Roleplayer's Off Topic Thread #32

[ColonelKillaBee]

Czar I honestly don’t get your sense of dope  

[TheCzarsHussar]

1 hour ago, ColonelKillaBee said:

Czar I honestly don’t get your sense of dope  

 

[ColonelKillaBee]

Thats better  

[ColonelKillaBee]

[TheCzarsHussar]

12 hours ago, ColonelKillaBee said:

We need to talk about your hording

[ColonelKillaBee]

I can stop whenever I want!

[TheCzarsHussar]

@Centurion Oh god they knew, they knew all along and foresaw the Frontier.

 

[The Good Doctor]

Obsidian warned us. We should've known not to let this happen.  

[TheCzarsHussar]

So it's my twenty first birthday today and within five minutes after twelve theres a huge commotion in the house.

I get yelled at to quickly come here, and I see this.

A fucking house down the street burns down in front of me. The firefighters almost got injured when the roof collapsed on them outside but it narrowly missed them.

[TheCzarsHussar]

What a fucking thing to kick off your twenty first huh?!

[The Good Doctor]

Macon can't handle the parties Czar throws.

[The Good Doctor]

Been working on a new TES theory. In 2021. Because I’m jobless for at least a few more days.

@ColonelKillaBee I think you’ll like this one. Or maybe as a Shor fan, you'll really really hate it. Maybe I will too when I wake up tomorrow.  @BigBossBalrog will like it though, I’m sure of that. At least, if y'all read it. It's pretty long so it's understandable if you don't.

 

Remember how in Hermaeus Mora’s quest in Skyrim, Septimus said that the Heart of Lorkhan was in that Dwemer lockbox, but instead all we find is his Ogma Infinium?

Well what if the Heart was in the Lockbox, perhaps teleported there as a secondary defense measure by the Dwemer in the event that Kagrenac's binding enchantments got removed (as we do in Morrowind)?

Assuming that’s true for a minute, it would make sense that even Herma Mora isn’t capable of getting past a safe built by Kagrenac without help. That guy was like Sotha Sil minus the divinity and could definitely keep out daedra if he wanted to.

That said, once the box is open, there is nothing stopping Mora from snatching the Heart away. We know he can manifest in the room, and we know his presence is strong enough to interact with and kill Septimus (unless he zero summed, something that we only have evidence of happening one other time and it was in relation to the Heart).

We broke the lockbox seal immediately, but the box door actually takes a really long time to open. If Mora gained access the moment the seal broke, then he could’ve easily snagged the Heart and left behind his Oghma Infinium long before we had the change to see, assuming he couldn’t just do it instantaneously.

How could the Infinium have been trapped there "for hundreds of years" anyway? We know it wasn’t there during Oblivion, at least, which is only 200 years prior. Why would Mora's book, which he owns and has control of, warp straight from the Champion of Cyrodiil’s hands into an impenetrable Dwemer Lockbox where Mora can’t even reach it? How can a piece of him get in but not out? And why was there a hyper-advanced sealed Dwemer lockbox that was apparently completely empty until the book nonsensically teleported into it? Whole story makes little sense, and is just made all the weirder by the random and kinda startling assertion that the Heart of Lorkhan is inside despite us never seeing it.

(Side note: Septimus is the one who told us this. He is mad, but we're talking about a servant of the Prince of Forbidden Knowledge who spent most of his long life studying the Elder Scrolls. It's not unreasonable to assume that even his crazy ramblings might be derived from some truths we don't fully understand, especially when that has been proven to be exactly the case when it comes to other topics, such as the Scrolls themselves).

Then along comes the Dragonborn DLC, where we go to Apocrypha through the Black Books which, strangely enough, are accompanied by the sound of what seems to be a loud, all-encompassing heartbeat. We first hear it when when we approach and read the books, and then we hear it again when we get to the end and choose a perk. The sound is booming, and it stands out from all the other weird effects and creepy music that go on when standing near the books. It's about exactly how I'd imagine the Doom Drum would sound.

What's a drumming heartbeat got to do with Mora? Not much that I can think of... except that one time he tasked us with opening a box that was very randomly said to contain Lorkhan’s Heart. Huh.

