The Heget Heresies about Her 'Hood, Part Two

[heget]

Heget's Heresies on Her 'Hood
(my one over-arching vice is alliteration)

(Read this for EVEN MORE spoilers about heget's hypothetical hood, hints of what content she's making for her game, background information of a general historical nature, and if you need to ace a test tomorrow over Tolkien)

Part One is here.

 

Professor Elf heget screams, "I swear to Eru Ilúvatar if you don't remember this from the lecture, I'm chunking the textbook at your face. And I have better aim than Eöl."

 
 

So let's take a look at who is living in heget's main hood of Aman:

 

First up, let me lavishly praise heimskur who made the perfect neighborhood terrain to get me started off. I'll bring this map back with areas labeled as we go along.

 

 

Aman - the Blessed Realm, the Undying Lands of the West to which the elves and Frodo at the end of the film/novels are sailing to. This is Tir na Nog and a bit of Asgard (but also Alfheim). It's also home to what I gleefully call my urban Tudor elves. Why that time period? Good question.
 

The answer is twofold. First we decide if the generic setting of fantasy literature is the medieval era, thanks to the overarching shadow of Lord of the Ring's influence on the genre and I'm going to quibble on this point anyway once I'm down to the Third Age. Therefore the group that is supposed to be more advanced and enlightened -and if you know anything about the Silmarillion that pun should have made you groan- would dress and mimic a post-medieval era. Or conversely, this whole age before the one our medieval story is currently in, that age of bygone heroes larger than life, would be ...Roman? Because it's a very real phenomenon from the medieval writings and picked up and expounded on as a major theme in Tolkien of the long decay of time, how the people before were greater and built wonders that can no longer be duplicated. All the shock of the Dark Ages. But if you really go with the era before the one currently in as having the higher tech, you need to switch Renaissance and medieval. And that's why my game for the most part runs almost like a fashion timeline in reverse.

Plus, the young Galadriel that immigrated from Aman to Middle-earth was an ambitious proud prince(ss) wielding a sword like her warrior brothers. And if that doesn't make you think Cate Blanchett as Queen Elizabeth (both films) is just the younger version of her Lady Galadriel, then you are not my brain. Once I made that mental connection fates were sealed.

 

 

• If I didn't go the fantasy imagining of pointy-eared Tudor, my vision of Aman would be Art Nouveau reinterpretations of Egyptian style. Because in the limitations of the game engine ex-nay on the togas, but all the pleated linen would be okay for 'ancient elves' and I'll blurb about climates later.

 

So the Tudor era: which unlike the Rococo (I'll get there, be patient) much of the quirks in fashion I am more that willing to edit away. Much like the decision of HBO show The Tudors -though I will try for slightly higher degrees of fidelity, at least in representation of characters. Fair to say the visual look of the elves in Aman shall be Tudor-inspired (and early Tudor at that) rather than 'Tudor". The hygiene will be ridiculously better. (English of this period were infamous for how much a cesspool their cities were. Didn't the Vikings teach y'all anything?) The simplest reasons my elves are going to dress in the garb of the early to late Renaissance across the board is that the urbanization, high culture, glorification of arts and sciences, and the colonization and interaction with brand new (or not so new) cultures goes hand and hand with Good Queen Bess, not Dickie the Lion-heart. At least in the popular mind. Yes, I will jump you with the proverbial scholarly parrying dagger if you insinuate there was no technological growth or international trade and exploration in the Middle Ages. But where's the fun in the lesser path taken?

 

And blame Cate Blanchett's acting choices.

