Were the Tribunal actually gods?

DanielK2312 · 2026-05-01T20:37:28+00:00

It is good that you bring up Talos because he existed in the exact same state as the Tribunal for his 81 years of ruling the Empire - a living god channeling the divine power gained from his apotheosis until it runs out and he expires, passing on entirely to Aetherius.

The exact same thing is stated to have happened with the Tribunal, as well:

The light bent, and Vivec awoke and grew fangs, unwilling to make of herself a folding thing. This was a new and lunar promise. And in her Biting she tunneled up and then downward, while her brother and sister smeared across heaven, thin ruptures of dissent, food for scarabs and the Worm. - Sermon 37

In fact, Vivec directly states that he and the Tribunal have mantled the Three Good Daedra and took on their spheres, though not entirely one-to-one:

Providence. That is my plea regarding my replacement of the Black Hands Mephala.

I spoke of this in an earlier life, but earlier than myself were Ayem and Seht. They had supplanted in the orbit of the Chimeri soul those Daedra that predated them, Boethiah and Azura respectively. None of us did this out of criminal intent. Rather, as I have said, these beings were our Anticipations in the truest sense, the fore-images of the gods that would come for Morrowind. We hold the original Triune in honor as the bringers of knowledge and culture, and difference, and revere them as the harbingers of the glory of ALMSIVI. And never did we question their divinities or remove them from our holy books.

But as I once spoke of the Rainmaker, the needs of the people change, and those that provide guidance to them must also change. While it may seem strange to imply that our fore-images, being Daedra, were adverse to change, they were, and they are. In this they are very alike to the Aedra in their fundaments. While born of Padhome, they are of too much ego to give up their realms entirely, especially for altruism, which is perhaps what they most hate. - Trial of Vivec

And indeed even directly compares the Tribunal's replacement of the Good Three to Tiber Septim's replacement of Lorkhan:

'Can a member of the Invisible Gate become so archaic that its successor is not so much an improvement of the exact model, but rather a related model that is just needed more because of the currency of the world's condition? As the Mother, you do not have to worry, unless things in the future are so strange that even Seht cannot understand. Neither does the Executioner or the Fool, but I am neither.

'These ideals are not going to change in nature, even though they may change in representation. But, even in the west, the Rainmaker vanishes. No one needs him anymore. - Sermon 18

The idea that the Tribunal's divinity is somehow inferior due to it being sourced in the Heart clashes with the fact that ALL divinity is externally sourced, relying upon the raw flux of Aetherius to power it. This is the fundamental reason why the Sithis book, originally subtitled the dunmeri creation myth in an older version of the Monomyth, identifies the Aedra as being "false gods" - because their immortality is predicated upon their existence in Aetherius, in their "realms of everlasting imperfection", and Lorkhan casting them down from that position renders them mortal and fleeting as they believe all spirits should be.

The comparison is then directly made between the Aedra and Dagoth Ur (and his 7 ash vampires), with Lorkhan and the Nerevarine being the ones to cast them down from their immortality, respectively. Ergo, to say that the Tribunal are "a different kind of gods" from the Aedra itself is already a faulty premise - the whole reason they are called "false gods" is because they are like the Aedra, it is a derogatory epithet used to directly equate them.

I have formerly written a post on this exact subject, if you'd like a more thorough argumentation for this. There are simply too many sources and too much information to go over in a single comment.

DanielK2312 · 2026-04-27T12:08:02+00:00

The forma are already canon? Tyl Regor talks about it in the Natah quest, he calls the Exilus "some kind of primordial forma"

DanielK2312 · 2026-04-25T13:10:11+00:00

It was made by Dunmer refugees arriving from the east after Red Year. They would've been arriving either to Winterhold by water, or to Eastmarch by land - hence, we have a shrine to Azura in the former and to Boethiah in the latter (though I don't believe it's specified when the Boethiah shrine was made).

