Mount Gundabad

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

History
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 Years of the Trees. 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 them. 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 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


In The Hobbit film trilogy, Gundabad plays a key role in the series storyline.

It is portrayed as a tall fortress tower in the middle of a remote mountain range. Hidden cauldrons of fire light up the tower with a dim red glow. The tower is surrounded by sharp angled cliffs.

The fortress is home to Bolg and his father Azog The Defiler, as well as an army of Gundabad Orcs. As eventually revealed in The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, Gundabad is a stronghold with connections to the Angmar kingdom that died out long ago. In the aftermath, Gundabad Orcs like Azog began to take residence in Moria before forging an alliance with Sauron, in his Necromancer guise at Dol Guldur, in an attempt to revive Angmar through Smaug taking the Lonely Mountain. But when Thorin II Oakenshield reclaims the Lonely Mountain, Sauron is forced to send the Orc army he amassed to the Lonely Mountain. On route at the start of The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, Azog instructs his son Bolg to bring out an additional Orc army from Gundabad itself.

Legolas and Tauriel follow Bolg north to Gundabad. Once they arrive at the remote fortress they stop, and wait on a ridgeline above the "Red Tower".

For a while the area seems deserted, but without warning, huge bats start to swarm the tower. Legolas realizes grimly, that these bats are bred for war. Suddenly, Bolg appears on a precipice and bellows out a signal. A huge army of Berserker Orcs and Gundabad Orcs swarm out and start to march south, towards The Lonely Mountain.

Tauriel and Legolas witness the army of Gundabad Orcs emerging from the mountain, and they rush to warn the armies at Dale.

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."