In the Hobbit it mentions that since the 3 Trolls came down from the mountains they
( or at least one) had eaten one and half villages. ( worth of people?) Where did the victims come from? He mentions man-flesh. So, are they're villages near by? Or just travelers? If travelers who could they be?

HN

Hi hoplitenomad,

it might have been a lonely Dúnadan settlement, since the Angle is the most likely place for them to live in this area. It may be even only a great manor or small village with a few dozen inhabitants at most. That is also the interpretation I'm bringing forth in the population article in the upcoming Issue of 'Other Minds' (it'll probably be ready next week).

Cheers
Tolwen

"Village" could mean a very small settlement by modern standards. Two or three families, under a dozen people. Not all of whom even need to have been eaten.

The trolls or Bilbo may also have been talking up their accomplishments to sound more fearsome.

Thanks for the replies.

I was also thinking of the statement in the LOTR Sign of the Prancing Pony that aside from Breeland there were no settlements of men within 100 leagues of the Shire. I think the area around the Last Bridge is outside of this area so perhaps there could have been few villages scattered around the feet of the Misty Mountains.

hoplitenomad,

I cannot recall that line, but at face value I don't think it can be correct. 300 miles (1 league = 3 miles, approx) centered upon Hobbiton (which is approximately in the middle of the Shire - the 3 farthing stone), results in the following perimeter based on maps from the LOTR books:

Depending on whether a radius (green line) or a diameter (blue line) was being referenced. Which we really don't know.

Three possibilities present themselves, my guess is a bit of each:

• Qualifier: They probably meant there were no major settlements of Good Men.
• Hyperbole: Effectively they're bragging that the Bounders did such a good job at keeping the riff-raff out.
• Cartographic Error: Either the map is not to scale, or the scale changed at some point.

There are lots of potential issues. Where are the Rangers Headquartered? Where are the rest of the Dunadan people settled? Who is being served at the Forsaken Inn, located along the Eastway, since the Elves of Rivendell are probably not doing much commerce? What happened to the Gwartherim? Or their embittered off-shoot, the Dunlendings? Tharbad may no longer be a supported city, Plague and Flood took there toll, but no one said the place was absolutely abandoned.

It does completely ignore Rhuadarans, assuming any still exist as a separate entity from Angmar. But this comment also ignores the potential for Angmarim settlements. As neither would be categorized as Good Men, they probably were ignored. Depending on whether anyone is in command of things just yet in Angmar, eating Rhaudarans or Angmarim might be considered interfering with the war effort. So it is unlikely, but not impossible, that the trolls ate anyone of these cultures. Despite these cultures being the most likely food source available.

But who else is left?

That 300 mile radius make sit look like all of Eriador is an uninhibited wasteland. Yet we are told of both Dwarves and Elves passing through the Shire on business. There are roads prominently marked on the map. Roads disappear very quickly if they are not maintained and used.

No "settlements" raises the question of what is meant in this context by "settlement". Perhaps it means simply nothing as large and well structured as the Shire or Bree. In other words no walled towns, no well governed and regulated population centers, not literally no men of fixed residence.

Or perhaps Middle Earth really is almost totally empty of people. Except where it is convenient to have them for the plot. Certainly the lands south and east are capable of sending huge armies to Mordor. In Gondor thee are at least some people living outside Mina's Tirith, and not everyone in Rohan lives at the halls of the king.

I can accept a very low population density at the end of he Third Age, but still we are looking at what was once a huge kingdom and traces of settlement are everywhere. Where did all the people go?

I like to see some information presented in the Fellowship of the Rings (until they reach Rivendell) as facts the hobbits know, be it right or wrong. So in my interpretation the hobbits don't know of any settlements wihint he area - because the people there are living in closed communities, and they simply don't travel much. Hobbits know the rangers because sometimes they appear near the borders of the Shire, but that's it.

So for them, if there are no traders or travellers coming from the vicinity, then there are no settlements in that area. Leaves much breathing space for a creative GM :-)

This is the way I tend to view things as well. The Hobbit and LotR are subjective accounts. Most of what is in them comes from the direct experiences of the Hobbits. Some additional information comes from things the Hobbits were told by others or gleaned from readings in the archives of Gondor etc. Any of this material may contain errors, deliberate falsifications, misinterpretations, or simple gaps in knowledge.