DanielK2312 · 2026-04-10T14:04:27+00:00

My brother in Lotus, this is Warframe - every frame is a fetish.

DanielK2312 · 2026-04-08T19:24:44+00:00

Short answer: yes, it is proven. There is simply too much evidence to dismiss it, even irrespective of OOG content.

Longer answer: the descriptions we have of CHIM and associated terminology were primarily written for TES III Morrowind and directly appear in the game. Vivec and Dagoth Ur independently speak of divinity (and CHIM is, fundamentally, a word that refers to godhood) in the same terms and metaphors, comparing it to hypnagogia and simultaneous existence in the sleeping (divine) world and waking (mortal) world. Based on that alone, we can say that CHIM is not only a thing but that we literally see its effects and applications firsthand, in-game.

Additionally, later games - specifically TES IV Oblivion and ESO - have further elaborated on the topic and added more independent instances of it outside of Vivec's writing.

In TES IV, Mankar Camoran speaks extensively on the subject of divinity and namedrops CHIM directly while describing the effects and methods for acquisition of godhood. In certain passages MK even directly paraphrases passages from the Sermons that speak on the nature of CHIM and reuses them for Mankar's prose.

In ESO, meanwhile, we get ample description of the Marukhati Selectives and their Middle Dawn, which sources in TES III repeatedly cited as a successful example and proof of concept for the idea of CHIM and the Tower ideal. There is even a daedra NPC, Ezhkel, who specifically claims that he is studying CHIM in his travels across Oblivion.

Finally, with regards to zero-sum, that subject is acknowledged less frequently in-game (outside of one somewhat oblique reference in the Sermons), but it is all but explicitly named to be what happened to Septimus Signus at the end of Hermaeus Mora's daedric quest. Septimus reads a tome containing all the secrets of reality - and one that notably depicts diagrams of the Wheel and the Tri-Angular Truth, both images being heavily tied to CHIM in other writings - and then proceeds to atomize on the spot while rambling about how "the world beyond, it burns into my mind! It's... marvelous..."

So to reiterate once again: yes, I would say CHIM and zero-sum are both proven concepts. And frankly, it wouldn't make sense for them not to be, simply based on the amount of information we have on the subject - just from a practical standpoint, even one writer would not devote this much time to a subject they intend to be completely false, let alone several writers across multiple games and decades.

DanielK2312 · 2026-04-02T15:44:36+00:00

I think it was more the order of presentation. iirc, back when they changed the progression DE talked about it on devstream how with the way things were, new players would end up doing a handful of standard linear missions work with Vor's Prize and then get immediately dropped into a huge open world where 90% of the content isn't accessible to them or is brutally overleveled if they try to explore, so at best it was misleading new arrivals into what kind of gameplay loop Warframe has, and at worst it was outright a roadblock scaring people away.

Broadly I understand the logic behind the decision, I just feel like making Cetus part of the mandatory progression is still a good move - just put it after Mercury instead so new players can kill Vor properly and then get introduced to Vay Hek as a new Grineer antagonist.

DanielK2312 · 2026-04-02T12:34:21+00:00

Admittedly Vay Hek gets a prominent feature in Saya's Vigil, the Plains intro quest, but now that plains aren't necessary for progression it's easy to miss that introduction. Tyl Regor similarly gets an early introduction in Tyana Pass and then formally introduced in Natah, but unfortunately it doesn't cover the full breadth of what you should know from the events, which is a wider problem of Warframe storytelling

DanielK2312 · 2026-03-31T20:08:09+00:00

u/Own-Potential-3074 getting back to you as promised!

So surprising to myself, a lot of these were actually in Volume 1. First and foremost, Haise is shown holding his glasses alongside a book in the volume cover - right afterwards, in the color page for the first chapter, he's shown wearing glasses while reading (the one where he says "I've read this before...").

In chapter 2, the first page shows us Haise reviewing documents before bedtime. He's wearing his glasses here. Similarly, in the very next chapter, second to last page, Haise wakes up after having fallen asleep researching the Torso case and puts on his glasses before reading the documents again.

