Adventures in the wilds of Middle-earth - Phantom of the Northern Marches, Trolls of the Misty Mountains, and Haunted Ruins of the Dunlendings

By this point, I've covered almost all the Middle-earth Roleplaying books I own that are set in Eriador. The only ones left that are set west of the Misty Mountains are adventures, which differ from the books that I've discussed up until now. Adventures are more focused, concentrating on relatively small areas, but which are more nebulous in exactly where they are set. They are more about small-scale problems that need solving than sweeping history and epic quests.These problems range from missing people to giants roaming the land to ghostly manifestations. Doughty warriors, mysterious mages, ruthless bandits, and decadent nobles help and hinder the characters belonging to the players. This is the kind of stuff the Rangers took care of, or which slowed Gandalf down when he wasn't hanging out in Hobbiton. It's not all thumping the Balrog or tossing Rings into volcanoes.

First up is Phantom of the Northern Marches.

Daniel Horne is one of my favorite fantasy artists, and he did - and still does, I think - quite a bit of roleplaying game work, including some great Dragon Magazine covers. One of them is one of my favorite D&D images, ever.

Nowadays he seems to be concentrating on classic monster paintings and sculptures. Regardless, I've never seen a bad painting by him. He didn't do a lot of work for MERP (Middle-earth Roleplaying), but what he did was striking.

Besides Horne's fantastic cover, there is a bit of decent interior art, including maps that are different from the gorgeous Middle-earth maps I usually rave about. The maps here are more tactical in nature, showing monster lairs and the like.

Ridorthu has simple tastes, apparently.

The titular Northern Marches are the northern edges of Arthedain and Rhudaur, a rather bleak, wild region of Middle-earth even at the best of times. The town of Novtha Rhaglaw, besides being afflicted with an awkward-to-say name, is an isolated, somewhat ramshackle place. Not far from the land of the Witch-king, Angmar, it nevertheless remains untouched, though doom hangs in the air.

Phantom of the Northern Marches has three main adventures:

The Phantom of the Woods: The folk of Novtha Raglaw are puzzled and unsettled by tales of missing shepherds and strange lights in the woods. Now, a hunter has turned up dead. Could this be the work of barrow-wights, or forces of the Witch-king? Or some other dastardly villain?

The Riddle of Ridorthu: Farms in the area of Novtha Rhaglaw have had livestock come up missing. Huge footprints have been found. Strange sounds in the night seem to come from an invisible source. Shepherding seems to be a hazardous job in Novtha Rhaglaw, as yet another poor sap of that profession is found knocked senseless. So what's going on? It's up to the players and their characters to find out.

Gerse's Bane: A dragon rampages throughout the area. A classic fantasy game scenario, this could spell the end of the player's characters if they aren't careful and don't manage to enlist some aid...could tales of an ancient warrior hold the clue to the dragon's defeat?

The book details the town of Novtha Rhaglaw and its inhabitants, giving characters for the players to interact with. It's a pretty standard affair for a roleplaying game, though the adventures here have more of a fairy tale air than those for games like Dungeons & Dragons. Still, these types of adventures are a tested formula for success, with success defined as the players having fun.

Next, let's look at Trolls of the Misty Mountains.

Yep, another Daniel Horne cover. What's aggravating is that Iron Crown Enteprises (ICE), publisher of MERP, chose to do some of these covers as semi-wrap-arounds, with about a third of the image continued on the back cover. While this makes for a nice, almost letterboxed look, it's tough to scan and even tougher to post the two parts side-by-side here on blogger.

Yeah, tiny, I know. That's the only way I could get them to sit side-by-side. Here's a bigger version of the front cover, because it deserves to be seen.

Cool stuff, huh? Horne definitely has his own take on what trolls look like, and I think his interpretation is pretty fun, yet a little scary, though in a children's-storybook way. Even some of the interior art, by Denis Loubet, is whimsical.

Trolls aren't the most observant creatures.

Trolls of the Misty Mountains is set in the region of Rhudaur that approaches the western foothills of the Misty Mountains. As you might have guessed, there is gonna be a good bit of troll action in this one. As with Phantom of the Northern Marches, Trolls of the Misty Mountains has three main adventures. The adventures are linked by a couple of isolated fortresses of Arthedain, which has tried to extend its grasp now that its brother-kingdoms of Cardolan and Rhudaur are gone, or nearly so. The players' characters are sent out to scout for the construction of a road between the fortresses. But, y'know, there are trolls, so it's not just a surveying job.

