The Art of Mapmaking by Galawon of Imladris, Wizard and Explorer Introduction: Making maps, why? =============================== There are many keys to survival and success in Arda: physical might, quick thought, agility, mastery of arcane spells. If you are, like me, a spellcaster, you will find some of these traits less important than others. The same can be said for those who choose other paths in life. One thing, however, is extremely important for all kinds of adventurers: it is knowledge. Knowledge of the best strategy and tactics to use in combat; knowledge of how to find useful equipment; knowledge of the terrain. The tome you are reading deals with this last kind of knowledge. Within you will find suggestions on how to acquire it and how to record it for future use. Bringing with you a map of your surroundings can literally save your life. If a huge pack of marauding orcs surprises you in Breeland, staying on the main road will almost certainly result in your demise at the foul minions' hands, or worse in a lifetime of vile slavery in the goblins' mines. Hiding in the Midgewater Marshes, for instance, could be a better choice... but are you able to reach the relative safety of the marshes without losing much time and being finally reached by the pursuing orcs? And, perhaps more importantly, once there will you be able not to meet an even worse fate - the slow death of those who lose themselves in the Marshes? INDEX ===== Chapter 1 - Evaluating the Risks Chapter 2 - Getting Ready Chapter 3 - Scouting the Terrain Chapter 4 - Thorough Exploration Chapter 5 - Leaping in the Dark Chapter 6 - Underground Complexes Chapter 7 - Mazes Chapter 8 - Cleaning up your maps Chapter 9 - Conclusions Chapter 1 - Evaluating the Risks -------------------------------- Even before you try to make a map of a region of Arda, you should ask yourself whether you have the means to successfully explore that place. There are a number of factors which should influence your decision. First of all, consider the geographical location. Exploring the Blue Mountains is much easier and safer than venturing among the Hithaeglir! In general, you can explore most places west of the Baranduin without fearing the sudden arrival of Sauron's minions; proceeding eastwards, the risk increases and reaches its apex near the Trollshaws or near the Wolf's Gate. Secondly, consider the time of the year. Restrict yourself to exploring east of Imladris only in the summer - this will greatly reduce chances of ambush. As a third measure of safety, ask other people if they have found any great danger near the places you want to explore. Such advice can be of great help: for instance, not knowing of the existance of Mormaeg can be fatal to those who enter a certain cave near the Last Bridge. Last but not least, assess your skills and compare them to what you know of the area's dangers. If you are a spellcaster, a good knowledge of store, teleport and invisibility is valuable. Knowing how to hide from aggressive beasts is helpful too. If you don't have any of these abilities, you probably need greater skill than other people: being unable to quickly get away from danger is an added difficulty when you venture in unknown areas. The alternative for a warrior is to group with other people who can, at least, make him invisible. Chapter 2 - Getting Ready ------------------------- Before starting an exploration, you should at least do the preparations necessary for a normal trip in the wilderness. You should be in good health, and bring rations for at least a few days. While exploring, try to keep active as many spells as possible. In order of importance, before you venture in an unknown area you should activate - detect invisibility, sense life - invisibility - 1 or more stored teleports - armour, shield, protection from evil If you have made maps of regions adjacent to the places you wish to explore, take some time to study them and refresh your memory. A basic ability at searching for secret doors is often essential. Perhaps you should refresh this skill at a guild before you start. If you can ride at all, bring your mount with you. It will take you longer to become tired, and you will not need to rest in uncharted territory. Finally, if you anticipate the presence of rivers or lakes in the target area, be sure to bring a canoe with you, and to bring a raft for your mount as well. Even if you are a champion at swimming, careful mapping may require spending a long time afloat - more than your muscles can handle safely. Chapter 3 - Scouting the Terrain -------------------------------- If you followed the suggestions in chapter II, you are finally ready to venture in uncharted lands. Rushing in, however, would nullify all the precautions you previously took. I recommend a more gradual approach, which may take some more time but which certainly decreases