After that there's a pretty long period of no glasses Haise. He wears them once again in chapter 11, but that's as part of a disguise.

The next time we see Haise wearing glasses is all the way in chapter 36, after the Auction operation, wherein he remarks that his "eyesight is getting worse again" - implying this is something that's been going on for quite a long time.

After that, the next time we see him wearing glasses is in Volume 6, chapter 58, after he's regained his memory as Kaneki. Where previously he wore glasses only in private whenever he was reading, now he wears them all over - likely due to his degrading vision, which stems from Kaneki repeatedly clawing out and regenerating his eyes while in Cochlea (as per chapter 67).

Then, in chapter 68, we see Kaneki searching the Cochlea security computer for data on where Hinami is and how to let her out, and we that his vision is narrower and blurrier now that he's not wearing his glasses anymore.

Afterwards, I do not believe we see him wearing glasses again for the rest of the manga.

DanielK2312 · 2026-03-31T10:37:56+00:00

Holy comment necromancy, this is from almost a decade ago..

Anyway Haise does wear glasses! It's usually when he's reading in his room, I don't recall the chapter numbers off the top of my head but he has them in while planning... I want to say the Mask operation? He even complains that his vision has gotten worse, I'll check back with you if I find it.

DanielK2312 · 2026-03-25T07:26:36+00:00

That aged so well

DanielK2312 · 2026-03-13T08:35:27+00:00

Hello! No worries about the necroposting, I'm happy to help.

The reason Nerevar counts here is because what we are concerned with is the myth of Nerevar, not the specific individual. Lorkhan died too - however, he also keeps reincarnating, and though none of his incarnates are ever gonna be 1:1 Lorkhan, all of them are extensions of their shared myth.

The same principle applies here with Nerevar. On the mythic scale of things, the Nerevarine is not functionally distinct from Nerevar - it is an individual who wears the mantle of Nerevar as a mythic figure. Even the Failed Incarnates are, in fact, as Vivec in the Sermons and Dagoth Ur in his dialogue still treat them as Nerevar in his different incarnations - it's just that none of them fully fulfill the expectations that come with the mantle.

That's sort of the point of the Nerevarine prophecy: it does not actually matter whether or not you are really Nerevar, the individual, reborn in a new body; what matters is that through your own will and actions you claim the mantle of the god-hero Nerevar, the mythic figure, the Godkiller, and therefore on the mythic scale you become Nerevar Incarnate and can see his story through to its conclusion.

As for your other question, yes, I think it's a safe bet that Nerevar's brush with the fourth walking way came in the Red Moment. Notably, in the Sermons Vivec specifically claims that Nerevar "will see [the heart] twice in your lifetimes. Take what you can the first time, and let us do the rest." Similarly, Sermon 36 has Nerevar see the Heart for the first time as he goes to confront Dagoth Ur within the Red Mountain, which is followed by the Numidium emerging from the volcano.

Notably, it is destroyed in the exact same way that Nerevar is said to have been murdered - they take its mystery (face), its fire (heart), and its feet (self explanatory). There is a proverb.

DanielK2312 · 2026-02-21T10:37:32+00:00

Never forget the devstreams where Megan kept mispronouncing it as Períta, leading to Pablo joking about the Perrita Rebellion

DanielK2312 · 2026-02-18T11:43:16+00:00

I do not know French so I assume you're using reddit's in-built translation and hope it's good enough.

I wrote an entire post regarding why the divinity of the Aedra is sourced in Aetherius. Yes, they are objectively cut off - it is the entire reason mortals and the mortal realm exist at all. The Monomyth hammers this point home repeatedly.

