New Challenge: Tengwar

Silmarillion Writers' Guild Challenge, Tengwar, 15 April - 15 June 2024

The Tengwar are one of the delights of visiting Middle-earth as a fan of Tolkien's work. Whether a serious student of the letters; dabbling with them, Appendix open, on a lazy afternoon; or simply admiring the way they flow across a title page (or the One Ring …), most Tolkien fans find them beautiful and packed with meaning beyond what it seems should be contained within a single letter.

This month (and a bit beyond!), we will feature a prompt per day taken from the Tengwar chart. The prompt will include a graphic of the tengwa and its name in Quenya and English. You can use any part of the prompt: the tengwa itself, the name, the English translation, the graphic, or some other creative interpretation we haven't even dreamed up yet! You may do as many or as few of the daily prompts as you would like. One prompt is worth as much as challenging yourself to do them all, so work at the level and pace that is comfortable for you. (However, there may be a special reward for anyone ambitious enough to try them all!) Tengwar prompts can be found here.

Prompts will be posted daily at midnight UTC on our website, Tumblr, Dreamwidth, and the #monthly-challenges channel on our Discord. You do not need to do the prompt on the day it was posted; you can go back and do prompts you missed or do them out of order.

In honor of Poetry Month, we will have a special stamp for fanworks that are or include poetry. In order to receive a stamp for your fanwork, your response must be posted to the archive on or before 15 June 2024. Note that the deadline is a month later than usual since the challenge runs longer than usual. For complete challenge guidelines, see the Challenges page on our website.

Thank you to Cuarthol and Anérea for the gorgeous banners and stamps this month!


Posted on 14 April 2024 (updated 14 April 2024) by SWG Moderators