Chapter 1: Lore in Not Drake but Jill
Summary:
Explaining how I have chosen to handle TES lore in Not Drake but Jill, both generally and in relation to the continuing additions made by ESO.
Chapter Text
As Bethesda and ZeniMax are about to dump a LOT of new lore on us, with the release of ESO: Blackwood, I thought I would take a moment to explain to how I have chosen to handle TES lore in Not Drake but Jill (NDbJ), both generally and in relation to the continuing additions made by ESO.
On the “Truth” of Presented Theories: It is important to begin by saying that NDbJ is an exploration of TES lore not some sort of mystical definitive declaration of Truth. This is a necessary distinction not only because finding a stable set of truths is difficult in TES - since Bethesda has, and will likely continue, to re-write any piece of lore it finds inconvenient1 and explain away the changes by claiming anything from “the previous understanding was always a lie due to an unreliable narrator”2, to “it was true but isn’t any more because the jill changed the timeline” - but also because there is growing evidence that one of Bethesda’s central design concepts for the future of TES, regarding how to handle issues caused by player choice, is to create a body of work that actively resist the concept of monolithic truth.
To this end, no character in NDbJ is infallible. This ability for characters to be wrong allows me to present theories I find interesting along the way to the ones I think are the most probable (given the lore available at the time of writing). It also allows me to revisit theories invalidated by lore released after I posted a chapter.
Not all the theories presented are meant to be tested and discarded in favor of the "right" answer. Some are meant to act as a steppingstone - something to be built on, and refined, as the story goes on. This is especially true of any theories that require information drawn from the 36 Lessons of Vivec. I have chosen to do this not only because the 36 Lessons contain several unusual, and obnoxiously sophisticated, mashups of real world theological, mystical, and philosophical concepts, but because they also present the more standard mythological understandings of the world as being nothing but useful lies. Unpacking either of those things is best done in bite size pieces.
So, to summarize, just because a character says something early in Act 1 doesn’t mean I believe it or that the theory will not be discarded, or improved upon, a few chapters later or even that a whole new theory will not be presented in Act 2.
On Including ESO Lore: I began working on NDbJ in 2017 and started posting in 2018. Bethesda/ZeniMax have published a lot of lore since then. If ESO were not set prior to TESV I’d probably ignore most of it. The problem with ESO being a prequel to ALL the other Elder Scrolls games is that the theories I’ve presented, both mine and those proposed by others, can be utterly destroyed by NEW lore which, in-universe, cannot be waved away by simply saying “the dragonborn wouldn’t know that as that wouldn’t be discovered for another century”.
Regarding new ESO lore that disproves an already presented theory: If it is a theory that I do not believe I will get the chance to revisit, because the theory is totally unrelated to any remaining unfinished questlines, I have been trying to remember to go back and add a footnote indicating as much. Alterations to theories, due to new lore, on topics related to unfinished questlines, however, will be presented as a character coming to a better understanding of the topic. Timing really is everything.
On Including “Obscure Texts”: My decision to include unpublished texts, written by both past and present developers, was based directly upon the following comment by Ted Peterson:
“I would like to propose that instead of there being a black-and-white distinction between canon and non-canon, loreists refer to Primary and Secondary Sources. A Secondary Source, such as a comment from MK or a reference in the Trial or RP, may be 100% accurate and become a Primary Source when it is later published in a game3; it may remain a useful reference, such as a scholar's commentary on Shakespeare, which is informed and likely true, though not actually part of a play or sonnet; or, it may be disproved on later Primary Source evidence.” - Ted Peterson on "canon" and "noncanon" sources”, 06/05/06. (link)
That said, I have, thus far, been extremely selective with which obscure texts I choose to use, mostly limiting myself to things that clarify canon not just add to it.
Regarding Creation Club Content
As a rule I have avoided Creation Club content especially if it adds quest or lore.
I have made in-story use of the following:
- Arcane Accessories pack – the robes but not the spells (so far), and
- Rare Curios.
Both of these mods added content that, reasonably, would exist, without adding lore. While I have, thus far, avoided the somewhat overpowered spells added by the Arcane Accessories pack, college robes (or hoods) indicating that you have more than one field of study, is a thing in real life. And khajiit caravans being a source of exotic, foreign, goods is so obviously something that should be true it was – retrospectively – surprising it wasn’t true in the vanilla game.
Arguably, in transitioning Skyrim from video game to written fiction, I have also used versions of:
- Survival Mode,
- Adventurer’s Backpack, and
- Camping.
But I would have used those things in Alexa’s story even if there were not a Creation Club mod for them.
Regarding content added by Skyrim Anniversary Edition
The fact that Creation Club contents have now been published by Bethesda should - according to Ted Peterson’s original (2006) lore schema - make their quests and lore canon. TP’s comment, however, comes from a time before the Creation Club existed, and before Bethesda started re-releasing games the way they are now.
Given what has been added to this edition, I would like to suggest that content added in subsequent releases of a game be considered “fanservice” rather than canon. I will happily revise this stance should any of the newly added content be referenced in TES VI.
In summary, I am not – currently - treating quest content added by the Anniversary Edition as content Alexa will encounter.
Endnotes: Unless a footnote includes a statement along the lines of “I believe”, or “I disagree”, all information regarding a theory being in a footnote means is “this theory exists, and here is some information about it that I couldn’t fit into the story”.
“Elder Scrolls Lore Notes”: This work is a bit of a mixed bag as it was created as a place to put things that required more space to explain than AO3’s 5,000-character limit endnote section. Some “chapters” are my theories. Some are explanations of other people’s theories. Some are summaries of particularly weird texts/concepts. And some are discussions of real-world influence on TES.
As with endnotes, just because I chose to explain a theory doesn’t mean Alexa will end up believing it is correct.
On Lore Mistakes: I am human, so making mistakes is inevitable. If you notice I have gotten something wrong, and you believe the mistake is not part of a theory that will be dismissed or revisited, feel free to let me know. When you do, please include a link to a source that would meet Ted Peterson’s definition of either a primary or secondary source. Thank you.
My Sources:
For Primary and secondary sources, I use the Imperial Library (link)
For theories I draw from:
- Theories presented by fans in Developer Q&As (transcripts available at the Imperial Library).
- The work of the Imperial Library’s Forum Scholars Guild. (link)
- Loreists on Youtube, most commonly:
- And soo much Reddit stuff.
I try to remember to indicate the source of a theory in footnotes the first time I present it and again if I refer to it directly at some later point. In Act 3, however, I made a lot of oblique references to theories which, I realized in retrospect, I might have presented long enough ago that I should have footnoted them again. I am doing my best to go back and fix this and will attempt to be better about it in the future.
My Own Theories: A few of the theories presented in NDbJ are, I believe, fully my own - not just my updating or refining of someone else’s theory. I hope you like them!
Notes:
1 “The Arcturian Heresy was the worst thing I've ever written. It needs a revisit.” – Michael Kirkbride, Ask Me Anything, Nov. 3rd 2013. (link)
2 “…The Jills of Aka-tosh have mended this numidition. Mannimarco remains as he was: the high priest of maggots.” - Answers from Nu-Hatta, official Bethesda forums, October 2005.
3 Example: Heimskr, in TES V: Skyrim, in his ongoing sermon/rant about the glories of Talos, uses the last three sentences of an unpublished text written for TES IV: Oblivion called “From the Many-Headed Talos”. (link)
Chapter 2: Love Letter from the 5th Era
Summary:
A Very Quick Summary
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The author of the letter, Jubal-lun-Sul, is a fifth era Dunmer, who writes to the people of the fourth era in the hope that an event called “Landfall” can be prevented and the timeline he lives in will never come to pass.
The issue with avoiding Landfall is that it was/will be brought about by those who misunderstand the reality of the world - believe that permanently destroying Nirn will free the souls trapped within it. Jubal-lun-Sul attempts to dispel this myth explaining the meaning of Vivec’s Sermon 35 and how it applies to the situation. Here’s the breakdown:
“All creation is subgradient.”
Subgradient methods are iterative methods for solving convex minimization problems.1
Translation: all creation is an iterative method to solve a problem or answering a question. Therefore the world, and everything in it, is a simulation or a dream.
The dreamer continues to dream, kalpa cycle to kalpa cycle, because of its love for the world.
Destroy the world permanently – instigate Landfall and the centuries of destruction that follow – and the dreamer will eventually wake and the dream, and everyone in it, will cease to be. Therefore instigating Landfall is not a path to life everlasting.
Death is not something to avoid. Everything on Mundus is “recycled” i.e. people, like the world, are reincarnated in each kalpa.2
“This should be seen as an opportunity, and in no way tedious, though some will give up for it is easier to kiss the lover than become one.”
Each kalpa gives everyone on Nirn another chance to “make the jump past mortal death.”
The only way to make this jump is to become an Amaranth i.e. to achieve such a profound understanding of the way the system works that you can dream, and love, a world of your own.
“… Amaranth, everlasting hypnogogic. Hallucinations become lucid under His eye and therefore, like all parents of their children, the Amaranth cherishes and adores all that is come from Him.
I ARE ALL WE.
God is Love.
COME TO THE HOUSE OF WE.
God is Love.
ONE WORLD IN SPIRIT I AM.
God is Love.”
Notes:
1 Thanks Wikipedia!
2 Unless they Zero-Sum but that’s part of a much longer conversation.
Chapter 3: Shor Son of Shor
Summary:
A summary of the text.
Notes:
Original text found here: link
Note: It is not obvious to me which kalpa this text comes from.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The kalpa is ending.
Alduin and Auriel have joined together against Shor. Kyne has brought Shor and his forces, in retreat, to the Throat of the World.
Shor takes snake form and throws a temper tantrum about having lost the last battle before walking away and entering “the cave that led to the Underworld” so that he may “take counsel with his father”.
Dibella indicates that the person Shor goes to speak with is himself and presents the opinion that nothing can be learned by consulting with a reflection (presumably because it will have nothing to say that Shor does not already know).1
Then there are two paragraphs illustrating how bad things are getting between the Nord gods and for their followers who are trying to work around the gods stress induced bickering.
Meanwhile…
Shore is traveling into the mountain while remembering the Convention atop the Adamantine Tower and being bitter about it. We are told a few interesting things in the process.
- He was condemned to three separate punishments for three separate transgressions. The transgressions listed are so generalized as to be useless to us but the punishments are:
- Banishment
- Disfigurement
- Half-death
- He tells himself he had been willing to leave (accept banishment) knowing that the other Nord gods, and the souls of mankind, would follow him.
- He disfigured himself by drawing a circle, with the spines of his tail, upon the top of the Adamantine Tower to indicate that everything that was happening was all part of the cycle. The tail spines, obviously, did not survive the process of being used to carve adamantine.
- He then accepted half-death by vomiting his heart into the circle he’d carved while guarding his “wraith”, just as his father had done.2
- He then indicated that all the strife that will occur in Tamriel, in the new kalpa, is little more than a jockeying for position in the House of the gods.3
After Shor and his followers leave the Adamantine Tower the narrative remains with the Moot for a paragraph.
“Ald”4 declares that, as far as he and his tribe is concerned, Shor has now paid for his sins and so will not make war against Shor or his kin. He goes on to suggest that Shor’s obsession with the earthly realm – to the point of forgetting the heavens – will permanently bind him to as yet unwritten beginnings and the kalpa cycle. Trinimac replies that Ald has said this before, again indicating that this is not happening in the first kalpa but in some subsequent kalap. Ald ends by telling Trinimac that eventually someone from Shor’s own tribe will break the newly formed peace between the two tribes (as they have before) and then Ald’s people will be allowed their vengeance.
Back in the cave…
Shor, having reached the right spot and done the right ritual, calls upon himself from a previous kalpa. His previous self tells Shor that, by this point in the kalpa, Ald has already paid for all the wrongs he has done and that Shor should pity Ald because Ald is so obsessed with the heavens that he fails to see it represents only endings without a future and that his failure to understand the ground beneath his feet condemns him, and his people, to the cycle they hate. This is followed by the suggestion that since previous Shor has paid for his trespasses at the kalpa’s beginning and “Ald” has now, at the end, paid for his, that, with everyone all paid up, maybe they should consider real peace?
Shor dismisses the suggestion because of his pride and says that his previous self has suggested that before. And the previous self admits that he, and the other previous selves, didn’t really expect Shor to accept their advice this time either and, who knows, maybe he’ll manage to win this time?5
Shor rejoins his people on the mountain top to find that Trinimac has joined them and become a Nord.6 And, after a brief comment on not questioning Trinimac’s new persona, the battle is rejoined.
Notes:
1 How many times have people asked you for advice when they clearly already know what they need to do and just don’t want to do it?
2 “Lorkhan's [body] was cracked asunder and his divine spark fell to Nirn as a shooting star ‘to impregnate it with the measure of its existence and a reasonable amount of selfishness’.” – The Lunar Lorkhan
Perhaps Lorkhan’s wraith/divine spark resides within the mirrors of the cave on Snow Throat? Meaning that the lifecycle of Shor is offset from that of the world: that, at least previously, he has been reborn in the twilight of a kalpa, achieved the height of his power in the untime between kalpa, and died at the end of the Dawn Era of the new kalpa. Which, aside from requiring that the memories just recounted be something that happened to his previous self, makes a fair amount of sense.
If they are his previous self's memories then Dibella is right, his previous self really can't tell him anything he doesn't already know.3 This would further support my theory that Alduin was using the Dragon Cult in an attempt to become Auriel... or maybe recombine the two? (See footnote 4 for further explanation.)
4 “Ald” here is clearly Auriel. The use of “Ald” for his name, however, suggests either that the Nords have, in some kalpa, conflated the two, or that, in the Dawn Era (before the birth of time and, therefor, its end) Alduin and Auriel had not yet become separate entities.
5 The implication here is that all of Shor’s past selves have tried to defeat Ald by strength of arms. Since each of them has failed at this logic would suggest taking a different rout. “But Shor shook his head at this, for he… did not care much for logic-talk as much as he did only for his own standing.”
6 Nordic Trinimac = Talos. See link for explanation.
Chapter 4: The Towers 1: Introduction
Summary:
A brief introduction to the concept of the Towers before moving on to more in-depth analysis.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Okay, so, every good Dragonborn has read The Book of the Dragonborn and so is familiar with the Prophecy of the Last Dragonborn, which contains references to “Towers”. Players of ESO have run into an artifact called “The Staff of Towers” which lists the Towers as follows:
Adamantine: primordial and solemn.
Red: brooding and blood-soaked.
Crystal: profane1 and inscrutable.
Orichalc: silent and forgotten.
Snow-Throat: cold and forbidding.
Green-Sap: vibrant and wise.
Brass: striding and powerful.
White-Gold: boundless and eternal.
(Staff of Towers)
But what the Towers are, why are they important, and where they come from, requires a bit more digging. Lets get started!
What are the Towers?
Briefly: The Towers are intensely magical constructs, both natural and artificial, found across Nirn. Each of them, in one form or another, bends creation to the will of its creator(s). Each tower is linked to a “stone” that serves as its heart without which it cannot function.
Where do the Towers come from?
Ada-mantia was the first spike of unassailable reality in the Dawn, otherwise called the Zero Stone. The powers (gods) at Ada-mantia were able to determine through this Stone the spread of creation and their parts in it.
The powers also created Red Tower and the First Stone. This allowed the Mundus to exist without the full presence of the divine. (Nu-Mantia Intercept, Letter #5)2
From Nu-Hatta we learn that the Adamantine and the Red Tower have existed since the dawn of the first kalpa, while the “obscure text” Shor son of Shor3 indicates that Snow Throat is also several kalpa old and so, probably, from the first kalpa as well.
Nu-Hatta tells us that “Aldmeris bore witness” to the workings of Ada-mantia and “built the remaining towers during the Merethic...”4. It is worth noting here that Nu-Hatta says “Aldmeris”, not “the Aldmeri”, bore witness, indicating he is talking about “all mer” rather than the race of mer that first settled in the Summerset Isles. This is important as “all mer” may have taken notice but not all mer on Nirn, in this kalpa, are of Aldmeri descent. Suggesting that mer, in every kalpa, have built towers in emulation of Ada-mantia.
Logically, then, there are two types of Towers: those that were made by gods and those that were made by mer. Nu-Hatta even tells us how to distinguish between them: “Every dawnmaker5 Tower takes a myth-form… The Aldmeri polydoxes were cosminachs6…”7. So the Towers can be split into two major categories:
- The God-made (myth-form) Towers
- Red (volcano)
- Snow-Throat (mountain)
- Green-Sap (forest)8
- The Mer-made Towers9
- Crystal-like-Law
- White-Gold
- Orichalc
There are, however, Towers that do not fit Nu-Hatta’s classification system:10
-
Ada-Mantia
The Ur-Tower. From a time before creation began and created by beings that had not yet become the gods of Nirn (if they ever did). 11 -
Coral Tower
Was built by the Sload not mer. It is not known if it really was a Tower in the same sense as those built by mer, but, given its transition to Coldharbor it may well have been.12 -
Doomcrag
May have been a mer attempt at a myth-form Tower. It failed and so cannot be considered a Tower at all.13 -
Walking-Brass
Mer success at the creation of a myth-form Tower? -
Saarthal?