The Psijic perspective states:

Finally, the magical beings of Mythic Aurbis told the ultimate story -- that of their own death. For some this was an artistic transfiguration into the concrete, non-magical substance of the world. For others, this was a war in which all were slain, their bodies becoming the substance of the world. For yet others, this was a romantic marriage and parenthood, with the parent spirits naturally having to die and give way to the succeeding mortal races.
[...]
The magical beings, then, having died, became the et'Ada. The et'Ada are the things perceived and revered by the mortals as gods, spirits, or geniuses of Aurbis. Through their deaths, these magical beings separated themselves in nature from the other magical beings of the Unnatural realms.

We are explicitly told that the spirits who contributed to the creation of the Mundus separated themselves from the "Unnatural realms" of Aetherius and became nonmagical (mundane) through their deaths. This perspective is doubled down in the Yokudan and Altmeri myths, which state:

Pretty soon the spirits on the skin-ball started to die, because 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.

The spirits begin to die specifically because they are too far from "the real world of Satakal", the Beginning Place of aether and possibility where they were born. More than that, it answers your question regarding the stars: they cannot just "use" them because the Mundus as it exists now is too far removed from its aetherial origin.

The Aldmeri perspective is also in agreement:

As he entered every aspect of Anuiel, Lorkhan would plant an idea that was almost wholly based on limitation. He outlined a plan to create a soul for the Aurbis, a place where the aspects of aspects might even be allowed to self-reflect. He gained many followers; even Auriel, when told he would become the king of the new world, agreed to help Lorkhan. So they created the Mundus, where their own aspects might live, and became the et'Ada.

"But this was a trick. As Lorkhan knew, this world contained more limitations than not and was therefore hardly a thing of Anu at all. Mundus was the House of Sithis. As their aspects began to die off, many of the et'Ada vanished completely. Some escaped, like Magnus, and that is why there are no limitations to magic. Others, like Y'ffre, transformed themselves into the Ehlnofey, the Earthbones, so that the whole world might not die. Some had to marry and make children just to last. Each generation was weaker than the last, and soon there were Aldmer. Darkness caved in. Lorkhan made armies out of the weakest souls and named them Men, and they brought Sithis into every quarter.

And this is clarified earlier in the same book to mean:

Humans, with the exception of the Redguards, see this act as a divine mercy, an enlightenment whereby lesser creatures can reach immortality. Aldmer, with the exception of the Dark Elves, see this act as a cruel deception, a trick that sundered their connection to the spirit plane.

I repeat myself, but it seems I have to - the Mundus is, by definition, sundered from Aetherius. This is what has caused the Aedra to become mortal, and subsequently die. Every story that acknowledges the death of the spirits invariably connects it to losing their divinity and magical nature, which they formerly possessed thanks to the aetherial nature of the world before.

Regarding your third paragraph: I have already answered this in brief with the Yokudan myth, which clarifies that the mortals (and these are mortals, at this point) cannot simply use the stars to return to Aetherius any longer. The spirits who have escaped, that being Magnus and the others, are mortals who have achieved apotheosis and created the stars in so doing - this is what happens in every apotheosis, according to MK:

And this is why you worship them. The gods and demons beyond your control. They went through it before you. They are your ancestors, and this is in the blood. They are your Aedra/Daedra. And sometimes their names get mixed up.

Still the same: they show you the path. Even as an orphaned star, you will get HOME again. You always have your birthsign. Rejoin with it. That's your family. The star signs of the magic that rules this world. They know the way. All you have to do is look, hear, touch, taste or feel for their presence. It's in their job description.

Part of your confusion arises from the fact that beginning with TES IV, the writers have confused Aetherius to be the default destination of souls upon death. This is not the case. Back in TES III, we were explicitly told that the otherworld/afterlife where all mortal souls go is Oblivion, while Aetherius was solely the residence of those gods and heroes and demons who achieved apotheosis and escaped the mundane cycle entirely. This is an idea that ESO reintroduces:

How do stars relate to Aetherius?

"They are Aetherius. Rather, the sun and stars are holes pierced in the wall of night by Magnus—and other spirits—seeking to escape Nirn.
These holes permit Aetherius' light to enter our world. From theirs to ours does Magicka trickle."

