#shezarr

[caius-antivirus]

I've been sitting on these drawings for like 3 years and finally got around to actually doing them

Images based on and text taken from "Et'Ada, Eight Aedra, Eat the Dreamer"

[imagineargonians]

A Duraki legend mentions “Shezarr, who stole [the mead of poetry] stoneworking from the [dwarves] Dwemer and taught Zinfara to call nirncrux from the mountain-roots.” A Perena tale claims that the Cult of Stars learned soul magic from a “white-bearded stranger.” Likewise, “Shezarr of the Snowy Beard” is said to give the secrets of Ayleid battle-magic to the Nedes of Cyrod, showing them how to turn their enemies’ arts against them - The Footsteps of Shezarr

literally Odin.

also I choose to believe that lorkhan's "death" was in fact a planned self-sacrifice. I know that the monomyth & c0da have my back

[vosh-rakh]

“He has arranged for me to meet the Dibellan Sybil tonight,” confesses Brother Malcius as he rests between sparring bouts with his master, Abbess do’Matthri. 

do’Matthri’s face betrays no expression. She simply scratches her furry chin in thought, letting her eyes wander. “Abdul Wadud is a man of mysterious means, and ends.” She finally fixes her gaze back onto Malcius. “What did he tell you? Why does he think this is important?”

Malcius licks his dry lips and swallows before speaking. “He said that love is double-faceted. He said I’d understand what he meant when I met her.”

do’Matthri’s tongue plays around one of her fangs for a moment. “do’Matthri does not always agree with Wadud’s methods, but he is an honorable man. You can trust him.” She leans over to rest her paws on Malcius’ seated knees and look him closely in the eyes. “But remember your vows.”

“Of course, Abbess.”

“Now,” says do’Matthri, slapping Malcius lightly across the face as she rises again, “let’s continue. Your appointment is tonight, not today. Think nothing of it, and fight me.”

“Yes, Abbess.”

-

“She prefers to stay anonymous,” Abdul Wadud says. He sits across from Malcius in a closed carriage, dusk hanging heavy on the thin curtains obscuring the windows. “You likely won’t see her face, or hear her true name. But rest assured I have arranged for you to meet the Dibellan Sybil herself.”

“Yes, Master Abdul,” says Malcius, nodding and clutching his notebook full of interview questions. To meet the illustrious head of an order like the Dibellan priesthood, one must come prepared. But the space in his notebook allotted for questions is mostly blank - what do you ask a Sybil, one who has likely prophesied this meeting long in advance? He’s heard stories about her, filtered through a Maran perspective, of course. He’s eager to find out how many of them are true.

Outside he can hear the bustling city streets of Anvil slowly congregating in taverns and homes. The carriage stops outside an innocuous home, only the upper-story windows dimly lit from within. Wadud opens the door and invites Malcius to step outside. “The door should be unlocked,” he says. “She’ll be on the second floor, first door on the right.”

As Malcius begins to tumble out of the carriage, Wadud pats him on the back. “Good luck.”

-

The room is much like any other, but filled to the brim with candles. White, red, pink, and other warm colors, scented heavily, filling the air with overbearingly pleasant aromas Malcius can’t identify, almost suffocatingly so. She is seated in the corner with one leg crossed delicately over the other, her scarlet-gloved hands folded in her lap. She is covered head-to-toe in lily-white linen, and her face is obscured by a pale porcelain mask, representing the visage of Dibella. Her head is lowered slightly when Malcius steps inside, but she slowly raises it to look at him. How she can see him, he’s not sure - the mask seems to lack eyeholes. 

“Greetings, Brother Malcius,” she whispers just loudly enough to be heard. “Please, have a seat.” She gestures towards a plush chair opposite hers. 

Malcius obeys, cautiously approaching and taking a seat. He rests his journal on his lap, forgetting it for a moment in some kind of awe. The Sybil has some kind of aura about her that compels it. 

“Well?” she says, a bit louder this time. “Wadud said you might have some questions for me.”

