Elder Scrolls Lore thread

So the leader of the Khajiit in Elsweyr is called the Mane, and according to lore he's said to be "different from other Khajiits and is one of a kind" though it's not explained what exactly sets him or her apart from Khajiit. It's said that the Mane takes a lock of hair from everyone from their hometown and wears it upon their body, which makes them look like a multicolored haystack. But if you played ESO you meat a Mane who does not fit that description at all. Is it ever said what exactly distinguishes Mane Khajiit from other Khajiit?

Also something I found that's really cool about Khajiit lore is that the Mane is somehow connected to the moons and the divines, and in the Fourth Era the mane was assassinated. Also, perhaps coincidently or perhaps not, the moons apparently disappeared in the sky. They came back though, and the Dominion took credits for saving the Khajiit which resulted Elsweyr swearing loyalty to the high elves. How cool would it be to have a story set in that period of time?!

Other urls found in this thread:

forums.bethsoft.com/topic/1327177-tatterdemalion-the-lunar-province-of-secunda/
uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Pocket_Guide_to_the_Empire,_3rd_Edition/Arena_Supermundus
imperial-library.info/content/kurt-kuhlmann-posts
uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Redguards,_Their_History_and_Their_Heroes
uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Words_of_Clan_Mother_Ahnissi
host.conseiljedi.com/~wolf/PGE2/pge2.pdf
twitter.com/AnonBabble

My bad, we actually meet TWO Manes in ESO. We meet the current Mane, and we meet the First Mane in ghost form. Neither of these men look like the pic in OP's post.

Also, lore says that a Mane is born, pretty much as soon as the current Mane dies. Kind of like the avatars from the Last Airbender. Except, in ESO, the current main simply steps down from shame. Why is he allowed to do that?! That doesn't make sense at all! It goes against established lore!

We could also turn this into another, "Bethesda doesn't give a shit about it's own lore" thread.

>*cricket noises*
Wow, I guess people don't care as much about Elder Scrolls lore as i thought they did.

No worries, friend. I'm monitoring this thread.

Thanks bud :)

Bethesda is too lazy to actually carry out their good ideas

Reminder that we could have had Jungle Cyrodiil with strange cults and religious practices of a people a mix of China and Rome but got objectively the worst game in the series instead

Caring about Khajiit lore is like caring about the history of Africa.
Nord culture is where it's at

...

""""culture""""

I am actually compulsively googling Elder Scrolls 6 every couple of days because I'm secretly hoping they release a teaser soon

B-but Skyrim belongs to the Nords

Same
I still get lost in Vivec sometimes. That place is fucking huge. The Imperial city could be difficult to navigate when it comes to finding stuff, but it was definitely a step down from Vivec. Not a single major city in Skyrim matched the scope of the previous games towns. I still remember stumbling into a town, going in side a big mall that looked like the inside of Xenomorph layer.

I actually like Nords but they attract Cred Forums-tier shitposting, plus their portrayal in Skyrim is fucking boring compared to the cool shit in the lore

We barely got any cool shit about the Nord's cyclic worldview and how they view the gods and Talos, even if they were literally in the developer's notes when they made the game

I'm confused as fuck about Elder Scrolls technology. They don't have guns, but apparently they have gunpowder because in ESO their ships have cannons which we see get used. God, just fuck ESO. It really screwed up the lore bad.

There was always gunpowder in TES, see TES Redguard.

Besides, one of the main things about TES is that technology is declining more than anything. Cyrodiil and the Aldmeri Dominion used to have space programs and engaged in a cold war space race to get colonies on the moon.

Now I know you're fucking with me. There's two moons, and if you knew anything about Elder Scrolls lore you would've mentioned it!

>Bethesda
Zenimax is the one behind ESO, though.

Still, Bethesda should be responsible for the upkeep of their own IP's lore. Since ESO is an established part of the Elder Scrolls franchise, the details matter.

My mistake. But it's literally there

forums.bethsoft.com/topic/1327177-tatterdemalion-the-lunar-province-of-secunda/

So how who rules the cities, towns, and tribes of Elsweyr? In Oblivion we had Counts and Countesses. In Morrowind we had familys who ruled. And in Skyrim it was the Jarls who ruled.

And if you want more official proof that space travel exists, or rather, existed

uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Pocket_Guide_to_the_Empire,_3rd_Edition/Arena_Supermundus

>Visits to Aetherius occur even less frequently than to Oblivion, for the void is a long expanse and only the stars offer portal for aetherial travel, or the judicious use of magic. The expeditions of the Reman Dynasty and the Sun Birds of Alinor are the most famous attempts in our histories, and it is a cosmic irony that both of them were eventually dissolved for the same reason: the untenable expenditures required to reach magic by magicka. Their only legacy is the Royal Imperial Mananauts of the Elder Council and the great Orrery at Firsthold, whose spheres are made up of genuine celestial mineral gathered by travelers during the Merethic Era.

