Caras Celairnen
A top of a rocky outcrop, gazing down onto the swiftly flowing river Lhun and surrounded by the treacherous Uilian marshes, sits the small Charter port of Caras Celairnen. On the river, vessels are moored and the goods from near and far are ferried by small barges to the cavern port that lies below the city. Barges travelling from the northern Dwarven holds dock with cargos of Dwarven ironwork. Over the marshes a two-mile causeway allows goods to be transported to and from Arthedain lands, bringing food from the newly granted lands of the Shire.
Demographics
Dunadan influenced Northman with a small resident population of dwarves and elves.
Government
Charter town - led by elected hereditary Lord
Defences
Rocky outcrop surrounded by a swamp to one side and a river to the other. Main curtain walls protect the city should an invading army make it along the river without harassment or over a two-mile causeway.
Industry & Trade
The port is a trade hub for the Dwarves of Ered Luin; Northman loggers and fur traders; grain from the Shire; rare Elvish goods; wines from Gondor; exotic goods from far Harad.
Infrastructure
Port town - built on its ability to levy on goods passing through. Trading Lords able to access privileged trade routes
Assets
Defensible harbour
Guilds and Factions
Seven Electors who also happen to be the main trading houses are the key influencers. They control most of the labour in the town port
History
The origins of this settlement were somewhat obscure. The Dwarves of Nogrod once had a river crossing and trading post in this area early in the First Age, when the Lhun flowed eastward instead of southwestward, and Elves walked down into Eriador over a mountain pass that would later become the floor of the Gulf of Lhun. At the time of the War of Wrath, flooding and earthquakes destroyed the Nogrodic fort and dropped the hill it was built on almost a thousand feet. In the early Second Age, a river port was needed by both Elves and Dwarves somewhere on the middle Lhun, and Gil-galad, King of Lindon, commissioned Linnar's folk to build a village and docks on the rubble of the old post. The rebuilt town prospered, in a sleepy way, for long centuries. For the first 700 years of the Second Age, it fell under the dominion of Galadriel'ss province of Nenuial, and was one of her largest communities (along with another settlement on the site of Annuminas, her capital). The Elven settlers there called the town e-Côr Calarnení or Kor of the Lampwater', and it was dominated by a hilltop fortress having some similarities to Tirion in the West. The disappearance of the Noldor element with the founding of Eregion led to the Nandor who remained referring to the town as ë Karas Kalarneníó replacing the alien "Côr" with a nomenclature they were familiar with. The Noldo rule over Lindon collapsed after the War of the Last Alliance. Cirdan, the new Lord of the western Elves, had no desire to be liege to a mixed population of Dwarves and Men; he granted Caras Celairnen to the young King Valandil of Arnor as a gift. Its lord, the Arnaroquen of Celairnen, was chosen by the Elders of the community from the Line of House Silanir, a family that claimed descend from both Cirdan of Lindon and the Line of Isildur. Caras Celairnen (Os. "Karas Kalarnen", W. "Karibas ëKar-wichí") ,also known as the Lampwater Town or the Carras had never been more than a small village in the Second Age, but it had a steady population of about 1,500 throughout most of the Third Age and was the principal mortal settlement on the Lhun. It was a cosmopolitan place, with a substantial Dwarven minority and a steady flow of Silvan and Sinda visitors but the Men here did not wish to exploit their limited contact with the Elves. A bridge over the Uialduin connected it to the Arnorian royal roads, while trails, ferries, and boats connect it to Lindon and the rest of Numeriador, and from there to the Dwarvish holds of the Ered Luin.Caras Celairnen was the westernmost center of purely Dúnadan culture in the North and it served as a headquarters for those explorers and traders who ventured in to the rugged lands of Númeriador or the Ered Luin.
Valandil, in time, made the vale around the river junction an appendage to the crown and enfeifed it to his youngest son Silanir, who had married a Silvan Elf. At the same time, he gave Caras Celairnen a charter which made the town less subject to the Arnorian, and later Arthadan, government. The charter was renewed in T.A. 740, and the town laws brought into alignment with Arnorian custom. In exchange, Caras Celairnen received royal aid for expanding its dike and causeway system; many Dunedain settled in Caras Celairnen after the rechartering, and they formed the bulk of the town's population ever since. Its autonomy was respected, however—the community remained an attractive place for political misfits, runaways, and odd characters who did't fit into the mainstream of Arthadan life.Among the last major acts of Valandil of Arnor (r.1-249) was the grant of the lordship of Calarnen to his youngest son, Silivnir, who had married a Lindel named Nôllien. They founded a dynasty which ruled the town and its environs through the division of the kingdom and its fall to be reincorporated into the Reunited Kingdom by Elessar.
Although when the lordship was granted to the sons of Silivnir it was quite large, portions of the territory were shaved off to act as dowries for the daughters and younger sons of the lords, so that in the mid-Third Age the fief was mainly the fortress itself, command of the militia and the right to some of the proceeds of the town market. Circa 740 the senior line of the Silivniri became extinct and the fief was regranted to a junior line, though the town was given administrative independence by the king.To the east of Calarnen and the Lhun are the Holts of Barluin, villages directly subject to the King of Arthedain. These were mostly abandoned in the last war in the North (T.A. 1975), although some sites continued as Ranger encampments.
Caras Celairnen gained the peculiar distinction of being the northernmost Gondorian provincial capital for a few short, sad years. In that war, Calarnen was the military headquarters of the Gondorian king, ensuring its survival. After the formation of a formal alliance between Arthedain and Gondor, there was a need to carry Men and supplies up from Pelargir by sea. Mithlond was the only port north of Tharbad large enough to handle the greatest of the Gondorian ships, and it had few facilities and poor land connections with Arthedain. So, Gondorian engineers and administrators arrived in both Mithlond and Caras Celairnen to collect boats, and set up staging areas, warehouses, and camps—enough to move both the Gondorian and Elvish expeditionary forces from the Mithlond on smaller vessels in preparation for a later move inland. The over-awed locals saw constructions on a vast scale: "munitions and provision for a war of great kings," as the local tale had it for all the centuries after. But the main Gondorian Soldiery came late, delayed by storms and bad judgement, and found their advance guard using the stored provisions to feed refugees fleeing the scouts of the Witch-king's advancing armies. So it happened that from Caras Celairnen, Earnur went forth—and, together with Cirdan of Lindon, Prince Aranarth of Arthedain, and Glorfindel of Rivendell, he mets the Witch-king at the battle above Lake Evendim and destroyed the Angmarean host. The rulers of Arthedain were dead or scattered, and a Gondorian knight held the rule of Caras Celairnen for twenty years; Prince Earnur, disgraced by his horse's fear of the Witch-king, and having little use for Elves or northerners, left for the southlands early. And, once an heir of the house of Silanir was brought forth, the Gondorian garrisons of Caras Celairnen followed Earnur, leaving the ghosts of their camps and fortifications on the hills south of the Uialduin and legends of their strength and arrogance that passed from generation to generation. Caras Celairnen became, once again, a sleepy provincial town. It stayed that way through the rest of the Third Age, acting as a market for the Rivermen of the Lhun, the Dwarves of the Ered Luin (many more of them after the fall of Khazad-dum in T.A. 1980), and eventually the Hobbits of the flourishing Westfarthing of the Shire. Ships from the south were few and far between; the Elves grew more and more reclusive through the years and withdraw from Caras Celairnen. Yet, if there could be said to be a town both exotic and peaceful in Eriador, this was it. Little changed until the first years of the Fourth Age when King Elessar, who once visited the town as a wandering Ranger, returned. He made Curudur o Silanir a Lord of the Reunited Kingdom. Men and goods began to pass through Caras Celairnen from Gondor to the new capital being rebuilt at Annuminas, and, with a promise long-delayed, the town began to flourish
Architecture
Structures from the towns past as an Elvish town remain in the form of the temple of Ea and the Tower of the Lady. Dwarvish influences are restricted to the Dwarven Enclave. The rest of the city is a mix of Dunadan and pragmatic mannish.
