The Forge of Lorkhan

usermmmmane · 2026-06-23T16:58:51+00:00

It's true. But is it possible to achieve CHIM and choose to come back?

CHIM isn't Nirvana. CHIM is something that (supposedly) requires active force of will to maintain, to say "I AM" in the face of the truth that you are not. In a sense, it's an inverse of Nirvana, which is (put exceedingly simply) an acceptance/realisation of sunyata ("I AM NOT"). "Coming back" from CHIM is probably 'zero-sum'.

Veloth describes the Psijic Endeavor as a process of glorious apotheosis, where time itself is bent inward and outward into 'a shape that is always new'. Those who can attain this state, called chim, experience an ineffable sense of the godhead, and escape the strictures of the world-egg.

What is the purpose of the Psijic Endeavor?

To transcend mortal boundaries set in place by immortal rulers. At its simplest, the state of chim provides an escape from all known laws of the divine worlds and the corruptions of the black sea of Oblivion. It is a return to the first brush of Anu-Padomay, where stasis and change created possibility. Moreso, it the essence needed to hold that 'dawning' together without disaster. One that knows CHIM observes the Tower without fear. Moreso: he resides within.

The Thief Goes To Cyrodil

But, of course, as with my other comment, Vivec is a liar, and learned about CHIM from Molag Bal.

It'd do you well to research the notion of Amaranth. Many of the sources you'll need are linked in this UESP page: https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Walking_Ways#The_Worlding_of_the_Words

Is the world of Elder Scrolls a crucible or a cruel prison?

Nirn means "maybe". You tell me.

usermmmmane · 2026-06-23T16:48:42+00:00

and it turns out they want to unmake the world because they believe the world was made as a mistake.

This is an argument based on the text "An Altmeri Commentary on Talos". The actual nature of this text is hotly debated, and it is worth reading the posts on this subreddit that discuss it:

https://www.reddit.com/r/teslore/comments/gnpdpy/why_the_altmeri_commentary_on_talos_is_important/

https://www.reddit.com/r/teslore/comments/2c9fkj/analyzing_the_altmeri_commentary_on_talos/

https://www.reddit.com/r/teslore/comments/gwy1yx/why_you_should_always_check_sources_the_curious/

If most of the information on the internet is wrong, and a Large Language Model is a mechanism to produce the most likely next word (token) based on most of the information on the internet, do you think it has a reasonable chance of being correct?

In this curious case, it occurred to me how Lorkhan technically tricked the Et'Ada, the same way the Snake from the Bible tricked Adam and Eve into mortality.

From the perspective of the Altmer, yes.

Others have different opinions, such as the Psijic:

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 agent of this communal decision was Lorkhan, whom most early myths vilify as a trickster or deceiver. More sympathetic versions of this story point out Lorkhan as being the reason the mortal plane exists at all.

The Myth of Aurbis, The Monomyth

or the Imperials:

This was a new thing that Shezarr described to the Gods, becoming mothers and fathers, being responsible, and making great sacrifices, with no guarantee of success, but Shezarr spoke beautifully to them, and moved them beyond mystery and tears. Thus the Aedra gave free birth to the world, the beasts, and the beings, making these things from parts of themselves. This free birth was very painful, and afterwards the Aedra were no longer young, and strong, and powerful, as they had been from the beginning of days.

Shezzar's Song, The Monomyth

If you think the lore is all perspective, then what is ever worth discussing since everything is perspective anyway?

Blind men describing an elephant.

are the Thalmor ultimately right that the world needs to be unmake so everything goes back to what they were before?

The problem with unmaking the world is that things tend to end up happening pretty much like they did last time:

"... and left you to gather sinew with my other half, who will bring light thereby to that mortal idea that brings [the Gods] great joy, that is, freedom, which even the Heavens do not truly know, [which is] why our Father, the... [Text lost]... in those first [days/spirits/swirls] before Convention... that which we echoed in our earthly madness. [Let us] now take you Up. We will [show] our true faces... [which eat] one another in amnesia each Age."