Pic related is an Imperial spaceship

>Cyrodiil and the Aldmeri Dominion used to have space programs and engaged in a cold war space race to get colonies on the moon.
and then the khajiit just made a literal fucking cat ladder to one of the moons

So, I'm not completely sure about this, but I think I once read that Soul Gems are actually fragments of the world of Aetherius, which is essentially the afterlife, which have fallen to Nirn. this would explain why they can capture souls.

There is no afterlife, most souls just dream about whatever afterlife they believed in while they eventually get recycled.

And everything have to be agreed upon by Bethesda before they do it. They get an idea, present it for Bethesda, and if they agree with it they go ahead and develop it.

>There is no afterlife

ESO isn't made by bethesda and isn't canon, durr

how could you be confused

But it is. Acting like a bitch won't change that.

you can think that if you want but it isn't a bethesda game so nobody cares.

also, you play ESO. fucking lol.

Souls that get claimed by gods are an exception, of course. And besides, Sovngarde isn't in Aetherius, it's on the moons, which are literally Shor's mangled mutilated corpse pieces.

isn't ESO non-cannon?

"See, one prophet of the Alessian Order was Marukh, an edgy counterculture Imga, apeman, who decided it was ELVES that sucked and HUMANS he wanted to be just like (most Imga believe the opposite). He preached to this effect to his own people after meeting Saint Alessia, the first Emperor (an Empress), in a prophetic vision. Under Marukh, a society of dogmatically religious, separatist political movers formed, the Marukhati Selective, who hated the idea that the Imperial Akatosh and the Aldmeri Auri-el were the same being. Which is actually a bit off-mark, because following the true, secret doctrine of the Alessian Order, Marukh believed there was one Single God and the others were lesser deities that were incorporated into the Imperial Cult to appease the other, polytheistic religions that the Empire had to coexist with. Basically first era religion and politics were a mess.

One way or another, the Marukhati Selective, which likely contained both elves and humans that shared this sentiment that Auri-el and Akatosh being the same was awful because they reviled each other, performed some extremely potent Mythic or even Dawn Era magic. They first took a staff of immense power, and somehow consecrated it so that it became a symbol of the Tower- The Universe (Wheel) turned on its side. Then they danced on it until it broke into eight parts. As it broke, the Dragon God broke into eight parts as well, pulling his different cultural titles out of each other; And since he is Time, this change went all the way back to the beginning of Time, 2500ME, when Ada-Mantia landed in what would become the Illiac Bay. Hence why Alduin isn't Akatosh, and Akatosh isn't Auri-el. Also, since the Dragon is Time, this completely fucked up how time itself worked for 1008 fucking years."

"This period is called the "Middle Dawn," because like the Dawn Era there was no time during this period- Instead people counted the days by the falling of "eight stars," likely referring to the celestial entourage that Mnemoli brings with her from the Magna-Ge during all such events (called Dragon Breaks). You'll start to notice a real gravitation in the lore to the number 8, the spokes on the Wheel, because it's fundamental to how the world is structured. There is evidence that 6 or 12 held the same status in the previous universe, from which this one was born, but that's just a sidenote to all this.

Anyway, that's why there's 1008 years during which men fought wars that were long over and became their own grandfathers and such, because while the Magna-Ge take it upon themselves to maintain causality when Akatosh is MIA, they obviously don't handle this unnatural role perfectly.

>What is the source for this?
Kurt Kuhlmann, currently the foremost authority on TES lore- When asked if they had some kind of "Elder Scrolls Bible" around the office to refer to when writing books and dialogue to keep the lore consistent one Skyrim writer replied "Kurt Kuhlmann's brain."
imperial-library.info/content/kurt-kuhlmann-posts
>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.
Heroes being members of the Cult was essentially a given, if this narrative voice is to be trusted, and Ysgramor was most likely a Dragon Priest."

">Is it that Nords on Atmora had to leave Atmora to go back to Skyrim and there they realized that Skyrim Cult was bad?
The priests on Atmora remained just, but since they were on a frontier the priests on Skyrim didn't have to answer to their gods and became corrupt; The Skyrim Nords rebelled; The Priests called upon the Dragons to quell the rebellion; The Tongues were taught the secret of the Voice by Paarthurnax, who was purportedly sent by Kyne, and given a man with the soul of a Dragon by Akatosh so that they could slay their foes for good. I'm not sure to what degree the Atmoran Nords were involved in the War if at all.

The timeline of Nordic history is, in short
>large group of Nedes leave for the elven land of Atmora for unknown reasons; These are the Nords
>Nords wipe out any elves that were on Atmora (whether there actually were any is unknown, but Atmora is an elven name, showing that it was an elven land originally)
>for some reason some Nords feel compelled to return to Skyrim- These could be a matter of climate, overpopulation or religious differences
>the settlers kill Falmer and settle on Falmer and Dwemer land to build their territory, the Falmer sack Saarthal either as an act of genocide or to retrieve a Dwemer artefact there, starting a war
>the Nords on Skyrim get BTFO, send word to Atmora
>Ysgramor comes to Skyrim with his five hundred companions and keeps killing Falmer until they're all dead or hiding with the Dwemer, effectively purging the entire race
>Ysgramor proselytises for the Dragon Cult and is credited with bringing it back to Skyrim
>Priests of the cult rise to power on Skyrim, receive power from Dragons and misuse it, while the Dragon Cult remains noble on Atmora
>the Dragon Wars happen
>sometime between then and the Hortator's life Atmora freezes over completely, so only Skyrim and Solstheim Nords remain"