Man-constructed, Synthetic/AI designed Tower?14
Tower Stones
“The Stones are magical and physical echoes of the Zero Stone, by which a Tower might focus its energy to mold creation. (Nu-Mantia Intercept, Letter #7)
The known Tower Stones are:
- Adamantine – the Zero Stone (the Convention)
- Red Tower – the Heart of Lorkhan
- White-Gold – the Amulet of Kings
- Snow-Throat – a Cave15
- Crystal-like-Law – a Person16
- Falinesti – a Fruit17
- Orichalc – a Sword18
What is the Function of the Towers?
The function of the Towers is to “mold Creation”. They do this by gathering energy, via a tall part (mountain, tree, cylindrical building), in some fashion and focusing that energy through something called a “stone”. And that is, basically, all that we know about the Towers as a whole, before splitting them into categories by who built them or examining them individually (which we will do in following sections).
Do they all have the same function?
Yes, and no. Each Tower stabilizes the reality of the space within its influence, but what those realities are can be quite different from one another.
“The Aldmeri or Merethic Elves were singular of purpose only so long as it took them to realize that other Towers, with their own Stones, could tell different stories.” (Aurbic Enigma 4: The Elden Tree)
Which brings us back to the Tower Stones. If the “… Stones are magical and physical echoes of the Zero Stone, by which a Tower might focus its energy to mold creation.”19 And each Stone can “tell a different story” then it is probably safe to assume the form a Stone takes is not arbitrary but informs the manner in which the Tower functions. As the form of each stone (listed above) is different then so must be the influence a Tower has over its surroundings.
So, with all that in mind, lets move on to discussing the Towers in greater detail.
Notes:
1 In this case meaning “not related to a god”, unlike Adamantine (Akatosh) and Red (Lorkhan).
2 Nu-Mantia Intercept, Letter #5 (link)
3 Shor son of Shor (link)
4 Nu-Mantia Intercept, Letter #4 (link)
5 Et’ada (gods)
6 See section on the Aldmeri Towers for what this word indicates.
7 Nu-Mantia Intercept, Letter #8 (link)
8 I’ll lay out the argument for why Green-Sap is not a mer-made tower in the section on it.
9 Walking Brass is not listed here as it may be both mer-made and a myth-form and so requires its own, in depth, analysis.
10 To be fair to Nu-Hatta he wasn’t interested in explaining anything but the origins and importance of White-Gold and so didn’t really address these.
11 This is why it is referred to as the “Ur-Tower” while Red is considered “the first Tower”. (More on this in the section on Ada-mantia.)
12 For a developer interview that addresses the question of the Coral Tower see (link)
For why the Coral Tower’s movement to Coldharbor is of interst see the section, of this work, on the Orichalc Tower.13 ESO Loading Screen (link)
Developer Interview (link)14 Hinges on whether or not the “Eye of Magnus” is KINMUNE. See response to hircine1 in Michael Kirkbride - Reddit AMA of Nov. 2013. (link)
For KINMUNE see (link)15-18 Michael Kirkbride - IRC Q&A Sessions, October 15th (link)
19 Nu-Mantia Intercept, Letter #7 (link)
Chapter 5: The Towers 3: The Aldmeri Towers
Notes:
Yes, chapter 2 is missing. It's on the god-made towers, but I'm not finished with it yet.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The Aldmeri polydoxes were cosminachs, and the White-Gold project was and is no different. (Nu-Mantia Intercept, Letter #8)
The word “poly-dox”, taking its component pieces literally, means “many-opinions” while “cosmin-ach” indicates a thing that is the cosmos (not just a replica of it). So, to translate: when the Aldmeri fragmented, into the different races of mer, upon philosophical lines, they built Towers that embodied their philosophical understanding of how best to interact with the cosmos. If true, then the elven Towers should – at least notionally – present as a sort of armillary of Mundus.
1
As you can see, above, Nu-Hatta’s claim that the elven Towers are “cosminachs” does seem to be born out by the structure of the White-Gold and the Crystal Towers (the only two mer Towers we have images of).
In doing this, what did the Ur-Elves hope to achieve? I would posit that, through their collective “possession” of such Towers in their realms, over time the Elves actually amended their local reality to conform to their desires.
(Subtropical Cyrodiil: A Speculation)
But the Towers didn’t just amend local reality to better suite the elves wish for a warm and sunny climate2 but also to make possible, according to Nu-Hatta, various methods for “(re-)reaching the divine”3. Each displays the philosophical differences of their creators “abnegaurbic creeds”.
In this way each of the mer Towers represents a particular mer race’s relationship to the cosmos as well as their understanding of how best to transcend it.
White-Gold
Purpose
Of White-Gold Nu-Hatta says:
White-Gold Tower is a conduit of creatia, aad sembia sembio, built to bring about a reversal of the congealing spiritual bleed caused by the Convention. In other words, it was a focus point for (re-)reaching the divine.
(Nu-Mantia Intercept, Letter #8)
Tower Design
The Ayleids, like the Dwemer, were not comfortable with uncertainty.
“I speak of course of the Ayleids, for which “sometimes” was not good enough.” (Nu-Mantia Intercept, Letter #7)
“You see, Ayleid magic is about Will, and Shall, and Must…”
(Aurbic Enigma 4: The Elden Tree)
Unfortunately Nirn is all about uncertainty or, at least, liminality.
“We abide in the \”Gray Maybe.\” What can any of us speak but riddles? If our enemies have their way, there will be no more riddles... only the dead and deadly certainty.” (The Marukhati Selectives)
So, when the Ayleids split with the other elves of Summerset they traveled to the very center of Tamriel, stuck a pin in the continent, declared themselves the center of the world, and built a Tower constructed specifically to force reality to conform to the certainty, and stability, of concentric circles, a “wheel within the wheel”4.
In this way the Ayleids attempted to subjugate Creation itself.
Tower Stone
According to Nu-Hatta the White-Gold Tower’s Stone is the Chim-el Adabal.5 As a gem infused with the heart-blood of either Akatosh or Lorkhan6 the gem would be a fair representation of the Heart of Lorkhan and so function, in concert with its Tower, as a second “Heart of the World”7.
White-Gold’s Purpose
The White-Gold Tower is about certainty through domination. That is why a library of Elder Scrolls can be contained within it, why Sanguine was unable to leave it, why Mehrunes Dagon – as the prince of change and revolution – needed to destroy it, and why, historically, the dragonborn have been drawn to it. It was, quite literally, designed to be the seat of power within Tamriel.
More than that though, “[White-Gold Tower] was a triumph of sympathetic megafetish8,”9 Meaning that anything that affect the Tower would propagate throughout Mundus. Which leads Nu-Hatta to worry: “If the Ayleids made their own Wheel within the Wheel, were-web aad semblio, what would happen if they plucked its strings?” (Nu-Mantia Intercept, Letter #8)
That, I think, would depend on the intent of the person “plucking” – strings can be plucked to create a number of sounds – but what Nu-Hatta is worried about is specifically that “Ayleids” (which he uses here as a “metaphysical designation” for the enemies of man) might be the ones plucking the strings, by which, I assume, given the context, he means the Mythic Dawn.
So what would have happened if the Mythic Dawn had taken control of the White-Gold Tower?
White-Gold Tower is a conduit of creatia… built to bring about a reversal of the congealing spiritual bleed caused by the Convention. (Nu-Mantia Intercept, Letter #8)
The White-Gold Tower was built to put magic back into the world – not unlike Ayleid Wells, just on a much larger scale. As a result it had been soaking up creatia for long enough, by ESO, that the stones of the Tower itself were becoming obviously imbued with magic10. If the build-up continued then, by the time of the Oblivion Crisis, the amount of creatia that could be released from the Tower might well have rivaled the release that occurred when Chief Tonal Architect Kagrenac struck the Heart of Lorkhan. Given that, unlike the Dwemer who sought to simply remove themselves from the Aurbis, the Mythic Dawn sought to destroy the Aurbis, the result could have been that the Mythic Dawn could have used the White-Gold Tower’s complete domination over creation to unmake the world.11
Luckily Akatosh was able to use the creatia released from the White-Gold Tower, by the breaking of the Amulet of Kings, to manifest and “dragon-[censored] Dagon silly”12.
As long as White-Gold functions the world it codifies is permanent. There can be no new kalpa until it is destroyed.
** Thought Experiment:
- If a Tower’s Stone embodies something intrinsic about the Tower, what does the Tower Stone of White-Gold being an avatar of Akatosh (and no longer a replica of the heart of Lorkhan) mean for the current purpose of the Tower?
- If putting a drake on the Ruby Throne gives you a world spanning empire, what would happen if a jill were to take the Ruby Throne?
Crystal-like-Law
Tower Design
Anyone else think the Altmer, given their obsession with aesthetic perfection, are probably supper into the Golden Ratio? Just me? Well… maybe not just me:
“As I sit here in the perfection of this garden, I contemplate the Sacred Numbers that we recognize as Auspicious and critical to the existence of the universe.
“Three is the Number of the Prime Celestials, as embodied in the sun and the two moons. It is also the number of my perfect daughters, which is why we shall produce no other heirs.
“Five is the Number of the Elements, for reality consists of Earth, Air, Water, Fire, and Aether. It is also the number of books I have open upon my desk at any given time.
“Eight is the Number of the Planets, as well as the sum of three plus five. Eight is also the limit I impose when drinking glasses of Gossamer Tawny Port with the members of my philosophical society – no more and no less.
“These are the Good Numbers. And the sum of the Good Numbers, which we call Sixteen, is a very powerful number indeed.
“We must beware the Bad Number, though, for Two lacks vision and attempts to display duality, which we all know is impossible.”
(Thoughts on the Sacred Numbers, ESO)
Those who remember high school geometry may recall that three, five, and eight, are the fourth through sixth numbers in Fibonacci Sequence. The Fibonacci Sequence is related to the golden ratio in that the ratio between each number, and the previous number in the sequence, approaches the golden ratio as the sequence progresses.
The Golden Ratio (or “phi” if you prefer) is commonly believed to be the most aesthetically pleasing way to size objects, one to another, or to place things in space.13 It appears, in nature, in everything from pinecones, to galactic spirals, to the proportions of the human hand. Some ancient Greek philosophers (mostly the Pythagoreans) believed that the common occurrence, and esthetic beauty, of the Golden Ratio was proof of geometric order to the universe. A belief others rejected because phi (like pi) is an irrational number.14 Still, it seems this did not put off the Altmer.
So welcome to Pythagoreanism my friends! What we know about Pythagoreanism indicates it included the following philosophic/religious concepts:
- a belief in the sacred and metaphysical nature of numbers;
- the concept that reality, including music and astronomy, is, at its deepest level, mathematical in nature;
- the use of philosophy as a means of spiritual purification;
- the heavenly destiny of the soul and the possibility of its rising to union with the divine;
- the mystical appeal of certain symbols such as the tetraktys, the golden ratio, and
- the “harmony of the spheres”.
So, what does this minor foray into Altmer sacred numbers and RW philosophy have to do with the Crystal Tower?
Tower’s Purpose
The Crystal Tower rises over northern Summerset, standing as a beacon and a symbol of everything the Altmer hold dear. Also known as the Crystal-Like-Law, the tower, contrary to the beliefs of those who live beyond our cherished borders, is not made of crystal. No, the tower is named for the crystal that resides at the utmost level, Transparent Law.
Transparent Law lends power and energy to the Crystal Tower, which allows the mystical structure to offer its protections to all of Summerset. The energy radiates from the tower, spreading across the land like an invisible awning to keep the island safe and secure…
… As for the significance of Transparent Law, I should think that to be self-evident. One only has to break down the meaning of the name and all becomes clear. To be transparent is to be easily recognized or detected, to be made manifest, to be open, obvious, and candid. Law, meanwhile, refers to the principles and regulations that govern some specific portion of reality. In this case, the crystal manifests the clear and unequivocal fundamental principles of our Aldmer heritage. Indeed, we suspect that the crystal may even be a fragment of divinity given physical substance.
(ESO, The Crystal of the Tower)
So we are told, by the Altmer themselves (in ESO), that the Crystal Tower’s affect upon its surroundings it to “manifests the clear and unequivocal fundamental principles of [the] Aldmer”. Vivec put it a little differently, saying that the Altmer turned to the “… quest toward the ur-you for certainty and foundations…”.15 While Nu-Hatta said that “[T]he Altmer sought to focus on dracochrysalis16, or keeping elder magic bound before it could change into something lesser…”.17 All three, however, agree that the Altmer sought to avoid, or undo, the change that is inherent in consecutive Time, not – necessarily – upon the world but upon themselves.
If the Crystal Tower is supposed to allow for the Altmer return to (reabsorption into?) the divine, by counter-acting the “corrupting” influence of Nirn on those within its sphere of influence, perhaps that is why the Golden Spiral of the Crystal “cosminach” rotates in the opposite direction of the spiral from the cosmography presented in the Oghma Infinium.
Tower Stone
We have already read (above) that the stone of the Crystal Tower is Transparent Law. Michael Kirkbride, on the other hand, tells us that the stone of Crystal-like-Law is “a person”18. A crystal that is a person? Is it possible that Transparent Law is a being similar in nature to the Ideal Masters? A being that has transcended physicality but has not achieved CHIM?
In the end the Crystal Tower was destroyed in the Oblivion Crisis and, as far as I can find out, it is not known if Transparent Law, or the person who is the Tower Stone (if they are not the same), survived the breaking of the Tower.
** Thought Experiment:
- Given what we know about the Ideal Masters and their hunger for life energy, what would that mean for the actualfunctioning of the Crystal Tower? Could it be that “dracochrysalis” requires combining a great many Altmer souls together until their combined varliance is equivalent to that of a god? If so, what happens to the individual personalities consumed in this process?
- What if, Transparent Law, and its shield of protection, is a latter addition to the Tower and not the Tower Stone at all?
The Surrender of Alinor happened in one hour, but Numidium’s siege lasted from the Mythic Era until long into the Fifth. Some Mirror Logicians of the Altmer fight it still in chrysalis shells that phase in and out of Tamrielic Prime, and their brethren know nothing of their purpose unless they stare too long and break their own possipoints19. (Michael Kirkbride’s undated posts)20
If the Tower is no longer providing the Altmer a culturally acceptable escape from the Aurbis, because its magicka has been re-purposed, via a numidition, to powering Transparent Law’s defense of Alinor against the Numidium, it would be easy for the Altmer to forget – or retroactively to have never known – it’s original purpose.
References
Subtropical Cyrodiil: A Speculation (link)
The Monomyth (link)
Thoughts on the Sacred Numbers (link)
The Crystal of the Tower (link)
Aurbic Enigma 4: The Elden Tree (link)
Nu-Mantia Intercept, All (link)
Vehk's Teaching, On Aldmeri Ancestor Worship (link)
Michael Kirkbride: Writing the Elder Scrolls (08/27/10) (link)
Michael Kirkbride - IRC Q&A Sessions, October 15th (link)
Notes:
1 Full size here: WG (link), Crystal (link)
2 Given this last winter I envy them.
3 Nu-Mantia Intercept, Letter #8
4 Nu-Mantia Intercept, Letter #8
5 Nu-Mantia Intercept, Letter #7
6 Accounts vary but which god it was is inconsequential as they are two aspects of the same divine force.
7 “But when Trinimac and Auriel tried to destroy the Heart of Lorkhan it laughed at them. It said, "This Heart is the heart of the world, for one was made to satisfy the other.” – The Monomyth
8 Think really BIG voodoo doll of Mundus.
9 Nu-Mantia Intercept, Letter #8
10 Tel-Var Stones
11 Since the physical building was not destroyed (like a soul-gem), upon releasing its built up creatia, it may be fair to assume that the reason the avatar of Akatosh turned to rock was that IT is now the Stone of the White-Gold Tower.
12 Michael Kirkbride: Writing the Elder Scrolls (08/27/10)
13 For more about aesthetics and phi, without getting too mathematical: (link)
14 *cough* The Altmer have devoted themselves to irrationality! *cough* Sorry, it was there. At least it’s aesthetically pleasing irrationality?
15 Vehk's Teaching, On Aldmeri Ancestor Worship (link)
16 Draco-chrysalis: dragon chrysalis. Becoming a dragon? Becoming Akatosh?
17 Nu-Mantia Intercept, Letter #8
18 Michael Kirkbride - IRC Q&A Sessions, October 15th
19 “Possipoint”: possibility-point. The point in time and space where/when the existence of a particular individual is possible. Breaking your possipoint might zero-sum you or throw you into un-time. Comes up a couple of times in the extended lore but is not entirely clear.
20 MK Undated Post on the Siege of Alinor (link)
21 Nu-Mantia Intercept, Letter #1
Chapter Text
While Nu-Hatta seems aware of kalpic cycles, “Empire Actual is threatened by forces of previous realities...1”, he does not seem aware that Magnus and Lorkhan have been bringing land masses, not just people, across kalpa:
“[T]he Greedy Man [Lorkhan] and I [Magnus] and our servants hoard bits and bobs of the world so you [Alduin] can’t eat it all. And when the world comes back we sort of just stick these portions back on and so that’s why it is all bigger and bigger for you to eat each time.”
