Location from The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
Saruman's stronghold — a ring of stone walls enclosing the unbreakable tower of Orthanc, its once-green grounds ripped up for war forges and breeding pits.
Isengard is what happens when a brilliant mind abandons wisdom for power. The transformation from Elven-garden to war factory is Saruman's corruption made physical — trees ripped out to feed furnaces, streams dammed to drive waterwheels, the earth itself gutted and reshaped for industry. The air is thick with coal smoke, the acrid stink of hot iron, and something worse — the biological smell of the breeding pits where Saruman creates his Uruk-hai. Orthanc itself stands untouched amid the destruction, its black stone immune to both Saruman's industry and anyone else's assault. The tower was built by Númenóreans and is essentially indestructible — which made it the perfect prison after the Ents' assault flooded the valley and drowned the forges. The palantír of Orthanc sits at its pinnacle, and it was through this seeing-stone that Saruman first fell under Sauron's influence. The tower is a tool that outlasts and outwaits every hand that reaches for it.
A natural ring of stone forming a wall around a broad flat valley, with a single gate. Orthanc at the center — a tower of four joined pillars of black stone, rising five hundred feet, impervious to any weapon. The grounds that were once gardens and orchards now torn up and industrialized: forges belching smoke, deep pits from which Uruk-hai emerge, tunnels and storehouses carved into the ring-wall. Steam and smoke rising from vents. The river Isen diverted to power the machinery.
Also known as: Isengard, Orthanc, Angrenost, the Ring of Isengard