Summary
The Amulet of Kings is absolutely essential to defeating the Daedric menace inOblivion Remastered, but it is far from the only time it has been vital in the long history ofThe Elder Scrolls. Emperors have based their right to rule on simply possessing the Amulet, as only those of Dragonborn blood may wear it.
Much more than a simple MacGuffin, the Amulet has real power stored within it, and it is this power that Martin Septim taps into during the main story ofOblivion Remastered. While it may be gone forever, its story covers thousands of years, and gets pretty weird at times. This is everything a budding Champion of Cyrodiil should know about the Amulet of Kings.
The Amulet of Kings Was Formed Thousands of Years Before Oblivion Remastered
All the way back inThe Elder Scrollsuniverse’s most mythic days, Lorkhan and the Aedra created Mundus. The Divines, as many of them would become known, gave up their power to form the Earthbones, becoming Nirn and the various planets in the sky. But only when the work was completed did it dawn on the gods just how much power they had given up.
Convening at the Adamantine Tower in the Iliac Bay, the Aedra accused Lorkhan of tricking them, taking their divine power and using it to create fleeting mortal things. Trinimac reached into Lorkhan’s chest and pulled out the god’s heart, and Auriel, the elven version of Akatosh, fastened it to an arrow. In one shot, theHeart of Lorkhanwent sailing over Tamriel to land in Morrowind, but a single drop of Lorkhan’s blood landed in an Ayleid well along the way, crystallizing as the bright red Chim-el Adabal, the Amulet of Kings.
The First Empire Was Formed With the Amulet of Kings
After its creation, the Amulet would disappear for many centuries. In the early First Era, the Ayleid elves were dominant in Cyrodiil, and they treated the native humans of the region cruelly, torturing them in Daedric rituals. On one particularly dark night, Alessia, an ordinary slave, prayed to Akatosh to help her and her people. In response, the gods listened, and they sent aid to her. The demigod Minotaur Morihaus and the crusader Pelinal Whitestrake would join theAlessian slave rebellionto overthrow the Ayleids.
In the aftermath of their victory, it is said that Akatosh descended to personally gift Alessia with theAmulet of Kings, forming the very covenant between gods and mortals that Martin Septim invoked to banish Mehrunes Dagon. Alessia and her descendents were marked by a Dragonborn heritage, and with a dragon-blooded ruler on the throne, Akatosh ensured that the barriers between the mortal realm and Oblivion would be sealed.
During her reign, the legendaryKhajit thief god Rajhinstole the Amulet briefly, just one of his many feats of impressive thievery. Upon Alessia’s death, her empire continued, passing the Amulet of Kings down from heir to heir. But the empire was not to last forever, and two thousand years later, the Amulet was lost in a civil war.
The Reman Empire and the Soulburst
Several hundred years later, it was found again by King Hrol, who, according to legend, got up to some business with a spirit of St Alessia wearing the Amulet. The legend is incredibly dubious, and some sources claim that the spirit was the land itself, but either way, a hill formed from the union, and aninfant Reman Cyrodiilwas found on it with the Amulet of Kings embedded in his forehead.
Seeing the incredible sight of a baby with a gem in its head, Reman’s following quickly grew, and the infant was placed on the Ruby Throne, where he supposedly spoke with the voice of an adult. Once again, Akatosh gave his blessing, and Reman began his reconquest of Cyrodiil, at one point coming under Akaviri invasion, which abruptly ended when theTsaesci of Akavirlay their weapons at his feet. After uniting the armies of Tamriel and Akavir, the Second Empire began, and the Dragonfire ceremony was formally instituted.
The Reman Empirewould last far shorter than the Alessian one, though, and the Amulet’s history during the reign of the Akaviri Potentates is foggy. It would be lost again in the fifth century of the Second Era as the Interregnum began, only to be recovered by Varen Aquilerios. Tricked into believing he could become Dragonborn, Varen was betrayed by the necromancer Mannimarco, who used the Amulet to initiate the Soulburst, beginning the process of the Planemeld with Molag Bal’s realm Coldharbour.
One ofVaren’s companions, Sai Sahan, managed to flee the site of the ritual with the Amulet, taking it to Sancre Tor, the site of Reman’s birth, until it could be claimed by the Vestige to stop Mannimarco. By communing with Akatosh, the Vestige defeated Molag Bal’s attempt to invade Tamriel and reclaimed their soul in the process. In the aftermath, Abnur Tharn left Cyrodiil with the Amulet, and it disappeared from records for centuries.
Tiber Septim Finds the Amulet of Kings
WhenTalos of Atmora, laterTiber Septim, fought as a general in the service of king Cuhlecain in the late Second Era, he won a great battle at Sancre Tor. The ancient site of many battles had long been a site of special importance to budding empires all the way back to the Alessians, and this time it was no different. Tiber Septim is said to have recovered the Amulet, able to wear it thanks to his Dragonborn blood.
Tiber Septim would not be a general for long, as King Cuhlecain would die in suspicious circumstances. As he was the most senior and respected of Cuhlecain’s subordinates, and already bore the blood of dragons, Tiber Septim took up the mantle of emperor, and soon the Septim Empire began.
The Amulet of Kings was once again at the heart of designating an emperor’s right to rule, following the Septim line through the centuries, until it fell into the hands of its penultimate bearer. Seeing visions in his dreams, emperor Uriel Septim VII found a prisoner he had foreseen and entrusted it with them. Following his assassination, the Amulet would fall into the hands of Mankar Camoran, key to disrupting the covenant with Akatosh and unleashed Mehrunes Dagon. In a last act of defiance, theHero of Kvatchwould slay Mankar, recovering the Amulet for Martin to destroy, becoming the avatar of Akatosh, sealing the covenant forever.
The Amulet of Kings Might Be a Symbol of Lorkhan, Not Akatosh
The Amulet of Kings is considered within the Empire to be the divine blessing of Akatosh, the dragon god of time, and chief of theImperial Nine Divinespantheon. As recounted above, it was given to Alessia by him, and has since been blessed with the god’s power, with Akatosh manifesting in times of great need. But there is a heretical thought that has been passed down in hushed whispers: the Amulet may actually be a gift from the dead god Lorkhan.
To understand why this theory exists, it is important to know whyLorkhan is so controversial. To the elves, Lorkhan was the trickster who betrayed them, and had his heart thrown into Red Mountain. He is seen as a god of men, and the one responsible for trapping their immortal forms in a mundane, finite realm. When Alessia’s slave rebellion was successful, she had the difficult job of uniting both men and elves under one pantheon of gods. Lorkhan was not welcomed by the elves, so in his place, they came to a compromise, mixing human elements with the elven god Auriel to create Akatosh.
Some players have noticed that because Akatosh was created after the rebellion, Alessia could not possibly have prayed to him to help her defeat the Ayleids. This is where the theory that, in some form, it was Lorkhan who answered her prayers, but disguised himself as another to avoid elvish persecution.The Chim-el Adabalis supposed to be a droplet of his blood, after all.
The presence of thecrusader Pelinal Whitestrake, the elf-hating, enigmatic warrior, has further solidified this theory. His true identity has always been a topic of discussion, with him shouting Reman’s name in battle, two millennia before Reman’s birth, and he would not be a natural ally of an elf-influenced god. Pelinal has been compared to a Shezzarine, an avatar of Shezzar, the Cyrodiilic name for Lorkhan, but when someone suggested that to him, they died in mysterious circumstances. It is almost like Lorkhan wants to keep his presence quiet.
One thing is certain, however: the Amulet of Kings is gone from the world, and theEmpire of the Fourth Erais very different for it. With no more Dragonborn legitimacy, the Amulet will be seen as a symbol of better days long past, when great heroes rose to challenge the Daedric Princes themselves, and Akatosh, or possibly Lorkhan, watched over all men.
