#rhudaur

My Rhudaur/Angmar 400pt force

Looking at the area around Rivendell and reading this description, it does give you a renewed sense of how Rivendell has been surrounded by foes, and now is surrounded by ruin.

Mapa de l'Angle d'Àrnor, que són les terres entre el Mitheíthel (Brollgrís) i el Bruinen (Aiguabram), i l'aiguabarreig d'aquests dos rius. El límit nord d'aquesta regió és imprecís.

Had another “Eöl’s dart was a plumbata” big-brain moment and I think the legendary numenorean steel bows were crossbows. Maximum hitting-power, punches through armour like nobody’s business, and bigger + stronger numenoreans could obviously use some genuinely terrifying crossbows, even compared to the monsters used in the late-medieval and early renaissance eras before early firearms replaced them. The ease of using a crossbow also means it makes sense for their armies to be feared for using them, since it’d be easy to train sailors and basic troops to moderate competency then having them shoot 1-2 times before the battle proper starts.

          Prince Mallor was the younger brother of King Arveleg I of Arthedain. The brothers’ father Celeb took advantage of his neighboring kingdoms’ weaknesses and claimed overlordship of all Arnor, adding the royal prefix Ar- to his name and becoming Argeleb I. The remnant of Cardolan accepted his rule, in part because Argeleb’s queen Edlenniel was an exiled princess of their realm. Her father had been banished and hunted down by his brothers, but many folk of Cardolan saw him and his daughter as the rightful heirs to the throne of Arnor, and thus Argeleb’s union with their princess won their loyalty. The people of Rhudaur, however, resisted, and a captain of the Hill-men swore his service to the Witch-king of Angmar. Though Argeleb fortified the Weather Hills against this threat, he was killed in battle after only seven years as king.           Before his death, Edlenniel bore Argeleb two sons, both named for earlier kings of Arthedain: the elder, Beleg, was crowned King Arveleg I, while the younger, Mallor, attempted to re-establish the royalty of Cardolan by proclaiming himself its prince. The brothers fought side by side to make safe their lands, wielding enchanted blades forged to negate the dark sorcery of the Witch-king. For a few brief decades, they drove their enemies from Rhudaur and Angmar out of the Weather Hills, keeping a guarded watch upon their borders. It was in this time of relative calm that both Arveleg and Mallor found love: Arveleg with Eithruin, one of his war-captains whom he made his queen, and Mallor with Lady Gwileth of Rhudaur.           Gwileth’s father was one of the last noblemen still clinging to power in Rhudaur, and was among the leaders of the Hill-men who struck a bargain with the Witch-king of Angmar, seeing this alliance as an expedient political move. To protect his daughter from war, he sent her in secret to Cardolan, where she posed as a milkmaid to protect her identity. Yet Prince Mallor saw in her the glimmer of nobility she tried to hide, and charmed by her shy teasing of him he endeavoured to win her heart. At first Gwileth resisted his advances, knowing any relationship betwixt them would be doomed, but in the end she, too, fell in love, pledging herself to Mallor should the war between their peoples ever cease.           For a time this seemed possible, as the Witch-king turned his focus to Rivendell and tentative trade emerged between Rhudaur and Cardolan, if not Arthedain. Mallor strove for peace with his sister-kingdoms, despite his brother’s warnings that Rhudaur had fallen entirely into evil, for Gwileth gave him hope and a purpose he had never felt before. But this fragile peace was not to last, for the Witch-king returned to Arnor in force, with Gwileth’s father as one of his captains.           As the forces of darkness encroached upon the Weather Hills, Mallor grimly took up his sword once more to defend his land and people. Before he left for battle, he promised Gwileth he would return to her and they would find a way to happiness together, and in return she gifted him her blue brooch as a good luck charm.           King Arveleg and Prince Mallor strove against their enemies in the Battle of Amon Sûl, protecting the palantír therein from Angmar’s army of Hill-men, orcs, and wraiths. In the end the battle turned ill, and the warriors of Arnor were slain to the very last man, save for Arveleg’s young son Araphor who escaped with the palantír and fled to the western coast. Mallor watched the Witch-king strike his brother down, and in his grief and rage made one last attempt to render the Nazgûl powerless, drawing his enchanted dagger and lunging for his foe. But before he could make contact, he was slain by a man of Rhudaur—quite possibly the father of his love—with a spear through the heart.           Eventually young King Araphor reclaimed Amon Sûl and laid his father and uncle to rest. Mallor was entombed in the Barrow-downs with his sword and all his treasures, chief of which was the blue brooch Gwileth had given him. Gwileth mourned her lover’s loss and took to wandering the wilds of Arthedain, refusing her father’s summons even when he was on his deathbed from a battlefield injury. In her travels, she encountered a man named Tom and his wife Goldberry, a couple too happy and content amid the world’s strife to be “real” folk, but though her sorrow remained deep she found solace with these strange and kindly folk, telling them of her losses and learning ways to comfort her aching heart.           Over the centuries, the Barrow-downs were haunted by evil wights luring many an innocent wanderer to their doom, but eventually this curse was lifted when four hobbits were freed from their trap by none other than Tom Bombadil, though not after reliving the last moments of the princes who were buried there. Tom scattered the treasures of the downs for travelers to find, taking for himself and Goldberry only Gwileth’s blue brooch to honor the memory of his friend who had long since passed from the circles of Arda. Mallor’s dagger was taken up by the hobbit Meriadoc Brandybuck and was carried by him through many perils, the chief of which was his own encounter with the Witch-king, where the blade’s enchantment allowed for Éowyn Shieldmaiden to strike the killing blow and bring justice and vengeance for all Arnor—and especially for Mallor and Gwileth, doomed lovers amid a kingdom fractured by pride and destroyed by darkness.

Commission for @anthropologyarda​ + heraldic device info

Roast Mutton. Here the Trolls are inspired by Norwegian depictions of trolls.