About
Merp.com is the home of the international community dedicated to Role Playing gaming in J.R.R. Tolkien 's Middle-earth, Endor, Arda, Eä and beyond, using any RPG system.
Thank you for visiting this 100% community driven, non-commercial, volunteer-run website, dedicated to role playing gaming in J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth. We have been serving the Tolkien role-player gaming community online since 1998.
Merp.com is NOT just about ICE's MERPS ( Iron Crown Enterprises Middle-earth Role-Playing System), Decipher's LotR RPG (Lord of the Rings Role Playing Game), or Cubicle 7's The One Ring. This site is about ANY gaming in the Middle-earth, Numenor, Valinor, Endor, Arda, or Eä settings, using ANY paper and dice role-playing gaming system you want in JRR Tolkien's related imaginary masterpiece of works.
Be sure to visit the NEWS section for up to date information on Middle-earth gaming events, movies, website updates, and much more.
Be sure to check out the DOWNLOADS section of the site with thousands of files related to gaming in Tolkien's universe, and new content added frequently by a community of thousands of registered users.
NOTE ON DOWNLOADS: As has been the case for years, many of the files LINKED to from this site, are often links to servers that are NOT associated with Merp.com. Most notably, the ICE MERP downloads. Merp.com merely LINKS to these remote locations. Use caution since we have no control over those files.
Site History
Merp.com has been running as a BBS since 1994, and on the Internet since 1998. The latest major version (8.0) of this site was launched Wednesday, August 3rd 2011.
As of October 21st, 2006, since September 2004, we had over
11,120 new registered users!
Around 2008 we had over 18,000 registered and confirmed users.
From 2001 to October 2004 we were steadily gaining 50,000+ hits per month over each previous month. in February 2004 we reached over 1,500,000+ unique visitors per month! Between the mirrors around the world, we were seeing an average of 10-20 Gigabytes a day in downloads! However, after 2005 we have seen this steadily decline, attributable to the loss of interest in the Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings movies. Now a more loyal groups of many thousands remains with the site. We do expect this to spike once again with the new Hobbit Movies in 2012 and 2013 however, as once again, another new generation is introduced to the wonders of J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth.
In 2004, version 6.0 of Merp.com on Plone was launched on Plone 2.x.
On May 9th, 2010, we "wiped the slate clean" and launched version 7.0 of Merp.com moving from Plone 2.5 to Plone 3.x
On August 5th, 2011, we "wipde the slate clean" and launched version 8.0 of Merp.com, moving from Plone 3.x to Plone 4.1
This site is best viewed with a minimum screen resolution of at least 1024x768
Join the email list by sending blank email (from a non-Microsoft-based email) to merp-subscribe@merp.com
Then look for the confirmation email (check your spam folder) after a few minutes.
Reply to the confirmation email. You will then receive an email confirming you have been subscribed. Then you can post to the entire merp@merp.com email community (including many of the authors of many Tolkien RPG game systems and modules) by sending email to merp@merp.com.
You can also join the real-time live Chatroom using either your favorite IRC application (such as Xchat) and pointing it to server: irc.merp.com room: #merpchat,
or use our web-based Java applet here: http://www.merp.com/chat/
Contact
Email: merpdotcom at gmail dot com or webmaster at merp dot com.
Disclaimer
Merp.com is an unofficial community website that is not approved or endorsed by saul Zaentz Inc. dba Tolkien Enterprises and Middle-earth Enterprises, The Tolkien Estate, New Line Cinema, Iron Crown Enterprises, Decipher Inc, Cubicle 7, or any of the other Tolkien license holders.