(The Seven Fights of The Aldudagga: Fight One, “The Eating-Birth of Dagon”)
It seems obvious to me that, if one wanted to bring a large chunk of the world from one kalpa into another, it would be necessary for the land one is moving to have a Tower in order to maintain its reality while moving through un-time. It would, however, mean that the deactivation of the Tower would likely remove the “realness” of that land in relation to the current kalpa. This, I believe, is what happened to Yokuda.
What we know about Yokuda and the Orichalc Tower is:
- The Orichalc Tower was built on Yokuda by the Sinistral (Lefthanded Elves)
- Its Stone is a sword
(Michael Kirkbride - IRC Q&A Sessions, October 15th) - The Tower was important to the war between the Yoku and the Sinistral.
(Made Up Word Round Up) - The continent “sank into the ocean” after the Hiradirge performed (or attempted to perform?) the ancient “Pankratosword” sword-stroke technique, in 1E 792. (Pocket Guide to the Empire, Third Edition: Other Lands)
- Though unreachable in-game, a landmass is still visible to the west of High Rock, during the Planemeld in circa 2E 578 (a mere 2700 years after Yokuda supposedly “sank”). (ESO)
- Cyrus the Restless (born 2E 831) is said to have visited Yokuda after discovering a map that allowed him to bypass the “Curtain of Run” about 3000 years after Yokuda “sank”.
(Lord Vivec’s Sword-Meeting With Cyrus the Restless)
The Pankratosword Technique
The word “Pankratosword” is composed of three parts: Pan, kratos, and sword. The first part, “pan”, is an English prefix, of Greek origin, meaning “all/everything”. The second part “krátos” is a Greek word meaning “state” or “area of influence”. So a “pan-kratos-[s]word” technique would be an “everything within-the-area-of-influence sword” technique. On the other hand, the first two pieces of the word, when taken together (pan’krátos) is, according to Google translate, the Greek word for “goodbye”. So it seems possible that the “pankratosword technique” causes everything within the area of influence to “leave”. Preforming the technique (correctly), using the sword that is the Stone of the Orichalc Tower, conceivably could cause all the lands under the Tower’s influence to exit the world and so survive from one kalpa into the next.
But what actually happened to Yokuda?
The Pocket Guide to the Empire tells us that:
[D]uring the last civil war, a renegade band of Ansei called the Hiradirge were said to be masters of stone magic. When they were defeated in battle in 1E 792, the argument goes, they had their revenge on the entire land, destroying what they would never rule. (A Pocket Guide to the Empire, Third Edition: Other Lands)
How that destruction took place is revealed in Lord Vivec’s Sword-Meeting With Cyrus the Restless.
[The Elder Ansu to Cyrus] “When we fight, our swords can kill the laws of nature itself. Yokuda is as you see it because our hira-dirg swords can cut the atomos, the uncuttable, and we did…”
“As should this,” Cyrus said, moving to the Pankratosword [stance].
Vivec paused longer. And then he laughed loud. “You would not!”
“I say again, test me.”
“You would destroy the home of your ancestors even more? And in the fashion that they had done, which is now forbidden in your hands?”
(Lord Vivec’s Sword-Meeting With Cyrus the Restless)
So we are told that the Hiradirge used the Pankratosword technique and destroyed Yokuda. But when Tiber Septim confronted Cyrus over his cutting of the atomos (while he was an avatar of the Hoonding who would still know the version of the Pankratosword technique that destroyed Yokuda even though it had been struck from the records) the effects, though destructive, appear to have been relatively localized.
[Tiber Septim said to Cyrus] “The one version of this place where you did cut the atomos to make my friend look foolish? You don’t even remember that because I had to make it right again. I am tired of always standing against breakers of worlds with a grudge to fulfill.”
(Tiber Septim’s Sword-Meeting with Cyrus the Restless)
The effects, when using a normal sword, were localized. But what would it look like if one were to use the sword that is also the Tower Stone of the Orichalc Tower – a sword that’s area of influence encompassed the entire continent? Is this, perhaps, how the transition between kalpa would be initiated?
If it is it would explain the important role of the Orichalc Tower, and its stone, in the wars between the Yoku and the Sinistral. The faction that controlled the Tower would have controlled Yokuda.
But why war at all?
“We speak no more of the Left-Handed Elves (may curses follow them into the Eight Abysses), for to recall their abominations but darkens our days…” (Loremaster’s Archive: Zakhin’s Many Heroes)
The common assumption about these “abominations” of the Sinistral towards the Yoku, among fans of TES, seems to be that they were like those of the Ayleids towards the Nedes – slavery, torture, human sacrifice, etc. – but such a repetition is unlikely in TES lore. I would like to suggest that the “abominations” of the Sinistral were of a more metaphysical nature.
When the Sinistral used their Tower to seek refuge – for an entire continent – from an ending kalpa they, undoubtedly, had not bothered to explain their actions to the Yoku who could not help but be brought along. The Yoku – perhaps not even knowing, at the time, that they’d jumped kalpa – would only have known that, somehow, the techniques they’d previously used to “jump into the Far Shore” no longer worked.
“…they were very far from the real world of Satakal. And they found that it was too far to jump into the Far Shores now. The spirits that were left pleaded with Tall Papa to take them back. But grim Ruptga would not, and he told the spirits that they must learn new ways to follow the stars to the Far Shores now.
(Monomyth: Yokudan, “Satakal the Worldskin”)
So, from the perspective of the Yoku, whatever it was the Sinistral had done had doomed the souls of every human on the continent.
Given these circumstances it is inevitable that, eventually, someone was going to conclude that the easiest way back to “the real world”, from where the Yoku knew how to “jump into the Far Shores”, would be to take possession of the Orichalc Tower and, while wielding the Tower’s sword Stone, use the Pankratosword technique themselves. It is equally certain that the proper use of the technique would not have been widely known – even among the Sinistral – and that the consequences of getting it even slightly wrong would be catastrophic.
And so they were. Large portions of the continent were destroyed and the whole thing was cut off from the rest of the world by a “Curtain of Run” which, I assume, is a poorly manifested version of the barrier that would have formed around Yokuda to allow it to “run” from a dying kalpa.
And that is my theory on Yokuda and the Orichalc Tower.
References
Nu-Mantia Intercept, All (link)
Tiber Septim’s Sword-Meeting with Cyrus the Restless (link)
Lord Vivec’s Sword-Meeting With Cyrus the Restless (link)
The Seven Fights of The Aldudagga: Fight One, “The Eating-Birth of Dagon” (link)
Notes:
1 Nu-Mantia Intercept, Letter #1
Chapter 7: The Dreamsleeve
Summary:
Everything we know on the subject... I think.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Primary Sources
Events of Battlespire, indicate that the dreamsleeve is a sort of location into which one can, for lack of a better term, astral project, leaving one’s body behind in an unresponsive state.
My Mistress has hidden herself behind the Night Portal and driven
her spirit into the Dreamsleeve… This is an enchantment beyond
my understanding, but she has told me the secret of its
unraveling. - Deyanira Katrece, dialogue, Battlespire.
While, from the Commentaries on the Mysterium Xarxes, book one, we learn that he believed the dreamsleeve is the location in which souls exist before birth.
We mortals leave the dreaming-sleeve of birth the same,1
unmantled save for the symbiosis with our mothers, thus
to practice and thus to rapprochement, until finally we might
through new eyes leave our hearths without need or fear that
she remains behind. – Commentaries on the Mysterium Xarxes, book one.
And that is all the in-game lore regarding the dreamsleeve.
Secondary Sources
The “Nu-Mantia2 Intercept” letters were originally posted to the official Bethesda forums, in September of 2005, as part of the official run-up to the release of TES IV: Oblivion. As official promotional material they are about as canonical as you can get without actually being in a game.
Letter 1
Things we learn:
- The Sphinxmoth3 has something to do with long-term, or deep, connection to the dreamsleeve. Context clues indicate that sphinxmoths are likely related to ancestor moths in some way. Certainly Nu-Hatta’s reference to “ancestors in [his] beard” makes the most sense if he is speaking of moths not really old people.4
- From the dreamsleeve the barriers between realms can be observed, in some fashion. Or all of time can and so the effects of the barriers weakening are more obvious?
- The ability to, from the dreamsleeve, trace something all the way back into the Dawntime indicates that, from the dreamsleeve, one can also see into untime, suggesting the dreamsleeve is, itself, outside of linear time.
- Thought connections between individuals (people who share the same belief) can be observed. (Sounds like Maphala’s ability to see the connections between people as threads of a tapestry. I wonder if she accesses the dreamsleeve to do so.)5
- Previous kalpas are observable from the dreamsleeve.
The combination of Letter 2, and Chancelor Ocato’s response, indicate that the rest of the Letters (3-8)6, are occurring as a sort of power point presentation to the entire Elder Council – in their minds - via Nu-Hatta’s7 connection to the dreamsleeve. Also, that the members of the Elder Council resent having such presentations thrust upon them, the person on the receiving end, it would seem, doesn’t have to be willing or asleep or in meditation, to receive a dreamsleeve transmission. Their day can simply be interrupted without their say so, as happened to the Dragonborn both at Saarthal and Mzulft.
Developer Q&As:
- “The dreamsleeve is a conduit for sending special transmissions.Used by weirdo magicians and Imperial clerks, mainly… to reach it one must have at least part of their brain constantly meditating, because one aspect of the conduit is that it is able to carry images of concepts not yet ‘real’.” – MK in 2006
- “… Mind Twitter.”– MK in 2009
- Regarding a claim Nu-Hatta’s:
Q: How does one perceive the “untimes” of “previous” kalpas?
A: Short answer: always through the dreamsleeve. (2013 IRC Q&A) - The lore masters at ZeniMax have used the term “dreamsleeve” to indicate their online forums on several occasions.
Conclusion:
For the moment, the dreamsleeve seems to be a sort of realm spirit/mind8 that does not experience linear time.
It appears to be the location from which mortal souls originate and – perhaps – return to after the completion of a kalpa.
Mortal souls remain attuned? Tethered9? to the dreamsleeve even in life. A connection that allows anyone who can access the dreamsleeve to contact any individual at any distance.10
Notes:
1 Here Mankar Camoran is saying that, before birth, all mortal souls are the same, whatever race they end up as. This is a radical departure from the more common (more mythic) Tamrielic understanding that some souls are Anuian in nature (mer) while others are Padomaic (men).
2 “Nu-Mantia”… probably deserves its own chapter. Short version: The word shows up in the Intercept Letters, the Mythic Dawn Commentaries, and Love Letter from the Fifth Era. “Nu” – symbol for wave frequency in sound -> music -> all of Tamriel being a song. “Nu”, also sounds like “new”. “Mantia” likely related to “mantic” meaning “relating to divination or prophecy”. Thus, “Nu-Mantia” is likely the prophecy of a whole new song, a whole new creation, not just a new kalpa.
Camoran claims “nu-mantia” means “liberty, freedom”, while the Love Letter claims it is the road to liberty, but only for the AMORANTH. As an AMORANTH is a new Dreamer, then the road to their own liberty being the prophecy of a new dream, makes sense.3 The only other reference to this word in the lore is to an Imperial fort on the boarder of Elsweyr and Valenwood. As the fort was abandoned after the fall of the Second Empire, it likely has no relation to the contents of this letter.
4 In Letter #3, Nu-Hatta pretty clearly indicates that he is a member of the Cult of the Ancestor Moth.
5 The powerful daedra Jaciel Morgen, also known as the Lesser Nocturnal, accesses the dreamsleeve in Battlespire.
6 All the Nu-Mantia Intercept letters: link.
7 Nu-Hatta – “Nu” is the thirteenth letter of the Greek alphabet and, in physics, indicates wave frequency (in Hertz) - as in electromagnetic or sound waves.
“Hatta”, possibly from Turkish meaning “mistake”. Nu-Hatta might, then, indicate something like a note that is out of tune; a squeaky wheel intent upon making the Elder Council pay attention, whether they want to or not. Or, given the contents of his lecture, his name could indicate that he was created to address an alteration to the lore made between games. Aka a lore “mistake”, or misunderstanding, in game three, “corrected” in game four - *wink-wink* - something Bethesda wanted to drop early on the lore purists to avoid blowback after the game released. Given that he greatly expanded Tower lore, that seems entirely possible.8 Souls in TES appear to follow at least a bi-partite, possibly tripartite, model.
Bipartite (two parts): Using a black soul gem for enchanting consumes some sort of energy while the personality of the captured soul is sent to the Soul Cairn. Thus two parts: vitality and personality.
Tripartite (three parts): The personality of a soul can be separated into “mind/intellect” and “emotion/id”. Likely that the dreamsleeve natively houses only the mind/intellect.9 Recall one of Neloth’s experiments includes augmenting the dragonborn’s soul with an “additional spectral tether from your own life-spark to the aedric realm”. The effects are inverted by contact with water… which also has interesting implications. See FudgeMuppet’s video on Water in TES: link.
10 A connection Mankar Camoran claimed Dagon was promising to sever? Thereby, ostensibly, freeing souls from the kalpic cycle? It’s unclear.
Though Camoran appears to have been almost aware of the concept of AMORANTH – mostly via its connection to Nu-Mantia – he never seems to have reached a clear, or correct, understanding of either concept.
Chapter 8: Lycanthropy (Part 1)
Summary:
An examination of TES lore regarding Lycanthropy
Notes:
Note: I’ve tried to include the information ESO has added to this subject, but ESO can be a bit hard to keep up with, so if I’ve missed something important please let me know.
(As of 02/18/2019)
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
What is Lycanthropy?
In TES Lycanthropy occurs when an individual becomes the physical host for one of Hircine’s beast-spirits. Specifically, the events of the Companion’s questline in TESV: Skyrim, indicate that the beast-spirit does not attach itself to the body of its host, but to the soul, as death, the soul’s separation from the body, does not separate the individual from the beast-spirit.
We also know that lycanthropy is not a disease but a daedric curse, or blessing, and so is not affected by “cure disease” effects and that it is Hircine’s method of claiming souls.*
What are the Affects of Lycanthropy?
The host gains unnatural speed, strength, and endurance, but the personality of the host is also affected. While “Living with Lycanthropy” counsels that it is necessary to practice restraint against the fury and hunger that come with the “blessing” of lycanthropy, not everyone’s will seems to be strong enough to maintain such restraint indefinitely, especially when alone.* But it is not just the hunger, the call of the hunt, or the sudden fury, that the lycanthrope experiences due to the addition of a beast-spirit to their soul. An excerpt from journal-type entries of “The Pack of Archon’s Grove” indicates a broader impact on the reasoning of a lycanthrope than might be assumed from the Companion’s questline.
Speaking of gaining numbers, I’m glad our den mother is finally listening to reason. We need to strengthen our pack, and the only way to do that is through force. There are few here who would freely accept our blessing. Capturing and turning travelers may be risky, but we must fortify our numbers in case of attack. (The Pack of Archon’s Grove, ESO)
The language used, in the above quotation, indicates that the wolf-spirit is playing a significant role not only in this set of decisions but in defining the situation of a reduced “pack” size as a problem that needs fixing even if it is by force.
It is this exact issue that causes Skjor and Aela to go against Kodlak and initiate the dragonborn. A choice that suggest that the Companions greater control over when they change hasn’t lessened the impact of the beast-spirit on their reasoning.
What do we know about Beast Spirits?
- They originate from the Hircine’s realm in Oblivion, which means they are daedra.
- Their connection to a soul allows Hircine to claim it.
- They always take animal form.
Yep, that’s pretty much it.
What do we know about Daedra?
They are the natural denizens of the Oblivion realms, of which, broadly speaking, there are two “functional” types:
Lord Fa-Nuit-Hen says, “…In common with the greater Princes, my realm of Maelstrom and myself are indistinguishable — my pocket reality is a projection of my mind, nature, and will… There are [also] physical realms, such as Infernace, home of the flame atronachs, that exist as collective extensions of their numerous, less-powerful inhabitants. (Lore Master’s Archive: Q&A, Oct 19, 2015)
From this one can extrapolate that those daedra – like atronachs or dremora – that serve multiple princes originate in realms organized by collective will. They are autonomous beings oath-bound* to the service of a prince. While those daedra native to the realm of a daedric prince are – literally – manifestations of that prince’s thoughts.* Hircine’s beast-spirits, as we lack any example of them serving other princes, most likely fall into this second category.
How sapient is a lesser daedra?
Assessing a daedra’s intelligence isn’t easy. We are told that atronachs are “highly intelligent” while scamps and spider daedra are only “semi-intelligent”,* which means that simply being humanoid, or not, doesn’t relate to the relative intelligence of a daedra.
The author of “The Insatiable” would have us believe that:
Daedra are creatures of purpose. They embody a need to be fulfilled. (The Insatiable, ESO)
In some ways this simply reiterates Lord Fa-Nuit-Hen’s description of what an Oblivion Realm is or Lyranth the Foolkilller’s assertion that:
In Oblivion, order and hierarchy are wrested from the roil of chaotic creatia by the imposition of the will of the mover.*
(Lyranth the Foolkiller, Q&A)
So, it would seem, those types of daedra native to the realm of a daedric prince - as manifestations of a daedric prince’s organizing principles for his realm - would each fill an ecological niche within that realm and be the embodiment of the need to fulfill the requirements of that niche. Their level of sentience/sapience would, likely, be only that required to fulfill their purpose and their free will would likely be close to nonexistent as they are literally part of the prince’s mind. On the other hand those daedra native to realms made real through collective will would likely range from bestial to highly intelligent, depending on species, but all of them, by definition, would exhibit free will.
