Peter Fenlon's MERP Map, Aged

[Heilemann]

While I appreciate the clarity of the TOR map, I've fallen in love with the pure sense of scale and landscape Peter Fenlon's map for MERP has (and the fact that Long Lake is an actual lake). Unfortunately, the original map has some pretty nasty colors, and doesn't have any of the necessary LM information. So I've taken it upon myself to fix that. I've added a hex grid (not in this version of the image), and I've aged the map to make it a little more exciting and mysterious, in-line with how an old map would look in-world (although it would be quite the map indeed if it was as precise as this one is).

http://cl.ly/image/383Q28280Y2w

You'll want to zoom in a bit.

[Heilemann]

Oh, and I've started adding in some of the labels from the TOR map, and fixing some of the features, so that they correspond more with the TOR map as well (such as the mountains of Mirkwood crossing the Men-i-Naugir.

[artaxerxes]

Impressive work.

[Rieno]

Is it possible to post a higher resolution version?

[Micco]

That's awesome. It's very inspiring to use it as I'm working on the game! Thanks for sharing.

[Heilemann]

Unfortunately 8000x5400 is the highest resolution I have the original map scan available at. If anyone happens to have the map and a scanner, I would be the first to welcome a new, high res scan.

[Heilemann]

I changed the color a bit, to make it look older: http://cl.ly/image/2b0b0e0R2Z0t/Whole-Map.jpg

[Moria Firefly]

Fantastic looking map, love it for TOR!

MFF

[Otaku-sempai]

Nice. It's a shame that the map doesn't quite reach Dorwynion and the Sea of Rhun.

Fenlon's larger map of Middle-earth (for MERP) that includes the wild lands might be useful to some Loremasters; my own preference is for the map of Arda developed by Karen Wynn Fonstad for her revised Atlas of Middle-earth from Tolkien's conceptual drawings. Allan Curless created a very different composite study of Middle-earth and the Undying Lands throughout the Ages for A Tolkien Bestiary by David Day.

[Heilemann]

Yeah, I love Fonstad's maps, and I appreciate the approach she took to creating them. However I lean towards the details of Fenlon's map, even if it extrapolates and invents to fill in the blanks (or perhaps because of it). The lands of Middle-earth are so important to the flavor of the stories, and it was exactly to approximate that that I wanted to use this particular map over the one included, because it helps the players understand to a larger degree what the world might be like. We play over Roll20 and Google Hangout (between London, Paris, New York and Brasilia), and so I try instead to use it to our advantage by focusing a lot on the map and by finding paintings and appropriate imagery for all the locations and what not (I'm blogging it, but so far in danish and privately).

Anyway, while I love the detail of Fonstad's map as pertaining to the books and the journeys made therein, just as an example, the maps of Wilderland (http://cl.ly/image/3K1Z0b2t471I) feel rather empty in most places (although I do think they're considerably better than the one that comes with the game, which is simply too cartoony for my personal tastes). The first custom map I made was using Fonstads map (I seem to have trashed the file however, but it was basically a combination of several of her maps around Wilderland, given the aged treatment. I worked fairly well, although the scans I was using weren't great on the forest itself).

She also puts Rhosgobel further north, although I don't know if that's based on anything in particular, but TORs and MERPs maps put it more or less in the same place, further south. I like the idea of it being further north, as I find it rather hard to believe that Radagast lived next door to Dol Guldur for so long without figuring that something was seriously wrong.

And none of the maps can figure out where to put the Mirkwood Mountains it seems.