So I'm using bits and pieces of the Tales of the Wilderland book and am currently using The Crossings at Celduin adventure.

Does anyone have any ideas on the stats of the River Running? Average Width? Average Depth? How about a modern day analogue that I could base the adventure off of?

I would say about 60-70 feet wide at the point you mention and quite fast flowing.

Wow! 60 feet! That seems rather narrow for a river that's supposed to be like 600 miles long... I did some looking and there are few rivers in the US that are around 600 miles and most of the widths they list are 150 to a few miles, depending...

Just because a river is long does not necessarily mean it is wide. It depends on the sort of ground it is flowing through, and the part of the river you are looking at. The river Severn between England and Wales is wide enough that you can only see Wales on a very clear day at some points, but if you go further up river, it'll just be a babbling brook. Unfortunately, I don't own Tales of Wilderland, so I don't know the mission you're referring to, or much about Celduin. But it could easily be the width Halbarad suggested

Looking into the River Severn I see listings of it being about 35m wide at the least, which would be about 100 feet, so within range of my 120 ft quote earlier... and the River Severn is only about 200+ miles long. I know length doesn't necessarily matter, but longer rivers tend to have to be wider in order to carry enough water to their lengths. It's not 100%, but it's a good generalization.

True, they do tend to be wider, but that is usually over thousands of years, once meanders and such start to decrease a bit. Middle Earth is supposed to be our earth in the past, so the river may not be as wide in your campaing as it would be now. Then again, I don't think there is much information on it, so it could be 5 miles wide if you wanted

If the river is narrow, yet has a large amount of water flowing in to it, the channel could be deep and the river fast flowing. It would make for a treacherous hazard and make navigating the river difficult. With a wider channel, the river would be slower - the same volume of water passing through in the same time but over a larger area.

Sorry, but I misunderstood your question.

The 60-70 feet is the width at the Crossings of the Celduin based on my rough guesstimate of the scale on the map of the bridge and settlement.

The book mentions that the settlement lies near the Nether Marshes IIRC. That would suggest to me that it widens out quite a bit, a little further downstream. Probably becomes not quite so fast flowing but still a strong current.

I imagine that the confluence with the Redwater widens it further until it finally meanders into the Sea of Rhun.


For a historical reference point, I always maintain that either the Dneipr or the Volga are the best analogies.