Also known as: The Ruling Ring, Isildur's Bane, The Great Ring, The Ring Of Power, Precious, My Precious
The Ruling Ring, forged by Sauron alone in the fires of Mount Doom to dominate the bearers of all other Rings of Power. He poured the greater part of his own native strength and will into it, so that while it endured he could not be wholly destroyed — and its destruction would be his utter end. A plain gold band, it bore in fire the Black Speech inscription: One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.
Cut from Sauron's hand by Isildur, lost in the Gladden Fields, murdered for by Sméagol, found in the dark by Bilbo Baggins: the Ring had a will of its own, and worked always to return to its master, corrupting every bearer through their own desires — most terribly the strong. Frodo bore it from the Shire to the Sammath Naur, where no will in Middle-earth, not even his, could destroy it by choice; it was Gollum's final theft, and the long mercy that had spared him, that carried it into the Fire.