Rise, Children of Atmora! – Man and Gods

by anonymous

Rise, Children of Atmora!

Do not be mistaken or neither be beguiled by those who would deceive you, brethren! The troubles that plague you and your kin are but the tribulations of a grand rebirth. The rebellion against the Empire is indeed the beginnings of a new epoch; an awakening of an ancient people and their ethos, keen to be set loose once more among the spoils of a shattered realm that collapsed under the weight of its own folly. Jarl Ulfric Stormcloak’s cause is but the tip of the spear that will drive that revival into the new age, and rouse not only the Nords from their slumber, but all of man; for the trial of Skyrim is that of mankind itself!

Without doubt you have forgotten yourselves, dear Sons and Daughters of the North. How sorrowful it is for one to look upon their reflection and be unable to neither recall nor declare who it is. I have wept many tears in the face of your quiet despondence, that melancholy that envelops your very being. Man has abandoned his forlorn selfhood, disavowed his inmost heart, and now drifts sullen and aimlessly on the face of Tamriel. For time immemorial has mankind been steadfast in his heart, the grand saga of our kinsman unequivocally marked by our mettle, the record of which we have carved into the mountains and the flesh of our enemies.

So I ask unto you, do you know your own history? Verily if you were raised a Nord, you do. Nevertheless, do you acknowledge it? Do the tales of your forefather’s bravery pass vainly past your ears? Do your eyes neglect the runes that stand testimony to our storied past, forever graven? Do your mouths not sing songs of the glory of champions in these lands in the longhall? Why do you choose to flounder through your lives deaf, blind, and mute of what you know to be true? Inside each one of us runs the burning blood of a mighty vehemence, a power that swept from the frozen world in the north and surmounted the lands of the elves with a swift and terrible fury. Your fathers had mastered the elements, driven every beast that roamed the lands further into the depths of Nirn, and from the frost-hardened soil drew forth grains, gourds, steel and other bounty with tears and sweat. It was in that struggle that man was at his apex. Be not mistaken, strife is the source of your strength. Conflict is the mantle of your power.

While Mer made gods of algorithm and arithmetic, the intangible and the abstract, the Nords were living and dying by glorious anger, revering the thunder, winds and lust for battle that speak closer to our roaring hearts than any such tedious prattle. Do they sing songs of ledgers and dockets at your pyre? Do your children spring to life at the stories of bureaucracy? No, our homage has always belonged to the likes of Jurgen Windcaller and Ysmir; for their victory was won in their feats of valor and contempt of danger. This love, this need for honor in mighty deed is not quelled by the security of governance, for would Ysgramor have claimed his place in Hall of Valor as the First of Man if he had grown content in complacency? The ambition of what the Elves and their Imperial thralls call “civility” aspires to do is make the hardships of life less burdensome on our backs, but without strife, one’s arms grow weak; oppressed by idleness. That is their intention, brothers! A wild steed must be broken before it can be bridled by its master, and our spirits have always remained unremitting by the path of the warrior. Nords have never bent under threats of adversity; we instead thrived in the blinding wrath of the skirmish!

Rise, Children of Atmora! Your place is in battle! For you are warriors!

When, dear brothers, did you find yourselves so subservient, so quick to grovel at the boots of the Elves, that you would willfully forget who it is that you are? Who’s blood it is that runs hot through your veins like dragon’s fire? Who’s voice stirs in your chest, and shakes the very foundations of Nirn? You revel in the fight, each challenge a brilliant opportunity to test the strength of your steel. This nature of ours is an inconvenience to those who would rather see us feeble and domesticated like the rest of their dogs. For that reason, they have developed their own laws to force on us, their own customs and rules in which we are to conduct ourselves. Are we to call ourselves free if our very natures are discouraged under threat of captivity? Nords are discouraged from acting as Men and are encouraged to act as Elves for the very same reason that the Imperials were coaxed into accepting their gods and customs. Man is and has always been a threat to Mer, and as Man’s occupiers they cannot allow us to live life with a ferocious love as is our nature, because it’s inconvenient to their affairs. You aren’t allowed to worship who you want to because it doesn’t fit their narrative, and is therefore exceedingly inconvenient for their purposes. Children, you must know that who you worship is who you are, what people you come from! Would the worshippers of Talos be captured from their homes at night if it were not a grievous affront to the Elves? Who you worship, who you pledge your loyalty to, is troublesome and unsuitable in the eyes of the all-encompassing Empire of Greed! Being a Nord is not permitted, it is not sanctioned, it is not abided.

