Arthedain: First Amongst Equals
Breeze upon the green hills of Evendim and White Shore of Nenuiel
Arthedain lay primarily between the Lhûn and the Brandywine in northwestern Eriador. However, it also claimed the land north of the East Road from the Brandywine Bridge to the Weather Hills. Notable features within Arthedain were the Hills of Evendim, Lake Evendim, North Downs, Tower Hills, Far Downs, White Downs, the Shire, Annúminas, and Fornost Erain. The senior kingdom of the three formed after the
division of Arnor. Technically, since T.A. 1349, its Kings
have claimed to be the rulers of Arnor reunited. In T.A.
1643, the Cardolani principalities of Girithlin and Tyrn
Gorthad support that claim, but their administrations
remain separate from those of the Arthedain. Consequently,
the kingdom is bounded in this fashion: on the
east, the Weather Hills and the farthest line of the North
Downs; on the north, the Rammas Formen and the Talath
Muil; on the west, the middle stretch of the River Lhûn
and, south of that, the Tower Hills and the foothills of the
southern Blue Mountains; on the south, the Baranduin
from its last bend before the sea up to the Bridge of
Stonebows on the Great East Road, and thence following
roughly along the Road to the Base of Weathertop. The
Arthedain claim Numeriador, the rough land between
the Lhûn and the northern Blue Mountains, but they do
little to enforce it. An ancient protectorate over the
Northern Wastes as far as the Bay of
Forochel is also little-enforced.
The symbol of Arthedain is a circle of
seven stars, some variation of which is part
of the colors of virtually all the soldiers
serving in the kingdom. Royal troops wear
black armor with a black surcoat.
Built around the windswept, rugged heartland of old Arnor, the Kingdom of Arthedain alone seems to maintain the ascetic traditions of the Faithful along with some hope of bringing peace and the old dreams back to the north. In Arthedain, the adventurer will find streams and rivers to fish and travel, herds of big game to hunt, and a rocky, hilly land open to settlement or wandering. The more aesthetic or political-minded may journey to Fornost, where the Royal Court of the Dúnedain of the North meets in secret to discuss and debate matters of state. Also inside the high and well-guarded walls of the Arthadan capital, scholars continue their research into the sciences and record the history happening around them. Those looking to farm the rich soil of southern Arthedain must ask permission of the Hobbits, who now live in and rule that part of the kingdom under the protection of King Arveleg I. A kingdom of contrasts, a land dominated in spirit by the highest of Men yet home to the hearth-loving Hobbits and the reckless Rivermen of the Brandywine, a realm whose borders are crawling with spies and agents and with mysterious strangers visiting the inns of Bree—this is the land of Arthedain, the bewildering and embattled North Kingdom.
Structure
The Hîrath (S."Lords") or Hîredair (sgl. "Hiradar": S."Lord Father") were the heads of the noble families of Arnor (Nossëturi in traditional Arthedain). Especially in Cardolan, Hîr became the common title for the ruling lords of the land after the practical end of it’s royal line. The title was basically a loose translation of the ancient Númenórean title Bar or Barûn. Therefore Hîradar was also translated as "Lord" or "Baron". Originally the title Hîr, as a royal vassal, was opposite to that of the Ernil, a formally independent "Prince" (Ad."Er"). The Great Families were also known as the Belevair (S."Mighty Houses") or Nossër Melehtar (among the Quenya speakers). Among the Sindar, Hîr designated any greater leader or master of a craft, without referring to an explicit title of nobility or vassal-status. In Rhudaur the heads of the Great Families were known as the Airain or Tirath, and were more similar in status to petty kings. In Arnor, each Hîrath ruled their own piece of land or heirdom (S: "Hirdor").
