Akavir Is Full of Beast People Because of "Evolution"

>Remember that Akavir exists in the future. Add your beast ideas to that >notion and see what comes back.-MK

Anyone who has been around long enough knows about the Amaranth, and the Cycle of Dreams it implies. Original Dreamer->Anu->Jubal(?).

I contend that Yokuda was the dream Anu came from, Tamriel is the dream Jubal came from, and now Akavir is as far as we know.

It has been suggested by someone that the Dreams are getting more complex. I can't find this someone's quote, so if it is you I apologize for not crediting you.

There may be a grain of truth to this. Yokuda was basically Men vs. Elves, with one Tower. Then Tamriel came along and Anu dreamt of all sorts of Elves and all kinds of Men. The Redguards also managed to make the journey from the past dream to the new one. Another major addition to the Dream is the Beast Folk like the Khajiit.

Each dream takes the previous elements and expands on them. Where Tamriel expanded on Men and Elves, Akavir expands primarily on the Beast Folk. Thus there is a sort of evolution to the dreams, but that's just on a meta level.

I believe Maering-Bear-Poker's theory is partially correct. MK told us that the nations of Akavir are kind-of-sort of like Otherkin, which is a strange theme to me.

This obviously isn't totally satisfactory though. I'm sure many of us prefer the idea of literal snake people.

OCVLAR came up with this idea, which I also like. >What about the people of Akavir being humanoid (man/mer) who can take on the "aspect" of animals by following a certain >discipline/movement of martial arts? It's not like werewolves, vampires, and Khajiits who were transformed via Daedric Princes. It would be something like the Voice which would take years of training and some natural talent.

This fits with what we know about tonal magic, particularly related to that of the Akaviri's kiai.

>. The power of a Nord can be articulated into a shout, like the kiai of an Akaviri swordsman.-The Children of the Sky

It also would provide an explanation for the strange weather patterns reported during the Disaster at Ionath. If the Kiai is anything like the Thu'um, then it should have been capable of weather control.

Knowing this, I would like to propose a marriage of sorts between Maering and OCVLAR's philosophies.

The Nations of Akavir are split between their animal motifs because those animals represent their ideals and how one can proceed to learn magical martial arts.

Martial Arts are a form of physical activity with philosophy behind it. The philosophies you follow shape how you think, but these do even more than that. They change both your body and your mind as you grow more advanced in them.

I'll use the Tsaesci as an example. Judging from The Disaster at Ionath, the Tsaesci basically fight like ninjas. The whittle their enemies down, and then strike when they're most vulnerable. They fight like a snake.

This is because every Tsaesci buys into a Snake Style Martial Arts. They start to think like snakes to get better, and as a result they become more and more snakelike. Eventually they start growing snake like features- scales instead of skin, fangs instead of teeth, and eventually their legs merge and become like a snake's body. It's like Mythopoea, except on a smaller scale.

This also explains the numerous comments on "eating" things. "Eating" is "adapting", or maybe "assimilating". Ninjas do this when they disguise themselves. They're still ninjas, but they're disguised as something else. They "ate" their disguise and "became" it.

For example: A Ninja "eats" a Gardener by stealing his clothes and takes his job. Then he "becomes" the Gardener by taking his place. He's still a Ninja, but he is wearing the "skin" of a gardener.

This is what happened to the Men of Akavir. Originally, there were Men in Akavir, but the Tsaesci assimilated them and through their teachings the Men of Akavir became the Tsaesci. It was a new paradigm.

The Tsaesci tried to continue their conquest to include dragons, but they hit a wall when the Black Dragons fled to the Po Tun. It is said that the Red Dragons were "enslaved" by the Tsaesci, so presumably they couldn't be taught the Snake Style.

We know the rest. The Tsaesci fought a devastating war with the Po Tun, which ended with the death of the dragons.

The Martial Arts the Tsaesci use must be very powerful, because they managed to dominate the continent for some time. Their victory over the Imperial Expedition Force may give some taste of this.

Their dominance was finally broken when Tosh Raka finally figured out a Dragon Martial Arts, and perfected it so that he became an actual Dragon.

> Tosh Raka is the first to succeed. He is the largest Dragon in the world, orange and black, and he has very many new ideas. > >"First," Tosh Raka says, "is that we kill all the vampire snakes." Then the Tiger-Dragon Emperor wants to invade Tamriel.

He has "many new ideas", meaning that he invented Dragon Martial Arts. This is evident by the fact that he clearly thinks like a Dragon- He wants to dominate Akavir first, and then conquer Tamriel.

This is my concept of Akavir. It is a land of martial artists who are slowly becoming their philosophies, with their bodies reflecting the change.