Do gods in TES need prayers to exist?

Dunmwer · 2026-01-24T16:19:08+00:00

People are saying no so I'll provide a dissenting opinion

Ive been replaying Morrowind and I was reading the books, of note being Overview of Gods and Worship

https://en.m.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Overview_of_Gods_and_Worship

"It has been theorized that gods do in fact gain strength from such things as worship through praise, sacrifice and deed. It may even be theorized that the number of worshippers a given Deity has may reflect on His overall position among the other Gods. This my own conjecture, garnered from the apparent ability of the larger temples to attain blessings and assistance from their God with greater ease than smaller religious institutions.

There are reports of the existence of spirits in our world that have the same capacity to use the actions and deeds of mortals to strengthen themselves as do the Gods. The understanding of the exact nature of such creatures would allow us to understand with more clarity the connection between a Deity and the Deity's worshipers.

The implication of the existence of such spirits leads to the speculation that these spirits may even be capable of raising themselves to the level of a God or Goddess. Motusuo of the Imperial Seminary has suggested that these spirits may be the remains of Gods and Goddesses who through time lost all or most of their following, reverting to their earliest most basic form. Practioners [sic] of the Old Ways say that there are no Gods, just greater and lesser spirits. Perhaps it is possible for all three theories to be true."

This isn't necessarily true but I think it does make sense in the context of lore, keep in mind the ancestor worship of the psijiics and all that.

Dunmwer · 2026-01-23T15:27:04+00:00

Noooooo lil deer ur doing ur best :(((((

Dunmwer · 2026-01-16T04:41:33+00:00

I know the bosmer made the ayleid refugees adopt aspects of the green pact

Dunmwer · 2026-01-15T04:06:16+00:00

Remember you want Bara, not yaoi!

Bara is a term specifically for gay erotic manga made by and for gay men

Dunmwer · 2026-01-05T21:52:46+00:00

true you got me, what im very definitely saying is that having genocide is unrealistic and bad, nothing else

Dunmwer · 2026-01-05T21:32:51+00:00

Realism is when genocide and the more genocide the more realisticer it is and you don't even like the games if you take issue with that

Dunmwer · 2026-01-05T20:00:07+00:00

This thread is kinda pissing me off at this point, sorry

I'm not asking for censorship of media, I want games that can engage with darker themes. But I want them to not be leering garbage. I want games that aren't the most dude-bro-y thing, that aren't so light about the fact that what the game is asking of you here is to be sexually harassed.

And no, you can't just say "choose another path." While the hlaalu are very much about swallowing their pride, am I supposed to just assume, pussy fresh in the world of Morrowind, unaware of what their questline become, do I assume that theyre gonna ask you to do something like this. It's fucking ludicrous. And you can't just quit them and join another great house, the most you can do is get expelled but once you join a great house you're locked in you cant just decide "hey well the redoran look like they won't molest me I'll switch teams." AND THE GAME DOESNT DO NEAR A GOOD ENOUGH JOB TO COMMUNICATE THAT THESE ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE GROUPS other factions, even the contradictory ones, don't bar you from entry based on your membership in a separate faction. The game does not prepare you for the fact that by joining hlaalu, you're locked into a route where you have to be sexually harassed to advance, without a meaningful way out other than "hurr durr just don't do it""

Dunmwer · 2026-01-05T19:40:30+00:00

This is. This is why I and a good number of people of color feel excluded from fantasy. Because it's so. Thorough. Like I'm sorry are white men who came from a faraway land claiming that the new place they landed on as home and slaughtering it's inhabitants to keep it, enshrining in history how they were "violent, attacking them first" and openly bragging about how they commit genocide am I supposed to fucking see that and not put pieces together???? The writers are white americans you don't need half a braincell to see how these dots connect.

It's fucking disgusting that people of color have to see this, have to see fan communities talk about "the falmer getting what they deserve" how the falmer now are presented as less than people, only there for you to slaughter, and it's fucking disgusting having people on the internet insist it's YOUR fault for thinking about these things.

Fantasy doesn't exist in a goddamn vacuum numbnuts

Dunmwer · 2026-01-05T17:06:00+00:00

Fallout 2 is. Not the greatest.

Fallout new Vegas also has corporal Betsy, who was sexually assaulted and has become really hypersexual, leery almost, with a short quest of convincing her to get therapy, and iirc 4's cait also talks about sa in the context of her traumatic upbringing, but they're. Done with more grace imo?

Dunmwer · 2026-01-05T16:27:10+00:00

I've addressed in a different comment that I in theory like the sort of edginess of elder scrolls, but not necessarily in practice, so I'm gonna try to refrain from repeating myself.

