"Hey! Hey, you! You're awake. Another settlement needs our help, I'll mark it on your map." The worst nightmare ever.

I always assumed that the reason Erandur wasn't punished in some way by Vaermina was because he had some form of protection from Mara after he turned a new leaf.

I get it, when life is a nightmare then worshipping a goddess that can control dreams is tempting. She could give you the power to escape even if only for a short time.

Let’s be honest. The main benefit to worshiping Vaermina is that the creation team get license for creative level design.

Me: Is Vaermina worship worth it? Let me sleep on it and get back to you. Vaermina: You dun goofed.

The thing is that Erandor did not leave the cult because he had overcome his fears; he left because he was afraid. He admits thus to his ex-colleagues directly.

After some thought, I think Vaermina's goal is to circumvent to process of life and death. Whereas Molag Bal is doing it in spite of Arkay, Vaermina does it in envy. •Vaermina's followers use the miasma which has the effect to slow aging • If all you do is sleep, you are less likely to engage in activities that might kill you (as anything could kill you) • Thinking of what fear is, it is a primal response avoid danger. You are afraid of things that would ultimately kill you. She wants to scare you OF death • She works in the dream realm similar to the concept of and in envy of the dreamsleeve If she can keep you alive and incapacitated, she circumvents both life and death, providing her own supplement for reality sacrificed for her having ultimate control. She is greed, she wants everything to herself, but she is willing to give the benefits of her realm to persuade those to leave behind what they had. The only time she can't have you is when you die, it takes someone alive to sleep. She is like Hermeous Mora, she doesn't explicitly care to rule, just hoarding everything to herself. She is greed. Greedy people lie, cheat, and steal. She lies about reality, she cheats the process of life and death, and she steals memories and dreams. If you don't worship, her she scares you about things you don't want to happen to you in the real world. If you do worship her, you live as a God, she becomes the God head and you control the dream.

Definitely one of the most underrated daedra, slept on even 😴

From a role-playing perspective, DAMN it feels good to have your character as if he's being tempted to murder Erandur for the Skull and putting the blade away, as if breaking away from her influence or sharing into the divine protection Mara provides as you and Erandur cleared the tower and temple.

Thank you for making these wonderful videos! My gf is recovering from surgery right now so she can't move or get out much, and I try to stay home more to take care of her. We've been binge-watching your content for days now! Thank you for keeping her out of the realm of Sheogorath :D

*"Vaermina is one of my favorite Et'Ada, having Dreams at night when my enemies have Daedric level Nightmares. Perhaps the Imperial Generals can have sleepless nights, while I myself sleep soundly"*

So, to beat Shaeo in a bet, have him go first. If he goes second he wins.

Everyone keeps having new theories about what happened to the Dwemer, meanwhile the Dissident Priests flat out tell you in Morrowind that because they attached themselves to the Heart of Lorkhan, when Nerevar severed their connection to it they all vaporized on the spot.

Vaermina is the Freddy Krueger of the Elder Scrolls.

FudgeMuppet: *Tells people to not trust the daedra or worship them* My Dumbass: *Does everything and anything to get demonic magic shiny things, only to end up lost in some realm in Oblivion* FudgeMuppet: How many times do we have to teach you this lesson old man!? Me: *Left somewhere in a ditch with a sacrificial dagger of Mephala stuck up my ass*

She’s Elder Scrolls Nyarlathotep ( Lovecraft’s “crawling chaos” that uses humans as playthings and whose coming is heralded by mass nightmare). So much cooler than her Skyrim quest emphasizes.

