Tes Lore - Blog Posts

I believe that Kirkbride’s original idea for the Bosmer (as he outlined in the concept art you’re referencing (no, I don’t know why it’s a nexus link, that’s the only place I could find the version with his notes))

https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/mods/110/images/105701/105701-1606858796-124772823.png

was the male and female bosmer represented two different sides of our fairy myths. The women are the ethereally beautiful, good (or at least noble), fae (descended from the gods of Celtic myth); Titania, the Tuatha de Danann, the Leannán Sídhe (Tolkien’s elves also are a deliberate reference to these fae) - while the men are the little, sometimes evil, or at least trickster, fairies that we find more in medieval stories; Puck, the Fomorians, coblynau, pixies, boggarts, kobolds, etc.

to put it another way: the women are goddesscore and the men are rodentpilled

Also, for what it’s worth, Kirkbride wrote that the men have “lost their power of glamour”, so it could be that women are also ugly, they just use magic to conceal their appearance. Which is also very fae.

You know what bugs me? Bosmer males. Look, idk how ESO does things, but from Morrowind to Oblivion they seem to be the butt of a joke that just says, aren't short men with squeaky voices funny and juvenile and stupid and ripe for mockery? (Fargoth, Gaenir, Glarthir, The Adoring Fan. I don't remember any Bosmer in Skyrim, but then I haven't played Skyrim since like 2015.) Plus there's that old lore about how the Bosmeri women are hot and the men are not, and frankly, fuck that. Where the short king Bosmer at? (Please share any cool Bosmeri male OCs with me.)

I think you’re misunderstanding - mantling is not the end-point of the Six Walking Ways. It *is* one of the Six Walking Ways -

1. Anumidium

2. The Psyjic Endeavour

3. The Prolix Tower

4. CHIM

5. The Enantiomorph, or Mantling

6. The Scarab that transforms into the New Man

All of them lead to apotheosis in their own different way.

Anumidium is what both Voryn Dagoth and Mannimarco used to become gods - the influence of the Numidium and the Heart (or the Mantella, a convincing facsimile) can raise a mortal to godhood.

The Endeavour is the Walking Way that Boethiah taught Veloth. It is centred around the journey and trials of a Hero (as in, a player character). This was the way that Nerevar attained. I think Sermon 16 illustrated it best - Vivec tells Nerevar to “Reach Heaven by Violence,” or, CHIM - but Nerevar is a Hero, so instead he goes to Masser and kills “parliament of craters” there, and tries to break into Magnus’ library behind the sun. He literally turns it into a quest to commit violence in the heavens.

The Prolix Tower requires the bending of the Earthbones via Tones - shouting, tonal architecture, etc. As the Earthbones dictate the laws of the universe, you’re literally rewriting those laws to make yourself a god. This is *probably* what happened to the Dwemer.

CHIM is “reaching heaven by violence”, which I translate as “becoming a god by loving the violent” - that’s what the Pomegranate Banquet is about, Vivec loving the god of rape and destruction. The end goal of CHIM is simultaneously comprehending the full scope of existence and your insignificant place in it, and yet continuing to protest your own significance. Looking the godhead in the eye and saying “yes, I am real.” Obviously this is what Vivec did, and personally I believe that Reman Cyrodiil also achieved CHIM, but that’s a personal theory.

The Enantiomorph - and I’m just going to copy the UESP for this one - is “an existence wherein two individuals, due to a catalyst coveted by both, become parts of a merged dichotomy, and thus are metaphysically interchangeable.” Translated into English, that means the creation of two beings who are so similar that the universe has no choice but to consider them the same - which is exactly what the HoK did to take the role of Sheogorath. *Walk like them until they must walk like you*.

As far as I can tell we know next to nothing about the Scarab. If we dig into Kirkbride’s extracanonical stuff, we can find “The Nu-Mantia Intercept.” Nu-Mantia… New Man… it don’t think it’s a stretch. From there, we can assume that things like Nu-Hatta and Nu-Cyrod are also related to the Scarab - and if that’s true, from what we see of Nu-Cyrod in PGE3, the Scarab might have apocalyptic connotations.

Anyway. I got a *bit* carried away there, but to summarize - the Six Walking Ways, of which mantling is *one*, all lead to apotheosis, or godhood.

It’s my opinion that Ayem and Seht did not achieve any of the walking ways. Instead, they created a facsimile of godhood by stealing the power of the heart, a god. In much the same way, I believe, mages such as pre-Warp Mannimarco, Divyath Fyr, or Zurin Arctus can reach a godlike state by stealing the power of another god, this time Magnus. Vivec is the only one who actually went further and achieved proper godhood, which is why he/she is still alive in the Fifth Era to marry Jubal lun-Sul at the end of c0da.

