Fria Ligans forum

One of my players whose character is a Dwarf of Durin's Folk wants to bring a pair of binoculars and a magnifying glass as their traveling gear.
I'm not sure how I feel about this. The magnifying glass seems allowable, especially as a dwarf. But I'm not sure about the binoculars. The dwarves did have magnifying eyeglasses of some kind they used when inspecting crystals, and Elrond had a telescope, and binoculars are a continuation of a telescope....but I feel like it's a bit of a stretch? At the very least, it seems like an exceedingly rare item, and one that dwarves in particular wouldn't necessarily have a use for. I'm thinking of allowing it if he can come up with a good enough backstory as to how his character came to be the owner of a set of binoculars. Thoughts?
Another character wants to have his traveling gear be poison darts, so he can knock one of the other players unconscious should his character talk too much. Which is also like...ok well there is definitely herb lore in Middle Earth, and I'm sure there's some kind of herb that would do that kind of thing, and darts also aren't that complicated technologically speaking. But we haven't even started and they are already pushing the bounds of "canon" if you will.

How do you all make decisions about technology-based items? Tolkien himself was very anti-industrialization of course, but I'm trying to figure out where that fuzzy line is.

As you rightly point out, the line where we introduce our perceptions into Tolkien's world is a sensitive one. This is likely to get strong views both ways. And both sets of views will be correct!

One quick question: Elrond has a telescope? Missed that one - please enlighten me.

More to the point of the OP.

Magnifying glass? Definitely. Any transparent convex shaped object will soon display its lens abilities to those who work close up with them. The size (diameter) of the lens part might need consideration but... whatever.

Telescopes are a different matter. (Saruman had a place to watch the stars, but Tolkien mentions no telescope at that point.) This is where I as the LM would debate with a Player. And in the end, I could imagine a dwarf apprentice - in Erebor or similar - working in the toolshop to produce a two lens system held within a metal tube. In our world, the telescope was probably invented several times before being credited to Hans Lippershey, so casual usage of different lenses would eventually make the effect appear. ( I might worry a little more about the need for the tube to be long enough to be useful without Load issues.)*

*and even longer if a third lens is inserted to make the image upright.

But binoculars? I cannot see my way clear to this (pun intended). Two pairs of matched lenses, set into a frame which has four additional prisms hidden inside to extend the optical path? And all aligned in a rigid manner? That is too much of a development for me.
And is unnecessary for any party with one of those elves in it anyway. "Sorry, Balin, the rain blurs your lens: but no matter, Gildor has already counted the arrows in the quivers of those seven orc archers"

Middle-earth tech's always something fans debate, but my opinion is that anything that would've been present in the early Middle Ages isn't out of place. Crossbows are something I like incorporating for example, which are a fan debate in and of themselves. I don't think Tolkien was anti-technology or industry, but anti-industrialization, as in against what he thought mass-industrialization could do to culture and the environment. Industrial technology, like construction machines, go back way before industrialization.

Proper spyglass-style telescopes weren't around until the Renaissance, but Dwarves already have stuff that's more advanced than what would've been around Europe in the era Tolkien took inspiration for, like complex mechanical toys, so I don't think a monocular scope would be too far-fetched. Binoculars would be too advanced for me. Smaller magnifying glasses are ancient, so I'd say they'd be totally fine.

That all being said, I'd be interested in what everyone thinks of the Velocipede from the first Adventure in the Shire Adventures book. How do we feel about archaic Bicycles in Middle Earth?

Personally, the Shire is an oddity in it's tone and nature compared to the wider Middle-Earth. It can get away with things like the velocipede, but I feel they would be way out of place anywhere else really, until you start getting to Valinor-influenced locations (there are flying ships, after all). The main areas of ME would be strange if you tried to add them.

Of course, that's my feeling. May be others feel differently.

Personally, the Shire is an oddity in it's tone and nature compared to the wider Middle-Earth. It can get away with things like the velocipede, but I feel they would be way out of place anywhere else really, until you start getting to Valinor-influenced locations (there are flying ships, after all). The main areas of ME would be strange if you tried to add them.

Of course, that's my feeling. May be others feel differently.

Tolkien did abandon the "steam punk" approach that gave flying ships to the Numenoreans. That only really appeared in his time-travel story (that I think was never finished?). The Shire is a bit of an anomaly, though I've generally credited Bilbo's mantle clock as an invention of the Dwarves of the Blue Mountains.

Generally speaking, technology is a difficult topic, since you can't simply find analogies from our world and copy them to areas of Middle-earth. If there is one parallel, then that in our world the inventions of the ancient world (Greek, Rome) were far more advanced than anything in the Dark Ages and early Middle Age. Heck, they even new the world was a globe and it took like a thousand years to rediscover this. In Middle Earth we have the advancements of Numenor, which mostly were lost in its destruction. Some of it survived with the Kingdoms in exile (Gondor and Arnor), but a lot of technologies and knowledge was lost.

Then there are Elves and Dwarves. For Elves, technology and magic go hand in hand. They were basically taught by th gods, how to build and create, there is no parallel to our world and no way in knowing, what they are capable of. With dwarves it is similar, to an extent. They have the knowledge and the technolgies to build stuff that would be world wonders in our terms, but even they lost a lot, due to the destruction of Nogrod and Belegost and the loss of Khazad-dum. But they regained some of their glory with Erebor. We can assume, that Dwarves are able to create things, that are out of place for the "normal" level of technology in human societies like magical toys, mechanical birds that fly and can bring messages, fireworks, clocks, glasses and so on.

The umbrella was first used in England by Jonas Hanway (d. 1786) yet the Hobbits of the Shire have them as Useful Items.
The vélocipède was patented in France in 1818 and was in vogue in England in the early 1820s.
So I see no reason to think that the velocipede would be out of place in the Mathom House as something that was now out of fashion.
I wouldn’t take one as a Useful Item (TRAVEL) outside the Shire, though. The roads of Eriador outside the Shire are not well mended, and there’s no such thing as a Mountain Velocipede.

The umbrella was first used in England by Jonas Hanway (d. 1786) yet the Hobbits of the Shire have them as Useful Items.
The vélocipède was patented in France in 1818 and was in vogue in England in the early 1820s.
So I see no reason to think that the velocipede would be out of place in the Mathom House as something that was now out of fashion.
I wouldn’t take one as a Useful Item (TRAVEL) outside the Shire, though. The roads of Eriador outside the Shire are not well mended, and there’s no such thing as a Mountain Velocipede.

Mountain Velocipede sounds like a good name for a monster.