Do you remember the first time you saw a Balrog? I did. First a distant glimmer, an orange hue cascading down pillars deep in Moria. Then a rumbling, deep and guttural. The pan of Gandalf’s face as he realizes what has awakened: “This enemy is beyond the reach of any of you.”
It may sound like a silly thing to say about a key, but the Balrog’s spacebar from Drop somehow manages to capture and recreate a certain level of terrifying awe it inspires
I felt it when I saw the LOTR demon for the first time. With the 3D design, it looks like the flame of Udûn is really present in the keycap.
Although, perhaps downplaying the whole “awesome” aspect, I guess it would be a miniaturized Balrog, which I might sheepishly call adorable, in that furious but ineffectual little puppy-dog kind of way.
The $49 purchase (down from $65) not only gets you the awesome Artisan spacebar. You also get the Artisan Mithrandir (Gandalf) keycap, pipe in hand. The two make a nice duo — lithe vs. dim and so on.
This is a really apt connection. For those unaware, Balrogs are essentially the same type of creature as Gandalf. They are both Maiar, which are a bit like angels in the history of Middle-earth, but Balrogs are the ones that Morgoth corrupted.
This isn’t the first time Drop’s has travelled to Middle-earth for its keycaps. It has previously designed and produced LOTR Rohan-themed keycaps. At the time, our Andy called them “basically little LOTR dioramas in resin”, and it looks like Drop’s has taken that approach again with the Gandalf keycap, and there’s more than a hint of 3D resin on the Balrog keycap too.
I also have to say that there might be something incredibly cathartic about smashing a Balrog’s head with your thumb. It might compensate for some of the residual trauma left behind by my seven-year-old self, who witnessed, you know, what the Balrog did (I don’t even want to talk about it).
I’m just afraid that if I buy these, I’ll have to decorate the rest of the keyboard with LOTR-inspired overlays. I don’t know if I could go all the way. But when I think about it, it doesn’t sound like a bad idea at all. When’s the next payday?
