The Fourth Age

[Maestro Ugo]

First, if the mods feel this should be moved/merged please do so. I tried to use the search function but for some reason it doesn’t work, so if a thread like this exist, please feel free to do away with this one.

I would like for people who are familiar and knowledgeable of J.R.R.’s wonderful world (and those that are not) to post here their visions of how the fourth age looked like. Write your ideas based on what little knowledge we have about the fourth age and extrapolate to your heart’s content. Speculate and imagine or use more empirical approach based on your knowledge of the Middle Eart lore.

Did the evil rise once more? Who took the place of Sauron as the dark lord? Did the United Kingdom thrive under Eldarion and his descendants? Was the bloodline of Isildur broken and the Kingdom turned to chaos? What happened with Mordor? Was it civilized and ruled by human kings or destroyed by the volcanoes and earthquakes? Did the easterlings turn after the defeat of Sauron or do they still plague the Northmen and Dunedain kingdoms with raids? What of Harad? Was it pacified by Gondor or is it still a threat? How about the elves that remained after most of them left for the undaying lands? Do they live in harmony with their dwarven and human neighbours? What of the Dwarves? Did they restore their ancient kingdoms, or are they still a collection of scattered clans?

[Lemoniser]

Most of this is stated somewhere or other so taking a creative route really isnt a good idea imo. Aragorn ruled over the reunited kingdom and eventually claimed most of the land which the old kingdom had held at its height otehr than the mark which remained with the rohirrim. It says in the annals of rotk that Eomer and Aragorn went to war many times together still, mostly in Harad I believe. Mordor was given to the Nurnians i believe they were called, these were slaves of Mordor who were forced to grow food for the orcs and soldiers who had to spend time in the barren plain of Gorgoroth. Under the Nurnians care the land become quite fertile due to the large inland sea where they got their name (sea of nurn (i think)) as well as the nutrients which the volcano left behind and which was in the ash and everything.

AFAIK the elves left middle Earth with no real fuss, living here and there for a while until they sailed away. The Dwarves partially prospered but they remained scattered (as they had been since their beginning I believe) and the broadbeams (?) or Durin's folk eventually failed under Durin the 7th, or that is all that is known of them.

[P|A|ntZ]

There is a full Fourth Age mod (in progress) for RTW over here, if you want to see their vision for the Fourth Age and how it plays out in a Total War setting : http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=89

[Mikail Mengsk]

Also, Dwarves (led by Gimli) colonized the Glittering Halls near Helm's Deep.

Anyway it would be a pretty boring age if it starts with a Reunited Kingdom ruling from Rhùn to Eriador and from Rohan to Harad. Maybe it would be better to add some civil war inside to crush the RK's blob.

[Lemoniser]

Also, Dwarves (led by Gimli) colonized the Glittering Halls near Helm's Deep.

Damn I remember thinking to write this last night too. Damn homework and minecraft pushing it out

[Hermes Trismegistos]

First, if the mods feel this should be moved/merged please do so. I tried to use the search function but for some reason it doesn’t work, so if a thread like this exist, please feel free to do away with this one.

I would like for people who are familiar and knowledgeable of J.R.R.’s wonderful world (and those that are not) to post here their visions of how the fourth age looked like. Write your ideas based on what little knowledge we have about the fourth age and extrapolate to your heart’s content. Speculate and imagine or use more empirical approach based on your knowledge of the Middle Eart lore.

Did the evil rise once more? Who took the place of Sauron as the dark lord?

Evil did not vanish from the world. Tolkien alludes to darc cults in the Fourth Age. But the conflicts in the Fourth Age would be conflicts among men.

Did the United Kingdom thrive under Eldarion and his descendants? Was the bloodline of Isildur broken and the Kingdom turned to chaos?

At the beginning id surely did thrive and bring some order into the beginning of the age of men and preserve some of the old knowledge and wisdom. About the far future Tolkien says nothing as far as I know.

What happened with Mordor? Was it civilized and ruled by human kings or destroyed by the volcanoes and earthquakes?

The northern regions were destroyed and nobody wanted to live there any more. Nurn was given to the freed slaves of Sauron.

Did the easterlings turn after the defeat of Sauron or do they still plague the Northmen and Dunedain kingdoms with raids? What of Harad? Was it pacified by Gondor or is it still a threat?

Aragorn and Eomer conquered and subdued most of these lands in later wars. However somewhere must have been a final frontier...