Royal Court
The King's Council It is composed of the heads (pl. "Hirereter"; sing. "Hiraratar") of the seven principal families of the North Kingdom, the Great Houses, each of whom owns considerable property and maintains men-at-arms independent of royal forces. With the threat of invasion, the Great Houses traditionally put their forces at the disposal of the King, although squabbling over rank and strategy is common. The seven Great Houses are, in order of power: the Tarmas, Ekettas, Orros, Hyarrs, Emeries, Foros, and the Noirins. Each Great House sports its own two-colored banner and distinctive dress. Six of them draw their names from areas of Númenor, from whence they fled with Elendil before the Downfall, In contrast, the Eketta clan, the most militant and ambitious, takes their name from a Dúnadan weapon, the eket (a short stabbing sword). The other noble families—with the exception of the Tarma clan, who are also traditionally militaristic—view the Ekettas with alarm. The Tarmas, as ambitious as the Ekettas, have been intriguing for centuries to gain control of the northern part of Siragalë, land adjacent to the territories over which their fortress, Tarmabar, stands guard. They are losing that struggle, because the Halflings, settling the area the Tarmas' claim, prefer to look directly to the King for whatever leadership they want or need.
Arthedain is a land of two laws, one royal and the other noble. Lesser folk obey both; while an appeal to royal justice to overrule a lord's decision is possible, it is always difficult and seldom safe. Each of the seven Great Houses, whose leaders comprise the King's Council, controls a substantial portion of the North Kingdom's lands. Other than granting the King's messengers the right of way and heeding royal decrees that directly affect them, each Great House is like a small kingdom unto itself. Many of the smaller fiefs have similar privileges. Royal roads and the land beside them indisputably belong to the King, but much of the land rests in other hands. The green and rolling lands of northern Siragalë, for example, were, until Argeleb II's decree of 1601, claimed by House Tarma, under title of grants and privileges made by previous Kings and the Elves who actually had the legal rule of the country. The Tarmas had done little to farm the land, but did patrol it and granted great pieces of it to their Knights, who in effect were disenfranchised by the King and the Hobbits. Thus, the anger of the Tarmas is more easily understood; to them, law and custom, as well as their ambitions, had all been violated. Servants, farmers, tradesmen and craftsmen residing in a noble fiefdom will swear allegiance first to the King and then to the House which both protects and governs them. More so than in Fornost, the structure of government in many of the fiefs is an authoritarian one. Towns and villages are often free to choose their own local leaders, and they are usually at odds with local lords over the extent of each other's authority, balancing the noble's traditional rights against the townsmen's charters and privileges. The towns attract the more independent thinkers among the Commons for this reason. In the countryside, for deciding the simplest matters, such as when to harvest or who will pay to replace a damaged fence, the lord or his officers must be consulted.
Culture
Arthedain has, by tradition, sixty-four noble families. They include seven Great Houses, fifty-six Lesser Houses and, of course, the Royal House. The Ereter (S. "Nobles") are lords to a larger number of Requain Inor—landed knights or gentry. After the devastation of the Second Northern War, King Araphor was obliged to elevate some of the gentry to replenish the numbers of the Ereter, thus narrowing the gap between the two classes. While the King and the Ereter govern the realm as a whole and rule their own lands, the gentry provide local leadership in the countryside. Society in Arthedain is organized around the defense of the kingdom. Requain Heleth, knights who are either landless or in service to an Aratar, act as officers in the military. The Requain Inor and the nobility, with few exceptions, live in defensible castles of good stone and little decoration; from these strongholds, they command the local military effort and manage civil affairs as well. Gondorians, even those from the fortress city of Minas Anor, find Arthadan keeps gloomy and enclosed. The Arthedain maintain that the thick walls of their homes keep joy within as warmly as the cold stones keep the weather out, and, if they laughed more in public, the southerners might believe them. Regardless, duty and discipline are the first things every Arthadan child is taught by his parents and tutors. The northern Dúnedain are not an overtly romantic or passionate people; they marry late, typically choosing a spouse carefully, and treat each child as a rare gem, to be first protected and then sculpted into a worthy member of society, Majority for a Dúnadan occurs at 27 years of age and, if the wars don't take him, he may enjoy a lifetime measuring a century and a half. To make the most of this long lifespan, itself a gift of the Valar, every child is required to receive an education. Study and contemplation, the cornerstones of Dúnadan culture, begin early and are pursued with great intensity. A noble son or daughter is expected, upon majority, to speak three languages fluently, to be able to discourse in those languages onastronomy, history, and herblore, to be able to play a musical instrument, to sing, to handle a sword and bow, and to ride a horse