North of Mordor, Umbar and Harad - are there any dangers lurking upon a lone traveler? Apart from...

North of Mordor, Umbar and Harad - are there any dangers lurking upon a lone traveler? Apart from, I guess whispering trees that want to put you to sleep and squash you and dimwitted ogres.

Is there anythign else that "lurks" ... Holy hell, dune wraiths. Ok I guess there is some stuff.

Other urls found in this thread:

tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Red_Mountains
old.ahmadtea.ua/userfiles/files/Tolkien/Lord Of The Rings - Part 2 - The Two Towers By J R R Tolkien.pdf
tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Battle_of_the_Hornburg
bbs.pku.edu.cn/attach/b4/7f/b47f4b87ffc15956/Lord of the Rings - The Return of The King.pdf
twitter.com/SFWRedditGifs

Slavers and bandits, Trolls and other monsters. The occasional easterling/khand warband.

I'm guessing some kind of funky insects too in the deserts.

how big is the whole continent? is there any other great kingdom in the east/south?

I dunno, I have this sitting on my harddrive, but it's nothing remotely resembling canon.

Here's an ancient map by Tolkien from I think when elves first woke up, but I doubt its accuracy.

There is a small chance that you might find those two blue wizards.

IIRC it's strongly hinted that there are huge kingdoms in the south and far east. Denethor is shown visions of the foreign hordes coming to help Mordor, and he falls into utter despair.

Gondor is a sparsely populated backwater with a few vassal kingdoms, but has some importance as the last kingdom that respects the old line of Numenor. Sort of a bastion of free men in a world of ignorant savagery.

if you are talking about in that area of Rhun and the sea of Rhun well you've got the Easternling warbands, as well as the kingdom of wine Dorwinion right there on the west bank of the sea of Rhun.

That doesn't necessarily imply huge unified countries; it could easily be lots of little ones.

Plus, after Sauron "dies" and stops unifying/inspiring them, Aragorn beats the shit out of the Haradrim and mounts successful expeditions to the east. They don't seem to be that powerful

It's the fabled land of Korean wizards and Latino hobbits

what?

During Numenors golden age, they did explore much of the world, including I believe the dark lands.

Basically, it's up to you. We don't know almost anything about Rhun, except nomads alligned with Sauron and Dorwinion (which has, you guessed it, wines).
And Bilbo talks about were-worms, whatever THOSE are.

Funny thing to me is that JRTT left out many blanks on the map closer to home. What about the Blue Mountains? I like the TOR idea of more scholarly dwarfs, but....
What about West Gondor, even?

>And Bilbo talks about were-worms, whatever THOSE are.
When did that happen? If it happened in the Hobbit, it's dubious whether it's canon. Hobbit referenced a lot of stuff that was then nowhere to be seen in LotR and Silmarillion, e.g. giants.

Isn't the area north of Mordor dwarf territory?

I think that Rhun is the only place north of Morder although dwarves do live in the far eastern parts of middle eart, beyond Mordor, and there are a chain of mountains there that they possibly dwell in.

tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Red_Mountains

>dubious canon

>The Hobbit

I bet you nigga think the Silmarillion is "canon" and there is a posthoumous/written before LOTR "canon".

>tl;dr "canon" is The Hobbit + LOTR and POSSIBLY what he wrote AFTER those, considering that he didn't publish them tough, certainly not what Cristopher taught made sense of the papers BEFORE the books

Anyway Bilbo mentions a lot of things that clearly are from hobbit fairytales, but honestly I can't seee why we would assume it's bullshit. I mean, in middle earth we have fucking vampires and talking eagles, I don't think a dunesque worm-dragon would be a stretch.

>you're now picturing Gimli in a stillsuit

I'm just saying, Hobbit canon =/= LotR canon in a lot of instances

No only that but I'm picturing The Fellowship and other soldiery smashing through the Dark Gate to assault Barad-dûr on Great Worms.

"Elessar, we have wormsign the likes of which even Eru Ilúvatar has never seen!"

And the music. I can hear the music again and it is wonderful.

Nah, those are from the earlier First Age and forgotten as Cuivienen, and the four dwarven clans didn't even reside there for all we know.

We should assume that the Orcarni went the way the Helcar Sea went. Or at least the way the Blue Mountains did - no more Belegost and Nogrod after the War of Wrath.

I wouldn't exclude a whole lot of dwarves or even elves living there but it would preposterous to think the geography didn't change, and that the cultures are VERY separated now. Consider that the western elves seem to have forgotten in earliest their kin that didn't go west (the eastern Avari in the Silmarillion, dunno what he re-christened them in HOME); dwarves, mortals as they were, would have less connection still with clans that didn't even wake up in the same region (apparently Durin woke in Gundabad, but it was just his clan, the Longbeards, that hailed from there).

>tfw possibly he tought dwarves in the east were totally irrecognizable

Arguing about canon defeats the point of the framing device, where the whole body of work exists as part of the narrative. It's all arguable in-universe, so shut up before space Numenoreans sail back from mugging Venus to steal its Venusian nature and force everyone to worship melkor.

Personally I think it all works. Execpt maybe the giants, but fuck, he made Bombadil in LOTR, try to systemize THAT motherfucker.

They were dragons tough. If anything, you should picture Paul "Sauron-friend" Atreides at the gates of Minas Tirith.

It's funny how Sauron didn't use dragons anyway. Morgoth was imho a little more laid-back, in a sense, didn't mind that much having lieutenants with powers, perhaps.

Consider that he didn't use Saruman either.

>Consider that he didn't use Saruman either.
Wut? Sauron was entirely using Saruman, which is why the latter goes off on this insane unwinnable attack on Rohan.

>Tom Bombadil
Iirc he's the Middle Earth analogue of the Great Old Ones. Only friendly.

>unwinnable

Dude, he lost just because of Gandalf making a critical Persuasion roll on Theoden and getting Grima rekt (plus the Erkenbrand thing, if you consider that separate). Basically Saruman's plan was pretty sound, maybe his captains where too eager at most (which actually is pretty clearly Saruman's fault, anyway: Sauron was methodical as fuck).

He left Saruman to his own devices: if he WAS controlling him like a puppet, he'd have Saruman attack the same day he attacked Minas Tirith proper for maximum divide et impera. Or hell, siege the Hornburg/Edoras for a month, why the fuck not.

>ude, he lost just because of Gandalf making a critical Persuasion roll on Theoden and getting Grima rekt
Pay attention to troop counts. Isengard, after being "emptied" had about 10,000 troops, a motley collection of dunlending hillmen and uruks who were still midgets and of poor discipline.

The full muster of the Rohirrim would match them in numbers, have better equipment, be on horse, and probably have better training. It's not "Gandalf made a critical persuasion roll". Grima not only needs to keep Theoden from doing anything, but he also needs to keep everyone else ever from doing anything and keeping the collective thumb of the Rohirrim firmly up their own asses while an enemy they could pretty easily best in battle destroys their entire country. That's retarded.

>He left Saruman to his own devices: if he WAS controlling him like a puppet
He wasn't controlling him like a puppet, but it's very clear from the text that he was influencing Saruman's mind, and a hell of a lot moreso than he was hitting up Denethor. Remember what Pippin sees when he uses the Palantir? A message from Sauron, giving instructions to Saruman whom the Big Bad both assumes is still holding the seeing stone, and will take orders relayed by a prisoner hobbit.

>Or hell, siege the Hornburg/Edoras for a month, why the fuck not.
Because the Rohirrim fully muster in 2 days, and will crush his puny little army if he waits that long.

Personally I think more on less on these lines, but it's all fan speculation.

>it's funny that Elrond himself appears somewhat puzzled by Tom

It's what I think of Giants too: "spontaneous generation" creatures. In JRRT mountains anyway have pretty much a will on their own, or at least Caradrahas has (PJ fucked that big time).