The Adventure of Duildin Hill involves farmers approaching the characters of the players to help them get rid of trolls raiding their farms. Guess where the trolls live? It's a fairly straightforward mission, but there are a few complications that may not be too much of a surprise. Still, it's an adventure in the classic mold.

Adventure at the Village of Garkash is another classic, and is also straightforward. An orc village has a bridge that lies right on the route for the road the player characters are scouting. It may seem uncomplicated, but the orcs have a few surprises to spring.

Adventure at Maes Fao is set in a forbidding gorge on the path of the proposed road. The player characters end up searching for an ancient artifact, an heirloom of the last king of Rhudaur. They aren't the only ones, though; the Dark Lord's reach is long, and his agents seem everywhere. There are trolls, yes, but they may only be tools of more calculating villains.

Trolls of the Misty Mountains is a pretty good mini-campaign for characters still learning to be heroes.

Haunted Ruins of the Dunlendings is, technically, not set in Eriador, but was more intended to be set somewhere near the Paths of the Dead in the White Mountains of Gondor. Still, as is stated in the book itself, it can be set just about anywhere Dunlendings live or once lived. This includes the Southern Misty Mountains.

 

This time, the wraparound cover is by Gail B. McIntosh, who did other MERP covers, including Hillmen of the Trollshaws. This cover is exceptional, also evoking a fairytale feel, reminding me a bit of Victorian-era illustrations by artists like Anne Anderson.

The Miller's Daughter by Anne Anderson

Anyway, this McIntosh cover deserves to be shown larger, so here 'tis.

 As with the other two books I've discussed in this post, this one has three adventures.

Adventure at Minas Anghen involves the tower of a Seer, or wise woman. The trade road that runs near the tower has become a dangerous place, with passing merchants often ambushed and robbed or slain. Rooting out the bandits and discovering the fate of the Seer and her tower draws the player characters to the area.

There are some nifty maps and schematics in this book, and Minas Anghen is the subject of some of the better ones.

Side view of Minas Anghen

Adventure at the Seven Stones (Setmaenen) is set at a site sacred to the Dunlendings, a stone dome with surrounding standing stones. A cursed artifact has made the place unclean, and the site has been closed off until the Dunlendings have made right the Oathbreaking, which is where they betrayed oaths they made to Gondor and the Elves. By the way - this curse was only lifted when Aragorn called on the Dead Men of Dunharrow to fulfill their Oaths, and help smash Umbar and rescue Minas Tirith. So, this adventure may be more or less interesting depending on the time period in which it is used. 

This adventure also has some nifty pics, the best of which is this one:

Adventure at Hogo Tarosvan deals with a site where the cursed dead were buried in cliffside caves, a forgotten village, and a fertile valley. This particular adventure is especially spooky, but is also more wide-ranging, both in territory and theme. The writers manage to evoke a feeling of evil that is not exactly that of Sauron, but is dreaded nonetheless. This one also has some interesting pictures.

 I also would be remiss if I didn't share this truly awesome picture by Jim Holloway, which deserves a spot of its own on this post:

These three books present an interesting glimpse of Middle-earth from a perspective not often delved into. Beyond the forests of the Elves and the Shire of the Hobbits, the wilds of Middle-earth are open and trackless, full of ancient and forgotten danger. I think my reassessment of these books is among the more radical of those I've made as I've done these Middle-earth roleplaying blogs. I didn't think much of them for the longest time, but looking at them in the context of what I've read and commented on up to this point, they really seem to have more substance and interest than I ever gave them credit for.

Once and future kings: Rangers of the North - The Kingdom of Arthedain

 

Even as a kid reading The Lord of the Rings, it struck me as a bad idea for the Rangers to protect the Hobbits so closely that the Hobbits, in large part, ended up as a backwards, naive bunch who took their freedom and safety for granted. I'm sure that's what Tolkien was getting at. But it still bugged me.

The Shire itself is a bucolic place. Quiet, sedate, civilized...seems pretty boring. Nice place to live, but you wouldn't want to visit there. Well, maybe you would, if you were a weary traveler and wanted a good place to eat and sleep, or go antiquing. You wouldn't vacation there if you were looking for something exotic and adventurous.

So it's not too surprising that Iron Crown Enterprises didn't create a Middle-earth Roleplaying sourcebook for the Shire until late. Before then, the Shire appeared in passing in a few supplements, often just a recognizable spot on one of the maps. This book, Rangers of the North: The Kingdom of Arthedain, was the closest thing to a true MERP sourcebook for the Shire until the publication of, naturally enough, The Shire in 1995. I don't have that book. Never even saw it. By that late in MERP's run, fewer and fewer of the books for it showed up in any book or game stores I frequented. Finding a copy now would involve luck and a good bit of money, judging by the hundreds of dollars I've seen it go for online.