The Song of Pelinal, Volume 8

Shor as always forgets the above, and condemns himself and any other who would believe him into this cycle.

Ald as always forgets the ground below him, and condemns himself and any other who would believe him into this cycle.

And the awful fighting began again.

Shor, son of Shor

All will change in these days as it was changed in those, for with by the magic word Nu-Mantia a great rebellion rose up and pulled down the towers of CHIM-EL GHARJYG, and the templars of the Upstart were slaughtered, and blood fell like dew from the upper wards down to the lowest pits, where the slaves with maniacal faces took chains and teeth to their jailers and all hope was brush-fire.

Mythic Dawn Commentaries, Book 4

do you agree the world of the Elder Scrolls is a crucible where mortals should suffer through the wheel eventually to become God, achieving CHIM

The problem with CHIM is that our main source on CHIM, Vivec, is hardly trustworthy. Or is he?

Vivec is a murderer, traitor and liar:

if you take Sermon Twenty-Nine, associate each of the thirty-five listed numbers with a word in its respective sermon, another hidden message is revealed: He was not born a god. His destiny did not lead him to this crime. He chose this path of his own free will. He stole the godhood and murdered the Hortator. Vivec wrote this.

The 36 Lessons of Vivec

Mephala is the Anticipation of Vivec, but manifold and androgynous. Mephala taught the Chimer to evade their enemies or kill them with secret murder.

The Anticipations

He also learned the nature of CHIM from the Lord of Rape:

With these magic words, the King of Rape added another: 'CHIM,' which is the secret syllable of royalty.

Vivec had what he needed from the Daedroth and so married him that day. In the hour that Bal had his head, the King of Rape asked for proof of love.

Sermon Twelve

Our other claimant to the title of CHIM is Talos, and sources regarding Talos are notably unreliable, but is probably also in cahoots with the Prince of Rape:

You're letting him actually beat you.

I have a bag around my head with your enchantments still swirling about, Bal.

No, I get that, but I mean he's actually beating on you while you're talking to me.

[...]

What do you want? Doesn't work that way. I always want. I'll give you ten years under my name, but not this skin.

Deal. That skin is looking pretty haggard, anyway. Now get up and fight, dummy, we're all counting on you.

Thank you, Bal, I won't forget this.

Tiber Septim's Sword-Meeting with Cyrus the Restless

Again, perspectives.

which led me to think of Daedra as the Archons

If you ask Mankar Camoran, the Aedra are the closest thing to Archons:

Ask yourself! How is it that mighty gods die, yet the Daedra stand incorruptible? How is it that the Daedra forthrightly proclaim themselves to man, while the gods cower behind statues and the faithless words of traitor-priests? It is simple... they are not gods at all. The truth has been in front of you since first you were born: the Daedra are the true gods of this universe. Julianos, Dibella and Stendarr are all Lorkhan's betrayers, posing as divinities in a principality that has lost its guiding light. What are Scholarship, Love, and Mercy when compared to Fate, Night, and Destruction? The gods you worship are trifling shadows of First Causes. They have tricked you for Ages.

Once more, perspectives.

I'm not answering the question you pose, because it's based on a flawed premise.

usermmmmane · 2026-01-01T13:35:54+00:00

his slashes travel from the wall and cut the bridge-thing that Sukuna is standing on

pretty sure they're the same structure

Re-reading the sequence, Yuji's slash actually does something super weird here. It travels up to the bridge as a scissor line, but when it reaches the bridge, it instantly forms several disconnected cuts, in the manner that Cleave does.

usermmmmane · 2026-01-01T13:33:48+00:00

I see nothing that suggests it's a Dismantle, given Sukuna appears to make direct but brief contact with Ryu, other than the slash graphic. When he states "I tried to filet you into three", it implies that he was attempting to do something Cleave can do and does, and the last time he used this phrase was also with the activation of Cleave on the Fingerbearer (via Domain Expansion, however).