“Ah,” breathes Malcius, snapping out of it and grabbing his journal to flip through. But suddenly all his questions feel a bit childish. Feebly he picks one at random: “What’s it like being the Dibellan Sybil?”

The Sybil laughs politely. “It’s all I’ve ever known. Did you know we’re usually selected at a very early age? I was nine when the priests came to take me away.” With a soft sadness Malcius doesn’t expect, she adds, “I can’t remember the face of my mother.”

“I can’t either,” blurts out Malcius. 

“Ah…a Maralius, are you?”

Malcius nods. He averts his eyes from the face of Dibella, and they come to rest on the written question he just asked. Suddenly he realizes she hasn’t really answered it, and says again, “But what’s it like to be the Dibellan Sybil?”

“Persistent, aren’t you,” she observes. “Every day is filled with rituals of different kinds.”

Malcius is silent for a moment, before asking, “What’s wrong with rituals?”

“Nothing, per se,” replies the Sybil. “They’re just…a distraction.”

“‘The holy life is wholly ritual.’”

“Ah. You’re familiar with Saint Olava the Fair. Of course you are, of course you are.” The Sybil straightens up a little, and, changing the subject, says, “You must not listen to our mutual friend very much.”

“He speaks of rituals, too. Silence is a ritual. Love is a ritual.”

“You mustn’t think so rigidly, Malcius. Love can be a ritual, but it often isn’t.”

“What is love, then?” Malcius leans forward slightly, his eyes focused on Dibella’s. 

The Sybil laughs. “What a question, for a Maran monk to ask.” Malcius shrinks back into his seat a little. “No, no, it’s not a bad question. Sit back and listen to me explain.”

“Love has two constituents,” she says, holding up two fingers. She folds down the fingers as she lists. “One, is the love you are most familiar with. The mother’s kind. Unconditional, eternal, but tame. Two, is the love I know best. The lover’s kind. Conditional, fleeting, but passionate.”

“Isn’t eternal love superior to temporary love?”

The Sybil sighs. “A mortal cannot measure loves, stack them up against each other. And you forget the power of passion.”

Malcius leans forward more, almost falling out of his seat. “What is that power?”

The Sybil laughs, more freely this time. “It’s not like magic, Brother Malcius. But it can be magical.”

“I’m…not sure I understand.”

“What do you know of the Dawn - the first Dawn, before time itself?”

Malcius frowns. “Precious little,” he admits. 

“Before time,” the Sybil begins, wasting no time in her explanation, “cause and effect had little meaning. Everything meant little, in fact. But conviction yet existed, among the et’ada - the original spirits - that meaning could be found, or at least created.”

“Conviction, Malcius,” she says, and he can almost hear the smile behind the mask, “like what you seem to hold in spades.” He blushes and shrinks back into his seat as he listens. 

“There were a few et’ada who were proficient in this newfound concept of ‘conviction.’ One you may have heard of, named Shezarr, or Lorkhan in the elven tongues.”

“Shezarr,” Malcius whispers back after he realizes she’s paused for effect. “The missing god. We call him Shor in Colovia.”

“Yes, like the Nords do,” the Sybil says, tilting her head slightly as she recollects. “Shor, as you say, wanted to create something new, beyond the eternal conflict of primordial spirits. He enlisted the help of many to help him in this endeavor, including his wife, Kynareth, or Kyne.

“But there was another who loved him. Well, several. But it is said that Dibella loved him from the start, when she first laid eyes upon him. She was jealous, intensely jealous, of Kynareth for having won his affection instead. So, with the help of a minor spirit of thievery, she took from the doting couple something that she lacked: conviction.”

“Dibella isn’t the goddess of conviction,” Malcius states plainly.

“Ah, but isn’t she? You see ‘beauty’ and ‘love,’ whereas I see ‘determinance’ and ‘conviction.’ What is beauty without a beholder, a beholding? The blending of beholder and the beheld into one substance, one single ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ And what is love without the conviction that it is true? Even this leads back to beauty, as what is truth if not beautiful?” The Sybil shakes her head. “I get ahead of myself. These matters concern you little, of course.”