 

 

 

So let's examine the population groups inhabiting Aman at the moment. First are the Ainur to whom Aman (or Valinor. Everything in Tolkien has at least two names.) is the second home. The Ainur -which can be divided into the Valar (god-level) and the Maiar (less powerful, their servants)- initially lived in a place called Almaren. Almaren was an island in the center of a lake in the center of the world back when the landmass was pretty and symmetrical. This is called the 'Springtime of the World', the prehistory before the awakening of elves. The Valar were still creating all the needed things of existence on proto-Pangaea when the Big Bad wrecks it. Now by weird personal choice I start the Ainur off as young adults. Mostly because I could create Sims with different last names and yet still have sibling ties without using any cheats. The Valar are just getting started at a place that won't be their permanent dwelling. College seemed best. So the Isle of Almaren becomes in my game Almaren Academie, and I think it's a clever way to start Sim legacy games if you have the University Pack. It forces you to use the college sub-hood, plus your Sims accumulate skills and friends before entering the main hood. Now I've already covered how and why my Ainur are not in Clash of the Titians Olympus-knockoffs. I hate the crystal toga futuristic design trope. Again these Ainur are not physical beings per say, but mostly of spiritual matter and any physical form would be temporary.

To quote the chapter:

Now the Valar took to themselves shape and hue; and because they were drawn into the World by love of the Children of Ilúvatar [elves and humans] they took shape after that manner which they had beheld ... save only in majesty and splendor. Moreover their shape comes of their knowledge of the visible World, rather than of the World itself; and they need it not, save only as we use raiment, and yet we may be naked and suffer no loss of our being. Therefore the Valar may walk, if they will, unclad, and then even the Eldar cannot clearly perceive them, though they be present .... But the shapes wherein the Great Ones array themselves are not at all times like to the shapes of the kings and queens of the Children of Ilúvatar; for at times they may clothe themselves in their own thought, made visible in forms of majesty and dread.

So if these Sim versions of the Ainur are only shells they've decided to wear today because they wanted to be visible as something other than a giant tree or something out of the Cthulhu mythos, I wanted them to stand out. Majesty and dread and working off memories of not even the real deal. In the end my Ainur are using the same sets of Pooklet-based skin tones as everyone else.

 

heget's skin sets she uses in her game:

Pooklet's Rehash (Both Warm and Cool sets)

Pooklet's  My Poor Lover

Pooklet's Kids in Technicolor

Pooklet's LPCMB (that freckly one)

 

(Yes, having wildly different skin tone elements bug me, but I like having a large range of colors. So I just stay to the Pooklet sets.)

 

But unlike the elves, the Valar and Maiar only have minimally pointed ears. This is to show that they are neither elf nor human and so when Gandalf (a Maia) and the other wizards arrive in Middle-earth he can play the ambiguous old man socializing with Eldar and Edain and everyone is uncertain of which category the wizard fall under. (Which, of course, they are angelic beings in the very old sense of "sent on divine mission of observation and assistance and if I was my real form your cow here would die of fright." Not exactly Christmas card angels.) Eyes in Tolkien's world are important - the eyes of Ainur in particular are super special and glow with light akin to the Two Trees. Plus windows to the soul and all that jazz. For the Valar I mixed up a personal set from Nabila's edited Mouseyblue Pooklet blend. I searched for a long while to find something that at quick glance didn't look wildly different from my other eye sets, but had a strong other-worldly feel of power and glow. There should be the slightest whiff of Uncanny Valley to all the Ainur if they choose to embody as an elf/human shape.

 

 

I'm sure from the swatch you can peg which one is Sauron. As for hairs, again these bodies are the imaginings of reality warpers. Which is the only explanation for some Peggy and Newsea meshes, am'irite? Thus it's fantasy Rococo paired with ridiculous non-1700s hair.

 

this batch of crazy, remember

 

After Almaren is wrecked (a.k.a. the planned graduation party from hell), I'll move all the Ainur Sims from the Almaren Academie sub-hood to Aman proper. One of the reasons I will install in-Teen to my game (unless a hack comes out that covers this as well) is the ability to keep adult Sim families in a college hood after they graduate. Because some of these Valar will be setting up families (and I'm bending canon pass the shatter point so that I can still use the teen age and younger), so I need some characters to grow up before the Tulkas and Nessa Sims have their wedding and then the Big Bad wrecks the honeymoon by knocking out the lights and breaking the super-continent. As I know I'll regret having gone through all the effort of crafting and playing a college hood only to delete it after a few plays, I found the solution how to recycle it. All the elves on Aman, once their kids reach of age, will want to send them off to university - or in this case sent to the Ainur for mentorship and schooling. And I have canon backing me up on this. Naturally the Ainur could recreate a school for these elves somewhere in Aman based heavily on the memories of Almaren. So the college sub-neighborhood will pull double duty as the original and its imitation. I'll refurbish with a few cosmetic changes then.

