Echmer Theologica, Volume II

ECHMERI THEOLOGICA: A METICULOUS DISCOURCE ON BAT ELVEN FAITH, CIRCA 3E 426

TREATISE II: AURBICAL GENESIS

BROTHER WARDEIN OF THE IMPERIAL COLLEGE

(FOREWORD AND ANNOTATIONS IN BRACKETS BY AZARIAS, ECHMER SAGE)

####Treatise II: Aurbical Genesis

There is no culture in Tamriel – no, no culture on Nirn – that has not recorded the times that ‘came before’ the existence of mortal beings in some form or fashion. Religious schism amongst the races of Men, Mer, and Beastfolk usually occurs because of a particular race’s relationship with the et’Ada. The Aldmer and their descendants claim direct descent from their gods, while the races of Men claim they were instead created by their own god. The creation myths of the Beast races tend to be unique compared to the aforementioned two, sometimes only being truly comprehensible to themselves. These subtle distinctions in worldview result in the vastly different and conflicting mythologies of Nirn.

In Tamriel all religions begin the same, regardless of racial group. The dualism of Anu (Stasis) and Padomay (Kinesis) is always the mythic beginning^{1. These two beings are known by many names depending on the specific culture, but those are the most well-known and used. These beings also have souls (or subgradients) that are often held in higher esteem than (sometimes even usurping}2) their progenitors; Anuiel (Order) is the soul of Anu and Sithis (Chaos) is the soul of Padomay. Where Anuiel and Sithis meet and intermingle forms the ‘Gray Maybe’, which either refers to Nirn or the Mundus in general. Although Anuiel/Anu is the Constant Unchanging White that begat the universe, Padomay/Sithis is often believed to be the Original Creator because he is the Unstable Fluctuating Black that causes the reaction of the universe developing in the first place.

>[1. The conflict of Inertia and Exertion is how one can tell which beginning is the True Beginning; without either one the concept of Perchance, and therefore all of existence, cannot become a reality.]

>[2. In Echmer ideologies Anu and Padomay do not actually reside within the Aurbis, having completely removed themselves long ago. Anuiel and Sithis, being all that remains of the primal IS and IS NOT in our universe, are therefore held in higher regard in almost every Nirnic culture that we have knowledge of.]

From Anuiel the Fantasist and Sithis the Realist sprang forth the et’Ada, or the Original Spirits. To humans and beastfolk they are the gods and daimons of the world. To the mer they are the Aedra (‘Ancestors’) and Daedra (‘Not Our’ or ‘Better Ancestors’). All Tamrielic pantheons (except for the Argonians, whose mytho-religion cannot be truly understood) fill their rosters with these et'Ada, although divine membership often differs from culture to culture. However each of these cultures keep the two figures of the Dragon God (Akatosh) and the Missing God (Lorkhan) in their traditions, and the Echmer faith is no exception^3.

>[3. True and False, although Tamrielic scholars (Merish ones especially) are often both confused and insulted by the lack of importance we give to them.]

Because the Echmer combine Aldmeri, Beastfolk, and even some Mannish views into their theology it is both refreshingly unique compared to the religions found in Tamriel while still containing some similarities, which this particular part shall go deeper into.

#####Chapter II.I: On the Lack of a ‘True’ Echmeri Creation Myth

The Echmer (along with the Argonians as well as the Nords, who almost always change the events with each retelling) are unique in the area that they have no actual creation myth. Whereas other Nirnic cultures have a specific view on the formation of the Aurbis, our world, and themselves the Echmer instead have had to change and adapt the Dwemeri view (which no one, not even the Bat Elves, can remember) to suit the needs of their growing culture^4.

>[4. It is safe to say that most, if not all, of my races’ philosophy began deeply rooted in the tree of Dwemer Ideology. Overtime however, especially after the Disappearance of the Dwarves, we began to uproot, refine, and trim the branches of that tree until it became undeniably Echmeri.]

This is undoubtedly in part to the fact that the Bat Elves are the youngest race that the Empire has knowledge of – while the races of Men, Mer, and Beastfolk can trace their lineage to the Ehlnofey (except for the Argonians, who say that the Hist were their creators) that walked during the Dawn Times and started to consolidate as their own individual ethnic groups around the Merethic Era, the Echmer did not come into existence until the First Era when they evolved from normal bats by the strange Dwemer magicks known simply as ‘tonal architecture’. Because of this the Echmer have no true connection to the gods or the divine but instead have an affinity for more mundane utilities and matters (such as machines and music)^5.

