Adaptation has been a topic that has intrigued many Mythgardians, including Signum University President Corey Olsen (also known as The Tolkien Professor). From music and art to film to The Lord of the Rings Online (LOTRO) video game, the inspiration that the works of J.R.R. Tolkien have offered continues to be of interest to Corey and his podcast listeners.

In a recent Tolkien Chat, Corey took on another sort of adaptation: the new Middle-earth Lore Series. A brainchild of Joel “Andang” Shepherd, the director of the Players Alliance (a Mythgard Institute partner) and the force behind the weekly LOTRO Players News podcast, the series looks at the history of Middle-earth from an unusual angle. Using locations such as The Shire, Bree-land and Rivendell as anchors, the episodes relates the history of each place and the people who inhabited it. And those places and people are all inside LOTRO.

The first episode of the series, “The Shire,” was recently released, and to celebrate the launch. Corey talked to Andang about how he came up with the series idea, who its target audience is, and what the experience shooting within LOTRO is like. Andang shared many observations that are universal across all forms of adaptation.

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