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.
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.
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.
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.
These were simply flashes, a hint of a wider, greater world. A tantalizing glimpse of more, always at the edge of awareness, never within reach. Míriel would grasp it, if something as intangible as the concept of color could overflow in bounteous wonder over her hands.
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 hope she gets her walk along the beach in before it hits - and that the hatches are well and truly battened down, even if she is in a tower rather than a ship. (Although if it's out on a promontory like a lighthouse, it could quite possibly be battered by towering waves driven ashore by those winds!)
What a novel idea to bring the shipping forecast in here. Although I personally found the shipping forecast a little too mindless for my mind to perch on, the irony, that it's warning of hectic weather conditions and yet many people find listening to it relaxing enough to send them to sleep, appeals to me.
And I'm intrigued now to learn what this is a prologue to!
It is more or less the current winter weather around the North Sea (and I hope everyone out there stays safe!). It is not the most placid stretch of ocean even at the best of times.
Osse is clearly doing his thing here, without much restraint by Uinen. Some of the canonical descriptions of the sea up in Nevrast are pretty formidable, too...
I guess the gale that's headed Edhellos' way is actually the fall of the Falas in the attack after the Nirnaeth! Except that this fic isn't being at all cooperative. That is why the summary and tags are so cagey: I didn't want to put in anything that I might not get around to even hinting at, even by the amnesty deadline. It is also why I posted the prologue, to encourage myself a bit.
There may be some more literal rough weather in the fic, too, though!
Something that tickles me a bit, listening to the radio in bed, is the part where so often the voice goes: "Good, occasionally poor", with such calm conviction. It makes perfect sense for shipping, of course, but gains some kind of larger applicability somehow.
Oh my, I like the idea of the weather forecast being a metaphor of what's to come, emotionally as well as materially.
I hope this fic starts playing nicely with you, and if it'll be helpful, I'm very happy to be a sounding board.
The "good, occasionally poor" is just so... yes, it carries a special je ne sais quoi. I know saying things like this can be either a motivator or add pressure, so I hope it's the former: I can just see you entwining that like magic into your fic!
Also, I wasn't thinking of it before, but as soon as I saw your comment, I was suddenly reminded of your artwork showing the cliffs and the female figure in a strong wind!
Oh! You know, I've always wondered what it is that she's holding in her hands, and now I believe it's an elvish anemometer. (I mean, it's so obvious now: how else would they get the forecasts!?)
Y'know, there is something almost magical about this! The slight mundanity of the reporting but it just... you can feel the wind and smell the brine and see the waves crashing over the rocky shores...
It's like Shipping Forecasts: Osse's In A Mood
Are you familiar with the podcast 99% Invisible? He did an episode on this and I was honestly reading this in his voice! (which is very soothing if you are not familiar) Now I'm imagining Roman Mars as the voice of Cirdan and I doubt I can be convinced otherwise!
This is is a bit of a disaster zone (or feels like it, at the moment), as my brain refused to address the prompt fill straightforwardly and started haring off in different directions, including this prologue! If you want to get an idea where this is meant to go, there are some bits of WIP on my Dreamwidth journal under f-lock that might give you an idea... I'm sure it will come together eventually!
Comments on White Horn Tower
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.