The ending of the words is AlmSiVi

Mantling

My favorite concept in all of the Elder Scrolls' lore is Mantling.

Mantling, poetically described as "walk like them, until they must walk like you" is, in my opinion, the coolest method of achieving apotheosis I've ever seen in fiction.

The concept that acting like someone/something and BEING that someone or something is just so filed with irony and cool possibilities.

Did Martin embody Akatosh enough to summon him, or to BECOME him?

Does the HoK embody Sheogorath, or are they Sheogorath?

"My first question is: Are you really Nerevar reborn?"

Are you? Is the Nerevarine truly, really, the embodiment or reincarnation of Nerevar? I often RP as such, that my beastfolk, Imperial guild member, outlander N'wah truly is Nerevar. Serves the racist, xenophobic Dunmer right that their Messiah is all that they hate.

But on a more lore-brained, and less commonly discussed level, does it matter?

Prophecy is all about the will of mortals anyway. The failed incarnates claim that the fact that they failed means the prophecy is more believable, but it seems that prophecy is more often a mix of vague, mystical mumbo-jumbo with a helping of Determined mortal will. So being the prophesized savior or not is less important than having the capacity to fulfill the duties imposed on the savior.

So, what other examples of Mantling do I especially enjoy?

Well, surely the many Shezarrines are a fan favorite. Pelinal and Arctus or Talos or Ysimir or all three.

Micheal Kirkbride seems to favor Cyrus, who mantled the HoonDing, together with Crown Prince A'tor.

Then, if we bring in other, unconfirmed cases, the Ruddy Man seems to allow others who wear him to Mantle some form of Dreugh-based interpretation of Molag Bal.

And then, the most controversial of my takes: the Tribunal are mantling the Three Good Daedra.

Vivec claims to have achieved CHIM, but how this was done is shrouded in mystery. Certainly, the use of Kagrenac's tools on the Heart of Lorkhan seems to have been a factor. Understanding, however, that CHIM is merely one of the Six Walking Ways, all used to achieve Apotheosis, or Mantling, there must be a "them" to walk like.

So the Tribunal almost certainly mantle their own Anticipation, without fully attaining their powers, and thus replacing them, as the HoK does, nor disappearing in the process, as Martin did.

Their wish was to remain closer to mortality, and to their beloved people.

The ending of the words is ALMSIVI

does this remind anyone else of sermon 37

shh, little thing. how long have you been pretending to be human?

stop that. the beast inside you is cooped up and wants out. don’t deny what you are. we both know it even if you don’t want to admit it to yourself yet.

i can tell. i can see how you look at your hands and flex your fingers, and how you walk around on your toes with your legs close together so your hips sway like they would if you had a tail. i know those feelings - the crushing feeling that something just isn’t there. i felt that too once.

stop hiding from it. embrace it. you were made to spit fire and smoke and rip your enemies in half. creatures like us were never meant for office work or traffic jams or taxes. give in to the dragon inside you. let it out.

build a nest. drop to all fours. sharpen your claws. tear apart the knights who come to slay you in your teeth. shed your soft, delicate human skin in exchange for sleek, glossy scales too strong to be sliced by any blade. feel your back split open as your bones move and your folded wing-limbs emerge and breathe for the first time.

unfurl your wings and feel the sun on them.

fly.

Hey!! Your reply to my (dagoth ur propaganda) post interested me, i haven't seen in TES lore that Dagoth Ur would have returned many times (i tried searching for that info at one point, it would've been useful in a story i was writing at the time) so i'm curious if i overlooked some detail?? 👀👀

so most of that was “devout tribunal worshipper larp”

but there’s definitely evidence for OTHER members of House Dagoth returning after they were killed. If you manage to talk to Ascended Sleepers, you can ask them about “understand nothing” and they say:

“You think what you do has meaning? You slay me and I am dead? It is just dream and waking, over and over, one appearance after another, nothing real…”

which I’ve always taken to mean that you can kill them, but they are revived by the heart. we can also tie this to Lord Vivec’s dialogue when you ask him about “to be a god”. She replies:

“…It is a bit like being at once awake and asleep. Awake, I am here with you, thinking and talking. Asleep, I am very, very busy. Perhaps for other gods, the completely immortal ones, it is only like that being asleep. Out of time. Me, I exist at once inside of time and outside of it.

continue

It's nice never being dead, too. When I die in the world of time, then I'm completely asleep. I'm very much aware that all I have to do is choose to wake. And I'm alive again…”

So I take that to mean that those connected to the Heart of Lorkhan are functionally immortal, returning to life some time after their supposed death, just like the Ascended Sleeper said. The *dream* that the Sleeper mentions is death. *Waking* is being alive again. For what it’s worth, Vivec calls the followers of Dagoth Ur “heartwights,” meaning they definitely have some connection to the Heart, even if they aren’t on the same level as the Three.

