Thrór

Lineage

Thrór was born in T.A. 2542 in the Grey Mountains, the eldest son of Dáin I, King of Durin's Folk. His brothers were Frór and Grór. He belonged to the eldest line of the Dwarves, descended from Durin the Deathless through Thráin I, founder of Erebor.

The return to Erebor

In 2589 a cold-drake from the Withered Heath killed Dáin I and Frór at the door of their hall. Thrór became king of a people who could no longer hold the Grey Mountains against the dragons. The next year he led the greater part of them south to Erebor, the Lonely Mountain that Thráin I had founded and Thorin I had abandoned, bringing with him the Arkenstone, while his brother Grór took the rest to the Iron Hills. Thrór took the title King under the Mountain, and in his reign Erebor became wealthy beyond anything the Dwarves had known since Moria. Men gathered in the vale of Dale beneath the Mountain, under the lords of Girion's line, and traded with the Dwarves, and the toys and instruments of the Dwarves' market at Dale were famous. Thrór's son Thráin II was born in 2644, and Thráin's children Thorin, Frerin and Dís in the years that followed.

Smaug

The wealth drew the dragon. In 2770 Smaug, greatest of the fire-drakes of the North, came down on the Mountain, burned Dale, slew the Dwarves at the gate, and lay down on the hoard. Thrór, Thráin and a few of their household escaped by a secret door on the western side, and Thorin, out on the mountainside, survived by chance. The King under the Mountain became a wanderer, and the family lived for years as poor smiths in Dunland and elsewhere.

The wandering and the Ring

Thrór had the Ring of Durin's house, the last of the Seven still in Dwarvish hands, and the Ring worked on him. Poverty and the loss of his hoard made him restless and bitter. In 2790, old and proud, he gave the Ring to Thráin with the map of Erebor and its key, and set out with one companion, Nár, saying that he meant to look on Moria. He crossed the Redhorn Pass and came down into the Dimrill Dale, and there he walked in at the open East-gate of Moria as if he were still its lord.

Murder

Nár waited outside for days. At last the body of Thrór was thrown down the steps, headless, and the head after it, and on the brow of the head was branded in Dwarf-runes the name of the Orc who ruled Moria: Azog. Orcs called Nár in from the shadows, gave him a purse of small coins as payment for bringing the news, and told him that beggars who came to the gate would be treated the same. Nár took the message to Thráin, and Thráin's grief and rage summoned every house of the Dwarves to war.

Legacy

The War of the Dwarves and Orcs, fought from 2793 to 2799, was the vengeance for Thrór, and it ended with Azog's head on a stake and the purse in its mouth. Thrór's map and key passed from Thráin to Gandalf and from Gandalf to Thorin, and with them the quest of Erebor began; the moon-letters Thrór had written on the map, describing the secret door, were the clue that opened the Mountain. His restoration of Erebor gave his line its enduring home, and his death gave it its longest feud.

Murdered by Azog at the East-gate of Moria in T.A. 2790; his body was mutilated and his head branded with the Orc's name.