You're right. I misread it.

Yeah, I would have preferred that as the actual explanation, but they seriously did bend the lore over backwards to explain the deification of Tiber Septim into Talos. Talos is apparently an amalgamation of 1, 2, or 3 different entities depending on how you look at it. There are 3 basic entities, whic are Tiber Septim, King Wulfharth, and Zurin Arctus. Tiber Septim is the chief member among them, being the Emperor. He is also supposed to be the Shezarrine, the avatar of the god Shezarr. However, Wulfharth is also supposed to be a Shezarrine, but at the time he is an undead being known as the Underking, which means there are two Shezarrines walking around. But then Zurin Arctus is also supposed to be the Underking, but is also Tiber's chief battlemage. His heart was used to power the Numidium, one of the reality-defining towers of the world, and using that, Tiber achieved godhood. By doing so, however, all three of them became involved and were simply merged into the entity known as Talos.

King Wulfharth is known as Ysmir. He is a Shezarrine. He is the Underking.
Tiber Septim is also known as Ysmir. He was known as Talos before ascending to godhood. He is also a Shezarrine. He is the primary interpretation of the god Talos
Zurin Arctus was a Battlemage. He is also the Underking. His heart was used to power the Numidium which created Talos.
The god Talos is also known as Ysmir,

My interpretation is this:
A Shezarrine is an avatar of the god Shezarr, also known as Lorkhan. Wulfharth was an earlier Shezarrine, but he died. Afterwards, Tiber Septim came around and he was the latest Shezarrine. But at some point, the dead Wulfharth was brought back to life as the undead Underking. Tiber Septim planned to activate the Numidium, but it needed a power source. One story states that Tiber and his Battlemage, Zurin Arctus, tricked Wulfharth into giving up his life force to power the Numidium. Yet the physical object powering the Numidium was Arctus' own heart. What could have happened is that Arctus' heart was used as a soulgem, and they acquired the soul of Wulfharth by somehow soul trapping him into Arctus' heart. This way, Arctus then became the Underking. Arctus was able to persist without a heart because he gained Wulfharth's undead status, and still retained his own soul. But, Wulfharth is a Shezarrine. By soul trapping him, they actually soul trapped Lorkhan himself, which means they also soul trapped Tiber Septim who was also a Shezarrine. In the end, the Numidium helped Tiber ascend to godhood, and he brought Arctus and Wulfharth along for the ride who became attached to him on a metaphysical level. Thus was born the deity Talos, who is comprised of all three of them and substantiated by the power of Lorkhan.

It's entirely possible that Lorkhan himself was turned into Talos, but the mechanics of the world state that once someone is made into a god, they persist for eternity. Even if you are turned into a god afterwards, it is as if you have always existed, like Arkay and Mannimarco. Lorkhan is dead, yet he persistently exists, and though Lorkhan could also be converted into Talos through his avatars, Lorkhan in his original form would still persist. A god out of a god.

The main problem is that it's never actually stated how he gained godhood, though most sources imply that the Numidium was the cause. I guess it's the most likely choice, given that its status as a "Tower" (one of the important towers) allows it to bend reality. If he used the Numidium to ascend to godhood, then that would explain how Wulfharth and Arctus also comprise the god Talos.

Long and complicated, and very unnecessary. This would all be made less difficult if they just outright said that Tiber Septim is a false god like Julius Caesar...

Sithis, for you I will spill blood. He is invisible and on top of the list. You just can't see him there..

Come on, its IGN. They give decent up to date news, but any other types of stuff they do is just bad. Dont put too much stock in their reviews and definately not their editorials.

Then the question remains...Who the hell was Wulf, was he not TIber Septim. One of any form?

Sithis isn't a god, nor is Anuel, Padomay, and Anu

As for Tiber becoming Talos, look at the lore forum, there's explainations of that everywhere. To make it EXTREMELY basic, he copied the entanimorph and became the replacement of Shezarr in Cyrodiilic myth.

My list:

#1 Lorkhan

#2 Dibella

#3 Vivec

#4 Alduin/Akatosh

#5 Dagoth Ur

I bumped Mehrunes Dagon off my list and put Dibella 2nd after I read the one listed by the OP. What can beat a god of six?

He didn't forget anyone, he wasn't making a list about the ones you like.

