Finally, I managed to complete this post.
Ok, here are some of the main differences to keep in mind about Middle-Earth as a setting in 1600--1700 T.A. compared to the War or the Ring period circa 3020 T.A.
This is about all I can remember. Folks who are really, really into their Tolkien-lore might know more.
Eriador is more than just a boring wasteland
During the War of the Ring it seemed there was nothing in the vast expanses of land of what was once Arnor besides ruins and country bumpkins. It is a depiction that is not fully removed from the truth, but that will be THEN, and this is NOW, 17th Century Third Age.
There are cities aplenty in Eriador today, and roads, armies, knights, kings, princesses, hill tribes and all kind of good stuff that makes medieval fantasy worthwhile.
And don't worry, there are plenty of ruins and dungeons too, old and new. Just go to Ruhadur (what's left of it) and "Bob's yer uncle". Or better yet, go down to Bree and enjoy the cold beer before you dungeon-delve in the Barrow-Downs and experience having the life sucked out of you by wraiths.
And last but not least, some of the places which were useless, looted ruins by the time of the War of the Ring are fine, up and running such as the fortress of Amon Sul on Weathertop.
Politically NW Middle-Earth has 4 great regions: the (functional) Kingdom of Arthedain, the (disfunctional) Kingdom of Cardolan, the (wasted) "Kingdom" of Ruhadur and the (evil) Empire of Angmar. Besides this there is the (semi-autonomous) Shire, the Kingdom of Khazad-Dum, The elven Heavens around Lindon and a host of scattered Dunleding tribes all around. So whatever direction you travel towards you are bound to meet people.
Eriador, boring? Naaah...
See? A worthless ruin in 3020 T.A., a living site meriting a full supplement of its own in 1650 T.A.
In times of peace the Race of Men makes war among itself
Ok, granted, Middle-Earth isn't exactly a wishy-washy setting full of progressive liberalism and calls for tolerance and inclusiveness. But still, one couldn't really be faulted for wondering if, after destroying two Dark Lords in 3,000 years, it wouldn't be time enough already for the Second-Born to...well, if not exactly become perfect neighbors and start turning all their swords into plowshares at the very least stopping to be so eager to plow their swords INTO their neighbors for no good reason all the damn time.
While Sauron can certainly be blamed for installing dark passions in the hearts of men, most of the mannish wars and all the misery they cause is Man's own fault. The annals of the last few centuries read like a tally of self-inflicted sufferings. Cases in point:
To say that the tribes of
Easterlings, Variags and
Haradrim have institutionalized warfare in their societies would be a mistake. Hell, their societies ARE institutionalized warfare, constantly fighting among themselves with such relishing cruelty it would give heartburn to a civilized man who heard about it. They only seem to obtain a semblance of political order and social unison when some BIG BOSS comes around and turns their collective destructive tendencies towards their neighboring peoples...which is like curing yourself of the flu by contaminating someone else.
The descendants of the
Numenorians aren't that much better.
Arnor split into 3 polities following a civil war and just for good measure the three new kingdoms decided that it wasn't enough and went to war AGAIN as separate countries. This warfare was instrumental in weakening
Ruhudaur sufficiently to allow its latter destruction by Angmar, and while
Cardolan survived the effects of the Great Plague on the numbers of its nobility, already well bled by Man vs. Man warfare, ensured that it has now ceased to exist as a viable political entity.
The
Black Numenorians are even worse. These guys have made it a cultural hobby to create whole new nations, or usurp power in existing ones, with the single goal of destroying their Eriadorian cousins, by hook or by crock or by massive military effort.
The
Dunledings have never stopped their time-honored traditions of holding grudges and coming down from the hills to steal your cattle and scare your women and children. Like jackals, they circle around, bide their time and strike when their enemies are weak; so the effective collapse of two thirds of Arnor has been a God-send for these guys. Paradoxically, the main reason why Dunledings aren't a bigger problem for their Endorian neighbors is due to their worst, more warlike elements being lured North into Angmar, the entity which at which's feet can be laid most of the blame of why Arnor is circling down the drain.
The
Umbareans and
Gondorians, despite being effectively the same people, are engaged in a hateful winner-takes-all war all on account of a political grudge that happened before the people that are currently fighting over were even born.
In
Rhun the limitless human capacity for FREE EVIL is such that it merits its own individual entry.
