Category:Uruk-hai

Uruk-hai (for short, Uruks) were the strongest race of Orcs in Middle-earth. Rumors of their origins are many, but most agree that they were Sauron's making, somehow infused with traits of Men.

In Orcish culture, Uruk-hai are the dominant class, due to their superior bulk and resistance to pain. They were also known to call their degenerated relatives "snaga", meaning "slave" in Black Speech. Their apperance was not as varied as that of the Orcs, mostly having bluish or dark skin, which could be briefly glimpsed through their helms and armor.

Possible origins
Following Morgoth's capture, the fortresses of Angband and Utumno were left in ruins by the victorious Host of Valinor, yet in their haste, they were unable to capture or slay the rebel Vala's most terrible servants. It was at this time, that Sauron, greatest of of the servants of Morgoth, began to breed orcs anew. Under him, the orcs multiplied and became a serious threat to the beings left in Middle-earth. Among those creatures, the are mentions of larger, fiercer and daylight resistant orcs, which were of Sauron's making. More of them appeared after Morgoth returned and corrupted some Atani (Men). The Elves spread rumors that those orcs had mannish blood in their veins, or that they were Maiar having taken orcish form.

End of Watchful Peace
After the end of the Watchful Peace in TA 2475, orcs from Mordor calling themselves "Uruk-hai" lattacked and devastated Ithilien, having been sent to these ends by the Witch-king of Angmar. Boromir, Steward of Gondor, counter-attacked the Uruks and managed to force them out of the province and back to their lord in Minas Morgul, though they succeeded in their task, for much of Ithilien had been pillaged and the city of Osgiliath had been left in ruins. Sauron begins to secretly sent "Black Uruks" from Mordor to the Misty Mountains, to rally the orc tribes of Mount Gram, Moria, Goblin-Town and Mount Gundabad. Many Uruk-led united factions of goblins and orcs renew their oaths of allegiance to the Dark Lord, while some become semi-independent.

Groups of orcs from Isengard are joined by goblins from the Misty Mountains in attacks against the villages of Rohan. Among them are reports of large Uruks, although whatever they were of Saruman's making or among those Uruk chieftains sent by Sauron it is unknown. The Rohirrim manage to push them back for a time, but the attacks increase, as King Théoden slowly falls under the sway of Gríma, his most-trusted counselor, who is in fact one of Saruman's allies. It is believed that at this time, the wizard brings Hillmen from Dunland into his service, cross-breeding them with orcs to make half-orcs and Uruk-hai.

Mordirith, the Steward of Angmar, prepares his forces for the upcoming war and forms alliances with Uruk-led orc tribes from the Misty Mountains. Goblin-Town is infiltrated by servants of Angmar, chief among them being Bhoghad, Mordirith's vaguely tolerated spy and ambassador in the Great Goblin's Court.

War of the Ring
In his bid for power, Saruman sends a troop of orcs led by Uglúk, one of the "fighting Uruk-hai" and a trusted servant, to capture the halflings carrying the One Ring. Joined by orcs from Mordor and the Misty Mountains, the "isengarders" attack the Fellowship at Amon Hen and take Merry and Pippin captives. The company is destroyed at night at the eaves of Fangorn Forest by Rohirrim led by Éomer. During the Battle of Helm's Deep, Saruman's army of orcs, half-orcs, wild men and Uruk-hai fight the Rohirrim in the ensuing skirmish. Though initially gaining the upper hand through superior numbers and war machines, but are quickly defeated with the aid of Huorns and Rohirrim reinforcements led by Gandalf the White and the outlawed marshals.

Surviving orcs from Isengard perish during the Ents' assault and the second battle at the Fords of Isen. Uruks are later seen although in a smaller number among the ranks of Sauron's armies that fight in the battles before Minas Tirith and the Pelennor Fields.

Culture
The Uruku (the Uruk-hai caste) would be educated in their superiority over the Snagae and trained to occupy the roles of officers or bodyguards (Hoerk) of their Orc lord, as well as possibly chieftains. A young Orc's upbringing emphasised the values of strength, aggressiveness, combat and heavy labour over and above more peaceful or nurturing values. The weakest of imps would be consumed by the stronger, which Orcs regarded as a way of relieving the community of "unnecessary burdens".

Society
Orcs lived in tribes, called Hai in Orcish. While some tribes had a strict militaristic hierarchy, others suffered from constant inner strife and chaos. Orcish tribes and clans were ruled by the strongest males and weaker members of the tribe were held as slaves.

