Lord of the Rings RPG

[Skinnerman02]

Hi all,

Over on the RPGnet boards, I had proposed, and begun, a project seeking to finish the books that Decipher Inc. so beautifully published for their Lord of the Rings RPG. There has been more reaction to seeing completed projects than I originally anticipated, which has been nice, but find I'm short of cartographers. This project is purely on a volunteer basis and compensation for work, sadly, won't happen (other than the fact that we can't legally sell the product). But if any of the amazing artists on this site find themselves fans of the game and, like me, want to see some of the supplements finished, I would be most grateful for any help that can be offered. We're trying to stay as true to the format and appearance of the previous publications as is humanly (and legally) possible.
Thank you all for your time!

[Gidde]

Can you post an example of that style? Alas, I never saw any of the original books. Also, you may want to check out the Finished Maps section of the gallery; several of us have posted Middle Earth maps in there.

[Skinnerman02]

Sweet! Will do...I can try and see if there are any legally posted...otherwise I might have to fanangle something...

[Skinnerman02]

Here are some examples of what Decipher has done. Check out the 'Example Maps' folder.

http://www.4shared.com/dir/14240887/...4/sharing.html

Of course, if you volunteer for this job and are much better artists, don't feel obligated to follow this style directly. Mostly I'm looking for coherency throughout our project and the past books (between us though, the big D weren't the most accurate all the time with where things were...). Thanks again for taking a gander at this post! Also, If you navigate a little through the site I posted, there's a little test .pdf called Binder1 that has the first few pages of the book, mostly just pictures, hardly any text.

[Skinnerman02]

Hello there,

A little more information about the project. Our attempt is to create The Return of the King Sourcebook, which was never released by Decipher Inc., for the Lord of the Rings RPG. This project has been started, by fans, out of love for the game and sorrow for the missing supplements. We're looking for a late December release for this web document and have not yet compiled a full list of desired locations. Some sites we plan on including, however, will be: Minas Tirith and the Pelennor, Pelargir, Gorgoroth, and Mount Doom. Our goal is to remain consistent to the imagery of the movies and Decipher's books, if not wholly to the information (the past supplements were based more from the good Professor's vision rather than Jackson's, but used stills from the movies and often made side-by-side comparisons). We're looking for the best quality we can get out of the charity of our volunteer's hearts. We're not looking to pressure anyone into aiding us as this project is somewhat low stress; we're meaning to have fun and be relaxed. The release date is tentative and not solid as we all have lives and obligations, and aren't getting paid. All rights to the imagery will remain with their creators and we will list their name in the opening credits and give a special thanks. Thanks again for taking a look see, hopefully we can all turn out an amazing product.

Thank you for your time,
Skinnerman

P.S. Here's the original discussion on RPGNet, and a reiteration of the link above showing samples of maps and the project so far.

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=479801

http://www.4shared.com/dir/14240887/...4/sharing.html

[Redrobes]

Hi, I am one of the admins of me-dem which is the Middle Earth Digital Elevation Model group where were trying to map ME to some ridiculous res in 3D. Though I am not sure whether the stuff can be crossed over there might be some possibility of it. You could try by checking out the site www.me-dem.org though its been slow for a while especially after it took a few hacks and went off line for a while. Anyway the results so far is that there exists a model of the land to about 20K pix square in 3D which is not high enough to map a single location to any good standard but its a start. Theres quite a lot of reference material over there but I am not sure if the new website is allowing access to all of it now.

The forum over there mentions the Fonstad refs which we are also using as a reference to drive some of the vegetation and climates for the land areas.

I am having trouble getting at the images in the shared area links. Can you post a few here as attachments ?

This is where were up to (in fact I can see some more bits done beyond this point) and its been colored up like shown or similar - the coloring is all process driven not done by hand.

[Skinnerman02]

These are in no way my work.

[Steffworthington]

Hi Skinnerman. Glad you made it over from the RPGnet forum. Like I said over there... more than happy to do an adventure or two..

[Skinnerman02]

Thanks for the warm welcome! Would you like complete reign of the adventure? or do you want some guidance? If you want autonomy, all I ask is that it be set during the Return of the King. If you want more direction, give me some time to think of an outline.

[Redrobes]

Cool - our map is more like below of the same area around Minas Tirith. The text colors are a bit shot in this area but aside from that its like this all over the map.

I like the art like maps you have there which I would think would make for better diagrams in a module / booklet tho.