Silgrad Tower from the Ashes

The Divine? or the Aedra and Daedra?

eh hem... can I point out that I've NEVER written any creational stuff, let alone interpret it as fact.... (as in god creates mortals) Those I agree should be interpetted as myths. I'm sort of organizing the wiki site as a sort of make-belief encyclopedia, so it takes the tone of stating facts, but where things are too blurry, it will indicate so by phrases such as "it is believed that", "... possibly ... " etc etc.

The closest I have is the mentioning that it was believed that Shinryu (pre-tsaesci empire) humans were made partially from the blood of an ancient Naga Goddess (and nobody has actually met her!!!). But in my lore, I've phrased it in such a way to imply that nobody knew for sure. Just that since it was believed that tsaesci can only feed on "blood of their blood" and that they feed on those human, it supports this theory, though nobody is sure how close it is to the truth.

The divine.

Might I mention that the divine are the aedra, aedra means ancestor because the elves believe they are desendant of the aedra. That is the definition of mer, men believe they were created, mer believe they are desendant. And, in the act of divine creation, like making nirn, an Aedra cna die.

Hello?

If you are trying to contact Sphr, he could be back online tomorrow or next month, there is now way to tell when he will be online.
He's just like that

I see.

Yeah, he also doesn't really respond to critisizms. He's more of a take-it-or-leave-it kind of guy. His work is authentically his.

Doesn't mean we can't change it. But he won't.

lol... it's not that I don't respond criticism. most of the time, it's because I didn't see it at all ;p As I've mentioned to Cog, I'm a little tired of spending too much time in forum debates on topic which doesn't have any foundation and only expresses personal prefereces. Note that I don't feel that there is anything wrong with it, as it IS a way for people to voice out and be aware of our differences. But the underlying goal of the debate is usually weak as everybody have their own idea of what looks good or what is interesting. Thus if the criticism is in this area, I am already tired of responding and feel that I can do much more by spending that time writing. I know I can't please everybody, so I'm offering what I have as a base for other members to adapt/modify according to those ideas I didn't know/accept/include. But when I do see something I feel is useful, I will use it. I don't place a lot of value on pride and ego (except for the idle moments when sometimes I feel a little amazed at the amount of crap... ehh I mean lore I've written so far ) and I'll humbly submit to better ideas. If I feel that an idea is better, I'll use it over what is mine, if it will make the Lore better.

The basis I've chosen is different : consistency, believability and creativity.

1) Consistency. Whatever the lore is, it should be consistent. If we have every other story contradict something that Bethesda has (regardless of their not being very thorough in some areas, which is understandable due to the scale of their work). If that's the case, we might as well create another planet and forget about Akavir and Nirn

2) Believability. True history, recorded history, general traits are never quite clean or plain. The should be more variety and details than just simple statements like "All Tsaesci wear green" (no offence for using this reference as an example), which I feel is over stereotyping and will just create a garish landscape of primary colours which just trashes believability. This is also the reason I didn't quite like the simple 4 equally powerful nations/races keeping each other in check. I would rather that the balance is a function of more subtle and complex situations, e.g. political, cultural, historical etc rather than just raw military might.

3) Creativity. I see Akavir as a great opportunity to break away from the norms of what we are used to, which is why I am disinclined to just export more "tamriellic" stuff into Akavir. Why should the social/military/ruling organization be similar? Why nobles? why guilds? even if there are, why must they be Tamriellic clones? This is the reason why I read up quite a lot into the oriental cultures, especially the philosohpical part. From there, I've adapted/created central beliefs around which cultures that is completely different from Tamriel can arise. My vision is that Akavir should be a place where the player will feel is a completely new world when he stepped into it, but where things relate back to events in Tamriel, he should be able to see much more than what he'd read in Tamriel's lore books (which can be taken to be inaccurate).

ahem.. back to topic on the "divine". If you've read my work on the Wheel of life, what I've presented is a imaginary map of life in Akavir onto a disc (Wheel), which represents the boundary of times-space. It is called a wheel due to the reincarnation theme. Center of the wheel is where time and space stands still. This is the negative world, the source and destination of all mortal souls. The immediate area around the center is the level of "the trapped" (Min), which are undead which are trapped by time and space, dying but never quite reaching the death (center of the wheel) state. Between this and the boundary of the wheel resides the mortals. The further away from the center, the less hold time/space has on the beings. This is why the beings are classified by "levels". The highest of these are the Lin, the demi-immortals and semi-devils. Despite the common name, they are still mortal, just that they live for very very long time (less restricted by time) and they usually have shape-changing(less restricted by space).

