Part One:
Long ago, my daughter, there were six Great Houses. Amongst and around those Great houses were countless other, minor Houses. Houses with names like Mora and Sotha. There were others, too- many more whose names have long since been forgotten as they faded away, were destroyed utterly, or the Houses greater than they slowly devoured them.
Among the Great Houses was the House of Dagoth, which was ruled by one called Dagoth Ur.
But do not be mistaken- for in an age, long past, Dagoth Ur was but another mer- flesh and blood, just like you or me. If he were to fall into the river he would catch cold, like I did past winter. If he were to set his hand on the stove, he would singe his hand, as you did just last week.
The only difference between you or he- or between he or I, was simply this- he was the leader of his House.
Just like now, we swear fealty and oath ourselves to the House leaders. But in days long past, an oath was a powerful thing. We may know of people now who dismiss promises and break oaths as if they were tissue fiber- easily ripped apart and discarded without thought. But in the days before men-folk taught us to separate our hearts from our words, an oath was a thing that bound to us to our very blood.
And so it was that those who, in ages past, followed Dagoth Ur as a leader of mer, became bound to follow him as he became more than a mer. And as he became more powerful and more twisted, so too did the oath that bound his kinsmer to his leadership.
The newly formed Tribunal was aware of this and quickly set about to perform the act of genocide. They would leave no base for Dagoth Ur to rebuild his strength. They would leave no followers to be bound so closely to one who was their rival.
The first murdered were the babes in their beds. Stricken with a perversion of the healing arts from Almalexia’s own lips, children died suddenly and violently, gasping for air they could not breathe, screaming with words that would not sound. The Tribunal’s first priority was the cessation of Dagoth Ur’s illegitimate heirs and the death of the future generations of all the Dagoths. Though he had no wife, rumors of concubines and illegitimate heirs were common. There would be no child from Dagoth Ur's loins.
The second murdered were the adults in their homes. As those of House Dagoth rushed to aid their children, Vivec sent his armigers behind silence and black of night to torch the homes of the Dagoth families. Alerted somehow to the treachery, many escaped, only to be cut down later by Vivec and his armies. Even a shaky alliance with their long hated foes the Nords did not give House Dagoth the strength to stand before the spear of Vivec's godhood.
The third murdered was their history in their world. While the scattered few who were still Dagoth hid and prayed for mercy, Sotha Sil used the eyes of his followers to seek them out and destroy them. He did not even need magic for this, only the words from his lips. The new God declared House Dagoth an enemy, declared them to always have been an enemy and said them to be not just inferior to mer, but even more vile and conniving than the beast-folk slaves and more dangerous than the Four corners. A great hunt began, and House Dagoth verged on the brink of annihilation.
Soon all three of the New gods echoed this sentiment, and almost overnight, the tapestry of history was shorn and sewn anew, with House Dagoth an eternal enemy from time immemorial.
But in all great evils can be found charitable acts of kindness- for many folk remembered their friends who were Dagoths and could not bear to see them harmed. They hid their friends and aided the suffering and sometimes, they even bore the children of House Dagoth.
This world, my daughter, is a world that can have no absolutes.
As the centuries passed, the unaware offspring of the Dagoth House spread out and multiplied, ignorant of their very heritage.
And then one day, Dagoth Ur returned and began to whisper.
Part 2:
This, my daughter, is not the story of Dagoth Ur.
It is the story of your mother. You have heard it before, but I shall tell it again. And I shall continue to tell it, every year on this day- the day when you were born. The day that your mother died.
It has been six years and you have become a fine child. No doubt you think me a boring old man. I am not a hero swordsman from your storybooks, nor am I a powerful mage as you play to be when you think I am not looking. I’m just a simple farmer, tending to the kanet, toiling with the ash yams, herding the stubborn netch. Each and every day I sweat under the sun and my fingernails become caked with dirt, but I take pride in pleasure in what I do, and I am content.
