A couple weeks ago, we announced that we were looking for bingo cards of prompts for our upcoming Potluck Bingo challenge. That challenge is now live, and you can sample the five-star offerings of prompts, beautifully crafted and served on an array of bingo cards!

We generally run one bingo card challenge each year (after the uproarious success of Back to Middle-earth Month 2012, which the SWG mods who lived through it still regard with a mixture of awe and trauma—trawema, if you will), so if you want to create a fanwork or write a comment for this challenge (and we hope you do), then a quick rundown of how bingo card challenges work is in order. We are not calling numbers for this challenge; you can create for any prompt you want on any card you want. If you made a card, you are under no obligation to play it, or you can go wild on your own prompts. You can combine multiple prompts into a single fanwork (from the same card or different cards). The various ways that prompts combine is part of the fun of bingo challenges!

Of course, if you've played actual bingo in a drafty church hall with blue-haired old ladies and their array of lucky charms and fierce combativeness, you know how rabid bingo aficionados can be about winning bingo. Our challenges don't expect you to fill lines, but we of course welcome you to try! There are special stamps available for participants who do. Let a mod know if you've achieved bingo, which we define as filling prompts in horizontal, vertical, or diagonal lines or (for the truly ambitious!) all prompts on a card. There is also a special stamp for players who play multiple boards.

As always, all types of fanwork are welcome on our archive. (If you're new to our challenges, find our challenge guidelines here.) We also have bingo boards for leaving comments, and we are accepting new cards for the duration of the challenge. The Potluck Bingo page has guidelines and templates for making cards.

This challenge runs through January 15, 2025, but because the first challenge of the new year is always an amnesty challenge where you can create for any of our 2024 challenges you missed and receive the stamps, you will have until February 15, 2025, to post responses to this challenge and receive stamps.

In other challenge-related news, we had several members collaborate to solve the Orctober riddle for last month's challenge. I've set up the form for requesting riddle clues to email me when there are new requests, so if you haven't solved it yet (or even started!) but want to try, feel free to keep sending clue requests.

And a few other reminders: Tolkien Meta Week begins December 8, and we are still accepting proposals for presentations at our July 19 Mereth Aderthad hybrid event!

SWG News

New Challenge: Title Track
Tolkien's titles range from epic to lyrical to metaphorical. This month's challenge selected 125 of them as prompts for fanworks.

Instadrabbling Sessions for January, February, and March
Instadrabbling continues on the first Saturday of each month on our Discord server.

Character of the Month: Marhwini
A minor character who doesn't appear in any of Tolkien's major works, Marhwini nonetheless plays a key role in the histories of Rohan and Gondor, and his character exemplifies the essential theme of the importance of acting in service of an alliance.

New Fanworks

Umnenyalië by by Serinquanion [Writing]

He was going to die. The molten rocks would burn him just like the cursed gem in his palm did. Maybe less painfully but still being burnt hurt and Maedhros knew it. He intimately knew it from his time in Angband where Þauron burnt him often in frustration and to toy with him and his master burnt his skin even more often just to mock his ancestry. At least here he would pass on to Mandos and not linger in pain only to be sewed back together to be tortured again and again.

But it wasn't true for his next clear memory was of the same pain from which he escaped soon and half-mad entered the Girdle to never never leave till now.

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Winter Warmth by by Serinquanion [Writing]

A winter night in Himring. But inside the quarters where fire blazed in hearth was warmer, and not only from the fire or quilt.

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In Early Spring by by Serinquanion [Writing]

In what Maedhros was re-embodied early and was sent back to Middle Earth on his volition with Glorfindel.

This isn't about what happened right then but years after Fall of Sauron when he still refused to return to Valinor.

He found a strange sapling at the shore of what remains of Cuiviénen.

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Who Will Hear Me? by by XirinOfArvada [Writing]

A lonely elf finds a flute half buried beneath the sand and wonders if its owner will hear him when he calls.

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Loyal, Faithful by by Himring [Writing]

Late in the Second Age, one of the Faithful reflects critically on past developments. (Free verse.)

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East Away! by by Flora-lass [Writing]

Aldarion storms off towards Middle-earth. For the Title Track challenge.