>"So all these guys too were created by Akatosh to basically discipline the Dragons?
Nah, most of them were created to strengthen his bond with mortals. The majority of Dragonborn were the Emperors of the first three Empires of Cyrodiil, the Alessian Dynasty, Reman Dynasty and Septim Dynasty. The Amulet of Kings was created from the Chim-el Adabal as proof of Akatosh's Covenant with Alessia and also as a test of whether someone was truly Dragonborn (as only they could wear it), and in turn only a Dragonborn could muster the thu'um to light the Dragonfires that sustain the barrier that keeps the Daedra and Magna-Ge off of Nirn (except under special contract). If the Dragon broke or the fires went out Daedra could invade, and this has happened several times, most recently during the Oblivion Crisis.

Only a handful at most were actually created TO HUNT Dragons, with Miraak and TLDB being the only ones, as far as I remember, that are identified as such. The Blades notably formed under Reman because he was the ideal Dragonslayer though.

The guys that won the Dragon War were Tongues, which are ordinary men who through divine grace or extreme devotion master the thu'um."

>"If the Tongues were so critical for the success of men against dragons, why didn't they teach more Nord heroes these shouts?
From the time of the Dragon War up until Jurgen Windcaller founded the Greybeards and the Way of the Voice (in the (almost definitely erroneous) belief that the reason Dagoth Ur, Wulfharth, the Orcs and the Tongues were ultimately defeated at Red Mountain was because the Voice was being used too much which somehow spread it thin so there wasn't enough to use it when it was really needed), many if not most Nords learned at least some of the thu'um, and there were many Tongues who devoted themselves to it and learned quite a lot. It was standard protocol for any army to have some Tongues with it who could shout down walls and such, until the Greybeards did their best to ban such "misuse" of the Voice. The ones you see fighting Alduin, and who fight alongside you in Sovngarde, were just the three greatest Tongues of their time, not the only Tongues."

keep posting, famski
why are you silent

So, was Miraak actually trying to become the new godhead and usurp Anu?

"The Redguards are comprised of two groups. There's the Crowns. These are among the most talented warriors in Tamriel and are from the second wave of Yokudans that settled Hammerfell, an official colonisation party.

Then there's the Forebears. These ARE the most talented warriors in Tamriel. They are descended from the Sword Saints, Voice users that made the Nord Tongues look like choir boys and who used the Voice and their swords to split the atom and decimate Yokuda, leaving a largeish archipelago half the size of the Summerset Isles where once there was a continent larger than Tamriel. When they landed in Hammerfell, a translation of the Dwarven word for the region, Volenfell (City of the Hammer), they purged all other races that still inhabited the place (the Dwemer were fortunate enough to have disappeared from the face of the planet prior to this) and made it their own, and no pissant Nords had the balls to tell them to fuck off. The blood of the forebears is why the Redguards are regarded as the finest warriors on Nirn.

Of course, the Nords have Lorkhan on their side to beat up the big mean elves when they start to get spanked for attacking the native elves with inferior numbers, forces, training and intellect, and he comes around fairly often as a Shezarrine to hamfistedly change the course of events where the Nords would almost certainly become extinct from their rash military behaviour. The Redguards have a more hands-off parent, the Hoonding. This spirit has only ever manifested twice, once as the incarnate Hunding who led the Forebears to Hammerfell and once very briefly via the legendary sailor Cyrus as he cut down an Imperial general. However, the Hoonding isn't merely strong like Lorkhan. He is literally the embodiment of victory."

"The Redguards are the descendants of the Ra Gada, a group of Samurai (called Ansei, or sword-saints) who followed Frandar Hunding, a clear analog of Miyamoto Musashi (a famous ronin samurai of the 17th century, who wrote the Book of Five Rings that is often used as a guide to strategy by businessmen along with Sun Tzu's Art of War; Hunding's equivalent was his Book of Rings), over from Yokuda to Hammerfell. The Redguards are all descended from samurai. They're also not closely related to the other races of man and mer, though they are still Ehlnofey afaik."

uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Redguards,_Their_History_and_Their_Heroes

"They're a mix of Moorish, Japanese, Arabic, Cajun and North African, and their history is mostly Japanese. They're the only race with samurai except perhaps the Tsaesci, though the Tsaesci culture seems by all accounts to have favoured warriors more like ninja than samurai."

"Katanas in general exist in the lore though, they're just more localised to Hammerfell and Morrowind. Morrowind most likely due to commerce with Akavir at some point in the past, Hammerfell because Yokuda randomly invented katanas themselves in the past and the warrior caste that became the Redguards were based on samurai."

Redguards go to the Far Shore, which is described as one of the "Walkabouts" when it comes to metaphysics. They're able to maintain themselves through different kalpas so if each kalpa is the same except one thing, then Yokuda should continue being the focus of the dream like it used to be and even if it isn't, Redguards should be able to accomplish much of what they did. That is, unless the one thing that changes is something like the focus of the dream.

The Ruddy Man was two things. He was one of Molag Bal's forms in a different kalpa. When Vivec and him fucked, one of the things that got created was the Ruddy Man in the current kalpa. Basically, Molag Bal and Vivec eventually gave birth so much that one of the kids either resembled Molag Bal's old form way too much or Vivec managed to pull out some shit from another kalpa. It's in one of the sermons too.

"Vivec, in giving birth to the many spawn of his marriage, had dropped an old image of Molag Bal into the world: a dead carapace of memory"

So the current Ruddy Man is a skin with power but it was also one of the forms of Molag Bal in an old kalpa.

Sword-singing is like the thu'um except more religious and potentially potent. The Ansei, the Yokudans who later became the Ra Gada (Redguards), were an order of monks or saints who perfected martial arts using swords, and they would perform sword techniques that merged their discipline with the weapon with the power of their Voice. They would also meditate or practice by channeling their spirit into a sword via their Voice, the Shehai or spirit-sword. However, in most cases these Shehai were too weak to be used in real combat. A notable exception was Hunding, who fought primarily with his Shehai in his later years.

A more advance technique called Pankratosword had an effect similar to a nuclear explosion (though from MK's illustration of it it looks more like it tore reality itself apart in Yokuda) that ravaged the entire continent, around the same time that Hunding took his followers over the sea to Tamriel where they found Hammerfell (Volenfell, which means the same, being the Dwemer name for the place) and would become the Redguards.

Bethesda fucked up by having their lore be more interesting than they could ever make a game about. They're doing the best the can, really.

It's worth noting that the 'freezing over' of Atmora is like a freezing of time thing, it's not about ice and cold, it's about time literally stopping there.

>WE WUZ NUKES AND SHEEEIT

I fucking swear, I'm going to be platinum mad if Bethesda somehow decides to retcon the Pnakrotosword in the eventual Hammerfell game, I'm going to personally become a SJW and find any way I can to make it seem like Bethesda wants to put the black man down so I can spam it on tumblr and twitter if they butcher Redguards as hard as they did to Imperials

Sword singing, Thu'um and the secret to the Dwemer being so fucking strong until they accidentally themselves, Tonal Architecture, are all forms of Tonal magic, basically a kind of magic that warps reality in ways that aren't supposed to. Think of regular magic as doing stuff within a game, and tonal magic being saying fuck it and outright reprogramming it.

HoonDing is the Redguard spirit of Make Way. He's similar to Trinimac in some regards, but older and more powerful. His domain is basically over winning. Like, he controls victory the way a fire mage controls fire. He rarely acts however; IIRC he has only manifested twice in recorded history, once through Frandar Hunding and once through Cyrus.

The Redguards are the men of the previous kalpa, who perfected a method of stepping sideways through time by copying their gods to survive the Eating of the World. They're thus not directly related to Nords, Imperials and Bretons, and they're more badass than the men of this kalpa in general. They are also the only race of men in this kalpa that tend spiritually to be Anuic rather than Padomaic. When this kalpa began they inhabited the continent of Yokuda to the west, which was larger than Tamriel and had empires rise and fall upon it long before any empire of man on Tamriel existed, but their equivalent of Tongues caused a calamity that resulted in Yokuda being destroyed and all but a small archipelago sinking into the ocean, and the refugees settled in the formerly Dwemer land of Volenfell (Hammerfell).

HoonDing had manifested once more as Diagna, Orichalc God of the Sideways Blade and helped fight against Orcs of Orsinium and IIRC the Left-handed elves. He's still residing in the Dragontail Mountains to this day, albeit as an old spirit of battle.

The Altmer have sunbirds, which are some kind of ship or vessel made of light or appearing to be made of light (which is synonymous with magicka), and which they have used to travel through Magnus and reach Aetherius in the past; Presumably they did not stay there as Aetherius would not be kind to a mortal body, or because not all Altmer necessarily desire to reside in Aetherius, just their dominant religions. IIRC the Sunbirds have also been used as a naval fleet.

During the Reman Dynasty, the last leg of the First Era in the aftermath of the Marukhati Dragon Break that lasted 1008 years, technology on Nirn and especially in Cyrodiil reached its pinnacle, resembling something like modern technology irl but with magic. One project that the Reman emperors engaged in was a space programme, intending to "reclaim" the moons as the rightful provenance of mankind and establish a colony on Secundus. They did this by magically/genetically engineering a moth to grow to a colossal size and building a sort of monastery on its back, the Megalomoth, or as most fans call it, the Mothship. The information on how to do so is most likely still stored in the Imperial City, like much "lost" Reman technology, hence the use of mothships in Landfall: Day One. The moth was chosen as it is a sacred animal to the Empire and tied closely in its existence to the Elder Scrolls themselves.

