Alvarlism

**Alvarlism** was the dominant religion throughout the Ayleid Empire, and served as a tool to solidify Ayleid hold on power within their land. The gods of Alvarlism are known as the Alvarlic gods. Followers of Alvarlism were common among the Ayleids during the Merethic and First Eras, but the practice has fallen out of favour since the fall of the Ayleid Empire, maintained only by fringe members of society, if at all.

Alvarlism was a sub-religion of the Church of Alaxon, the religion of the Summerset Archipelago, and is considered by many to have merely been an autonomous branch of the Church rather than its own religion. This is a result of the Ayleids entirely lifting their aedric pantheon from the Church, merely adding on an additional daedric pantheon.

## Alvarlic Gods

The Alvarlic gods consist of both Aedric beings and Daedric Princes. All the kingdoms of the Empire held the aedric Alvarlic gods in their pantheon, but not all worshipped the daedric Alvarlic gods equally, choosing to venerate one or several above the others. Nonetheless, both kinds of Alvarlic gods are included in the Ayleid's pantheon, though the form of worship varied.

### Aedric

The aedric Alvarlic gods were copied by the Ayleids from the Church of Alaxon:

* **Auri-El**, also referred to as **the King**, is depicted as an elegant Mer with white robes, and wearing a resplendant golden crown with spiked protrusions. He is sometimes portrayed as wearing elven battle-armour. His symbol is an eight-pointed star, sometimes depicted as an estoile. He is the chief elven ancestor to to the Ayleids, and the god of time. As chief among the Alvarlic gods he is worshipped for a variety of reasons, not all of which pertain to time as a concept.
* **Jephre**,
* **Mara**, also referred to as the **the** **Mother**, is depicted as a comely middle-aged Mer wearing thick robes and a veil. Her symbol is a rope tied in a reef knot. She is the goddess of love, fertility, and compassion, and the bounty of nature. She presides over marriages.
* **Trinimac** is depicted as a great knight wearing long robes overlaid with plate armour. His symbol is a golden sword of elven make. He is the warrior-god of elven-kind, worshiped for courage and valour when times are dark.
* **Phynaster**, also referred to as **the Guardian**, is depicted as an early to mid-aged Altmer warrior in plate armour. His symbol is a sabaton. He is a guardian-god, worshiped for protection, whether from physical harm or non-physical ailments.
* **Stendarr**,
* **Syrabane**, also referred to as the **Apprentices' God**, is depicted as a middle-aged Altmer in elegant robes, clean-shaven, and wielding a great staff. His symbol is a palm with an eye, or two cupped hands enfolding a large ring. He is the god of magic, specifically that magic relating to the learning of students and early practitioners. As such he is a common god to be worshiped by mages of all kinds, especially students of magic.
* **Xarxes**, also referred to as the **Ageless One**, is depicted as a middle-aged Mer with a goatee in Altmeri courtier robes, wielding a tome and quill. His symbol is a quill. He is the god of secrets and hidden knowledge.

### Daedric

The daedric Alvarlic gods are:

* **Azura**, also referred to as the **Queen of Dawn and Dusk**, is depicted as a young and beautiful elf with an elegantly long and revealing dress, often holding her symbols: an eight-pointed estoile, a crescent moon, or a blue rose. She is the goddess of magic in-between realms of twilight, egoism, and vanity.
* **Clavicus Vile**, also referred to as the **Trickster God**, is depicted as boy or very young Mer accompanied by a dog. His symbol is commonly the shape of his most famous artifact the Mask of Clavicus Vile, a full-faced mask with long protruding horns on its forehead. He is the god of pacts, granting wishes through ritual invocations.
* **Hermaeus Mora** is depicted as an unseemly mass of tentacles, eyes, and claws, with no clear shape or form. His symbol is half-closed eye. His domain is that of knowledge, fate, and memory. Those seeking power through knowledge might light a candle for Hermaeus Mora.
* **Jyggalag** is depicted as a silver-clad knight wielding a great silver bastard sword. He is the god of order, logic, and deduction.
* **Mehrunes Dagon**, also referred to as the **Black Lord**, is depicted as a large, four-armed demon with horns and pointed ears. His symbol is a rising sun. He is the god of destruction, change, revolution, energy, and ambition. He is associated with natural disasters such as floods or earthquakes.
* **Merid-Nunda**, also referred to as the **Lady of Infinite Energies**, is depicted as female Mer radiating light with with thick robes. Her symbol is a many-faced rounded stone (similar in appearance to her beacon). She is the goddess of purity, and the energy of living things, holding a great distaste for all things undead.
* **Mola Gbal**, also referred to as the **Lord of Domination**, is depicted as great demon with curved horns and a tail. His symbol is his skull, a demon's head with curved horns. He is the god of domination, and enslavement of mortal beings. He is considered to be the patron of necromancers.
* **Namira**, also referred to as the **Lady of Decay**, is depicted as a diseased woman with long dark robes and a hood. She is the goddess of ancient darkness and disease, and is associated with insects, slugs, and other repulsive creatures. She is the patron goddess of beggars and the poor because of their connection to pity, disregard, and revulsion.
* **Nocturnal**, also referred to as the **Night Mistress**, is depicted as a beautiful young Mer wearing a revealing dress. Her symbol is a jet-black raven, often with purple eyes. She is the goddess of night and shadow, or that which lies within the dark. She is the patron goddess of thieves and any who would desire to stay hidden in the shadows.
* **Peryite**, also referred to as the **Taskmaster**, is depicted as a green four-legged dragon with a long body and neck. His symbol is the same as his depiction, a thin, long dragon. He is the god of tasks, the natural order, and pestilence.
* **Sanguine**, also referred to as the **Lord of Desire**, is depicted as a short, stout red demon. His symbol is a blooming red rose, the likeness of his artifact, the Sanguine Rose. His is the sphere of hedonistic revelry, debauchery, and passionate indulgences of darker natures. His likeness often appeared etched onto the doorways of brothels within the Empire.
* **Vaermina**, also referred to as the **Weaver of the Panoply**, is depicted as a middle-aged woman in dark purple robes and a tall staff or spear. She is the goddess of dreams and nightmares, able to instil bountiful inspiration into those who pray to her through vivid dreams or terrible nightmares.

## Practices

### Worship

Important to worshippers was the religious principle known as the Path to Alaxon, a value which informs how a pious worshipper should lead their life, and which still exists today in the Church of Alaxon. The Path to Alaxon emphasises a desire for perfection in all things, encouraging worshippers to strive for such perfection in their own lives as best they can. Alvarlism used the principle to justify their practices of slavery, incest, and much more in order to keep their people "pure and perfect". The principle was eventually done away with after the Alessian Slave Rebellion by Alessia I Paravant when creating her Faith of the Eight, though it remains intact within the Church of Alaxon's doctrines and practices.