But Malcius is gripping the edges of his seat, virtually thrumming with excitement. “No, no. Go on.”

“As I’ve said, I’ve said too much already,” she says, laughing. “The point is: Dibella became the goddess of beauty on that day before days. And the goddess of love, of passion.”

Malcius is silent for a moment, thinking. Then, carefully, he says, “I thought ‘passion’ belonged to the Daedra Lord…Sanguine.”

The Sybil tilts her head again, then nods slowly. “Of a kind,” she begins. “But consider him to be Prince of indulgence, of overindulgence, more than anything else.” She pauses. “I’m a saint, you know? Sybils are a kind of saint. And saints, by nature, see the world differently…it’s something I keep forgetting. But suffice it to say that these spheres you appoint your gods with are much more flexible than you assume. One god can represent many things, and a single concept may be spread out between several beings.”

Malcius nods slowly, and looks away for a moment, becoming entranced by a candle’s flame. 

“Malcius,” the Sybil whispers, stealing back his attention. “Would you like to know your future?”

“I’m sorry?” sputters Malcius back, caught off guard by the question. 

“A Sybil is saint and prophetess both,” the Sybil says. “I can give you but a glimpse. It is not something I afford many. Would you like to see?”

“I would be honored,” says Malcius.

“Then come closer. No, closer. Rise and approach me. Lean down for a moment.” As he obeys, she lifts up the bottom of her mask. “Kiss me,” she says, and Malcius can see her full, sensuous lips parting to form the words. 

In his shock at the request, he’s barely phased by the fact that her skin is grey.

“I can’t,” Malcius says. “I took a vow -”

“A vow I’m familiar with. A kiss won’t break it, I promise.”

“I…I’ve never kissed anyone before.”

“It will come naturally. Approach it however you think best, Malcius.”

He purses his lips in consternation as she waits for him, her lips barely parted, breathing softly. She seems to grow tired of waiting, and grabs his hand, placing it behind her neck. He can feel her pulse through the cloth and her skin, a steady beat in stark contrast to the pounding he feels in his chest. He closes his eyes, leans in, and as their lips meet -

He’s seasick. He’s holding back vomit. He’s reciting prayers as he steps on dry land. He’s signing papers and telling his name, occupation, birthsign. He’s greeting a man he’s never met as though he were a brother. He’s meeting other lost siblings, all different, but with the same heart.

He’s chasing away evil with a staff, and he’s laughing with a true friend as he does. He’s begging forgiveness from the gods as he takes from the dead, the losers in the arena of this world. His heart, pounding, pounding, growing, growing.

He’s coughing. He’s not holding back vomit. His throat is swelling shut. He’s begging forgiveness from the gods, from Mara. But he’s praying that his friend next to him makes it somehow - even if he doesn’t.

Malcius pulls away in shock. The Sybil quickly lowers her mask. “What did you see?” she asks, excited. But she sees his paleness and changes her tune. “I’m sorry. It’s not always pleasant. I can’t see what you see.”

Malcius wipes his mouth with the cuff of his robes and says nothing for a long time. “I didn’t see anything,” he says finally. “But I felt many things. Things I don’t understand.”

“You must be a man of great destiny,” the Sybil says, “and not a bad kisser.”

[caithyra]

Widowed Goddess/Queens and Missed Opportunities...

While General Tullius is a hundred times more competent than 95% of Skyrim’s NPCs or so, there is one glaring mistake he makes as a military governor (though he would have to convince High Queen Elisif to get onboard, which shouldn’t be too difficult):

He does not restore Old Nord Faith to Skyrim (which is not outlawed, and perfectly compatible with being Imperial), and use it as propaganda against Ulfric and his Stormcloaks.

