When Tur­bine looked at design­ing the areas of Middle-earth, some regions, like The Shire, were blessed with sev­eral detailed maps which could serve as invalu­able ref­er­ence mate­r­ial.  Other regions, how­ever, were less well mapped, and some, like the Ered Luin and the sur­round­ing low­lands, were hardly mapped at all.

The Ered Luin (Blue Moun­tains) are one of only a few sur­viv­ing fea­tures of Bele­riand, the far north-western area of Middle-earth which was destroyed at the end of the First Age.   The moun­tains were homes to two impor­tant Dwarf set­tle­ments, Nogrod and Belegost.  We are told in The Sil­mar­il­lion that both were ruined in The War of Wrath, when Thang­oro­drim was bro­ken and Bele­riand was sub­merged.  The Ered Luin them­selves were thrust apart in their midst and the sea rushed in, cre­at­ing the Gulf of Lhun and chang­ing the course of the river.

The lands to the west of the moun­tains were in the First Age called Ossiriand, the land of seven rivers, and was also named Lin­don by the Noldor.  It was set­tled by Nan­dorin (Green) Elves and for a time housed both Beren and Luthien towards the end of their lives.  East of the moun­tains the land rolled away into downs and thus to Eriador.

It is impor­tant to note that the Ered Luin and sur­round­ing lands have been home to Dwarves as well as Nan­dorin, Sin­darin and Noldorin Elves, but never to any sig­nif­i­cant groups of Men.  In this Tur­bine have been consistent.

The Ered Luin we see in Lord of the Rings Online is only the north­ern part of the region, the lands to the north of the Gulf of Lhun.  For­lin­don was the Elves name for the area, with Har­lin­don being south of the Gulf.  The region in the game is rel­a­tively small when com­pared to the other main regions.  The main fea­tures are the river Lhun in the East of the land and the Blue Moun­tains in the West.  In between the two are grad­u­ally ris­ing low­lands.  Elven set­tle­ments are con­cen­trated in the South East whilst the main Dwar­ven pop­u­la­tion is cen­tered around Thorin’s Hall in the North West.

It is impor­tant to pause and con­sider the chang­ing nature of the pop­u­la­tion of the region through­out his­tory before analysing how well Tur­bine have designed the area based on Tolkien’s writ­ings.  The mod­ern site of the Gulf of Lhun is the ancient site of Mount Dolmed, the birth­place of two of the seven fathers of the Dwarves.  Nogrod was founded just to the north of Dolmed and Belegost to the south.  The Nan­dorin Elves lived in the foothills of the Ered Luin in the First Age, but the Dwarves were the orig­i­nal inhab­i­tants.  At the destruc­tion of Bele­riand, Mount Dolmed was destroyed, and Nogrod with it.  Belegost may have sur­vived com­plete destruc­tion, but was cer­tainly ruined.  Those Dwarves who sur­vived even­tu­ally migrated East, many join­ing with the Long­beards in Khazad-Dum.  Many of the Elves who sur­vived the car­nage and remained in Middle-earth chose to linger in Lin­don, being the only hab­it­able land left from the ruin of Beleriand.

Dur­ing the Sec­ond Age Gil-Galad, the High King of the Noldor, based his realm in For­lin­don whilst Cir­dan main­tained a pres­ence of Sin­dar in Har­lin­don.  Dur­ing this time the Grey Havens (Mithlond) were estab­lished  at the head of the Gulf of Lhun together with lesser havens fur­ther west at Har­lond and For­lond.  In the Third Age the Dwarves returned when Thrain and his son Thorin Oak­en­shield wan­dered west through Eri­ador and set­tled in the east of the Ered Luin.  Cir­dan remained at the Grey Havens and in Lin­don Noldorin and Sin­darin Elves still lin­gered, though their num­ber were few.

We are told very lit­tle in the Leg­en­dar­ium on the nature of the Dwar­ven dwellings in the Ered Luin in the Third Age.  We know that “they pros­pered, after a fash­ion” and that they mined Iron, but no pre­cious met­als.  Their num­bers were not great, and they had few females Dwarves, but they did attract some wan­der­ing Dwarves to them as the fame of the House of Durin being re-established spread.  There are no ref­er­ences to any other set­tle­ments, other than Thorin’s Halls.

Of the Elven set­tle­ments in the region were are told even less.  The Grey Havens, the final major loca­tion in The Lord of the Rings, are scarcely described.  We know that Cir­dan dwelt at the havens them­selves and that other Elves dwelt fur­ther west, beyond the moun­tains.  Of the nature of the Elven set­tle­ments in Ered Luin we are told nothing.