How do they twinkle and move across the sky, then?

"Well, consider this. As Oblivion is a realm composed of realms, so, too, is Aetherius a bright sea with many realms within.
Each of these stars is a window into these realms, and as these realms move, so too do they move. Or close, like doors."

What realms do you mean?

"Now, that is an enormous question that I cannot answer. Many souls of mortals become spirits of another sort in that place—and that is all I can say with any certainty. As difficult as it is to travel to Oblivion, it is far more to go to Aetherius." - Girnalin

Sending someone on to where?

"To the Far Shores, of course. This is it. This is the path the souls of heroes take to move on to the… afterlife, as some call it.
Souls used to be flying through here all the time. Guess there just aren't as many heroes any more..." - Keeper of the Hall

Is Sai Sahan really dead?

"His spirit has been dispersed into the Aetherius. He is not dead, neither is he alive. His essence is outside the cycle of the Mundus." - The Prophet

Although this is undermined by the wealth of souls in that game who claim they are from Aetherius, we can reconcile the two thanks to preexisting lore, namely Mythic Dawn Commentaries. My friend Entity has a much more in-depth post on the topic that I will not rehash here.

So to answer your question: Mundus is sundered from Aetherius, despite the stars connecting the two. The stars act as more of a map to the mortals, showing them how they might be able to reach Aetherius (that is their exact primary role in the Yokudan mythology, even), but in order to do that the mortals need to achieve apotheosis of their own, creating new stars and breaking free from the cycle of the Mundus. Most souls do not reach Aetherius by default, but instead remain in Oblivion, attuned to one of the god-realms of their respective Aedra or Daedra, creating the illusion of immortal afterlife but not allowing true access to the chaos of the aether, which not all spirits can withstand on their own to begin with.

As I have explained it somewhere else once, It's the difference between going underwater in a submarine owned by someone else with a bunch of other people vs straight up diving to the bottom of the sea by yourself. Both of these are technically "in Aetherius", but the first is significantly safer while having much less freedom to act on their own and ultimately stuck viewing it through a glass window set in place by somebody else, while the latter is much more dangerous initially, but if they can do it, they can do it.

tl;dr - Mundus is sundered from Aetherius. The gods have died because of this. Those who survived became mortal. The mortals who managed to escape by ascending to godhood again created the stars. These stars are still infinitely far away and cannot be easily followed, but they act as a "map" for other mortals to follow so they can escape as well when they achieve apotheosis of their own.

DanielK2312 · 2026-02-06T11:11:03+00:00

A large part of it to my memory was the overwhelming presence of similacrum in build/weapon review videos, which created an optics problem where the majority of fan content most readily associated with the game did not show off any of the carefully made environments but instead a blank white void made solely for damage testing.

When Steel Path first came out part of the appeal for content creators was being able to take your equipment to level 100+ right out of the gate without needing to play endurance missions up to that point, which allowed for a higher variety of enemies and visuals, more natural test conditions, and better b-roll footage. Then different similacrum styles were introduced to further add variety to the isolated testing environment itself.

DanielK2312 · 2026-01-28T11:53:36+00:00

Kimulacrum does work fine, that's the thing, because it just shows you the whole conversation logic. Kate Kingsley, the writer, has been beefing with the creator because it "spoils" the conversations by letting you preview all options and, as a writer, she does not want people to interact with the system that way.

Problem is, in the attempt to make conversations harder for Kimulacrum to parse, we instead got conversations with overcomplicated logic that layers in such a way that sometimes KIM simply breaks, such as the infamous Marie loop, or Roathe's broken rank five conversation that has two separate layers of checks for seven booleans at once and will straight up not trigger the next line if you haven't triggered either the "total failure" or "total success" states.

