The Ten Greatest Mages in Tamriel

Herein lies a list of the ten greatest mages to ever live in Tamriel. They were selected by an unofficial committee appointed by the Elder Council. This book, the fruit of their labors, was commissioned by the Imperial Battlemage Ocato in 3E 428. It was updated following the emperor's death in 3E 433.

Ten: Marukh the Monkey Prophet, the primate-like religious teacher. He wrote the Alessian Doctrine, a strict religious work that was the center of Cyrodiilic religion during the First Era. He had powerful visions of the Saint Alessia herself, and his followers, the Marukhati Selectives, founded the Temple of the One in the Imperial City and caused the Dragon Break.

Nine: Azra Nightwielder, a powerful practitioner of the rare "shadow magick". Azra took great risks in his study of this dangerous art, and was once attacked while trying to manipulate his own shadow. His loss of control consumed all those involved in an enormous and fatal explosion. In his commemoration the High Rock town near the hole he blasted in the earth was named Azra's Crossing. There have been some recent "sightings" of him, but these are of course impossible and should not be taken seriously.

Eight: Mannimarco, the King of Worms, one of the most despicable and vile people ever to live. Called a god by the necromancers, he is an ancient and evil man with a long and antagonistic history with the empire. More recently, he has claimed to fight with Arkay over his position as a Divine, but this is probably a lie propagated by his devious followers. He is very powerful and very dangerous, and anyone who sees him should contact an officer of the Empire immediately.

Seven: Imperial Battlemage and High Chancellor Ocato. A brilliant and powerful man, Ocato is the greatest mage in the Empire's service. He is a very dear friend of Emperor Uriel Septim VII, a high ranking member of the Mages' Guild, and a brilliant politician.

Six: Divayth Fyr is a potent but deranged hermit living on the island of Tel Fyr in eastern Morrowind. Though he trained with the Psijics of Artaeum and has {[sic|occassionally|occasionally}} assisted the Empire, he prefers to spend his time in his strange tower made of vines and mushrooms. He is accompanied by his wives, which it is rumored he made of pieces of his own flesh. Though this is a blatant blaspheme against Mara's laws of motherhood and matrimony, it is clearly complicated magick.

Five: Iachesis, who was the master of the Psijics, an order which deals in the unknown and unsafe magick of Old Mary, when the island of Artaeum disappeared. He ruled this mysterious but dangerously powerful cult of mages for nearly three millennia.

Four: Kagrenac, the most cunning, powerful, and some would say evil of the Tonal Architects, a group of blasphemous Dwarven mages who meddled with the fundamentals of the world itself. Kagrenac is believed to have been primarily involved in the disappearance of the Dwarves at Red Mountain.

Three: Sotha Sil, once a false god of the Dark Elves in Morrowind. He abused the powers discovered by the Dwemer to make himself and two of his companions powerful enough to profess divinity. He was so saturated with this stolen godhood that with the assistance of his fellow heathen deity Almalexia, he banished Mehrunes Dagon into Oblivion. He has spent the past hundred years confined to his city, made like a giant clock. It is likely that he has gone mad.

Two: Imperial Battlemage Zurin Arctus, the first Imperial Battlemage and a true ally of Tiber Septim. When they were tricked by the liar Vivec and received the Numidium without a power supply, he offered his own heart as the Mantella to power the Numidium, assuring the Empire's victory over the Aldmeri Dominion. An agent of the Empire finally put him to rest hundreds of years later during the Warp of the West.

One: Vanus Galerion the Mystic, the founder of the Mages' Guild. They say that he was so powerful he could move mountains with his fingertips. He was born a poor laborer in Sollicich on Cer and learned to read in secret from his father. He was very adept in magick and, with the assistance of Iachesis and the Psijics (whom he far outstripped in talent), soon became the most powerful mage of all time.