#skyrim paganism

[mistressofduskanddawn]

Wines for the Daedric Princes

Azura: Light rose and sweetened whites, especially gewürztraminer, for its lovely rose scent and taste.

Boethiah: red light bodied wines that remind one of spilled blood; cabernet sauvignon and pinot noir.

Clavius Vile: wines of deeper nature and deception, a buttery chardonnay or meaty sweet port, complex blends and vintages unseen yet a deal for what they may be.

Hermaeus Mora: natural wines in which their secrets are hidden, you will never know how the wine went through its fermentation.

Hircine: natural wines, made from wild undomesticated grapes within the wilderness. The hunt for them alone is one of his pursuits.

Ithelia: obscure, indigenous wines that fathered the modern wine world yet remain locked and lost to time. Gouais blanc and other such forgotten yet vital varieties.

Jyggalag: traditional wines, bordeauxs and such, that invoke the order and tradition of old world wines.

Malacath: Table wines, those of the lower class, longstanding for their value. Wines enjoyed with food, considered weak yet have been a table of human culture for ages.

Mehrunes Dagon: Syrah and burnt wines, wines made from the regional smoke that lingers within the bottle and upon the tongue.

Mephala: Wines of controversy and disguise, such as a purple pinot noir or the market-changing jackson Chardonnay. Cold-hardy hybrid wines as well, such as Chambourcin, that seek to change the market itself.

Meridia: Bright wines, light and full of life, such as a cold region chardonnay or vigonier. Sparkling wines as well, brimming with light and air, such as prosecco,

Molag Baal: brutal, tannic wines, such as Cabernet Franc, the colour of blood and barely drinkable, begetting suffering for the drinker.

Namira: Old wines, sherries and noble rot wines, filled with age and decay.

Nocturnal: blueberry wines that invoke the night sky, full bodied reds made to invoke mystery such as petite syrah.

Peryite: noble rot wines, saturnes and such, made from the botrytis bunch rot in such a way that a wine become dried of water and therefore sweet.

Sanguine: All wines, truly, but especially those of higher ABV meant to draw in indulgence.

Sheogorath: wines of chaos. peeps wine and other such creatures.

Vaermina: Muscats and sweet wines, to lure one into a drink yet end up blacked out due to overindulgence, the slow draw into more until sleep.

[thewolfparadox-things]

Hircine Hunter's Moon prayer

Hircine, Lord of the Hunt,

We gather on this Hunter's Moon to give thanks for all that you provide. We thank you for the beasts that roam the forests, for they challenge us and teach us to be better Hounds. We thank you for the wild places, for they give us a place to come together and commune with nature. We thank you for the thrill of the chase, for it fills our hearts with excitement and makes us feel alive. On this Hunter's Moon, we ask for your blessing. Help us to be skilled and successful in our hunts. Help us to be safe and respectful of the beasts we take. And help us to use the gifts of the hunt to provide for our families and our communities.

Hircine, we honor you.

We praise you.

We thank you.

We are your Hounds.

[mint-in-the-moonlight]

ideas for Vaermina worship

in my reinterpreting Vaermina post i suggested an alternate way of looking at Vaermina rather than just seeing her as an "evil" Daedric Prince. i am drawing on that understanding of mine in this post and so if you're confused, refer back to that post for clarification.

Vaermina's spheres

dreams and nightmares

divination

memory

below this everything is UPG

sleep

concentration and inspiration

creativity and storytelling

energy and exhaustion

Symbols and themes associated with Vaermina

snakes

the colour purple

a pointy mask (seen below)

staves

orbs

Vaermina could be invoked for

help with sleep issues or fixing your sleep schedule

when you're attempting to lucid dream or astral travel

if you are trying to remember your dreams

getting rid of a scary or recurring nightmare

if you need a boost of energy during the day

for help with memory and/or concentration

to boost creativity and improve your storytelling abilities

Offering and devotional activity ideas

notes written in the Daedric alphabet (applicable for any Daedric Prince)

notes describing dreams you're had

sleep and naps

stimulating substances such as coffee or energy drinks

purple objects such as crystals or flowers

lavender - is purple and also traditionally has associations with sleep

sleep related items such as sleep teas or small pillows

relaxing or dreamy music

keeping a dream journal

lucid dreaming or astral travel

writing stories or being otherwise creative

resting or taking a mental health day

[gloryfore]

Magical pathways 🌲🦌

[unusual-suspects]

iceland, may 2024

[vikings-til-valhalla]

So I find it hilarious. I began my Asatru journey working with just Odin. He's the first that I was drawn to, and Odin has worked with me ever since.

But when I came out as trans, I started feeling drawn to Loki. Of course. Because, y'know, god of change, shapeshifter, and being trans you essentially shapeshift. But I was hesitant, tried to work just with Odin.

