Vice-regent of Eriador

		Eärendil		Elwing
Celebrían		Elrond Vice-regent of Eriador		Elros
Elladan	Elrohir	Arwen

After the fall of Eregion, Elrond set out with a small force to relieve the survivors, but he came close to destruction himself when he encountered the massed armies of Sauron. The Dwarves of Khazad-dûm came to his rescue, attacking Sauron's force from the rear, and thus Elrond was able to escape to the north. In the year II 1697, he came to a hidden valley in the foothills of the Misty Mountains, and there he established a refuge and stronghold named Imladris (which would become better known to history as Rivendell).

Sauron sent an army to pursue Elrond northwards, and they laid siege to the new refuge at Imladris, but with the aid of King Gil-galad, Elrond was able to lift the siege. The Númenóreans drove Sauron back into Mordor and won peace for a time, but the loss of Eregion meant that the Elves no longer had a stronghold in Eriador. A council was held, and it was agreed that Imladris would become the new outpost of the Elves in the lands between the Misty Mountains and the Blue. At that time, King Gil-galad appointed Elrond as his vice-regent in Eriador, to rule over the Elves of that region in the High King's name. To aid Elrond in this task, Gil-galad granted him Vilya, the Blue Ring.

Elrond dwelt in Imladris from that time forward, but as the Second Age came to an end, war with Sauron broke out once again. This was the War of the Last Alliance, in which the Elves joined with the Dúnedain to march against Sauron in Mordor. In that war Gil-galad was lost, the last of the Kings of the Elves east of the Great Sea. With the loss of the King, Elrond's vice-regency would also have come to an end (for he no longer had a King to represent), but Elrond remained in Imladris, maintaining it as the Last Homely House westward of the Misty Mountains.

The events of the War of the Ring, an Age after the War of the Last Alliance, brought the Blue Ring's power to an end. At last Elrond set out from his home of millennia³ to travel across the Sea with the other Keepers of the Three Rings.