A TASTE OF THINGS TO COME: NEAR HARAD

Wesley J. Frank: 949 N Humphrey Ave, Oak Park, IL 60302-1417, USA ([email protected])

©1996 Wesley J. Frank; first published in Other Hands 12.

I presented Jessica Ney-Grimm with the outline for the Near Harad module some five years ago, along with my proposals for Arnor and Shire. While I thought that Near Harad, being farther from the heartland of The Lord of the Rings, would be less risky as a introductory project, ICE had different needs, and the two northern modules came first. The situation in west-central Endor has changed somewhat with time. Other writers have taken up the cause: The Kin-strife and Southern Gondor, both dealing with this part of Middle-earth, have been completed, and Umbar and Khand are well under way; Northern Gondor and Mordor will soon take shape. Near Harad, rather than being an isolated project, is now somewhere near the center of a grand strategy. Merging the old outline with the new ideas has taken a bit of negotiation, but it should prove well worth the effort.

The Near Harad outline was written well after Pete Fenlon drew up the Nazgûl histories, but I realized at the time that many additions and some changes would be necessary to provide a more realistic view of Gondorian knowledge and interests in the northern Haradwaith, as well as to create an entertaining story. The most obvious problem was that the northern Haradrim, while a frequent threat to Gondor in The Lord of the Rings timelines, were not mentioned in the available ICE background material, save for (I think) the single reference to "Merchant Princes" in the Ûvatha entry.

To flesh out the module and fill up the territory, I sketched out a far-flung, civilized nation, with cities, kingdoms, and a long history of tragic interaction with imperial Gondor. The "Outhame," the exotic frontier population of Gondor, added some color, and various Maiar and other supernatural creatures added magic. The most significant change needed in the Lords of Middle-earth II material was in the Third Age history of the Nazgûl Adûnaphel. Since, in the open world I was creating, she would have been an obvious target for the Gondorian army, her Third Age "kingdom" went underground, becoming a source of conspiracy and terror. Lesser changes included a rationalization of Ûvatha of Khand's story—there were contradictions even in the published version of LoMe II—but that was to be left for the first draft.

After progressing this far, I went to work on my other two projects. Much happened in the intervening time, and the Haruze (the Northern or Near Haradrim) pretty much vanished from everyone's thinking. Most of the writers involved in the new generation of modules focused on Gondor, then on the Variags and Umbar, because they were the people Mr. Fenlon and ICE had written about, and that was where interest was concentrated. By the time the Northwestern Middle-earth Gazetteer came out, Harondor and Near Harad were flat, desolate, and empty. The writers of the NWMG, as far as I have learned, sketched their entry solely on the basis of Mr. Fenlon's lack of reference to the region and two of Tolkien's notes stating that the country was "desert" and "contested." When Chris Seeman, Jason Beresford, Anders Blixt, and company put the Southern Gondor module together, they followed this lead and all the references to this part of Middle-earth assumed that little happened in Near Harad and the only relevant players—in politics, trade, and adventure—were Gondor, Umbar, and Khand.

When I got permission this fall to do the Near Harad module, my assumption was that it would be on the original terms and something like the original outline. My e-mail contacts with the other writers showed me how drastically things had changed. The barrenness of northern Harad as it was described in SG left me with little or nothing to tell stories about, so the primary writers of SG and Umbar agreed to several months of frantic rewriting and editing to make room for the Haruze (the Northern Haradrim) and their world. We have added several ranges of hills, a lot of water and cities, and some 4-5 millions of population to the relevant parts of SG. Chris Seeman, as editor, has altered a number of references from "Khand and Harad" to "Harad and Khand," to reflect the primary importance of the local Haruze power over the more distant Variags. Jason Beresford, the writer of Umbar, and Jesse Dallin, currently working on Khand, agreed to a division of labor and interests along our respective frontiers.

The design for the Near Harad module is intend to serve several purposes:

My outline for Near Harad hopefully will advance all of these goals. If it works, it should lead players out of Gondor to Khand and Umbar, increasing interest in all the other modules, and possibly generating interest in the presently unpublished realms of Farther Harad and the Chey and Chy lands as well. The geography of Near Harad, as it has been worked out, runs something like this:

The Harnen has its source in the Caradhram Nûrn (the eastern extension of the Ephel Dúath), just about a hundred miles east of the Caradhram's junction with the main north/south spine of the range. Fifty miles downstream, at the site of Lugarlûr, the old royal seat of the Second Age Kingdom of Ard (Adûnaphel the Nazgûl), it is joined by the Ode Auchel, the river that collects the drainage from the rest of the Caradhram and the southwestern corner of the Plateau of Khand. At Amrûn, a hundred miles farther downriver, the Harnen turns westward and is joined by the Ode Pezar (Noz Peka), doubling in size and flowing directly westward to the sea.

