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.

The post Teeth of Mordor (1988) appeared first on Vintage RPG.

Other than that, I was dismayed to find that the rest of the book is pretty yawn-worthy. It’s a six-part thing that starts with an ambushed caravan, which leads to the players then ambushing some orcs and learning about an imminent attack on Thranduil’s Hall. The elves then task the players with harrying the lieutenants army while they gather their own. This culminates in a big battle (ugh) and the bad guy escape (double ugh) at which point the players have to travel to his lair to kill him, his pet bear and his mistress. You know, just to be sure.

It isn’t bad, but it isn’t particularly interesting, which I often find to be more damning. Even the most bizarre, least Tolkien-y MERP modules have a sense of place that is intriguing in some way, but not so much here. Oh well!

The post The Necromancer’s Lieutenant (1990) appeared first on Vintage RPG.

The first two scenarios are pretty solid. The first is the title tale, about about a vengeful witch in her treehouse, plotting against the town. I like this one a lot because the witch’s scheme is going to fail with or without the intervention of the players. That hardly ever happens. If she’s left alone, though, she’ll spill some innocent blood along the way. The second scenario involves brokering peace between the settlement and something big that is sort of menacing the area. Turns out to be a stone giant and the whole thing can be resolved with a riddle contest. Delightful.

The third scenario sucks. A dragon comes to the area and basically lays waste to it, and the players need to stop it. In theory, this is all right, but I tend to not like arcs that introduce a bunch of NPCs then kill them off screen to evoke the sympathy of the players. There is a whole thing with a guardian spirit protecting the region, and using its help sparingly, but this one just doesn’t have the cleverness of the other two scenarios.

Daniel Horne cover. Love it. Horne only did a handful of MERP covers, but I think his talents were well-suited for the the game. Also, I have much love for the orange trade dress. I should note that MERP books have several different types of trade dress, and I find all of them very attractive, especially for their use of bright colors. Steve Peregrine delivers some nice penciled portraits inside. The maps are by a mix of folks, and they’re all right, but not the finest Iron Crown published.

The post Phantom of the Northern Marches (1986) appeared first on Vintage RPG.

Again, we have a set of scenarios that I like very much, but feel more geared toward a Celtic or similar Bronze Age game than Middle-earth. The psychogeography vibes are strong here, with ghosts and burial mounds and standing stones. Those things are part of Tolkien’s work, of course, but they seem so centered here as to be something else entirely. But maybe I’ve been reading too much Alan Garner lately.

All three scenarios are site-specific and, unusual for the time, offer a number of reasons for players to explore them (each of which sets them at odds with the current inhabitants in different ways), none of which have clear cut solutions. The first involves an isolated tower that is haunted by a ghost, bandits and an enchantress who wants to claim it for herself (there is a massive treasure, too, and I enjoy the fact that if the players take it, the ghost demands they donate it to her chosen charity). The second involves a mound, a cursed pool and another ghost. The final one is a plateau, mound and cave complex where a tribe of brainwashed cultists worship a ghost-god.

Interior art by Stephan Peregrine and Jessica Ney. Ney and Judy Hnat worked on the maps which, Iron Crown always has nice cartography, but the maps in this module are particularly striking for their delicate lines and dimensionality. I love the overland maps, but hot damn, that cross-section of the tower is a beast.

The post Haunted Ruins of the Dunlendings (1985) appeared first on Vintage RPG.

Anyway, cover art by Gail McIntosh, whose cover for Hillmen of the Trollshaws is one of my all-time favorite pieces of RPG illustration. There is a lot to love here as well, particularly all the details in the stonework. Those snakes look real good too. Worth noting, too, that in this batch of books, I’ve noticed a surprising concentration of women contributors. Liz Danforth was a mainstay, of course, but I never noticed that cartographer and artist Jessica Ney would eventually become the line editor. Two of these week’s modules are written by women as well. That’s unusual, and cool, for the time, I think.

Anyway, Court of Ardor is delightfully weird. As with most of Iron Crown’s products that explore southern Middle-earth, it doesn’t feel like Middle-earth at all, really. I find myself saying “but it would fit into Shadow World” a lot in these instances and this is maybe why: Terry K. Amthor, Shadow World’s main creative force, wrote this. The other pre-MERP books are all identifiably Tolkien-esque, so I think this probably set the tone for all the future southern weirdness, and anyone familiar with Shadow World will look through this and detect familiar notes.

The book essentially puts forth a large villainous organization for players to contend with, laying out all the major characters and many of their strongholds. This is a good idea, since we know how Sauron goes down, which is sort of the problem with MERP at large. On the other hand, these folks, some of whom date back to Morgoth’s time, are clearly patterned after the ruling family in Roger Zelazny’s Chronicles of Amber. Right down to having magical tarot decks through which members of the court can communicate and channel magic. I don’t dislike this, but it is certainly an odd choice and I am unsurprised that the Court, to my knowledge, doesn’t appear again in the MERP line. Shadow World’s gain!

Beautiful illustrations by Charles Peale throughout (who, if I am not mistaken, also did beautiful illustrations for The Cloudlords of Tanara, which came out the next year, was written by Amthor, is part of the Loremaster line that would eventually become Shadow World and is structured very similarly to Ardor!

The post The Court of Ardor (1983) appeared first on Vintage RPG.