Lots of creative breathing space indeed. Some things, like the fates of the Blue Wizards, even Tolkien didn't know for sure.

Horsa,
The 'uninhabited wasteland' was my point. It is completely unreasonable to imagine that all of the lands between the blue and green circles are completely devoid of sentient life. Or even that they're so sparsely populated as to be considered unsettled. Even just inside the blue circle is hard to imagine.

I could reasonably believe sparsely populated terrain when talking of all the hills (Weather, North Downs, Evendim), and points northeast heading toward Angmar. Who wants the Witch-king for a neighbor? But Mankind has a short memory and their are known instances where razed cities are re-populated very quickly - admittedly with prime s, resources, travel routes, etc. None of these areas qualifies though.

Personally I would probably handle these areas and most of the Wilds of Rhovanion as being the same. They're sparsely populated by a dozen cultures of Mankind but make no lasting impression of any kind (ie, never become economically significant, no large construction projects, no great literature, no impact on other cultures, etc). Many of these settlements are probably of mixed cultures (remnants of prior settlements surviving as best they can).

But a couple thousand villages of 10 - 80 people are scattered around. Probably three times as many lonely homesteads heading-off into the wilds. The vast majority of these homesteads and villages are simply orc-fodder, or the equivalent.

If there are settlements of Men in Eriador besides Bree, they strangely do not appear along the East Road.

Something else. The Forsaken Inn is mentioned as a days journey east of Bree.

HN

According to the map in the Hobbit the Edge of the Wild lies just slightly East of the green line between the Last Bridge and the Ford of Rivendell.

Roast Mutton tells us that at first they passed hrough Hobbit lands, wide, respectable country inhabited by decent folk, then they passed into lands where people spoke strangely and sang songs Bilbo had never heard. After this they passed into the Lone-lands where there were no people left and no inns, and the roads grew steadily worse. It was in the Lone-lands that they spotted the abandoned castles with an evil look to them on hilltops and also met the Trolls. LotR adds little to this, largely because Strider and the Hobbits are trying to stay hidden and off the established paths.

So we are left with the area between the blue line and the green as being plausibly very sparsely populated if not completely barren.

I would venture a guess that the farther North within this area the fewer inhabitants, especially in the "Lost Realm" of Arnor.

Stormcrow,
As to settlements along the Eastway... If I remember correctly the road is an original construction by/for the Elves / Dwarves (later on it might have been maintained by Arnor, but in it's initial construction was not for them). Actually quite a few of the roads located in the middle of nowhere are Dwarven roads built for themselves or at the request of the Elves. I think the Forest Road in Mirkwood is one of these as well.


Horsa,
Yes, the Last Bridge on the Eastway effectively marked the end of 'civilization' from the perspective of Hobbits and Men living in the Shire / Bree. Cannot place a quote on it though.

North is problematic. First there is the rest of the North Farthing up that way including Oatbarton and a couple other towns. Not sure of the northern border to this part of the Shire though.

Then you have Arnor, the homeland of the Dunadan. Tolkien's meta-theme of Inheritance would imply that the Rangers probably maintain some presence in the area. At least in a preventive, oversight position, to make sure the ruins are not further defaced, plundered or disturbed. I cannot recall whether Annuminas is occupied after the Dunadan abandon the city to the Witch-king's forces.

Despite the above, the Rangers may very well have a headquarters located somewhere other than near their precious historical ruins. Possibly even a Ranger-only settlement and training ground. (I would imagine, given the nature of the Ranger's subtle resistance and protection in the area, that steps were taken to segregate Rangers from Ranger Trainees, as well as Rangers from Dunadan to limit the effectiveness of pogrom attempts.)

Farther north, along the shores of the Ice Bay of Forochel there are supposed to be a unique culture of Gray Men (well, they're not Evil but I don't think they fought Morgoth thus my naming them Grays) who are a snow & icy terrain competent culture. They're involved with King Arvedui, but thereafter I cannot be sure of the canonicity as I am not sure how much is from Tolkien and how much is MERP / LotRO.

