men of middle-earth ⧎ easterlings and southrons ⧎ headcanon disclaimer ⧎ @secondageweek day two ⧎ men ⧎ haradrim
When the Race of Men first Awoke in Hildórien upon the rising of the Sun, they soon divided into several distinct groups. Many remained in the East, while others traveled westward, but some took their journeys South to the vast lands of desert, jungle, and plains that the Men of the West would later call simply “Harad.” Before departing Hildórien, the influence of Túvon, an emissary of Melkor, had swayed a great number of these South-bound travelers to the service of his Master, but as they first established themselves as peoples, tribes, and kingdoms their loyalty to the Dark King was secondary at best.
Melkor’s defeat in the West went largely unnoticed by his Southern servants, up until the arrival of Sar-Myrin, the Mage of the Deserts, Melkor’s chief lieutenant who had escaped to the East and now extended his influence over the South. With his sorcery and armies of orcs and Easterlings, he commanded many towns and walls of stone to be built, and supplied his Mannish subjects with weapons of iron, amassing an army and turning their hearts against the men of the North and West. Many of the South’s best warriors were pressed into Sar-Myrin’s legions in order to fight wars in the East, but the greater part of the Southern peoples were left alone as the Mage of the Deserts turned his focus to other lands.
It was in this time that the Men of the West arrived, naming the land Harad and staking claim over its coasts. Initially the strange, tall Men with elven voices shared their knowledge with the Haradrim, the two cultures exchanging goods and information, and even helping the mariner-king Tar-Aldarion when he encountered troubles in his voyages. The kings of the seaside nation Rûvashû allowed these Númenóreans to establish the haven of Umbar within their borders, and for some years there was peace between the Men of the South and those of the West.
Yet as the centuries passed, the Númenórean mariners grew hard-hearted and cruel. The fearsome Tar-Círyatan made forays from Umbar into Rûvashû and its surrounding territories, conquering those lands and demanding goods, wealth, and slaves. Word spread quickly to the inland kingdoms of the Westerlings’ cruelty, and many turned to the old legends of Sar-Myrin’s power and dominance, and above all his hatred of the West and its inhabitants.
When Sar-Myrin at last returned, he carried with him many Rings of Power, which he granted to the chiefest of his mortal servants: Vekmû, the vizier of Rûvashû, and Sarnūsh, the queen of Yettafaz. With these Rings they became fierce and powerful magicians known as Nazgûl, instilling terror upon their subjects and bending them to Sar-Myrin’s will. Sarnūsh earned the title of High Sorcerer as she learned the dark art of necromancy from her Master, binding wraiths to her service and raising the dead to fight and die again in her endless wars, while Vekmû used his newfound power to rally all the might of a thousand leagues about Rûvashû to free them from Númenórean control, pushing their enemies back to their haven of Umbar, his plunderings so violent his own soldiers named him the Forsaken Reaver.
Yet not every Man in the South succumbed to Sar-Myrin’s lordship. Many sought freedom from the terrors of the Nazgûl, fleeing into the woods and mountains to escape the death the Ringwraiths brought upon their homes. One such settlement of refugees was Tûl Póac, a jungle town hidden at the edges of the Miraz, where over time the people grew smaller and more adept at life among the trees. These folk revered the Evening Star, which they associated with hope and life, and though they mistrusted outsiders they would always welcome any person who made their way to the jungle in search of an existence free from Sar-Myrin’s evils.
As Sar-Myrin grew more and more powerful in the South, two other beings of great magic and mystery arrived speaking words of freedom and light. Though the lands of Rûvashû and Yettafaz were firmly under the dominion of the Nazgûl, these wizards found a receptive populace in Sud Sicanna, the City of the Great Oasis. There they became known as the Veksari, building up a discipleship of devotees who named themselves the Sarazzin after the blue raiment of their masters. Though the Veksari were a wandering pair, never staying in one place for long, the influence of the Sarazzin was great enough to delay the march of Sar-Myrin’s armies upon the Westlands as the folk of Sud Sicanna denied his captains entry to their city and refused to even trade with them for supplies.
After this campaign, Sar-Myrin settled into his own kingdom of Mordor, leaving the South under the control of the Nazgûl. But soon the Veksari proved to hold greater sway over the Men of the South than their cruel overlords, and while Yettafaz and Rûvashû remained under the power of Sarnūsh and Vekmû, the Bozisha plains-folk of Lostladen were freed from Sar-Myrin’s dominion. But the weakening of the Nazgûl’s power also allowed for the Númenóreans to return in force, expanding Umbar and founding the inland kingdom of Abrakhân. Before long, the arrogant king Ar-Pharazôn arrived in all his golden glory to demand the surrender of Sar-Myrin himself, and to the astonishment of all Rûvashû he humbled himself and submitted to Pharazôn’s shackles, sailing away with him back to Númenor.
