Maiar & Spirits
The Maiar are the lesser Ainur, chosen for a task and sent into the world in a shape of their choosing. The Istari were five of them, sent east in the bodies of old Men; Sauron was a Maia of Aulë before he was a Dark Lord. Their natures are hidden rather than merely unknown, and Tolkien used that hiddenness as a theme: a Maia in disguise can be a guide or a ruin, and usually is both.
Figures
Members
Servants of the Valar, bound to mortal form for a single errand.
Gandalf
Wizards & the Istari · The Fellowship
A Wizard of the Istari, keeper of the Elven-ring Narya, and the chief architect of the resistance to Sauron.
Saruman
Wizards & the Istari · Isengard
The chief of the Wizards, whose study of Sauron’s power corrupted him into a would-be rival lord.
Radagast
Wizards & the Istari · Isengard
A Wizard devoted to beasts and birds, who served as a watcher of the wilds rather than a power in councils.
Alatar
Wizards & the Istari · The East
One of the two Blue Wizards who journeyed into the East and of whose fates little is known.
Pallando
Wizards & the Istari · The East
One of the two Blue Wizards, companion of Alatar in the East.
Sauron
Dark Lords & Necromancers · Mordor
A Maia and former lieutenant of Morgoth, forger of the One Ring and the central antagonist of The Lord of the Rings.
Morgoth
Dark Lords & Necromancers · Angband
The first Dark Lord, a fallen Vala whose discord marred Arda and whose wars shaped the First Age.