 

 

Here is a watercolor of Manwe and Varda's home atop Taniquetal in Aman. By the author himself. Note the boat at the bottom.

In Aman the Valar will have a cluster of their palaces, and the Maiar for the most part will live in apartment complexes nearby. Because the idea of the five wizards all living next-door to each other before the mission to Middle-earth amuses me, and the idea of Saruman and Radagast not only as the incompatible coworkers forced on projects together but as the ultimate odd couple roommates is hilarious. (Saruman the neat-freak is frankly disturbed by the mold growing on Radagast's side of the flat.) Gandalf starts my game as a curious child (I'll leave who his babysitter is as a surprise.) Other notes for individual quirks of the Valar: well, each will have them, being a pantheon as they are. The Ainur will own the first home businesses and community lots on Aman until the elves settle. Manwë will run a park with the hot air balloons from Parsimonious. Vána has florists. Vaire sews things like curtains, and Aule will dominate the toy and robotic crafting stations. Ulmo's two servants -Ossë and Uinen- will spend most of their days beach combing. Oromë is going to breed dogs (and pretend to breed horses). It's the Halls of Mandos that I'm forced to get creative with. Mandos is basically elven Hades, because while elves don't die of old age or disease, things like heartbreak and murder and adverse geography will have them dropping like flies. Most elves, after a stint of rehabilitation in the Halls of Mandos, are given new bodies and sent on their way. Almost all elves -actually most of the dead regardless- will have their urns and tombstones sent to Mandos's inventory. 'Summoner of the slain' he is. The Lord of Mandos is also the only one allowed to use the Resurrect-o-Nomitron. And let's state for posterity that That Sucker Will Be Used. So all these elves lingering in the Halls, waiting to go back to the material world? That's story-telling gold. Let's face it, the elven afterlife is a combination hospital-psych recovery ward and a hotel in dimensional hammer-space where a few guests check in and out quickly and some are permanent residences. An unlucky number check in repeatedly. The Halls of Mandos, therefore, will be split into at least two lots in my game: the personal residence and a hotel for the recently resurrected via the machine before they are allowed to return to their families- with some mausoleums and graveyards throughout.

 

Since we're still on the subject of architecture, to go with the rococo clothing the buildings and sets used will hearken back to Versailles more than Whitehall or Hampton.
 

 

 

Back again to the elves, and let's continue our break-down of the sub-groups.

Valmar, the city of the Valar with its golden streets and many bells, is the first settlement on Aman. Then the combined group of Vanyar and Noldor elves arrive and settle. They build their own city of Tirion on a hilled called Túna, and spread out across the western continent. The Vanyar with their admiration for and close ties to the Valar move in-land to Valmar.
 

So from what little we know -Vanyar honor the 'gods' with lots of (continuous?) religious music and have an ascetic's disdain for material possessions and concerns; they lived away from the population center and wore unadorned white clothing. I cannot believe how long it took to dawn on me that the Vanyar are analogous to the monastic system. Even had the societal division of three staring at me.

There is a glaring lack of religious practice by elves- at most are the oblique use of songs that glorify the Valar- and the fact is that most elves are living right besides if not their god then its divine representatives. Which is much like the answer about organized religion you get in Wheel of Time. In Tolkien's work the themes of faith and divine intervention and grace permeate everything, but overt textual statements are rare. Only in Númenor do you see direct description of religious worship in sacred locations - and again until the whole human sacrifice at Temple D'Evil introduced by Sauron, religious ceremony is sparse and restrained and carried out by the figure of the king. The Celts are appalled at the lack of severed heads.
 

