i'd say either magnus, or hasedoki. :shrug:

I think that the Mannimarco we saw in OB was an avater, like the ones that Zenithar, Talos, and Mara had. It allowed Mannimarco to lead the Order of the Worm directly while providing them with the Shades of the Revenant. The very necromancers who followed him did say that he was ascended.

But that aside, we can't forget Syrabane, as he managed to save the world by use of that crap artifact ring.

I would have to say that the most powerful mage would have been Sotha Sil when he still had a connection to the heart, however if we are excluding the tribunal then I would venture that (forgive my poor spelling) Davith Fryer or Baldas Delvanni (I know I mutilated that name horribly) would be in the top 3-5 if not at the top themselves, each has lived for several thousand years which is more than enough time to transcend what mages who lived for a few hundred years at the most could accomplish, their mastery over magic must be unparalleled by others after such a long time to perfect it. However I would also venture that Mannimarco could give either a run for their money

mage being a mortal using magic, right? so gods cannot be mages?

If he was just an avatar, then he can come back next week, and the entire questline was an exercise in futility that left the Mages Guild in tatters.

Edit: Gods can be mages.

My character. Duuuuuhh!









Kidding. I don't even play a mage.

Fortunately, his return isn't imminent enough to have constituted respawning, and the Order of the Worm is also in tatters.

return isn't imminent enough...

Says who? Traven return isn't exactly imminent either.

Was the avatar thing at suggested at all by the quest? It certainly wouldn't make sense according tohttp://www.imperial-library.info/obscure_text/nu-hatta.shtml

That's what you would expect of a god, and there is plenty that suggests he is.

The problem is though that in Oblivion, he didn't act like one. He wasn't particularly strong, there was no special realm to fight in and he didn't even call his attacks.

I recon Gekohater is going in the right direction if mastery leads to godhead then Magnus, who started mortal and became the God of Magic, must seriously be in the running as the greatest specialist in Magic. And to answer your questions directly Darkom95 mortals become gods ... so up to the point of their ascension they can be purely mages. The question is whether that assumption of the mantle is indeed a magical action?

And I will re-emphasise Vivec because of CHIMp - basically that is a form of mastery that as the theory has been presented elsewhere transcends all others ... would have to include the Gods/Deadric Princes in what Vivec has become as tiny parts I seem to remember people saying ... so Vivec must on that basis encompass All, including absolute Mastery of Magic. I hate the idea because then the correct answer to just about every question becomes Vivec = boring

Time to stop lurking...



Where did you read that Magnus were Mortal. According to the IL he was always et'Ada -





What? Are you saying that anyone with CHIM has mastery over all forms of Combat, (e.g Stealth, Melee, and Magic)?

~Lost

Mastery of existence=mastery of everything without mastery of anything.

I don't mean to sound rude, but you actually know what CHIM is?

Though they have the potential to be, the one[s] with CHIM aren't necessarily masters of 'everything'.

In very basic terms, when you have achieved CHIM you are everything, and everything is you. However, you still remain your identity. So, it's I are we, we are I, but I am I. Zero Sum is similar, but without the I am I part, and you disappear. Zero Summing is what happens to the Moth Priests quite often. Vehk Vehk achieved CHIM, wrote how to achieve it through his love letters and his sermons. The dwemer tried it by absorbisiding their entire race into the giant stompy robot they made. It...sorta worked, except the issue of powering it. It is believed that Talos also achieved this.

The big named Lorites know about it a lot more.

But, for all intents and purposes, I'd say we should leave out Vivec out of this discussion, since he's a blasted thief.

For the original question, I'd say Dyvath Fyr, at least for ones alive. In history, Sotha Sil, D-F, or some Psijjic we have yet to know about

^^Yeah, but the question was whether acheiving CHIM would also give you complete mastery over the use of magic.

I'd be inclined to say no, but it would undoubtedly make the process much simpler.

EDIT: Blast, you edited while I was typing.

With CHIM, you kinda are magic also. You are, literally, everything, everything is you, but you are still you. So....someone who has achieved CHIM, they could, if they really wanted to, make it rain biscuits and gravy, turn a mountain into a giant cake, turn a cake into a mountain.

Well, at leas that's my understanding of it.

We don't have a lot of information about whoever did this...but I would assume whatever Sload made the Thrassian Plague deserves a shout out in this thread. It could have been a collaborative effort, but if it was the work of a single Sload... :touched:

He may have the highest body count in the history of Tamriel...

Fortunately for the Mages Guild, when one Arch-Mage dies, another takes his/her place. The Order of the Worm, on the other hand, follows the command of one person. Unless, of course, Mannimarco had a second-in-command who survived the MG questline AND was able to rally the remaining necromancers behind him.

