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The Vanishing Sons were an Easterling mercenary company located in Lithlad. Formerly professional soldiers of the Easterling military, the Vanishing Sons were known for their expertise in fighting and were often hired by rich leaders to fight for their cause.
They dwelt in an ancient Númenórean fortress in Lithlad, an eastern part of Mordor.
History[]
The Vanishing Sons were born at the Massacre of Eastfold, where a brigade of Easterling warriors were sent into a hopeless battle in the grasslands of the Rohirrim. Facing a superior force of Rohirrim riders, close to a thousand men were slaughtered. The two dozen Easterling soldiers who managed to escape did not return to Rhûn and they instead took the name of the Vanishing Sons. They became mercenaries who fought for the highest bidder, whether former allies or enemies.
From their earliest raids upon Haradrim villages, they established their primary recruitment method, taking in surviving children and instructing them in the ways of war, to the extent that the Vanishing Sons transformed over time, becoming less a group of professional soldiers than a band of mercenary war orphans.
The Vanishing Sons eventually made their way to the deserts of Lithlad where they took up residence in the ruins of an ancient Númenórean fortress. Lithlad gave them a permanent home where they brokered a deal with the orcs of Shindrâm. They were left in peace and paid a monthly bounty for dealing with bandits that assaulted the marauder camps and their supply lines. The Vanishing Sons dispatched the bandits quickly and sent the heads of twenty warriors to the orcs. Lithlad grew quiet, until some months later when the mercenaries happened upon an idea that would guarantee as much work as they wanted. And so the bandit raids began again.