the chance of blundering into certain death. I will from now on suppose that you are venturing out alone, or with one or two companions. This is usually a wise choice, since small groups usually enjoy more mobility and coordination than larger ones; moreover, while in the first stages of an exploration, you will probably not need to fight. Suppose that you have just ventured out of Imladris, in a fair summer day. You have never been in the Ettenmoors, and you plan to spend a week discovering their secrets. From your previous experience, you know where the bridges across the Bruinen are located, and how from those bridges you can return to Imladris. You cross the Natural Bridge, traverse the Bruinen Moor, and you finally set foot on an ancient path leading northeast, towards the Misty Mountains. Before proceeding with a thorough exploration, I suggest you follow the path for some miles - not more than ten or twenty miles. Walk slowly, looking at everything around you. Look north, east, south and west. Look at the ground below you, and at the treetops above your head. If something in the proximity attracts your attention, examine it closely: reading the ancient runes on that pillar might give you useful hints. While you move, make a sketch of the bends of the road and of any obstacles preventing you from leaving it. Also make note of what you can see nearby: forests, cave entrances, buildings, hidden passages. If you mark your starting place with a star, and you place a P along the path every couple of miles, you will soon obtain something like (River Bruinen) | | | | -P-P-P-P- | | | | -P-P-(Plains) (Moor) | | -*- | where the lines - | represent direct connections between places. Always try to look ahead before you move, especially at this stage. I remember one episode that happened to me long ago which is a clear example of why you should do so. I was riding along the Greenway, heading from Bree to Tharbad. The road was crossing a forest, and the undergrowth was so thick that it was impossible to leave the Greenway. Suddenly I realized that someone had piled various tree trunks on the side of the road, just ahead of me! I stopped my horse and retraced my steps for a mile, then I made myself invisible and, leaving my horse behind, I noiselessly walked past the tree trunks. As I had guessed, a large band of outlaws was there, ready to ambush unwary travellers. Taking them by surprise, I managed to put most of the band in an enchanted slumber, then I challenged the few remaining rascals and incapacitated all but one. Seeing his companions defeated, the leader of the band, a particularly vicious bandit, fled head over heels, shouting something like 'You will not trick Morthan Blacksoul again with these conjurer's tricks!'. While scouting the road for the first time, be extremely prudent. Returning to our Ettenmoors example, you might cross the path of a strange man, dressed in black priestly garb and surrounded by an almost palpable magical aura. In similar cases, my suggestion is: RUN BACK IMMEDIATELY! Do not stay there to see if the man is friendly or not, or to check if you can defeat him. At this stage you don't know the terrain well enough, if you start fighting and you get severely wounded you might fall off a cliff and die while trying to flee. Once you have made a map of the first few miles of the main road, repeat the entire process for secondary roads and small or slow-flowing rivers, if they are present. Avoid fast-flowing rivers at the moment, since the current might sweep you on into the heart of the unknown territory. Chapter 4 - Thorough Exploration -------------------------------- In the previous chapter you have drawn the skeleton of your map. You know where the roads are, where the rivers are, and you know the terrain type that surrounds these roads and rivers. It is now time to complete the exploration of the surface. Retrace your steps to the starting point, and make sure that your detection and protection spells are still working. At this point you are ready to leave the marked paths. There are two strategies which apply here, you should let your wisdom guide you on the choice of which one to follow at a given time. i) Near things first. Systematically explore the locations next to the road you mapped, then move to places a bit more remote, and so on until you have visited the entire outdoors region. The advantage of this approach is that you will never leave unknown dangers lie on the straight path between you and the known world: should you need to escape quickly, you will know the shortest route to safety. ii) Easy things first. Judging from the terrain's appearance, begin with the places you deem the least dangerous (empty plains, light forests) and then move to more dangerous places (dense forests, crevices, steep and slippery slopes). Contrarily to the previous approach, here you