Here, behind the walls of the cities and the safety of the garrison, the Nord meets his death with despair in his heart. The Imperial Mer-Cultists might try to comfort your grief with soft, honeyed-words about of their Elven gods’ mercy to the timid and those who lay well-mannered on their deathbed, but any Nord knows the truth; Shor had built Sovngarde only for the valiantly slain in battle, or those who otherwise proved their mettle. Yet, so many of you choose to instead kneel at the sight of these invaders, refusing to take up the sword as your ancestors had gladly done since the foundation of all man. Your sons are restless in their search for their honor, your elders are indignant, and the men among you are crestfallen. It is a sickness of the spirit that causes this, an unwillingness to fight that has been bred in you by those who would wish to see your savage passion quelled. Know this! Shor will not allow a Nord that refused to fight for his home into his domain. Your soul will be lost to Atherius, vagabond and subject to the whims of whatever beings occupy those Immortal Planes. Certainly, such cowardice will not be rewarded in the Outer Realms; and all Nords know this in their hearts.

It is not just the thought of the worlds here-after that troubles your souls, dear brothers, but also the betrayal of your very nature; your nature of which I will remind you, as you have woefully forgotten. Man is the master of the storms and harsh winds, the terror of all manner of ferocious creature that walks, flies, and slithers. He is all that is wild, free and barbarous with furious zeal. He finds ecstasy in danger, gratification in war, and triumph in conquest! His eyes burn with a feral fire and his throat roars a mighty cry in the face of the mountains so that all the world may hear his voice! His spirit can be bloodied and agonized under the blade, but it is forever unbroken. The High Elves know of this unblemished will, and so they have resolved to destroy it under surreptitious attrition. These sorcerers and illusionists weave their web with dark intent, their empty power spiraling lifelessly out from over the occult waves, the ocean of hunger. Their sorceries are diversions, each new treaty and law designed to captivate not your attention, but your time – your life. They whisper their incantations in the ears of rulers of their host nations of which they cling like a leech, using the Imperial men as puppets for their insidious bidding; the enslavement of all man. The Nord, once an embodiment of the indomitable will of all of man, now is but a hollowed shell of his true nature, holding back his glorious zeal because they deem it unacceptable.

Your forefathers did not find contentment from within the thatched walls of a comfortable hearth; they instead built colossal strongholds of blackened rock from the heart of the mountains. They raided the kingdoms of the Elves and lesser men, took for themselves and their own what their might could afford them, and built themselves a sovereignty of abundance by way of righteous brutality, souls bound together by tribe and blood. They gave praise to the bear and the pines of Kyne, the Goddess of the Storm and the Mother of Men. They breathed deep the richness of her black soil, they ran their hands over rough bark, smooth stone, soft fur and were freed. They strode boldly into the Womb of All That Lives and found themselves born anew every day, with her winds filling their lungs with audacious inspirations. From the deepness of their bellies they found the might and virtuous rage of Shor as the foundation for their grand kingdoms, and by the wisdom of Stuhn they held ransom for their captives and their plunder. Look upon the vast masonry and intricate constitution of Windhelm, and ask yourself what great monuments to your people’s strength have been erected in the past century. There is none. Chained and muzzled, we will never again touch upon such extravagance. We instead live inside the crumbling walls of what our ancestors had built, wasting away in what Imperial taxes afford you. What good has the Empire’s gold done for you? What honor have these vain comforts brought to your soft, ailing body? Like a mother, the Empire would try to discourage what it thinks would cause us harm, or bring us glory.

Rise, Children of Atmora! Your namesake is that of kings, not slaves!

How well do you know your neighbor, children? Whether it be the fight against the frontier, invaders, other warbands, man has had the need to draw the bloody edges of the boundary between us and them in order to protect his own, and that is a task unbefitting of just one man, he needs brothers at his flank. Would you trust your neighbor to look after your unlocked house, all your treasures, your family and womenfolk? You may know his name, but do you know the name of his father, his father’s father, and all those of his blood? Do you know the colors of his banner, the regalia of his house, or the saga of his champions? In this age of estrangement, I would wager to say that you do not truly know your neighbor. This is an omen of our failing strength. In days of yore, your neighbor was your kin, your brother, a member of your own lineage. The strength of man was, and still is, in the strength of the tribe. Our enemies, ever calculating and treacherous, have realized this strength, and by the way of their deceptive influences have rendered us wary of our own fraternity!

