Inside the Mind of Sheogorath - He Is Not What He Seems... - Elder Scrolls Lore

[Music] I'm a shadow in your subconscious a blemish on your fragile little psyche you know me you just don't know [Music] it the Mad God dangled the Nightingale over the gaping void this thief had reveled in the shadow Shadows this thief had exploited the fundamental fear of finite beings to purloin their possessions cloaking himself in the darkness of unlit Corners leaving honest Souls destitute he felt Security in the shadowy recesses where he could not be perceived but his comfort had turned to cold sweat and kicking feet in the face of the great Darkness sh gorf held him there by the Scruff reaching for a rent in Oblivion to let the thief peer at padmi and only when the nightingale's feathers were ruffled and his chirps turned to screams only when his Splendid black armor was soiled and stinking only when he was truly wholly Afraid of the Dark did the Mad God relent sh gorath heaved him back through the rift back into dementia the only place that would accept him after this utter degradation and like a stained Old Rag tossed him into to the effluvium flowing along the fringes of Crucible thus did shagor teach nocturnal The crucial difference between Shadow and darkness and so concludes the 16th Accord of Madness one for every hole in the rickety old orbic wheel shag gorf shook his aching hands savagely as if a venomous spider were crawling across it documenting his 16 stunts had been almost as entertaining as actually carrying them out he was delighted with the way he had dramatized them in pros and yet after the quill had jettisoned from his hand spraying ink across the floor like a startled squid he found himself dissatisfied creativity gave existence color a means of grazing his fingertips along the underside of fulfillment tantalizingly Out Of Reach alas as always he would emerge from his Studio feeling empty he sprawled out on the floor and reality seeped back in he could reshape the aisles again make a more pleasant reality to be trapped in but it seemed like only yesterday that jigal lag had done just that so he did what he always did he plotted his next trick his next Accord of Madness perhaps The Outlander wandering his realm would be a suitable candidate shag gorath the Mad God the comforter of men lord of the never there his sphere is madness and creativity which are one and the same yet amorphous more of a gas giant than a planet if that gas were nitrous oxide so nebulous is his sphere that the padik Mortal races cannot even decide whether he should be condemned or consorted with according to the dunmer in the text titled the house of troubles shagor is the king of madness he always tests the dunmer for mental weakness in many Legends he is called upon by one dunmer faction against another in half of these stories he does not betray those who called him further confusing the issue of his place in the scheme of things can he help us is he not an obstacle unlike Adra fearing and nuic cultures pmic cultures like the dunar Do Not denounce the dra simply for not being mortal ancestors there is value to be extracted even from the more malevolent spirits the four corners of the House of troubles Malika meron's Deon Molag Bal and shaag gorath are often referred to as the testing Gods that's because they test the dark elves in their pursuit of Enlightenment through the sigic Endeavor Malika was once trinimac and therefore he is the historic adversary of Lan and boia he would Aid the blasphemers of the deep if it means spiting the prince of plots Mir Deon is the destroyer and would raise Lan's wondrous creation to the ground if given the chance Molag Bal is greedy and would waste the potential of Mortals by taking them as slaves to him all Mortal blood is there to be tainted and would deprive the changed ones of their unique Heritage and shagor is a wild card his motives are unpredictable and he would be a danger to the society crafted by the good dra as Each corner freten hofi culture so too do they offer valuable lessons to all Kima who would seek the secret syllable they test for physical weakness for survival skills for Pure Bloodlines and in the case of shagor for mental Frailty is a force that strengthens your will truly a foe the kajit perceive the Mad God in a similar light for like the dunmer with their sigic Endeavor the Beast folk of Elsewhere believe in the path that all cats must walk or more appropriately the latice that they must climb to less weere the Sands behind the stars shagara is considered an adversarial Spirit and the silent priest am Andro writes shagara the Mind God his sphere is the Mortal mind and its stability he tests kajit on the path by making them doubt the truth of their own thoughts beliefs and actions shagor has his own motives he is a friend to the those most susceptible to straying From the Path and as a result he is also their enemy but it's not easy to identify an enemy behind a comforting face when he makes you laugh and takes you higher that is the conundrum of this video shagor is difficult to Define his Arts are subjective and Madness lies within subjectivity within the dazzling valian of variant the dear drist wanders my Realm like a tourist his mortal arrogance is a form of Madness I suppose he can roam a little longer until he begins to feel right at home then perhaps I'll honor him with an invite to my Palace the veined blue sky above the hill of suicides began to turn Violet the gnarled limbs of the surrounding trees became malevolent Silhouettes in the fading light haskill assured us that this realm was not subject to the upending of the dragon bone hourglass and that only shagor himself determined the flow of time or the lack thereof yet the days rolled into night just as they did back on ner and while theologists still can't come to a consensus on whether the Magnus Rift can be seen in the Oblivion Realms the chill of night still seeped into my bones so I hopped from my perch casting a levitation spell to slow my descent and I followed the dimly lit path in search of a place to rest I pied the tortured Souls upon the hill too much to taunt them with my ability to sleep the only Camp I found was flooded so I settled for a crook beneath a great arcing route that looked more like one of old herma Mor's tentacles than anything arboreal on the tomorrow I would come upon new shof in all its paradoxical Glory through the Indigo Haze I could make out the turrets of shor's Palace the symmetrical structure loomed over the capital I imagined Uncle Sho at Top This perch surveying his domain an antic Spirit hunched and lulling eyes rolling over rooftops and along border walls scraggly arms encompassing Bliss and Crucible infusing the atmosphere of each district with its own crackpot Vapors that sent people Plumbing deeper into madness with every breath and heartbeat the residents felt more secure in this bedum or perhaps the prince was preoccupied with governing his own mind the immaterial part of it anyway to be intoxicating his tenants maybe the mere Act of living a mortal life was sufficient to explain them going silly admittedly it was hard to think clearly with the cold crawling under my clothes and into my ears but the Shivering aisles are so unlike the other PLS of Oblivion sh gorath is so unlike his peers after all while most mortal inhabitants of other Realms are there by force or worship or a confused combination of the two those who dwell in the Asylum come by choice or By Invitation they're enticed by the prospect of a realm more befitting their Divergent Minds Uncle Sho welcomes all kinds we can reasonably assume that any individuals who come to the aisles by choice have less conventional personalities and shagor feeds off of the energy of the insane and the imaginative in My last journal entry from the mad house I spoke about the various groups of dissidents dwelling in shag gor's realm from the followers of guub to the Heretics and zealots who worship Ard and Saul as the true Prince of the Shivering Isles decrying shagor as a fraud not everyone in the realm is trying to defone him though most of the inhabitants are leading their own lives some spend their time writing poems or painting Landscapes of the aisles these creatives take inspiration from the Fay otherworldly nature of shag gor's plain there are introverts and insomniacs paranoids and pain lovers addicts and arsonists each and every one of them adds to the gestural abstraction that is the Asylum and that's why his sphere encompasses both Madness and creativity for they are one and the same the blessings of shag gorath incanted by his devotees goes as follows for our Lord shag gorath without whom all thought would be linear and all feeling would be fleeting blessed are the Mad Men for they hold the keys to secret knowledge blessed are the phobic always wary of that which would do them harm blessed are the obsessed for their courses are clear blessed are the addicts may they quench the first that never Eeps blessed are the murderers for they have found beauty in the grotesque blessed are the fire lovers for their hearts are always warm blessed are the artists for in their hands The Impossible Is Made Real blessed are the musicians for in their ears they hear the music of the Soul blessed are the sleepless as they bask in wakeful dreaming blessed are the paranoid ever watchful for our enemies blessed are The Visionaries for their eyes see what might be blessed are the pain lovers for in their suffering we grow stronger blessed is the Mad God who tricks us when we are foolish punishes us when we are wrong tortures us when we are unmindful and loves us in our imperfection the mad house is an intricate tapestry and while the inhabitants may be categorized by their various psychoses they are led to believe by shagor that their minds are less constricted in his realm of chaos as opposed to the Mundus which is a realm of restriction and to an extent he is telling them the truth the monomyth states as much in the old Mary creation story a new Encompass and encompasses all things so that he might know himself he created an weel his soul and the soul of all things and weel as All Souls was given to self-reflection and for this he needed to differentiate between his forms attributes and intellects thus was born cyphus who who was the sum of all the limitations anel would utilize to ponder himself anel who was the soul of all things therefore became many things and this interplay was and is the orbits the interplay of Anu and padmi is essential for allowing all Concepts to exist without limitation Anu could not be comprehended a light so bright that it does not permit sight and weel's ruminations eventually took form such as Oriel who is time and Magnus who is Magic one of these Lan was more of a limit than a nature so he could never last long anywhere as he entered every aspect of anuel Lan would plant an idea that was almost wholly based on limitation he