How sapient is a beast-spirit?
Beast-spirits, as far as we know, are native to Hircine’s Hunting Grounds. As such they are fragments of Hircine’s mind and so lack free will. Similarly their level of intelligence would depend upon how much intelligence is necessary for them to fulfill their job of claiming souls for Hircine. So how much intelligence is required to change a person into a man-beast bound, forever, to the Hunting Grounds?
As of the date I wrote this I am unaware of any direct evidence of the intelligence of beast-spirits without a host. On the other hand we know that the feral instincts and physical attributes of the beast-spirit are passed on to their host. So, logically, if the beast-spirits are fully sapient beings, capable of reasoning and judgment, you’d expect their sapience to be added to that of their host in the same way that their instincts are.
But the lycanthropes of TES show very little awareness of anything but the emotional instability their condition causes. Never in the literature, or game play, is it suggested that they recognize that there is some non-human logic at play in the concept of forcing people to drink your blood in order to be better friends. Or that converting the unwilling might lead to unfortunate group dynamics within their “packs”.
If anything the lycanthropes of TES are profoundly lacking in self-awareness of everything up to and including their own shift in vocabulary. The author of the “Pack of Archon’s Grove” missive actually indicates that, though the pack does not need to fear competition from other packs, the member’s overwhelming need to strengthen their pack has actually driven their “den mother” to allow them to forcefully recruit travelers. An action utterly opposed to the rational, reasoned, earlier statement that playing it smart will keep them safe and out of the public eye. Forcefully recruiting people is not playing it smart and so I can only assume that their beast-spirits are immune to that sort of reasoning. It would also seem that the logical reasoning of the lycanthrope will, with time, be overwhelmed by the needs of the beast-spirit and they may not even be aware of a shift in their priorities or that their werewolf actions run counter to their stated – more human - goals.
Based on this I would submit that the beast-spirits have instinct, and basic sentience, but are in no way sapient and that the lycanthrope cannot truly communicate with their beast-spirit in any constructive fashion. (No matter how much fun that trope is for adding angst.)
Conclusion
Hircine’s beast-spirits are mind-altering soul-parasites from Oblivion that are, quite literally, tiny parts of Hircine’s mind.
Side Note: The Circle
It is interesting that the slide of the Archon’s Grove werewolf pack, away from standard cultural modes of thought and action, is not observed in the Companions. But the Companions have something the Archon’s Grove pack does not: non-lycanthrope pack members. My reading of TES lore would suggest that lycanthropes, even in groups, without non-lycanthropes around to provide normalizing social pressure, will fail to notice how many of the givens upon which their reasoning is built have been altered by the addition of the beast-spirit to their soul. The members of the Circle, unlike the members of the Archon’s Grove pack, remain fairly human because the rest of the Companions are around to call them out on any unusual behavior.
For a real world example of mind altering parasites (yes, they exist) consider toxoplasmosis. (Warning: toxoplasmosis is a fairly disturbing, and surprisingly widespread, condition. You have been warned. Video)
Notes:
* Note from a Glenmoril Witch, TESIII: Morrowind
* See A Werewolf’s Confession
* Lore Master’s Archive: Q&A, Oct 19, 2015
* “mover” (aka the Active Intellect): philosophical technical term(s), widely used but first found in Aristotle, meaning “the thing by which all other things are formed”. Used here to indicate the mind/will that created an Oblivion realm and all the “vestiges” there in.
Not to be confused with the “Prime Mover” who would be the entity whose mind/will created the entire Arubis. (Yes, that exists too. Look up “Amaranth” in the Imperial Library if you’re interested.)
Chapter 9: Lycanthropy (Part 2)
Summary:
An extended footnote for A4:29.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Alexa: “What happens if you are killed here?”
Terrfyg: “We reform, at one of the glowing lakes, within a day or two.”
Terrfyg's answer is a guess based upon the following information:
- The Hunting Grounds is already the afterlife for werewolves so it seems unlikely that their death there would release them from the realm.
Side Note: Hunting/being hunted every day, only to get back up and do it all again the next day, isn’t that conceptually different from the warriors in Valhalla who fight all day and then heal up in time for dinner. (Poetic Edda: Vafthruthnismol, stanza 41, link) - During the Great Hunt in ESO, a body is left behind when you kill a werewolf. This suggests two possibilities:
a) the werewolf remains “dead” for a period of time (or until a particular time of day) and then gets back up fully healed, or
b) like the vestiges of slain daedra, werewolf spirits must return to a source of chaotic creatia in order to form a new body after death.
While I know of no direct evidence, either way, on this one, there is quite a lot of circumstantial evidence that option b is more likely than a:- The number of bones strewn about the place in official art, (Image)
- The necessity of offering part of what you kill to Hircine at the end of your hunt.
- We find out, from the dragonborn's interaction with Kodlak in Ysgramor's tomb, that Hircin’s were-beasts, after their death on Nirn, are a loose amalgamation of a daedric vestige (the wolf spirit) and a mortal soul.
So, it seems to me, that the speculation regarding the workings of a “paragon Soul Shriven”, in Chaotic Creatia: The Azure Plasm1, is likely to be a pretty accurate description of what happens to Hircine’s man-beasts when slain within the Hunting Grounds.
“…the theoretical possibility of a Soul Shriven who, despite having lost his or her soul, possessed some other intrinsic Anuic aspect…”
A werewolf would retain their soul and so not need this “other intrinsic Anuic aspect”.
“This shall-we-say ‘paragon’ Soul Shriven would form an unflawed body in Coldharbour that was a perfect duplicate of the body worn in Mundus.”
Extrapolating from the events of the Great Hunt quest, in ESO, we know that both body and temporarily disembodies spirts, are recognizable. Though it is possible that the new creatia bodies are less “exactly as you were when you died in Mundus” and more “at your prime, and without that injury you got from being thrown by a horse in your twenties.
“In fact, if this paragon bore a sufficiently high Anuic valence, upon contact with Padomaic creatia its body would form almost instantaneously.”
As far as I know, we have no way of gauging how long this might take, for man-beasts, from in-game events. - Chaotic creatia takes a planar-appropriate form in every realm of Oblivion, but all known examples (as of early 2023) seem to glow at least somewhat. As far as I know we do not yet have an example of creatia in the Hunting Grounds, but small forest lakes seems appropriate to me
Notes:
1 Chaotic Creatia: The Azure Plasm, ESO (link)
Chapter 10: Hearts & Phylacteries
Summary:
Ripping out hearts is something of a recurring theme in TES.
Notes:
An examination of TES lore.
My first draft of this discussion got rather complicated as TES has not been completely standardized, throughout all the games, books, and developer Q&A sessions etc., in the use of terms like “soul” and “spirit”. So, for clarity of argument, I am going to define a few terms. If an in-game text, or developer quote, uses a term in a manner inconsistent with my definition, I will add my defined term, in brackets. Decisions will be based on larger context of the quote. Location of said quote will be linked in footnotes to allow you to check the context yourself.
Vitality: Life-Energy, the part of a soul used to power enchantments, magic energy.
Spirit: That part of a soul that makes it an individual; its memory and personality, that part of the soul that is acquired by the Ideal Masters or passes on to an afterlife.
Soul: the combination of both “spirit” and “vitality” that exists within a living being.
Vestige: that essential part of a daedra that returns to Oblivion when it is slain and around which its body reforms. (Definition taken from Chaotic Creatia: The Azure Plasm)
Phylactery: a physical vessel that contains a creature’s soul. (Definition taken from Soul Trapping I: An Introduction)
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Soul-trapping is the art of taking a creature’s soul upon death and confining it in an appropriately-sized phylactery. (Soul Trapping I: An Introduction)
There is significant evidence in TES lore that, when one does not have a soul gem handy, a creature’s heart can be used as a container for one, or more, parts of their soul.
- The Heart of Lorkhan is the most obvious proof of a heart’s ability to contain a being’s vitality – even after death – as it was supposed to be the power source for the Numidium and, later, tapping it allowed for the use of divine power by the Tribunal.
- The “Rite of the Wolf Giver” requires a werewolf exchange an innocent person’s life for their own freedom.2 An exchange that suggests, given Hircine’s thoughts on fairness, that the innocent person’s spirit has been condemned to the Hunting Grounds in place of the werewolf’s. As the innocent person’s heart is an integral part of this process it appears a heart can be used to gain control over a person’s spirit.
- A Daedra Heart is required to create daedric armor – an armor set that gets its bonuses over regular ebony armor by being infused with a daedra - indicating that a daedra’s vestige can also be contained within, or magically accessed via, its heart.
- In ESO the note “Heart of Zandadunoz” tells us that the Titan’s “heart transformed into a phylactery, supposedly capable of recalling the titan from Oblivion to once again threaten the Orsimer.” Which suggest a daedra’s heart can be used to gain control over its entire being, not just its vitality or vestige.
So it is clear that, in TES, a being’s heart is, in some way, naturally imbued with, or connected to, all parts of their being and that, under the right conditions, the connection can persist even after death. More specifically Neloth, when discussing briarhearts, tells the Last Dragonborn that a briarheart is created by detaching the “soul-thread” from their heart, and knotting it “three times, once for the heart, once for the spirit, and once for the body,” before attaching the soul-thread to the briar heart seed. From this it appears that a being’s heart is not naturally a repository for a spirit – like a black soul gem appears to be – (as the spirit and heart are given different knots) but the repository for a being’s vitality and the material anchor to which their spirit is tethered via a “soul-thread”.
While the difference between soul-anchor and phylactery aren’t, apparently, all that functionally different – from a game perspective – from a lore perspective the difference could not be more important. Consider, for instance, the implications of each spirit having its own string that tethers it to the mortal realm and the meaning that might have for tonal architecture, the disappearance of the Dwemer, and the apotheosis of the Tribunal. What would happen if these strings were plucked?
Thought experiments aside, if hearts really are the natural repository for a being’s vitality then we should see evidence of them being used, like soul gems, as magical batteries. There is, in TES lore, at least one, rather extreme, example of this: the Numidium, which used the Heart of Lorkhan as a power source. So what does this mean for living creatures, like Forsworn briarhearts, who’ve replaced their hearts with something else?
The immediate result, of replacing a person’s heart with a briar heart seed, according to Neloth, is that it “puts their life-sparks in direct connection to the natural forces.” Neloth then adds: “The knots give the connection a strength that may be the key that I’ve been looking for.” Taken together he seems to be saying that these “knots” in their soul threads allow Forsworn briarhearts to draw upon a greater pool of vitality than the normal body/soul connection can withstand thereby imbuing them with super-human abilities. Furthermore Neloth clearly believes that it should be possible to do the same with heart stones – giving the recipient access to the “forces of the Red Mountain” – a feat he clearly believes will result in a being of even greater power than a briarheart (whose life-spark is only grafted to “natural forces”). The point here lies in the difference between the relative power of the earthbone Ehlnofey (aka the “natural forces”) and the et’Ada whose heart existed within Red Mountain for long enough to infuse the stones of the mountain with the et’Ada’s power. In a very real sense Neloth, like so many others before him, is attempting to safely tap the Heart of Lorkhan for his own, personal, empowerment.
What I am uncertain of is how much tethering a person’s soul to an inhuman force might change them beyond gifting them with greater vitality. While Ildari Sarothril’s heart stone heart gave her new, apparently innate, abilities she also experienced constant pain, which she is quick to blame on Neloth’s “butchery”. I, however, am less certain. Rather it seems likely to me that the constant pain Ildari experienced wasn’t, necessarily, her own. Her spirit was tethered to a stone imbued with the essence of Lorkhan’s disembodied heart the removal of which was the primal wail of pain without which all creation would not exist. That she would experience continuous pain as a result of this situation seems only logical. It also seems unlikely that anything could be done to ameliorate it.
As the anchor for a person’s soul-thread it seems reasonable to further assume that magic could be used upon a heart to cause that connection to the spirit to be maintained even after death. In this way possession of a person’s heart would give a necromancer access to the person’s spirit, much as a phylactery would, allowing them to determine it’s destination in the afterlife. A circumstance we say played out in the “Rite of the Wolf Giver”. So, given that a heart can act as a “phylactery” (a vessel to which both parts of a soul are bound), we should also see phylacteries that act as “hearts” (repositories of vitality). And we do. Every white soul gem is one.
Under these conditions one would think that white soul gems could be used in a similar fashion to briar heart seeds but I know of no example of such a thing. It is possible that, because a standard soul gem cannot hold more vitality than is common to mortals, there is no reason to attempt such a thing as no increase in vitality would be achieved. Simply using larger gems that can hold more than one soul, however, doesn’t seem to be the answer, as one cannot, currently, use several souls to fill a soul gem. There are, however, implications that it should be possible even if the technique is currently unknown.
- Enchanted weapons can be recharged from multiple soul gems.
- The TES V Enchanting perk “Soul Siphon” allows the partial refilling of weapons from multiple sources.
- Azura’s Star, though usually only capable of holding one soul at a time, while inhabited by Malyn Varen is capable of holding at least two souls simultaneously.A fact we have confirmed for us is not unique to the dragonborn, due to Azura’s assistance in entering the Star, when Malyn greets the dragonborn by saying “Ah, my disciples have sent me a fresh soul. Good. I was getting... hungry,” indicating that the Star is capable of being filled again with a soul still in it, if only you know the proper technique.
- Dragonborn can absorb the souls of multiple dragons.
So it is possible that the real issue with using a soul gem like a briar heart seed, the reason there are no examples, is an issue of technique, or materials, not of theoretical impossibility. It is also possible that whatever the interaction between a Soul Trap spell and a soul gem is it alters the vitality it traps such that it becomes inappropriate for use by a living being. This I find not unlikely as one also does not find intelligent undead with black soul gems at their hearts. Liches use an entirely different form of phylactery to contain their souls while they transition into undeath.2
There is, however, one famous example of a multiply filled soul gem being used as the “heart” a construct. The Mantella was a giant green gem Zurin Arctus created to replace the missing Heart of Lorkhan as the power source for the Numidium. The Mantella, itself, was constructed specifically to contain a shezarrine “oversoul” (a soul that contained two or more pieces of Lorkhan’s power). In this way it would combine the vitality of several lesser fragments of Lorkhan and so, hopefully, approximate Lorkhan’s own heart and the power required to activate, and run, the Numidium. In the end the Mantella likely absorbed not only the vitality of Wulfharth - who had been born a shezarrine and become a shezarrine oversoul when he came in contact with the Heart of Lorkhan at the battle of Red Mountain – but the vitality of Zurin Arctus (and possibly Hjalti Early-Beard3) as well.4 Since this feat has never been repeated we must assume the higher knowledge of how soul-siphoning works, that made it possible, was a discovery of Zurin Arctus’ that he never shared. A discovery he likely made by studying the abilities of a dragonborn.
Speaking of dragonborn, Neloth’s attempt bind a person’s soul to a piece of a god’s heart is, strangely enough, not unprecedented. It would be remiss, in a discussion of hearts and phylacteries, not to mention the curious case of the Amulet of Kings. The amulet began life as the Chim-El Adabal: the Tower Stone of the White-Gold Tower. Sources – though not necessarily reliable ones – suggest the gem was cut from a crystal, found in an Ayleid well, that had become suffused with a drop of Lorkhan’s blood.5 As an artifact empowered both by the starlight condensed by the well6 and the blood of Lorkahn it was the perfect object for representing the “Heart of the World” in the “megafetish”7 of Mundus that was, and is, the White-Gold Tower.8 In this way the Chim-El Adabal was a myth-echo of the Heart of Lorkhan long before it came into Alessia’s hands. The recreation was so complete that, like the heart of Zandadunoz, the amulet was a phylactery that could be used to summon a physical manifestation of Akatosh, which Martin Septim did to end the Oblivion Crisis.
When Alessia took the White-Gold Tower Akatosh, or Lorkhan (accounts vary), gave her the Chim-El Adabal (his heart) and bound her spirit to it. This, as she now had a phylactery that was the heart of a dragon-god, is how Alessia became “dragonborn” and how her spirit became permanently entrapped within the Amulet of Kings.
And that, my friends, concludes this short survey of hearts, and the various forms they take, in TES.
Notes:
1 Much like in Falion’s cure for vampirism.
2 Unhallowed Legions, The Path of Unhallowed Transcendence
3 More info on this possibility discussed in a chapter of Not Drake But Jill: Act 3.
4 The Arcturian Heresy and Skeleton Man’s Interview with Denizens of Tamriel
5 Chim-el Adabal: A Ballad
6 Magic from the Sky
7 Nu-Mantia Intercept, Letter #8
8 See discussion of the White-Gold Tower in my section on the Towers… when I get around to posting it. So much lore so little time.
Works Cited
Chaotic Creatia: The Azure Plasm, ESO (link)
Chim-el Adabal: A Ballad, (link)
Letter from the Underking, TES II: Daggerfall (link)
The Arcturian Heresy, (link)
The Path of Transcendence, TES IV: Oblivion (link)
Magic from the Sky, (link)
Nu-Mantia Intercept: Letter #8, (link)
Soul Trapping I: An Introduction, ESO (link)
Unhallowed Legions, ESO (link)Skeleton Man’s Interview with Denizens of Tamriel, Interview 2010 (link)
Chapter 11: Who is the God Talos?
