# Lindon and the War of Wrath: Interesting point for roleplay



## Elaini (Oct 29, 2018)

I would expect that many Quendi passed through Lindon during or after the War of Wrath and may have met each other there. Of course in RP I always must meet many Elves the first time, but the chances are that if my and their characters both lived in the First Age, they might already be acquaintances.

Lindon (Forlindon and Harlindon) must have been extremely crowded with Elves in some point.


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## Alcuin (Oct 30, 2018)

There is a guy named Stephen Wigmore who has done a great deal of work on this, building on an essay by Michael Martinez. You can find Wigmore’s essays and estimates at this link. I’ve independently done some work on this material, and I think the numbers from Martinez and Wigmore are in the ballpark. (“In the ballpark”: an appropriate Americanism, since the World Series ended this week: Go Sox!). 

He figures the total number of Elves in Beleriand before their reduction by Morgoth’s assaults at about 1.25 million, along with perhaps 150,000 Edain (at their maximum population) and about 345,000 Dwarves. 

Wigmore estimates 400,000 surviving Elves - Noldor, Sindar, and Avari - from Beleriand in Lindon at the end of the First Age. About five-eighths of them left for Eldamar or Tol Eressëa after the War of Wrath, leaving a population of about 150,000 as the Second Age began. He estimates the Elves remaining in Lindon at 30-40 thousand at the end of the Third Age. 

All the surviving Elves, Dwarves, and Men of Beleriand at the end of the First Age must initially be in Lindon. The Dwarves mostly left for Khazad-dûm, though some few continued to work the old mines of Belegost. (That’s probably where Thorin Oakenshield was living when Gandalf visited him just before Bilbo’s unexpected journey.) Nogrod seems to have been completely ruined. Wigmore thinks there were 30,000 surviving Edain, most of whom immigrated to Númenor, leaving the remaining inhabitants of Lindon predominantly Elvish. 

He assumes Rivendell at the end of the Third Age with a population well under one thousand (400 is his estimate, which seems a little low to me). 

He guesses Lórien and Thranduil’s kingdom at the same time with populations of about 30,000 apiece. 

His mean estimate for Gondor is about 1.2 million as the War of the Ring begins, with Rohan about one-third that number.


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