Dark Worship

The Dark Worship is the veneration of the Dark lord as a deity or god-like being.

The Beginnings
The Roots of the Dark Worship can be traced back to Utumno where Melkor, the Dark Lord demanded god-like adoration from his servants.So the first dark worship grew among the lesser minions of Utumno and later Angband, the Orc-servants whose first Dark Priest was the Demon-Orc Storlaga.

Later, with the awakening of Men, Melkor disguided himself as a mighty man and became the teacher and seductor of the early men of Hildorien.He ordered them to built him a temple and to bring him human-sacrifices.Most dark cults of Middle-Earth among the Wild Men are based on legends about this first Temple.

The Sauronites
After Morgoth's banishment,Sauron continued the dark worship.At first his reverence to the great fallen Vala was honest and he acted as Melkor's viceregent and High-Priest, but later he doubtet that Morgoth would ever return and fancied himself his reightful heir.He eventually started to claim he himself was Morgoth returned or reincarnated and demanded the godlike worship as King of the World for himself as the true Dark Lord.In the Endo both dark Cults, Morgoth's and Sauron's, contested the reverence of Illuvatar as monotheistic religions, tolerating no gods, not even lesser ones, beside the Dark Lord.As The Dark Worship was renewed and confirmed throughout the third Age the Sauronites began to prosecute the adherents of both, the Eruist and Valarin Cults of the Eldar and Dúnedain as well as the superficial Cults of the Wild Men.In the End even the Followers of the old melkoric Cults, such as the Cult of the Long Night, were considered intolerable rivals by the devout Sauronites.

The Dark Worship in Endor
The Dark Worship took different shapes at different times and places.At the height of his Power Sauron claimed the Title King of The World and King of Men from his predecessor Morgoth, later after his fall the Dark Worship often disguised itself, Sauron's return was prophesized as the coming of The Adanil, the "Friend if Men", a messianic figure often in combination with anti-Dúnedain Propaganda.

Melkoric Cults

 * the Court of Ardor in the Utter South
 * Cult of Herumor (fourth Age Gondor)
 * the Cult of the Long Night (Rhûn and Rhovanion
 * The Cult of Vatra

Sauronite Cults

 * the Belaen-an-Voryl or cult of the Shadow
 * the Black Hand, the Prophets of the Adanil in the Southern Regions
 * the Bwaig-ir-Omdren in Lôchas Drûs
 * the Cult of the Lidless Eye (Sauron's religion after he had procaimed himself the true Dark Lord)
 * the Cult of Shoglic (Daen)
 * the Fists of Dark Sorcery
 * the Guldur Sorcerers (Rhovanion)
 * the Hron Tumrakhi (Khand)
 * the Mor-Sereg
 * the Sarshen Meltek (Balchoth)
 * tattoo of the eye (Rhûn)
 * The Tayb or Followers of The Silent One (Far Harad)
 * the Witches of Angmar