Assuming my earlier post elsewhere, about 'not everything was wholly good or wholly evil' is relevant, this would mean that their would have to be some Rhaudaran people who are not aligned with Angmar scattered about. Probably the same with Angmarim. Or rather, there undoubtedly were some of both cultures long ago. There might be some odd remnant of the original cultures unsullied by Evil. But these are more likely to be some of those 'villages of a dozen cultures scattered through the area' I mentioned in my previous post.

The remnants of the Dunadan, are I think, supposed to be settled in The Angle (land between two rivers, I think SW of where the word "Rhudaur" is located on the posted map). Unless the Witch-king left forces in Annuminas or the Blue Mountains are seriously infested, I cannot remotely understand the idea of moving to this . You've got the orcs and such in the Misty Mountains, a Balrog in Moria (which is 100-ish miles away; and yes it's presence would be a historical known fact to the Dunadan). The only thing I do recall about The Angle is the Hobbits settled there of old for a time, so it is likely to be relatively without dangerous creatures and has good soil. I would still hazard that between Shire/Evendim and the Blue Mountain might be better. It leaves only Lindon and the Gray Havens as a means of escape though.


PS: All of the above was being worked on - until the hard drive crashed. So my Dunadan/Rivendell efforts, Necromancer and Song of the Ainur are all gone too. They were mostly scattered thoughts, supposition and theories, but its still annoying.

I think we have to remember Tolkien's intended audience for The Hobbit. Things like "ate 1 1/2 villages" are not meant to be numerically precise, but rather meant to amuse (and terrify?) children. Slipping "in-world," I like to imagine that Bilbo found that only the very young believed his tales, and so over the years that he told and re-told the story before he wrote it down, he tailored it to a young audience, sort of like we see him doing at the start of the Fellowship of the Ring movie. I like to think that certain details, such as the trolls' name, were Bilbo's creations, to better amuse the children, whilst other details, such as the Elvenking's name, came to be omitted as he discovered what, exactly, the children enjoyed the most in his tellings of the stories. Frodo, on the other hand, was much more concerned to write down as accurately and completely as possible the events of the War of the Ring, so that future generations could know what happened. Thus I imagine that he asked his companions to describe what they did, and strove to get their experiences right. That's why he spends so much time on the sort of details that Bilbo simply choose to omit. I imagine, also, that Bilbo was much more interested in being the hero of his story than was Frodo, and so Bilbo plays down his companions' abilities, making the dwarves look like bumbling fools, whereas Frodo, if anything, magnifies his companions.

Sorry, rambling, but the point is, I think it well and good to consider Bilbo an untrustworthy narrator.

I tend to take the statement in FotR at it's face value and that, other than Breeland, there are no permanent settlements of men within 100 leagues of the Shire. That does not preclude Ranger and/or bandit camps. Nor does it interfere with the of Dwarfs and Elves in the Blue Mountains and Lindon as the line is specific to men IIRC.

I would think that, as well as Dunadan in the angle, there might very well be remnants of the indigenous, rural, Rhudaurian folk in the valleys of the the Hoarwell and the Loudwater. These areas too would appear to be on the periphery of the 100 leagues. As would the Ice Bay of Forochel and the (probably) nomadic Lossoth.

Perhaps there might even be a few folk of Northman descent among the Rhudaurians as well.

I think that one can over analyse statements such as this, which may have been intended only as a throw away remark.

Moreover, part of the wonder, to me at least, about Middle-Earth is that so much is unknown. Certainly hints may be dropped or allusions made during the course of the text, but this stops far short of a detailed socio-political treatise on, for example, population distribution.

Rightly so - this is a story after all, not a simulation. The detail created by Tolkien was there to enrich the story and not, I think, the other way around.

Human beings are naturally curious and do not like uncertainty. It is inevitable that we will try to fill in Tolkien's blanks. But I would sound a word of caution - in doing so for its own sake are we not defeating the very wonder that Tolkien created? That uncertainty of what is around the next corner or what is located in an unexplored area of his map.

Putting this into a real world context I should point out that I am a Welshmen and therefore born of God's Own Country . But in the Middle-Ages this was a wild, relatively unexplored realm, at least from the perspective of the Norman/English cartographers living on the other side of the border.

