Durin VII

The foretold return

The Longbeards believed that Durin the Deathless would return among them, reborn in his own line, and that the seventh Durin would be the last. Five had already come by the end of the Third Age, the last of them Durin VI, slain by the Balrog in T.A. 1980. Durin VII was born in the Fourth Age, in the house of Dáin Ironfoot and Thorin III Stonehelm, and he was given the name because he was held to be the Deathless come again.

The return to Khazad-dûm

With the Balrog destroyed by Gandalf in 3019 and Sauron's Orcs broken in the war, the way to Moria was open for the first time in a thousand years. Durin VII led Durin's Folk back over the mountains to the halls of their fathers and refounded the kingdom of Khazad-dûm. There, in the place where Durin I had looked into Mirrormere, the line of the kings sat again, and the Dwarves worked the old mines and the mithril that had drawn the Balrog on them once before.

Legacy

The histories record that Khazad-dûm was the home of Durin's Folk after that until the world grew old, the Dwarves failed, and the days of the line of Durin ended. Durin VII therefore closes the story of his people: the last of the Seven Fathers' houses to be counted, restored to the first of their mansions, in the last of the recorded ages.

Died in the Fourth Age at an unrecorded date, king in Khazad-dûm; his people held the mansion until the days of the Dwarves ended.