A Hexmap for Middle-earth

I reread The Lord of the Rings most years, and have done so since I was 12. As I was reading it this year, I was thinking about the physicality of journeys and exploration embodied by the books, even in the early chapters. It is a book about journeys: walking through your home country, taking shortcuts, getting water from a stream, repacking your bags for weight distribution, avoiding roads, finding river crossings, and so on. As ever, I was wondering how to reflect this experience at the gaming table. 

I found that Idraluna Archives had done the yeoman's work of putting together a hexmap for Middle-earth. And I began thinking...

Click here to check out the post and download the high-res map

As a daily writing exercise in the vein of Dungeon23, I've committed to keying one hex on this map per day. 

There are thousands of hexes on this map. I'm only going to do this as long as the daily-writing exercise is interesting to me. Perhaps only as long as it takes me to complete this year's reread. 

I am going to focus my attention on clearing out regions: all of the Shire, all of the Trollshaws, all of Erebor, etc. We'll see how far I get! I'll post my progress here, sporadically. 

Notes

The year I am focused on is T.A. 2940--the year before Bilbo Baggins went on his great adventure. The main threat in the world is the Necromancer, lurking in his fortress of Dol Guldur in Mirkwood. 

12-mile hexes can sometimes compress a lot of information near civilization: for example, villages in the Shire tend to get clumped up into the same hexes. But, as you can see, there's also vast tracts of emptiness on the map where one will have to be creative to keep these keys interesting. 

In addition to the map, I'm going to be relying heavily on Karen Wynn Fonstad's Atlas of Middle-earth.

This is an opportunity for me to use the vast wealth of licensed Tolkien game material that I own, but adapted and rewritten for my sensibilities. When I lean on one of these sources, I will cite it. '

In addition to the hex keys themselves, I am assuming a game would use the machinery of hexcrawling rules: random encounters, rumor tables, weather, etc.

Stats are written for a Lord of the Rings game that does not exist. The assumption is that player characters are burglars who can be hired to take on adventuring or treasure-finding opportunities, professionally.

How to read the entries

HEX #

SITE NAME IN CAPITALS. The site name is mostly to help the GM remember the contents of the hex. The site description is given in Roman font. The type of terrain, which is needed for random sites or wandering encounters, is listed on the map. Particularly interesting sites where quests, rumors, random encounters, and interesting NPCs can be found are given in bold. Hidden features are given in italics. 

HIDDEN SITE. Hidden features of the hex are presented in italics. These can only be found during certain times or by exploring the main feature of the hex.

! - QUEST NAME: Details a potential job for a burglar, if the players go sniffing around for work. 

✦ - OFTEN HERE: If the region is inhabited, a quick list of NPC names and descriptions for the GM to easily pull from. The number of NPCs is reflective of the size of the settlement, ranging between four and twelve. 

(d6): A special encounter could be here. Roll a d6. If the face equals the number shown, this event is currently occurring when the fellowship arrives, if it possibly makes sense.

Six hexes around Hobbiton

Official and unofficial support for this region:

• The One Ring: Starter Set - Shire, Free League Publishing
• Middle Earth Role-playing: Realms - The Shire, ICE
• Pipedream, Role Over Play Dead
• Under Hill, By Water, Josh McCrowell

Note: If you ever need to build out one of the many Hobbit villages mentioned in these hexes with more substance, use the procedure provided on pp. 23-33 of Under Hill, By Water. 

47.56

HOBBITON. A prosperous Hobbit village, comfortably situated under the Hill, where the windows of grand, old smials look out onto the Water and the East Road. The Water churns the wheel of the Old Mill. Near the Hill is the Party Field, where local festivals are often celebrated. 

✦ - OFTEN HERE: 1. Bingo Baggins (hobbit - jolly, respectable, goodman) will be delighted to hear stories of adventures and would be tickled to buy trinkets and artifacts from outside the Shire, 2. Halfred Gamgee (hobbit - brown-skinned, plain-spoken, manservant) plays a fiddle that never fails to make people dance, 3. Holman Greenhand (hobbit - aged, overly talkative, gardener) knows the properties of most herbs and plants, 4. Lassy Twofoot (hobbit - plump, friendly, baker) sells ornate cakes and confections; can make a cake appear like "almost anything" (1 penny per syllable of description). 

(5-6) - PARTY: A party (or preparations or post-event cleanup) is happening at the Party Field. The party is 1. Village fair, 2. Pott Whitfoot's birthday party, 3. Master Bill Bracegirdle and Miss Patty Proudfoot's wedding, 4. Historical reenactment of the Invention of Golf

! - RATS: Thattle Sandyman complains that rats have taken up in the Old Grange, the village granary (2d12 rats, larger than most). Will pay a copper penny per rat tail. 

! - LOST DOG: Holman Greenhand has lost his dog, Grim. His arthritis disallows him from searching for him. 

Grim has wandered into the Rushock Bog (46.55) and become stuck. Successful recovery is rewarded with six bottles of Old Winyards 2931, a surpassing vintage. 

