I mentioned that one of the prime preoccupations of MERP was the Witch-King of Angmar. Another large scale obsession was detailing the vast southern reaches of Middle Earth only alluded to by Tolkien. Warlords of the Desert contains three adventures set in and around the seaport of Bozisha-Dar, in Far Harad and is a weird mix of Arabian Nights and Lord of the Rings.

You can tell from the (awesome) cover by Angus McBride that what you’re getting here isn’t exactly pure Tolkien. The Harad material puzzles the heck out of me, especially when you remember that MERP never had a book devoted to Barad-Dur. You know, the place the main villain in the books lived.

However, since this stuff also feels fairly divorced from Tolkien, I suppose it is a lot easier to pillage for your own games. The thing is, I owned this for years and never read it, because it lacks that weird pseudo-Tolkien mystique. So I sold it. And then I regretted it and finally got it back. And I still haven’t read it. Weird.