Gram Thengel

Gram Thengel and his white stallion

In Middle Earth, a retired captain played by John.

Background

Gram Thengel lived much of his life as a humble agrarian of northwest Rohan near the forest, tending the farm his father started and selling radishes and carrots in the town market. Like all men of Rohan, though, he also rode patrols and received a warriors' training.

When the dark shadow fell across Middle Earth and the Riders of Rohan were summoned to fight, Gram naturally went along. And, after a skirmish left the company's leadership dead, Gram reluctantly took command.

Luck and training led Gram's company to victory on several occasions before the siege of Minas Tirith.

The enemy had broken through the first defenses, and were pouring like sand through an hourglass into the streets of the city, streaming in all directions chaotically down the streets in which the city's children were playing just days before. Engaged in a defensive retreat down a major thoroughfare, Captain Thengel's company was leaving the streets paved with fallen foes while sustaining only occasional casualties themselves.

Upon reaching a raised vantage point, Gram spied a horde of enemies rushing uncontested into a poorly defended quarter, that of artisans, musicians, mystics, and their families. During a patrol the previous day, Graham knew the eclectic quarter also featured an orphanage, and that the matrons who ran it had herded children into the basement as hostilities reached the walls. (They may later have been moved, but Graham was unaware.)

Knowing that his defensive retreat would soon rendezvous with a larger force of allied armored pikemen, Graham sent a messenger to warn them, and then led his company of expert riders down twisting alleyways at breakneck speeds as a shortcut to a broad market square in the artisans' quarter. His forces burst broadside into the rampaging foes, disrupting their momentum and cutting off their forward forces.

However, it also left his riders surrounded, and so they fought back to back as long as they could, but had soon been broken up into smaller groups, each of which lost men and horses one by one, as the marauding horde pressed on towards their total annihilation.

Gram, having led the charge, had reached the far side of the market square before an enemy cleaver gravely injured his horse. As it went down, he was thrown through the open window of an empty shop. Stunned from the fall, he stood up slowly within the darkened room and watched mutely for a time, as his men were cut down like dogs.

Only when the familiar sound of eleven arrows whistling through the air reached him did he snap out of it and rejoin the battle. Allied archers and pikemen had reached the market square and were beating back the foes.

The orphanage was untouched, and Gram Thengel's heroic charge that day was widely regarded as pivotal in slowing the enemy's momentum -- which eventually led to their defeat. His Reputation in the city is that of a hero.

With the enemy defeated, the King granted certain gifts to the heroes of the day. To Gram, he gave a broad tract of rocky hills and snowcapped peaks in the White Mountains north of the city.

Gram surveyed the lands the following summer, and along the way befriended dwarven explorer and prospector Brod Rockhammer. The two formed a partnership to mine for gems on a 80/20 split, with the larger portion going to the landowner, Gram. Over the next two years, Brod brought in labor and Gram brought support materials - blankets, tools, simple shelters.

Very soon, the mine was churning out large quantities of high quality gems, making both partners wealthy.

Gram then returned to Rohan and reconnected with the elfwoman Ariana, with whom he was acquainted from his days as a radish-farmer. The following spring, they wed, and Gram retired to live a relaxing life in the countryside.

Today, Brod runs the operation on a day-to-day basis with Gram's backing and support.