For thousands of years, the Realm of Mordor had been a blighted wasteland, desolate, forsaken
and home to a great corrupting power whose malice and ambition has time and time again
threatened the very survival of Middle Earth.
For it was in Mordor that the Dark Lord Sauron first took hold, transforming it into a land
of shadow and sorcery, a natural bastion for the evil forces of the world.
Yet even before the arrival of Sauron, the region that would become known as Mordor was
a haunted place.
Its lands were surrounded on three sides by enormous and unscalable mountains, formed
in ages past by ferocious volcanic activity.
Eruptions, if the legends are true, that were provoked by the devastating works of the fallen
Ainur, Melkor.
While these great mountain ranges created a natural fortress against the outside world,
it was the primal fires of Mount Doom, welled from the very heart of the Earth, that formed
the true power of Mordor and spilled forth an endless rain of ash and vast rivers of
molten rock.
It was here that Sauron constructed the great fortress of Barad-dur, and set his followers
to scour the land of all its riches.
Of the four main regions of Mordor; Gorgoroth, Lithlad, Núrn and the Eastern Desolation,
only Nurn might be considered productive or fruitful and it soon became the next target
of Sauron’s gaze.
Fed by the inland Sea of Nurnen and enriched by Mount Doom’s constant ashfall, the soil
of that land sprouted vast fields of grass and grain.
Its lush and vibrant appearance however, concealed its true nature and Nurn was as dangerous
as any other land in Mordor, home to trolls, wargs, fellbeasts and other nameless horrors.
The scattered tribes of men that dwelt here were soon enslaved and forced to toil the
land to feed and support Sauron’s new armies.
Vast hordes of orcs came to reside in Mordor, all bound to the power of Sauron and used
to enforce his machinations.
While neither the orcs themselves or their weaponry could match the martial skill of
the free peoples, their blind fury and fierce hatred of the Men of the West made them formidable
warriors, capable of overwhelming their foes through sheer numbers alone.
For two thousand years, Sauron bided his time, gathering his forces and building his power
until his influence was felt across Middle Earth, earning him the title of the Dark Lord
of Mordor.
After a series of wars against the free peoples of Middle Earth, in which he corrupted kingdoms
and destroyed their peoples, Sauron was finally defeated by a last alliance of Men and Elves,
his corporal form destroyed on the slopes of Mount Doom and his great ring of power
seized by the High King of Gondor.
Fortresses were built across the boundaries of Mordor and manned by the armies of Gondor
to prevent Sauron’s evil from ever rising again.
But as his great defeat turned into legend and then myth, Sauron’s corrupting power
stretched forth once again.
Gondor grew weak and distracted until many of its fortresses were abandoned and subsumed
into the power of the enemy.
Barad-dur was rebuilt and the Great Eye of Sauron looked out once more with terrible
designs on the free peoples of Middle Earth.
Sauron’s forces once again grew in power, with vast orc armies numbering over two hundred
thousand mobilizing across Mordor in preparation for a final war on the realms of men.
These orc armies were lead by powerful captains and champions, whose brutality kept the notoriously
undisciplined orcs in line.
Heavily armoured trolls and other monstrous creatures were organized into shock units
and vast batteries of siege equipment including towers, artillery, and battering rams were
secretly constructed across the region.
Other servants of Sauron, corrupted men from across the world, were also called to Mordor.
These included the Haradrim, fierce desert fighters and a longstanding enemy of Gondor,
Easterlings from the vast uncharted lands of Rhun, and the infamous Corsairs of Unbar,
pirates who for centuries had plundered the shores of Gondor on their infamous black ships.
Above all however, were the ancient Nazgul, dreaded servants of the Ring of Power who
flew forth from Minas Morgul on great winged serpents known as Fellbeasts.
In the final War of the Ring, Sauron’s armies spilled forth from Mordor, seizing the ancient
fortress city of Osgiliath and soon laying siege to Minas Tirith at the very heart of
Gondor.
In the north, secondary forces under Sauron erupted from the hidden stronghold of Dol
Guldur in Mirkwood, attacking Lothlórien and the
Woodland Realm of Thranduil.
Even the distant Lonely Mountain became a battlefield, as men of Dale and Dwarves of
Erebor held out against overwhelming odds.
While Mordor seemed to be on the precipice of victory, an unexpected counter-attack by
the Rohirrim, together with the Dead Men of Dunharrow, successfully broke the siege of
Minas Tirith and scattered the bulk of Sauron’s forces.
Together, the Men of the West marched to the Gates of Mordor, distracting Sauron long enough
for two hobbits to drop the ring of power into the fires of Mount Doom and destroy the
Dark Lord’s essence once and for all.
The catastrophic eruption that followed laid waste to Sauron’s domain and broke the will
of his remaining armies.
In the new age thereafter, Mordor was placed under the governance of Gondor and the darkness
that had soured its land never returned.
The Templin Institute investigates nations, organizations, and factions from alternate
worlds and realities.
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