Founded in 2005, the Silmarillion Writers' Guild exists for discussions of and creative fanworks based on J.R.R. Tolkien's The Silmarillion and related texts. We are a positive-focused and open-minded space that welcomes fans from all over the world and with all levels of experience with Tolkien's works. Whether you are picking up Tolkien's books for the first time or have been a fan for decades, we welcome you to join us!
New Challenge: Everyman Create a fanwork about an ordinary character in the legendarium using a quote about an unnamed character as inspiration.
Cultus Dispatches: Fanworks, AI, and Resistance by Dawn and Grundy The fan studies column Cultus Dispatches returns with a history of how Tolkien fanworks fandom has reacted and resisted generative AI by drawing strong boundaries in a way that is not typical for the fandom.
Finrod and Bëor stop for a while on the road to Nargothrond to rest. The bodies of the Secondborn often grow weary, and Finrod laments, massaging Bëor's back and renewing his beloved's vigor with the work of his hands. But Finrod has other burdens of his own, Bëor soon discovers, returning…
Maglor without Maedhros, Daeron without Lúthien. Alone, they are nothing, but together, they can be something more. Where do you turn, when you have no one else left?
Written for Tolkien Reverse Summer Bang 2023, featuring artwork by athlai.
It was only the second time Finwë had come out foraging with them, and of course this would happen—of course the Hunter would come, the Dark Rider on his steed with its terrible, heavy footfalls, and the deep-throated laughter that held no mirth, only malice.
“Come on.” Maedhros grabbed his hand and pulled him along down the path, both of them quickening their pace now, until the trees opened up into a wide meadow filled with flowers, bright yellow celandine and dandelions and sweet-scented pale chamomile mingling with cornflowers and irises. On…
Haleth leaves to find her brother, even though her father does not permit her to.
Current Challenge
Everyman
Create a fanwork about an ordinary character in the legendarium using a quote about an unnamed character as inspiration. Read more ...
Random Challenge
Tolkien Meta Week
Tolkien Meta Week is a week-long event to encourage fans to create nonfiction works related to Tolkien's world. Tolkien Meta Week will run from December 8-14, 2024 on Tumblr and here on the Silmarillion Writers' Guild archive. Read more ...
By definition, fanworks fandom does not draw a lot of boundaries, but community archives and events have taken a strong stance against AI-generated fanworks due to ethical considerations and member input.
In a book as full of death as the Quenta Silmarillion, grief and mourning are surprisingly absent. The characters who receive grief and mourning—and those who don't—appear to do so due to narrative bias. Grief and mourning (or a lack of them) serve to draw attention toward and away from objectionable actions committed by characters.
This presentation for Mereth Aderthad 2025 discusses the parallels between the concept of abnegation in the scientific work surrounding the atomic bomb and in The Silmarillion. The relinquishment of self-interest in favor of the interests of others, abnegation was identified by Tolkien as a powerful act of spirit and reason. The legendarium has many examples of the complexities of abnegation, which parallel similar discussions held by physicists during and after World War II.
For most of my life, when reading Lord of the Rings, I read it through the perspective of Gandalf's words about Éowyn, that she'd spent years trapped as a caregiver, watching the realm she love fall from honor into disgrace.
But what if Éowyn was also a student of history?
…
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Angbang Week 2026
Angbang Week is a tumblr event focusing on the relationship between Morgoth and Sauron, running from May 5-11, 2026
Gondor Week 2026
A Tumblr week event focusing on the history of the realm of Gondor.
Crablor Day
A day dedicated to everyone's favourite warcriminal crustacean - April 26, 2026
The Silmarillion Writers' Guild is more than just an archive--we are a community! If you enjoy a fanwork or enjoy a creator's work, please consider letting them know in a comment.
Lovely poem! I can imagine this as a part of a Numenorean history.
(Completely spurious question: how did you get the format to work? I can't seem to get even simple line-spacing right, even with HTML, and as for indentation *shudders*. I'm curious as to how you've managed to fix the formatting, and completely in awe of your skils!)
Thank you, Wavesinger! I'm glad you liked it! About the formatting, this is the only archive where I didn't do anything more than copy-paste from Word--no skill involved. Everywhere else I posted I either fiddled with it until I gave up, or just ... gave up without fiddling!
This is fantastic, DW! I can "hear" the Middle-earth equivalent of a skäld reciting these verses, and the entirety of the poem is very immersive, eliciting that frisson when you feel like you've entered another time and place, e.g., in a smoky hall of the Men of Westernesse in the Angle, for example, during their waning years in the Third Age. Hence, very Tolkienian!
Thank you, Pandë! I'm so glad it works--that was exactly my intention! In my framework of "Sam's Book of Tales", he collected it either in Rohan, as a tale brought south, and handed down, or in some little village he passed through during his travels.
It certainly did not appear the way the bards of old are said to have composed, extemporaneously, but little by little, a couple words at a time over several months. So that part was not very Tolkien-like, as he seems to have been much more like those old bards in his abilities! I'm thinking of his "The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorthelm's Son" (for example), the short play in alliterative verse, which he apparently just dashed off!
This came out wonderfully well. I'm not familiar with this poetic format but it looks and sounds great, and that could not have been an easy task to accomplish. I'm a sucker for dragon stories and I could picture this ancient dragon collecting and guarding her treasure over time too vast to comprehend, then having to start all over again. I especially like the last line that she might still be out there somewhere sleeping on her hoard, ready to rise again to protect it.
Thanks so much! You are right, I found this difficult and time-consuming. Although I am fairly pleased with the result (except I wish it were longer!), I think I'll stick with prose, and maybe a little rhyming verse.
I have wanted to add a dragon story for the longest time (I love dragons too, as you know), and this style seemed perfectly apt for one. Also, I didn't want to make her an out-and-out villain, but for her to maaaaybe still be hibernating with her treasure in some remote snowy mountain.
Comments on Dragon's Journeys
The Silmarillion Writers' Guild is more than just an archive--we are a community! If you enjoy a fanwork or enjoy a creator's work, please consider letting them know in a comment.