Rivendell Preview 1: What's in it?

[Southron]

So apart from Rangers, High Elves and the lack of Bree, what are people most looking forward to/surprised at finding included? Was Francesco right in his closing comment on the blog?

Tharbad. I also wished Eriador was at least a little more populated. With it being said that Tharbad was abandoned in TA 2911, I am curios as to whether the TOR team has repopulated it in anyway.

[Andrew]

Eriador is called the lonely land for a reason...

[Jakob]

Tharbad. I also wished Eriador was at least a little more populated. With it being said that Tharbad was abandoned in TA 2911, I am curios as to whether the TOR team has repopulated it in anyway.

I'm also looking forward to Tharbad most of all (maybe because my first middle-earth supplement ever was "Thieves of Tharbad" for MERP). I hope they introduce some people still living in or around its ruins - bandits, maybe ...

[mica]

The only thing to be said for Tharbad in the setting is that it floods and that Boromir lost his horse in the crossing.
I suspect other than some minor notes this location is little more than a marker as to how far south the map goes.

I will be interested to see how they handle noldor. I can't imagine too many young noldor if any. So they should all have significant experience unless they have been holed up for millennia before deciding to adventure. So the question is will they start with lots of skills and experience? By the same token I wonder how they have balanced players' tendency to become one-man-army when given vastly superior character. Will powerful characters have some sort of shadow-weakness such that they get corruption or 'attract the eye' when doing everything themselves?

Yeah, I admit it, I am quite excited about this supplement.

[Glorelendil]

Andrew, can you give us a sense of how many pages Rivendell will be?

[Andrew]

It's 144 pages, hardcover, full-colour.

[Otaku-sempai]

It's 144 pages, hardcover, full-colour.

Thanks, Andrew. I was going to pass along this information to Amazon.com (US), but it has changed its policy; product updates can now only be submitted by a seller, not just any customer. Amazon has the Rivendell book listed as One Ring Rivendell (http://www.amazon.com/One-Ring-Rivendel ... =rivendell).

[trystero]

I've submitted a preliminary entry for Rivendell to the RPGGeek item database; it's pending approval but should hopefully show up within the next few days. I'll update that entry as more details become available.

(*pant* *pant*)

[Jakob]

The only thing to be said for Tharbad in the setting is that it floods and that Boromir lost his horse in the crossing.
I suspect other than some minor notes this location is little more than a marker as to how far south the map goes.

I hope it will be more. I always found the few things we hear about Tharbad in FOTR to be very evocative - why was it abandoned? And who or what might still dwell there? I imagine that Boromir didn't take the time to have a closer look at the ruins, so if there were still a few people living there, he might simply not have encountered them ... There are actually very few abandoned cities in fantasy settings, as far as I know, so this would be an opportunity to do something different.

[Stormcrow]

The Lord of the Rings:

2911: The Fell Winter. The Baranduin and other rivers are frozen. White Wolves invade Eriador from the North.

2912: Great floods devestate Enedwaith and Minhiriath. Tharbad is ruined and deserted.

Unfinished Tales:

"[Sauron] had [by the year SA 1700] summoned more forces, which were approaching from the south-east, and were indeed in Enedwaith at the Crossing of Tharbad, which was only lightly held."

"The Gwathló, however, never became swift, and ships of smaller draught could without difficulty sail or be rowed as far as Tharbad."

"But later [the Númenóreans] penetrated northward as far as the beginning of the great fenlands; though it was still long before they had the need or sufficient men to undertake the great works of drainage and dyke-building that made a great port on the site where Tharbad stood in the days of the Two Kingdoms."

"Before the decay of the North Kingdom and the disasters that befell Gondor, indeed until the coming of the Great Plague in Third Age 1636, both kingdoms shared an interest in [Enedwaith], and together built and maintained the Bridge of Tharbad and the long causeways that carried the road to it on either side of the Gwathló and Mitheithel across the fens in the plains of Minhiriath and Enedwaith."

"In the early days of the kingdoms the most expeditious route from one to the other (except for great armaments) was found to be by sea to the ancient port at the head of the estuary of the Gwathló and so to the river-port of Tharbad, and thence by the Road. The ancient sea-port and its great quays were ruinous, but with long labour a port capable of receiving seagoing vessels had been made at Tharbad, and a fort raised there on great earthworks on both sides of the river, to guard the once famed Bridge of Tharbad."

"A considerable garrison of soldiers, mariners and engineers had been kept [at Tharbad] until the seventeenth century of the Third Age. But from then onwards the region fell quickly into decay; and long before the time of The Lord of the Rings had gone back into wild fen-lands. When Boromir made his great journey from Gondor to Rivendell—the courage and hardihood required is not fully recognized in the narrative—the North-South Road no longer existed except for the crumbling remains of the causeways, by which a hazardous approach to Tharbad might be achieved, only to find ruins on dwindling mounds, and a dangerous ford formed by the ruins of the bridge, impassable if the river had not been there slow and shallow—but wide."

"It may be noted that Tharbad is referred to as a 'ruined town' in The Fellowship of the Ring II 3..."

During the time of the Two Kingdoms there is a "raised causeway leading to a great bridge at Tharbad. In those days the region was little peopled. In the marshlands of the mouths of Greyflood and Isen lived a few tribes of 'Wild Men', fishers and fowlers, but akin in race and speech to the Drúedain of the woods of Anórien."

"When the days of the Kings ended ([TA] 1975–2050) and the waning of Gondor began, they ceased in fact to be subjects of Gondor; the Royal Road was unkept in Enedwaith, and the Bridge of Tharbad becoming ruinous was replaced only by a dangerous ford."