Dagor Dagorath
The Last Age
In the Last Age of Arda—if indeed the count still mattered, for time had grown thin and number hollow—warlords of Men carved dominion through cruelties not seen since the Akallabêth. Among them were Elves who, by fear, ambition, or despair, had fallen to the shadow in men's hearts, serving their schemes while retaining the likeness of their peoples. Orcs still prowled the wastes, but they were no longer the only servants of malice; they were merely the most familiar.
Across the vast ruin that had once been Gondor and Mordor—now fused into a single blighted expanse stretching outward into the withered reaches of Mirkwood and the Iron Mountains—warlords of Men held sway. Their followers formed cults devoted to power and unmaking, rites that exalted dominion through oblivion and the endless hunger to consume what others built. It was Men, above all, who raised and sustained this dark rule, giving form to the malice that had long lain latent in Arda's marred substance.
Elves, the last scattered singers of the Elder Days, languished in chains or hid in secret hollows, their voices bent to dark rites or silenced by despair. Rivendell lay empty, its song a fading memory. Dwarves, dragged from the secret deeps where they had endured long ages, were driven to forge under whip and hunger, their craft turned to ends not their own. Moria stirred once more, its deep drums echoing the tread of things best left sleeping—doom older than the world of Men.
Yet not all was shadow. For the sake of Frodo and Bilbo, whose small courage once unmade the Great Ring, the Valar had set a quiet ward upon the Shire. There, in a green pocket of peace, life endured almost untouched, a single unmoving star in a sky otherwise dimmed. And scattered across the broken lands were other small havens—hidden vales, forgotten by the world—where kindness flickered like embers waiting for a wind of renewal.
The Lens of Binding
In one of the great warlord tribes rose a cunning Man, skilled in craft yet driven by the fire of ambition and fear. At his side walked a high Elf of shadowed renown—one who had endured Angband's depths in the Elder Days, his fëa scarred by the very roar of the Dark Power that once bent stone and spirit alike. No longer thrall but fallen counselor to this Man's ambition, the Elf supplied what the tinkerer lacked: memory of the precise resonance that thrummed through Morgoth's pits.
From the chained singers in the pits—scattered Elves dragged from hidden hollows—they wrung forgotten alignments: chants once meant to gather light from Varda's lamps, runes to steady wounded earth after Morgoth's tread. The high Elf directed their refinement, the captives yielded fragments under blade and threat, but always it was the Man's command that drove the labor. Together they shaped the Lens: a focus of alignment, a gathering of discord and resonance drawn from the Children of Ilúvatar themselves. Its hunger was not of matter, but of spirit: it fed upon fëar, first of animals and lesser things, but soon of Men, Elves, and Dwarves, whose courage, despair, and desire flowed into it as water into a vessel.
The tinkerer knew only fragments of its purpose: to gather the scattered echoes of a primordial spirit into convergence. The Elf spoke of a greater design, though whether this was binding, summoning, or simply a conduit none could name with certainty. It mattered little to the Man, who ruled this endeavor; he forged ahead, Dwarven hammers lending strength to crystal and obsidian, and the Lens thrummed alive, bending the old dissonance toward form and drawing Arda itself closer to its final reckoning.
The Final Discord
The Lens awoke not with stillness, but with a rising thrumming—a vibration that twisted the living world into shadow, healthy essence bending into creeping malice. Instead of binding the ancient spirit as intended, it drew Morgoth’s dispersed dissonance into convergence: a monstrous, unstable re-embodiment, neither fully flesh nor spirit, but a howling rift of the old discord made manifest.
As the spirit grew encompassed, its hunger redoubled. The tribes fed it ceaselessly—first animals and lesser things, then Men, Dwarves, and Elves, led in despair to the Lens. Their fëar were drawn forth—not devoured, but unmade: their coherence stripped away, their Music broken into trembling discordant notes that fed the growing shadow. What remained was no longer person, but raw vibration of fear and despair woven into Morgoth's returning resonance. The servile followers fell prostrate before this insatiable presence, and the world trembled as the Music itself quavered toward collapse. Even the mountains groaned, as if remembering the first wounds of the Marring.
The Vigil of the Valar
Ulmo alone walked the dying world, his tears replenishing the seas as he watched the Children destroy themselves. He urged Manwë to intervene, but Manwë would not act without clear will. One by one, the other Valar gathered behind Ulmo—until Varda came last, bidding Manwë listen to the cries of the Children borne upon the winds. His heart was moved, and the Valar descended as one, arrayed against the culmination of Morgoth's emergence.
The True Dagor Dagorath
The last war between Morgoth and the Valar was fought: a single, devastating confrontation that cost dearly on all sides. As the spirit of Morgoth, rekindled from the long harvest of fear and malice, spent utterly that force it had drawn from the Children of Ilúvatar, its defeat shook the foundations of Arda.
Then came the sound: a note high as the peaks of the mountains and low as the depths of the dark ocean—Ilúvatar’s own stilling of Morgoth’s resonance. It rang through every heart, pain and hope entwined: pain at the discord’s final cry, hope at the One’s mercy heard within it. It was the first sound since the Ainulindalë that none could mistake for anything but the voice of the One.
The Silence
At the note's end fell silence absolute—the metaphysical gravity of the Marring lifted from the world. Morgoth was resolved.
The First Notes
The lifting of the Marring did not bring instant harmony. Though the weight of Morgoth's discord was gone, the Children of Ilúvatar awoke into a world reshaped yet unfamiliar. Freed from the long shadow, they found themselves disoriented—habits of fear, domination, and despair lingering like echoes in a newly quiet hall. The wounds of Ages did not vanish; they simply ceased to deepen.
Among Men, confusion reigned. Some felt the sudden absence of the old dread as a kind of vertigo, clinging to power structures that no longer had metaphysical fuel. Warlords, stripped of the shadow that once magnified their will, grasped desperately at authority. Others, long oppressed, struggled to trust that the world was truly changed. The Gift of Men shone unclouded again, yet many did not know how to live without the fear that had shaped their choices for generations.
The Elves, released from the slow suffocation of accumulated sorrow, found their fëar suddenly unburdened. But clarity did not erase memory. Those who had been enslaved or twisted by despair needed time to rediscover themselves. Some wandered in quiet wonder, relearning joy; others recoiled from the light, unsure how to step into a world no longer bent beneath them.
The Dwarves emerged from bondage with a fierce, bewildered pride. Their craft, once forced into dark service, yearned toward creation rather than endurance. Yet they too bore scars—of hunger, of humiliation, of the deep places where they had labored under the lash. Their healing would come through making, but even that required guidance and patience.
Even the Orcs, long shaped by domination and distortion, stood at a strange threshold. Some faded swiftly, their being too bound to the old discord to endure its absence. Others, dimly aware of a freedom they had never known, hesitated on the edge of becoming—what, none could yet say.
In this fragile dawn, conflict arose not from a Dark Power but from the Children themselves, struggling to understand a world no longer ruled by malice. To meet this moment, the Ainur stepped forth—not as distant rulers nor veiled wanderers, but as companions in the work of renewal. The greater among them tended to the land and the deep fabric of the world; the lesser walked beside Elves, Men, Dwarves, and others, offering counsel, clarity, and hope. They sought to persuade rather than command, to heal rather than judge, yet they did not shrink from strength when gentler paths failed.