Something I find particularly interesting about Vaermina outside of the Khajiiti understanding of her is the use of dragon imagery in statues and art for her. I've said this a few times on other videos too, but I feel like this could further reinforce the theory that Vaermina is a dark shadow to Auriel in some ways. As the spirit of fear, she is emblematic of even the fears of gods. The first recorded fear on Tamrielic myth is Auriel fear of change. So much so that in order to become the spirit of temporal stasis, he had to ask for help from papa Anuiel. If the recognition of that fear and its solidification through the consistency of time was effectively the birth of Vaermina, the idea of her as an aspect of the sleeping dreamer is even more defensible. After all, she would have bore witness to the very thing that allowed the Aurbis and its structure of metaphysical towers to fully take shape, and thus would know the path towards unmaking it, to use the language to the Mer Nazi Ancano. The other possible interpretation of the draconian imagery is that its more serpentine, which would relate her more to Lorkhan and potentially taking up one of his many aspects of limitation and choice, which to be honest, doesn't strike me as all that different. It would just change exactly how much she knew about overall Aurbic Meta, but still basically mean the same things overall as Lorkhan himself was a shadow to numerous spirits. There would however be an aesthetic shift here that can connect back to the Talos and Boethiah statue designs. Talos' statue seems to represent his conquering of the old serpent and taking its place. Boethiah is draped in the serpent to match the myth of her Ebony Mail being said to be the death shroud of Lorkhan. Then there's Vaermina, who seems to be cradling serpents. Whether this represents a connection to Lorkhan or Auriel, or more, it seems indicative of her mode of action in the particular type of manipulation that she practices. She creates a scaffolding of grand dreams, horrific nightmares, and deep fears, and pushes people and gods along those tracks amd scaffolding, not exactly controlling them, but guiding them from the shadow in the corners of their minds. Lorkhan the gall to hope for something greater than the current cycle. Auriel, the fear of change and impermanence, a direct counter to that hope. One last little pet theory; the reason the Aka-Oversoul shattered and is now effectively a different kind of mad god, is that fear. He began as Auriel alongside the elves who ruled for an era that seemed like it could never end, until Lorkhans leadership unified men into larger societies grounded by their form of worship. Auriels also pretty cocksure though, so until they ripped Lorkhans heart out and it laughed at them, he suppressed that fear. His first split into Alduin and rest of the dovah would have been his fear of losing to men after Lorkhan transcended death into other form of a raging Shor entirely on the side of men, and Alduin pretty quickly set out to dominate them. As people started to dominate instead and take over from the mer, we get Akatosh and other variations, with some splits being directed at other races just to stay relevant and mythopeicly alive. With his incessant need to be the ruling king so as to never live his fear of being forgotten, he broke himself into a hundred competing parts so he could be what every people wanted once the elven hegemony was no more. Once he had done that, it opened the door for other spirits to break themselves off as well, but most of them lacked the same intensity of fear of change, so they stayed a bit truer to form and cause. Altogether, its further emblematic of the dualistic nature of Lorkhan and Auriel. Equally important to creation, Auriel envies the position of Lorkhan. They represent different types of power and leadership. Lorkhan as an agent of change, is more suited to surviving the chaos of the void and every choice he makes is indicative of that. Its in his nature to exist, because no matter how he changes or splits, it is still him. Every mortal has a spark of Lorkhan in them. He can never fade. Auriel immediately tries to undo(failing to do so of course) and than repeat almost everything that Lorkhan has done, and Lorkhans actions allow that purposefully. The problem is that from mythic, human point of view, Auriel is the opposing force, so he can never take in the limitation of Lorkhan, only dancing with it, much like the Marukhati, shaving off pieces of himself every time. Now, Lorkhan couldn't have existed as Lorkhan without Auriels hold over time, and I think Auriel knows that. I think that's part of his fear at this point. He allowed Lorkhan to exist one way or another, so he is responsible for his own potential doom. What other damage could he allow to happen? So now he has to keep tabs on everything, even if that means breaking himself across time.

The possible connections of Vaermina and the Dreamsleeve and how real distances can be traveled in a dream as was shown in Nightcaller Temple makes me think about how Dagoth Ur used the Dreamsleeve to return after death or never die depending on how you see it.

I find it intriguing that Sheogorath, the mad god, in many cases also seems to be the wisest.

Everyone is out here debating Vaermina worship and I'm over here like "That game looks amazing. I wonder what the modlist is."

Even the fact Erandur is a coward who had to overcome his greatest fear of his past catching up to him to finally escape Vaermina once and for all is a nice hint at her true influence as a daedric prince, manipulating mortals through fear.

¨I've yet to meet someone who enjoys nightmares¨ -Me a lucid dreamer who goes full Doom Slayer during nightmares: ¨Allow me to introduce myself¨

Vaermina doesn't need a sales pitch or any reason to "convince" mortals to worship her. Her sphere is dreams. She gets an automatic monopoly on 1/3rd of every mortal's day. She can do whatever she wants in that time. She doesn't need to be convincing when she can just harass any mortal she wants for as long as it takes into doing whatever she wants. It's not like mortals can really avoid her. Of course all her followers sound like lunatics driveling nonsense about some ambiguous "truth". They haven't had a decent rest in who knows how long. She has them completely at her mercy. Considering how unassailable her foothold is, of course she ends up treating everything like a game and making bets with the lives of her followers. She doesn't have to really work for anything. You don't choose to worship Vaermina. She decides that for you.

