User blog:Glflegolas/Biome of the Week -- Issue 4 -- October 10, 2016

Since I haven't seen or heard anything from Commando in over a month, I guess that I'll be the one keeping this series going, on a more-or-less weekly schedule whenever I have time. In this issue, I was originally going to be featuring the Trollshaws, but I've been reading the comments of a couple of issues back, and I have decided that this week, I will be featuring either the White Downs (heads) or Midgewater (tails). Since I couldn't decide which one to feature, I ended up doing this on the toss of a toonie, and the winner was...

Midgewater.

Where are they?
The Midgewater Marshes can be found just east of Bree, and a short distance west of Weathertop. They are right on the border between Eriador and the Lone-lands, and are the marshes through which Aragorn led the Fellowship, so that the Ringwraiths would have a harder time finding the One Ring.

Why do you like this biome?
Well, I really hadn't ever visited this biome before writing this blog post, but I figured that it's kind of hard to feature a biome I'd never been to, so I decided to visit it. The achievement for entering this biome is "More Midges than Water!" While that's a bit of an exaggeration, there definitely are a lot of Midges in this biome, and they definitely do their job when it comes to being annoying. The lowlands aren't exactly my style, (although the frequent Willows do look nice) but heading into the uplands, the biome becomes a lot more scenic, with an interesting variety of flowers and ferns. There are lots of rotten logs lying on the ground, which might be useful, if you want to build out of rotten wood for some reason. If you can stand the midges, this biome is a safe place to live, whether you are good or evil, as no NPC's spawn here under most circumstances, likely because they can't stand the midges either! No animals spawn here, but there's plenty of food available, provided that you remembered to bring a fishing rod or a trident.

Any advice for travellers?
The most important piece of advice I have for anybody willing to live here, or travelling through the area, is turn off your sound! Otherwise the midges will drive you crazy after a while. Another option is to build your base underground, deep enough so that you can't hear the midges. Also, try to stay in the uplands as much as possible, as frequent Quagmire near the pools can get you into trouble pretty quickly if you don't pay attention.