Every fan who has seen the films or read the books knows of the ancient city of Minas Ithil, the Tower of the Moon. Once it was captured by the Witch King of Angmar into Minas Morgul and given to him as a gift from Sauron himself, it served as a base of operations for The Nine before they set out to find the One Ring in the Shire. The once glorious and brilliant city of Minas Ithil was corrupted and twisted into a dark image so vile that Aragorn himself demanded the city be destroyed after the War of the Ring.

This city stands as a gateway into Mordor and one of the most interesting locations in all of the Middle Earth mythos, having housed a Palantiir in its lofty tower before the Dark Lord claimed it for his own. However, unlike many places such as Minas Tirith, Rivendell, or even Osgiliath, readers and watchers alike only see this city mentioned a few times, and are only told of what it appears to be. Very rarely in any media do fans get to see inside the corrupted city of men, and with that project due to be updated in the future, this is the perfect time to decide what form the renovation will take. This post is intended to inform the reader about the possibilities of the source of the construction, and provide a place to discuss the benefits or detriments of each.

Firstly, there is how it appears in the books/films: A dark and imposing tower lit by a ghostly green light. A long bridge leading to a massive gate and its black spire rising into the night sky. This is certainly the most iconic interpretation of the city and the one that people are most likely to recognize, and is probably closest to how Tolkien envisioned it himself. From the outside, this would be an absolutely unmistakable sight, but it leaves very little direction for how the interior should be planned. Taking the outline of the external structures into consideration, it leaves a very messy and close quarters structure for buildings to be placed, and therefore may be difficult for planning an interior cityscape.

Second, there is the interpretation from the popular video game Middle Earth: Shadow of War. This game is notorious among Tolkien purists for playing volleyball with the lore of Middle Earth. Many people rightly shy away from the game’s interpretation of different elements of Mordor, but I believe that this version of the city would be the best and easiest to put into a building project. Each section of the city is sectioned off from the other, making building each area fun and tidy. It even features a large arena in the Eastern part of the City, perfect for hosting events or duels. Each part of the city is heavily detailed in the game itself, so to use the game as a reference point would be Child’s play. Despite this, the fact that the design comes from a game which changes up the lore so drastically may make members of the server chafe at using it as a reference point for something that is such a major part of the mythos of Middle Earth and a massive part of the server at large.

Third, there is the version from the ever-popular MMO Lord of the Rings Online. This city is more vertical and streamlined for a large group of people, so going with this design may make it better equipped to handle events and PVP Battles such as Sieges. It may also make things easier on the builders, as the version of the city from Shadow of War is very detailed, whereas the one from Lord of the Rings Online does not require such attention to detail, and the vertical style of the city can save room for other projects nearby, such as the Pass of Cirith Ungol. This may be appealing to some builders and to the people planning this project, but again: it is a non-canon interpretation, which will inevitably drive some people away.

And finally, the builders and planners of the server may choose to simply take what information they can from official sources and plan a custom layout of the city for the server. When official sources fail, interpretation is often the route that is chosen to shore up the holes, and this could be an excellent way for all of the best planners to come forth with a cityscape that would be truly unique to the server and to the community itself. Since there is no official plan for the interior of the city as far as the lore is concerned, it could be whatever the team desired it to be.

I trust that this article has been informative and has given you many ideas about how this project could proceed. I encourage you to comment your thoughts as well as vote on the poll for which of the four ideas you support. Please note that this is not an official poll. This is just a place where ideas and opinions can be shared. Thank you very much for your attention.

Eriol_Eandur said:

There are many different opinions in the community and also among staff members about lore-accuracy and inspiration sources. So we usually aim to find a good compromise. This means that in the end we are mostly building custom versions. But that doesn't necessarily mean "least lore-accurate". My personal favourite would be a purist build like in the books. But it's clear that many people would be dissapointed to not see what the expect from the movies.
Tolkien is describing Middle-earth in incredible detail but still more isn't described. This is actually a great thing! Because of this it's possible to bring in a lot of lore from Tolkien's books and at the same time leaves great freedom for using other sources like films and games!
At Minas Morgul to me the most important lore is the description of the bridge and the foul meadow around. For other the epic shape of the walls and towers from the movie were most important. So we combined both. Movie fans have to give the long bridge in front of the gate a miss. Book fans will see some inaccuracy with shape and color of the tower (should be pale white). But I believe it's a good compromise.
About the interior of Minas Morgul we have basically no information from books and movies. We just know that a large host is coming out of the gate, so there must be a lot of space and quarters inside. So this is a spot where we have almost complete freedom and all sources for inspiration are very welcome! @CapColdblood maybe you could provide here screenshot of the details in Shadow of War and LotR Online. I haven't seen any of them.

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Absolutely! I would be more than willing to provide sources! And if any members of the builder team have access to the game, it would be Childs play to lay out a build plan for the city itself.

