As a relishing follow-up to the report on the Tribunal, I thought I would try my hand to satisfy the request of doing a report on the Clockwork Apostles. Fortunately, there is nowhere near as much lore for them as for the Tribunal – in fact, I did not even go over everything in the report; it would probably have been three times longer or more if I had – so this should not be quite as long-winded. Without further ramblings, let’s dive right in.

(Provost Varuni Varel, a high-ranking Apostle)

The Clockwork Apostles were, as you may no doubt have guessed, the devout followers of the Clockwork God himself, Sotha Sil. Residing within the Clockwork Basilica in the Brass Fortress within the Clockwork City, they possess great expertise in magic, machinery, and other skills the Apostles deem worthy; indeed, to become an Apostle one must display some degree of aptitude within one or more of these skills. Among other things, the Apostles were famous for replacing their limbs with “perfect” clockwork prosthetics designed by Sotha Sil himself. This practice is considered to be an expression of their faith to their god as well as a means to improve upon that which they considered to be fundamentally flawed biological anatomy. However, a less known and rather ironic tradition is the practice of enshrining their amputated body parts, though this practice is infrequently observed.

 (Proctor Luciana, an Apostle seen in The Elder Scrolls: Online)

The Apostles are considered elitists to outsiders, often delegating menial tasks to others. They follow the teachings of Deldrise Morvayne – the Fourth Torbillon to Mainspring Ever-Wound; it should be noted a Torbillon is a piece of a clock or watch that makes one full revolution every minute, meaning Morvayne is the fourth “minute” of the Clockwork City in service to Mainspring Ever-Wound, one of the many titles held by Sotha Sil. The Apostles devote their work and their lives towards one, singular goal: Tamriel Final, the final evolution of Nirn.

(cover; the Brass Fortress where the Clockwork Apostles mainly reside)

The Sermons of Deldrise Morvayne seem to speak on the will of Sotha Sil. An eleven volume epic composed of his sermons, they detail the truths of Sotha Sil, which seem to be little more than his philosophies. For example, in Volume 3, Morvayne speaks of "...the Third Truth of Mainspring Ever-Wound is the truth of the Daedra. In the days before the First Ignition, the Chimer people bent their knees to the False Princes: The Webspinner, the Prince of Plots, and the Queen of Dawn and Dusk. I do not use their names, as Name cleaves one from another. You know them well, child of the Tribunal, for every time you bear false witness, or make foolish boasts, you do so in their name. Their words corrode and weaken the heart. Their threats loosen the fasteners and break the seals. They are the Anti-Gears that turn counter to the Nameless Will. Servants of the Padomaic untruth whose nature is void. Of the Daedra, only the Gray Prince of Order knew his nature, and he went mad in the knowing..." In the same sense that Jyggalag was doomed to his curse of taking the mantle of Sheogorath and only appearing once an age because Order was power in a world of Chaos - Oblivion - the other Princes feared Sotha Sil because he was, as far as any was concerned, Divine Order. There is more to the passage, but this one alone signifies how great Sotha Sil was, as well as why the Apostles not only revered the Clockwork God, but also Deldrise Morvayne for teaching them. (If you wish to read more of his sermons, you can find them all here: The Truth in Sequence )

The highest-ranking Apostles form the governing body of the Clockwork City, known as the Congress of Calibration. The de facto head of the Apostles, their highest-ranking member, is known as the Torbillon. The only known named Torbillon is Deldrise Morvayne, the Fourth Torbillon. The Clockwork Apostles’ legal system is relatively rudimentary, mostly due to the sheer rarity of necessity. Infractions, such as research sabotage or plagiarism, were almost always met with exile. For more serious crimes, the Apostles employed a punishment called a cognitive prison, in which the condemned is subdued into a coma and their mind is set to a recursive loop, becoming trapped within their own heads. By the middle of the Second Era, this had only been done twelve times.

(Mecinar, an exiled Apostle, claims the Mazed Band with his group of hired treasure-hunters)

One of the most famous exiled Apostles was the Dunmer Mecinar. During his time as an apprentice to Sotha Sil, the Clockwork God suggested that Mecinar was perhaps the most brilliant Apostle yet – Sotha Sil attested that he was at least as intelligent as each apprentice before him; it is important to note, however, that, despite the high praise, Sotha Sil was also wary of Mecinar’s powerful mind, but he claimed taking action to restrain Mecinar would have been a sin against the Dunmer’s potential. Eventually, however, his suspicions were confirmed when Mecinar became disgustingly desperate in his ambitions by performing the most grotesque experiments on unwilling acolytes. Through “steel and sorcery”, Mecinar merged their bodies with various beasts, resulting in hideous Abominations. They were perversions of the perfect life Sotha Sil himself had attempted to create with his Clockwork constructs.  In order to protect the Clockwork City, Sotha Sil exiled Mecinar, who silently plotted his return, augmenting his own body with changes to be able to absorb otherwise uncontrollable power.

