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"CHIM. Those who know it can reshape the land. Witness the home of the Red King Once Jungled."
—Commentaries on the Mysterium Xarxes, Book Three

CHIM (/tʃɪm/) has been described as the secret syllable of royalty. The state of CHIM allows for freedom from all known laws and mortal limitations of Convention created by the Aedra. This state of being is considered similar to the Divine power the Gods had prior to Convention, during the Dawn Era. However it is free of the disaster that troubled the Gods, as during the Dawn the physical make-up of the mortal plane and even the timeless continuity of existence itself became unstable as they walked. The state of CHIM can be considered a form of Apotheosis.

Attaining CHIM is a process of reaching an understanding about the true nature of the universe and one's place in it, leading to a simultaneous comprehension of the full scope of existence, at risk of losing ones individuality. CHIM is capitalized because it is from the Ehlnofex language, the language of the Ehlnofey who are believed to have been the progenitors of the modern races. It is an ancient sigil connoting 'royalty', 'starlight', and 'high splendor'. The actual form of the Sigil in Ehlnofex is that of a Crowned Tower, and so the proper written form of CHIM would be "I"

CHIM

Mankar Camoran's Commentaries on the Mysterium Xarxes, Book Three, begins with "CHIM" in the Daedric alphabet and deals extensively with the topic. It begins with "The Tower touches all the mantles of Heaven [...] and by its apex one can be as he will. More: be as he was and yet changed for all else on that path for those that walk after. This is [...] the secret of how mortals become makers [CHIM^{[citation needed]}], and makers back to mortals." It is said that by knowing CHIM, one experiences an ineffable sense of the godhead, which is what allows for escape from all known restrictions.

The Walking Ways are six interrelated paths to achieving divinity, of which CHIM is the fourth. All paths seem to require some understanding of the Wheel, the structure of the Aurbis. According to Vivec, the first to understand the concept was Lorkhan, whose curiosity and desire for change drove him to the rim of the Wheel and beyond, where he looked back at the Aurbis sideways and thereby learned the name of God: I (as a wheel, observed from the side, is an "I"). Lorkhan then convinced the Aedra to join him in building Mundus, at the hub of the Wheel, in a venture to help others know CHIM and thereby escape all laws which constrained them.. This attempt at CHIM failed, though why it failed has been the subject of intense disagreement and bloodshed from the dawn of creation to the present day. Some attribute the failure to a mistake, others to Lorkhan's malice; the circumstances are unknown, but Vivec seemed to suspect that the so-called failure only occurred so that others might know how not to fail. Vivec, who wrote extensively on CHIM, described it as reaching heaven by violence. He apparently learned of it from Molag Bal.

The supposed state beyond CHIM, and the primary purpose of CHIM and all other Walking Ways, known as Amaranth, is said to involve mantling the Godhead and dreaming in the same way as it, leading to an Exodus from the existing Aurbis. This is said to be the ultimate goal of the Psijic Endeavor, as attaining the Tower as CHIM entails is merely the first step. It is suggested this processs should be not be done alone, lest you repeat the mistakes of those before you.

Notes

• At least one source from the late Second Era thought of Cyrodiil as mostly "endless jungle", yet in TES IV: Oblivion, it is depicted as a land of mostly plains and temperate forests. In that game, Mankar Camoran seems to credit Tiber Septim's use of CHIM with transforming Cyrodiil's climate in order to do away with the jungle. However, Elder Scrolls Online depicts the climate and fauna of Cyrodiil in much the same fashion as the province appeared in Oblivion, yet took place almost three hundred years before Tiber would even be born. Writing in the late Second Era, Phrastus of Elinhir alleged the idea of a climate change in Cyrodiil had arisen in large part thanks to a transcription error, though other scholars of the time who were not ready to write off the whole matter as a myth proposed other theories.
• "Chim" appears in "Chim-el Adabal", another name for the Red Diamond, which is the centerpiece of the Amulet of Kings. In this context, it presumably connotes royalty, though it might also refer to the splendor of the Red Diamond and possibly the Starlight it might have symbolised to the Ayleids as a soul gem.^{[citation needed]}
• In a response to a question about The Elder Scrolls franchise being "all a dream", former Bethesda developer Michael Kirkbride likened achieving CHIM to lucid dreaming. Kirkbride said to "consider your lucid dreams", and called CHIM "Divine Hypnagogia". Lucid dreaming is when somebody realizes they are in a dream, and is commonly related with the ability to control the dream in some way. Hypnagogia is described as the transitional state between wakefulness and sleep, during which lucid dreams may occur.

See Also

• The 36 Lessons of Vivec
• The Monomyth
• Mythic Dawn Commentaries
• Spirit of Nirn, God of Mortals

References

Note: The following references are considered to be unofficial sources. They are included to round off this article and may not be authoritative or conclusive.