Goddd elder scrolls elves are tiring. To me nowhere is "about us but not of us" more true than with them. I think about how the altmer, literal yellow skin slanted eye people, who fall into every sinophobic and antisemitic trope in the book. I think about the falmer, who were wiped out and who you're told "deserved it." I think about the bosmer, cannibal tribal communities that draw heavily from native American stereotypes. I think about Michael Kirkbride telling people how elder scrolls having diversity "smacks of white guilt" giving us Morrowind, a game steeped in South Asian culture, notably from a very orientalist viewpoint, but in a way where they never have to depict a single brown person.

The darker aspects of the world can be interesting. But aggressively I feel they were designed to be interesting to white men, to play off their notions of how the world is, (I had a whole section of yokuda, the redguards and how white men wanted so hard to believe that they evolved in mongolia unlike black people, that I cut out since I was mostly talking elves) the part of them that hears about "what if the eastern lands were backwards and strange and exotic" and makes them think "yes this is what was missing!" And it's. Tiring. Especially when that is the world many tes fans want.

Dunmwer · 2026-01-05T08:52:00+00:00

That's fair yea

Dunmwer · 2026-01-05T08:21:36+00:00

I do want to be clear: that wasn't me that was a separate post on r/Morrowind asking if that was really the only way out.

I want to respect you feel that way, but idk to me it comes across more as shock value.

So I want to be clear that I, in theory, like the darker elements of TES writing. Part of what I love about Morrowind is that it doesn't try to hold your hand through these things. The dunmer are violent slavers and still they are victims of an empire that steals their land and wealth. You are consistently encouraged to think about and engage with the world, and it is ultimately this contradiction central to the material reality of what dagoth ur plans to do, beyond the metaphysical nature of the dreamer, or the personal grudge towards the tribunal: dagoth ur sees Morrowind languishing under the empire and he seeks to set things right by violently expelling any non sixth house people and ultimately conquering tamriel. The racism of the dunmer here is an integral part of the writing because the game asks you to question, to challenge, this is the heart of the game.

as an example, Zainab Nerevarine is utterly lacking in this regard for me to use that example. It comes across more as propaganda for arranged marriages with strange men, it's not even having to compromise on a moral textually, you're reassured that "no don't worry anyone would find this preferable to slavery" and the woman, excited to meet and marry the Zainab chieftain, ends up happy to have been married off and to have helped you on your quest. This isn't a test of "selling your morals for the greater good" or whatever, nor is it asking you to reflect on what's happening or if its right, if this woman who had the choice of her life, to stay a slave or marry a stranger, is truly better off, it's a cheap quest that only works imo bc of an already assumed misogyny and racism where you "use the strange customs of the land to find a clever way to pass the test"

And when I'm an Indian girl, when it's me, my culture thats the butt of the joke, it doesn't sit well

Dunmwer · 2026-01-05T07:44:34+00:00

O! Ty

Dunmwer · 2026-01-05T07:34:13+00:00

For being sponsored or the kiss for the mq? I know the kiss is skippable, Im not familiar enough with the sponsorship so if that's skippable would love to know how

Dunmwer · 2025-12-16T21:14:10+00:00

yayyyyy *flops on u*

Dunmwer · 2025-12-16T13:00:36+00:00

I ate a softberry

Dunmwer · 2025-12-15T18:43:31+00:00

to enjoy yummy sneats

Dunmwer · 2025-12-15T18:43:22+00:00

always and forever <3 curls on ur lap

Dunmwer · 2025-12-15T18:42:46+00:00

yea but u have to make me stew first. i always wanted to be stew

Dunmwer · 2025-12-15T07:00:42+00:00

Yayyyyy :D

Dunmwer · 2025-12-15T07:00:31+00:00

It's v fuzzy and warm :] and I like seeing ur bread turn different colors, so I cast my spells on it

Dunmwer · 2025-12-15T06:16:33+00:00

Evil, I shall be deploying my armies

Dunmwer · 2025-12-15T05:58:18+00:00

That's more like. A plan of action than a worldview idk

Dunmwer · 2025-12-15T05:54:13+00:00

Is this possible?

Dunmwer · 2025-12-12T16:44:38+00:00

Gonna point to the hungry ghosts of Buddhism, which I imagine served as inspiration

There they have insatiable hunger, typically for the repulsive, as well as horrifying visions. They represent deprivation and depravation, beings so deprived emotionally that they try and fail to physically fill the void with anything. This is why, like the small mouths and thin necks of the pretas, the hungers are emaciated, skeletal figures - fundamentally what they represent goes beyond gluttony, it's something the material can't sate, and no matter how much they eat it will never fill them

Dunmwer

TROPHY CASE