A Reassessment of Sutch

Journal of Tanys Mothras, Evoker of the Mages Guild, 3E 428

My colleagues here at the Mages' Guild continue to disapprove of my investigations into the "lost" city of Sutch. Well, fine, let them. These Cyrods instantly want to destroy or flee from anything they fear. I will not limit myself so. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear prevents true understanding. I will forge ahead.

It’s an open secret among Cyrods that Sutch was a hotbed of Daedra worship, dating all the way back to the First Era. Sutch would outwardly claim to follow Imperial law and worship the Divines, only for the truth to leak out again. The Legion has razed Sutch to the ground no fewer than eighteen times; over the years, Sutch gained a rather fearful historical reputation as a vile bed of iniquity, where the priests bathed in blood, orgies were regularly conducted in broad daylight, and sixteen innocents were sacrificed a day to sate the bloodlust of the Daedric Princes. The tales are simply too absurd to be true, so I took it upon myself to locate documents from the city itself, to gain an inside look of this spurned city of Cyrodiil.

Today, after some string-pulling, I secured a sheaf of assorted documents from Kvatch, dated to early Third-Era Sutch. The papers confirm what I've long suspected: Sutch was not a wretched sump of iniquity as is widely reported, but a bright and lively Colovian city with a fascinating and unique culture, that happened to be populated mainly by people who venerated and respected the Daedric Princes. One of these papers is the tattered remains of an apology for their worship. From what I could piece together, this minister reasons that all the Princes have positive qualities to be emulated and negative qualities to spurn. I'm sure it's more complicated than that, as the piece was damaged. Other documents include pieces of their law code (which I must pointedly note forbids human sacrifice), administrative and bureaucratic documents, and even letters to the Imperial government pleading for compromise! They respected the Emperor and Imperial rule and otherwise abided by their laws with the one glaring exception.

One particularly fascinating leaflet lists a completely new set of birth signs as an alternative to the constellations. These are based on the Daedric Princes' traditional summoning days and lists a whole mythology of birth based on which Prince is in prominence at the time. For instance, according to this calendar, I would be born under the sign of Hircine, as the 21st of Second Seed falls before Hircine’s summoning day of the 5th of Midyear but after Namira’s summoning day on the 9th of Second Seed. Children born under the sign of Hircine are believed to be determined and focused, but also tend to be stubborn and inflexible. I note with some amusement that this is somewhat true for me.

One last note, this Cult of Oblivion appears to have been unusually inclusive. Atypically for Daedra worshipers, all sixteen Princes were held in equal esteem. Usually, worshipers favor one or more Princes over the other. Also, a list of temple initiates and leadership shows representation from nine out of the ten races of Tamriel, in contrast to the higher echelons of Imperial Cult leadership. Sutch's heterodox reputation likewise attracted a vast amount of cultural rebels. Art, for instance, is described as boldly defying conventions of appearance and form, some profound, some grotesque, some deliberately provocative. Sadly, I have yet to locate any pieces of Sutchian art, and the odds of finding any are slim at best.

I also have to wonder about the eighteenth razing of Sutch. Given what I've discovered here, the circumstances seem very dubious. Maybe by 316 the priesthood had lapsed into veneration of the more unsavory nature of the Princes. But it’s also possible that these Molag Bal cultists were an outlier, a sadistic bunch of renegades that nevertheless provided the perfect excuse to expunge the despised city for good. Either way, I need more evidence. Tomorrow, I will get in touch with my Guild friends in Anvil and Chorrol. Maybe something will turn up there. I might also get in touch with the Imperial Geographical Society, but I’ll have to be careful of what I say and to whom. If any of this gets back to the Council of Mages (especially that fetcher Traven), my guild standing could be ruined.