Grond Runes

Grond first appears in Book 3: Chapter 8: Gothmog Appears

'Our enemies have brought a great weapon to Osgiliath, a mighty ram that bears the name 'Grond'. The message you recovered is addressed from Gothmog to the 'master of the great beasts', and it commands this master to pull the ram through the city to the West-gate. We must assume that Gothmog or his superiors plan to use Grond to smash the gates of Minas Tirith.

Duilin says, "I cannot believe the size of it! It is larger than a Mûmak!"

In the Epic Battle: Hammer of the Underworld we discover:

For this purpose, the war-forges of Mordor have produced a vile tool of destruction, intimidating as it slowly crawls toward the White City: Grond, the Hammer of the Underworld, named after the dreadful war-hammer wielded by the Black Foe, Morgoth, himself, in ancient times long ago. As Grond makes its way to the gates, the defenders must fight off the ongoing assault on the walls near the gate and attempt to stop or destroy the Wolf's Head ram before it reaches the City and start hammering against its very entrance...

During its forging, "spells of ruin" were laid on the device. One presumes that the runs scribed on its sides and wheels echo those spells.

Transcription by: User:Jpaulkeller

Left side: nag shoganj shoilutotinjish

Right side: kul ggoow tgowgh gonkob

Transcription from Reddit user: mirkwoodfalcon

On the wheel are three phrases, each rotated 120 degrees from each other, each identical. I had to mirror the image horizontally to find what I found.

Translating any of the phrases' runes using the Angerthas Erebor gives us: "ufug skaingub goth mogdogob".

This looks like utter garbage, except that the word gothmog is clearly visible, and Gothmog is present when Grond is first revealed to the player.

Perhaps it is some variant of Adunaic or Sindarin? Or maybe I found the word gothmog completely by accident.

The runes are probably Angerthas Erebor, and are probably in the black speech:

Grond Runes

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