Board Thread:Suggestions forum/@comment-26149161-20160321154543/@comment-26444332-20160329031931

(Side note: When you say chain-mail, you're saying chain-chain; mail on her own works fine as a word, unless you're referring to scale-mail)

Currently, I feel like thin metal strips over a long leather coat(The Galadhrim armor from TATW and the film) would probably be an accurate depiction of First Age armor before the invention of the slightly heavier but more protective mail armor. In this case, the Silvan Elves would probably have kept this armor around(though it would not have been nearly as prevalent or popular), so an armor like those seen might be available to the Galadhrim and Wood-elves; whereas the armor of the High Elves and more modern Silvan Elves would probably have a long mail coat and helm over leather jerkins and leggings(Maethyr i-Thewair, same game).

We may have a Early and Late period style arms for the First Age; Early period would probably be more leather with light metal strips or perhaps small amounts of plate; Late period would have mail armor and more varied helms.

As the focus of the First Age turned from defeating lone bands of Yrch(First Battle and previous) the invention of mail would have been more useful as time went on. However, the iconic armors should just be cast aside? I say nay to that. We can have different sets of plate and mail, and make the NPCs all wear mail, while players may wear plate. That is my voice on the matter.

While we are to stay true to Tolkien's books, true, we should at least give ourselves a nod to Peter Jackson's attempt to recreate the world. Without the films none of us would visualize the world of Middle-earth the way we do; our very conceptions about the Elves are biased toward what our eyes have seen. In the animated films, for instance, the Wood-elves are depicted as gnomish green-blue skinned creatures, not tall and fair like the other Elves, and using no metal implements(unlike in mod or film). And yet the mod does not depict them thus.