Quote Originally Posted by Hierona View Post
Think I will be mostly looking forward to Nurn and Rhûn, but Forodwaith would also be really cool. Hoped they would go there after Gundabad to track down Gorgar, but yeah, story went a different way. I think they are heading to Rhûn next, east of the iron hills to Dorwinion. Umbar seems at it will be to quick after the coronation of Aragorn.
Much agreed!

Perhaps some SPOILERS below for those who didn't do Mordor, Strongholds, or Gundabad:





Yeah. It's that Loknashra character who I think leaves Forodwaith as........ still a possibility; she seemed to describe something involving the origins of Orcs going on in the farther north --- meaning north of Car Bronach.

I do want to learn more about Rhûn's devastation....... etc.

I'm just frankly hoping for more mega-zones. What makes "Before the Shadow" so exciting, at least to me, is that it's considered a "mini-expansion" content-wise that's still going to drop this....... humongous chunk of landscape. It does give me hope for us to see more zones of that scale again; Rhûn would certainly warrant it.

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To the thread in general:


I have a couple of hopes for Rhûn:

1- I'd like the inland sea not to be "under-scaled" too much. I don't want to be able to see the other side of the Sea of Rhûn or even where it starts to curve in a different direction on highest graphical settings.

2- I'd like it completely "swimmable." Like: Do shame to the original "Ever-Swim." Make it possible to swim across it, I'm serious. Crazy idea? Sure. But it would be hilarious to be able to do that. Of course, there should be "dock-masters" as well to pass between the various port cities.

3- The surrounding landscape should likewise be very built-up. The "sea" portion probably doesn't need to be much bigger than the ocean water they made for West Gondor when it launched, just drawn together in a rounder shape.

4- I'd really want to see various kinds of factions. There's a lot they can work to imagine. Where did the Dale-Men exactly hail from before they settled Dale? Well, Tolkien never tells us. There are those Avari Elves out there, and I'd like to hope they had a main base in Dorwinion somewhere, even if hidden from, say, the Chayasir who were forced to leave. There is the mystery of precisely which mountain range Drasa's Folk / Stout-Axes hailed from and how Sauron enslaved them. There's just so much out there, many possibilities. There's that huge forest in northeastern Rhûn that is marked clearly on Tolkien's map, though we know precious little about it.

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Also, I'd think there'd be some very large cities, and probably a capital, perhaps on the southern shores closer to Mordor; Sauron may have set up one of the Gurzyul to command such a place, perhaps even one of the Nine - the Bane of Rhûn? (*Since Khamul went to Dol Guldor, I mean? ). A Dwarven area....... probably would be the Mountains of Rhûn on the southwestern shores of the inland sea.

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On the other hand, yes, there's this mysterious devastation the zone refers to. I do hope it's not completely a physical one; I wouldn't really want to see a Rhûn that's a clone of Mordor that got blasted from some catastrophe. We have Gorgoroth for that.... and Nurn to follow at some point. Or at least- I'd hope it would have it's hidden pockets of life, some untouched places that could still give us a glimpse of a "pre-devastation" Rhûn- or whatever that would look like.

Cheers!