outlined a plan to create a soul for the orbits a place where the aspects of aspects might even be allowed to self-reflect he gained many followers even Orel when told he would become the king of the new world agreed to help Lan so they created the mundas where their own aspects might live and became the atada but this was a trick as Lan knew this world contained more limitations than not and was therefore hardly a thing of anno at all Mundus was the house of cifas shagor comes to the mad and the inspired with an allur offer in his domain the limits of Lan of Orel and of the earth bones do not hold jurisdiction shagor is a dra he can be whatever he pleases as can his realm shagor says as much in his first interaction with the champion of cidel Dedra are the embodiment of change change and permanency I'm no different except in the ways that I am change is all well and good but order is also important when structuring a plane of existence shag gorf knows that all too well but I won't utter The Jig word in such close proximity to the Mad God's Throne an argument could be made that a realm ruled by one Immortal spirit is far more oppressive than one governed by many Immortal Spirits most of whom are considered dead or at least distant just take hil's words on the nature of time in the Shivering Isles inhabitants of the Shivering Isles are affected by time but we are not subject to it we are subjects of Lord shag gorath who subjects us to whatever subjects he's in the mood to Subud because time is subjective as we established earlier Madness lies within subjectivity but when you're at the mercy of one being subjectivity from your perspective it might as well be considered objective ironically this particular point is subjective and speculative I'm sure many inhabitants of the Isles would claim that they are more free in shag gor's realm while many others view it as more of a trap than Lan's creation both shagor and Lan are commonly referred to by the title of trickster minu to some the name Asylum would be appropriate as they sought refuge in Uncle sho's Embrace while to others the name Asylum would be appropriate because it is a borderless institution that segregates them from the realm of the San in the end it matters little to the Mad God whether his tenants want to live in his mad house or not giving them the freedom to make that decision would go against the purpose of the mad house so to put it more simply shor's innate dichotomy permeates all aspects of him and his realm it is free form yet it is full of figurative padded walls as I approached new shof the walls that bore down on me were not padded but but high and Made of Stone a cell for the most illustrious impatience around the city's flank the cobbles curled revealing the palace protruding from its rear and a waterfall split in two spilling into the swamps that saturate all of dementia the heavy wooden doors leading to Crucible were reinforced with iron rought in symmetrical interlacing patterns as beautiful as they were emblematic of the Tangled streets in the city Beyond a lone Seducer stood Sentinel beside the doors camouflaged by her dun hued skin a pull of the Ring clenched between the teeth of the embossed iron imp and I was in Crucible the region of dementia is dotted with graveyards and treading carefully is crucial to avoid plunging into bwog ridden bogs you'd think the Civilized culmination of dementia within you shof would offer a respite from the muck and depression but you'd be wrong here the quags are infused with Mortal effluent too viscous to have the decency to flow beyond the city limits instead they undulate emitting noisome fumes from bubbling pores Crucible is aptly named because it is a Melting Pot of all the nastiest most neurotic humors in the ecosystem of the Isles blood fleem yellow and black bile forming a sickly symphysis in The Crucible of the mad house nevertheless less there is a charm to this weeping ulcer of a district like the acid reflux after a spicy meal Crucible is brimming with compelling characters from the shifty-eyed Smith named cutter eager to comment on how effective her weapons are for shedding blood and how reliable her armor pieces are for protecting vital veins and arteries to the enchantress a jazda who is stricken by paranoia at the coming storm her fears may not be completely unfound it though what with the impending grey March there's the klepto Maniac bhow seeking five Flawless poles which will surely plate his propensity for pilfering and the suicidal heus clutumnus who desperately wishes to die but fears inciting the Mad God's ey and ending up on the hill of suicides for all eternity say what you will about Crucible the stench and the sorrow but there is no shortage of eccentric personalities and on the bright side figuratively speaking the gloomy overcast Skies make the streets and buildings seem quaint and rustic rather than dirty and dilapidated and the persistent drizzle serves as a decent deodorant alas after a bit too much time in Crucible I found I had developed a case of the colly wobbles and my eyes yearned for a bit of vibrancy so I sought out the misaligned mo of the Hideous Stone hunger that served as the Gateway between dementia and Mania and as the doors swung open the smell of milu and sewage was vanquished by Citrus and spice a perfume so strong it seared my sinuses and brought me to tears it was as if every fruit and flower from if's Green songs had been distilled into an all-inclusive flagrant fragrance whatever sense I'd left behind in Crucible was scorched from my memory replaced by colors saturated Beyond my ability to appreciate them Bliss was Unapologetic manic ostentatious everything Crucible was not if this was Euphoria then I was too overstimulated to sense it Bliss was a migraine made manifest I've had headaches batter against my temples like they're trying to burst from the pressurized confines of my skull but this District was like the inverse the headache was all around me sensing the calm within my mind and besieging it and it seemed as though I wasn't the only one feeling that way fan Ren cow was in the streets so paralyzed by paranoia that he's forgotten how it feels to be rested and insomnia only exacerbates his symptoms he can't sleep in his own home as he fears the walls will close in on him or the ceiling will collapse and crush him and it's a phobia I can't even call a rational I remember during the fresian plague I spent so long in isolation that I developed a strange kind of dependence on the walls of my small study I would stand outside my tower at night to take in fresh air and my Cabin Fever made the faintly flickering Stars overhead seem unreal like an umbrous blanket had been thrown over my world to suffocate me and through the woven perforations light bled in like signal fires from some realm Beyond if only I could break through the fabric the claustrophobia would surely have an I would hike by the ocean and the vastness of the coastal panoramas was so overwhelming to my long confined mind that I felt waves of vertigo strike me whenever I Stood Still as if the endless blue above would engulf me mocking the laws of gravity it took many afternoons on the cliffs to overcome that vertigo to sleep soundly in my small study again so how could I Lurch over fan Ren and pass judgment sleep is a luxury afforded to the safe and Serene and I knew when I saw fanen that the walls he feared were not those of his house but those of his psyche if he believed sleeping outside would be his salvation then it would be because belief is all it takes and delusions can be as effective as they are comforting fanen isn't the only one with a crippling Obsession the Argonian named big head whose head isn't particularly noteworthy in regards to its size is compulsive about Cutlery particularly Forks his tale is rather tragic as we can trace it back to a time before he was whisked away to the mad house in third era 427 bigad lived in isolation on an island northeast of Al Rania in venell where he collected silverware he had in his possession the fork of herol an artifact of the Mad God when asked about it he said the fork of herol it sings to me oh yes sings like the Rocks sing songs of weeping songs of Leaping Do You Weep stranger you've come to take it will it take you then will you weep weep like the rocks it is here take it take it if you will take it if you won't singing ringing and after the Narine took the fork he said you have the fork the fork is yours the Master loves his forks forks for all of us it is pretty clear that big head had been visited by Uncle Sho and it was no ordinary knife fork or spoon that began singing to the Argonian and gave him Goosebumps it was specifically the fork of her repol this Fork is not for dining but for tuning and its acoustic resonations infiltrated the mind of bigad and its two sharp prongs metaphysically prodded him down the slippery slope to the Shivering Isles the Panic reverberation of this tuning fork disrupt the Magicka that seeps into the Mundus from aerus Magicka exists within all mundane things and Mortals are no exception thus the fork can deprive its wielder of Magicka nevertheless it seems the Fork's heril effect can be alluring to Mortals like bigad despite willingly giving the fork to the Narine he soon went even madder without it no doubt the prince of Mischief had no small role to play in this sapping of Sanity bige head called shagor his master and said that he brings no cake only visions and Loud words that big head cannot hear sometime in the following six years big head found himself in Bliss in search of the fork of heril once again music and sound of powerful spiritual forces in the orbits and exposure to sheogorath's tuning fork may just reveal secrets that cannot be conveyed through Lang anguage whatever the case just like Crucible there's no shortage of lunacy in Bliss while I awaited Hill's summons to shor's Palace I stopped for a pint at the Choy beggar and I was grateful to find my headache begin to subside as the haze of intoxication dulled my senses I spent some time pondering the nature of bliss and Crucible and as I did one of the many bards taking up residence in the aisles took a seat by the fire and brandished a loot of varnished Beach and mahogany I could smell the Dwarven Oil that gave the wood its Shine from across the tavern The Bard rested it on his lap with paternal delicacy he gave each of the gut strings a pluck before carefully winding the pegs pulling them Tor until they sang Just Right if only bige head were here tonight with his tuning fork of heril perhaps the tones would be divine and all in attendance would achieve Kim when The Bard was ready he strummed aord and in a way that only music can it lulled every soul in the choosy beggar to an attentive silence and for a quantity of time I soon lost track of I and every other Patron succumbed to the trance of eight strings singing in synchronicity it came as no surprise to me that