How about the elves that remained after most of them left for the undaying lands? Do they live in harmony with their dwarven and human neighbours?

Their situation became better after Sauron's fall and for a while the sailing away slowed down. On the long run however most of them went away and the ones who decided to remain (mostly the wood elves I guess) diminished and became more and more secretive and were hardly seen by men any more.

What of the Dwarves? Did they restore their ancient kingdoms, or are they still a collection of scattered clans?

Much later Moria was also restored and flourished for some time. However in the end the dwarves were dwindling, too, and their time ended, how and why exactly is not explained.

These infos are from the appendixes and the originally planned epilogue from History of Middle Earth that Tolkien in the end decided to leave out.

[Agamaran]

Evil did not vanish from the world. Tolkien alludes to darc cults in the Fourth Age. But the conflicts in the Fourth Age would be conflicts among men.

He didn't allude to this; he was actually considering writing a sequel to Lord of the Rings based around this plot. Specifically the idea that two-hundred or three-hundred years into the Fourth Age the "youth" of Gondor fell into Orc cults--what, beyond that idea, was never fully specified. It was an idea he abandoned because he felt he would have trouble writing it in his previous style and thought it would end up like a typical fiction novel.

Generally, however, a lot of Tolkien fans consider the Fourth Age not having much definite history written into it as some obvious signs and allusions to the illusion Tolkien was trying to illustrate. That is to say that some event happened two-hundred years into the Fourth Age that left the Red Book of Westmarch the last known surviving piece of records of Gondor and other kingdoms of Middle-earth. What that event exactly was is anyone's guess, but it's not going to be anything magical or mystical. Tolkien was definitely alluding to the end of the Third Age being the end of all things superficial and unknown--the Fourth Age is dominated by man and one can assume it was man's doing that brought down the kingdom of Gondor.

As far as influences or ideas, I'd suggest to look at 32nd Century BCE, or what is guessed to be the hypothetical starting timeline of the Fourth Age in Middle-earth mythos. This is generally around the time some very ancient civilizations started to sprout up. Perhaps Tolkien was alluding that the remnants of Gondor (and perhaps Rohan) split off into warring factions of sorts. Namely, around this time in history, is also when Egypt started to become a large kingdom as well (perhaps an allusion to the Haradrim/Southrons finally winning out). I imagine the theater of war would be much larger as well (Middle-earth and beyond, or Western Europe and beyond).

EDIT: Oh, and probably the most important thing: creative freedom. Anything that drives people wild and stupid about Lord of the Rings probably wouldn't even be a mention in the Fourth Age (unless you had some crumbling cities of some sort).

[Darner]

Did the evil rise once more?

Yes and no. The evil can learn, like everybody, and see why he failed. He will not act in the same way. He will not try to conquer the world with troops and cruel servants. Elves will be no more, and Dwarves will avoid humans, because there's no need for them to live with humans. The undying lands will become legends too. Non human people will become fairy tales, and so does the "good old" evil.

Humans will enter in religions and cult, some of them led be old evil masters. Because of different views inside a kingdom, it will divide. Edarion, Faramir, Eomer and their heirs will become lesser kings, like the governors of the roman empire, or the celtic chiefs that ruled before and were vainquished by this roman empire. Like them, they will loose their battle against invaders from east and south. The invaders will create new kingdoms, with new names. Acording to me, at the end of the lord of the rings, it's the beginning of the history we know.

[Erunion Telcontar]

Really, it depends how deep into the Fourth Age you go. Dwarves thrived for a bit (Moria, Erebor, Glittering Caves) but eventually faded (how and when is unknown). Over several hundred years the last of the Noldor and Sindar left Middle-Earth, leaving only the Avari among elves, who eventually faded out. Again, how, when and why are unspecified. Aragorn, Eomer and crew hunted down orcs for as long as they lived. Without a Dark Lord, the Orcs/Trolls started to fade, and eventually died out (unspecified how and when). Hobbits lived happily for a time in the Shire, but eventually faded. No one knows how or when.
If you started the campaign at F.A. 200, you would probably have the Silvan/Sindarin elves ruling all of Mirkwood, but with Lothlorien essentially abandoned. The Noldarin/Sindarin of the West (the High Elves) would likely still have a small presence in Mithlond/Imladris. The Shire would be decently built up and peopled with Hobbits, who would be a vassal of the Reunited Kingdom. The RK would still be huge and powerful, this being less than a century since Aragorn's death. Rohan would be a considerable power, as would Dale and the Beornings. For a fun campaign, you could heavily expand the map to the East and South, with several Harad factions, several Rhunic factions (Variags, Wainriders, Men of Rhun) you could also expand on the roles of the two Blue Wizards. Tolkien originally had them fall like Saruman, but in a later note he said that they could have started rebellions in the far East against Sauron. Either way, you could have a faction led by them (they were very close friends, so they'd likely still be allied) that was either an Evil faction capable of facing down the RK, or a small Good Faction surrounded by hordes of Corrupted Men. The East would also have several clans of dwarves in the hills, plus possible groups of the Avari who never went West with the Eldar.

