The Imperial Lie: Akatosh, Auri-El, and Shezarr-Shor in the time of Alessia

Torin Mendax, Vice Majuscrator in the New House of Shezarr, Kvatch

Third Era 334

The Empires of men, long ago sent with Divine favor to cast off the Merethic yoke are founded on 8 unholy Lies. These corruptions of long forgotten Truths were, for a time, necessary fabrications to bring peace to the kingdoms of blessed St. Alessia. With a simple gauze, she soothed the wounded hearts of her warriors and their hostages. Yet, even as her heirs grew in power, they did not change the dressing on this wound. Rather they allowed it to fester and rot, with false prophets infecting the wound to propagate the disease of their Lies.

And no Lie was greater than the greatest of all Time and the expulsion of all-making Shezarr from the Heart of men. The Time Dragon God was elevated as the savior and patron of the Alessian men, a savior who did not yet exist when Parav became the Al-Esh. It is freely admitted by the temples of the Imperial City that Alessia and her compatriots contrived their Divines from the tamest aspects of the gods of man and mer alike as a political tool, and that no such gods existed before the Rising of the Nedes and the coming of their Ada champions.

But yet it is Akatosh who is credited with Alessia's revelations and protection. Man's visage of Endbringer Alduin given the elven status of King Auri-El is upheld as the protector and ruler of all races by the Post-Alessian Order that stole the Highest Highness' name as their own. Surely, all can agree that neither the Nord's great Adversary nor the Altmeri's favored ancestor would offer salvation to a poor woman enslaved by their chosen race of Elf.

The scholars of the Arcane University and White-Gold Spire have long suggested that the very belief in Akatosh by Alessia and her armies has willed Akatosh's influence into the distant path. Perhaps they are right, but even so, the Imperial Dragon could not have saved the Nedics before they themselves had willed him into existence. Who then, spoke to Alessia before her Rising? Who then mustered the forces of the Ada to join her in battle? Who then was the Truth behind the fall of Mereth?

Shezarr! Shor! The Truthbound Heart of Men! For he and his alone would always side with the shorter-lived races. Do the songs not tell of Pelinal as the third of Shezarr's god-guises on Nirn? Do they not proclaim the Truth of his warrior-widow, Kyne, as mother of Morihaus rather than the temperate Lies of Kynareth? Shor, the elf-slayer. Shezarr the man-defender. It was he who proffered aid to Alessia and he who imbued her with divine insight so that she might absorb the knowledge of lesser gods to rule justly in his stead. For as she rose, our wise Lord Shezarr felt brazen pangs in his Heart and knew the last of his many mortal guises was fast approaching.

But Shezarr-Shor was a righteous warrior in the cause of men, who walked the land as battle-lords and ear-butchers. His kingship could bring no peace to the faint hearts of bleeding Mer. Thus, his visage was obscured behind the face of the Dragon on the Highest Queen's altars for a time and forgotten. The mask was thus so well affixed that the tree-prophets confused the Heart of this world with its own bondage and vainly tried to clip a dragon's wings, thinking Auri-El himself was secretly a man. The forgetfulness of Alessia's heirs echoes through Time. Even now, their confounded sermons are elevating their Lies as a defender of men, proclaiming Shezarr's own crystalline blood a sigil of his enemy, and the funeral pyres of Shor as Dragon's breath.

Now is the time, sons and daughters of Shezarr! The Liar Kings have been cast down in their forgetful hubris! Rise in momentlessness of the True gods of men! Shor's jailors have been burned and buried in the ashes. Shezarr's covenant has been restored. Cast Auri-El's servant from the tops of the Tower and restore the Lost One to the Temple of Truth!