Erebor

Faction
The Lonely Mountain, also known as Erebor, was the greatest dwarf kingdom in Middle-Earth.

Lore
The Lonely Mountain, also known as Erebor, was the greatest dwarf kingdom in Middle-Earth.

The lonely mountain, was a mountain northeast of Rhovanion. It was also the source of the River Running. For many ages of Middle-earth, it had been inhabited by over 40,000 of the Dwarves of Durin's Folk up until the later half of the Third Age and then again in its closing years and into the Fourth Age as the Dwarves were mostly exterminated or relocated in Helm's Deep.

The Dwarves may have lived and mined in the mountain during the Second Age, but it wasn't until the mid-Third Age that the colony had become a firmly established Kingdom of the Dwarves after the fall of the ancient Kingdom of Khazad-dûm due to the awakening of the Balrog known as Durin's Bane in TA 1981. The survivors under Thráin I followed him to the Lonely Mountain and the colony became the ancestral home of the King under the Mountain. By TA 1999, it had become a Dwarven stronghold, where the Dwarves became a numerous and prosperous people. In this time, the Dwarves became very rich and amassed a large amount of gold and treasure which included the jewel known as the Arkenstone. Thrain I used the Arkenstone as a symbol of his rule, and his sons and grandsons under him who were to follow.

For two-hundred and eleven years the kingdom advanced, expanded, prospered, and endured until Thorin I abandoned it to join his kin in the Grey Mountains, and the Lonely Mountain was abandoned for three-hundred and eighty years. However, the Dwarves of the Grey Mountains began experiencing attacks by the dragons that still lived in those mountains, and became embroiled in a costly war against them, forcing the Dwarves to abandon the Grey Mountains in TA 2590. The Dwarves went their separate ways with Grór and his followers settling in the Iron Hills and Thrór and his followers settling in the Lonely Mountain.

In TA 2941, Bilbo Baggins and Thorin's company traveled to the Lonely Mountain to regain the treasure Smaug had stolen. Set into the side of the mountain was a secret door, five feet high and wide enough for three to walk through abreast. Gandalf had managed to obtain the door's key, which fit a key hole which could be found only when the setting sun and the last moon of autumn (also known as Durin's Day) were in the sky would the light shine upon the keyhole. As told by Tolkien in The Hobbit, it took many days to find the door, and luckily for Thorin and Company they did not arrive on Durin's day so they had plenty of time to enter the mountain.

Smaug was eventually slain, shot out of the sky by a well-aimed arrow to his only weak spot by Bard the Bowman, a man of Laketown, who later became king of the Men in the area known as Dale adjoining the Lonely Mountain. Thorin thus reclaimed the mountain, but the Elves of Mirkwood and Men of Lake-town claimed a part of the treasure, which Thorin refused to share. Dáin II Ironfoot came to the aid of his cousin Thorin, and the three Free Peoples almost did battle with one another, but then Orcs attacked and the Dwarves, elves, and men joined ranks together with the eagles against the Orcs, in what became known as the Battle of the Five Armies. During the battle Thorin was mortally injured, and the titles King under the Mountain and King of Durin's Folk passed to Dáin..