I know this has most likely been anolyzed to death, so I'd like to partake in some of the forum's collective wisdom, if you'd all be so kind as to humour me.
I read through the trial a few times and came away with a few questions each time. Questions about what, in fact, occurred, and about the motivations for causing these things to happen.
So, anyway. Here I go.

• What did Vivec do to Azura? I know he bound her to the world, or maybe just to the chamber they were in, and shoved Muatra down her throat and made her...explode. But what was he trying to accomplish? It is my understanding that the result of the Trial is that Vivec achieved CHIM, but was all that necessary to achieve CHIM or was that just revenge?
  
• If Vivec knew all about CHIM, which he appeared to, why did he wait to step up to it? How do you even hold back a realization (which is what I understand CHIM to basically be)?
  
• Why in the world was Azura talking like that? She was perfectly intelligible in Morrowind and now suddenly she's stuttering in all caps. What?
  
• Speaking of Azura, was she destroyed and sent to the waters of Oblivion like other Daedra or is she dead? Or is she pouting in her room?
  
• This is especially confusing because I assumed this took place after Morrowind but before Oblivion. If that's true I don't know why she's giving you quests in Oblivion if she's incommunicado like the last paragraph of the Trial says. It must be true if Uriel VII is there. Guess she got better...

That's all I can think of, I suppose. I'd appreciate any help you guys could give me.
I love the more esoteric stuff in Elder Scrolls, I just need a bit of help wrapping my head around it.

PS. I am of course assuming that the Trial of Vivec is canon. If it isn't then woops. :blush2:

It isn't canon, it's a "what if?"

Vivec's apotheosis was within Red Mountain, with the culmination of the Psijic Endeavor. She's frightened Vivec retained CHIM.

1. Do you know what Muatra is? Probably the worst thing you can do to a Daedric Prince is humiliate her, and that was what Vivec accomplished to get revenge.
2. A Buddhist Nirvana comparison applies here. Siddhartha is said to have achieved Nirvana, essentially erasing the boundaries between himself and the universe, thus ceasing to exist entirely for 14 days and then remanifested to show others the way. How do you cease to exist and then exist again? Answer: when you are the universe or, in the case of CHIM, when you are capable of bending the universe to your will, anything within the context of the universe is possible.
3. Probably done by the person who wrote her. I know it's a pretty glib response, but I'm betting it was just a stylistic thing. I didn't pay much attention to it when it happened here.
4. Banished.
5. It says the pathways, meaning mortals cannot enter. They can still summon her though.

The trial and Hogithum Hall was an RP done by some developers and members of these forums. I'd say it's canonicity is stage 2.5. Put it above purely fan works, but below developer out-of-game/book works.

So you need divine substance to achieve CHIM? That was not how I understood it, guess it was wrong.


Thank you so much for your response.
Muatra is the name of his spear, right? Presumably the one depicted in the statue at the High Fane. Yeah, pretty humiliating.

I was under the impression that it was lumped in with developer works, my bad.

The Trial of Vivec was actually mentioned in the Obscure Text http://www.imperial-library.info/content/imperial-census-daedra-lords. So I think it's safe to say that the two are on the same level of canon.

"Guess what it represents."

I started posting in the forums after "The Trial of Vivec" RP, but from what I've heard over the years, Azura's jumbled speech may have been to show how alien the thought processes of a Daedra are. MK was the author of her dialogue.

Vivec pretended to go along with the trial, while all along planning to get revenge on Azura for the downfall of the Tribunal, as well as publically humiliate her, before leaving for Aetherius as he planned. She wasn't destroyed, only prevented from accessing Nirn for a while.

The Imperial Census of Daedra Lords was supposed to be published with the 3rd PGE, but they ran out of space. So I'd say both it and the trial are pretty damn canon. The thing to remember with the trial is that any official depiction of it will probably not be the same as how it actually happened in the RP. The basic events (trial is called, Vivec admits guilt of mortal self, Azura summoned and banished) will remain, but the dialog, characters, and actions of players will likely be altered.

It's the name of his "spear" alright...

That spear in the statue was just a regular Ebony spear he fought with in times of war.

Muatra is....a little different. It's his Milk Finger you see.

1. Vivec wanted revenge on Azura for orchestrating the death of Sotha Sil and Almalexia. In order to do so he wanted to pronounce the superiority over the Daedra, which has long been a motif of Tribunal faith (Tribunal worship supplanted Daedra worship which supplanted Aedra worship). So he bound her to the Mundus, making her (temporarlly) subject to the same rules as mortals -- made her feel the sting of mortality. Then he shoved Muatra -- a phallic symbol, so a symbol of his power -- down her throat -- the source of her voice, so her power symbol. Moreoever, Muatra is "milk taker," something which takes away the life energy of whoever it penetrates (Muatra doesn't make you pregnant, it makes you barren). It was a display of absolute overpowering. And he broke her into pieces. Vivec's goal was, again, to get revenege. In so doing he showed his fundamental refusal to be bound by the rules of the world (Daedra princes aren't supposed to be beaten, after all).
2. Vivec already knew about CHIM, this was one instance of it. CHIM is less being one with the universe and more owning the place: being a Ruling King.
3. Azura's voice was representative of her power (hence Muatra down her throat).
4. Azura was shattered, but in time coallesced together again.

