THE WORLD This is almost, but not quite Middle Earth as you know it from the books and

mov ies. Cirdan the Shipwright, eldest of the elves of Middle Earth, remains lord of the Grey Havens and Lindon, busy as ever with the construction of ships for those of his kind who finally decide to abandon Middle Earth through the Straight Road. Lorien is jointly ruled by Celeborn and Galadriel, where things are much the sam e as they will be in the time of the War of the Ring, except for the fact that t he Lady's grand-daughter, Arwen Undomiel, currently lives in the Golden Forest a nd will remain there for the better part of a decade yet. Rivendell, the domain of Elrond Half-Elven, has been for eleven years now the ho me of a woman called Gilraen and a young boy who is called Estel by the elves. S ome years from now, the lord of Imladris will reveal this boy that he is in trut h Aragorn, son of Arathorn, who shall one day be King of Arnor and Gondor. In Mirkwood the Great, Thranduil Oropherion had hoped that the White Council's d efeat of the Necromancer in the south of the Forest and the near-annihilation of the goblin host during the Battle of Five Armies would give his people an oppor tunity to reclaim some of the territory they had lost over the years to the thin gs of the Shadow. He has since been disabused of the notion and, in spite of the best efforts of the elves, many evil things still lurk under the trees of the g reat northern forest. Dan II Ironfoot (not a young dwarf anymore at 177, but vigorous as a youngster ha lf his age) is King-Under-The-Mountain of the restored dwarven realm of Erebor, as well as Lord of the Iron Hills, making him the more or less undisputed sovere ign of the Longbeard tribe and the most influential dwarf in western Middle Eart h. Though the Lonely Mountain has not fully recovered yet from its long occupati on by the dragon Smaug, hints of future splendour can already be glimpsed. Smaller groups of Longbeards that do not directly answer to Dan dwell in the Grey Mountains or remain in the Blue Mountains, in the same halls in which Thorin Oa kenshield lived his long exile, along with petty kingdoms of Broadbeams and Fire beards whose stubborn ancestors never left their homelands to join Durin's folk in Khazad-dum. In the Shire, Fortinbras Took has been Thain for five years now and is starting his thirtieth year of rather unhappy marriage with Lalia Clayhanger. It is notew orthy that hobbits do not feel quite as safe in their lifestyle these days as th ey will a generation later, seeing that the Fell Winter of thirty three years ag o with its horrific food shortages and white wolf invasion happened within livin g memory of pretty much every adult in the territory. However, a greater awarene ss of the possibility of hardship does not mean that hobbits are any more inclin ed to seek it out. Indeed, Bilbo Baggins and his "adventure" has been the talk o f the Shire for over two years now. Eriador remains largely empty and desolate, except for the Shire and the Bree-la nd. Tharbad, last great city of the northern lands, was ruined and abandoned aft er the floods that followed the Fell Winter. The Rangers of the North live in th eir hidden villages in the Angle of Rhudaur, still doing their ancestral duty to protect what was Arnor from the Shadow, although they have been effectively lea derless for over ten years now, ever since their captain Arathorn was killed by a goblin arrow that hit him in the eye. In the Barrow Downs, evil spirits still haunt tombs that absolutely nobody has v isited in centuries, while in the nearby Old Forest Tom Bombadil sings and laugh

s, as he waits for the stars to be right. Further to the south, the Dunlending c lans remain in a permanent state of conflict with each other, combined with some raids that take the braver (and dumber) among them past the borders of Rohan. Saruman the White has lived in Isengard for several centuries now and his neighb ours generally know better than to annoy the master of Nan Curunir, for all that the wizard is nominally a vassal of Gondor (and won't openly declare otherwise for some years yet). Though he is not yet an agent of the Dark Lord and currentl y leads the White Council, Saruman covets for himself the power of the One Ring and has devoted no small amount of effort to find it over the last decades. Rohan is ruled by old Fengel, son of Folcwine. His has been a long reign (fourty one years and counting) and one his people would like to end as soon as possibl e. Unlike his much beloved father, Fengel has been a notoriously greedy ruler wi th little in the way of achievements that may justify the heavy taxes he has set over the years, and his relations with the Marshals of the Mark have been so st ormy at points that civil war has seemed a possibility. And though Gondor will d o nothing to accelerate the end of Fengel's reign, they will be glad when he goe s too, since his possitively mercenary approach to the old alliance disgusts the ruling Steward. Turgon, the current Steward, is not particularly old by the standards of his blo odline (89 years old, currently), but he is not even remotely the same vigorous man he was when he ascended to his office thirty years ago. Though there has bee n no expansion under his rule, Gondor has enjoyed relative prosperity and peace, and a recovery of sorts has taken place in parts of the kingdom that were ravag ed by plague or invasion in times past. Moreover, the line of succession seems s afe for the time being: the Steward's son, Ecthelion, is an adult of 58 with a s on, Denethor, of 14 years. Other figures of note in Gondor include Angelimir, current prince of Dol Amroth, and Thengel, exiled prince of Rohan, who just last year married beatiful Morwen of Lossarnach, after gaining a great deal of honor and wealth in the service of the Steward (service which mostly involved combat against Umbarean corsairs and Haradrim raiders). Morwen has just realized that she is pregnant for a second t ime. The child she carries will be born in eight months and his name will be Theoden. Far to the north, the lake-town of Esgaroth has been rebuilt and the by now lege ndary hero Bard Dragon-slayer is trying to restore the city and kingdom of Dale, under the shadow of Erebor. There have been complications, but the dwarves are amenable and the enormous wealth he was given has done much to increase the acti vity of old, formerly lethargic trade routes that stretch as far as Dorwinion. The Dark Tower is still a ruin, but other than that the return of its master. For centuries now, Sauron fortress-kingdom through his Ringwraiths and their a few years, the Dark Lord will feel strong enough ower and openly announce his presence to the world. the Black Land is ready for has silently readied his old fortress of Minas Morgul. In to restore his old seat of p