The Fall of Arnor; Book One "Out of the Bree-land" by Diane Finnis-Robb
Fanwork Notes
This story was intended to deal with the major events of the fall of the kingdom of Arnor with the same level of detail and adventure as found in The Lord of the Rings. It introduces new characters and histories to the conflict without deviating from the Tolkien canon as we know it through academic study.
- Fanwork Information
-
Summary:
The first of six books covering the fall of the kingdom of Arnor
Major Characters: Gandalf, Pallando, Alatar, Glorfindel, Eärendur, Witch-king of Angmar
Major Relationships:
Genre: Adventure
Challenges:
Rating: General
Warnings: Character Death
Chapters: 1 Word Count: 584 Posted on Updated on This fanwork is a work in progress.
Introduction and Table of Contents
Read Introduction and Table of Contents
Introduction
The opportunity to create and play in the lush world of J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings has captivated artists for generations. I am no different in my love for that world and its stories than millions of other creators all over the world.
The story that you will find here began as a choose-your-own-adventure role-playing game for a select group of friends who seldom get the time for that kind of interaction any longer; it was meant simply a chance for us to gather, create, interact and discuss in this exciting universe with full fan freedom and none of the restrictions of editors, arguers and copyright attorneys. Most of the plans for that adventure were made in 2019, well before the Covid pandemic came along and upset plans for all our shared universes; cultural, political, social, physical and fictional.
In the year 2020, as the pandemic was at its worst, I found myself escaping to Middle-earth every day, building the small story that I had in mind for my friends and players into a novel. There were originally no plans in my mind for opening it to the public as I’m doing here; I simply wanted to share it with a handful of friends who had seen me develop the idea. But writing in such a rich and full world, my own or anyone else’s, has a way of taking an author into unexpected territories. There is so much more material here than I ever imagined creating and by the end of 2020 I began to revise much of the early story into a series of two or three novels. The plan was to mimick The Lord of the Rings in scope; to have six "books" of adventure story followed by an appedices of world-building material.
Set in the year 1975 of the Third Age of Middle-earth, some thousand years before the events of the War of the Ring, this story concerns the fall of the last remnants of the North Kingdom and the war with the Witch-king of Angmar. It is written entirely within the context of Tolkien’s work and not as an “alternative history.” I have tried at every step of the writing to stay true to the original source material and welcome any feedback on any of my mistakes. As a writer and artist I am painfully aware of how poor my skills are as a researcher; for artists collect information only to support their own purposes and too readily lose information which does not.
During the writing of this book I have made contact with many Tolkien fans who have contributed to its growth. Our conversations have played an enormous part in my work, my understanding of the material and my own mental and creative health over the past few years. I can’t thank you all enough for that. If, as I hope, this book brings you a small opportunity to delight in an extended world of Tolkien’s design as the writing of it has done for me, then you should know that it grew out of those very important conversations.
-D. F. R.
Contents
Book I
1) “A Meeting at the Four Greenfields”
2) “Fear, Fire, Foes”
3) “Questions Amid the Ashes”
4) “The Ways into the West”
5) “Gathering Concerns”
6) “Flight to the Foundations”
7) “The Bard’s Tale”
8) “As They Waited”
9) “The Worry of Rats, a Counsel of Stones and the Better Part of Our Nature”
10)“Two Ways Forward”
