Rings of Power Season 3 Will Name the Nameless: Meet the Nazgnagôl

The Nine before the fall — new invented lore, built with Tolkien’s linguistic method, arriving November 11.

For 72 years, the Ringwraiths have been shadows: nine kings of men, corrupted by nine rings, only two of them — the Witch-king and Khamûl — ever named, and barely described. The Rings of Power Season 3 is filling that silence.

Per Empire’s exclusive, Season 3 (premiering November 11) introduces the Nine as the Nazgnagôl — “Ring-servants” — still-mortal rulers partway through their corruption, before they become the wraiths of the Third Age.

The name itself is worth being precise about: it does not appear anywhere in Tolkien’s writing. The showrunners constructed it from Tolkien’s own linguistic components — nazg, the Black Speech word for ring — extending his method to coin a term for an era he never detailed. It’s invented lore, built the way Tolkien built words, and viewers can decide how they feel about that trade.

The season’s focal Ringwraith is Khamûl the Easterling, played by stage actor Zubin Varla. Season 3 finds him in Rhûn, at odds with Ciarán Hinds’ Dark Wizard — a warlord whose power was stolen, offered a way back to his throne by Sauron’s “gift.” The show’s stated approach: every one of the Nine is the hero of his own story.

Varla’s description of the transformation invokes a familiar horror: like Gollum’s corruption, souls and bodies hollowed out until they are “almost devoid of physical form.”

It’s been a big week for the series: Daniel Weyman told press at SDCC that the Stranger arrives in Season 3 as “the Gandalf we all know and love” [link], and Jamie Campbell Bower joined the cast in a still-unrevealed role [link].

The Rings of Power Season 3 premieres November 11 on Prime Video.

Sources: Empire (exclusive); CBR; Inverse