Player name(s): The Three Muttsketeers (Lindalher, daktubalan, Hearthseeker)
Player rank: Overseer, Builder + x2
Private or Public: Public
Location name: Isengard
Lore: Built by the Men of Númenor in the Second Age, Isengard served as a critical defense point for the vulnerable Gap of Rohan. It also housed one of the seven Palantiri (Seeing-Stones).
In TA 2759, Isengard was entrusted to Saruman. By the time of the server, he would have begun to secretly alter Isengard according to his plan for world domination and all that fun stuff.
“This was its fashion, while Saruman was at his height, accounted by many the chief of Wizards. A great ring-wall of stone, like towering cliffs, stood out from the shelter of the mountain-side, from which it ran and then returned again. One entrance only was there made in it, a great arch delved in the southern wall. Here through the black rock a long tunnel had been hewn, closed at either end with mighty doors of iron. They were so wrought and poised upon their huge hinges, posts of steel driven into the living stone, that when unbarred they could be moved with a light thrust of the arms, noiselessly. One who passed in and came at length out of the echoing tunnel, beheld a plain, a great circle, somewhat hollowed like a vast shallow bowl: a mile it measured from rim to rim. Once it had been green and filled with avenues, and groves of fruitful trees, watered by streams that flowed from the mountains to a lake…
There stood a tower of marvellous shape. It was fashioned by the builders of old, who smoothed the Ring of Isengard, and yet it seemed a thing not made by the craft of Men, but riven from the bones of the earth in the ancient torment of the hills. A peak and isle of rock it was, black and gleaming hard: four mighty piers of many-sided stone were welded into one, but near the summit they opened into gaping horns. their pinnacles sharp as the points of spears, keen-edged as knives. Between them was a narrow space, and there upon a floor of polished stone, written with strange signs, a man might stand five hundred feet above the plain. This was Orthanc…” -The Two Towers
Overhead plan:
Yellow = farms and pastures
Orange = houses
Blue = mine
Gray = earth wall/dike
The scribbly bit inside the ring will be forest, and the clear area inside of that will be a garden/park (flowerbeds, wide lawns, hedges, groves of fruit trees)
There will also be smokestacks and entrances to the forges hidden throughout.
In-game guide: The most efficient method would be to begin with a limited group of builders and get the basic shape Orthanc and the wall, and to plan out the gardens, the caverns and the farms.
At some point we will hold a build day, divided into teams like Benzathoth had for Helm’s Deep:
- Orthanc: Detail work on the outside of the tower.
- Wall: Towers under construction. Housing, storage and public areas for Saruman’s army.
- Interior: Forest and garden detail. Interiors on the caverns below.
- Exterior: Farms, additional details along the great road.
Document containing all visual and logistical data: Isengard - Google Docs
Terrain: We will shape the circle of Isengard into a bowl shape. The only other terrain alteration will be voxel work on the tower and the wall.
Reference Imagery:
Tolkien’s own drawing
Note: refer to the pits, not the tower (obviously).
Two sketches by Wheellee. Concept for fortifications along the wall. Also a nearly ideal shape for Orthanc in the second image.