(Side note: the beat is only ever heard when we are specifically being drawn towards something. Lorkhan's Heart also drew people in at Red Mountain, attracting half the factions in Tamriel to fight over it and eventually reeling in Dagoth Ur and the Tribunal One Ring-style. Could this beat we hear be calling us deeper, to continue our pursuit of knowledge and power in the hopes that we will reach it? The corrupting nature of power and the pursuit of it are major themes of both storylines.)

There’s also the detail that Lorkhan’s Heart and hearts in general are a major symbol the Dragonborn DLC. Hearts are a major symbol throughout TES in general, but it gets particularly lampshaded in this DLC. Soltheim is crawling with ash spawn, creatures born from heartstones, whose power came from Red Mountain and the Heart of Lorkhan itself. Neloth’s whole questline involves his study of the hearts' magic, which culminates in it being revealed that he unknowingly resurrected his apprentice Ildari from the dead. She went on to do the same thing to Legion General Carius. The heartstones can be used to not just reanimate but fully resurrect people from the dead, and what's more is that if this is done correctly the person being resurrected can be bound to and magically controlled by the one who brought them back.

Later, the story’s final clash has us defeat Miraak, and Mora seems like he just couldn’t be happier when he dies. Why is he so excited? He just traded a dragonborn for some horker-skinning tips and the chance he’ll get another dragonborn. Whole thing was kind of a shitty trade, honestly. Unless he’s a compulsive gambler.

BUT we aren’t just some dragonborn. We are Ysmir, as declared by the Greybeards. Perhaps we’re even an aspect of Shor, which is one of the most popular theories for good reason. If that is the case, then Mora betting one measly dragonborn on the chance to replace him with the aspect of a god suddenly makes a lot more sense. And if he has the Heart of Lorkhan and can succeed in binding the Last Dragonborn to Apocrypha, then he will be the first entity to possess both the Heart and body (or a physical form at least) of Shor since the Dawn Era.

It’s important to remember that Mora isn’t some random Prince when it comes to Shor. He is the Woodland Man, a devil of the Nordic pantheon who is specifically known for tricking and tempting mortals, and an antagonist to Shor. This wouldn’t just be a couple unrelated acts of assholery as his two questlines appear at first glance in Skyrim. It would be a master play against his ancient enemy, a cosmic-level victory happening right before our eyes, yet so subtly we don't even notice, as is befitting for the Woodland Man.

Back to heart magic, remember how, when bound to the host properly, the creatures with the heartstones can be controlled by their master? Well what if Mora's goal was to do something similar with Shor? The heartstones are just echoes of the real thing, after all.

Like General Carius, Shor is dead. In fact, Shor is the Dead God. But while all these echoes of his story (heartstone and briarheart rituals) succeed in copying his death and the removal of his heart, the part they all include where a heart gets placed into the chest to restore the dead to life never actually happened. Shor died, became a missing dead god ghost thing with no heart, and remains one to this day. Meanwhile, the Heart lives on without him.

Now, I don’t think Mora did all this just to claim the aspect of a dead god ghost thing. My theory is that he now possesses the Heart of Shor, and that if he can get the Last Dragonborn as well, he will attempt to mirror the very same ritual that brought back Ildari, Carius, and so many briarhearts by placing the Heart of Lorkhan into our chest, reuniting the aspect with its heart, and resurrecting a corrupted Shor from the dead. But unlike the Shor of the Dawn Era, this Shor will be bound to Mora’s will, just like Carius was bound to Ildari and Briarhearts are bound to hagravens.

To summarize, in his total pursuit of power the Dragonborn does find it. He mantles Shor and ascends as the greatest of the gods, once dead but no longer, except with the dark secret that he is bound to Mora. Perhaps like Carius, he can go on behaving like Shor, but also like Carius, his free will is an illusion, which happens to be something Mora tells us during our very first encounter with him.

"Your free will is an illusion. Whether you acknowledge me or not is your own business. But I will be in your mind."

 

TLDR: The Last Dragonborn becomes Shor, who stops being dead. Sovngarde becomes the inter-dimensional equivalent to a puppet state of Apocrypha. All tremble before the Demon of Knowledge. 