If a Fourth Age campaign were done, it should focus on the East and South, with a "zoomed out" version of the west.

[Agamaran]

Really, it depends how deep into the Fourth Age you go. Dwarves thrived for a bit (Moria, Erebor, Glittering Caves) but eventually faded (how and when is unknown). Over several hundred years the last of the Noldor and Sindar left Middle-Earth, leaving only the Avari among elves, who eventually faded out. Again, how, when and why are unspecified. Aragorn, Eomer and crew hunted down orcs for as long as they lived. Without a Dark Lord, the Orcs/Trolls started to fade, and eventually died out (unspecified how and when). Hobbits lived happily for a time in the Shire, but eventually faded. No one knows how or when.

This is all guess work. Nothing (other than the Elves) are specifically stated to actually "fade out."

If you started the campaign at F.A. 200, you would probably have the Silvan/Sindarin elves ruling all of Mirkwood, but with Lothlorien essentially abandoned. The Noldarin/Sindarin of the West (the High Elves) would likely still have a small presence in Mithlond/Imladris.

Incorrect. People need to stop looking at TA:TW as fact in lore. The Elven factions only exist because they needed to for the sake of "gameplay." In reality, during the time of the War of the Ring, there are more people in Gondor that speak Sindarin and Quenya than Elves in Middle-earth. That should tell you how many are left. Couple this with how the Elves expeditiously leave after the end of the Third Age and maybe, just maybe, a handful of Elves are left behind in Mithlond. Or maybe the odd Elf or two still wandering around abroad. There definitely wouldn't be any "Elven factions" by then.

The Shire would be decently built up and peopled with Hobbits, who would be a vassal of the Reunited Kingdom.

The Shire remains as the Shire always has--quiet and simple and without incident. Aragorn saw to it when he reunited the kingdoms.

you could also expand on the roles of the two Blue Wizards. Tolkien originally had them fall like Saruman, but in a later note he said that they could have started rebellions in the far East against Sauron.

This is ridiculous. Tolkien never states what the fates of the Blue Wizards are exactly--only that he hints that they suffered the same fate as Saruman, i.e. they might have gotten greedy and tried their hand at their own power, creating secret cults. Given that it's been ages since anyone has heard a whisper of them and you can either pretty much figure out they went the way of Radagast (they forsook their duty and turned to hermitage) or they perished in their duty (although I would vote for the former).

...plus possible groups of the Avari who never went West with the Eldar.

Just no, ugh. What is it about people believing a handful of Elves that never went West would turn themselves into a giant faction? The Elves have faded. They do not exist in numbers to fight. That is the very definition of the Fourth Age. No Elves whatsoever.

[Muffer Nl]

This is all guess work. Nothing (other than the Elves) are specifically stated to actually "fade out."


Incorrect. People need to stop looking at TA:TW as fact in lore. The Elven factions only exist because they needed to for the sake of "gameplay." In reality, during the time of the War of the Ring, there are more people in Gondor that speak Sindarin and Quenya than Elves in Middle-earth. That should tell you how many are left. Couple this with how the Elves expeditiously leave after the end of the Third Age and maybe, just maybe, a handful of Elves are left behind in Mithlond. Or maybe the odd Elf or two still wandering around abroad. There definitely wouldn't be any "Elven factions" by then.


The Shire remains as the Shire always has--quiet and simple and without incident. Aragorn saw to it when he reunited the kingdoms.


This is ridiculous. Tolkien never states what the fates of the Blue Wizards are exactly--only that he hints that they suffered the same fate as Saruman, i.e. they might have gotten greedy and tried their hand at their own power, creating secret cults. Given that it's been ages since anyone has heard a whisper of them and you can either pretty much figure out they went the way of Radagast (they forsook their duty and turned to hermitage) or they perished in their duty (although I would vote for the former).