Loki wouldn't have it.

I'm a vivid dreamer, and dreams inspire plenty of my writing. And soon enough if I ever dreamt of Odin, Loki was there. They'd often interfere with Odin and I, cause some stupid prank and make me laugh to no end, and a few times I even spoke to them directly, and Loki praised me for my determination in being myself despite what hate I get.

Ever since, if I'm working with Odin, Loki is there inevitably. They're always causing mayhem in some way.

And uhh... I kinda have proof of this IRL now.

So I was playing Skyrim (Anniversary Edition), and made myself in game. Outright just me. I'm a tiny Dwemer/Dwarf, same hair and stubble, same face, the only difference is the pointed ears, and otherworldly eye color.

In Anniversary Edition, there is a mod for horses that lets you find them in the wild, tame them, and give them a name.

The names are COMPLETELY RANDOM chosen from a list, but you as a player don't control which name you get. You can choose another later on that's also random, but it's not like you type in one to give the horse.

So recently I took my game self out to Riften, and grabbed the majestic unicorn from the wild. Gave it some Dwarven armor, then went to give it a name.

What's the first name that my unicorn fucking got?????

Yeah. Uhh.

Loki if you're watching me rn, which it seems you always are, I love ya, my dude (gender neutral). Thanks sincerely for always giving me a good laugh and smile. :) Life is way too short to be miserable and mopey.

[cryptic-klepto]

I found an etsy store called Statuecrafts, and they are full of horseshit.

This motherfucker is selling a $130 statue claiming it's of the Greek Goddess Hekate, but I've played enough Skyrim to know that that is the Daedric Prince Azura. Look! She's even holding Azura's Star, a daedric artifact that can be used as a reusable Soul Gem. They probably stole the design off of another artist who was selling statues of the Daedric Princes. Smh.

(Edit: the model comes from a mod made by a Skyrim modder called Mandragorasprouts, you can see in the last two images, its the exact same)

[froggydelicious]

infinitely fucked up that skyrim is the best werewolf sim of all time

[psych0billy]

☣︎ im vinny :3 ☣︎ 19 ☣︎ skullet wearing freak ☣︎

i enjoy :

[mistressofduskanddawn]

Meridia On Earth: the Sunlight, the Black Hole

[IMG ID: A scene of beams of light breaking through the heavens of a dark forest, with a distinct outline of a tree to the left. A single branch is to the right of the tree, barely illuminated in the light yet distinctive from the trees in the background. The dark forest contrasts the light yellow beams with a abyssal blue tinted forest.]

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A LARGE PART OF TES POLYTHEISM TODAY IS HOW IT OPERATES IN THIS WORLD, and how the divine fits within. Azura is rather easy to understand here—a gatekeeper of heaven, who opens up the night and day, and a queen of the night sky. Boethiah can be witness within revolutions and will to end oppressive empires, Akatosh in time, Mara in marriage, etc. However, I have begun to think of Meridia and her relationship to Mangus: and with some discussion with my fellow dear TES polytheists, I have found Meridia in the sunlight—and the dark star. This will mostly be a structured rambling of my beginning thoughts upon Meridia upon Earth, which should really be taken with a grain of salt, so let us begin: 

SUNLIGHT, MERIDIA, AND THE GREED OF LIGHT 

One particular aspect of Meridia I can understand as a kin of draconic nature is greed—but we take it in different forms. Meridia is known for her greed of people and her hatred of free will: rather preferring to have her will as all-consuming. Rather inspired by the darker interpretation of light, I have come to see Meridia in the sunlight—and light seeks to touch all, photons bursting forth to output energy. This is by no means a revolutionary take, she is depicted as the sun in the Skyrim tarot deck, but the possible mechanisms of how are what I am fascinated with. 

Energy is the process of life, which for a goddess of light, is only natural. 

The Red Star. Harbinger of Dawn. Second Daughter of … She is the Light of … who bore witness to the Crucible of Creation. … Refraction within reason … Goddess Who Holds […] Free will is to be surrendered to passion … destiny is fulfilled for the vessel … Radiant in times of … blinding the Dragon and bending his form … Mirror of the Lie … revealing purity in chaos with fervor … that false-life might be abolished … with the fire of new light may the Mundus be reforged.

The aspect of reforging Mundus could perhaps refer to her hatred of the undead. Meridia often seeks to conform things to her will and loathes the undead, which are contrary to her nature as life. Her father Magnus designed Mundus, yet ended up abandoning his plans. Meridia as his daughter—well, I would not be surprised if she wished for the father’s plans to be complete, and the impurity she sees arising from his light not being honoured. 

