I did some MERP not so long ago, but I am still scratching the itch, so we’re doing another week of it. This time, I am looking at the core sourcebooks. Let’s start with the first volume of Lords of Middle-Earth. 

This three volume series is dedicated to the stats and histories of important NPCs, mostly, but not entirely, from Tolkien’s stories. Volume one tackles the elves, as well as the Maiar and Valar, two classes of divine beings. This is sort of a crash course in advanced Tolkien studies, drawing much from The Silmarillion and other secondary writings. The Silmarillion is a tough read and in a world before Wikipedia, this material was a good summary. 

It gets MERPy, though, when it came to filling the gaps in Tolkien’s narratives. For instance, we know that there are five wizards in Middle-earth, but we don’t know much about the two Blue Wizards, Alatar and Pallando. Rather than leave them only mentioned in passing, ICE fleshed these, and other characters out, which could cause a little bit of confusion when you crossed the hazy borders of MERP back into Tolkien’s writing. I’ll talk a little bit more about that tomorrow though. 

Interior illustrations are largely elegant portraits by Liz Danforth, though James Holloway and Stephan Peregrine sneak a couple in. It is serviceable stuff, but not overly exciting. The cover, though, is a rad painting by Angus McBride depicting the iconic battle between Gandalf and the Balrog on the bridge of Khazad-dum.  I appreciate McBride’s subtle wings of smoke, a clever hedge since no one can agree whether Balrogs are supposed to have wings.