Lord of the Rings mechanical keyboards are great for Elvish speakers

Enlarge / Don't worry, there are English captions too. Drop

Middle-earth has seen more than its fair share of trials and challenges, but perhaps none are more pressing today than the lack of mechanical keyboards than any of its various peoples can actually read. For centuries, everyone from elves to dwarves had to make do with keyboards bearing legends of unknown languages. Today, keyboard and audio brand Drop launched two mechanical keyboard presets to rule them all, or at least the Elven and Dwarf speakers.

The Drop + The Lord of the Rings Dwarven and Elven Keyboards ($169) are the first to be officially licensed by The Lord of the Rings rings, Drop said in his announcement today. The keyboards build on Drop's November release of Lord of the Rings key sets, also written in Elvish and Dwarf, and follow handcrafted Lord of the Rings keysets. Resin drop em>.

Drop's new pre-made keyboards target people who want a keyboard J.R.R. Tolkien would be proud of but don't necessarily want to go on an epic Tolkien-style journey to build their own.

Drop's Elvish keyboard has captions written in actual translations of Tolkien's created languages ​​of Sindarin Elvish and, for the modifier keys, Tengwar, the form of Elvish found in that special ring.

Enlarge / The Elvish keyboard celebrates the Two Trees of Valinor. Drop

The Dwarf keyboard, on the other hand, uses the Cirth language, while the modifiers are inspired by the Erebor language.

Enlarge / The Dwarf Keyboard features the gates of Moria. Drop

The translations, found on the keycaps product page, are somewhat loose. For example, Shift on the Elvish keyboard is "ortho", the word for "increase", and Shift lock on the Dwarf keyboard is "ahdun ashfât", which apparently means "contain the engine".

All keycaps are made of PBT plastic, so we expect them to have better quality and texture than the typical ABS keycap. Keycaps also use MT3...