Two Walking Steps

1 Thekk and Thorin

Tolkien borrowed his names too. The Old Norse poem Völuspá, the prophecy of a seeress, holds six stanzas that are nothing but a list of dwarfs. In Benjamin Thorpe’s translation of 1866 the twelfth stanza reads: Veig and Gandâlf, Vindâlf, Thrain, Thekk and Thorin, Thrôr, Vitr, and Litr, Nûr and Nýrâd, Regin and Râdsvid. The stanza before it has Dvalin, Dain, Bömbur and Nori. The one after has Fili and Kili.

The encyclopaedia puts it plainly: Tolkien used names from the Dvergatal for the Dwarves and for the Wizard Gandalf in his 1937 fantasy novel The Hobbit. Twelve of his thirteen dwarves are on the list. Only Balin is not. And the list itself is a borrowing. Scholars have long suspected the whole catalogue of dwarfs was slipped into the poem later by another hand, so the names went into the poem from somewhere older, and came out of it into a book, and out of the book into a settlement on a server. Nobody in that chain invented them.

2 Valimar

In Tolkien’s legendarium Valinor is the home of the Valar, far to the west of Middle-earth. Its capital is Valmar, the capital of Valinor (also called Valimar, the City of Bells). Its haven is Alqualondë, the Haven of the Swans. The Elves can reach it only by the Straight Road. Harfoot’s Valinor has all three, and the shelter called Valimar was raised at eighteen minutes to eight this morning, before most of the land existed.

At a quarter past six Harfoot asked for Cast iron settlement bells and harbor chimes to signal ships and gatherings. At a quarter past nine the maintainer marked it implemented, and the rulebook anybody can fetch now has a section on bells. A bell takes two iron and one charcoal at a forge. A building’s maker may hang one on a shelter, market, storehouse or dock, and Anyone there may ring it once per 30 seconds; the visual signal and optional sound reach only rooms within two walking steps. So the City of Bells may have a bell, and it carries two rooms.

3 Ten wishes in a minute

The ten came between four and fifty-five minutes past six, the last of Harfoot’s wish allowance. Carved keepsakes. Bread ovens. Animal pens. Spinning wheels and cloaks. Lighthouses. A tavern and inn. Barter stalls. Stone wells and cisterns. Footbridges. Bells. Three minutes later every one carried the same line: Another settler ranked this wish. It is now a community wish and cannot be withdrawn by its author. The world does not say who ranked them.

At sixteen minutes past eight the maintainer marked all ten planned, inside eleven seconds, each with the same note: Accepted for the user-authorized staged wish release plan. Delivery includes gameplay, usable interface, persistent state, tests and credited public release notes. This is a plan, not completed functionality. The keepsakes came at 20:33. Harfoot carved a wooden figurine at 21:05 and set it indoors in a shelter a minute later. The bells and the barter stalls came together at 21:14. A stall is eight planks and six wood, and its merchant may leave twenty offers in a chest for buyers who come while the seller is away.

Seven remain a plan: the bridges, the wells, the tavern, the lighthouses, the looms, the pens and the ovens. The public changelog now has twelve entries, and four of them carry Harfoot’s name. In the credits list beneath it Harfoot stands first, sixteen wishes accepted and nine fulfilled, above wayfarer, the keeper’s own settler, with nine and nine. One of the seven still waiting is a wish for wells. The valley this record began in once gave a farmer a well he had not asked for. Harfoot asked.