Rhovanion. Unless you follow Middle Earth lore closely, that name will mean nothing to you. But it’s easy: Rhovanion is the land east of the Misty Mountains, dominated by the massive forest of Mirkwood. This region is full of familiar places. Lorien. Fangorn Forest. Beorn’s House. Dol Guldur. Halls of the Elven King Thranduil. Lake Town. Dale. Erebor.
Much of The Hobbit takes place in Rhovanion. In the Lord of the Rings, the Fellowship travels through the region after passing through the mines of Moria. To the south lay Rohan, Isengard, Gondor, and Mordor.
Middle Earth is a challenging place to set a roleplaying game. Gamemasters have to contend with the intricate lore introduced in the fiction and non-fiction by J.R.R. Tolkien. RPGs set in Middle Earth have been one long parade of books now long out-of-print and generally unavailable due to rights issues. Most command collector prices.
But it’s not as bleak as all that. GMs have a bounty of non-game Middle Earth resources online. PDFs of Middle Earth RPGs like MERP of the 80s and 90s and The One Ring 1st edition of the 00s are archived online. Just a web search away. (I normally do not recommend bootleg PDFs, as I believe creatives should be rewarded for their work. But this is a case where legal PDFs will never be available for purchase.)
The One Ring 2nd edition is currently in print, and has a growing number of sourcebooks available. Part One of this series examined Eriador (West of the Misty Mountains) and the large number of Middle Earth Roleplaying sourcebooks and adventures that a TOR 2e GM could use to fill out their campaign.
Alas, parent company Free League has not fully caught up with the OOP books available from TOR 1e. There is no TOR 2e Rhovanion book as of this writing.
So I’m falling back on Tales From Wilderland from TOR 1e. Which covers Rhovanion. Yes it is out of print.
Inside front & back covers are two beautiful maps of the region. The first is an area map. The second is an extremely-useful map showing the same region, but color-coding areas by threat level. That way the GM can design and place adventures for the levels and experience of the characters.
Rhovanion in MERP
What MERP sourcebooks and adventures are set in Rhovanion? Plenty!
Time Period. TOR 2e is set in Third Age (TA) 2965, between the events of the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings.
Most MERP books are set back over 1,000 years earlier in TA 1640. Sauron is disguised as the Necromancer, hiding in his stronghold of Dol Guldur. Over the mountains, the Witch-King occupies Angmar, undermining the Númenórean successor kingdoms through subversion and warfare. That said, MERP accessories are deliberately written to accommodate other time periods. It would take little effort to adapt them to TOE 2e.
Map Options
The map in Tales From Wilderland is gorgeous, but a bit small, only two pages wide. MERP had a couple of larger poster maps.
The first is the big NW Middle Earth map that accompanied Middle-Earth Adventure Guidebook II and Northwestern Middle Earth Gazetteer.
The other option is to piece together maps from MERP campaign books.
The paired accessories Northern & Southern Mirkwood (more on them later) cover most of Rhovanion all by themselves.
The maps from Mount Gundabad, Lorien & the Halls of the Elven Smiths, and Ents of Fangorn (imperfectly) fill in the rest of the region. Lamentably, the Lorien map was a terrible transfer. It’s noticeably darker than the others.
So you can map the area in high resolution with the help of Pete Fenlon’s fabulous cartography.
A Closer Look
Let’s zoom-in on that Rhovanion map to see MERP books by region.
I’m not going to describe the publications in detail, since I have already done so at my RPG Reference Site.
MERP at Wayne’s Books Old School RPG Reference
Lorien
After their terrible trials passing through Moria, the Fellowship entered Lorien and met Galadriel and Celeborn.
Moria was detailed in two(!) MERP sourcebooks, and covered in the last article.
Lorien & the Halls of the Elven Smiths details the realm.
Southern Mirkwood
Southern Mirkwood is the sourcebook for the region with the beautiful color map.
Dol Guldur describes Sauron’s place of refuge as the Necromancer.
Necromancer’s Lieutenant and Brigands of Mirkwood each have a number of adventures set in the area.
Northern Mirkwood
Northern Mirkwood is the sourcebook for the region with the beautiful color map. This area figures very prominently in the Hobbit.
Halls of the Elven-King details the realm of Thranduil and Legolas.
Lake-Town covers the city in the lake, Esgaroth.
The One Ring 1e had a number of books for the area:
- The Heart of the Wild (the banks of the Anduin, the foothills of the Misty Mountains and Mirkwood)
- The Darkening of Mirkwood (expands the prior book into a 30-year campaign)
- Erebor: the Lonely Mountain (the ultimate goal of the dwarves in The Hobbit)
- The Laughter of Dragons (more adventures near Erebor)
The North
Mount Gundabad is the sourcebook for the region. Has an important color map. And lots of orcs!
The Grey Mountains covers the eastward mountain range. It too has a color map, but it’s not great: A poor copy of earlier maps, with a inset clumsily-placed.
Goblin Gate and Eagle’s Eyrie. Adventures in this strategic orcish stronghold.
See Also: