Angband

In J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional world of Middle-earth, Angband (Sindarin for 'iron prison') is the name of the fortress of Melkor, constructed before the First Age, located in the Iron Mountains in the enemy's land Dor Daedeloth north of Beleriand.

The fortress is described in Tolkien's The Silmarillion. It was built by Melkor (later called Morgoth) to guard against a possible attack from Aman by the Valar. Nonetheless, the Valars' attack succeeded in capturing Morgoth and destroying his main stronghold Utumno.

However, while the Valar had focused on destroying Utumno utterly, Angband, though devastated, was only partially destroyed. Over time, the dark creatures in Morgoth's service would gather in its ruined pits. After three ages of imprisonment, Morgoth returned to Middle-earth and set himself up in Angband, raising the volcanic Thangorodrim over the fortress as protection. He seldom came out of it again, but did when challenged to single combat by the Elven king Fingolfin and earlier to investigate the first appearance of Men. He reigned there until the end of the First Age, when it was destroyed in the War of Wrath. In earlier versions of Tolkien's mythology (see The History of Middle-earth) it was called Angamando, the Quenya form of the name.

Angband (band)

Angband is a Persian power metal/progressive musical group, formed in 2004 in Tehran.

Band history

Angband was formed in 2004 in Tehran by Mahyar Dean, a classically trained musician and author who is known for writing books about the bands Death and Testament. Angband was originally conceived as a progressive metal/instrumental project, but with the inclusion of singer Ashkan Yazdani they headed in a more power metal/progressive metal vein. Once Ramin Rahimi joined the band as drummer, the band was able to record their first full-length album, which was titled Rising from Apadana. Mahyar Dean played the bass parts as well as the guitars but shortly after the album was released, M. Halaji joined the band as full-time bassist.

After the release of the first album, Ramin Rahimi, who is a skilled percussion player, signed a deal with ARC Music for a solo project. His solo music mostly focuses on Iranian percussion and drums. Angband uses Daff a Persian percussion in their music exclusively.

Angband (video game)

Angband is a dungeon-crawling roguelike computer game derived from Umoria. It is based on the writings of J. R. R. Tolkien, in which Angband is the fortress of Morgoth. The current version of Angband is available for all major operating systems, including Unix, Windows, Mac OS X, and Android.

Gameplay

The game revolves around exploring a 100-level dungeon, in which the player seeks to amass enough power and equipment to ultimately defeat Morgoth. A new dungeon level is randomly generated each time the player enters a new level for the first time; so no two games are the same. It has been described by GameSetWatch as "perhaps the purest representation of roguelike tactics in any game".

Angband gameplay is combat and tactics based, with inventory management as an important aspect of gameplay. Angband games can last for weeks. The game is often described as "fiendishly difficult", and players can play for years without getting even a third of the way through the game. Although saving of games is possible, the death of a character is saved immediately to the file, making it impossible to simply reload the saved game as a means of continuing the game from an earlier point. As well have having sufficient health points, characters acquire resistances to mitigate or nullify attacks, which at later stages in the game are critical to avoiding being killed instantly by a single unexpected attack.