Congratulations on 1 million subs a day or two early :) I have been following you guys for years now and you guys have come so far. Proud of you guys and thank you for all you have done for the ES community

*Elder Scrolls VI is just a remastered Skyrim for the XBOX X/S.* Thank Shor it was just a nightmare.

Normally I listen to Fudge Muppet videos as I fall asleep but this one I feel I should give a go midday

Neat analysis video! Thanks for uploading!

random af I know but..for some reason I've always hoped id find a pretty specific dwemmer dungeon scenario/boss fight...that being ruins that the dwemmer encountered in the deepest of chasm that was so dangerous that the dwemmer cast a seal upon it that they believed was legit permanent.They did this because they knew they were incapable of just slaying it outright. But...somehow the player character breaks this seal (for the sake of exploration alone? a quest? accidental? anything works really)...so sealed up for 1000s of years is a dwemmer vampire who was a necromancer so powerful that any corpse within 1000m of him will rise and fight to defend him w their lives. So the barrier required to prevent this was unlike anything ever seen before or since...So potent that whatever force took almost every other Dwemmer on nirn actually prevented him from disappearing w them. He was a crazed misanthrope before they sealed him away...alone and fully conscious for all this time. as you'd imagine hes bonkers af at this point! I may have left shit out, sorry if that was incoherent...but what do you guys think? edit::I forgot to mention that he hid out in those old ruins that only had the one entrance as he knew they were wary of it (maybe Daedric ruins works? idk)

great work once again!

Vaermina reminds me of Mara or Maya the Hindu goddess of illusions. She tempts mortals with the idea of living inside a perfect fantasy or dream, taking away their desire to live in the real world. She would rather have all of Tamriel trapped in an illusion they cannot escape, than for mortals to find purpose in the real world. It makes sense why her ally is Sanguine. As for Vaermina’s cultists and their writings about a perfect world, how is it any different than when religious people go on about things like heaven or salvation being a perfect world and then try to get as many people there as possible? To me that’s what the argument for the cultists is about.

Lots of food for thought. I really enjoyed this!😃

what i find odd is the whole universe is ...a dream. we know that is true and any one who learns that truth...well becomes more powerful then any god or simply stops existing. Vaermina...being the prince of dreams is interesting and the fact she was not "part of any litter" may point to the fact she is not daedric..but maybe someone who woke up to the reality of the world, conjecture and such but an interesting context

The multiple shots of the skull of corruption makes me really want someone to make an armor mod based off of it

Gods I need to hurry up finish working on modding and get back on Skyrim, all these videos make me wanna replay the quests all again

Gods I love TES lore videos, thank you

I just started the supernal dreamers quest line in ESO this week. What a fun coincidence and a great look at vaermina!

Great video guys

Perfect timeing, came in at 6am here, good thing I was already up as I barely slept anyway, thanks Vermina

The ad placement is really entertaining

I was searching for a video to go to sleep a bit relaxed, after having a depressing nightmare. What a coincidence -_-

King Emeric was heavily bothered by deadra. I remember reading that in several books. Quite funny

So close to 1 million subs 👏👏👏

I always had this idea for a mod I wanted to try and make for skyrim (but always lacked the time and know how for the finer things in scripts and 3D modeling.) Where when the player goes to sleep, they can dream (and of course choose to skip if you want to) Dreams won't happen every time either, its just a 40~60 ish %, otherwise it will just act like vanilla sleep. Dreams giving you a nice buff for 24 hours when you reach the end of the dream (usually something pleasant or completely mundane, sometimes perhaps trippy) But at other moments at random (like a 2% chance or so) to get a nightmare. A hellish experience that if you make it to the end, no reward is given. But if you fail (die) you wake up early and get a de-buff for 24 hours instead. Also with story related nightmares linked to specific quests that might trigger. And nightmares for the main quest (and DLC main quests) Mainly featuring Alduin, with the player increasingly getting the fear of failing to defeat Alduin. Example: You are at the point where you know only Dragonrend will allow you to defeat Alduin. You go to sleep in a specific location, but at first nothing seems to happen, no dream or nightmare occurs. Like always you wake up, perhaps trade something with the in-keeper and leave. But when you get outside there is fire everywhere, people are screaming and guards are yelling. Alduin flying overhead, taunting you how he has returned form Sovngard, you are too late as he has replenished his strength, and more. Before you can even properly react he will swoop down and lift you from the ground, flying higher and higher. Then he drops you, but instead of seeing the usual ground below, you see a gigantic aspect of Alduin flying towards you from below with its mouth open wide, eating you whole before you shoot awake from your nightmare.