Your mother was from a different world. One you would probably be more happy with then this one. She was a woman pf privilege, an outgoing and strong woman who smiled at all things and found beauty in everyone but was content to leave nothing as it was. A lovely and beautiful image of grace and elegance who somehow, much to my good fortune, came to love a poor farmer and gave up everything she knew to be with him.
While she brimmed with optimism, I worried and doubted. While she saw the best in all, I only saw the darker shadows. I could not fathom to guess what brought us so strongly together. Perhaps for the same reason day chases the night even as night chases the day. Both admire the qualities of the other, no matter how much those qualities are the inverse of their own nature.
Life was good, and became even better. She was with child- with you- in her belly. We mer do not have children easily, and we had been trying.We were fortunate. We were happy. We were blessed. All we could ask for looked within our grasp. It was all too good.
This world, my daughter, is a world that can have no absolutes.
One night as we lie together sleeping, your mother woke with the whisper in her heart.
How can I describe the anguish of watching my love become something else before my very eyes? It is like standing in the sun and being chilled by its light. Day after day, week after week, your mother departed, piece at a time, bit by excruciating bit, and was replaced by some cold thing, some hollow thing, something dark and ominous.
On the day she tried to leave, to follow the whispers to Red Mountain, I locked her in our room. Were it not for you in her belly, I do not know that I would have stopped her. She frightened me. She was no longer my wife. She was something else altogether then- but by this time her pregnancy was quite apparent, and the reminder that you were within her- you, my lovely child- could not allow me to set her free.
The nights were the worst, I think. Even as my eyes would close from sheer exhaustion, I would hear the scratching begin. The creature that had replaced your mother would wait until it thought I asleep then begin scratching her way through the walls, even as a rat would. For hours the scratching would continue, scraping it’s way down deep into my soul, chilling me to my bones. I wanted to run and hide, I wanted to be anywhere else. Any hope I had- for you, for your mother, for my very sanity- was being scratched away, bit-by-bit, on and on for endless hours into the night.
When the day came the creature would sleep and I would steal into the room and replaster the walls where it had scratched. I would leave food and water. I would bandage her hands and treat her fingers with healing ointments and I would even say a prayer to the Tribunal, ironic as that seems now. Always the scratches were in the same place on the same wall- always toward Red Mountain.
The months went by and she began to talk after she awoke. I would catch half-conversations she spoke to the air. She was always reverent when she spoke, as if she were in the room with some benevolent Daedra. Suddenly at times she would laugh unexpectedly, a sound that was graver to me than all the scratchings of all the nights- because it was a sound I knew and recognized. It was her laugh- in her voice and I could not mistake that for any laugh in the world.
Where had she gone that had taken her so far from me and yet left her so close? I could not fathom.
And then you were coming, making your way from her womb into the world, and, fearful as I was, I entered the room while she was awake that night.
She did not fight me, nor even acknowledge my presence. She had helped others in childbirth when she had still been wholly herself, and simply stated to me when I needed to do something and what it was I needed to do. Never once did she look at me though, except once to tell me that her Lord Dagoth was with her.
At the moment your head crowned, the air rushed out of the room. What had been an oppressive and heavy weight suddenly lifted. I would only discover later that this was when the Nerevarine struck at the Heart underneath Red Mountain. This was when Dagoth Ur fell.
Your mother looked at me in surprise and asked me plainly “My love, why have you not been with me?”
And I told her then that I had always been with her. She replied, “My Lord has Left Me.” And I told her not to worry, because even if he was gone, I would always be there. She smiled at me sadly and a tear fell from her eye.
And even as I made my oath to your mother to always be there with her, I knew what it would entail. For as she left our world, she could only leave it to serve her master. Some people say that he is dead and gone forever. But I believe I know for whom it was my wife left her life for.
This world, my daughter, is a world that can have no absolutes.
Where she goes, my heart willingly follows.
Praise be to Dagoth Ur.
