The Company of the Ring, also called the Fellowship of the Ring and the Nine Walkers, is a fictional group of nine representatives from the free peoples of Middle-earth: Elves, Dwarves, Men, and Hobbits; and a Wizard. The group is described in the first volume of The Lord of the Rings, itself titled The Fellowship of the Ring. The number nine is chosen, as the book's author J. R. R. Tolkien states, to match and oppose the nine Black Riders or Ringwraiths.

The greatest kingdom of Men in Middle-earth, founded by the Númenórean exiles after the fall of their island home. Gondor has stood for millennia as the chief bulwark against Sauron's power in the East, but its line of kings failed long ago. Now ruled by Stewards, the kingdom is diminished but unbowed, its great city of Minas Tirith standing watch over the shadow of Mordor.