Chieftain of the Ringwraiths

A powerful sorcerer and leader of Men in the Second Age, who was selected by Sauron to be a bearer of one of the Nine Rings. Through that Ring of Power, he fell entirely under Sauron's will and was drawn into the Wraith-world. He was placed in command of the Nine Nazgûl or Ringwraiths, becoming their Lord or Chieftain. First appearing in this form in about the year II 2250, he would remain as Chieftain until the end of the Third Age, a period of more than four thousand years.

After the Fall of Sauron in the War of the Last Alliance, the Ringwraiths were hidden for many centuries, but they gradually re-emerged. As the North-kingdom of the Dúnedain had become disunited, the Chieftain of the Ringwraiths took on the role of the King of Angmar, threatening the lands that had made up Arnor. In a campaign lasting nearly seven centuries, he dealt the Dúnedain reverse after reverse. He would eventually defeat all three of Arnor's successor kingdoms, but in the Battle of Fornost he was himself defeated and driven out of the northern lands.

After centuries dwelling apart from the other Nazgûl, at this time their Lord became Chieftain of the Ringwraiths indeed, gathering his fellow Nazgûl in Mordor. In III 2002 the Nine Ringwraiths launched an attack out of Mordor against the Gondorian city of Minas Ithil, which lay on their western borders. The city fell, and the Chieftain settled there with his fellow Ringwraiths. The captured tower became known as Minas Morgul, 'Tower of Black Sorcery', and it would remain the capital and chief city of the Ringwraiths until the time of the War of the Ring.

It was not until that War that the Lord of the Nazgûl met his end. He marched from the gates of Minas Morgul with an immense force, bent on the destruction of the Gondorians and their city of Minas Tirith. Centuries beforehand, as he fled the field of the Battle of Fornost, it had been prophesied that he would not fall to the hand of any man, and so he believed himself to be indestructible. In the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, however, he encountered the disguised Shieldmaiden Éowyn and the Hobbit Meriadoc Brandybuck. Neither of these was a Man, and together they fulfilled the prophecy and succeeded in slaying the Chieftain of the Ringwraiths.