#rhosgobel

Hello! Thank you for taking some interest in my fic! Now, some explanations if you happen to be wondering how I incorporated the story of Mamma Mia into the world of Middle Earth! Specifically, where in Arda (or Middle Earth) our story will take place. If you don’t want to read so much nonsense from me, there's a TLDR at the end which I hope summarizes everything nicely!

In the movie and play of Mamma Mia!, the story is set on a little island in Greece, but that didn’t work for me for two main reasons: 1) I wanted the characters to remain in Arda, not be in our world and 2) I wanted them to also remain their original races. So, I had to move the story from a Hotel on an island in Greece to Arda, but where? And how to incorporate them being far enough but also within a small community as the hotel in Mamma Mia was?

After the War of The Ring

My headcanons, just so we are clear, are that not all Elves left Arda after the Ring was destroyed in LOTR, and with time, their world developed much like our own. So now, they have cars and technology and most cities that previously only had one race in them, now have most races living in harmony, even Hobbits!

After what Saruman did, Hobbits became more interested in the world outside, and many left the Shire to live out with their families elsewhere. And now, most cities aren’t only Elven, or Men, or Dwarrow ones, now you can find all the races in the cities of Rivendell, Lorien, Dale, even Erebor!

The World in LAYLOM

So, there are major cities with many jobs, people, cars, technology, etc., etc., but that doesn’t mean that all of Middle Earth had completely changed. Nop, most still the beautiful scenery we see in the movies, just the major places got upgrades but never at the cost of destroying their ecosystems. You could say that they didn’t fail their world as we did by destroying everything in their paths.

Now, I want to thank LOTR PROJECT for giving us a wonderful map and many more things on their site! If you haven’t check it out, you should bc it helped me out in picturing everything and of course is from where I got the next images I will present of where everything is in my version of Modern Arda.

That blue line you see? It’s the path that Thorin and Company took to Erebor, bc these wonderful peeps at LOTR PROJECT have got this mapped out! And also got all sorts of notes and other character’s journeys! You can even see family trees, timelines, and much more!

Here’s the link for the main site! And This Link is for the interactive map!

Now back my version of Middle Earth, while many things remained the same as we see from the map we know of, some places did come to be born in my version which I have marked here:

Rhosgobel (Blue Dot!)

Rhosgobel is, in LOTR lore, the place where Radagast the Brown lives. In the movies, we know it’s a little hut house in a forest, but it’s never actually specified and can’t be found in the maps we have of Arda.

I decided to set it closer to the Old Forest Road, so with time, it became a city after Radagast left for the Grey Heavens with all the elves. It’s very quiet and not all that impressive, and has mostly Hobbits, Elves and Men. Very few dwarrow, but some can be found around too. Now, it should be noted, that the Old Forest Road is not just a road anymore, bc Modern Times and all that, led it to be a train that can go the whole distance that the Road is in the maps. It goes from the Iron Hills to the Blue Mountains, and Rhosgobel is one of its stops (Red Dot!). So that is how Thorin and Dwalin managed to get to Rhosgobel. Now, our next new place.

The Halls (Green Dot!)

Not far from the city of Rhosgobel, we can find Beorn’s Halls or just the Halls. You guessed it, it used to be where Beorn the shapeshifter had his sanctuary with all his creatures. Beorn of course had his son and died many, many years ago, but his descendants never wanted their lands to become forgotten or to get too high-tech. So when some Hobbits looking for a new home came around, many were granted the chance to build a settlement that would keep the lands good and healthy with no changes to its ecosystem like it (had to for progress) happened in Rhosgobel. So, we have a mostly small, Shire-like new village that stands now as The Halls. Due to the promise to not let the lands be too changed, the only way to go to the Halls is via horses, ponies, carriages, or giant Eagle XD. No cars are allowed anywhere near The Halls, even if they are very eco-friendly. The Halls of course still need to have adequate food and other stuff not found in the village, so there’s the system of the carriages that uses the Rabbits to carry people and stuff to the Halls into Rhosgobel and vice-versa. And you know how that works if you read chapter two! So moving on to our last place!

The Carrock Hotel (Golden Dot!)

As I mentioned before, I wanted to have MM! blended into the Hobbit, so I choose the Carrock as the place where our main story setting is in, the Hotel owned and run by Bilbo. It is close to the Halls, but still it’s own place. It can also only be accessed by coming directly from the Halls via horse or walking, as Thorin and Dwalin are informed. It’s very much a blast from the past and is just getting into the technological aspect.

The people from the Halls and some from Rhosgobel also work and help out with anything that Bilbo might need, so they get food and supplies from both. Bilbo has made this place stand out all on his while raising a child, but it could still use some more guests. It would be a beautiful place if more people knew of it.

Thank you for reading and I hope you understood my ramblings! I love worldbuilding for my fics and being able to change things around while still keeping things relatively close to cannon materials! If you just stumbled upon this and are wondering what the hell I’m talking about, I recommend checking out my fic: Lay All Your Love On Me, a Mamma Mia! AU for the Hobbit!

 TLDR;

- Rhosgobel (Radagast’s old place, BLUE DOT ON MAP) is now in the Modern World of Arda a small city, serving as the port from which one can get to the Hotel like in the movie version of MM!

- The Halls (Beorn’s home before, GREEN DOT ON MAP) now a small settlement mostly of Hobbits that decided to settle there after the War of the Ring, keeping it pretty much the same, only with a couple of changes and nothing modern like cars. This is where most of the hobbits that work at the Hotel live.

- The Carrock Hotel (That Carrock from that scene, you know the one 😉, GOLD DOT ON MAP) Bilbo’s home and business, the Hotel is here in the middle of a vast forest and pretty far away from any major city, so everything is beautiful and green, but it is kinda unknown to everyone. Bilbo fixed it up and now runs it, and it is here our main story takes place.

Rhosgobel by Ted Nasmith

Read an interview with Ted Nasmith on Tor.com

Radagast: I'll draw them off.

Gandalf: These are Gundabad wargs. They will outrun you!