In addition, before it was cut off from Nirn in the events of Battlespire, the Imperials had a space station called the Battlespire aboard which the illustrious Imperial Battlemages were trained. This space station was on the border or slipstream between the protective shell Akatosh put around Mundus and the Void of Sithis in which the Daedra hold their domain, presumably located as such so that the battlemages could escape to safety if something went wrong while still being able to come in direct contact with Daedra for their training.

The Khajiit were altered from the same stock the Bosmer were fixed from, by Azura, to be guardians of the moons, which were Lorkhan's corpse and sacred in Azura's eyes. To this end they can climb up to the moons somehow and are tasked with making sure if anything ever happens to the moons they put them back in their place. This is why the Khajiit feel indebted to the Thalmor in the Fourth Era, who claim they restored the moons after their mysterious disappearance in the Void Nights.

Ada-Mantia, the Zero Tower, was apparently a spaceship used by the Ada to travel around Nirn during its development. When Lorkhan and Akatosh fought they crash-landed it in what became the Iliac Bay.

The Argonians are normal Nirn-lizards that were mutated by the Hist, sapient trees from another kalpa that made a homeworld in the Void of Sithis to avoid the eating of the world, and which traveled back to Nirn, intentionally or otherwise, coming to rest in Argonia (often called Black Marsh). In the Keyes novels some Hist from the homeworld invade on a flying city ship called Umbriel. The Sleeping Tree in Skyrim grew from a spore that fell from Umbriel, hence it is a hist and the sap that is sold by some dealers in Skyrim is hist sap.

Dunmer have or will have something called Vekhships. I don't know much about them, they're mentioned in KINMUNE and Landfall: Day One though.

A large handful of mages have used liminal gates to basically summon themselves to other planets the same way creatures are summoned from other planets by conjurers. Sometimes the Daedra provide a way to their planet as well; We saw a lot of that in Oblivion from Mehrunes Dagon, Sheogorath, Vaermina and Peryite especially, hence the game's title being Oblivion and not Cyrodiil.

Most Reman technology was destroyed during the Interregnum. Some definitely survived, since Tiber Septim had a fleet of airships and some were even still in commission during Uriel VII's time. Most, however, was lost or "lost" (most likely bogarted or lost in another way in the imperial archives in White-Gold). I believe Sunbirds still exist and are still used, we just don't hear about it much. Vekhships probably aren't invented yet, I dunno. The Keyes novels detail an invasion from the Hist homeworld. Keep in mind that between the space age and the time the games take place was the Interregnum, which knocked almost everyone back to the dark ages (and then technology and magic progressed again over the next 400 years), and then between Oblivion and Skyrim was the aftermath of the Oblivion Crisis, which likewise set everyone back a bit and rekindled the anti-intellectualism of the Interregnum that led to the rejection of mages and the systematic destruction of knowledge and technology.

uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Pocket_Guide_to_the_Empire,_3rd_Edition/Arena_Supermundus
uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Words_of_Clan_Mother_Ahnissi
host.conseiljedi.com/~wolf/PGE2/pge2.pdf

The Underking is an amalgamation of Ysmir Wulfharth and Zurin Arctus.

At the beginning of time, akatosh and lorkhan were one being, and had their servant Trinimac separate them by tearing out their heart, containing their soul, akatosh, from their body, lorkhan. However, Trinimac could not break the Heart open to release Akatosh, so Akatosh's essence is imprisoned within the Heart. Akatosh divides himself into sub-gods to gain influence and blesses individuals (the dragonborn) with pieces of his soul so that they can serve him. Lokrhan absorbs other concepts into himself to gain power and influence and manifests part of his consciousness in the Shezarrine, a person or group of people similar to his equivalent of the dragonborn.

The Shezarrine or one of the most notable Shezarrine assuming there are actually multiple was Ysmir Wulfharth, a nordic high king of Skyrim who despised elves, loved Shor and had an incredible mastery of the thu'um. That's only really notable because shit gets a little ironic later. In ancient days Ysmir cured a curse on the Nordic people that turned them all into children by shouting at time to shake it just so and shake out years onto the Nords, but in doing so took on a vast amount of age himself and turned to ash, while retaining his sentience, essentially becoming a lich.

Hjalti (assuming even that is his real name), better known as Tiber Septim, had both the shade of Ysmir and the living battlemage Zurin Arctus (one of the greatest battlemages to ever live) as advisors during his conquest as the dragonborn fated to retake the ruby throne of cyrodiil. Ysmir would swirl above his brow as what appeared to be a storm cloud and hurl shouts at his enemies in battle, from which Hjalti's title of Talos, which means Storm-Crown, is derived.

At one point Hjalti gained control over the Numidium, and after some bullshit shenanigans hatched a plan with Zurin, who realised that what was needed to operate the huge golem was a simulacrum of the Heart of Lorkhan (as it was built to use the Heart as its power source), to soultrap Wulfharth, a Shezarrine with the soul of Lorkhan, in the hopes that the specially prepared soulgem, the Mantella, would function as the simulacrum they needed. During this time Wulfharth and Hjalti had had a falling out over Hjalti's fair treatment of the Dunmer and accepting Numidium in exchange for peacefully annexing Morrowind without erasing their culture or waging a war that would result in the deaths of their people (as Vivec already knew what Hjalti was becoming and feared to go to war with an equal), but both due to an offering of good will from Zurin and Hjalti and to warn the two of the growing threat of Dagoth Ur that he had discovered while on a personal crusade in Morrowind, Wulfharth was returning. It's worth noting here that "Akatosh" means "dragon-father" and "Ysmir" is atmoran for "dragon of the north."

