Because it's kinda cool to have peons?

Maybe the Princes have limits to what they can or can't do, and must rely on underlings to keep everything running smoothly even in their own realm. Or perhaps the Princes didn't create the Lesser Daedra.
[/heresy]

Thats how I saw things. Given that they have allegiances which seem to switch over times. They don't even have to be allied they just do it for the benefits of quicker banishment recovery.

And to serve the lord which fits them the best...
Think Ogrims in Azuras Realm, not the best of combinations. Now if you take Ogrims in Malacaths realm, everything is like it should be.

Or the lesser Daedra are small aspects of the Princes personality. Much like people change how they do things as they get older, so the Daedric Princes change their servants in time.

Either that or we're talking about game play which seems all the more likely.

Each time a daedra is banished they are changed. Allying with a certain prince may make them change closer to their sphere.

If that was the case, it says something very strange about Peryite. And Molag Bal.

What do you mean?

If the lesser daedra are extensions of the main daedra's personality, the sphere of Peryite is the taskmaster of the lower orders of Oblivion. This means he is the taskmaster of the extensions of his personality, and of all the other daedric prince's personalities. It's already inane for mortals to worship him considering his sphere, but if the minor daedra are extensions of the personalities of the other daedra, this means he's actually in charge of all the minor personalities of the major daedra. So the prince gets their staple, and all the attributed sections are under Peryite's control. He's the kingmaker and rental locker of daedra, but just annoying to humans.

Molag Bal, the fire stone of Coldharbor, is in charge of the domination and enslavement of humans. His subset of personality is being the king of censored (you know what), which means Peryite is actually in charge of being the king of [censored]. Daedroths were assumed to be under the Molag Bal's control, but not only do they not fit with the domination, enslavement, or [censored], they wouldn't be under his control anyway. He would need a massive cult following to get anything going in Tamriel.

If a daedra is their sphere, then why do their spheres have different names? Or if a sphere depends entirely on mortal interaction, or entirely doesn't, what's the point? It is a rather weak view that a daedra actually is their sphere, I prefer the reasoning in Redguard.

Can't eat it, [censored] it?


I prefer the reasoning they're transformative and evolutionary properties inherent within the Spirit of Nirn. Angels of cognition.

The ultimate purpose of the Daedra Lords is to instruct and improve the generally deplorable http://www.thefreedictionary.com/character of mortals.

But you did notice that statement was from a human worshipper of a daedric prince, and the prince who gave you the quote said it was a sack of crap. Obviously it wasn't what the devs were going for.

All our time is free time. It's eternity, man. Don't you think that gets a bit tedious? Mostly it's the same thing, over and over, so boring.

A follower of my brother, Hermaeus Mora, once said: "the ultimate purpose of the Daedra Lords is to instruct and improve the generally deplorable character of mortals." Lovely sentiment. But, in fact, I watch mortals, and meddle now and then, purely for entertainment.

Ask any Daedroth what their purpose is, and they'll give you the answer you were expecting. It was the mortal mind which gave them individualism, in the first place.

really? have you played battlespire? they don't all just do what their lord says, and there are even small realms in oblivion rules by lesser daedra. They are, in my opinion and the evidence shows, just the embodiments of tiny ideas. IE, Vernaccus may embody pretending-to-be something-you're-not-only-to-be-found-out-later, or he-who-shall-not-be-missed-by-a-projectile.

It's critical to note and cannot be mentioned enough that most of the gods of Tamriel, Aedra or Daedra (or hell, let's be honest with ourselves - even the gods people in our world have believed in or in some cases persist believing in) are gods of spheres/ideas which would be utterly meaningless in a universe devoid of mortal life.

The devs even wink at this with Arkay having always existed, but before humans and mortality he was the god of "nobody really cares", since life and death are meaningless when everyone around is immortal, or when nobody is around at all. In fact, things like rock, dirt and water still don't give a crap about Arkay.

I can only name one or two gods worshiped by people of Tamriel who have any meaning whatsoever in a universe devoid of intelligent life, and in such a universe even their existence and spheres are somehow marginal. Akatosh is Time, a concept so convoluted that no mortal can ever truly comprehend it. It may be an illusion. But as complex and futile as it is for us to wrap our minds around, in a world without us or comparable intellects to ponder it you really begin to see how meaningless a concept it would be.

Perhaps Mehrunes Dagon's sphere would remain the least changed. Destruction is just another form of Creation, which is to say a transfer of energy and matter from an existing form to a new form. Such a thing predates mortal life no matter what world view you adhere to. In fact change/creation/destruction is often thought of as the foundation for the emergence of life in the first place. Even before he was Mehrunes Dagon and he was called Lehkelogah, he was a "leaper king." It's interesting to note that one of the ways matter and energy transform at an atomic level is for protons and electrons to leap from one nucleus to another. Maybe his essential power didn't change at all with the birth of the mortal races. Maybe it's simply the perception of what it means that has taken on a negative connotation.

Aside from other issues, that's completely batw.

No, the jailers are on the tip. It's the sadism or lust of the Princes which keeps them grabbing for the true god: man.