Coming Soon for The One Ring: Journeys and Maps

[Mim]

I also wonder if they closed their doors against the forces of Angmar at the time of the fall of Arthedain, around TA 1974, preventing King Arvedui and his followers from seeking shelter there.

This is a great idea for an adventure.

[Otaku-sempai]

I also wonder if they closed their doors against the forces of Angmar at the time of the fall of Arthedain, around TA 1974, preventing King Arvedui and his followers from seeking shelter there.

This is a great idea for an adventure.

I'll have to go back and incorporate this detail in the story I've been working on. It tangentially involves the time Arvedui spent hiding and sheltering in the Blue Mountains.

[bluejay]

The idea of the Dwarves of the Blue Mountain closing up in TA 1974 is interesting because only 6 years later Durin's Bane arises in Moria forcing the Dwarves there to leave. Maybe the Blue Mountain Dwarves are slow to drop their besieged, isolationist mentality. Certainly I do not believe they sent warriors to help defeat the Witch King when Gondor and Elves (and apparently even Hobbits) fought him in TA 1975.

This would give a good reason as to why the Dwarves of Khazad Dum did not go to the Blue Mountains after being forced out of Moria. In fact it seemed like a last resort even for Thorin who took his people to Dunland first.

[Terisonen]

That kind of idea should be expanded... For it will made good premise for scenario.

Feel free to borrow it. I'll have to go back and rethink some of my home-brewed material for western Eriador. For one thing, I might transfer the attitude I gave to the Lord of the Dwarf-city of Hargrod (in the southern Blue Mountains) to the Lord of the Halls of the Dwarves instead. And feel free to make use of Hargrod as well. Here is the new material I've added based on the maps from J&M:

A small number of Dwarves, mostly from Nogrod, remained in the northern Blue Mountains and established a new city near a small stream that would later become the source of the Lesser Lhûn; this colony became known as the Halls of the Dwarves (Naugroth in Sindarin; Khazad-gundu in Khuzdul).

I just wish I knew if I am on the right track.

It's your Middle earth: you couldn't be wrong.

[Terisonen]

Beside that, Khazad of Nogrod are not a really sympatic bunch of guy... :/

[Otaku-sempai]

The idea of the Dwarves of the Blue Mountain closing up in TA 1974 is interesting because only 6 years later Durin's Bane arises in Moria forcing the Dwarves there to leave. Maybe the Blue Mountain Dwarves are slow to drop their besieged, isolationist mentality. Certainly I do not believe they sent warriors to help defeat the Witch King when Gondor and Elves (and apparently even Hobbits) fought him in TA 1975.

This would give a good reason as to why the Dwarves of Khazad Dum did not go to the Blue Mountains after being forced out of Moria. In fact it seemed like a last resort even for Thorin who took his people to Dunland first.

Actually I've wondered if some (or most) of the Dwarves descended from the Blue Mountains Naugrim who came to Moria early in the Second Age might have returned to the Ered Luin after the wakening of the Balrog. They could have established the Halls of the Dwarves in the northern Blue Mountains near the ancient ruins of Belegost and Nogrod or they might have settled in the southern range. The former might mean that the Halls were not founded until after 1980, several years following the fall of Angmar. The third possibility is that the Halls of the Dwarves are meant to be the former Halls of Thorin Oakenshield established by his father Thráin in 2802. I just don't see them as being that far north.

By contrast, Karen Wynn Fonstad for The Atlas of Middle-earth placed the Halls of Thorin only about 70 or 80 miles from the Grey Havens (although still in the northern Ered Luin). Not that I always see eye-to-eye with her choices: She also, based on Tolkien's early texts, moved the location of Belegost to the middle of the southern Blue Mountains (after originally placing it at a spot that would have been destroyed when the Gulf of Lune was created). I take the location of Belegost ascribed in The SIlmarillion (7 leagues north of Nogrod) as correct.


Professor Tolkien seems to indicate in LotR Appendix A that Thorin's Halls are in the northern Blue Mountains: "in the east of the Ered Luin beyond the Lune." In Appendix B, "The Tale of Years". he writes "Thráin II and his son Thorin wander westwards. They settle in the South of Ered Luin beyond the Shire (2802)." This last could indicate either the southern Blue Mountains (contradicting Appendix A) or just the lower part of the northern range, consistent with the placement by Fonstad. I vote the latter. Near to the head of the Lesser Lune seems too far north and I think that the Halls of the Dwarves should be unconnected to Thorin.

Thoughts?

[bluejay]

Great info there. I honestly need to go and read up on the movement of the Dwarves more to be able to give you a useful response! I don't believe it's made clear as to whether Thorin settles alongside any other Dwarves in the mountains and always strikes me that he simply establishes a new colony. Whether others were already living there is something I'm unaware of. Also are we sure about the Firebeards? For some reason I was under the impression that only the Longbeards come into the stories.

[Otaku-sempai]

Great info there. I honestly need to go and read up on the movement of the Dwarves more to be able to give you a useful response! I don't believe it's made clear as to whether Thorin settles alongside any other Dwarves in the mountains and always strikes me that he simply establishes a new colony. Whether others were already living there is something I'm unaware of. Also are we sure about the Firebeards? For some reason I was under the impression that only the Longbeards come into the stories.

LotR Appendix A indicates that Dwarves dwelled continuously in the southern Blue Mountains from the First Age throughout the Second and Third and into the Fourth. I do not think that these were Durin's Folk but were probably settlements established by the Dwarves native to the Blue Mountains.

Tolkien's early Silmarillion texts make much use of the Longbeards, but I think that by his later years the Dwarves of the Ered Luin during the First Age had all (or mostly) become the Firebeards and Broadbeams (although those names don't enter into his published legendarium until after his death and never appear in The Silmarillion as published). I think that we have to look to The Peoples of Middle-earth to get a sense of Tolkien's later thoughts on the Dwarves. The caveat is that I don't own a copy of this volume and have not read it in its entirety. My own sense it that the Firebeards were probably the Dwarves of Nogrod and it was primarily the Broadbeams who founded Belegost. However, part of that might be my mental association of (fat) Bombur and his brother and cousin with the Broadbeams!

[Otaku-sempai]

On the maps of Eriador, is the region between the northern Blue Mountains and the River Lhûn mislabeled? It seems to me that it should be called West Lune. East Lune should be the lands between the River Lune and the Hills of Evendim, which are currently only labeled as Lone-lands.