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The Secret of The Lessons

If we take the numbers from sermon 29, use them to take out words from appropriate sermons and put them together, we will get a secret message:

"He was not born a god. His destiny did not lead him to this crime. He chose this path of his own free will. He stole the godhood and murdered the Hortator. Vivec wrote this."

Also, if we take the first letters of all the paragraphs of sermon 36 with the exception of the last one, we will get another secret message:

"FOUL MURDER."


Vivec admitted, in his own book, to killing Nerevar.

Interesting, but still open to interpretation.

At the end of the day, we're talking about a 2000 year old cold case. Mistah Nerevar, he dead. He been dead a long time. The Tribunal, they dead too. At least two of them for sure. Vivec City? It dead. That era in time has passed. It's no longer critical to the narrative of the overall TES story, and some secrets will remain buried.

Especially since I personally believe only the Incarnate could actually see the Sermons. It's a pet theory of mine. Like, those books existed in the canon but other characters would be reading something completely different. They were Vehk's little love letter to his reincarnated bromance partner. Even the confession of what he did.

I like that theory Pilaf, I like it a lot.

But it has no basis in game and is thus irrelevant.

Well, the sermons themselves hint that Vivec made them specifically for The Nerevarine.

*siiiiggggghhhhhhhh*

It's irrelevant if I'm trying to say it's actually canon, yes. It's not irrelevant to a discussion of what's plausible.

I could make the argument that the player characters from all these games have unique abilities to see more in writing than other people. For instance, I don't think it's lore that I would read a cook book and suddenly be better at alchemy just like that. That's a game mechanic. It has a basis in a game, and yet it's not lore.

Similarly, some things that are not in the games could be considered lore, possibly. It's a mistake to say "I had this idea. This is the absolute truth", but if you'll notice when I make conjectures I never do that. Like with the Tsaesci idea I had about the "Immortal Vampire Snakeman" thing being a reference to Dragonborn and what not. I said it was my pet theory. I'd love it if that's how things turned out to be in canon, because it would make me feel clever, but I'm not presenting it that way.


Actually, there's a difference between lore and canon. The two words mean different things. There's a lot of folk lore in the Deep South of the United States where I live that doesn't represent actual history. There's folk legends from Native tribes about vampires who feed off baby souls at night, or tribes of giants with red hair and double rows of teeth, or old Bloody Bones who eats children who don't do their chores. This is all lore, but it's not "canon."

This is a discussion for TES lore, not TES canon. The distinction is not made in the name of the section nor the description, and while I'd prefer to mostly discuss game-level canon, I think there's a place for our own ideas as well. Especially those which actually make sense or don't contradict anything directly.

It doesn't mean that everyone else sees something else. I'd say that the only other people who would read them would be high ranking temple monks who just wouldn't examine or question them.

And Palif? The place for making things up is fanfiction.

Yeah well, there's nothing that suggests that only high ranking temple priests would read them, that's pretty much made up

and Dunmerdude? the place for making things up is fanfiction.

I bet if they did, their Conjuration skill wouldn't increase.



You don't say!

If I see this Palif I'll let him know. As for me, I've posted not a single piece of fan fiction on this forum. I dislike it as a rule of thumb. I can tolerate RPs if they're put together well, but that's about it.

There's 36 Sermons at 200 Drakes a Book. The only place you tend find more then one is in the Temples. In game info to support my point.

The price of the books is a game-play mechanic and not a lore one.

You can also find tons of other books in temples also, does that mean all of them are also only read by high0ranking priests who dont pay attention to them?

Most people can't read Elder Scrolls at all, and yet I could read a map on one in Dawnguard. So not everyone sees the same thing when they look at the same object. Another example is the stone in the Imperial City that shows you the location of where to find the Mythic Dawn lookout. Not everyone knows how to see that. It takes special knowledge. Perhaps reading the Sermons takes a special Soul. Perhaps those books exist in the book stores and are sold for large amounts of gold, but not everyone has Nerevar's soul so not everyone will comprehend the words we actually read.

In game info to support my point.