will often have to retrace your steps, and if you need to flee in the early stages you will not know the entire terrain; however, when it comes to entering that last dangerous-looking section of forest, you will know what lies on all sides of the wood. While you perform this thorough exploration, you should follow the same procedure of mapping you followed in chapter III: - Look where you are - Look where you are going to go - Ask yourself if there is danger going there - Move to the new location - Is there something you are not sure you can handle? Then step back at once. - Look at the new location - Look around for secret passages - If you stepped through a door, check if the door name is the same as the name on the other side - Update your draft map Chapter 5 - Leaping in the Dark ------------------------------- This chapter deals with some techniques you may want to use when entering potentially deadly places for the first time. These places are usually easy to identify as such: dark caves with bones scattered about the entrance, almost impenetrable forests or swamps from which chilling howls can be heard... My first suggestion is to bring more people than usual with you. If you managed to explore the surroundings by yourself, bring at least two other people of similar skill as yours. If you needed help even for the surroundings, bringing extra help is even more necessary. Since you already know the area around the dangerous place, you don't need the extra mobility of the one-person-group anymore. The second suggestion is to have a lone scout run quickly into and out of the dangerous place. If you are quick enough, you will probably manage to peek at the inside without letting those ten huge stone-trolls make you into their dinner. Once you know what danger awaits you, you can decide whether to turn it into smoking cinder or to avoid it until you become more experienced. If the dangerous complex is bigger than one room, I strongly suggest you thoroughly clean each room before proceeding to the next one. Why, you might ask? The reason is simple. For some mysterious reasons, the most powerful foes usually hide farthest from the entrance. An example from my Ettenmoors travels can make the concept clearer. I once found a haunted burial mound, a very creepy place. The entrance was guarded by two undead monsters, and other magical minions were lurking deeper in the mound. My friends and I dispersed the opposition, then we proceeded to the innermost chamber - where a huge, dreadful, animated stone guardian shredded our warrior to pieces! Wounded so deeply that a mosquito could have killed him in a blow, the warrior dragged himself to the exit and survived. If he'd had to face even one of the lesser monsters we had dispatched earlier, now he would be dead. A final note about scouting in unsafe places: sometimes it is wise to leave your most prized belongings behind. Suppose you want to explore the bottom of a deep well, and suppose that the rope leading down is badly worn out: giving your magical amulet to a friend for safekeeping before you venture down may be a good idea. If the rope snaps, causing you to plummet down and break various bones, the amulet might also shatter in the fall. Chapter 6 - Underground Complexes --------------------------------- Though sometimes it can be dangerous, exploring surface areas of Arda is seldom as difficult as venturing in large underground complexes. First of all, your movement is severely limited while underground: you can only follow the tunnels. You can easily lose track of the passing time. You have to carry light sources constantly, which give away your position to any foe lurking in the dark. Some unstable tunnels might collapse and bury you as soon as a fight starts. Teleport usually doesn't work deep underground. Finally, you often have to deal with a fully three-dimensional layout: a simple grid will not be sufficient to represent the entire cavern. Whether you are venturing in the orc-ridden halls of Moria, or you limit your excursions to the smaller Dwarven mines in Eregion, the techniques described in this chapter will probably help you. First of all, if you believe that the cavern you are about to enter is a large one (or if you realize that a cavern is larger than you thought) you should roam the wilderness in the proximity of the entrance and search the ground for other, possibly hidden, caves. Knowing that a secondary entrance exists, and in which direction, is a definite advantage when the main entrance collapses behind you. Secondly, as I suggested in chapter V, do not proceed further into the complex if you have left dangerous life forms behind your back. While exploring, take notes on the slope of the tunnels and of any peculiar signs that may help you recognize a place. Remember, it is easy to get confused and mistake a strange tunnel bend for a