Tamriel:Gods D

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[edit] Dagoth Ur, Father of the Mountain

Dagoth Ur is the evil immortal Lord High Councilor of House Dagoth, who dwells beneath Red Mountain. Here, he is served by his kin, the Ash Vampires, and by legions of corprus monsters.

As a mortal, Lord Voryn Dagoth - his original name - was one of the few who knew about the Heart of Lorkhan, together with Vivec, Almalexia, Sotha Sil and Nerevar. Voryn Dagoth claimed that the Dwemer (Dwarven) high priest Kagrenac was drawing power from the Heart of Lorkhan using special tools to strengthen the Dwemer and create a mechanical god (known variously as Akhulakhan or Numidium) that would be used against the Chimer. After Azura told Nerevar that Dagoth's information on the heart was correct, action was taken to stop the Dwemer, unleashing a war that saw the disappearance of the Dwemer and ended with the Chimer being turned into the Dunmer.

Following the defeat of the Dwemer, the Tools of Kagrenac the Master Craftsman fell into the hands of the Chimer, ruled at the time by Lord Indoril Nerevar, to whom fell the burden of the decision as to what to do with them. Dagoth himself, at first, urged for their immediate destruction, either of the Tools or the Heart itself: Nerevar, taking this as a sign of Dagoth's trustworthiness, opted to leave Dagoth behind to guard them while consulting his councillors, the Tribunal of Vivec, Almalexia and Sotha Sil (and the Dunmer's Daedric patrons, Azura and Boethiah) on the subject.

But, when Nerevar returned with the councillors' decision - which was, indeed, to destroy and not use the Tools - Dagoth refused to give them up, holding that he had been entrusted to guard them. He had, in the absence of Nerevar, been tempted to experiment with the Tools on the Heart, and somehow managed to steal some of its divine essence and the power of immortality. He now called himself Dagoth-Ur, and was forever after known by that name. Nerevar and Dagoth-Ur came to blows: Dagoth-Ur was defeated, driven off and thought to have been destroyed (along with most of his House who supported him: the remainder were absorbed by the other Great Houses, and House Dagoth ceased to exist as an entity), but Nerevar was seriously wounded as well. He was to die shortly afterwards, killed by the Tribunal, and the Tribunal did not destroy the Tools or the Heart, but also stole divine powers from it for themselves. Thus, Dagoth-Ur's connection to the Heart was not destroyed, and he remained alive and immortal, albeit yet bodiless.

This was to prove a terrible mistake. For, though the Tribunal achieved great and heroic deeds in their newly-divine state, they forgot that Dagoth-Ur had also stolen power from the Heart, and was as divine as themselves. Moreover, he had been tempted too far, and worked in accordance with the Heart's natural evil, rather than against it as the Tribunal did. So he grew stronger as the Tribunal grew weaker without realizing it, and in 2E 882, as they came to renew their connection to the Heart, they encountered unexpected opposition from Dagoth-Ur, reborn to a new incarnation, and with divine power to match the Tribunal. Unable to enter the Heart Chamber, they were forced to retreat: Dagoth-Ur now had control of the Heart.

Later successes were to see him expand his sphere of influence further: at first to nearby Dwemer citadels with the existence of his chief minions and believers, the seven Ash Vampires, and then even further by means of spreading Blight Diseases - a process accelerated when, in disastrous attempts to recover the Dwemer citadels, the Tribunal lost the artifacts Sunder and Keening, two of Kagrenac's Tools. Eventually, the Tribunal were forced to retire from their previously active lives and devote most of their time towards the creation and maintaining of a magical Ghostfence to prevent Dagoth-Ur's sphere of influence expanding any further. Even this was only a partial success: blight-infected creatures could fly over it, and there was a passage under it as well to the lost Dunmer Fortress of Kogoruhn, the stronghold of House Dagoth in life, through which other diseased creatures and Corprus-infected creatures could escape.

Over the next few hundred years, the pattern continued: Dagoth-Ur became stronger and stronger, and the Tribunal weaker. Now possessing only one of Kagrenac's tools, the gauntlet Wraithguard, they could not - dared not - even pass the bounds of their own Ghostfence to recapture the others, and were too weak to even fight an Ash Vampire, let alone Dagoth-Ur himself. Sotha Sil withdrew into his own clockwork world completely: Almalexia gave in to despair and madness while maintaining little more than a facade of caring for her people: Vivec stood alone in maintaining the Ghostfence, but this took so much of his energies he could not stir out of his palace, and his Temple's Ordinators ran out of his control and became ever more fanatical and rigid as the faith of the Dunmer wavered.

All this was to change, though, with the advent of the Nerevarine. A hero, from outside Morrowind but with the noble spirit of Nerevar incarnate, rose to challenge the whole situation - not just Dagoth-Ur himself, but the very divinity of the Tribunal, too. Resisted at first by the Temple, when he bore Nerevar's ring Moon-and-Star and won the support of all the Dunmer houses and tribes, even Vivec accepted the Nerevarine as an ally - potentially the only hope of those who opposed Dagoth-Ur. He proved able to do what the Tribunal had failed to achieve, entering the Ghostfence, destroying the Ash Vampires one by one and recovering Kagrenac's Tools: and, finally, succeeded in gaining access to the Heart Chamber. Wearing the gauntlet Wraithguard, the Nerevarine struck the Heart of Lorkhan first with Sunder, and then with Keening: Dagoth-Ur's connection to the Heart was severed, and he became mortal once more, losing his divinity. Although he was still a mighty sorcerer, his powers did not avail him against the hero's might, and he fell beneath the Nerevarine's power, bringing a final end to the ancient evil.

[edit] Diagna, Orichalc God of the Sideways Blade

Hoary thuggish cult of the Redguards who originated in Yokuda during the Twenty Seven Snake Folk Slaughter. Diagna was an avatar of the HoonDing (the Yokudan God of Make Way) that achieved permanence. He was instrumental to the defeat of the Lefthanded Elves, as he brought orichalc weapons to the Yokudan people to win the fight. In Tamriel, he led a very tight knit group of followers against the Orcs of Orsinium during the height of their ancient power, but then faded into obscurity. He is now little more than a local power spirit of the Dragontail Mountains.

[edit] Dibella, Goddess of Beauty

Popular god of the Eight Divines (and Nine Divines). In Cyrodiil, she has nearly a dozen different cults, some devoted to women, some to artists and aesthetics, and others to erotic instruction.