In Sar-Myrin’s absence the Nazgûl only increased their cruelty, and it seemed that they and the Númenórean settlers began to work together to torment the people of the South. The brother-kings of Abrakhân, Herumor and Fuinur, built great temples to Sar-Myrin, enslaving the Haradrim and sacrificing any who protested their rule on their fiery altars. At this time the Harashin were established, an elite sect of assassins loyal directly to the Kings of Abrakhân and the Nazgûl. Their leader was the fearsome Dalamyr, who hunted down insurgents and tortured them for information before dragging them to be burned upon the altar; it was Dalamyr also who first developed the practice of enchanting darts and arrows with the deadly power of the Nazgûl’s Black Breath.
When the world shook and broke open, great waves devastated much of the coastline, and even the Sarazzin were forced to supplicate themselves to the Nazgûl for aid in the resulting blight and famine. It was in the midst of this chaos that Sar-Myrin returned, warped and changed from his fair form but no less powerful, and raised up an army to defend him as a Last Alliance of his foes besieged Mordor. Yet despite the valour of the Men of the South, Sar-Myrin fell in battle and was lost, his Nazgûl lords fleeing. His defeated servants returned to their homes, released from Sar-Myrin’s tyranny, and slowly began to rebuild their lives. The cult of the Sarazzin grew in number and influence, spreading out across the land, and while Abrakhân endured under the leadership of Herumor’s son, it was diminished from its former glory and forced to pay tribute to Númenor’s daughter-kingdom of Gondor.
This new nation would prove to be troublesome to the people of “Near Harad,” as the Dúnedain termed those southern kingdoms closest to them. Over the centuries, the Gondorians conquered the plains of Lostladen where the peaceful farmers of the Bozisha dwelt, and their marine expeditions earned the ire of Abrakhân and Rûvashû, whose people had mingled under a single banner since Sar-Myrin’s defeat. Their leader, King Karasalêth, feared the might of Gondor’s armies and offered the hand of his daughter Zâinazimril to King Tarannon Falastur, but the marriage was unhappy and short-lived, and Zâinazimril “Berúthiel” was exiled from her husband’s kingdom and sent out to sea with only her cats as a crew.
Zâinazimril was rescued by the sailors of Umbar, the ship-haven once ruled by Númenóreans and now equally under the control of the Rûvashûrin, but word of her humiliation reached her father and brothers, who swore retribution against Gondor. Umbar soon fell to the navy of Tarannon’s nephew King Eärnil, and though under Zâinazimril’s direction the disgraced lords of the haven arranged for the king’s death at sea and organized several rebellions, they were unable to fully free themselves from Gondorian control. Eärnil’s son Círyandil lost his life besieging the haven, but his son Círyaher earned the name Hyarmendacil, “South-victor,” when he marched to war against Abrakhân-Rûvashû and forced its king to submit to Gondor’s supremacy. To ensure the Haradrim’s obedience, Hyarmendacil took the king’s sons as hostages and raised them in Gondor’s court, returning them to their father only when they had been fully brought to heel as his loyal servants.
For centuries Umbar would remain under Gondorian control, until the sons of Castamir fled their father’s failed usurpation of the throne and stirred up the haven in rebellion once more. A few generations later, their descendants Angamaitë and Sangahyando slew King Minardil and freed the city from the overlordship of Gondor, but there was little time to celebrate their victory as the Great Plague swept over all the land. Though a class of roguish Corsairs rose to dominance, their was no central leadership and Umbar was still weak when Minardil’s descendant Telumehtar returned to ravage the haven in revenge for his great-grandfather’s murder.
As the Age marched on, the kingdoms of “Far Harad,” as the Gondorians termed, rose once more to great heights independent of any mystical overlords. This included the Veksari, whose followers the Sarazzin lost control of Sud Sicanna and were exiled into a nomadic lifestyle, wandering the deserts and jungles of the south. When the Veksari’s kinsman the Grey Pilgrim wandered into their lands, he was met with great suspicion and dubbed Inkā-nūsh, the North-spy, and failed to influence the Haradrim to favor the Veksari once more.
With Gondor under the rule of Stewards, the South-lands grew in strength, occasionally sending raiding parties northward to harry their ancient enemies but mostly minding to their own people. It was not until the fires of Mordor were reawoken and Sar-Myrin returned to his old dwellings that the Men of the South began to prepare for a true war against the Westerlings. Along with Sar-Myrin, his mightiest servants began to haunt their old kingdoms once more: Vekmû and Sarnūsh, now only wraiths, marshalled their ancestral kindred for battle. Sarnūsh’s magics warped the fiercest warriors of Yettafaz into troll-like creatures known as Mahûd men, swelling them to the size of her Master’s Olog-hai and arming them with cursed weapons. From Sud Sicanna, Vekmû selected the warlord Suladân as his captain, training him to lead the cavalry of mûmakil-riders against the Men of the West.
