#aedra

Auri-El (wip)

Every time I'm in the temple I stay near him with the silliest love face

(I'm just a weak mortal I can't resist divine beauty)

For me it has to do with Peryite, and how much his name sounds like "Pyrite" aka fools gold. Which is interesting since Akatosh, who is also a dragon, is often describes as a Golden dragon. That along with the fact some forsworn worship Peryite also as a god of time, it was just something I noticed.

But in reality it's probably this:

The "Gift of Charity" Blessing you get for giving to the poor only works if you don't pickpocket them right afterwards.

What do you take me for? Blind?

Something I think about is how the Aedra are depicted as human and the Daedra have a little more variation but it's usually either "vaguely human" or "pretty generic looking monster". It's not bad, I just think it could be more interesting.

Take Mara for example. She's the goddess of marriage, love, and fertility yes, but she's also steeped beliefs that she is the mother of creation itself. So yes, a human depiction of her makes a lot of sense, especially wrt the people of Tamriel who probably want to see themselves a little in the gods.

But just imagine for a second:

As the goddess of something as human as love and companionship, I'm sure she'd look pretty human yeah. But as the mother of creation - something so distant, so all encompassing - she could also look much more alien and primal.

I imagine she could be bound by knots of visceral rope, to represent her connection to marriage and also her apparent refusal to exercise her immense power, or more simply her being bound to the world itself as an Aedroth.

Perhaps as well her very hands are permanently clasped to her forearms, only leaving that position if she ever had to intervene for any reason.

I am so, so, SO fascinated by the thing with moths relating to the Scrolls. Because the Elder Scrolls are fragments of creation, the written word of the Divines (or maybe just Magnus) in the most literal sense. The 'code' of the universe, if you want to be cheeky, or at least the divine debug menu.

And as per the Moth Priests, the only way for an ordinary person to read an Elder Scroll is through a ritual involving the Ancestor Moths. And according to some generic dialogue in Morrowind, the Moth Priests (or at least, some sects dedicated to the Scrolls) have a sort of loose association with Julianos. Y'know, god of magic and language, it fits enough, right?

... But the moth isn't Julianos' totem animal. His is an owl.

The moth is Dibella's totem.

I'm so fucking obsessed with this. The Elder Scrolls, unbelievably powerful artifacts that even the immortal Dragons are terrified of, having an unspoken association with a deity that usually gets reduced to sex jokes. Like, Dibella is the goddess of, yes, sex and passion, but also art and beauty. What exactly is being implied by this connection? What hides in this secret sphere of her influence? Do you think her priestesses know, and that's why they're so secretive? This adds a whole new layer to Dibella as a deity, but I'm just not sure what. Given that "Tamriel" literally translates as "Dawn's Beauty," there's not a snowball's chance this is an accident.

The Sun God & Time God | Auriel and Akatosh