The geography of Middle Earth

[Gorbulas]

This all depends on what diameter you use for Arda, as besides local topography and obscuration by clouds, the curvature of the planetary surface is the main limitation on visibility. I suppose people are assuming the same diameter as Earth today?

I remember reading somewhere that Arda's diameter could once have been around 10.000 km/ a little bit smaller than Earth (12.757 km). Sorry but forgot my source. You defenitely make a good point: one has to take into account local topography and weather conditions. Vegetation cover would of course also be relevant (traveling through open plains or dense woods).

[Gorbulas]

compute how high the Misty Mountains and/or Lonely Mountain must be for one to be visible from the other. Surprising answer.

I think it is at a distance of "Roll a Search test with a TN18. At least one Tengwar is required".

Or you need to have a Wondrous Artefact and spend a point of Hope for a magical result.

Ha! I read you guys. Some of the pun is lost on me but I do read you
Of course you guys make a valid point: at what point does my silly excercise become idiotic and cumbersome to the game experience -a fine border of which I am aware but do find worthwhile to look for. Landscapes and vistas are main ingredients in Tolkien's books afterall? And I am looking for all methods to bring the land and topograpy alive around my gaming table and am foremost wondering if it would make sense and enrich the game if I would let players make Travel, Lore or Song rolls in order to ID mayor land features. Would it work? Could I let Dol Guldur really dominate my players toughts and fear? It could be a efficient forshadowing medium?

[Glorelendil]

Ha! I read you guys. Some of the pun is lost on me but I do read you
Of course you guys make a valid point: at what point does my silly excercise become idiotic and cumbersome to the game experience -a fine border of which I am aware but do find worthwhile to look for. Landscapes and vistas are main ingredients in Tolkien's books afterall? And I am looking for all methods to bring the land and topograpy alive around my gaming table and am foremost wondering if it would make sense and enrich the game if I would let players make Travel, Lore or Song rolls in order to ID mayor land features. Would it work? Could I let Dol Guldur really dominate my players toughts and fear? It could be a efficient forshadowing medium?

Apologies if I came across as denigrating your efforts! On the contrary I think it's interesting and can help bring Middle-earth to life.

I just think the bit in the text about Bilbo seeing the top of Erebor from the Misty Mountains is kind of funny.

[Gorbulas]

Ha! I read you guys. Some of the pun is lost on me but I do read you
Of course you guys make a valid point: at what point does my silly excercise become idiotic and cumbersome to the game experience -a fine border of which I am aware but do find worthwhile to look for. Landscapes and vistas are main ingredients in Tolkien's books afterall? And I am looking for all methods to bring the land and topograpy alive around my gaming table and am foremost wondering if it would make sense and enrich the game if I would let players make Travel, Lore or Song rolls in order to ID mayor land features. Would it work? Could I let Dol Guldur really dominate my players toughts and fear? It could be a efficient forshadowing medium?

Apologies if I came across as denigrating your efforts! On the contrary I think it's interesting and can help bring Middle-earth to life.

I just think the bit in the text about Bilbo seeing the top of Erebor from the Misty Mountains is kind of funny.

No apologies needed at all Glorendil. I am Dutch speaking -hence some the remark of some of the pun being lost on me Wow- are you refering to a passage in The Hobbit? I tried to find it but failed. If Bilbo did indeed see Erebor from over there than one can safely conclude that J.R.R.'s Horizon Distance Calculator was a prototype?

[Otaku-sempai]

I remember reading somewhere that Arda's diameter could once have been around 10.000 km/ a little bit smaller than Earth (12.757 km). Sorry but forgot my source. You defenitely make a good point: one has to take into account local topography and weather conditions. Vegetation cover would of course also be relevant (traveling through open plains or dense woods).

Well, since Tolkien himself clarified that Middle-earth is our own Earth of approximately 6000 years ago, just fictionalized, I think we can disregard your source.

[Stormcrow]

Well, since Tolkien himself clarified that Middle-earth is our own Earth of approximately 6000 years ago, just fictionalized, I think we can disregard your source.