Summary:
Tiber Septim became Talos who is Trinimac.
Chapter Text
“The Stormcrown mantled by way of the fourth: the steps of the dead. Mantling and incarnation are separate roads; do not mistake this. The latter is built from the cobbles of drawn-bone destiny. The former: walk like them until they must walk like you.” (Nu-Hatta of the Sphinxmoth Inquiry Tree)
We learn from this that Tiber Septim became a god via the fourth walking way “the steps of the dead” not incarnation, which means he became a new version of an old god. But which god did he become? The answer, it seems, has been staring us all in the face since we first walked past Heimskr and wondered if he’d ever stop yelling: the statue of Talos clearly identifies the god he replaced as Trinnimac.
Trinimac (male mer in golden armor) is best known for having been the one to force Lorkhan (snake) to the ground before removing his heart.1 In Skyrim Talos is depict as a man in golden armor who has forced a large snake to the ground, and is holding it there with his foot, as he prepares to deliver a finishing blow. Talos is also, in these statues, depicted as wearing a winged helmet. The Nords wear horned helmets. It is the Altmer who wear winged helmets. In this way every statue of Talos, throughout Skyrim, portrays Talos as a Nord version of the Altmer warrior god Trinimac.
This conclusion is further supported by the “obscure text” Shor son of Shor which states that Trinimac – at the time of the events being described – has become a Nord.
"Trinimac left Dibella in his tent as we assembled, and he had not touched her, frozen in the manner of the Nords when we are unsure of our true place, and asked his brother to rearm him. Stuhn was confused for a moment, thinking this an odd shift, but Mara… [told] him that such Totems here in the twilight could now be trusted." (Shor son of Shor, link)
Struhn, I think, can be forgiven for thinking that Trinimac becoming a Nord, and changing sides in the ongoing battle, is “an odd shift” but Mara’s response about “here in the twilight” is of greater interest.
According to a TESV: Skyrim design document, released by Michael Kirkbride under the title of “The Nords’ Totemic Religion”:
"The gods are cyclical, just like the world is. There are the Dead Gods, who fought and died to bring about the new cycle; the Hearth Gods, who watch over the present cycle; the Testing Gods, who threaten the Hearth and thus are watched; and the Twilight Gods, who usher in the next cycle. The end of a cycle is said to be preceded by the Dragonborn God, a god that did not exist in the previous cycle but whose presence means that the current one is almost over." (link)
Please note that the document from which this quote is taken is very clearly written from a Nord perspective, not a designer perspective, and so while the information in it illustrates Nord beliefs its comments on the functioning of the world may not be accurate. For example: the text makes no mention of new non-Nord gods. But we know that Vivec, for instance, managed to become a god, and to remain as such, unlike the rest of the Tribunal or Mannimarco (who, it seems, got un-goded by the jill2). Still, since the same sort of bias can be seen in Shor son of Shor the one text can be used to shed some light on the other. Therefore we can conclude that the change in Trinnimac has something to do with these events occurring in the “twilight” of a kalpa.
Additionally, it should be noted that, while the Nords of the Fourth Era may presume that Talos, as a dragonborn who has become a god, is the “Dragonborn God” of this cycle, he cannot be. As someone who mantled via the steps of the dead Tiber Septim could only become a god that had already existed in this kalpa. So the “Dragonborn God” of this cycle – if the Nords are right about them being a new god – must be someone else. Anyway, the point is, that Talos is the only person to both achieve godhood during the “twilight” and to be recognized as a god by the Nords and so is likely the “Trinimac” mentioned in Shor son of Shor.
So how did an Atmoran dragonborn emperor attaining godhood make him a Nord reinstantiation of the Altmer god Trinimac rather than his own, shiny, new, deity? Well, mantling via the steps of the dead requires that you be more like the god than they are: “walk like them until they must walk like you”. The fact that the entity that had been Trinimac, having become Malacath, currently wasn’t much like Trinimac at all would, undoubtedly, have made taking Trinimac’s, empty, place in the Aurbic structure somewhat easier. But what was that place?
Trinimac’s greatest act was the removal of Lorkhan’s heart. This action lead to the creation of "… Red Tower and the First Stone. This allowed the Mundus to exist without the full presence of the divine."3 As a warrior god whose actions allowed for the continued existence of the Mundus, Trinimac had held the Aurbic position of a warrior who lengthened the time between Creation and Destruction.
Tiber Septim, by the end of his life, had melded at least four Shezarrine souls with his dragon soul making him an Akatosh-Lorkhan amalgam; a fusion of two, out of three, manifestations of a single Aurbic force: Time/Change. It also – since he lacked any essence of the third manifestation of Time/Change (the destroyer) – made Talos a manifestation of the tiidunslaad – season-unending – meaning both “time without end” and “war” the same set of functions, as we have just seen, that had previously belonging to Trinimac. And that, very briefly, is how Tiber Septim came to mantel Trinimac.
Side Note:
"Trinimac is probably one of the least understood underpinnings of the whole pantheon. I like him that way, but I would study Mithras if you really want to find out more." (Michael Kirkbride - Reddit AMA)
I will spare you a discussion of how Trinimac is Elder Scrolls Mithras (or save it for another time) but I thought you might find this little tidbit interesting. Typically when Mithras’ cult sites were converted by Christians for their own use the resulting churches were dedicated to either St. Michael (mostly in the Eastern Church) or St. George (mostly in the Western Church).
How likely is it that this is an accident?
Notes:
1 The Monomyth
2 “The Jills of Aka-tosh have mended this numidition. Mannimarco remains as he was: the high priest of maggots.” (Nu-Hatta of the Sphinxmoth Inquiry Tree)
3 Nu-Mantia Intercept, Letter #5
Chapter 12: Sanguine
Summary:
Let’s talk about Sanguine.
Notes:
An examination of TES lore and real world influences.
(First some review, then some theory, and then some real world stuff that has informed my treatment of the daedric prince of debauchery.)
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Sanguine’s Realm
Mind aflame, loin afire, illicit pleasure to seek
From under the bed, Lord Sanguine doth peek
To inspire perversions in the wild and meek
Tales of taboos of which virgins blush to speak
The wild rose blooms, perfumes in the burbling creek
The petals, the stem, and the thorns’ painful preek.
(Mad God’s Masque and Bellicose Ball)
Sanguine’s sphere of influence is said to be the “passionate indulgence of darker natures”1 though I think it might be better summed up as being “all the activities a person might choose over self-preservation”. Which is why, when dealing with Sanguine, you are your own worst enemy. Sanguine does not trick people, like Clavicus Vile, or force people to do things, like Molag Bal, he simply offers them the opportunity to do all the things they’ve always fantasized about but have been prevented from doing by societal norms. Whether they take the opportunity he offeres is up to them.2 Equally what a person does, while in the Realms of Revelry, is entirely on them.
“Sanguine grants his guests considerable latitude for personal customization, as each mini-realm can be refashioned to meet the needs and desires of its visitants. It is in Sanguine’s nature to indulge the natures of others… so to Sanguine, ‘absolute control’ is anathema.” (Lord Fa-Nuit-Hen and Tutor Riparius Answer Your Questions (2), October 30th, 2015)
To Sanguine any sort of control is anathema. That’s the point, after all. In the Realms of Revelry no one is controlling you or telling you what you can and cannot do.
As a result I feel that Sanguine, in all likelihood, considers himself to be a mostly benevolent force.3 If someone is unhappy with the outcome of the time they’ve spent in the Realms of Revelry, Sanguine would probablely not consider himself responsible as they, not he, were – at least notionally – the one making their own decisions every step of the way. It’s not his fault if they don’t know when to stop. Right?
Sanguine may see himself as “mostly benevolent” but is he realy?4
“Sanguine is the Daedric Prince of debauchery and dark passions. In his demesne, the revelry never ends – but it is a place where all pleasure is mixed with malice.” (Loading Screen, ESO)
By “malice” I believe the above quote means to signify not necessarily evil intent towards the world in general but a very specific interest to cause harm to particular individuals. In-games evidence indicates that one way to become a target of this ill intent is by thinking yourself above his revelries. Such people can find themselves the target of everything from pranks (Countess Alessia Caro in TES IV: Oblivion) to permanent enthrallment (Aldmeri spies in ESO, who, given where they were and what they were doing, should have seen it coming). But the case of the conjurers in Morvunskar, during “A Night to Remember”, paints a somewhat darker – but far more interesting – picture of Sanguine’s intent.
Naris the Wicked was an Altmer necromancer found roasting people alive in the depths of Morvunskar. The conversation the dragonborn can overhear, between two lesser conjurers working at the Morvunskar forge, clearly indicates that the group has fallen under the influence of Sanguine.5 Their dialogue further tells us that, even without seeing Naris’ reaction to the “experiments” for themselves, his fellow conjurers are willing to bet that Naris is getting “a kick out of it”. The rest of the conversation suggests that the conjurers are beginning to realize that Naris is enough of a monster that even they – necromancer outcasts – are becoming uncomfortable with him. From this we may conclude that contact with Sanguine has intensified Naris’ particularly nasty perversion to a potentially unsustainable level.
Needless to say the dragonborn will have to slaughter most, if not all, of the coven if they are to make it to the portal to the Misty Grove. But when they reach Sanguine he doesn’t even mention the dragonborn’s wholesale slaughter of the coven under his thrall, almost as if the dragonborn killing the group of conjurers was simply assumed or, possibly, even Sanguine’s true purpose for putting the portal to the Misty Grove in Morvunskar in the first place.
Oddly enough “A Night to Remember” is not the only time a daedric prince fails to react, or reacts in an odd manner, to their worshipers being wiped out by the Last Dragonborn.
- Boethiah – demands that the dragonborn kill the rest of the violent psychopaths worshiping at her shrine as part of proving yourself worthy of being her champion.
- Clavicus Vile – thanks the dragonborn for fulfilling the wish of his worshipers in an ironic fashion.
- Hircine – enjoys it if the dragonborn turns the hunt ‘inside out’ because, whatever else they are, his cultists, just like his man-beasts, are still prey.
- Mehrunes Dagon – orders the dragonborn to kill Silus (only worshiper of his revealed in-game) as “he, and his family, have served their purpose.”
- Namira – appears to completely ignore the death of her cultists.
- Peryite – actually sends the last dragonborn out to kill a renegade priest and his followers.
- Sanguine – doesn’t feel it worth mentioning that the dragonborn killed a lot of, frankly, bad people getting to him even though they were apparently under his thrall at the time.
- Vaermina – of the daedric quest that include killing the prince’s worshipers, Vaermina is the only one who seems annoyed, but focuses her anger on the priest that betrayed her rather than on the dragonborn.
Surely if the princes gain the souls of their followers upon death (which they do), and the more souls their realm houses the more powerful they are6, then the princes would want their cultists to live long enough to go out and convert others. So why would a prince actively encourage someone to kill their followers? Would they be as pleased if any of their followers were killed or did they only have it in for the specific group they induce the dragonborn to interact with? My best guesses are as follows:
- Boethiah – probably willing to sacrifice every single one of her cultists just to find out who the best psychopath is.
- Clavicus Vile – probably just that specific group, because, irony.
- Hircine – as long as the hunt is entertaining I don’t think he cares who lives or dies.
- Mehrunes Dagon – did you do as he ordered?
- Namira – who can tell?
- Peryite – probably would take offense if he hadn’t instructed you to deal with the rogue faction. As the “Taskmaster” he, doubtless, needs workers.
- Sanguine – did you ruin one of his parties in the process?
So, given the evidence we have, it seems that the princes Boethiah and Sanguine, may, upon occasion, actively try to kill their own cultists. Why?
Oddly enough Boethiah and Sanguine both require a functioning society to exist but their cults attract followers who threaten the vary society the princes feed off. Boethiah, to the Dunmer at least, is the father of civilization but her more fanatical cultists are, almost by definition, dangerous psychopaths who, unchecked, might “unlawfully overthrow” every authority they come in contact with thereby destroying everything the daedra has created. Sanguine is all about escaping the repression of civilized society. However, without society telling people what not to do Sanguin’s influence would be greatly diminished. Unfortunately setting people free to embrace their true nature is going to result in some of those people being profoundly disruptive to the well-ordered and repressive society that Sanguine feeds off of. This is, I believe, the microcosm of why Boethiah and Sanguine have been seen, in-game, to turn on their own cultists.
Sermon Thirty-Two from The Thirty-Six Lessons of Vivec, however, suggests a macrocosm reason for this behavior:
Eighth: ‘But then why, you ask, do the Daedra wish to meddle with the Aurbis? It is because they are the radical critique, essential as all martyrs.
The daedra, and everything they do, Vivec argues, function as a sort of critical systems analysis for Creation. Is it possible, then, that part of Sanguine’s role, in the greater functioning of the Aurbis, is to identify persons such as Naris the Wicked and reveal them for the monsters they are in order to bring about their end? That he and Boethiah see themselves as being, at least partially, involved in a sort of extreme early recognition, and harm reduction, program meant to maintain the stability of the sandbox in which they play?
Possibly.
Sanguine: Real World Influence
It is not a secret that Sanguine strongly resembles the ancient Greek god Dionysus – god of wine, fertility, madness, religious ecstasy, liberation from social constraints (including slavery7), and rebirth. Truthfully though the cult of Sanguine in Cyrodiil seems to more closely resemble the Roman cult of Bacchus – god of agricultural fertility, excess, and wine – who did not become conflated with Dionysus until the late Roman period. But, hey, Cyrodiil = Rome, we get it.
Anyway, here are some facts about Dionysus (not Bacchus) that are relevant to my treatment of Sanguine.
- Dionysus married – and deified – the Cretan princess Ariadne (the same one that helped Jason kill the Minotaur) to whom he was remarkably faithful throughout their marriage (an attested part of his cult for over a thousand years).
- Only two of his children – born after their marriage – are not hers, which is a practically unheard of level of marital fidelity from a fertility-god of any pantheon. (Consider his father, Zeus, as a more common archetype of fertility-god behavior.)
- Unlike Bacchus, who is the quintessential sloppy drunk, about the sloppiest Dionysus ever gets (in iconography) is allowing the top part of his toga to slip off his shoulder and into his lap. While his worshipers, often pictured around him, may be thoroughly inebriated (and chasing people around with giant phalluses8) the god himself usually appears slightly removed from the actual festivities he is presiding over, often appearing more as an amused – social drinking – observer than an active participant.
The Romans – and that amazing ability of any imperial power to get absolutely everything they borrow from someone else ever-so-slightly, but often critically, wrong – eventually conflated the cults of (Roman) Bacchus and (Greek) Dionysus, which means everything I just said about the iconography of Dionysus doesn’t necessarily hold true after about the 1stCentury CE. (I really do love the Romans, they’re hilarious, but, in an attempt to be somewhat fair to them, I should note that many of the surviving texts we use to study late Roman culture are satirical in nature.9 Sadly, since the early Christians purposefully destroyed most of the texts the Roman satirists were satirizing, understanding what the authors were getting at is not always easy.10)
Still, my general point is, Dionysus is not Bacchus and that Dionysus was a much more nuanced god than most modern people give him credit for. So I will be handling Sanguine in a similar fashion.
Side Note: Dionysus is also one of the only gods I know of who was, themselves, a priest of another god. In his case he was a priest of the goddess Kybele – the Mother of Mountains, Mistress of the Animals, and lover of a dead god (sound like anyone from TES?). 0.0
Notes:
1 The Book of Daedra
2 His Skyrim quest is easily ignored (unlike, say, Meridia’s) with no hard feelings.
3 Stress is bad for people, right? Yes Sanguine, stress is bad for people, but so is skooma.
4 Self-image is funny like that.
5 Conjurer 1 “They drink all day and night, and what do I do?”
Conjurer 2 “[sigh] You work the forge.”
Conjurer 1 “I work the forge. Why do they need me to do this? We use magic, not weapons. I swear, they’re making me do this for a laugh. [pause] At least they’re not making me deal with the prisoners down below.”
Conjurer 2 “Yeah, I don’t know how I feel about what goes on down there.”
Conjurer 1 “I bet Naris gets a kick out of it. Nasty fella he is.”
Conjurer 2 “You’d better quiet down before you end up there. Then I’d have to work the forge.”6 Speculative but it makes sense within the logic of TES lore.
7 Before you yell at me for calling slavery a “social constraint” please understand that ‘slave’ is the common English translation of no fewer than five ancient Greek legal terms (more depending on exact location and time period) each of which indicated a different level of personal autonomy. These terms cover everything from the relationship between a master and their apprentice, a craftsman and their patron, master and servant, a landowner and surf, a parent and child, and actual chattel slavery (usually only applied to prisoners of war). On the flip side, the ancient Greek concept of what was necessary to be a “free man” was ridiculously strict (like anyone who owed a debt – of any kind – wasn’t considered free). Which may be part of why celebrations that allowed people to flout the insanely strict social structure for a day were widely embraced.