Long ago, my daughter, there were six Great Houses. Amongst and around those Great houses were countless other, minor Houses. Houses with names like Mora and Sotha. There were others, too- many more whose names have long since been forgotten as they faded away, were destroyed utterly, or the Houses greater than they slowly devoured them.
Among the Great Houses was the House of Dagoth, which was ruled by one called Dagoth Ur.
But do not be mistaken- for in an age, long past, Dagoth Ur was but another mer- flesh and blood, just like you or me. If he were to fall into the river he would catch cold, like I did past winter. If he were to set his hand on the stove, he would singe his hand, as you did just last week.
The only difference between you or he- or between he or I, was simply this- he was the leader of his House.
Just like now, we swear fealty and oath ourselves to the House leaders. But in days long past, an oath was a powerful thing. We may know of people now who dismiss promises and break oaths as if they were tissue fiber- easily ripped apart and discarded without thought. But in the days before men-folk taught us to separate our hearts from our words, an oath was a thing that bound to us to our very blood.
And so it was that those who, in ages past, followed Dagoth Ur as a leader of mer, became bound to follow him as he became more than a mer. And as he became more powerful and more twisted, so too did the oath that bound his kinsmer to his leadership.
The newly formed Tribunal was aware of this and quickly set about to perform the act of genocide. They would leave no base for Dagoth Ur to rebuild his strength. They would leave no followers to be bound so closely to one who was their rival.
The first murdered were the babes in their beds. Stricken with a perversion of the healing arts from Almalexia’s own lips, children died suddenly and violently, gasping for air they could not breathe, screaming with words that would not sound. The Tribunal’s first priority was the cessation of Dagoth Ur’s illegitimate heirs and the death of the future generations of all the Dagoths. Though he had no wife, rumors of concubines and illegitimate heirs were common. There would be no child from Dagoth Ur's loins.
The second murdered were the adults in their homes. As those of House Dagoth rushed to aid their children, Vivec sent his armigers behind silence and black of night to torch the homes of the Dagoth families. Alerted somehow to the treachery, many escaped, only to be cut down later by Vivec and his armies. Even a shaky alliance with their long hated foes the Nords did not give House Dagoth the strength to stand before the spear of Vivec's godhood.
The third murdered was their history in their world. While the scattered few who were still Dagoth hid and prayed for mercy, Sotha Sil used the eyes of his followers to seek them out and destroy them. He did not even need magic for this, only the words from his lips. The new God declared House Dagoth an enemy, declared them to always have been an enemy and said them to be not just inferior to mer, but even more vile and conniving than the beast-folk slaves and more dangerous than the Four corners. A great hunt began, and House Dagoth verged on the brink of annihilation.
Soon all three of the New gods echoed this sentiment, and almost overnight, the tapestry of history was shorn and sewn anew, with House Dagoth an eternal enemy from time immemorial.
But in all great evils can be found charitable acts of kindness- for many folk remembered their friends who were Dagoths and could not bear to see them harmed. They hid their friends and aided the suffering and sometimes, they even bore the children of House Dagoth.
This world, my daughter, is a world that can have no absolutes.
As the centuries passed, the unaware offspring of the Dagoth House spread out and multiplied, ignorant of their very heritage.
And then one day, Dagoth Ur returned and began to whisper.
Part 2:
This, my daughter, is not the story of Dagoth Ur.
It is the story of your mother. You have heard it before, but I shall tell it again. And I shall continue to tell it, every year on this day- the day when you were born. The day that your mother died.
It has been six years and you have become a fine child. No doubt you think me a boring old man. I am not a hero swordsman from your storybooks, nor am I a powerful mage as you play to be when you think I am not looking. I’m just a simple farmer, tending to the kanet, toiling with the ash yams, herding the stubborn netch. Each and every day I sweat under the sun and my fingernails become caked with dirt, but I take pride in pleasure in what I do, and I am content.
