Filling the Gaps: following in the footsteps of the Wildwood and the Angle

[k40rne]

I kind of wonder if the plan at some point was to take it there next, but real-world events made it weird. Vidja games are an escape for a lot of people, and I'm not sure how much of an escape it would be for us to explore an inland sea nestled among the steppes that has been ravaged by a pandemic while age-old tensions between pseudo-Slavic peoples burst into the open. :/

quite a bit on the nose, yes. I'd certainly love to see Kineland and beyond though.

If we're returning to the epic storyline, where do we stand? The war ended a few weeks ago, and a mysterious man has reemerged from the mists of legend, been crowned king, and married a strange elven woman. There are probably three things on Aragorn's mind right now. His war-ravaged kingdom needs to rebuild; he needs to introduce himself to his people, especially those in the far reaches of Gondor; and he needs to ensure that his borders are secure and the war is truly over. So he goes on a goodwill tour, and we accompany him, helping people as we can, because that's what we do. (And yes, we never hear about this in the books; but we also never hear about Legolas and Gimli's adventures in Mordor, or Gandalf's trip to Erebor, or the fact that the dwarves have a whole friggin' war in Gundabad.) That takes us to Anfalas, with some stops in Central and Western Gondor (the "familiar spaces" Scenario referred to).

While we're there, the corsairs attack, because Aragorn never made peace with them the way he did with the Haradrim and Easterlings (I'm guessing, at least; the corsairs wouldn't have been involved in the Battle of the Pelennor Fields.) Umbar has millennia-old beef with Gondor; the Black Numenoreans have been stirring up trouble all over Middle Earth; and in real-world history piracy tends to thrive in the aftermath of war, when sailors involved in the war turn to other means of supporting themselves. It makes sense that they wouldn't back down as the Haradrim and Easterlings. So we investigate on Aragorn's behalf and find out that the Corsairs have been using Tolfalas, a mostly-uninhabited island, as a staging ground for their raids. Aragorn can't send an army marching to Umbar without provoking the Haradrim, who he's just made peace with; so we and a few others who Aragorn trusts go south to sabotage Umbar as best we can. Along the way, we deal with the Haradrim and learn about the complexities of their world. We don't know much about Harad; it may not be a unified, centralized empire, but a collection of distinct peoples with different ideologies, much like we've learned that the various peoples of Rhun are very different from one another. There may be rivalries between the different states or ethnic groups of Harad. There may be opportunistic rebels who've taken action while the army was distracted by the war. There may be factions or leaders vying for power. Some groups might still be loyal to Sauron; some might never have willingly allied themselves with Sauron; some might be allied with the Umbarrim. Some people will want to accept Aragorn's offer of peace; but some old soldiers never stop fighting, and will resent a peace treaty. There might be Black Numenoreans manipulating people behind the scenes, or one of the Gurzyul might be up to mischief. The devs seem to love this sort of storytelling, if their handling of the Lossoth, the Dunlendings, the peoples of Rhun, and the various factions of dwarves are any indication. There are endless possibilities for interesting stories on the road to Umbar, and plenty of potential for us to get into conflict along the way.

So I don't think it matters that we haven't seen much setup for a southward journey. It's easy to build up the story as you go.

It certainly can be easily driven, nice work on yours btw. Also the whole Thorongil story can be incorporated in there.

The existing Haradrim cultural assets give them a bit of a head start too. And this, of course, is assuming that the artists haven't already been at work making new assets with the knowledge that this is coming. As for the graphics update, it sounds like they're working with an external company on that, so I'm not sure how much of SSG's existing art team is involved in that.

I think we should assume their artists have been working on wherever the new Epic takes us, while we had our year long foray into Eriador.

ETA: Forgot to mention that the Heirs of Castamir, a direct reference to Umbar, were mentioned in the first book of Vollume V, but without much development or any resolution. That seems like another hint that the story will be moving us to Umbar. Volume V is called "The Peace of Middle Earth"; that could mean that the overarching theme of the volume will be safeguarding the peace, in which case I think a focus on Harad would make sense.

Nice shout. Umbar certainly seems the most likely since they've specifically stated Mithlond won't be for a long time. I'd put money on it.