Darkness...
Creation...
Chaos...
The Dawn Era
Myths and legends of creation are always present in sufficiently established pieces of fiction.
Perhaps the most well-known being tolkien's Great Song of Creation in "The Silmarillion".
In my Timeline of Tamriel video I presented an extremely simple version of the elder scrolls creation myth
that is used in the games to educate children.
In this video, I'll attempt to cover as much of the Dawn Era of time as I can,
from the Days Before Time, to the creation of Nirn and its earliest inhabitants.
Although many of the races would come to have their own terms for the beings involved in the Dawn Era,
practically every group agreed that there were two deities in the beginning,
generally referred to Anu and Padomay
Anu represents the presence of order and light,
and Padomay representing chaos and darkness.
Depending on the scholar some claim that Anu was a static force,
lacking consciousness.
Whereas Padomay was the one responsible for instigating the act of creation.
Regardless both would be necessary for creation and as the two intermingled and fought with one another,
Anu and Padomay both birthed their own souls, creating new beings.
From Anu came Anui-El, and from Padomay came Sithis.
Again, both being opposites of one another.
It's from the interplay between Anui-El and Sithis that the universe was created.
Albeit a largely empty and chaotic one.
In order to stabilize the universe
Anui-El birthed *his* own soul,
just as *he* was created,
giving life to another entity known as Auri-El.
Also known as Akatosh.
Again Sithis did the same,
birthing *his* soul, named Lorkhan.
So, to reiterate:
Anu begat Anui-El
who begat Auri-El
And Padomay begat Sithis
who begat Lorkhan,
and with each iteration the deities became more personified.
In an effort to control the continued formation of the universe,
Auri-El created a concept of "time".
Time allowed a number of spirits, who were present in the universe, to begin to understand their natures
and limitations.
Many of these original spirits would come to be the gods worshipped by the inhabitants of Tamriel
it is believed that Sithis created Lorkhan in an effort to destroy these spirits,
as well as the universe, and return things to the Void.
Lorkhan schemed of a way to rob the other spirits of their divinity,
and decided to trick them into willingly giving it up,
in order to create a physical realm.
depending on the account,
he either specifically tricked those spirits
that were aligned with Anu
known as Aedra,
or the ones that happened to be tricked became known as the Aedra.
Regardless, one of these Aedra, known as Magnus,
was the architect of this new realm,
called Mundus.
Mundus would contain a number of planets, and moons,
and would be surrounded by the Void of Oblivion which would also be surrounded by Aetherius
Aetherius and Oblivion can be simplified into The Elder Scrolls versions of Heaven and Hell,
although of course, there's more to them than that.
Some of the Aedra gave parts of themselves into the creation,
becoming eight planes of existence.
which are viewed by mortals as planets.
And others would give all of themselves into the creation of Nirn the Planet containing Tamriel
At this point magnus became disgusted at what was occurring,
and decided to flee to Aetherius.
His passage ripped a hole between Mundus and Oblivion,
which many believed to be the sun,
and allowed his energy to remain as magic.
A number of Spirits followed him, creating additional holes believed to be the stars.
Those spirits, that remained behind,
willingly or not, either wasted away or became the original inhabitants of Nirn.
Fragmented,
and without their divine sparks.
Is at this point that things became rather murky,
and there are a number of different accounts of how the various races came to be.
The elven races believe the version that I just explained:
that Lorkhan tricked the Aedra into giving up their divinity.
They believe that these tricked Aedra would become the first elves on Nirn,
and thus are their direct descendants.
In fact "ae-dra", in their language, means "our ancestors",
and "dae-dra" means "not our ancestors".
The Human races of Tamriel believe that Lorkhan was the one responsible for their creation,
and thus resent the elves for their negative perception of him.
Regardless the Mortal Aedra were stranded on Nirn and were separated into two groups:
Some of them arrived together and built up a powerful civilization,
others were scattered across Nirn and struggled to survive on their own.
Eventually The Wanderers found The Civilization containing their brethren,
but they were looked down upon as degenerates and a war broke out.
This war reshaped Nirn, splitting the single landmass into a number of continents.
The realm of The Civilization became Tamriel,
and The Wanderers were left on the other continents.
It is believed that the ones on Tamriel became the modern Elves,
and the ones on the other continents became Men.
How much of this tale is allegorical is unknown,
but currently we possess very little information about the early origins of Men and Elves.
This story however, does conflict with the idea of the First Elves coming from a continent
known as Aldmeris.
Which they were forced to eventually flee in order to come to Tamriel.
Almost no information is available for this lost continent,
but there are a number of theories.
Some believe that the continent still exists,
tucked away and inhabited by a group of Elves.
Some believe that it will only reappear when all of the elven races have reunited,
and others believe that the continent never existed at all,
but is merely a collective "memory" shared by the Elves.
No matter their exact origin the elves did end up on the Summerset Isles, off the coast of Tamriel,
before they went their separate ways.
The beasts folk of Tamriel also have an unknown origin,
as they didn't begin recording history for many centuries.
It's unclear if they always inhabited Tamriel, or
if they migrated there from one of the other continents.
But they have been present there at least as long as the Elves.
But the human races...
Again it's unclear if there were any native Men in Tamriel prior to the Elves,
or if they all migrated from other continents.
Well, we know that there have been migrations from Atmora,
Akavir, and Yokuda.
How many migrations and when they occurred is unknown,
due to the extremely muddled history.
The final thing to mention for the Dawn Era is the fate of Lorkhan.
According to legend the Aedra constructed a building known as the Adamantine Tower,
believed to be the oldest building on Nirn, in order to discuss Lorkhan's fate.
The Aedra ripped out Lorkhans Heart, and attempted to destroy it.
But after failing to do so,
they permanently bound him to his creation,
by tying his heart to an arrow,
and shooting it into the sea.
When the Heart landed in the Ocean,
it created the Red Mountain,
and the island of Vvardenfell rose around it,
in what would become the land of Morrowind.
At the start of this video I mentioned the creation myth contained in Tolkien's "Silmarillion",
and I think it's important to understand the main difference between these two creation stories:
Tolkien's version is presented in near complete detail,
with an implication that the information was passed down through the ages from the deities themselves.
In the Elder Scrolls we're left with scraps of information, from various books,
written by biased sources,
and mostly containing myths and beliefs.
While of course these details have a very small impact on the events of the games,
theorizing and investigating are certainly part of the enjoyment.
[[[Narration End]]]