The Great Eagles

Deus Ex Machina… The Great Eagles

Great Eagles don’t get any res­pect ! In The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, Great Eagles are trea­ted like figh­ter jets. Howe­ver, in game terms, they are often trea­ted nothing more than giant eagles. This is a shame because Great Eagles are more than just super-size birds, they are ser­vants of the Valars. It is no coin­ci­dence they func­tion as the deus ex machina in nume­rous legends and sto­ries of Middle Earth. There is some­thing potent and magi­cal about the Great Eagles, which is not trans­la­ted in role playing stats. This article is an attempt to ratify this issue and des­cribe the inhe­rit powers of the Great Eagles. This article will also attempt to cata­log all the named Great Eagles men­tio­ned in MERP modules, Decipher’s Lord of the Rings series, and other repu­table fan publi­ca­tions such as Other Hands.

Guidelines

Great Eagles appear as… well, like their name sug­gests, eagles, albeit on a very large scale. Like people, they appear in many dif­ferent forms. Some might look simi­lar in phy­sique and appea­rance as a Golden Eagle, others like a Phi­lip­pine Eagle, and still others like the Impe­rial Eagle.¹ Great Eagles are majes­tic, fear­less and power­ful crea­tures, thought to be of divine crea­tion. In the Eldar days, they were the eyes and mes­sen­gers of the Valar. Because of their close asso­cia­tion with the Valar, they pos­sess powers unlike any bird. They are capable of speech and speak their own lan­guage, Eryr-aryth. They are large enough to carry an indi­vi­dual. The below list cate­go­rize their awe­some powers/​abilities of a typi­cal Great Eagle.

• Strength of Form — Due to the immense size, all strikes against a Great Eagles are on the Large Cri­ti­cal tables. This applies to both phy­si­cal and spell attacks.
• Gift of Manwe – Great Eagles are bles­sed by their closed asso­cia­tion with the Valar par­ti­cu­larly with Manwe and Yavanna. As such, Great Eagles are highly resis­tant to spells and enchant­ment. Only the very power­ful can over­come a Great Eagles’ innate magi­cal resis­tant. Their magi­cal RR for all Chan­ne­ling and Essense spells is twice their level. For example, a level 25 Great Eagle would resist all spells with +50 RR.
• Vision – Great Eagles’ vision is ama­zing. Their reti­nas contain rich dense of color recep­tors to give them extre­mely accu­rate sense of color dis­cri­mi­na­tion with little loss of accu­racy and cla­rity either through dis­tance or dark­ness. They can see in moon light as if it is day and in dark­ness as if it is in dim light. A Great Eagle can spot a rabbit on a moon ligh­ted night hove­ring one mile up. They receive +80 in per­cep­tion rolls when gathe­ring infor­ma­tion. In addi­tion, Great Eagles like most rap­tors have great per­iphe­ral vision. Their large eyes can point for­ward and side­ways, allo­wing an unu­sual degree of per­iphe­ral vision. All ambush attempts are treat as a hard maneu­ver.
• Valor – Great Eagles are fear­less and fero­cious in battle. As such, they have no fear. They are immune to all Fear attacks.
• Great Dive – Great Eagles are extre­mely swift, and can dive upon their quarry at speeds of more than 200 miles (+321 kilo­me­ters) per hour. Because of their high velo­city, they strike with twice the normal damage. At the same time the impact is such that any dive resul­ting in a cri­ti­cal hit results in an addi­tio­nal attack of a +100LGr.
• Sweep & Drop – If a Great Eagle obtains a ​“C” cri­ti­cal or better while stri­king a foe while diving it may sweep the foes off their feet car­rying them high in the air only to drop them to their deaths.
• Speech – Great Eagles can speak Sin­da­rin and some pre­valent Man­nish tongue(s) (e.g., Wes­tron). Some par­ti­cu­larly scho­larly Eagles have mas­te­red dozens of lan­guages. They speak their own lan­guage, Eryr-aryth.

The below are the Great Eagles men­tio­ned in the various publi­ca­tions of MERP and Deci­pher but were not men­tio­ned in Crea­tures of Middle-Earth. Some of the Great Eagles listed have addi­tio­nal powers or abi­li­ties. They are noted below in the indi­vi­dual entries. The Great Eagle’s stats were taken from the publi­ca­tion and are in MERP format. Whe­ne­ver there were gaps ; assump­tions, common sense or pure ima­gi­na­tion were used to fill in the gaps. If some­thing does not look right or you feel that a Great Eagle should have addi­tio­nal powers, by all means change it to best suit your world of Middle-Earth.

