Summary

Arkay is the Aedric God of Life & Death, and a part of the Pantheon of the Eight Divines. Strangely, unlike the other deities of Mundus, Arkay is seemingly not one of the Et'Ada birthed through the interplay of Anu and Padomay at the dawn of existence, but rather a being who ascended to godhood after the Mortal Plane's creation.

According to a popular, though unlikely legend, Arkay was once an ordinary shopkeeper who collected books to satisfy his passion for knowledge. Upon finding an ancient tome containing mysteries of life and death, he studied it to the point of obsession, becoming consumed by the secrets of its pages and ignoring everything else in his life, which made him fall mortally ill. As he laid in his deathbed, Arkay saw a vision of the goddess Mara and begged her to allow him to continue his studies beyond death so that he could teach them to mortals. In reply, Mara transformed Arkay into the God of Life & Death. Other, more believable myths simply hold that Arkay either did not exist before, or was an extremely lesser spirit who obtained power and purpose as consequence of, Mundus' creation. As the very concepts of Life & Death were meaningless and indistinct from one another before the invention of the Mortal Plane, this idea certainly holds merit.

Whatever the truth, Arkay is a popular deity in Tamriel, particularly in societies where Akatosh, his father, is seem as too distant and incomprehensible by the layman, allowing him to act as the intermediary between mortals and the King of the Gods. Arkay is often associated with the harvest and agriculture, as the cycle of the seasons is akin to the cycle of life & death, and his cults are usually responsible for handling funeral and burial rites. Perhaps the most unusual interpretation of Arkay is found in Skyrim, where he is known as Orkey. He is viewed as a treacherous deity, and an enemy of Shor and the Nords, who steals the lives of mortals and condemns them to unworthy deaths of illness and old age, as opposed to glorious death in violent combat.

Powers and Stats

Tier: High 1-B

Name: Arkay (Also called Ark'ay, RKHET, Orkey, To-Arcka, Tu'whacca). Known by many titles, such as The God of Birth and Death, The Lord of the Wheel of Life, The Tricky God, The God of Nobody Really Cares, The Snake, The Old Knocker, etc.

Origin: The Elder Scrolls

Gender: Inapplicable. Depicted and referred to as male.

Age: Inapplicable.

Classification: Aedric Divine, God of Life & Death, Possibly a Former Mortal

Powers and Abilities: Abstract Existence (Type 1. Gods are described as "manifest metaphors"^[1] and their actions as "ideologies given skin,"^[2] existing as aspects of the Aurbis that each personify a specific concept,^[3] existing not as mere beings, but as the ideas themselves^[4]), Magic, Avatar Creation, Cosmic Awareness, Creation, Reality Warping, Higher-Dimensional Manipulation, Life and Death Manipulation (Created, and exists as, the concepts of life and death themselves, and administers the continuation of their cycle throughout the Mundus), Conceptual Manipulation (Type 1. Immensely above minor gods such as the Ideal Masters, who are stated to live in a platonic ideal of their own making beyond the Mundus.^[5]), Time Manipulation, Immortality (Types 1, 2, 3, 5 and 9. Gods are unbound by the concepts of Life and Death, which came to be during the creation of the Mundus and only applies to mortals,^[6] and even incomplete deities such as Vivec can resurrect themselves at will from the timeless world of the gods^[7]), Power Bestowal, Law Manipulation, Physics Manipulation, Omnipresence, Nigh-Omniscience, Causality Manipulation (The Divines are stated to be capable of modifying both the past and the future at their leisure^[8]), Soul Manipulation, Large Size (Type 10), Sound Manipulation and Information Manipulation (The entirety of the Aurbis is, in fact, a song,^[9] and entities with divine power are capable of manipulating the underlying tones of existence by acknowledging that principle, shaping reality through the manipulation of stories and archetypes,^[10] making myth^[11] and metaphor^[12] manifest)

Attack Potency: High Hyperverse level (Should be comparable in power to the Daedric Princes of Oblivion, as a portion of the Eight Aedra's power contained in the Amulet of Kings was enough to empower the Vestige such that they were able to battle against and defeat Molag Bal within his own realm of Coldharbour, and Mannimarco was likewise confident that the Amulet would allow him to overthrow Molag Bal and ascend to godhood^[13])

Speed: Omnipresent within the Mundus

Lifting Strength: Immeasurable

Striking Strength: High Hyperverse level

Durability: High Hyperverse level

Stamina: Infinite

Range: At least Low Complex Multiversal, likely higher

Standard Equipment: None Notable.

Intelligence: Nigh-Omniscient

Weaknesses: Bound to the Mundus

Gallery

Statue of Arkay in Sancre Tor

Statue of Arkay in Cheydinhal

Drawing of the Yokudan Tu'Whacca

Nordic illustration depicting Orkey as the Snake Totem

The Keeper Of The Hall, an Avatar of Tu'whacca

Notable Matchups

Victories:

Losses:

Inconclusive:

References

Discussions