closed loop. Especially if only one person in your group is a skilled climber, be sure to have some rope with you. Most times you will not need it, but be sure that sooner or later it will save your life. Rope is useful in outdoors areas as well, but, should you get trapped at the bottom of a ravine outdoors, you can always hope that a friendly Eagle will come to the rescue. If the same thing happens to you in the deepest recesses of Moria, however... Finally, some considerations on how to draw your map of a cavern. If the cavern is more or less horizontal, the mapping style described in chapter III is sufficient. For medium-sized networks of tunnels, such as the Dwarven mines that can be found east of the ruins of once-fair Ost-in-Edhil, this method will not work. Instead, you should try to split the map in various submaps, and mark vertical or almost vertical connections between sections with a dotted line. For instance, this might be the map of a cavern complex: C down-> | ......... <-down <-down cave entrance---C---C . . C....b....L.........abandoned house | . .| B---C. T-s-C---X | C---C where C=cavern L=cellar B=cavebear lair X=deadly pitfall T=treasure room s=locked, hidden stonedoor b=hidden stairs If, as a last example, you are trying to trace a map of Moria, not even this method will suffice - the sheer size of the place, the presence of looping tunnels and the quantity of notes you should take will prevent you from drawing a single, global map. In these cases, what I suggest is: - First, make some practice by thoroughly exploring smaller caves; - Then, split your map into submaps as in the example above; instead of connecting them with dotted lines, however, use numbers as references, such as in the drawing below. (I used the references method to map the same place as before, so that you can immediately see the difference.) C (up) (down) <-(down) | (1)(up) C....(2) (2)...b...L......house cave entrance---C---C .| | T-s-C---X B---C | .(down) C---C (1) Chapter 7 - Mazes ----------------- Sometimes not even the most careful mapping techniques will prevent you from getting lost. Arda has several places where, due to some malignant magical force or to the complexity of the landscape, retracing your steps may be particularly difficult. The largest and most complicated of these places is in the Barrow Downs southwest of Bree. This chapter deals with such mazes, on how to get out of them and on how to find their heart. The best way to deal with a maze is, of course, to know that the maze exists before entering it. In most cases, there will be several hints of the presence of unnaturally twisted paths at the entrance of the maze. If you pay attention, you will enter the maze knowing that it is a maze - therefore finding your way out will be easier. A common feature of most mazes is the presence of many places which seem identical, but which are not. You may become lost in a forest without any particular features distinguishing one tree from the next, or in the middle of the Necromancer's slimy pool. In order to unravel the maze, you have to somehow manage to distinguish the various parts of the maze from one another. There are several ways to arrange that: you can tie small pieces of fabric to the lowest branches of a tree, for instance, or you can draw marks on a tunnel entrance with a piece of coal. Once you have marked in some way the entrance to the maze, take note of where you can go from there. A good way is to make a table like this: From... N E S W U D Entrance (stonedoor) (1) / / / From the stone door at the entrance of the maze, you can move east, south or west. Suppose that you know that the exit is south. You take the west corridor, enter a chamber and lo! A pressure plate makes the passage behind you close. From the chamber you can leave north, south, east into another passage, and west. Mark the chamber with a symbol in charcoal and update your table: From... N E S W U D Entrance (stonedoor) (1) / X 2 / / Chamber (charcoal) (2) / / Continue wandering in the maze, marking with a different symbol each new room or intersection. If you happen to reenter a previously visited chamber, pick an unexplored exit if there is one left. Your reference table will soon grow: From... N E S W U D Entrance (stonedoor) (1) / 4 X 2 / / Chamber (charcoal) (2) 3 5 6 3 / / Chamber (charcoal B) (3) 4 3 7 / / Chamber (charcoal C) (4) 2 1 / / Chamber (charcoal D) (5) 2 7 / / Chamber (charcoal E) (6) 6 2 / / Chamber (charcoal F) (7) 4 / / Systematically use the current table to reach chambers with unexplored exits, and you will soon have a complete representation of the maze. While you proceed, clear the maze of aggressive creatures who might inhabit it. Having to flee in a maze will put you in one of the worst possible situations - severely wounded, with no idea of how to reach safety, and with an angry and