When Wulfharth entered the palace, Zurin soultrapped him, but in his final moment Wulfharth focused his thu'um into a shout that tore a hole through Zurin's chest, purging his Heart. Hjalti entered the scene, where both advisors laid dead, and took the Mantella, making himself Trinimac in this re-enactment of the beginning of time. In this way the souls of Wulfharth and Zurin were bound together the way that Akatosh and Lorkhan had been in the Dawn Era, one being with two discordant personalities working toward the same generally benevolent goals- The Underking. The irony here is that Ysmir, an avatar of Lorkhan, took the role of Akatosh in this exchange, as the Dragon of the North. Of course it's possible that Wulfharth was also the only Shezarrine to also be Dragonborn, which would explain his propensity for the Voice and his title.

The Underking is a holy lich who gained their undead status unintentionally while Mannimarco is a megalomaniacal necromancer who became a lich intentionally and strove for godhood actively.

The Underking is one or both of Ysmir Wulfharth, an ancient king of Skyrim who was a Shezarrine (avatar of Lorkhan), Dragonborn (avatar of Akatosh) and possibly the greatest Tongue who ever lived, and Zurin Arctus, one of the greatest Nibenean battlemages who ever lived and Tiber Septim's wizard. Wulfharth first became an undead, the Ash-King, when in ancient times a curse befell the Nordic people on behalf of Alduin and the elven gods, turning them into children; Wulfharth learned a shout that shook time out on them to age them into adults again, but he shook too much on himself and disintegrated, yet didn't die. Later Zurin and Wulfharth's beings became merged in the Mantella due to a reenactment between them of Akatosh and Lorkhan's shattering, with Tiber fulfilling the role of Trinimac; Tiber ascended with the divine essence of all three while the Underking stayed as Talos's mortal aspect.

Mannimarco was a Psiijic who turned to dark magic and necromancy in his pursuit of power and control. When the Marukhati Selective Broke the Dragon he used the chaos to steal the secret of lichdom; When the Agent of Daggerfall triggered the Warp in the West he used the power of Numidium to ascend as a god, leaving behind a mortal aspect as well. In the aftermath of the Warp, the Jills demoted him from a planetary god to a mere moon of Ar'kay, which still allows him to periodically eclipse Ar'kay, enabling the creation of black soul gems on those nights.

Basically all they have in common is that they're liches, they didn't even become liches in the same way nor are they the same kind of lich (with the Underking being made of ash and the Wormking having acid in his veins).

There are three kinds of "magic" in TES. The first is "true" Magic. This is the magic Magnus and friends used when creating Mundus and defining the boundaries between Oblivion and Aetherius and designing the clockwork device inside Nirn that upholds its laws. It's the magic of pure godly power. It is what Vivec refers to as the state of CHIM. Very few mortals have ever been able to harness it and it is generally considered to have left Mundus when Magnus did.

The second is common magic, named in Magnus's honour because he is the reason it is in Mundus. The light of Aetherius is actually a kind of material potential, which the Ayleids called Magicka (and the Aldmer called Chim, interestingly enough), and souls have the ability to filter this light out of the air and channel it through the will into spells. Almost all mages in TES harness this kind of magic.

Tonal magic is another thing entirely yet again. It is less related to Magnus; Its only relation to him is that it exploits the way the world works and Magnus was the one who designed the world. It's more commonly referred to as the Voice, the Thu'um, the Shehai (spirit-sword), or Tonal Architecture. It uses special sacred tones and combinations of sounds to form a debate with some aspect of reality, defeating it either through logic or sheer force of will and as a result changing that aspect of reality.

Are Aka(tosh) and Lorkhan not the embodiments of Anuiel and Sithis? Which makes them the same being anyway, but the division occurs at a higher level.

Did Talos actually know how to Shout, or was it all Ysmir's doing?

Also, worth noting that 'Tiber Septim' refers to their shared identity, not just Hjalti himself. At least, until he has the other two killed.

>It is what Vivec refers to as the state of CHIM
Citation?

Vivec and Tiber Septim are on a whole other leveled compared to Magnus, even. CHIM is gaining awareness of the Godhead and embracing it.

The Ansei used it subtly in the Shehai Shen She Ru to augment their swordplay, singing their magic and achieving superhuman techniques and eventually splitting the atomos and setting off a chain reaction that destroyed their home continent. The Tongues used the Thu'um, learned from the dragons in the language of Akatosh (Time itself), to make simple, forceful three-word shouted counterpoints to ideas like "there isn't a wall of flesh-melting fire here" or "this wall isn't being blasted apart right now" (to simplify it a bit). The Dwemer used specific tones to manipulate metal so they could strike it and produce more sophisticated tones to eventually accomplish feats that warped the entirety of reality in both subtle and gross ways; The Dwemer also hated reality and what it represented and sought to use their tonal architecture to deny it entirely, hence why Numidium fucks things up so much every time it's turned on for a few hours.

