Best of the Web - Tom Bombadil, & Clerics

I've read the Lord of the Rings more than once. I've never been a big fan of Tom Bombadil, in fact on more than one occasion I've just skipped those bits. Recently I ran across an old 2011 post on the blog Loose Connections. The post is about Tom Bombadil called Oldest and Fatherless: The Terrible Secret of Tom Bombadil that postulates that old Tom could actually be evil. He admits Tolkien probably didn't plan Tom to be evil but lays out a lot of very convincing evidence. I won't be skipping those bits the next time I read Lord of the Rings, thats for sure.

Currently I'm listening to the audiobook of Paol Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions on my morning dogwalk. I'm not sure what I think about the book at this point, seems very episodic, but one thing that struck me. During the Werewolf episode they brought up the idea that the Lancanthropy might lessen the further they got from the Fairie world. I don't know if I'd ever come across this sort of idea before but I really like it. I've read about spells becoming stronger on different planes and perhaps on Holy or Unholy ground but never things like Lycanthropy. It seems like it would be easy enough to create mechanics for this sort of thing.

Hack & Slash has a post On the Clerics Devotion. The author is down on Clerics and has a replacement idea. He makes some good points but really what it gets down to is Clerics require work from the GM. Worldbuilding work to help them fit into the setting. I don't think any D&D book has been helpful in this regard. They seem to concentrate on the Gods and not on the religion. This is a shame because the beliefs of the people help define a culture. RuneQuest got this right (at least closer to right) in that they spent time on the Cults. Probably too much time to be honest but the cults, the hierarchy of priests and their relationship to the worshipers, holy days and such is far more interesting and important to a campaign than how many HP the god has. That's the sort of thing I've been trying to write up with my recent Chaos Cults. In time I'll re-write a few other religions this way. A monotheistic one for Clerics at least (a rewrite of my old Lough) and a polytheistic one for Druids (who I call Shaman because Druids is way to specific to the Celts).