Is there any knowledge behind the names that ICE used for the Nazgûls, or are they only fabrications (all but Khamûl) The Witch-King, Angmar is named after the place that he ruled.

And was there a dark princess amongs the 9? (I think that is really cool though hehe)



/K

Like most of MERP I have a feeling the simply made them up as none of the Nazgul are actually given names in any of Tolkien's works except for Khamul. They are likely based on Sindarin or such... I'll have to check my "Lords of Middle Earth" book.

As for a female one... I like the idea, but taking Tolkien's work strictly I highly doubt it. They were 9 "Kings" of Men. One would assume if Tolkien meant for their to be a female one she'd be mentioned as such.

Now, You can, of course, use whatever sources you want and I honestly have a hard time thinking of the Nazgul and NOT thinking of the MERP versions. I love their designs and backgrounds (And I own a full set of the Old Mithril Miniatures)

I feel the same Tensen, I think I will go with em...

Tensen01,

Superficially viewed, the ring verse precludes a female Nazgûl just as you said. With a closer look, the verse probably is not a very good source for highly accurate information (e.g. the gender of characters mentioned).

First we have the following passage:

Now, this suggests that it were not only kings that were ensnared, but other - powerful - individuals of their day as well. Otherwise, the listing would be superfluous. And the traditional interpretation speaks only of kings. If we take it literally, no sorcerers or warriors are allowed as Nazgûl as well.
It could be read in a way as kings=politicians, sorcerers=magic-users/advisers/planners and warriors=generals/military leaders (admittedly, you might belong even be two or even three of these groups in one person). This would encompass three major groups that shape the destiny and fate of people and realms. IMO quite fitting, but this is far from sure, just a possibility or interpretation

The other point is the verse itself. It reads:

Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die

First, of the elven bearers, only one (Gil-galad) was a king. Neither Círdan nor Galadriel were kings (i.e. a legally male regal ruler) during the Rings' existence, and Galadriel was not even a male, qualifying for queen (i.e. female regal ruler) at most. And Gandalf was not even an elf at all (though a Maia and thus even more powerful, but technically not an elf).
Thus in the case of the Elves, the Ring Verse would be almost totally wrong.

The Dwarves are only addressed as lords avoiding the terminus "king" at all. It seems obvious that these were the kings of the seven tribes, though not "proven" by the verse. It is said by Gandalf though.

Concerning men, the ring-verse does not tell anything about status (e.g. kings, lords etc.) at all, which fits nicely with the Silmarillion quote above. And in the Lord of the Rings, it is - to my knowledge - never said that they were kings once (e.g. as a colloquial appellation).

Oh yes, I know what you mean

Concerning the evidence we have, there is none that would preclude the ICE interpretation. Since the female one was a Númenórean, it is at least believable, given the existence of Númenórean queens.
Of course one might prefer the "kings" version, and there is nothing wrong with that, only that it cannot be substantiated by Tolkien. I'd like to see evidence to the contrary, my quick search through the core books (Sil, LotR) did not produce anything of this though

As a conclusion, I'd say that the Ring verse was never meant (or made) to be an accurate information, but a poetic description of the core aspects (the distribution of the Rings). And the composer might have had insufficient knowledge himself (quite likely IMHO), thus explaining his inaccuracies.

IIRC I discussed this also in my essay about the Rings of Power in OM3.

Cheers
Tolwen

I believe I read somewhere in Tolkien's works that only 2 Nazgul were actually named...the Witch-king (Ar-Murazor I believe) and Khamul the Easterling.

Er-Mûrazôr (the name) is definitely 100% ICE (MERP). The only original Tolkien names/appellations are Witch-king for the chief and Khamûl, Shadow of the East for the second. Everything else is RPG stuff

Cheers
Tolwen

I love your input Tolwen!!!!

I am so going with Adûnaphel now! I love the name and I love the idea if a dark queen!!!

Great writeup Tolwen!!!

Thank you so very much!


/Yours Khamûl

Other then the two named ones I just call them a$$kickers 1-7.

There is a good entry in The Encyclopedia of Arda about this.
http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/faq/nazgul.html

Adûnaphel ftw!

Is there a particular reason you need them to be named? These creatures, like the Black Lieutenant have all been in the service of the Dark Lord for so long they have mostly forgotten their previous lives, so names don't really mean anything to them.

GW has a line of named Nazgul minatures you could use if you don't like the MERP ones. The list doesn't include the two already mentioned of course.