>[5. Echmer souls have always been different than the souls of other races. In essence they were originally ‘white souls’ as you Tamrielics refer to them, but became ‘black souls’ when the Dwemer accidently infused them with tonal magick. Because of this our souls can actually be described as ‘musical’ when referring to them in metaphysical conversation. Echmeri souls changed once again when Hrahndeyl ascended into godhood, and he linked them to the Void so that we may escape the cycle of recreation as well as severing their ties to the other outer realms. The Dreaming City (and the Sword of Unforging) came into existence at this time, perhaps a creation of HRAHNDEYL’s, so that new Echmer souls can be born from the spirit left behind of the old ones.]

Still, one may find it strange that the story-loving Echmer never developed their own geneagony until the late Third Era (see Chapter II.IV below). When asked this, the Sage Azarias gave me an answer that seems almost fundamental to Echmer psychology:

“Asking an Echmer where they came from is actually asking them to remember the pain of being trapped where they are. For other races it is a symbol of pride and greatness to remember the point in time when they became a distinct culture unlike all others, but for us it is a symbol of dishonor and true acceptance. The aurbical prison can never be escaped if we think ourselves a part of it. So we focus our tales on the lives of our ancestors, family, and friends instead of the life of our race, because those are the only stories that truly matter. The spirit – the memories, personality, and emotions – is much more important than the soul. Not to mention the fact that coming up with something as foolish as a creation myth is viewed as wasting time, and we Echmer don’t like to waste time because every time we do something bad always happens and no one enjoys horrible experiences.

If you truly want to hear an Echmer creation myth then I’d advise you to ask an Echmer about his or hers foremost ancestor and the history of their Sect, and you’ll experience what might be for the first time in your life a story that stretches back for thousands of years that includes spectacular individuals and events with their own individual stories to tell that will never – can never – be forgotten.”

#####Chapter II.II: The Concept of an Aurbical Cycle

The Echmer believe in phenomena known as kuklos (an Echi word that translates into “world-rhythms/world-cycles”), which they state is the event that the world is constantly undergoing a recyclability pattern of ultimate destruction and ultimate recreation, which the Bat Elves equate to a musician playing a specific tone over and over again but slightly changing it each time. They are attributed to TOSH, the Echmer equivalent to Mannish Akatosh or Merish Auri-El (but due to their relationship with merish races, it’s presumed to be the latter despite the phonetic similarities with the former).

This interesting phenomenon is credited to HRAHNDEYL, the god-hero of the Echmer race, who supposedly revealed many things about the Aurbis to his people after he apotheosized. What separates a kuklos from Creation is that it does not center around the formation of the universe, but instead the formation of the Nirn itself^6 during the closing days of the Dawn Times and beginning of the Merethic Era.

>[6. My people refer to this period as Convention, which includes the Ehlnofey Wars that forged the world, the beginning of identity amongst many cultural groups, and the separation of ALORKH from his divinity which resulted in the ATEDA largely drawing away from the Nirn.]

There have been many kuklos throughout the history of Nirn apparently, but how long one a specific one will last is indeterminable. According to the Echmer this kuklos has been the longest one to date, which they cynically suggest might be due to the et’Ada extending it for their own pleasure. This kuklos is also said to include many elements that were not in any of the previous kuklos which may be attributing to the length of this one as well. When I asked Azarias he said, “Echmer have been around for some cycles but not always so.” This suggests that the Bat Elves themselves may have been excluded from some kuklos but not all of them, which brings up the chillingly thought that some Tamrielic races may have also suffered this fate as well in previous world-rhythms^7.

>[7. May have? That is a certainty, my Tamrielic readers. Things never stay the same during cycles – some things vanish, some things return, but all things change.]

The Aedra and Daedra themselves are also subjected to changing during world-rhythms as well according to the Echmeri view, but the most powerful (like the Divines or the Daedra Lords) can escape through unfazed through a complicated process that not even the Echmer understand. When asked, they often equate it to the strange “Walkabout” of the Redguards. It is also possible to outright escape the kuklos cycle altogether or even travel between world-cycles by achieving the Four Honorable Troths and Eight Virtuous Paths of Illumination taught by HRAHNDEYL, but only the Talk-God seems to have reached this state and the Bat Folk do not know of any others.

