Skillasaurus88 wrote: »

Basically the Soul Shriven are created from daedric essence (the blue water in coldharbour). They age and shrivel, slowly go mindless, then die and regenerate to do it all again.
Shriven also have their souls captured and are recreated as they were. Same as the Vestige.

The difference between a Shriven and Vestige is basically that a Vestige is a 1 in a billion rarity that gets to keep its sanity. Luck of the draw.

adriant1978 wrote: »

You can read about the special nature of the Vestige compared to other Soul Shriven here.

"What follows is speculation, born of conversations with the Sojourner during his infrequent and unpredictable visits. His theory is that the Soul Shriven's bodies are flawed because they have lost the focusing principle of their Anuic souls, so their vestiges are imperfect patterns. I concurred that this was likely, and then proposed the theoretical possibility of a Soul Shriven who, despite having lost his or her soul, possessed some other intrinsic Anuic aspect. This shall-we-say "paragon" Soul Shriven would form an unflawed body in Coldharbour that was a perfect duplicate of the body worn in Mundus. In fact, if this paragon bore a sufficiently high Anuic valence, upon contact with Padomaic creatia its body would form almost instantaneously.

The Sojourner scoffed at my theory, but seemed taken with the idea nonetheless. He went on to speculate that if such a thing were possible, it would probably occur in a situation where the Mundus was in existential jeopardy. In that case the Heart of Nirn would spontaneously generate such "paragon" individuals as a way of defending itself from destruction, in a manner analogous to the way the mortal body fights off infection."

adriant1978 wrote: »

You can read about the special nature of the Vestige compared to other Soul Shriven here.

"What follows is speculation, born of conversations with the Sojourner during his infrequent and unpredictable visits. His theory is that the Soul Shriven's bodies are flawed because they have lost the focusing principle of their Anuic souls, so their vestiges are imperfect patterns. I concurred that this was likely, and then proposed the theoretical possibility of a Soul Shriven who, despite having lost his or her soul, possessed some other intrinsic Anuic aspect. This shall-we-say "paragon" Soul Shriven would form an unflawed body in Coldharbour that was a perfect duplicate of the body worn in Mundus. In fact, if this paragon bore a sufficiently high Anuic valence, upon contact with Padomaic creatia its body would form almost instantaneously.

The Sojourner scoffed at my theory, but seemed taken with the idea nonetheless. He went on to speculate that if such a thing were possible, it would probably occur in a situation where the Mundus was in existential jeopardy. In that case the Heart of Nirn would spontaneously generate such "paragon" individuals as a way of defending itself from destruction, in a manner analogous to the way the mortal body fights off infection."

Kaktus wrote: »

adriant1978 wrote: »

You can read about the special nature of the Vestige compared to other Soul Shriven here.

"What follows is speculation, born of conversations with the Sojourner during his infrequent and unpredictable visits. His theory is that the Soul Shriven's bodies are flawed because they have lost the focusing principle of their Anuic souls, so their vestiges are imperfect patterns. I concurred that this was likely, and then proposed the theoretical possibility of a Soul Shriven who, despite having lost his or her soul, possessed some other intrinsic Anuic aspect. This shall-we-say "paragon" Soul Shriven would form an unflawed body in Coldharbour that was a perfect duplicate of the body worn in Mundus. In fact, if this paragon bore a sufficiently high Anuic valence, upon contact with Padomaic creatia its body would form almost instantaneously.

The Sojourner scoffed at my theory, but seemed taken with the idea nonetheless. He went on to speculate that if such a thing were possible, it would probably occur in a situation where the Mundus was in existential jeopardy. In that case the Heart of Nirn would spontaneously generate such "paragon" individuals as a way of defending itself from destruction, in a manner analogous to the way the mortal body fights off infection."

Thank you for posting this, I found this book a few days ago and it's really fascinating. So Nirn is basically sentient to some degree and can 'sense' that the planeneld is a threat to its very existence, so it allows vestiges to be made as a sort of defense mechanism. The question for me at least is what is the Heart of Nirn, and is it the same as the Heart of Lorkhan? In which case, does that mean Nirn lacks any defense mechanism as of the events of TES3?

President_PUG wrote: »

None of that explains the dude with a pot on his head.

Auldjohn wrote: »

Skillasaurus88 wrote: »

Also other players are justified as it being a Dragon Break, so we all are unique but exist concurrently. Lazy or great writing? Bit of both :P

... being a Dragonborn... Dragon Break was a rupture in the time stream.

Cardthief wrote: »

As stated above, once the Vestige was sacrificed to Molag Bal their original body is no more, most likely a corpse being used as an undead minion, in-turn the Vestige's soul is given to Molag Bal, in which he creates an immortal body that is identical to your original one but made entirely out of Azure Plasm. Azure Plasm is the substance that the Daedra from Coldharbour are made from, whenever a Daedra is "killed" on Nirn they slowly reform their body in the waters of Coldharbour, sometimes when you kill a lesser Daedra within their original plane of oblivion they can be permanently destroyed (only lesser Daedra though, the Daedric Princes are almost 100% invincible.

Now, their are differences between Daedra and Vestiges, when Daedra are defeated they slowly reform over time, while Vestiges on the other hand have access to Soul Magic, which allows them to reform almost instantaneously, and on the spot rather than being sent back to Coldharbour. Another difference is that despite the fact that the Daedra of Coldharbour and the Vestige are both made out of Azure Plasm, the Vestige's body was designed to be completely immortal, so that you could be tortured for an eternity until you became nothing but a husk of your former self, that being said, even if you die in Coldharbour you cannot be permanently destroyed, the only known way from our knowledge would be if Molag himself decided to destroy you, though we don't even know if even Molag has that power.

http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Azure_Plasm

"When a Daedra native to Coldharbour is slain or banished, its morphotype, or vestige, is sent back there. Within Coldharbour are secret grottoes where the process of plasm-accretion can be witnessed. It is here the Azure Plasm drains from pools adjacent to the grottoes and slowly coalesces around a vestige to eventually reform the Daedra. It is usually a terrifying and lengthy process for the Daedra involved, although it can be prevented through resurrection with the use of Soul Magic. The process is identical for mortals whose soul is under the protection of a Daedric Prince, such as Soul Shriven and Umaril the Unfeathered. The Azure Plasm coalesces around a vestige and forms a corporeal body with the semblance of the shape it wore in life. Should this individual die, the nature of the vestige is such that their body simply reforms upon death and the cycle repeats itself."

Now, on to the last 2 topics, first, when the Vestige gains their soul back, why does nothing change? Simple, you may have your soul back, but your original mortal body is long gone, the body your soul currently inhabits is still made entirely out of Azure Plasm.

And finally, why did Molag make you immortal? While we may never truly know why entirely, we can guess 2 common reasons, first of all, granting you an immortal body means he can torture you for an eternity, which being Molag, is simply what he is. And second of all, as stated above, to be his unwitting champion, you may have foiled his plans for the Planemeld, but look at what you have also done, you have foiled the plans of the Triad, and preventing Nocturnal from gaining infinite power, power which is speculated to be able to permanently get rid of the other Daedric Princes, Molag included. You have slain countless foes, including those whom are against Molag. And finally even though the Planemeld is done we don't know what Molag has planned next, he could be plotting something again, and we are unknowingly aiding him with it, who can truly tell what schemes the God of Schemes is planning? Long story short he is playing us like a damn fiddle.