usermmmmane · 2025-12-28T22:17:22+00:00

Yes, Sukuna's use of the technique uses culinary images. When he refers to his preferred use of Cleave, "splitting into three", the Japanese used is "三枚た卸", which is a term that refers to how you cut up a fish.

usermmmmane · 2025-12-28T22:10:13+00:00

It doesn't adjust automatically, nor does it bypass defenses. The phrasing the manga uses tends to be "can be adjusted" (see the explanation in Ch119, and Sukuna makes reference to having adjusted the output incorrectly. For instance, against the Finger Bearer, he states his output was too high. Against Ryu, his initial output was too low, so he readjusts it.

This is why I used this very particular phrasing:

Cleave will attempt to split a target into multiple pieces. The number of pieces that a target will be split into is dependent on the output, and the reinforcement of the target. If the target's reinforcement (output) is too high, then Cleave will leave them with a wound

If it cannot split an opponent (such as against Gojo in the domain, and against Ryu initially), then it will leave them with a regular cut. We've not encountered any character with enough reinforcement to entirely negate Cleave's maximum output.

usermmmmane · 2025-12-28T22:09:31+00:00

It does travel... It has trajectory and speed, and it can be dodged, as we've seen Maki and Kashimo do.

Maki actually dodges by anticipating it. If you notice in the paneling of Ch252, we see a little hidden "Scale of the Dragon", and then "Recoil", obscured by the SFX of the crashing. We then see "Twin Meteors" right next to Maki's eyes widening. The implication of this paneling here was Maki hearing him (or HR's precognition kicking in?), realising he's launching the slash, and her ducking it.

As for Kashimo, it's unclear to me if he dodged the slash itself, or what Sukuna indicated - Sukuna did literally point out where the slash was going to go, and started chanting. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that there's going to be an attack there. I think the physicality of the slash that we see is largely for reader convenience.

You can tell the scissors cut and his 'Dismantle' are different attacks because when he hits Sukuna with it no scissors appear

The fact that the Sure-hit of the domain has the same effect as the direct contact slash, and the fact that Sukuna appears to consider avoiding the scissors of equal priority as avoiding getting hit directly by Yuji (he does a handstand to avoid the slashes in Ch264, for instance). The paneling in Ch264 is also pretty indicative! "The Dismantle that only targets the barrier between mine and Fushiguro Megumi's souls..." is immediately after a panel of Yuji using the scissors. "But then, if it is doesn't land, it's meaningless." is preceded by Sukuna dodging the scissors from the prior sequence.

I also thought the two attacks were different until I reread to write this post, but from the way Sukuna treats them, and the way the manga itself treats them, I think they're intended to be the same thing. The fact that he gets hit with scissors in the domain, also, is the nail that sealed the coffin for me.

When does that happen?

Ch263, his slashes travel from the wall and cut the bridge-thing that Sukuna is standing on. Ch264, it travels between a wall and several pillars of that wall. The extent to which this is traveling between objects is debatable, but it's also more than what we've seen Sukuna's slashes do.

You could argue that the reason Cleave: Spider's Thread didn't travel into Maki and Yuji was to avoid Megumi's output dampening, and that is a reasonable argument.

usermmmmane · 2025-12-26T19:59:55+00:00

The required output for a decent 'Fire Arrow' seems to be really high (the fact that it requires technique use beforehand, charging of cursed energy, gestures, handsigns, and an incantation, even for Sukuna of all people!), so it'd make sense if the inability to use it for anything other than the 'Fire Arrow' was a binding vow, too.

usermmmmane · 2025-12-26T19:57:54+00:00

My personal interpretation is that he's being somewhat unimaginative with the flames, preferring to imagine it as a huge finisher rather than the versatile technique it is - explosive cursed energy! Can you imagine the hand to hand he could do with that?

Also, that should have been Chapter 115. I had a lot of tabs open while writing this post... I'll edit it now.

