Icon Workshop

A place to store the history of the Plaza and gather information and quotes about Tolkien's books
Wise Ent
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Icon Workshop


Hello all!

One of the things we all remember from the Plaza is the art work. While some credit must be paid to the likes of John Howe, it was really the innovative work of Protoguy that made us fall in love with the site. I'm not entirely sure if he appreciated it at the time, but his efforts gave birth to a unique and distinct form of graphic art: Icon making, also known as the art of putting tiny pictures into tiny spaces. When Protoguy left the Plaza, he left a vacuum behind. While no one could really duplicate the majesty of Peeg's icons, many of us tried. I'll hold my hands up to the fact that I was one of those who attempted icon making. The results were...mixed. Nevertheless, I tried to pay homage to Peeg's style.

Below are some of my old attempts at making icons.

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This is my attempt at an icon for the character Lindo, who was a resident of the Cottage of Lost Play. I held the rank of Lindo for a short while, when I was a Maia looking after the Poetry and Art forum. This wasn't the face I actually wore, but this icon is reminiscent of my actual icon. If anyone can find the old Lindo icon, I'd be very grateful.

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This is my attempt at a Librarian icon for the character Melian. I tried to incorporate some Dwarvish runes into the parchment in the background. I quite like this one.

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This was my admin face for many moons. I wanted to move away from the aesthetic that Peeg used on his 'iconic' Orome icon. I quite liked the end result, but I can appreciate why many people felt it channeled a lot of feminine energy and thus though that I was a woman.

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This is an old attempt at a Varda icon and I hate it. It is too purple, over exposed and not nice to look at. I have included it because it is one of the few icons I could actually find.

I thought it would be quite nice for us to have a place where we could share any of our icon attempts and keep a library of any old icons we have found.

Wainrider
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oh boy I remember working on icons way back when! I ended up coming up with icons for 15 ranks for the Kingdom of Numenor, which I hosted as a Plaza House, as well as icons for the king and queen. And I did all that in MS Paint. Those were the days haha.

Wise Ent
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Dig them up and post them here!

New Soul
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Li! Thanks for making this thread-- it's great to see some of these again.
I didn't realize it was your icon I shared; I was Lindo with the fiery eye swirl (I assume that's the icon to which you are referring?) for a while, when I was Maia of this area of the Plaza. (Thus was born the Toasty/Burnt Toast nickname. Not actually sure where toast came in, now that I think about it.)
I absolutely adored that Lindo icon.

I have no idea if I have that icon saved anywhere, but I'll look!

Newborn of Lothlorien
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I think I was Melian at one point? Although I am not sure if that was my precise icon, I can't remember. I have some other ones, I think you did them maybe. I will have to visit the ol' photobucket. The icons were always super beautiful.

Khazad Elder
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I think we should discuss what the admin/moderator structure will look like and then design a nice set of icons from the original set. They don’t have to fit old plaza but can be throwbacks or references to them. I do think that for now we see how many people come back and what we will need then we create a small moderating team to ensure things don’t go crazy if we have more people than expected.

Chef
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Agreed Oro - Sil/Uruva/myself are gonna hold down the fort for a little bit just to let the dust settle on this initial stampede and wrap our heads around this wild situation. Getting a proper small mod team together is definitely a priority though, just want to make sure we do it the right way!

Khazad Elder
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Yea. I was just saying If i were you I’d remodel some of the core Valinor team and not worry about a ton of icons. The mod team no matter what is gonna be small and just there for policing and helping. So dont stress on all the old icons. No one here will be upset if they are slightly different.

Chef
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Yeah for sure, admin icons are real low on the priority list atm, the normal member ranks are definitely the important ones. You can see how much effort I put into my own super official rank & icon for example :smiley15:

I do wish I could find my favourite special rank ever though - The Void. I would totally sport that one again

Wise Ent
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I'm not too fussed about how icons are used, I just set up this thread because I like looking at them and making them. That said, Narv, if you want me to have a crack at making The Void icon, just describe what it was like and I'll see what I can do.

Khazad Elder
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The Void would look great on you Narv. As long as you keep the Title of Cave Troll. Or some other kind of troll. Maybe the Void Troll. Hmm that has a nice ring to it.

Chef
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lol it was literally just a black square, that's what I loved about it. Probs wouldn't actually use it for myself, but it might be neat to have in the vault for special occasions..

Wise Ent
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Say no more fam, I got you.

Scout of Lothlorien
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I know I have a ton of stuff saved on my old laptop from my early (for me) Plaza days, which will include a bunch of (post-2010) icons. But in the meantime... I have these saved in a more accessible place. Some people might recall the thread that resulted in these happening. God help us all.

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And then there's this old SCR:

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Last edited by Baingíl Randír on Sat May 16, 2020 9:39 am, edited 1 time in total.

