Welcome to the Lost East of Middle-earth

[Vardaen]

Welcome to Middle-earth, the Lost East project!

I have recently been very interested in making a campaign setting for The One Ring RPG Game by Cubicle 7 set in Rhûn and the Lost East of Middle-earth. After doing a bit of preliminary research I have decided to try and work this out into playable setting but of course I need your help.

If you are interested in this, in helping or contributing, please give a shout and we can hopefully do some good work here.

This thread will be fore general welcome chatter, and in follow up threads we can start to hash out various culture, ideas, maps, rules tale of years, and other materials.

[Vardaen]

The Lost East of Middle-earth describes the lands of Rhûn and those beyond to the east where the Easterlings have their great empire. It details the various races and cultures that live east of the Sea of Rhûn .

I would like to make a gazetteer style guide that would outline the various people and places in the Lost East. Provide new rules for cultures found there, and provide a Tale of Years for the recent history and into the current timeline leading from The Hobbit to the Lord of the Rings much like the other supplements offer for The One Ring RPG already out.

Some points I think that should be touched on, but not limited to:

The Lands of East - The actual geography of Rhûn , the Red Mountains, the Yellow Mountains, Dorwinion, the Sea of Rhûn , into Khand perhaps and beyond.

History of the East - It doesn't need to be a great super detailed history but some key points, like the waking of the elves, the coming of the Blue Wizards, when Sauron hides himself there, the rise of Khamul and how it plays into the books and current timeline.

Cultures of the East - There is more than just Easterlings in the Lost East. The Avari elves, those that refused to follow the Valar into the West remained behind here. Four of the 7 houses of the Dwarves are located here. Men from Hildörien passed through this area on the way west creating many cultures, Easterlings, Druedain, the Dunedain came to the shores in the Second Age, the influence of Dorwinion and Dale, men from Khand, Mordor and Orcs of Sauron!

Important Personalities - The Two Blue Wizards Morinehtar and Rómestámo, Darkness-slayer and East-helper, much debated by Tolkien came here, so did Saruman for a time, and Sauron, Khamul the Easterling was from these lands, and perhaps others.

A Relic Index, Bestiary and Maps - Any good setting needs these sort of things.

Loremaster Campaign Aid - What sort of adventure would gather heroes in this land? How would they start off? What would be their mission? What hints and tips can we give a Loremaster using this supplement.

[TetNak]

I'll help.

[Vardaen]

Toliien Gateway is going to be a big help for us:
http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Main_Page

A few key links

Rhûn
http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Rh%C3%BBn

Blue Wizards
http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Blue_wizards

Avari
http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Avari

Timeline
http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Timeline/Third_Age


What first has to be figured out is the best time frame to set thing, that decides everything from there. What would make sense is to set it the same time as the rest of TOR, 5 years after the Battle of Five Armies, Dale is rebuilt and Sauron has fled Dol Guldur: 2946 of the Third Age

[Vardaen]

I'm going to start setting up various Chatter threads where we can start to develop the cultures and various aspects of things. If you are interested in helping, just mention something here and feel free to make posts and comments in the various Chatter threads.

[Vardaen]

Odd request, if anyone with art skills was up for updating the banner I'm using for this to something more East that would be cool. Basically change out the red diamond symbol in the middle for something else, with the rest of the art around it that would be neat.

[Vardaen]

One aspect of world buulding that sometimes happens which I dont like is when one aspect of tje world is created in a vacuum. I want to make sure all aspects are well tied to each other to the setting and to possible game play. Of course somethings may remain isolated and such but overall everything has to be done together.

[Vardaen]

Tet

Var, I had been meaning to ask, but what age are you thinking of running this? Are we talking 4th Age, during LOTR, etc?

Regardless, it might be interesting to have a new threat coming over from the Dark Lands. Could be something completely new.

My first thought was to set it at the same time as the rest of the TOR Books. That leaves Sauron still out there to be thwarted, and the Blue Wizards someone to fight against, the Easterlings rallying, the heroes working against them, etc.

[Vardaen]

So with what I think is a decent enough start for maps and locations of people, language, etc, it is worth looking at some of the timeline leading up to the 4th age. What I don't want to do is get bogged down in history that doesn't really matter much, but some key points along the way need to be touched on.

Then its recent history, and the development of the cultures themselves.

[Vardaen]

Okay I finished up the Tale of Years, there is probably way more there than is really relevant to the East but we need references and such.

So now its time to work in events of The East into that.