(an early depiction of an Abomination)

(an Argonian abomination, as seen in The Elder Scrolls: Legends)

(as Mecinar grew more accustomed to infusing man with beast, his skill in creating Abominations grew; an Undead Dunmer Abomination) 

With the death of Sotha Sil, the Apostles leadership was taken over by Galyn the Shelterer, a Dunmer who had taken it upon himself to keep the inhabitants of the Clockwork City alive. When the Mechanical Heart was finished, Mecinar returned to the Clockwork City in an effort to steal it.

(Galyn the Shelterer) 

In 4E201, his plans were set in motion when the Forgotten Hero, along with their adventuring party, tracked the artifact Barilzar’s Mazed Band to Forelhost in the Rift. Mecinar and his employed treasure-hunters were able to steal the Mazed Band from the Forgotten Hero and used it to teleport back into the Clockwork City. However, as they teleported, one of the Forgotten Hero’s companions – Swims-At-Night – grabbed onto the hunters and managed to enter the Clockwork City with them. With the assistance of Alfe Fyr – a Dunmer spellsword daughter of the ancient Divayth Fyr – the Forgotten Hero and his allies managed to enter the Clockwork City and rescued Swims-At-Night. They also discovered a Memory Star of Sotha Sil, entailing the project that was the secret power behind the Clockwork City: the New Heart of Lorkhan. This Star also detailed the various enchantments sealing it away. Knowing then that Mecinar and his treasure-hunters were plotting to steal the Heart, the Forgotten Hero and his allies set off the Chamber of Lorkhan to stop Mecinar.

(Mecinar reaches the Mechanical Heart) 

Unnoticed by the Forgotten Hero and his party, Mecinar watched them from the shadows as they took down a Dwarven Colossus and eventually unsealed the Chamber, which he then sprung from the shadows and rushed past them into the Chamber, taunting them as he did so. Due to the modifications he had made on his own body, he was able to siphon the Divine Essence from the Mechanical Heart. With his new god-like abilities, he instantly began reconstruction of the Clockwork City, which left the Forgotten Hero with no choice but to flee from the chaos. Mecinar managed to take over the Fabricants and used them to remake the citizens into Abominations.

(a Dwarven Colossus as seen in The Elder Scrolls: Legends)

As the Forgotten Hero and his fellowship were reunited, they came across another Memory Star that told them Sotha Sil had constructed his own set of Kagrenac’s Tools, capable of controlling the Mechanical Heart, and had spread them across Tamriel to avoid the possibility of the Heart being abused. Shortly after this, one of the Forgotten Hero’s companions died in a brave sacrifice. Mecinar modified their body and reanimated it as an Abomination and even pitted it against the Forgotten Hero in a demonstration of his ability to control the living and the dead.

(Mecinar becomes a false-god with the power of the Mechanical Heart) 

The sacrifice of their friend would not be in vain, however. The Forgotten Hero managed to retrieve the three tools of Sotha Sil and returned to the Clockwork City where he confronted Mecinar. Accounts from hereon vary as to how the following events unfold. Some say the Forgotten Hero destroyed the Heart, causing Mecinar to lose his power and become severely weakened, eventually destroying the Clockwork City and forcing its inhabitants to flee. Another tells that the Hero took the tools and used them on the Heart to fight Mecinar on equal footing, with the Heart living on in the city. In this tale, the Forgotten Hero’s body disintegrated from the sheer power of the Heart, but their consciousness still resides within the city. Whatever the case, all stories agree Mecinar was defeated, and it is believed he was killed by the Forgotten Hero. The fate of the Clockwork City and its inhabitants remains a mystery to this day.

(The Forgotten Hero, protagonist and player-character of The Elder Scrolls: Legends) 

I wish there was more information about the Clockwork Apostles, but at the moment, that's all we've got. Maybe the next installment in The Elder Scrolls will shine more light on the Clockwork God.

(bonus art, Mecinar after losing the power of the Mechanical Heart)