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So, there's a distinct possibility that my players will be likely to decide to travel south of Mirkwood in order to get to Rhosgobel but looking at the information we have so far in the various TOR supplements there's scant detail as to what lies immediately south of the eaves of the great forest.

Has anyone filled any of the blanks in for their campaign?

My musings so far are as follows...

https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2906/144 ... 6465_o.png

I've gone with largely moderate terrain (rolling hills, plains/prairies, and the like) with some easy terrain around East Bight due it being a fertile land of cleared terrain and resident to Ceawin the Generous and his followers (making that bit Free Lands as well, although Border Lands may be more appropriate). I've made these sections a combination of Border Lands, Wild Lands, and then Shadow Lands; although I'm thinking I could possibly make the area to the south of Dol Guldur Wild Lands rather than Shadow Lands. Not sure.

There's reference in the old MERP books of a road connecting Gondor to this land, the Men Romen (or East Way) but I reckon that this would be no more than an overgrown trail now due to lack of use. Could still make navigating the area at least a little easier for part of the way; until it veers off south to the lands of Gondor.

Challenges would be wolves and orcs roaming the land and also striking out from southern Mirkwood, and perhaps outlaws or other desparate folk.

Thoughts? Anything else?

Well, Southern Wilderland, between the Brown Lands and Southern Mirkwood doesn't seem very different from the East Bight. The western end of the region, near the Anduin, would probably share the fertility of the Eastern Nether Vales; the plains further east are likely grasslands better for herding than for farming until one approaches the East Bight. I would expect the plains to be lightly inhabited, with a higher population near the Anduin. No bandits in the plains because there is no one to rob.

My poster map from Peter Jackson's LotR:FotR also indicates an old trade route that went from the Old Forest Road, past Dol Guldur, skirting the Dead Marshes to pass through Gondor to merge into the Harad Road. I would think that the northern road would have largely fallen out of use after the Old Forest Road became impassible--it being easier (and safer) to use the Gap of Rohan to travel west; however, that might have changed if the Forest Road has been re-opened.

It seems to me that if that area were fertile plains then there would be more people living there. And without any major river systems it probably wouldn't be very fertile. Why would the migrating Northmen have ever chosen this area?
(OMG edited for rampant typos.)

Just because nothing is drawn doesn't mean there's no terrain.

I'd make it a little more unhospitable. I'm envisioning Eastern Wyoming or Southeastern Colorado. Grassy, but the grass is in clumps and is dry and spikey, and interspersed with briars and thorns. Worse, from a distance it looks pretty flat, but over the years flash floods wear sheer-sided trenches that are invisible until you're just about on top of them. It would explain why horse cultures wouldn't bother to settle there.

I raced a dirt bike enduro near the Spanish Peaks along the Colorado/New Mexico border that was in an area like this. Half of the race was IN these trenches. Some of them had dry washes and were wide enough for a highway, other times you had to tuck your elbows in because the mud walls were so close, but still taller than you. And it was a maze. But from the highway you'd think it was flat grazing land. Yeah, right.

Since very few people go there I'd have the party stumble across the equivalent of an archeological site emerging from the erosion. If they want to take the time to explore drop vague hints that leads them to conclude (without the LM confirming) that they've found signs of pre-First Age elves.

Aren't the Brown Lands around there?

I think that's where it's rumored the Entwives grew their gardens (and teached the ancestors of the Woodmen horticulture) before something made them disappear... and the fertile lands, blooming with their gardens, became the arid Brown Lands.

I don't know where I got this idea, but it may be from MERP or from some letters from Tolkien. Have to look for it.

EDIT: Take a look at the Tolkien Gateway:

http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Brown_Lands

EDIT 2: I see that the Brown Lands are south of the terrain you're asking for. Maybe some hints of what was there?

Thanks all.

Think this all confirms largely Moderate terrain (with an area of the East Bight being Easy; on account that it has Ceawin and his people there and is described in Heart of Mirkwood as fertile) along with the region types being predominantly Border or Wild Lands (and I think I'll stick with the last section as a Shadow Land; due to proximity to Dol Guldur).

Getting off topic, but a thoroughly evil LM plot just hatched in my twisted little brain...

Speaking of missing Entwives, what if the players find them? Perhaps roaming around northern Eriador? They'd be all excited, until they realized that since they wouldn't have any idea they were "missing" in the first place, they also wouldn't know that there was somebody with whom to share the information.

A really, really nice LM might eventually let the players, post War of the Ring, encounter somebody who knew somebody who knew the story.

A really, really cruel LM would then point out that since everybody had started new characters since the Entwives encounter none of the current characters would know about it.

Mwuhahahahahaha.....

You're über-cruel

In my F2F group I introduced an Ent-wife in one adventure, though they had no clue what they had just met. I envisoned them as small...tiny...about the size of a big fat bumblebee, may hummingbird sized at biggest, with the lower body of a bee and the upper body of something like a dryad or woodwight.

Makes it easier to explain how the Ents "lost" them, and I like the extreme dimorphism.

First I will state I only briefly scanned the above posts. So, if I have missed something I apologize. I have to ask where are they starting from and how far South are they intending on going? Heart of the Wild covers the terrain as far South as a little past Lorien and the borders of Southern Mirkwood. Isn't that all the info you would need?

If you're not going as far south as the Brown Lands, I would say just treat the whole place as being like the Nether Vales, just without anyone actually living there and somewhat drier.

Trade probably passes that way quite a bit; if you live in the Nether Vales or even a bit further north, the quickest and safest way to Lake-town and Dale is probably to go south around the forest. But it probably doesn't have any people living there permanently, although the Erringmen may pass through it. That whole area has traditionally been right in the path of Easterling invasions of Gondor, and all the people living there were explicitly driven out when the Balchoth invaded and Rohan was founded. That was four hundred some years ago, so some folk may have trickled back, but why would they? The Vales of Anduin are more fertile and there's plenty of land there for anyone who wants it. You're further away from Mordor, too.