-The Tainted
-The Shadow Lord
-The Undying
-The Dark Marshal
-The Dwimmerlaik

Still missing two, but these types of descriptors make a little more sense to me as they would be know only by what local people call them. Proper names really don't apply to such creatures.

Yes, to the best of my knowledge, ICE did make up most of the proper names used in MERP products for:

• s
• points of interest
• settlements
• ruins
• NPC names (including the Nazgul)
• item names

Most of the maps created by them were also fabrications for the very same list. However it is difficult to discern at times which pieces are a part of the Legendarium and (sometimes) canon, and which are their own creations. They managed to do a very good job at interweaving real material and their own imaginings. So you have to suspect all MERP material until you can prove or disprove it's validity.


The one area where I definitely appreciate their imaginings is with regards to the Beornings. There is very little material on which to create a culture and ICE's efforts made them more viable. Particularly as they assumed Beorn was, like Bard, simply the best known -- and most recent -- hero of a larger and pre-existing culture. This culture's original name was displaced by the hero's name, simply due to popularity and widespread familiarity.

Good point! I hadn't even thought of that. It is, after all, just a historical Poem and thus written to sound good above being actually accurate. And I forgot it doesn't even mention them as Kings at all.

I lvoe the effort that ICE put into MERP and how much they fleshed out the world, though they did have a tendency to completely screw up the things that WERE in the books... In the Lords of Middle Earth they say that Grima was "Lynched by hobbits"

Ack! Lynched?!? I found that comment so incredulous I actually pulled out my copy of both RotK and LoMe2. Imagine my surprise to find you are correct.

Yep. Perhaps they thought that being immediately shot after the murder of Saruman and while attempting to flee would qualify as being "lynched". It is not what you normally think of this word (me included) though ... *lol*

Another good example for the importance of looking closely at the original material and not simply taking over secondary sources as granted

Absolutely. For the "lynched" see above, and for the assessement of the world building I completely agree. I sincerely hope we see a similar effort for The One Ring, since this is IMHO a core component of a game set in Middle-earth

Cheers
Tolwen

So I wasn't the only one buying MERP products for the setting info more than the adventures? Not that they were bad or anything, but occasionally it was like, "Hey! Move this game mechanics stuff out of the way. I'm trying to read all the little details!"

And then of course there was "And at 15g... Hmm, where is 15? I don't see a 15... oh here's a 'g' it must be-- no that is room 7g. Where the heck is 15g?" Which wasn't actually labelled on the map and the text referred the reader to one of 20 similarly shaped rooms on that specific floorplan. Other details were completely lacking, so finding 15g would require a Divine (-1000) success to accurately locate!

Did ICE ever produce Errata Sheets for MERP? I wasn't online back then and they might still come in handy.


True Tolkienians will never let the Legendarium die!
... barring C&D notification.

Something I find fascinating personally, which we've had to carefully pick our way through in producing TOR, is the various ways one can interpret the material.

With The Hobbit and LOTR we know we're reading an account from potentially less than reliable witness, which in turn reports things from less reliable witnesses. But equally it's important to remember that there's a clear and common reading of the text as "fact" - that even if much of it is Bilbo/Frodo/Sam's misremembered, inaccurate, highly biased account - it doesn't matter - in a sense those Hobbits have created a world which we can play in, with scant concern for their accuracy. Which is interesting given how many layers that brings to the material. That's not necessarily of any concern when playing the game, but it could be a concern when creating it, both in terms of our job at Sophisticated/C7 and in terms of Lore Masters creating adventures for their Fellowships.

There's a lot of ways you can cut the cake on that one. Many of which I suspect are quite deliberate on Tolkien's part - it's a layering of patina on the material which adds so much veracity to it as a myth.

So with regard to the verse about the One Ring for me personally it's long been a purely a poetic work, and indeed Gandalf's words about the 9 men seem to me to spring from the kind of archaic narratives that influenced Tolkien wherein the feeling imparted seems more significant than the facts, I'd never spent a lot of time picking over the individual words. But given Tolkien's whole... nature as a philologist it would be nothing short of careless to not consider them.

And that's one reason I love the material, and indeed reading the forum here so much.

I liked those too and thought they were more appropriate than using the 'true names' of the Nazgul.