Arien
Arien
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A lot of this is Peeg’s work
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New Soul
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I have been trying all day to get access to some of the ones I made. and a few others I had just saved. but I think my account on the upload site I had used was hacked :/ I will keep trying

Chef
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Beefcake Horse and the Fist of Tulkas were my favourites

Warrior of Imladris
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Some of those I see and just know the Admin.

This is what I kept from back then ... :smiley16:

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Khazad Elder
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Wow Sil that is quite the collection! Great job keeping ahold of it. I personally really did like the style of Peeg’s icons. Hopefully we can get some similar ones that fit.

And Narv Fist of Tulkas is the best. And Beefcake Horse are cool. The Water waves aren’t bad either. Haha. Personally understand Aule’s but wish they were cooler.

Esquire of The Mark
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I only have saved one official one - when I held the special character rank of Frodo:

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But I also made some for my characters to have at the top of posts, as I RPd in lots of places as different people it was easier to keep track.

Isiliyan for Fangorn RP:
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Itarilde Tinehtele for Imladris RP:
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Peachleaf for Ent RP:
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Aelflaed Goldhawk for Rohhan RP:
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I have no idea what happened to my hobbit icon though, for Lily Knotwise.

As you can see, I didn't always use original images to make my icons, just smooshed some together and added a border. And I wasn't very good at keeping the size consistent!

Wainrider
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Li. wrote: Fri May 15, 2020 1:55 am Dig them up and post them here!
Oh man that was so many years and so many computers ago, I'm not sure I would even know where to start to find them again! I remember spending a lot of time getting the borders lined up properly, making sure the image was sharp, even getting the text the right font with the proper color/weight halo around it for rulers and special character ranks. It was a challenge to be sure, all in Paint! :smiley9:

Weathered Ent
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Love Peeg's work. My favorite was the Laurelin ATR I was awarded in 2011. I believe that was the year. I was given the ATR because of RP. I thought I had saved it. But can't find it in any of my libraries. I did find this.

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I made a Imgur account for sharing images. We'll see if they go the way of photobucket and make it into a fee service. I think I am going to clean off the stuff I value from Photobucket and delete that account.

Wise Ent
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Baingíl Randír wrote: Fri May 15, 2020 4:32 am I know I have a ton of stuff saved on my old laptop from my Plaza days, which will include a bunch of (post-2010) icons. But in the meantime... I have these saved in a more accessible place. Some people might recall the thread that resulted in these happening. God help us all.

Image

Image

Image

And then there's this old SCR:

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Baingil those are excellent! I remember creating those, especially the good egg and the bad egg times. Thanks so much for finding them!

Narv, you didn't exactly request them, but here are 3 icons to choose from :smiley9:

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Chef
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I love em :smiley24: :smiley24:

Scout of Lothlorien
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Li, I managed to dig up the good egg since yesterday, and... another one. I have very fond memories of that thread.

Image Image

Here's some more random icons I found laying around, all of which I believe were used at some point. Ruler icons, some SCRS and some others. Don't ask me what all of the ranks were.

Image Image Image Image Image Image Image Image Image Image Image Image Image Image Image Image Image Image

Image Image Image Image Image Image Image Image Image Image Image Image Image Image Image Image Image Image

And this one was particularly special.

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I also have a bunch of various "generic" region/rank icons laying around (post-2010), including the full Wilderland set (I don't have full sets of any others).

Image Image Image Image Image Image Image Image Image Image Image Image Image Image Image Image Image Image Image Image

I think this is enough icons for the moment, so I'll refrain from adding more, at least for now.

Wise Ent
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You have such good records! Theres 3-4 of mine in that mix. I think Erinti was one of mine and looking at it now, I'm quite fond of it :)

Khazad Elder
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Ohh I really like that Denethor (maybe because I wore it) Bain thank you for that post!

Chef
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These are great! I think I had some icons saved in my photobucket account, but I tried three different email addresses and photobucket doesn't seem to remember any of them. Does anyone know if they delete accounts after a long while? It's probably been seven or eight years since I last logged in.

New Soul
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AHH! Okay. I went into wayback machine, and I searched the time when I was Lindo, and I was able to find the old fiery eyeball Lindo icon! So much nostalgia. I feel such triumph at finding this. Makes me miss Tarawen a whole bunch! She had a lovely Tinfang icon.

Also, wow, @Baingíl Randír, you are on a roll! XD What were all the egg based icons from?

Assuming this was what you were looking for, @Li. -- hopefully I can get this image shenanigans to work.

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And here's Tara's Tinfang:

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Wise Ent
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You beautiful human. That was the icon I've been looking for!

Newborn of Lothlorien
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My photoucket was wiped :( But these are so beautiful and drool-worthy. Thanks to all of you that have some of them saved!

