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I would go with "Find" as the best replacement for "Scan" but the replacement for "Enhearten" is a tricky one. A choice of "Rouse", "Hearten", "Embolden" and "Encourage" is the best I can come up with.

I like Rouse, Hearten, and Embolden far more — Rally could work, too, and the overlap with Rally Comrades only reinforces the connotation.

I just wanted to repost what I and the user King Kull posted in the Alpha Feedback thread above, in case this is the better place for it.

Ok, used a clever search for SCAN in the books:

THE SILMARILLION - 0 TIMES

THE HOBBIT - 1 TIMES

THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING - 1 TIMES

THE TWO TOWERS - 5 TIMES

THE RETURN OF THE KING - 3 TIMES

SEARCH results:
HE SILMARILLION - 13 TIMES

THE HOBBIT - 16 TIMES

THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING - 25 TIMES

THE TWO TOWERS - 36 TIMES

THE RETURN OF THE KING - 16 TIMES

Ok, SCAN is in the books (and now that I know it I can live with that) but it's a word I'm not comfortable with. But I'm no native speaker therefore SCAN always has a SciFi-theme for me.

It's fairly standard for Tolkien scholars to look at the etymology of his word choices. I'm not a philologist, but I do work in linguistics, so I always notice these choices.

Tolkien worked hard to avoid latinate and French vocabulary, and use Germanic/Norse as much as possible. He himself talks about these choices extensively in letters and so on.

It's that issue that really makes me unhappy with Scan. It's from scandere, which is Latin. When we look at some alternatives, we can see words such as:

Scour - from Middle English with a latin forebear.
Seek - Old Norse, proto-Germanic.
Examine - latin, as the prefix makes obvious without even checking an etymology resource.
Inspect - same as examine. Latin to the core.

If it was me, I'd choose Seek, or perhaps Scour. Scan is too latinate, plus there's the issue with the modern meaning. I believe, as Tolkien did, that choosing Germanic vocabulary created a very specific voice in his work, one that any native speaker of English can feel, even if they don't have the academic background to explain why.

Enhearten is an odd word choice BUT it is in LOTR. It's much less common than hearten, encourage, embolden, and some other synonyms, and its etymology is not very well documented, but it's definitely Tolkien. I'd choose encourage or embolden, but enhearten is only an issue due to its rarity in English.

But I'm not sure if this is the right forum, so I'll repost this in the other discussion thread. As much as I respect Francisco Nepitello's extensive Tolkien knowledge and the staff at Fria Ligan, I hope that they at least run this by a linguist or academic Tolkien scholar before going to print.

In general I'm supportive of using words that have Germanic / Old English roots. But not at the cost of precision. Only if it's otherwise a tossup between two equally good candidates.

What does everyone think of SURVEY?

And standing there they surveyed the lands, for the morning was come; and they saw the towers of the City far below them like white pencils touched by the sunlight...

As soon as it was light, Strider took Merry with him and went to survey the country from the height to the east of the pass.

He surveyed the green lawn, quickly but thoroughly, stooping often to the earth. ‘No Orcs have been on this ground,’ he said.

Aragorn dismounted and surveyed the ground, then leaping back into the saddle, he rode away for some distance eastward, keeping to one side and taking care not to override the footprints.

These deep eyes were now surveying them, slow and solemn, but very penetrating.

Observe, Assess, Study, Discern...

Like Survey and Seek

Survey is quite a good option. I think Seek could easily get the same confusion with explore as search sometimes does (though my players have a harder time with the distinction between search and awareness rather than search and explore.

Honestly, I am also bothered a little bit by "Scan". I could not follow all the discussions here, why did they drop "Search" again?

Honestly, I am also bothered a little bit by "Scan". I could not follow all the discussions here, why did they drop "Search" again?

We don't know for sure, but many Loremasters face the constant "explore versus search" conversation. By renaming search to something more specific to "you're looking at/for something in your immediate area" the confusion goes away.

We don't know for sure, but many Loremasters face the constant "explore versus search" conversation. By renaming search to something more specific to "you're looking at/for something in your immediate area" the confusion goes away.

Thanks for your reply. I have never had this issue at my table but good to know.