Cult of Benish Armon

Benish Armon was  an ancient Daen  site which lay  in  the midst of Ethir Anduin. It was abandoned after the lowlands surrounding the Anduin mouth were deluged by the global cataclysm accompanying the Akallabêth and transformed into a vast  delta. Some years following the changing of the world,  the  Ethir became inhabited  by the Sakalai— a  coastal people  migrating north from the broken seaward lands of their homeland on the peninsula of Umbar. At some point after these  Sakalai became the Ethir Folk, the ruins of Benish Armon were  made into the lair of malevolent Maiar- spirits that assumed  a cat-like fana. These were Tevildo and his nine thanes, who laid claim to Ethir Anduin as their domain and preyed upon its human inhabitants.In T.A. 830, Queen Berúthiel of Gondor (who dwelt for a time in Ethir Anduin in a villa constructed by her  husband  Tarannon Falastur),  used a Gem known as the Kuilëondo to dominate the cats  and  thereby freed the Ethir Folk from  the terror of Benish Armon.But the tale of the cats  of Berúthiel, of the Kuilëondo,  and of the cult that afterwards arose  among the  Ethir Folk,  had much deeper roots.

History
The cult of Benish Armon emerged soon after Ancalimë’s death around 830 or 831, and spent the next five hundred years searching  for the identity and location of any living descendant of Ancalimë, in vain.Fearing for his child’s safety, but  not willing to expose his wife’s son to the public eye, because of her now questionable heritage, Tarannon caused the babe to be secretly fostered by Gundor his Steward, who became the first Prince of  Morthond. Gundor took the boy as his own, and made him the heir of his  house. So it was that the bloodline of Berúthiel and Tarannon lived on in the princely line of Morthond, unknown even to the later scions of that house .It was during the time of the Kin-strife (1432 - 1448) that knowledge of the child’s fate came   to the ears of Tevildo. Spies sent by the Necromancer to search out the ruined capital of Osgiliath had discovered  a forgotten inscription attesting to the identity of Berúthiel’s child, and these  were  commanded  by the Dark Lord to seek out Benish Armon:  in order to provide this knowledge to the Prince of Cats and his  cult—for a price.