Lore talk:Molag Bal

Dark Brotherhood

I removed the reference to the Dark Brotherhood because the Daggerfall Factions Database clearly indicates they are a sub-group of Mephala, not Molag Bal. Further research reveals the two Daedra are enemies in Daggerfall. ⌈Uniblab 00:16, 13 January 2007 (EST)⌋

First Era

What city did Molag Bal help destroy at the end of the First Era? I know Mehrunes Dagon leveled Mournhold, but what did Molag Bal do? - Emerald Melios 06:33, 13 July 2007 (EDT)

Gilverdale, Valenwood Aldage 18:32, 5 October 2007 (EDT)

For "king of rape" are they usuing the old definition of rape meaning conquer/enslave? Im guessing so -GImodon — Unsigned comment by Gimodon (talk • contribs) at 05:25 on 10 February 2008 (GMT)

Both, I think. One can be seen as stemming from the other, and many gods stand for both very civilized things and the more basic concepts that fuel them. The god of trade stood for something before the elves started bartering.Temple-Zero 18:50, 5 September 2008 (EDT)

Can anyone Confirm?

"Molag Bal also has a winged twilight daughter named Molag Grunda who was in love with a Frost Atronach named Nomeg Gwai. Molag Bal did not approve of the relationship and had the Nerevarine kill both of them so they could be punished for eternity."

I moved that from the article. I searched the site, but couldn't find anything to back this up.. If anyone could confirm this..? Darkle 20:09, 13 July 2008 (EDT)

Yes, check A Cure for Vampirism for details. --Benould^•T•C 20:20, 13 July 2008 (EDT)

Ah.. thank you. Darkle 20:46, 13 July 2008 (EDT)

Vampirism

I think that it should be somewhere in the article that he created the first vampire if no one minds i'll put it in myself Kingbaby 02:04, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Sure, Go ahead!--^Corevette₇₈₉ 02:11, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

King of Rape

Noticed that references to this title were removed. You all decide it wasn't family-friendly enough? It's part of the lore, it is who Molag Bal is. I'd put it back in, but you'd just take it out again. — Unsigned comment by 2.120.176.148 (talk) at 21:28 on 30 November 2011 (UTC)

An anonymous user removed it. I've readded it. Thanks for pointing that out. --AKB ^{Talk Cont Mail} 21:28, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Amulets and Rings added from Dawnguard DLC of Skyrim

Accorgin the quests rings of blood magic and amulets of power of the night, shouldn't be considered artifacts of Molag Bal? because when you ask about their orignin to Feran Sadri he says that these items could have been given to ancient vampire lords. — Unsigned comment by Criswolf09 (talk • contribs) at 18:43 on 22 June 2013

They are related to Molag Bal, sure, but they aren't artifacts. We only list artifacts here because otherwise the pages would become filled with any item even mildly linked to a Daedric Prince. Artifacts are unique and tend to appear in multiple games with significant lore behind them, which these rings don't (yet at least). Jeancey (talk) 18:48, 22 June 2013 (GMT)

UOL: Mace of Molag Bal

A little piece of UOL is being transcluded from Lore:Mace of Molag Bal; it's from an interview with Lawrence Schick, and corroborates existing information about the mace present in Crafting Motif 14: Daedric Style. -MolagBallet (talk) 19:06, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

I mean, yeah, came from the mouth of the Schickmaster himself, doesn't get any more reliable than that. Would be nice if it was in an in-game book, but what're ya gonna do right? Interview wasn't done by Bethesda/Zenimax but I think it was done on their behalf The Rim of the Sky (talk) 00:44, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

No issue with the transclusion, but in general video references are such a bad source for longterm archival. We should look into putting this info somewhere on the wiki rather than just presuming a YouTube video will always be there. As can be seen with the Twitch VOD mass deletions, that won't always be the case. —⁠Legoless (talk) 18:13, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

I agree with you on the subject of archival. Where should we put video transcriptions? Do you have an opinion on what such a page would be called, or what we'd name the category these transcriptions are filed under? Keeping them in Generalspace seems like it might work, given that the VOD references I've seen are usually classified as UOL. -MolagBallet (talk) 01:31, 27 February 2021 (UTC)

Reference Groups

For documentation purposes, I'm going to note my recent changes to the page.

