I have made a new theory regarding the Dark Brotherhood. It is that there must be more than one listener or night mother (Before the fourth era when the DB was reduced to one guild hall). Reason being is that the Dark Brotherhood once had guild halls all over tamerial. How did a listener in High Rock get information regarding targets to guild halls in other provinces in time. He or she couldn't they would have to send a letter or messenger, which would take weeks. By the time the courier got there the target could have disappeared. So I believe there is more than one unholy matron, while the Night mother you could say is chief of unholy matrons, and more than one listener for each province.

There was a woman in Morrowind calling herself the Night Mother, and she was a normal living Imperial woman. I find that odd. Perhaps "Night Mother" is a rank we don't understand very well yet.

Maybe there's more than one way to contact the real Night Mother. Maybe the other "Night Mothers" are a similar rank to Listener, except they telepathically receive the information from Cyrodill and relay the message to regional assassins.

I think there's only one Listener. When you speak to her in Bravil, she gives you missions for targets outside of Cyrodiil. There's no use for a Hammerfell Listener if the Cyrodiil one gets his missions.

So one listener sends orders to guild halls thousands of miles away, so hopefully if nothing happens in transit to the letter they will kill the orders for a kill that someone wanted weeks, if not months ago. That makes perfect sense. (Sarcasm)

Well, explain why I was assigned by the Night Mother to deliver the contract for some Bosmer in Valenwood to Arquen.

If you're going to be snarky, make sure your syntax isn't a garbled mess first.

But if you're willing to go the route of secret murder, moreover, to trouble yourself with trafficking with Eldritch Boogies and Mad Hatchetmen, I'd say there's a solid chance that you're totally committed to seeing someone dead. There's no getting over it, with this mentality, no cooling off.

See, that's really the point of the Black Sacrament: to show that you're serious about death.

Also, Tamriel, being pre-industrial, even with the near-ubiquity of magic, still runs at a slower pace than our world.

Perhaps the Listener and the Speaker can become just as intimate as the Night Mother and the Listener? I don't know.

We know so little about the hierarchy of the continental Dark Brotherhood before the fall that it's difficult to make any confident assumptions, but perhaps there is only one psychic Night Mother linking Sithis' will and the prayers of the people to the Dark Brotherhood, while simultaneously numerous living regional 'Night Mothers' receive THE Night Mother's commands from the Black Hand of the Cyrodiilic chapter and relay the instructions to their subordinates.

So the Night Mother is essentially the title of a chapter head in reverential imitation of Sithis' bride.

People seem perfectly content to wait weeks or months for the DB to act in Night Mother-less Skyrim.
In Oblivion, when Lucien gives you the first contract, the victim has been in hiding for weeks.
Time isn't really that big an issue.

I support this awesome comment.

Actual reason is because Bethseda wanted to make the Dark Brotherhood more interesting yet familiar so they took everything from the Morag Tong and removed the 'Dunmer, legal and Mephala' qualities. While adding the 'Illegal, Cult-like, Nightmother/Sithis'

If we remember from the 2920 series - the original founder/leader called herself the 'NightMother'. Now this could be a 'Well it may be one who is very connected with the Nightmother' or maybe it was a splinter faction whom claimed to have a Newer and Improved Night-Mother.

or Bethseda has little consistency with factions - that works too.

The problem is that Bethseda made a 'oops' thing with Oblivion. They changed the entire structure and possibly even the lore of the DB. (I don't particularly remember cult-ish things in Daggerfall or Tribunal. They just happened to be either pawns, hired assassins or just people who killed people that were NOT the Morag Tong.)

So the Morrowind aspect is basically a paradox - what is the 'Nightmother' when, clearly, the 'Listener' (as according to the newer games) is the de-facto leader of Branches. We can assume the NightMother status is when someone is fully bonded with the Nightmother in Soul and acts out her will - not having to need a Listener or Speaker. She has BECOME the Nightmother.

Wasn't there a book about the Night Mother? How she was just a woman who birthed the five children of Sithis and murdered them in cold blood?

I also recall that Night Mother was a rank for the head of a branch of the Morag Tong, bestowed upon the highest ranking female member or something of the like. So I do believe that there is only one DB Night Mother.

And there is definitely only one Listener. Like someone said before, you were giving out contracts to all provinces in Oblivion.

Something something NightMotherisMephalaInDisguise grumble grumble.

Emil didn't see the virtue in the joy of secret murder, onto itself, and therefore flavor-injected the Deep Fried Turkey that was the OB-DB with five gallons of liquid Grand Guignol Murderclown Doofy Sauce.

There was a Night-Mother in terms of 2920, the original founder of the DB.

The story about the Nightmother and the kids was adopted in Oblivion.

annnd nothing to say on the Morag Tong giving a title of 'Nightmother' to anyone.

Maybe that Night Mother was the one in the tale?
But wasn't DB a fraction of the Morag Tong breaking loose over matters of faith?

http://www.imperial-library.info/content/night-mothers-truth

Here's the book.

And yeah, if the person who wrote this book was correct, then the Morag Tong gave the title of Night Mother to the highest ranking female member of the Morag Tong.

Problem is that it tries to explain Oblivion's lore of Bravil's Lucky Old Lady - something Oblivion should have done.

Another problem is that it kinda tries to 'out-lore' the 2920 series. A book-series which has had more lore-counts than this book attempts.

Ultimately it more so seems like a 'Dark Brotherhood myth' mixed in with perhaps the original founder fled to Cyrodil itself and died within Bravil - hence her tomb in Bravil as well as her followers making a statue in her honor to both fool the townsfolk as well as continue their dark practices.

What game is that from? Skyrim?

We have seen several people claim to be the Night Mother. The woman in 2920, the woman in The Night Mother's Truth, the woman in Sacred Witness, the woman in Morrowind and the corpse in Bravil. You can talk about retcons and how Oblivion is the worst thing since Hitler and how it's Dark Brotherhood consists of sociopaths and is therefore irrelevant to the discussion, but the only logical, coherent explanation I can think of that incorporates all we have been given is that there have been multiple Night Mothers. It's not that big a stretch, and lends some more shadowy form to the mysterious structure of the Dark Brotherhood's management.

How about worse thing since Howard the Duck?


But basically then 'Nightmother' isn't really a rank of titleship in the DB and ANYONE can claim to be the Nightmother in origin due to the fact that the errie-ness of the actual origin of the DB is debated both within the DB and MT as well as outside the two organizations.

Ultimately the only logical thing to say is that the DB is a very schism-astic organization which has schisms every-now-and-again which lead to the 'New' Night-Mother and the 'New' Legend of Origin. Hence a new DB made of sociopaths who have no character what so ever or a DB that is more civil, orderly and secretive while also having numerous cards in the political field. Or a DB that combats its ancestor guild (Morag Tong) and those that don't really care.

Yada yada.

Maybe the Dark Brotherhood is like Anonymous. A name ripe for the taking, something anyone can hide behind and use as a scapegoat.
I suppose it's cooler for a small group of Kahjiit assassins to call themselves part of the Dark Brotherhood while they actually have no connection whatsoever.