Black & White Map

[zedturtle]

where is Lake Helevorn on this (I thought that the lake survived the drowning of Beleriand)?

Robin S.

Great question. How big do you imagine the remainder of the lake to be? That would help impact whether it needs to be drawn or just labelled. The other maps don't have it called out as such, so I imagine it's relatively small.

[Wbweather]

Where would Lake Helevorn actually be? I would think it would be on the western edge of the northern Blue Mountains somewhere near Thorin's Hall, but then I'm just sort of guessing based on maps of Belerian.

[zedturtle]

No, it should be pretty close to Mount Rerir. But whether or not it survived the changing of the lands seems to be in dispute, or at least confusion.

[Wbweather]

Oh yeah. I didn't see Mount Rerir on your map.

[Otaku-sempai]

where is Lake Helevorn on this (I thought that the lake survived the drowning of Beleriand)?

Robin S.

Not on any Second Age or Third Age maps that I can recall. MERP, though, might have added it.

[Robin Smallburrow]

It was on the Fenlon maps of NW Middle-earth as quite a large lake, but now right in the mountains, roughly at same latitude as the island of Himring, and what remained of the former river flowed down from the lake (although its course was changed). I can't recall if anything was mentioned in History of Middle-earth series about it.

Its important because the site of the first camp of the Exiles (I think) was on the shores of the lake, so would be a historic site if it survived.

Robin S.

[zedturtle]

I'm going to keep Lake Helevorn off of the map, just since it's not on Christopher's map.

Playing around with the the geographic areas:


Not sure exactly how to divide everything up. Or what category anything should be. Any thoughts (anybody)?

[Otaku-sempai]

I'm not exactly sure what to suggest. I am hoping that a map covering all of Western Eriador and Lindon is included in the upcoming official map set. What we could actually use in the interim is perhaps three smaller maps: 1) The Shire and the Grey Havens; 2) The Northern Ered Luin and Forlindon; and 3) The Southern Ered Luin and Harlindon (and including Eryn Vorn). Eventually, it would be nice to have a map of Southern Eriador covering the coasts of Minhiriath and Enedwaith as well as the White Mountains.

I don't think that Mithlond is an entire region (much less two). It is just the Sindarin name for the Grey Havens. The landEred Luin don't seem to have any particular names; although, Pete Fenlon (for MERP) marked the area between the Northern Ered Luin and the River Lune as Numeriador. The land between the Tower Hills and Minhiriath seems to have become a no-man's land since the fall of the Kingdom of Arthedain.

[zedturtle]

I've been purposefully avoiding The Shire, just because I'm certain that Journeys will have that for sure. Of course, it's quite possible that we will get all of NW Middle-Earth at that point.

Forlindon could be another geographic category, but I suppose you're right about Mithlond. It does seem that Gildor doesn't consider himself that far from home in the Woody End, but that might just be elvish outlook rather than any sort of real clue.

[Otaku-sempai]

Yeah, if you want to limit the size of your maps to about 300 miles across (or so) then a map of Forlindon, if it extended to the west as far as the island of Tol Fuin, would only include the edge of the Northern Ered Luin. So more comprehensive coverage of the northern range of the Blue Mountains would have to be on a separate map covering the regions surrounding the River Lune. Even leaving out Tol Fuin doesn't allow you to cover all of Forlindon and also include all of the River Lune (much less the lands to the east of it).

The problem with Forlindon is that there just isn't much of interest there once you leave the proximity of the Blue Mountains. There's not much adventure to be found by accompanying Elves floating timber down the river to Forlond. And the sites of Dolmed and Rerir can be covered without giving any attention to the rest of Northern Lindon. I think that, if I were you, I would ignore the region unless could find a really compelling reason to make a separate map for it (or unless I wanted to to a larger, comprehensive map for all of Western Eriador and Lindon; but it seems as though you would prefer to leave that for the game designers at C7).

Your size limits do seem to provide plenty of room to cover Southern Ered Luin and Harlindon as a single map.