The usurper whose rebellion, the Kin-strife, was the most grievous self-inflicted wound in Gondor's history. Captain of Ships and of royal descent, he led the revolt against King Eldacar, whose mother was a northern princess and whose blood the proud purists deemed diluted. Castamir took the crown, murdered Eldacar's son, and burned Osgiliath — it was in that burning that the city's palantir was lost in the river. Cruel and loved only by the coastal fleets, he reigned ten years before Eldacar returned with a northern army and slew him in battle. His sons and the rebel fleet fled south to Umbar, where their descendants became the Corsairs — enemies of Gondor for the rest of the age.