Just wondering what the described process is of how a birthsign is selected when you are born. I thought it might be the month and the corresponding constellation, but then how is the Serpent sign bestowed?

thanks

The serpent moves around, so it's going on in the same sky space as another constellation. The other birthsigns are as you suspected.

Walter:
http://www.imperial-library.info/astro/

The Serpent wanders the night sky and "threatens" other constellations, though its movements through the night sky are predictable. It's technically not a star at all, so that is why it can move through the night sky and threaten other constellations.

What do you mean, it's not a star?

It's not a tear in Oblivion leading to the Aetherius, that is why it can move. The stars and sun are nothing more than holes in Oblivion that go to the Aetherius.

1 picture. 1000 word post.

http://www.imperial-library.info/astro/rg_telescope_serpent.jpg

From the Redgaurd Observatory. Note how it bends the light around it.

It's also probably a reference to Ophiucus, the serpent-holder, our world's equivalent to the Serpent, which has taken over the position of I think Sagittarius.

Basically, the zodiac uses the positions of stars as they were thousands of years ago, without accounting for the Earth's wobbling on its axis. So, over time, the contellation's positions in the sky in certain times of the year has changed. People born under Ophiucus are born around late November to early December.

For example, under the classical Zodiac, I'm a Taurus (my birthday's the 24th of April), but technically I'm a Leo, if I recall correctly.

Fun stuff.

Cool. Where from?

back to my original question,
I've assumed that being born in Last Seed would mean you have the birthsign of the Warrior (as Shades agreed)
But then when can anyone be born under the Serpent?

(and also, what is the serpent if not a tear into Aetharius - is that a mystery?)

The 'Unstars' that make up the Serpient are a mystery to us but not to the residends of Tamriel. We just haven't found hhttp://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:ABCs_for_Barbarians to explain http://www.imperial-library.info/obscure_text/cosmology.shtml, since it is accepted that – if we were Tamrielian – we would already understand Unstars.

You are born under the Serpent if Those stars cross over the sign that you would otherwise have been born on.

If for example you were born during the Last Seed and the Serpent was threatening the Warrior then your actually a Serpent, not a Warrior.
I think...

Walter:Yep, you got it right.

Also, a bit OOC, but comparing "real world" astrophysics to the (meta)physics of the Grey Maybe is pretty pointless. The stars in the night sky are not burning balls of ionized gases, but entire tears in the fabric of Oblivion, in the world of TES.

Redgaurd, puzzle where you have to figure out the position of the serpent to rescue the soul of Coles brother.

http://www.imperial-library.info/tsorg/part03.shtml
http://www.imperial-library.info/tsorg/part04.shtml

[double post]

Unstars are the transposed version of a star. If stars let light into Mundus, then unstars let light out. If light is magic, then the unstar lets magic out. The Serpent eats magic.

Huh, it kinda reminds me of Sithis.

I'd like to hear more of this.

Is this true? cite your source. It's not that I don't trust you, and the idea makes sense, but I always thought that Unstars ere just one of the game's mysteries.

sounds a lot like an educated guess, otherwise that would be a fact well known by now.

The 'un' prefix connotes a negative relation. If a star lets light into Mundus, then an un-star doesn't, but - as the image of The Serpent proweler linked to shows - light is bleed out of Mundus, instead. It doesn't eat stars, because stars are just holes, it eats the light. Light is magic. It eats magic. The Serpent eats magic.

I don't see that as the mystery. The mystery is: so what? Why is another name for Sheogorath, the Sithis-shaped hole in the world? Is Sheogorath the mortals' spyglass into the void beyond the Aurbis? Is madness the result of looking at Sithis?