Back to the Vanyar, where if it still complied with story logic, I transferred traits or used as placeholders real world ecclesial elements. The Noldor, with their drive for knowledge and invention of writing would invalidate the need of any monasteries as the preservers of knowledge in the medieval period. Yet, as the situation parallels, the elves as a whole and the last Homely House of Elrond in particular function in this manner for the human groups. But the image of the Vanyar as medieval monks singing vespers and churning out the holy parchment manuscripts until Noldor scribes take over, as the self-sufficient farmers breeding animals and crops and inventing champagne, manages to make them less boring. What with their more rural (and dry) location and disdain of material possessions -but still that concern to eat!- the Vanyar also become my answer of who grows crops in Aman. Now the image of peasant elves toiling in fields seems unusual and wrong-headed, but facts of life. The elven population still needs nourishment, they are not a nomadic population (there are some nomadic elven groups- which realistically lack higher technology, mention of any other career other than wandering hunters, oh, yeah, and palaces). It does not seem likely that each family had the time or means to go hunting every few days for food or forging for fruits and acorn paste. As the elven term for a noble lady was 'bread-giver', we know bread must equal flour equal cultivation of some species of grain. Evidence also supports that the only group of vegetarians would be some of that aforementioned nomadic group, the Green Elves of Ossiriand. Which might be a world-building headache of their own when I get to them. Aman is a virtual Garden of Eden, and the Eldar have angelic beings like the goddess of growing things to assist them. Thus I see a few large farms with supernatural good weather, soil conditions, and divine intervention effectively run by some Vanyar elves. Fruit orchards would be common across all classes and tribes. In Sims terms: if on Aman most houses can have a orchard tree, but Sim lots with a big swath of garden plots to sell the produce will be limited to one or two Vanyar families. The simple fact is that The Silmarillion concerns itself with the deeds of Noldor and Sindar royalty but not every elf could be a king. Some were the captain of the guard and the butler, so drunk off the good Dorwinion wine the servants weren't allowed to drink that they allow thirteen dwarves and one hobbit to escape.

 

 

 

As a group, especially after the migration en-mass from Tirion to the hills around Valmar, Vanyar have more daily contact with the Valar. Hair styles, clothing, and architecture will reflect that. While the Noldor will claim the synthetic jewels and lights, the blondes get synthetically bright dyes. Just a personal thing where I imagine the elves of Aman as a whole loving bright colors. So the Vanyar will paint their houses in white stucco and stone and then bright trims for the wood and lots of plush carpets. Sets of wall and build items in the Tulip Grove Build color schemes shall be used.

Tulip Grove

Bells and musical instruments in every house, and while I have this aversion to the idea of elves inventing the giant pipe organs I suppose I could see a crafty Noldor commissioned to invent one for the Vanyar. Vanyar clothing will be simpler than the Noldor (but please, more than just white!). Still in my venue of fantasy Tudor, but less jewels and strings of pearls. Acceptable jewelry would be psalm books. Ultimately the Ainur exposure means the subset of Vanyar "Tudor" clothing via Rococo contamination is going to look more James I than Henry VII. And their blond hair can have non-period elements like thick ol' bangs. I picture the Vanyar and Teleri as candidates for curly hair and the Noldor with ruler-straight. Other details, like how Indis (Ingwë's kinwoman) was an athletic runner and/or dancer, can extrapolate that the Vanyar as a group are active lovers of sports. No couch potatoes. Devoted to the decrees of peace by the Valar, they won't have the fractiousness and weapons inventing of the Noldor, but in the War of Wrath at the end of the First Age it was the army of the Vanyar leading and bearing the brunt of the crusade. So lots of festivals with track and field events. (Vanyar festivals are going to be the shockingly flashy and hedonistic carnivals. Always pegged them and the wood elves as the least prudish, party hard pointy-eared folk.)

 

Key families to follow for the Vanyar:

(Well, Vanyar by everyone else. They called themselves the Minyar. The first term means 'beautiful people', while the second is 'first people', as in the first group to awaken and the first on the march to Aman. You can decide if of which term sounds arrogant.)

