Southeast and under: Erech and the Paths of the Dead

They are the shades of the restless dead forever waiting in the endless dark, the silent passages beneath mountains their prison until they uphold a pledge broken long ago. They are the ghostly memories of a cursed folk, fated to extinction by an act of betrayal. They are the Oathbreakers, the Dead Men of Dunharrow.

From Angmar, I'll now leap to the southeast, to Rohan again, and the mountains upon which the capital city of the Rohirrim, Edoras, is anchored. Under the mountains lie subterranean passages into Gondor itself: the Paths of the Dead. The Paths pass beneath the Ered Nimrais, the White Mountains, which lie between Rohan and Gondor, and contain the tombs and forgotten cities of a mountain folk culture that is, by the time of Aragorn's passage through the Paths, a distant memory. These folk haunt the region, giving it a foreboding air. It's an interesting, and spooky, realm, right in the heart of the lands of the Free People of Middle-earth.

More gorgeous maps by Peter Fenlon.

On the southern side of the White Mountains is the Hill of Erech.

A huge stone, called the Stone of Erech, or the Black Stone, taller than a Man, is set in place there. In this Middle-earth Roleplaying book, it's portrayed as something like a limited-power palantir, though there isn't anything from Tolkien that I recall reading to indicate this to be so. It's not a bad extrapolation, though, given that it's apparently spherical - or at least, that's how I always pictured it when reading The Lord of the Rings - and held in high esteem by the Dunedain, much as the palantiri were. After all, the Black Stone was hauled from Numenor when that land was destroyed, which had to be a tough undertaking, given the limited freight-hauling capacity I would assume the Faithful Dunedain had when they fled the sinking of that island. Whatever properties the Stone of Erech possessed, it was considered holy enough for powerful oaths to be sworn upon it, most importantly the Oath sworn by the King of the Mountain, swearing that the Men of the Mountains would aid Gondor at need. The Men of the Mountains broke that oath when called to help during the War of the Last Alliance. They were cursed even in death to wait until called again. It took over 3000 years for that call to come, when Aragorn came to claim his heritage in the South.

That's a lot of history for an area of Middle-earth that isn't focused on too much in The Lord of the Rings, and only rates treatment in a 40-page MERP book. Still, it's a pivotal place in the narrative, setting up Aragorn's deus ex machina later on. Plus, in terms of a roleplaying game, Erech and the Paths of the Dead is almost perfect for a game about adventurers looking for danger and treasure, because there is plenty of both to be had here, what with underground passages full of kingly tombs and long-abandoned cities running for miles under a mountain range.

This book gives an overview of the region, from the valley in the northern side of the White Mountains Rohan used as a refuge, where the Dark Door into the Paths of Dead let into the haunted underworld, to the Hill of Erech and its surroundings, including a town and fortress, and the Morthond River that leads into Gondor.

It's actually a really good roleplaying setting, with adventure sites readily accessible and just waiting to be delved into. I mean, it's a whole civilization of the dead, just sitting there, waiting for adventurers to blunder in and get themselves killed or scared half to death.

Evil folk skulking about and doing their evil thing.

Of course, as with most MERP books, Iron Crown Enterprises goes beyond the most obvious adventure site. It covers the mountains and valleys also, providing a rundown of fauna and flora, as well as intelligent races like Men and Elves, maybe a few Dwarves, as well as Trolls. It seems incredibly unlikely that Orcs would be in the area, given that this is smack-dab in the middle of a region long settled by Gondor, and later held by both it and Rohan. Still, it's possible, I suppose, especially after Saruman's fall to evil, that Orcs could be skulking around the area, though not in great numbers.

Orcs do show up on the inevitable Master Encounter chart, which also accompanies the equally inevitable slate of charts that are so much a part of MERP: Master Beast Chart, Master N(on)P(layer)C(haracter) Chart, and the Master Military Chart.

There is a town - there's always a town - called Sarn Erech, and a fortress called Morthondost, where the characters belonging to the players can rest up, get equipped, and engage in political intrigue, if so inclined. It's not likely that much swordplay will occur in any of these more settled places, but they are positioned so as to give a good jumping-off point for forays into and under the mountains. It's a good, solid base of operations and living area for player characters, though not terribly unique, as these things go. It's nicely integrated into the setting, though, and doesn't seem simply tacked on.

