I have always been led to believe that Shor always was the chief deity or most popular god for the Nords. An atmoran warrior king that defends men from foreign devils and their gods.
TES V has made it a bit confusing though and I have lots of questions:


1) Is Shor worship primacy a later invention that only occurred after the Dragon war?
2) Is it possible Ysgrammor was a dragon worshiper? If this is the case, why does The Five Hundred Mighty Companions make constant references to Shor in a reverent manner? And why is he in Sovngarde and positively remembered when compared to the dragon priests?
3) Why are draugrs (if they are indeed undead dragon worshippers) telling me Sovngarde awaits?
4) Why are all the draugrs speaking dragonish? They all can't be dragon worshipers? Did Alduin's return reprogram all the draugrs of Skyrim into robot slaves, where before they were normal "Ug! Me eat you!" zombies from Bloodmoon?
5) Same goes for the tombs. They can't all be tombs for dragon worshipers.
6) Why are there dragon wall shrines (written in dragonish) in tombs of proper Shor worshipers (Jurgen Windcaller, King Harald)? Isn't that ridiculously heretical?
7) Why are the more modern tombs and Halls of the Dead covered with dragon motifs, animal worship icons, and dragon statues?

I honestly don't know why I am having so much trouble wrapping my mind around this.

Old Nordic beliefs focused on the worship of animal based gods. These animal gods are thought to correlate to the gods as they are now, and one of these animals was the Dragons.

Shor was ALWAYS there, dragons were also there also for a long time.

they worshiped both as gods at the same time.

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:The_Dragon_War
"In the Merethic Era, when Ysgramor first set foot on Tamriel, his people brought with them a faith that worshipped animal gods. Certain scholars believe these primitive people actually worshipped the divines as we know them, just in the form of these totem animals. They deified the hawk, wolf, snake, moth, owl, whale, bear, fox, and the dragon. Every now and then you can stumble across the broken stone totems in the farther reaches of Skyrim."

Shor shakes his scaled mane.

As far as I am aware in-game it is implied that all the draugr you meet are dragon worshipers or at least dragon priest worshipers.
And that they werent dead when entombed.

1) That seems logical.
2) dragons arent always bad? I dont know.
3) They want to send your soul there so its vulnerable to be eaten by their lord.
4) all the draugr are supposedly really old and follow dragon priests.
5) space is time only from a right angle? You cannot worship time without having 'space' for space?
6) decoration. The older tombs would have them but they are rotted away. Praise to Kyne is a common find in things as skulls, bones etc.

I don't think Shor worship was invented after the Dragon War. Paarthurnax was a dragon that helped Nords learn thu'um (which led to their victory in the war), and he was sent by Kyne who is Shor's war-wife. Maybe Shor worship increased after that, but I'd say it existed beforehand.

Because they're trying to kill you and send you there.

They are. According to lore, the Draugr are Nords that are "cursed" because they worshipped dragons. In-game books mention how Draugr serve the various Dragon Priests, who are humans the dragons gave special power to.

Ancient Nords picked up the dragon language from their dragon masters. I'd wager that for such Nords, dragonish was as much their language as was Tamrielic. It likely wasn't until after the Dragon War that using it fell out of favor.

Also, gameplay. Bethesda wanted to show off the dragon language, even if it didn't quite make sense in some places.


Also, gameplay. Bethesda wanted to show off the dragon language, even if it didn't quite make sense in some places. Animal worship seems to be closer to actual ancient Nordic culture, but between the dragon stuff and the Nine/Eight Divines stuff, it is kinda lost.

So dragon worshipers were technically "saved" from sovngarde?

I don't think people should ignore the possibility that Draconic might have taken root even after the Dragon war as a legal or ceremonial language. Just as after the fall of the Roman Empire, Latin and Greek remained in the lands of those nations who had defeated the Romans. The Dragonborn is just one example of someone who fights the dragons but speaks their language.

A very good point.

Also even after the dragon war many dragons were buried in mounds, something I find odd considering you know they fought war, I think the Nords had some respect for them even if they were enemies.

Source on that last part?

The nords buried the dragons? isn't it implied that the surviving worshippers were the ones who built the mounds and not the nords?

According to Skorm Snow-Strider's journal, The Dragon worshipers were believed to be whipped out compeltly during the War.
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Skorm_Snow-Strider%27s_Journal

While a few did survive by hiding in Forelhost it does not seem possible there was enough of them left to build mounds across the whole of skyrim.

What about the dragons and dragon priest in Atmora ?

Since it was said the ruling priest and dragons in Atmora were less severe than what instigated the dragon war in skyrim, were they caught up in the uprising as well?
Or did they survive but was not worthwhile to note since this was outside of Tamriel?

Bear in mind gods take many forms. Shor has been a dragon more than once.