Expect another reply here soon with pictures of the interior of the city from Shadow of War. The only reason it would need to be changed from its current state is because the tower is not in the center of the city. But you will see what I mean when I post screenshots.

Eriol_Eandur said:

There are many different opinions in the community and also among staff members about lore-accuracy and inspiration sources. So we usually aim to find a good compromise. This means that in the end we are mostly building custom versions. But that doesn't necessarily mean "least lore-accurate". My personal favourite would be a purist build like in the books. But it's clear that many people would be dissapointed to not see what the expect from the movies.
Tolkien is describing Middle-earth in incredible detail but still more isn't described. This is actually a great thing! Because of this it's possible to bring in a lot of lore from Tolkien's books and at the same time leaves great freedom for using other sources like films and games!
At Minas Morgul to me the most important lore is the description of the bridge and the foul meadow around. For other the epic shape of the walls and towers from the movie were most important. So we combined both. Movie fans have to give the long bridge in front of the gate a miss. Book fans will see some inaccuracy with shape and color of the tower (should be pale white). But I believe it's a good compromise.
About the interior of Minas Morgul we have basically no information from books and movies. We just know that a large host is coming out of the gate, so there must be a lot of space and quarters inside. So this is a spot where we have almost complete freedom and all sources for inspiration are very welcome! @CapColdblood maybe you could provide here screenshot of the details in Shadow of War and LotR Online. I haven't seen any of them.

Click to expand...

Within these screenshots is a collection of looks at the city as it appears in shadow of war. The city is split into three sections: the lower city, the middle city, and the upper city. The first image is of the city before it was corrupted, and provides a nice overview as to what the silhouette of the city would be. The second is from within the city itself after it is corrupted. The third is an overlook of the middle city, with a focus on the massive arena inside. The fourth is a zoomed in shot of the upper city. And the final shot is an overview of the entire interior based on concept art from the development of the game.

All of this attention to detail is why I firmly support this as a way to go for the construction of the city. The iconic tower is still there, and other elements, such as the Bridge and other places that are in the films, can be left to themselves and built normally. But the inside of the city would be an easily organized build project and would serve as a fun place to hold events. This city layout was made to withstand a siege, and therefore would be phenomenal for large scale events. All of this attention to detail is why I firmly support this as the way to go for the construction of the city. The iconic tower is still there, and other elements, such as the bridge and other places that are in the films, can be left to themselves and built normally. But the inside of the city would be an easily organized build project and would serve as a fun place to hold events.

CapColdblood said:

Within these screenshots is a collection of looks at the city as it appears in shadow of war. The city is split into three sections: the lower city, the middle city, and the upper city. The first image is of the city before it was corrupted, and provides a nice overview as to what the silhouette of the city would be. The second is from within the city itself after it is corrupted. The third is an overlook of the middle city, with a focus on the massive arena inside. The fourth is a zoomed in shot of the upper city. And the final shot is an overview of the entire interior based on concept art from the development of the game.

All of this attention to detail is why I firmly support this as a way to go for the construction of the city. The iconic tower is still there, and other elements, such as the Bridge and other places that are in the films, can be left to themselves and built normally. But the inside of the city would be an easily organize build project and would serve as a fun place to hold events. This city layout was made to withstand a siege, and therefore would be phenomenal for large scale events.all of this attention to detail is why I firmly support this as the way to go for the construction of the city. The iconic tower is still there, and other elements, such as the bridge and other places that are in the films, can be left to themselves and built normally. But the inside of the city would be an easily organized build project and would serve as a fun place to hold events. This city layout was made to withstand a siege, and therefore would be phenomenal for large scale events

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draonic_slayer said:

My only concern with doing something the size portrayed in the Shadow of War (SoW) game is the size of the city. At the moment, there would have to be extensive Voxel/World Edit work done to make that fit. Most builders would be happy to build on projects this large as there really is not much to build on main-world at the moment. As you can see in the image below the Ephel Dúath, has been modified to fit the current build of Minas Morgul in.
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As seen in this image above, the SoW depiction would put it around the size of our DA for scale, and if we recreated that it would blow the mountain terrain out of proportion. Having a couple ruins and stuff in the Morgul Vale would be an improvement, but the current Mordor resource pack that was used for Minas Morgul is sort of limiting for us builders at the moment. The resource pack would require major work before we would even start considering Minas Morgul. Additionally the Mordor project as a whole is still waiting for textures before we can restart the project. I would personally put the improvements to the Mordor pack at maybe a year. If there are any depictions that Tolkien himself or other artist did of Minas Morgul would be nice if you could link those below.

