[Beren IV]

I was on a trip for the past few days, and while I was away I reread Of Tuor and his Coming to Gondolin (Unfinished Tales). In it, it is evident that there are at least three different Divine powers working against each-other that will determine the fate of the peoples of Beleriand. These are:

-the Malice of Melkor
-the Doom of Mandos
-the Counsel of Ulmo

Personally, I would add at least the Hope of Varda to this list, as I think She is more responsible for the successes of Beren and Lúthien than Ulmo, and the Doom certainly isn't going to help those two. Nonetheless, Ossë's stormy sea harms the Noldor where possible, since Ossë serves the Doom, while yet Ulmo rescues Voronwë with a greater 'yet calmer' wave and delivers him to shore. Certainly the snows that almost stop Tuor and Voronwë later on are part of Melkor's malice. Even Manwë's Eagles guarantee safe passage to the bases of the Crissaegrim from Morgoth's servants. Indeed, such favor may be responsible for the survival of the Elves and Dwarves for thousands of years, despite their other reproductive disadvantages (see other thread)!

We obviously have to be careful about how we implement forces like this in TLA, otherwise it will become an Age of Mythology set in Middle Earth. Nonetheless these Divine forces are very important in the conflicts of Arda, even the deciding factor, and there are miraculous acts of nature and mythological creatures that can come down on behalf of one faction or another. One thing that many games have done is to include priest units that wield the favor of Divine beings - but while we can't say that they don't exist on Arda (even some circumstantial evidence that they might), they are nonetheless not explicit, and TLA is right not to include them for the purposes that it is pursuing. Another possibility is to take the various mythological critters - the Eagles, the Ents, the Dragons (after the First Age), and so on - and make them all minor civs, so that diplomacy could be done with them, and they might aid you or assail your enemies depending on how well you behaved in the eyes of their masters, in this case, Manwë, Yavanna, and Melkor. Of course, if you are playing as the Forces of Morgoth yourself, (should I capitalize 'yourself'?), then you should be able to exert your own world-destroying Malice directly, so this might have some difficulties from a gameplay standpoint (although, of course, Morgoth's forces have the disadvantage of having so few friends).

What would be the best way to incorperate these forces in TLA, given the objectives already set for it? I would hate for it to be a scenario-builders-only basis, as I think such intervention to be more common than that.