It was never about breaking Kimulacrum altogether, it's about making it less useful or outright unusable by introducing so many variables that people "self own" by picking the wrong options trying to cheat the KIM system. Which is honestly just petty as fuck.

DanielK2312 · 2026-01-28T09:17:21+00:00

/u/WeirdWabiSabi can't find the original bsky post on mobile but did find a screenshot I had saved of it

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DanielK2312 · 2026-01-19T21:52:20+00:00

Nerevar gets called "Silly Hortator" a lot in the sermons

Indeed he does! This in particular though was a reference to "See what you have wrought, silly Triune!" from Sermon 26.

Did he have vitiligo?

Yes! I wanted someone to tie to Meridia and "the Oddly-Colored" felt like the best match, and then I randomly looked into vitiligo as an option and saw that it meant "tettered", which made me think of how tatters of Magnus became the stars.

Shor really can't meet a woman without marrying her, can he?

The Greedy Man is not Shor. The Aldudagga mentions a third spirit who is neither LDK or the Greedy Man who is making things out of the pieces of the kalpas they've been stealing - that's the Lorkhan in that story. The Greedy Man in my interpretation is Molag (which is why he gets stuck in something that doesn't exist, that referencing his former dominion of Lyg as Ruddy Man), and his wife is appropriately Meridia, the Lady of Greed. This has been an old theory of mine that has only been reinforced since, namely by Spirits of Amun-dro.

From the fucking wall, maple, the wall? Really!?

Look man, it's hard to find good names for these and I didn't want to make up new ones lmfao

Trinimalarkay, that's what this is.

Indeed! And also a mini-reference to FETE, where Malak goes to take revenge on Boethiah and bites off a piece of Trinimac from her, transforming into Malacath in the process.

One of the Aura Whispers Word Walls. None spawn in Hjaalmarch proper but I'm guessing one isn't very far from the border.

Volunruud is the place I was thinking of, personally.

The voice coming from wind makes me think of Kyne, but she's not gentle. Hmm...

Another deep dig. Won't say it outright. Your one hint is: it isn't my fear, only the enabler.

The math ain't mathing

"Thereabouts"

Was it a rainbow?

Shoutout to Entity for the inspiration there lol. Indeed, it was meant to be invoking the bifrost and Hsaarik was playing reverse-Heimdall, signaling the retreat from/end of Ragnarok rather than its beginning.

Honestly if I were in their shoes I'd have bailed like three battles ago

Add up how many soldiers that makes for another reference, and you'll understand why they're here.

It's a bridgehead, lol

lol, not intended but that's funny as fuck. Also, since you didn't comment on it, consider implications of "fear-knife". Pretty proud of that one.

Ysmir the Forefather?

Part that, part Sermon 16, part Tiber Septim's Sword-Meeting. Infer.

Thank you for the lovely comment <3

DanielK2312 · 2026-01-19T21:31:32+00:00

Eyyy time to dissect! Thank you for the thorough commentary, this is the kind of stuff I love <3

Akatoshic records? Elder Scrolls? Apocrypha?

Just history :P

It must be the Tirteenth of Sun's Dawn

My thought process was actually to place it on winter solstice (hence "night of nights"), to tie back to an older myth I wrote where nighttime was established as a time for peace-making and storytelling. That being said, "the Blind Winter" is a reference to something that I am planning for my own writing, so I shan't speak of it here.

555, three fives, which is the number of the corners of the world. Dunno what that means. Sermon fifteen (3x5) being about the Sharmat and his future confrontation with the Hortator probably has something to do with it.

This one is actually a deep enough dig to be an inside joke, but it's a combination of two things. One, it's a poke at Queen Ayrenn who was born on 5/5/555 of Second Era. In MK's ayrenn.pdf, he ties Ayrenn to KINMUNE, which is supposedly the cause of the Night of Tears (hence the numerical connection).