At the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, the people of Yettafaz, Rûvashû, Sud Sicanna, and Abrakhân fought alongside Sar-Myrin’s orcs and trolls, the Variags of Khand, and the the Easterling warriors of the Sûhalar and Khundolar tribes. They laid siege to Minas Tirith, where Suladân under his banner of a Black Serpent was slain by King Théoden of Rohan, and many Haradrim fought to their deaths, last to surrender of all their allies. The Corsairs of Umbar were defeated before they even set sail, their ships commandeered by the Army of the Dead, and they brought no succor to their kin. It took the combined might of all the Free-peoples of the West to drive Sar-Myrin’s forces back to Mordor, where their overlord gathered his armies and prepared for a final assault to pour forth from the Black Gate. Yet the Men of the West brought the fight to him, marching to Morannon with a challenge, and once more the Southern armies fought against their Western kin.
But this battle did not last long: near as soon as it began, it ended, for Sar-Myrin’s tower fell and the land of Mordor crumbled beneath their feet as his power was ended in Middle-earth at long last, his Ring melted down in the fires of its making. The Men of the South and East fled, and in time were subdued by King Elessar of the Reunited Kingdom and King Éomer of Rohan, forced to pay tribute to the West until they could prove they would no longer harm their kingdoms.
With Sar-Myrin utterly defeated, never to rise again, the Men of the South were at last utterly free of the dominion of evil. Without their Nazgûl leaders, the kingdoms of Yettafaz and Rûvashû were embroiled in revolts and rebellions that eventually led to a council of commonfolk gaining control of Yettafaz, and the final and utter collapse of Rûvashû, now fully subsumed into the Kingdom of Abrakhân, which now sent embassies to Elessar’s court in Gondor in hope of striking up trade. Sud Sicanna returned to their old worship of the Veksari, who walked now amongst them once more, and for love of their people the Blue Wizards lingered in the South, refusing the call back to their home in the West.
❝ I wasn’t entirely sure --- ❞ Hand frets over the hilt of a dagger, gaze uncertain yet sure of his own intentions. Gratitude was not a sentiment to be flustered over, but . . . ❝ If you took to more delicate weaponry. ❞ Cadence soft, thoughtful as he flips it for her to better see ( onyx metal glistened with flowing amber lines, the design intricate for a man that tended to favor efficiency ). ❝ But I forged this for you the other week, I hope it’s to your taste. ❞ Inquiring is the tone that trails, gaze studying her reaction with expectant interest. ❝ But if it’s not, I have no qualms re-working the gift of course. ❞
'Tis said that there were dealings of old between Gondor and the kingdoms of the Harad in the Far South; though there was never friendship. In those days our bounds were away south beyond the mouths of Anduin, and Umbar, the nearest of their realms, acknowledged our sway. But that is long since.
The Haradrim or Southrons were the proud and warlike people of Harad, a massive expanse of land in the south of Middle-earth. The men of Near Harad were brown-skinned, while the men of Far Harad had black skin.
Many Haradrim warriors were seen in bright clothing, such as scarlet robes, and were decorated with golden ornaments, such as collars, earrings, corslets of overlapping brazen plates; they braided their hair with gold. Some tribes painted their bodies. Scarlet and red was also the color of their banners, tips of their spears, and body paint. Their shields were yellow and black with spikes. The Haradrim had also tamed the massive Mûmakil beasts and used them in warfare and, like their masters, were decorated with scarlet and gold. They even strapped towers on their backs, used by Haradrim archers and spearmen.
Harad’s tribes were divided and many say they only banded together due to the fact Sauron was slowly regaining power. The Haradrim were in close geographical proximity to Mordor and, while mighty warriors, feared the potential wrath of the Dark Lord. Instead of face him and possible annihilation, they decided to ally with Sauron in hopes of protection, and likely to gain some vengeance toward their ancient enemy of Gondor. Whatever promises of glory and gain Sauron slipped into the ears of Haradim kings and chieftains were likely no more than hollow lies. It is quite likely that Sauron’s ‘alliance’ with Harad was no more than a deception to weaken what military forces the men of the south had - priming them for conquest and subjugation.
With Sauron’s defeat at the hands of the Free People of Middle-Earth, Harad and all other nations under the Dark Lord’s rule were freed to do as they now pleased. The beginning of the Fourth Age was one of healing old wounds, and Harad concluded a peace with King Aragorn II Elessar of Gondor in this time.
Continued from Appendix C. This section will contain information on the Easterlings, Southrons, the Nazgûl, the mortal characters who appear in The Lost Road, and other miscellaneous Men who didn’t fit well into another category.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Appendix A: House of Éorl
Appendix B: Misc. Númenóreans, Misc. Dúnedain
Appendix C: Middle Men, Northmen
Appendix D: Easterlings, Southrons, Nazgûl, The Lost Road, Misc. Men (you are here!)
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Note: We don’t know what any of the canonical Easterling and Haradrim words mean, so I’ve made up translations for their names and given myself a bank of word-parts with which to create OC names. I adopted a lot of names in this section from various adaptations; an asterisk* next to a word indicates that it appears in an adaptation (such as LOTRO or MERP), but not within Tolkien’s canon. These people would have possessed many languages, not just the jumble of word-parts I’ve assembled here, and of course would also include many, many more sub-cultures than I can depict, but I’m doing my best with the extremely limited information we have. None of this is canon unless explicitly stated.
