The REST of Middle Earth

The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings (and even The Silmarillion) concern events in the Northwest of Middle Earth. Tolkien never did more for the rest of his world than sketch the outlines for a few maps, which are found amid the ephemera in The History of Middle Earth. The good professor didn't identify countries or name the peoples to the east and south of the maps in LoTR, other than to mention that the Elves and men awoke in the east, and that two of the Istari disappeared there.

From 1982 till 1997, Iron Crown Enterprises (ICE) held the license to produce board and roleplaying gaming materials set in Middle Earth (the latter known as MERP). They released dozens of adventures and sourcebooks, most of which dealt with the regions of the Northwest that were familiar to readers of The Hobbit and LoTR. These were carefully though out, in most cases, so that they expanded upon Tolkien's own creativity and gave the user a fuller understanding of their topic.

One of ICE's first products was a map of all of Middle Earth. This was an original creation, unrelated to Tolkien's sketches. The topography was based on rational principles of weather and geography to extrapolate the lands of the south and east. Names were made up and placed throughout all of this new territory, including the mysterious use of "Mur Fostisyr" off the coast of the central arctic. (The Mur Fostisyr was a group of islands in the far north of ICE's own gaming world, featured in their product The Iron Wind. Was there meant to be a connection?)

ICE decided to create adventures and sourcebooks for southern Middle Earth, but to leave the lands east of Rhun and Harad unchronicled. This way, gamers could make up their own ideas of what life was like in these areas. The exception to this was that ICE did create a background for each of the Nazgul (Ringwraiths), with several hailing from Eastern Middle Earth. These backgrounds contained small details on conditions in the relevant realms. Gamers have used the map and these hints as a starting point to create "fan modules" that can be found online with a bit of searching, for those who want to read an interpretation of Chey Sart or Urd.

The officially released ICE MERP sourcebooks on Southern Middle Earth included two about Harad, Far Harad (the area south of Umbar) and Greater Harad (due east of Far Harad, and far southeast of Umbar and Mordor). The ICE map projected that Harad ended in the south at the Yellow Mountains. South of these were jungle lands, with The Shadow in the South covering the extreme Southwest of Middle Earth, and The Court of Ardor dealing with lands across a large bay to the east.

The area around Ardor was controlled by fallen High Elves, who had become servants of Morgoth in the First Age. The other lands in these products still felt the effects of scarring during the Second Age. ICE went to great lengths in these, and some related supplements, to discuss how Numenoreans conquered kingdoms and holdings on the west coasts of Middle Earth, something that Tolkien mentioned in only slight detail in the appendices to LoTR and in Unfinished Tales. Even before the fall of Numenor, most of these colonies became "Black Numenorean" as the settlers abandoned Elvish ways and became tyrants. Umbar was the best known of these holdings, but there were many others. The tension built into these lands was for characters to seek adventure while battling the Nazgul and other minions of Sauron in the Third Age.

All of ICE's MERP products are long out of print. They can only be had as very expensive hardcopies, or as illegal downloads. I was fortunate to purchase many of them new at the time of release, and I have no intention of selling them now. They make fascinating reading, even if they are never used for actual gaming. It is a situation similar to that of the Mystara products I discussed a few weeks ago. And as with those, as I mentioned above, there's also fan produced material for gaming in Middle Earth (or reading about gaming ;-)). It is well worth the effort to seek this MERP material out, if it sounds at all of interest. It's almost like a score for the Middle Earth junkie!