Why would you worship the Aedra when they only passively respond to your prayers with minor half-thought boons? The Daedra are always up in our mortal business. Did Akatosh do anything to stop his child Alduin from subjugating humanity? The answer is no. Akatosh never even appeared during the Oblivion crisis, he only gave some of his infinite power to a mortal, who was on the ground actually doing all of the work, when the Daedra were on the cusp of entering Nirn! None of the other Aedra ever do anything, presumably they just live their days revering in all of the unearnt praise they get from the imperial cult and other temples that worship the eight divines.

Now I’m not saying all Aedra are bad - only the eight divines who aren’t doing anything of substance but recieving the endless praise of mortals. Lorkhan is cool and worthy of worship, given how he died to make this whole thing. If he was alive today, he’d love us mortals as much as we could love him. Magnus too is pretty cool, but only because of how useful magic is to everyday live (or how useful it would be if levitation wasn’t banned by those Aedra-worshipping twattish Imperials). Also, Magnus gave us the sun and the stars. That’s worth worshipping alone. I’m privy of a bit of sun-worship during nice summer days.

Compare the Aedra to the Daedra. The Daedra actually listen to us when we worship them, more often than not literally showing up for us. They talk to any devout follower, and more importantly they actually help all of the heroes that keep the world liveable. The Nerevarine, for example, champion of Azura, constantly talked to that Daedra and expelled the blight and exposed Almsivi as the false gods they were. They were constantly picking up artefacts gifted by the daedra. They didn’t even need to worship that Daedra: do a good deed and you’ll get something in return.

The Champion of Cyrodil was also picking up a bunch of things from the other Daedric princes that would help them help Martin Septim stop Mehrunes Dagon from making a right mess of the place. And, as is rarely known, this Champion of Cyrodil went on to become a daedric prince themselves, Sheogorath the Mad, making Sheogorath a pretty cool guy in my books. The Last Dragonborn too ended up getting a bunch of really useful things from the daedric princes including the dagger he used to kill Alduin and send him back into the hands of Akatosh, who will no doubt continue to do nothing for anyone but threaten us with the end of time.

It’s also obvious that we should not worship the Daedra without careful consideration. The reason most people don’t worship daedric princes is because of the ones that just want to kill and murder and plot. They give a bad reputation to the rest. It’s not like “Daedra” is an actual category anyway, it’s just a word we use to distinguish the gods that helped create Mundus and those that didn’t. Mehrunes Dagon has no ties to Azura.

I think everyone is worthy of their interpretation of the Daedra. A lot of my family worship the “good Daedra”, but I’m not too sure Boethia and Mephala really want the best for us. I’ll need to continue my theological studies to make properly formed opinions, but here’s my breakdown of the real good daedric princes, worthy of worship.

Azura is by far the best Daedra and God of them all. This is exactly why I’m a priestess of Azura. She, above all, wants us to love ourselves and love her. These are already good principles to live with: loving yourself. Her domain - dawn and dusk - is a reminder of the passage of time and that we should all work with the time we have. She also gave us moon sugar, and her greatest devotees get really cool blue eyes.

Clavicus Vile is also a pretty respectable Daedric prince. Now, I might be influenced by my familial ties to the cult of the good daedra, but clavicus vile seen as a tester of our lives is pretty fine by me. And all they challenge us with is bargains and deals. I think we are entitled to our mistakes. Clavicus Vile is also a politician, a champion of political systems and a pretty good representation of how messed up they can be. Plus, it’s rarely known but Clavicus Vile really helped the Nerevarine with getting enough funds to take down the false Tribunal gods through his companion, Barbas, who was living in Caldera at the time under the name “Creeper”.