They couldn't just leave Wales off the maps, as its existence was obviously well known. But how could they show it when so little was known about its geography, population or major settlements?

Their solution was simple - they simply wrote "Here be dragons".

Of course there were no such beasts but anyone reading the map wouldn't have known that, unless they had actually journeyed there. For most simple folk it would have just been assumed that dragons stalked the green fields of Wales.

And it can be no coincidence that the red dragon ("Y Ddraig Goch"") is now our national symbol.

I think the point I'm trying to make is that some mystery is essential to maintaining Tolkien's sense of wonder and the feeling that there is a wider world, beyond the areas traversed by Bilbo and the Dwarves or The Fellowship of the Ring.

Maybe the suggestion that there were no great settlements for many miles around Bree is no more than the speaker showing their ignorance of an area they have not explored (much like the cartographers writing "Here be dragons").

Maybe they are right and there are no major settlements. Either way I think it should be for every individual Loremaster/Player Group to decide this.

These areas of my Middle Earth may be quite different to yours... and that is no bad thing.

Well put.

I recently became fascinated with the Easterlings. We know so little about them. Speaking from an in-world perspective, what we get in the Red Book is obviously a mixture of limited knowledge and good old-fashioned cultural chauvinism, not to mention a touch of racism.

The peoples of the West knew little about the East, and what little they did know they did found repulsive, not necessarily because it was evil or wrong, but simply because it was different. Of course, the Easterlings did follow Sauron, large part, one imagines, due to the machinations of the Nazgûl Khamûl, who was once an Easterling prince. One also imagines that they worshiped Melkor. So, begs to reason that they were touched by shadow more than were the people of the West.

Myself, I tend to think of the Easterlings as roughly analogous to the Persian Empire. It was a motley collection of different cultures ostensibly united under the rule of a single emperor, namely Khamûl. That was the bargain he struck with Sauron when he took up the ring in the Second Age: make me lord of the East, and I will do your bidding forever. Yet, since the land was so vast, and since Khamûl was often off doing Sauron's bidding, "stewards" (or, what the Persians called "satraps") ruled in the various land, in Khamûl's name. As long as the people stay loyal to Khamûl and his Master, and maintained the cult of Melkor, the Black Prince was happy.

Among these cultures were the Wainriders and the Balchoth, and perhaps the Variags. I also like to think that there was a population of Dwarves in the Red Mountains, far to the East. After all, four out of seven of the Fathers of the Dwarves woke up in that mountain range. Of course, they were not Durin's Folk. My own pet theory is that they were the Easterlings with axes which appear in LoTR. I like the idea of "dark" Dwarves, because Tolkien originally conceived of the Dwarves as an evil, fallen, race. The Dwarves' natural love of shiny things had turned into unfettered avarice and greed, and thus they willingly followed Khamûl and his Master, for they promised riches beyond measure.

Now, these thoughts about the East are my own. Do they reflect what anyone else might think? I don't know, and frankly don't care. I've enjoyed thinking about these matters, as well as scrounging through the various writings to see what Tolkien did say about the East. It's been fun. And that, I say, is the point of Middle-earth.

Any of the speculative posts I write, like the ones up-thread with regards to who might be living within Eriador, is meant to let anyone reading make a more informed choice.

Not every player has the opportunity to spend time investigating details about Middle-earth. So they may not be aware of some of these potential issues - real (per Tolkien) or imagined (by me). I would rather post speculation to make a player think, and re-think, what they want in their campaign before accidentally committing to something they later regret.

It is much easier to account for something during the design phase. Once it becomes a part of the campaign's history, something that character's have already experienced, it is much harder to take it back or change it.

Sure, but it is a lively sense of wonder that attracts us to Tolkien's world in the first place. It's a place where we can let that wonder take flight, in a way which work-a-day life resists, and if I investigate the world, it is because my wonder compels me to.

Now, TOR is great precisely because it gives wonder another, quite enjoyable, way to investigate Tolkien's world. But it's just part of that investigation. And, frankly, if cut off from other sorts of investigation, for me TOR would become quite uninteresting, no matter how great a game Cubicle 7 has produced. Or, more to the point, Cubicle 7 has made a great game precisely because it allows me to investigate Tolkien's world in a fresh and enjoyable way.