Who the hell knows? He was a King before Tiber, and they just happen to both be Shezarrines, which makes them both the same underlying god though they may not know it. Other Shezarrines include some guy named Hans the Fox and Pelinal Whitestrake who we saw in Knights of the Nine.

It's entirely possible that their merger into the single entity of Talos also blurred their history. Talos is known as Ysmir, and he has always existed. Talos is Cyrodiilc, while the Nords call him Ysmir. It's always been that way even before Tiber Septim. Wulfharth was known as Ysmir, which is why Talos was known as Ysmir. Tiber Septim was known as Talos, but due to Wulfharth's association with Talos, Tiber also acquired the name Ysmir. Tiber Septim also has two conflicting accounts of his origins. It's entirely possible that one of them is his own, while the other is actually Wulfharth's. One of them says that he was born in Atmora, the ancient fabled homeland of the Nords, while the other says that he originated in High Rock and was named Hjalti at the time.

No Problem
I learned a lot from it.

Im talking about Wulf from Morrowind, not Wulfharth exactly, but perhaps. Just another reincarnation? Because his greater power that he gave you was Luck of the Emperor. Very Septim-y and he is supposed to be Tiber, but obviously his name is Wulf. Wulfharth?

I enjoyed the list a good bit. It was nice seeing someone other than an elder scrolls fan page discussing its lore. My list would have been slightly different, but it was his list.

I think the list was mostly based on game experiences. These "gods" were components of many of the more polished events in the game series. I can also guess at the natural reason for the inclusion of some of the others, too. Certainly not gods that a lore-master would have chosen. I didn't exactly appreciate the wry tone, but that is popular in some circles, I guess.

We need more discussions about lore all the time, to make the forum newbies (me) more educated. For the most part, as a pure gamer and not a lore-master, I agreed with many of the choices in the article. I personally killed Vivec in Morrowind, for the rude behavior of his guards. The game actually has some literature about his nature, as he slips in and out of this world, in a long sleep, although it seemed to me that he wasn't in a body during those events. That leads me to believe that it was an avatar. I always wanted to learn the technique to strike the heart to become a god. Vivec is somewhat of a role model for me.

I identify easily with the multiple aspects of the gods in many myths because I have many personalities myself. Dozens of them. And they tend to merge into each other, and all die out leaving nothing, and all fight for dominance, and silently wait in the background, and unleash themselves at opportune moments, and pretend to be someone else for a while, and sometimes they allow people to mistake one for another, etc. SO the whole thing with Talos makes perfect sense to ME.

If they belive he is a god, doesn't he bevcome a god? I was of the understanding that that was how it worked.

IGN obviously posted that list to get a rise out of TES fans. Didnt take it seriously.

He is a God, sithis damn you. May he forever curse your soul...

I'm not a fan of Vivec personality-wise, but he deserves the proper respect. Easily one of the best realized video game character yet in any game universe. Too bad the article didn't mention that one particular thing that makes him unique. And what's that exactly? http://fallingawkwardly.wordpress.com/2010/10/25/the-metaphysics-of-morrowind-part-3/.

(And the sort of proper respect my Argonian Nerevarine gave him was to impale him to "death" with a meager chitin spear. Pretty sure that Vivec himself just chuckled and amused at such gesture :angel: )

I can agree with one thing, elves svck.

Sanguine and cthulhu god(I'm not even going to bother remembering his name) should have made the cut.

BY AZURA BY AZURA BY AZURA!

Umm, that would be 'goddess'. And Dibella was about beauty....which included physical beauty. Both clothed and not. Who was named after a real person, one of the dev team during the rise of Daggerfall.

Thank you...

If the lore were more user friendly people will not make such mistakes...I hope the devs can now see first hand the outcome of convoluted lore

"there are probably only 500 people in the world who have even thought about this, and half of them work at Bethesda."

I laughed at this, and felt bad for not being part of these 500 people, and felt bad again for felling bad about not being nerdier than I already am.

Yeah. Other than that, it was alright, I guess.

Interesting article. It's cool to see some of the quirkier parts of TES like "live longer with a shorter walking stride" show up on the front page of a general game news site.

No Sheogorath? Och, this makes me frown!

Also, no Lorkhan?