the choosy beggar would attract the greatest mortal musicians within and without the Mundus sh gorath made an effort to Dows the finest creative minds and ens snare them in the aisles with the promise of inspiration after all there is a myth of the Mad God inventing music that goes as follows in the earliest of days in a time when the world was still raw sh gorath decided to walk amongst The Mortals he dawned his guise of gentleman with a cane and moved from place to place without being recognized ized after 11 days and 11 nights shagor decided that life among Mortals was even more boring than his otherworldly existence what can I do to make their lives more interesting he said to himself at that same moment a young woman nearby commented wistfully to herself the sounds of the birds are so beautiful shagor silently agreed with her Mortals could not make the beautiful and inspired calls of birds their voices were wretched and mundane he could not change the nature of Mortals for that was the perview of other dric princes however he could give them tools to make beautiful sounds sh gorath took hold of the petulant woman and ripped her aunder from her tendons he made loots from her Skull and armb Bones he made a drum from her bones he made flutes he presented these gifts to The Mortals and thus music was born it is known that the dra Lords can't seem to resist the temptation to meddle with the Affairs of Mortals they're constantly prodding the anthill tricking the people of Tamriel goading them torturing them or trying to create new worshippers but when it comes to Shag gorath it's especially clear why he would have an interest in the goings on of the mundas according to varieties of faith in the Empire shagor the Mad God the fearful obas of shagor is widespread and is found in most tamrielic quarters contemporary sources indicate that his roots are in Old Mary creation stories therein he is born when Lan's Divine spark is removed one crucial myth calls him the cfis shaped hole of the world if sheogorath is born when Lan's heart is ripped from his chest then the Mad God is a part of Lan's creation and the convention at top the adamantine Tower was his personal Crucible Mortals possess free will they are FS of variability of invention of Genius the text titled Adra and dra states that Adra is usually translated as ancestor which is as close as cilic can come to this Elven concept dra means roughly not our ancestors Adra are associated with stasis dra represent change Adra created the mortal world and abound to the Earth bones D who cannot create have the power to change we see this limitation of the dra everywhere a prime example being the dric Titan because moag Bal cannot create he imprisoned a dragon named bosic codron in his vile laboratory and corrupted him replacing his anuic animus his soul with a dric vestage shagor similarly feeds on the creation of the mundas and takes inspiration from them but if the God's Origins as proposed in varieties of Faith are true can he not create at least in some small way that's a question I cannot answer only posed to you but any being Eternal or finite that is born from the death of the missing God would certainly have a connection to the children of ner when walking ner as the gentleman with aain did shagor truly invent music or is he in actuality the spirit that resembles the Mortal invention of music that distinction fascinates me and will return to it soon sh gorf encourages creativity that raw beautiful power that reminds him of his own birth but he also nurtures stagnation as seen in Crucible just as the myths of sh gorf demonstrate his inspiration they also portray his brutal treatment of those who do not please him he punishes those who are too orderly the story of shag gorath and King Leander tells of the latter King exercising his exceedingly rational ideals on his subjects he lived in a palace that was a small simple structure unadorned with art and ugly to look upon I do not need more than this he would say why spend my gold on such luxuries when I can spend it on my armies or or on great Public Works of course King Leander was focused on ruling his kingdom he wasn't thinking about shagor but the Mad God would take issue with leander's philosophy what's the point of living if not for adornment if not for art and expression why not just be an amoeba shag gorath would say Free Will and sapience are wasted on such Mortals his kingdom prospered under his sensible rule however the people did not always share the king's sense of practicality they would build houses that were beautiful to look upon although not necessarily very practical they devoted time and energy to works of art they would celebrate events with lavish festivals in general they were quite happy King Leander didn't understand why would his subjects spend their coin and commit valuable resources so extravagantly for such frivolities and since King Leander was wealthier than the common folk since he was more prestigious he came to the reasonable conclusion that he knew better than them so he did as all good Kings do he restricted their expression ensuring that all buildings served a purpose every plank of wood and every slab of stone should be accounted for so that every building would profit the king or modestly house the serves who would profit him the people tolerant of their tyrant abide it they stopped expressing themselves through architecture and instead spent their excess wealth on works of art to hang in their homes once again the unabashedly astute and Frugal King Leander protested so he banned all works of art in the city were it not for the lord of the never there this story would almost certainly have continued on the same trajectory until the people rebelled and ultimately lopped off King leander's Superior head for as you probably predicted the people soon turned to another form of expression in this case rry and again King Leander Bandit Insurrection stirred kept to a simmer only due to King leander's Army of zealous sycophants with nowhere to turn the populace turned to prayer and you'll never guess who answered these prayers sh gorath heard their pleas and decided to visit King Leander he appeared to the king in his dreams as is a field of flowers each with arms instead of petals and the face of the Mad God in the center I Am Lord of the creative and Lord of the deranged since you have no use for my gifts of creativity I have decided to bless you with an abundance of my other gift while I may argue later in this very video that the gifts of Madness and creativity are siblings sh gorf showed King Leander Madness without creativity and Madness without creativity is order coldblooded emotionless order from that day forward every child born in the city was born into madness since infants do not reveal illnesses of the mind it was several years before this was realized the king's own son was among the victims suffering from seizures and delusions yet King Leander refused to change his ways when his son glint was 12 years old he stabbed his father while Leander was sleeping with his dying breath King Leander asked why his son replied it is the most practical thing I could do and though the glint had faded from leander's eyes he could not be bitter for it was his pragmatism that had manifested in his son King glint was a paranoid Youth and a hypochondriac he was also jealous of his authority and acted upon it the new young king ordered all the palace servants slaughtered he ordered a grand festival to celebrate his new Reign and the repeal of leander's laws he served the crowds a stew made from the carcasses of the palace servants he ordered the east facing walls of every building painted red and the west facing walls painted in Stripes he decreed that all citizens wear ornate masks on the backs of their heads he then burned down the palace and began construction of a new one in the new Palace the young king ordered his personal Chambers to not have any doors for fear that small Woodland creatures would attack him he ordered that it have no windows for fear that the sun and moon were jealous of him and plotting his death and thus ended the line of King Leander the people of the city returned to their grand works of art and rockus celebrations they talked and acted as if they still had a living King and even kept up the palace using it to house and care for their mad children shag gorf was mightily pleased with this outcome from that day forward the city was blessed with more than the normal number of gifted artists and deranged citizens glints orderliness had exiled him from society from reality just as jigal had been cursed to Wade the Waters of Oblivion until the end of every era the obsessive compulsive desire to have every facet of his existence align with his regime had led to glint downfall he isolated himself until he mightn't have well existed to think that order is the antithesis of Madness is mad indeed as orderliness was King Leander and King glint Madness order of this magnitude is an oppressive kind of perfectionism trying to fine-tune a kingdom as if the people of mindless drones was only going to end one way the story of Leander and his kingdom is a metaphor for jigal lag and the Shivering ey s imposing his crystalline will upon the realm was doomed to end in destruction each and every time you can't have perfect order in a land defined by the mind of a Mad God the summons had come not by pigeon not by Coura but through a sensation inside my head I emerged from Bliss and walked through the cloy into the courtyard of shag gor's Palace it was perfectly symmetrical but for the fires burning in the Braes yellow flames for Mania blue for dementia I took the steps two at a time sporadically switching to one at a time in a pointless attempt to offset the Symmetry when I came upon the palace doors a golden Saint escorted me to a waiting room I naively thought that perhaps shaag gorf would be willing to see me as soon as I arrived but I then realized that waiting rooms would be exactly the kind of bureaucratic tortured device that the Mad God would find amusing the waiting room is a Lial space even when full every sorry soul in a waiting room is solitary time in a waiting room is so diluted that every second is an eternity thankfully The Sovereign had the decency to provide entertainment some dated copies of the Blackhorse Courier formed an apocryphal stack in the corner like a portal to Mora's domain i instead peruse the dric artifact facts kept behind glass lining the walls upon the first pedestal rested the folium discognitum of all the dric artifacts that come in the form of books this was perhaps the one on the fewest number of people's must read list it's rumored that this T is filled with obscure knowledge but in truth its pages are filled with the scrolling of Mad Men to be fair the best books I've read could be described the same way the late Jean wolf and Brian catling probably read it too the characters and