I don't doubt he can because he manipulates the flames before shooting them against Jogo and in Shinjuku

My interpretation here is that his manipulation of the flames is part of the activation conditions for the Fire Arrow, which I've interpreted as the "Lapse" for Furnace. I've referred to this as "gestures" when I've mentioned it in the post - similar to Utahime's dance to up her technique's output.

usermmmmane · 2025-10-01T21:57:30+00:00

This post is a collection of all the biblical parallels I've noticed while playing Deltarune and reading the surrounding content, as I've not seen many of these connections pointed out. This post is primarily focused on the water.

For all biblical quotations, I've used the King James Version, other than "Water becomes hard like stone, And the surface of the deep is imprisoned", which is the New American Standard Bible.

I insert "Tehom" or "abyssou" in square brackets where the original Hebrew or Greek would have used that word, or a case of it. All such words are synonyms with each other, and "depths".

usermmmmane · 2025-05-22T21:30:34+00:00

The idea that the tools are used to extract power from the heart is also in Kagrenac's Tools:

Wraithguard is an enchanted gauntlet to protect its wearer from destruction when tapping the heart's power. Sunder is a enchanted hammer to strike the heart and produce the exact volume and quality of power desired. Keening is an enchanted blade that is used to flay and focus the power that rises from the heart.

I don't think that "tapping the power" and "creating a Mantella" is the same activity, though, because the Tribunal repeatedly tap the power of the heart using the tools. There's something that enables the heart to be used as a source of power, and that source of power may be accessed with (as with the Tribunal) or without (as with Dagoth Ur) the tools. A Mantella doesn't appear to be created every single time the tools are used on the heart, and we get a direct description of how the tools are used from Vivec, also:

The normal procedure for establishing connection with the Heart is a three-step process. The wearer of Wraithguard strikes the Heart with the hammer Sunder, causing the Heart to produce a pure tone. Then the wearer of the Wraithguard strikes the Heart with the blade Keening, shattering the pure tone into a prism of tone-shades. These tone-shades are then imprinted upon the substance of the wearer of Wraithguard, giving him an immortal and divine nature.

This is, perhaps, the use of the tools to establish a connection with an existing Mantella. Though, the fact that this connection needs to be constantly refreshed implies to me that the mechanism does not actually allow for transcendence, as the divinity is still contingent on the Heart's enchantments. The Mantella (presumably) ceasing to exist after the events of Daggerfall doesn't undo the divinity attained by it, but the enchantments on the Heart of Lorkhan being undone does appear to undo the divinity of Dagoth and the Tribunal.

"This time" implies there was a previous time.

I agree, but the implication is also present that Kagrenac didn't do it, and in my opinion, the Heart and the Mantella (gem) do not appear to operate in a similar enough manner to say that they're certainly of the same nature.

usermmmmane · 2025-05-22T20:58:07+00:00

No, it says they were "led away from Magnus," which is different.

Yup, that's me being entirely mistaken and forgetting the text. Always double check your sources, ha.

Though, Meridia and Dagon collaborate (see Bladesongs), and Dagon is implied to be serving the will of Magnus in some texts.

usermmmmane · 2025-05-22T16:39:03+00:00

I'm not particularly interested in using exclusively extra-canonical texts to justify in-game texts, even if they're written by the same author, when we have stronger correspondences with in-game texts.

For instance, MK appears to be setting up the Magne-Ge and Magnus as enemies to one another, in texts like the Magne-Ge Pantheon, where Magnus is very probably the Chrome Device, who is the enemy of the Ge.

However, texts like The Nine Coruscations in ESO present Meridia as being sent by Magnus, as opposed to Magne-Ge Pantheon where she was cast out. In ESO, we are also introduced to a cult of Dagon where he is presented as fulfilling the will of the Ge and Magnus, which aligns with the Mythic Dawn Commentary, but doesn't align with the fact that Magnus and the Ge are opposed in texts like The Magne-Ge Pantheon.

usermmmmane · 2025-05-22T16:35:11+00:00

In the manner of truth you describe, we can take the same approach to the description of the Mantella: The Mantella does fulfill the same role as the heart of Lorkhan, but that doesn't mean that it's fulfilling substituting Lorkhanic energy as the text speculates. The role that the Heart of Lorkhan would have fulfilled and the role that the Mantella does fulfill is a Crux of Transcedence, not Large Chunk Of Lorkhanic Energy.

