[Formendacil]

The villagers of Dol-in-Gaurhoth were a diverse lot. Hardy souls, all of them, or else would not have returned to Rhovanion after the defeat of the Easterlings, who already began to menace their dreams from the East.

Many of those who resettled what would someday come to be known as Dol-in-Gaurhoth were Dúnedain, or Gondorians of mixed descent. But let it not be said that one needed to be a Dúnadan to possess the courage that caused these men and women to brave the lawless land they returned to settle, for though their span of years might have, even then, been longer than those of other Men, courage cannot be measured by the conventions of Elves or Men, and only the One can truly know the heart that spurs a person to acts of bravery.

The names of those who resettled the village are long forgotten by most, but their names are not forgotten by the scholars- save one. Of Gondorian blood were: Formendacil, Meneltarmacil, Cailín, Farael, Valier, Gil-galad (named, it is said, after the Elvenking of yore), Alcarillo, Lhunardawen, Gurthang, Naria, Nilpaurion Felagund, and Eluchíl. Of Northman descent were Azaelia (said to be of Willowbottom), Garin, Kath, Amanaduial (an archer of some repute), Malkatoj, and Rune son of Bjarne (a very short Man indeed, and believed in times since to have actually been one of the Hobbits that dwelt along the Anduin with the Northmen forebears of the Rohirrim). There was even one of the Dwarven kin in the village, Kuruharan of the line of Durin. Only one name is lost to history, though one of his features is remembered still: the Guy Who Be Short.

These villagers lived in apparent peace and harmony in their early months together, but there was an evil menace in Middle-Earth, the same evil menace who had spurred the Wainriders against Gondor, and evil menace that would be revealed in later times to be Sauron, the once and future Dark Lord of Mordor, by whose cunning Númenor had sunk beneath the waves, the Lieutenant of Morgoth Bauglír.

Though possessed of great power and might, Sauron was possessed of more subtle skills and of a more vast arsenal of weapons than the brute force of the Wainriders, who hid east of Rhûn, licking the wounds King Calimehtar had inflicted on them. And indeed, three of the villagers in Dol-in-Gaurhoth were men under his influence- and a fourth was poised to become so also, and it is from them that the village takes its name “Hill of Werewolves”.

The use of Werewolves to undermine small numbers of his enemy goes back to the years when Sauron was still a servant of Morgoth, and many were the peoples and races they came from that had seen last before their death the fangs of those they had thought their friends. And, indeed, the poison of the Accursed who carried the evil unknowingly would ensure that the Werewolves would trouble the word until long after Sauron had fallen.

But at this point, the village was yet hopeful for their long-term prosperity, and none save the Werewolves know of the hidden menace that waited to prey on their village. Not until the very night when the first of them died….