hello everybody,

i thought that it would be nice and useful (to me at least) to have a thread devoted to the places in mirkwood. these places could be canonical, from earlier RPG sources (like MERP or decipher's game), from fanzines (other hands, other minds, halls of fire...) or simply from your fertile imagination.

the idea is to create a database that could help loremasters.

for example on page 23 of issue number 6 of other minds magazine there is an essay concerning dark elf eol and his people. it was written by certain mister de la rosa and among other things he claims following:


They (eol's people) crossed the Misty Mountains, as far as possible from lands ruled by the Noldor, and they went to Greenwood the Great, where their cousins lived amongst the Sindar. They found tall trees which shielded them from the sun and the forest was to their liking, so they settled there, accepting Oropher as king. Here they were granted a place in the deepest part of the forest where they founded the small settlement of Baer Haeron in exchange for a mighty sword for Oropher, forged of morglân.

and more:

After many long years, when the Necromancer founded his realm of unseen fear and
horror in Greenwood in the Third Age, king Thranduil’s Elves lost contact with the
Eöldrim of Baer Haeron, and they held them to have escaped or died under the growing evil shadow in the forest. Some even said a dragon had settled there, sleeping on the treasures of the last Gwaith-i-fuin (brotherhood of eöldrim smiths). However, after the withdrawal of the Necromancer, it was discovered this last rumor had been spread by his agents among the superstitious Northmen since he wanted to prevent prying eyes in the surroundings of Dol Guldur. Most of the Eöldrim of Baer Haeron were killed by Sauron’s minions, and a few survivors were enslaved. When Dol Guldur was stormed by the White Council in T.A. 2941, these prisoners were freed.

so here it is. we have unusual ruined elven settlement potentially full of enemies and even some nifty magical stuff made possibly by guy that has made the most infamous sword in the middle earth thanks to other minds. i know i'll be using it in my campaign

edit: topic title should have been mirkwood places but something happened. ah, first post. hopefully i'll get a hang of it.

Thanks for posting this.

I've always enjoyed this passage in The Silmarillion, Of Maeglin:

There were his [Eöl's] smithy, and his dim halls, and such servants as he had, silent and secret as their master.

This often inspired me to incorporate his servants into an adventure during the latter period, but I struggled because I didn't want them to sound like Drow spin-offs. This article works nicely.