Silmarillion license

[Tolwen]

If Fenlon did have access to the Amarkanta sketches then he does not seem to have actually referenced them when he crafted his map of Arda for ICE. His Arda does not much resemble Tolkien's map.

I also wondered whether he actually had it. And if so, whether he made any use of it. As you said, the Ambarkanta design is not really recognizable.

Cheers
Tolwen

[Soy Frappe]

The continental map you posted actually was one of the first products that came out for MERP in 1982 and thus even predated the Rulesbook by 2 years.
I don't know whether that ever got any TE approval, but Pete Fenlon (the artist) claimed to have had access to the Ambarkanta map sketch before drawing up the map.

That is very interesting to say the least. I guess it implies that there was some Estate approval then. I wonder though, would Fenlon have any reason to stretch the truth? Perhaps due to criticism of the map? Anyways, it's a good-looking map otherwise.

You may find interesting stuff for Middle-earth games and academic interests in Other Minds, the magazine linked to in my signature (if you don't know it already).

Cheers
Tolwen

Thank you Tolwen. I used to read the previous incarnation (Other Hands?) and have all the issues somewhere on my hard drive. I will definitely enjoy reading Other Minds.

I don't know whether that ever got any TE approval, but Pete Fenlon (the artist) claimed to have had access to the Ambarkanta map sketch before drawing up the map.

Cheers
Tolwen

If Fenlon did have access to the Amarkanta sketches then he does not seem to have actually referenced them when he crafted his map of Arda for ICE. His Arda does not much resemble Tolkien's map. I do rather like Karen Wynn Fonstad's interpretation:



Enlarged Image: http://i.stack.imgur.com/36XEg.jpg

True enough. But I was thinking, off the top of my head- did the wider Tolkien-reading world have much of an idea of what an entire map of Arda would actually look like before this map was published in History of Middle Earth? As I recall, many fans may have in fact believed that Middle Earth represented some other planet or some such. Considering that, it would have hardly been taken for granted that Arda's shape matched our Earth so much. Tolkien's sketches always previously focused solely on Northwest ME, which doesn't much resemble western Eurasia to be honest. So, considering that, his MERP map may not be that far off. But maybe I am wrong-- did we have another wider world map published before Shaping of Middle Earth?

And even the Amarkanta sketches are rather vague and formless once one crosses into Harandor. Fenlon may have been attempting to "real world-ize" this map for role-playing purpose (Probably an aesthetic mistake on ICE MERP's part from the beginning, IMHO). Though a big error does seem to be the entire erasure of the Sea of Helcar- a feature that was probably the single thing in Rhun which has any consequence to the legendarium of the West.

[Tolwen]

Thank you Tolwen. I used to read the previous incarnation (Other Hands?) and have all the issues somewhere on my hard drive. I will definitely enjoy reading Other Minds.

I don't know which digital OH versions you have, but in Issue 10 of OM we published high-quality, re-layouted OCR versions of all OH Issues which are - IMO - far superior to simple images scanned into a PDF. These OCR versions (plus a short accompanying article in the Issue itself) can also be downloaded from the site

But maybe I am wrong-- did we have another wider world map published before Shaping of Middle Earth?

The Ambarakanta sketches are all we have approaching a "world map" by the Professor. Neither before nor after did he do anything similar. If you're interested in continental mapping, Issues 1 and 2 of OM are likely to be of interest for you

Cheers
Tolwen