 

 

Where or not the Vanyar to see themselves as inherently better than the other elves (they probably do see themselves as more devout), their king Ingwë is also accounted the High King over all elves. Yet Ingwë seems to be hands-off. Immediately after the text informs you of his high position it states that he's rarely interacting with his people or staying in his high tower in Tirion, but ever at Manwë's feet. Which is either a poetic euphemism or the guy building a recluse palace on Elf Mount Olympus. And he all but disappears from the narrative; his son is the one that leads his power in the War of Wrath, and Ingwe never makes decrees to his fellow kings. I have trouble believing his position to be anything but ceremonial. Cloistered Elvish pope, anyone? Now Ingwë has at least one son and a sister (it's easier to make Indis his sister instead of niece). I'm not letting the Noldor have the only royal family with drama, but the other focus for the Vanyar will be on the families of ladies that romantically attach to Noldor princes.

 

 

One is Elenwë, who as part of my Anaire back-story, comes from a family in partnership with Anaire's noble Noldor family to answer the question of if my Aman neighborhood doesn't have monks churning out the medieval manuscripts by commission, who makes it. And the answer is Elenwë's kin. A mid-ranking Vanyar noble provides the employees that make the parchment and paper to supply the Noldor need to create and spread knowledge, as well as all the psalm books of the Vanyar and official documents and family tree certificates of both courts. As the Shibboleth of Fëanor indicates, there is a Vanyar guild of language, sort of like the French L'Académie française. (Remember what the author's passion and day job was. Plus, the pun on the immortels is delicious). One of her parents can be a member. The business partnership means that Elenwë marries Anaire's second son, Turgon, and that her family in general is looked a little askance by other Minyar for being a little too Noldor-like. Which makes Elenwe's decision to join her husband's family during the Flight of the Noldor all that stronger.

 

 

Amarië, the beloved of Finrod Felagund who does not join him on the Flight because of family prohibition, plus it's rather unclear whether she was a fiancée or just a maiden he was courting, has no textual indication of high rank. And it's more fun to have her as a commoner. As I've talked about before, her family will be my answer to the necessary question of agriculture. With the dichotomy of Noldor in the city of Tirion and the Vanyar spread out around Valmar, it seems that the Vanyar would be the elves with more property tied to land, and for the oldest son of the youngest child of the Noldor king (remember, immortality means inheritance is less of a concern), a daughter of a wealthy large land-holder, even if he's only a farmer and not nobility, would be acceptable. The social circles wouldn't be too disparaging for contact, plus Finrod has a record of wandering around and making strange friends. The image of the two walking through an orchard holding hands or Finrod ending up on the wrong side of a bull's pasture is too cute. Yes, I've turned Amarië into the elven equivalent of the buxom blonde milkmaid.

Consequently, I really need to see if I can get a version of rebekah's animated cows (like here) using my beautified bovine re-mesh. All I want are the milking features non-autonomous.

 

Art by Jenny Dolfen
These are the drama kids - thogh my verisons won't be dressed exactly like this

I keep mentioning the Noldor, so let's finally talk specifically about them. As The Silmarillion admits, "this tale tells mostly of their deeds".

...the Noldor were beloved of Aulë, and he and his people came often among them. Great became their knowledge and their skill; yet even greater was their thirst for more knowledge, and in many things they soon surpassed their teachers. They were changeful in speech, for they had great love of words, and sought ever to find names more fit for all things that they knew or imagined. And it came to pass that the masons of the house of Finwë, quarrying in the hills after stone (for they delighted in the building of high towers), first discovered the earth-gems, and brought them forth in countless myriads; and they devised tools for the cutting and shaping of gems, and carved them in many forms. They hoarded them not, but gave them freely, and by their labour enriched all Valinor.

 

So, Knowledge Sims that love shiny gems. Other things on them that I haven't covered would be that for the most part all their families and business lots will be in the area of the map labeled 'Tirion'.