like the Huntsman of the Valar. Male children are virtually guaranteed some military action in their lifetimes, but few are expected to make this their only business. Females of the nobility, who are not expected to go to war, yet do not spend their entire lives raising children as other women do, often make second careers as artists, seers, or healers. This ideal of accomplishment and duty, measured by the highest standards, is one of the sources of Arthedain's success and pride. The lesser Dúnedain of Arthedain also try to live up to these standards. While they begin formal apprenticeships and careers at a much younger age, they are required to study the Elvish classics and all the languages taught to the nobility, all while learning a complex trade. Joy, for the artisan classes, comes from family and work well done; they are freer to dance and laugh then the nobles. Visitors to Fornost who have seen only the grave, impeccable manners the Arthedain, particularly the soldiers, present to outsiders, are sometimes amazed at the Elvish-styled frolics that go on inside the stark stone walls of the city.
The ruling aristocracy of the kingdom of Arthedain is dominated by seven Great Houses, each of which owns considerable property and leads men-at-arms independent of royal forces. The seven Great Houses are, in order of power: Tarma, Eketta, Orro, Hyarr, Emerië, Foro, and Noirin. Each Great House sports its own two-colored banner and distinctive dress. The Lords (S. "Hirereter") of the Great Houses are permanent members of the Royal Council and use their influence with arrogance—a leading cause of the alienation of the nobles of Cardolan that led to the long-ago division of Arnor. Most of the nobles draw their family names from areas of Númenor, from whence they fled with Elendil before the Downfall. The Tarmas, strongest in wealth and influence, rank highly in both sheer numbers and talent, contributing many family members to both the military and civilian sectors of government and to the Council of Seers and the Guardians of the Palantíri. Their chief stronghold, Tarmabar, sprawls over a hilltop south of Lake Evendim instead of being confined within the walls of a keep. The Tarmas, occupying positions of power all across Arthedain, will say that they are its defense. The Eketta clan take their name from the short stabbing sword favored by the Dúnedain, the eket. The Ekettas came to Endor as soldiers during the Númenórean wars of conquest; one of their members traveled north to Nenuial after falling in love with a noblewoman exiled from Númenor's court for her sympathies with the Lords of Andúnië. The two lovers, and those few Ekettas who supported their wayward cousin, settled in the late Second Age on the rocky lands on the northeast shore of Lake Nenuial. Their stronghold, Bareketta, still stands a day's ride from the ruins of Annúminas. The Ekettas were not, strictly speaking, among the families of the Faithful, and this distinction has been a source of both pride and shame for them over the years. Many of Arthedain's military leaders are drawn from their family, hailed as the first into battle and the last to retreat. The five other Great Houses—with the exception of the Tarma clan, who are also traditionally militaristic— view the Ekettas with some alarm. The other families cannot match the influence of the Ekettas or the Tarmas. They can only attempt to shore up their fading powers, frustating the machinations of the two mightier houses by counter-conspiracy. The King, of course, takes advantage of this conflict; the political balance in Arthedain is set accordingly
History
Social Order
The Arthadan society is in no sense perfect: it is rigidly-classed and structured, with almost all daily physical labor confined to the lowest class. At the top stand the rulers and nobility, privileged and honored and muchindulged. Just beneath the nobility are the Seers of the Royal Court, especially the Guardians of the Palantíri. Ranking below the nobility of Arthedain are the the artists, artisans, and lesser officials of the realm, those men and women who tend to the mundane tasks of running a state. The duties of the officials include everything from minting coins of the realm at the Royal Mint in Fornost to making, mixing, and using paints made from powdered minerals obtained from the Dwarves of the Blue Mountains. They also duly note the taxes levied upon Arthedain's citizens, and polish the King's silver fillet. Artisans of this enlightened culture are are busy doing everything from embroidering a royal tapestry with gold thread to designing and making simple and elegant flagons and dishes, vases for flowers, and pots for cooking; even the aesthetic Arthedain must eat. At the base of Arthadan society stand the soldiers and the Commons, practical- skilled and unskilled folk, largely those who Dúnedain at court speak the Westron tongue basic to most Eriadorans.The farmers who grow and tend the wheat and corn and other food crops belong to this class, as do the laborers who perform routine non-military tasks like storekeeping and housekeeping. Although they are considered less sensitive and noble than their higher brothers, they carry no stigma and bear no fierce prejudice. They are essential to the realm, valued because they are understood to compose an absolutely necessary group. Arthedain keeps no slaves; every Man is free to come and go here, and even to speak his mind if he is civil about it. The worker gives good labor, and the noble gives good leadership; both are due fair speech and respect, if they hold to their duties.