Tell that to the (male) Yokudan kings it impregnated.

No, CHIM and divine substance are the same thing. The Heart of the World became his own, at which point, the world within was born.

Fair enough:

http://www.imperial-library.info/content/lord-vivecs-sword-meeting-cyrus-restless

But then:

http://www.imperial-library.info/content/morrowind-thirty-six-lessons-vivec-sermon-fourteen

I think the "make barren" aspect of Muatra is more appropriate to what happens at the Trial than the "make pregnant" aspect.

It's a god's shlong. It can make you pregnant or barren. Depends on what exactly Vivec is trying to do. He would have impregnated Cyrus, but made Azura barren, because one would have been in lust and one was in vengeance. Vivec is at his heart a fertility god, an endless cycle of death and life and rebirth (and undeath, if you go with the vampire thing). Muatra kills and births, ends and begins.

I honestly did not intend to start a discussion about the wang of the divine. Gives godhead a new meaning.

So, what, when the Tribunal used the Heart they saw the Tower? Or something?
I don't understand how they were mortal once the Heart was destroyed then, if they still had their understanding of CHIM. Or maybe it was just Vivec who really "got" it.
This stuff is not for the faint of heart.

I don't think he's a fertility god so much as he's the Trickster, a cultural hero like Coyote, Raven, and Anansi.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Hero

I thought MUATRA was made of Molag's [NUMMIT] and not Vivec's.

Well, CHIM is a separate thing. Becoming a god through the Heart simply makes you a force of nature embodied into flesh, a god. CHIM makes you God. Strange how capitalizing a letter changes so much in modern parlance. And Vivec was becoming mortal again, he said so himself. However none of them were completely mortal. Like an Aedroth, ewach was kill-able, but each still had mind boggling loads of divine power left, enough to hold up a falling moon frozen in time for years after ones body dies, for example.


Well, since the pantheon in question only has three gods, some aspects need to be shared. So Vivec can be the fertility god, trickster and culture hero at the same time. MUATRA is the fertility, the sermons as a whole are trickster and culture hero, and some of his later actions sprinkle in to each.


It was part of Molag Bal's wang grafted on to Vivecs after Vivec bit part of it off in a crazy blow-fest. To put it as simply and explicitly as the forum allows.

I like to think of Muatra as taking the form of a spear; it still allows for violent phallic imagery.

It's told in The Heart of the World, eternal Auriel entered Nirn, captivating the spirits within his "real" world - fathering them, again. Vivec's Muatra stories mimic Auriel's Adamantine story; he enters them, holding them captive to his fabricated world. Reborn, they're his children.


The Tribunal were divine but mortally bound to the Heart, however release from the Heart would end that stipulation. Vivec could return enlightened, sharing his divinity with those of the "real" world.

Dumbkid I've taken the liberty of underlining the relevant phrase in your quote - basically it says: "at that time" which suggests that it does not have that effect at a later time. Also "make barren" is also coupled with "withered into bone shapes" which does not appear to have happened in the Trial. So let's take a new look at that please.

ref the earlier mention of events in the piece by MK that was not included in the game package - perhaps MK's reference to unlawful events was nothing to do with running out of space and more to do with their reference to the Trial. Let's ignore the outrageous content and consider that as has been noted above 'fans' took part in the Trial = without legal binding (read contract) content is not going to be published as part of the game and in-game reference to it is likely a no-no too.

That might not prevent MK relying on The Trial as a creative tool - or perhaps it would ensure that he takes great pleasure in doing so Accepting that MK would normally be the last person Azura fans would choose to rp Azura ... MK has constructed a get out clause by stating that Vivec (a very MK type character) has CHIM(p) and is therefore the All ... basically gets his mitts into everything = MK rules! Great for MK fans. However stylistically that kinda leaves out those multitudes who have a liking for the earlier works of other developers ... which The Trial walks all over. ah well, disasters happen, enjoy them ^^

"At that time" refers to the time of the event, not the time of the power. After all "the wise still hide their [children] from Muatra."

I see what Vivec does to Azura in the trial as entirely parallel to what Vivec does to the biters in Sermons 14.

Yes, Muatra can make you pregnant (Lady N already pointed that out). In the case of the Trial, it makes more since to understand Muatra as "milk taker" than "milk giver." In the sermons "milk" is a source of life and energy:

http://www.imperial-library.info/content/morrowind-thirty-six-lessons-vivec-sermon-four

Vivec is taking power away from Azura in the Trial. Thus, milk-taker.

Discuss the lore, don't make personal attacks please. Posts deleted.

Except that MK (and someone else? I forget who) has already stated that it was cut due to length, not due to the reference to the trial. I also recall that the post-trial discussion by MK and Tedders stated that it could/would eventually pop up in future lore. The disappearance of Vivec and the participation of half a dozen developers in the trial only adds to the canonicity of the trial's basic events (though not the exact wording, as previously stated).

In regards to Muatra, it does what ever Vivec needs it to do, like many other weapons in theology.

Okies - you see this as far more flexible Too bad the Trial was not used as an in-game book in Oblivion :ninja: