#(though interestingly that was made only one generation before the ruling stewardship began)

[anghraine]

I headcanon that Dúnedain of both the North and Gondor have a considerable number of ... like, low-grade magic trinkets that they often don't know the provenance of.

This stuff isn't at all on the scale of the palantíri, though some were definitely brought from Númenor (mostly because people would carry them around for luck). There's some stuff that they got from Elves, especially in Dol Amroth and Eriador. There's some they crafted all on their own, like Merry's dagger or Boromir's horn. There's some they make and then place virtues on (whatever that means).

But even the jewels of this kind aren't like mini-Silmarils, they're more like mini-Elendilmíri—there's definitely something going on and they seem just a little too bright at times, but a lot of the inheritors of those kinds of gems have never been able to figure out what they're supposed to do beyond that. And sometimes the answer is "nothing," some of these things were just crafted to be nightlights for scared children that would also look nice when they got older. Sometimes this stuff helps with tracking in a minor way, or things like that.

Gondorian Dúnedain also seem to know about the One Ring, but in my headcanon, their understanding starts out with: "oh, so like Grandfather's ring that shines when he gets lost? but evil."

#10-y-o dúnadan child: but... how do you make that evil? #adult (darkly): he can turn all to evil #seriously though i do imagine that the stars in the stewards' sigil represents heirlooms like this #not quite as blatantly mystical as boromir's horn #(though interestingly that was made only one generation before the ruling stewardship began) #but three gems they inherited that are slightly mysterious and very bright and passed on w/ other heirlooms #they no longer even know where they came from but they've been faithfully passed down since forever #as far as their records go #and are the oldest heirloom of their house #anghraine babbles #legendarium blogging #anghraine's headcanon #team dúnedain #húrinionath