I have heard of another term known as a ‘kalpa’ that certain Tamrielic cultures recognize that seems very similar to the Echmeri kuklos, but I will not discuss it in this volume due to not knowing much about it and therefore giving me an inability to fully comprehend it.

#####Chapter II.III: The World’s World (The Echmer Cosmogony)

This text, known as “The World’s World”, is the modern day Echmer view on the creation of the universe. Originally it was merely adapted from the Dwemeri creation myth and altered slightly to suit the tastes of the Bat Elves. Over time however it eventually changed to the point of becoming independent and truly Echmeri.

The Aurbis that we know of exists of several cycles not recorded that stretches backwards into times immemorial that have yet ceased to exist. Our Aurbis, the current one, is nothing but the machinations of an even greater Aurbis that no longer exists but we are still a subgradient of it. Even we do not truly understand what this means, but we do know of it.

The Greater Aurbis and Our Aurbis is separated by the nothingness which is the VOID which in itself is nothing. VOID is VOID unto itself and it will continue to always be so. In this VOID a world ¬– like but unlike ours – arose and life flourished. Eventually two beings on this world came to become concepts and recognized themselves as part of the VOID, and renamed themselves IS and IS NOT as they ventured throughout it. Once again the VOID was filled and in their wanderings IS and IS NOT discovered another: MAYBE. As common of beings of their sort both IS and IS NOT were intrigued by MAYBE. Eventually IS and MAYBE joined and IS NOT was forced to redraw into the VOID. But IS NOT returned, destroying MAYBE after she birthed twelve new concepts that became separate worlds of their own. IS expelled IS NOT from the VOID before drawing into himself, becoming his own world.

For many years the Twelve Worlds flourished until IS NOT found a way to reenter the VOID, where he smashed the Twelve Worlds into almost nonexistence. In retaliation IS unmade himself as a world and fought IS NOT until both of them were permanently expelled from the VOID for all time. IS then created of himself a new broken world. Two of the surviving Twelve Worlds, HST and EHNFY, were drawn into this broken world. Our Aurbis, the Current One, begins in the broken world.

OUR IS (PSJJJJ) and OUR IS NOT (HHMMM) – subsets of the original IS and IS NOT – become the Outer Realms known as OUR VOID and AETHERIUS. From these Realms the ATEDA are born. Those that sing the kinesis of PSJJJJ and find themselves residing within it become the DRA and those that sing the stasis of HHMMM and find themselves residing within it become the AEDR; these are roles that are interchangeable, for these beings are imperfect beings and do not know their own minds.

One ATEDA, ALORKH, learns of the Greater Aurbis (but specifically MAYBE) by looking on Our Aurbis from the Side, learning MAYBE and becoming consumed by MAYBE. Thus he decides to rebuild MAYBE, for every Aurbis that has, is, and will exist must have MAYBE within it. He asks his fellow ATEDA to aid him and it is no secret that some do and some don’t, for these beings are fickle beings and do not know their own hearts.

GANUS and the GE begin constructing MAYBE as envisioned by ALORKH and TOSH presides over the endeavor. The DRA decide not to help, only becoming enraptured by and consequently tied to MAYBE when it is completed. The AEDR are left to build MAYBE by themselves, which they do. Some of them become the frame of the HEART OF MAYBE, which is then settled by the HST and EHNFY. The AEDR are tied to MAYBE and the HEART OF MAYBE forevermore, which is not always so.

NRN is the HEART OF MAYBE and those that know the true meaning of this – which is Three – can be truly gone from this world.

This is HOW WE CAME TO BE. And IT REPEATS.

MAYBE.

#####Chapter II.IV: From the Bowels of Nirn’s Womb (The Echmer Geneagony)

This text, known as “From the Bowels of Nirn’s Womb”, is the modern day Echmer view on the creation of their race. As one can see it is fairly recent in establishment, having been written by the Echmer Sage Azarias himself to explain their history to our glorious Emperor Uriel Septim VII. It is told in the spirit of an ancient Protoechi instead of an Echmer of today for symbolic reasons.