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I do not expect this project to be easy, but because the build of Mordor is going to start from the ground up with new resources and new plans, I was thinking that some extra work could be put in when the time is right to make this all work. Again, I have no idea how much work this will take or when this project will start up, but I believe that the result will be worth it. Not saying it will happen in the next year, but when it does happen, there should be a clear plan as to how the build should proceed. And if you think the builders would like a challenge, all the better. Again, I’m just laying the groundwork for an idea that I think is valid. Don’t let my eagerness to plan for the project make you think we can “build Rome in a day”, so to speak.

Tolkien did not actually describe the city extensively in any detail beyond quotes that I am certain we are all familiar with at this point: The White stones, the Tower of the Moon, the sickly green magic aura, etc. The only two artistic interpretations of any city even close to Minas Morgul are these two drawings of Minas Tirith: One that Tolkien sketched himself in the 1940s and one that he personally looked over and signed off on from a professional artist. Obviously, these are not the designs that Peter Jackson or the server have gone with for Minas Tirith. Therefore, the interpretation of how the city of Minas Morgul should look is up for debate as far as lore in concerned. The films are an able interpretation, but the Shadow of War version also fits nicely without breaking any part of the lore (unlike every other part of that game).

Human100 said:

Ok so basically i have seen one point that u missed in the shadow of war pics is that minas morgul/minas ithil there is it that the thing We made is the keep itself and the city would probably have been ruined for orcs camps and stuff

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If that were to be the only excuse stopping people from building a larger and better version of the city, I would have to question the validity of that excuse. There is nothing inside of Lore to support that argument, and if the city has to be remade anyway because new textures and new things are being developed for Mordor itself, why not update the city as a “first step” in the Mordor project when it gets started in about... 500 years?

Human100 said:

Also as drao said i think is that ruins could be put in the valley tho u have to think this place was conquered a thousand years ago and not yesterday

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If we go by the lore of Shadow of War (yes, I know it’s not canon), Talion was in the city, holding it for decades against the tide of Sauron’s war machine. The Lore of the books does not refute that the city was captured recently to my knowledge, just that the Witch King captured and corrupted it shortly before the war with Gondor. So even though the game is not canon, the Lore concerning the city itself does not seem to clash with the books

By the time of the first game, Shadow of Mordor, the ring was already back in the Shire with Bilbo after his adventures. So if we take what we know from the books and what we know from the games, we can estimate that there is a 60 year period between the beginning of the game where the city is corrupted and the War of the Ring (as stated in the films right after the flashback in Fellowship of the Ring).

Eriol_Eandur said:

We had some extended discussions about the size of Minas Morgul at our map. The current size required me to deform the mountains extremely and redo a lot of them. Larger size is just not reasonable with our map scale as it would require a much larger mountain area. I'm absolutely not worried about the amount of work it would require, but I just don't see how it could work.

Also the city of Minas Ithil was first a twin to Minas Arnor (now Minas Tirith, but it was much smaller at that time). That city was destoyed by Sauron even before end of Second Age (more than 3000 years ago). Minas Ithil existed for only 109 years! Later, after the victory of the Last Alliance when Isildur took the One Ring from Sauron Minas Ithil was rebuild, but since then it seems to have been more of a watchtower or fortress than an actual city. 2000 years later the Nazgul take this watchtower or fortress and turn it into Minas Morgul. That still was 1000 years before our server time. So ruins of that old town would long be gone.
But my main reason why I'm strongly agains that Shadow of War version is the description in the book:

The Shadow of War city layout is a complete contradiction of this description where Minas Morgul is up at the southern side of the valley and not filling all the valley floor. The valley bottom has wide flats with these foul white flowers.
I'll be honest. I'm not willing to give up that description from the book. To me it's an very essential place of the storyline where Frodo barely escapes the Whitchking. At most I could agree to some 3000 year old, barely noticeable, overgrown foundations of the Second Age city.

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As much as it pains me to give up the idea of another location that we could use for events and sieges and the like, I am more than willing to concede this point because it is obvious you have made up your mind about it. I don't feel that I can comfortably disagree with you to the point where I still support my original idea; Not with the clear and definitive evidence that you have presented staring me in the face. I was not aware that the entire mountain range would have to be remade to accommodate the size of this city, nor was I aware that you viewed certain parts of the books in a different light than I did. This would be a contradiction to the way the server operates as well as a major strain on the builders for one simple settlement.

It will be for the best to go with the original idea for Minas Morgul and, at best, renovate that part of the world rather than reconstruct it. However, I hope that the ideas presented here could be carried on to other settlements deeper inside of the Dark Lord's domain. Areas to the East or South of the plains of Gorgoroth (Lithlad, Nurn, Seregost) are not described in great detail in the books or films, so perhaps there could be builds in other sections that use some of the data from the sources gathered here.

I look forward to discussing the next construction project, however soon or far off into the future it is. Thank you for considering my proposal and responding accordingly. This gives me great hope for the future.

I remain ever your servant,
Rook