The reason or way tonal magic works is that while Aurbis was formed via dreaming, its continued existence is in the form of a kind of extremely complicated song or lullaby. The Towers each represent an instrument (Ada-Mantia being the conductor), and could be used in a kind of extreme tonal magic themselves (the "strings" of the Imperial City could be plucked to change aspects of reality by the sector of the wheel they were in, the Heart in Red Mountain could be pounded on to change the constitution of the person doing the pounding, Numidium's whole purpose was to trumpet the entire Dwemer race's tonal world-denials so loud that nothing in the universe could ignore them, and so on). Music and more precisely vibrations (tones) thus manipulate the makeup of reality or otherwise provide their own part in the overwhelming symphony of Aurbis.

The earliest information we have predates Aurbis (All of TES existence as a whole). It's Anu, Padomay and Nir. Anu and Padomay are brothers and both of them fell for Nir, she chose Anu and Padomay got buttmad, so he maimed her. Anu kills Padomay and becomes mad with grief, so mad in fact that he goes and "Sleeps in the Sun" which a lot of people consider to be a metaphor for going into sensory deprevation state/going into a coma.

His mind and soul defragment and become the canvas for Aurbis to exist upon. Memory of himself and his own avatar in said reality is Auri-El, endless stasis that wants to keep everything safe and unmoving, Sithis on the other hand is memory of Padomay and represents both endless pain that Anu experienced and at the same time represents change and it's necessity, interplay of these two is what makes up all of Aurbis, they are it's binary code.

In this endless spectrum shifting from pure white, to grey, to pitch black, endless Et'Ada are born, but before they are born and for the very possibility of them being born time and space had to exist and so it did, this was the greatest Et'Ada of them all who had both the soul of Sithis and the flesh of Anui-El, a dualistic entity with two minds and two souls.

Seeing how Aurbis was not moving anywhere, Sithis decided to bring change...well everything at this point in time is at least semi-simultaneous and strange since time is not linear yet, but what matters is that Sithis shifts the great god of Time and Space, he creates an unstable mutant in it's mind, Lorkhan, who would slowly cause the division of said dualistic entity. He does so by planting memories of Nir into it's mind, memories that would eventually drive Lorkhan to wander and question himself and everything around him.

Through wondering he eventually stumbled upon edge of thought and reality, he looked at everything from the other side and saw that it was a giant Wheel, representing all of creation and yet when said wheel was viewed from a side he saw a Tower, representing "I", identity and individual in creation. It is not clear if Lorkhan realized everything there was to realize but he knew that he was imprisoned and he had to get out, yet in this shiftless endless plane there was no hope for ever finding a way to get out, so he started to plot.

He decided to create a giant unified plane, an Arena of ideas, almost a super computer of sorts that will eventually bring an answer to his conundrum and through which true freedom from eternal prison of Aurbis would be found.

Lorkhan the unstable mutant announced his plan to all the Et'Ada, including his other side. At that moment those Et'Ada who were more inclined towards stability and Anuic principles agreed to help him create this unified plane, those who disagreed where usually more inclined towards chaotic and egotistical principles, so they decided to copycat him and create their own planes where only they would rule.

Lorkhan together with Magnus and his children, the Magna-Ge created the blueprints for Mundus.

Through trickery Lorkhan managed to bind Et'Ada at his side into Mundus, freezing them and trapping them as part of it for ever. Magnus disgusted with this creation escaped back into Aetherius leaving a giant hole in reality known as the sun, his children left other holes which are known as the stars.

Those who bound themselves to Mundus and allowed it's creation became the trapped Aedra, those in outer realms of Oblivion with their secular singular realms became the Daedric Princes.

The original Et'Ada was still a single whole, dualistic but whole, this final act of trickery drove it completely mad though. As their final action Aedra together with Dragon God and Lorkhan gathered at the center of Mundus, Nirn which is named after Nir, they Grey Maybe.

Time does not exist yet so again this same event happened in variety of ways, some include war others include court trial sort of thing, what matters is that the being divided itself for ever and ripped it's own heart out. Dragon God of Time and Trickster God were now maimed twin brothers.

Dragon God hurled Heart across Nirn in disgust but as he did so it laughed at him, for this was also part of Lorkhans trickery. When Heart planted itself in the Red Mountain it connected to the Adamantine tower, the original point of creation. This finally stabilized Mundus and forced Dragon God of Time to behave in a linear fashion, some even say that the Heart of Lorkhan holds soul of the Dragon God and that soulgems are constructed as copycats of Heart of Lorkhan.

What matters is that Mundus was finally stabilized, all the Aedra are trapped, time is forced to be linear and Lorkhan's dead corpse is tossed into the sky forming Masser and Secunda, while his spirit is cursed to walk the land restlessly.

This point is called the Convention, it's the single most important point in reality and when a Kalpa ends (Kalpa is a period of time from birth of Mundus to it's end) it reverts back to Convention when time became linear.