We do not know when we were created or why we were created, but we do know that our kind has dwelled beneath the surface of our isles in total darkness since before the final echoes of time stopped shaking the milieu. It was in this darkness that we first began using the weakest form of reflected sound, which allowed us to see in only two tones of color we came to call ‘the black’ and ‘the white’.

And then one day the Begetters came and entered our tunnels and caverns with great instruments of noise. Back then our people were very small and were frightened by the Begetters and their contrivances. The Begetters themselves seemed fascinated by us and especially liked our use of reflected sound. But they were largely unconcerned with us and we were ignored during those times while they focused on other pursuits.

Right now you are probably wondering how we were able to understand their speech, for we had never communicated with other creatures of their ilk before. Our scholars believe that is because our ears are able to hear and discern levels of sounds that other creatures cannot. I believe that too. But as the Begetters began to build into our dark home, our ancient elders decided that we would learn from them. The Begetters were still not concerned with us and so they let our people fly amongst them as they created new contraptions. Soon some of our people were able to learn and speak their language, which surprised the Begetters. After that, things changed. We became the Begetters servants and workers, bringing them such objects as metal and ore to help them in their research and in return they taught us how to read and write and how to perform calculations.

But most importantly, they taught us about sounds.

Small sounds. Big sounds. Loud and quiet sounds. Sounds that went dead when struck and sounds that reverberated throughout the air. We liked the sounds, not only because they helped us see but also because they helped us learn more. We liked the sounds. They made us comfortable in our simple existence.

Our masters also talked about greater beings, who they scorned for reasons that piqued our interest. When we felt we could get away with it we would read their notes about them and wonder why they held such hatred for these beings; but we never learned the answer. To this very day we have still yet to learn the answer.

And then everything changed for us again, because one day we awoke to melt the ore and start on our calculations when we noticed something.

The Begetters were gone. Vanished into thin air.

We continued working on the tasks they left for us, of course. They did not like it when we slacked off in our work and we had all thought that they were simply discussing more ideas in the Atrium, for that was one of several areas we were not allowed to enter when the Begetters were alive. But then the following day rose again to meet us and they still had not returned. And the next. And the next.

Months went by.

Years.

Eventually, our people grew lost. We did not know what to do anymore. But then our ancient elders spoke to us that we should forget the Begetters and claim their cities and contraptions as our own. They told us that our masters had left to continue research that they did not need us for, and at those words our people became saddened because we were once again the useless creatures we were before the Begetters came. But then they said that now we could research our own things; we could read the notes that our masters did not want us to read and improve on them. We would become the masters. And so we did.

At least we tried too. We were not used to working together without supervision and soon we descended into bloody war. Many of our people died during those violent times and to this day we do not crave violence because of them. Eventually we stopped our fighting and reunited as one race. Together, we finally began to do what we had to do to make our people great.

We first melted down all of the Begetters constructs and remade them into other images we preferred. Then we began rebuilding all of the cities on our isles, making them more like the caverns and open spaces for flight. We destroyed most of the Begetters light sources for we did not need them due to our use of reflected sound. We made excursions to the surface to get more ore and materials and created our own written and spoken language. We even used the race of goblins above as a workforce, similar to how the Begetters used us so many years ago.

We noticed that our work had changed us, both physically and mentally. No longer were we the small, flying, furry creatures we were born as. We were something…different…now. We had started to wear clothing like our Begetters used to. We had created a government, replacing our ancient elders with the Troika and High Hypothesians, among other titles. Sound had become the very essence of our being, but it was no longer similar to the sound of the old masters. One of our own even ascended into immortality, becoming sound itself and linking our race permanently to the concept. All threats that came to us we defeated.

And then one day you came.

There were a multitude of you. Tall ones. Ones with pointy ears only dwarfed by our own and with a multitude of different skin tones. Ones covered in a lot of fur or a little fur and ones covered in smooth ridges. You scared us, surprised us. And when we attempted to talk to you, like we did with the Begetters so long ago…you attacked us. Once again our people was forced to fight, this time for our very survival. And then after an entire year the fighting stopped, and a treaty of peace was signed. Our once quiet and small world had now become quite large, because now we were a part of your world too. And when your leader came to us and asked us who and what we were, we responded.

We are the Echmer.

And this is our story.