Photo Gallery
Real-world volcanic landscapes, chosen because they look like they belong on the wrong side of the mountains. All photos below are public-domain / Creative-Commons images from Wikimedia Commons — see captions for sources.
"One does not simply browse in — but we made a fan page anyway."
Enter the Black LandWelcome, traveler. This is an unofficial, fan-run corner of the internet dedicated to the darker geography of Middle-earth — Mordor, the Ash Mountains, the Plateau of Gorgoroth, and everything that smoulders between them. We are not affiliated with any publisher, studio, or rights holder; just a small group of readers and map nerds who think the volcanic wastelands deserve a fan site as much as the Shire does.
Expect essays on in-world geology, a slowly-growing photo gallery of real-world volcanic landscapes that scratch the same itch, and a modest community board for people who'd rather talk about watchtowers and ash plains than elves.
A near-unbroken wall enclosing the plateau on three sides, pierced only by a handful of guarded passes. Old maps disagree wildly on their exact height, which is exactly the kind of detail this site exists to argue about.
A plateau of ash and cinder, dry riverbeds, and long straight roads built for one purpose: moving armies quickly. Surprisingly little vegetation, which somehow makes the geology more interesting, not less.
Garrison towers along the passes, built less for beauty and more for sightlines. We have a running (friendly) debate about which real-world hill forts they most resemble.
A land literally built on and by volcanic activity. Our gallery below leans on real volcanoes — Kīlauea, Fagradalsfjall, Masaya — because reality already looks the part.
Real-world volcanic landscapes, chosen because they look like they belong on the wrong side of the mountains. All photos below are public-domain / Creative-Commons images from Wikimedia Commons — see captions for sources.
This corner of the site is intentionally small. No accounts, no tracking, no ads — just a few links for people who want to keep talking about ash plains and watchtowers elsewhere.