EASTERLING GLOSSARY
-(a)r || pluralizer || made up meaning (*Khundolar, *Jangovar, *Sûhalar)
ban || “strength” || real element (Ban father of Blodren), made up meaning
blod || “pride” || real element (Blodren), made up meaning
brod || “great” || real element (Brodda), made up meaning
chaya || “wind” || made up meaning (*Chayasír)
da || “-ness” || real element (Brodda; “greatness”), made up meaning
dola || “horse” || made up meaning (*Khundolar)
dra || “beauty, beautiful” || entirely made up
ekh || “wild” || entirely made up
gan || “master” || real element (Lorgan), made up meaning
gûr || “wisdom” || entirely made up
hala || “axe” || made up meaning (*Sûhalar)
-i || pluralizer || entirely made up; Veradja dialect
-iag || “workers” || real element (Variag), made up meaning
-ja || “language, speech” || made up meaning (*Veradja); Veradja dialect
jango || “victory” || made up meaning (*Jangovar)
kha || “power, powerful” || real element (Khamûl; Khand), made up meaning
khor || “black” || entirely made up
khund || “noble, nobility” || made up meaning (*Khundolar)
kul || “song” || entirely made up
lor || “fierce” || real element (Lorgan), made up meaning
lund || “dark” || entirely made up
mûl || “lord” || real element (Khamûl), made up meaning
nab || “friend” || entirely made up
-nd || “land of” || real element (Khand), made up meaning; Veradja dialect
peg || “sword” || entirely made up
rad || “light” || entirely made up
ren || “one who is” || real element (Blodren), made up meaning
sír || “to love” || made up meaning (*Chayasír)
sû || “fire” || made up meaning (*Sûhalar)
tan || “gentle” || entirely made up
tavu || “sea” || entirely made up
thû || “king” || one of Sauron’s early names, here made into his name among the Easterlings
va || “sail” || made up meaning (*Jangovar)
var || “money” || real element, made up meaning (Variag); Veradja dialect
verad || “moon” || made up meaning (*Veradja)
zakh || “mountain” || entirely made up
SOUTHRON GLOSSARY
ashū || “south” || entirely made up
boz || “open” || made up meaning (*Bozisha)
can(na) || “oasis” || made up meaning (*Sud Sicanna)
dala || “night” || made up meaning (*Dalamyr)
(f)az || “land” || entirely made up
ghyr || “worm” || entirely made up
hash(a) || “silence” || made up meaning (*Hasharin)
-i || pluralizer || entirely made up
inkā || “north” || derived from canonical Inkā-nūsh, “north-spy”
mahûd || “troll” || meaning guessed from context (*Mahûd Men)
mak || “oliphaunt” || derived from canonical mûmak, “war oliphaunt”
mir, myr || “desert” || made up meaning (*Miraz, Dalamyr); spelling varies by dialect
mû || “war” || derived from canonical mûmak, “war oliphaunt”
nūsh || “spy” || derived from canonical Inkā-nūsh, “north-spy”
póac || “jungle” || made up meaning (*Tûl Póac)
rin || pluralizer || made up meaning (*Hasharin)
raz || “blue” || made up meaning (*Miraz)
rûv || “wealth” || entirely made up
sar || “magic” || entirely made up
sica || “great, greatness” || (*Sud Sicanna)
sud || “city” || made up meaning (*Sud Sicanna)
tûl || “town” || made up meaning (*Tûl Póac)
vek || “lord” || entirely made up
yetta || “heart” || entirely made up
zish(a) || “plains” || made up meaning (*Bozisha)
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EASTERLINGS AND SOUTHRONS
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First Age Easterlings
ft. Tanrad Ídhron (OC), Ban, Tandra (OC), Blodren, Brodda, Lorgan; First Age Easterlings article
The story here is mostly canonical. I’ve done my best to give these Easterlings a sympathetic portrayal, emphasizing their diversity and humanity, but that is difficult when all the named Easterlings have negative portrayals in canon. We’ll get more to other Easterling groups (the Khundolar and Chayasír) in a future edit. Tanrad is an OC; his story is covered in a little more detail in the edit I made about his wife Arasdil (also an OC). I gave Bór and Ulfang and their kids names in their original tongue, because they would certainly not have had Sindarin names when they came to Beleriand, and were definitely given those particular Sindarin names after their deaths, because no one would call their ally a name that means “ugly beard.” The story of Ban and Blodren is covered in my edit about the Gaurwaith; you can find out about the alterations to that story here. Brodda and Lorgan’s tales are mostly canonical, with some embellishment. We don’t know the manner of Lorgan’s death; I made that up. The Easterlings supposedly fought on Morgoth’s side in the War of Wrath, but I don’t buy that every single one of them did, especially since there had to have been people who were more chill and people who had mixed Hadorian-Easterling ancestry at this point, so I had some of them escape to join the other army. Elros’ position in the War of Wrath is a headcanon.