The avatar idea is based on two things; the first is the fact that Mara, Talos, and Zenithar all were able to create mortal avatars, the second is the fact that the necromancers, the people that were most familiar with Mannimaro, http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Necromancer%27s_Moon. And let's face it, for a god, he went down far too easily for even game mechanics to fully be able to explain.

'pologies Lost Gate - I guess you are correct about the et'Ada side of it if that is the Lore you follow - have you seen MK's World Eating 101 Lore thread? The last quote from him (and caution that he is not stating that it is Lore) may indicate that some new thinking is coming in with TESV - I guess I got ahead of things with certain new assumptions that I have been following about one being's mortal being a previous being's next door neighbour's son

re CHIMp
The Trial etc gives a certain view - and interpretations of it's consequences and givens suggest that CHIMp had become rather more than some people assumed ... at least for the purposes of Hogithum Hall.

When I posited that there was no way a failed demi-God like Vivec could have the power over a Daedric Prince that he displayed, I was resoundingly rebuffed with the assertion that Vivec has become All and that therefore to him a Daedric Prince is just another small part of Him ... that he can manipulate as He wishes. I see someone has undelined the process here. Plus I was told the Trial (which I am very uncomfortable with) ... is agreed by the Devs who took part to be a satisfactory representation of Vivec's Duality - personally I feel that Vivec is being portrayed as schitzophrenic :shrugs: and I don't really like it as it ignores certain aspects of in-game experience.

So I am going along with all that (note the disclaimer in my previous post?) and waiting for further developments ... k?

If he was an avatar I rather think he would have mentioned his divinity, or at least someone should have. Did you read that link I posted? Nu-Hatta told us that Akatosh extracted Mannimarco from the Warp in the West as nothing more than the high priest of maggots. It seems reasonable that the jills could put a lich back in his usual pair of trousers but could not remove the necromantic god sphere that now creates Black soul gems. The order of the worm may worship Mannimarco or regard him as divine because of his connection with the Necromancer's moon and his long life. but there is no hint of a cult or even much of a claim to divinity. Mortals that become gods do not lose their physical bodies. Talos and Vivec stayed on Nirn. There is no reason to believe that the Necromancers Moon would create an avatar while its master was still walking around, though I suppose a double Mannimarco would pretty trippy. The lich you fought was either an Oblivio-logic living god or the lich that the jills neutered.

I'm also puzzled as to why you keep talking like you know how and when the avatar will recur. Rally remaining necromancers? Are you making stuff up again? I've never seen any mention of people rejoining the guild, and necromancers stay hostile.

There's still the Necromancer's Moon, suggesting Mannimarco has a celestial presence, even after "Mannimarco" was destroyed. Even if it was just a moon that eclipses Arkay once a week. As for Talos, even if he did remain on Nirn, that didn't stop him from having an avatar. And then there's the whole question of why he wasn't a lich in OB.


We know that he wasn't set to respawn, so they didn't plan on him reconstituting anytime soon. And I never said anything about rejoining the guild, I was referring to the possibility of the necromancers holding out until Mannimarco returns, or simply turn on each other now that their undisputed leader is gone. After all, it's not like Mannimarco designated a successor.

However, it does seem likely that due to the Jills, Mannimarco would not be nearly as powerful, which is supported by the fact that he can only eclipse Arkay once a week.

Talos didn't send down avatars while Hjalti was still alive. That would be [censored] up.

You're just reiterating the first claim.
And yes, he was a lich, because Mannimarco is a lich. He's a powerful one, thus he doesn't have to look like a floating zombie from zomgwtfevil land.

I was referring to Wulf.


But if they wanted to make a lich with a living form, they would have given him all the cool abilities that even average liches have.

Wulf who was an avatar occurring after Talos' death. What's your point. No one noticed that the Emperor was a massively powerful divine being necessarily, he lived out his life like a mortal man and died. Rather like Mannimarco. Vivec was almost entirely earthbound as a god, and no one would doubt the power of his corporeal form. Ama Nin, Wulf and the rest winked into existence for a few minutes for a set purpose and vanished. I see Mannimarco as behaving more like the Emperor than any of the others.


As is painfully obvious, Bethesda already made every possible choice to make the quest lame, counter intuitive, and contradictory. Of course they didn't do anything cool like adding creature FX effects to an NPC. He did have abilities though. You seem to be dipping into the quest for evidence when you need it, and then dismissing it as gameplay in the next moment.

Wulf was an avatar occuring after Tiber Septim ascended. And last time I checked, Mannimarco did ascend some time before we saw him in OB, as the Shades of the Revenant prove.


And it sounds like you're blaming everything that doesn't agree with you on Bethesda being lazy (of course, there's the whole colossal soul gem, but that's the only real example). Until Bethesda retcons it, what's in the game more than to any contrary suggested by borderline fanfiction.