Or Gimili is anthropomorphizing a mountain which is known for bad weather.

Well, that very scene also has Gimli be comically assuring that everything would be fine in Moria, as opposed to wondering about the kin who haven't spoken to the outside world in years, so it's not exactly surprising.

PJ has fucked up a lot of things (coughhobbitcough)

There two separate issues here.

1) Saruman's original plan

The Rohirrim wouldn't muster against basically their own king while he would be under Grima's influence.

Grima WAS keeping Eomer in check and all: things went smoothly before Gandalf.

I'd think the idea was to blitz Edoras and then finish the other lords.

2) Was Saruman out of his mind, sieging the Hornburg after Gandalf casted Cure Bullshit on Theoden?

I wouldn't think. That battle went smoothly NOT because of Gandalf or Aragorn or whatever, not really because of Erkenbrand either: but because of the Huorns (and later the Ents themselves). And honestly Saruman couldn't possibly have that intel.

What I think is that while he rushed things, 10,000 vs 3000 seems legit.

>He wasn't controlling him like a puppet, but it's very clear from the text that he was influencing Saruman's mind,

But that's the point: he wasn't "using" Denethor either, right? Or Pippin, for that matter. And Denethor was pretty much fucked up in the end, but Saruon didn't bother (ok, execpt making Denethor ostile to Gandalf, I concede that).
I dunno: seems more of a Second Age Sauron thing, to control enemy things. He didn't bother - hell, he didn't really mind control Gollum, who wasn't exactly the most powerful dude around, but had a thing for sniffing a certain Ring.

Eh, possibly. Gimli is the most superstitous of the Company, that's true.
Still, the Caradrahas really seem to fuck them up every time they try to walk more (doesn't it actually , and between the Watcher and Tom himself, the "aborigine creatures" seem relatively common in ME. My interpretation, certainly, but it does explain more than it seems (take the Eagles, for example. Who the fuck created them?).

Honestly I don't remember him saying THAT. He certainly seems self-delusional, not questioning why they didn't get at least a facebook post in 20 years, but I don't remeber him saying "there is no danger there". I can be wrong.

>(take the Eagles, for example. Who the fuck created them?).
Manwe?

Was talking about the movie, re: Gimli.
He assure them that everything will be fine, and that they'll have a warm, hearty welcome with his cousins. (Also no mention even made of all contact being lost.)
Yeah, like said.

Why the fuck would the Red Mountains disappear? The Blue Mountains certainly remained in place despite the northwest corner of Middle-Earth suffering the greatest destruction during the wars against Melkor. We can also be quite certain that the southern Grey and Yellow Mountains remained standing even after the reshaping of the world.

>The Rohirrim wouldn't muster against basically their own king while he would be under Grima's influence.
Why not? I mean, we've seen that regional lords can and do raise their own forces. Theodred was fighting for a reasonable while against the Isengardian force, and he didn't need Theoden's permission to do so. To assume that "Well, he's the king, so we're going to sit here and do nothing while these orcs that we could totally beat rampage everywhere" is pretty silly, especially since we've got armies in the field already, it's dubious how far Grima's influence extends outside Edoras.

>Grima WAS keeping Eomer in check and all: things went smoothly before Gandalf.
Well, unless Eomer went off with 120 men on his own, or someone like Hama comes along and lets him out of prison, which was totally done on his own initiative. Or someone like Erkenbrand, or Elfhelm, or random Rohirrim lord #5 gets their shit together.

>I'd think the idea was to blitz Edoras and then finish the other lords.
And if those other lords get together after Edoras falls? They'll still have a fairly significant force. They're a "scattered people", and not much for urban living.

>I wouldn't think. That battle went smoothly NOT because of Gandalf or Aragorn or whatever, not really because of Erkenbrand either:
The battle was against a tiny portion of the Rohirrim's strength, and I suggest you re-read it, between Erkenbrand and Theoden's charges, they had the Isengard force on the run; their bad luck and stupidity to try to rally in that weird forest that wasn't there yesterday, but the book is pretty clear they were throwing them back.