The real draw here are the Paths of the Dead themselves. As you might guess, they're teeming with undead, from ghouls (analogous to zombies in most other roleplaying games) to ghosts (the terrifying, though incorporeal, undead that seemed to make up the bulk of the Dead Tolkien wrote about). In addition, there are some nifty extrapolations of "Pukel-men," the stone-carved figures found in Rohan and other places lived in by Wood-woses and Dunlendings. Here, they are tomb and temple guardians, some more able than others to back up their foreboding appearances. There are also other stone carvings, which seem largely like near-to-abstract religious or cultural designs.

Some may just be symbolic decoration...

...or, perhaps, warning signs.

The Paths are fraught with dangers, and players may end up losing quite a few characters here. That seems fine to me.

Typical.

The only complication here is the nature of the Paths of the Dead, and how it relates to using the site in other time periods. Specifically, after Aragorn's passage and the final fulfilling of the Oath that the Dead broke so long ago, the implication is, obviously, that the Paths are finally left unhaunted in the Fourth Age. It makes for a nice narrative bow on the end of the tale of the Dead Men, but it leaves the place a bit empty for the purposes of adventurers. One could rationalize that some of the Dead remain, perhaps those who once again refused the fulfilling of their Oath - after all, when Aragorn arrives, Gondor teeters on the brink of annihilation. Even a ghost might quail at the thought of having crossed Sauron in his final victory. One could also suppose that some tattered remnant of the Dark Lord's forces fled into the Paths as a final refuge, somehow slipping in or fighting their way into the passages. It's unlikely, but possible.

This is another Middle-earth Roleplaying book that has benefited from the closer look I've given it due to this blog project. It had always seemed a bit bland to me, too similar to many other such game books, whether for something like Dungeons & Dragons or MERP itself. However, my closer look this time reveals a moodier, almost Gothic feel to the place, a haunted valley in the midst of civilization, an ancient curse that lingers dimly, waiting to be lifted. The climate described in the book seems appropriate - rainy and chilly, with storms wracking the mountains. If Hammer Films made a Middle-earth movie, this is where it would be set.

Vikings on a sea of grass: Riders of Rohan

     "'You cannot enter here,' said Gandalf, and the huge shadow halted. 'Go back to the abyss prepared for you! Go back! Fall into the nothingness that awaits you and your Master. Go!'

     The Black Rider flung back his hood, and behold! he had a kingly crown; and yet upon no head visible was it set. The red fires shone between it and the mantled shoulders vast and dark. From a mouth unseen there came a deadly laughter.

     'Old fool!' he said. 'Old fool! This is my hour. Do you not know Death when you see it? Die now and curse in vain!' And with that he lifted high his sword and flames ran down the blade.

     Gandalf did not move. And in that very moment, away behind in some courtyard of the City, a cock crowed. Shrill and clear he crowed, recking nothing of wizardry or war, welcoming only the morning that in the sky far above the shadows of death was coming with the dawn.

     And as if in answer there came from far away another note. Horns, horns, horns. In dark Mindolluin's sides they dimly echoed. Great horns of the North wildly blowing. Rohan had come at last."

- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King, Book Five, Chapter IV: The Siege of Gondor

"Rohan had come at last." Such a simple sentence. Yet in all the books I've read in my life, few sentences have touched me on such a deep level. No matter how many times I've read The Lord of the Rings, I still find my throat growing tight and a surge of hope welling up in my heart everytime I reach this passage. In a literal sense, the cavalry rode to the rescue in the nick of time, just as everything seemed lost.

That's why ICE's Riders of Rohan, another in their Middle-earth Roleplaying (MERP) line, fired my imagination more than most of these sourcebooks. The Riders of Rohan, or Rohirrim, are actually a fairly unique creation on the part of Tolkien: a Norse-like society centered on horses. It may not be Tekumel or Skyrealms of Jorune, but it is a bit off the beaten path for the fantasy genre, at least at the time the Lord of the Rings was published.

This book differs from the last few sourcebooks I've discussed in an important way - the inhabitants of Rohan are mortal, and their realm is relatively new. As with most of ICE's Middle-earth books, the default time setting is about 1400 years before the events of The Lord of the Rings. However, this presented a special problem for the authors of this book, because Rohan was not even in existence then, and wouldn't exist for close to a thousand years. The land which would become Rohan was still the northern part of Gondor.

