According to lore, Dwarves did not ride a steed in any fashion. I don't know if this matters at all for this mod but just putting it out there.
Their skin was either black or sallow if half-Orc.
In the books, Legolas, Aragorn, and Gimli covered an insane distance in their run through Rohan, and all three were the exceptional elite of their kind. I wouldn't base too much on that. All the same, Gimli in the books had no trouble keeping up, due to a great store of stamina.
Dwarves did use bows (if needed, which was hardly ever under the Earth), and there are no crossbows, as the setting of Tolkien's legendarium is in the remotest histories, nor are crossbows ever mentioned. In fact, although crossbows are never mentioned, war chariots are, such as the ancient Egyptians used.
Please show me where Dwarves throw axes or stones.
Climate and living conditions do not change skin color, genetics do.
Umm ... Orcs are better as you get closer to Sauron: better equipped and trained and the like. In fact, Barad-dur's garrison was largely of Uruks.
Dragon legends have existed far, far before the Middle Ages.
"The Company took little gear of war, for their hope was in secrecy not in battle. Aragorn hadAndúril but no other weapon, and he went forth clad only in rusty green and brown, as a Ranger of thewilderness. Boromir had a long sword, in fashion like Andúril but of less lineage, and he bore also ashield and his war-horn." Here the word "long" is a simple description, describing that the sword was longer than most. This is in no way describing a Medieval "hand-and-a-half", "long sword", or "bastard sword" (as some called it
).
Well, if you are going by lore, plate armour is never once mentioned. In fact, the primary setting for the Third Age is around 4,000 BC. War chariots, as ancient as they are, are mentioned, as well as ancient Germanic "iron caps" (the one Gimli took from the horde of Rohan). If you were wondering, the dating is from Letter 211 of Tolkien.
- "Arda 'realm' was the name given to our world or earth.... ¶ ... [I]f it were 'history', it would be difficult to fit the lands and events (or 'cultures') into such evidence as we possess, archaeological or geological, concerning the nearer or remoter part of what is now called Europe; though the Shire, for instance, is expressly stated to have been in this region (I p. 12). ... I hope the, evidently long but undefined, gap* in time between the Fall of Barad-dûr and our Days is sufficient for 'literary credibility', even for readers acquainted with what is known or surmised of 'pre-history'. ¶ I have, I suppose, constructed an imaginary time, but kept my feet on my own mother-earth for place. I prefer that to the contemporary mode of seeking remote globes in 'space'. However curious, they are alien, and not loveable with the love of blood-kin. Middle-earth is not my own invention. It is a modernization or alteration of an old word for the inhabited world of Man, the oikoumenē: middle because thought of vaguely as set amidst the encircling Seas and (in the northern-imagination) between ice of the North and the fire of the South. O.English middan-geard, mediæval E. midden-erd, middle-erd. Many reviewers seem to assume that Middle-earth is another planet! *I imagine the gap to be about 6000 years: that is we are now at the end of the Fifth Age, if the Ages were of about the same length as S.A. and T.A. But they have, I think quickened; and I imagine we are actually at the end of the Sixth Age, or in the Seventh." Letters No.211, p.283
Also, here is a purely astronomical discussion of the subject:
http://tolkienforums.activeboard.com...th-chronology/
There are also some interesting tidbits on it here:
http://forums.theonering.com/viewtopic.php?t=78909