Let's not oversimplify. The conception of Middle-earth changed drastically over Tolkien's lifetime. It started as a mythical location for his elvish languages, and he conceived of it as the mythological origin story for England that England never had. England itself was Tol Eressea, only the elves had faded away, and the fall of Gondolin had only taken place mere scores of years before the Germanic invasions began.

The more Tolkien developed Middle-earth, the more realistic it became. It ceased to be quite so directly tied to the real world, and by the point of development reached in The Silmarillion, it was no longer a mythology of England, Tol Eressea was no longer England, and the lands did not directly correspond to real-world continents. The Lord of the Rings does not take place necessarily 6,000 years ago, but in a vague prehistorical time; 6,000 years is just the cutoff when known civilizations start to develop out of pre-urban cultures.

After the period of the published Silmarillion, Tolkien continued to develop MIddle-earth. He even tried to completely remove the flat-earth origin of the world: Arda had always been a globe, and instead the early darkness was actually Morgoth spreading black clouds throughout the atmosphere. I'm glad he didn't completely develop this idea.

So Tolkien wasn't really concerned with placing Middle-earth exactly in a historical context, nor was he particularly interested in ensuring geographic verisimilitude. The geography of Middle-earth as Tolkien published it looks nothing like the geography of Europe, and there's no way that a mere 6,000 years could change one into the other. There is very little point in trying to force the setting into any realistic science, including Tolkien's ideas of how far you can see from any given point.

[Otaku-sempai]

Let's not oversimplify. The conception of Middle-earth changed drastically over Tolkien's lifetime. It started as a mythical location for his elvish languages, and he conceived of it as the mythological origin story for England that England never had. England itself was Tol Eressea, only the elves had faded away, and the fall of Gondolin had only taken place mere scores of years before the Germanic invasions began.

Granted, 'fictionalized' was not the term I should have used. It would have been more correct for me to state that Middle-earth is a mythical version of our own world in the distant past. To imagine Middle-earth existing in reality, we would have to jump through the same hoops as someone who believes in the literal totality of the myth of the Biblical creation story and Flood (apologies to anyone who might be offended by this, but the parallel is too obvious to ignore). We would have to ignore everything we know about paleogeography, plate tectonics and continental drift (not to mention astrophysics).

[Gorbulas]

There is very little point in trying to force the setting into any realistic science, including Tolkien's ideas of how far you can see from any given point.

I am inclined not to agree with you on this Stormcrow. I think you touch a matter of personal roleplaying taste here. For myself to be immersed as a player and as a LM, I think I need this geographic verisimilitude. Tough it might by my false assumption that my players also crave for this pseudo realism

[Tolwen]

For myself to be immersed as a player and as a LM, I think I need this geographic verisimilitude. Tough it might by my false assumption that my players also crave for this pseudo realism

In case you don't already know it, issues 1 and 2 of Other Minds had some in-depth articles on the mapping of Arda on a continental scale throughout the Ages (plus appropriate maps for this scale).
You can download them through the Om website seen in my signature.

Don't hesitate to contact me if you need any support

Best
Tolwen

[Otaku-sempai]

I am inclined not to agree with you on this Stormcrow. I think you touch a matter of personal roleplaying taste here. For myself to be immersed as a player and as a LM, I think I need this geographic verisimilitude. Tough it might by my false assumption that my players also crave for this pseudo realism

The Atlas of Middle-earth by the late Karen Wynn Fonstad is probably as good of a source as you are going to find for the topography of Arda. I disagree with some of her choices (such as her placement of the Dwarf-city of Belegost), but that is an unrelated matter. She also used Tolkien's own early sketches of Arda to illustrate what it might have looked like as a whole in the First, Second and Third Ages. Again, there are things I could quibble about, but it's a terrific resource.



Note that Fonstad's illustrations of the continent(s) of Middle-earth is very different from Pete Fenlon's map of Middle-earth for MERP. In his defense, Fenlon produced his map long before the publication of The Shaping of Middle-earth.