You're almost at 1million! Lets go

Congrats on 1mil lads 😉👍

It's important to understand that in Elder Scrolls lore, the world of spirits and the world of dreams are basically the same place. Dreaming is effectively a minor mimicry of death...or maybe death is just a very long, deep sleep.

Yes do all the princes and I hope tes 6 has a system like oblivion maybe more fleshed out but I like the idea of shrines to them everywhere

So close to a million subs, puuuuush

The god head thing would make sense as the player character is more or less a god regardless of the game who can't die and just rewind time and alters the world around them. For us being the hero or the villain is like a fantasy dream made realish through our player character. Think about it, our character dies and then we just reload from the save file and we know what not to do the next time. This goes for all rpg games that has no Permanent death.

Some random thoughts I had listening to this talk which may or may not have merit: Parts of the discussion reminded me of Plato's Allegory of the Cave, though the next question is if Vermina is leading her followers _out_ of the cave or _into_ it. She could also be a representation of existential dread, the deep fear that nothing is real or meaningful, not even your self, and she either leads you to face that truth, as suggested in the talk, or offers an extra layer of protection by promising your own dream made real. And this might be because I've been reading a lot of articles lately on the Jungian concept of the Shadow, but I feel she could also be a representation of facing the darker parts of one's psyche, as they will often assert themselves in dreams, showing truths about one's self that frequently wouldn't even be considered, let alone acknowledged, in the waking world. (Then again, most if not all of the Princes could be seen as the darker aspects of every mortal psyche, and how one can either become consumed by them, or gain strength of character by facing them.)

Thank you so much chaps for your work, you've no idea how much it's helped through my life. I send peace and love to you all, long live Fudgemuppet!

Yeessss, I've been waiting for this one!

Your so close to 1. Million.

"Erandur will attack you", i am ready < I would say. Simple as that. Hahaha! funny

Gonna watch this right before I go to sleep, I'm sure nothing can possibly go wrong.

Maxed Mr Handy from Fallout 4 Automotron dlc please, I've seen all the other maxed robot vids you've done and I'd really like a Mr Handy for my Mechanist build

LOVE IT

Video idea: Take the greatest person from each race and give us your opinion on who would win. Like the Cameron usurper vs Vanis galerion(I'm sure that spelling is wrecked) vs gaiden shinji vs etc... It could be a long video

Nearly 1 Mill !!!!

This video was worth the wait. Good shit

It's been a looooooooooooong road for this channel to 1mil. Lots and lots of hiccups and set-backs along the way. But finally, here we are. On the cusp of what we call "a long time coming".

But... but... she gives you a cool staff with a skull on it!

So close to 1 Mil!!!

Screen this - we will get more of Vaermina in Dawnstar DLC for ESO.

You guys should do a Shoddycast Esq Elder Scrolls Lore series

Missed this video cause I was busy watching one of your other videos lol

6:00 “One of them says ‘I have seen everything!’ Another one says ‘*did you know you can sell everyday products on Amazon…..*’ 🤣🤣🤣

Enjoying ones nightmares, is a complicated topic. Once you start enjoying them, are they truly nightmares?

We're almost there

I always like to think Chim is more "I think therefore I am" vibes when it comes to maintaining sanity and existence

Kinda funny how I just woke up from a nightmare and then I see what video is playing 😅

Lemme be real for a moment. If this was a legitimate class to take in school, and you were a professor and this was how you presented your lessons, I would be ACING this class. And loving every second of it. XDD

Opening got me

Awesome! I’ve been waiting for this!

Being an avid lucid dreamer, being able to dream often and even enjoying the odd nightmare that slips through once a year as I already live in fear anyways, I feel like I'd be pretty well off against her

Just did the Vaermina quest yesterday and then I see this video! I think she is trying to send me a message...

Having such intense and vivid dreams or nightmares does feel powerful and can feel absolute. Like feeling more real then reality does. Making reality feel dull and deattached. The dreamers could feel trapped in reality and be limited in existence on mundas. Leaving the dreamers with the sense that theres more then just life in a construct by the divines. The lie being the restraint of existence in mundas and being kept there unwillfully by the divines.