All the lands from the sea, up the Harnen and Ode Pezar to the Chey plains beyond the peaks of the Ered Harmal, inland for a thousand miles, are known to Dúnadan traders and (in TA 1640) open to travel by all races. The basin of the Harnen below Lugarlûr makes up, in the Second Age, the Númenórean province of Harnendor. North and west of the Harnen are the lands known in the Third Age as Harondor or the Harmaka. South of the Harnen and Ode Pezar lay dry hills and the major deserts of northern Harad.

The Haruze lands along the Ode Auchel are called Chelkar, those along the lower Ode Pezar are known as Pezarsan. Between them lay the dry hills of the Emyn Gonngaran (the Ausk Dubat) in the west, and the Bursk Mereg, in the east, bordering on Khand. East of Pezarsan, past a series of rapids some three to four hundred miles from Amrûn, is Lurmsakûn. This is a rough basin that collects waters from the Plateau of Khand and the southwestern face of the Ered Harmal, just south of the "elbow" shown on ICE's continental map of Endor.

Beyond Lurmsakûn to the northeast is Khand proper, to the east the elbow of the Ered Harmal. To the southeast lie the valleys of the Rysis and other smaller rivers, all of which drain into the deserts of Harad and disappear into the legendary Mirror of Fire. Hidden in the mountains along the upper Rysis is Valarith, a strange little domain of my own design, the home of Shepherd Giants, Great Hawks, and stray Dúnadan and Elvish refugees. Caravans crossing the mountains enter the Chey prairies. Those jumping the Rysis southeast to other valleys eventually reach the Chy lands and the Bay of Ormal on the great southern ocean.

All of these lands are troubled by harsh climates and blessed by grand scenery. The boundary of Khand, on my sketches, is a grand escarpment that runs, on the continental map, from the point of the elbow of the Ered Harmal dead northwest to the Caradhram Nûrn. Above the escarpment the elevation is about 3000' in lower Khand, 4000' in Upper (northern) Khand, high enough to produce a dry grassland for the Variags. Below the escarpment, at 1000'- 1500', Chelkar and Lurmsakûn are desert areas inhabited by Haruze irrigators.

My placement of Sturlurtsa Khand—the capital of Ûvatha's Variag empire and, in the Second Age, the largest city in central Endor—puts it on the southern end of the plateau, on the headwaters of the Noz Peka and in the foothills of the Ered Harmal. This makes it hard to reach with a Haruze/Dúnadan army from the west, and allows it to dominate all routes over the mountains at the elbow and the trails northward into the Gap of Khand. There would also be well-watered valleys here to support the half-million or so peasants/serfs/slaves needed to support Ûvatha's capital.

In the later Second Age, at the height of Ûvatha's power, Lurmsakûn was a Variag province and Pezarsan served as a buffer region between the Variags and the Númenórean colony of Harnendor. Chelkar was the larger part of the Kingdom of Ard and served a similar role between Harnendor and Mordor. The Rath Khand, the Númenórean road from Umbar, took its name from Ûvatha's empire, then in absolute control of west central Endor. Before and after this period of stability, the rule of eastern lands changed from dynasty to dynasty. The largest city in Lurmsakûn is named the "City of Heroes" because so many of its leaders (and others) get slaughtered in the periodic Variag conquests, while more become martyrs driving them out a generation or a century later. During the time of Gondorian hegemony in Near Harad, Lurmsakûn is generally independent, as Ûvatha is loath to challenge the might of the Dúnedain until Adûnaphel has destroyed their prestige in Harad through subversion and terrorism. She manages this about the time of the First Wainrider War, and the cycle of dynastic squabbles begins again in earnest.

The situation on the Gondor-Umbar frontier, focusing on the coast around the mouth of the Harnen, is part of Jason Beresford's sphere in his Umbar module and I need not get into it here. However, the history and geography of Lurmsakûn is intended to meet the requirements given above Near Harad, while allowing Jesse Dallin a free hand in creating the bloody entertainments of Variag politics. All of the writers involved get an interesting multi-racial mix of enemies on their borders. I can also hope for an interesting mix of geography and stories in Near Harad.

Collectors will note that the NWMG map includes the two big rivers I mentioned (Ode Auchel and Ode Pezar) but no other terrain south of Gondor. The arrangement of the names is a little unusual (tributaries longer than primary branch, for instance,) primarily because Tolkien, in his original maps, put the Harnen in without sorting out the drainage pattern in western Endor beforehand. Like the inhabitants of Near Harad, it was originally intended only as a element of his greater central story.

The authors have permission from ICE to add in physical features as needed (within limits), as long as it aids storytelling and doesn't violate the Tolkien canon. The escarpment of Khand and the Ausk Dubat derive from this loophole. I would hope to add some canyons, dead-end rivers, salt lakes, and interesting crags and potholes to go with them. We also, of course, can add creatures and inhabitants as needed. In this cluttered land, we can meet wayward nomads, cynical city dwellers, knights in white armor, evil cultists, religious warriors and fanatics, giant birds and scorpions, dark sorcery, the Will of Eru, Spirits of the Air and Spirits of Fire.

Harad and its neighboring lands, while more crowded than before, has room for all of this.