Sermon Sixteen and the Scathing Bay

Before I begin to outline my thinking, I would like to thank /u/ornerycretin and wish him the Emperor’s luck wherever he’s going.

Although the denizens of Tamriel have endured many plagues, invasions, and hardships, most of them pale in comparison to the calamity which befell the Dunmer during the Red Year. When Baar Dau slammed into Vivec City and Red Mountain erupted, the entire population of the subcontinent was destroyed or displaced. Some people say Vivec should be blamed, for not removing the meteoroid when he stopped it from making impact. Other people blame Sheogorath for throwing it in the first place. Regardless of whose fault it is, I believe Vivec makes allusions to this inevitable catastrophe in Sermon 16 of his 36 Lessons.

He wandered to find Vivec, his lord and master, the glory of the image of Veloth, and found him of all places in the Temple of False Thinking. There, clockwork shears were taking off Vivec’s hair. A beggar king had brought his loom and was making of the hair an incomplete map of adulthood and death.

Nerevar said, “Why are you doing this, milord?”

Vivec said, “To make room for the fire.”

The most common and literal interpretation of this sermon is that this is why Vivec is bald and possesses a crown of fire on his head. In my opinion, it possesses a dual meaning: the fire also refers to the great change brought to the Dunmer by the eruption of Red Mountain for the second time in history. The map refers to the fact that although the catastrophe will bring unprecedented death, it will also renew them as the people of the exodus.

And the Hortator could see that Vivec was out of sorts, though not because of the impending new power to come. The golden warrior-poet had been exercising his Water Face as well, learned from the dreughs before he was born.

Nerevar said, “Is this to keep you from the fire?”

Vivec said, “It is so that I may see with truth. It, and my place here at the altar of Padhome in the house of False Thinking, serve so that I may see beyond my own secrets. The Water Face cannot lie. It comes from the ocean, which is too busy to think, much less lie. Moving water resembles truth by its trembling.”

After Vivec City is reduced to a crater, water comes flowing in and it creates a new inner sea called the Scathing Bay. Although nothing has been confirmed, some scholars have speculated that either dreughs or the An-Xileel would claim this sea for their own. The next part of the sermon details Nerevar’s interaction with the Parliament of Craters. This could be a reference to the new Dunmer government that founded itself on Solstheim after fleeing Vvardenfell and the crater where their city had stood. Although the sermon relates the craters to those we see on the moon, I think this has more to do with the fact that the moons are Lorkhan’s body, and he was the original god of change.

We are graves but not coffins. Know the difference. You have only dug more and supplied no ghosts to reside within. Central to your claim is the predominance of frail events. To be judged by the earth is to sit on a throne of wonder why. Damage us more and you will find naught but the absence of our dead.

Perhaps one of the most tragic aspects of the Red Year was the loss of countless Dunmer ancestor tombs. The tradition of preserving and venerating the dead has always been central to Velothi tradition, and the loss of these family burial sites must have been devastating to the people who had just recently lost their gods. This sermon, like everything Vivec writes, can be interpreted in a practically infinite number of ways. I just thought I’d point out some perceived connections and possible prophecy.