Rangers of the North: The Kingdom of Arthedain details the entire region in which the Shire exists, and lays out the history of the area, focusing mainly on the origins of Arthedain. Arthedain was a kingdom that was once part of Arnor, the great northern kingdom of the Dunedain, who are Aragorn's people. Arnor was the counterpart and sister-kingdom of Gondor. Unlike Gondor, which remained relatively intact throughout its history, Arnor eventually broke up into three kingdoms: Arthedain, Cardolan, and Rhudaur. The latter two kingdoms eventually fell to the influence of Sauron - Rhudaur comes under the sway of the Witch-king and eventually is taken by his forces, while Cardolan survives for centuries until overrun by Angmar, the Witch-king's realm. Arthedain remains a bulwark, opposing Angmar for centuries more on its own, but even it, too, succumbs a thousand years before the time of The Hobbit. The survivors of Arthedain are few, and those not killed or who don't move elsewhere, including the royal line, scatter into the wild. There they live, becoming the Rangers, until Aragorn manages to claim the kingship of Gondor and resurrects Arnor, reclaiming the two kingdoms.

I assume these are, left to right, an Arnorien warrior, an Arthedain knight, and a Ranger.

While Arthedain stood, it granted land to the Hobbits, who had migrated West as the forces of the Shadow became more and more common. That land was what became the Shire. After Arthedain fell, the Shire was the last densely-populated, civilized area left in what was once Arthedain, so it makes sense that the Rangers felt obligated to protect it.

Now, I told you all that to illustrate just how much history, culture, and territory this book covers. As with Rohan, the area changed hands many times between mortal hands, unlike Elven realms like Lorien, Rivendell, or the Elven Kingdom of Mirkwood. This book is 56 pages long, and includes the usual flora/fauna/weather overviews and charts of people, creatures, and plants the players in a game could encounter in the region, as well as the wearisome game infodump at the beginning, this time five pages worth. It's pretty densely-packed.

From the standpoint of a gamer, this book makes for a great "lost kingdom" sourcebook. In fact, several other MERP books complement it very nicely: Lost Realms of Cardolan is the neighboring region; Hillmen of the Trollshaws covers part of Rhudaur; Weathertop - the Tower of the Wind lies near the borders of all three of the erstwhile kingdoms of Arthedain, Cardolan, and Rhudaur; Rivendell is nestled just beyond what was once Rhudaur; Bree and the Barrow Downs borders the Shire; and Angmar is the northern realm of the Witch-king that directly caused the downfall of all the kingdoms.

I didn't like this book for a long, long time. Part of it is the art. Technically, it's not bad. It just isn't very dynamic, in my opinion, and also seems to miss the point of the book. Besides the maps - which are almost completely outstanding - and a few spot illustrations that are there for the sake of breaking up the layout, there are a half dozen or so actual illustrations showing characters and situations in the region. The main problem I have with them is that none of them show characters or places that are familiar. No Hobbits, wizards, or Rangers that I can readily point to and say "oh, that must be so-and-so." There are no exciting scenes from Middle-earth history, which is really odd, and almost seems like they went out of their way to avoid illustrating any of the numerous historical events that occurred in Arthedain. Heck, why not a picture of Marcho and Blanco, the Hobbits who founded the Shire, actually founding the Shire? Or pictures of Rangers roaming the wilds, protecting what remnants of fallen Arthedain still stand? Or a picture from the enormous battle involving Elves, Men, and the forces of Angmar that overran Arthedain? Instead, the images we get include a picture of Northmen paddling a canoe, a static shot of two Arctic-dwelling folk called Lossoth, and a picture of what I assume is the seer Malbeth being tempted by what he might see in a palantir. I still dislike the art. The cover is the closest thing to being a dynamic picture, and even it doesn't really capture the setting - why is a Dwarf there, when an Elf or a Hobbit would have better represented the population of the area? Like I said, there is talent in evidence here, but the art order must have been off-course.

The maps, though, are pretty nice.

Annuminas, the long-ruined capitol of the nearly-forgotten Kingdom of Arnor.

Fornost Erain, capital of Arthedain, long-ruined also, such that the Hobbits call it Deadman's Dike.

A portion of Arthedain; the northern part of the Shire and Bree can be seen along the bottom.