Weathered Ent
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That gold tree is the Laurelin ATR that was was awarded to me in 2011. :smiley15: Very drool worthy. That was my favorite. I think we should give a special icon to Peeg because of what he has done for the Plaza.

I was also very fond of the tree icon for Yavanna and the Stag for Nessa. Those were very classy.
Last edited by Oak on Sat May 16, 2020 6:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Councillor of Imladris
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Yeah, I believe Photobucket changed its TOS in the past several years, and I don't recall quite how it affected users, but it drastically restricted the ability to upload images from the site anywhere else. :cry:

What's a real bummer is there aren't many good alternative photo-uploading and sharing sites. I mean...Maybe people who make icons can upload them in a private facebook album, then re-post here.

Though a more difficult-to-execute, easier-to-use if we could get it working option, would be to change the format of the site so that instead of the old form style of posting the image URL to upload a photo, pictures could be directly uploaded here on the Plaza. Narv, is that something that could be possible?

Weathered Ent
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Okay when cleaning out my Photobucket to get rid of it, I found this. This is the old Fangorn Rank Five. The Huorn.

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How long ago was that? I joined back in 2003 when this style was still in use.

Photobucket went down the toilet then it turned into a fee service then it kept telling me I was in violation of its terms because I was not paying its fees. So I deleted the account after taking off what I wanted to keep.

Sage of Khazad-dûm
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I actually cannot tell you how much pain those Durin doors icons caused me!! Arghhh lol
Family Stealtharm | Sil's #1 Property | Knowledge of a woman, pride of a dwarf | Khazâd ai-mênu!

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Master Torturer
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I think Imgur and ImgBB are effective Photobucket substitutes. They don't even require registering an account, if you don't want to, though that remains an option if you want to keep track of your uploads.

Sharing Facebook photos outside of FB is a dicy proposition ever since Facebook started changing the URLs at which images are located periodically. Embedded images using Facebook URLs tend to become broken in relatively short order.
Loremistress Emerita | she/her

Master Torturer
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Wow some of those icons bring back memories lol

Oh and there was another SCR, a frigging fairy. Least I think it was an scr as it saved on my profile in one of the archives. Filthy dirty little fairy..

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Arien
Arien
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@Lúthien Tinúviel Uploading images onto the plaza directly would take up a lot of storage space and would come with an associated cost, which is why it was stopped on Original Plaza as well. The options that Eldy mentioned are all good ones.
cave anserem
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Black Númenórean
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@Mor Toast - ahhhh my Tinfang icon! *hugs it* I have officially been punched in the feels by nostalgia after seeing all of these.
she/her | Esta tierra no es mía, soy de la nocheósfera.

New Soul
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@Tarawen Oh my goodness. *tackleglomps you* I found it after digging through the Plaza archive, and found a snapshot of when we were Maiar together. It had our old Cottage banner, and our lovely lil faces (read: icons) at the top. I dug through some of our old trib threads and such-- I found a thread I made called the KA-BLOOIE thread where people could post old artwork of theirs and the next person could... "kablooie" it. Such fun.

That Tinfang icon is so cute-- and those two icons just looked so good together.
they/he/mischief

Black Númenórean
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Eee hiii @Mor Toast! I loved our CoLP header and banner. And also our silly shenanigans. I found a page in the Wayback Machine where you were Sherlock Holmes and it made me giggle. In retrospect, it's a shame we weren't the Benedict/Martin Holmes and Watson. Silly us! We know better now.
she/her | Esta tierra no es mía, soy de la nocheósfera.

Scout of Lothlorien
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I'm glad I had those saved! Back when I first joined the Plaza I was still forced to use dial up internet - which I wasn't very happy with - and I developed a habit of saving threads that I particularly wanted to look back at. I fell out of the practice later on, once I got better internet, but there's a very specific time period that I still have a bunch of miscellaneous records for.

@Mor Toast Let's see if I can recount the series of events that led to the hilarity of those icons. I think it's mostly shenanigans by Li, who I hope doesn't mind me recounting this tale.

It all started when Li decided it would be funny to inflict that Edward icon on someone who loathed Twilight as a prank. A protest thread was started in Admin Messages, with much anger. Things quickly escalated into hilarity and got a little out of hand. Lanthy showed up with a fake beard and declared that the thread was 'un-spamifiable unto eternity' (as in, it was entirely appropriate to spam), and serious posts would go the way of the dodo, as would the icon of the poster. Melwen/Aisil quickly got slapped with the dodo icon. At this point, people started clamoring over joke icons - requests included carebears and Orlando Bloom. Instead of providing these, Li decided that 'has said or done something excessively girly or weird - being a girl is not an excuse' would wear the rank and icon of Bad Egg (and one Egg BLT, as it seemed appropriate). Li then declared that people could become Good Eggs by doing something exceptional.

