on that in a little bit! First a bit of a recap from yesterday.
Justin, Doug and Ryan woke up in the rain at Lake Powell, Utah – allowing them only 4 hours of sleep that night. Rain in the desert is not as uncommon as one might think! They made their way to a local Denny’s where the manager and waitress gave them the all-star treatment.
In addition to writing stuff in my spare time for TORn, yours truly also reviews and photographs a lot of live music. Normally, the two hobbies don’t intersect, but on Saturday evening I caught rock-violinist Lindsey Stirling at The Powerhouse Theatre in Brisbane. I was able to both photograph and review the performance for a small Australian publication.
I figured a few of you might be fans of Stirling, having previously seen her extremely popular video medley of music from The Lord of the Rings soundtrack (it’s had some 13 million views, which is not too shabby). So here’s my review, and a selection of the best photos I took on the night. If this is your thing, enjoy!
Act: Lindsey Stirling
Venue: Brisbane Powerhouse
Date: August 24, 2013
There’s a long wait for rock-violinist Lindsey Stirling this evening at The Powerhouse — at least 15 minutes long, to be honest. For a touch over an hour, Kiwi DJ 1000 Ninjas labours manfully from a cubbyhole spot almost side-of-stage. In a club environment his chill-out grooves and odd samples would probably win a better reception, but this crowd is expecting action and movement, and that’s something beyond 1000 Ninjas’ scritchy-glitchy stillness tonight.
By contrast, Stirling is all movement. Over the course of an hour and twenty minutes she barely halts — whirling, twirling, jumping and pirouetting. Formal ballet it isn’t, still Stirling’s show is as much an act of dance as it is a musical performance. All with a carbon-fibre violin jammed under her left ear. And the capacity crowd — a peculiar mixture of young and old; gamers and geeks reflective of the diversity of her fanbase — laps it up.
It could all easily come off as a gimmick, yet Stirling’s undeniable chops on the fiddle allow her to deliver a set of engaging tunes high on verve while avoiding the cheese factor.
Many of the highlights flow from her self-titled long-player: Anti-gravity is a punchy and aggressive opener, the livewire drumming of Drew Steen lends bottom-end grunt to Electric Daisy Violin, while the lurching percussion and insistent see-sawing violin of Moon Trance make a strong contender for tune of the night.
Buoyed by their educational experience from the day before, Cryptozoic and TheOneRing.net’s Road to Dragon Con fellowship set out in high spirits. Before hitting the road proper, they stopped at a treasure trove entitled Toys R Us to seek out jointed, miniature busts of their favorite heroes and villains, not to mention replicas of legendary weapons.
We, here at TORn, along with our friend 
