This is true, but I can’t imagine the volume of trade was that large. The Romans operated an entire empire beyond the Alps and did just fine.
True, but the Romans had boats. And the Alps are easier to circumvent than the First Age Ered Luin.
Your conclusions from this are simply wrong. Tolkien uses the word ‘under’ in this context to mean ‘next to but much lower’. This can be seen in ‘The Ring Goes South’:
But those are cliffs,so you can truly go right at their bottom, which is not possible with Mount Dolmed. At least not when you want to cross the Blue Mountains.
However, English isn’t my mother tongue, so if you tell me that’s normal, I will trust you.
What makes you think this? There were passes over the Alps and passes over the Ered Luin.
Shoulders refers to the sides of the mountain - Tolkien uses the phrase “shoulder of rock” at one point in the same chapter to refer to the side of a cliff-face. So the road clearly ran near the bottom of Mount Dolmed and then wound its way up to a mountain pass.
Shoulders refers to the sides of the mountain - Tolkien uses the phrase “shoulder of rock” at one point in the same chapter to refer to the side of a cliff-face. So the road clearly ran near the bottom of Mount Dolmed and then wound its way up to a mountain pass.
OK no problem then.
What makes you think this? There were passes over the Alps and passes over the Ered Luin.
Project Update: Front gate has been copied and pasted from my plot, the surrounding terrain and foliage in front of the gate is nearing completion. Haven’t really started on any cracks, crevices etc in the structure itself as I want to finish the first hall before doing that.
In terms of the first hall, it is approximately 50% complete with the pillars being completed today.
Well… I’m sorry to say that and it could be a bit late, but I think this entrance doesn’t fit Belegost. I mean, I think it is great by itself, and that it would be great for some Thorin’s halls sized settlement, but Belegost is the great city of one of the seven Dwarven clans and it should be compared with similar dwellins, and it currently clearly doesn’t stand the comparison with its sister city of Nogrod or with Erebor, it is not grand enough: http://i.imgur.com/fGPcHbF.png
Maybe the hall could be a bit bigger too, but that is, I think, a lot less important (as every city is different, and Belegost could have had bigger halls deeper in the mountains, but the entrance will always be the first thing you come across, you can’t put it inside the city ).
I’m not the leader for this project, so I can’t speak with authority on the matter. But, eventually the hall is going to be moved down about 10-15 blocks to give the appearance that everything has sunk over the years. Most ruins even partially left intact are buried and need to be excavated unless exposed in some sort of way. The gate for Nogrod, for example is the same size as this one in game when you enter it, with you starting out almost at the top of where the arch would be. Of course the gate would have been YUGE in it’s prime. Now it’s should be noted it’s a mostly buried and well eroded ruin that suffered damage after the cataclysmic events that destroyed Beleriand. The gate for Belegost, right now as it stands, is about at the right height for a gate that’s sunken about half way. It’s going to appear to be one of the smaller mine entrances.
It is a bit late. Im also smack bang in the middle of exams at the moment, but if there is enough interest im all for making the whole thing alot grander.
Surprise, surprise… more work has been done on Belegost, mainly taking into account more ruining of the first hall and unless anyone has criticism i think its fair to say the first hall can be finalised. I would also like to thank @Led for the great work he put into the first hall and the surrounding areas outside Belegost.
The updates are as follows:
More landslides have been added which has massively piled up the surrounding areas with dirt and gravel
Entrances to the second hall have been collapsed, only a small opening is still present
A lot of great detailing work has been done on the walls
The area outside Belegost has been covered with flowers and rocks. If a + would like to add trees outside Belegost please do, it is suppose to look rather overgrown so there needs to be plenty
I’ve decided to put another update for Belegost in quite soon after the previous one since there has been a lot of work done on the project meanwhile. So… In a nutshell… The second hall has been built and ruined according to the idea that the second hall has survived the years in a lot better condition than the first hall, though I have still included many cracks, crevices and pieces that have come loose from the roof and walls.
The next thing to do would be to add trees outside Belegost, I really need a + to do this and rather soon because it is the last job to be done and i’d rather get it done sooner than later so we can finalise this because I think we can all agree that the project has gone on longer than it needed to (mostly due to my excellent procrastination skills). I’m not going to put any specific guides on where the trees should be and what the tree species it should be because I think its fairly self-explanatory.
I have a couple pieces of criticism, do with it what you will:
-Remove the extremely steep scree flow to the right of the gate, it wouldn’t work. You’d get rubble at the base of the cliffs and flowing inside but not really like that per-say.
-Make the floor inside Belegost noticeably filled up. At the moment with the way you have it it simply feels ‘short’ and the pillars ‘stubby’- if you add some dynamics to the floor (like in Nogrod) with flowing mounds of scree (rather than just a semi-flat bumpy scree area), it’d make things more believable. It will improve the entrance and tree pillar hall quite a bit.
-The plants outside the gate are wrong. Goldenrod wouldn’t be there, and neither would cross-leaved heath, a plant which grows in wetlands, not mountains. Just make it like the rest of the mountains, using the same plants.
EDIT: I was vague with my second point. By making it more dynamic I mean making it go down and up from the central point in the floor, e.g. one corner of the room being ‘taller’ than the other due to the other side being filled up.
He didn’t mean make the structures bigger, he meant make the current floor entirely debris so that it appears as if the floor is buried very deeply underneath (like in Nogrod).
All debris has been changed according to whee’s feedback, if anyone has any more criticism, it is welcome otherwise its just the trees and plants outside that need to be changed.
Thanks to @Wheellee for pasting in the trees outside Belegost. I honestly cannot think of anything else to put into this project, so unless there is anymore criticism I think we can finalise this project.
.
).
.