Territories
THE LANDS AND BORDERS
Arthedain, the northern realm of the exiled Dúnedain, is bordered by the River Lhûn to the west and extends north to the icy plains of the Northern Waste (also called Forochel or the Forodwaith) and east to the Weather Hills (S. "Emyn Sûl"). It includes within its territory all the land north of the Great East Road between the Lhûn and the Hills, with a irregular border enclosing an area some four hundred miles across in any direction. Its heartland has always been the northern half of this territory, the Twilight Hills (S. "Emyn Uial), and the North Downs (S. "Tyrn Formen") to the east, where Fornost Erain, the capital of the realm and the seat of its King, .stands only a day's ride from the Oiolad, now a frontier with the hostile realm of Angmar. The Weather Hills, little inhabited, form the southeastern flank of these frontier defenses, while the Rammas Formen (S. "North Wall") composes the northern flank along the edge of the Forodwaith. Behind this shelter, the Midgewater Marshes and Bree-land rest at the junction of the Great East Road and the North Road which connects Fornost with distant Cardolan. The Baranduin River flows from the Twilight Hills southward across central Arthedain. The higher, rougher, eastern side of its valley is the Nan Turath,or "Kingsland." Although it isn't nearly as rugged as the hill and down country around at the headwaters of the river, it is rocky enough that only the narrow valleys of streams are arable. On the western side, in the old Arnorian province of Siragalë, the land is far better; the Hobbits have settled here in large numbers to create the new territory they call the Shire. Past Bree and the Great East Road on the lower Baranduin lies dying Cardolan; and west of the Shire and the Twilight Hills is the Elvish realm of Lindon. Neither is a great threat to Arthedain, and both are sad reminders of the slow decline of the Free Peoples in Eriador. The mix of semi-desolate landforms with fertile ones had a decided effect on the societies of the Eriadorans who first made their homes here in the early Second Age. The chalk prairies never received any substantial settlement of herdsmen or anyone else. However, the hill country possessed a pattern of vegetation called silvan woodland, named for the Elves who roamed it before human settlement. Hardwood forests flourished here, spreading out from the best water sources towards the hilltops; only a few rocky exposures and glades were bare, sporting grasses and ground cover. Eriadoran clan-holdings were usually located in the sheltered, woodland vales, although their herdsman wandered the exposed heights and the prairies. The downs, where drainage left less water, supported only tough grasses and heather; these open areas were called moorlands, or simply moors. Here bare rock showed often, and trees and brush were, often literally, hidden in pockets and ravines. Tree-clearing and heavy grazing turned the silvan country into moorland in the Second Age. Even the first Dúnedain to travel into Arthedain from the south never knew much of the silvan country when it was in full growth. Many of them thought that only the Elves, who preserved the tree cover of Siragalë by simply never farming it, could make forests grow. The Dúnedain first sought metals and minerals not already being mined by the Dwarves. This strategy succeeded, to some degree, because the available mineral wealth of Arthedain was in deposits too small to attract Dunn's Folk. Wealth there was, however, thanks mainly to the small igneous intrusions located here and there under the Arthadan hill country. Copper and cobalt were both found in the Pinnath Ceren, on the lower Baranduin in Cardolan. The tin to make bronze out of the copper came from