I just went back 200 years (or whatever) to.. forget it! I went back and played oblivion!

Anyways i went to the church of talos in bruma because i was interested in talos worship pre White Gold Concorterrible.

The priestess there told me it was hard to teach nords the *word of the church* because nords prefer their heathen gods instead. What heathen gods is she talking about? She also said the prefer their dragon . . . i forget, but some other dragon, as apposed to akatosh.

Not what i was expecting.

The priestess could be calling Lorkhan (Shor in Nordic culture) a heathen god. Since nords worship Lorkhan. I doubt it is dragon worship, she is referencing since that was stomped out at the end of the dragon wars.

"They prefer their dragon Ysmir to our father Akatosh" was one of the quotes, right?
From memory it just means that worship for Talos (Ymisr) is much more prevalent than for Akatosh in Skyrim. Which is very clear in Skyrim.

You can find one guy who still worships these "heathen gods" in Skyrim, he says everybody else forgot their roots and followed the Empire dictated religion.

The "heathen" gods are Shor, Tsun, Kyne, Stuhn, Mara, Dibella, and Jhunal. They all have counterparts in the Imperial pantheon (Shor is called Shezarr, but he is not one of the Nine Divines.)

Every province has its own variation on the gods, and naturally, the Cyrodilic pantheon is the most prominent.

Thanks guys =p. I was expecting to talk in on good Talos loving nord folk. Kinda puts everything into a different perspective.


I'll never forget how Talos DIRECTLY added me on numerous occasions in Oblivion, and how he is most certainly real. I think =p

Who is this guy?

I'm guessing they mean http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Froki_Whetted-Blade, who gives you the Kyne's Sacred Trials quests.

There are a few references in people's language to the Nord pantheon. I noticed that Vilkas says "by Ysmir" and "Shor have mercy on you." I'd like to have seen more of the old Nord beliefs, though.

OP might want to read http://www.imperial-library.info/content/varieties-faith-empire.

Shor is the principle god worshipped by Nords but not part of the Imperial cult. Empress Saint Alessia founded the Imperial Cult to unify the beliefs of men and Mer, and thus attain some resemblance of peace. This involved the Eight Divines and excluded Lorkhan/Shor/Shezarr.

Shor, however, is an important god to men (non-mer) as their patron and those that gave them life (the Mer feel that in so doing He separated them from divinity, and so hate him). Furthermore, he has avatars called Shezarrites or Shezarrines, which are his literal embodiment, the three most well-known being the Crusader Pelinal Whitestrake, the Underking Wulfherth, and the Dragonborn Emperor God Talos.

Thus, as the Ninth Divine, Shor found his way into the Imperial cult in the form of Talos.

But Talos himself has multiple names, such as Tiber Septim and Ysmir, the Dragon of the North. This is similar to Alduin/Akatosh- Pre-Skyrim, they were thought to be the same god south of Skyrim, only the Nords called Akatosh Alduin. Alduin, however, was Akatosh's firstborn son, as it is revealed, and something of a devil figure (similar to the nonscriptural Judeic tradition that the first-born of God was Lucifer, who betrayed Him and was cast out of Heaven). Talos himself, as Dragonborn, was, however, capable of using the Thu'um, and was called Ysmir, the Dragon of the North, and thus identified as a Dragon as well as a Man.

True, I'm sincerely hoping for a DLC that further fleshes out Nordic culture and religion. In vanilla it's a bit watered-down and I dislike how Kyne was replaced by Kynareth, when really they are quite different, Kyne being the warlike mother of men, and Kynareth being quite a bit more docile.