Hello Edainers
Here i want to present you my own proposal for Arnor's Gandalf. I brought back some of the old abilities from Ered luin Gandalf, such as blinding light and the Circle of fire. I instead leave pine-cones and fireworks as unique future for Dwarven version of Gandalf, in the name of uniqueness. Two new abilites has been crafted instead, which introduce a fundamental aspect of the Grey Pilgrim in game: his wandering and investigating character. These are
"Revealing Spell" and
"Emissary of hope". Take in cosideration that implemeting this concept could mean to renounce to the ring form in Arnor, in favour of Arvedui as the central ring bearer, since there is a considerable detachment between the proposed abilities and the classical skill-set of Gandalf. That is also the reason why Gandalf was not an additional ring hero, i guess.
Furthermore, we could definely consider to make staff the only weapon for Gandalf. This would be both unique and time-consistent, since Glamdring was not found yet during Arnor's age. In the bottom of the post you can find some proposed staff animation.EDIT:
after having discussed deeply the sole-staff option, we concluded that can't be an adequate set of animation which can satisfy us completely. Both for possible technical problem as well as 'cause we would force to give up some original animation of Gandalf, which are very cool and unique. Also, since now no proper staff's animations was found for GAndalf on mount.
Therefore, in order to preserve the time consistency, we'll turn on the second option: an overhaul of the sword. Being the literary man of the forum,as well as poet, Walküre crafted a lore background of our sword, placing it as a secondary gift from Cirdan along with The Ring of Fire:
Then, my gentle attendees of the thread, I think I may have come up with a decent background story for the said sword, in order to endow it with a proper essence; this is the case for many items in Tolkien's writings. We must live up to the tradition. Concerning the story, what if the blade were too a gift from Círdan. Not only did he give the wizard the Ring of Fire, but also something that would be of much avail in his perilous journey. Círdan had foreseen all the tribulations that Gandalf would have to face and therefore decided to offer him a secondary object of relevant note. The Guardian of the Havens see further than anyone else in Middle-earth and knows that the hands of the wizard shall wield a greater blade, unearthed thanks to fate and hammer of the Evil...
Take the blade of the Foam-riders with thee, Grey Wizard. It is silver, light as our vessels that voyage beyond the blue, yet dreadful token for whom dareth hinder the will of the Western Lords. Thou shalt bear it, along thy hazardous journeys and whither thy mission is to lead thee, until thy hand shall wield a mightier craft, made by grievous exiled and borne by a king dwelling in legend.
In line with the stanzas of Walküre, a silver-like sword has been found on web. It is simpler than Glamdring and has a different style, even though it is of Elvish origin too. The brightness of the silver as well as the homogeneity of the elven style blade should give a different impact, such that it would be easy to distinguish it from Turgon's intended blade during game matches. Here the mentioned sword, along with the pictures where i found it (i advice you to look at them, there are very interesting designs in those drawings):
And the other ancient elven baldes (our chosen sword is the Voronwë one, on bottom picture at the second row):
Last but not least, also this new Gandalf will be affected by Narya's influence, but this point need to be discussed deeply too. Here you can find the link to the orginal Ring of Fire proposal
The Ring of FireAnyhow, enjoy the concept
. I'm looking forward your feedback as always.
Here you can see an old video showing the complete skillset of Gandalf the Grey for Ered Luin in Edain 3.8.1 :
Level 1: "Wizard's blast"as Gondor Gandalf, with a palantir that shows the staff of the Grey Pilgrim. Level 3: "Revealing Spell": Gandalf generates a magic wave that reveals stealth units as well as dissolving magic influence of surrounding enemy structures ( runes, poison, leadership etc.).
As follow the .gif image from the sequence in the movie. I propose, as fitting animation, The wrath of winter animation of wizards in Chronicle submod (at 00:20). I just propose once this animation to Walkure for the Galadriel proposal, i think it would fit in this case also, cleaning it from the heat effect and Sauron's voice: Level 5: "Mount/Dismount"Level 7: "Emissary of hope(on horse)": Gandalf journeys through the lands of grief, bearer of hope at the behest of the West. His horse speed is increased to 40%, a veil of light sorround the Grey pilgrim which makes allied units fearless for a short period of time.
Implemented proposal of the wise and smart Walküre, it is indeed an optimal reference of Gandalf wadering with his horse to investigate bringing to the sunlight the most deep and darkest secret. Also Gandalf the Grey is the one that suddently comes to the battlefield to help in difficult times. These elements are implemented by increasing of the speed and ispiring of allied units Level 7: "Blinding Light"(on foot) as hobbit Version, but it stuns trolls too ("the dawn will take you all!!!") and deals some damage (spread, not concentrated like light of the Istari) also to general monsters around Gandalf.
Level 10: "Flame of Anor" as hobbit Gandalf , the circle of fire of 3.8.1