They were incarnates, just as Peakstar says: "I am a failed Incarnate. So are all these who remain here with me in the Cavern of the Incarnate." If they were not Nerevar Incarnate they would not be in the Cavern of the Incarnate; they are what happened when a returned Nerevar failed. As Vivec says: "You alone, though you come again and again, can unmake him. Whether I allow it is within my wisdom."

Sum'[censored]...nevermind then. I'm a [censored].

True, they are incarnations of Nerevar, but they were not the Nerevarine.
Edit: Not that you said they were in the first place. Nevermind.


Well, the people-referring is all that is needed, after all. Even if the PC isn't Nerevar Incarnated at all (as in he wasn't played as such), he would still become the Nerevarine due to the people's belief and myth-making. "Mantling" by duress.
Though I have absolutely nothing to back that up with, except my own understanding of lore. If I'm wrong, feel free to correct me (which you probably would have done anyway ).

Sheogorath laughs in the face of foolhardy adventurers.

What makes the traveler able to become the Nerevararine (however you spell it) is specifically the characters past. If you remember the Ashlander's helped you fulfill the prophecy only because your past made you eligible, in their eyes, to be Nerevar reborn. The Hero in Morrowind was not born as the Nerevarine, instead he/she became the Nerevarine but only because they met the prerequisite requirements that allowed for events to shape as they were. A random Joe off the street could technically have accomplished the same but only if their lives met the requirements of the prophecy. The ghosts of the cavern where you got the Moon and Star ring each could have fulfilled the prophecy but did not, but they could only fulfill the prophecy because they were born under the certain sign and so on.

Spot on:

"You are not the Nerevarine. You are one who may become the Nerevarine."--Nibani Maesa

It's kind of like being shown a door but the person(or Nerevarine, as the case may be) still has to walk through it themself.

As Luagar 2 noted re this earlier link etc -

My simple person's view
There is something here about what does pantheon by incarnation mean? It does not mean one God - it means a whole family or set of Gods. I suppose that the word pantheon is broken down something like this: Pan - accross; Theon - gods

If the Nerevarine is a reincarnation then what are the beings in the Cavern? What does this indicate about his soul?

Allow yourself to speculate through this clumsy expression of this assessment - that even Azura could not create a being of potential as powerful as the Nerevarine just like that, or in one go - she had to multiply the required soul until it achieved sufficient potential resource - sending it through incarnation after incarnation and retaining the soul of each incarnation in Her Cavern ... where the incarnation of The Nerevarine capable of fulfilling the proheciaes was finally birthed - a powerfully sixual allusion that. And it sorta suggests that Cavern was just a little bit more than a cave in a hillside.

Equally it might be claimed, if interpreted another way, that Azura employed probability as her weapon. Like setting several trillions of monkeys in front of typewriters and waiting for one of them to come up with the complete works of Shakespeare. You gotta feel sorry for the monkeys that manage to complete all but one of his plays and therefore get no banana

Note that like the Tribunal members Dagoth Ur was a travesty of a Demi-God (if you include His Ash Vampires perhaps they might be almost His own Pantheon) on the order of the combined Tribunal, and Dagoth Ur was not a half-spent force as the Tribunal was become (we know from his dessicated corpse that the clockmaker had already been murdered) by the time the Nerevarine arrives on the scene - therefore what was required was something special. For one thing you had to have the tools of Kagrenac by all accounts which were the key to all power flowing from the Heart of the murdered God. You could not usefully use the tools directly on Dagoth Ur other than to inflict temporary wounds - you had to use them to disrupt the flow of power to him by striking the heart. That was what killed Him - not you.

But the question asked in this thread was what is the comparison between the Nerevarine and Daedric Princes. Not Dagoth Ur (who I think we have established the Nerevarine was incapable of directly inflicting permanent damage on) who compared with a Daedric Prince was a [censored]. Well if you could not kill Dagoth Ur as the Nerevarine then forget killing the Daedric Princes.

Hey, you say, The Hero of Kvatch killed some in Oblivion. But did they actually die? My bet is that in mundane terms he/she switched off locally formed avatars ...

Heh - You may have thought that the Hero of Kvatch killed Daedric Princes. The Hero of Kvatch through the blinfold of merely mortal senses may have thought the Hero of Kvatch killed them ... but consider tales of the Nerevarine's experiences in Solstheim - where the Nerevarine may have defeated a 1/3 incarnation of Hircine ... I do not believe that 'was Hircine' - I believe that was an avatar through which a tiny part of Hircine was communicating. Merely an image given substance and charged to the limit of that image's capacity to carry power - not the actual weight of the total power of the God-being.

Here speaketh one who claims to have weilded comparitively God-like powers as the Nerevarine (or was that a dream?) - as in all stats and skills at 2,000 ... and believes that was nothing special.

