In Defence of Olenveld or the Order of the Black Wyrm.
[A weather-beaten note lies before you stained with sea spray and half-eaten by frost]
If anyone happens to read this know that you are wrong about the Order of the Black Wyrm.[1] I expect that you have all lapped up the outlandish ravings of that Bosmer Arnathar concerning the Order's presence on Olenveld. His account is a LIE! However, it is Timophanidas of Cheydinhal who must be called out for spreading such hateful libel against our ancient institution. Thus, I am writing this text to correct a number of wrongful assertions regarding the Order of the Black Worm/Wyrm that have been made over the past few years by academics and scholars who should know better. I write not to expose the Order's sacred rites and most esoteric of rituals, may the Revenant[2] blacken my flesh with icy breath and char my bones with time-totem's flame if it were so, but to explain what that frightened Bosmer scholar saw whilst on Olenveld.
Firstly, I shall make no mention of how the Empire owes my association a great debt for its helping to preserve order during the chaotic time of the Interregnum. Yes, people seem to have forgotten that it was anchorites such as myself who helped protect fair Cyrod from the tainted grasp of Molag Bal himself! Did we receive any acknowledgement? NO! Instead, the Cyrodiilic Mages Guild assassinated the mortal vessel of the God of Wyrms, unlawfully slaying a priest in a sacred temple. And yet this is not deemed sacrilege. The Guild outlawed our ancestor-magic (necromancy they called it!) a term which, whilst academically correct, carries too much prejudice and scorn. We do not resurrect corpses for dark rituals or armies of evil, we commune with spirits and ancestors as Vastarie did before us that we might preserve the wisdom of the ancients and make a path for ourselves to honour their glory. Once I have explained you should all see that my order has been maligned unjustly and its reputation despoiled by the small-minded bigots of this world.
Now for an accounting of the events which transpired on Olenveld. We had been present on the island a matter of days when that ignorant scholar pitched up and accused us of evil rites. MORE LIES! Yes, we were summoning the spirits of Tiber Septim's generals into vessels, but it is not as it would seem. You see, the Spirits are often confused when summoned without bodies to tether them and so members of our order who knew that they were on the brink of death volunteered to serve as their vessels when we reached the Island. Using their bodies, the Spirits recounted their lives and told us about what it was like to serve under the great Tiber Septim before he became King of Wyrms. But just as the Spirits were about to divulge the most Royal of Tiber Septim's secrets Arnathar Fool-Scholar's blundering interrupted us. In the Mausoleum of Lost Heroes, he proceeded to profane wall-mounted sacred inscriptions with his clammy, grasping hands, defiling the sacrality of the place by his meddling and worse he even roused the ire of the Spirits present for our ritual. We issued a warning to leave, for spirits summoned whilst angered are able to loose the protective bonds of safety provided by our enchantments. It is not their fault and I/We do not blame them; the Bosmer had desecrated the sanctity of their home and the Spirit Road which Tiber had commissioned to ease their transition to Aetherius.
If he had looked more closely he would have seen that the 'corpses' wore the regalia of our order and certainly were not freshly slain locals fit for purpose as if we were butchers of men. Such lies are common beliefs amongst the unenlightened and prejudiced of the arcane institutions. Again, we implored them to leave in the name of the Prismatic Lords (not the Ideal Masters as is commonly held to be true) but our honoured Elders (those who are revered for their knowledge of souls) who had been sheltering in the Mausoleum to escape from the biting cold outside. When we explained that we would tolerate no trouble lest harm should befall our dear elders, the scholar laughed and his burly Nord henchman advanced upon our grand-matron slaughtering her as she attempted to negotiate a peaceful conclusion to hostilities. Again, the scholar even years later continues to profane the honour of our grand-matron in his biography by having her last words refer to us as enslavers of the dead. A greater untruth one surely could never find! She had said: 'The Order of the Wyrm serves the dead now and forevermore. How is that declaration anything other than an indication of our respect for the dead? Alas, when the scholar Arnathar- cursed be his name!- returned to the mainland he pursued a vendetta against us, trying to evict us from Olenveld despite our having never sought to establish a permanent settlement there anyway.
In the end, it matters little what Arnathar or anyone else should think, for I know that the Order's presence was benign and without mischief. I hope this has helped to clarify and exonerate my order and given you some insight into the horrendous prejudice and bias one finds when practising heterodox magickal rites and ancestor cultivation.
- A Loyal and Faithful Anchorite of the Sacred Order of the Black Wyrm, Olenveld Chapter. 4E 185
1 'Wyrm/Worm' is commonly used for Dragons.
2 'Revenant' refers to Tiber Septim in his God-form, Talos, since he awoke from the dream of mortal life and returned from death as the God of Man.