Mara

“	Know, penitent, that Mara is always with you. Within your breast beats her love and affection. The symbol of her floral star adorns the walls at the wedding chapel. Her priests tend to the needs of husband and wife. And always is her gaze upon the young. To complete your venerations here, intone: "Fivefold blessings upon the lost and lovelorn. The Heart pumps the blood that connects us across the Aurbis. May her grace always be upon me.	„
	~ The Heart of Love

“	Speak through me, Y'ffre. Tell us of the drum-play of Mara, who beat out a pulse against the darkness that gnawed Old Ehlnofey. Mara, whose eyes glitter like hot coals, known of mer and knowing mer, mother of a thousand-thousand children. She who looks at Arkay's form and does not blush, but breathes deep the scent of Him.	„
	~ The Green Singing

Summary

Mara is the Aedric Goddess of Love, Fertility and Motherhood, and a part of the Pantheon of the Eight Divines. She is one of the Et'Ada, the Original Spirits born through the interplay of Anu and Padomay at the dawn of the universe, who gained individuality and crystallized into being with the creation of Space and Time. She was among the Et'Ada who agreed with Lorkhan's plan to create the Mortal Plane, though it is unknown if she was tricked into binding herself to the Mundus, or did so willingly for the sake of creation.

Mara is a nearly-universal deity and is found on virtually all cultures of Tamriel and beyond. As a goddess of love and fertility, Mara is seen as the mother of all living things, and is thus sometimes associated with Nir - the cosmic feminine principle of the Annuad. Mara is usually seen as the wife of the Dragon God Akatosh, whether he be in his Altmeri, Cyrodilic, or Khajiiti aspects, although not always. In Hammerfell and Yokuda before she is known as Morwha, a fertility goddess and merely the favorite of Ruptuga's many wives - though she is also described as having many arms, as to grab more husbands for herself. Meanwhile to the Nords of Skyrim Mara is the Handmaiden of Kyne and the Tear-Wife of Shor, and couldn't be more distant from Alduin.

More broadly, Mara is considered - particularly by the Altmer - to be a goddess of great cosmic significance. She is the mother of all creation, and is said to exist in the beauty of all living things. Matrimonial vows sworn before her also take symbolic meaning, for they make a reality of the love felt by the couple, much like the vows proclaimed by the Divines at creation made the world itself real. Finally, the beating of Mara's heart - whose pulsing is akin to the music of a drum - is believed to pump the divine blood which connects all souls throughout the Aurbis, for the love of one is the love of all, and Mara's love lives within the beating of all hearts.

Powers and Stats

Tier: High 1-B | Low 1-A | High 1-A

Name: Mara (Also called Morwha). Known by many titles, such as Mother Mara, Mother Mild, The Divine Mother, Our Mother Above, The Mother Cat, The Bearer of Love, The Patron of Marriage, The Teat Goddess, The Tear-Wife of Shor, The Wolf, etc.

Origin: The Elder Scrolls

Gender: Inapplicable. Depicted and referred to as female.

Age: Inapplicable.

Classification: Aedric Divine, Goddess of Love, Fertility and Motherhood, Et'Ada

Powers and Abilities:

• Aedroth
• Et'Ada
• Unbound

Abstract Existence (Type 1. Gods are described as "manifest metaphors" and their actions as "ideologies given skin," existing as aspects of the Aurbis that each personify a specific concept, existing not as mere beings, but as the ideas themselves), Magic, Spatial Manipulation, Avatar Creation, Cosmic Awareness, Creation, Reality Warping, Higher-Dimensional Manipulation, Life and Death Manipulation, 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.), 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, and even incomplete deities such as Vivec can resurrect themselves at will from the timeless world of the gods), 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), Soul Manipulation, Large Size (Type 10), Sound Manipulation and Information Manipulation (The entirety of the Aurbis is, in fact, a song, 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, making myth and metaphor manifest)

All previous powers and abilities on an immensely greater scale, as well as: Acausality (Type 5. Gods of Mara's ken are completely beyond linear time and reside in a state where all events are always happening simultaneously, being as such unbound by cause, duration, consequence and eventuality, with their lives being described as unable to support most of the qualities of a narrative. Can access fully static states of existence outside of Aurbic Time, in which all of her actions occur eternally and continuously, even when, from a linear perspective, they are already long accomplished), Existence Erasure (The Et'Ada are stated to be capable of submitting othe spirits to "sithite erasure."), greatly enhanced Law Manipulation and Physics Manipulation (The Convention of the Et'Ada eternally defines and shapes the laws and nature of the mortal plane from outside of time, and ensures Lorkhan is left bound in place, unable to return from death as Gods do), Large Size (Type 11)

All previous abilities to unfathomably greater degrees, as well as Transduality (Type 2) and Beyond-Dimensional Existence (Type 2)

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) | Low Outerverse level (Mara, much like the majority of the Eight Divines, was among the Et'Ada who made their domains and homes within Aetherius, the ocean of pure magic that encompasses and exists in a "more real" state compared to the Mundus and the infinitely-dimensioned void of Oblivion, being a greater infinity compared to it, and who themselves assisted in shaping the Aurbis into its current form in the beginning of time. Her heart is said to pump the blood that connects all beings throughout the Aurbis) | High Outerverse level (In their original states, the Et'Ada were entities that partook in the primordial interplay between Anu and Padomay, existing as sparks of divinity directly descended from their first interaction, before everything else came to existence, and being the primal state of being which Ruling Kings of the Aurbis return to through their attainment of CHIM)

Speed: Omnipresent within the Mundus | Omnipresent | Immeasurable

Lifting Strength: Immeasurable

Striking Strength: High Hyperverse level | Low Outerverse level | High Outerverse level

Durability: High Hyperverse level | Low Outerverse level | High Outerverse level

Stamina: Infinite

Range: At least Low Complex Multiversal | High Outerversal

Standard Equipment: The Chalice of Mara

Intelligence: Nigh-Omniscient

Weaknesses: Much like the other Aedra, she is bound to the plane of Mundus | None notable

Gallery

A temple of Mara in Skyrim

A statue of Mara in Cyrodiil

A depiction of Morwha

Nordic illustration depicting Mara as the Wolf Totem

Ama Nin, a mortal incarnation of Mara

Others

Notable Victories:

Notable Losses:

Inconclusive Matches:

Discussions

Discussion threads involving Mara