So to conclude, besides the ever-looming threat of supernatural
eeeeevil, common men of this day and age are more than willing to duke it out among themselves for all the mundane reasons our own medieval ancestors happily slaughtered each other about. In this day and age you could play a Middle-Earth campaign full of death, genocide, burning cities, wailing women and crushed enemies driven before you without laying eyes on a single Orc, Troll or Ghost.
Seriously folks...can't we all just get along?
Libertarian Evil? Equal-Opportunity-Meritocracy and Strength-in-Diversity strategies
Among all this un-humanitarian massacre, perhaps the greatest joke of the Era is that the so-called "Evil Empires" are models of political stability under which a healthy amount of diverse populations live, and even thrive.
Seriously, talk about paradoxes. It seems like the Nazgul have taken aspects of two opposed political doctrines, similar to what China did with economics when they meshed Capitalism with Communism, and created black-iron-glove-in-a-silken glove autocracies bent on genocide, but which have citizens and residents of all races (High and Lesser Men, Elves, Orcs and Dwarves) that can climb up socially if they have the entrepreneurial skill and the will to do it.
The "Who's Who" of the upper echelons doing all the boots-on-the-ground operations on Angmar and the Far South read like a promotional poster for Middle-Earth Diversity, with races of Men that are normally found at each other's throats working side-by-side for a common goal and loving every moment of it.
The social engineering policies of the Nazgul have been so successful even the ratio of Orc-on-Orc cannibalism has decreased significantly in their realms, and that's no mean feat!
While during the War of Ring Sauron amassed whole armies of diverse and segregated peoples through seer terror, in the 17th century the Nazgul are taking a more melting-pot approach and using the carrot-and-stick reward system. The lands under control of the evil forces are much more vibrant and travel between them, even when the regions are far apart, is much more common today than it will be in the far future.
Sauron is a bogeyman
Even with immortals running about who can say
"I WAS THERE WHEN IT HAPPENED!", over one millenia and a half passed since the Last Alliance of Elves and Men makes even the most horrid of memories begin to loose their sting. Unlike being the Mr. BIG BAD he will become by the time of the trilogy, Sauron is now a remnant of a memory used mainly to whip sicko people into religious frenzy or scaring little unruly kids into obedience; sort of like Morgoth before him in fact. No one, not even the Immortals of genius-level intelligence that are dime-a-dozen on Arda has even the inkling of an idea that the biggest, baddest, meanest Fallen Ainur of'em all is back in business and that he has plans, BIG plans.
Everyone knows about the Witch-King, and that he is bound not to be the only Nazgul that has returned to the West because the dark-cloaked figures whipping up sh*t up the furthest south or calling the shots over in the East cannot possibly be the exact same guy that is lording it over Angmar simultaneously.
But none have been able to put 2+2 togheter and deduce or intuit that "Nazgul Return" = "Return of Sauron". In the minds of leaders of the West the Ringwraiths fled and hid after their master's demise, to return only a few centuries ago and are acting independently. Even The Necromancer of Mirkwood is thought to be one the 9 himself, or some other dark legacy of the long-vanquished Lord of the Rings rather than the very Lord himself.
Believe me when I tell unto you: there is going to be sh*itting of bricks among "the Wise" in sufficient amounts to build a whole darn house of when, about 1,200 years from now, Sauron returns to Mordor, reveals his presence and declares himself Lord of Middle-Earth.
Some folks do not even realize that the Ringwraiths are acting in unison or what their true nature is. The Last Alliance of Elves and Men is over 16 centuries in the past, and apart from immortal elves and the scholars of the civilized kingdoms few know anything resembling the true story of Sauron and the Nine Rings of Power for Nine Mortal Men.
They WILL be sh*tting bricks indeed...bwahahahaHAHAHAHA!!!
The Shire is currently populated by something more than short, useless sacks of meat
The Shire exists and it is only a century old. It is a very different place from the soul-crushing bourgeois wet dream it will become a few centuries down the line and that merited an entry in the annals of Middle-Earth history only because of a combination of astounding coincidences and unbelievable, industrial-grade amounts of good luck.
The Hobbits of the 17th century Third Age aren't that overweight or ignorant and don't have child-like maturity levels that make them hyperventilate in horror at the prospect of having less than 6 square meals a day. Oh no, no no...this is the era which will see the birth of barefoot badasses who strut around with mighty clubs, defeat orcish invasions, kill orc leaders with a single blow and are tall enough to ride horses.