Bór the Faithful
ft. Kulren Bór, Nabren Díbór (OC), Kultan Borlad, Kulnab Borlach, Kulrad Borthand
95% of this is headcanon, as we know very little about the lives of Bór and his sons aside from their loyalty to Maedhros. I’ve given them all names in their own tongue (they’re alliterative...sorry) because they wouldn’t have been called Bór__ from the jump. Some of the Easterling women were said to be “proud and barbaric” so I had Bór’s wife be a warrior also. We know that Bór died in the Nírnaeth, and that his sons killed Ulfast and Ulwarth before they themselves were killed, and that’s pretty much it for the canon info. Everything else I made up. I tried to justify the meanings of their Sindarin names by their roles/personalities/fates, and I thought Maglor putting them into song, since he would have known them personally, was a fitting way for those names to be applied to them posthumously.
Ekhda = wildness; ekhren = wild one: this is basically the concept of a berserker.
Ulfang the Black
ft. Pegmûl Ulfang, Lorrad Emerul (OC), Khagan Uldor, Lundda Ulfast, Mûlda Ulwarth
Like the previous edit, this is almost entirely headcanon. We do know that Ulfang died before the Battle, leaving Uldor to lead his people into treachery; likewise, we know how Ulfang’s sons died. I made up pretty much everything else. Again, I’ve tried to portray these people sympathetically; they’re definitely not the good guys, but they did have reasons for doing what they did. Also I gave them all new names in their own tongue, because just like Bór and his sons, they wouldn’t have been called Ul__ (“ugly __”) from birth, especially not since they were named before encountering anyone who spoke Sindarin.
Easterlings (of the Land of the Sun)
ft. the Easterling subgroups of: the Wainriders, the Balchoth, and the tribes known as the Khundolar, Jangovar, Sûhalar, and Chayasír (LOTRO)
So, SO much of this headcanon, though a great portion of it is canon as well! And there’s a lot of LOTRO details thrown in for good measure, though again I have not played that game and am getting all my info on it from Tolkien Gateway. Let’s begin: Túvon is a proto-Sauron character who interacted with Men shortly after they Awoke, not wholly evil but whose arc would have turned against Men if Tolkien hadn’t scrapped him as a character and replaced him with Thû the Necromancer, who himself also replaced Tevildo, Prince of Cats. Since the Thû’s development leads into the creation of Sauron, but Túvon feels like a different sort of character, I have decided to distinguish between them and make Túvon into a lesser servant of Morgoth who also meddles with the Easterlings after the First Age. Everything about him after the first paragraph is entirely headcanon, and even that first part should be taken with a heaping grain of salt. Since there’s not really a great place for Sauron’s name of “Thû” to be reincorporated in his main storyline, I’ve made it instead his moniker among the Easterlings.
Most of the places I mention are actually canonical locations! (Though a lot of this is taken from BoLT and not mentioned elsewhere.) Hildórien is where Men Awoke; the Land of the Sun is a name for the lands east of Rhovanion, aka Rhûn (which just means “east,” so I think that’s a name applied by western peoples and not what its inhabitants called their lands); Kalormë is the second-highest mountain in Arda (after Taniquetil) and sits amid the mountain range known alternately as the Mountains of the Wind and the Walls of the Sun (eta: I was wrong, Mtns of Wind are a different place); Palisor is the middle-most region of Middle-earth, aka the western edge of Rhûn / the eastern edge of Rhovanion; the Inland Sea is the Sea of Rhûn, which I’ve given the Easterling name “Tavukhor” (Black Sea) (eta: nope the Inland Sea is somewhere else; but I still call the Sea of Rhun Tavukhor); Sauron is said to have an “eastern stronghold” that the Blue Wizards failed to discover, so I made that a Dark Castle in Khundoland. Khundoland is just the name I made up for the homeland of the Khundolar. I didn’t actually intend for it to have the suffix -land; I just replaced the -ar suffix with the -nd suffix I had decided meant “land” (see Kha+nd, “land of power”) and it happened to turn into a sort of cognate to English, lol.
The summaries of Sauron’s attacks against the West that involved his Easterling subjects are mostly canonical, with embellishment and an attempt to at least explain the Easterlings’ actions. Again, I’ve tried to make them sympathetic; they might be servants of Evil, but they’re just people working under a cruel overlord. Some are evil themselves, others aren’t, others just don’t care. It’s complicated.
The Wainriders and Balchoth are described as a “confederacy of Easterlings,” so I took that to mean they’re from many different tribes united under Sauron’s banner. However, since I’d established the Khundolar as both Sauron’s main army and as horse-riders, I thought it made sense for them to make up the bulk of those forces. Their women are said to be trained in arms, though they stayed home to protect their villages; I altered this so that women were also warriors in the wagon-riding hosts.
