Dol Tinarë

Dol Tinarë (W. "Tinereb") comprised, at its smallest extent, the highlands of Cardolan east of the Iaur Men Formen. Tolls levied on travelers of the road provided the majority of the revenues for the lord of the region.
This ancient principality was founded by Eruthimar, Governer of the Númenórean colony of Tharbad in the late 26th century of the Second Age. The Eriadorian wars were winding down in his time; he made peace among the survivors of the conflict and took a local title that allowed his heirs to directly rule the most important part of the lands conquered by the Númenórean colonists. By marrying an Eriadorian princess, he diluted his bloodline and thus angered his King, Tar-Telemmaitë of Númenor. Eruthimar's descendents, though they consistently chose Dúnadan brides in the following centuries, were nonetheless banned from the Númenórean court, thus establishing the Cardolani's tradition of bad relations with their overlords.
When Arnor was founded, the Ernil Camrinir of Dol Tinarë took the lesser title of "Lord of Dol Tinarë." His daughter, Nienna Istariel, was the ranking female Captain of Elendil's Arnorian army in the War of the Last Alliance. Tragically, her son, known as Camrinir the Cursed, was a traitorous and evil sorcerer. On the day the armies of the Alliance began their passage over the Misty Mountains, he called into his mother's keep a terrible power from the Darkness beyond the Pale. Only a valiant resistance by servants of the household allowed Gaerdaë, a Noldo warrior, to intervene and confound the spell. Nonetheless, the tower was shattered, and the keep sank into the earth. Nienna was left to sponsor a shrine to mannish folly at the site and build a new keep just out of sight of the old. The Arnorian fief of Dol Tinarë flourished in a modest way, as Elendil's improvement and paving of the Iaur Men Formen and the Men Caran put the province astride the main arteries of Eriadorian trade. Tolls charged to traffic on the roads helped to compensate for the generally poor quality of agricultural land in Mintyrnath. Dol Tinarë's principal towns were: Andrath, Arnach, Metraith, and Dinach on the Men Formen; Mindo Tinarë itself, rebuilt along the Men Caran, and Harbarist, on the edge of the mining district of the Pinnath Ceren. After the division of the North Kingdom in T.A. 861, the first Kings of Cardolan built a new palace, called Thalion, near Metraith. The wild swings of political fortune saw the Tinarë seat moved from Mindo Tinarë to Andrath to Metraith and back again to Andrath. The general decay of Cardolan's economy in the ensuing centuries of the Third Age made it more and more difficult to rebuild towns damaged in the baronial wars.

Type

Citadel