This is one of the Southern Middle-earth modules, and it has the fantasy version of real world cultures thing I don’t love. In this instance, its a hidden tribe that seems modeled on a mix of Mesoamerican and Polynesian influences. They aren’t presented poorly, really, and the way their insular culture is slowly being corrupted by Sauron is super interesting. The main problem is that I don’t see how to resolve two of the three scenarios outside of killing everyone involved. That’s too easy, and neat, especially for outsiders. I feel like these should be more complicated. You could probably get them there with a little work.

The first deals with an herbalists foragers going missing because they are straying too close to a Honnin settlement. The second sees the players tasked with eliminating Tica, and with him the entire bird-cult. The third has players rooting out Sauron’s influence in the cult of Honnin’s forager god. As with most of the MERP Harad material, this feels like it would fit better in Shadow World.

Fab art by Liz Danforth throughouth. Love her bird priest and the dark yet dandy agent of Sauron. Some very nice maps, too, as is the Iron Crown standard.

The post Forest of Tears (1989) appeared first on Vintage RPG.

This is one of MERP’s big setting books. There are some adventure ideas in the back, but for the most part this is gazetteer of important people, places and things in the gigantic region south of Mordor. It forms the backbone of half the MERP product line, which developed the region for play as a way to avoid the preconceived notions that accompanied games set in the same region as the books. As such, this amounts to a cornerstone for a sizable “expanded universe” or an elaborate fanfic, depending on your predisposition.

I used to really dislike the Harad material. It was too big, it doesn’t feel like Middle-earth to me at all and lacks the plausibility that makes Star Wars EU stuff generally work. I’m a little more positive on it now, though. It’s so preposterous that I find it hard to dislike, and I think a lot of the design work winds up informing Shadow World in interesting ways. I also think it is a massive improvement over Tolkien’s depiction of the Haradrim. While he doesn’t position them as inherently evil (a common and understandable mistake) he does have them firmly and totally under the heel of Sauron’s boot. Here, though, there are plenty of Free People struggling against the Dark Lord, and many do so effectively. And while the Harad material often strays into tedious fantasy analogs of real world cultures, it is also kind of nice to have the kind of cultural diversity that’s on display here, which is unusual in RPGs. Like, all of them except maybe Talislanta and RuneQuest.

Interior art is by Ellisa Martin, who I am unfamiliar with. It’s fine, but she doesn’t reimagine cultural garb in a way that is anywhere near as interesting as McBride’s paintings.

The post Greater Harad (1990) appeared first on Vintage RPG.

Same basic structure as Ghosts of the Southern Anduin, actually. There’s a large section of regional information, followed by three scenarios. The first even has a fake ghost Scooby-doo set-up, with a bunch of bandits using illusions to convince a dwarf he’s cursed while they jump his mining claim. The second scenario involves a trio trolls playing practical jokes. I can’t tell if I love this one or hate it. Gaurithoth shows up for the finale. He’s set up shop in a burial mound and is building an undead army to torment the local elves with. He needs to be stopped, obviously, but despite being a pretty by-the-numbers schemer (oh, a horde of undead, how scary), he is sort of outrageously powerful. Players would have to resort to cleverness to see him defeated in most cases, which is cool.

Does it measure up to the promise of the cover? Eh, not really. So often the case with MERP. I much prefer Ghosts.

Paul Jermy is the interior illustrator. Not at all familiar with him, but I like how unhinged his villains look. Cool maps, too.

The post Rogues of the Borderlands (1990) appeared first on Vintage RPG.

Unlike most MERP adventure modules, this one is primarily devoted to adventures. Also unusual: I like them all. The book introduces a little river trading town and proceeds to complicate the lives of the inhabitants. The first arc involves the tailor seeing a ghost on the river and hiring the adventurers to find proof so the village takes him seriously. The phantom is actually a servant of Sauron at work in the town — he occasionally provides passage across the river for fellow agents of the dark lord. Both he and his current passenger are keen to keep that secret.

The second scenario has a similar “is it ghosts?” set-up involving river pirates that can nicely complicate the first. Once those are resolved, the third scenarios sees the players rescuing the tailor from the clutches of Sauron’s cultists. Finally, in the fourth scenario, a real ghost shows up and is intent on drinking souls and spreading pestilence. It hangs together as a nice little campaign, with far more cohesion than I expect from a MERP book.

Darrell Midgette did the interiors. Strong line work. I particularly like the priest of Sauron who looks like Edgar Allan Poe. As ever, there are some very nice maps as well. MERP, Iron Crown Enterprises, Ghosts of the Southern Anduin,

The post Ghosts of the Southern Anduin (1989) appeared first on Vintage RPG.

This carries through in the interior of the book. Despite the cover claiming this is an adventure module, it is really a regional splatbook, detailing Rivendell, its inhabitants and the resident flora and fauna. There is a very detailed plan of the…for lack of a better description…the estate and its immediate grounds. It all feels very lived in and homey.

I have to say, this is an accomplishment that I don’t think Tolkien achieved. I never really understood why Bilbo was so keen to retire to Rivendell. Elrond, in just about all his incarnations, seems like an utter drag to be around, and that extends to his housemates, with the possible exception of Glorfindel. Here they seem to be quietly fun. Well, not Elrond, but everyone else seems chill and into music and food. It seems like good company, and I like a house with lots of fireplaces.

Denis Loubet is the primary artist. There are some Liz Danforth illustrations as well, but my suspicion is that they were first published elsewhere. There is a portrait of Bilbo that doesn’t seem to be by either of them, where he looks like a very specific sort of non-verbal English drunkard and I find it amusing and jarring in equal measure.

The post Rivendell: The House of Elrond (1987) appeared first on Vintage RPG.