Ainulindalë Edition Sup guys I heard you like Tolkien. There

I assume the eagles where busy fighting wars or something.

>>52500517
I was just memeing if that was not clear

>>52500505
For all the chatolic subtext in the book, 3rd age people didn't look relogious at all.
True gods are semiforgotten probably, people are too practical to erect temples and spend their time going to mess.
I wonder how civic religion would change after the ring war. After all it was won thanks to a literal angel.

>>52501233
>>52501233
Admittedly, I mean more about what would you do with it and not about the canon things.

Tolkien's canon views appear in his notes , even if in none of this appears in the text - he considered most humans belonging to Free Peoples as monotheists, acknowledging the One God, but not practicing any rites or organized religion save the basic moral code, while elves have more reverence to the Valar along Eru, treating them as sort of minor subservient deities.

But I don't much like it as it kind of goes against the grain of whole "old germanic mythology remade" thing. Tolkien's world is rooted in pagan times and non-pagan religion would break the feel. Tolkien was perhaps aware of that and that's why he did avoid religious themes at all.

So I personally go partly with the "canon" interpretations, but change a bit for favour of diversity and dark age flavour.

So I do consider elves to acknowledge Eru as the One real deity, creator and father of all with absolute power over reality, but have also a lot of reverence and praise for Valar, who elves consider "acting" gods - stewards over the word, who uphold Eru's will.

Numenorean humans and peoples who lived under Numenoreans would be monotheisits indeed, refusing to give any praise to Valar (Doesn't mean they don't respect them, but wouldn't direct any prayers or anything towards them). That might stem a bit from the fact that Valar seem to favour Elves while Eru obviously loves both Firstborn and Heirs the same way.

To this point it is mostly true to Tolkien's notes. The biggest change is where the northern folk is considered (Beornings, Rohirim, Dalishmen and their kin). They would be religiously simmilar to Numenoreans if tolkien's letters would be taken as canon, but I think that would be boring, so I'd make them mostly oblivious to Eru's existence and instead worshiping "Gods" - which would be very old and disorted legends about the Valar, known by local names.

>>52501615

While they could hear about Eru from Numenorean stock peoples, the personal, disorganized and non-proselytic nature of the faith among those would prevent the diffusion.
Same would go for non-northern stock of peoples who don't bow to Sauron as well - like Dunlendings or Druadan.

Dwarves would acknowledge Eru, but worship him only indirectly through their creator Aule/Mahal.

All of those would have very little actual rites, with no temples, no festivals or sacrifices, just personal prayers, rites connected with personal events (marriage, funerary rites - that one especially important for Men and their fear of death, initiations), and of course mythology. But generally, everyone would be extremely chill about the God/Gods.

The humans under Sauron's grip would either worship Morgoth as a stand in or Sauron himself directly, as a sort of god-king. Unlike the free peoples they would have extremely organized religion based on fear, with lot of rites, temples and formal priesthood.

Orcs would be to plain and destructive to even think about anything religious. They just exist, with no spirituality.

>>52500505
>Tolkien general

As someone who loves Tolkien, no, fuck off.

>>52501615
can you give me sources for the notes about commoners' religion? pretty interested.

>>52502162
>There are thus no temples or ‘churches’ or fanes in this ‘world’ among ‘good’ peoples. They had little or no ‘religion’ in the sense of worship. For help they may call on a Vala (as Elbereth), as a Catholic might on a Saint, though no doubt knowing in theory as well as he that the power of the Vala was limited and derivative. But this is a ‘primitive age’: and these folk may be said to view the Valar as children view their parents or immediate adult superiors, and though they know they are subjects of the King he does not live in their country nor have there any dwelling. I do not think Hobbits practised any form of worship or prayer (unless through exceptional contact with Elves). The Númenóreans (and others of that branch of Humanity, that fought against Morgoth, even if they elected to remain in Middle-earth and did not go to Númenor: such as the Rohirrim) were pure monotheists. But there was no temple in Númenor (until Sauron introduced the cult of Morgoth). The top of the Mountain, the Meneltarma or Pillar of Heaven, was dedicated to Eru, the One, and there at any time privately, and at certain times publicly, God was invoked, praised, and adored: an imitation of the Valar and the Mountain of Aman. But Numenor fell and was destroyed and the Mountain engulfed, and there was no substitute. Among the exiles, remnants of the Faithful who had not adopted the false religion nor taken pan in the rebellion, religion as divine worship (though perhaps not as philosophy and metaphysics) seems to have played a small part; though a glimpse of it is caught in Faramir’s remark on ‘grace at meat’.
>>52502152
Why?

