Frank reads Lord of the Rings.
Frank reads The Simarillion.
Frank thinks the story isn’t over.
It’s a hard thing to imagine you can write on after a masterpiece, but if today’s cultural existence has taught us anything, it should be that nothing ever ends. There’s always a sequel. Everything is derivative. Perhaps I just convinced myself of that because I wanted to know what happens next.
What I loved about this idea, is Tolkien left it all open, waiting to be resolved. All the pieces are there: Orcs waiting for salvation. Men industrializing the Earth. Elves fleeing, but not all gone. Dwarves digging deeper, Hobbits disappearing. I am no JRR Tolkien. Just a fan who likes the idea of living in Middle Earth during the Age of Men.
Want to join me...
The Eldar are mostly gone, save in dark, forested places where they linger on in twilight shadow, fallen into shadow themselves. The Dwarves have gone further and further underground, they no longer surface. And the Orcs, hunted to near extinction, left Middle Earth and went to the Darklands in the far south and the Sunlands in the far East.
Fast forward to the end of the Fourth Age - the Time of Men is in full swing, technology is nearing the height of the Industrial Revolution in Middle Earth. Memories of Gondor and Arnor have fallen along the way, though monuments still stand and its descendants still populate the huge cities of Eriador. Men no longer believe in what they once feared. Numenor is myth wrapped by a fairy tale, only remembered fully by a cult of priests who have a Red Book - which was officially banned centuries before, mention of its facts, of the War of the Ring, the Valar, the Undying Lands, and the West have been buried - cast off as "original sin."
After many civil wars between the remaining tribes, a new streak of Orcs come to power - one in possession of the ability to moderate their drives, to build, to plan, to execute, a hybrid of Black Numenoreans and the Uruk-hai. They started expanding, until they covered all the Darklands. One tribe, pacifists, become priests - guardians of the knowledge of what Orcs truly are, from where they came, and with the secret hope of what they can become - reborn Elves, allowed to their birthright of return to the Undying Lands, basically salvation. This priesthood is headed, secretly, by a new wanderer, a clothed Maiar sent by Nienna as the only of the Valar with the ability to pity the plight of the desecrated Orcs.
In the far, far Sunlands, one of two remaining Istarii - Palando, has survived, slowly nursing his grief at both his betrayal of his cause and the fall of Sauron. His efforts paid dividends, but there was no ship to bear him across such a wide sea. He has wandered the lands, finding other remaining Maiar, Eldar, etc, and sacrificing them in the hopes of taking their power, of doing what Sauron could not. All the while hating himself for doing it.
As the men of Middle Earth begin to explore the rest of the world and report back they discover they cannot access the new lands to the East (the Sunlands) or the far south (Dark Lands). Every mission sent does not return, or comes back with fanciful tales too strange to believe. The Priesthood however, worships metal and industry, it no longer believes the secrets it alone keeps. War looms.
Hobbits have ceased to exist, save for the few which "haunt" the ruins of abandoned Dwarven cities closer to the surface than any actual Dwarf now travels. They have forgotten everything, have gone "backwards" - except for one small enclave, descendants of Pippin, who interbred with Men in Minas Tirith and carry the traditions down with them. One of these is a Priest.