However, the time period is a pivotal one in Middle-earth's history, as much of the continent has only recently been devastated by a plague that has weakened Gondor and depopulated much of Middle-earth. The ancestors of the future Riders of Rohan originated to the East, and migrated West, to just short of the eastern edge of the Misty Mountains. Centuries later they would migrate North, and even later they would move South where they would found Rohan and become the culture familiar to book readers and moviegoers.

By necessity, this sourcebook had to widen the usual scope of these books to accommodate the varied history of the Rohirrim. It's a bit of a shock for those used to sourcebooks for Elves and Ents to run across a culture more akin to something from our own history; consider how much any culture in the history of the real world has changed over the course of 1400 years. Consider also that this book traces the origins of the Rohirrim back 3000 years, and it's remarkable how coherent their culture remained. Even so, Tolkien's timelines suggest an interesting, ever-evolving culture that managed to retain its core essence - that of mounted warriors.

I'm once again impressed with how densely-packed with information the MERP staff made this book. They manage to cram in all of the information about the Rohirrim from Tolkien's timelines, as well as cultural overviews of the three main phases of their development as a culture: the Eothraim of their Eastern origins; the Eotheod of their emergence as a power in Eriador, the section of Middle-earth with which we're most familiar; and, finally, the Rohirrim. Not only that, but the MERP writers also included notes on the climate, flora, fauna, and weather of each region these peoples roamed. They even managed to crowbar in overviews of friendly and rival cultures of the Rohirrim, from Easterling horsemen and wagon-riders to Elves and Gondorians. And that's just the cultural and historical stuff.

Also included are a number of gaming ideas and aids. These include adventure ideas, with some tailored for each era. There are sources of possible conflict, events mentioned by Tolkien but never fully detailed, and sites where players can have their characters explore and interact with the setting. This includes a dragon's lair, which isn't a common thing in Middle-earth or in Middle-earth Roleplaying books. There is also a selection of biographies of people of note for each era, including the ones you expect: Theoden, Wormtongue, Eomer, and Eowyn.

Eomer and Eowyn...another instance of a picture that seems to show a slight pause in an argument.

Of course, if you've read any of my other posts about these books, you might have come to expect my mentioning the inclusion of charts and tables of military units, characters, and animals. Last but not nearly least, there are maps, from floorplans of buildings to city layouts to regional maps labeled with the locations of plants, animals, monsters, and people.

This book is 64 pages long. 64 pages. I haven't even mentioned the usual, tedious game infodump at the beginning of the book, or the numerous illustrations. It's amazing.

I've discussed how MERP books are jammed with info, but this particular book seems especially meaty. It details an entire culture over the course of 3000+ years. It can be used in its original setting, or plugged into another setting after the numbers are filed off (or not).

By the time this book appeared, ICE had hit its stride with the Middle-earth Roleplaying game line. There is little wasted space. It's meticulously put together, with an eye to accommodating both the Tolkien fans and gamers. The illustrations are well-done and relevant. For example, Liz Danforth does some yeoman's work in this book, with one of my favorite illustrations by her:

Pivotal kings from Rohirric history, illustration by Liz Danforth.

  

She manages to capture the "feel" of the setting right there. I particularly like how Theoden stands among his mighty ancestors, unclad for war as they are, looking drawn and slightly bedraggled, yet possessed of the same nobility. That picture alone would have made me a fan of Danforth's work; there are many others.

The late Angus McBride provides another MERP cover, this one especially dynamic. McBride also did work on sourcebooks of historical military units, primarily by Osprey Publishing, which are used by those who paint miniature figures for wargames, and other historical buffs. His attention to detail was second to none. I've mourned his passing more than once, and I'll do so again. He passed while still in the midst of producing fantastic artwork, still at the height of his powers. One of the obituaries I read noted that he had wished to do an illustrated edition of The Lord of the Rings, and boy, do I wish he'd had the chance to do it.

I've waxed nostalgic while discussing these Middle-earth Roleplaying books, inspired by the memories of times past that they trigger. In some sense books are especially good at casting one's mind back in time, as the reading of a book involves a melding of one's own experiences at the time of reading, as well as a certain kind of objective reality as the book itself, both the writing and the physical presence of it, don't change. Perhaps that's why I re-read certain books from time to time, to either transport myself back, or to somehow change an associated memory, ameliorate it if it was unpleasant. Perhaps...