 Another reason I disliked the book is that I really wanted a sourcebook of the region as I knew it from the main narrative of The Lord of the Rings. This objection has faded over the years. Now, I enjoy it for how much context it gives. As with other sourcebooks for MERP, I think it would work really well as a lost kingdom for another setting by simply renaming everything. Or not. Maybe use it as an "alternate universe" Middle-earth. It would also be a good source for a Fourth Age setting, when Aragorn, now called king Elessar, is rebuilding both Gondor and Arnor. There's a lot of possibility in this book, especially as much of it was never directly shown by Tolkien.

A lot of these books have caused me to enter a kind of reverie as I've paged through them. This one has, also, but it doesn't evoke as much nostalgia as some. This one evokes thoughts of the future. The place is full of potential, rooted in deep history. As I sit and think, my thoughts turn towards my own life. And why not? This sourcebook draws on a great work of literature, and all great literature causes us to reflect upon our own existence. We search for the meaning within it by relating it to our own experiences, or explore how we might react in the place of the characters. Reading the timelines and history of the Rangers, I'm struck by how powerful a will Aragorn must have had. Patiently wandering the wild, no real hope of ever achieving his destiny, yet still he strove onward, never wavering from his goal. I wonder how I would face the kinds of obstacles he faced. It's interesting to recall that Aragorn never judged others harshly, and understood everyone had their own limits; witness his flexibility in sending to take the island of Cair Andros those whose courage failed them in the march to Mordor. Rather than force them beyond their limits, he found a goal within their limits. It is up to the individual to know their limits, and decide just where those limits of hope and courage and love are.

Weathertop, the Tower of the Wind - a review of a sourcebook for Weathertop as it was, and as it may be again

Weathertop is an iconic location in Middle-earth. In The Lord of the Rings movies, it is a ruin; in the book, it is barely even that, little more than a ring of broken stone overgrown with grass. In this product, it is shown at its height as an important fortress and observation post for the northern Dunedain kingdom of Arnor, and later Arthedain. It became a bone of contention among the three kingdoms that resulted from the fragmentation of Arnor, as the fortress was located where the borders of Arthedain, Cardolan, and Rhudaur met.

Map of Middle-earth showing the fractured northern kingdom of Arnor.

Amon Sul was home to one of the palantir, or seeing-stones, until the evil kingdom of Angmar destroyed the fortress. The palantir was saved, though later lost, but the tower remained broken for nearly a millennium and a half. It would be rebuilt in the early Fourth Age by King Elessar, formerly known as Aragorn, as he reestablished the northern kingdom of Arnor.

A closer look at the cover image.

Weathertop or Amon Sul, the Tower of the Wind, is the subject of another in the "Fortresses of Middle-earth" series produced for the Middle-earth Roleplaying game. This is more of a site than an adventure. That is, there is no overarching plot. The tower and attendant structures are detailed and populated, and some notes are given for how it might be used.

The fortress at different stages of its history.

There was something both grand mysterious about Amon Sul, or Weathertop as it was mostly known in latter days. Even bereft of its tower and fortress, it was a defensible place, with a breathtaking view of the surrounding lands. It was a natural place to get the lay of the land and look for danger to avoid, but it also drew the attention of those who would do harm. Gandalf fought the Ringwraiths here, who later returned to attack Aragorn and the Hobbits. You'd think Gandalf and Aragorn both would have seen that coming. Still, it must have been hard to resist the thought of getting such a good look at their surroundings. Plus, the history of the place must have an allure, especially for Aragorn, who was heir to the kingdom to which Weathertop once belonged.

It must have been a splendid place in its heyday, and this book tends to reinforce that idea. The cover is a complete extrapolation, but an attractive one. In some ways, this book's version of Amon Sul seems more humble than I imagined it would be. It's a fine place as presented, but given the impressive fortresses of Isengard and Minas Tirith, one would think Weathertop, home to a palantir and one of the most important strongholds in the region, would have been more imposing. Regardless, the Weathertop we have here is arresting.

As presented, the tower would require that the game be played either long before the time of the book and movies, or a bit after. However, there is nothing to prevent this fortress being renamed and placed elsewhere as an example of Gondorian martial construction. It would also work really well in a game set during the early Fourth Age, a base for adventurers to foray out to help tame the wilderness that will become part of the Reunited Kingdom. Weathertop and Calenhad, another in the "Fortresses of Middle-earth" series, are similar in all these regards. It (and Calenhad) could also be used in an entirely different setting, unrelated to Middle-earth. It could fit well in any setting with a high fantasy/vaguely medieval feel, and the game statistics can be used as a guideline for adapting the fortress to other games.

Especially one that features knightly characters.

This is a remarkably useful product that with a little thought can be used for a wide variety of games and settings. Need a strong tower or lookout point somewhere in your game world? This may well fit that need.