Put otherwise, even if not a single Easterling shows up in any TOR product or any game session which I play, I would still enjoy thinking about TOR alongside Easterlings because both have to do with something about which I enjoy to think, namely Tolkien's world.

I for one hope that TOR never fills in all the blank spaces on the map.

Some published game worlds have felt overly restrictive to me simply because so much was filled in, carved in stone, and detailed that I felt I had no room to add my own inventions.

The Southrons and the Easterlings are a great case in point. The more they are left "unofficially" defined, the more they train their sense of wonder and give a place for us to play.

I can definitively sympathize with that. No doubt, the quickest way to destroy any sense of wonder is to answer all the mystery.

Complete speculation on my part, but I think since ICE lost the license to ME, there has been a more rigid interpretation of the standards by which MEE/SZC judges what is permissible within their copyright, and what exceeds that copyright, and ventures into the domain of the Tolkien Estate.

While I cannot speak with certainty, it seems likely to me that anything beyond the maps included in The Hobbit and LotR is outside of the MEE/SZC license agreement. Ah, correction, anything outside of the maps and the text included in the books.

So the Easterlings and Southrons might be safe beyond fairly broad details. Or the culture could get some work but the land might be obscured as being too far away.

For publishing purposes, sure, companies must stick to the terms of their licenses. Goes without saying. But, it turns out, copyright laws cannot censor my imagination, and, after all, imagination is what role-playing is (or, at least, should be) all about.

Reminds me of a joke about Smaug.
Thorin: Already he's eaten five peasants, three horses, and my mother-in-law.

Dain: Yuck! He's got no taste at all.

LOL!

Hi Brooke,

The Easterlings as Achaemenid Persian is something which has been touched on before by myself and Tolwen. Tolwen reckoned that Merp had gotten too hung up on presenting them as pseudo Huns or Mongols when what evidence there is, seems to suggest that they were mainly foot soldiers.

I would say that there is definitely room for a culture of mounted horse archers among the Easterlimgs but would be inclined to making them less prevalent.

Loving the notion of Khamul as a Sauronic Xerxes BTW.

I am currently thinking about ideas for how chariots might work in TOR. Do you have any ideas about whether Heroic Combat should play a large part in the psyche of these people's?
I am trying to establish whether the chariot as an arrow platform, a line breaker or as a Heroic Taxicab fits the bill best or whether a little of all three is needed.

Tolwen, I'm sure that you are around here somewhere. Your opinions would be greatly appreciated also.

Don't get me started on chariot warfare. I am convinced that most Wargames rules get it completely wrong.

Scythe chariots worked only the first couple of times, then people learned how easy it is to simply get out of the way.

For an effective weapon fast, light, extremely mobile missile platforms seem to have been best. At least until the development of. The long sword and anti-chariot infantry tactics by the Sea People's put paid to them.

Battle taxis, modeled more on Iliad than Ireland are the way I would go. Heavily armed and armored heroes carried. To the fighting line by chariot, dismounting to fight other heroes and then remounting to withdraw, rest and rearm.

I definitely like the notion of the Easterlings as Persians.

Now what of the Southrons?

These are really interesting ideas, across the board, re: Easterlings and chariots. I am ambivalent about chariots during the time of the War of the Ring. The references to Easterlings in chariots seems to refer primarily to events of a millennium before the War. Were the Easterlings still focused on chariot warfare by the time of Frodo et. al.? I'm not sure. I prefer to think of them as more focused upon mounted infantry at that time, but I can't back that up from Tolkien. It's just how I like to imagine things.

Re: Southrons.

I tend to think of Harad as basically having two broad "culture areas." One I conceive along the lines of an ancient Nubia culture, with some Egyptian elements, and roughly coincides with "Near Harad," although I think the Near v. Far distinction reflects more the West's understanding of the South than how things really were on the ground. This first grouping of Haradrim lived in a series of city-states located along what I call "the Gulf of Harad," which branches into two rivers. Away from these rivers, one gets into the other culture area, which roughly coincides with "Far Harad." This I imagine as containing an assortment of primarily pastoralist groups roughly analogous to those that we find in Eastern Africa, especially Kenya and the Sudan. I don't think that they are quite as monstrous or fierce as described in the Red Book. After all, there is always a habit to over-emphasis what one considers one's opponents' less than admirable features.

