Back in my early twenties when I was hanging out a lot with Brendan and Charlie, I got introduced to possibly the most grueling board game in existence.
It was called War of the Ring. It was essentially the entirety of Lord of the Rings in a board game. You had all the troops and armies, and you tried to succeed in destroying the one ring while the other player(s) tried to stop you.
Have you ever wondered how long it would take to set up all the individual troops of Mordor and Middle Earth? Two hundred and forty game pieces all had to be placed. Just to start playing the game? It took. Forever.
An age of men passed in the time it took to set that game up. It took even longer to play obviously, sometimes spanning multiple sessions across the week because the boys took it seriously.
I did not particularly ever want to play War of the Ring because setup was such a grind all by itself. But I did love one thing about the ordeal. And that was that the boys had a house rule that was utterly whimsical and delighted me to no end.
Once all two hundred and forty pieces were standing at attention, the Nazgûl hunkered upon Mount Doom, the hobbits cozy in the Shire, Rohirrim galloping their fields, once every meticulous tiny figure was painstakingly placed. They rolled the dice. All four d6’s required for gameplay.
It was for Isildur.
To see if he cast the ring into the fire.
If it was all sixes Isildur succeeded and destroyed the ring and the game would then be packed away unplayed.
So before playing the chosen one would assume the role of Elrond and call “Isildurrrrrrr!!!” (and it was very important to roll the R as much as possible for maximum drama).
They would cast the dice, and Isildur inevitably claimed the ring, and the game commenced. This was a well established tradition before the first time I played. So the first time I joined I got to be Elrond and roll the Isildur dice.
I rolled. Three sixes. And one. Five.
The room erupted into screams. Chaos. We were all losing our minds.
“This is like Isildur got all way in and held it out, and tipped his hand 95% of the way before deciding to keep it!”
“This is like Isildur actually dropped it but then caught it at the last second!”
The moment lived in infamy for years afterward and sometimes we’d just throw back our heads and cry, “Isildurrrr!” in memory of that moment when Isildur got so close to casting away the ring.
