Belegost, Gabilgathol in the Dwarvish tongue, the name means “Great Fortress.” The city was one of two founded in the First Age in the eastern side of the Ered Luin (Blue Mountains). At the height of the War of Wrath, the land of Beleriand was rent asunder and the sea consumed all that lay before the ramparts of the Ered Luin. The Dwarven city of Nogrod was ruined in the cataclysm, but Belegost survived for the most part.
I have had a desire to build a Dwarven ruin complex for some time now, but rather than build (yet) another Moria board, I thought perhaps an outdoor ruin would be interesting. The twin cities of Nogrod and Belegost sprang to mind, as they survived into the Third Age in one form or another. While playing Skyrim on my XBox and marvelling at the richness of the game-designer’s vision I was awe-struck by the city of Markarth and spent many hours just walking around it and looking at every facet of it from all angles – it was exactly the sort of place that would suit my idea of the entrance to Belegost.
So I have begun the process of building a city loosely based on the layout of the Skyrim city, but using the architectural style of Alan Lee and Jeremy Bennett from the Fellowship of the Ring movie.
The pictures below show my initial progress and, as it’s a little hard to explain what the final model is going to look like, I’ve included a shot of the scene from the Skyrim game.
did you carve the pillar out of plaster or was this a cast?
Both. I carved the original out of plaster and then made a mold of it.