In skyrim lore each divine has a commadment I was looking at them and I found this

Akatosh says: Serve and obey your Emperor. Study the Covenants. Worship the Nine, do your duty, and heed the commands of the saints and priests.

He says worship THE NINE. The empire thinks there is only 8. What do you guys think.

The Empire knows there are nine divines. They just acknowledge eight due to the White Gold Concordant. As for why the Stormcloaks don't use this? It's simple Ulfric is power hungry, so he most likely doesn't care about that commandment. In Oblivion and Morrowind the Empire worshiped the Nine.

Because the Stormcloaks are nords that have been hit in the collective head one to many times. Also, because their leaders want to fight the empire, not use religion to rescue their religion.

That book was obviously sent to Tamriel from the gods themselves, and not written by anyone with dirty opinions, possibly at the start of the 3rd Era...

Not to mention, a nearly identical book that is found in ESO, that has no Talos in it... I've also never heard or seen anyone obey these commands...

Citation please.

Don't you see the inherent flaw in that Commandment? Akatosh and the other 7 Divines of the Eight have been around for practically forever. The Commandments nearly as long. Talos/Tiber Septim is a relative newcomer, from after the Commandments were formulated. So why would Akatosh say "Worship the Nine" before Tiber Septim was elevated? It would make no sense.

More than likely,translations got blurred over the millenia. Mor likely the Commandment had simply been, "Worship the Divines." Which would still leave Talos' Divinity debatable.

Serve and obey your Emperor?

I'm not so sure the Stormcloaks would want to run around quoting that. . .

There wasn't always the Nine, originally it was just the Eight. The passage you're quoting was made after Talos ascended to godhood.

Made by whom? Did Akatosh utter it Himself suvh that EVERYONE heard it? Or was it some priest -- probably a priest of Talos -- telling others that he received a vision from Akatosh, giving him the Commandments that included the one cited, verbatim. (Thereby lending credence to the assertion that Tiber Septim has ascended to godhood.)

Somewhat related, I can sort of see the Thalmor POV. The Eight were all essentially mer-related, making ALL of the Eight primarily concerned with the mer, with men being merely an afterthought. To ram Talos into the Divines on what is essentially a heavily biased popularity contest would effectively pollute/dilute the purity of the Divines. At least from a mer POV. Being more abstract, the Divines were the gods of Tamriel from before men even arrived from Atmora. It's bad enough that men displaced mer wherever they went, but it's worse once men forced their god-emperor into the pantheon. Understandably they would be at least as peeved as elderly Nords that get peeved because modern Nords don't respect the Old Ways. (Kyne's Sacred Trials) The situation is further aggravated by the large number of mer that were actually alive several thousand years ago and may have noted Tiber Septim when he was pointedly nothing more than a man. A competent man, granted, but still nothing more than just a man.

*looks at thread title*

mkay, might be an interesting read..

*Opens Thread*

*reads following*

*beer shoots out of nose*




First, the Empire does not think there are only 8.. they know Talos is one of the divines, but they are pretending he isn't due to a temporary peace treaty they signed. once the second great war breaks out, so do the terms of that treaty..

also, no one was actually being punished for Talos worship, the Empire was turning a blind eye to all of it because they know hes one of the divines.. if Ulfric hadn't committed High Treason the way he had, they would never have been forced to crack down and punish people..

we also meet someone in Oblivions Knights of the Nine expansion who it is heavily hinted at is an Avatar of Talos, and he himself doesn't even call it "the nine divines", he calls it "the eight and the one"

The trick is not in proving the Empire wrong, but in proving the Thalmor and the Aldmeri Dominion wrong (and making fools out of them in the process). I would say the easiest way of doing that would be to take somebody with a serious case of rockjoint or brainrot to a Talos shrine and see if they get healed. Who besides the Divines can heal or cure through a shrine?

The Tribunal (the true one with the shrines in Dragonborn)? Apparently, their shrines give the cure as well.

Actually, it was the Markarth Incident that caused the crackdown. IIRC, it was barely a year of the Empire trying to make like Sergeant Schultz towards Talos worship, before Ulfric in his obtuseness whacks that Thalmor nest and makes that impossible. Of course... Ulfric was wound up and let loose by the Thalmor to do something like that.

True, but their power was derived from Lorkhan as I understand it (I could be wrong), so it's still the power of a god. I wonder, could the emperor (or any other mortal) create a shrine to himself that would cure disease and grant blessings?

I am talking about the ones with the temple in http://uesp.net/wiki/Dragonborn:Blessings (the city in Dragonborn). Azura, Mephala, and Boethiah, I think.

they are all Daedric Princes, gods in their own right. so its not unusual for them to be able to grant blessings and such.. I mean, look at Nocturnal's shrine in the Thieves Guild hideout..

Was setting the record straight that I was talking about the princes worshiped in Raven Rock, not the ones that players met in Morrowind.

ahh, i must have misread (blame the booze ), sounded like you were asking why the Daedric shrines in the temple would grant blessings

I apologize

that makes me wonder.. is the healing and blessing effects of a shrine an actual blessing from the god itself, or simply an effect because some priest enchanted it to bestow those effects upon touching it?

This would probably ruin religion in general, if it turned out that the shrines are just enchanted.

This is, after all, a world where Magic works. I imagine given enough time and research, a gifted mage could craft and enchant an item that "bestows a blessing" upon a supplicant. (Like the genie's lamp being rubbed.) And once one can be made, others could be crafted that bestow a variety of "blessings". After all, just how different are they from one another, blessings and spells?

would it though? power of belief is a big thing in TES, if people think its actually the god giving the blessing to anyone who goes to their alter, and are unaware its infact just the way a priest enchanted it, than whats the difference?

for example, Middle Age Europe, there were over a hundred cathedrals and chapels across Europe claiming to be in possession of Jesus Christ's foreskin, which was impossible for there to be that many of course, but people still made pilgrimages to see them and pray to them. which in turn, strengthened their faith in Christ..

The Tribunal, the Reclamationists, the temple saints, numerous other minor gods, Daedric Princes, anyone who knows enough about restoration and/or enchanting.

Hmmm... then let's see your skill level 100 Restoration and 100 Enchant school create such an item... Let alone quite a number of them apparently scattered all over Tamriel.

Well, in Morrowind, a player could heal diseases, though blessings were a bit out of reach

In Skyrim, Vigilants of Stendarr can cure diseases, too, though that could be from Stendarr through them

I like drake-heart's (Nords are too stoopid) and CaptainPatch's (just divines, no numbers) responses.