The dwarves

[Haradrim]

Why is there so little about the dwarves. How come all of their strongholds seem to be destroyed. Moria is gone and The Lonely Mountain is only just coming up in LOTR. How come there really isnt a lot about them? I mean there is info but nowhere near as much as the elves or the men. Why? Maybe I am not llooking in the right palces. If there is could someone point me in its direction?

[Valandil]

The Dwarves were largely done in by their use of The Seven Rings.

I won't even say it...

[Haradrim]

but what did they do with them? where were their kingdoms. Why didnt the ekves get done in. For that matter why did only the rings of men make them wraiths. Why didnt the elven and dwarven rings make them wraiths. Imagine that Gandalf Galadriel and Elrond as ringwraiths. hehehehehe. But where were the dwrves. Where did they live in LOTR?

[Beren3000]

The dwarves didn't become wraiths because (it was mentioned somewhere) that the Rings affected them little beyond making them blind with greed. They were the lest affected of the races by the Rings of Power.
And the elves did't become wraiths because the Three Rings were never touched by Sauron's hand and he could never corrupt them (unless he wore the Ring, anyway) which wasn't the case during LOTR, hence the non-wraith status of the Elves

[Haradrim]

ah thanks but then what happened to all the dwarven cities and why did the dwarven cities seem to specifacally get attacked. Erebor, and Moria. I actually dont know any other dwarven lands. The real reason I started this thread was to find out where the dwarven places are.

[Lefty Scaevola]

There is some good additional information on dwarves in the HoME volume, 'The peoples of Middle Earth" in an essay on 'Men and Dwarves'.

[Haradrim]

thanks a lot. I am still trying to get HoME though Could anyone provide me with some bried really quick information before I buy HoME tho.

[Earniel]

Originally Posted by Haradrim

ah thanks but then what happened to all the dwarven cities and why did the dwarven cities seem to specifacally get attacked. Erebor, and Moria. I actually dont know any other dwarven lands. The real reason I started this thread was to find out where the dwarven places are.

I suppose the traditional wealth of the Dwarves lured many would-be-millionaires, usually of the scaly variety, IOW dragons. That was the faith of the Lonely Mountain. Khazad-dum went down because they suddenly had a Balrog in their midst, I can imagine even Dwarves doing a runner for something like that.

As to the dwarven homes, I believe many Dwarves settled in the Iron Hills after the Lonely Mountain was sacked.

[Haradrim]

Oh right since Dain was mentioned as coming from the Iron Hills in the Hobbit. THanks a bunch.

[Telcontar_Dunedain]

And Thorin & co. originally came from the Blue Mountains before the quest of Erebor.

[Haradrim]

Where are the blue mountains? My books are with a friend of whom I have convinced to read LOTR. He loves the movies but refused to read the books thinking they would spoil the movie for him. And I was like AWHA! How can you think that. A little of topic I know but whatever...

[Telcontar_Dunedain]

I think they are west of the Blue Mountains which is why the dwarves are the hobbit smain source of news from the outside world.

[Haradrim]

Oh thats right. I always wondered why dwarves would pass through Hobbittion but now its all making sense.

[Michael Martinez]

The Three Rings of the Elves were designed to confer different abilities upon their wearers from the begiining, so they could never have produced wraiths. Sauron could have corrupted them to evil, but I doubt he could have altered their native abilities.

The Dwarves are given only sporadic attention, in part, because Tolkien got caught up in telling the stories from Elven (First Age), Mannish (Second Age), and Hobbitish (Third Age) points of view. The Dwarves were always offered only a secondary perspective to any history.

The Blue Mountains were the mountains lying close to the northwestern coast, just beyond the Shire. They stood on the border of Lindon, the ancient Elven realm. Two Dwarven peoples, the Broadbeams and Firebeards, had dwelt there since the First Age in the cities of Nogrod and Belegost. Belegost, at least, was destroyed in the tumults of the War of Wrath, when the Valar, Maiar, and Eldar of Aman assaulted Morgoth's realm in Beleriand. Most of Beleriand was destroyed, and Lindon constituted the greater part of the surviving sections.

The Dwarves of Nogrod had been devastated by their war with Doriath (the story of which is inaccurately told in The Silmarillion). Their population probably never recovered its ancient size. The Dwarves of Belegost, appalled at the war between Nogrod and Doriath, and driven from their home, mostly chose to migrate to Khazad-dum in the Misty Mountains, where the Longbeard Dwarves were based.

Other Dwarf peoples lived farther east and were not included in any of the stories, except for the account of the War of the Dwarves and Orcs in the Third Age, when all seven houses of the Dwarves banded together for a war of revenge against the Orcs (who had murdered Thror).

The Longbeards had dwelt safely in Khazad-dum until T.A. 1980, when the awoke the Balrog which had slept beneath the mountains for thousands of years. The Balrog destroyed their civiliation and the survivors fled. Many of them settled in the Grey Mountains to the north. Tolkien doesn't say what became of the descendants of the Belegostians, but I believe he intended Bifur, Bofur, and Bombur to be descended from those Dwarves. If so, then the Belegostians (or at least some of them) maintained close ties with the Longbeards.

The Longbeards settled in Erebor under Thrain I, but his son abandoned the Kingdom under the Mountain. Thror returned there centuries later after the dragons became too powerful and numerous in the northern mountains. When Smaug destroyed Erebor, Thror's people scattered. Some went to join their kindred in the Iron Hills (ruled by Thror's relative, Nain). Some went to the Blue Mountains. Some went north.

Thror, Thrain, and Thorin wandered around, eventually settled in Dunland, and then -- after Thror's murder and the War of the Dwarves and Orcs -- Thrain took off. Thorin eventually settled in the Blue Mountains, south of the Lhun, and many of his people joined him there. The more ancient Dwarven communities in the Blue Mountains appear to have been north of the Lhun, although Karen Fonstad provides two locations for Belegost in her atlas (the northern location is correct, the southern one is incorrect).

[Haradrim]

Wel that baout raps that up doesnt it? thanks very much fr that highly detailed and informing information. I alway wondered why they were always in the background.

[Nurvingiel]

Nice post Michael.

I've got another question, who was responsible for making the Doors of Moria? Was is Celebrimbor and some Dwarves (um... Narvi? ).

[ItalianLegolas]

probably

[Telcontar_Dunedain]

Narvi was an elf.

[Twista]

Just adding my post from another thread... it will get closed, didnt see this one

------------

We all know the story, Aulë wanted to create his own race to live in the world they created, moulded and skilled in his works. However, this was a mistake wasnt it? - he did'nt have the power to do this and the Ilúvatar were greatly disgusted with their creation!

My question is, why did the Ilúvatar let them survive? And how did they decide:

"when the time comes"

The above quote refering to when the Dwarves would awake from their sleep, and unleash their skills upon the world. What is also interesting is how they 'sprung' into the world. When they first came to be, there wasnt any settlments as such, just a few citadels built into the mountains dotted about Beleriand. What led on from here? How did they get involved with the lives of the other races around them? - They couldnt keep themselves to themselves forever!

What also puzzles me that despite the shaky creation they suffered, they seem to have a better living than that of men. I have never understood why this is. Over men, they have longer mortality, and are blessed with skills nearly worthy of the Elves. Has anyone got any views on my questions?

[Twista]

deleted... double post