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Mordor Terrain

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Journey Map Scan of the Mordor terrain by @Tyranystrasz. Original was 34 mb, so here is a resized screenshot of the map.
 
Hey Tryran,

The terrain along the path of Frodo and Sam is described in the book with a lot of details. I would really love to see these details at MCME. Not sure which of these things you can do with your mashine and which need to be done by hand later (Can I already claim that area? :D):
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  • At the entrance of Morgul Valley there is a prominent shoulder of the mountains. The road from Osgiliath to Minas Ithil turns around this. Frodo and Sam first notice it from the Cross-roads, which is quite far away:
The Two Towers – Journey to the Cross-road said:
Across the tumbled lands between, the mountains of the Ephel Dúath frowned at them, black and shapeless below where night lay thick and did not pass away, above with jagged tops and edges outlined hard and menacing against the fiery glow. Away to their right a great shoulder of the mountains stood out, dark and black amid the shadows, thrusting westward.
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The Two Towers – The stairs of Cirith Ungol said:
They left the ring of trees and crept along the road towards the mountains. This road, too, ran straight for a while, but soon it began to bend away southwards, until it came right under the great shoulder of rock that they had seen from the distance. Black and forbidding it loomed above them, darker than the dark sky behind. Crawling under its shadow the road went on, and rounding it sprang east again and began to climb steeply. … and then he (Frodo) saw it … the city of the Ringwraiths. … A long-tilted valley, a deep gulf of shadow, ran back far into the mountains. Upon the further side, some way within the valley's arms, high on a rocky seat upon the black knees of the Ephel Dúath, stood the walls and tower of Minas Morgul. All was dark about it, earth and sky, but it was lit with light. ...
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  • At the east side of Ephel Dúath there is another very prominent feature, the Morgai. It is the most eastern ridge of the Ephel Duath and is quite important for the plot in the books. Frodo and Sam have to cross it to get to Mount Doom, but they can't as the eastern face is way too steep. Thus they are forced to walk all the way from Cirith Ungol ("2" at the map) almost to the old Castle of Durthang ("1" at the map). I marked the Morgai ridge in red and the valley Frodo and Sam walk a long in green. There is even a small stream in this valley which has it's source at point "A". It's almost dried out and bitter water, but is a very important water source for Frodo and Sam. The Road from Minas Morgul to Barad-Dûr crossed this narrow valley on a high bridge. After the escape from Cirith Ungol Frodo and Sam have to jump down from that bridge nearby the eastern end as there are pursuers at both sides of the bridge.
    Roughly half way between Cirirth Ungol and Durthang Frodo and Sam try to cross the Morgai ridge. They climb up and look down at the Plateau of Gorgoroth, but they can't get down as the eastern face is an almost vertical 500 m high cliff. The valley climbs up to the north and at point A it reaches the height of the Morgai ridge. But the eastern face is still high and steep. So the only way for Frodo and Sam is the old road down from Durthang Castle to the Isenmouth at the entrance of Udûn, which is cut into the vertical cliffs. On this road Frodo and Sam are overtaken by a group of Orcs who force them to march with them (thinking they are deserted orcs).
The Return of The King – The Land of Shadow said:
The eastern faces of the Ephel Dúath were sheer, falling in cliff and precipice to the black trough that lay between them and the inner ridge. A short way beyond the way-meeting after another steep incline, a flying bridge of stone leapt over the chasm and bore the road across into the tumbled slopes and glens of the Morgai. … Behind them, now high above on the mountain-side, loomed the Tower of Cirith Ungol, its stones glowing dully. … They scrambled on to the low parapet of the bridge. Fortunately there was no longer any dreadful drop into the gulf, for the slopes of the Morgai had already risen almost to the level of the road; but it was too dark for them to guess the depth of the fall.
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The Return of The King – The Land of Shadow said:
They went on up the ravine, until it ended in a sharp slope of screes and sliding stones. The last living things gave up their struggle; the tops of the Morgai were grassless, bare, jagged, barren as a slate.
After much wandering and search they found a way that they could climb, and with a last hundred feet of clawing scramble they were up. They came to a cleft between two dark crags, and passing through found themselves on the very edge of the last fence of Mordor. Below them, at the bottom of a fall of some fifteen hundred feet, lay the inner plain stretching away …
Sam went on. '… There is no way down that I can see...'
…
They soon found it impossible to make their way along the crest of the Morgai, or anywhere along its higher levels, pathless as they were and scored with deep ghylls. In the end they were forced to go back down the ravine that they had climbed and seek for a way along the valley.
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The Return of The King – The Land of Shadow said:
The trough between the mountains and the Morgai had steadily dwindled as it climbed upwards, and the inner ridge was now no more than a shelf in the steep faces of the Ephel Dúath; but to the east it fell as sheerly as ever down into Gorgoroth. Ahead the water-course came to an end in broken steps of rock; for out from the main range there sprang a high barren spur, thrusting eastward like a wall.
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The Return of The King – The Land of Shadow said:
A few miles north, high up in the angle where the western spur branched away from the main range, stood the old castle of Durthang, now one of the many orc-holds that clustered about the dale of Udûn. A road visible in the growing light, came winding down from it, until only a mile or two from where the hobbits lay it turned east and ran along a shelf cut in the side of the spur, and so went down into the plain, and on to the Isenmouthe.