From LOTRO, I took the names of four major Easterling tribes: the Khundolar, the Jangovar, the Sûhalar, and the Chayasír. (There are doubtless more, but I had names to use with those four, and I can’t go over every single subculture that would’ve existed in Arda...at least not without anything to build off of!!) In the game (again, according to Tolkien Gateway, not my personal experience), the Khundolar attack Rohan and fight in the Battle of the Morannon; from that I developed the idea that they were horse-mounted warriors like the Rohirrim, and then you can see how I built more upon them as Sauron’s main Easterling servants. The Jangovar in the game attack Dale and Erebor, so I decided that they were probably closely situated to that area: thus, I picked the Sea of Rhûn to be their base, and made them sailors also. (This also happened to fit in nicely with my headcanon for the Nazgûl Kullund, an OC I’ll explore in a later edit.) The Sûhalar are “shorter in stature and armed with axes, to their point where some mistake them for dwarves”: from that quote, I decided that, like dwarves, they would dwell in mountains (also where I’d decided Túvon lived, so I put them together), and who knows maybe they’re part-dwarf in ancestry too, idk. They fought at Pelennor Fields.
Finally, the Chayasír are, in the game, the only group who don’t fight with Sauron. They don’t particularly like him and stay out of the War. I decided that they were closest in kin to the Khundolar, Sauron’s strongest supporters, and that one of Sauron’s earliest moves in the East was to divide the two groups so they’d be easier to control, which worked when it came to the Khundolar if not the Chayasír (who were probably the less populous group to begin with). I also decided that the Khundolar-Chayasír people would be where Bór and Ulfang’s people originated from. Anyway, in LOTRO, an “unknown calamity” takes place in their part of Rhûn on the same day that the One Ring is destroyed, and the Chayasír refugees flee to the lands around Dale and the Iron Hills. Those folk are not happy about this, since they’d just won a war against the Jangovar, but while the Chayasír don’t see themselves as being related to the Jangovar, it’s hard to convince the people of Dale of that. None of the refugees will say what exactly happened in Rhûn, just that it’s absolutely impossible for them to go back. This whole situation is quite interesting to me: I decided it was a final curse of Sauron upon them and their lands that forced them to leave, in retribution for “betraying” him; it could be many other things, but this one has an element of mystery and magic to it which could explain why they’re reluctant to talk about it. Plus, zombies! I decided Aragorn in his kingliness would intervene on their behalf, and I moved them to the Desolation of Smaug, which is a shitty piece of land no one else wanted, but they’ll be okay in the long run. This is in contrast to the other three tribes of Easterlings, who kind of come together after their leader is vanquished, and pull themselves together much faster. Sometimes saying “fuck you” to evil is worse for you than if you’d gone along with it...but I imagine the Chayasír are proud they refused Sauron’s service. They’re probably cool people with a strong moral code. Idk. I didn’t actually go much into that in the edit, as you can see.
Veradi of Khand
ft. the people of Khand and its capital city Zakhrad (my creation), the Variags
We know very little about Khand from canon, so this is almost entirely headcanon. We do know that Khand and Rhûn had a bit of a rivalry before the Variags joined forces with the Wainriders, and that there were Variags at Pelennor Fields, but literally everything else is made up. I took the word “Veradja” (the name of their language) from MERP, but the meaning I gave to it is my own. I did take inspiration from the little summary about the Variags in LOTRO when crafting this story, but nothing super specific. Gûrban the Nazgûl will appear again in a future edit :) In our world, “Variag” is a word of Slavic origin meaning “mercenary,” so I decided to import that meaning into Middle-earth and have the Variags be just a specific military group from Khand and not the catch-all term for everyone who lived there. Since we have next to no information on these people, I had a lot of fun coming up with traditions and intrigue—and it’s very exciting to have a specifically known region outside of the vague “east” of Rhûn and “south” of Harad! To me this suggests a sovereign nation, and the nature of the term Variag implies that they aren’t really bound to Sauron’s will the same way his other Mannish servants are, so it was really great to be able to explore a non-Dúnedainic civilization that isn’t Evil with a capital E. Of course, this is all guesswork and headcanon, so don’t give Tolkien too much credit!
Haradrim
ft. the Haradrim subgroups of: the Kingdom of Rûvashû (my creation), the Kingdom of Yettafaz (my creation), the Miraz of Tûl Póac (MERP), Cultists of the Blue Wizards, the Bozisha (MERP) of Lostladen, the Kingdom of Abrakhân (LOTR Strategy Battle Game), the Hasharin and their leader Dalamyr (LOTR SBG), Troll-men, Suladân (LOTR SBG) the Black Serpent of Sud Sicanna (MERP)
Like with the East, MUCH of this is headcanon! We don’t even know much about Harad’s geography, and almost all of the names here were pilfered from Tolkien Gateway’s notes on various adaptations (mostly games I haven’t played). I painstakingly integrated those word parts into my made up conlang, adapted them into my verse, and only THEN did I realize upon looking at the main the main article for the MERP game that the game designers had done much of that for me...but whatever, I’m using the names but completely throwing out their ideas because fuck it. And only the Far Harad stuff had the potential to be useful, anyway; the Near Harad info was painfully Gondorian-based and not at all what I was interested in.