There are over 222 references on this page. It was difficult to scan through them all in the references section, so I've separated all of the refs into reference groups for Quest Events, Quest Dialogue and NPC Dialogue unrelated to any quests. I've already separated books and Loremaster's Archive texts from the other references, and figured the ungrouped references could be separated further to increase readability. I'm already aware of discrepancies caused by refs such as Yushiha and Gwendis's dialogue, which aren't in their respective groups because they're transcluded from other pages that lack such groups. -MolagBallet (talk) 01:00, 27 February 2021 (UTC)

I don't know why jack complained about the references in the first place, yes there's 222 references, yes that's a lot, but that's… a GOOD thing? To me the more specific the source is the better, and I don't care how specific it gets, cuz it'll only help more. The average wikipedia article has like 350 refs so its not a big deal. While the change may have organized the refs, the tradeoff was not worth it; each ref went from [60] to [BK 60] or etc which just made... the refs take up more space on the page now and it makes everything longer, the only upside being the References section is now easier to read.

I dunno about u guys but in the scenarios where I bother looking at a ref its cuz I read the sentence first, I don't care for refs as a whole when reading, and I don't know anybody that goes to an article and looks at the reference section just to read it. If I'm looking for whether a source is cited, I do CTRL + F, simple as that. I appreciate all the work you've done to sort it MolagBallet, but jacksol's complaint was invalid to begin with, the issue was "there's TOO MANY references for it to look aesthetic" and that's not a thing that needs fixing. It should be changed back. The Rim of the Sky (talk) 02:00, 27 February 2021 (UTC)

I am leaning towards agreeing with The Rim of the Sky here. Wikipedia is usually a good example of what we should do when we get into new areas (like an article having hundreds of references, this is a great problem to have!), and Wikipedia does not put them in different groups like this. While we could adopt this method, I think it would just create slightly more work for no to a small benefit at best. --AKB ^{Talk Cont Mail} 19:34, 27 February 2021 (UTC)

First or Third Corner?

Before I forget: I've been meaning to bring up a minor discrepancy from information from Morrowind. Molag Bal is referred to as the "First Corner" and the "Third Corner" of the House of Troubles.

The following passage appears in 36 Lessons of Vivec, Sermon 12, referring to him as the First Corner:

At this point the First Corner of the House of Troubles, the Prince Molag Bal, made his presence known.

However, Molag Bal is referred to as the Third Corner by Tholer Saryoni and in the quest journal for Molag Bal of the House of Troubles, and in both of the spells you receive as rewards for the quest (Blessings of the Third Corner and Command of the Third Corner). An excerpt from the quest stage reads as follows:

Tholer Saryoni told me that the Third Corner of the House of Troubles is Molag Bal. I must find the statue of Molag Bal in Bal Ur and recite Vivec's "Four Corners."

I'm inclined to believe that he's the Third Corner, as we have dialogue, a quest stage and two spells to go off of, and I've only found one piece of evidence referring to him as the First so far. However, I'm curious to see what other people think, and I'd like to give anyone with an opinion the opportunity to weigh in.

You may be thinking, "Does this really matter? This is such a minute detail, and isn't really all that important compared to the rest of the section. Aren't you just wasting your time?" And you'd be absolutely correct. I am wasting my time because this issue is utterly inconsequential. However, I figured I should be the first to bring it up here because I noticed it, and if I don't address it here, somebody else with an eye for unbelievably minor details would have found it at a later date anyways. --MolagBallet (talk) 01:20, 27 February 2021 (UTC)

Vivec is arguably the best source out of the lot considering the dunmeri religion is all based off of him (and his fellow tribunes) and his teachings. That said, this wouldn’t be the first time something in the sermons conflicts with something the temple says which in theory is the teachings of Vivec as well. For me, I would probably atleast acknowledge on the page he’s referred to as both the first and third corner and let the readers decide which one is bestDcking20 (talk) 02:57, 27 February 2021 (UTC)

Dcking is correct, the best course of action is mentioning that he is referred to as both. However, if there is no other error like this for the other Corners of the House of Troubles (which believe to be the case, from an initial look), I would add a note that mentions that he is the only one who has been contradictorily referred to as taking two different positions. --AKB ^{Talk Cont Mail} 07:55, 27 February 2021 (UTC)

I dunno if one source takes precedence over the other, whichever one shows up in more sources would the move. Really I'd go with "a Corner of the House of Troubles" over "the First or Third Corner of the House of Troubles" since that is lengthy and confusing to read.This sentence is grammatically correct... but its wordy and hard to read. It undermines the writers message and the word choice is bland. The Rim of the Sky (talk) 22:21, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

UOL Proposal: Imperial Census of Daedra Lords - Soul Gems

I propose the addition of the following from General:Imperial Census of Daedra Lords:

"...That Molag Bal is allowed his holiday at all hearkens back to a treaty of ancient times, when he reputedly lent his infernal power to the creation of the first soulgems."

This information is corroborated by The Legend of Vastarie, wherein Mannimarco and Vastarie enter Coldharbour and steal their first black soul gems from the Lord of Brutality. Excerpted:

"It is to this end that she worked with Mannimarco after leaving Artaeum, searching for a way to trap souls as one might capture lesser Daedra.
Believing the secret lay with Molag Bal, the two conspired to enter Coldharbour and wrest it from the father of vampires himself. Together, they hatched a plan.
With a brash courage known only to the young, Mannimarco and his followers held open a portal to the Prince's realm. Ever thirsting for adventure, it was Vastarie who entered its depths and returned with a cache of black crystals the likes of which they had never seen.
To Mannimarco, they were perfect. Small, capable of containing even the most willful of souls, and apparently indestructible."

We have in-game evidence that Molag Bal is an early source of soul gems; the Imperial Census bolsters existing information. Vastarie and Mannimarco learned that Molag Bal is a provider of soul gems, an implication being that he created them, and the Census claims outright that he is rumored to have had a hand in creating them. The information could appear as follows:

Molag Bal is rumored to be responsible for the creation of the first soul gems.{{ref|group=UOL|[[General:Imperial Census of Daedra Lords|Imperial Census of Daedra Lords]]}} This theory appears to have some grain of truth to it; Mannimarco and his cohorts, believing the Lord of Brutality held the secret to trapping souls, stole their first black soul gems from Coldharbour some time after the King of Worms' expulsion from Artaeum.{{ref|{{Cite Book|The Legend of Vastarie}}}}

This information could be planted either in the History section or under Coldharbour, specifically where the article mentions Molag Bal's fascination with soul gems. -MolagBallet (talk) 02:14, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

Imperial Census has been the bases of many things that canon has be built upon. Take Nocturnal being the Ur-dra for example. Really, its already used for many lore articles, I feel at this point it is nearly official enough to use without a talk page discussion in lore pages.

As for wording, I would change the title used from Lord of Brutality to Harvester of Souls since it is more relevant to the paragraph. Zebendal (talk) 02:49, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

I think it should be fine to add, the Imperial Census is basically canon considering all the stuff it first mentioned that was later used in the games. The Rim of the Sky (talk) 04:21, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

Though I do agree with what's being said, I believe that concepts from this document being used as the basis for in-game lore shouldn't keep us from following our own protocol. I didn't expect too much opposition to the idea, but the least I could do was leave a post on the talk page out of courtesy!

In any case, I've made the suggested change to the title and added the reference. I did end up omitting "of Souls" from the title change; "Harvester of Souls" didn't quite roll off the tongue the way I expected it to in such close proximity to the phrase "held the secret to trapping souls". "Harvester" and "Harvester of Souls" are both used in-universe and close enough in meaning, so I shaved off the last two words. -MolagBallet (talk) 05:41, 11 July 2021 (UTC)