[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Ghanberryghan

Could Aragorn have been describing the effects Saruman's ring has? Empowering his minions and making it more difficult for his foes to succeed? Isengard was always meant to be a lesser version of Morder, so could Saruman's ring have had some of the similar effects of the One but to a lesser extent?

There have certainly been many guesses regarding Saruman's ring, and since there is no real evidence what it really did, we are completely free to guess.

I can tell my personal opinion about what it did, then. Since the "evil will" which suddenly seems to appear and weaken and such occur pretty often in Middle-Earth (when Frodo is in Morgul valley, when Riders appear, on Caradhras, and so on - and in neither of the cases it is explicitely connected to the Ring, the Ring may at most "trigger" it - but in any case, it is not the wielder of the Ring who triggers it), I do not feel it necessary to connect it to Saruman's ring specifically (Sauron also does not hold his Ring at the time, yet the evil will weakens the Hobbits as they try to walk to Mordor, and that's not even conscious effort, since Sauron doesn't know about them). There are many possibilities, the effect of speeding up the Orcs and weakening Aragorn and co. could have been simply Saruman's personal power (he was a powerful being, anyway), maybe even "unconscious", or just some "air" coming from his seat at Isengard. Or a "spell", if you will. So my personal opinion is that it didn't really have anything to do with the ring (not directly, at most the ring could have e.g. "amplified" Saruman's power, but Saruman could have done the same thing even without it, only to a lesser effect, for example). But that is purely personal opinion. You can think of what you find the most probable.

As for the Ring, one could think about several ways Saruman could have decided to use it. Once again, listing some personal opinions, but based on what we know about Saruman. I think he could have chosen to imbue his ring with power to, for example, give him more power or abilities to control people, "amplify his Voice", and similar things. Or, what I think is also quite plausible, the ring might support further his skills in craft and making of more rings and more "technology" (all this "blasting fire" and things, you name it). Or both, or more.

Originally Posted by Ardent

Sauron put both his power and his own character into his Ring, which is why anyone else wearing it would be corrupted by it.

This is actually pretty important point - but also about the power. So maybe to clarify what I have said above: the Ring would, in some way, be extension of Saruman's own power. So that's why the "craft and manipulation" ideas

I suspect that Downers who know more about the lore of the Maiar could help here, because Radagast (one of the seven Maiar) was sent to Middle Earth by the Valar who sang growing things into being, but I do not know what aspect of the creation song Saruman corresponds to.

Okay, just a correction (now I will really sound like "a Downer who knows more", or tries to sound like that ): it was five Maiar, resp. the five Wizards (Saruman, Radagast, Gandalf, Alatar, and Pallando) were Maiar (of whom there were many, many more), and Maiar usually belonged to the folk of one of the fourteen Valar. Radagast belonged to Yavanna, whose domain were the trees, birds and beasts, but Saruman belonged to Aulë, who was by the way Yavanna's husband, he was the craftsman (we can see this side in Saruman), the maker of Dwarves (although Saruman never seemed interested in this folk). By the way, Sauron also originally belonged to Aulë's folk. The temptation of "misusing technology" is somewhat apparent theme in the history of Middle-Earth.

Anyway, these were just some thoughts related to the topic. I think there might also be still some old thread about this topic, too, if you want to see perhaps some thoughts people had about the topic here.

EDIT: crossposted with Zigur, who is apparently of similar opinion and is able to say the same things in much more brief way