Q: What are the Evil Creatures That Served Sauron?
ANSWER: I think this is a pretty interesting question because it draws us into the inevitable debates about unanswerable questions, such as whether any dragons or balrogs served Sauron. I am guessing that the people asking this question mean “at the end of the Third Age” but it’s a reasonable question to ask of any part of Sauron’s career.
In the First Age we know that he was one of Morgoth’s lieutenants (perhaps on par with Gothmog, Lord of Balrogs, or maybe above even him). As one of Morgoth’s field commanders Sauron led an army of Orcs, Trolls, and Were-wolves. He may also have commanded dragons. And it’s conceivable he also commanded vampires. However, we’re now into speculative territory.
In the Second Age, with Morgoth gone, Sauron assumed command over many creatures but because Tolkien does not mention any dragon activity in the Second Age readers don’t know if Sauron recruited, allied himself with, or commanded dragons. One possible incident might point to a use of one or more dragons: the burning of the great forests of Minhiriath during the War of the Elves and Sauron. Although those fires could have been started by other means, anyone writing fan fiction or a role-playing adventure could reasonably argue that a dragon would fit in with that scenario. We can also say that Men served Sauron at various times, at least from the War of the Elves and Sauron onward.
In the Third Age, Sauron commanded his usual legions of Orcs and Trolls. We remain in doubt about dragons and other dreadful creatures but there are plenty of Men who serve Sauron. And in addition to Men (maybe) there are other man-like races whose natures Tolkien never described. The “men like half-dwarves” and the “men like half-trolls” come to mind, as do the Variags of Khand (although most commentators argue that the Variags were almost certainly men because of the history of the word varyag, variag).
It would be difficult to say that Gollum ever served Sauron but Sauron captured Gollum and had him released for some evil purpose. Gollum acted on his own accord, it seems, and so Sauron may not have intended to daunt him.
Shelob the great spider (“last child of Ungoliant”) was never really under Sauron’s control but she guarded one portion of his border where she made her lair. Like dragons and balrogs, it may be that Sauron’s ability to control giant spiders was limited — but perhaps he was able to influence them in subtle ways and thus tease them into serving his purposes.
The Wargs of the Third Age are demonic wolves. Nowhere does J.R.R. Tolkien equate them with the were-wolves of Beleriand but such an identification is tempting. Perhaps Tolkien only intended the Wargs to be similar to the were-wolves in that they were evil, intelligent, and served a Dark Lord.
And there must have been many animals which did Sauron’s bidding, but perhaps not willfully. Being less than Rational Incarnates they may have been easier to subvert. Even Saruman appears to have used birds to some effect although it’s not clear whom the dark birds in The Fellowship of the Ring really serve when they fly over Dunland and Hollin.
Some of these creatures may be lesser Maiar, greatly diminished in power and incapable of returning to their native forms. However, Tolkien seems to give the impression that most of the Umaiar were slain in the wars of the First Age. At best we can only say that we don’t know what they were; and therefore if you’re writing fan fiction or a role-playing adventure you are free to make your own choices.
Finally, it seems that Sauron did imprison spirits. In the Third Age we know that the phantom-spirits of dead men and elves could be used by Sauron with great effect, but the spirits of the Dead Men of Dunharrow opposed Sauron. We don’t know what the phantom-spirits of the Dead Marshes were; perhaps they were only terrifying illusions. The word phantom could refer to either an illusion or a ghostly spirit; Tolkien does not make clear what kinds of phantoms Sauron used, but he is described as “a master of phantoms”.
Morgoth had the power to summon the spirits of slain Elves who refused the summons to the Halls of Mandos. According to one of Tolkien’s essays, these stubborn Elvish spirits were enslaved by Morgoth and forced to do his bidding. Tolkien never elaborated on their fates, and so the reader is left to guess whether those spirits remained in Middle-earth after Morgoth’s death or if they were given an opportunity to pass on to Mandos once again.
It was, however, in part because of Elvish spirits that Celebrimbor and the Gwaith-i-Mirdain made the Rings of Power. They wanted to be able to commune with the dead Elves whose spirits had not passed on to the Undying Lands.
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Now that is fantastic topic to speculate about the birds and other animals definitely served Sauron and spy for him (some of them at least, even during the Battle of Morannon there are mentioned ,,beasts spell enslaved” and they indeed served earlier at Battle of Dagorlad where ,,all living things were divided..”), many strange beasts of Mirkwood too (Wood Elves couldn’t figure out how the plot of Gollum’s recapture was made, but Legolas mentions the return of many creatures who could have made contact with Gollum and warn him about the attack and instruct to stay on this tree as long a possible to weaken the awareness of elven guards and wait for the right moment to escape :), spirits with all certainty Sauron was a necromancer and some of his servants those who learned ,,great sorcery” (like Black Numenoreansm maybe other men) could also become necromancers and thus undead like Barrow Wights and ,,elvish wights”, lesser wraiths or whatever those entities should be called were also servants of Dark Lord (what is the origin of these spirits hard to tell, maybe not only elvish ones but orcish and maybe men too, who knows?). Also it should be noted that Gandalf distinguishes Wargs from werewolves when he lists Sauron’s servants so somehow they differ. As for vampires, very likely, maybe those huge blood sucking bats which helped Bolg’s army are lesser vampiric brood with certain ancient and powerful staying hidden, just like with the Spiders, while Shelob was not exactly servant she served as a tool, possibly her children those who lived in Ephel Duath and Mirkwood could be easily dominated and used as forces during war with Thranduil (as they were weaker but still very dangerous and intelligent), we have also countless references to some mysterious things, ,,hostile for men and elves and yet not in league with Sauron” and still can be used as tools, others could be constanly gathering in force cause ,,Mordor draws all wicked things and the Dark Power bends all it’s will to gather them there”, ,,rumours of creatures more terrifying (than orcs and trolls) but they had no name”, the flying fell beasts (or hell-hawks as Beregond name them), we can also argue that ,,Great Beasts” mentioned as pulling Grond were another such kind of creatures (being differnt than the mumakil), well other than that we only have names from hobbit folklore in their poems which might not be even real: Mewlips, hummerhorns and dumbledors (just fancy name for insects or something bigger, ,,insect eyes, but they are much too big” as Bilbo observed in Mirkwood, those eyes of course could be spiders watching Thorin’s company but maybe not :), anyway Merry also mentioned ,,strange creaures” which are suppose to live in Old Forest, Bucklanders could know a thing or two about it (and he definitely didn’t mean the trees), and then we have Witch-king who roused evil spirits and other hostile things both on Barrows and Old Forest which were on the watch for our hobbits), well there is a possibility that some of the elusive Stone Giants could serve occasionally local Dark Lord 🙂 some are ,,more or less decent” but there can be ones more inclined to evil. We have also mentioned these ,,lesser creatures of Mordor” and ,,night-walkers” dark shapes which observed Army of the West travelling to Morannon (and wolves were howling at nights too).
As for phantoms I think that we can assume some of them being ,,devised by wizardry” and thus only ,,magical constructs” of sort, illusions acting as if they were real entities, the corpse candles on Dead Marshes mesmerized the people and led them to death, in other way for understaning of the word phantom indeed may concern spirits, but this is already covered by necromanctic practices we can say :).