Reverence and Lore, not Clerisy

© Neville Osric Percy, neville.percy@gmail.com, Dec 2003

Fellow GMs of Middle-earth,

For the past couple of decades, most fantasy games have effectively conspired to give the impression that any game must always heavily feature the proponents of holy power. Many games have even had characters get wounded so frequently that every band of adventurers had to include a healer-priest in order to survive.

But the ‘good’ peoples of Middle-earth have no organised religion and no priest-figures wielding any delegated power of either Ilúvatar: the only true deity; or the Valar: his representatives, “created spirits of high angelic order”, who more closely correspond to the pantheons of gods commonly presented in RPGs?.

The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision. That is why I have not put in, or have cut out, practically all references to anything like ‘religion’, cults or practices, in the imaginary world. Letters of JRR Tolkien §142

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. Ibid. Author’s footnote to §153

The Catholic Tolkien would have viewed the lack of organised religion and formalised prayer as being only appropriate in a world which is our own, but prior to the coming of Christ, and hence in which even the best of people were still only virtuous pagans.

With the exception of Elbereth

the Vala most called-upon and hence the example Tolkien gives -- calls on the Valar would generally be made without any expectation of eliciting a response. Even in LotR? there are only half-a-dozen instances of Ilúvatar or the Valar possibly taking a hand in events, and these where the fate of the Ringbearer or the outcome of the War of the Ring and hence the future of Middle-earth is at stake. Such instances set no precedent for the Valar intervening on behalf of any favoured adherents. It would be faithless arrogance to believe oneself significant enough to warrant the intervention of the Valar. Indeed, the Elves (and I believe the Dwarves) were a part of Fate, and since men and hobbits were outside of it, the Valar were reluctant to meddle in their fortunes. And for men and hobbits to call upon the Valar to preserve them from death would further be faithless in light of death being the occasion of their being admitted to the Gift of Ilúvatar in which not even the Valar themselves are to share.

Even without any intervention on behalf of an individual, enough of the wisdom of the Valar had been known to the Noldor and brought by the Teleri to Númenor for right-minded religious beliefs to prevail.

The Númenoreans [and Rohirrim etc.]? were pure monotheists. But there was no temple in Numenor (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 part in the rebellion, religion as divine worship (though perhaps not as philosophy and metaphysics) seems to have played a small part...

Ibid. (emphasis mine)

I think the most significant comment is in those last parentheses, implying that despite the absence of religious practices, philosophising and study of theological metaphysics were still common.

RIGHT-MINDED ADHERENTS OF THE VALAR

The emphasis for religiously-oriented characters should be on aspiring loremasters amongst the right-minded Elves and Faithful Dúnedain revering (but definitely not worshipping) the Valar and seeking the lore of their respective spheres.

For example, someone revering Ulmo would seek old scrolls and propagate the old Númenorean lore of what we would call oceanography and hydrology, marine biology and ornithology. They might possess lore that the less enlightened would call magical, like about how the tides follow the Moon, how the power of Ulmo extends into the waters in the veins of the world as well as the rivers and oceans, how the element of water is less imbued with the Morgoth-element, how there are spirit-beings called Oärni, Falmaríni and Wingildi in the waters of the world, and how to interpret and imitate the mewing of gulls. Less mystically, they might pursue the arts of ship-building and navigation, and seek ancient texts of the tale of Tuor whose life was guided by visions and bird-omens sent by Ulmo himself. They pursue all this, and any truly magical skills they might acquire, in a spirit of reverence -- not least because some of this lore was taught the Elves by Ulmo himself, or (unattested) to the Númenoreans by Uinen his Maia. But they don't channel Ulmo's own power, they shouldn't expect him to send them any visions or omens and only very rarely would they ever benefit from Ulmo's intervention in their welfare.

Within a campaign I might break my own rules, but the important thing is that players should not have any expectation that by choosing to play someone devoted to Ulmo's lore they could expect to be his representative or agent in anything but an inappropriate, arrogantly self-appointed capacity. If Ulmo ever did involve himself in their affairs, it shouldn't just be as a consequence of a mechanical feature of the game system that has the sole purpose of bestowing magical powers upon PCs?. It should only occur if Ulmo was central to the events of the campaign, and should be brought about in such a way as to confer a special sense of the numinous and significant. Worst of all would be for some party of starting characters containing several priests all taking for granted the ability to channel the power of a Vala, such that they end up with a whole handful of Valar apparently queuing up to take turns in helping them!

SPONTANEOUS RELIGION

Another dimension can be added by giving consideration to what I would call degenerate

i.e. partial or partially debased lore.

It is a tendency of Men (at least) to devise animistic religious beliefs and practices of propitiation and thanksgiving to invented gods out of fear and ignorance of the true nature of the workings of the world. In a Middle-earth in which god-like figures do exist, there is all the more likelihood for even ignorant peoples to have some sort of degenerate religious beliefs ultimately originating in them.

On the one hand, such believers could be perfectly well-intentioned in their piety, and might be appreciated by the Valar even if their worship is misplaced. Of course they will no more have any truly Valar-derived powers than a right-minded and reverent loremaster. But, if a tradition arose in which the learning of innate powers of magic was attributed to the favour of the gods and passed on from priest to initiate, in a spirit of genuine piety unalloyed by lust for theocratic power or personal aggrandizement, they could well become a 'magic'-wielding priesthood in all but Tolkien's objectively true sense of the word. A reverent scholar might well consider such folk to have learned a portion of the Lore of Ulmo that was not to be found even in the libraries of the Elves, and it would be pious to learn their ways and bring them to others.

But in Arda Marred it would be unlikely that any such pure priesthood would ever exist. It would be far more likely that over time the Shadow, or even the direct agents of the Dark Powers, would contaminate their beliefs and practices. If not literally turned to the Dark Religion, they would likely be persuaded to live in fear of their gods becoming angry and punishing them, and encouraged to perform sacrifices and other practices that debase their morality. Worse, they might be taught sorcerous practices drawing on the Morgoth-element but disguised as powers of their own gods, and their piety would avail them little as their continued religious practices inexorably sucked them down into the pit of Corruption.

In light of such a possibility, it is to be hoped that the reverent scholar would have been informed of the hazards of seeking out the truths and lore of outwardly similar religions.

Reverent pursuit of the lore of the Valar can lead to interesting times.

— Os.