The Nerevarine Cult in 4E 201

2^nd Morning Star, 4E 202

Submission to the Tamriel Journal of History

Anaximander, county Cheydinhal

Of growing concern in the western cities receiving Red Year refugees is a rapidly growing cult centered around the so-called “martyred Nerevarine”. The sect has spread to Windhelm and Riften in Skyrim, but is believed to have originated in the refugees and Dunmer ex-pats of Cheydinhal county, near as it is to the Velothi highlands with history of trade and transplantation. This new Nerevarine cult largely functions as symbol of Dunmeri traditional philosophies, justice, and as a support system for wayward Dunmer. Mostly unnoticed in the recent decade, it has grown more radical and violent. At its best, the cult functions as a charitable organization and network for Dunmer ascetics and practicing laymer, and at worst, a terrorist cell responsible only this month for a firebombing in the newly repaired Waterfront District, Nibennium.

It is now a widely accepted fact among Penitus Oculatus intelligence officers that the cult’s roots began when a former Buoyant Armiger turned Imperial battlemage led a silent and bloody exodus from the Imperial City to Cheydinhal during the Sack of the Imperial City. As the soldiers of the Aldmeri Dominion pillaged and torched the White-Gold, this Dunmeri battlemage deserter claims to have learned from an ancestor moth priest of the Nerevarine’s true whereabouts.

Some 200 years prior, an outlander of uncertain parents and born under a certain star fulfilled the Nerevarine prophecies and went under the Red Mountain to kill the devil Dagoth Ur. They were sent from the Imperial City to Vvardenfell District under direct orders from the Emperor Uriel Septim VII as an agent of the now-defunct Blades. Their handler was the often-revered Cauis Cosades, who, under the Emperor’s instruction, fed the Nerevarine missions of both subterfuge and spiritual warfare. Amazingly, the cult claims to have a fragment of the two-century old coded set of instructions from the Capitol to Cosades. The first assignments given to this Nerevarine were the illegal trade of Dwemer artifacts and desecration of the tomb of a Temple official.

These crimes were used as the impetus for a collusion between the Empire and the typically uncooperative Tribunal Temple to remove a rebellious upstart that both threatened the upheaval of Tribunal doctrine and Imperial colonization on Vvardenfell only after the hero had destroyed Dagoth Ur and neutralized the duel threat of Blight and Akulakhan. The spread of the Divine Disease and the apocalyptic abuse of Akulakhan had to be contained, and the ebony had to flow west. The Nerevarine, after the fulfillment of the prophecies, the deaths of Dagoth Ur, Sotha Sil, and Almalexia, and the disappearance of Vivec, was assassinated by Blades agents under direct orders from their former handlers: Caius Cosades and the Emperor Uriel Septim VII.

It is thus said these adherents are driven by two primary motivations: the recollection of artifacts and hidden knowledge associated with the dead Nerevarine, and revenge against the Cyrodiilic Empire that put to death the Dunmer people’s final hero. They are characterized not only in their reverence of their dead saint, but also of the traditional Three Good Daedra, whose spheres they invoke. The more peaceful ascetics lean heavily towards the twilight Azura. For the warrior-zealots, Boethiah, the king killer aspect in particular, represents the murder of their object of reverence as well as the path to be taken in violence against the Empire. In the eastern holds of Skyrim, as Nordic totemic religion fades in an ever-encroaching Imperial cultural and military presence, altars and temples are increasingly inhabited by Dunmeri priests and alchemists, providing services to the Dunmer immigrants as well as an increasingly underserved traditionalist Nordic population. In Windhelm it is said with surprise that Dunmeri healers and adherents of this faith bolster Ulfric Stormcloak’s rebellion. Count Farwil Indarys is rumored to be heavily swayed in his political dealings by the new Nerevarine cult, with this Nerevarine’s origins as a Dunmer cultural hero and outlander both contributing to mass appeal to Dunmer immigrants, Cyrod-born Dunmer, and exploited members of all nations seeking respite in martyred messiahs.

At first, the New Temple of the Reclamations denied the cult’s existence wholesale but the inevitable repetition of history has lead to a largely Indoril Temple coming into conflict with a cult that shares the name of their house progenitor during their expeditions to Vvardenfell in attempts to collect relics and answers.

As this quickly developing sect continues in influence, it is this author’s consideration that careful monitoring of the cult proceed unhindered as tensions mount again with the Aldmeri Dominion and with rebellion in the north. A further fragmented Empire of Men gives us no good luck in the wars to come. Progress will be made in the coming weeks to develop informants and collect religious and organizational documents.