Daedric Prince Hermaeus Mora rules the sphere of secrets and forbidden knowledge. It’s only fitting that his most powerful relic is a book, ancient and indestructible, containing knowledge of immense power. In several of the Elder Scrolls games, the player can receive this book if they gain Hermaeus Mora’s favor. However, they aren’t given much information about the book itself.
In the lore surrounding the games, fans can dig up bits and pieces of the Oghma Infinium’s history. Here are a few things most players may not have known about this mysterious, shadowy tome, from its origin to its harrowing powers.
10 Origin and Authorship
Despite being the best-known artifact of Hermaeus Mora, the Daedric Prince of Knowledge did not author the Oghma Infinium. However, it is the work of a deity, albeit a very different one from Hermaeus Mora himself: Xarxes.
Xarxes is the Elven interpretation of Arkay, god of life and death. In many myths, he was a scribe for Auri-El, chronicling the accomplishments of all Aldmeri from the beginning to the end of time. He wrote the Oghma Infinium as a compendium of all his knowledge of the ages.
9 No One Knows How It Fell To Hermaeus Mora
Of course, all information makes its way to the Prince of Knowledge eventually. But how did Xarxes’ tome, as opposed to the Elder Scrolls or any other work of powerful knowledge, come to be so heavily associated with Hermaeus Mora?
The obvious answer is that Xarxes had some connection to the Daedric Prince, but little record of this relationship exists. Perhaps, of all the knowledge in Hermaeus Mora’s possession, the Oghma Infinium is simply the most powerful and thus the most fitting reward for those who please him.
8 Significance of the Name
While recording all of history in this tome, Xarxes created a wife for himself out of all his favorite moments in history. This woman’s name was Oghma, though it is unknown whether she was named for the book or the book for her.
An Oghma was also the name of a journal that every Aldmeri kept, recording the events of one’s life in the spirit of Xarxes’ work. However, little is known about Oghma herself, as she rarely appears in any lore or in-game literature.
7 Links to Real-World Mythology
The name Oghma comes from Gaelic lore, inspired by Ogma, a god of wisdom in Irish and Scottish mythology. Skilled in speech and poetry, he was one of the three gods of skill in this pantheon.
Ogma was said to be the inventor of the Ogham script, the original writing system of Irish Gaelic. As a god who gave his people the ability to write and record their history, it’s little wonder that a book containing infinite knowledge bears his name.
6 Symbols and Artwork
In Skyrim, the Oghma Infinium’s second page shows artwork of a runic wheel. This insignia bears a heavy resemblance to an Icelandic magical stave known as a vegvísir. Translating to “sign post” or “wayfinder,” such a symbol was designed to prevent travelers from becoming lost in storms or foul weather.
Though it’s unknown why the developers chose this symbol, it may allude to knowledge acting as a guide. After all, the Oghma Infinium is the ultimate tool to make the Dragonborn more powerful.
5 Kept In Apocrypha
In most of its appearances, the Oghma Infinium appears to vanish after the player reads it. However, it does not in fact evaporate, but rather returns to Hermaeus Mora’s endless library in his plane of Oblivion.
Those who have played Skyrim’s Dragonborn add-on will know this plane well, as they must visit it several times during the main quest. Built almost entirely out of books, it seems an easy place to lose such an important volume. Perhaps it has its own chamber, hidden from the Dragonborn’s view.
4 Not Technically a Skill Book
Despite raising six of the Dragonborn’s skills by five levels each, Skyrim’s game files do not consider the Oghma Infinium to be a skill book. This is in contrast to books like A Game at Dinner or Racial Phylogeny, which raise a specific skill by one level.
Not classifying the Oghma Infinium in this way suggests that reading the book provides the Dragonborn with knowledge supernaturally, rather than simply through words on a page. Considering its status as a Daedric artifact, it’s hardly impossible that this is the case.
3 Macabre Cover Material
The cover of the Oghma Infinium consists of tanned skin: Orsimer, Dunmer, Altmer, Bosmer, and Falmer. Since the book was written before most of these races existed, it seems unlikely that this is the Oghma Infinium’s original binding.
Did Hermaeus Mora himself create this cover, or was it one of the tome’s many owners? Given that the book’s cover in Daggerfall is not made of skin, the latter possibility seems high. However, no explanation exists for why this grotesque patchwork currently holds the book together.
2 Lost in a Collapsed City
In the First Era, the Oghma Infinium fell to a tribe of Ayleids. Having fled to Valenwood from their fallen empire, scholars among them sought to decipher this book, along with another called the Book of the Frozen Legion.
During studies of these books, their city collapsed into an underground cavern. Both tomes remained here for centuries until a quest to explore the caverns uncovered them. It is unknown if the Oghma Infinium caused this collapse, or why Hermaeus Mora did not recover it during the years it was missing.
1 Stolen From Apocrypha
Though Hermaeus Mora’s plane is the book’s home, some legends claim that a prolific Khajiit thief (and eventual trickster god) named Rajhin has stolen the Oghma Infinium before. In the book The Thief God’s Treasures, the author claims that Rajhin has pilfered several Daedric artifacts.
The book claims that Hermaeus Mora only recovers his prized artifact when Rajhin allows him to, suggesting that the Daedric Prince may not truly own it. Thus, it’s a bit of a mystery who actually controls the Oghma Infinium and the knowledge within.
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