Just no, ugh. What is it about people believing a handful of Elves that never went West would turn themselves into a giant faction? The Elves have faded. They do not exist in numbers to fight. That is the very definition of the Fourth Age. No Elves whatsoever.

There are several problems with your reasoning.

1. At the end of the third age the Shire was pretty much in ruins do to Sharkey. It was rebuilt and by order of the king left alone.

2. Tolkien at first states that the Blue wizards may have gone the way of Saruman but later he says that they were a key factor for the victory of good. They apparantly had influence in the west and reduced the influence of Sauron in that region thus making the forces of evil men less during battles.

3. It is never said how many elves did not go west and it is my belief that there was a decent amount of them that stayed behind and as we do not know hat happened to them they may have built themselves a hidden realm or a strong kingdom. They may even be working together with Dwarves and Men as the events that drove these people appart all happened in the west. Very little is known about the east of ME and your guess is a good as mine.

I do agree on other parts of your post.

[Maestro Ugo]

While we are on the subject of transition from third age to modern times, look at this map:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I had no idea I was living in ancient Mordor. I should start digging for Minas Ithil in my back yard...

[Dutch-Balrog]

Hmmm all i know about the fourth age is that morgoth finally returns at the end of that age and called back all evil creatures that ever existed (balrogs sauron and all orcs and evil men and dragons). Or was that in the fifth age?

[KnightsTemplar]

Hmmm all i know about the fourth age is that morgoth finally returns at the end of that age and called back all evil creatures that ever existed (balrogs sauron and all orcs and evil men and dragons). Or was that in the fifth age?

The Dagor Dagorath is never known when and where.
But one day Morgoth returns, all elves, men, dwarves shall unite and fight against all the evil creatures.
Even the Numenoreans long lost trapped under the mountains of Aman.

[Hermes Trismegistos]

As far as I understand that's a kind of apocalyptic vision, so if it happens at all, it happens at the end of the last age whatever it may be.

[sapped]

Fourth Age?
u mean a roman legion will be trapped in middle earth? and dwarves will start using blunderbuss?

[Ajidica]

On the Elves, you are sort of right. Based on the Fourth Age mod (which has been extensively reasearched) the Elves are still present as a major faction. Given that the FATW did not have to include the Elves at all, the fact they did include them as a major faction leads me to believe that the Elves still possesed enough of a presence in Mirkwood to justify their existance as a faction.

[Erunion Telcontar]

@Agamaran - Wow. You really, really misread my post + missed a few points of lore.
Firstly, Tolkien clearly stated that Middle-Earth was supposed to be a mythical pre-history of our Earth. That means, that, eventually, Dwarves, Elves, Hobbits, Orcs, Trolls and what not all have to fade out. It may have taken until the early Fifth Age, but it did eventually happen.
No, I am not taking TA:TW's Elves as Lore. What I am taking as Lore is Tolkien's elves, and what he said of them, and described them as. The 'High Elf' faction is a mixture of Noldor and Sindar (and very few of either!), with a very small population at the end of the Third Age. As the Fourth Age went on, the High Elves slowly left Middle-Earth. Slowly, because they no longer had Sauron and his darkness to worry about, so the acceleration of the exodus slowed down slightly. I would estimate that their were likely 3-400 High Elves left in middle-earth by FA 200, possibly less, but there were likely still some (by small presence in Mithlond and Imladris, I meant small, pop: 1-200 each). The Silvan elves, however, were different. They were of the Avari, the unwilling who refused to follow Orome. They still had a strong presence on Middle-Earth, and they did not join the mass exodus of the Eldar (those who went on the Great Journey). I'll have to double check, but I'm not actually sure whether or not any of the Avari could go to Valinor, but even if they were granted that grace at the end of the First Age when the Ban of the Valar was lifted, many of them were still unwilling to leave. The Sindar (Eldar, but at the last decided to remain in Middle-Earth) ruled the Silvan (Avari) Elves, but as they were of the Eldarin people, they were allowed to leave middle-earth (and many of them wanted to complete the journey they or their forefathers abandoned thousands of years before). The Sindar did not leave Middle-Earth as quickly as the Noldor did, and many of them remained on Middle-Earth. Legolas, for example, settled with a colony of Sindar/Silvan elves in Ithilian, before he left in FA 120 when Aragorn died. Celeborn and Thranduil together built an empire in their new, renamed forest (used to be Mirkwood, forgot what they called it). Celeborn left Middle-Earth shortly after Galadriel did (did he leave with her, or a few years later? Can't remember), but Thranduil's fate is never specified. Thranduil's kingdom of Sindarin and Silvan elves would have remained still relatively powerful by FA 200.