Her nature of refracting light is further expanded upon by in-game commentary on the Exegenis of Merid-Nunda, similar to how the coloured rooms refract light: 

A curious passage indeed. The “Dragon,” of course, traditionally refers to the Divine we know as Akatosh, the God of Time. This seems to suggest that by traveling the “rainbow road” (a reference to the prismatic refraction of light?), Meridia can in some sense alter the rate at which time flows forward. Altering the “speed” of time? Is this merely an absurd conceit of the late Ayleid sorcerer-priests, or a genuine insight into the nature of one of the least-understood Daedric Princes? Who can say?

Time for us humans—beyond the bounds of capitalistic senses of time and clock—is relative to the light of the sun, the moon, and the cycles they are bound within. When I think of her blinding Akatosh and creating dragon-breaks, I think of the way light defines our melatonin production, our idea of day, and the lunar cycle of which people of old defined their months by. Her time bending abilities obviously extend beyond this, but Sunlight is certainly an aspect of time. And her being called a Mirror of the lie: this is once again speculation, but if Magnus’ plans were abandoned and as such Mungus is flawed, then some could view Mundus as in need of reforging.

While silly to realise despite it being so obvious, Meridia is the prism of light. Through her light is filtered, and that is why she can stretch across a rainbow road. The coloured rooms were made through light being refracted within herself—and with this knowledge of her prismatic nature, she is the origin of the rainbow. A constant movement of light—the Daedra are change, afterall. She may not have originally been a daedric prince, yet she fits in rather well through that lens. Refraction also seeks to make light its own separated hue, which is a fun more UPG way to view her greed. She is the sunlight and refraction of light and light seeks to illuminate and refract all. And light spreads as much as it can, just as she tries to go as far as she might.

The Exegesis of Merid-Nunda also speaks of her being unfearing of the dark;

“… thus we call upon Cenedelin to bind the earth, as we speak to Merid-Nunda regarding the light, for she is the scintilla that fears not darkness, and swims the waves of pull and spin ….”

Cenedelin in particular references the Ayleid king of Delodiil defeating the Molag Baal worshipping city of Abagarlas. Scintilla means “a tiny trace or spark of a specified quality or feeling,” making her the courage against the dark. Light has no fear of darkness, for it conquers and illuminates all. 

MERIDIA, THE BLACK HOLE 

Another theory to Meridia is that she is, within essence, a black hole. Black holes bend light and time as they consume, which aligns with Meridia’s nature of being able to warp time and her greed—black holes consume everything, which poetically, is likened to that of ideal mortal greed. She is a star who fell when consorting with illicit spirits as the lore says, which could be seen as the collapse of a star that creates the black hole. This interpretation is not one I am quite familiar with, but certainly one to intrigue. The source given to me goes into it far better than I could, so I shall link it here. 

THE DAY CYCLE 

Something I have noticed is that Azura, unlike many dawn goddesses of other religions, is her stronger connection to night compared to day. While ESO does depict her star in more the shape of the sun, Azura’s star is meant to be analogous Nirn’s Venus[1]—and our own, on Earth, the star of dawn and dusk. For myself, being a multi-tradition pagan, when I was coming to understand Azura in this world, I thought of Thesan and Eos. Both are far more associated with Hemera, Helios, and Usil—and not quite as strongly with Nyx, Selene, Cilens, and Tiur. 

While Azura is the one who releases Magnus into the sky, she is not nearly as associated with the day compared to night—and this is where I see Meridia shine. And in an obvious lore sense, she is called the Harbinger of Dawn.This puts her as a forerunner of the Dawn cycle, so when Azura opens the day, Meridia and Magnus’ light pours through. On a deeper aspect, Meridia reflecting the sun’s light through herself may be the way she is the daedra of life: by reflecting it, it shines upon the world, allowing for all manners of crops to grow. Her energy is infinite in this sense—as long as Magnus produces light, she can bend it into another will. The will for light to give energy to life, while Azura’s light rules magic and liminality. 

Perhaps that is her idea that free will should be replaced with passion. Such passion begets energy, and free will often ends passions and seeks to replace it with one’s own design. As a daughter of Magnus, who seeks to reforge this world—wouldn’t Meridia loathe a mortal’s ability to completely alter fate, no matter how much time and light she bends?

— Piraakyuonliv, Dovah, Gazing Upon Dawnbreaker

References

[1] Venus is often called a star in ancient world lore, associated with dawn and dusk. Deities such as Hesperos and Eosphoros. The lore page I am referencing is here.

EOS – Greek Goddess of the Dawn (Roman Aurora). (n.d.). https://www.theoi.com/Titan/Eos.html

Lore:Exegesis of Merid-Nunda – The Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages (UESP). (n.d.). https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Exegesis_of_Merid-Nunda

Lore:Meridia – The Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages (UESP). (n.d.). https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Meridia

[thewolfparadox-things]

I write out my prayers and spells in Daedric script

[mint-in-the-moonlight]

reinterpreting Vaermina

as I have written in my previous post on interpreting the daedra, if we want to engage with the daedric princes and worship them without doing a bunch of messed up stuff that daedra worshippers are said to do in Tamriel, we need to find an alternate way to approach the princes.