Here's my guess: Anything that Vaernmina shares that is True is the kind of things that can lead a person either to CHIM (becoming a godlike being within the Dream), potentially Amaranth (becoming a new dreamer of a new dream), and in the overwhelming majority of cases simply causes those who learn too much to either become utterly insane on the approach to CHIM (as they feel the divine terror that keeps mortals from realizing they are a figment of a god's imagination) and thus a being that the gods can easily manipulate (such as with one of the theories of Pelinal) or just straight up Zero Sum's them (in which case they don't exist anymore and they don't care). Why? Because as a Daedric Prince, Vaermina is privy to some of this stuff even if she can't make use of it all, because anyone who's broken in the pursuit of making followers is never gonna be a problem again and might even be a source of power as they are a vector/vessel for her nightmares, anyone who gets close to achieving CHIM is gonna end up near mindless and thus practically speaking just a meat puppet with some automated features, anyone who actually achieves CHIM is likely not gonna try and destroy her and successful CHIM's are rare in the first place and likely someone she'll have predisposed to being an ally anyways, and anyone who Zero Sum's doesn't exist anymore and thus isn't a problem. In Addition: Vaermina's followers seem to be inspired by some of the old legends and myths of witches, particularly the people who'd brew potent drugs then get high as fuck, torturing themselves with nightmarish visions till they break and go mad and/or become completely immune to fear in the waking world. If this is true, their benefits in the world of Nirn are probably limited to what is learned about alchemy and what resistance they gain towards fear, but the benefits in their dreams would be amazingly powerful, such as prophecy (though not a full on story of what will happen but a symbolic representation of what is to come in most cases), the ability to learn further magics through dreams via contacting her and other daedra, and the true knowledge that anything inside Nirn that could possibly matter is something that can't be destroyed in anything other than its current form, and which will return to the dreamsleeve in order to wait for its time to emerge into the world again as a discrete being.

The dreamer that dreams of Nirn is actually Todd Howard the Deadric prince that stole the plane of Nirn from the old gods.

After seeing a shrine in Gallows Hall to Valermena, it made me wonder how she could be related to necromancy. While the idea of both worshipping a goddess of dreams and becoming an immortal lich seems tempting, both seem to be evil and full of consequences, which I kinda wish i could find any justifications to it.

So close to 1 mil

I hope in ES6 that the Other deadra realms get some major focus. Uncle Sheo is great. But its been Molag Baal, Sheogorath, Hermaeus Mora, Hircine, Mehrunea Dagon, and Nocturnal as major deadra. Would be cool to focus on the other deadra at some point.

How am I not subbed to you? I could have sworn...

Wake up and smell the canis root tea. It's hard to find an assistant that can make a good cup.

I have been watching a series of videos from the History Channel called Barbarians Rising, in them they describe how the roman empire falls, I would like to suggest you guys watch them, there is 4 episodes in all, and see if you can put them into context in regards to the elder scrolls.

omg such a long treat

That intro tho

Her Worship is the Ultimate Mental Roller Coaster!

Ah yes, the most important details from the tutorial. Imperial ambush, Stormcloaks at the border, and Rorikstead.

So, the artist vaermina and sheo bullied rose to create horrifying yet amazing works of art born of a seemingly twisted view and imagination. Was this artist named H.R.Gigerius?

There is even a shrine to her in the forgotten city mod

Vaermina would be the best game designer/movie maker of the horror genre.

Yesssss 🙏🏼 I was finna goto bed and I always play lore videos or podcasts while I sleep 🔥 make a playlist for sleeping

I wonder what she'd think of the Manor of Sleep and the Kuze Shrine way of life.

21:00 this part reminds me a bit about what Vivec said about the godplace. Kinda like she is trying to make her own true godplace. It kinda fits in with prolonging their lives with the miasma while they are dreaming. Maybe she is trying to make believers think she is able to let them access the godplace

Quagmire: nightmare filled realm giggity giggity goo I've come to haunt you

Me, a devotee of Azura: Nope

I agree that her realm has to be fear. Though dreams can be powerful and can control many people with an idea or suggestion through that dream. I assume it is only used as a tool though to harvest fear. I see her as being extremely vengeful due to what interactions we have had through TES2,4 and 5. I thought it was odd in ESO that she would be so brazen in Stormhaven.

I don't know why but Mina is my favorite... I don't know, maybe it's just my fascination with dreams, maybe it's because she's so underrated, I don't know, I think she's that evil even if she is. I think I have the "I can fix her" Mentality lmao

I think ascending probably refers to the souls of Vaermina's worshippers going to her realm, and essentially living in the dream world for forever. Some don't wake up from the Dreamstride. Perhaps they simply prefer to stay in the dream world