While being busy with school and everything, and idea occurred to me when someone said something about a Prophet. Because the KOTN Prophet presents you with the blessing of Talos, [This is farfetched but just listen] Could the prophet be an avatar of Talos himself? Or is He just some holy doomsayer???

I'm not sure where I heard this but I think the prophet is actually an avatar of a previous prophet. I think I've heard him mentioned as Maruhk maybe. IIRC. Just an opinion.

I've heard similar mentioned on these forums.

That'd be an incarnation.

Nothing to suggest he is though other then that Marukh was also a prophet.

Yeah I thought about it after I had posted.

I did a few searches at TIL and couldn't find any supporting evidence. Or any information on where he comes from. Are there any rumors on where he came from? I know he disappears after one of the quests in KOTN never to be seen again.

The idea that the prophet of KOTN would be an incarnation of Maruhk is rather silly, if you ask me. Maruhk, the monkey prophet who told Old Cyrod the truth about the world on one hand, and the prophet of I-Need-A-Knight-To-Wear-These-Shiny-Boots, complete with old man imagery and a 'Blessing of Talos' on the other.

Don't you mean the God of I-Need-A-Knight-To-Wear-These-Shiny-Boots?

I think Talos(Or lokhan, Akatosh, whatever, dammit) can manifest himself in several people at the same time.

I always assumed he was talos. After all, he gives you Talos's blessing, and disappears after the whole thing is through, as if he never existed. Also, he resembles (in as much as the two graphic engines will alow) Wulf from Morrowind. Aging imperial with white hair... you know. Kinda' mysterious guy, but gives you Talos's blessing/the emperor's lucky coin as if he spoke for the god himself. I always assumed that's the conclusion we're supposed to draw from the prophet... The same conclusion we drew about Wulf.

I'm confused again about the relationship between Talos and Shezzar. Someone refresh me. I wanna say they're actually two parts of the same being or something. If that's the case, it's odd that you speak to the Spirit of Pelinal and also a prophet which may be an avatar of the power behind Pelinal - although you never see the two at the same place/time, and Pelinal has a helmet on...

And Pelinel has white hair, as does Wulfharth, Wulf, and many other Shezzar echoes.

Perhaps when you get an "early beard" you go gray pretty young in life as well?

Well, we know that you'll die a lot younger if you grow a beard in the Shivering Isles.

Talos filled the empty spot in the roster that was left by Shezarr when he had gone missing. They are same 'thing' because Tiber Septim mantled Lorkhan by having his avatar, Ysmir act as his double. Thus creating the image that Ysmir was Tiber Septim. Because this is a world of myth, appearance is all that matters, Tiber Septim mantled him.

The slightly more complex version holds that when Tiber Septim ripped out Ysmir or Arctus heart he reenacted part of the struggle between the Light and the Dark where one defeats the other.

The double King ship of Tiber and Ysmir shouldn't be confused with the relation between Lorkhan and Akatosh. Two persons acting as one, isn't quite the same as the left and right hand of the somebody.

Although when applying the Rebel and King principle it possible to put Tiber and Ysmir as exactly that. When a Rebel and a King sit on the wheel of fortune and the Rebel rises until he reaches the top and becomes the King and a new Rebel rises from the bottom of the wheel to depose him.

Ysmir did most of the brunt work, marching from Colovia onto the magical Niben as Lorkhan marched from the chaos onto the Old Ehlnofey. When finally there, Tiber was crowned King. As such the couple of Ysmir-Tiber as Rebel-King embody the same duality as Akatosh-Lorkhan.

So do I have this right? Wulfharth was an avatar of Akatosh? As was this Wulf fellow, Pelinal and The Prophet?

Ummm. Almost. Specifically speaking:

Wulfharth = avatar of Shor

Pelinal = composite ada containing the essences of Aka and Shor

Wulf = Avatar of Talos

the Prophet = either an avatar of Talos (as suggested by him giving you Talos's blessing, i.e. speaking for a god) or a cleverly disguised Pelinal ghost


However, since Aka and Shor are two sides of the same coin, just as an imperial septim has a man on one side and a dragon on the other, fundamentally speaking you are correct. Hope that last little bit didn't confuse you.

In case you're confused about Talos's relationship to Aka and Shor, let me clarify a little, at least as much as my understanding will allow...

As proweler said (and he's right more often than not):

[quote name='proweler' date='Sep 15 2008, 02:19 PM' post='12840868']
Talos filled the empty spot in the roster that was left by Shezarr when he had gone missing. They are same 'thing' because Tiber Septim mantled Lorkhan by having his avatar, Ysmir act as his double. Thus creating the image that Ysmir was Tiber Septim. Because this is a world of myth, appearance is all that matters, Tiber Septim mantled him.
[/quote/]

What this truly means has to do with mantling. "Walk like them until they must walk like you..." That is the nature of mantling. Wulfharth was a true avatar of Shor. Possibly the reason he looked so similar to Tiber was that tiber was supposed to be an avatar of Shor, but we'll never know since there was already an avatar that was active due to his "shaking the dragon just so" (not a dragon break, but more like a dragon hiccup... read the five songs of Wulfharth for more info). So, Tiber had Wulfharth be his "stunt double" when it came to the dangerous crap. They fooled everyone, even reality itself, into thinking they were the same person. "Walk like them..." So, when the events surrounding the activation of the Numidium played out, Wulfharth's divine essense was passed along to Tiber, creating Talos. "Until they must walk like you...".

