Barad Eithel

Well I began by saying I kept thinking about Minas Tirith in Gondor. The horses could roam free to begin with, but later have an area encircled by a wide wall (a bit like one of the walls of MT). The elves could build that wall at a point when we think that the threat is clear enough.
 
Well Minas Tirith is a logistic nightmare and pure hell for animals, especially when referring to horses or cattle...
the only possibility i could think of so far is that most horses and cattle actually were sheltered in the many small farms of Pelennor and not within the city itself... except for maybe a small stables for the city guards and errand-riders...
 
Well Minas Tirith is a logistic nightmare and pure hell for animals, especially when referring to horses or cattle...
the only possibility i could think of so far is that most horses and cattle actually were sheltered in the many small farms of Pelennor and not within the city itself... except for maybe a small stables for the city guards and errand-riders...
Yes we don’t want the terraces etc...!
 
Well... I think it would be possible to reach a consensus. For my part, I love the picture you posted, but at the same time, I would like some additions or adjustments. I would like the mountains to be a bit less high - and let me be as clear as I can: I do not want them to be hills, I want mountains. Just lower. And sure, the mountainside where Sirion springs forth from the rock can absolutely be steep, as in your picture, I have no problems with that. And I don't want the fortress on the cliffside to be the only part of Barad Eithel. If the idea is to be a part of the siege and the idea is to hinder attacks from Angband on Beleriand, the Noldor would want to be able to get out on the Ard-galen swiftly and at short notice. That will not be possible if they are high up on the mountain. I suggest a system of tunnels and stairs inside the mountain connecting the upper fortress and a lower one that is situated with its back to the mountain, where initially one wall encircles an area with barracks and workshops. The lower fortress should be placed somewhat to the south of the upper one if the elves want to use the river as a part of a defence, or north of the river if they want a more offensive position and a quicker access to the Ard-galen. Horses roam the adjacent area but at some point another wall could be built some distance from the fortress, probably with gates and a bridge crossing Sirion (place of this depending on whether the fortress is north or south of the river; I looked for a map or layout that showed the place up close to see if there was evidence of the exact location, but it's probably exactly at the spring itself, or very close). They will have horns and other means of communication between the upper and lower fortress.
Thoughts?
 
Sure man! We're just talking!

I've looked for a lot of pics of highland and mountain castles and fortresses and i just could't find any which really conviced me...

Maybe my idea of the terrain is wrong?

I mean, most castles i found seem to serve the purpose to either be a fortified seat of the local ruler or to watch over and control the surrounding lands.

Barad Eithel serves two main purposes : it's a base for the troops which besiege Angband, and it defends the entrance into Hithlum.

So what are the Ered Wethrin like? Are they those towering mountains over which a scanty sun peeps, it's light's barely illuminating the misty lands below?
 
Looking at artwork of the Ered Within, a lot of it looks like really high mountains, so that's not really supporting my view, haha. But looking now at maps, I find that the range to the north of the spring seems massive, while the part of the range that stretches southward looks smaller. That range still needs to be high enough to serve as a barrier one wouldn't want to cross over, but probably less alp-like. So probably, we want to place the spring and the fortress on the northern part of the range.
 
Well looking at Karen wynn fonstadts maps the Ered Wethrin still seem to be lower than the Ered Gorgoroth and the Blue mountains, and in general the terrain seems to get lower to the west...

I guess what i need to envision the place is... well the place.I mean we need a clear view of the mountain, then we can imagine how a fortress on it could look like.


Screenshot_2019-10-05-14-59-03-1.png

Something like this at least. Well it shows a sole-standing tower.But it still Could be built half into the northern or northwestern mountainwall...

It would make sense...
 
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Then it would not be exactly at the spring, would it? It looks separated from the mountains, where the spring would be, right? Or is the spring a pool of some sort, below the mountains?
 
2286
Ok so either we place the tower like we discussed earlier (Barad Eithel 1 on the map) or more the way Fonstad indicates (Barad Eithel 2 on the map). The second alternative more or less indicates that the spring is a pool below the mountains, instead of coming out of the cliff side like on your picture.
 
The river source is probably rain or melting ice or both, high in the mountains...
Eithel does mean, well, spring, source, outflow...

I guess the best solution would be that the tower is not built directly at the well, but at the outflow of the river from the mountains into the vale...
 
Big rivers tend to have many tributaries... I suggest that we imagine the well starting with a waterfall coming from a glacier on the northern part of the range and facing partly southeast but probably mostly to the east and north. There could be a small lake or pool there, before the river flows to the south. On its way along the southern Ered Wethrin, it passes several small tributaries, and the land between the Sirion and the mountains should be rather wet with melted ice water.
 
Somewhere along the way it's apparently easily accessed, allowing Morgoth to seize it in the aftermath of the Nirnaeth. How do we convey something something like that?
 
The way the discussion is going it looks like it’ll be a tower pretty close to the Ard-galen. It will be accessible, in that case.
 
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