Sar-Myrin is a (mis)translation of “Tar-Mairon” into cobbled-together version of the Haradrim tongue; they heard “Tar-” and thought “Sar” (magic) which wasn’t really inaccurate, and then Myr (desert) rin (pl.) = myrin = deserts, thus Mage of the Deserts. The Númenóreans and their descendants had much more interaction with Harad than they did Rhûn, so much of the story here is focused on those conflicts; I’ve done my best to make the Haradrim sympathetic despite their service to Sauron. Most of what the Númenóreans did in Harad is canon, though much embellished. I made up everything about the Southron Nazgûl; their kingdoms of Rûvashû and Yettafaz are entirely my own creation, though I borrowed the titles “High Sorcerer” and “Forsaken Reaver” from LOTRO.
We do know that there were Southrons who moved to the woods and mountains to escape Sauron, but the names Tûl Póac and Miraz are Middle-earth Role Playing (MERP). The bit about the evening star is a nod to a detail from BoLT where Eärendil and Voronwë, flying in Vingilótë, see “tree-men” and “pygmies” in the south.
I’ve referenced the Black Númenóreans Herumor and Fuinur in previous edits, but here I gave them an origin story and a name to their kingdom: Abrakhân, a name I stole from the LOTR Strategy Battle Game; since I translated Abrakhân as “faithful brother” I thought it a fitting title for my headcanon that Fuinur and Herumor were brothers. The Harashin were also taken from the LOTR SBG, as is the character Dalamyr. The bit about the Haradrim using the Nazgûl’s Black Breath to poison their arrows is actually canon! I’ve also talked about Karasalêth and Zâinazimril (aka Berúthiel) in other edits, but here’s the story from their side of things. Aside from Eärnil I’s death being arranged and not accidental, everything about him, Círyandil, and Círyaher is canon, as is the bit about the Corsairs, who I covered in another edit.
We know that (though Rómestámo’s name refers to the East and not the South?) the Blue Wizards were more successful in Harad than they were in Rhûn, so I gave them a greater focus here than in the Easterling edit. The names Veksari and Sarazzin are my own creations. Lostladen is a canonical location that we know very little about; Bozisha is a name I stole from MERP and repurposed for my own needs. Inkā-nūsh (or Incánus) is a canonical name for Gandalf that he earned traveling in the South.
I skipped over a lot of the minor conflicts during the reign of the Stewards, mostly because this was getting very long and they weren’t that interesting and the majority of them were by the Corsairs who I’d already covered. “Mahûd men” is a name for half-trolls (who were canonically at Pelennor Fields) that I stole from the LOTR SBG, as is the name Suladân in reference to the canonical figure of the Black Serpent. In the Fourth Age, it is canon that Haradrim emissaries went to Gondor, and Tolkien mused that perhaps the Blue Wizards didn’t return to Valinor and that they had a lasting influence in the form of “magic cults” in the South, though those last ideas are dubiously canonical at best.
Hashavis Kuilizîth
ft. Hashavis Kuilizîth (OC)
A late addition for B2MeM22; this is Berúthiel’s mother. Everything here is headcanon or covered in another edit’s notes. Her name in the Haradrim tongue is “hasha” (quiet) + “vis” (lady); I tweaked the pre-established word part “vek” (lord) to get “vis.” Her name in Adûnaic is “kuiliz” (quiet), which is derived from Primitive Elvish “kuilez” (quiet), + “îth,” a canonical feminine suffix.
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NAZGÛL
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Nazgûl
ft. Tar-Míriel (Witch-king of Angmar), Khamûl, Eärmerco (OC), Rôthi Lustahondë (OC), Vekmû (OC), Sarnūsh (OC), Kullund (OC), Gûrban (OC), Aiwareiks (OC)
We know, canonically, that Khamûl is an Easterling, and that three of the Nazgûl were once Númenóreans, including the Witch-king. The deeds of the Nazgûl over time are canon in broad strokes, but not in details; everything about my OCs is made up, and I’ve covered many of their stories in other edits. Tar-Míriel as the Witch-king is one of my favorite headcanons; if you want a bit more detailed take on her origin story, check out this fic I wrote.
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THE LOST ROAD & OTHER MISCELLANEOUS MEN
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Heden
ft. Heden, Gyda (OC), Beorn Hedensson, Eoh, Mildwyn (OC), Ottor Wǽfre
I chose to adapt the story of Eriol into my personal canon, with some alterations, but not the story of Ælfwine. This is largely because Ælfwine came as a revision of Eriol, and Eriol’s text stands mostly on its own. The core story here is “mortal man comes to Tol Eressëa and learns of the Elder Days,” but I changed some of what comes next. However, this first edit is about what comes before. Heden is described as “the leather and fur clad,” and I extrapolated that to get his professions. We know Eoh lived on the coast, but Eriol was not born there, so therefore Eoh must have moved inland, and since we know Beorn killed him that means his brother must have come with him. The duke and his lands are taken from Eriol’s story, but the duke as the father of Eoh’s wife is my idea. There are two versions of Eoh’s death, one where he is killed by his brother Beorn and one where he is killed in the last sack of the city. I decided to combine the two by having Beorn inciting the violence, though his reasons for doing so are my invention. We don’t know why there was war in the duke’s city other than who their enemies were, so it’s possible that Beorn was involved. The fate of Eriol’s mother is also taken directly from his story; I imagine that aside from starvation, she was treated poorly by her people, who blamed her and her father for failing to defend the city. Eriol’s enslavement and escape are also part of his story, though he does not dwell on that time, so neither do I.
