ok fellas lets put on our metaphysics and cosmology hats. well, you can, i guess, but admittedly, mine is permanently fused to my scalp. i’m always down for some good ol’ cosmic bullshit.
so i wanna break this up into two parts, i think. i’ll break down what i think is the overall structure of the aurbis, and then i’ll talk a bit about how i think it works.
ok! part one! first of all, we got the aurbis. the aurbis is basically just, everything. it includes aetherius, mundus, oblivion, nirn, etc. it might also expand beyond aetherius? but i think that’s just The Void, so we won’t worry about that. nothing interesting really happens in The Void.
so what’s aetherius? it’s god city, god central, super mystical being heaven. it’s where various heavens are located, like the nords’ sovngarde, and the redguards’ far shores, and khajiit’s sand behind the stars, and the imperials, uh, less imaginatively named “heaven.” it’s where dead people of all kinds hang out, and chill with some gods, like the magna-ge, led by magnus, who all left mundus b/c they didn’t like it and chilled in aetherius instead. except they left a bunch of holes in mundus, like they just forgot to close the door behind them after they left or something. on the bright side, all those holes (which we call the sun and stars) give us the magicy magic stuff from aetherius, where everything is magic, probably.
ok, “magicy magic” is not what it’s called. it’s called creatia! it’s basically the substance of pure creation, what everything that ever existed is made of. except it needs to be given form and purpose to actually be Things. otherwise it’s just Stuff, not Things. basically the whole purpose of making the mundus inside of aetherius was to turn some Stuff into Things, b/c lorkhan thought it was a good idea and most people agreed at the time.
so “mundus” is everything inside of aetherius, in like a bubble. (a lot of how this stuff works is bubble-based. aurbis is a bubble in the void, mundus is a bubble in aetherius, planets and planes and stuff are bubbles in mundus, etc.) but there’s actually a lot of empty space in the bubble, b/c at first they (here referring to the et’ada, or primordial spirits) couldn’t quite make up their mind on what world they wanted to make, so they made a bunch, but then scrapped all that and used some of the leftover pieces to make nirn. so at this point nirn’s just this little ball in space, not a lot going for it. not even an atmosphere! (fun fact: air just doesn’t exist in the elder scrolls! dunno why! just doesn’t!)
but then the et’ada get together and try to liven up the place. except they’re like, “woah, all this creating makes me feel like i’m dying,” b/c they kinda were. here’s the thing: everything’s made of creatia, even the gods. and y’know, equivalent exchange and all, so to make a World with Things in it, they had to use up some of their power.
this was generally considered to be a bad thing, and lots of people got mad at lorkhan, who really just expected them to be more dedicated to this project. i really don’t think he intentionally tricked anybody. he just had an idea for a fun thing to do with/for his friends, getting enlightened and stuff, and maybe omitted some of those finer details at the beginning b/c he knew nobody would go along with it if they knew. but he wasn’t being malicious about it, no matter what those darned elves say.
so everybody got together on top of a big ol’ tower to talk this through, b/c it was time to buckle down and decide what to do now. that lil chat was called convention, and was basically the first important thing to ever happen. it was actually kind of the first thing to happen, too, b/c one of the members was like “hey, let’s make linear time a thing” and so it was.
anyways, all those et’ada were sorta split five ways about this. some, like magnus and the magna-ge, just flat out refused to stick around and give up any of their power, and ran off and became stars. some, who would be later called daedra, didn’t wanna give up any power either, but they kinda had a vested interest in the thing at this point, so they went out into oblivion, where there was a bunch of leftover, unused creatia, and they made their own little planes and proceeded to screw with the world for funsies.
on the other hand, some folks were still gungho about making this world, and were willing to sacrifice themselves completely to let it survive and prosper. those would be the earthbones, who literally just gave up themselves and established a lot of nirn’s physical laws. some folks also thought this was worth saving, but also didn’t wanna die. so they gave up a little bit of their power, but kept the rest of it. those are the aedra!
(fun side note: the aedra are the other planets in mundus! we know at least akatosh, julianos, and arkay are stationary, b/c they make up part of some constellations. arkay has a little buddy orbiting him called arkay. there’s also the planets zenithar and kynareth, who might actually move, but we don’t know for sure, i guess. also, zenithar has a buddy orbiting him called mara, and MARA has a buddy orbiting her called dibella.
(what i really want to get at here is that while the planets are absolutely the divines, i believe it’s only part of them! hence why they’re kind of in the middle of the road between the earthbones and the magna-ge. i think they left those planets behind to sort of be their eyes-and-ears on nirn, and also probably to help stabilize it, but after that, they took what they had left back to aetherius. maybe through the sun, but also maybe the planets are sort of like, if they were peaking in on us from aetherius. so what we see as the planets is just what little of them is in the way of the hole. but anyways!)
the rest of the et’ada went a similar route to the earthbones, except they didn’t sacrifice anything really. they just kinda decided to live on nirn! they’re the ehlnofey, who eventually become the mer and men of nirn. (presumably all the beast races and stuff were just already there, or somehow imported from somewhere else [the argonians might literally be transplants from one of those leftover worldbits nirn was made from]).
ok, one last thing. i think nirn orbits the sun, so isn’t really the center of mundus. it’s the metaphysical center, b/c it’s what mundus exists for. but i just can’t wrap my head around how the sun would be said to rise through constellations during their seasons if nirn wasn’t moving around it and changing its perspective on the sun. maybe it’s possible somehow in a nirn-centric model, but i just don’t know how.
ok! that’s wraps up what i think about the cosmology of the series, i think. i’m actually going to make a separate post for the metaphysics, for two reasons. 1, this post has gotten long enough already, and 2, ho boy do i have a lot to talk about there. you might notice that it’ll probably be pretty different in tone - sure, i could describe all that stuff in my usual plucky sort of way, but this kinda stuff always just works out better when you take a bit more of a serious tone. i’ll undoubtedly get a bit poetic about it too, b/c it’s damn good stuff.
anyways! keep your eyes peeled for that! all sorts of stuff about towers, reality, chims, time, etc!
Phillip Johnson, Summer of the Boston Freehold, 1925
Another NPC from my 1920s Changeling game. I wanted to post some art and had this sitting around unfinished so I coloured it up as a warmup-cooldown between commissions. This guy is an Earthbones Elemental, not very good with his words but reliable. He’s got skin like sandpaper.
"Of course it is, child! I only require those living in Valenwood to abide by the Green Pact. However if my faithful living outside Valenwood choose to follow or not to follow the Pact then I will not be displeased~"
"By mortal I meant by measure of those who live on Nirn. The Mer, Men, Cat and lizard. They are mortal. You are semi-immortal, for you are the Spirit of the world. Born from the lost Aedra's trickery of the others. I would not call that Mortal. You are a divine being. Post-mortal at worst." Lady Mora chuckled.
"Ah, but there is always a chance for the world to be destroyed. Just because it seems impossible to the average onlooker does not mean it cannot be accomplished. Your darling brother Dagon nearly saw to that."
