I have started my own series of Gondor buildings for use in Osgiliath, Harlod, Pelargir, Cair Andros etc etc, using a lot of the eye candy from the rulebooks as inspiration.

One thing has me a little curious; what gods would the Gondorians have prayed to? The reason I ask is what sort of church or temple like building would they have built?
Would it have had stained glass windows for example?
Is so, what sort of imagery may have been evident.

Whilst there is clearly a level of ancestor worship in the form of all the statues of prior kings, i wonder if they prayed to vlven gods; Iluvatar, Manwe etc etc...?

Or did they treat the sun and moon as symbols of worship?

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www.scottswargaming.blogspot.com

In the ancient Numenor and if I remember correctly, also during Third Age, gondorians worshipped only Eru. They of course respected valar, but I don't think they "worshipped" them as such. They could still have dedicated buildings to valar or maiar (such as Minas Anor to sun and Minas Ithil to moon). Eru's worship was supposed to be quite similar to what they had in Numenor, mostly open-air gatherings on special days and otherwise personal and silent. This might have changed during the Third Age as can be seen from their obsession with death and especially preserving their dead in elaborate tombs.

I've been thinking about stained glass for one of my Gondorian buildings, which is a bit temple-like. I think Elendil and Isildur would make excellent figures for the windows, or some kings from Gondor's days of greatness, Hyarmendacil (Harad-defeater) for example.

In my role-playing campaigns, I have also invented some kinds of "temples" dedicated to ideals, such as Temple of Judgement where the heroes and villains are given their due, and Temple of Valour, where the queen gives her "blessing" to the soldiers going to war. Kind of similar to late Romans when the ancient human-like gods started to give way to a bit less human-like ideals. Their main purpose has just been to make the player characters feel they are tiny compared to the greatness of Gondor, but still significant if they are summoned in front of the Council in the Temple of Judgement. I don't think Tolkien mentioned anything like this, but my players have enjoyed it.

I think The Unfinished Tales has something about this, in the Numenor chapter and also in "Cirion and Eorl" chapter.

-- Pasi

YES ERU ILLUVATAR BUT ID OTN THINK TEMPLES EXISTED.

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I am a ranger of the north.

There was definitely a temple dedicated to Eru in Numenor. In one of the books (Unfinished Tales probably) it is mentioned that when Sauron corrupted Ar-Pharazon and the Numenorean court, this temple was desecrated and sacrifices to Melkor were made here.

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