2 replies to this topic

[lonkipt]

I heard Mathijs give an intriguing comment in a livestream at one point, commenting something like, "For those who want a Rhun faction, they haven't thought it through," but without going any further into it. (I wish I had noted which livestream for reference....) I've been curious as to further thoughts on this for a while, given we seem to know about as little about them as we do the Haradrim--yet the Haradrim are being developed into a full faction. What is the reasoning behind making this decision to not develop Rhun? Is it simply time? Lack of passion for the faction? Or...?

You guys do amazing work and from we've been shown of the Haradrim I can only imagine how incredible a job a Rhun faction would be coming from you. So, just wondering why not, in the end. I don't think I've seen any discussion on this from the devs outside of sinply saying things like it's not part of the design, etc.

[Mathijs]

Basically, there is much more information available about Haradwaith than there is about Rhûn, so filling in gaps or coming up with material that is faithful to the spirit of what we do know is much easier. Rhûn, to me, is very close to a blank slate so we'd have to come up with almost all our own lore, by which point it's no longer a LotR faction.

[lonkipt]

I suppose that's a fair point. I was actually just thinking about this topic from a story perspective, too: The regions of Harad are far more integrally linked with the ongoing story of the Men of the West--Edain, Numenoreans and their descendants, the Gondorians--than are the regions of Rhun. We see how the various fortresses of the Harad, built by Numenoreans and Gondorians, are closely linked to the movements of the Haradrim, so that there is a more thematic tie between the stories of that area with the West. With the East, those regions aren't as personally linked. It's always incursions of Easterlings leaving their regions to sack the West. I don't think we have any fortresses named or anything that links them with the Men of the West the way the Harad does.

So, I suppose it could be interesting in one way to go all out and use the imagination to make something so original. But at the same time it doesn't seem to bear really all so much on the history of the West--and concurrently with the metanarrative of Tolkien's legendarium--as even the Haradrim do.