Khazad-dûm Battle of Five Armies & The Third Age of Middle-Earth The current year for our Middle-Earth campaign is set during the year of 2946 of the Third Age. Inspired By J.R.R. Tolkien

Khazad-dûm, also commonly known as Moria or the Dwarrowdelf, was an underground kingdom beneath the Misty Mountains. It was known for being the ancient realm of the Dwarves of Durin's Folk. It was the greatest kingdom ever built by the Dwarves.

History of Khazad-dûm
Years of the Trees
The Dwarrowdelf was founded by Durin 'the Deathless' in the far distant past, long before the creation of the Sun and Moon. Durin had awakened at Mount Gundabad not long after the Elves first awoke, and as eldest among the Fathers of the Dwarves was acknowledged as preeminent among them, a status subsequently inherited by his descendants, the kings of the Longbeards.

From Mount Gundabad, Durin's growing clan "spread southward down the vales of Anduin", all the while "under attack from the orcs of Morgoth". According to legend, Durin ultimately found "a glen of shadows between two great arms of the mountains, above which three white peaks were shining". Within this heavily wooded valley, a long series of short waterfalls led down to a long, oval lake, which appeared to have a magical quality: "There, like jewels sunk in the deep shone glinting stars, though sunlight was in the sky above". Perceiving these stars as a crown glittering above his head, Durin took this as an auspicious sign, and named the lake Kheled-zâram, the 'Mirrormere'.

The three peaks overshadowing the lake he named Barazinbar 'the Redhorn', Zirakzigil 'the Silvertine' and Bundushathûr, 'Cloudyhead'. The icy cold springs below the lake he called Kibil-nâla (the source of the Silverlode), and the valley itself he gave the name Azanulbizar, the Dimrill Dale. Durin chose the eastward-facing caves above Kheled-zâram as the earliest beginnings of his new stronghold.

All of these places became revered amongst Durin's people in later days. His descendants erected a rune-carved stone monolith – Durin's Stone—on the site where he had first looked into the Mirrormere, and although it had become indecipherably weatherworn by the end of the Third Age—broken, cracked and faded—the influence of Durin I, the founding king of Khazad-dûm, was never forgotten.

The long reign of Khazad-dûm's first king was a golden age, remembered as Durin's Day (this name was also applied to the Dwarvish New Year). During that period Khazad-dûm grew continuously in size and population, until it became the "greatest of all the mansions of the Dwarves", even before the return of the Noldor to Middle-earth. By that time, Khazad-dûm was already "a name and a rumour from the words of the Dwarves of the Blue Mountains" to all the Eldar of Beleriand.

During the reign of Durin the Deathless some of the wonders of Dwarvish architecture were built in Khazad-dûm: Durin's Bridge, the Second Hall, the Endless Stair and Durin's Tower.

After his death, the reputation of Durin's realm continued to grow, not merely due to his spiritual ascendancy over the other Fathers of the Dwarves as the eldest amongst them, or the Dwarrowdelf's growing size, but to its great wealth, which was founded upon the uniquely precious metal mithril, which was universally prized yet found nowhere else except faraway Númenor.

The First Age
Khazad-dûm played no part in the wars of Beleriand, and in fact gained a respite from orc attacks throughout the First Age, "when Morgoth needed all his strength" elsewhere. The Longbeards maintained contact with all the other six dwarf clans, and after early Men arrived in Rhovanion, Khazad-dûm quickly began trading with them, exchanging the products of their growing metallurgical and masonry skills for food, to the great profit of both peoples.

The eventual death of Durin 'the Deathless' occurred before the end of the First Age. He was buried in a tomb in Khazad-dûm.

The Second Age
Early in the Second Age, Khazad-dûm's realm of Longbeards was enriched in culture, skills and population by large numbers of refugees from Belegost and Nogrod. Belegost and Nogrod were also great cities of Dwarves, but they had been ruined at the end of the First Age, along with the destruction of most of Beleriand in the cataclysmic final battle against Morgoth.

The Dwarves of those cities struggled for forty further years after the cataclysms, before many of them made the difficult decision to leave their homelands behind and cross Eriador, to the now great and ancient Dwarrowdelf. The Dwarves of Belegost and Nogrod were not Longbeards, but Broadbeams and Firebeards. Whether they remained separate clans or groups within their new home, or became merged with the Longbeards, is not known.

At the same time, Orcs once again became "well-armed and very numerous, cruel, savage, and reckless in assault. In the battles that followed the Dwarves were outnumbered, and though they were the most redoubtable warriors of all the Speaking Peoples they were glad to make alliance with Men." The Orcs were all the more easily defeated by the new combination of Khazad-dûm's heavy infantry and the horsed archers provided by Men, and the Longbeards consequently came to dominate the northern and central Hithaeglir and the lands east of there, although Khazad-dûm had always "regarded the Iron Hills, The Ered Mithrin, and the east dales of the Misty Mountains as their own land". Ultimately, these Men then assisted the dwarves of Khazad-dûm "in the ordering of the lands that they had secured".