1/2

>Down from the gates they roared, and over the causeway they swept, and drove through the hosts of Isengard as a wind among grass. Behind them from the Deep came the stern cries of men issuing from the caves, driving forth the enemy. Out poured all the men that were left upon the Rock, and ever the sound of blowing horns echoed in the hills.
>On they rode, the king and his companions, Captains and champions fell or fled before them. Neither orc nor man withstood them. Their backs were to the swords and spears of the Riders and their faces to the valley. They cried and wailed, for fear and great wonder had come upon them with the rising of the day.

skipping a paragraph.

>The land had changed. Where before the green dale had lain, its grassy slopes lapping the ever-mounting hills, there now a forest loomed. Great trees, bare and silent, stood, rank on rank, with tangled bough and hoary head; their twisted roots were buried in the long green grass. Darkness was under them. Between the Dike and the eaves of that nameless wood only two open furlongs lay. There now cowered the proud hosts of Saruman, in terror of the king and in terror of the trees. They streamed down from Helm's Gate until all the Dike was empty of them, but below it they were packed like swarming flies. Vainly they crawled and clambered about the walls of the coomb, seeking to escape. Upon the east too sheer and stony was the valley's side; upon the left, from the west, their final doom approached.

>But that's the point
No it is not the point. Saruman is in way deeper than Denethor was. He has open communication with Sauron, who sends Nazgul to check up on him and pick up prisoners. The first thing Sauron wonders when he bumps into Pippin is "why haven't you reported sooner?", implying that Saruman regularly reports to Sauron. That's either willing collusion or some kind of mental domination.

2/2

>stupid post limits

10,000 sieging uruks+dunlending vs perhas 3000 warriors in Hornbug, I meant.

Now the problem is how many others Rohirrim would try to lift the siege, tough. Theoden in the end went to Gondor with some 6000 men +1000 or so left in the country.
So let's say 4-5000 warriors (considering losses and whatever)-3000 that went into the hornburg - I wouldn't think even with time many smaller lords would give away their forces to lift the siege off.

So 10,000 bad guys sieging slowly 3000 rorhirrim, and who could be attacked by 2000 other rohirrims.

I think if uruk can make ditches, seems pretty manageable.

Because apparently Cuivienen DID disapperar.

No, that's the bizzarre thing. They were messengers of Manwe, but we don't know if he made them like Aule with dwarves.

I guess they could be Maiar, but honestly the Great Eagle sound so much like an ass that I have problems believing it.

Personally I watched a rip of the first movie and it was pretty much enough not to even bother asking other people if the other movies were a little less atrocious. Jesus christ, Lynch Dune levels of retardation (but at least that WAS pretty).

>Dank Land

>Now the problem is how many others Rohirrim would try to lift the siege, tough. Theoden in the end went to Gondor with some 6000 men +1000 or so left in the country.
Much more than that. Unfinished tales, Cirion and Eorl, note 36.

> According to a note on the ordering of the Rohirrim, the éored “had no precisely fixed number, but in Rohan it was only applied to Riders, fully trained for war: men serving for a term, or in some cases permanently, in the King’s Host. Any considerable body of such men, riding as a unit in exercise or on service, was called an éored. But after the recovery of the Rohirrim and the reorganization of their forces in the days of King Folcwine, a hundred years before the War of the Ring, a ‘full éored’ in battle order was reck-oned to contain not less than 120 men (including the Captain), and to be one hundredth part of the Full Muster of the Riders of the Mark, not including those of the King’s Household. [The éored with which Éomer pursued the Orcs, The Two Towers III 2, had 120 Riders: Legolas counted 105 when they were far away, and Éomer said that fifteen men had been lost in battle with the Orcs.] No such host, of course, had ever ridden all together to war beyond the Mark; but Théoden’s claim that he might, in this great peril, have led out an expedition of ten thousand Riders (The Return of the King V 3) was no doubt justified.