sketches on the folium discognitum M skittish they huddle in the corners in incomprehensible jumbles and dart across the pages to avoid the reader's gaze the second plin held nothing the ball of Mage Light fluttering in the empty space above it Shone its light in vain I suspected this was the place intended for the fork of her repol which bige head was probably holding up to his ear at this very moment I ironically the Argonian hadn't a hair on his body so forky's herping effects would have been as futile as this purposeless melight next along was an ornate ebony W glove that almost looked as though it should be worn by a composer perhaps one by the name of Johan gamble PTY Devon alurn splenden schlitter crr Bon free Digger dingle dangle dongle dungle burin vona Fraser Apple Banger horovitz tickle lensic grander nauy spell tinkle Grand Grumble Meer spel deasa Kur Lich hyen barwagen gutar Ben bitter Ein nurger Brad wle gers Burton mitz V Mar Luba hunsford garaba sha Anda Cals FL Midler ala Von halop of or maybe shag gorf just designed the glove to seem like it was worn by a composer named Johan gamble putty Devon Alford gamble putty all the ambiguous glove is the ultimate accessory for the important and the affluent it is said to have a detrimental effect on traits associated with the working class like endurance speed strength and willpower sures toiling in the fields all day would need these attributes in abundance in exchange the glove boosts agility intelligence personality and luck so if you're luckier cleverer and more interesting than everyone else this glove will make you even more better than everyone else gamble PTY is also used in a pack between the dunmer people and shagor tradition held that VC made an offering of the glove to the fourth corner of the House of troubles and in turn the Mad God made a concerted effort to meddle with the dark elves less frequently than he did with other races the next artifact was not lit by Mage Light instead there was a gas light suspended above the platform this artifact was the memory wand sometimes shagor finds his managerie of Madness lacking so he came up with a tool that could alter delete or cause a subject to relive their most horrific Memories by infiltrating the mind of the subject the memory wand makes them doubt their own memories and experiences opening the door to all manner of Horrors implanted directly into the psyche this is an artifact shagor would surely only Implement in a most sour sadistic mood beside the memory wand defying the tendency of upright objects to fall over stood the staff of the ever Scamp sometimes it's hard to take a wizard seriously if they're unsted casting with your hands is impressive but what do you hold while hiking through the mountains in search of Arcane Secrets what do you rest on while listening to tedious youths casting without a staff is almost as sad as pondering without a beard to stroke alas this particular staff may look intriguing but its power leaves a lot to be desired the staff of the ever Scamp does what the name says casting four scamps that haunt the Caster like unreachable itches the wielder of this staff will be followed by these scamps forever if they are slain and sent back to Oblivion they will rematerialize beside the wielder having forgiven or forgotten whatever caused their death the staff slows the wielder ensuring that they cannot outrun the ever scamps and don't even think about disposing of the staff entirely as it compels the wielder to keep hold of it the only way to rid oneself of the staff is to find another fool willing to take it from you along the staff in dric symbols the word nonsense has been engraved to Shag gorf this staff may be just another source of shenanigans but to someone stuck with it privacy peace and personal space would become Distant Memories shag gorath loves a good staff the possibilities are endless and there's nothing quite so enjoyable as twirling one's cane on a leisurely stroll or wrapping a pesky boot Liquor on the palms just so the next artifact in shor's display was another staff perhaps his best known most unpredictable artifact behold the freeold Moors of the wab Jack gaping with rage and regret wabj wab Jack wab Jack not Jabba walk wab Jack with this staff one could be the greatest Mage to ever live or the worst like betting all the gold you've ever earned on one cast of the die it can be your crowning Glory or more likely a fast track to lying face down in the stinking sewers of Crucible there is a story of one man's Revelations upon receiving the wabac to him it was a book of knowledge the book wab jaac says maybe I'm smarter because I know cats can be bats can be rats can be hat cats can be gats can be thats can be thises and that doors can be BS can be SNS can be flaws can be Roars can be spores can be yours can be mine I must be smart for the interconnective system is very clear to me then why or wherefore to people keep calling me mad wab Jack wab Jack wab Jack and the mad man who wrote those words might just have been an emperor of the septim dynasty the same book States when you're the new king of solitude every bit of knowledge helps and Emperor Pelagius III just so happened to have been king of solitude and then High King of Skyrim shortly before his Ascension to the Ruby Throne if you came into custody of the wabac would you use it a nebula sphere of sorcery gurgles inside the slobbering mouths of Jack's free faces ready to spit on your foe it can manifest in so many ways it might become a fire that engulfs your enemy a thunderbolt a spike of ice it could disintegrate transmogrify paralyze petrify it could turn them into a mound of septims or a chicken a mud crab a wheel of cheese as with all things associated with the Mad God the only limit is your imagination or his capris the final display was coated in dust its glass hadn't been cleaned in some time this artifact was not a popular one its tale was too tragic for most Mortals tastes its name is neb cresen and it would appear to be the Ultimate Weapon for an illustrious Warrior Mage Light reflected from the polished face of the blade its Edge was freshly honed as if it had never seen battle but I knew the stories and I knew that neb cresen had taken lives the handle was intricately carved its cross guard bejweled and its pommel weighted perfectly to offset the wide Arc of killing steel even through the glass I felt its call coaxing me to wield it to spill Blood on the streets of New Shao but I had read the 16 Accords of Madness and knew neb crescent's seductive power this blade appeared in volume 12 when the Mad God summoned Malika to pass judgment on a treacherous crime as shor's 16 Accords suggest the trickster has had dealings with all the demon Lords of misrule for reasons we'll discuss in great detail soon Sher gorf takes great pleasure in tricking his princely peers Malika the subject of the 12 Accord is the patron of the scorned and the shunned and the Mad God took this sphere into consideration when planning his rendevu with this fellow corner of the House of troubles this tale hails from a time before the founding of orsinium a time when the awesomer people were at their most divided and nomadic Orcs in this time needed to carve out homes in regions where they were detested many of these courageous Pariah folk became immortalized in song and story EG groa would certainly have become one of these legendary figures for he was a remarkable Smith and Warrior but his path took a dark turn one night in the forests of Tam reel's Northwest here is a shorten version of a Meg story as written in the 12 Accord of Madness less than two years years after ascending to maturity groa was making Camp when a thin voice called out from the thickening night he was surprised to hear the language of his people spoken by a tongue that obviously did not belong to an orc Lord KRA said the voice Tales of your Deeds have crossed the lips of many and have reached my ears peering into the Merk EG made out the silhouette of a cloaked figure made wavy and ephemeral by the hazy campfire from The Voice alone he had fought the intertop or an old hag but he now decided that he was in the presence of a man of slight and lanky build though he could discern no further detail perhaps the wary orc began but I seek no glory who are you ignoring the question the stranger continued despite that awesomer Glory finds you and I bear a gift worthy of it the visitor's cloak parted slightly revealing nothing but faintly glinting buttons in the pale Moonlight and a bundle was withdrawn and tossed to the side of the fire between the two a Meg cautiously removed the rags in which the object was SED her name is neb cresen spoke the fin stranger seeing the appreciation lighting roa's face it's only proper that I pass her on to one such as yourself to possess her is to change your life forever AEG had kept neb cresen in its Scabbard for a week before his Solitude was disturbed by a ceration through the tree line this wasn't game the noise he heard was made by a man or an elf or since he wandered the woods of HCK likely something in between aeg's nostrils flared but he was up wind being unable to see or smell his guest and knowing that the breeze carried his scent in that direction aeg's guard was up and he cautiously Drew neb Cresent from its sheath AEG himself was not entirely sure of all that happened Happ next the first moment of conscious memory in EG gr's mind after drawing neb Cresent was the image of the curved blade sweeping through the air in front of him spattering blood over the virginal powder coating the forest floor the second memory was a feeling of frenzy blood lust creeping over him but it was then that he saw for the first time his victim an orc woman perhaps a few years younger than himself her body a canvas of grizzly wounds enough to kill a strong man 10 times over aeg's disgust overwhelmed the madness that had overtaken him and with all his will enlisted he released neb cresen from his grip and let the blade sail with a discordant ringing it spun through the air and was buried in a snow drift a Meg fled the scene in shame and horror drawing the hood of his cloak up to hide himself from the judging eyes of the Rising Sun the scene where a megro had murdered one of his own kind was a Mak one below the neck the body was flayed and mutilated almost beyond recognition but the untouched face was frozen in a permanent expression of abject Terror a deep silence fell over the blooded Glade a morbid kind of Tranquility around her corpse the frosty grasses flecked with Crimson continued to sway oblivious the soil drank her Vitality voraciously to the forest it was just Another Blessing of rain from kind only this shower tasted of iron the woman's heart drummed its coder each beat weaker than the last until finally under the vigil of the ascending Sun it ceased entirely golden Fred streamed through the tree line carried on sunlight Wings a million bright ambassadors