[ColonelKillaBee]

The premise is intriguing but super far fetched obviously  the placing of his heart into a body was done before, with Numidium and the other artificial god.

I like the idea of this being his plan and even him having the heart but it wouldn’t make sense since we saw the heart in Morrowind which also didn’t take place that long ago, so the why is it suddenly in a dwemer lockbox also applies there as well.

[ColonelKillaBee]

Actually now that I think about it, it was also done at the battle of red mountain in at least one rendition before it was blasted from his chest for a second time and he was destroyed yet again

Aside from that, there’s the idea of needing a dead body to be controlled, but if he was so happy to kill off a Dragonborn you’d think the dead Dragonborn would be resurrected and controlled this way. Mantling Shor and becoming a god tbh was not something I thought the Dragonborn would do, it’s something I attributed already to Talos.

And your destiny as they hinted at the end is your own even then. It’s stilll up to you if you become another meat puppet so this seems to imply all of that is invalidated.

[The Good Doctor]

53 minutes ago, ColonelKillaBee said:

the placing of his heart into a body was done before, with Numidium and the other artificial god.

Neither one was complete or activated, though, so I wouldn’t count them. That’s like stuffing in the briarheart but not doing the ritual. If they had been activated, I’d agree. Numidium got completed and activated later when the humans got it, but they didn’t use the Heart for that. They used the Mantella.

You are right about Shor when it got blown out of his chest, though. Forgot about that. Though to play Devil’s advocate, that’s only one version of the story and only lasted like 3 seconds. I wouldn’t blame him if he wanted a second go at it.  

53 minutes ago, ColonelKillaBee said:

I like the idea of this being his plan and even him having the heart but it wouldn’t make sense since we saw the heart in Morrowind which also didn’t take place that long ago, so the why is it suddenly in a dwemer lockbox also applies there as well.

The theory counts on the fact that we saw the Heart in Morrowind. The idea is basically that Morrowind happens, Nerevarine frees the Heart from its enchantments, then Kagrenac’s Plan B kicks in and instead of going to Aetherius or whatever, the Heart goes to his lockbox, free from the Tribunal or Dagoth Ur, but dormant until someone finds it again.

52 minutes ago, ColonelKillaBee said:

Aside from that, there’s the idea of needing a dead body to be controlled, but if he was so happy to kill off a Dragonborn you’d think the dead Dragonborn would be resurrected and controlled this way.

That’s the idea. The Dragonborn dies and he puts the Heart of Lorkhan in our chest, we come back to life as a god, but under his control. The heartstone/briarheart ritual on a divine scale.

[The Good Doctor]

54 minutes ago, ColonelKillaBee said:

Mantling Shor and becoming a god tbh was not something I thought the Dragonborn would do, it’s something I attributed already to Talos.

Same. It’s a brand new theory.  

54 minutes ago, ColonelKillaBee said:

And your destiny as they hinted at the end is your own even then. It’s stilll up to you if you become another meat puppet so this seems to imply all of that is invalidated.

That’s not what I’m implying. I said that this would be a gamble on Mora’s part. He’d be wagering a dragonborn (Miraak) just for for the chance at getting a Shezzarine (us) because combining the latter with his cool new Heart would produce epic results that are worth the risk.

It’s still possible in this theory for the Dragonborn to just close the books after killing Miraak and go live a happy daedra-free life, in which case Mora’s gamble wouldn’t have paid off, but there’s not as much to talk about there.

[The Good Doctor]

I do enjoy the mental image of Shor wearing Trailerborn's iron helmet and with a big ass glowing heart-filled hole in his chest, reuniting with his wife Kyne as a living god and being the top dog of the pantheon again.  Hell, Mora would probably be A-okay with letting him rally the gang for some some payback on the Aldmeri’s wimpier grandkids, just as long as he makes sure to raid their libraries for new books before torching them.

Is it far-fetched? Yes. Does C0DA make it canon? Yes. Remind me later and I’ll send this to Todd so he can update the lore for TESVI to put Shorvahkiin into the Nord pantheon and make Herma Mora act all snide about it during his side quest.