bloodthirsty foe who might reach you at any time. Beware of scavengers and of practical jokes! Leaving a piece of fabric on a tree to mark the road you followed is perfectly useless if a malevolent Black Numenorean picks it up out of spite. Finally, just because you are following the suggestions of chapter VII, do not forget the contents of the previous chapters. When I tell you to explore all the uncharted exits, you should still watch before you move... Deadly locations can, and do, exist even inside a maze. Chapter 8 - Cleaning up your maps --------------------------------- If you followed the advice I gave you in the previous chapters, and if you did not have extremely bad luck, you should now be sitting safely at home, or in a comfortable room at an inn, with a handful of draft maps on your desk. Before your memory of the newly explored areas begins to fade, take some time to copy and merge the draft maps into a cleaner map. When tracing maps, feel free to use differently coloured inks. I use black to indicate land exits, blue for rivers and lakes, red for death traps and green and yellow for roads. Other useful features to note may be where a trap or a large group of monsters are: you may forget where the three cave-trolls are. I generally keep two sets of maps: a large-scale map of all the parts of Arda I have ever visited, which I use for travelling, and some smaller scale maps of particularly interesting places. The large scale map is not extremely detailed. I use an approximate scale of 1:500000 - one foot on my map corresponds to about one hundred miles on the terrain. This allows me to represent the road from Bree to Fornost on a single sheet of paper. You should choose a scale large enough that you don't need to change map often, but not so large that you have to strain your vision to read the details. Its primary use is to remind you of the exact way to follow to reach point A starting from point B. With a single glance, you should be able to know which of the countless lanes branching from the Old East Road you must take if you want to reach, for instance, Dwaling. A secondary use for the large scale map is to allow you a quick way out of deadly danger. As I mentioned in the introduction, stumbling into a group of minions of darkness stronger than you can handle can mean quick death if you don't know where to run. When I was much younger, one of my first orc encounters was almost fatal - badly hurt, I began running on the Old East Road, missed a bend, and ended up in a totally unknown place swarming with hungry wolves. The orc didn't pursue, but if I had known the place I would have been much safer. Essential things you should place in the large scale map are: - Cities - Roads, with their bends correctly represented - Rivers - Any obstacles barring the way (or, equivalently, all the directions in which you can move from a given point) - Entrances to buildings and to caves - Deadly locations - Notes on outside secret passages (What should I look for to reach Bill Ferny's hideout?) Non essential things which can be put on a large scale map are: - Location of water sources - Location of food sources - Farms and stables where you can find mounts - Any other special feature you might want to have readily accessible These can be indicated on the large scale map with a single letter near the specific place: I use W for water, F for food, M for mounts. Once you have made, or updated, your large scale map, you should decide which parts of it are worth expanding into smaller scale maps. If you have a lot of time you can make small scale maps of all the places you know, but this kind of monumental task is going to take much of your time - not to speak of the effort required to keep the maps up to date. Smaller scale maps should have a scale of 1:200000 or less; they should contain everything you may need to know about a place: underground maps, maze tables, number and strength of encountered enemies, ancient inscriptions, interesting objects. Their exact contents are up to you: to make a choice, try to think of which information you are going to use and how often. Chapter 9 - Conclusions ----------------------- Having read this book, you should now know most of the tricks of the trade - how to chart the unknown, how to avoid useless risks, what to do if you get lost. Let me give you a final suggestion: do not rely exclusively on my suggestions! Arda never ceases to surprise those who wander in it, and new problems might require new solutions. Try to make your experiments in relatively safe areas, if possible, but - if all else fails - do not be afraid to try a new kind of approach. Should you have comments on the contents of this tome, feel free to contact me. I often wander in remote places, so if I am not at home you can leave a message for me in Elrond's house. Enjoy your travels in Arda, my friend!