BYWATER. A small Hobbit village situated near the Pool of Bywater. Fishing and agriculture occupy the locals, when they aren't trading gossip and rumors at the Green Dragon Inn.

✦ - OFTEN HERE: 1. Farmer Cotton (hobbit - weatherworn, traditionalist, farmer) is happy to talk about the weather and share his opinion on the veracity of local rumors, 2. Largo Grubb (hobbit - scarecrow-esque, jocular, driver) will drive Hobbiton folks visiting Bywater's pubs back to the Hill for a penny, 3. Ruthie Overwater (hobbit - rosy-cheeked, chatty, bar-maid) will sell passable portraits (oil on canvas) of anyone who wants their likeness captured for a few pence, 4. Duri (dwarf - smallish, money-minded, rope trader) is worried about not hearing from his companions who went to Tighfield (45.51).

! - MYSTERY MUSHROOMS: Polly Twofoot (hobbit - pinched, nosy, goodwife) can't stand not knowing how Gerda Boffin always has crops of mushrooms of such surpassing quality without keeping a garden; suspects thievery. Will hire private investigators for 1 silver penny. 

Gerda Boffin (hobbit - well-fed, matter-of-fact, goodwife) has a secret mushroom stash growing in a hollow tree in Bindbole Wood (46.56). She will not divulge this secret spot willingly; the fellowship must follow her in stealth. 

[Credit: TOR2E - Starter Set - Shire]

46.55

RUSHOCK BOG. A rushy swamp. Entering this hex costs 1 Endurance due to the treacherous paths and biting insects. Little visited except for duck hunters and apothecaries on a hunt for herbs that don't grow elsewhere in the Shire. 

(1) - GALLOW'S WEED: The last person in the party's marching order runs afoul of gallow's weed—a wicked plant that has no love for those who go on two feet. They must test Strength Δ8 or be snared by the throat and hoisted into the low branches of the trees from which the weed grows: on a failure, suffer 1d10 damage and remain trapped and choking until rescued. Those who travel with an Herbalist make this test at Δ6 instead, as their herb-lore allows them to warn their companions.

46.56

BINDBOLE WOOD. An evergreen forest—pines, junipers, and yew. It is an old wood, older than the Shire, and sleepy. There are no good walking paths through it.

(4) - A clever fox (Under Hill, By Water, p. 86) digging beetles from a fallen log. (5) - A split bag of 1d6 silver coins, dropped in a dry creekbed. (6) - At night only. A wandering company of elves, led by Saelin Wise-heart. They will hide themselves from parties of mostly dwarves.

46.57

FARMER LIGHTFOOT & FARMER LONGDWELLER. Large tracts of farmland abut one another here: Well Hollow (owned by the Lightfoots) and The Longhole (owned by rgw Longdewllers). Mostly tobacco fields. ! - PRIZE COW: One family has stolen another’s prize cow, Mabel. Mabel gives milk sweet as cream and always produces two healthy calves each spring. This isn’t the first time this has happened; the two families are always stealing Mabel from each other. Randomly determine which family currently has Mabel; the other family is willing to hire help to recapture her.

47.57

THREE-FARTHING STONE. Point of interest. Marker stone stands at the center of the Shire on the East Road, where the East, South, and West Farthings meet.

(4-5) - KING-OF-THE-STONE: Hobbit youths in two teams playing King-of-the-Stone, where they try to climb and throw each other off the marker.

(6) - MAYORAL SPEECH: Hobbit mayoral candidates giving stump speeches by standing on the stone, with small crowds applauding or heckling based on how bored they are.

48.56

TOOKBANK. A small Hobbit village, peopled predominantly by Tooks looking to escape the close confines of family life in Tuckborough (48.57). There are good orchards here, mostly growing apples of a breed called whitcyser brought back by Blossom Took from a short adventure outside the Shire. "Ain't natural," complain neighboring villages, upon tasting the sweetness of these apples (and byproducts). "That Wizard probably blessed them."

! - A QUEER HAUNTING: Lately, Whitbough Hall has been plagued by one (or more?) nocturnal visitors. Draped in a funerary sheet and rattling chains, an apparition has moaned its way through the corridors, frightening the family to death. 

In truth, a small gang of Took cousins are pretending to be ghosts as a way to enter and explore the smial. They believe that Blossom Took brought treasure back from her adventure, in addition to her famous apple transplants, and are determined to find the hidden cache.

47.55

ROAD. The East Road runs through well-tended farmland (staple crops, pastureland, tobacco fields). A well-traveled section of road between Michel Delving and Hobbiton: roll twice on the encounter table to see who the fellowship meets along the way.

WAYMEET. A small hobbit village where the East Road connects to the road to Little Delving (to the north) and Tookland (to the south). 

! - FEVERISH CHILD: Lotho Brown's son, Little Lotho, is sick with the flux. He asks you to fetch Mrs. Muckle Took, the apothecary at Tuckburrow (48.57) to tend to him. As thanks, he'll give the party a beautiful walking stick carved in the likeness of a fox (+1 travel points).