Other Hands #3 - October 1993

In the editorial for July, I expressed my hope that our next issue would be bigger, and it seems that I have gotten my wish. Although we are still by no means over the financial hurdle yet, Other Hands has been picking up speed during the summer, both in terms of writers and subscribers. Welcome to OH #3!

The reader of The Lord of the Rings is presented with a rather curious demographic picture of northwestern Middle-earth. The Shire, for example, is filled with a large (one might even say ​“swarming”) number of contented hobbit farmers. A few days travel away is the town of Bree with its outlying villages. By contrast, the rest of Eriador appears desolate (at least north of Dunland).

Several regions Gunnar Brolin assigns populations to seem to be overpopulated when compared against both the writings of Professor Tolkien and other regions detailed by Gunnar. The areas that stand out in particular are Anfalas and Amor. Additionally, the population of Umbar requires some discussion. As 1 am revising the old Umbar module, I naturally have my own thoughts on Umbar’s population levels. But before I enter my discussion, 1 wish to commend Gunnar for an excellent and thought-provoking article. His analysis of Gondor’s population is very valuable and, I feel, highly accurate.

Thus far, Iron Crown Enterprises has not attempted to produce a magic system for Middle-earth; instead, it has simply taken over the Rolemaster system. It seems to me that the most inappropriate part of the MERP rules is its magic system. In this article I will put forward some ideas for what I think a Middle-earth-specific magic system should be like. Once I get some response, I will try to design such a system in detail.

Much of the power in Tolkien’s narrative comes from its ability to create the illusion of depth by means of lacunae — such as the mysterious cats of Queen Berúthiel, to which Aragorn makes allusion in the brooding darkness of Moria.

Throughout the writings related to Middle-earth, only occasional references have been made to the little-known people who called themselves the Drughu. In ​“The Ride of the Rohirrim,” J.R.R. Tolkien himself names one of their chieftains — their ​“great headman” — Ghân-buri-Ghân (The Return of the King: 106). He goes into greater detail about the Drughu in his essay, ​“The Drúedain” (Unfinished Tales of Núménor and Middle-earth: 377 – 387). The MERP supplements published by Iron Crown Enterprises also mention the Drúedain in passing.

In Other Hands #1, Pete Fenlon of Iron Crown Enterprises wrote a long piece which was part history, part mea culpa, part ​“Whither ICE?” It was designed to ​“invite some constructive discussion about our future plans.” I think that in many respects Iron Crown has done a good job on their Middle-earth output over the last ten years. However, like the curate’s egg, other parts are not so good.

When I first glanced through the seven-page English-Orkish dictionary appearing in the Iron Crown module Empire of the Witch-king, written by Graham Staplehurst and Heike Kubasch, my eyes were caught by the familiar word ​‘sjuk’, which in my native Swedish — and in Orkish as well, it seems — means ​‘sick’ or ​‘ill’. I could not believe it to have been a coincidence, as an English-speaker would hardly by chance begin a word with so unwieldy a consonant cluster to the Anglo ear as ​‘sj’ (a common construction in Swedish and Norwegian, pronounced like ​‘sh’ in English).

The Northwestern Middle-earth Gazetteer is a work of both synthesis and transition for Iron Crown’s MERP line. It inaugurates a new series of products ​“intended to serve as the glue for all the background and adventure material presented in the more focused campaign, fortress, city, and adventure modules.”