There’s also Dagoth Ur’s famous line, “I’m a god! How can you kill a god?”, which comes right after you beat him in the outer chamber, then walk into the Heart Chamber and he’s right there again. I’ve always taken this as “we kill him in the outer chamber and then he revives inside.”

So I definitely think Dagoth Ur *could* come back to life, if killed. Did he? Probably. We know that the Three made yearly pilgrimages to the Heart to replenish their power. We also know that Vivec defeated Dagoth Ur at least once in open battle. I think it’s likely that the Three would have fought and beaten him at least a few times.

I think that this statue of Morihaus represents the rot at the heart of TES IV.

Because this is fundamentally NOT Morihaus. It is, because the game says it is, but… you’re telling me THIS is Morihaus the man-bull? Morihaus breath-of-Kyne? The father of all Minotaurs?

Oblivion was obsessed with doing shit like this. Dumbing down and simplifying and normalifying good and interesting lore. They did the same thing with Cyrod itself, and with Pelinal (who was VERY CLEARLY written to be the setting’s version of Achilles, but instead was depicted as a High Medieval crusader.)

Was it really too hard to give us a game that wasn’t solely based on Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings, Todd?

I know that nobody asked, but here's some Telvanni lore for all the foodies.

Before you begin this culinary journey, check out this post about ash yams it's essential.

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Telvanni Cuisine

It’s obvious that Telvanni have an extensive knowledge of fungi.  After all, they live in huge mushrooms and collect and plant numerous species from all across the Tamriel to use them in their potions. It goes without saying that their cuisine is also quite fungal. The commonfolk at Telvanni settlements as most of the Dunmer source their protein both from fungi* and insect meat. But Telvanni nobles love nurturing peculiar worldviews and traditions that differentiate them from other races - or even other Dunmer. One of them is their distaste for anything that doesn’t grow in soil. They frown upon hunter traditions of Ashlanders and stock-raising of house Redoran and regard them as “primitive” in contrast to the delicate art of growing fungi. The alchemy ingredients are an obvious exception from this rule, but in general as their occupations don’t usually include menial work, their light and low-calorie cuisine perfectly matches their lifestyle. This resulted in traditional cuisine of the nobility being solely plant-, or more specifically, mushroom-based**, that contrasts sharply with the cuisine of Skyrim that is rich in venison and other animal-based foods***. Noble Telvanni shun debilitating ingredients such as alcohol and moon sugar in their everyday cuisine, as keeping their minds sharp is their main priority. In order to get an indulgent sweet taste marshmerrow is used instead. Telvanni rarely import vast quantities of vegetables from other provinces as house Hlaalu does. They use commonly grown foods like saltrice, ash yams or mushrooms as the base ingredients of the dishes. In some aspects they prefer to stick to the Dunmer traditions. The nobles, though, indulge themselves in expensive imported berries - not only because of their magic-enhancing abilities but also because of their extravagant taste. As the Telvanni ranks feature numerous alchemists the import of alchemical ingredients is obviously very common. Telvanni chefs gradually incorporated some of the exotic spices into traditional cuisine. Especially valued are the most characterful of them that fancy up the bland taste of mushrooms, such as juniper, ginseng or garlic****. * In real life mushrooms are a rather poor source of protein compared to legumes like beans and lentil. But since there are no legumes in TES universe (at least as far as I know) let's suppose there are some protein-rich mushrooms Telvanni can plant. ** It’s also worth mentioning that I’m a Telvanni-fixated vegan ass myself so that’s a more probable reason why I made my beloved house also vegan xD *** A lovely example of that contrast you can encounter in @thana-topsy ‘s fanfic “Breathing Water”. This would nicely explain Neloth’s preference for apple cabbage stew. **** This recipe for example resembles Telvanni cuisine, it was one of the inspirations from my imaginary dishes above.

Above I’ve come up with some examples of what noble Telvanni would eat on a daily basis.

Thanks for reading that and take care :3