I've always just pictured the spirits of the TES setting as swirly-things. Darkling and cosmic, you know. I never liked the "big pretty human in extremely clean armour" visualisation of many setting's Powers.

Then again, my mind adds shapes to the swirly-things; in Lorkhan's case a winking, trickster's smile, an explosion of ravens' feathers, something familiar but alien, hunched as if wounded but simultaneously coiled to pounce.

And really, you'd have to be a [censored] elf not to like the guy.

To be fair, the setting makes it hard not to. Horned helmets and what not, even though vikings never wore horned helmets. Honestly that [censored] helmet exemplifies everything wrong with Skyrim.

If I want to see Lorkhan, I look up at the night sky. There lies his corpse. Smells funny, too.

Fun Fact: They did.

Just not into battle.

They're actually more of a Celtic and Germanic thing, and they didn't wear them in battle either (except perhaps some Celtic examples which had relatively small horns, but I stress the perhaps). Horns are liability, it messed with stability, would catch the force of blows (which is the exact opposite of what a helmet is intended to do), gives your enemy a grappling point) and in close formation it could hinder your peers.

High Medieval knights on the other hand had at times the tendency the stick ludicrously huge ornaments or horns on their great helms, all for the sake of intimidation and showing off. We know for certain that they were used in tournaments, and the Teutonic Knights used them in actual battles as well. They look different than the Skyrim ones though.


Not that a Teutonic Knight get-up wouldn't fit in Skyrim ( hint hint to modders)

Just to add to the craziness, it's been said that Loki and Odin are actually the same god. And as for comparing the gods of Nirn to the gods of our world, I don't really see a problem when one considers the Monomyth.

I've only ever heard of two horned helmets being found, both at a burial site in Denmark. As I understood, they portrayed themselves in art as having horns to intimidate the enemy, same thing for double-bladed battle axes.

Regardless, I feel the game goes to far out of it's way to say "Look, we're stereotypical vikings!" when it should be saying "Look, we're Nords!". Not that the two don't bare many similarities, but I feel like Beth should have done something to really set them apart. Like Snow Whales. Really, its an aesthetic issue. I'm not interested in exploring Skyrim because, aside from Blackreach, I just keep thinking "I've seen this all before" because everything feels distinctly Scandinavian. One simple fix for this would be the adding of larger and more abnormal creatures, at the most in the vanilla game real world animals just have a few extra tusks. I mean, it is a step up from Oblivion, but still. The Nords are supposed to be Scandinavian influenced, not Scandinavian.

Wasabi, maybe?

I'm hoping for DLC that let's the Dragonborn become a Wasabi smuggler, sneaking wasabi past Imperial blockades.

Windhelm has a lot of non stereotypical Norse stuff, mostly due to it having the same aesthetic as ancient Skyrim. To my knowledge the Norse did not have massive stone buildings, animal totem gods, kalpas, or plate armor.

Only Whiterun is stereotypical Norse.

Also, Greybeards.

And vikings wore warmer clothes with more fur and stuff. Iron armor has no sleeves in Skyrim.

I thought the bearded, hooded statues in Sovngarde were statues of Shor. They don't have a missing heart, but they could depict him before his heart was torn out.

The moons constantly rot and regrow. Shezarr is the snake that sheds its skin and the scarab that becomes the New Man. Imagine a young handsome man, who grows into an old wise man, who becomes a corpse, which regrows its rotted flesh to become the young man.

Shor/Lorkhan is depicted in the Snake Mural in Skyrim's tombs. Sort of. Maybe it is him. Probably.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/47857688@N08/6877563849/lightbox/

I would think that would be Lorkhan or Shezzar. Doesn't look very benevolent, but he does look fearsome. Maybe Lorkhan and Shor do look the same.

There is no missing heart...but picture is unique

I find the snake pic resembles Orkey more than Shor.

When I vision Lorkhan I see a Loki kinda person, don't know why...

Lorkhan, probably. Shor? He has been described as a brutal warlord, and Shezarr has Pelinal.

Lorkhan sounds more like Loki.

Shor sounds more like Thor.

To the elves, he's malevolent.

To the Nords, he's benevolent.

I have to say that the Snake Mural is really awesome. He doesnt look as Nordic as I thought he would, but he's a beast. I kinda want my character to look something like that.

Maybe the Mural is a depiction of him when he reclaims his heart. During the final battle...

There are males on one side and females on the other. Also notice that the men have a dog.

I think one of the dead guys is Talos or Tiber Septim. Dont know about the other one.

The rocks on each side also each have a tiny warrior on them. Would they be mortals?

Maybe he has Kyne, Dibella, and Mara on one side, Stuhn, Tsun, and Jhunal or Orkey on the other. They might be carrying Talos and possibly the Dovahkiin.
The dog might be Orkey or Jhunal. Jhunal fell out of favor within the Pantheon, and Orkey is depicted as a heathen trickster.

The burial scenes are present on all the totem murals, so they're not a clue to the totem's identity.

I think the murals depict ancient priests rather than gods, since the dragon mural looks like a living dragon priest.

It does doesnt it.

Still, it also depicts a scaly mane. The Dragon Priests wouldnt have so much to do with snakes would they?

Yours might be more likely, as many of those barrows were built under the dragon cult.

However, the snake totems are often around sarcophagus. So the snake is probably either Arkay or Shor. Most likely Shor, since Sep is also a snake.