If you are familiar with the Old Nord myths about Shor/Lorkhan’s death, I am just going to summarize it as this:

Torygg=Shor Elisif=Kyne Ulfric/Stormcloaks=Trinimac/Merethic et’Ada

For those less versed in Elder Scrolls mythology: Shor was the God of Men who made sure the mortal world was created, he was later killed by the Elven gods Trinimac and Auri-El atop the Adamantine Tower in the Dawn Era, and Kyne, his widow, became the chief deity of Mankind according to Nord folklore (not Alduin/Akatosh or Ysmir/Talos!).

It’s like the perfect base for pro-Elisif propaganda (Kyne is the beloved mother goddess of the Nords who breathed them to life atop the Throat of the World and bestowed them Voices and made them hardy against the cold), that would also undercut Ulfric’s claims of restoring the TrueNordFaith(TM)... And it would make getting Whiterun on the Imperial side with the Temple of Kynareth, Gildergreen,  Skyforge and windy plains a bit of a Big Deal to prop up the Elisif-Kyne connection...

Yes, this would religiously fracture the Nords a bit away from Imperial Cult (which is an evolved hybrid of Nordic and Ayleidic faiths, though both those faiths recognized the other), but it would be less of a schism than between Hammerfell and the Empire, and not at all unbridgeable.

It also would have given the Old Nord Faith a spotlight in its homeland instead of being tucked away in a shack with an old man...

Seriously, this game had sooo many missed opportunities...

[thesoulzofhades]

Lorkhan: I Shor did create Nirn.

[colonel-killa-bee]

It suddenly struck me that the Altmer have the right idea. TES is Gnostic (and Hindu) Fantasy, and by most accounts, Lorkhan is the Demiurge, imprisoning the spirits in a world of his conception, turning the spirits who came to be known as the Divines into Archons who make the world function as earth-bones. The Altmer want to go back to being spirits, and they're only completely right if we have Lorkhan's explicit goal. Do we know exactly why he wanted to make Mundus?

This would also assume that the Divines weren’t complicit in his plan, same with the spirits that did not flee Nirn.

The theory based on the lore bit that says he looked at the wheel sideways and read Amaranth, or something to that effect basically says he birthed the idea of Nirn to become more than what they were. They couldn’t conceive of ideas like CHIM and Amaranth because they were beings of perfect stasis, they had no way to grow, no hardships. No way to forge them into something new. Something better than what they were.

Until Nirn.

[delemis]

Shezarrvasha, A Traditional Nedic Song

O, Shezarr

Where did you go

O, Shezarr

Who shielded us 

From the elven foe

O Shezarr, god of gods

Protector of men

Companion of Hora

King and Queen

Incarnate (“Shezarrine, or to come forth like many floods upon many shores”)

You who came to deliver

The jewel of royalty

To the breast of thine

Lady Alessia

And to redeem her

Covenant (“And thus did Alessia fulfill her oath before Akatosh, the Heavens”)

In saintly bliss

O Shezarr

Where did you go

And where are you now?

Come, Shezarr

Where did you go?

O Shezarr

Where you went

We may never know

The Shezarrvasha is traditionally a song of mourning, sung specifically on the festivals commemorating the end of the "Time of Tribes" and the beginning of the Ayleid Enslavement (sometimes known as "The Harrowing of Wills. ")  

It has also been evoked as a song of protest, in the face of both the Elder Council and Emperor Uriel VII's continual neglect of the nibenese rural poor. This particular brand of nibenese unrest is most acute in Ora Demergatur, or the 'drowned shore,' a once well-off nibenese district that has been utterly decimated by failing infastructure, periodic dam breaks and cataclysmic flooding that have driven a great many poor nibenese from their homes. The funds for the reconstruction of this district have thus far been tied up in the gridlock of Elder Council politics, and the Emperor's refusal (or perhaps inability, owing to his poor health) to move the legislation along has led many of the native inhabitants to feel as if they've been abandoned. Not a far cry, to them, from the abandonment that the nedes felt after Shezarr's departure.

[reflectiondetonation]

Just tricked the et'Ada into sacrificing their power to create Mundus at Claire's