Vaermina is no different, and is associated with a lot of bad stuff and her worshippers are said to also engage in many harmful acts and that's not something we should be trying to replicate. however, as i have proposed previously, we could engage with the lore and the games as myths and therefore we do not need to literally believe that a deity did certain things or that their worshipper did blood sacrifices (in my interpretation, in the world of Tamriel stories like these are intentionally spread to paint the daedric princes as evil and thus discourage people from worshipping them, but that's just a theory... A GAME THEO- *gunshot*).

Vaermina is associated with dreams and nightmares, as well as evil omens and corruption. She is often believed to be the cause of bad dreams, using them as a torture device or punishment. But if we put all of the bad press aside, we could instead see Vaermina as a deity of sleep, dreams and nightmares, who sometimes communicates through them. From my understanding of the lore, she also seems to be seen as interacting with memories and divination. Thus dreams could be one of the ways that she communicates with the mortal plain and maybe she could also have a relation to prophetic dreams, and for example astral travel and lucid dreaming (all of this is UPG territory btw).

to delve even deeper into my personal UPG, i see Vaermina as being related to many mental themes, and thus we can extend that to for example creativity, concentration or inspiration. More closely tied to her original spheres, she could also be related to naps and regaining energy, or stoytelling, as dreams often have some sort of story, and the subconscious.

that is not to say that Vaermina has to be 100% positive, just as dreams and nightmares can be scary, memory can be fickle and creativity elusive. but we do not need to see the daedric princes as only evil and can find ways to incorporate them into our practice and worship if that is something we wish to do, without feeling some sort of guilt or shame for engaging with deities deemed "evil" in their source material.

[gloryfore]

Rune stone magick

ᚹ ᛘ ᛖ

[daedra-devotee]

Daedra Worship Notes: Nocturnal.

The daedric prince of night and darkness, known also has the Night Mistress or Lady Luck. The Khajiit know her as Noctra. She is also referred to as Ur-Dra, part of the original void. It is said that she is the oldest and one of the most powerful Daedric Princess.

Nocturnal brings shadows and luck when called upon. Her physical description is always that of a women dressed in a dark cloak, sometimes black other times a dark purple. Her arms usually outstretched with multiple nightingales (or similar birds) flying around her.

While worshippers of Nocturnal are those who operate in the shadows, such as thieves or spies, Nocturnal is not an evil Daedra. As Karliah describes her, "she is like a scolding mother who pushes her child to do better," which suggests that unlike other Daedra, Nocturnal cares for mortals.

Worship of Nocturnal

Nocturnal does have quite a large following, however she has no one form of an organized sect of followers. While there is a temple and shrines of her in Nightingale Hall and in the Twilight Sepulcher- which is built around the Ebonmere portal which leads to Nocturnal's corner of Oblivion called, Evergloam, the Night Mistress does not seem to care much for Worship.

Few sects that Worship Lady Luck are as follows, Nightingales, a coven of all female witches, and even a cult.

The Nightingales

The Nightingales serve Nocturnal directly, in return they can receive the powers of Shadow, Subterfuge, or Shadow. Once a Nightingale enters the contract with Nocturnal they are bound to her to guard the Twilight Sepulcher and serve her until she feels that the contract had been fulfilled.

Witches

Like other Daedric Princes, Nocturnal has a following of all female followers known in game as witches. The Purloined Shadows is a coven dedicated to serving Nocturnal.

Cultists

The Daedric Prince has at least one cult dedicated to serving her, this cult is known as the Whispering Shadows. They operated throughout the Clockwork City in the second era. In Summerset she has only one known human follower- Earl Tundilwen.

Pop Culture Followers

Many folk who have played the Elder Scrolls game have taken to following the Prince in real life. Worshipping a pop culture figure is really no different than worshipping another figure in real life. How you choose to worship is up to you.

[fru1t--bat]

Some things I'm interested in because I need relatable mutuals..

Reminder, I also am like a minor, so if you're an adult please be careful 😇😇

Cowboys

RDR1 & RDR2

Arthur Morgan

The wild west

The Victorian era

Pretty much the whole 19th century

Appalachian folklore

LOTR, and like all of the Tolkien universe

Skyrim

Music, folk, bluegrass, country, Appalachian mountain music

Writing

Art

I love learning about occult and witchy stuff

Banjo, guitar and bass

Elves

Vampires

Bg3

The phantom of the opera

Like anything fantasy or mystical

Books

[dovahsonaak]

Look I’m not gonna get involved in community drama cuz that’s not what my blog is about but I am gonna say I was super let down by Kaidan’s daedric quest

But that’s why god invented fanfiction