We're talking more like 4-5,000 left behind.

And only 1,000 went into the hornburg; the rest of the troops involved were either people rallied up from the Fords of Isen debacle, or the troops Theoden leads in personally.

Instead, what you're going to get is the Isengarders likely destroying the Hornburg, and then the other 9-10,000 Rohirrim assembling and curbstomping them after they tear apart a fortification in the ass-end of nowhere that nobody lives in.

M E M E M A G I C

>Why not?

Because they didn't when the orcs were alreay pillaging the land. Pretty simple. The situation seems clearly "ever lord for himself".

>And if those other lords get together after Edoras falls? They'll still have a fairly significant force. They're a "scattered people", and not much for urban living.

See above. 6000 people mustered after the Hornburg, minus 3000 AT the Hornburg: granted, we should assume there were other rohirrims that didn't go to the Pelennor but the numbers seems pretty much in favour of Saruman.

>who sends Nazgul to check up on him and pick up prisoners

Don't remember anything like that, honestly. Grisnakh does talk about a Nazgul, anyway, but collaboration doesn't mean mental dominance to me.

Now is that using Saruman? Eh. I don't have problems admitting I didn't remember that, but I dunno. Seems a VERY weak connection - I mean, on these lines Elrond almost used (Legolas being pretty OP, in the end).

To be clearer: to me Grima is Saruman using Theoden to fuck off Rohan. I don't pretend you must agree with, I'm just trying to explain myself.

That's at Eorl's time. Anyway I guess 4000 would possibly win against, I dunno, 10-8000 (aftter the siege losses) uruks and dunlendings, but who knows? The problem to me (as a rohan man) would be the other dunlendings waiting to invade the country. I fin difficult to believe they would use them all to lift the siege.

Nope, 3000 at the Hornburg. 1000 are what Theoden left going south.

>I'm enjoying this discussion, but I realize now that I'm even more of a Saruman fanboy than I tought

>That's either willing collusion or some kind of mental domination.

No that's just a conversation, you can't prove it was collusion. And even if it was, Saruman colluding with Sauron isn't illegal by itself.

Ultimately it wasn't collusion that did Saruman in, it was Obstruction of Grey Justice.

My reaction to the first movie was closer to "meh, but whatever". I winced at all the retarded jokes and over-the-top action scenes, but still somehow decided to give the 2nd movie a chance. I switched it off when they staged a video game style fight at the barrel scene, and never came back.

>Because apparently Cuivienen DID disappear.
Surely you understand the difference between a lake shore and a huge ass mountain range? Cuiviénen's fate after the Awakening of the Elves has no relation to the continued existence of the Red Mountains. (The land where they awoke didn't go anywhere, it's just the shores of the Sea of Helcar that receded, by the way).
Since the Red Mountains didn't suffer anything close to the devastation the Blue Mountains went through, they're probably in an even more impressive shape than the latter range.

Here's the most accurate map of 3rd Age Arda I've seen over the years, considering all the information given by JRRT in the Shaping of Middle-Earth and elsewhere.

That map is just speculation. There is no later mention of anything execpt "our" NW region.

Hell, even Tol Fuin or Fuin are pretty sketchy.

Anyway real problem here is the dwarves: we don't have any idea of where those four clans even were born, way less were (if) they live anywhere in Third's Age.

Six of the seven clans are mentioned fighting on both sides of the War against Sauron, with only Durin's folk being undivided. Thus all the clans had living members in the Third Age. Also, Tolkien tells us the four other clans dwelt east of the Misty Mountains, and the distance between that place and Gundabad was no less than the distance between Gundabad and the Blue Mountains. Sure sounds like Orocarni to me.

Tol Fuin, along with the other islands left behind from the Sinking of Beleriand, were clearly described by Tolkien and are not sketchy at all.

>Because they didn't when the orcs were alreay pillaging the land.
Except they did. The books note that they did. You have Eomer's expedition, you have Theodred's actual army, you have the local lords he got to support it, you have guys like Erkenbrand and Elfhelm. All doing this, I might add, while Grima is around, Theoden is useless at best, and Eomer's the only one who is even temporarily inconvenienced by going against the king's word.

