I hate anally obsessive copyright holders. Especially LucasArts.
As long as they do not lose money due to a mod, and as long as the mod makers do not *make* money on it, I really cannot see any problem using parts of their (or Tolkien's) universe.
LucasArts won't even allow porting a model from one game to it's sequel (which, btw, annoys me greatly), and I cannot see any possible damage that could do. Did I mention that I don't like LucasArts?
Anyway, my point is that I recently read an online article about copyrights, and both LucasArts and (even more so) the Tolkien Foundation (or whatever it's called) was mentioned as being *very* prone to sueing people left and right...
If I where you, I wouldn't bother spending time on such a project since you are fairly likely to be shut down anyway.
Oh, and on other notes: Stay away from Dynokeg, Birger - he's mine!