I think the MERP background write-ups on these are excellent and great reads but I really think that's where they should stay, in the background, and not for consumption within the game/campaigns. My thoughts are that it would be far more likely that the Nine (or at least the seven, after the Witch King and Khamul have been removed) would be referred to collectively, or as "One of the Nine" when separate from each other, by the free peoples of Middle Earth. Orcs and other servants of the enemy could refer to them by distinctive titles but I think those would be more like the titles Beran has quoted rather than actual names. ICE does has other sobriquets for each of them though - for instance, for Adunaphel we have "The Quiet", "The Quiet Avenger", "Once Vain", "The Seventh", "Lady of the West", etc so its possible to put together further titles if the above 5 aren't appropriate or to create two more to finish the list...

GW have another two named Nazgul. They are 'the Betrayer' and 'the Knight of Umbar'.

It almost pains me to say it but, there are some great ideas scattered throughout the GW canon.

Taking that, we now have 7 names for the other Nazgul:

- The Tainted
- The Shadow Lord
- The Undying
- The Dark Marshal
- The Dwimmerlaik
- The Betrayer
- The Knight of Umbar

Potential to add:

- The Quiet (for Adunaphel)

... To that list if we wanted to use one for Khamul, although I'd personally just refer to him as:

- The Easterling

... Still plenty to go with or swap and change for, though.

I don't know too much about GW's lore write-ups but I really like most of their figures for LotR - quality products as far as I can tell. Don't see why their 'fluff' should be any different!

No doubt that the quality of their merchandise is top notch. They do have a tendency to completely rewrite their 'fluff' where it suits them. Also, their prices are appalling.

MERP also named Akhôrahil the Storm King - during his plotting & scheming among the Haradrim.

Some great ideas and great names. I sometimes think it's a pity there are only nine of them.....

Ps nice to see you still drop by occasionally Mim.

Thank you Halbarad, it's always good to catch-up

I read the Forums almost daily, and I enjoy the growing fan base of the TOR community - there are some great ideas on here.

Speaking of which, I almost posted a "Here, here!" when you mentioned the Rohirrim, Fords of Isen, Dunlendings, etc., during that previous thread about what we want from C7.

I'm ssooo looking forward to their future releases...

OK, here are the MERP names (in alphabetical order), together with their various aliases:

• Adûnaphel - [the female one that was originally addressed] Lady of the West, Umbaratári, Haratári, the Quiet Avenger, Ard Once Vain, the Seventh
• Akhôrahil - The Friend of the Lord (Adûnaic), Herudil (Quenya), the Blind Sorcerer, the Far King, the Storm King, the Fifth
• Dwar of Waw - Dendra Dwar, King of Waw, Dog King or Dog-lord, the Third
• Hoarmûrath of Dír - King of Urd, Ice King, the Cold One, the Sixth
• Indûr Dawndeath (Jí Amaav) - Jí Indûr, Jí Amaav (II, III and IV) of Mûmakan, the Shadow of the South, the Cloud-lord, the Fourth
• Khamûl the Easterling - Komûl, Shadow of the East, the Black Easterling, Komûl I, Hionvor of Wom Shryac, Mûl Komûl, the Dragon-lord, the Second
• Ren the Unclean - Ren the Insane, Ren the Clean, the Illusionist, Fire King, King of Chey Sart, Lord of the Chey, the Eighth
• Ûvatha the Horseman - King of Khand, Lord of the Variags, the Slayer, the Long Rider, the Ninth
• The Witch-king - Er-Mûrazôr (Adûnaic), Lord of Morgul or Morgul-lord, the Wraith-king, the Witch-king of Angmar, the King of Angmar, Mog of Angmar, Lord of the Nazgûl or Nazgûl-lord, the Sorcerer-king, the Black king, the Black Captain, Chieftain of the Ringwraiths, the First

It should be no problem to add the GW aliases as well, since they are very generic. 'Dwimmerlaik' is a probably generic term for a foul creature used by Éowyn when confronting the Witch-king. Wikipedia terms it (as 'Dweomerlak') as a Middle English word for occult practice or magic. It isn't hard to see where Tolkien got this specific inspiration

Among the bios given the Nine, I find the idea for the Witch-king brilliant and following Tolkien's mood. He is supposed to be the younger brother of Tar-Atanamir. Extremely gifted even for Númenórean standards (and superior to his older brother) and fully aware of this he became frustrated of having no chance on the throne. He left for Middle-earth to compensate his frustration by becoming a powerful colonial lord and eventually was enticed by Sauron's promises (and the Lord of the Rings still in his fair and deceiving 'Annatar' form) of unlimited power and eternal life.
This story of Man's weaknesses even among the Great and the tragedies coming from this makes great stuff IMHO

Cheers
Tolwen

Certainly, an imaginative list. But, I am still not sure of the necessity of using the proper names of creatures who themselves probably don't even recognize individuality between each of them? With the possible exceptino of the Witch-King The Nine are The Nine; they are almost the Borg of ME.