I imagine Umbar as roughly analogous to Carthage: an outpost of the North located on the coast of the South. It has more in common culturally with Gondor than with the Haradrim, but obviously has been greatly influenced by the latter. I imagine in their early history they were like the Sea Peoples, but that is well behind them now. Now, although Umbar is a haven for corsairs, they are typically more interested in trade than pillage.

Again, though, this is largely speculative. It's just about the sort of images which my reading calls to mind.

That was an interesting thread topic shift.

I believe that someone may have mentioned the hillmen Rhudaur. Also 1 1/2 villages could also just be a number that was thrown out there. Meaning that it was just a number of people eaten since their descent from the mountains vs attacking villages per se. As I prefer the latter, since a like a more populated Eriador I will lean in that direction.

HN

Hoplite, have you had a look at Other Minds? The population of Eriador article is excellent.

Brooke, when Frodo slips on the ring at Amon Hen he sees the Easterling Horde. It includes Chiefains riding in chariots.

Carthage as Umbar? Nice.....

On the subject of the casual racism of the westerners. There are a group of warriors at Pelennnor Fields referred to as Troll men (and Half trolls) because of their black skin(IIRC). Were they actually half trolls or had the defenders of Minas Tirith simply not encountered back skinned people before?

For Southrons, I must admit that I always go hook, line and sinker for the cliche. If you have ever watched the old Hollywod epic, 'El Cid' , then you will know what I mean. Ben Yusefs army 'are' the Haradrim to me.

Hoplite, I think that you my be right about the quote about one and a half villages. I can't imagine for a minute that the inhabitants of the villages would have stayed around long enough for an entire one to be de-populated by hungry Trolls

That suggests to me that there may be a sizeable indigenous Rhudaurian population in the shadow of the mountains. Evil Hillmen? Perhaps, but unlikely given the proximity to Rivendell and the Dunadan. Maybe a trace of Northman blood in there too? Hmmm...

Crap. You're right. I forgot all about that passage.

Truth is, I vacillate between 'El Cid' and the sort of Nubian/African cultures I described above. If you asked me tomorrow, I could just as easily said 'El Cid.'

For my part I have always pictured the Easterlings as Rus - Viking settlers in Eastern Europe.

Think big, burly men with flowing mustaches and plaited beards. Shaven heads with Turkish style topknots.

An uncouth bunch typically fighting on foot with axe, spear and shield.

The nobles (Druzhina) typically fought as armoured cavalry but that could just as well be substituted with wains or heavy chariots.

As for the Southrons I'll admit that Ben Yusef's Black Guard are a tempting analogy.

But they are just a little too Arabic in appearance for me.

I see the Southrons as more sophisticated than the Berbers. Perhaps more like the Moors of Al-Andalus or the Egyptian Mamluks? Think Turbaned helms and agile, armoured Cavalry fighting with lance and recurve bow.

Maybe something inspired by a variety of North African and Arabic peoples?

Halbarad was it the article entitled "Population and Urbanization in Eriador
by Thomas Morwinsky?"

HN

I have always read the "half troll" line as the sort of thing you see in classical literature, when they're trying to describe peoples very different from themselves, such as African pygmies or the like. I think they're Men, but of a sort very unfamiliar to the people of Minas Tirith.

As I said, I have always imagined Middle Earth more along classical than medieval lines, or even more along Near Eastern lines. I was blown away by how medieval Peter Jackson made the world. I have always imagined Numenor sort of like Phoenicia, Umbar as sort of like Carthage (which of course was a Phoenician colony), the Northern and Southern kingdoms of Arnor and Gondor as sort of like ancient Israel (which was likewise divided into Northern and Southern kingdoms, and which also had strong cultural ties to Phoenicia). So the Easterlings become sort of like Persia, which lies to the East in the Near East, and Harad sort of African and/or Arabic. So, analogies like Vikings, etc., don't quite appeal to me as strongly.

Still, I can totally see how one could read the books and think "Rus" for the Easterlings. That is really the beauty of Tolkien's world. I can think "Persia," you can think "Rus," and both enjoy the books equally