Quote:
Originally Posted by Irish Wolf
I just finished rereading The Lord of the Rings, and I don't recall any specific power being attributed to the Seven Rings of the Dwarf-Lords. Presumably it would have been either an amplification effect, similar to that exhibited by the Three Rings of the Elves, or that ability to channel a small portion of the One Ring's power that seemed to have brought the Nine Kings of Men under Sauron's sway as the Nazgul (or Ringwraiths).
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The use of the Rings of Power that Sauron helped create (not the Three) was mostly Command. Wearing one, you could exert your will to influence those around you. The effect is proportional to the strength of your own will. This is not automatically evil, because although they can be used to dominate others, they can also be used to inspire. They may have had other powers, but none are ever described. They have the side-effect of making men and hobbits invisible, by dragging their physical forms halfway into the spirit-realm. They apparently don't have this effect on those who have strong presences in the spirit-realm already, and they apparently didn't turn dwarves invisible. Nobody knows what effect one might have on a common wood-elf.
The Rings of Power presumably gave this ability to the dwarves who wore them, though the effect of this was always to increase their hoards.
Of course, the true purpose of the Rings of Power was as a booby-trap: when Sauron put on the One Ring, he would have the power to command the wearers of all the others. This didn't seem to work with the dwarves.
The three Elf-rings were not made by Sauron, and aren't used to dominate others. Galadriel uses hers to preserve Lothlorien from the decline of time; Gandalf uses his to inspire others to fight the Shadow; Elrond apparently uses his to hide Rivendell and keep it safe from the enemies all round it.
I don't think there's an actual distinction between the powers of the sixteen rings distributed to men and dwarves; it's just that nine men and seven dwarves got rings. The seven dwarves were probably the heads of the seven houses of the dwarves. Dunno why nine men were given them. I also don't know why, after the nine men were turned into wraiths and Sauron collected their rings, he didn't give out those rings to more men.