Where in ME are Waw, Urd and Chey Sart anyway?

These are original MERP creations in central, northern and eastern Middle-earth outside of the LotR map (which is in any case only the northwestern corner of the whole continent).

Why shouldn't they use "proper" names among themselves? I guess you take the Mouth as an example here, and this has some validity IMO. OTOH, the Nazgûl are quite different from him (really living vs. undead), so it might be not so. Unfortunately we don't have (IIRC) any evidence from Tolkien shedding some light on the matter.

In any case, the names and the backgrounds are - as already mentioned - background fluff for the GM and very unlikely to ever come to the player's attention. It's just fleshing out the world to heighten the density of it.

Worldbuilding and fleshing out the world is an end in itself even if never encountered or meant for player interaction

Cheers
Tolwen

I love it Tolwen and I will use it. Thanks a bunch!

Going on what I know of the history of The Mouth he has been in the serivce of the Dark Lord long enough to forget who he was originally. Now, correct me if I am wrong the Nazgul have been in Sauron's service for even longer then he. I suppose it could even be argued that the names listed by MERP aren't their real names either, just names that have been passed the centuries as legend. I have always pictured if they needed to communicate between each other, being undead, they would use a kind of telepathy in which case they wouldn't need to use names.

I've never been too much of a continuity cop in any game that I have run/play, but the backgrounds presented by MERP just go too far off the reservation for my liking. But, that is just me.

This is a complete shot in the dark, but it occurs to me that perhaps there is a theme suggested by Tolkien, if not actually articulated by him, that one loses their identity in becoming a slave to Evil. This "theme" is hinted at not just with the Mouth of Sauron, but also in the story of Gollum. This, in fact, is an expression of Sauron's selfishness, that self-awareness and personal identities are not consistent with servitude. Perhaps, in fact, it is only fitting and proper to completely lose touch with one's former life when one becomes wholly enthralled to the Dark Lord.

In the same way, Catholic and Orthodox Christians signify their rebirths through Baptism, Confirmation/Chrismation, and Holy Orders by taking names/new names at these steps in their lives. Similarly, nobility both in our world and Middle-earth take new names when they are elevated (for example Aragorn/Strider --> Elessar Telcontar).

Just spit-balling here, but I think you can make an argument that "real names" are inappropriate for the Nine except in an historical context.

Gollum looks like a very good example of a mortal (even if a Hobbit) exposed to a Great Ring over an extended period of time (almost 500 years in this case). He degenerates a lot, but he clearly remembers his original name (Sméagol), even if in a somewhat distorted way. He also clearly remembers his original life, family and relatives - even if he has to be forced to tell it. All of this is hardly surprising, since preservation was the predominant theme of the Great Rings. In Tolkien's words, It makes the small into a Gollum and the great into a Ringwraith. Along this line, one might argue that the difference is only the associated "power level" and not any basic differences.
Whether they (the Nazgûl) use any of these names in public is quite another matter of course. And here comes the historical context into play as well. As I said earlier, doing such things is already a worthy end in itself. A lot of the info that Tolkien provided us with (e.g. in the Appendices of the LotR) has no meaning for the story (i.e. the narrative in the six books) at all and could be omitted without impact on the reader's experience or understanding of the plot. It provides further in-depth information for the setting though, which makes Middle-earth superior to most other Fantasy worlds. For Tolkien it was very important to not only provide the narrative, but also the broad canvas of Middle-earth on which this was painted (and to his dissatisfaction with big white spots in between).
And this is IMHO the motivation for designing such things as these Nazgûl bios: To further detail the world, give background to stereotypes and fill the lacunae. It does not need to have any immediate impact on an adventure or campaign (since much of it will be far out of the knowledge of the characters). It is fluff to enrich the background - even if only as an end in itself.

Cheers
Tolwen

I offer my apologies. I in no way intended to suggest that the exercise is without merit. It just struck me that one might interpret the shedding of names as a form of submission demanded by Sauron and encouraged, in a sense, by evil, as personified by the Ring. I have not read LOTR closely enough to say with certainty, but I have the impression that Gollum only begins to use Smeagol again after prompting from others.

Anyway, I did not intend to impugn the value of studying the Nine, to include discerning their true names!

Its certainly a nice idea and not without merit - the Ringwraiths laying aside their mortal names when Sauron captures and claims the Nine as his. There's a strong symbology to that and then you also have the idea of sorcerers 'keeping names', knowledge of true names, and the power of written and spoken words (names?) in spell-casting, etc. Yeah, could see numerous ideas around the Nazgul you could hang off of such things.

