I have been looking at the Daedra in Morrowind known as the Winged Twilight: Female monsters with bat wings, bird talons, and hook tails. One thing I've noticed is how much they resemble the Dunmer in Morrowind.

http://www.uesp.net/w/images/thumb/600px-MW-creature-Winged_Twilight.jpg
http://www.uesp.net/w/images/thumb/800px-MW-NPC-Daynasa_Telandas.jpg

Winged Dwemer?

Now Azura is known as one of the main deities of the Dunmer and created them from the Chinmer. Her excuse for cursing them with dark skin and red eyes was "You murdered Nerevar and betrayed me! Now you will all pay!", but seeing how her own Daedra also have dark skin and red eyes, was she planning to do this all along? I mean Daedric Princes always mess with mortals in different ways, but they usually do it in such a drastic way. Now Azura comes across to me as an opportunist who takes advantage of situtaion. I think she was planning to make the Chinmer like her Winged Twilight so they would be closer to her, but she was waiting for the right opportunity to do it.

I'm not sure how Daggerfall handled Harpies (if there was any lore for them at all, but a book in Morrowind suggests a connection, probably nothing more than a physical similarity), as the dang thing crashes constantly during character creation, but I always dismissed it as divine beings and other mythical beasts often have attributes of their worshippers. Centaurs are half-human, manticores have human faces, and of course Azura herself looks like a Dunmer.

Of course, going the D&D route, it could be that Winged Twilights, Azura and Dunmer are connected in the same way Driders, Lolth and Drow are. But then what about Spider Daedra?

In conclusion, I don't know. Could be anything.

Dunmer are, superficially, almost identical to Mazken as well (there's the different eyes and perhaps a height difference) - at least, in Oblivion. Perhaps Azura chose that appearance so that there would be no doubt that the curse was Daedric in nature.

Yeah, now that I think about it, the Dremora also resemble the Dunmer but with red markings and horns. So it could be that Azura chose this appearance for them so they would be close with the Daedra. Also aren't the Dremora, Mazken, and Winged Twilight considered "intellegent" Daedra?

http://www.imperial-library.info/mwbooks/nerevar_redmountain.shtml


"Let this mark remind you of your true selves who, like ghouls, fed on the nobility, heroism, and trust of their king."

You have to remember that Daedra dont just include the Daedric princes- everything that inhabits the various realms of the daedric Princes are daedra themselves. In all likelihood, the Winged Twighlight took up service with Azura because she offered them something in return. Azura did not "create" the Winged Twighlight any more than Dagon "created" the Dremora.

Very likely there is some mutual arrangement between the two. They may be servants of Azura, but they are not "hers," so to speak.

It is possible that Azura herself, a being of "dawn and dusk" found something appeasing in the characteristics of the Winged Twilight- Azure could very well favor the particular look- dark, ashen skin, etc- which makes the person or creature LOOK like they are half-shrouded in darkness. Maybe it's even a theme of hers.

But she didn't create the Winged Twilight. If she wrought any changes upon them, physically speaking, that was probably within her (I dunno- contract? arrangement?) with them to begin with.

But only in MW and OB. In http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Battlespire:Bestiary and http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Daggerfall:Monsters, humanoid Lesser Daedra (dremora, spider daedra, etc) had flesh-toned skin.

In MW, and OB, they took on different skin tones, etc. An artistic change on Bethesda's part, but so far there isn't any lore (I could be wrong) that describes the physical appearance (skin tone/eye color) of various Lesser Daedra.

You bring up a good point. Azura didn't create these Daedra because, as a Daedra herself, she cannot create, only change and destroy. As Sheogorath said, "Daedra are the embodiment of change" (the rest of the quote omitted due to him contradicting himself in his insanity).

I guess that makes sense. so could that mean the Winged Twilight and other Daedra were once something different until they were changed by the Daedric Princes?

In fact, I think maybe the reason the Daedric Princes are viewed as "evil" is simply because they're Gods of change. Humans and animals don't accept change, even though they do learn to adabt to it. Humans tend to naturally view change as a bad thing, yet sometimes things have to change for the better.

Anyways, I agree with Azura using the dark-skin red-eyed appearance as a theme of hers, since it does give a very twilightish appearance, which is what she represents.

They are viewed as evil, only if their sphere represents not so desirable parts of civilization, not because they are change. Hell, if you look at the grand scheme of things, mortals are about change. Daedra cannot change if there isn't something there for them to change, and they are still in an unchanged sphere.

Also, because making deals with them can lead to bad consequences. Think Greek gods personallitiesish

But you can't deny that for the most part people hate change and are not willing to give up their way of life for something new. maybe change isn't the only reason, but I'm pretty sure it's part of the reason why people don't like them. And besides, not all change is good. The mortals hate what they consider to be "bad' change, but take Azura for example. She changes things too, yet mortals seem to adore her. They probably don't even realize she changes things, they just see her as one of the few "good" Daedric Princes. That fits her sphere perfectly, Twilight kind of hides things in shadow while showing off this beautiful dark color in the sky, Azura uses her beauty and kindness to hide her true agendas from people.

Like I said about her being an opportunist, she takes advantage of situations. She probably intended to change the Chinmer to Dunmer all along, but was waiting for the right excuse to do it so people wouldn't view her as a "Bad Daedra".

In our world, we're more adverse to change. This is a different world, with different views.

Now, if we're going to be talking change, it'd be more realistic to say that elves hate change, and humans look forward to it. But, it really depends on the change. In the merrish perspective, they want to change the world and reverse it. They feel it is a trap that is weakening everyone every generation. They don't want to move forward, they want to move back, when everyone was at the height of their power. In the mannish perspective, they want to press forward, and view the world as a testing grounds for achieving the next being.

And I still think people generally do not like the daedra not because they change things. For one, they didn't create mundus, so why really worship them, unless you want some item of power. They have a bit of taboo, in that making deals with them is almost like having a deal with the devil; the results may bite you in the ass. And lastly, they're not liked if they are known to cause harm. Most people view the "bad" daedra as being bad, because their influence is often destructive ([censored], destruction, corruption, nightmares, plagues, indiscriminate hunting). Some are met with more or less neutrality, only because they don't help, but they're not really harming. And then there's the "good" who are seen has using their power to help, instead of hinder.

The dunmer didn't see all daedra as being evil. They had their 3 good daedra, and 4 bad ones. The three "good" daedra (2 of which are more destructive in nature, with one as a mega-[censored]) helped them move into MW and survive. The 4 "bad" daedra tried to prevent this by corrupting, destroying, driving them crazy, or refusing their move.

But what about the shivering isles? Didn't sheogorath create the shivering isles, along with the golden saints and the mazken?
And it's pretty obvious that the knights of order were created by Jyyagalag >.>

Golden Saints and Mazken were not created by him, they are daedra that are loyal to him. The whole land, though, is Sheogorath

It's not clear, to me, that the Knights of Order are actually Daedra. Is this written somewhere, or just assumed? Because they could simply be mortals in service to Jyggalag, much like the Priests of Order are. Even if they are Daedra, they weren't created by Jyggalag.

No, apparently they're just armour - nothing inside them. That's what the game guide says, and as you can't take their armour I'd assume this is the case.