A caste of Ada whose origin is not quite known bind themselves into already existing Mundus and by trapping themselves willingly they create laws of reality such as gravity. These creatures are called The Ehlnofey which means Earthbones.

Mortal races are stabilized lesser Ada, maybe born of Ehlnofey, Aedra, shards of Lorkhan, all of these or neither.

Mer are tied to the ancient wise Ehlnofey who were the closest to the Old Ways and teachings of Auri-El. Psijic still practice Old Ways magic and rituals and try to preserve said teachings hings hope that one day they will break free from the mortal plane.
Races of Men are tied to the Wandering Ehlnofey which were filled with need for change and progress. They were the explorers, conquerors and kings and viewed Lorkhans mortal plane as a gift.

Rest of it is common Tamrielic history.

CHIM requires three things
>Having experienced Wheel and Tower truth
>Being an egotistical dick and endless self love

If you are not an egotistical dick and don't love yourself above all you will most likely Zero Sum, as you fully realize that you are part of a giant whole you accept reality as it is and dissolve in it as if you have never existed.

If you have utter self love you will see it differently, you will experience it as if all of existence is part of you and everything is but your own extension. You will learn to infinitely love yourself and through yourself love all of reality which will retain your personality and your identity. Obviously with this newfound power to shift reality as if it's part of your body come many downsides and dangers of poofing out of existence if your self belief is not powerful enough, also with the knowledge gained you will most likely stop being interested in being a mere king or even conquering any plane and will instead move onto the big Lorkhanic game. Plotting for the future of all existence as a whole.

Amaranth is the supposed true escape from Aurbis which is basically the same thing that happened to Anu, but without pain and sensory deprevation. You willingly turn yourself into a new reality which you can actually fully manipulate, a reality that is not tarnished by pain and grief.

Pretty much. I actually prefer Skyrim over Oblivion.

Though neither are particularly good.

>also with the knowledge gained you will most likely stop being interested in being a mere king or even conquering any plane and will instead move onto the big Lorkhanic game

That's a cool interpretation, but I personally think CHIM only gave you power for things you want for no reason other than simply wanting them. Talos can't make his Empire permanent for the good of his people but can change Cyrodiil's climate because he fucking hated it, Vivec can't just fuck up Dagoth Ur because he wants it for his people's sake but can fuck all kinds of weird shit and transform his penis/vagina into whatever he wants because he gets off on it.

Currency became a symbolism of societal power during an enantiomorph involving Zenithar and Akatosh and a current unknown count of Skingrad. Unlike most enantiomorphs, it ended up reversing its own king and rebel mechanic after the initial reversal but the witnessed remained the same. Unfortunately the witness was a count intrigued by the Old Way of a Psijic mage who frequently advised him. While the details are still a mystery, the typical power associated with the enantiomorph caused a mythopoeic fuck-around and took the greed of the count as its determining factor. The numerous coins in his pocket - Septims - became the the targets of the uncoordinated power, turning them into universal symbols of societal power. Because Akatosh was once again involved in this bullshit, it caused coins throughout history to be changed to Septims as long as the coins' original society was ruled over by the Empire.

The Dwemer were never ruled by the Empire so most of their coins are safe, but at the same time the land the ruins inhabit did become the Empire's property at one point, which created a metaphorical conflict. So some dwemer coins are now septims. There's theories that the involvement of Akatosh and the retro-corruption of all money is part of a greater plan but whose plan and what it accomplishes remains a mystery.

Source?

You don't understand. We aren't getting TES6 until the very earliest 2019, more like actually 2021-22

There's a lot of fun facts about Baar Dau! For example, it was created when Vivec shat himself during the feast where Molag Bal first fucked him, and a member of the Sweeps, a forgotten guild, hurled the MASSIVE, moon-like turd out to get rid of it. However, it revealed then that it was sentient and flew into the heavens, hiding among the Serpent sign and making deals with Lorkhan.

Accounts of how it got back to Nirn vary. One, likely meant simply to make Sheogorath seem evil since he was one corner of the House of Troubles, states that he had a problem with Vivec and hurled the rock at Nirn; Another states the rock had a mind of its own, being one of Vivec's monstrous children, and hurled itself at Nirn out of malevolence. Personally, I believe Vivec made up both stories to hide the fact that it was due to a stupid blunder of his own, which also created all of his monstrous children in the first place!

As it hurtled toward Tamriel, threatening to wipe out civilisation, Vivec of course used his immensely powerful cosmic magic to stop the false moon in the sky, but chose to leave it held by his power over Vivec city as a threat and a guarantee- That if he was ever killed or left the Dunmer people, Baar Dau would resume its previous momentum and obliterate one of the most populous cities in Resdaynia, and likely all civilisation.

Later, it was hollowed out and made into the Ministry of Truth, an inquisitorial arm of the government ruled by Vivec that punished and interrogated dissenters. That sounds pretty evil, but being hollowed out is probably the only reason it "merely" obliterated Vivec city and caused the eruption of Red Mountain when there was nothing left to hold it up, instead of destroying all civilisation in Tamriel.