Beran,

These countries are ICE creations for the MERP product line. If you own or have seen the large Pete Fenlon world map of Middle-earth, you can find them:

• Chey Sart: Almost exactly in the middle (horizontally and vertically) of the map; it's a bit east (1") of the exact center. (Comparable to steppes?)
• Urd: Eastern realm in the far north (1600 mi east and 700 mi north of Erebor). (Comparable to Scandinavian, Siberia, mountainous?)
• Waw: Southeastern island, very small (half of the pinky fingernail small). The best way to locate it is to see the full color map and in the SE corner there is a "Lettering Key" with a sword pointing westward. Extend the sword-point westward and you just miss striking the island of Waw. (Comparable to sub-tropical island, not including impact of water currents and/or weather patterns.)

I agree that the Nazgul are probably just as likely to have epithets (The Witch-king, The Mouth of Sauron, The 3rd, etc) instead of proper names. However, I would argue that they would most definitely have some kind of unique moniker so that Sauron can set each Nazgul their own tasks. It doesn't have to be their birth names, an "adult name" or even a historically known use-name. Just something so that he's not going "Hey you. No, not you. Or you. I want the other you... Yes, YOU!"

I have to disagree with Telepathy as it would provide too much functionality and co-ordination among the Nine and/or provide a means of instantaneous communication with Sauron. I do agree that their is some means of communication that exceeds the limitations of verbal communications. Perhaps Empathy? Or a limited range Telepathy might also work if it was sufficiently short-range.

And I did not understand it as such, so I may have to stress that I might not have been clear. No apology needed

The thing of "nameless" Nazgûl (whether they have been forgotten by themselves or enforced by Sauron) is a colourful idea for sure. Personally, I prefer to use some positive evidence for interpretations. And in this case I can't see that. IMHO the case of Gollum points in the direction of not forgetting, though it is far from strong evidence of course.

The view that Sauron enforced the disuse of names is entertaining and colourful as well, though personally I can't buy it, lacking any evidence and based only on a "gut feeling" (not that this is wrong per se, but for me that is not enough).

Anyway, a great discussion and exchange of ideas!

Cheers
Tolwen

Correct me if I am wrong, but did Gollum not remember his true name (and life) only after being reminded by Frodo? I am not sure if I am remembering the books or the movie.

Gandalf visited Gollum in captivity after Aragorn brought him to Thranduil's people. There Gandalf interrogated Gollum, which he reports to Frodo (the details about Gollum's story are told before the following quote):

This interrogation took place in TA 3017 or 3018 (before April). Gandalf only tells that Gollum was very reluctant to give the information and that Gandalf had to be a bit harsh to get it. It did not sound at all like Gollum was unable to remember it. He just didn't want to share it with this annoying wizard

Cheers
Tolwen

I would think that the specific naming of Khamul would indicate that the names of the 9 were not taken from them or forgotten by them - thought Khamul could I suppose be a new name given by Sauron rather than his name from his life before enslavement to a ring of power.

If you want to take away the names of the Nazgul, you could claim that their names and wills are both bound to the 9 rings, and so long as Sauron holds the 9, they have neither name nor will (I don't see this as at all supported by cannon, but would be an interesting take on the rings of power).

"I would think that the specific naming of Khamul would indicate that the names of the 9 were not taken from them or forgotten by them..."

Could simply mean that Khamul's name is the only one recorded by the history (or the only one to filter through the years) of the Free People's. Even the Name the Witch-King isn't a proper name, only that which was given him by the people of Angmar, and remember ever since.

IMO this (for both cases) is absolutely possible and even likely. What is described in a module as background info, world fluff for the LM to read and what actually known to the acting people in that time and place are entirely different things.

Taking the Witch-king's MERP background as an example, the name Er-Mûrazôr might be known to a highly specialized scholar of Númenórean 2nd Age royal genealogy, though even he would most likely (100% for practical purposes IMHO) be unaware of the connection between Er-Mûrazôr and the Lord of the Nazgûl (or any Nazgûl).

Cheers
Tolwen

P.S.: For a Fourth Age campaign, documents of Sauron's historiography might be uncovered in the ruins of Barad-dûr or other places. Here tomes which might contain parts of such information, the extent of which would be LM discretion. At least an idea how such knowledge might have reached "us" (to follow Tolkien's idea of "found" documents that constitute the base for the works we read now).