Plans by Anérea

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Fanwork Notes

For the Orctober challenge prompt: 

Mines (Thangorodrim)

Drums. This deep underground, they shudder the tunnels around you like a distant heart, their rhythm summoning ores from the depths to feed the furnaces. But sometimes there is an extra note, a quick tremor against the skins, that tell of a route skyward. It is too dark to see, but you remember the notes by letting your hammer fall in their rhythm; you know the other People around you when they keep your time.

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With thanks to Shadpw for thebeta and for sparking new ideas, as well as all the folks who shared their headcanons about ancient Orcs.

Fanwork Information

Summary:

An ancient orc gets one over on a freshly returned Melkor.

Canon Source: History of Middle-earth

Major Characters: Orcs, Melkor

Major Relationships:

Artwork Type: Abstract/Pattern

Genre: Ficlet, General

Challenges: Jubilee, Orctober

Rating: General

Warnings:

Posted on 9 January 2025 Updated on 9 January 2025

This fanwork is complete.

Plans

In Angband's central throne room:

"Gone?" The recently arrived Vala responded in a low rumble as he looked up from the large plan of Angband in his hands.

"GONE!?"  This time his roar shook the very rock of Angband, sending stones skittering through the vast network of tunnels, boulders tumbling down the mountainside, and rifts forking out as far as the great plain south of the mountains, where a small group of ancient orcs steadied one another until the tremors ceased. 

One had always retained a memory of forests, vast ancient trees with curling leaves. She had started in the mines of Utumno, chipping the rock in secret swirling patterns that lasted only moments before being destroyed. Then her inherent talent for spatial planning was noticed and in time she was elevated to chief designer of the new fortress of Angband, setting out the arrangement of barracks, breeding rooms and nurseries, and torture chambers; the armouries, smithing chambers and fungi farms; the central throne room and the three spiralling staircases of Thangorodrim, as well as the many tunnels leading down to mines far below and up to hidden openings along the foot of the mountains. 

One tunnel, the longest, was not on the plan that she guessed was now in Melkor's hands. She smiled, not only at their freedom, but at the knowledge she'd left behind an insidious beauty that Morgoth could not marr without completely destroying his fortress once again.

The Insidious Plan of Angband

Image
Abstract drawing in organic feathery leafy patterns
Image End Notes

Like Dawn's challenge map, this is oriented with South at the top. Morgoth's throne room is at the bottom, Thangorodrim sort of mid-left and the tunnels through which the Orcs pour to battle along the outer edges, with armouries and guard chambers. The rest form the various chambers listed above, and others. Angband being on multiple intersecting levels, this is probably just one part of a many layered plan.

It's also highly likely that Sauron knew of the design and secretly approved.

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This started out as a desire to create some sneaky orcish art that might have been right under the overseers' noses, and then the concept, and in-universe land art, grew and grew and spawned a wee ficlet.

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Drawn with Wearinguel 'Mind' ink on paper with a Kakimori brass nib