for the cloaked figure who as if On Queue emerged from the under story it was here that shaag gorath performed certain rights that summoned Malika and the two dri Lords held Court in the presence of the disfigured corpse why show me this mad one began Malika once he recovered from his initial wordless outrage do you take such pleasure in watching me grieve the murder of my children but shagor reassured Malika that this display was not to satisfy his sadism but instead an act of divine Vengeance from one corner to another sh gorf was offering an opportunity for the defender of the bet tray to avenge the wrongful killing of an orc and what's more shag gorf would take care of the postmortem punishment by using a blade of shor's choosing Malika could cut down the killer while sending his soul to be imprisoned in the Shivering Isles Malika took the discarded blade from the snow drift and went to hunt Malika materialized in the path of the murderer the cloaked figure obscured through a blizzard Haze bellowing a curse so foul as to wilt the surrounding trees the blade was drawn and Malik crossed the distance more quickly than a wild fox froing with rage he swung the blade in a smooth Ark which lopped the head of his foe cleanly off then plunged the blade up to its Hilt in his chest choking off the spurts of blood into a steady growing stain of red bubbling from beneath the Scaled Armor and heavy cloak panting from the unexpected immediacy and fury of his own kill Malika rested on a knee as the body before him collapsed heavily backwards and the head landed roughly upon a broad flat stone the next sound broke the silence like a bolt I I I'm sorry spotted the voice of a groa Malika's eyes went wide as he looked upon the severed head seeping blood from its wound but somehow kept alive its eyes wavered about wildly trying to focus on the aspect of Malachi before it the once proud eyes of the champion were choked with tears of grief pain and Confused recognition to his horror Malika recognized only now that the man he had killed was not only one of his awesomer children but very literally a son he had blessed an orc Maiden with years hence for achingly long moments the two looked upon each other despondent and shocked then silent as oiled steel shag gorath stroe into the clearing he hefted aegro Cara's disembodied head and bundled it into a small gray sack shagor reclaimed neb Cressen from the corpse and turned to walk away Malika began to stand but kneeled again knowing he had irreversibly damned his own offspring to the realm of sh gorath and mourned his failure as the sound of his son's horse pleas faded into the Frozen Horizon this beautiful blade before me had been forged and enchanted with intent meticulously made to traumatize Malik the Orcs are renowned for their ferocity in battle but neb cresen nudges that ferocity into recklessness showing the Pariah folk how easily a warrior can be turned into a monster and Malika who prides himself on being the guardian of the downtrodden was deceived into decapitating his own flesh and blood an honorable orc victimized by the trickster but sh gf's cruel tricks often come with an opportunity for the prince to think laterally to reconsider the faults in their spheres in the case of Malika neb cresen demonstrated the dangers of being too eager to enact Vengeance the importance of forbearance when passing judgment on one who has wronged you this doesn't excuse the Mad one's manipulation of course but it's worth taking into consideration such harsh lessons are present in all of Sher gor's Accords the ninth Accord tells of shor's wager with the Dream Weaver vermina this Accord shows not only the Mad God's insistence that his fellow dra Lords should open their minds but also his consummate understanding of creativity an understanding he evidently found lacking in the Mistress of nightmares this is the tale of a Breton writer named Darius shano who was blessed with a gift all creatives yearn for inspiration each night their Mina would manifest in shano's chamber and with sinuous fingers braid a nightmare so horrific that the anguished orer would pant and cry ring in a stew of sweat and twisted sheets the Dream Weaver made these Terrors so vivid that they bled into his waking mind turning his life into fantasmagoria reality and Nightmare coalescing before his eyes Darius shano knew he could only endure so much before his sanity was eroded by this oniric Onslaught he needed an outlet a way to process his torment perhaps even make a friend out of it and he found salvation on empty parchment characters became his Guardians armed with punctuation sentences became his spells and Pros his Fortress from this Vantage Darius could watch the horrors hold themselves against the walls he could study them admire them Channel their bridled power into magic but everything changed one night when ver Mina came to shano's chamber with an escort standing over darus shano while he lay quietly in his bed were his mistress vermina the Dreamweaver and the Mad God shag gorath verima looked down with pride at this disciple of hers and was boastful of her little Jewel such potential in this one through dreams of inspiration I have nurtured literary Talent into fruition and now he stands in aaim as an emerging Bard and poet he will gain much favor before I Tire of him Sher gorath too gazed at the Young Breton artist and saw that he was indeed famous among the other Mortals hm mused shagor but how many are there who hate this Mortal whom you have built it is the hatred of The Mortals which confirms greatness and not their love surely you can accomplish this as well it takes a lot of courage to put art out into the world art is personal it's raw but there is one thing above all others that every artist should fear when sharing their creations with wider Society it's not being criticized it's not being hated it's being forgettable art can evoke every emotion but to evoke only indifference that's a nightmare Beyond even their meaner capabilities a of course most artists would like to inspire positive emotion love friendship courage desire awe but there is incredible power in evoking negative emotion too dread revulsion shame when was the last time you willingly stared at a painting or read a passage in a book that made you feel genuine disgust if a creation can make you feel such strong negative emotion whether you appreciate it in the moment or not that creation is a magnificent work of art many well-loved illustrious figures are immortalized in history and culture but often times the most egregious figures make the biggest impression and are remembered for their vile actions their Mina had shown she can inspire a mortal to fame now shagor was challenging her to inspire a mortal to infamy perhaps Dream Weaver it would be amusing to show who has this power Inspire foolish arrogant hatred of this Mortal for 10 years and then I will do the same we shall see whose talents are most efficient free of Aid or interference from any of the dra at this she relaxed into confident pleasure the Mad God is indeed powerful but this task is suited to my skills The Mortals are repulsed by Madness but rarely think it worthy of hate I shall take pleasure in revealing this to you as I bring the more subtle Horrors out of this Mortal subconscious and so in the 19th year of his life the dreams Darius shano had been experiencing began to change fear had always been part of the night for him but now there was something else a Darkness began to creep into his Slumber a darkness that sucked away all feeling and color leaving only emptiness behind when this happened he opened his mouth to scream but found that the darkness had taken his voice as well all he had was the terror and the void and each night they filled him with a new understanding of death yet when he woke there was no fear for he had faith that his lady had a purpose indeed one night verima herself emerged from the void she leaned in close to whisper into his ear watch carefully my beloved with that she pulled the void away and for hours each night she would reveal to Darius the most horrible perversions of nature men being skinned and eaten alive by other men unimaginable beasts of many Limbs and mouths entire populations being burned their screams filled his every evening in time these Visions gwed at his soul and his work began to take on the character of his nightmares the images revealed to him at night were reproduced on the page and the terrible cruelty and Hollow Vice that his work contained both revolted and fascinated the public they reveled in their disgust over every detail there were those who openly enjoyed his shocking material and his popularity among some only fed the hatred of those who found him abhorent this continued for several years while the infamy of Darius grew steadily then in his 29th year without warning the dreams and nightmares ceased now it was sheogorath's turn to make Darius hate it and this is where the Mad God excels their meanor asserted that Mortals are repulsed by Madness but rarely think it worthy of hate and her logic led her to believe this challenge was better suited to her sphere but she was mistaken because as we've discussed at length shag gorf holds dominion over the creativity as well as Madness and he was about to sever Darius of his connection to the transmundane his Transcendent genius the tortured artist was suddenly given reprieve from his nightmares but it was replaced by an eerie silence a silence he felt compelled to fill with thoughts had he upset the Weaver of Dreams had she abandoned him when he went to bed at night the quiet lulled him to sleep he slept long and well his palid complexion brightened the dark circles under his eyes faded his body began to function as nature intended and as his Rejuvenation worsened he stopped being such a spectacle interested The Works of Daria shano waned his Pros became stale and his ideas failed to provoke the shock and outrage they once had as the memory of his notoriety and of his terrible dreams faded the questions that raced in his mind eventually produced resentment against verima his former mistress resentment grew into hatred from hatred came ridicule and over time ridicule became disbelief slowly it became obvious Thea had never spoken to him at all his dreams were simply the product of a sick mind that had writed itself he had been deceived by his own subconscious and the anger and shame overwhelmed him the man who once conversed with a deity drifted steadily into heresy in time all of the bitterness doubt and sacrilege focused in Darius a creative philosophy that was Fred throughout all of his subsequent work he challenged the gods themselves as well as the intile public and corrupt state for worshiping them he mocked them all with perverse caricatures sparing no one and giving No Quarter he challenged the Gods in public to strike him down if they existed and ridiculed them when no such comeuppance was