Alright, so I've been trying to dig myself deeper in lore and i figure I have enough background general knowledge in general history and such, that I wanted to dive into the sermons and really try and understand them. Therefore I thought it would be kind of cool to make a thread for that, and break up portions of sermons to either clarify my understanding of, or get an understanding of specific parts, which overall would help with understanding.

So, going right in, Sermon 1.

There is a line early on saying "I am the face-snaked queen of the three in one. In you is an image and a seven-syllable spell, AYEM AE SEHTI AE VEHK, which you will repeat to it until mystery comes."

So immediately, I get the question of what does AYEM AE SEHTI AE VEHK mean, and what is the mystery thats supposed to come?


After that its reasonably straight forward until the the end for me, where vivec says "'For I have crushed a world with my left hand,' he will say, 'but in my right hand is how it could have won against me. Love is under my will only.'"
I feel that this line is a little deeper than my understanding, so I was hoping for others to pitch in, it seems to have more meaning than "i've messed stuff up, but totally could have gotten messed up if it went down differently"

I dont mind this thread going off topic with other peoples discussions, but keep it related to the sermons please

Well, it's not a Daedric Translation of anything. Have you poked into the Imperial Library?

The Mystery or the Secret probably come after she hatches the Netch Egg that was implanted in her after they changed her into a Netch.

http://www.imperial-library.info/content/36-lessons-vivec

yeah i've been reading the sermon on that link.

So the mystery will be explained in future sermons? I feel like the sermons are alot to take in, so i should take them one by one and make sure I have a grasp of what they're trying to say. But without any real background on purpose of the 36 lessons I'm feeling a bit lost. Granted I have only read one so far so it is possible everything will be explained later

Mystery is the clockwork prince who came Seht? Its basically Sortha Sil as he represents mystery and of course the clockwork city I thought it was vivec at first, but I believe its Sortha.
Now the ending passage I do not believe it means that all. If it was JUST that, then yes I would be on the same train of thought, but u have to take inaccount of the passage before it. To me, its a better answer to the answer he was given at a conceivement.

AYEM AE SEHTI AE VEHK is ehlnofex for Ayem and/is Sehti and/is Vehk. Ayem is Almalexia, Sehti is Sotha Sil, and Vehk is Vivec. The sentence expresses the nature of the unity of ALMSIVI as a triune. "Until Mystery comes" means "until Sotha Sil arrives." Vivec represents mastery, Alma is mercy, and Sotha Sil is mystery.

The second question I better leave to RottenDeadite

I'm just going to jump in before RottenDeadite gets here, and tell you that everything in the Sermons is meant to be taken completely literally. There are no metaphors or hidden meanings. None. At all.

*hides*

Oh excellent, I'm going to be following this thread closely ... Having only just started to dig into the Lore this past year, I think I'm at the point where I want to tackle Vivec in all his glory .... My body is ready.

Thanks! That makes a ton of sense and really helps with how coded the sermons seem to be.


Glad you find my thread useful, I figure I'm going to milk the thread for 5 or 6 sermons before it gets locked, so feel free to ask any questions you need as you dive into it as well!

Probably too obvious and therefore completely wrong, but is the answer 0 in the left hand, and whatever I and -I is when you don't get 0 in the right?

http://fallingawkwardly.wordpress.com/2010/08/29/the-metaphysics-of-morrowind-part-1/ is quite old and more about the metaphysics of Morrowind than anything else but it contains some good insight into the sermons.

You'll also need the http://www.imperial-library.info/content/sermon-zero-thirty-and-six-and-nine-sermons-vivec.

And finally http://www.imperial-library.info/content/thirty-six-lessons-obscurity-and-deception as well as http://www.imperial-library.info/content/first-time-sermons talks about the Sermons in-depth.

Rottendeadite's article, "What is Love?", should help you out here. Check the comments - he has an interesting discussion with a Thelemite there.

http://www.reddit.com/r/teslore/comments/18gt8w/what_is_love/

Of course, the man himself will probably be by shortly to chime in.

(Forgive the poor formatting - I'm posting from an older mobile phone.)