8 It’s a fertility god thing.
9 Please remember this if you ever read something written by Ovid, Aristophanes, or Apuleius (to name only the most commonly misconstrued authors). *cough-chough* THEY ARE SATIRISTS! *cough-cough* You can’t take anything they say at face value.
10 Early Christians saved the Roman satirical works to use them as proof of the degeneracy, and immorality, of the religion and culture they were attempting to replace. (So your roommate’s Gender Studies professor, who wants to talk seriously about the cultural implications of gender-swapping in Roman literature, may well be just the latest in a long list of people who have failed to take into consideration the genre of the work they are discussing.)
Chapter 13: Journey of the Soul
Notes:
An examination of TES lore and real world influences.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The Elder Scrolls concept of how the soul cycle works, including its relation to kalpa cycles, appears to me to be, mostly, a re-contextualization of Virgil’s description of the transmigration of the soul (metempsychosis) in the Æneid, Book VI, lines 724-751.1
Here’s the Cliffs Notes:
The essential philosophical message of Book VI is that the soul, contaminated by its association with the body during mortal life, undergoes purgation after death. Passing on to Elysium, it remains there for a thousand years [“till the cycle of time, complete”] and (after drinking from the river Lethe2 to forget its past) is then reborn into the world. The cycles of death, purgation, and rebirth continue until, purified at last, the worthy soul ascends to a state of “fiery energy from a heavenly source.”3 A few exceptionally virtuous souls — like that of Anchises4 — are free from having to submit to this cyclical process, and they remain in Elysium. Although Virgil does not say so explicitly, presumably they too will ascend eventually to the nebulous Roman spiritual realm. (link)
In TES it appears that mortal souls (for the most part) go to the afterlife the events of their life have afforded them – whether in Aetherius (Elysium) or Oblivion (purgatory) – where they stay until the cycle of time completes and the next kalpa begins. They then pass through the dreamsleeve, on their way to rebirth, which appears to both erase and archive their memories. This cycle is set to continue until all the varliance5 that can be retrieved from Creation has been.
Zero Sum: achieving knowledge of the greater shape of Creation, but failing to retain a sense of self in the process, leads to immediate, fiery, dissolution of the body and reabsorption of the soul’s varliance into the primordial essence of the universe. (Example: the death of Septimus Signus during “Discerning the Transmundane”.)
CHIM: achieving knowledge of the greater shape of Creation while retaining a sense of self.
“At its simplest, the state of CHIM provides an escape from all known laws of the divine worlds and the corruptions of the black sea of Oblivion. It is a return to the first brush of Anu-Padomay, where stasis and change created possibility.”6
One who has achieved CHIM can step outside the Aurbis, recognize it for the dollhouse it truly is, and interact with it as such.
Gods (a touch of Hinduism in this Neo-Platonism madness): Those that have achieved godhood become exempt from the cycle (in the same manner that the Hindu gods are exempt from the cycle of reincarnation) but – it seems – may also have failed to achieve (or have given up) the final transcendence (CHIM), and so are denied the ability to try again. As a result they must wait for the final kalpa to complete before they escape Creation. Or, perhaps, they just have to wait until someone else mantles them? It is unclear.
A more modern flavor?
It is worth mentioning, at this time, the probable influence of the works of Hermann Hesse (1877-1962) – most notably his novels Siddhartha and Steppenwolf – on TES' interpretation of the soul and its journey. But, as I have a chapter to finish, I’ll save exploring that for another time.
Notes:
1 Æneid, Book VI (link)
2 Lethe: literally means “forgetfulness”.
3 It was common at this point to view the originating source of the soul as a brilliant, or fiery, Mind that exists outside creation.
4 The father of the protagonist, Aeneas.
5 Probably meaning “life force” from
Var-: Ehlnofex “life”
-ance: English “forming nouns denoting a quality or state or an instance of”6 Vehk’s Teachings: More on the Psijic Endeavor. What is the purpose of the Psijic Endeavor? (link)
Chapter 14: Breaking the Twelve Worlds
Summary:
A note on the "breaking of the twelve worlds" as seen in the Tsaesci creation myth and in the variously titled Anuad
Chapter Text
Since I don’t know if I’ll ever get back to this facet of TES lore, I’d like to take a moment to acknowledge both an impressive piece of world building, on the part of the author of both pieces (Michael Kirkbride), and the real world philosophy that probably inspired it: Basilides of Alexandria’s teachings on the “breaking of the vessels.”
While Basilides’ teachings were relatively mainstream, in the later half of the second century CE, only small fragments of his more than two dozen books, and the writings of his detractors, have survived into the modern era. Which is what makes him, and his work, relatively obscure today, even though his philosophy was fairly influential at one point. It is, therefor, not particularly surprising that the Tsaesci creation myth and the Anuad seem to draw their versions of the “breaking of the vessels”, not directly from Basilides’ himself, but from two different historical sources influenced by his teachings. While the relevant parts of the Tsaesci myth resemble an Orphic creation myth most fully recounted – I believe – in one of the Pseudo-Clementine Writings (again written by their detractors) the chaotic flavor of the world that was created from the pieces of the twelve broken worlds, in the Anuad, suggest a version of the concept more closely related to the one found in Lurianic Kabbalism. In this way we have two real world historical perspectives, on the same philosophical concept, represented in TES lore. Pretty cool huh?
Why this is actually important to TES: the Thalmor (obviously).
The issue of the Anuad, as with all religious text, is one of interpretation. While Basilides (c120 CE) may have believed that the spiritual essence, released from the broken – celestial – vessels, was the mortal soul and its inclusion in our world – the sub-lunar world of matter – created all living beings, and the 3rd century CE Orphics may have suggested that the divine substance of our souls was simply present (like oil soaked into a clay container) in the pieces of the broken celestial vessels that were used to create the earth, Lurianic Kabbalism (mid 16th century CE) contends that the broken pieces of the celestial vessels were not used to create the earth but the world of evil (Sitra Achra).
It is conceivable then that the Thalmor of the 4th era have come to interpret their own creation myth, as presented in the Anuad, as depicting Nirn as literal hell and the elves as celestial beings stranded on Nirn by mistake. An interpretation that would, in turn, lead to the possible understanding of TES elves in terms of fallen angel myth and, the Thalmor lead Altmer specifically, in terms of those myths in which the fallen angels are willing to destroy all of creation to return to heaven.
Well done, Michael Kirkbride. That is a truly epic piece of world building.
Chapter 15: Ulfric Stormcloak vs. Beowulf
Notes:
Discussing a (likely) real world influence on TES lore.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
If I were to write the saga of Ulfric Stormcloak I would model it on Beowulf, in large part because I think it likely Bethesda drew heavily upon the character of Beowulf while creating him.
Names:
Beowulf, literally "bee-wolf", can be used as a kenning to mean “bear”.
Ulfric the Bear of Markarth. Ulf means “wolf”.
Beowulf:
Hrothgar1, once a man who had been “given victory in war” and united Denmark, is now weekend by old age. His people’s constant celebration (being loud and obnoxious) draw the ire of Grendel, a creature that – as a descendent of Cain – is both like, and unlike, mankind and deeply resents them.
Ulfric:
The Empire of men once united all of Tamriel but time has left it weak. The rowdy and obnoxious behavior of man has drawn the ire of the Altmer.
Beowulf:
Beowulf, and friends, travel south from their homes to come to the aid of Hrothgar.
Ulfric:
Ulfric Stormcloak travels south to Cyrodiil to fight with the Empire against the Dominion.
Beowulf:
Kills Grendel, and then hunts down kills Grendel’s Mother in her home. The descent into Grendle’s Mother’s underwater home is presented as a descent into hell.
Ulfric:
Fights well but is captured and taken to a Thalmor prison. He is interrogated by Elenwen but “cleverly escapes”. This set of events could easily be presented as the descent into hell required by a “hero’s journey” saga.
Beowulf:
Hrothgar rewards him and, before sending him home, urges Beowulf to be wary of pride and to always properly reward his thanes; aka he gives Beowulf a lecture on the difference between being a great warrior and being a great king, thereby framing, for the audience, the tragic flaw that will lead to Beowulf’s downfall.
Ulfric:
Ulfric returns home a war hero, and his father allows him to form his own band of warriors. A trust Ulfric ultimately breaks by not understanding that while victory at any cost may be what brings a Nord warrior honor, the honor of a commander depends on a wider range of factors including the discipline, and behavior, of his men. Had Ulfric been worthy of leadership he would have known that abusing the civilian population of Markarth2 would bring dishonor upon both himself and his father.3
Beowulf:
Fifty years later, Beowulf is king of his people and a dragon is attacking the countryside. Beowulf tells his men that he will fight the dragon alone. This act of pride – of wanting to keep the honor of a dragon-slaying to himself – results not only in his death but in his ultimate failure as a king. Without a king his people are left defenseless against attacks from surrounding tribes. (Apparently Beowulf had failed even to appoint an heir in case of mishap.)
Ulfric:
Ulfric’s last words are: “Let the Dragonborn be the one to do it. It’ll make for a better song.” Like Beowulf it is possible for Ulfric to be killed by a dragon. And, even at the moment of his death, Ulfric’s only care is for his own glory. Ulfric’s death also leaves his people with no heir to take up the protection of his people.
The moral of this story:
Both Beowulf and Ulfric fail to understand that there is more to the honor, and role, of a king than being the best warrior with the most songs written about them. This failure ultimately destroys both them and – potentially - their country.
But what if the Dragonborn joins the Stormcloaks?
If the dragonborn becomes a Stormcloak the story continues but follows in the footsteps of Talos and his rise to power.
Ulfric’s pride eventually results in him viewing the Dragonborn as the greatest threat to his own glory. His attempts to mitigate that threat result in the dragonborn killing him in self-defense. After which the dragonborn ascends the throne, just as Talos did after the assassination of Cuhlecain.
Talos and Cuhlecain:
“In CE854, a nightblade from the Western Reach made his way to the Imperial Palace at Nibenay. There, the Witchman assassinated the Emperor, caught the Palace on fire, and slit the throat of General Talos. ‘But from the smoldering ruin he came, one hand to his neck and with Cuhlecain's Crown in the other’.” - Pocket Guide to the Empire, First Edition: Cyrodiil
Since this is all that we know about how Cuhlecain died, there is no reason to think it wasn’t Cuhlecain who hired the assassins, to kill Talos, and that Talos responded to his betrayal by killing Cuhlecain, torching the building, and slitting his own throat to cover what had happened (and the fact he was already losing his ability to shout4).
Notes:
1 Hrothgar means “famous spear”. Interesting that the name also appears in Ulfric’s story though, obviously, in somewhat different context.
2 “What happened during that battle was war, but what happened after the battle was over is nothing short of war crimes. Every official who worked for the Forsworn was put to the sword, even after they had surrendered. Native women were tortured to give up the names of Forsworn fighters who had fled the city or were in the hills of the Reach.” – The Bear of Markarth, TES V: Skyrim.
3 No jarl, including Ulfric’s own father, is ever mentioned as having attempted to prevent the Imperial imprisonment of Ulfric and his men. Perhaps his father, having given Ulfric the same lecture Hrothgar gave Beowulf and realizing it had not been heeded, hoped that his son would learn a lesson, about the wisdom of his advice, by suffering the consequences of ignoring it?
4 For explanation of this assertion, see NDbJ A3:25. (link)
Chapter 16: M'aiq the Liar
Summary:
Why I believe the question “What is M’aiq the Liar, really?” will always defy a precise answer, and how the lore written for TES III: Morrowind changed everything.
Notes:
My own theory
I didn’t do a lot of linking to texts in the footnotes of this chapter because I ran out of space. If a reference does not have a link beside it you can find it by searching the Imperial Library (link).
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
As my preferred theory on M’aiq isn’t the sort of theory anyone in Tamriel could come to without first achieving CHIM, I will explain it here rather than in the story. The theory goes like this:
Givens:
- M’aiq appears to be something of an in-joke; a way for developers to comment on the game, its development, and past player complaints. (In TES VI, I would not be surprised to hear him comment on how Nords are always taking arrows to the knees.) This makes him a sort of developer self-insert character for Bethesda as a whole.
- He is not the only developer self-insert. The names of six of the nine divines1 are references to beta testers who worked on TES II: Dagerfall.2 Which means the developers of the Elder Scrolls games are, in a very real sense, the et’Ada. Which makes an odd sort of sense as they share the same basic job description: create the laws of the universe and make sure they function (mostly) as intended.
- M’aiq (apparently pronounced M-ike) first appeared in TES III. Given his name and his game of first appearance M’aiq likely began as a self-insert for Michael Kirkbride. However, his status as a fan favorite has allowed him to continue on even after MK left Bethesda
Therefore: M’aiq is a character created to be an in-game mouthpiece for the developers (the et’Ada). As such he was never a standard NPC (a mortal). He is, and always has been, a greater entity of some sort.
Other Things to Consider:
- It is possible all et’Ada are emanations originating from Anuiel.3
- It is possible all et’Ada are avatars of beings from the “world beyond”4 (developers).
- It is possible all the world is a dream in the mind of the godhead.5
Possible Conclusions:
- M’aiq is the embodiment of Anuiel’s attempt to understand himself.6
- M’aiq is Bethesda’s avatar. An assertion that requires that Bethesda exist in TES.7
- M’aiq is an avatar of the dreamer, i.e., a self-insertion allowing the dreamer to be a character in their own dream.
- Or maybe he’s just a khajiit who’s taken too much skooma over the years and we’re all just overanalyzing this.
And that is where most theorizing along this path ends. Lorist may choose to explain why they prefer one conclusion over the others but mostly they just select the option they like most and are done. Which is a shame as this particular array of options actually indicates something interesting about the world of TES.
Exegesis
So, let’s break it down. What we have ended up with is:
- a surface level explanation (#4),
- a mythological explanation (#1),
- a metaphorical explanation (#3), and
- an esoteric explanation (#2),
all of which, given the current state of TES lore, are equally likely to be true. Which means…
Congratulations! We have discovered the TES version of Rabbinic biblical exegesis (PaRDeS). This method of text analysis holds that scripture (as a sort of genre requirement) contains four levels of meaning:
- Peshat the contextualized8 literal meaning of the text.
- Remez is the allegorical meaning.9
- Derash the metaphorical meaning, and
- Sod the esoteric (hidden) meaning.
While each of these readings is considered a valid understanding, all of them must be taken into account in order to attain perfect knowledge10 of the text.
Use of PaRDeS in TES: What is interesting, regarding TES’ use of this sort of structure, is that it wasn’t applied to in-game scripture so much as to the world itself. This concept of multiple levels at which the world can, and possibly should, be understood was at the core of much of the lore written for TES III: Morrowind (which is how TESIII changed everything).
Examples:
- The et’Ada likely exist at the level of “derash”. To them everything is a metaphor including themselves. Many of them have even been referred to as “manifest metaphors” (a term first used in TESIII).11
- Vivec achieved CHIM (a concept that first appeared in TESIII) and so experienced the world at the level of hidden truth (sod).
- The difference between these two understandings of the world is on display in the 36 Lessons in which Vivec attempts to impart information he has gained by living at the level of “sod” to the Nerevarine who, though likely a god12 had not achieved CHIM. So Vivec found it necessary to talk down a level couching his revelations in metaphor. This also explains why those metaphors are so strange – as finding a metaphor to safely impart knowledge, the learning of which causes most people to evaporate, cannot be easy - and why a straight (peshat) reading of the 36 Lessons boarders on incomprehensible.13
- The gods experiencing the world at the level of “derash” would also explain why Ehlnofex, the language of the Ehlnofey (also first seen in TESIII), has no immutable translation (every phrase can have more than one meaning) as the language itself is functioning at the level of metaphor.
What does this mean for M’aiq? It means that M’aiq cannot be defined as any one of the possibilities listed above because he is all of them… or, more accurately, he isn’t not any of them.
And that is why there is no precise answer to the question of who, or what, M’aiq the Liar is.
One Further Question
Does M’aiq know he’s some sort of avatar? Probably not. Let me explain…
First, conceive of a spiritual entity, like Anuiel, as a ball of clay. The spiritual entity wishes to know itself better and so pinches off interesting pieces of itself, and gives them autonomy, so that it can learn about them.14 There are two, RW, theories on how this works. Here are their generalities as they would apply to TES:
- Emanation theory says that Anuiel minus any part of itself is no longer Anuiel. Emanate enough aspects simultaneously and these new, lesser, spiritual beings would have no way of knowing they were once all part of a greater whole. From their point of view, they all just suddenly came into being at the same time and Anuiel never existed.
- Hypostatic Emanation theory states that spiritual beings are not like physical beings. While splitting a physical being in half may leave you with two, only formerly related, halves, splitting a spiritual being in half leaves you with one unchanged spiritual being and one new, lesser, spiritual being.15 In this case the new spiritual beings would be aware of how they came to be because their parent entity still exists.
In TES’ use of these theories only Anu, and possibly Padomay (if Padomay even exists16), appear to engage in hypostatic emanation. Their emanated aspects, however, appear to abide by standard emanation theory.
Example: Auriel vs Akatosh & Alduin
What we know about these entities and their relationship to each other:
- Shor son of Shor refers to the Dawn Era head of Shor’s opposition not as “Auriel” but as “Ald”.