Your mother was from a different world. One you would probably be more happy with then this one. She was a woman pf privilege, an outgoing and strong woman who smiled at all things and found beauty in everyone but was content to leave nothing as it was. A lovely and beautiful image of grace and elegance who somehow, much to my good fortune, came to love a poor farmer and gave up everything she knew to be with him.
While she brimmed with optimism, I worried and doubted. While she saw the best in all, I only saw the darker shadows. I could not fathom to guess what brought us so strongly together. Perhaps for the same reason day chases the night even as night chases the day. Both admire the qualities of the other, no matter how much those qualities are the inverse of their own nature.
Life was good, and became even better. She was with child- with you- in her belly. We mer do not have children easily, and we had been trying.We were fortunate. We were happy. We were blessed. All we could ask for looked within our grasp. It was all too good.
This world, my daughter, is a world that can have no absolutes.
One night as we lie together sleeping, your mother woke with the whisper in her heart.
How can I describe the anguish of watching my love become something else before my very eyes? It is like standing in the sun and being chilled by its light. Day after day, week after week, your mother departed, piece at a time, bit by excruciating bit, and was replaced by some cold thing, some hollow thing, something dark and ominous.
On the day she tried to leave, to follow the whispers to Red Mountain, I locked her in our room. Were it not for you in her belly, I do not know that I would have stopped her. She frightened me. She was no longer my wife. She was something else altogether then- but by this time her pregnancy was quite apparent, and the reminder that you were within her- you, my lovely child- could not allow me to set her free.
The nights were the worst, I think. Even as my eyes would close from sheer exhaustion, I would hear the scratching begin. The creature that had replaced your mother would wait until it thought I asleep then begin scratching her way through the walls, even as a rat would. For hours the scratching would continue, scraping it’s way down deep into my soul, chilling me to my bones. I wanted to run and hide, I wanted to be anywhere else. Any hope I had- for you, for your mother, for my very sanity- was being scratched away, bit-by-bit, on and on for endless hours into the night.
When the day came the creature would sleep and I would steal into the room and replaster the walls where it had scratched. I would leave food and water. I would bandage her hands and treat her fingers with healing ointments and I would even say a prayer to the Tribunal, ironic as that seems now. Always the scratches were in the same place on the same wall- always toward Red Mountain.
The months went by and she began to talk after she awoke. I would catch half-conversations she spoke to the air. She was always reverent when she spoke, as if she were in the room with some benevolent Daedra. Suddenly at times she would laugh unexpectedly, a sound that was graver to me than all the scratchings of all the nights- because it was a sound I knew and recognized. It was her laugh- in her voice and I could not mistake that for any laugh in the world.
Where had she gone that had taken her so far from me and yet left her so close? I could not fathom.
And then you were coming, making your way from her womb into the world, and, fearful as I was, I entered the room while she was awake that night.
She did not fight me, nor even acknowledge my presence. She had helped others in childbirth when she had still been wholly herself, and simply stated to me when I needed to do something and what it was I needed to do. Never once did she look at me though, except once to tell me that her Lord Dagoth was with her.
At the moment your head crowned, the air rushed out of the room. What had been an oppressive and heavy weight suddenly lifted. I would only discover later that this was when the Nerevarine struck at the Heart underneath Red Mountain. This was when Dagoth Ur fell.
Your mother looked at me in surprise and asked me plainly “My love, why have you not been with me?”
And I told her then that I had always been with her. She replied, “My Lord has Left Me.” And I told her not to worry, because even if he was gone, I would always be there. She smiled at me sadly and a tear fell from her eye.
And even as I made my oath to your mother to always be there with her, I knew what it would entail. For as she left our world, she could only leave it to serve her master. Some people say that he is dead and gone forever. But I believe I know for whom it was my wife left her life for.
This world, my daughter, is a world that can have no absolutes.
Where she goes, my heart willingly follows.
Praise be to Dagoth Ur.