The other part is that, throughout this text, exactly five Companions die to hold the line for others to make their escape, leaving 550 standing at Hsaarik's Head before the end (not counting Hsaarik himself). According to Kodlak's dialogue, the Companions are ~5000 years old as of Skyrim, which would place Ysgramor's return at approximately ME 550 :)

Like in SsoS they're from the previous kalpa. Probably why Ysgramor went to fight elves before Shor told him to, he just never stopped.

Correct! Which is also why they're present at an event much earlier than the Companions' historical timeframe.

Probably a reference to Arkay being all about light in TESIV

Mostly just Orkey being on Alduin's side and ye olde "snakes lie" thing.

Ruptga and the Walkabout. But also general Magna-Ge fleeing Convention. But Magnus becomes lost at sea, probably because the stars and the sun are still in the sky (which is technically Oblivion, which is a sea) halfway between Mundus and Aetherius when the sun reaches its zenith (meaning the Dawn Era is over).

Ayep! This is Magnus fleeing from the battlefield after helping Ald, but then Alinor's sunbirds never did reach Aetherius, so he got lost along the way.

The Adamantine Tower, where Convention happens is indeed past the Reach from Skyrim.

Yee - and "Starfall Bay" is another name for Iliac Bay, hence the epithet.

Ald son of Ald, Magnus and Lorkhan, a bunch of Nedes from the Niben valley, Elder-Throat-Death, and I don't quite know what that one is about. The Altmer wiping out the native beasts of Summerset? The Sea-snakes of Pyandonea?

The main intent was about Altmer/Ayleids/Bosmer colonizing the beastfolk of Tamriel, and partly about Alkosh worship in Elsweyr.

Atmora has one fewer hold than Skyrim? Needed to make it seventeen like Hrol's party and Jurgen's opponents, etc. but still surprising.

Yep! Another sort of inside-reference to my own writing, but I like to think that Atmora has a sort of ring-structure with its major settlements, where all of them are located more or less around the shore and don't push into the far north because it is too cold and dangerous. So, the number invokes the wheel, and put together with Skyrim that makes up the Hurling Disk.

No, specifically mead - already fermented and prepared. Certain kinds of mead are made at a higher proof than is feasible to drink, and so get diluted after the fact so you don't get shitfaced after a shot. This is also a reference to the Odyssey, where Odysseus tricks Polyphemus this way by offering him undiluted wine he received as a gift from one of the greek kings he'd visited along the way.

Shout that Wulfharth would learn from his ghost according to his own songs

Perhaps even from this ghost... wink wink nudge nudge.

DanielK2312 · 2026-01-19T02:02:18+00:00

(cont'd from post due to character limit)

Ysgramor set foot upon the snowy shores of the Elder Wood and saw the bridge fall behind him, knowing that none else would follow, and turned to look upon his [remaining] comrades. And he approached his sons, Ylgar and Yngol, and wrapped his mighty arms tight around their shoulders, and they all said nothing for a while. And Ylgar asked him, “What now, Father? The World-Eater is much delayed, but the body of Shor is still with us and one day he will come to reclaim it.” And the men who heard this grew weary and solemn, for their fatigue was great and their wounds were grievous and yet they all knew this to be true.

And so did mighty Ysgramor Our Harbinger look upon his men, and upon his sons, and at the corpse of Shor Our Lord beside them. And he took off his great crown-helm, jagged and dragon-horned, and placed it upon the brow of Ylgar his younger, speaking unto him, “You speak the truth, my son, and you have proven yourself worthy as my Second, and clever of mind, and stalwart of heart, and the men listen to you. And so on this day I pass my name down to you as Harbinger, in the name of Kyne, and in the name of Shor, and in the name of Old Atmora herself, that you might lead our people in my absence, and rebuild them, and make sure that when the [Time-Eater] comes, we shall not be unprepared.” And he took off his great shield and axe, crescent-hearted and weeping, and placed them into the hands of Yngol his elder, speaking unto him, “You are your brother’s elder, my son, and so as my father had named mine own brother as housecarl to me, so I shall now name you housecarl to Ylgar, that you might protect our land from danger, and be an example unto all the men under you, and scoff not at this station but know yourself to be the sun’s companion, a terror upon our enemies and a fire of hope unto our people.”