However, personally, I believe the reason that Talos wasn't broadly worshipped until after Daggerfall is that some of this essense still existed in either the new Underking (Zurin Arctus... Read the Arcturan Heresy), the mantella, or both. It wasn't until the warp in the west, and the subsequent liberation of Zurin's spirit and the destruction of the mantella, that this power was allowed to rejoin its source, which lay within Tiber Septim, allowing for the ascension of Talos as a true god.

Mathematically speaking, it makes even more sense. You see, Shor-mantlers, Hero-avatars, etc.. All of them have a little of Lorkhan's power (we'll say 1/3 for the sake of argument). Talos is the ascendant Tiber, and Tiber is the oversoul of Hjalti, Zurin, and Wulfharth. 1/3 + 1/3 + 1/3 = 1. Not the same 1 as Lorkhan, however, but as was said in the past, consider the number 11. If the two ones switched places, would you notice? After all 1 = 1. Since the ones are so similar, anywhere one of them would fit, so does the other, right? Logically speaking, that is. So, the hole left in the pantheon by the removal of Shor was filled by the insertion of Talos.

I refute the postulation that he is an avatar of Marukh with the fact that he didn't express complete intolerance over the fact that the KOT9 had elves in its ranks.

That, and, there is no evidence that suggets he would be Marukh. When I posted that I hadn't researched it at all yet, I was trying to remember where I had heard it. After I tried researching I realized that there is little connection between the two.

Thank you Dude. It did help and was not confusing at all. (thumbs up)

There is nothing on the books about when Talos was added to the Imperial Phanteon or if he proclaimed himself a god or if the worship grew gradually out of the Legions.

I'd keep it on a retcon/addition rather then any thing from Warp of the West though. It'd be a little strange for Talos to be added this late in the 3th Era without any transitional effects. (No, contrary to populair believe, Dragon Breaks do not change the past. )

I said, personally. That way BohrIII knew that even though I was answering his question, the part about DF was my own little bit of speculation, and not backed by any valid sources. However, I wasn't actually saying it was caused by the Warp in the West, I was saying it happened during the Warp, and was caused by the same events that led to the warp. I don't think tiber's ascension caused a dragon break, since it happened very slowly, IMHO. Emperor, then god/hero, then true god as his legend grew in power.

It's kinda' my way of reconciling a retcon. Those usually don't sit well with me until I wrap my head around it. I'm just saying the retcon came at an auspicious time, considering the events at the end of DF. Just my own personal spin on the thing. I happen to think, for the record, that his worship predates his ascendance. Most likely, it did come from his worship as a god/hero by the legions and Cyrodil in general (much like Reman). However, I believe his ascendance as a "divine" had to do with the events at the end of Daggerfall. That's why we see a retcon from the "old ways" as the prophet calls it of worshipping the eight plus one into worshipping the "nine". Like, I said, no evidence of this in-game. Just my own personal interpretation of the events.

Think of the peg-in-hole anology from my previous post. Tiber, with his legend and adoration of the people of Cyrodil, almost fit the hole left by Lorkhan, however something was missing. After the addition of the little piece that should've been with him all along, but resided within Wulfharth, he truly was the peg that fit in the hole.

Take for instance, I start a cult that focuses on the worship of an little-known internet personality known as Proweler. That doesn't mean you're a god, but that fact doesn't prevent me from gathering a small group of followers for your religion. Then, imagine one day, due to seemingly unrelated events, your followers suddenly find their prayers to you being ANSWERED. Now, it grows from a cult to a wide-spread religion. It would seem that their adoration of you made the lie I told them true. In a world like nirn, belief can make something true. Now, imagine that in the past you tricked/betrayed a fledgling god into allowing you to make a tool of him. What happens if the tool breaks? The power would need to find a new focal point. There's already a large contingent of people worshipping you, whereas they should be worshipping the god whom you enslaved. So, the power is drawn to you by the magnetism of your legend. Now you actually are the god that people seem to so strongly believe you to be. That's kinda' how I see it. Doesn't make it true. Just how I like to think of it. However, I do understand the arguments to the contrary, and I see your point. Truthfully speaking, no one knows how Tiber actually became Talos. All we are told is that it happened. When and how are unimportant, at least to the stories the previous games have had to tell.

Ahahhaahaha kinda like Discordianism!