- After time begins it is not Auriel but Trinimac who leads the Aldmeri, indicating that Auriel must not have been available to do so.17
- The Imperials believe that “… Alduin is the Nordic variation of Akatosh…”18
- The Middle Dawn was a dragon break triggered when the Marukhati Selective discovered that they could not prove that Auriel and Akatosh were not the same being and so attempted to remove what they viewed as the “taint” of Auriel from Akatosh.18
- “Some say Alduin is Akatosh, some say M'aiq is a Liar. Don’t you believe either of those things.”20
- Alduin proclaims: “I am Alduin, firstborn of Akatosh!”21
How all of the information above can be explained using emanation theory and a PaRDeS understanding of TES reality:
- The reason that Auriel wasn’t available to lead his people is that he ceased to exist when he emanated a relatively small piece of himself: the wish of his people to return to the Dawn (Alduin). Referring to Auriel as “Ald” is thus a Nord way of indicating that Alduin was still a part of the leader of the elves during the Dawn.
- The reason that Akatosh is “tainted” with aspects of Auriel – and cannot be separated from them - is because Akatosh is what the much larger piece of Auriel became once Alduin was emanated.22
- Alduin isn’t Akatosh, or at least not exactly Akatosh, but the combination of the two of them is Auriel (“Ald”).
- An Imperial who didn’t really understand about emanations might think that Alduin is simply a still integrated aspect of Akatosh/Auriel, but the Nords, who once had to live with the emanation-just-far-enough-down-the-chain-of-being-to-manifest-a-fully-physical-form, know better.
- Alduin is the “first son of Akatosh” because that is how mythology would handle an obvious relation between a greater and lesser entity.
- Mythology is also the level at which most dragons, who are not gods but know there is more to the world than meets the eye, and the in-game dragonborn, who is also not a god, would operate. So any knowledge the dragonborn gains from Paarthurnax is likely “mythic” in nature and Alduin would be very used to talking in mythic terms.
While the mythic understanding of Alduin’s attempt to take “for himself the lordship that properly belongs to [Akatosh]”23 is simply that “sons try to overtake their fathers,” the structure above offers a metaphor level understanding in which Alduin was likely suffering from existential dysphoria24, and his attempt to become Akatosh is actually an attempt to return to his "true self" by reconstituting Auriel.25
Anyway… the point of all of this is that – as an emanation of an emanation ad infinitum - M’aiq is likely far enough down the chain of being26 that he has no concrete idea of what he is. As for the mechanics of how M’aiq knows the things he knows… I’m going to save that question, along with the question of other similar characters, for some other chapter.
Thanks for reading! :)
Notes:
1 Not Kynareth, Talos or Julianos.
2 A breakdown of names and how they relate to real people can be found here (link).
3“Anuiel, who was the soul of all things, therefore became many things, and this interplay was and is the Aurbis… a place where the aspects of aspects might even be allowed to self-reflect. So they created the Mundus, where their own aspects might live, and became the et'Ada.” – The Monomyth, first seen in TES III.
4 “The world beyond burns in my mind. It’s marvelous…” – Septimus Signus, TES V: Skyrim.
5 This gets a little down in the weeds of TES “deep lore”. While I may, eventually, do a full chapter on these concepts, they’re far enough out of the scope of the current story that you don’t’ need to understand them to understand the story.
If you are interested, Avarti’s attempt to explain the Elder Scrolls universe (link) and FudgeMuppet’s attempt to explain the Godhead, CHIM, and Amaranth (link) are both pretty good.
6 “Anuiel, as all souls, was given to self-reflection…” - The Monomyth, first seen in TES III.
7 There is some evidence of this possibility, but that’s a long enough discussion to save for later.
8 “Contextualized” here indicates attempting to take into account anything that might make a person reading the text at the time it was written come to a different understanding of it than a modern person would. Things like: a different cultural understanding of symbols, idioms and euphemisms that are no longer in use or were used differently, words the meanings of which have changed over time etc.
9 TES appears to have replaced “allegorical” with “mythological”.
10 “Perfect knowledge” is a concept that only appears once in Elder Scrolls lore, in the Monomyth: Altmeri "The Heart of the World", which first appeared in TES III.
11 “I will not go into the varying accounts of what happened at Adamantine Tower, nor will I relate the War of Manifest Metaphors…” - The Lunar Lorkhan, TES III.
12 Nerevarine: "Pantheon by incarnation, as all alive now know." - Nu-Hatta of the Sphinxmoth Inquiry Tree
13 “A metaphor is a kind o' lie to help people understand what’s true.” – Terry Pratchett, Wintersmith, 2006.
14 Monomyth: Altmeri “The Heart of the World” – TES III
15 The standard metaphor for hypostatic emanation is a sunbeam vs the sun. The sunbeam is from the sun, it is of the same substance of the sun, but it is less than the sun and the sun is not lessened by its existence. (Assumes pre-nuclear physics understanding of the sun and sunlight.)
16 “Our father, Sotha Sil, would have us know the truth: there is no Padomay. Padomay is the absence of value.” – The Truth in Sequence.
I mention this because it is exactly Aristotle’s teaching on evil.17 The Changed Ones
18 Varieties of Faith in the Empire, TESIII.
19 "Vindication for the Dragon Break"
10 M’aiq the Liar, TES V: Skyrim
21 Dialogue, Alduin, TES V: Skyrim
22 This explanation is at the level of metaphor. The mythological explanation can be found in the Anuad and the esoteric version is likely something like: “developers have more than one job title during the production of a game. Equally a developer might switch jobs between games or a job that could be done by a single person in one game may require multiple people in the next.” Or, as Vivec might put it:
“Hortator and Sharmat… Could you ever tell if they switched places? I can and that is why you will need me.” – Vivec, Sermon Elven. (A person’s job title may change, those who only see the title may not notice that, say, Sheogorath has been mantled anew. Vivec, however, can see the person behind the title “Sharmat” or “Sheogorath” or even which developer is now doing the job of “Akatosh”.)23 Paarthurnax, TESV: Skyrim
24 Some Gnostics proposed that this sort of dysphoria was a product of “entombing” spirit in matter. So those emanations that were high enough up the chain to remain their own planets would not have suffered from it.
25 Sounds a little like the Thalmor, doesn't it?
26 If you are familiar with the Great Chain of Being (link), you’ve probably already noticed it’s connection to emanation theory, and the more metaphorical sources on the creation of Nirn.
Chapter 17: Real Moments
Summary:
Why did the Elder Scrolls in the Imperial collection vanish in 4E 175?
Chapter Text
Researching the question of disappearing Elder Scrolls I came across the following in one of Michael Kirkbride’s IRC Q&A Sessions. In answer to the question: “What’s with all the musical connotations behind Elder Scrolls?” MK answer wrote:
Tamriel. Starry Heart. That whole fucking thing is a song…
There are repeats in it; plays on a tune. Variations. And most likely Magnus? He’s the one that made the fucker, and now that’s why he looks back on it, every single day, that’s his promise.
“When you wake up, I will still listen. I’m sorry I left, but hey, I’m still right up here. And my mnemoli? They show up every now and then, and collect all the songs you’ve made since the last time around. The last real moment.”
The Mnemoli? They’re the keepers of the Elder Scrolls. They [the Elder Scrolls] cannot be fixed until seen. And they cannot be seen until a moment. And you, your hero, makes that moment.” (MK October 13th)
The Mnemoli, we know from texts in TESIV: Oblivion, are part of a group of Magna-Ge known as the “Star Orphans”.
…the “Star Orphans” [are the] gods and heroes and demons that live between creations, which can include those reality-bending burps known as Dragon Breaks. Think of them as the all-stars between kalpas, if that helps. (That probably doesn't help at all, really.) (MK: On the Mnemoli)
The mnemoli are also the “keepers of the Elder Scrolls”. Which means they must occasionally come into real-time to collect the “songs you’ve made since the last time around”.
But what are they collecting, exactly?
Urag gro-Shub tells the Last Dragonborn that an Elder Scroll, “is a reflection of all possible futures and all possible pasts.” Which is another way of saying an Elder Scroll stores, or reflects, all possible variations, and refrains, of the music that is Tamriel. So when the mnemoli collect “songs” they’re collecting Elder Scrolls (as “keepers” of the Elder Scrolls probably should).
But what is meant by “the songs you’ve made”?
There are two types of Elder Scrolls or, more accurately, Elder Scrolls have two phases: unwritten and written.
When taken in this context, to “write an Elder Scroll” is “to make history”.
A deeper meaning is meant, too, but not very many laymen bother with that. Until a prophecy is fulfilled, the true contents of an Elder Scoll are malleable, hazy, uncertain. Only by the Hero’s action does it become True. The Hero is literally the scribe of the next Elder Scroll, the one in which the prophecy has been fulfilled into a fixed point, negating its precursor. (MK Post, Writing the Elder Scrolls (08/27/10))
An unwritten Elder Scroll contains prophecy and visions of what might be and what might have been while a written Elder Scroll is a truthful and completely unbiased recounting of something that has happened. “Songs you’ve made” would, then, probably be the written Elder Scrolls. Meaning that, every so often, there’s a “real moment” and the mnemoli retrieve all the Elder Scrolls written since the last “real moment”.
But what is a “real moment”?
“They [the Elder Scrolls] cannot be fixed until seen. And they cannot be seen until a moment. And you, your hero, makes that moment.”
A hero makes a moment, which allows the writing on an Elder Scroll to become visible and fixed. Obviously this moment is the moment in which the hero completes the content of the Elder Scroll. But the “moment” an Elder Scroll is written is not the same as a “real moment” as, if it were, that would mean the mnemoli collect only one scroll at a time, which is clearly not the case as they are said to “collect all the songs” written since their last visit. So the writing of an Elder Scroll does not, in itself, create a “real moment”.
Lets see if we can’t answer the question by working backwards to it.
We know the entire Imperial Collection of Elder Scrolls vanished in 4E 175. But was the disappearance of the Imperial collection due to the mnemoli?
The Moth Priest Dexion Evicus tells the Last Dragonborn that the Elder Scrolls were “scattered across Tamriel by forces unknown”. He further states that not many have been found in the last 26 years. He seems to think this is because people don’t want to give them up, or because the scrolls themselves don’t want to be found yet, but I wonder…
While the Elder Scrolls were clearly taken from the collection by “forces unknown” were they really “scattered across Tamriel”? No scroll the Last Dragonborn interacts with in TESV: Skyrim was ever part of the Imperial collection.* So, as far as we know, no Elder Scroll from the Imperial collected ended up in the province of Skyrim. If a Tamriel based group, like the Psijics or the Thalmor, had stolen them I think we’d have heard something about it.*
It seems likely to me that the “forces unknown” was, indeed, the mnemoli. But the mnemoli are only supposed to be interested in the written scrolls. So how did the mnemoli enter real-time and where did all the unwritten scrolls go?
Mnemoli in Real-Time?
A tiny dragon break? Localized inside the White-Gold Tower? Given what the Towers are, not likely. And if Michael Kirkbride had meant “dragon break” he probably would have said so. If not a dragon break, then what?
Taking a step back we realize that Akatosh created a new dragonborn at about the same time as the disappearance of the Elder Scrolls meaning that He too was active in the world without an obvious dragon break occurring. So maybe “real moments” are actually extended periods of real-time where, for one reason or another, reality is malleable enough that gods and daedra can interfere more directly than usual? To test this theory we should take a look at other times in Tamrielic history that might fit that description.
Two of the other times Aedra may have directly intervened in history (only two because I’m trying to keep this short):
- The Dragon War
- Kyne’s gift of the Voice (questionable)
- Akatosh’s creation of Miraak
- Alessian Slave Rebellion
- Kyne sent Morihaus
- Alessia became dragonborn
- The jill sent Pelinal Whitestrake from the future
Yes, really. I will try to explain it elsewhere.
Pelinal Whitestrake is of particular interest to this as, in response to the question: “Why are so many robots traveling back in time (Pelinal, KINMUNE)?” Michael Kirkbride answered: “They come back to ‘fix’ the future. The Jills have to work overtime.”* Michael Kirkbride’s response indicates that these attempts by the gods and jill were meant to affect not a single event but the actual trajectory of history. His answer re-categorizes the Dragon War and the Alessian Slave Rebellion as occurring during extended periods of time in which future history is being contested. Something about that period of time has allowed for a wider range of reality bending shenanigans, like time traveling robots or Elder Scroll theft by star-gods from un-time.* This, I believe, is what Michael Kirkbride referred to as a “real moment."
If, during a “real moment” the mnemoli take all the written Elder Scrolls, where did the unwritten Elder Scrolls go?
If the current trajectory of events indicates the end of the kalpa has begun, would not the “keepers of the Elder Scrolls” take them all for safekeeping? Perhaps, once Alduin is defeated, they will return them.
To recap:
Mnemoli are a group of star-gods from un-time who are the keepers of the Elder Scrolls. They come into real-time to take the Elder Scrolls that have been “written” since the last “real moment”. Their latest visit to real-time was first noticed in 4E 175 when the entire Imperial collection of Elder Scrolls went missing. The mnemoli are only able to visit real-time during “real moments”.
Real Moments are times in which the trajectory of all of history can be changed. They are characterized by: increased involvement of the Aedra in current events, the possibility of extra-Conventional beings entering/affecting real-time, and displacement of objects in time (time travel).
Do the events of TESV: Skyrim take place during a “real moment”?
1. The Dragon War
- Kyne’s gift of the Voice
- Akatosh’s creation of Miraak
- Alduin is sent forward in time
Purpose: to prevent the dragons mantling the Nord gods*?
2. Alessian Slave Rebellion
- Kyne sent Morihaus
- Alessia became dragonborn
- The jill sent Pelinal Whitestrake from the future
Purpose: to prevent the rise of the Ayleid Hegemony*?
3. The Dragon Crisis
- Missing Elder Scrolls
- Last Dragonborn
- Alduin’s return
- The “Eye of Magnus”
Purpose: to prevent the early end of the kalpa.
So, my theory, is that the events of Skyrim occur during a “real moment”. The “real moment” will probably end with the defeat of Alduin.
Notes:
* The Elder Scroll: Sun, was buried with Serana in the 2nd Era. The Elder Scroll: Blood, was found in the Soul Cairn, where it has been since the 2nd Era. And the Elder Scroll: Dragon was found in a Dwemer reading machine.
* I don’t think the Thalmor would have been able to stop being smug about it if it had been them.
* Michael Kirkbride - Reddit AMA
* Seriously, the things one writes when trying to discuss TES lore: “Elder Scroll stealing star-gods from un-time”. *face-palm*
* My theory. See my work Elder Scrolls Lore Notes, Mythopoeic Recreations
* KINMUNE
Chapter 18: Miraak and Mora
Summary:
What did Mora offer Miraak?
Chapter Text
In-Game Givens:
- The Daedra cannot push you into one of their traps, you must step into it yourself.
- The first Dragonborn was a proud man not a stupid one.
- Miraak was extremely powerful in his own right.
Storyline Givens:
- Alduin was attempting a mythopoeic recreation of the Dawn War in which Alduin would replace Auriel.
- Miraak was to take Shor’s place in the recreation.
Conclusions:
- Miraak easily could have believed his fate to “face Alduin”, when Alduin is Akatosh and Miraak is Shor, was a death sentence.
- Miraak was proud/narcissistic enough to believe that he could find a way to escape his doomed meeting with Alduin.
- By the time dragons were burning down his temple Miraak would likely have been desperate enough to accept a reasonable offer from Hermaeus Mora.
Question: What knowledge could Mora have offered Miraak that might have convinced him that Mora knew how to change Miraak’s fate?
My Answer: Mora could have offered knowledge of CHIM.
“Those who can attain this state, called chim…escape the strictures of the world-egg.1”
Transcending the physical laws of the universe would – to my mind – be the best (possibly only) way that someone, as bound by fate as a dragonborn, could hope to escape it.
Question: Is there any evidence that Mora offered Miraak this knowledge?
My Answer: Yes!
What is CHIM? “From the Ehlnofex: an ancient sigil connoting ‘royalty’, ‘starlight’, and ‘high splendor’. As with most characters of that dangerous language, the sigil CHIM constantly distorts itself. Those scholars that can perceive its shape regard it as a Crowned Tower...”1
Question: If Miraak achieved CHIM why can’t he just break free of Apocrypha?
My Answer: Because he didn’t. Mora knew CHIM was possible when it offered the knowledge to Miraak but did not know how it could be achieved; as is evidence by the fact that Mora can, by 4E 201, offer the Last Dragonborn a sort of failed/partial version of CHIM (the ability to change one’s stars).
Question: Is there evidence that Mora is still incapable of providing an understanding CHIM?
My Answer: Yes. Not only that but there is evidence that Mora is still trying to figure it out.
The most common result of attempting to achieve CHIM, and failing, is called Zero Sum. Vivec (as Vehk) described it as follows: “Imagine being able to feel with all of your senses the relentless alien terror that is God and your place in it, which is everywhere and therefore nowhere, and realizing that it means the total dissolution of your individuality into boundless being.”1
Question: Do Mora’s four eras of ongoing attempts to obtain the ‘Secrets of the Skaal’ have something to do with completing its understanding of CHIM?
