I'm sure most of my readers will by now be aware of the Fantasy Fellowship rules from the new Quest of the Ringbearer book. These rules offer people the chance to create their own Fellowship to go on the campaign to destroy the Ring and save Middle Earth from the Dark Lord. Naturally I felt like I had to jump on the band wagon and form my own Fellowship. I did set myself a couple of extra rules when starting out on this mission; firstly theme had to come first in all selections and secondly, I wouldn't use any members of the original Fellowship. So after many hours of deliberations here is my pick for a Fantasy Fellowship.
The Ring Bearer
Old Bilbo Baggins
The selection of a Ring Bearer was highly important for determining the overall theme of this Fellowship. In the end I decided on a 'what if' scenario where Bilbo didn't leave the Ring to Frodo after the Long Expected Party. So that makes Bilbo my Ring Bearer, and I gave him both Sting and the Mithril Coat because he did carry them with him when leaving the Shire.
The Three Hobbits
Dori the Dwarf (the Companion)
Bifur the Dwarf
Bofur the Dwarf
Ok, so this is bending the rules slightly, but it's done purely based on theme driven motivation. We're told in the book that Bilbo was accompanied by 3 Dwarves when he left the Shire:
"Three dwarves came out of different rooms where they had been busy.
'Is everything ready?' asked Bilbo. 'Everything packed and labelled?'
'Everything,' they answered.
'Well, let's start then!' He stepped out of the front-door."
So, with that in mind I looked into which Dwarves would have been alive at that point and were below the points limits within the rules. Those restrictions ruled out all but 5 Dwarves; Dori, Nori, Bifur, Bofur and Bombur (the Party taking place after Balin's doomed expedition). I then discounted Bombur as he's described as being too fat to walk by the time of the Council of Elrond, leaving only 2 options for Merry and Pippin's replacements, Bifur and Bofur. Out of the remaining Dwarves Dori was the more obvious choice as the companion and his special rule will help out Bilbo in his journey.
Aragorn
Gildor
When replacing Aragorn I needed someone who could have met Bilbo and the Dwarves in the area around Bree. After some digging I found this quotation that provided the perfect solution.
"At last Frodo asked the question that was nearest to his heart:
'Tell me, Gildor, have you ever seen Bilbo since he left us?'
Gildor smiled. 'Yes,' he answered. 'Twice. He said farewell to us on this very spot. But I saw him once again, far from here.' He would say no more about Bilbo, and Frodo fell silent."
This passage shows that Gildor did actually meet Bilbo on his journey towards Rivendell, so he is an ideal thematic replacement for Aragorn.
The Wizard
Galadriel
For my Wizard I worked by process of elimination. Gandalf was out because he was in the original Fellowship, Saruman had already been turned by the time of the Party, Radagast was more interested in trees and animals than the quest, and I felt that the leader of the quest should be a powerful Hero, ruling out some of the smaller spell casters. This process left me with Elrond, Galadriel and Celeborn to choose from. Out of those I simply picked Galadriel as my favourite.
Legolas and Gimli
Arwen and Halbarad
When picking these two my first choice was that I wanted to use the gorgeous Arwen model, so she got added. At this point I considered that I had no representative from the race of Man, so looking at who would have been around that area at that time and the best person who met my needs was Halbarad. These 2, i imagine, are on their own mission to find Aragorn who was off in the wilds hunting Gollum at the time. I decided that Halbarad's 2 Attacks would make better use of the gift of Galadriel's 3 hairs than Arwen's single Attack, while having a 2nd archer in Arwen with the Galadrim bow would also be useful.
Boromir
Glorfindel
And finally we have the last member of the Fellowship. My Fellowship up to now was lacking a big combat Hero, so I opted for one of the top combat oriented Elves knocking around Rivendell, Glorfindel. It's a shame that he's doomed to fall at Amon Hen but his combat prowess will certainly help in getting the Fellowship that far.
So there we have it, my Fantasy Fellowship. It's maybe not the most powerful Fantasy Fellowship around but I love it.