One last matter. I speculate that other Heroes were not able to match the sheer physical power and skill levels of the Nerevarine because the Nerevarine was more than ordinarily mortal in some way and was therefore able to contain powers that would break a totally mortal creature apart - so I see probability manipulations on Azura's part as being directed towards some mystical form of potential/soul enhancement rather than mere monkey business. In some ways the Nerevarine's intellectually capacity was expanded to include a comprehension of deep matters - and yet at the same time the Nerevarine was no smarter than you or me

Deadric princes arent panzies....Is that the bloodmoon i see? i think you should renounce that little statement(Werewolf howls) hircine will not be happy if you dont.

Daedra aren't Panzies, Nor are the Nine, as in your context, because the Nine never get thwarted by a random Adventurer. But I'd like to think that the Nine are panzies simply because I don't like them.

The Daedra... First off, the encounter of Hircine and the Bloodmoon was not Thwarting. Well yes, it was actually "Thwarting of plans", but Hircine was not Harmed in the process, just pissed off at the end. Also, yes, he/she was the incarnation of Nerevar, Making him/her a semi god, assuming that Nerevar was actually a god.
Mehrunes Dagon, however, is a panzie, or just an idiot; He has trifled with Mundus and failed much too many times. First with that Battle at Morrowind, I don't know much about it, but it is in the 36 lessons of Vivec, plus there's a broken statue of Ayem stabbing Dagon... a fail, but that was Ayem; she was at her full potential then. Next there was Battlespire, an unknown subject to me... But alas, Dagon was defeated. The oblivion crisis was not a mortals doing. Did you not see the flaming dragon? yes, that was not a mortal.

I thinki it's because of dagon's sphere. it's not that he doesn't know better, it's that he needs to do it, kinda like smoking and wanting to quite; You know better, but you need to smoke...

One think there - we are talking about god-powers re the Nerevarine - but are they not. Nerevar was fated to become a saint, not a god, right? He did not ascend in any way though people look to him in worshipful manner. And no NPC in the game was saying the Nerevarine is a God - lol - that was the players enjoyin themselves

That was Hircine - but Nerevarine did not kill him. He defeated Hircine's avatar - as Hircine said 1/3 of the power he could bring to bear in that maze. 1/3 of a god is an avatar.

Dagon has been defeated? Or has he enjoyed taunting and baiting his enemies?

Seems to me that what he lives for is war and the joy of battle. He never claimed to be the Daedric Prince of winning - but every time he causes strife and killing he wins!

Cha-ching, we have a winner!

One of the things about Dagon is that if he is too sucessful, he finds himself out of a job. Not to mention the other daedra would be a mite miffed about having their playground consumed by him.

And in truth, he more-or-less destroyed the Empire, enough to close (destroy) the 3rd age. I hardly consider that a loss.

Not so much. Dagon is unique to the Daedric Princes in that he does have a goal. He has a stake in acting in character with his sphere.

If he winds he finds himself out of a job and back into his old one.

Which was basically that of the "leaper king," right?

From TIL:

His spheres really imply that he needs a canvas to work upon. And if one does not assume "Destruction" means "Complete Annihilation" it seems Dagon has been pretty successful in his endevours.
Destruction Tally: Battlespire, Septim line, Third Age, possibly Empire-As-We-Know-It.
He is doing pretty well on the change, revolution, and ambition parts too.

But Dagon does seek complete annihilation of everything that is Nirn, so that he can go back to what he originally were.

dagoth ur wasn't a daedric prince was he?

No. What made you think that?

Which was the Prince of Leaping, wasn't it?

I don't remember the exakt title, but he was a "leaper demon", or something alike, so yes.

edit: It was a "http://www.imperial-library.info/obscure_text/aldudagga.shtml".

read the op

Wow, look at all the profanity in that text.

Wow, that story makes me almost like dagon in a way. He used to be such a friendly guy that just jumped around and had a good time.

But he sure became a mean one though!

Just thinking though, what would happen if Dagon ever DID become a leaper demon again?

What all would be necessary for that to happen?

Of course, this is just my theory, but I think it would simply involve the "return of the Dawn" which is probably gonna happen soon seeing as towers are being "nullified." If there is nothing to destroy, Dagon's out of a job.

Well, I guess that is something along the lines of what the mythic dawn was trying to do after all.

"Mythic Dawn" meaning a dawn of a new "Mythic" or dawn era (I could be totaly wrong, please dont shoot me) I suppose they call it "mythic" because "Dawn Dawn" wouldnt be all that good a name!

So what would a new dawn be? They say (sometimes) that the dragon break in the first age was the "middle dawn" That is kind of what comes to mind for me I guess (somewhat)

As a competely unrelated side note, today I had a thought. All these names of TES characters get confusing sometimes, so I have decided to create a list of alternative, english equivalent names.
Ex. Saint Allesia = Saint Alice, Remen Cyrodiil= Raymond Smith, Uriel Septim = Earl Simpson, and so on! (disclamer: this is totaly rediculous, and not to be taken seriousely)