The One Ring is the master ring that Sauron forged in secret in the fire of Mount Doom to control the other Rings of Power. Its inscription is in the Black Speech of Mordor, written in Elvish letters, and it says that one ring will rule the others, find them, bring them together and bind them in darkness. The Nazgûl, the Nine Riders, are the mortal Men who took nine of those rings and became Sauron's slaves. Smaug is the dragon of The Hobbit, who lay on the dwarves' gold in the Lonely Mountain until Bard shot him down.
This follows the books and says where the films change things. Spoilers for both stories below. The Ring, the Riders and the banners are on the Lord of the Rings shelf, and the dragon has the Hobbit shelf to himself.
The One Ring and its inscription
In the Second Age, the Elven-smiths of Eregion made the Rings of Power with help from a stranger who called himself Annatar, the Lord of Gifts. It was Sauron. In Mount Doom he forged the One to rule them all, but when he put it on, the Elves sensed him and took theirs off. The Three Elven rings, made without his hand, stayed unspoiled; seven went to the Dwarf-lords, nine to Men.
The inscription stays invisible until the Ring is heated. Gandalf drops it into Frodo's fire at Bag End and the letters appear: Elvish script, but the words are the Black Speech, beginning Ash nazg durbatulûk, "one ring to rule them all". Ash Nazg takes its name from those first words.
The Ring stretches its bearer's life without adding to it, makes the wearer invisible while drawing them nearer to Sauron's servants, and always wants to go home. Only the fire where it was forged can unmake it.
Isildur cut it from Sauron's hand at the end of the Last Alliance, kept it instead of destroying it, and lost it in the River Anduin, where it slipped from his finger as he fled orcs, who shot him. Déagol found it; his friend Sméagol murdered him for it and became Gollum. Bilbo found it in a tunnel under the Misty Mountains in The Hobbit, before meeting Gollum, and left it to Frodo. In the book, seventeen years pass between Bilbo's farewell party and Frodo leaving the Shire; the film closes that gap. Forged in Fire and Ring of Fate are the Ring and its last bearers.
Who Sauron is
Sauron is not a man but a Maia, one of the spirits older than the world, of the same order as Gandalf and the Balrog. He served the first Dark Lord, Morgoth, and took up his work after Morgoth fell. After his body was destroyed in the downfall of Númenor he could never again look fair.
In the Third Age he hides in Dol Guldur as the Necromancer of The Hobbit, then returns openly to Mordor and rebuilds his tower, Barad-dûr. In the book of The Lord of the Rings he never appears in person: the Eye is how his will and gaze are felt. The films make it a literal flaming eye on top of the tower and show him in armour in the opening battle. Crowned Helm is Sauron in his helm.
When the Ring is destroyed he becomes a vast shadow that a wind blows away, never to rise again.
On the shelf
The Nazgûl, the Nine Riders
The Nazgûl, or Ringwraiths, were nine mortal Men, kings and sorcerers among them, who took Sauron's nine rings. The rings gave them long life and power, then ate them away into wraiths, wholly his. Their chief is the Witch-king, once lord of Angmar.
In the book they hunt the Shire as Black Riders on black horses. On Weathertop the Witch-king stabs Frodo with a Morgul-knife whose broken tip works towards his heart. At the Ford of Bruinen the river rises in a flood and sweeps them away. They return on fell beasts, winged creatures from an older world. In the film it is Arwen who carries Frodo to the ford; in the book he rides alone, on the horse of the Elf-lord Glorfindel.
An old prophecy says the Witch-king will not fall by the hand of man. On the Pelennor Fields the hobbit Merry stabs him behind the knee with a blade forged long ago against Angmar, and Éowyn of Rohan kills him. The other eight burn when the Ring goes into the fire. Nine Riders and Fell Beast are their two covers.
Moria, the Doors of Durin and the Balrog
The Doors of Durin are the west gate of Moria, the old Dwarf-kingdom of Khazad-dûm. Moonlight or starlight shows the words above them: speak, friend, and enter. The answer is simply to say the Elvish word for friend, mellon. In the book a question from Merry sets Gandalf on the answer; in the film Frodo puts him onto it. Speak Friend is the gate.
Inside waits Durin's Bane, a Balrog: a Maia of shadow and flame from Morgoth's days, woken when the dwarves mined too deep for mithril. On the Bridge of Khazad-dûm, Gandalf breaks the bridge beneath it, but its whip drags him down. They fight from the mountain's roots to its peak, where Gandalf throws it down and dies, to be sent back as Gandalf the White. The Bridge has the two of them together.
Rohan and the Eorlingas
Rohan is the kingdom of the Rohirrim, the horse-lords of the plains, and Eorlingas is what they call themselves: the people of Eorl. Eorl the Young rode from the north to save Gondor at the Field of Celebrant, and in thanks Gondor gave his people the land that became Rohan. Their banner is a white horse on green.
In the book, King Théoden has been worn down by the counsel of Gríma Wormtongue, Saruman's agent; the film makes it a possession that Gandalf drives out. Restored, Théoden rides to Helm's Deep, and as his riders charge out of the Hornburg at dawn his cry is "Forth Eorlingas!", in book and film alike. He dies on the Pelennor Fields after the Rohirrim's charge breaks the siege of Minas Tirith. Eorlingas is the horse-lords' cover.
Smaug and the Lonely Mountain
Smaug is a fire-drake, the greatest dragon of his day. He came down on Erebor, the Lonely Mountain, drove out King Thrór's dwarves, burned the town of Dale and slept on the gold for some 170 years. Thrór's grandson Thorin hires Bilbo as a burglar to take it back.
Bilbo's riddling talk with Smaug turns up one useful fact: the jewels crusted into Smaug's belly leave a bare patch on his left breast. A thrush overhears Bilbo telling the dwarves, and when Smaug attacks Lake-town the bird tells Bard, who brings him down with his black arrow. The films make the weak spot a scale knocked loose by Bard's ancestor Girion, and Bard fires braced on his son's shoulder.
The appendices to The Lord of the Rings add why Gandalf backed the quest: he feared Sauron could use the dragon. Hoard is the dragon's own cover.
On the back of a tee
All of it is on the Lord of the Rings shelf and the Hobbit shelf, with Gondor's White Tree on Seven Stars and the Starlit Filigree Elven crest besides, drawn from canon reference art. Check the size guide before you pick a size.
Why it works on the back: Middle-earth comes with its own heraldry, a white horse, a white tree, a lidless eye, made to be read on a banner from far off, which is a back print's job too.
On the shelf
Read next: Houses, Horcruxes and Unforgivable Curses explained (another dark lord who hid himself in objects) and Anakin's fall, the Sith and the Rule of Two explained.
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