By way of surrogate conquest they have molded the once strong and separate houses of Skyrim into one faceless slave nation, too cumbersome and unwieldy to band together. It is the natural order of all Nords to find their strength with those they can call their family against all trials, for that is how we made our foothold on Tamriel. How long will men tolerate this state of dishonor, knowing that their ancestors were stronger men, harder men, more courageous men — and knowing that this heritage of valor survives in them, but that their own potential for virtue, for glory, for honor, will be wasted? When will you know your neighbor as your brother, and cast out the deceivers?

The Stormcloak fight against the Imperials is just, and we must stand by his quest to cast out the invaders of these lands. However, be wary of the consequence of our liberty, for this opportunity is one that can be easily overturned. Jarl Ulfric does intend to free the Nords from the Empire, but what will he put in place of their sovereignty is just as important. A Nord state will only serve to once again perpetuate the same cycle of turmoil. It is the folly of man to believe that each one of us can ever again live under the same banner, once more tamed and shackled by the fallacious authority of any regime. When Skyrim is once again ruled by the Nords, what then? Would we engage moreover with false smiles to other kingdoms as we did under Imperial rule, foolishly dabbling in curtseys and formalities? It is too late for that, and time has proven it to be inadequate to our needs. The age of the Empire has ended, the giant has fallen, the last of its ilk teetering on the precipice of the same abyss, and to try to emulate it would be true folly. We must destroy the remnants of the established order, blow on the coals of the dying flames and rekindle the old Nord ways. A Nord nation set upon the foundation of Imperial influence will never stand, and never truly be a nation faithful to itself. Our land and our law must be liken that of the Old Nords, our heritage which stands a world apart from any other.

Listen not to the lies of the timid! No matter what they tell you, the Imperial machine is wounded, limping on its last leg, and left to live only by the mercy and convenience of the Elves which allow it to exist only as a bulwark against us. They would use them to continue to control Tamriel for their own purposes, which is why the rebellion frightens them so. Their resources may be vast, their numbers far greater than that of Ulfric’s, their wicked sorcery possessing dark and terrible power, yet they remain afraid of our belief; for through their guileful coercion they would wish to silence our voice. Your voice is what remains of Men, we are the last standing survivors of a great assault, not on just the armies of man, but the very idea of man! When the Elves had purged the city of Saarthal of men and driven the survivors out into the wilds of Skyrim, Ysgramor did not shirk his voice. The Harbinger had gathered the Five-Hundred brave, and had become a scourge on all of Mer. We must become like that grand army, children. Rally again the savage hordes and drive our spear into heart of Man’s foe. Then, when we defeat the Altmer’s crippled golem that is the Empire, we must congregate our voices as one and pledge to forever raid and plunder these lands as Ysgramor did, so that man shall never perish from Tamriel.

The Empire in its most true form since the days of Talos has been that of the Walk-Brass, the titan divine skin with which he held absolute dominance over all of Tamriel. That Brass Tower has now been slain, and imposters now wear its face.

When the world was created, the lands and waters of Nirn welled up from the bloated corpse of Lorkhan, the body of a dead god, who out of the void had given body to that which was nothingness.

Today we find ourselves in the nothingness that the Empire has created, standing at the slain feet of the Anumidium, the dead Brass God of an all-tamrielic nation. Who among you will rise up and create the new world out of that carcass? Who will sculpt the new Tamriel in their visage, for their people?

Rise, Children of Atmora! Rise from the carcass of the dead god of empire.

Take up the axe! Mark yourselves with woad and warpaint so that your enemies may know who you are. Raid, ravage, and ransack the worshipers of the failed god of governance, for you cannot be governed.

Yearn for the anger! Unchain yourselves from the binds of their etiquette, and revel in the bloodlust of battle like in the forgotten days!

Roar, rage and shout at your enemies! Your power lies in the air of your breast, in the raging rattle of your throat, in the ferocity in your eyes. Howl your battle cry, declare yourself to all of Tamriel, “I am man!”

Wear their insults with pride! They will call you a savage, an outlaw, a barbarian. These words will be a mantle, a name with which to strike fear into their hearts.

Live beyond their law! Wear the head of the wolf and bear, become unto them like a beast that threatens their livestock and their children with your presence.

Learn of the old ways! Rekindle your love for Shor, Tsun, and Kyne! Read the runes of Jhunal and be accord of both mind and heart. Worship the ancient gods with zeal, for your celebration of Nord identity will torment their cultic souls, and they will shriek of your heathenry in the streets.

Do not fear death! Greet the blade and arrow with welcome, a marvelous invitation to honor your ancestors and witness Sovngarde!

Surrender no apologies, no tears, no grievances!

Rise! Take back yourselves from those who would wish for you to be lost to the ages.