My Answer:
First, recall the words of the Black Book Waking Dreams:
“The eyes, once bleached by falling stars of utmost revelation, will forever see the faint insight drawn by the overwhelming question, as only the True Enquiry shapes the edge of thought. The rest is vulgar fiction, attempts to impose order on the consensus mantlings of an uncaring godhead.”
Second, compare the text of Waking Dreams to that which was “Transcribed from a spore-dream of an unidentified, evaporating, Moth Priest that reached zero sum” in et'Ada, Eight Aedra, Eat the Dreamer:2
“The Aedroth Aka – who goes by so many names as to perhaps already suggest what I’m about to commit to memospore – is completely insane. His mind broke when his ‘perch from Eternity allowed the day’ and we of all the Aurbis live on through its fragments, ensnared in the temporal writings and erasures of the acausal whim that he begat by saying ‘I AM’.”
Third, recall that Vivec described CHIM as:
“Imagine being able to feel with all of your senses the relentless alien terror that is God and your place in it, which is everywhere and therefore nowhere, and realizing that it means the total dissolution of your individuality into boundless being. Imagine that and then still being able to say ‘I’.”
And, finally, consider how the Skaal belief in the All-Maker, and the oneness of creation, might relate to the information above.
Chapter 19: Mythopoeic Recreation
Summary:
How did five hundred Nords defeat the Snow Elves?
And why was the Dragon Cult of Tamriel so brutal?
Chapter Text
I actually answer these questions in Act 2 of Not Drake but Jill but the answers are spread out across a couple chapters so I thought I’d condense them here.
How did 500 Nords defeat the Snow Elves?
The Nords defeating the Snow Elves is supper impressive as the Snow Elves had magic and the 500 didn’t have the Voice yet, right?
1. Well, no, the Emblems on the 7000 Steps are misleading.* Ysgramor was, quite clearly, capable of Shouting as were several of his companions listed in “The Five Hundred Mighty Companions or Thereabouts of Ysgramor the Returned*”, as are a fair few of the draugrfied dragon-cultists the Last Dragonborn encounters throughout the game. So Kyne’s gift of the Voice to men was clearly not in response to the tyranny of the Dragon Cult. Claiming that it was is probably historic revisionism on the part of the Greybeards who worship Kyne.
2. The 500 Companions were already dragon worshipers.
Well, duh. Atmora was ruled by dragons. Everyone knows that.
But, I didn’t say they served dragons I said they worshiped them. The placement of dragon priest knife in Ysgramor’s Tomb indicates the transition of the dragons from feudal lords to god-kings was already present in the belief structure of the 500 Companions. Perhaps that is why they were willing to leave Atmora to help Ysgramor as it would allow them to colonize new territory and build a religious state.*
Furthermore Kurt Kuhlmann has stated that:
If Ysgramor was indeed a “dragon”, most likely he was a Dragon Priest - in the Late Merethic Era, it would be unlikely for a leader of Ysgramor’s reported stature to be unconnected to the Dragon Cult. (Kurt Kuhlmann, Ysgramor is a dragon?*)
So there you go. Also, have you seen Ysgramor’s statue’s armor? It has “I want to look like a dragon” written all over it. Especially the helmet.*
3. Still, 500 Shouting Nords against an entire race of elves is pretty unbelievable, right?
If they had done it alone, it would be. They didn’t. Dragons accompanied the Nord war bands and raiding parties.
Then there should be evidence of Dragons killing Snow Elves.
And there is! If you visit the Forgotten Vale before completing Dragon Rising, Voslaarum and Naaslaarum will not spawn, indicating that they are actually dead at the bottom of the lake but, after Dragon Rising, Alduin has seen fit to fly out there and revive them. A quick look around the lake (after killing them yourself) indicates both that the Snow Elves fought them (Image1) and that slaying the dragons came at great cost (Image2). Furthermore, given the way the Dragon Cult worked out, it is pretty obvious you’d edit being on the dragons’ side out of the stories about your folk heroes.
But connecting the Nord hero Ysgramor with the now-reviled Dragon Cult is of course anathema to those who favor chauvinism over historical truth. (Kurt Kuhlmann, Ysgramor is a dragon?)
Okay, so, what, aside from explaining how it would be possible for 500 people to destroy a whole nation, indicates that dragons were actually involved in the raiding parties?
Mythopoeic recreation. But lets address the next question before I explain that.
Why was the Dragon Cult of Tamriel so brutal?
In Atmora, where Ysgramor and his people came from, the dragon priests demanded tribute and set down laws and codes of living that kept peace between dragons and men. In Tamriel, they were not nearly as benevolent. It’s unclear if this was due to an ambitious dragon priest, or a particular dragon, or a series of weak kings. Whatever the cause, the dragon priests began to rule with an iron fist, making virtual slaves of the rest of the population. (Skyrim, Book: The Dragon War)
So what really happened?
"Alduin… claimed for himself the lordship that properly belongs to… our father Akatosh." – Paarthurnax.
Alduin grew tired of simply being a feudal lord over man and sought to become a god. Alduin was, arguably, already a god. But we are told he sought to take Akatosh’s place. Assuming that this is meant literally, how could such a thing be achieved? Again, Mythopoeic recreation.
By recreating the circumstances under which the Nord pantheon transcended from being the leaders of the Wandering Ehlnofey to being Gods, Alduin, and seven other dragons, could – conceivably – go from being leaders of the Nords (the children of the Wandering Ehlnofey) to being gods. Or, in Alduin’s case, being the god he wanted to be rather than the one he was?
Lets talk it through:
1. In the Mythic Era there were 10 Nord gods, 9 dragon priest masks, and 8 dragon priests (individual cults).
Gods: 1) Akatosh, 2) Alduin, 3) Dibella, 4) Orkey, 5) Tsun, 6) Mara, 7) Stuhn, 8) Kyne, 9) Jhunal and 10) Shor.
Since Alduin sought to replace Akatosh we end up with 9 gods and 9 dragon priest masks suggesting that it wasn’t justAkatosh the dragons were attempting to replace but the entire Nord Pantheon.
2. There may have been 9 masks but there were only 8 priests, indicating that there were only 8 dragons being worshiped as the gods they sought to replace.The mask that was not being worn by a priest was Konahrik “warlord”. Assuming that the mask names relate to the god the priest is serving this mask would belong to the priest of dragon replacing Shor. Shor, traditionally, had no cult. So having a dragon replace Him would not have worked.
3. If there was no cult of Shor why have a mask?
Because Shor’s presence was necessary for recreating the events of the Ehlnofey Wars.
4. If His presence was necessary for the recreation, and no dragon – or dragon priest – could play the part, how did Alduin expect the recreation to work?
To begin with, symbolically. Shor is the god of Man. Mankind, therefore, could become Shor’s replacement until a better representative became available. The reason Skyrim’s Dragon Cult was so abusive is because the pain of the worshipers was needed to mimic the pain of the dead god.
5. A better representative?
This is where the actual mechanics of mythopoeic recreation come into play. Mythopoeic recreation is about recreating a known set of events (a “pattern” within creation) in order to achieve the same results as the original event.
With mythopoeic enchantment of an object – like Kagrenac’s tools – the event(s) can be recreated symbolically. The stronger the symbols used the stronger the enchantment. But the dragons were pretty literally recreating the events they wanted to echo. Make the pattern recreation strong enough and the pattern could self-complete. All the dragons had to do was keep doubling down on the beginning part of the pattern and, eventually, the world would be forced to provide the being required to wear Konahrik and play the roll of Shor. Theoretically.
6. In order to recreate the Ehlnofey Wars – after which the Nord Pantheon became gods – the dragons needed to lead men into battle against mer (as Kyne and Shor had done). So the dragons continuously stoked Nord hatred for elves and lead them to war against the Snow Elves. Which is how the Snow Elf civilization was destroyed even before the beginning of the Dragon War.
7. Wouldn’t Alduin (as Akatosh) have needed to, eventually, rip some great warlord’s heart out to complete the recreation?
Yes. Again, not possible with a fellow dragon, they just aren’t built like that. Which is another reason they needed the world to supply a person to wear Konahrik.
8. So why didn’t it work?
It did… to a point. You see the dragons weren’t attempting a perfect mythopoeic recreation, as a perfect recreation would have had them, and their worshipers, retreating to Atmora in defeat, which they didn’t want to do. The place was in the process of becoming a barren ice sheet after all. So the dragons attempted to alter their recreation slightly so that men, not mer, would be the ones left in control of Tamriel.
The pattern resulted in someone who could wear Konahrik (Miraak). But the changes made to the pattern – meant to give the dragons and mankind dominion over Tamriel – resulted in a pattern the end of which was that Shor’s representation (Miraak) would slay Akatosh’s representation (Alduin) rather than the other way around. Ooops!
Not only did Alduin not approve but, for the pattern to compete, He would need to be killed within the realm of Nirn – an impossibility (as the Last Dragonborn discovers).
So Hermaeus Mora got involved, Miraak ended up in Apocrypha, Alduin got Elder Scrolled into the future, and the pattern failed to complete... Sort of.
9. The Nords, unaware of what the dragons had really been up to, continued their portion of the mythopoeic recreation by finishing off the Snow Elves. Meaning enough of the pattern was still in play that the next time a “real moment*” rolled around the pattern was still strong enough to conjure myth-echoes of both Akatosh (Alessia) and Lorkhan (Pelinal Whitestrake).
Pelinal Whitestrake’s dismemberment finally completes the pattern and men become the rulers of Tamriel as the dragons (sort of) intended.
The moral of this story is: even Alduin shouldn’t play with mythopoeic forces!
So there you go, my theory.
Notes:
* Got to love TES use of unreliable narrators.
* e.g. “Hammer of Caskets, who left his rowing to reaver topside, spilling the wine-hold of the Gore Use and then shouted it aflame…” Link
* There are absolutely no parallels to the colonization of North America. I don’t know why you’re looking at me like that. ;-p
* See chapter three of this work for an explanation for the concept of “real moments”.
Chapter 20: The Soul Cairn
Summary:
Speculation on its nature
Chapter Text
On the Soul Cairn
By Alexa
Second Seed, 4E 2001
The Soul Cairn, as all who study such things know, is an Oblivion plane lorded over by the Ideal Masters. The common understanding of the realm is that it was created by an early group of extremely powerful necromancers, from Nirn, who found a way to transcend mortal form. This understanding is largely drawn from a second era Mages Guild interview with the demiprince lord Fa-Nuit-Hen and his advisor Tutor Riparius. It was Tutor Riparius who said, of the Ideal Masters, that:
"[T]he Ideal Masters were an early order of sorcerers who practiced necromancy, trafficking in souls, great, small, and fragmentary. They became very powerful, and eventually found their physical forms to be unacceptably weak and limiting. By means which I shall not articulate, they transcended those forms and became beings of soul-energy. They entered Oblivion as immortals, selected an area of chaotic creatia, and crafted it into a pocket realm ideal for their purposes as soul merchants. They dubbed this pocket the Soul Cairn and, pleased with themselves, adopted the name Ideal Masters as a title" 2
While I would never accuse Tutor Riparius of outright lying to Cyan Fargothil of Seyda Neen - the 2nd Era Mages Guild member whose question elicited said answer - I would suggest that we should not assume, as so many have, that the Ideal Masters selected an area of chaotic creatia that was not already in use. In fact, I would like to propose that Tutor Riparius’ answer was purposeful misleading as lord Fa-Nuit-Hen would, likely, not have been pleased by one of his servants informing the Mages Guild that a group of once mortal mages has, successfully, overcome and imprisoned a demiprince and then taken his realm as their own. Allow me to explain.
The Soul Cairn has no native daedra. Imperial documents, regarding the third level of the Battlespire makes it quite clear that the bonemen, mistmen, and wrathmen that now populate the realm are not daedra but the once mortal servants of the Ideal Masters, native to Nirn, transfigured by their master’s power. This assertation is given weight by the fact that slaying one of these denizens leaves behind a ghost-like residue and a soul gem, not a daedra heart or elemental salts.3
As it has been fairly well documented that Oblivion realms which do not have their own, native, daedra (like Maelstrom and its famous arena) are typically ruled by a demiprince, we must assume that the Soul Cairn was created for a demiprince or that its creation by transcendent mortals makes it an exception.
Pocket realm environments. All Oblivion realms reflect the nature of their creator. The realm of a demiprince is usually created for them by their daedric parent. Therefore, if the Soul Cairn is a pocket realm created for a demiprince, it would resemble the realm of the parent daedra.4
While the dark stone, cracked, gray, earth and leafless, black, trees are reminiscent of both Coldharbor and the Spiral Skein, the stormy blue-purple sky of the Cairn is, I’m told, a near perfect match to that of Coldharbor,5 entirely lacking, as it does, the red hue that is so pervasive in descriptions of Mephala’s realm.
Vampires: When I traveled to the Soul Cairn I did so with a daughter of Coldharbor. In the process we discovered that, unlike for myself, the realm demanded no offering of soul-energy for her entry. After retrieving the part of my soul I’d sacrificed I was surprised to discover that the return of my soul to its pre-soul-trapped state, was not accompanied by a return of the draining effect that had caused me to partially soul trap myself in the first place. When I consulted an expert on the Cairn, regarding this discovery, they told me:
As you’ve been traveling in the Soul Cairn, your body has become attuned to it. Let's just say a tiny part of you rubbed off on it, and in its place, a bit of the Soul Cairn filled the void.6
This assertion suggests that the reason my vampire companion suffered no ill effects from entering the Cairn was that she, as a mortal altered by the power of Molag Bal, was already “attuned” to the energies of the plane.
Energy of the plane: Black soul gems are native to the realm of Coldharbor. As such they were created naturally when local morpholiths becoming suffused with the energy that created and sustains Couldharbor itself - the power of Molag Bal.
They can also be created – by natural means - within the Soul Cairn via lightning attractors. This makes black soul gems the only known exotic morpholith that can be created naturally by energy drawn from two different sources of power. A proposal that, while all admit it is incredibly unlikely, has been largely accepted as Oblivion is said to be infinite and all things are possible in an infinite universe.
I, however, would like to propose that the reason for this is not the infinite nature of Oblivion but because the Soul Cairn – like Coldharbor – was originally manifested by Molag Bal.
You see, the lightning attractors draw energy from the storm that fills the skies of the Cairn – not the floating crystals that may, or may not, be what remains of the physical forms of the Ideal Masters. Meaning that the energy used to create black soul gems, within the Soul Cairn, is native to the Cairn and not drawn from the Ideal Masters.
If the Ideal Masters were the source of the storm-energy, which powers the soul gem’s transmutation, they would certainly never expend that energy on behalf of someone not already pledged to their service.7 Yet the lightning attractors can be used by anyone indicating that the energy of the realm is not their energy. And so they are not the realm’s creators, just its most powerful inhabitants.
The Missing Demiprince: Having shown reason to believe that Molag Bal created the Soul Cairn, for a demiprince, all that is left is to determine who the Ideal Masters took it from.
During my time in the Soul Cairn, I obtained several fragments of a morpholith of similar color to that of a black soul gem. My investigation of these fragments, however, indicates that it contains not a mortal soul but the essence of a daedra that calls itself the Reaper.8 This would make the essence within this gem the only daedra in the Soul Cairn, at the time of my visitation, and an extremely powerful one at that.9 This gem, I believe, contains what is left of the Soul Cairn’s original ruler: a demiprince that – as demiprinces often do - embodied a single aspect of its parent. In this case Molag Bal’s power over souls. And what better location could there be, for a group of newly minted immortal soul-brokers, than the realm of a demiprince Reaper of souls?
Conclusion:
While I have no wish to speculate on the motivations of daedric princes and so cannot say why Molag Bal would choose to leave his child trapped in a fragmented morpholith, I have no doubt that the comprehensive nature of the Ideal Masters domination over the Reaper is not lost on the master of Coldharbor.
Notes:
1 This paper was written while Alexa was still with the Companions, before “Dragon Rising”. I’ve tried to keep its contents to what she would have known at the time. Thankfully nothing not available to her would really change the takeaway on this particular subject.
Regarding information from ESO’s Loremaster’s Archive, Q&A between the 2nd Era Imperial Mages Guild and Lord Fa-Nuit-Hen: Alexa attended both the Synod and the College of Whispers. I am assuming the Synod retained the Mages Guild’s archived documents, where possible, including this interview.2 Interview transcript (link)
3 It should be noted that the necromancer Malkoran method for create his “corrupted shades”, in Kilkreath Temple, largely aligned with Battlespire records regarding the Ideal Master’s method for creating their undead servants.
4 “… my pocket reality is a projection of my mind, nature, and will. Indeed, reality as personal manifestation is the norm in all the highly-organized realms I have visited.” - Lord Fa-Nuit-Hen, answering question from “The Spellwright”. (link)5 Image comparison (link)
6 Dialogue with Valerica, TES V: Skyrim.
7 The Ideal Masters are well known to be stingy with their own power. The reason for this is given in TESL: Battlespire: “Unless you join our service, we offer you no aid. Affairs of mortals are not our concern. Each mote of mana spent diminishes our eternity.” – Ideal Master, dialogue, TESL: Battlespire.
8 The Reaper is the only creature in the Soul Cairn that drops a Daedra Heart when killed.
9 The Reaper’s level cap is 100. (Alduin also caps at 100.)