Then the gloom gathered: darkness growing
In Valinor, the red blood flowing
Beside the Sea, where the Noldor slew
The Foamriders, and stealing drew
Their white ships with their white sails
From lamplit havens. The wind wails.
The wolf howls. The ravens flee.
The ice mutters in the mouths of the Sea.
The captives sad in Angband mourn.
Thunder rumbles, the fires burn,
A vast smoke gushes out, a roar –
And Finrod swoons upon the floor.Lay of Leithian
“The Silmarillion”
J. R. R. Tolkien
According to the mythology of J.R.R. Tolkien, Morgoth is the Black Enemy of the World, one of the fifteen Valar (gods). If you watched the movie “Lord of the Rings”, then you will be interested to know that Sauron was just jailer of Morgoth in the First Age of Middle-earth, and the Balrogs (there were quite a lot of them) were the main striking force even before the dragons. Angband is its underground fortress in the far north-west of Middle-earth, over which the three-headed mountain Thangorodrim was erected (the name of the game is “Tangaria” was not chosen by chance). The word Angband is translated as “Iron Hell”.
In The Lord of the Rings, Morgoth is briefly mentioned at the beginning of the appendices; in addition, in the first book in the chapter “A Knife in the Dark” there is a scene where Aragorn tells the hobbits the story of Beren and Lucieni, where Morgoth is mentioned, but simply called “The Great Enemy”.
The full story of the First Age is best studied from the book The Silmarillion. If you are too lazy to buy it, or read, then here is a statement of the reasons for the conflict in a very brief version by Alexander Ulyanov for those who watched at best only a movie.
The Valar fought with Morgoth in the early ages, but these wars ended, in essence, with nothing. In the end, the Valar were forced to move from Middle-earth far to the west, to the island of Aman, and found their kingdom there – Valinor, the Blessed Realm (the elves then sailed there). Morgoth, who was then called Melkor, settled in Angband and did in Middle-earth what he wanted, before the elves appeared in the far east of Middle-earth. He first learned about the elves and began to hunt for them, creating from them in Angband (in very unpleasant methods) an orc race.. So that the orcs were once elves.
Soon, however, the Valar also found the elves, and decided to end Melkor’s atrocities by starting a new war with him. The Valar were victorious, and Melkor was imprisoned for many millennia in the Halls of Mandos in Aman. The elves were called to Valinor by Valars. The three elven peoples — Vanyar, Noldor, and Teleri — moved there, although many, in particular Sindar, and part of Teleri, remained in Middle-Earth.
The elves lived well, especially taking into account their immortality, and now came the day when Melkor again appeared before the court of the Valar. He asked for forgiveness and promised to help the elves, and the Valar believed him. Melkor was free within Valinor, and indeed at first he became a friend of the elves and taught them a lot, although hatred remained in his heart, and he hatched plans for revenge.
The Noldor king Finwe had the eldest son Feanor, the greatest and most proud of the elves. He cut three Silmarils, large diamonds, in which, according to the prediction of the Valar, the fate of the world was concluded. Melkor for some reason terribly desired the Silmarils for himself, and decided to act. He quietly told the Noldorians that the Valar deliberately kept them captive in Valinor, but in fact they were afraid of them. They believed him, and the Noldor began to forge weapons. In the end, when Feanor nearly got into a fight with his half-brother Fingolfin, everything was revealed, but Melkor had already fled. Feanor was put under house arrest for twelve years for such things — nothing at all for the elf.
The escaped Melkor conspired with Ungoliant – the spirit of emptiness in the form of a spider (Shelob was her descendant), promising her everything she wanted. And when there was a holiday in Valinor, Melkor and Ungoliant freely penetrated into it. Before the darkness of Ungoliant everyone scattered, and only Finwe found the strength in himself to stand in the way of Melkor, but was killed by him. Melkor took the Silmarils and many other treasures of the Noldor. Ungoliant brought him back to Middle-Earth, but demanded for herself the Silmarils to devour them. But Melkor was saved by the Balrogs who drove out Ungoliant. Melkor returned to Angband, inserted the Silmarils in his iron crown and declared himself king of the world.
Having learned about this, Feanor, who was at the festival, cursed Melkor and called him Morgoth, the Black Enemy. And he began openly, against the will of the Valar, to collect the Noldor for a campaign in Middle-Earth for a war with Morgoth. With his seven sons, he took an oath to pursue any creature that possessed the Silmarils. In their campaign, the Noldor tried to capture the ships of the Teleri sailors, and killed many of them. The Valar cursed the Noldor people for this. The curse gave its first fruits at the crossing: Feanor with his sons and his followers sailed to Middle-Earth on ships taken from Teleri and burned the ships. And Finarfin, the younger brother, returned to Valinor and received the pardon of the Valar, but Fingolfin with most of the Noldor moved to Middle-Earth on the ice of the Helcaraxe strait in the far north of Aman.
And so began the war of the Eldar (elves) and Edain (people) with Morgoth. On the side of the Noldor, the Sindar elves also fought, living in Beleriand in the west of Middle-Earth, three houses of people and dwarves. Morgoth had orcs, trolls, balrogs, dragons; also easterlings indulged to him (dark-skinned people from the east); Sauron the Cruel was his chief commander. The curse of the Noldor burdened on the elves, and they had a lot of strife between each other. Feanor himself fell in the first battle.
The elven kingdoms of Doriath, Narogtrond, Gondolin held on for a long time, but in the end they fell. Morgoth won the war. However, Earendil the Mariner, a half-elf by origin, with the only one Silmarill captured, was able to break through the seas to Aman and, after hundreds of years of exile, the Valar again heard the Noldor elves. They granted them forgiveness, and sent a huge army to help them. In this war – the War of Wrath, in which the Valar, Vanyar and Noldor participated – Morgoth was defeated and thrown out of the borders of the world, to the Void.
Well, then the First Age ended, most of the elves returned to Valinor and live there to this day. Some, however, including Galadriel, Gil-Galad and Celebrimbor (the creator of the elven rings) remained in Middle-Earth for a long time. The people of Valar were given a large island, where they founded the kingdom of Numenor, where they lived in the Second Age. Well, what happened next – read The Silmarillion, part of Akallabet; but this is very indirectly related to the game – the game is based on Tolkien’s mythology very loosely, and does not strive for any canonical accuracy.