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Don't You Ever Look Away by by Elrond's Library [Writing]

“They can’t just assume we’ll let them leave us behind.”
“But they are, and they will. Our fathers are the Heads of their Houses. Fëanáro is king. Defiance would be treason, beloved.”
“I am his firstborn.”
“You are his only daughter.”
“I have done everything to be the son he wished me to be.”
“And yet, you are not.”

Findekánë and Maitindë do not go to Beleriand with their fathers. This changes very little, and yet so much.
For Scribbles and Drabbles 2025 SFW Slide 213 Two Queens

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Break Me by by Elrond's Library [Writing]

“You’re not going to break me,” Russo huffed, finally cracking open his eyes, which were bright with amusement. “They could not, what makes you think you could?”

For Scribbles and Drabbles 2025 SFW Slide 33
 

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Three Black Islands by by Idrils Scribe [Writing]

When Celebrimbor's attempts at forging the Rings of Power fail yet again, Annatar knows where to find the missing know-how.
For all the wrong reasons, Celebrimbor agrees to an expedition to the ruins of Angband to search Morgoth's own laboratory, deep in the icy Northern Wastes.
What awaits those two in the Hells of Iron?
A spooky season special, inspired by H.P. Lovecraft's 'At the Mountains of Madness'.

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The Fall by by Elrond's Library [Writing]

Ossë raged.

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The Mirror Crack'd by by AdmirableMonster [Writing]

Rescued from a brutal Angband hunt, an ex-thrall with a strange and powerful artifact embedded in his spine is brought to Himring, for it is one of the only places in Beleriand which welcomes such folk. Though he has no memories of his life before, Anniavas slowly becomes accustomed to his new life and finds he has a queer connection with Maedhros, Himring's lord. As their intimacy grows, however, so do the dangers surrounding them, both without and within. What secrets are hidden inside the depths of Anniavas's lost memories--and how will those with whom he is forging and deepening bonds react, when those secrets are at last revealed?

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Beating Fate by by Paul Williams [Writing]

Lúthien, a woman who has spent her entire existence being acted upon — desired, directed, possessed, mourned, celebrated, but never truly seen — reaches the end of her borrowed life and discovers that death is not an ending but the first free choice she has ever been permitted to make.
 

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Updated Fanworks

One Flesh, One Soul. Part I by by FellFireFan [Writing]

As beautiful as he is dangerous, Aegnor, an elven prince, stands against the looming shadows of Angband. Brother to Galadriel, he commands the siege with a fierce intensity, a duty that exacts a heavy toll on him. Beneath the iron walls he has built lies a broken soul, haunted by a devastating trauma and a well of deeply guarded secrets. His demons, kept at bay by his unyielding intensity that is both his greatest gift and his biggest curse. 

Little does our Noldorin prince know that a chance encounter with a terrified young girl of men will set him on a collision course, igniting an extraordinary bond wrought with challenges, sacrifices, and intense love that threatens to unravel his guarded heart, and all he keeps within it.

Brace yourself for Part I of this captivating tale, where the primal power of love and devestating loss will tear lives apart forever.

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A Hundred Miles Through the Desert by by StarSpray [Writing]

“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 the other side of it was a larger party than Maglor had ever seen in Lórien—five figures sitting in the grass. Huan barked again, and they all looked up. “It seems everyone has come to fetch us home,” Maedhros said, laughing, as all their brothers scrambled to their feet.

After years in Lórien, Maglor and Maedhros are ready to return to their family and to make something new with their lives--but to move forward, all of Fëanor's sons must decide how, or if, they can ever reconcile with their father.

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Beyond the Silmarillion Fanworks

here you will dwell, bound to your grief by by Elrond's Library [Writing]

Arwen grieves, and loves.

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Around the World and Web

March Challenge - Tolkien Short Fanworks
Tolkien Short Fanworks is running a challenge for the month of March to create a Back to Middle-earth Month themed challenge.

Back to Middle-earth Month 2026
Back to Middle-earth Month is returning for it's 20th year with many prompts and archival efforts.

Tolkien Fashion Week 2026
This two-week-long Tumblr event is dedicated to honoring the world of fashion and textiles Tolkien wrote about in his books.

Celegorm and Curufin Week 2026
Celegorm and Curufin Week is a Tumblr week celebrating the relationship between Celegorm and Curufin Feanorion