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!
Sign-Up to Hand Out Scavenger Hunt Prompts Our May challenge will be a Matryoshka built around a scavenger hunt. If you'd like to hand out prompts (and receive comments on your work for doing so!), you can sign up to do so.
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.
Feanor and Fingolfin, from their youth to their fall.
"I will do this gladly," Fingolfin said, whispering into Feanor's mouth, grasping for reasons and sense. "Gladly, if it will bring peace between us. If it will end the madness."
A Teleri fishing boat captain turns to farming on abandoned Noldor lands after her ship is stolen. A Noldor farmer returns with Finarfin to find that his land belongs to the Teleri now.
The thing about forgiveness, he thought, was that it was so much easier when the object of it was far away—or dead. It was so much easier to let it all go when those responsible were far away and unable to do any more harm.
Inspired by collecting the prompts for the Everyman challenge, this essay considers how ordinary people are subsumed and silenced in The Silmarillion, which begins a three-book arc that ends with the rise of the humble and ordinary.
In his old age, Isildur's former esquire Ruinamacil, known to later histories only as Ohtar, writes his own account of his escape from the ambush at Gladden Fields and journey to Imladris, and the history of his friend whom Isildur ordered to flee with him.
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.
Bilbo, the strange old hobbit with the wandering feet, senses something special in young Frodo the first time he sees the lad; as they become close, they find in each other a cameraderie not well understood by other hobbits. Five poignant moments between Bilbo and Frodo Baggins over the course…
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.
I like the way this investigates one of the really missing areas of the text! The potential for stories about the early relations among Dwarves and Elves is so broad, because so little is there in the canon. It makes sense that Celeborn might be the one to do the ethical thing, and confess what happened.
Thank you! I'm glad you like it. The possible stories are endless, depending on how the author handles it - I mean, you can have the elves reveal it, you can have the dwarves discover it then, you can have the dwarves not discover it, you can have it told after the First Age ends, etc. But I felt like it added to the later betrayal the elves of Doriath must have felt when they realized the Finarfinions hadn't told them about the Kinslaying, because hey, they told the Dwarves, and the Dwarves aren't even their kin. I'm glad it made sense that Celeborn might be the ethical one.
This also throws an interesting light both on what we later see of the attitudes of the elves of Doriath to the elves of Aman and the attitudes of the Dwarves of Nogrod to Thingol and Doriath.
The Elves of Doriath have a reason for believing that the Finarfinions should have told them about the kinslaying. Same for how the Dwarves of Nogrod feel about Thingol and Doriath. :P (The other option is it has no effect ever, and I'd really like to believe that killing almost an entire group would have some effects).
"If something was to happen to them, I would prefer to know the truth instead of pretty lies about their fate. Not speaking of it would only compound the guilt of having killed them, in my view."
Uh-oh...
Very well written account of something that may have gone on behind the scenes, but is never adressed in the book. The parallels between the killing of the petty-dwarves and the Kinslaying make it especially painful.
Wow. Even with the calculation that they're unlikely to be killed, it's still fairly brave of the elves to walk in unarmed to confess their (sins? mistakes? I don't quite know what word to go with here.) I like that the elves acknowledge that there cannot be a sufficient recompense for what they did, since the dead cannot be brought back. The actions of the elves of Doriath also throws a new light on Thingol's anger at the omission of the Kinslaying from the Finarfinions' tale of how they left Valinor.
Thank you! It is brave of the elves - after all, if it goes badly, the fact that there are numerous elves in the forest isn't going to make them any less dead.
Thingol's feelings about the Finarfinions (who he greeted as his own family) not telling him about the Kinslaying are definitely affected by the fact that he allowed Celeborn to go in and tell the truth to the Dwarves, who are not his family and who could have easily killed them for telling the truth. He's not very pleased with lies.
It is a corageous-- and necessary-- thing the Elves did, and yet, as Gunnvör said, it can neither fully repair their relationship nor heal the wound. Very well done and you've given me something to think about.
Comments on The Fates of Our Kin
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.