The Uruk-hai were the highest in Orcish hierarchy, rivalled only by the great Orc-demons of Morgoth and Sauron. Orc tribes were led by a durbûk ("ruler") or dorkûz ("master"), positions occupied only by the most strongest, cunning and merciless orcs, many of whom had a Dark Lord's favor. By the time of the War of the Ring, several tribes and groups were led by the Uruku caste.

Gear
The Uruk-hai of Saruman used an Elf-rune wrought in white metal on the front of their iron helms. It was clear this stood for Saruman, because their shields had a small white hand (the symbol of Saruman) centered on a black field. Aragorn commented that their gear was not in the manner of other orcs at all. Instead of the curved scimitar, they used short, broad-bladed swords. Their great bows were made of yew wood, of the same length and shape as those of men. His Uruk army includes pikemen, swordsmen, crossbowmen, sappers, scouts, and berserkers. The berserkers are even larger and more vicious Uruks. They shave their heads and fill their helmets with human blood, so that when they put on the helmets the blood runs down their backs and its scent sends them into a killing frenzy. They carry double-bent swords. These swords were feared by their Rohirrim enemies for good reason. First, they had double spikes on the end (used for hamstringing or disemboweling horses). Second, the tremendous strength of the berserkers could easily take the head off of any human. Last, they had a keen cutting edge that could easily cut through the leather armor of the Rohirrim (for the massive swords were powerful enough to cut through even steel armor). The sappers were responsible for crewing the ballistae, handling the ladders and carrying Saruman's bombs. The army additionally had many hundreds of pikemen and a smaller count of deadly crossbowmen. Normal Uruk infantry wielded swords and shields. These swords would maximize the brute strength of the Uruks, being able to cut off limbs and heads very easily. hey also sometimes use bladed shields with the White Hand painted on them, as seen in Amon Hen during Aragorn's fight against Lurtz. These were broad shields, made of durable iron that could defend well against incoming attacks and would provide an alternative weapon by using the bladed side, should the Uruk lose his other weapon. Scouts wear light, leather armor and have leather helmets with no crests or brims, and wield short swords, axes, daggers, and powerful bows of yew with a tremendous draw weight. Their armor is grey and is made up of large lames and has a groin guard. Underneath is a layer of chainmail that covers the torso, half the arm and a small fraction of the legs. They also wear arm armor but they have bare legs. For footwear they have puttees and sandals that are covered by foot and leg armor. As the Isengard Uruk-hai were an army that was being rapidly grown, mass production of arms was required to equip them quickly. The metal weapons used by the Isengard uruks, as depicted in The Fellowship of the Ring, are made from steel melted in a foundry, cast in open molds, then forged, and finally finished by sharpening on grindstones. Armor and helmets are also seen being hammered and shaped en masse. Though the weapons and armor were competently crafted, the quality is depicted as relatively crude compared to the more finely honed weapons of the elves, men, and Dwarves. This lack of quality is not shown as hindering effectiveness. The Black Uruks in the service of Barad-dûr used the symbol of the red Eye of Sauron. The Red Eye was also painted on their shields. The Uruks residing in Minas Morgul used the symbol of moon to signify their allegiance to the Witch-king of Angmar. They wore curved scimitars and axes into battle.

Westron
A heavily accented, guttural version of Westron was used by many Orcish tribes as a trade language. The Orcish inhabitants of Gundabad and the Misty Mountains adopted Westron as their native tongue.

Black Speech
The Black Speech was a language devised by Sauron during the Dark Years to be the sole language of all his servants, replacing the many different varieties of Orcish and other languages.

Orcish
Orcish was a collection of guttural tribal dialects spoken among the Orcs. There was great linguistic and grammatical variance between Orcish tongues and many of them were mutually unintelligible. Because of this, most Orc tribes used Westron as a lingua franca. By the middle Second Age and during the Third Age, Orcish-speakers had mostly combined elements of Black Speech with Orcish.

Faith and Worship
The Orcs of the Maia Sauron abandoned Melkorist ways and were adept Sauronites. The Dark Lord was worshiped as Ashdurbûk ("Sole Ruler") and Ashdeiavausan ("Sole Deity") by all Orcish tribes in the Second Age and the late Third Age, much as he was revered as a prophet and later as God-King by the inhabitants of Númenor in the Second Age. Yet religious feeling among Orcs took on a very different character than that found among the other peoples of Arda. Orcs universally feared and reviled the object of their worship, regarding him as a great tyrant to be placated with sacrifices and offerings. It is also likely that the Orcs believed the godhead Ilúvatar to be a fiction devised by the Valar to keep them in chains - a belief that was also held by the Men of Númenor before the catastrophes recounted in the Akallabêth buried their island homeland beneath the sea.