>See above. 6000 people mustered after the Hornburg, minus 3000 AT the Hornburg
That is incredibly wonky math and for starters ignores that this was a very hurried muster and didn't include everyone, as well as the fact that you only get 3,000 at the Hornburg by including Theoden's household guard and Erkenbrand's reinforcements.

>Don't remember anything like that, honestly.

old.ahmadtea.ua/userfiles/files/Tolkien/Lord Of The Rings - Part 2 - The Two Towers By J R R Tolkien.pdf (Page 130 of the PDF)

>"So you have come back? Why have you neglected to report for so long?" 'I did not answre. He said: "Who are you?" I still did not answer, but it hurt me horribly; and he pressed me, so I said: "A hobbit". Then suddenly he seemed to see me, and he laughed at me. It was cruel. It was like being stabbed with knives. I struggled. But he said: "Wait a moment! We shall meet again soon. Tell Saruman that this dainty is not for him. I will send for it at once. Do you understand? Say just that!"

And then later, on page 134 of the PDF

>At the moment I was just wondering about the black shadow. I heard you shout "messenger of Mordor." What was it? What could it do at Isengard?
>It was a Black Rider on wings, a Nazgul, said Gandalf. It could have taken you away to the Dark Tower.
1/3

>To be clearer: to me Grima is Saruman using Theoden to fuck off Rohan
Of course he is, but that's a VERY weak plan, hinging on Grima simultaneously keeping Theoden on the throne and able to keep anyone else from rallying the Rohirrim. Given the independence of action we've seen elsewhere in the books, that seems like a very weak plan, and a palace coup or just ignoring of Edoras is more likely.

Do you just ignore things you don't like to hear?

>but Théoden’s claim that he might, in this great peril, have led out an expedition of ten thousand Riders (The Return of the King V 3) was no doubt justified.
And that's AFTER the losses at the Fords of Isen and an enlarged Hornburg, and with a rushed muster.

>Anyway I guess 4000 would possibly win against, I dunno, 10-8000 (aftter the siege losses) uruks and dunlendings, but who knows?
You. Are. Missing. The. Point. It's not going to be the 4,000 left behind against the 8-10,000 Uruk-hai. It means that there is a body of about 12,000 Rohirrim that can be mustered at full, not including the King's household. You'll have a bit less after the loss at the Ford's of Isen and probable sack of the Hornburg, but there's still a lot of manpower Rohan can raise, and unless Grima can keep the entire country paralyzed through misplaced deference to a senile old man, it will muster, and then Saruman's forces get curb-stomped.

>Nope, 3000 at the Hornburg.
Bullshit. Source your statement.

>1000 are what Theoden left going south.
Bullshit. Source your statement.

2/3

>No that's just a conversation, you can't prove it was collusion.
It's just a conversation where Sauron instantly assumes that someone looking at the Palantir is being done so for purposes of torture at Orthanc (how does he know this without regular contact?) and feels in a position to relay orders to Saruman in his own stronghold.

>you can't prove it was collusion.

>'Easy it is now to guess how quickly the roving eye of Saruman was trapped and held; and how ever since he has been persuaded from afar, and daunted when persuasion would not serve. The biter bit, the hawk under the eagle's foot, the spider in a steel web! How long, I wonder, has he been constrainted to come often to his glass for inspection and instruction, and the Orthanc-stone so bent towards Barad-dur that, if any save a will of adamant now looks into it, it will bear his mind and sight swiftly thither.

fin.

You seem pretty upset user. I'll just point to the numbers, cause I honestly don't think there's anything to be mad about and I actually respect your idea.

tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Battle_of_the_Hornburg

>tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Battle_of_the_Hornburg

You're conflating the number of troops present at the Hornburg with the number of troops Theoden leaves behind. I have no idea why you think that those guys don't go to Dunharrow after the battle and cleanup, but you certainly haven't given anything to support it.