The dragon-gods I'm using in the Akavir Lore are beings what resides on the boundary of the Wheel, where they are balanced in both space and time. Balanced in time means that they are the true immortals : doesn't age, doesn't die naturally. Balanced in time means that they are true shape-changers, and takes whatever forms they wish. as most of these "gods" were ex-mortals, they usually retain a form similar to their mortal form as a "favorite incarnation". in addition, most of the gods naturally took a serpentine form which seems to be the form which they can channel the most power. I attribute this as a instinctive and subconscious influence from Satakel the World Serpent (could be known by different name in Akavir though, and being known as Dragon instead of serpent).

Lastly, the "true divine" are mythical and are just rumors/theory in Akavir (probably only except for the dragon-gods and peers). these "ascended" are those that escaped from the Wheel totally. They no longer have any forms. They no longer feel time (they can travel forward or backward in time or even to "alternate" time streams should they please). But as a result, they usually loses interest in "now" and "here". Most simply disappear and were never seen again. But sometimes, they left behind powerful "echoes" of their divine existence, which can display existence of self-consciousness. My theory is that the Aedra are such beings (which also sort of explains why Aedra, unlike Daedra, are usually formless and their influences are much more subtle and intent incomprehensible)

Hope this helps to answer some of your queries. If you have any suggestions, comments, criticisms, feel free to fire. I'm always in need of better ideas. Just pardon me if I don't respond promptly (provided that I've actually read the post.... heh heh)

Nirn is already formed into a wheel. A wheel who's relaity isnot stable thanks to the rise and fall of the towers.

Also, an immortal being forming needs an origin for it to exist, such as the land gods. When they form also, they create a dragon bend.

We should sticky your first point, hehe.

I'm not sure I get your point. are you claiming Tamriellic myths as facts? afaic, I don;t see the point of trying to replicate all the Nirn creation/other legends exactly. There could be common points, (at least the belief of the 'world serpent" is going to be there, just may not be the same) but I think think it is unlikely that it will agree, even to a small extent. As such, I don;t see all these are strong enough reasons to restrict our options in developing Akavir.

I used the term "wheel" not just because anything is round. It is an imaginary form. It is symbolic to the theme of reincarnation where each life-time is a turn on the wheel for the being. Even if Nirn is formed as a "wheel", the common phrase used here is just coincidental, methink.

Also, this is a background to support the story of the Nerevarine. Tamriel doesn't have the "reincarnation" theme. Now, Akavir does. Nerevar is "reborn". I could be wrong, but I haven;t seen the reincarnation references in other tamriellic history. So there might be some ties between the the Nerevarine and Akavir. Which also gives more insights into why he/she went off to Akavir. I doubt it's for a holiday break. And since the word is spread by Azura, a Daedric Prince, this also implies that the Daedric Princes have ties to Akavir itself (I think we have plans for them. In my wip settings, Daedric Princes are the same level of existence as the Dragon-Gods. Some of them may be worshipped as such in Akavir). So, instead of contradictions, I see more interwoven links.

And just for comparison, currently, I've envisioned Akavir to be an "older" world. The reason is that Tamriel is mainly populated by short-lived races (yes. even elves). Akavir had been ruled by the very long lived Tsaesci. This means that records, memories etc are also much better preserved. .e. a "legendary" event that happened a "long" time ago in Tamriel will probably get warpped as it is passed down, while in Akavir, a similar event may still have many witnesses who are still around and sees them as history instead of legends.) This is also my basis for setting the "legends and myths" of Akavir to stretch much further back in time, creating the ~illusion~ of an "older" world. I'm also simulating some of the psychology of the peoples. You can't expect humans who only lived for decades to see the world similar to say elves who may live hundreds or even to a thousand. And how much more different will that be if you compare to beings which may live to thousands?