Filling the Gaps: following in the footsteps of the Wildwood and the Angle

[Arnand_the_Fox]

There's no great mystery behind the Dwarves in Gondor. Maybe Blood of Azog created some narrative gaps / discrepancies, perhaps even a plot-hole to fill-in.

Right from the get-go, in LOTRO, there were 5 Dwarven origins: Ered Luin, Grey Mountains, Iron Hills, Erebor, and White Mountains.

Strongholds of the North and Dwarf-holds gave the next 3 main origin locations after Ered Luin.

Only one was missing: the White Mountain Dwarves.

Well no. The Ered Luin, Grey Mountains, Iron Hills, Erebor, and White Mountain, dwarves are all Longbeards. After the fall of Belegost and Nogrod at the end of the first age, the two clans that lived there joined the Longbeards in Moria. All Dwarven settlements in the western part of Middle Earth, such as in the locations listed above, are all settlements on this combined 3 clan group. The in-game dwarf origin selection is not built to mirror the seven dwarven clans. Its just various places in the west of Middle Earth your Dwarf player might've come from. All of which are Longbeard locations except the Stout-Axe origin.

In Volume III, which long predated "Blood of Azog," we encountered some White Mountain Dwarves - and apparently the Gemcutters were connected with them. There was Ond out in the Heath-fells playing a role against Isengard.

Then, somehow, with Erebor, suddenly, all the Gemcutters were Longbeards: a very odd ret-con. I suppose that means they were trading with the White Mountain Dwarves now. Still strange. Then along came "Blood of Azog" that pretty much left the White Mountain Dwarves out of the loop RE- the Seven Dwarven Houses.

Anyways, my point is that LOTRO made the White Mountain Dwarves a faction a long time before any of the other Dwarven content. So, is it really a big surprise that it's time to make that story work and make sense? Not really, IMHO.

They were never not Longbeards. The Dwarves of the White Mountains are, and always were, Longbeards. Likewise Blood of Azog didn't leave the White Mountain dwarves out since, again, they were Longbeards.

There's another odd plot-hole I've noticed too- well, maybe. The Kambrada. If they were in the northern Orocarni / Ered Cernin, I wonder . . . were they at war with the Angmarim? Somehow, there's this Iron Road magically going from Car Bronach to Rhun, and it's very weird that it seems to stop at Jarnfast of all places. It's . . . confusing. There's a ton more world-building to do out in the northeastern parts of Middle-earth - and no, despite all appearances, I don't think we're quite finished with Angmar yet. They need to answer the question: "What's at the eastern end of the Iron Road in Rhun"? ((*pardon my lack of diacritics lol)).

The Kambrada were nowhere near Angmar. So no, they weren't at war with them. The Orocarni/Ered Cernin is on the other side of the landmass from Angmar.

And the Iron Road doesn't necessarily end at Jarnfast. It likely goes down to Skald's Drop, where it contiues from there into Dorwinion, and then Rhun proper.

There's a lot of unanswered questions - and the best I've got is simply that Ered Cernin is this huge mountain range, the biggest, going from practically Forodwaith to Far Harad. So, there's probably plenty of room for Orc-infested areas, Dwarven-claimed areas, etc., across its long history, and so on - and for Sauron to ultimately squash opposition at various points in the timeline as his power grows.

The Ered Cernin goes nowhere near Harad, much less Far Harad.