Even the semi-independent Hais of the Misty Mountains practiced the Dark Worship, making rituals and offerings to Morgoth, Sauron and lesser evil spirits. In Gundabad there existed an ancient priesthood whose duty it was to placate the Dark Lord Sauron by conducting rituals, maintaining tribal records, chanting, human sacrifice and the burning of pyres. However, Orc faiths made no claims of an afterlife. The bodies of common Orcs were typically disposed of without ceremony, while Uruks were entombed within ritually prepared crypts.

Rumored Origins
The Uruk-Hai may have been bred out of captured and magically altered Dúnedain and Black Númenoreans. Alternatively, they could be descendants of Boldogs, having been bred with ordinary Orcs so many times that they were mere shadows of their ancestors. They could also be a combination of the two, being descended from both the Númenoreans and Boldogs. In fact, considering how different the Uruk-hai of Isengard seem to be from the Uruk-hai of Mordor (one example being that the Uruk-hai of Isengard cannot see as well during daylight), it's possible that different Uruk-hai have different amounts of diverse ancestry, For example, the Isengard Uruk-hai are perhaps more human in ancestry, or at least less magically altered human ancestry (in contrast from Uruk-hai who are presumably descended from either magically altered humans, Boldogs, or both), which may suggest that Isengard Uruk-hai aren't in fact pure Uruk-hai, if there were even such a thing, and would count more as Dur-Edan half-Orcs. Some Uruks were made in vats in Isengard.

Other names

 * Fighting Uruk-hai (by Saruman and themselves)
 * Black Uruks (reffering to those from Mordor)
 * Great Orcs (by Free Peoples)
 * Uruku (as part of a Hai)

Bloodlines:

 * Uruks2.jpgûr-edain: High-Man-Uruk-Hai Crossbreed of Isengard
 * Drû-Uruks: Wild Man-Snaga-Uruk-Hai Crossbreed of Isengard
 * feral Uruk-Hai: savaged, wild Uruk-Hai, probably descendants of uncontrolled breeding
 * Gusmûras:intermediate form or crossbreed of early Uruk and lesser Orc
 * Kû-Uruk: elder bloodlines of Greater Orcs or Hobgoblins before the first black Uruks of mordor appeared, who were supposedly bred from the elder Kû-Uruk strain which appeared about TA 1600.
 * Mordor Uruk-Hai or black Uruks: the Uruk-Hai of Sauron, introduced in TA 2475
 * Scara-Hai: a tribe of early Uruks with shapeshifting ability (Uruk-Werewolf Crossbreeds)
 * Fighting Uruk-Hai or Great Uruks (Uruk-Hai perfected): the late Uruk Breed of Isengard, Uruk-Hai with traces of Goblin-man-blood, fully immune to sunlight but unable to see in the dark

Uglúk
Uglúk was a trusted servant of Saruman and the second captain of the Orc-troop who captured the hobbits Merry and Pippin and shot Boromir with arrows at the ruins of Amon Hen. He entered conflict with the "northerners" who wanted to eat the captives and with fellow captain Grishnákh over who would take possession of them. Uglúk was slain during the night attack by the Rohirrim.

Lurtz
Lurtz was the first Uruk-hai made by Saruman, assigned to lead a party of Orcs from Isengard in capturing the hobbits carrying the One Ring. The Fellowship was attacked by this troop near the ruins of Amon Hen. During the ensuing skirmish, Lurtz shot the Gondorian captain Boromir with three poisoned arrows, allowing the Orcs to leave with the captives Merry and Pippin. His victory was short-lived, for a duel began between him and Aragorn, which ended with Isildur's heir disarming, impaling and beheading Lurtz.

Shagrat
Shagrat was the captain of the garrison stationed at the Tower of Cirith Ungol. Prior to the War of the Ring, he had escorted Gollum to the Secret Stairs, an encounter which he would later recall in a conversation with Gorbag, a fellow captain from Minas Morgul. A group of Orcs stumbled upon the unconscious Frodo Baggins and brought him to Cirith Ungol, where a fight began over the hobbit's belongings. At the end of the skirmish, Shagrat killed his rival from Morgul and left with Frodo's mithril shirt, which ended up in the hands of the Mouth of Sauron.