The Hobbit's Wilderland is classic D&D

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Somewhere on reddit recently, I saw someone casually mention the different types of fantasy implied by The Hobbit vs Lord of the Rings. And it set my mind spinning on isolating and bringing forth the world of The Hobbit's Wilderland.

What I mean is the Wilderland as seen in The Hobbit, without any reference to the rest of the legendarium. Let's forget the sagas of the Silmarillion and the detailed tapestries of Lord of the Rings and dwell for a moment simply on the world of Wilderland we are exposed to in The Hobbbit. It's actually a rather different place.

It's a world where Gandalf (correct pronunciation: "Jandalf") is just another wandering wizard, where the Necromancer is just an evil warlock in a tower in the dark forest, where Elrond is just a wise elf lord encountered on the journey.

Wilderland is a world of goblins under misty mountains, trolls in the woods, giants in the mountains, shape-shifting woodsmen, capricious elves, good hearted but also proud and greedy dwarves, wizards and wizardry orders, evil wizards darkening the surrounding area from their tower in the woods, of wilderlands and great dark woodlands.

this is the vibe I see in Wilderland 

A land of great intelligent eagles, magic items retrieved from underworlds deeper than even goblins would go, and dragons destroying kingdoms and sleeping on piles of stolen treasure. Of 'wise elves in the west', and 'more dangerous' ones in the east, descended from 'the tribes that never went west to Faerie'.  

I love Ted Nasmith

And wilderland is a notably dangerous region. In Lord of the Rings, the dangers faced by the Fellowship  can be mostly explained by being targeted by Sauron and Saruman alike or otherwise encountered as a direct result of being forced away from their preferred path by either Saruman or Sauron's servants. 

An extremely abbreviated depiction of Wilderland...

No such persecution followed Bilbo and the dwarves. Yet, the journey itself from the shire to lake town is fraught with peril. Trolls, goblins, giants, giant spiders, starvation while lost in woods so deep no sunlight penetrates, imprisonment by prejudiced elves. All before they even get close to the most perilous and iconic of D&D monsters - a full blown dragon. 

Just a 1st level thief trying to score some XP by filching gold from three trolls out in the deep wilds.

Of course they have a few fantastical encounters along the way. Finding magic swords in a troll lair, Meeting an ancient elf lord, a werebear who rules his own forest domain and is clearly a local power, talking animals galore (and if they don't speak common, one can learn their language), finding a ring of invisibility, being saved by giant eagles. And it all started from a map with magical moon letters. 

Igor Kordej made some badass tolkien art.

Put simply, The Hobbit is a tale of a thief, a wizard and ragtag band of dwarves going on an wilderness journey to steal treasure from a dragon.

Does it get more D&D than that? There are some who will ask "where are the depraved city-states? Your Gray Mousers and your clever Cugels?"

And for sure, the Middle Earth of The Hobbit represents a fantasy that is more rooted in medieval tales than the hodge podge of literary influences that Gygax drew from for own his vision of the D&D fantasy realm.

Not actually Tolkien art, but John Howe is a fabulous tolkien artist.
And this scene could totally happen in D&D Wilderland.

But, it is also a far cry from the world of the Silmarillion and Lord of the Rings, with its epic sagas and long tales of kingdoms and world-shattering events. 

Where everything about Silmarillion and Lord of the Rings seems to be fantasy writ large, Middle Earth of The Hobbit is fantasy writ small. Where everything is known, explained and accounted for in the wider legendarium, the world of The Hobbit feels like light is shone on just the details relevant for the story in a world full of further unknowns, wonders and horrors. Wilderland feels like lands that could exist next to any other fantasy realm, where all kinds of other things could be thrown in. It's open-ended and full of possible happenings.

Seems like an easy place to run a D&D campaign to me, if you are ok with all the singing.

Comments

  1. ThrorII31 October 2024 at 00:35

    I've said for years, that the implied setting of "The Hobbit" is essentially a B/X D&D campaign. You've touched on most of the setting items. Secret doors, magic swords, dungeons, dragons, giant spiders, goblins, orcs (and "hobgoblins"), trolls (ogres?), warriors, elves, dwarves, wizards, necromancers, halflings ("hobbits"), and thieves.

    ReplyDelete
  2. John31 October 2024 at 00:56

    Love it. The world of the Hobbit sure seems like it'd make a fine BX D&D setting (before it gets converted to the Pathfinder or 5E version with the adventure paths, milestone XP, and backstories).

    ReplyDelete
  3. Yochai Gal1 November 2024 at 03:21

    You may find this similar blogpost on the 1937 facsimile of the Hobbit useful.

    https://riseupcomus.blogspot.com/2017/09/1937-hobbit-as-setting.html

    ReplyDelete
  4. PrinceofNothing6 November 2024 at 22:23

    You have isolated a key difference, which is that Oldschool D&D is often about small scale adventures taking place in a large and unknown world, and LotR is about the most important thing that could happen inside that world, which because of its scale must also reveal most of itself. If you wanted to beat up Sauron you could only do so at the end of a campaign, for wherever would you go next? The planes or outer space perhaps.

    But exploring places of in-setting significance, that have real weight and a real role in the fictional milieu, should be something to aspire to. Most campaigns do eventually gravitate towards finding 'The cradle of Lost Race X', or 'the forgotten library of X' or killing its oldest dragon, and they should. If you spend enough time exploring a place, such a thing becomes possible and probable.

    Moria is still one of the best iterations of a d&d dungeon in fiction, narrowly beaten by its dark mirror twin, Cil-Aujas.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous22 November 2024 at 17:08

    I think you're onto something here, but the Hobbit on its own is far too "twee" and has too much pathos to be a true D&D setting. To me, the perfect D&D setting is if you took the world described by the Hobbit and facilitated a full-scale invasion of the setting by the denizens of Hyboria. And you set the entire thing adrift in Moorcock's multiverse. I think at that point you've just arrived at the Wilderlands of High Fantasty, or even early Forgotten Realms, by a different route.

    ReplyDelete

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