'We have come to a dead end, Sam' said Frodo. 'If we go on, we shall only come up to that orc-tower, but the only road to take is that road that comes down from it – unless we go back. We can't climb up westward, or climb down eastward.'
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EDIT:
  • The plains of Gorgoroth are described as a VERY flat plain. Tolkien imagined something like a dried out lake. At the almost dry mud large rocks from Mount Doom were hauled to create a lot of holes making it possible for Frodo and Sam to hide cawling from hole to hole. I know it will be hard to make this looking nice, but I think we should try.
The Return of The King – Mount Doom said:
The land all about was dreary, flat and drab-hued.

As the light grew a little he saw to his surprise that what from a distance had seemed wide and featureless flats were in fact all broken and tumbled. Indeed the whole surface of the plains of Gorgoroth was pocked with great holes, as if, while it was still a waste of soft mud, it had been smitten with a shower of bolts and huge slingstones. The largest of these holes were rimmed with ridges of broken rock, and broad fissures ran out from them in all directions. It was a land in which it would be possible to creep from hiding to hiding, …

Yet still before it there stretched a wide region of fuming, barren, ash-ridden land. …
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Also just a little question, will the plateau of Gorgoroth be an actual plateau? Surely it's more than just a name. I get people want to have a massive Barad-Dur but just a thought. Isn't there also farmland around the Sea of Nurn, which would mean flat-ish grassland that's more fertile?
 
Ofc we will have a lot of non-canonical fortresses and towns in Mordorn. Its a large and realm with strict military order I would guess. With everything needed, mines, forges, storages and vast fields to grow supplies.
The Return of The King – The Land of Shadow said:
Here in the northward regions (Plains of Gorgoroth) were the mines and forges, and the musterings of long-planned war; ...
Neither he nor Frodo knew anything of the great slave-worked fields away south in this wide realm, beyond the fumes of the Mountain by the dark sad waters of Lake Núrnen
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But I would not use Sindarin names for them. The names from the books are Sindarin as they are all for places well known in Gondor where places are commonly named in Sinarin. But I don't think that other places in Mordor were known in Gondor. The men of Gondor never occupied the realm of Mordor. Instead they guarded the borders during the first centuriest of the Third Age to prevent Sauron from returning. For this purposte they built the Towers of the Teeth at the Black Gate and also the fortress of Durthang and the Tower of Cirith Ungol.

Sauron invented the Black Speed for common use under his reign, but he failed with that project. Orcs ususally used clan languages or a cruel form of Westron to comunicate. Only the captains of Mordor frequently used the Black Speech. Thus places in Mordor should either have names in the Black Speech or probably more likely names in Westron with strong influences from the Black Speech.
For example the Orcs of Mordor say Lugbúrz instead of Barad-dûr.
An example of black speech in the debased form used by Orcs is this:
The Two Towers - The Uruk-hai said:
Uglúk au bagronk sha pushdug Saruman-glob búbhosh skai.
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Not to many words are known in Black Speech, so I think it will be quite hard to use it for names :P
 
Eriol_Eandur said:
Ofc we will have a lot of non-canonical fortresses and towns in Mordorn. Its a large and realm with strict military order I would guess. With everything needed, mines, forges, storages and vast fields to grow supplies.

But I would not use Sindarin names for them. The names from the books are Sindarin as they are all for places well known in Gondor where places are commonly named in Sinarin. But I don't think that other places in Mordor were known in Gondor. The men of Gondor never occupied the realm of Mordor. Instead they guarded the borders during the first centuriest of the Third Age to prevent Sauron from returning. For this purposte they built the Towers of the Teeth at the Black Gate and also the fortress of Durthang and the Tower of Cirith Ungol.

Sauron invented the Black Speed for common use under his reign, but he failed with that project. Orcs ususally used clan languages or a cruel form of Westron to comunicate. Only the captains of Mordor frequently used the Black Speech. Thus places in Mordor should either have names in the Black Speech or probably more likely names in Westron with strong influences from the Black Speech.
For example the Orcs of Mordor say Lugbúrz instead of Barad-dûr.
An example of black speech in the debased form used by Orcs is this:


Not to many words are known in Black Speech, so I think it will be quite hard to use it for names :p
Click to expand...
But we have always called the places as they were called in the books, like all the places in the Shire were called differently by Hobbits. And the Elves didn't call Rivendell Rivendell, but Imladris.
 
I didn't want to say that we should say Lugburz instead of Barad-Dur. Those names used in Gondor we should use ofc.

I was speaking about places that are not known in Gondor. The names Segegost, Thaurband and Nargroth doesn't make sense imo. There is no one who would introduce these names. Gondorian don't know the places, orcs will call them in their own language and captians of Mordor will name them in Black Speech.
 
We use a lot of non-canonical structures (Minas Tirith and Rivendell for example :p). Both are quite different in the books and pictures by Tolkien. I don't have a problem with that.
 
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