Geography
Granite rocky outcrop by the River Lhun. The Dwarf Road runs alongside the river to the North. A vast swamp surrounds the town, interrupted only by reclaimed land used for grazing hardy marsh sheep. To the South, the River Uialduin runs lazily down to the Lhun.
Natural Resources
Hidden harbour with caves for storage.
Electors and ruler
Jeff Irwin's notes for travellers guide to Lindon
Gobel Calarnen
(S. Lamp-light Town, Os. Karas Kalarnen, W. Karibas ëKar-wichí)
Aka Caras-Celairnen.
Principal mortal settlement on the Lhun (of about 400 souls).
The origins of this settlement are somewhat obscure. For the first 700 years of the Second Age, it fell under the dominion of Galadrielís province of Nenuial, and was her one of the largest communities (along with another settlement on the site of Annuminas, her capital). The Elven settlers there called the town ëCÙr Calarnení ñ Kor of the Lampwater, and it was dominated by a hilltop fortress having some similarities to Tirion in the West.
The disappearance of the Noldor element with the founding of Eregion led to the Nandor who remained referring to the town as ëKaras Kalarneníóreplacing the alien CÙr with a nomenclature they were familiar with. Thus matters stood until the arrival of the Faithful from Numenor. Several families exiled by the Kingís Men settled here, and Men of the North had already built homes beside the river. Thus was created a mixed-mortal-Elven town. It was included in the grant by Gil-galad to Elendil and his sons.
Dunadan documents refer to the town as Gobel Calarnen or Gobel Karas, though the former was preferred, since they didnít recognize the Ossiriandic meaning. This was not without some irony, since it was akin to the Elven tongues which influenced the Edainic languages. But the Westron name for the town reflected the now declining Nandor presence: Karibas: market of Kar. It would have been remarkable indeed for the humble tradesfolk of the town that their vernacular term preserved an ancient Noldo reference to Eldamar. Elessarís mapmakers further confused things by rendering the town as ìCaras Celairnenîólinking the old names together, but somehow failing to translate the local dialect into correct Sindarin.
Among the last major acts of Valandil of Arnor (r.1-249) was the grant of the lordship of Calarnen to his youngest son, Silivnir, who had married a Lindel named NÛllien. They founded a dynasty which ruled the town and its environs through the division of the kingdom and its fall to be reincorporated into the Reunited Kingdom by Elessar. Although when the lordship was granted to the sons of Silivnir it was quite large, portions of the territory were shaved off to act as dowries for the daughters and younger sons of the lords, so that in the mid-Third Age the fief was mainly the fortress itself, command of the militia and the right to some of the proceeds of the town market.
Circa 740 the senior line of the Silivniri became extinct and the fief was regranted to a junior line, though the town was given administrative independence by the king.
To the east of Calarnen and the Lhun are the Holts of Barluin, villages directly subject to the King of Arthedain. These are mostly abandoned in the last war in the North (T.A. 1975), although some sites continue as Ranger encampments. In that war, Calarnen was the military headquarters of the Gondorian king, ensuring its survival.
In the Fourth Age, the lord of Calarnen is Cethwin, a distant descendant of Silivnir, one of the few Elven-mortal marriages hinted at in the annals of Lindon. The local legend of a descent from CÌrdan is a legend, but he certainly has a strong strain of Dunadan lineage, and is an ally of king Elessar.
Tol Lamfirith (S. Isle of Muted-voices): An Arthedain spiritual settlement ten miles north of Gobel Calarnen in the marshes where the Uialduin meets the Lhun. After T.A. 1975, a Ranger settlement and training ground.
Type
Large town
Population
14000
Included Locations
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