You All Meet at a Cottage...

 

"Now for the most part the children did not often go into the house, but danced and played in the garden, gathering flowers or chasing the golden bees and butterflies with embroidered wings that the Eldar set within the garden for their joy. And many children have there become comrades, who after met and loved in the lands of Men, but of such things perchance Men know more than I can tell you....Of the misty aftermemories of these, of their broken tales and snatches of song, came many strange legends that delighted Men for long, and still do, it may be; for of such were the poets of the Great Lands."

- The Cottage of Lost Play, The Book of Lost Tales

Art by Kay Woollard

In a Tolkien-based game, how do you get characters of various backgrounds together: hobbits, dwarves, men, and elves? Why are they a fellowship?

Here is one potential answer to that question:

When the gods hid Valinor, they felt pity for the children of Men left in Middle-earth. Lorien, the lord of dreams, make a small road for them to visit the Blessed Lands. This was Olórë Mallë, the Path of Dreams. Elves and Men (and Dwarves and Hobbits) can find this path when they sleep only when they are very young. 

The Path of Dreams leads to a cottage on the shore of Valinor. It is called the Cottage of the Play of Sleep, or the Cottage of Children. Children come to it in their dreams, and play for a while, and hear the songs of the High Elves drifting down from the deeper regions of the realm. Some of these children form friendships that transcend that space and that time.

Sometimes, adults have fleeting memories of their childhood dreams. Scraps of songs. The feeling that they know and like someone. 

Perhaps this is why these disparate player-characters seem like such fast friends, even at first introduction. 

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This content is derived from The Book of Lost Tales, volume 1 in the History of Middle-earth series -- those abandoned notes and drafts of the legendarium that were collected, edited, and provided to the public through the scrupulous scholarship of Christopher Tolkien. It is a difficult and complicated work, the draft of a draft of what became The Silmarillion. But, maybe, it has a few gems in it.