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32 Elite (Melee)In the depths of time, the great race of dragons was bred by Morgoth in his dark realm of Angband. These terrible beasts are capable of spewing gouts of flame and crushing stone and metal with little effort. Few survived the fall of Beleriand, and fewer still remain in the Third Age. Smaug the Golden was the greatest of those who fled to Middle-earth, and he was slain by Bard the Bowman, who became King of Dale.
The winged drakes who now inhabit the stony hills and mountains of Middle-earth are mere shadows of the once-great majesty of their forebears. They hunt the landscape for aurochs, bears, and other large animals with which to feed their young – drakelings – though they will not hesitate to make a meal of stray Hillman or Earth-kin, if the opportunity arises.
Weaker still are the wingless worms who claw their way across the barren plains and hills. Like their winged kin, they live to feed, terrorizing beast and Man alike. Neither drake nor worm possesses the might of the great dragons, but they should not be underestimated. Rumor has it that something in the Misty Mountains is stirring, calling them to gather.
In The Lord of the Rings: Shadows of Angmar, players will encounter drakes and worms throughout the crags and passes of Angmar, the North Downs, and the Misty Mountains. Both Mordor and Angmar are gathering their strength to crush the Free Peoples of Middle-earth, and all of Dragon-kind is being called upon by the Enemy to serve in this war.
Dragons
Quick Facts
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| Dates: | First recorded in c. I 265; still extant | ||||||||||||||
| Types: | Cold-drakes, Long-worms, Were-worms | ||||||||||||||
| Other Names: | Worms | ||||||||||||||
| Meaning: | Ultimately from the Greek drakon, meaning 'serpent' | ||||||||||||||
The Worms of Morgoth
Mighty reptilian creatures who ranked among the most feared of the servants of the Dark Lord. Of the origins of dragons, no tale tells; the first of them issued from Angband in the middle of the First Age. After Glaurung came many others to strike fear into Elves and Men for the next three ages.
| Ancalagon the Black | The greatest of the flying Dragons, who took part in the final defence of Angband during the war at the end of the First Age. After a long and terrible battle in the air, Ancalagon was slain by Eärendil, and his fall destroyed the mountains of Thangorodrim. |
| Scatha the Worm | During the Third Age, the wastes to the north of Middle-earth became infested with Dragons, especially of the kind known as Cold-drakes. Scatha was one of these, a monster that plundered the gold of the Dwarves who lived in the Grey Mountains, but was slain by Fram of the Éothéod. |
| Smaug the Golden | Another of the Dragons out of the northern wastes, it was Smaug who famously descended on Erebor in III 2770, driving out the Dwarves into the wilderness. After the sack of the Lonely Mountain, the Dragon remained within for more than a hundred and seventy years. When Thorin Oakenshield returned to reclaim his grandfather's kingdom, the chain of events that followed led to Smaug being shot and killed by Bard the Bowman of Esgaroth. |
Dragons have powers of intelligence and speech, and many are also able to cast the dragon-spell, a bewildering confusion that affects any who gaze into the eye of the creature.
The dragons were not destroyed at the end of the Third Age; some are said to have survived to our own time, but the great worms and drakes of the Elder Days are no more.
