Mount Gundabad

Mount Gundabad was a chief Orc mountain-stronghold at the northern end of the Misty Mountains and south-east of Angmar.

History
According to the dwarves, Durin the Deathless, oldest of the Fathers of the Dwarves, awoke at Mount Gundabad in the north of the Misty Mountains shortly after the Awakening of the Elves in the First Age. Mount Gundabad then became a sacred place to the Dwarves.

In the middle of the Second Age, however, Orcs (ruled over by the servants of Sauron) invaded the mountains again and took Gundabad. The site would not be cleansed until very late in the Second Age, possibly around or after the fall of Sauron and the loss of the One Ring in SA 3441.



In the Third Age, the Orcs of Angmar yet again claimed it as their capital, which was one of the reasons for the Dwarves' special hatred of this people. After the fall of Angmar, Gundabad remained an Orc stronghold, until it was cleansed of orcs during the War of the Dwarves and Orcs. However, hordes of orcs seem to have trickled back to this hotly contested strongpoint and fortified it anew during the events of The Hobbit, menacing the Wilderland for yet another time. It was from here that the gargantuan Goblin-horde present during the Battle of the Five Armies attacked and marched from. Their leader, Bolg son of Azog, was the supreme commander of the Orcs from Gundabad, and presumably the northern Misty Mountains.

The Hobbit film trilogy
Gandalf states in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey that the "Gundabad Wargs" are faster than other breeds of Warg. When Radagast the Brown volunteers to distract the Warg-riders that are pursuing Thorin's Company, Gandalf tells him, "These are Gundabad Wargs; they will outrun you!" (To which Radagast replies, "These are Rhosgobel rabbits. I'd like to see them try.") Also, when Balin tells the story of the Battle of Azanulbizar, he refers to Azog as a "giant Gundabad orc", although in the flashback Azog is fighting at Moria, where in Tolkien's story he comes from.

Mount Gundabad appears in the film The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies in which Legolas and Tauriel spy an army of Gundabad Orcs led by Bolg emerging from the mountain.

Video games

 * The video game The Lord of the Rings: War in the North was the first to depict Mount Gundabad in any form. Games Workshop's miniature of Bolg gives his full title as "Castellan of Mount Gundabad."

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Gundabad Gundabad