Umaril is lacking one thing as an arch-villain, no diabolical scheme. The prophet (whose avatar I wonder) blathers about vengeance on the nine, but all his minions seem to do is trash the Aedra's doll houses and wreak a terrible slaughter whose casualties can be counted with one hand. Can he use his daedric influence to kill things besides mortals? Are the Earthbones assailable in some way?

His goal was to reclaim the heartland, and rule with an iron fist. Not a very ideal situation for the Cyrodills if I do say so myself.

All he wanted was a counter-revolution? Indirect vengeance, then.

More than that, so much more.

Umaril was an Ayleid. More than that, an Ayleid Sorceror-King. This was no mere villian, this was a genocidal maniac with an army of immortal Daedric legions. This was an entity whose sole purpose in returning was to wipe the entire race of Men off the Earth. Pelinial killed him and cast down his mighty empire, along with all those of his fellows. The Ayleids viewed men with disgust and indignity before, but to be BEATEN by them?

Imagine, if you will, if an all-Jewish army had thrown down Hitler from behind the banner of a Jewish warrior of unparalelled skill and valor, who also happened to hate everyone who was NOT Jewish.

Now imagine Hitler coming back at the forefront of an unkillable army.

So there would have been another Oblivion crisis. I guess Umaril just has an overdeveloped love of subtlety. Or maybe his warnings were meant to draw Wild Elves and more conservative Altmer to his banner?

You forgot the bit about Hitler selling his soul to the devil (Meridia) in return for said powers.

...and for some reason it reminds me of the Invisibles. Probably because the whole idea is too trippy to be done in any other way.

As you might have guessed, I finished KotN a few hours ago, and looking at the things the Knights say and then looking at the Song of Pelinal leads me to believe that no one in Cyrodiil has read it.

And might the prophet be a Wulf redux? He was rather enthusiastic about Talos' addition to the pantheon, and referred to the eight as the 'Old Gods,'

That's the consensus.

I guess we are lucky then that the saintly Pelinal Whitestrake was around to stop them. Why if Pelinal hadn't been there then who would have gone on crazy murderous rampages in which he destroyed entire towns and slaughtered his own people as much as he did the Ayleids.

What a true hero.

That's why I think none of the Knights ever read the Song.

Insofar as I can discern, Umaril had these goals:

1 - Attack the followers of the Nine Divines and sew terror among the believers.

2 - Undermine the authority of the Imperial law, and eventually build sufficient forces to challenge the Legions, possibly by enlisting Elves sympathetic to the Ayleid cause

3 - Reclaim White Gold Tower, and reform Cyrodill as an Ayleid Empire. Reinstate the Ayleid religions and systems.

4- Possible genocide or enslavement of all Human races

5 - (possibly) strike all records of Pelinal Whitestrake from existence

^ Based on what I know about the Ayleids, and Umaril's history, that's my best guess.

How Aurorans can attack chapels when no one summoned them?

Umaril and his Aurorans entered Tamriel while the barriers between Oblivion and Mundus were at their weakest, after Uriel Septim was killed and before the new Stone was created by Martin's Apotheosis. They were already in Cyrodill. They didn't just randomly become summoned by some mortal servant. In fact, we see no mortal servants at all so we assume Umaril came of his own free will while the doors were opened, and was possibly aided by Meridia. Meridia herself may have been able to directly spawn Aurorans inside the Churches herself while the barrier was down.

It takes a stretch of imagination to see how this could happen if, say, you didn't install KOTN until like eight months after you beat the MQ. So if that's the case, the game mechanic calls for a crafty answer. Let's assume that they're powerful Battlemages who can use Chameleon to great effect. There, see? Convenient lore jury rig.

Those other crusaders were said to be heroes too.

Many crusaders where said to be heroes.

I thought you two guys above were the same account. Never seen you post adjacently. Damn entianomorphs.

Lol ha ha! ^^

Like King Richard the Lionhearted. I watched a documentary called The Cresent and The Cross not to long ago and the entire 2nd disk was devoted to the 3rd crusade. He was just as ruthless and "evil" as the otherside, moreso even.

A cranky meathead who spent all his time putting down French rebellions.

What were you expecting?

It's a Crusade. Not much good can come out of the Crusades.

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Oh, and as for the appearing when not summoned:

Who knows. Maybe Umaril is just that powerful that he didn't have to be directly present to summon Meridia's minions.

I think I saw something like that not so long ago too.

Re: Pelinal, his closest mythical model would be Gilgamesh, with a dash of a T-800 thrown in, and a full-serving of brain-fracture slaughterhouse antinomial (Kill)3 functions stuck in his hand or head. We tend to forgive those heroes.

And thousands of years of Good Coming From Bad, and/or whitewash, ignorance, shame, his Song being read by the Knights merely as fancy rather than right record, etc, might explain the Order's reluctance to villify or apologize for him. Plus, no one wants to gets smothered in their sleep by moths.

That said, I sure would like to read the story of Alkosh whooping Pelinal's ass back to Cyrod when the Whitestrake's pogroms strayed too far into the Dragon-Cat's land.


Edit: forum mangled my post; that's what maruhk-talk can do to you.

If Cyrodiil was ruled by the Ayleids prior to the Slave Queen and Barriers, then why wouldn't Umaril want to get there first and establish his reign? He probably could have shown up beforehand, but a tail-kicking would have likely occurred without his big 'ol daedric minions.

Now, as to why he wished to assault the Chapels first, one can only assume that a preemptive strike that could shatter the morale of the people was a strategic move. That it was peppered with personal vidication and satisfaction could have been completely collateral.

Didn't Gilgamesh have a happy ending?

One question on my mind is how he managed to get the Aurorans inside the cities? As players, we never saw Merida-style versions of Dagon's Gates. Dagon's portals were always outside the city walls. How did Meridia pull this guerilla warfare off?