Of course, by this point, a bunch of us were jumping into the thread to laugh at/contribute to the shenanigans, including people trying to do something 'exceptional' in an attempt to become Good Eggs. The further insanity resulted in a contest by Li, challenging people to come up with a story to explain the icons. Comedy and art/graphics were suggested as particularly appealing to the judge. The rewards were points, along with - first place:an ATR of choice, whether joke or serious; second place: choice of Dodo, Good Egg, or Bad Egg; and third place - a favor from Li.

Winners were respectively Melwen, me, and Equitatus, with an honorable mention to Loslote Girarion. I was wearing the Black Squirrel SCR at the time, so I didn't get a fancy icon during the shenanigans, but once that was over I got to be a Dodo Supreme for a month, which was a wonderful time indeed. Melwen got to be Uinen (see that Tribute Rank icon with the seashells? That one). I think Equitatus requested a pygmy hippo icon as a favor, but I don't have that saved.

And that is the tale of one of my favorite Plaza threads and the icons that resulted. It's one of the ones I saved for posterity. :smiley8:

Weathered Ent
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I also remember the icon switches they did every year for Halloween as 'costumes' for each of the kingdoms. The kingdoms would vote on the theme the kingdom would adopt on Halloween and for about a month following. I don't recall which year they started that up. After a while though, they decided the shorten the time, they used these temporary icons. It was a lot of work to make these icons. Also some members were jonesing for their gorgeous Peeg created kingdom icons too much.

I was not too active when the Plaza was reformatted into regions. I don't think they continued the Halloween icons then. Correct me if I am wrong.

There was also the great Fangorn fire, there the entire kingdom of Fangorn was in fire four a couple of weeks, there were burning forest icons.
Huorn of Fangorn

New Soul
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@Tarawen Yes! Seeing it again was amazing. And yes, I saw I had the Sherlock name XD. We definitely know better now.

@Baingíl Randír That is an excellent rendition, thank you for the story! Perfect plaza shenanigans. It also sounds familiar; I feel like I remember that happening- do you remember what hear that was?

@Oak Halloween icons! Hmm, I'm pretty sure we did. I feel like I remember having Halloween icons even after regions started. Pretty sure?
they/he/mischief

Elven Enchanter
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@Baingíl Randír I remember seeing the dodo icon going around. I don’t recall participating in the craziness, but I defiantly enjoyed watching it.

And Halloween icons! I remember when Lorien (maybe Wilderland) was Lion King and I petitioned the ruler to let me go back to rank 1 so I could be baby Simba. I actually RPed as Simba for a bit.
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Artanis / Éomund / Brandor / Zarâm

Khazad Elder
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@Li. I really like those void icons. Cool stuff.

I think the best part of the icons was that they allowed surprises like Halloween and Christmas changes to be so fun. Seeing new icons float around was a lot of fun. And also SCRs because it really gave people a sense of pride to carry an epic character around.

Ent High Elder
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Like many here, I went back and dug out my old Photobucket password and went through my account and found a bunch of Plaza stuff, including this Finrod tribute icon that I got to rock for a time.

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Fangorn Forever

Weathered Ent
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Mor Toast wrote: Sun May 17, 2020 1:59 pm @Tarawen Yes! Seeing it again was amazing. And yes, I saw I had the Sherlock name XD. We definitely know better now.

@Baingíl Randír That is an excellent rendition, thank you for the story! Perfect plaza shenanigans. It also sounds familiar; I feel like I remember that happening- do you remember what hear that was?

@Oak Halloween icons! Hmm, I'm pretty sure we did. I feel like I remember having Halloween icons even after regions started. Pretty sure?
I tended to disappear in the fall because that was vacation time for my family. I was usually travelling to see family in the next state over. So I don't have a lot of memory of what happened in the fall.

I don't spend on a lot of time on the computer in the fall going toward Christmas. There's enough activities in my community that take up my time.

Now if we are still having this quarantine. this year might be a another story.
:smiley16:
Huorn of Fangorn

Warrior of Imladris
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Found these on a trip through the wayback machine. I am willing to be helpful, occasionally, but hopefully someone else is making a nice folder of all these things, because I'm not!! :smiley9:

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Smaug, Rosie, Elrohir, Eönwë, Bill the Pony, Gilraen, Haldir
The Wood-elves lingered in the twilight of our Sun and Moon, but loved best the stars.

Weathered Ent
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Okay getting in the wayback machine. A set of icons I made for an Eagle Eerie RPG I ran in Fangorn years ago.

Image Image Image Image Image

I was the GM so I used the Bald Eagle Icon.
Huorn of Fangorn

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