Iron Crown expressed an interest in implausible adventure locations early on in MERP’s lifespan. Before it was born, even — Southern Mirkwood (1983) devotes most of its space to describing in detail Dol Guldor, the fortress of the Necromancer, a place no sane group of adventurers would dare go, and predates the MERP rules by a year. Several other supplements detailed similar strongholds of evil (Gorgoroth, Mount Gundabad) and I understand the impulse. I love most of these books! But they are not great game supplements and I think they might have impacted the health of the line over time (then again, West End’s Star Wars only had one “fortress” book, The Deathstar Technical Companion, and both that game and MERP died the same year, 1999).
I’m getting ahead of myself, though. Iron Crown loved these sorts of sourcebooks so much that they created a sub-line devoted to them, Fortresses of Middle-earth. Three of them are places characters might actually visit — a beacon of Gondor, the hall of the Mirkwood elves and Weathertop before it was ruined — though they still aren’t terribly useful. Nazgul’s Citadel and this book, Teeth of Mordor (1988) are both not super useful and places players should never visit.
Which, I still love this book. The Teeth are the towers that flank the Morannon Gate, where Aragorn and the Mouth of Sauron face off in Return of the King. But the Mouth is the lieutenant of Barad-dur, he was just visiting the Teeth in that scene, so Iron Crown made this fortress the seat of power of Dwar of Waw, the third ring-wraith. It’s a truly terrible place, with orc pits underneath, kennels for mutant dogs at ground level and twisted humans inhabiting the upper reaches. I don’t know if there is lore in the novels to support this, but Iron Crown describes the Teeth as originally being built by Gondor to contain Mordor, and the idea of the fortress being turned against its intended use, and also full of moldering remnants of its service to Gondor, is pretty thematically powerful, I think. I particularly like the overgrown rooftop gardens, even if their hidden glass roofs feel out of place. There are a handful of adventure seeds but they are all half-hearted — what can players really do against a ring-wraith? The only one that seems even remotely plausible is the one for fourth age groups, cleaning out the ruins of Sauron’s remnant.
Cover and interiors by David Martin and Ellisa Martin-Schobe (Liz Danforth is also credited, but all of it space fillers used throughout the MERP line). The pair are credited for “Interior Graphics” actually, so I guess that means they also did the cartography? All of it looks fantastic. And I love that very Gamorean looking orc.
Yep, the Teeth were, indeed, built by Gondor, after Sauron’s previous defeat. The same is true of Cirith Ungol.
I dig the Fortresses line. Weathertop and the beacon of Gondor are my favorites. The Teeth are great, too. Overall, I get your point about how usable they are, especially the Teeth or Dol Guldur. I suppose some truly fearless rogues or spies might sneak in somehow for some reason, assuming a late-Third Age setting. But they would be akin to the Tomb of Horrors by there being no expectation of success or survival. My intent with them was for a Fourth Age campaign that I could never get off the ground that I called “The Ruins of Barad-dur.” Weathertop was to be a base to help reestablish the Northern Kingdom and guard against whatever remained of Sauron’s forces fleeing into that region. The Teeth would serve as a staging point for expeditions into Mordor to roll up similar survivors of the Mordor horde. I did a good bit of writing on this way back after the turn of the millennium, but I have no idea where all that stuff is now.
Yeah, I always felt the same way about ICE’s absolutely incredible Isengard sourcebook. Like, it was absolutely amazing, and the detail they put into showing every room of Orthanc was absolutely incredible. But would players ever visit the place? (and of course, if they did, there were some insnae traps that would lead to instant TPKs anyway).
that said, my love of MERP remains undimmed. I’d say it may be my favorite ttrpg ever, and I’d love to run it, though I would not inflict it’s 1980s mechanics on my current group (most raised on 5E D&D). Though as you pointed out, so little of it is really Tolkein-sih…it could probably be reskinned easily.