delivered to all of this the people reacted with outrage far greater than they had shown his previous work his early career had offended only sensibilities but now he was striking directly at the heart of the people his body of work grew in size and intensity temples Nobles and commoners were all Targets of his scorn finally at age 39 Darius wrote a piece entitled the noblest fool ridiculing the Emperor God tpim for integrating into the prophetic nine divines cult the local King Dania who had been humiliated by this upstart in the past saw his chance for his sacrilege against the empire Darius shano was executed with a ceremonial blade in front of a cheering crowd of hundreds his last bitter words were gurgled through a mouthful of his own blood Darius shano succumbed to a fate worse than deaf to an artist he became a political commentator by completely withdrawing from shano's mind shagor sapped him of inspiration his spark was choked his Cutting Edge dulled and without his own Edge to cling on to he clambered for purchase desperate and uninspired he became a Critic 20 years after their wager was first placed V nimer and shag gorath met over Darius shano's headless corpse the Dreamweaver had been eager for this meeting she had been waiting for years to confront the dric prince over his lack of action I have been deceived by you shagor I performed my half of the bargain but during your 10 years you never contacted the Mortal once he owes none of his greatness to you all your talents all your influence nonsense croaked the Mad God I was with him all along when your time ended and mine began your Whispers in his ears were replaced with silence I severed his link to that from which he found the most comfort and meaning and withheld the very attention the creature so desperately craved without his mistress this man's character could ripen under resentment and hatred now his bitterness is total and overcome by a Madness fueled by his rage he feeds me in my realm as an eternal servant sh gorath turned and spoke to the empty space by his side indeed darus shano was a glorious mortal despised by his own people his Kings and even by the gods he mocked for my success I shall accept three score followers of their Nemer into my service and the dreamers will awaken as Mad Men and thus did shag gorath teach their need that without Madness there are no dreams and no creation their Nema will never forget this lesson without Madness there is no creation without shaag gorf there is no Divine spark but no matter how many times shagor shoved this lesson in the faces of the dra Lords they refused to learn when it came to the sik for cord sh gorf knew his Target was hardly a match for his wits the master of the hunt was many things athletic passionate even loyal and loving but he was not the wisest nevertheless the Mad God scheduled a meeting of the Two Princes and plotted away to teach heren a thing or two about paternity ever proud and boastful oblivion's mad Prince stood one fifth day of midyear Among The Frigid peaks of Skyrim and beckoned forth her scene for parlay the Huntsman God materialized for this was his day and the boldness of shagor intrigued him Ry without equal shagor holds in his realm giggling loons flamboyant URS and Craven mutilators the Mad Prince Will ply profitless Bargains and promote senseless Bloodshed for nothing more than the joy of another's confusion tragedy or rage so it was that sheor had set a stage on which to play himself as rival to her scene without haste the koi Prince proferred his contest each Prince was to groom a beast to meet at this place again free years to the hour and do fatal battle expressionless behind his fearsome countenance heren agreed and with not but a dusting of snow in the drift the princes were gone to their Realms while he may not be the smartest heren is no fool he knew this contest was suited to his strengths but refused to allow this fact to make him complacent he returned to his hunting grounds and appraised the manifold monstrosities of his realm Twisted perversions of creatures seen on N not even the most ferocious of the bestial hordes would be sufficient to best the Mad God so he bred a new abomination in a hidden Grove of his forested domain an ancient D he summoned and imbued it with the foul curse of like anthropy of pitch heart and Jagged Fang the Unspeakable horror had no peer even among the great hunters of heren sphere it's not explicitly stated when the curse of lycanthropy or fanthropy if we're going to be pedantic about it was created but I believe this might have been it with shag gor's inspiration herine brought a never-before seen horror into the orbits a foul mixture of D and natural Beast not a creation but a corruption and so goes the rest of the Accord in the third year on the given day her scene returned where shag gorath leaned cross-legged on a stone whistling with Idol patience the prince of the hunt struck his spear to the ground bringing forth his unnatural snarling Behemoth doing his cap Sly as ever shagor stood and stepped aside to reveal a tiny colorful bird perched at top the stone demurely it chirped in the bristling gusts scarcely audible in a twisted springing Heap the daydr was upon the stone leaving only Rubble where the boulder had been thinking itself Victorious the monsters bloodied Mo curled into a mock grin when a subdued song drifted in the crisp air the Tiny Bird lightly hopped along the snout of the Furious dayr shagor looked on quietly mirthful as the diminutive creature picked at a bit of detritus caught in Scales betwix the fiery eyes of the larger Beast with howling Fury the we thing blinded itself trying to pluck away the nuisance and so it continued for hours heren looking on in shame while his finest Beast gradually destroyed itself in pursuit of the seemingly oblivious bird all the while chirping a mournful tune to The Lonesome range livid but beaten herine burned the Ragged corpse and withdrew to his realm swearing in forgotten tongues his curses still hang in those Peaks and no wayf farer terries for fear of his wrathful aspect in those obscured Heights turning on his heel sh gorath beckon the minuscule Songbird to perch it up his shoulder and strolled down the mountain making for the warm breezes and vibrant sunsets of the abian coast whistling in tune with the tiniest champion in Tamriel her's Pride had robbed him of the ability to understand shag gor's lesson for he had been mocked and amassed escalated just as it' been in the dawn when ner chose the forest God ify over him in those Elder days heren had tended to his wounded ego through a display of ferocity slaying the grat elk and donning its head as a trophy and in this sick for cord had he not burned the corpse of his failed champion and withdrew to the hunting grounds in a dusty trail of profanity he might have taken sh gor's point in creating this wear monstrosity her scene had contributed to the tapestry of Creation in his own Savage fashion he had demonstrated Ingenuity but his competitive nature had blinded him and he couldn't see the value of subtlety of creatures that did not snar and kill while shag gorath does attempt to help the dric princes to open their minds he cannot account for the simple fact that as dra and not Adra they cannot create only corrupt and for this reason you'd think he envies the Adra who did take part in creation but it's hard to Envy dead or at least distant Gods who cannot impose their will upon their Creations is it possible that the Mad God is unique is it possible that he inhabits a sweet spot in the middle ground between excluded dra and absent Adra after all the atrocities that inhabit his realm are quite different to anything seen in the mundas as a reminder the text Adra and dra States Adra created the mortal world and abound to the Earth bones dra who cannot create have the power to change while varieties of Faith posits shagor is born when Lan's Divine spark is removed one crucial myth calls him the cfish shaped hole of the world the distinction between Adra and dra is typically drawn when Lan came to the other original spirits and posed to them the idea of of creating the mundas some Spirits saw its potential While others washed their hands of the whole Affair but matters of such magnitude are scarcely so simple a certain historian is a synonym for a charlatan the deeper we dig into the sediment of antiquity the more ambiguous Things become when we scrutinize the known dra Lords we can see countless exceptions to the Adra D ancestor not ancestor rule for example Aus MOA was according to the Imperial census of dra Lords born of thrown away ideas used during the creation of mortality in the mundas and Meridia was once a magn a child of Magnus before she emancipated herself in a display of rebellious refraction and carved out her own domain in the waters of Oblivion historians try their best to glorify their chosen Gods while admonishing against those they are trained to disdain but the these original Spirits are anything but definable we know from the monomyth that the gods fumbled around in the figurative dark in search of their spheres of influence yet we are expected to believe that the categorizations of Adra and dra are perfectly split in truth the powers and limitations of the Gods whether adri or dri fluctuate from entity to entity and in the case of shag gorath the god of Madness and creation born in the exact instance that Lan's heart is torn free from his chest I refuse to believe that this deity is incapable of original thought of creation he is as much tied to the structure of the orbits as he is to the chaos of Oblivion and that's what makes him mad that's what gives birth to jigal his equal opposite and that is why Beyond any dric disconnection or superiority complex shagor has a very real interest and connection with the Mundus and with The Mortals who occupy it the Mad God invites Mortals to his realm because he is fascinated by the unpredictability of fickle Mortals the chaos of their undefinable consciousnesses their creativity as a mortal writing these words the words you hear spoken now I understand it I feel sh gor's influence on my mind as I scratch these characters into the parchment before me there is so much Madness in writing in speech there is madness in the realization that the sentence you write or the words you speak are unique to the moment you write them or the moment you say them were I to sit at any other time of day to write these words in any other mood with a different amount of sugar or caffeine or alcohol or magic in my system the order of words would be different their meanings transformed you can only impose order on the words you write or say after they've been written or said there's no order in that he does his best but that unpredictability innate to Mortals is unattainable to shagor because he is constant and exists outside of time that is the root of his Fascination and his Envy he will never be as uniquely