Entering Rogsylvania
Ainur and Eldar require special permission to enter, and normally must be accompanied by a security escort at all times.
Avari, Orcs, and Trolls, as well as undead, have no restrictions placed on entering, but are liable to be enslaved unless accompanied by an official document from their master or government.
There are no restrictions on dwarves or any kind of mortal entering the country. However, they are advised to obtain a safe-conduct from a Rogsylvanian noble if they do not wish to be cooked and eaten or hunted for sport..
Climate
Apart from some of the higher mountains (and including some even of them), one might call Rogsylvania just this side of balmy. The lake water (when there is any water) hovers around boiling in winter; asbestos suits recommended for non-balrogs (or ruggles, as they're sometimes called, or rűggly)
Visitors from colder climes may find some relief at night-time, or near the fountains, though many of these are of steam, fire, or lava. If you go out during the day, wear asbestos and brunglasses.
Balrog Etiquette
If you are a Balrog, you already know what proper manners are. If you are not, you may find a knowledge of our etiquette to be a highly useful survival skill.
If you are an ainu, you probably know proper manners, but just in case: address Balrogs as sir or madam, and remember to bow or curtsy on meeting them for the first time.
If you are an Incarnate (less than an ainu), but still immortal, kowtow or salaam on the first meeting, and bow or curtsy afterwards. Always address Balrogs as, at the very least, lord or lady; it is better to address them according to their rank, e.g., counts/countesses as “Your Igniferous Excellency.”
If you are an Orc or troll, grovel a lot on meeting, and always keep your head down (difficult though this is for trolls). Address Balrogs as master or mistress, and call yourself “this slave”.
If you are a dwarf or mlorat, prostrate yourself and scream for mercy, and hold up the safe-conduct. Never touch a balrog. (Lesserr aces also have their codes of etiquette; for example, trolls greet each with "Tolkien sucks!" The proper reply is: "Screw you and the horse you rode in on."
Accommodations
Balrogs formerly lived in caves, and some are our most charmingly old-fashioned hotels still are. These tend to be the most liveable accommodations for ruggles, although how long you stay alive there depends very much on the proprietor’s mood. The price is fairly modest, about a soul or two. The cheaper ones may be infested with dwarves or even hobbits. Mortals will be expected to assist in domestic chores.
Luxury hotels in Rogsylvania are pleasantly warm; ventilators are not usually available. The most celebrated hotel is the Glowing-Schweinhund, whose employees are all glowing pigdogs that are in the pay of weird terrorist anti-Tolkien organisations.
Food
In Rogsylvania, we ONLY have expensive snobby restaurants; riffraff like humans and ghosts, etc., get their nourishment at various troughs. So you may need a pass from a noble if you want to try out a genuine Rogsylvanian restaurant. The cuisine is marvellously unique. The following menu aims to give the traveller an idea of what to expect:
Entrées
A large part of the Balrog diet consists of hmunsa, or humans if you will. We wouldn't call it slaughter; more like haute cuisine. There are several ways of doing hmunsa, including:
))(*&&&&$$^&* ((&^$$&**( %#*^%%$*((: hmunsa sauteed over real volcano flame for 3864 years.
%%^&*(((( #$T&& ^%$$$&*(*%%%$$$^%##^: hmunsabrain fricasseed in gasoline or lava, with smurf caviar or solid potassium or FAQs on the side.
$&*%%#$$()) %&*(^$$ ^&*(( (Flamewar): an ancient Rogsylvanian secret. It needs some curry to make it edible; and hmunsa-brain -- which in lower-tier establishments they tend to COMPLETELY lack.
*&^%%& &*(%^%& (Jellyfish): the proprietors of our better establishments have them custom fished by their own personal jellyfishers, many of whom die in the process – which only makes the flavour more exquisite. Try it in $_!*&#$~_^($_(, a blend of Rh positive orc blood and cthulhu tentacle grease, lightly sautéed for 434,344,324 years.
$&^$$% (Ghosts): make an excellent light meal, and go well with vinegar.
O***&&&^^E$%* (Igneous rocks), like pâté de magnesium, phosphorus-strudel, anthracite-ghoulash. Most commonly used for desserts, a;though we have many restaurants specialising in igneous rocks.
Fried Cthulhu
Snacks
Though occasionally serving as entrées (if fat enough), hobbits are most commonly used in snacks. There are several establishments that specialise in them, called le snack-bar hobbite; these serve such delights as hobbit à la pipe, flavoured with their own pipeweed - YUMM! Hobbit in cognac with its own pipe and garnish of pipe-weed is an elegant variation and may be used as an entrée.
Crème de dwargue brûlé
Dwearghs frites -- usually with a dash of caviar (which is mostly hobbit eggs)
Lightsabres make a nice appetizer
@^##^@^#&@#@ -- The closest thing Balrogs have to "cheese", it is obtained from hobbit guts by dark arts in a secret place. Anyone who dare wear it in public is immediately unbodied in a peculiarly painful way. But that never actually happened because no Rog would be so unmannerly. (It is lyingly alleged that @^##^@^#&@#@ smells like an Orc's laundry basket).