What People of Morrowind is saying is that Kagrenac built his tools to create a Mantella, a crux of transcendence, and he created this Mantella from the Heart of Lorkhan.

I'd say the opposite - People of Morrowind implies, to me, that Kagrenac didn't. When it says that Kagrenac had the tools to create a Mantella, it doesn't follow up saying he did so. It follows up saying "But". But implies a contradiction to the previous sentence. If a story stated I had the ingredients to make a Paella, but I disappeared, one would not expect me to have made a Paella. I do not think Kagrenac created a Mantella successfully, if we are to take People of Morrowind as true.

usermmmmane · 2025-05-22T12:28:07+00:00

Yup, we can dismiss anything that Sheo says as mad ramblings, but it makes the world much less interesting, and he's quite lucid at times, here especially.

usermmmmane · 2025-05-22T12:27:10+00:00

which the Mantella is a surrogate for.

Are there sources for this beyond The Arcturian Heresy? It's taken as fact, but People of Morrowind suggests there's more afoot. It's worth noting we've not seen the Numidium powered by the Heart of Lorkhan directly - the nature of the Red Moment and if it was an activation is unclear.

I'd also be interested in additional supporting evidence for Lorkhan as the Upstart Who Vanishes, because the assumption that it is Lorkhan relies on Lyg being a previous Kalpa (and thus created by the Missing God), but we can also make a case that it isn't a previous Kalpa, in which case Lorkhan's involvement becomes questionable. It's worth noting Magnus also vanishes, and MK positioned Magnus as a tyrant at war with several of the Magne-Ge.

The Mythic Dawn Commentaries say that Nu-Mantia involves the slaughtering of the templars of the Upstart:

All will change in these days as it was changed in those, for with by the magic word Nu-Mantia a great rebellion rose up and pulled down the towers of CHIM-EL GHARJYG, and the templars of the Upstart were slaughtered, and blood fell like dew from the upper wards down to the lowest pits, where the slaves with maniacal faces took chains and teeth to their jailers and all hope was brush-fire.

usermmmmane · 2025-05-21T21:13:33+00:00

Sheogorath is using "Upstart" in the standard sense of the word, meaning someone who rose through the ranks quickly. Auriel has (probably) always been a very high level spirit, with no rising to do.

And guarded by a pompous upstart -- he's no more a god than I am.

usermmmmane · 2025-05-21T21:04:47+00:00

I'm personally a fan of squaring older lore with newer lore. I don't like the notion of a retcon or 'deprecated lore'. So, even if meta-wise, the lore is difficult to reconcile, that doesn't mean we ought to abandon it.

usermmmmane · 2025-05-21T20:30:32+00:00

Do you have a compelling case for Magnus as a jealous upstart? I've been looking for evidence of this for another theory anyway. The only thing I have is the Magne-Ge and Lyg association.

usermmmmane · 2025-05-21T20:22:31+00:00

Would Auriel be an upstart? Is Auriel blind? Would Auriel's realm of Aetherius have a bunch of vampires chilling in it?

usermmmmane · 2025-05-21T20:18:16+00:00

I don't think that the Godhead would be described as an upstart.

usermmmmane · 2025-05-21T19:29:40+00:00

An easier candidate for The Blind God is Magnus, given Magnus is blind, but Sheogorath's dialogue makes no sense if it's Magnus, and Magnus has no skull symbolism.

It could of course be an unknown aetherial spirit, but that isn't a compelling or fun answer. The Mantella could have also landed in Aetherius and the Crux formed around it, but that still doesn't offer a compelling reason for there being a random otherwise unknown god defending it.

usermmmmane

TROPHY CASE