[ColonelKillaBee]

To be fair I did read this at three in the morning so I forgot about the mantella  however, were it three seconds or thirty for actual shor, the biggest leap in your theory that you’d have to explain to your lore nerds on Reddit is why the heart did go to the lockbox and why Beth desides to go that route via kagrenacs enchantments since even for him that seems a bit far fetched.

Its interesting for sure but that part right there requires the reader to give too much benefit of the doubt. Then again if people were Shor haters, and they are, I bet they would wank off Kagrenacs and the dwemer enough to say that happened.

Aside from that, the theory is interesting and yea I kinda hate you for thinking of it  

[ColonelKillaBee]

You know, this theory though, that beating, the color palate of Herma Mora’s realm and the recent dlc has me thinking of not the actual heart of Lorkhan but the dark heart in Skyrim, especially because of how prevalent that beating heart was in it in eso. @The Good Doctor

[ColonelKillaBee]

Herma mora is described as being created from throwaway ideas used at the creation of the mortal world, and that does sound similar to the darkness of Lorkhans heart, a rejected idea. Inconvenient truth of a god people like the Nords did not want in his reinvention if you believe that. Maybe that drew Herma Mora to it.

Lorkhans dark past would be the ultimate too in forbidden knowledge.

[TheCzarsHussar]

@ColonelKillaBee @The Good Doctor This is canon.

 

[The Good Doctor]

6 hours ago, ColonelKillaBee said:

the biggest leap in your theory that you’d have to explain to your lore nerds on Reddit is why the heart did go to the lockbox and why Beth desides to go that route via kagrenacs enchantments since even for him that seems a bit far fetched.

I don’t think a second measure to relocate the Heart away from his enemies is far fetched at all. If the Skyrim mission had us breaking into a dragon cult vault or some daedric ruin, I’d agree it’s a massive stretch, but the fact that it’s specifically an ultra complex Dwemer lockbox lends credence to the idea. And I don’t think Septimus saying the Heart is in there should just be overlooked. If he didn’t, then the whole theory would be too big a stretch to even be worth considering, but the fact he does makes it worth exploring.

[The Good Doctor]

6 hours ago, ColonelKillaBee said:

You know, this theory though, that beating, the color palate of Herma Mora’s realm and the recent dlc has me thinking of not the actual heart of Lorkhan but the dark heart in Skyrim, especially because of how prevalent that beating heart was in it in eso. @The Good Doctor

I didn’t bring it up because the Dark Heart because it was invented years later by Zenimax. It could be retconned to have been the plan all along, and that would indeed be interesting but I wanted to base this on the idea that it was actually Bethesda’s intention at the time.

Granted, that may be giving a little too much credit to the writers whose most complex plot twist in years was "The old science man is your son!"  

[ColonelKillaBee]

13 minutes ago, The Good Doctor said:

I don’t think a second measure to relocate the Heart away from his enemies is far fetched at all. If the Skyrim mission had us breaking into a dragon cult vault or some daedric ruin, I’d agree it’s a massive stretch, but the fact that it’s specifically an ultra complex Dwemer lockbox lends credence to the idea. And I don’t think Septimus saying the Heart is in there should just be overlooked. If he didn’t, then the whole theory would be too big a stretch to even be worth considering, but the fact he does makes it worth exploring.

There's a phrase and Im not sure what it is, but it just being teleported miles away to another province because of enchantments alone feels like a stretch to me.

Its possible, I just wish there was more to suggest it than Kagrenacs and dwemer magic being what it is.

Its only really enough to someone willing to give that much benefit of the doubt. Its kinda like my theory about the amulet of kings and using it to make a dragonborn. On one hand merely the mention of this in the main quest could be looked at as "this concept exists, so it gives credence to the idea" and it does, but this also failed spectacularly when it was attempted, albeit because it was a trap. Maybe it was capable of that, maybe it wasn't.

It could go either way. Same here with there being said to have lorkhan's heart in that contraption. Thats not the first time they've done something like that actually, as you know with the side quest in Vvardenfell in eso.

It gives credence to the idea, so the theory makes it a possibility, but it also shouldnt be overlooked that HM could've been just manipulating whats his face with a false idea from the very start.

Lorkhan's heart is brought up a lot.

[ColonelKillaBee]

Especially when it comes to the dwemer.