In Progress Swanfleet Marshes

Introduction

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The Swanfleet marshes occupy the area to the north and east of the ruined trading town of Tharbad in what was once the realm of Arnor and its successor kingdom, Cardolan. In the Second Age, the Numenoreans who built the original forts at the ford began drainage works to constrain the marshes. Eventually they raised great earthworks to hold back the marshes, protect the town and offer defence from hostile groups in the region. They also built the great bridge spanning the river. Tharbad remained inhabited throughout the Second and Third Ages, becoming an important trading hub whilst Arnor endured. It survived famine, plague and floods until 2912 Third Age, when it was finally abandoned after the Fell Winter. Through the last 1000 years, the marshes slowly eroded away at the earthworks and began to reclaim the lands the Numenoreans drained. Later, in 3017 Boromir crossed the river here in his search for the elusive Imladris and lost his horse. The Nazgul also likely crossed here to invade the Shire.

Overall progress and state

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Current Progress State: 80%
Terrain: 90%
Rivers: 90%
Town blending: 80%
Detailing: 70%

Start date: End of May 2026
Likely end date: December 2026

Project Plan

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Stage 1: Planning
All work will take place in terrainworld to ensure player experience continuity in mainworld until the terrain and edits to the town are of sufficient quality to replace the existing area. The initial stage inolves copying the entire Swanfleet area to plotworld, removing the old marsh around the town and trying out designs for river paths. Mapping of a new marsh will then take place to produce quality river designs, a mixture of larger and smaller pools, wetter and drier areas of the marsh and blending to the River Gwathlo. Once concepts for the rivers, pools, islands and earthworks are complete, the project will move into terrainworld-proper.

Stage 2: River Painting
Planned designs will then be implemented on to flattened terrain in wool colours in terrainworld. As the image command no longer works, the river designs will be painted onto the terrain using the /road command. This requires /sel convex and clicking the required number of points to create the curves. Once the rivers are painted, some adjustments to the Gwathlo river will be made to improve the course and correct depth issues.

Stage 3: Marsh Painting
Using world edit noise commands, wetter and drier areas of the marsh will be painted around the River Glanduin planning using wool colours and will also extend to the south along the eastern and southern edges of the town. The eastern side of the town will be saved and removed to allow ease of access to create the marsh. Flexibility will be incorporated by switching some of the water blocks in some areas for the water-border blocks we'll use (dry riverbed mix block). This will allow the creation of drier and wetter areas.

Stage 4: Block mixing, Great Earthworks and fixing the Gwathlo
Once all the wool colours have been pasted, the corresponding wet/dry blocks will replace them using world edit. Checks will be made to ensure there is sufficient variation across the project area. Drier areas will mostly be confined to the south eastern side of the marsh.
The earthworks will be planned as a causeway and a earth wall crossing the marsh (see plan). These will be pasted using the /road command in the same way the river was. Block mixes for these will be determined once the overall look of the vegetation has been done in the next stage. Once all the blockmixing is complete, the town will be pasted back over the new marsh with the acceptance that some parts will fill the old canals in the eastern side of the town. The River Gwathlo will then be further adjusted to blend into the rest of the town.

Stage 5: Vegetating and Drainage works
Vegetation will be a mix of green and yellows in clustered patches to give the impression of different ages of veg across the marshland, as well as some variations in dryness. Different vegetation will correspond to underlying blocks: i.e. drier veg will be on greenish dirt, whereas wetter veg will be on muddy veg and grass on dark clay.
The ruins of the great drainage works constructed by the Numenoreans will be dug using world edit and then detailed in plots using instructions from clear concepts. These will be built in a mixture of the grey and red bricks to mirror Mithrilled's designs for the planned revamp of Tharbad itself. Some of these channels will have the walls partially or completely collapsed to show the marsh has spread over time.

Stage 6: Town blending and other detailing
Once the marsh has been vegtated, the areas of the raised town will be blended down into the marsh to reduce jankiness and raise the level of quality until such a time as the town itself is revamped.
The rest of the marsh will then be detailed with trees planned for some of the islands in the River Glanduin, ruined water mills on the earthworks, and potentially some more ruins around the clay pits.

Stage 7: Review
The project will then be reviewed for any inconsistencies or derps before completion. Please note that as the town will be revamped at some point, we won't be doing the ruined hobbit-holes that area around the northern sides of the marsh and south-eastern side along the causeways as the surrounding terrain may be adjusted during that process.

