Worms and Worm Cultists

To my honored friend Navam Trandel, Temple of Azura, Blacklight

I hope this letter finds you well. I was surprised by your invitation after these many years, and although I thank you for your kind regards, I must decline your offer to return to the service of the New Temple. As much as I miss my home, my life belongs to Stendarr now, and I must carry out His will in the distant places where heretics still make worship.

I have to disagree with your stance that the Daedra can be reasonably bargained with. As much as the Holy Three helped our ancestors escape from the Aldmer, they can not lay claim over my soul. However, although we differ on that point, I have to say that many of the things you've said about necromancy ring true in my ears. In response, I'd like to share with you some of the things I've learned about my enemy over the years.

Many learned scholars and open-minded lay persons may argue for the legalization of necromancy on the basis of free research or religious tolerance. In fact, the practice of necromancy is, far from being a harmless line of inquiry or a mere abberant faith, actually a form of complex social parasitism. The cultists of Mannimarco value secrecy above all else, which has caused a number of misunderstandings to crop up around them. In my experience, the most common misunderstanding is that of Mannimarco’s sigil, the skull with worms.

Because the followers of Mannimarco use fallen corpses as weapons, it makes sense that the “Worm” is commonly interpreted to be a corpse worm. However, corpse worms hurt nobody, they only return the flesh to the soil for the trees and crops to use. I believe the sign must be representative of the parasitic cousins of the worm. There are a number of these evil little worms living in all parts of Tamriel, Valenwood and Blackmarsh having an especially high variety and concentration. They usually are passed back and forth between the local hunting population and their prey.

These worms are not servants of Kyne, they do not toil to make the earth rich. They exist only to fatten themselves and multiply, infecting every person who comes into contact with them, regardless of rank, wealth, or piety. The servants of Mannimarco are an infestation which has bribed and forced its way into our communities and cultures, into all levels of society in all the far reaches of the land. They are, at their root, an intelligent contagion. They do not feed on the dead, they feed on the living. The dead they merely use as weapons against the living to gain dominion over them.

The unquestioned masters of necromancy, the Sload, take this theory further when a study of their life-cycles reveals that they progress through most of the same growth stages as parasitic worms. These and other arguments we must use in the courts of Jarls and Barons, to appeal to the common sense of the people in keeping these foul practices forbidden. You know as well as I do that when infestations spring up, the only way to purge them is by fire.