Hermaeus Mora is also pretty cool in my eyes. Sure, common portrayals show him as collector of “forbidden knowledge”, but why is it forbidden anyway? Why do we forbade knowledge? In my opinion, knowing things is pretty cool. I’ve never been to Apocrypha myself, but we know from the Last Dragonborn that it’s got pretty much every book, not just the “forbidden” ones. On that note, it’s not very well known because of how recent it was, but the Last Dragonborn is Hermaeus Mora’s champion. It turns out that’s what the title “last Dragonborn” always meant - the last dragonborn to serve Hermaeus Mora like how Miraak was the first one to serve him. Prophecy just works out like that sometimes, I guess. If the last dragonborn decided to serve him, then I think there has to be something pretty cool about Hermaeus Mora that worshippers of the eight divines have gaslit us into thinking is actually a bad thing.

Meridia is a pretty uncontroversially good Daedra. She loves life, what more needs to be said? The Dragonborn even served as her champion for a while and probably still visits her on weekends between his work in Apocrypha. Who needs Mara, who has all of the problems of the Aedra, when you have Meridia, who has all of the benefits of the Daedra

Now I don’t really know what’s going on with Nocturnal, and neither do her followers, but I think she’s got enough nuance to be a good daedra. She showed up to oppose Sotha Sil at one point. She’s also connected to the Thieves guild? I don’t like the thieves guild all that much, but I recognise they have a place in society. She’s also the most powerful Daedra, and although that doesn’t mean we should worship her she doesn’t seem overtly bad. And she does show up for mortals, like all Daedra as I’ve already talked about. So that’s probably worth the worship.

Sanguine is on it. He’s one of the daedric princes that are just in it for a bit of fun (Like Clavicus Vile), and I am down for that. Revelry and lust are definitely parts of life to live by. I don’t have that much more to say about Sanguine, but we all know what he did with the Dragonborn.

Sheogorath’s also pretty good. What is creativity without a little bit of madness? He also gave us Skooma, and the Golden Saints. Plus, he’s the Champion of Cyrodil, as I’ve already mentioned. Now, I think it’s worth it to be a bit weary about Sheogorath, but life without a little madness isn’t very fun or cool.

That’s all of the Daedra I think are worthy of worship. I feel inclined to also give my notes on the others. While some are clearly anti-social, a few come with more nuance. Again, I might be influenced by the idea of all not good daedra as “testers”, but I can see evil when I see it.

Hircine is personally not my thing, and the enjoyment from explicitly gained from hunting mortals is not on. But, a god of the hunt is still a respectable figure. Malacath must have something in him too given how many Orcs worship him. I’ve met some pretty upstanding orcs, and they do have a “code of malacath” worship of him that does forbid murder. I might be biased given my familial ties to the Reach.

I think Boethiah, Mephala, Namira, and Peryite are the real Daedra that test us. To depart from the ideas of the cult of good daedra, they aren’t explicitly trying to test us, but we must recognise that some Daedra might break neutral when it comes to harm on mortals.

Mehrunes Dagon and Molag Bal are very clearly evil daedra that we should actively fight against for they only stand for our deaths and subjugation, and nothing else.

I also haven’t mentioned Jyggalag yet, but he’s basically an Aedra in everything but name. Order is all that the Aedra ever get off on. If he hadn’t opposed the creation of Mundus then he wouldn’t be a Daedra. He’s basically the prime example of why the terms Aedra and Daedra don’t actually mean anything.

That’s my final thesis. If we are to pick a pantheon of gods to worship on the basis of practicality, we are to worship Azura, Meridia, Hermaeus Mora, Nocturnal, Sanguine, Sheogorath, and Clavicus Vile in that order. Worshiping them will actually mean something, and they aren’t bad at all.

To re-iterate, I am not hostile to the eight divines, or the nine divines if you’re into Talos which I kind of am. They are clearly good gods with positive domains, and dedication to them will be better for humanity than the worship of, say, Sheogorath. But they won’t give you anything apart from minor boons. Let this new cult be known as the Cult of Mirrors, the Active Covenant, the Doctrine of Fractured Stars.

In my proposed pantheon, the first three are the most important and are definitely worthy of our worship. They have done a lot for the world, are clearly good, and will likely continue to do good especially if we help them.

Thanks for listening to my ramblings.