With the foundation of the Noldorin realm Eregion to the west of Khazad-dûm around the year SA 700, friendly relations between the Longbeards and the Elves became firmly established. Many of the Elves then became involved in the development of Khazad-dûm's mansions as a consequence, and it "became far more beautiful" during this period.

This friendship also resulted in a massive westwards extension of the subterranean realm of Khazad-dûm. Its habitable parts remained in the eastward side, but passages were delved through miles of rock that terminated at a gigantic stone portal—the West Gate. This stood on the borders of Eregion, and "opened out into their country and was chiefly used by them." Celebrimbor, the Lord of Eregion, used ithildin lettering on this gate on behalf of its builder: his friend Narvi, a great craftsman of Khazad-dûm. The inscription read, Im Narvi hain echant. Celebrimbor o Eregion teithant i thiw hin: "I, Narvi, made them. Celebrimbor of Eregion drew these signs."

The West Gate allowed the Elf lady Galadriel and her followers to pass eastwards through Khazad-dûm and establish Lothlórien downstream of Azanulbizar. Galadriel's rule enabled Nandorin elves to return to Lothlórien; they had earlier evacuated the area to escape Khazad-dûm's growing power.

All of the Dwarrowdelf was originally illuminated by many "shining lamps of crystal", although the halls of the highest level were also lit with windows and shafts carved through the mountain sides. These levels lay between flights of fifty or more stone steps, with seven hollowed out of the mountains above ground level, and many more subterranean levels—or 'Deeps'—beneath the Great Gates at the head of the Dimrill Dale. Every level comprised a multitude of arched passages, chambers and many pillared halls, often with "black walls, polished and smooth as glass".

Below the level of the Gates lay mines, treasuries and even dungeons, although far below the lowest Deep of Khazad-dûm, lay primordial tunnels in perpetual darkness, gnawed by 'nameless things' that had lived there since the earliest beginnings of Arda. Few if any actually ever glimpsed these creatures, and no description of them is extant (with the possible exception of the Watcher in the Water, which Gandalf suggested may have come from these regions.)

One important feature of the Dwarrowdelf was the defensive structure known as Durin's Bridge, "a slender bridge of stone, without kerb or rail", that spanned a fifty foot wide chasm of indeterminate depth, allowing enemy soldiers to cross it only in single file (one after another), not side by side. Another, steeped in legend, was the Endless Stair, which ascended "from the lowest dungeon to the highest peak", where it terminated within Durin's Tower, carved from the solid rock at the tip of Zirakzigil.

Afterwards, Sauron harboured deep hatred for Khazad-dûm and ordered his Orcs to trouble Durin's folk at every turn, even though "the halls of Khazad-dûm were too deep and strong and filled with a people too numerous and valiant for Sauron to conquer from without". Despite this, "its people began to dwindle" from this time, possibly due to the loss of provisions that had been provided by Men in the vales of Anduin.

The Third Age
Throughout the beginning of the Third Age, the Dwarves of Khazad-dûm expanded its treasure, but its numbers began to dwindle. The majority of their wealth was based on their hoards of Mithril of which they mined in their deepest tunnels, and as the centuries went by the Dwarves delved ever deeper for the precious metal.

In TA 1980, they dug too deeply and greedily for Mithril and to their loss they unearthed a nameless terror in the depths beneath the city. This dreadful creature wrought destruction throughout the city wiping out most of the Dwarves and slaying King Durin VI. Thereafter the creature was named Durin's Bane.

After the Dwarves had left, Khazad-dûm gathered dust and stood dark and empty, but for the sinister creature that lurked in the depths. This was when it was named Moria, the Black Pit.

The monster, later revealed as a Balrog of Morgoth, remained alone in Moria for nearly five centuries until it was populated once again, but not by Dwarves. The Orcs, refugees from the north, began to raid the abandoned city of its treasures and made a decision to occupy it. They came upon the Balrog and began to worship it as their deity. Mordor started to send out troops of Orcs and Cave Trolls to populate Moria, making an evil place for them to multiply. During the Battle of Azanulbizar, many of these Orcs were felled in the valley beneath the eastern gate of Moria in TA 2799, and the numbers were reduced dramatically. But the Balrog still remained and many Orcs and Trolls with him, and so Khazad-dûm stayed evil for the time being.

The wizard Gandalf entered the city for the first time at some point between TA 2845 and TA 2850 searching for King Thrain ll, who had recently disappeared on a journey to Lonely Mountain.