» Tue Aug 18, 2009 4:14 am
The Tribunal (Vivec, Almalexia and Sotha Sil) as well as Dagoth Ur achieved godhood basically by tapping the Heart of Lorkhan on power. They do not need to become gods "after they died" because they were living gods. Of course, once the Heart was destroyed (or rather, freed), they all lost their godly powers. Vivec remains, though, for he also achieved something much, much more powerful then godhood - he has CHIM.
There are different ways for mortals to achieve godhood, one of them is to "mantle" an already existing god. To do so, you "walk like them until they must walk like you", meaning that you act and behave exactly like them, untill noone can tell you apart (Simplified version).
Another way is to use a "mantella" to ascend to godhood, like Mannimarco did, though others will have to explain this.
Off course, there are a lot of other gods that has "always" been gods (or god-beings); the Aedra and the Daedra, for example. They were once et'Ada, "original spirits", who were tricked into creating the world by Lorkhan. Of the et'Ada, some refused to have anything to do with the Creation, and those became the Daedra. When the rest of the et'Ada continued working with creating the world, one of them, the "architect" Magnus, suddenly realised that if they continued, they would all be helplessly bound to the Creation. He did not want that to happen, so he hurried off, and teared a large hole in the sky - the sun. A lot of et'Ada spirits followed him, and those made other holes - stars. These "runaway" et'Ada are the "Magna Ge".
There were those who could not run away, though, and those became the Aedra, bound to the Mundus (the world). They got really mad at Lorkhan for tricking them, so they got his Heart teared out and thrown down to Nirn.
But, as before, this story has been severly simplified so that I am able to explain it. :foodndrink: