This post marks the conclusion of the Bahar Dar NPC creation. All of these NPCs were created very early on in the process. In fact, it's likely that this was all accomplished between the first and second game sessions.If you look closely at the writing, you'll see that my goals were fully accomplished with regards to how these NPCs were utilized in the campaign. The check marks next to each story hook were made long after-the-fact, as I realized that each of these story threads had been brought to bear in-game. Another items of note include the notion that enemy NPCs outnumber the friendly or neutral NPCs. It's also interesting that both Kaleb Sedek and Bab el-Mandeb are listed as neutral NPCs. Whichever way they swung depended entirely on the actions of the PCs.
As with many of the scanned documents from the Big Red Book, readers will find the drawings on these two pages (which appear opposite each other in the book) among the more interesting features. Both of the main drawings are based on Tolkein's vision of the City of the Valar, which is known in various writings as Kor, Tirion, Tun, and Kortirion. (Most readers of the Silmarillion recognize it as Tirion.) I have switched the assignation of the drawings to represent the cities of Ras Dashen (Rastabadashen) and Bahar Dar (Bahardzarkandar) before the Rain of Fire, which is referred to in the caption as the "Second Tumult." The smaller drawing below the Bahar Dar picture is a representation of the "east" plateau of Grak looking south toward Hamsterfield. I love how Hamsterfield is all aglow on the horizon! It's my only drawing that includes Hamsterfield.
In each of the "city" drawings, the leftmost, tallest building would appear to depict the fabled "Lighthouse of Tirion," whose light could pierce even the densest fog of the Shadowy Seas. In the Bahar Dar drawing, the ziggurat structure is known to have survived the Rain of Fire. When the Wildlanders entered Bahar Dar, the Unbroken Chain Guild of Bertrand Scharfenberg had turned the holy ziggurat into a casino! Upon the Dwarves' liberation by the Uncanny Dodgers, Ungarmax and his people returned to Bahar Dar and destroyed the casino (but not the ziggurat), setting off the chain of events that led to Scharferberg's demise - which has been much discussed in this blog.
All of my politically conservative readers will find the following note fascinating: As I was posting these drawings, it occurred to me that Tolkien's descriptions of Tirion somehow dovetail with President Ronald Reagan's allegory of the United States of America as a "shining city on a hill." Was Reagan an avid Tolkien reader? Could the late former president have had a different city (such as Rome or Jerusalem) in mind? Methinks that "The Great Communicator" perhaps had vision of that great city where the dust in the streets was that of diamonds, and the shores were lined with sands of pearls...