The back­story in the game for Ered Luin cen­tres around the attempts of Angmar to stir up trou­ble between the Elves and Dwarves in Ered Luin.  Angmar seeks to per­suade the Dour­hand dwarves, a tribe invented by Tur­bine, to firstly steal from Thorin’s Hall and sec­ondly to kid­nap an Elven Prince, both with the inten­tion that each side will blame the other.  The Dourhands of old destroyed an Elven refuge in Ered Luin, Edhe­lion, seek­ing ‘relics’, although why they did this is not clear.  This cer­tainly wouldn’t be the first time Dwarves have attacked an Elven set­tle­ment seek­ing a valu­able item.  Doriath, the First Age seat of power of Thin­gol, was attacked by Dwarves from Nogrod when the Dwarves sought the Sil­maril kept at Mene­groth.  It may be that the attack on Edhe­lion is based on this event.

Tur­bine have been able to add more of their own con­tent in Ered Luin than in most other areas of the game, due to the spar­sity of mate­r­ial writ­ten by Tolkien on this area.  They have clearly invented Elven set­tle­ments east of the moun­tains.  The only recorded dwellings by Elves in this area east of the Ered Luin are the Grey Havens them­selves.  The Tur­bine cre­ated Elven dwellings appear to be lesser havens on the Lhun, north of the Grey Havens.  Although areas such as Celondim and Duil­lond are stun­ning in game, I don’t think they fit in well with what we know about Elves in this area.  There are pre­cious few Elves remain­ing.  Cir­dan, who is the pre-eminent Elf in this area, lingers at Mithlond until the last ship sails into the West.  We are given the impres­sion by Tolkien that he dwells, if not alone, cer­tainly with very few oth­ers.  There are other Elves fur­ther west, towards the coasts in Lin­don, but this area is not included in Tur­bines Ered Luin.

It’s a sim­i­lar story with the Dwarves.  We know that Thrain estab­lished a dwelling in the moun­tains and that his son, Thorin, inher­ited this.  The term ‘Thorin’s halls’ is used by Tolkien to imply a set­tle­ment, rather than a highly pop­u­lated  grand man­sion, which is what we get in the game.  I under­stand that Tur­bine wanted to show off some Dwar­ven splen­dour to recall Moria, but the halls we get in LotRO just seem far too grand for me.  You have to remem­ber that Thorin sat in his halls for years brood­ing on the wealth of the Lonely Moun­tain and feel­ing very emo indeed.  If I were sat on that throne in Thorin’s Halls, I don’t think I would brood very much at all.

What Tur­bine have done with the Elf and Dwarf set­tle­ments in Ered Luin is to try and recall some elder glory, and the results are truly beau­ti­ful, but per­haps a lit­tle inap­pro­pri­ate.  The supreme Elven set­tle­ments in Middle-earth are at Imladris and Lothlo­rien.  The rea­son for this is that Elrond and Gal­adriel both have Rings of Power and are able to main­tain dwellings which sur­pass what would nor­mally be pos­si­ble in the mor­tal lands.   The great­est dwar­ven set­tle­ment, albeit aban­doned at the start of LotRO, is Moria, ancient halls of the Long­beards.  These man­sions were crafted over thou­sands of years and were only pos­si­ble due to the great wealth brought by mithril.  With the release of Shad­ows of Angmar, nei­ther Moria nor Lorien were in the game, and Imladris is not avail­able to new play­ers.  Tur­bine there­fore seem­ingly decided to cre­ate some Elf and Dwarf set­tle­ments which were inspired by the great homes of those races.

Since the game launched, the pub­lic rep­u­ta­tion dun­geon of Sar­nur has been added.  We are told that these are “the ruins of one of the ancient cities of their fore­bears, a long-abandoned delv­ing that they renamed Sarnúr.”  Sar­nur is clearly intended to be the ruins of a First Age Dwarf set­tle­ment, pos­si­bly even Nogrod.  The ancient inhab­i­tants of Nogrod were the Fire­beards, the same group of Dwarves who sacked Mene­groth and killed Thin­gol.  It seems plau­si­ble that the Dourhands are the Third Age descen­dants of the Fire­beards and that they have removed to Sar­nur as it is the ancient site of their cap­i­tal.  Nogrod was totally destroyed in the War of Wrath, and Sar­nur is a lit­tle fur­ther north than Nogrod would have been sited, so it is pos­si­ble that Sar­nur is intended to be sim­ply an out­ly­ing dwelling, or this could have just been an error on the part of Turbine.

I hope that in the future we will be able to see more of Ered Luin, espe­cially Lin­don and Mithlond, but also per­haps the ruins of Gil-Galad’s lands to the south in Har­lin­don.  The land between Ered Luin and The Shire also needs fill­ing in and the addi­tion of the Emyn Beraid (Tower Hills) would be par­tic­u­larly welcome.

The Ered Luin does con­tain some unde­ni­ably beau­ti­ful set­tings, and I for one have taken many screen­shots of the land­scape, but I do feel that this is one zone where Tur­bine have let their cre­ative sides get the bet­ter of them slightly.  ‘Blank can­vass’ zones are a chal­lenge, admit­tedly, and the con­cerns of game design will often come before lore–based con­cerns, but with a lit­tle more care I feel that a bet­ter com­pro­mise could have been achieved.

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