If you have any doubts on the amount or quality of sheer Hobbit awesomeness to be found on this day and age (which makes their descendant's devolution in late Third Age all the more tragic) just consider: remember all the trouble that folks had in "The Hobbit" and "Fellowship of the Ring" attempting to cross the Misty Mountains? How the place seemed like a deathtrap and making the crossing felt like, literally, taking your life in own own hands? Well, the WHOLE HOBBIT POPULATION of the Shire made that trip en masse to get from Rhovanion to the Shire. Bad-Ass, balsy-ironed though motherfrakers down to every last man!
This hobbit is 4'5" tall and BEHEADED an orc-chief with that club! Check them arm muscles.
"Figthing Army of the Uruk-hai"? You mean those dozen guys over there?
By the mannish reckoning of the passing of years, Uruk-hai have been around for a long time. But in this Era their numbers are nowhere near sufficient to field the full-scale battle formations that will be seen during the War of the Ring. The Enemy is keeping them as lieutenants, elite guards and shock platoons. The average person has no idea that this race exists and it is a common occurrence for some poor bastard to get his first unexpected encounter with the Super-Orc race. As far as the average man on the street knows, all orcs are shorter than humans, go blind in sunlight and fear magical light. Little do they know, he?
A handy visual Orc-primer. Guess which one is the Uruk?
Witch-King "OF ANGMAR" actually means something
Forget Morgoth, forget Sauron, forget Ungoliant, forget Gothmog and Lungorthin. The new kid in town is the Witch-King of Angmar, and this dude is kicking arse, taking names and dishing out suffering with such awesomeness as it has not been seen since Sauron himself descended from Mordor during the Second Age to put Eregion to the torch and send the Noldor running away screaming like little b*tches (some of them didn't stop running until they reached the Northen Waste of Forodwaith, while most went hat-in-hand like beggars to beg for refuge in Lorien and Imladris).
When this Undead entrepreneur isn't spending time erecting his own multi-cultural and multi-racial, equal-opportunity confederation of Evil, he enjoys taking leisure time to help collapse the kingdoms of others, AND he is doing all of this without using his full sorcerous potential because his Sauronic magic could call into attention the fact that his Dark Master is back from the World of Shadow.
These days "of Angmar" is less of a surname and more of word denoting the very real Empire of
Eeeeevil that rest just above what was once the northern borders of Arnor. The true axis of evil lies not East of Gondor but North of Arnor, and everyone knows it.
Pass the word: Mordor was yesterday. Angmar is new New Sh*t!
Like any good community organizer the Witch-King consults with his subjects regularly
One does not simply walk into Mordor...because there is no need
It is still a dark, dismal place. A volcanic basin with very poor real-estate development potential and next to nil prospects for tourism. But Mordor today is a far cry from the nightmarish Empire of
Eeeeeevil that it was when Lord Sauron was on the house. There are no orc armies, only orc tribes that spend more time eating each other than attacking Gondorians. The Nazgul use what is left of the proud fortresses their Master built to have a communication hub between Angmar, the East and the Far South. Apart from this Mordor is place no one cares much about because it so worthless. It's not that taking over the place could not be done if you were willing to piss men and money down the drain, it's simply that everyone would would go:
"Why the f*ck for? What would ya do with it?"
Yes, the times of glorious
eeeeevil when Mordor struck fear into the hearts of everyone is long gone. Things have fallen so low these days that there are semi-professional bravos that mount expeditions INTO Mordor to loot whatever riches are still left from the fall of Barad-Dur. Among these brave (nutty?) souls, giving Shelob the Great (remember her?) the slip is considered a rite of passage (I swear I am not making this up).
LADY SHELOB IS NOT AMUSED AT YOUR TRESPASSING!!!
Gondor is F*ucking HUGE!
Pick a political map of late 16th or early 17th century Third Age Middle earth. Take a look at the region labeled "GONDOR" and try to keep your eyes from glazing over as you attempt to take in the sheer immensity of the place.
Honestly, the country is something like FIVE TIMES its size compared to when Aragorn comes to take the crown at the end of the books. It extends all the way from southern Eriador, encompasses the whole of Rohan, skirts along the very mountain borders of Western and Northern Mordor and extends all the way East to southern Rhun. This place is immense!
As if that was not enough, Gondor has political client-states to its South forming a buffer zone between it and Umbar (which technically is in Harad), and considers Rhovanion to be a "region of interest", intervening there politically.