deposits in the Hills of Scary, west of the Baranduin in Elvish country, and from the North Downs, near where Fornost was eventually built. Fornost also provided the Men of Eriador with enough silver to allow coins to be minted. Lead, in mineable quantities, salt, sulfur, and more obscure minerals were also found in the north country. The chalk itself yielded flint for fire-building and marble for stone working, with quality building granite also exposed around the steeper hill masses. The bogs provided "turf or "peat," compacted plant material that could be burned for fuel when the forests gave out or "baked" into a pure form of charcoal for use in making the famous Arnorian High Steel. The original Eriadorans lacked good steel for tools and also the social organization to make this decidedly varied land prosper. Their herdsmen roamed most of the country, but they tended to form petty tribal kingdoms around each individual small mine or fertile valley. When the Dúnedain began arriving in numbers they were often welcomed, as even the peaceful astronomers who wanted only empty hilltops and clean air for sky-watching could be a unifying and pacifying force. The Elendili, the refugee Faithful of the later Second Age, with their literacy, knowledge, and immensely long lifespan, finally provided the north country with the unity and skills it needed to flourish.
CLIMATE
Normally—but for the frigid tundra of Forochel, of course—Arthedain is a land blessed with a cool but pleasant climate. The moderating influence of sea winds and air currents brought from the Gulf of Lhûn and through the gap between the north and south ranges of the Blue Mountains has favored the realm with abundant rainfall and sunshine and comfortably cool summers. Since the rise of Angmar in the far northeast of Eriador, the climate of Arthedain has changed for the worse, especially in the northern hills. Winter hangs on, the spring thaw is delayed, and people begin to wonder if the snow will ever melt. When summer bursts upon the scene it comes violently, with ice and hail storms and fierce winds that flatten the crops as they ripen in the fields. The Arthedain have carried on as best they can. The Men of the hills and the Hobbits of the Shire shield their crops and animals from the brutal summer storms and the winter wind's frigid reach, and they burn turf and twisted grass to make their dwindling firewood supplies last the year through; but they ponder how long they themselves can persist in the face of such adversity. The High Folk huddled at Fornost wonder too, and offer prayers and incantations as the soldiers drill in the windswept courtyards below the King's Chambers. The Seers' warnings to the King are clear: the Witch-king's magic is as powerful as it is menacing, and the very wind may be at his command.
Military
Royal Host of Arthedain (Dagarim-en-Arthedain)
5,000 Royal Guard (Tirrim Aran)
3,000 Royal Rangers (Dagarim Feryth)
12,000 Rangers (Feryth)
75,000 Royal Army Infantry (Dagarim Aran Rhivtlyr)
20,000 Royal Navy Marines (Cair Aran Rhivtlyr)
50,000 Royal Militia Levies (Ethiron Aran Ohtari)
60,000 Noble Armies (Degerim Ereter)
6,000 Citadel Guard (Rembar Tirrim)
45,000 Noble Militia Levies (Ethiron Ereter Ohtari)
3,000 Royal Knights (Arequain)
17,000 Knights (Requain)
4,000 Siege Equipment (Ballista, Onager, Ram, Trebuchet)
300,000 Approximate Combined Host
"For the Seven Stars"
Maps
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Annúminas
Founding Date
S.A. 3320
Type
Geopolitical, Vicekingdom
Alternative Names
First Kingdom of Arnor
Predecessor Organization
Leader Title
Family Leader
Official State Religion
Parent Organization
Location
Controlled Territories
Neighboring Nations
Notable Members
Related Species
Related Ethnicities
Comments