That article, while masterfully written, very entertaining, and an excellent literary anolysis of the work, probably shouldn't actually be used to understand the lore. Too much game-y-ness, eastereggs, and 4th-wall interpretations. To be clear: it's a great read, but CHIM ain't the construction set and Vivec ain't loading a save game. If thinking of it like that helps you understand it, great, but it's not what the concepts actually are.

I'm currently trying to dig up the old mouse-over anolysis version TIL used to have up. It's rather shallow as far as metaphysics are concerned, but I do remember it being pretty good for the wordage, contradictions, and general commentary.

Taking a crack at it, though I'm by no means a Lore Master.

Well Ayem Seht and Vehk are Daedric names for Almalexia, Sotha Sil, and Vivec.

Ae seems to be a bridge word, and has nothing in Daedric that would qualify. Draconic language, however, leads to some interesting revelations - if extremely flimsy given the age of the text and the revelation of the dragon tongue in relation to we the players.

What got me looking in that direction (Beyond the fact I am a Dragon Enthuisit) was actually the fact Seht had a "i" at the end of his name. The letter "i" in Draconic is utilized as a personal possessive. And while there is no "Ae" in the Dragon tongue, there is AU...which means "On".

Ayem Au Sehti Au Vehk could thus be translated as Almalexia on my Sotha Sil on Vivec. The possessive nature of Sil is interesting to me, since he is the only member of the Tribunal whom we do not interact with in a meaningful way - having been killed by Almalexia. But given the nature of the Tribunal, that means he was also killed by Vivec...possibly explaining why his is the sole name to have a possessive.

To reinforce my theory that this sermon is speaking about Thu'um in some capacity, look at the line "In you is [...] a seven-syllable spell", Seven Syllables...like a language.

Diving into this further, I started looking for substitutes for Ayem, Seht, and Vehk (A, B, and C).

Ayem is a difficult word to pin down in Draconic, with no words really matching the pronouncing of it. That being said, she is known as "The Lady of Mercy", and surprise of surprises...there is a Draconic Word for Mercy that begins with "A" - Aaz.

Seht actually proved to be the easiest of the three. Turns out in Draconic there exists the word Sil. It means "Soul".

Vehk. Vehk's a hard one. There are no words for "Poet", "Warrior", or even close approximations of Vehk or Vivec. However, he's also the "vi" at the end of ALMSIVI and Draconic does include a word Viir.

Combine it all together and you end up with AAZ AU SILI AU VIIR. A Thu'um of Seven Syllables meaning "Mercy on my soul on dying".

What is death if not the greatest mystery of all?

Cooooooooool

As far as questions concerning Sermon 1 and specific lines, it's probably just best if I http://rottendeadite.com/whirlingschool/. I've only got commentary up for the first two Sermons, and they're incomplete at that. Please be patient, I'm working as hard and as fast as I can

Wow, a ton of helpful links right away! I've got a ton of reading to do just for the first sermon. Glad i'm finally getting around to this

I see what you did there. *golf clap*
(It's also further evidence of Half life III, but I digress)

Edit: I like the idea of death being a true mystery to those that made themselves Gods.

I'm curious...what exactly did I do? I noted the "i" in Sehti and kinda let my TES obsessions (I like the idea that Dragons speak a language of pure magic) run wild. I fully admit the ideas behind Au and Viir are flimsy pretenses, but the remainder just worked out the way it did.

EDIT: The reason I went with the first letter of their names (Beyond the fact it synced with the Daedric aspect of their names) is that the Dragon Language has no Letter C to it.

AE is an ehlnofex word (This is the magical language of the ehnofey which is always written in all caps)

The daedric alphabet is the common alphabet used by the dunmer, reflecting their reverence of the "good" daedric princes

and the dragon alphabet was invented for Skyrim, so any relationship to the lessons is a coincidence

/party pooper

Well of course it's coincidence. But it's a FUN coincidence.

Haha then carry on xD

Cool! Whirling school is back, good work so far.

The Whirling School has helped me understand the sermons. Thanks rottendeadite!

Every time I read into the first couple of sermons, I can't help but feel sorry for Vehks mother. Gods what a tool.
But a very nice guide so far Rottendeadite. It has helped me much!

The Netchiman's Wife = Heart of Lorkhan.

Have fun!

Mind is blown.
How did MK write all this in one weekend?