The Pits of Angband

[Hajo]

Since I have not read the Tolkien books, I have no real idea what the Pits of Angband are like. The game has granite walls, magma veins, quartz veins, and one can tunnel into the walls. This seems to tell that it is a roughly constructed place, maybe natural caves expanded and connected.

Is this right? Or are the granite walls masoned from garnatie blocks, and the magma and quartz veins are leftovers from partialy cleaned and repaired cave-ins?

How's the floor like? Is it tiled, or natural rock and earth? The depth increments of 50' could mean that there is a lot of rock or earth between the levels, but also that the halls are high (dragons are big).

So what's the place like? Is it a natural systzem of caves, somewhat fortified, or is it an underground fortress of evil, just slightly damaged from old age? Is it even glamourous, or did it be in former times?

Please let me know

[Nick]

There actually isn't a lot of description. This is about his return to Angband (which had been has secondary fortress early on):

And he being freed gathered again all his servants that he could find, and came to the ruins of Angband. There he delved anew his vast vaults and dungeons, and above their gates he reared the threefold peaks of Thangorodrim, and a great reek of dark smoke was ever wreathed about them. There countless became the hosts of his beasts and his demons, and the race of the Orcs, bred long before, grew and multiplied in the bowels of the earth.

and another description:

In the north of the world Melkor had in the ages past reared Ered Engrin, the Iron Mountains, as a fence to his citadel of Utumno; and they stood upon the borders of the regions of everlasting cold, in a great curve from east to west. Behind the walls of Ered Engrin in the west, where they bent back northwards, Melkor built another fortress, as a defence against assault that might come from Valinor; and when he came back to Middle-earth, as has been told, he took up his abode in the endless dungeons of Angband, the Hells of Iron, for in the War of the Powers the Valar, in their haste to overthrow him in his great stronghold of Utumno, did not wholly destroy Angband nor search out all its deep places. Beneath Ered Engrin he made a great tunnel, which issued south of the mountains; and there he made a mighty gate. But above this gate, and behind it even to the mountains, he piled the thunderous towers of Thangorodrim, that were made of the ash and slag of his subterranean furnaces, and the vast refuse of his tunnellings. They were black and desolate and exceedingly lofty; and smoke issued from their tops, dark and foul upon the northern sky. Before the gates of Angband filth and desolation spread southward for many miles over the wide plain of Ard-galen; but after the coming of the Sun rich grass arose there, and while Angband was besieged and its gates shut there were green things even among the pits and broken rocks before the doors of hell.

Then there's a vague description of Beren and Luthien descending:

Then Beren and Luthien went through the Gate, and down the labyrinthine stairs; and together wrought the greatest deed that has been dared by Elves or Men. For they came to the seat of Morgoth in his nethermost hall, that was upheld by horror, lit by fire, and filled with weapons of death and torment

but there's really nothing about actual dungeon structure.

[Hajo]

Thanks, this already gives a much better idea of the place. At least in regard of theme and atmosphere.

Maybe it can give me some guidance when I design graphics for my new Angband frontend.

Thanks for the help