When thinking of Gondor, think less
"White City besieged by Evil" and more
"Equivalent of Holy Roman Empire at its peak calling all the shots in central Middle Earth". Their massive sea power also makes them the equivalent of ME's British Empire, minus the imperialistic tendencies.
And lest you forget, there is no "Minas Morgul". The proud, ancient city of Minas Ithil is vibrant and hale standing guard at the very gates of Mordor and giving Sauronians the one-finger salute 24/7, 365 days per year.
(This is where the map of the Kingdom of Gondor would go...except it's to big to fit here)
Memo to The Istari: Get on with it!
You would think that 700 years would be more than enough time to mount an effective and pro-active resistance movement against the Sauronic forces, specially for immortal Magic-Users of Character Level 30+. But the Five Wizards that came from Valinor to help the Free Peoples of Middle-Earth do not seem to have gone past the "Collating Data" phase of whatever sorry excuse for a master plan they seem to have.
Cases in point: the Istari leader,
Saruman the White, spends more time presiding over bureacratic meetings of the White Council than achieving anything productive. As the council of the "wise" is composed solely of immortals who are never in a hurry to do anything...ever, perhaps we should spread the blame around on this one. But still, a poor excuse for a leader is a poor excuse for a leader.
Gandalf the Grey seems to be always out "on adventure" and is never around when you really need him. He certainly wasn't anywhere to be seen when Rudhaur was destroyed and the Witch-King was laughing all the way to Carn Dûm with wagon-trains of loot and slaves.
Radagast the Brown seems to spend few of his days with around people and altogether too many with the animal critters of his personal natural preserve of Rhosgobel. While his the fuzzy and feathered friends are certainly cute, they make very poor allies of potency in the fight against the The Shadow.
As for
Alatar the Light Blue and
Pallando the Dark Blue (hey, I didn't pick their darn colors, Prof. Tolkien did), they both crossed over to the East and haven't been heard since. If their actions over there have had any detrimental effects on the Sauron-worshiping Eastern Kingdoms no one has noted the difference. The flow of wealth, supplies and food streaming from the Far East into Gundabad and Angmar certainly hasn't abated; in fact it has gotten so good of late that the Witch-King saw fit to conquer Rhun from the inside to ensure the safety of the trade routes bringing all that bling and nice stuff into his realm.
So if you are crossing your fingers that any of the Istari will pull of an "Elminster" and rescue your sorry arse while you are adventuring, a word of advice: DON'T.
Dudes...seriously. Stop posing for portraits and GET ON WITH IT!!!
Isengard is wizardless and no hobbits are being taken there
Considered just how useless the Istari have been until now it is little wonder the Kingdom of Gondor hasn't seen fit yet to donate their bitchin' black spire of a tower to their leader, Saruman. The place is just one more of many Adunaic outposts scattered all over the place and is manned by much more sensible persons than any Wizard with a bad fashion sense ("of Many Colors"...seriously?) can ever ever hope to be.
"Ents" are little insects found in gardens
No one knows about slow, surly, walking and talking trees in Fangorn, and if you keep talking about it folks will assume you've gone ga-ga and have you committed to a mental institution.
Rhun is Middle-Earth's political equivalent of medieval Transylvania
Think of Vlad Tepes, the Impaler of Wallachia...got that?
Now imagine WHOLE ARISTOCRAT FAMILIES of Vlad Tepes.
Now imagine these same evil families VOLUNTARILY delivering their own country to the Dark Lord of Angmar using every trick in the book that the Borgias of Renaisance Italy were masters of.
You now have a pretty good idea of what has happened in Rhun one generation past and why that region is now fully aligned with the Witch-King.
On the other hand, canoeing is still quite popular in Rhun
There is no Rohan, there is only the Ehotred
For all intent and purpose these guys are still the same (perhaps a bit more barbarous and less sophisticated) except they don't live in Rohan because it does not exist. They live in southeast Rhovanion and are called the Ehotred. They have those wonderful horses and like to spend their leisure time killing Orcs, Easterlings and Variags.
Forth Eorlingas!
Bah! What's in a name, really? Ehotred FOR THE WIN!
Meet the Civilized Orcs of Gundabad! Much worse than the savage ones!
Boy...them orcs sure are doing it for themselves.
Whoever said that orcs are mindless savages that lack the capacity for self-organization when not prompted by a more powerful outside force has never been to Gundabad. In a site of strategic significance, this great underground Orc city guards the pass through the northern Misty Mountains and issues forth HORDES to battle against the Free Peoples. Just ask the dwarves of the Grey Mountains, they can tell you a thing or two about the dudes that have been giving them a run for their money and coming back for more!
