Hi all,
I guess I'd better explain my rather obscure comment
The parachuting hippo was in a picture in one edition of the MERP rulebook, merrily floating down over a serene pastoral scene, small but quite distinct (somewhere amongst the innumerable tables if I remember). It always made me chuckle and I've never heard why or how it got there.
Meanwhile back at Cardolan,
Amon Sul was where one of the Palantirs was kept was it not? Pretty much near the junction of all three kingdoms, and a major object of the military campaigns. (Quite why it couldn't be moved I don't know, perhaps a pride thing?)
Not sure if I remember this correctly, but wasn't Tharbad on the border between Gondorian and Arnorian land? I'm sure someone will put me right.
Another candidate for Cardolanian capital could be the settlement in the Angle where the Rangers had their main base in Aragorn's day, maybe.