unorderly as a mortal can be thus he has a fascination with the mad and the creative he does have ties to the Adra being born when Lan's Divine spark was removed he was born from the clash between anuic trinimac Orel and padic Lan and I believe I know why shagor had to be born at this particular moment why is the dreaming sleeve to which all anuses travel such an obscure concept what is it that separates an animus a mortal soul from the other spirits of the orbits perhaps Mortals possess something truly original that not even Lan could have anticipated when plotting their invention you've read the monomyth you know that orel's champion trinimac removed Lan's Divine spark but what exactly is the Divine spark I've always interpreted this to mean his heart or more specifically his heart's beat and I stand by that if Lan's heart does not beat it is merely a stone but every beat is a spark that ignites invention imagine ination life love consider for a moment that the reason Lan AKA Shaw AKA shazar AKA AKA is the God of all human undertaking is due to the fact that he bestowed his Divine spark upon all Mortals this Divine spark makes Mortals more powerful than the dra who cannot create this Divine spark is Imagination dra Do Dwell in the Shivering Isles and many of them serve shag gorath but this is the reason why the Mad God insists on populating his realm with Mortals mad ones because they possess the Divine spark and since sh gorath came into being at the exact moment the Divine spark of imagination was ripped out in a spurting mess of scarlet he is the spirit of the Divine spark Unleashed free from the confines of Lan's limit full rib cage imagination erupted from the severed arteries of divinity spraying inspiration across the Mundus seeping into the soil that nourishes Mortals but this creativity was kept in by the Earth bones preventing it from flowing through the Estuary at the edges into the Waters of Oblivion thus shagor alone nurtures the Divine spark beyond the realm of the Dead God of imagination and the Shivering Isles stand as remote bastions of Madness and creativity in a sea of imaginative infertility back in the Mund trinimac's violent trespass into Lan's chest solidified the rules of the mundas yes the Earth bones slowly took their places as their powers waned but without the Divine spark the gods lacked the imagination to go on inventing and succumb to limitation Mortals however were not cursed in the same way because they were Lan's Offspring and their hearts beat in Imitation of their maker that was Lan's gift no wonder he said those Infamous words at convention this heart is the heart of the world for one was made to satisfy the other it's ironic that some Mortal races have turned away from Lan most notably the anuic alma who generally perceive him as the adversarial Spirit of man Lan isn't really the spirit of man he is the spirit of Mortals sadly War had sapped to the Dominion of their spark as in modern times they seem wholly driven by domination and destruction there is no greater tragedy in all the worlds of creation than being unimaginative to be blessed with Consciousness and to let it go to waste a door opened in the threshold stood a scowling grummite only this grummite was dressed in court finery the rough about his neck saturated in bog juice with a quick gesture and a tur demeanor he beckoned me into sh shor's throne room I dared not question the grummite lest I lose the privilege of this meeting I walked the bipoc carpet avoiding the Soggy footsteps of the amphibious Chamberlain I approached the day ready to jle before the prince first impressions are crucial with such capricious spirits but the throne was empty Shor stood in its shadow in the Embrace of the great tree behind it the red and blue flames groping his shoulders made the features of his face flicker the tenebrosity accentuated his features his cheeks were sunken his brow lurched over cat eyes alert despite the heavy bags tugging at them from below it seemed as though I'd caught sh gorath in the froze of a deep depression the lord of the never there had his Keen eyes affixed to the font of Madness as if staring hard enough would reveal to him the secrets of the orbits the grummite belched politely and Sh gorath turned his gaze upon me in hindsight I really can't explain it how it felt to meet the Mad God's eye it was like staring into a mirror Only The Apparition on the other side was unbounded by the strictures of mortality these eyes were wired to a mind that wasn't confined to a skull that wasn't limited to a finite lifespan what does a conscious being do when it can exist SE eternally I know l and vampires seek this kind of immortality often but they are blinded by ego by a will to exert power over lesses this kind of eternal spirit was different eternity was innate to it and by my estimation eternity was unwelcome to it Hill's belch had left a Gulch of Silence which the Mad God finally filled d drist a have you categorized us yet have you charted our Waters analyzed our spheres you've deduced that I'm the monarch of Madness yes what did you determine would be the outcome of this meeting if the lord of the never there was joking there was no sign of it on his face he offered no movement or expression to set a tone for the conversation allowing me to color the empty spaces in the exchange I'm working on it I replied categorization can be useful but it will always be subjective and can have near infinite combinations I've deduced that you are the monarch of Madness and much much more in fact I'd say your sphere makes you more like The Mortals you preside over than you think ultimately though I just had a few questions shora fiddled with his staff as he spoke feigning disinterest but the eyeball nestled in the staff's fork stared at me unblinking is that so the Mad God caught his staff and took a seat on his throne you come to my realm you make the claim that I conjured jig lag up like some fragment of my imagination a fun little aotter ego and then you Walts into my throne room and presume to pick my brain a click of my fingers and you'd be dragged by your ankles to the squirming pits gub would suck the smarts from your concept organ and floss with your bones he likes the clever meals more I meant no disrespect Lord Shor I said but I figured a prince of your power would be indifferent to my slander just as you brush off the sacriligious ways of the Heretics and the zealots who have questioned your rule for Centuries by mortal Reckoning the Heretics and the zealots can't agree on anything yet they're equally deluded they believe what they're told to believe and the people telling them what to believe the most delusional of all they'll preoccupy themselves with semantics until their minds are mush to me it's all bleeding you however appear to think for yourself and for that you need to be scrutinized what did you come here to ask the hill of suicides Madness or why trap their souls you invite them out to your Asylum and you trap them here when they try to leave you torment them at eternally why a rather naive question for any D drist worth their salt every prince claims The Souls of their worshippers they sacrifice their shot at a furious when they dip their toes in the waters of Oblivion why should I treat them any differently because you're different I sense the Mad God was being deliberately obtuse you claim to represent creativity you invite the most unique Divergent Minds to your Realm and you hold them hostage you should know better I had finally overstepped and The Sovereign of the Isles cracked his staff against the stone floor next I knew the air of the palace which had been thick with tension was replaced by fresh Mountain Air but before I had a chance to draw it into my lungs I was plummeting downwards I don't know how long I fell it could have been seconds or it could have been hours days or lifetimes in the mad house time passed as shagor willed it if you've ever jumped from height you'll know that a great deal of thinking can be done in those moments when the adrenaline engulfes every fiber of your mortal being night had fallen over shor's domain and from this elevation it felt as though I was Among the Stars these Stars here were not Rifts to aerious only imitations no Magicka pierced through them to embolden me as I fell the velocity of my fall took me down an intangible tunnel a corridor a great psychic Corridor I ran down it so fast I can't say whether my feet ever touched the floor and so I passed through this great Corridor a corridor unto shor's Perfection through a great sea of Blackness flecked with glowing anuic orbs that watched they were souls and I had roused them they were packed into the interstices the numberless recesses along the corridor like rooms at an inn that stretch to Infinity at the end of the corridor if it could be called an end Shone a beacon that dimmed these orbs a Divine and Limitless spark I knew then that these were the souls of the Asylum The Souls of men and myr who had gazed upon the Mad God's spark and had died in the presence of the Mad God's true face I thought I heard the flickering congregation singing songs of Jubilee and the presence of their King this is all a dream they cred a dream in death I came too and realized those were not my thoughts not my words but The Scrambled Transmissions from all the lives that had perished from the same fall only to have their souls linger trapped on the vertebrae of the Jester's spine while their corporeal forms turned to Madness a I was thankful to be reunited with my wits but the reality of my situation was ever the more urgent The Blood Stained stones of punishment Point came into view and I rushed to meet them head first had I opened my mouth a moment later I would have certainly died but in this falling dream in death I was the master of time and I uttered an incantation in the nick of time alteration sko levitation spell with a ferocious jerk and A Lash of the spinal whip I came to a halt levitating a hand span from the ground I lived once again the air changed back to the comforting air of agitation within shag gor's Palace only this time the silence was filled with laughter the sovereign's Depression had been replaced by Euphoria through a mirthful grin Sho said oh quite the treacherous trick master drist I thought that spell was outlawed in your mundane Homeland you cheated death you cheated me I was still regaining my composure but the fear for my life had subsided enough to restore my voice I was led to believe that this land is subject to your subjective sub judication my Lord and your smirk tells me you didn't entirely disapprove of my telani trick too much time around those mushroom dwellers studying aliad sorceries I say sha gorath contorted his face in mock disgust they made fools of the alians with it which I found amusing but I never liked those bird-brained elves they acquired a taste for all things dri but barely woried me said I wasn't sadistic