And don't think that the Dark Lords are calling the shots here; while it's true Gundabad is an Angmarian client-state it is also an orc polity of its own, with levels of sophistication and organization that most would find unbelievable in orcs. Their numbers keep growing, their artisans keep churning magical armor and weapons that make the Dwarfs of Moria and Elf-smiths of Imladris purse their lips in ill-contained envy (when they aren't screaming for mercy while feeling the tender mercies of those same weapons). Their military forces are true armies, not tribal rabble. Their Goblin-king rules all with iron-hard will and is respected like to orc before ever since he got into the business of slaying Trolls bare-handed.
When you see the Orcs of Gundabad marching over the horizon:
Run! Run away! Run fast! Run far! Run for the hills! They will burn your elven wood down, eat your women and rape your cattle.
That horse-rider is not a Nazgul, he's a Gundabad Orc!
Erebor: Grand Opening Coming soon! Just wait a couple centuries.
The good news is: No dragon. These days Lonely Mountain is just what it says on the tin: a huge chuck of rock in the middle of a plain. The founding of the dwarven Kingdom of Erebor and the begining of its obscene accumulation wealth that eventually will catch the eye of a certain golden dragon is still some 400 years distant. A certain expedition involving one Hobbit, lots of dwarves and a wizard is still further in the future than that. Also, the city of Dale hasn't been burnt to a crisp yet and is doing just fine.
Lonely Mountain - not much happening here, move along...move along now.
Oh, and to sweeten the deal consider that...
Balrog? What Balrog? There's no Balrog over here...
Not yet at least. Moria is fine, open for business and is THE No. 1 center of dwarven existence in NorthWestern Arda. It will be
centuries before the dwarves of Khazad-Dum dig too deep and their miners have the biggest
"HOLY F*CKING SH*T!!!" day of their then soon-to-be-shortened lives as they unleash a honest-to-God, real-life, balls-to-wall, self-immolating, flame-sword-swinging, fire-whipping and darkness-clothed
Valarauko that is pissed off and hell-bent for leather on vengeance and slaughter as only a corrupt Maia fire spirit can be after 5,000 years of imprisonment. Seriously, this guy hasn't had a social life since the coming of the Vanyar hosts and the breaking of Thangorodrim and he won't be in the mood for stopping and saying hello when he gets released...he will be perceiving everything trough a veil of red-mist rage and attempting to turn everyone he meets into red mist paste too.
So rest yer weary legs, relax and enjoy some good dwarven hospitality (complete with lots of drink and good meats ripped straight off the bone) if you ever do stop by the grandest dwarven city of them all. Leave your cares at the door, Durin's Bane is long way off and it will be many, many generations before a forced dwarven diaspora happens at the hands of a fire demon and the Noldor of nearby Lorien begin to quake in their boots and piss in their breaches with fear of the "Nameless Evil" that takes hold of Moria.
Oh, word to the wise. If you think the Balrog of Moria is THE only Balrog left...it isn't. And if you think Balrogs are (Sauron excepted) the worst thing under the sun on Middle-Earth in this Age...think again! If you don't believe me take a trip south into Far Harad or Mumakan. Seriously, you wouldn't believe the demonic crap that can still be found over there.
MR. BALROG OF MORIA IS NOT AMUSED AT YOUR TRESPASSING EITHER!!!
Bring Out Your Dead! Bring Out Your Dead!
No, I don't mean the
Dead Men of Dunharrow. Those dudes are still out in them thar hills, undead and brooding and waiting for the chance to redeem their Oath-Breaking to the House of Isuldur, and THAT own't happen for a long, long time.
Get back into your damn caves Ghost-Warriors! your time has not come yet.
What we are talking about is The Great Plague that ravaged the west about 2 generations ago. A mini-version of the Black Plague our own ancestors had to deal with, it wasn't quite so bad but still took its tool. The worse-hit areas (that would be around Rhovanion) suffered a population drop of about 25%, or 100% where all the living just got the hell out of dodge to escape the plague.
Still within living memory among the eldest of Men, every PC will have grown hearing about the most great doom of the land (or in the case of Dwarves and Elves they may have witnessed it first hand).
The two greatest effects of the plague where turning Mirkwood into an even more dismal place than it already was, and neutering the Realm of Cardolan out of existence by killing most of its ruling class. It was pretty bad in Gondor too and the loss of manpower to the plague put a dent on the Gondorian plans for military action on Rhovanion, thus leaving it more exposed than ever to the wiles of The Enemy.