 

 

They will have lots of trading and family ties between the Vanyar and the third group of elves on Aman, the Teleri. (Those two groups have virtually no regular contact with each other.) Houses with be taller and closer together -apartments lots are okay, more home businesses selling the goods to give the illusion that they aren't just buying goods out of the catalog. Unlike Europe (or say Japan) there is not the social stigma against the nobility involved in a craft. In fact, as long as it's connected to knowledge or invention or shows off the individual's creativity it would be highly encouraged. The most celebrated Noldor was an inventor- and sculptors, smiths, and writers are prized. But this is Arts and Crafts Moment, not industrialization.

Merchants as just the people buying and selling goods might be lower on the social ladder, especially for the Noldor.
 

Clothing wise I'm adapting the Tudor look. Now if Feanor can craft synthetic jewels that emit their own light, I feel I've justified in saying the elves could create dyes not seen in real life until the industrial revolution. Noldor clothing will also be heavy on embroidery and jeweled trims. As I noted in my heraldry post (which is good companion reading), these are my tacky elves. Slashing- where the garment is slit and the undergarment puffed out- will be rare initially and I'll elaborate why later. Now, because I do dislike too-wide meshes on my Sims, eating the hands when at rest or placed on hips, I am fudging the outline of the female garment. The silhouette will be more like the early Tudor of Henry VII. So no wheel farthingales, and I really like Hat's idea of the ruffs as a separate accessory so I can decide whether or not to add to an outfit. Longer robes on the more scholarly elves, very short tunics -but no codpiece- with nice boots for those adventurous grandsons of the king, and lots of jewelry. Embroidery again would also be highly prized and common. With the factional divide between the half-brothers Fëanor and Fingolfin (the third brother Finarfin is Mister Peace-keeper), there is going to be a clear divide in colors and fashion choices as tensions rise. I have more Noldor characters of all levels of society to play with, so also will be making as much servant livery as royal court clothing.
 

artisit is Anubis1000 - using his linework for books and classroom drawings constantly
 

Another point of contention: fan theories seem to support the idea of Tirion being on the equator. Yikes. So the fur trim of our Tudor clothing will be limited. Not to say some clothing won't have it. Aside from how cold it would likely be on the side of a mountain, especially world's tallest peak, the second Noldor settlement is going to be Formenos to the north. This is where Fëanor and his followers are banished after Fëanor draws a sword and threatens his half-brother. (This is the point where heget drops the empathy she begrudgingly gave Finwe's first-born and is counting down to the tragic fall she could see coming for him from a mile away. And his fans have ironically made me dislike him more as I go on.) I do like the theory that there were some sparse settlements sympathetic to Fëanor's side in the area that would become the fortress town, maybe even a royal hunting lodge up there. So there will be some colder weather clothing. And once the elves are crossing the polar ice cap in a world without the sun or moon, let's hope they had some warm clothing!

Now I can't just use Spanish court fashion as my model for 'warmer weather 1400-1500s clothing' because the restrained Spanish style used lots of solid somber black. And yeah....

Well, black isn't only reserved for the villainous characters (see Gondor). And there is a careful narrative establishment of the two conflicting ideas of night and darkness. One is the idea of night, and twilight especially, as soothing and healing -see Lúthien. The other is the fear of the unknown and evil, connected to the Big Bad and his underlings like Sauron, who have corrupted the original darkness into the fantasy dichotomy of light = good, dark = bad. And there are far less examples of light as a symbol of evil in Lord of the Rings.

 

art by Himmapaan
This is much closer to how I imagine my Noldor elf costume.

On the subject of this period headwear:

Getting this off my chest. I have an irrational dislike for steeple hennins, heart-shaped hennins, attor de gibets, and cross-tree headresses of the high and late medieval. But we can probably blame Star Wars for this in that I like the crispinettes and various veils and goffered headdresses and as long as the Sim doesn't need clearance on either side to get through a door I'm more amicable. And I love the rounded Flemish hood and would be ecstatic to see more hairstyles with the haloed and turban-like braids and crowns that you see in Italian Renaissance paintings. That's the style I truly imagine my elves wearing. And oddly enough, though the earliest style of the gable hoods are a tad boring, I do like both the round French hood as well as the pointy Gable headdress of the Tudor era. Go figure. Now Bipsouille did make meshes for both styles, but I think the animations need fixing and the UV Maps could be reworked. The French hood would work better as an accessory, anyway. And of course, there's the heget specific issue of having the meshes play nice with pointy ears.