>>52501615
>Numenorean humans and peoples who lived under Numenoreans would be monotheisits indeed, refusing to give any praise to Valar (Doesn't mean they don't respect them, but wouldn't direct any prayers or anything towards them). That might stem a bit from the fact that Valar seem to favour Elves while Eru obviously loves both Firstborn and Heirs the same way.

I'm not sure about this. Aragorn notes that the cry of !Elbereth hurt the Witch King more than the barrow blade when Frodo tries to fend him off on Weathertop. That implies at least a certain amount of veneration (perhaps not outright worship, but consider a parallel to how Saints are prayed to)

File: vuCdcyQ.jpg (638KB, 1600x1200px) Image search: [Google]

638KB, 1600x1200px

>>52500505
Beyond what others have said, it would be really easily mechanically to separate general monotheism (Eruism? why not) into sects that focus on one or more of the Valar.

For example, the Steward of Gondor might promote a Manwe-focused version of Eruism, emphasizing law and order. The people of Rohan might feel more inclined to venerate Orome, hobbits might prefer Yavanna, and the Dunedain might follow Tulkas.

It maybe isn't completely faithful to the source material, but it seems like a decent enough way to flesh out religion without completely going overboard.

>>52507588
Probably valars and other powerful benign beings holds powers against mortals and evil indenpendently from veneration.

>>52503027
Thanks man.

We don't need a general for everything dammit. What's next? counters general? Fatal general? Discworld general?

Eventually this board will look like /v/ did just before moot made /vg/.

>>52512578
We already have generals for fucking Exalted. I'd say Tolkien is much more important topic here.

And not that we have already "tolkien thread"
that starts from a single question (what if x the ring/simlmarils y etc) and then devoles into "sort-of-general", reaching 250 posts twice a week at least.

besides, I need space for shilling TOR

>>52507588
Aragorn was kind of raised by the elves though

>>52512791
The correct solution, then, is to have fewer generals. I can see the argument for them if their topics would otherwise have multiple threads, all the time, but filling the board with dead generals is a sad evolution of 4chan. Importance really has nothing to do with it.

Aren't two lively, fun 250 post threads a week enough? Do we really need to fill the time in between with memes? Because I guarantee that as soon as these generals of yours become well established enough, those interesting biweekly threads will die when the first responses helpfully redirect the OP to an Official Tolkien Thread that's filled with "bumpan", givemysilmarilsback.jpg and the occasional "which dorf wud u fuk" to stir up discussion. You already started it with the eagles question. Next we'll have a discord chat room for shepherding the discussion and keeping the general eternally bumped.

Nobody here actually lives and breathes Tolkien 24/7. They don't have to check /jrrtg/ every four hours to see what their fellow Tolkien enthusiasts whose posting style they've come to recognize are blogging about their latest attempt to memorize grammatical mutations in Sindarin. Links to pdfs don't need to be posted in every thread, as 3rd party archivers that save every post exist. They way it used to work for me was that I'd occasionally see a discussion on Tolkien and would try to answer people's questions the best I could, then move on.

You know what we used to call those occasional "sort-of-generals" that reach bump limit before the /vg/ mentality became common on every board?
"Threads".

The reason you probably won't raise any interest in TOR even with a thread that's constantly up is the same why I don't bother making MERP threads: Tolkien related RPGs pretty much require that every new player has read LotR, the Hobbit and Silmarillion, and the ones that have done so and regularly post on /tg/ are already familiar with the RPGs, and already have a favorite for roleplaying in Arda.