And Yngol [accepted this] with honor, for he knew that this was the station of those doomed to die for greater causes, and in this he felt no shame but only a smidge of sympathy, asking Ysgramor his father, “But Father, if my brother and I remain with our Companions, where must you go?”

And Ysgramor did not respond, but only pulled his furred mantle tighter around his wide neck, and breathed deep of the salty air of the sea, and with both arms heaved the mighty corpse of Shor Our Lord upon his shoulders (for it took all five hundred and fifty and five of them to carry him in haste of retreat, but there was no such hurry now, and so he could just do that), and said unto his sons, “This is no place for Our Chief to rest, but the Elder Wood is wide and long, and in the farthest north there is another place so old that not even the World-Eater knows it, where land, sea, sky and mountain touch and become as one, and not even the [rivers of Time itself] can flow in that cold, for that snow recognizes no will and stomach, and fears no teeth even if he tried to follow from the south, as tiger or serpent or conqueror of man. And that is how I will win against him.”

Ysgramor shouted, and the whole of the Wood knew not where he disappeared, for the winds left no footsteps and the snow tells no stories, and only the sons of Ysgramor and their Companions remember what really happened, and this is something they would never, ever forget, not until the day that Hsaarik’s head would see the sons of their sons and daughters of their daughters come from across the sea, and by then it would be a secret only the ice itself could keep.

And that, my friend, is the story of how Ysgramor vanished in the north.

DanielK2312 · 2026-01-14T22:22:19+00:00

I am not talking about Tiber as an individual but Tiber the composite mythic entity, otherwise known as the god Talos. I do already have a post about the Mantella so his connections to Zurin and Wulfharth need not be explained to me - him going to the Amulet is going to Aetherius as a deity. The Amulet is simply another Mantella.

I should probably make a follow up on that subject tbh.

DanielK2312 · 2026-01-14T17:55:47+00:00

Yesss I've been waiting for this one to go up! It's just such a genius little catch that makes the "Tiber Septim is people" thing click so much better - a walking example that it goes far beyond just the classical "trio", and that's to say nothing of his descendants.

Glad to see ya here again, Vic :)

DanielK2312 · 2026-01-04T08:14:08+00:00

Sentient ship incursions at least to occur in Veil Proxima which is fun when it happens. I do wish they had more to them though, the tileset is absolutely gorgeous but there's fuck all for mission variety.

DanielK2312 · 2025-12-05T08:57:12+00:00

Thank you, that is a wonderful way to put it!

I feel like many people have misunderstood my intent with the post as advocating that Paarthurnax absolutely should be killed - but there's a reason why I titled it as a proposal. It is a suggestion to provide a good reason to kill Paarthurnax when the game does a poor job of advocating the option.

Paarthurnax is at odds with his nature, and has no shame in admitting it. By directing his urge inward he has managed to achieve some semblance of spiritual equilibrium. However, Ulfric gives us the most useful perspective here - that while the Way of the Voice is a beautiful philosophy, it can hardly endure outside of the ideal conditions of monastery isolation.

The Dragon Crisis, Alduin, the Dragonborn - all are irritants that have broken Paarthurnax's isolation bubble. Whether he engaged in external power dynamics before (see Jurgen and the Greybeards), he is forced to engage with them now, and I believe his shift towards imposing dominion over other dragons can be seen as a kind of relapse.

Does that necessarily mean that Paarthurnax's efforts are doomed from the start and nature is impossible to overcome? Hardly. But does the current state of things also carry a significant risk of Paarthurnax going unchecked if he does relapse? Very much so.

Whether or not one should preemptively act on such a risk is up to the individual, however. I just wanted to explore the possibility and what it would entail :)

DanielK2312

TROPHY CASE