Note that the pic­tures and dra­wings found within this docu­ment are taken from Decipher’s or MERP’s publi­ca­tions and were taken without per­mis­sion. These pic­tures and dra­wings are the pro­perty of Deci­pher and Iron Crown Enter­prise.

Meneldor

MERP Sta­tis­tics

Publi­ca­tion : ICE’s Middle Earth Col­lec­tible Card Game (MECCG) & Lord of the Rings.

Home : Misty Moun­tains.

Addi­tio­nal Powers :

• Grea­ter Dive – Menel­dor is accoun­ted as being swift. So swift that Menel­dor reaches it’s quarry at speeds in excess of 250 miles (+402 kilo­me­ters) per hour when diving. Because of this, Menel­dor strikes with an addi­tio­nal +60 to their Large Claw attack when diving. At the same time the impact is such that any dive resul­ting in a cri­ti­cal hit results in an addi­tio­nal attack of a +120HBa.
• Strength of Form – Menel­dor is accoun­ted as being large for a Great Eagle. As such, all strikes against it are resol­ved using the Huge Cri­ti­cal tables. This applies to both phy­si­cal attacks and spells. 
• Great Lore — Menel­dor has obtai­ned great know­ledge through the hun­dreds of years of exis­tence. He is able to pro­vide any tidbit lore as if he was an expert in the area (treat as +20 to all lore). 
• Aura of Manwe – an invi­sible aura sur­rounds the eagle that makes any evil crea­ture within a twenty feet radius to suffer a 3^rd^ level fear spell.

Horde : none

Dwaithohir

MERP Sta­tis­tics

Publi­ca­tion : MERP’s Dun­land.

Home : Dun­land and Sou­thern Misty Moun­tains.

Addi­tio­nal Powers :

• Buffet of Air – Dwai­tho­hir can stir the air within a range of 30”, crea­ting the equi­va­lent of a nor’easter gale (treat as +20 Air­bolt attack).

Horde : None

Norantir

MERP Sta­tis­tics

Publi­ca­tion : MERP Dun­land.

Home : Dun­land.

Addi­tio­nal Powers :

• Great Vision – Noran­tir vision is excep­tio­nally even among Great Eagles. Noran­tir is able to see in the shadow world as if it was bright as day. Noran­tir also can see through illu­sions and see invi­sible objects, if the target fails a RR vs. level 10. This abi­lity can only be attemp­ted once per day. Due to this awe­some vision, Noran­tir receive a +100 to per­cep­tion rolls when gathe­ring infor­ma­tion. It also makes ambu­shing the Great Eagle nearly impos­sible (use Extre­mely Hard MM). 
• Buffet of Air – Great Eagles can stir the air within a range of 30”, crea­ting the equi­va­lent of a nor’easter gale (treat as +20 Air­bolt attack). 
• Aura of Manwe – an invi­sible aura sur­rounds the eagle that makes any evil crea­ture within a twenty feet radius to suffer a 3^rd^ level fear spell.

Horde : None.

Arthortur

MERP Sta­tis­tics

Publi­ca­tion : MERP Rogues of the Bor­der­lands

Home : Blue Moun­tains

Addi­tio­nal Powers :

• Strength of Form – Arthor­tur is accoun­ted as being large for a Great Eagle. As such, all strikes against it are resol­ved using the Huge Cri­ti­cal tables. This applies to both phy­si­cal and attacks and spells. 
• Buffet of Air – Great Eagles can stir the air within a range of 30”, crea­ting the equi­va­lent of a nor’easter gale (treat as +40 Air­bolt attack). 
• Great Lore – Arthor­tur, through the hun­dreds of years of exis­tence and moni­to­ring the area, is able to pro­vide any tidbit lore as if he was an expert in the area (treat as +20 to all lore). 
• Aura of Manwe – an invi­sible aura sur­rounds the eagle that makes any evil crea­ture within a twenty feet radius to suffer a 3^rd^ level fear spell.

Horde : None.

Beleram

MERP Sta­tis­tics

Publi­ca­tion : Lord of the Ring ; War in the North (com­pu­ter game).

Home : Forod­waith.

Addi­tio­nal Powers :

• Buffet of Air – Great Eagles can stir the air within a range of 30”, crea­ting the equi­va­lent of a nor’easter gale (treat as +40 Air­bolt attack). 
• Great Lore — Bele­ram has obtai­ned great know­ledge through the hun­dreds of years of exis­tence. He is able to pro­vide any tidbit lore as if he was an expert in the area (treat as +20 to all lore).

Horde : None.

Wilyador

MERP Sta­tis­tics

Publi­ca­tion : Lord of the Rings Card Game : A Jour­ney to Rhos­go­bel

Home : Mirk­wood

Addi­tio­nal Powers : Wilya­dor has no addi­tio­nal powers.

Horde : None.

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