Eriol
ft. Ottor Wǽfre Eriol, Cwén, Hengest and Horsa, Naimi Éadgifu, Vorindo Heorrenda
I decided in adapting Eriol’s story that he did not, in fact, come from our world: instead he is a Man of Middle-earth in later Ages (the Sixth? Seventh? idk), and it’s still definitely MIDDLE-earth, not Earth. Thus, though the text gives the island the name of Heligoland (a real place off the coast of Germany), I left it vague, keeping only nonspecific terms like the North and Western Seas. We don’t know how Cwén died, so I filled in that gap; we also don’t know how old her sons were when Eriol left for the sea, or who cared for them with their mother dead and their father absent. (I also headcanon them as twins, so uh...very Elrond and Elros vibes tbh.) So, not wanting to abandon them entirely, I gave them to Cwén’s family to be raised. Eriol’s not getting any Dad of the Year awards, but I don’t like the thought of him leaving his kids to the wolves.
Ausir claims that the ancient sailor Eriol meets is Ulmo himself. The “westernmost island” where Eriol meets Ulmo is not specified in the text, but I thought it would be neat if it was Tol Morwen, which is the westernmost island on maps of Middle-earth after Númenor. The summary of the stories Eriol hears on Tol Eressëa is lifted directly from the Book of Lost Tales (both parts I and II). I changed the figure of Rúmil to that of Evromord, as Tolkien was planning on if he’d got around to revising this story more, largely because it felt strange to me that Rúmil would be on Tol Eressëa instead of in Tirion. I changed the name Vairë to Vairilmë to better distinguish between the Vala and the elf; I modeled her name after Vardilmë, the daughter of Vardamir. I changed the narrator of Turambar’s tale from Eltas to Ausir because it didn’t make sense to me that Eltas, a mortal from the First Age, would be somehow living on Tol Eressëa at all, let alone after all this time. I also called Littleheart by his Quenya name Ilverion. You’ll get more on all these elven characters in later edits.
I was vague about Meril’s magic ability to make Eriol young again, as I’m not sure how I feel about the concept of limpë; it was also important to me to remind everyone that mortality cannot be permanently escaped: Eriol regained his youth, but he would in time grow old again. We know very little about Naimi: just her relation to Vairilmë, her marriage to Eriol, and her name Éadgifu. I gave Heorrenda the Quenya name Vorindo because of course his mother would also name him in her tongue. The end of Eriol’s tale gets confusing, as Tolkien never finished the story, so I did my best to finish it myself. Meril does warn Eriol against leaving Tol Eressëa (probably because its magic was keeping him alive and hale, even as he aged?), but he ignores her. We don’t know how Naimi felt about all that. In the original version of the story, Eriol returns to bring Men to Valinor in “the Faring Forth” (kind of like a continuation of the Great Journey?) and there’s some kind of great battle that happens (the War of Wrath??), but that was scrapped in the Ælfwine version, and I decided I liked that better. Heorrenda does go with his father and finishes the Golden Book. The whole point of Eriol’s story was originally to provide a mythological origin for England: Hengest and Horsa are the legendary Anglo-Saxons who sort of found England (it’s complicated and they probably weren’t real), and Tolkien meant for Tol Eressëa to become England! But as I mentioned earlier, that’s not in line with my headcanons, so I kept things vague. One last fun fact: apparently Heorrenda was a name Jirt liked to use as the name of the Beowulf-poet, which implies that he was a contemporary of Beowulf!
The Last Ship
ft. Lissa Fíriel, Círdan, Celeborn, Galdor of the Havens
This story is adapted from Tolkien’s poem “The Last Ship.” Since we know Círdan sails to Valinor on the very last (official) ship from Middle-earth, and that Celeborn comes with him, they were obvious candidates for the elves on this ship; I added in Galdor of the Havens to round things out. I gave Fíriel the original name of Lissa, because in this poem “Fíriel” feels like a name the elves give her (referencing her mortality) rather than her actual name. I added a bit of feelings/backstory to why everything is happening the way it did; the poem itself really focuses mostly on Fíriel’s encounter with the elves from her perspective.
The First Men
ft. Ermon, Elmir, Nuin
This story is adapted from the Silm chapter “Of Men” and from Gilfanon’s Tale. I decided Nuin was part of the Hwenti Avari, and also that they were nonbinary :) The name meanings of Ermon and Elmir are my own translations. I altered this story a bit to make Túvon (Tu) the bad guy, and I edited him out from the beginning. In the original text, the bad guy was actually Fangli (Fankil), but since they are both proto-Sauron figures I decided the change didn’t really matter all that much.
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My Peoples of Arda Edit Series continues with the Elves of Arda Series!
Suzaku, looking at a selfie of Liqin’s: I hate this photo.
Liqin: I’m cute as fuck in that photo! I’m smiling kindly.
Suzaku: You’re not smiling kindly; you look like you’re up to something.
Liqin: Up to kindness.
