Lore question

Saucy_Jack · January 2018

So everyone knows about the daedric princes and the lesser daedra that your run-of-the-mill sorcerer can conjure. There's also the aedric divines, and one could argue that they're the "light side" version of the daedric princes.

My question is this: are there "lesser aedra", and if so, why do we never see them as summonables of conjuration magic in any Elder Scrolls game?

bloodthirstyvampire · January 2018

You could say the vestage is a lesser aedra considering you absorb aetherial power every time you use a skyshard

Faulgor · January 2018

All mortals are "lesser Aedra", in a sense. Aedra literally means "our ancestors".

Chaos2088 · January 2018

Yes all Men, Mer and others are descendants of the Aedra, there are the Ehlnofey who were just before mortals (whom they descend from)

More info about them can be found here: http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Ehlnofey

Recremen · January 2018

Chaos2088 wrote: »

Yes all Men, Mer and others are descendants of the Aedra, there are the Ehlnofey who were just before mortals (whom they descend from)

More info about them can be found here: http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Ehlnofey

So for those following along, something like a summons to appear before the court, or calling your kids in from the yard, may seem mundane and boring to mortals but to Daedra probably looks like The Greatest Sorcery. Like, you can just get people? To move?? Without casting a spell???

JamuThatsWho · January 2018

Faulgor wrote: »

All mortals are "lesser Aedra", in a sense. Aedra literally means "our ancestors".

Yep, and Daedra means "not our ancestors", or the Divines that didn't want to take part in the creation of Nirn.

I always loved the fact that the TES "gods" were never a straightforward good and evil dichotomy.

Danikat · January 2018

JamuThatsWho wrote: »

Faulgor wrote: »

All mortals are "lesser Aedra", in a sense. Aedra literally means "our ancestors".

Yep, and Daedra means "not our ancestors", or the Divines that didn't want to take part in the creation of Nirn.

I always loved the fact that the TES "gods" were never a straightforward good and evil dichotomy.

Me too.

Although it made starting with Morrowind horribly confusing. I was used to things like the DnD Forgotten Realms games where everyone worshipped the same set of gods (or a subset of them) and they were clearly divided into good and evil and no one questioned if any of them existed (probably because if you did they'd come down and 'convince you otherwise').

Then I got into Morrowind and everyone kept asking me if I followed the Tribunal or the Temple and if I agreed with the idea of good Daedra and bad Daedra and if I worshipped the Nine Divines and I had no idea what any of it meant or how it fit together until I was about 1/3 of the way through the game and had read enough books to piece it together.

I think the Aedra and Daedra were the most confusing to me - it took me a long time to understand that the 'good' Daedra were not just the Aedra under different names.

Shezzarrine · January 2018

JamuThatsWho wrote: »

Faulgor wrote: »

All mortals are "lesser Aedra", in a sense. Aedra literally means "our ancestors".

Yep, and Daedra means "not our ancestors", or the Divines that didn't want to take part in the creation of Nirn.

I always loved the fact that the TES "gods" were never a straightforward good and evil dichotomy.

That is accually not quite true, the daedra were not the same thing as aedra, even before the creation of Mundus. The daedra are the physical personalities of their planes, the spirits that created mundus were infinitely powerful beings with no restraints, which is the reason Lorkhan decided to create Mundus in the first place because how could one know true happiness and joy in absolute power and immortality if they had never had something to overcome (mortality).

zaria · January 2018

Saucy_Jack wrote: »

So everyone knows about the daedric princes and the lesser daedra that your run-of-the-mill sorcerer can conjure. There's also the aedric divines, and one could argue that they're the "light side" version of the daedric princes.

My question is this: are there "lesser aedra", and if so, why do we never see them as summonables of conjuration magic in any Elder Scrolls game?

Shivering isles for Oblivion is recommended for this questions, it make you see daedra as people however far more alien than Argonians.
lesser daedra can not die they just respawn like you do then killed, but just as some loctations and it might be an queue for it.

TheShadowScout · January 2018

Saucy_Jack wrote: »

My question is this: are there "lesser aedra", and if so, why do we never see them as summonables of conjuration magic in any Elder Scrolls game?

Faulgor wrote: »

All mortals are "lesser Aedra", in a sense. Aedra literally means "our ancestors".

Yes. In elvish.
So... want some "lesser aedra"? Go look at your nearest elf!

Or most other mortals, really... (though with some races, the daedra had a hand in their coming into being as well, not through creation, but through corruptiopn - orsimer, dunmer; and one may even be descendant from an entirely different force - the argonians are said to be childrena of the hist, which may be brought into being by interference from Sithis...)

Lore-wise... well, there are many tales told about it, but most overlap in that both sides have one common origin through the twin forces of of Anu (the force of order, light and creation) and Padomay (the force of chaos, darkness and entropy), once upon the dawn of time or shortly before that... giving birth fo the "first spirits", the Et'ada...

...then one side spent their power to create the mundus, the mortal realm (possibly through being tricked into doing so by Lorkhan, possibly just by happenstance). That is why they are considered "our ancestors" by the elves, since they are basically responsible for creation of everything, and gained the designation of "aedra". (the elves just think they were the first and best creation, but that's an elf arrogance thing, and they try very hard not to look at the dragons place in the history of nirn...)

...some of these "first spirits" also split off and fled to aetherius rather then spend all their energy creating the mundus, those were Magnus and his fellows, and they are generally associated with the birth of the sun and the stars... but are not active in Mundus per se... (though they are often associated with magic, so... in a way, they are...)

...and then there were the ones who did not throw in with the creation of the mundus at all, thus were called "daedra" (aka, "not our ancestors") but got jealous of it nonetheless (its why they mess with the mortal realm so much, methinks), and have been creating smaller stuff for themselves, daedra and oblivion planes, just to show the aedra they too can make nifty stuff, but it usually ends up just some cheap knockoff, since very little of oblivion is truly original work, mostly being a... skewed depiction of the mundus.

And then there are a few other powers, like Y'ffre for example, who are otherwise related (sort-of-demigod descendants/servants/creations of the aedra, if one follows the et'ada line of thinking) to those groups. And some mortals who are said to have ascended to demigod status, like Rahjin or the Wilderking (Wilderqueen)...

A really neat depiction of the TES pantheon would be:

(many thinkings to @Gidorick for making that one, its nifty!)

As for good and bad daedra... like most everything else, the divine and deadric powers in ESO also come in shades of grey instead of clearly defined "good-neutral-evil" alignments, though some shades are of course darker then others.