Welcome to Arda!

Long ago, in the early years of the Second Age, the great Elven smiths forged Rings of Power. Nine for mortal Man, seven for the Dwarf lords, three for the tall Elf kings. But then the Dark Lord learned the craft of ring-making, and made the master ring, the One Ring, to rule them all. With the One Ring, Middle-Earth was his, and he could not be overcome. As the Last Alliance of Men and Elves fell beneath his power, he did not notice the heroic shadow who slipped in....

It was prince Isildur, from the mighty kings across the sea, who took the Ring from the Dark Lord. But because Isildur did not destroy it, the spirit of the Dark Lord lived on, and began to take shape again.

But the Ring had a will of its own, and a way of slipping from one hand to be found by another, so that it might at last get back to its master.

The Ring was lost in a great river, where it waited...and there the Ring lay, at the bottom of the River Anduin, for thousands of years.

During those years, the Dark Lord captured the nine rings that were made for Men, and turned their owners into Ringwraiths, terrible shadows under his control, who roamed the world searching for the One Ring. In time, the Ring was found. Two friends were fishing in the great river one day....

One of them was named Smeagol, and he envied his friend who found the Ring. It was that very envy that drove him to attack his friend, and murder him in cold blood. Smeagol was already falling under the control of the One Ring.

Smeagol used the Ring for thieving, and to find out secrets. His own people began to despise the wretched creature, and to call him Gollum. Tortured and driven by the Ring, he hid in dark caves deep in the mountains.

But the Ring slipped off Gollum's finger too. So it was that Bilbo Baggins found it, during his travels with Dwarves. Bilbo, a hobbit, took the Ring back to the Shire, his home.

There the Ring was passed on to young Frodo Baggins, who went on a great quest to destroy the Ring and rid Arda of the Enemy...but no one has heard from Frodo or Sam, his faithful companion, and there are rumours of a great army of evil marching out from the depths of Mordor toward Gondor....



As you glance to the southeast you glimpse something that, for a brief second, looks almost like a blood red eye turning its gaze toward...you?

 
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