“Cold be hand and heart and bone,
and cold be sleep under stone:
never more to wake on stony bed,
never, till the Sun fails and the Moon is dead.
In the black wind the stars shall die,
and still on gold here let them lie,
till the dark lord lifts his hand
over dead sea and withered land.”
The Ithryn Luin, thought to have gone from history have returned to the West at the head of a great host. Although they have already made inroads towards Rhun, what their goals may be remains unclear. With the Dark Lord unwilling or unable to influence events, his violent and greedy servants have already moved to take advantage of the situation. Sauron’s vassals have become cruel overlords in their own right. To the West, in the desolate lands that had once constituted Arnor, the beast Thuringwethil terrorizes what few Free People remain West of the Misty Mountains. From within the great peaks of the Misty Mountains a great fiery evil stirs once again in the deep. In the Gap of Rohan, Isengard solidifies its iron grip on the men of the Wold. In the vast depths of the Mirkwood forest, Shelob heralds a great host of spiders where once the Elves called home. Not far from Mirkwood lies the lonely Erebor, lorded over by Smaug the Chiefest and Greatest of Calamities, awakened into a new era of domination. The Nine Nazgul and other vassals under Sauron enjoy vast lands that he had won for himself. The Witch King, Khamul, the Mouth of Sauron, and more lackeys are spread thin across Middle Earth, leading Sauron’s hosts to ensure his victory. Without the will of Sauron to lead them, it bodes ill for Middle Earth.
A new age of foul dominion looms over Middle Earth. The fair and free peoples of Middle Earth have almost all been subjugated, killed, or long have fled. Many mighty and terrible powers remain in Middle Earth and they covet the Empire that Sauron built but could not keep for himself. This hard fought empire is soon to collapse as the greedy and ruinous tyrants of Middle Earth fight over her riches. Sauron’s empire is dead, but what comes after may be greater or lesser than what came before it. As the drums of war begin their thrumming, a new age beckons.