Board Thread:Suggestions forum/@comment-26172435-20170411163556

Basic notion
When pondering this thread, on additions in the east of Mordor, I felt there should be some area in the east where easterlings and variags would have passed more safely. The Eastern Desolation as proposed by Grievous in mentioned thread may be fitting for part of that area, but a sense of logic and realism tells me Núrn should have been accessible from Khand and the Rhúdel via a less dangerous route. I also missed a logical 'transition biome' between the Eastern Desolation and Rhûn and Rhúdel where Easterling and Mordor troops guard the passage of any foreign party to prevent any unwanted intrusions in the east of Mordor.

Proposal
I propose to add a biome to the east of Mordor that connects the Eastern Desolation with Rhûn and provides passage between Khand and the south-east of Mordor, as indicated in this map sketch:



Details

 * The biome could be called 'Rafshat-nen-Hi', which would mean 'plains under shadow' in the Black Speech, as it is subject to the shadow of Mordor casted onto the bordering lands.
 * The biome would be a sub-biome of the Rhúdel Steppe.
 * There will also be Mordor Orc encampments and camps of Easterlings (and Variags later on), as proposed in abovementioned thread. I assume Mordor pays their hildor vassals for continuous patrols in this region.
 * Compared to RhunLandSteppe (the sub-biome for Rhúdel Steppe), the Rafshat-nen-Hi has SET_NORMAL as base variant (instead of SET_NORMAL_OAK), will get no additional Forest biome variants, but will get Wasteland biome variant instead and higher variant occurence (0.5-0.7 instead of 0.3).
 * Both the Pine shrub occurence and getChanceToSpawnAnimals should be halved.
 * Of course, the setGrass colour will have to be adjusted to mimic the influence of ash clouds regularly afflicting the flora of this land. A grass colour in between that of the Rhúdel Steppe and Rhûn, with some darker teint / decreased saturation could possibly do to bridge the gap between the Eastern Desolation and its fertile neighbouring lands. There is already a one-block thick strip of transition zone in between current Eastern Desolation and Rhúdel/Rhûn: this has about the grass colour palette I would propose this new biome to have.
 * Mordor orcs and archers should be added to the evil spawn list, just like in Wilderland, and Mordor invasions should be added just like in Wilderland as well, with only difference that Mordor Warg invasion occurence should be Uncommon instead of Rare. No invasions by Dalish forces will occur here.
 * It would be nice to have viper snakes spawning in that biome as well (as proposed for the Eastern Desolation in aforementioned thread), but without wither effect in their attacks.

Feedback
Don't hesitate to provide any feedback. I will adjust the proposal based on any clearly valuable additions/corrections brought forward.

''Suggestions like these (considering future improvements, in my view), shouldn't get that much attention in my opinion. I'd rather see people provide feedback on suggestions related to improving existing features, like this and this one. This is posted as a separate suggestion thread, merely because it was deemed fit for this purpose. I did not spend as much effort in thinking this through as I would have on other suggestions though, as I initianlly posted it as feedback to another suggestion.'' 