The GOOD news for the Free Peoples were that the armies of the Witch-King of Angmar were also decimated by the plague, so he was not able to take any military advantage of the loss of Cardolan. And as there is no cloud without an extra silver lining, considering the plague arrived in Endor on the winter of 1635 T.A. coming from the East and its effects were
lowered by the extreme cold of that winter, it means it scourged the Easterling lands of during the summer/autumn of the same year with FULL POTENCY. One dreads to think what the full effects on those poor bastards were; this is probably why for all their conquering thirst, the Easterling Wainriders won't be able to invade and conquer Rhovanion for another 400 years. Not that will avail them much, as they will be kicked out just a generation later anyway...
losers!
The Necromancer is in the Dark Forest
Besides Angmar, Gundabad, Umbar, the southernmost kingdoms and (to a lesser extent) Rhun, there is another focus of evil on western Endor which merits mention: the tower of
Dol Guldur.
Of course, the truth is that old Sauron himself is squatting there and bidding his time and planning his BIG PLANS. And he will be (successfully) pulling of the stunt of passing "merely" a Ringwraith for the next 18 centuries. If you you want further proof of just how useless Gandalf the Grey realy, truly is let it be known he had to go to Dol Guldur TWICE before his old brain started working and he found the truth.
Just a few centuries ago, Mirkwood was a nice forest. Now, thanks to the presence of The Necromancer it's a pretty foul and sh*tty forest, as forests go. But it is still a far cry better than it will be when Bilbo and the dwarves take a stroll there, these days you actually find loads of people living around or in Mirkwood itself, and taking the Old Road or travelling trough the forest itself while not exactly safe isn't tantamount to suicide. Just beware of the spiders, giant bears and poisonous flora.
God-damned, F-ing Mirkwood attercop spiders!!!
There are Kings everywhere
Forget
"the line has been broken" and Stewards ruling countries, this is an era of great Kings and great kingdoms. There are kings in Arnor, in Gondor and Rhovanion, there are kings among the Elves and Dwarves and Orcs; there are petty-kings of hill tribes. Hell, even the Hobbits have great leaders at this time. This couldn't be more different than the quasi-schizoid lack of centralized power that we see during the War of the Ring. And of course, these leaders have diplomatic relationships with each other and their subjects come into contact much more often. All in all, it is a more open setting that late-Third Age where a greater number of people has been more than one day's travel away from home.
The Arnorian King says: "RESPECT MY AUTORITAH!"
The Rangers of the North stand tall and proud as giants
These guys are currently the most paramount, well-known and respected elite military organization among the Mannish Free Peoples and have the full backing and support of the Adunaic Kings, and access to the craploads of money and magic items they have at their disposal. The Enemy fears these guys and with good reason too. It will be quite a long time before they resemble anything like the rag-tag band of wanderers that the common man fears and mistrusts in Aragorn's time.
JOIN THE ARTHEDAIN RANGERS!
SEE THE WORLD!
BED BEAUTIFUL WOMEN!
FIGHT THE SHADOW!
DIE GLORIOUSLY!
Nothing much will be happening in the foreseeable and unforeseeable future
last but not least, the best thing about this era (circa 1650 T.A.) for people that (like me) hate metaplots is that nothing of great relevance or great transformations will be happening for about 200 years. At that time some major fertilizer will be hitting the rotating device (including among other things the destruction of Umbar, Angmar, Arthedain, the "breaking" of the Royal Dunedain houses and rise of the Balrog) followed by a long, boring, period called "The Watchful Peace" when The Enemy starts laying the foundations for what will become his forces during the War of the Ring in the East and South and nothing much happens for almost 1000 years until Bilbo finds the One Ring.
This is not to say the 17th Century T.A. is dull. Rather, there is an equilibrium that will be maintained for some time no matter whose armies cross which borders and what shenanigans are happening on the background. Best of all, the BIG NPCs aren't doing anything of much importance right now, leaving and the heroics to smaller people...like Player Characters.
Sorry buddy, but the game is NOT about you. Deal with it.
). I played MERP for a brief time with my group back in the 80's and I loved it. For reasons I can't remember we didn't keep playing and I am not sure if I still have my books. I will check and get back if I can find them because now you have piqued my curiosity to re-read the rules. I too remember it as being a bit complex but I also remember having a lot of fun with it.