Desserts
#$^^&&***# _**%^%%: Sentient birthday cakes that wish you a happy birthday and scream when eaten.
Chocolate hobbit vindaloo
Bloodshakes: blood and milk churned together. In several flavours, of which the most popular is platinum blond.
Entbark Gâteau : a delicacy best served with mithril-berriess and carbon monoxide icing
Beverages
Our slaves milk hmunsa for blood, which may be prepared in an infinite number of ways.
Bloodka: a highly intoxicating haemoglobin derivative, especially popular in Tildanorška, whose more carefree inhabitants sometimes guzzle it until they turn into slime.
Dwerrow-hobbit blood-blend
Vhampagne: sparkling alcoholic blood.
Non-blood beverages:
Lava: warm and energetic, may be taken with or without blood or anthracite. Aromatic lava exists in several forms, all of which are served at the Café Lavatrasque.
Gasoline/petrol: the most common balrog drink; said to be a powerful aphrodisiac.
Radioactive aquavit
Napalm: The advantage of this concoction is that it's multi-purpose: after killing a few people and trying to light a pipe with it, you can gobble it down -- i mean, tastefully savour it. It has been said that no self respecting balrog should leave home without it; he must at least have a decent cabinet of the stuff.
Kafka A mixed drink, 70% lava and 30% bloodka. Slightly disorienting.
Note: in addition to Balrog restaurants, we also have several that serve other cuisines. Orc restaurants are quite common, and Brunnème even boasts, if that is the right word, an elvish one -- Avarin, needless to say. But we hope very much that travellers will avoid eating that … stuff. (Until recently, some of the older restaurants served Elves, which, though healthier than their... cuisine, has been banned by treaty.)
Orkish restaurants are well worth trying out. Sour herring with chocolate may not be everyone’s idea of gourmandise; but savour the jellied hobbit noses, hobbit feet sauteed in their own hair with peppermint sauce, mumak ears with horseradish, Sushi à la Gollum … We cannot, of course, countenance the deep fried elf ears, tempting though they may be to an uncivilised – and illegal – palate.
Electricity
Balrogs are a far more efficient energy source than electricity, so they don’t need it. Orcs and other slaves may use electricity; the usual voltage is between 48.1 and 576.2, while currency is 219.45775433838-833848833. Adapters are in short supply, but are worth the trouble of getting, if you want to shave.
(No mlorat can survive an Orkish razor.)
Currency
The Rogsylvanian unit of currency is the soul, but slaves and snacks often use the more easily obtainable phosphorescent coins called skullings, owing to their charming shape. One soul = 482, 218, 009.413 skullings, which in turn are divided into 86.05193 halflings.
Note on the Rogsylvanian System of Law
Balrogs don't need laws, because they are above that sort of thing. Theirs is a high and lonely destiny. They do, of course, make laws, but only for the use of lesser races. (In fact, restaurateurs demand stricter laws when short on hmunsa.) Among themselves, however, they have a very strict etiquette: stealing from another Balrog isn't exactly illegal, but no Balrog would do it, because it just isn't the done thing. If a Balrog is *really* rude, he can get unbodied; but that only happened once or twice in Balrog history.
If a rog wants to kill a mortal, the mortal has no right or ability to resist.
Education
Rogsylvania has the highest educational standards in the world, which (one must reluctantly admit)even most inhabitants of Rogsylvania itself quite fail to meet. But, let's face it: most life-forms wouldn't know what to do with a REAL education, anyway.
The most important educational institution in Rogsylvania is the Rogwarts School of Roggery. However, this school is only open to citizens of Rogsylvania (i.e., Balrogs) over the age of 111. This is for your own safety, as very few non-Balrogs could survive it. The Academy of Desctructive and Culinary Arts is somewhat more advanced and exclusive.
For some reason, there seem to be several beings who are interested in Middle-earth. Now, if you want to know what really happened in Middle-earth, the only legitimate authorized source is GRUB (Greater Rogsylvanian University - Balróggy), especially its divisions RUNTS (Rogsylvanian UNiversity of Tolkien Studies) and, for non-Balrogs (or Ruggles as we call them), ROG-COLI (ROGsylvanian COllege of Lower Instruction). Our standards are so high that students who can't make the grade are quite literally toast.
Classes focus on such practicalquestions as whether dwarves are edible, and 101 ways to kill a wizard.
Grades awarded are: pass with honours, pass, raw, rare, medium, and well-cooked.
For Trolls, the chief institution for higher learning is Jîvz School for Valets.
PS. Stay away from FATS. They teach appalling rubbish there. And many of them are extremely primitive sea-creatures.
One FATS instructor named Noel Quickley briefly taught a course at ROG-COLI. , "The evolution of Tarahumara and Southeastern Yuma Native American Rain Dances, with special emphasis on the different foot movements to evoke lightly drizzling, heavily plodding, and medium-strength intermittent rain". He was performing the fourth lesson, summoning broad, heavy nimbostratus clouds, when the Board cancelled the tutorial on grounds of premeditated extinguishing of Balrogs, and Quickley was declared persona non grata in Rgosylvania. Rain dances are a deadly insult to our culture.
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