Nargroth is a place in Mordor that appears in several adaptations.
Chronology and Creation
The name was originally created by cartographer and calligrapher Daniel Reeve while working on licensed map assets for the film trilogy and related merchandise.
Its first appearance is in the Maps of Middle-earth map set for Decipher's The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Game, where it appears as a minor label below what seems to be a hill on the western side of the mountain spur that branches off southwestwards from the Ered Lithui east of Barad-dûr on the map of Mordor without further exposition.[1] Reeve subsequently used the Decipher map as a template when tasked with designing the expanded merchandise map for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.[2][3]
Fan works
The fansite Thelandofshadow.com took on several of the names introduced by Reeve, and expanded on them. Nargroth was described as follows:[4]
A watch tower and gateway to the south of Mordor. Nargroth is strategically placed at the very tail end of the Mithram Spur and forms the eastern watch at the base of Gorgoroth. Across a wide gap sits the fortress of Morigost at the base of the Maegond Spur. None could enter the Plain of Gorgoroth without being spied upon from these two vantage points, which formed the southern guard into the heart of Mordor. Nargroth was a high peak with a watch post and there was also a great Orc encampment at its base.
The information from The Land of Shadow was incorporated into the fan made Mordor Gazetteer of the Middle-earth Role Playing (MERP) fan modules group.
Etymology
Nargroth seems to be a Sindarin name, which means "Fire Cave". It seems to contain the element naur ("fire")[5] that also occurs as the first element in the name Nardol and the element groth ("large excavation", "delving", "underground dwelling")[6].
Gallery
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Nargroth as it first appeared on the 2002 Decipher RPG map.
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The expanded 2003 merchandise map layout.
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References
- ↑ John Rateliff, The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Game: Maps of Middle-earth (Decipher, 2002)
- ↑ . "The Lord of the Rings: Maps". Daniel Reeve, artist
- ↑ Daniel Reeve, personal correspondence (June 2026):
the Decipher maps pre-dated the ROTK merchandising map (Mordor). I created the set of maps for Decipher in 2002, and the ROTK merchandising map in 2003. So the Decipher Mordor map served as a kind of template when I later made the merchandising map of Mordor – at which time I expanded upon it, adding a lot more invented detail and names. […] I created the places and names myself.
- ↑ "Nargroth", archived from the original. Thelandofshadow.com
- ↑ . "S. naur n.". Eldamo - An Elvish Lexicon. Retrieved 25 June 2026
- ↑ . "S. groth n.". Eldamo - An Elvish Lexicon. Retrieved 25 June 2026