The Rings of Power Season 3: Sauron Forges the One Ring in the Trailer

“Now is the mighty hour come.”

Sauron delivers the opening words of the first official teaser for the third season of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, unveiled by Prime Video during San Diego Comic-Con. As molten metal fills a mould of unmistakable shape, the series finally reaches the object around which it has been built: the One Ring.

Five years have passed since the fall of Eregion. Sauron’s armies have occupied much of Middle-earth, and only Khazad-dûm, Lindon and Rivendell continue to resist. The Elven realms are protected by the Three Rings, while the Dwarves have withdrawn into the depths of the mountain. Sauron, meanwhile, rules from a newly completed Barad-dûr: for the first time, we will see him operating from within the fortress that, in Peter Jackson’s films, had remained primarily an imposing architectural presence.

The One Ring Is Forged Outside Tolkien’s Chronology

In Tolkien’s writings, Sauron completes Barad-dûr and forges the One Ring in the fires of Orodruin around the year 1600 of the Second Age. The fall of Eregion, however, takes place in 1697, after the Elves sense the power of the One, remove their own Rings and provoke the Dark Lord’s military response.

In Prime Video’s version, by contrast, the One Ring is created five years after the destruction of Eregion. The war is therefore not caused by the Ring; instead, Sauron’s inability to win it drives him towards his ultimate weapon. The Three can thus protect Lindon and Rivendell before the One is forged to dominate them.

The forging sequence is expected to be one of the season’s major visual set pieces. Charlie Vickers revealed that it took two weeks to film, while Patrick McKay described it as the most technically ambitious scene the production has created so far.

Celeborn, the Nazgnagôl and a Balrog Voiced by Simon Pegg

Jamie Campbell Bower plays Celeborn, Galadriel’s husband, who was believed to be dead and remained absent throughout the first two seasons. The character returns after centuries of separation: Bower approached his relationship with Galadriel by reflecting on the separation endured by Tolkien and his future wife Edith during the First World War. The teaser shows their reunion, but does not reveal where Celeborn has been or how he survived.

Zubin Varla, meanwhile, will play Khamûl the Easterling, who comes from Rhûn. It is a significant choice: Khamûl is the only one of the Nine Ringwraiths to whom Tolkien gives a proper name, and he is destined to become the most powerful of the Nazgûl after the Witch-king. Before their final transformation, the series will call these men the Nazgnagôl, “servants of the Ring”: an apocryphal term coined by the showrunners, who constructed it from nazg, meaning “ring,” and a derivation of nagôl, meaning “servant,” to describe men who have already submitted to Sauron but have not yet been reduced to wraiths.

The most unexpected revelation, however, concerns the Balrog of Khazad-dûm: for the first time in a Tolkien adaptation, the creature will speak, with Simon Pegg providing its voice. The other new cast members include Eddie Marsan as Thrain, the elder brother of Durin IV, Andrew Richardson as Anárion, and Adam Young as the enigmatic Marnûkh.

Barad-dûr is complete, the Nine are entering Sauron’s service, and the One Ring is about to transform a war of conquest into a system of domination. Prime Video will release the first four episodes on November 11, 2026.