enough for him they did Canen you believe that his Expressions shifted to pensive with the fluidity of a theater mask perhaps I'm not I changed my mind about your execution after all have you considered that you were powerless to prevent my survival a question that in his previous mood would have caused offense merely made the Mad Lord laugh again all right d drist you've entertained me enough to earn my respect I will humor your theories on my nature the Prince of Madness lounged on his throne and listened to my theories I will spare you the exact details of this homy for the prince interjected often sometimes in protest other times just to offer me tea and cheese but here is a summary of the words I said in that meeting one of the first lessons everyday drist learns is that it is a frivolous Endeavor to try to measure the power of a prince or to say with certainty that we know their motives and morality they are gods and are quite unlike Mortals the best we can do is speculate based on how their spheres manifest sha gorf sphere encompasses Madness and creativity it is the most nebulous chaotic sphere of all and his Origins as we discussed earlier in the video set him apart from his peers I truly believe that shag gorath lures Mortals into his realm because he is drawn to their Divergent Minds in many ways he wishes to nurture their creative spark and wishes to appreciate their insanity but in doing so he unknowingly strips them of their magic and of Lan's gift to all more TOS by hoarding mad creative souls in his Asylum he deprives them of their mortality it is the inevitability of death that fuels the Divine spark that's why Lan must die in the dawn of every cper he must lose the onaf war against the infinite anic Spirits if he were to Prevail he wouldn't be able to pass on his Divine spark just as ner must die in child birth to create a home for The Mortals Lan must also die for his children as I discussed in my jigal video and will expand on soon shagor is well aware of his permanence his immortality is in constant conflict with his Divine spark created when Lans is ripped from his chest by trinimac in the Shivering Isles shagor is surrounded by upstarts and dissident I believe that the Mad God could not fully strip me of my magic because he does not have total control of his realm and his mind hence why Ard and Saul could gain traction along with every other mad mutineer in his midst along with every other fragment of his own mad psyche creativity is as much my and every other mortal's sphere as it is shor's because we too possess Lan's Divine spark of Genius this is why the Mad God introduced the dragon born with the following grating I am a part of you oh little martal I'm a shadow in your subconscious a blemish on your fragile little psyche you know me you just don't know it Mortals are mad broken brilliant little things and their Brilliance lies in their Frailty for even the brightest lights will one day burn out shag gorf was born in a moment of extreme turmoil when chaos solidified in the mundas and the Adra sprung the Trap he shares the madness innate to Mortals and loves their lunacy but like a devouring mother he Smothers their spark and forces them to outlast their finite lives imprisoned in his mind sharing his eternal sentence when my audience with shag gorf came to an end he appeared to be perfectly balanced between his two states between woe and Glee he measured my words and passed his judgment he agreed to free the souls trapped on the hill of suicides stating that he had done the same once before in the past inspired by the heroism of another of the voices currently occupying his head he then opened a portal between us through the membrane of swirling sorcery Sher gora's Visage warped and in the moment I vanished from his realm the Rippling effect made his face display every conceivable emotion simultaneously suddenly I was back in my tower welcomed by The Familiar musty air of my study for the first time in my dealings with the dra Lords I felt sympathy wash over me I spoke a small prayer to the Mad God for his mental health the Mad God's library was filled with Mortal texts besides the Elder Scrolls Mora's black books and deon's mysterium all the best texts were written by Mortals on this particular day over the morning's wine and cheese he picked up an old one one with a creased spine and bent Corners all the signs of a loved book it was titled Adra and Adra and within its stained Pages sheora found these words as part of the Divine contract of creation the Adra can be killed witness Lan and the moons the proteon dra For Whom the rules do not apply can only be banished he closed the book wrapped his fingers on the cover and placed it by his unfinished breakfast his appetite had wandered so he set off on a stroll he found he could only find the inspiration for his Accords when walking and it was about time he wrote number 17 the subject shag gorath the Prince of Madness made his way to the doors of his Palace stopping in the vestibule to fetch his Cane he wondered about the weather rain was forecast he chuckled shook his head these were the Shivering aisles only he could determine the weather he would keep the skies clear and he would ramble without the burden of a coat he strayed Beyond The Palace grounds this time the jester spine mountains overhead were too tantalizing not to ascend it was a challenging hike but there was an assurance to the act of walking it was so predictable so reliable Left Foot Right Foot this simple repetition slowly wearing out his legs gave him a sensation that made him feel mortal he had probably conjured it inside his mind passing it on to his body for no God would really become fatigued from the act of walking nevertheless it felt real to him and he felt a connection to Mortals whenever he did it every prince had their own realm but how many of them took the time to explore it to walk its trails to observe its beauty they they were so preoccupied by their schemes sad on his walks shag gorf was isolated from his duties of governance haskill couldn't find him here to think and to walk something about these Concepts were inextricable to sh gorath though he couldn't say why he' felt though he couldn't be sure that in the realm of the godheads the word learn had a fascinating atmology in that realm the word learn which means to acquire knowledge comes from the old English word leonian to get knowledge to be cultivated From leonian the Path leads further back into the frickative fiets of protog Germanic and to the word lisan which has a base sense of to follow or to find a track from the Proto indoeuropean prefix l meaning track to learn therefore means at root to follow a track to wander is to gain knowledge perhaps this is why the gentleman with aain was so fond of rambling stories are just like paths and the greatest storytellers have walked those paths all their short lives shag gorath recalled that a forgotten Prince had recently reemerged whose sphere was connected to this notion in some strange way he would have to explore this more later shagor tried to cast his memory back to its Wellspring but like the soul before its coalescence within the embryo he found only fog a spirit with form whether that be an original Spirit or a mortal forever strives for the singularity of the before time when everything made perfect sense but once the original Spirits took their shapes and Mortals were born and lived their finite lives that Singularity was gone that forgotten time is the Fountain of creativity the creativity that Anu and padmi could harness without restraint without access to that one can only subc create rearrange the primary material in some particular way for the inhabitants of Mundus and of the Shivering Isles this rearrangement could take the shape of a painting a building a song a story but each and every one in their own unique way gave The Offspring of the Divine some means of grazing their fingertips against the underside of the Divine and that ambition share Gora amise was the Genesis of his 16 Accords of Madness 16 which would soon become 17 but no matter how much the Mad one convinced himself that he was truly inspired no matter how much he convinced himself his legs were tired from walking no matter how much he convinced himself he would someday die these gifts of inspiration were bestowed by Lan upon Mortals but not upon shagor shag gorath could not die thus he could not experience erence true inspiration that was reserved for those whose days were numbered as you sit here listening to these words your days are numbered as I sit here writing these words so are mine feel it the Divine spark live well and die but the Mad God cannot die and for that he is resentful even when the voice in his head named jigal comes to destroy his realm and his mind it will always be rebuilt there is no real consequence nothing is at stake if your life cannot be stripped from you at any moment if all your work can't be burned away and your thoughts cast into the epher what is there to inspire you you dear listener like me the drist will always live in fear that fear may be small most days but it's there whatever you hope to achieve in your time attached to that flesh vessel of yours it could vanish at any moment unfulfilled don't let your time alive be wasted that urgency is Lan's gift to all Mortals shagor sat on the precipice of punishment point and gazed out over his domain shagor would never die and so he would envy Mortals for all time for all the cpic Cycles this God is plagued by an existential crisis but this God is a moral and when these two concepts are combined mind there is only one outcome Madness shagor sat on the precipice and the skies above began to pour rain buffeted the Prince of Madness until he wished he'd brought his coat and that is the tale of Shay aorf the dri Prince of Madness thank you so much for watching I hope you enjoyed the video if you enjoy these long form Elder Scrolls law videos please like And subscribe as they take a long time to make if you'd like to support the channel further I'll leave a link to my patreon in the description below but please only pledge if you can comfortably afford to thank you so much again for watching my name is Drew the drist you've been watching Drew MOA and I'll see you in the next [Music] one

Channel: Drewmora

Views: 55,779

Keywords: Sheogorath, Shivering Isles, Elder Scrolls, skyrim, oblivion, morrowind, eso, skyrim lore, oblivion lore, elder scrolls, elder scrolls lore, talos, tiber septim, thalmor, empire, daedric prince, elder scrolls deep dive, daedra, dwemer, dwarf, dwarves, heart of lorkhan, morrowind story, elder scrolls 6, dwemer ruin, dwarven ruin, dwarven armor, nords, falmer, snow elves, vivec, dunmer, high elves, summerset, malacath, oblivion main quest, hircine, vaermina, elder scrolls 3, jyggalag, nocturnal

Id: QpKd6MQ5pdE

Length: 104min 18sec (6258 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 31 2024