Map of the project area

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River channels
Roads
Great Earthworks
Drainage networks
Town walls
Trees
Background Lore

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By that time [1700] Sauron had mastered all Eriador, save only besieged Imladris, and had reached the line of the River Lhûn. He had summoned more forces, which were approaching from the south-east, and were indeed in Enedwaith at the Crossing of Tharbad, which was only lightly held.
Unfinished Tales, Part 2, Ch 4, The History of Galadriel and Celeborn: Concerning Galadriel and Celeborn
Sauron was driven away south-east after a great slaughter at Sarn Ford (the crossing of the Baranduin); and though strengthened by his force at Tharbad he suddenly found a host of the Númenóreans again in his rear, for Ciryatur had put a strong force ashore at the mouth of the Gwathló (Greyflood), 'where there was a small Númenórean harbour'...
Unfinished Tales, Part 2, Ch 4, The History of Galadriel and Celeborn: Concerning Galadriel and Celeborn

The Gwathló, however, never became swift, and ships of smaller draught could without difficulty sail or be rowed as far as Tharbad.
Unfinished Tales, Part 2, Ch IV, The History of Galadriel and Celeborn, Appendix C, 'The Boundaries Of Lórien'

…a fortified town and haven about the great bridge over the Greyflood.
HoME: The Peoples of Middle-earth, "Of Dwarves and Men"
...with long labour a port capable of receiving seagoing vessels had been made at Tharbad, and a fort raised there on great earthworks on both sides of the river, to guard the once famed Bridge of Tharbad.

But later they penetrated northward as far as the beginning of the great fenlands; though it was still long before they had the need or sufficient men to undertake the great works of drainage and dyke-building that made a great port on the site where Tharbad stood in the days of the Two Kingdoms.

...Enedwaith... belonged to neither kingdom and received no permanent settlements of men of Númenórean origin. But the great North-South Road, which was the chief route of communication between the Two Kingdoms except by sea, ran through it from Tharbad to the Fords of Isen (Ethraid Engrin). Before the decay of the North Kingdom and the disasters that befell Gondor, indeed until the coming of the Great Plague in Third Age 1636, both kingdoms shared an interest in this region, and together built and maintained the Bridge of Tharbad and the long causeways that carried the road to it on either side of the Gwathló and Mitheithel across the fens in the plains of Minhiriath and Enedwaith. * A considerable garrison of soldiers, mariners and engineers had been kept there until the seventeenth century of the Third Age. But from then onwards the region fell quickly into decay; and long before the time of The Lord of the Rings had gone back into wild fenlands. When Boromir made his great journey from Gondor to Rivendell – the courage and hardihood required is not fully recognized in the narrative—the North-South Road no longer existed except for the crumbling remains of the causeways, by which a hazardous approach to Tharbad might be achieved, only to find ruins on dwindling mounds, and a dangerous ford formed by the ruins of the bridge, impassable if the river had not been there slow and shallow – but wide.
Unfinished Tales, Part 2, Ch IV, The History of Galadriel and Celeborn, Appendix D, 'The Port Of Lond Daer

[The] great North-South Road, which was the chief route of communication between the [Arnor and Gondor] except by sea, ran through it from Tharbad to the Fords of Isen (Ethraid Engrin). Before the decay of the North Kingdom and the disasters that befell Gondor, indeed until the coming of the Great Plague in Third Age 1636, both kingdoms shared an interest in this region, and together built and maintained the Bridge of Tharbad and the long causeways that carried the road to it on either side of the Gwathló and Mitheithel across the fens in the plains of Minhiriath and Enedwaith. A considerable garrison of soldiers, mariners and engineers had been kept there until the seventeenth century of the Third Age. But from then onwards the region fell quickly into decay; and long before the time of The Lord of the Rings had gone back into wild fenlands.
Unfinished Tales, Part 2, Ch 4, Appendix D, The History of Galadriel and Celeborn: The Port of Lond Daer

2912 Great floods devastate Enedwaith and Minhiriath. Tharbad is ruined and deserted.
The Return of the King, LoTR Appendix B, The Tale of Years: The Third Age

"In the time of the War of the Ring the lands were still in places well-wooded, especially in Minhiriath and in the south-east of Enedwaith; but most of the plains were grassland. Since the Great Plague of the year 1636 of the Third Age Minhiriath had been almost entirely deserted, though a few secretive hunter-folk lived in the woods. But in the earlier days, at the time of the first explorations of the Númenóreans, the situation was quite different. Minhiriath and Enedwaith were occupied by vast and almost continuous forests, except in the central region of the Great Fens."
Unfinished Tales, Part 2, Ch IV, The History of Galadriel and Celeborn, Appendix D, The Port Of Lond Daer
September came in with golden days and silver nights, and they rode at ease until they reached the Swanfleet river, and found the old ford, east of the falls where it went down suddenly into the lowlands. Far to the west in a haze lay the meres and eyots through which it wound its way to the Greyflood: there countless swans housed in a land of reeds.
The Lord of the Rings, Book VI, Many Partings

Concepts

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Inspiration

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