Show HN: A cartographer's attempt to realistically map Tolkien's world | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: A cartographer's attempt to realistically map Tolkien's world

intofarlands.com

163 pointsintofarlands31 comments

Tangential, BUT, here is a grid map of ARDA from a (M)ulti (U)ser (D)ungeon text game from the 90s that you can still play: https://mume.yllemo.com/lib/exe/fetch.php?cache=&media=maps:...

You can literally still connect to this game from your terminal: telnet mume.org 4040 IIRC.

When I was a teenager, a buddy and I printed out giant copies of that map, laminated it, and put it on the wall in front of our computers while we hunted hobbits on our orc characters. Was pretty rad.

Always known of MUME, though wasn't a part of my mud history. I've wondered how the other tolkien muds compare, though most would be much smaller worlds I'm sure.

If you set the Genre here to Tolkien you can see a list of some: https://mudstats.com/Browse

> MUME is a free multi user role-playing game based upon J.R.R. Tolkien's 'Middle Earth' that has been continuously running since fall '91. The action takes place in the late Third Age, before 'The Hobbit' and after the loss of the One Ring by Sauron. The key of Erebor was just found by Gandalf and all the epic tales narrated in 'The Lord of the Rings' may take place. MUME covers 23'000+ original rooms from the mighty Dwarven Halls beyond the Gulf of Lh???n in the West to the fringes of Mirkwood in the East, and from the ruins of Fornost in the North to the fortress of Isengard in the South. In this meticulously crafted world where fantasy tales come to life players join... https://mume.org/

Giant indeed. How large was it, I couldn't even zoom in enough on my phone to get good detail.

10,408 by 5,408 pixels, or about 30" by 15" at 300dpi - but for this you'd want half that or less, so the result is large enough that the print is actually readable. Even redone to a less extreme aspect ratio, it would certainly fill a binder and probably cover a wall.

Wild. This makes me even more interested in playing. Thanks

I wouldn't consider the size of a MUD map by its pixels, really. You consider its size, in this case, by number of rooms

Though MUME is obviously large, a few ten-thousand rooms

Thank you for posting that! I never had use for Tolkien and my MU* days are decades now behind me, but I do still love a good map.

Very nice. I have a book of maps for his world on a bookshelf here which I got when I was young (The Atlas of Middle-Earth - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Atlas_of_Middle-earth). I enjoyed reading that a lot, and it was nice to see that most parts of it are well thought through and internally consistent (there's one piece near Rivendell which is a bit of a mess between the Hobbit and LotR but we can let Tolkien have one minor issue).

This book is amazing; the fact that she was able to work out most everything involving geology just from Tolkien's descriptions is wonderful.

I have that same book. It was a major source of inspiration when I was a kid.

c.f., _The Worlds of J. R. R. Tolkien: The Places That Inspired Middle-earth_ by John Garth

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53939643-the-worlds-of-j...

and esp. the photo from the review:

https://signumuniversity.org/course/lita-5315/

https://signumuniversity.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/27/202...

(I had thought I had seen a higher-resolution version, but not finding it now)

> I have a book of maps for his world on a bookshelf here which I got when I was young (The Atlas of Middle-Earth)

This atlas is fantastic. An absolute must-have.

There is a new edition in French with redrawn maps that are great. I did not triple-check everything but as far as I can see they are just like the old maps in terms of details and accuracy, only much more beautiful. There are some pictures here: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/03b6ZK .

I have no idea if these maps will be published in English, AFAICT this cas commissioned specifically for the new French edition.

In all for these maps, unfortunately this is a "Show HN: paid only products", not open source maps, free maps, or anything fun like that. At least I couldn't find the actual maps that are mentioned in the title.

As far as I can tell, this submission is just an ad.

There is a great (Free!) interactive map of Middle-earth (The Hobbit+ LOTR journeys) here: https://middle-earth-interactive-map.web.app/

Yup, it's just an ad for an online store. Grrr.

Funny, I found this last night: https://www.ardacraft.me/

Friendly advice: this is wrong way to sell fantasy maps to nerds. The link shows some animation (which actually feels a bit annoying cause I can't focus on any particular detail), and lowres pics of maps itself (which can't prove the quality of work), and some useless text. Instead it'd be way better to show a few highres fragments.

It's probably just me, but I'm having trouble finding any images of the Middle Earth maps except for Numenor, Valinor and Aman. Maybe it's just OP's title that led me to expect otherwise?

A bit unrelated, but one of the rarest pieces for Tolkien's collectors has been put for sale recently

https://www.tomwayling.co.uk/product-page/songs-for-the-phil...

Hopefully that too will get a good reprint, or better an academic treatment like to _On Fairy Stories_ --- that _The Old English Exodus_:

https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/The_Old_English_Exodus

is getting reprinted (though annoyingly only in a boxed set of other books I already have) would argue for it.

Beautiful work, I love fantasy cartography. Someday I actually want to make some maps of my own, I was thinking of ASOIAF. A slightly off-topic question, are these types of maps legal to sell from copyright point of view? I understand that this is quite a niche product, so maybe I'm overthinking it, but do these count as derivative works ?

I had the same thought. Not bashing their work I am genuinely curios.

For this specific case I was suprised to see they have a dedicated website for such questions! So I guess it is quite common.... (They seem very serious about it since i couldn't even mark the text to copy it here! )

>Tolkien’s original drawings, paintings, maps, designs, scripts and other graphic works are protected by copyright and may not be copied. The Tolkien Estate takes action against parties who try to commercialise Tolkien’s works, including maps of Middle-earth, the One Ring Inscription and other images.

[0] https://www.tolkienestate.com/frequently-asked-questions-and...

The key is that the original maps are copyrighted, and direct derivatives may fall under that, too - but the general information cannot be copyrighted (at least in the USA).

You could make a freeway map of Eriador, for example.

And see all the "unofficial" books around Minecraft or Harry Potter (or lord of the rings): https://www.amazon.com/s?k=unofficial+lord+of+the+rings

And maps "in the style" of Tolkien but covering the real world or other properties are likely entirely fine.

Don’t forget trademarks, even if your maps are drawn completely from scratch then I am sure whoever has the license for selling maps of A Song Of Ice And Fire (TM) will take issue with you presenting them as such, if your business becomes large enough for them to bother noticing you.

I think this might depend on where you intend to sell them. I think in life plus 50 countries (Egypt, China, many others) it should be out of copyright already. IANAL, so consult one before doing anything.

odd, I'd rather have Tolkienistic maps of the Earth :)

good news, there are artists out there doing exactly this!

one example: https://lordofmaps.com/ (unaffiliated)

What happened to all of OP's comments? I swear they were scattered throughout here last night? Did they prune themselves out? :P

A great addition to the Fate of the Fellowship board game that's trending at number 3 on BoardGameGeek!

Cool!

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