On the Blue Wizards: (Note, quoting Tolkien Wiki as I didn't have time to look in my own books for the references, so here it is)
"In a letter, Tolkien says that the two wizards went into the East, and likely failed their mission, perhaps having started magical cults. However, all of this changes in a text written in the last year or two of Tolkien's life (published in HoME 12). An alternate set of names are given - Morinehtar and Rómestámo (or Rome(n)star), Darkness-slayer and East-helper. It is not clear whether these names were intended to be replacements for Alatar and Pallando or whether they were a second set of names (for instance, their names used in Middle-Earth). They are said to have arrived not in the Third Age, but in the Second, around the year 1600, the time of the Forging of the One Ring. Their mission though is still to the east, to weaken the forces of Sauron. And it is here said that theWizards far from failed; rather, they had a pivotal role in the victories of the West at the end of both the Second and the Third Ages. At the same time, Tolkien considered the possibility that Glorfindel may in fact have been one of them."

Second Note: The letter actually says not that Tolkien meant for Glorfindel to be a Blue Wizard, rather that Glorfindel arrived at the same time as the Blue Wizards. Simply a grammatical error by whoever did the Wiki write-up.

It is true, very, very little is known about the east save that it was massive, that both the Elves and Men had awakened far to the east, and that some remained there. It is also known that Sauron spent most of the Second Age deep in the eastern territories where he built for himself a mighty empire, of which Mordor was his response to the threat of Numenorean aggression. What happened in the east? I don't know. It is impossible for us to know anything about the Elves and Dwarves of the East, or the men of the Far East as they are never mentioned in the text save in that they still existed. There were Avari who never left the east, so it is not unreasonable to guess that some may have survived or even built some semblance of civilization in the Far East, however, any such civilization would never have achieved the might or splendour that any of the Elves of the Great Journey had, plus any such nation would have been under constant assault from Sauron, if he knew it existed.


To summarize: I never stated that any Elves whatsoever would be able to forge a "Giant Faction". What I said was that, at the end of the Third Age, all of Mirkwood was ruled by Elves, and that they had some numbers. I also stated that during the course of the Fourth Age those Elves faded into obscurity as their Sindarin lords left. What I went on to state was that any Fourth Age Campaign should have an expanded map in the East and South, where there would still be wars to be fought. I also stated that there may still have been some Elves, Dwarves and possibly two Istari still alive in the East.

[Barsoom]

That map oversimplifies quite a bit. The shape of the earth was changed at least once, possibly more often, between the beginning of the Fourth Age and ours. This map assumes that mountain ranges and large bodies of water would remain more or less recognizable. I don't think there is a source for that. Tolkien only said that the northwest of the world was more or less in the location of Europe (but he changed his mind sometimes, originally planning to make Numenor and England the same island).

On the elves, the aspect of their fading could be emphasized a bit more. Tolkien writes that those elves that remained became more like fairies (as they were imagined in England in the early 20th century). This means some elves clearly remained in Middle Earth. Tolkien indeed writes that those who had been to Valinor before went overseas at the end of the Third Age but he also writes that elves in some numbers settled in Ithilien and that Mirkwood became an extended elven realm for some time. Nowhere is it said that those elves were to weak to fight. In fact, maintaining Mirkwood against enemies implies pretty strongly that they could. The point about fading is that it takes time. Overstating the changes at the turn of the ages, Agamaran IMO makes it look more like switching off instantly. Compare the way a candle goes out if you leave it alone with turning the switch on a lightbulb.

[Maestro Ugo]

That map oversimplifies quite a bit. The shape of the earth was changed at least once, possibly more often, between the beginning of the Fourth Age and ours. This map assumes that mountain ranges and large bodies of water would remain more or less recognizable. I don't think there is a source for that. Tolkien only said that the northwest of the world was more or less in the location of Europe (but he changed his mind sometimes, originally planning to make Numenor and England the same island).

Naturally, it's just one vision I found interesting.