>Upset
A little. I'm making what are very simple, direct points supported by the text, and to be repeatedly met with nonsense and made up stuff is irritating.

I'm sure they went, actually. Which lessens the number of non-pelennor troops that were in Rohan and supposedly could've counter-attacked the siege.

Did the leader of each clan have one of the Seven Rings? I've always wondered what happened to those.

...

No. We don't see any other clan than the Longbeards in action, tough Broadbeams and Firebrands were apparently leaders in Nogrod and Belegost.

Considering the Rings were forged in the Second Age, personally I'd say the only "kingly" clan were Durin's one. I mean, I would say in the Blue Mountains there would've been an heir to those other two, but it wouldn't be something important.

And so the rings probably weren't connected to any clan-head.

I think you didn't get my point, actually, more than anything (thinking it incorrect is perfectly legit, mind you)

How many Rohirrim would be there to counter-siege the Hornburg?

Basically Theoden musters 7000 people for Pelennor (6000+1000 staying at home). This is the starting number.

In the Hornburg proper there were 3000 warriors: so we're left with 4000.

Now, how much OTHER guys would he get for a legit, slow muster? Personally I wouldn't say over 3000, but let's say 2,000: 6000 people.

That is... if they left their lands without defenders, against other dunlendings ready (presumably) to raid Rohan.

Probably, the seven Dwarf lords were kings according to Gandalf's tale of the rings of power. Four were destroyed by dragonfire and three were gathered by Sauron.

>We don't see any other clan than the Longbeards in action

LotR Appendix A, prior to the war against Azog:
>Thráin at once sent messengers bearing the tale, north, east, and west; but it was three years before the Dwarves had mustered their strength. Durin's Folk gathered all their host, and they were joined by great forces sent from the Houses of other Fathers; for this dishonour to the heir of the Eldest of their race filled them with wrath. When all was ready they assailed and sacked one by one all the strongholds of the Orcs that they could find from Gundabad to the Gladden.
Note that Thráin at the time resided in Dunland, relatively close to the Iron Hills (Durin's Folk) and Blue Mountains (the two western clans). The three year delay between Thráin's decision to go to war and the the first battle was obviously because he waited for reinforcements to come from the far east, where the other four clans lived.

>How many Rohirrim would be there to counter-siege the Hornburg?
Stop working backwards from what happened after the Hornburg. Don't do that. You don't GET 3,000 men to Helms deep unless Theoden brings a third of them, and Gandalf with Shadowfax rallies another third of them. You probably won't get anything sent down to Gondor until the problems at home are cleaned up. Saruman isn't going to be facing a Rohan that's committed to sending 6k men to Mundburg. He's going to face ALL of them, with only about 1,000 losses at the Hornbrug, and whatever was lost at the Fords of Isen battles. That's easily 9,000, probably more.

Also, this

>Basically Theoden musters 7000 people for Pelennor (6000+1000 staying at home). This is the starting number.
Is wrong. It is literally contradicted by the books, and you have zero source for that only 1,000 men are staying at home.In fact, he says that he has 10,000 men at Dunharrow, after whatever losses at the Hornburg.

bbs.pku.edu.cn/attach/b4/7f/b47f4b87ffc15956/Lord of the Rings - The Return of The King.pdf Page 35.

>The weapontake was set for the morrow. When all is ordered we will set out. Ten thousand spears I might have sent riding over the plain to the dismay of your foes. It will be less now, I fear; for I will not leave my strongholds all unguarded. Yet six thousands at the least shall ride behind me.

But again, this is irrelevant, because if you have political trouble in Rohan from either a coup or just ignoring the king, you're going to see all of the riders of the Mark fighting Saruman, not fighting in Gondor. Which, by the way, is why it seems that the attack is far more in the interests of Mordor than it is for Isengard, and why it's a dumb plan if Saruman is entirely his own master, which by the way, the books are pretty explicit that he is not at this point.