Long hair was a sign of elven beauty and somewhat of an erogenous zone, which begs the question of whether head coverings for say married women were common. We do know among the Noldor at least one prince happened to wear his hair braided with gold, and Glorfindel (who was at least partial Vanyar) wore his golden hair long and loose. Then a Balrog tangled its whip in the hair and dragged Mr. Goldilocks to his death. Cautionary tale, boys and girls.
 

Circlets and crowns are also common headgear. Make jokes about rings and you'll get flung headfirst into the Cracks of Doom.

 

Now the majority of the Noldor are later going to journey back to the eastern continent, so when I start referring to the Noldor Exiles I'm talking about this group. This shall develop some differences from mainland Aman due to other cultural interaction, plus the reason they are leaving Aman is to go fight a war for over 500 years. The Big Bad, god of evil and decay and destruction and in general Not a Nice Person, commits an act of theft and murder following that act of Tree Murder that quite annoys most of the Noldor. Most of the Quenta Silmarillion is the tale of this Noldor trying to defeat the Big Bad and get back the stolen Silmarils(to our Finns in the audience, think 'the Sampo'.) Thus as long as I'm in Aman during the First Age and I say Noldor, I'm taking about non-Exiles and pre-Tree Death.

 

 
Anubis1000 on Alqualonde
 

Last group in Aman is our third group of elves.

The Teleri live on the coast -though for a period of time, after they arrived in Aman a few decades or centuries after the Vanyar and Noldor, they lived on Tol Eressea. As a whole they tend to leave everyone else alone. Trade between the Noldor and the Teleri does exist- and their princess is going to marry Finarfin. Their port city, Alqualonde, is a little farther north, and gets less light from the Two Trees.

 

What is said about the Teleri in Alqualonde?

 

There they dwelt, and if they wished they could see the light of the Trees, and could tread the golden streets of Valmar and the crystal stairs of Tirion upon Túna, the green hill; but most of all they sailed in their swift ships on the waters of the Bay of Elvenhome, or walked in the waves upon the shore with their hair gleaming in the light beyond the hill. Many jewels the Noldor gave them, opals and diamonds and pale crystals, which they strewed upon the shores and scattered in the pools; marvellous were the beaches of Elendë in those days. And many pearls they won for themselves from the sea, and their halls were of pearl, and of pearl were the mansions of Olwë at Alqualondë, the Haven of the Swans, lit with many lamps. For that was their city, and the haven of their ships; and those were made in the likeness of swans, with beaks of gold and eyes of gold and jet. The gate of that harbour was an arch of living rock sea-carved.

Awesome! Actual physical description with details of places. I need those swan-ships. The mesh of the galley is very good and useful, but it isn't the boat described above. Astute readers should key in how the Noldor are handing out jewels like they are the best things ever (magpies) and the Teleri are all, lol, okay, add some sparkle to the landscaping job, but we're going boating. Diet would be heavy on sea food and some Teleri familes would likely live in house boats on the harbor, rarely staying on dry land but for vacations and trips. Thus the clothing would be looser and less constricting, and the fabrics able to handle the wear and tear of sea spray. Whereas the Noldor would wear their hair long and loose, Teleri will have more braids and head coverings. And as jolly sailors some can forgo shoes. They seem a relaxed bunch. Aside from that, trim and jewelry going to be made of pearls and red coral.

As for house furnishings, I always gave the Teleri the light woods and clear lines of Gustavian furniture, whereas our tacky Noldor will have the gold gilt and heavy pieces- and everyone will have poster beds with drapery, because they'll need the bed curtains not to keep out pests but because the constant light is not conducive to sleep cycles.

The Teleri are also the accomplished singers and players of instruments- whereas the Vanyar compose holy songs, the Teleri as a group have a second name that refers to all the pleasant singing they do. It's the Noldor that only have Maglor as a noted musician, and you get the feeling that elves prefer to go to Teleri concerts instead of Vanyar.