Your Mixed Beastfolk/Human and Beastfolk/Elf OCs are Morrowind-approved

Reporting in from the r/teslore trenches, where Fyraltari noticed there's a Morrowind source for inter-species reproduction that no has apparently noticed in the last twenty years!

The dialogue on Humanoid races in Morrowind reads:

Offspring of inter-racial matings have the racial appearance of the mother, but may occasionally share inherited characteristics and abilities of the father. Sloads, dragons, and other sentient races cannot mate with Men, Elves, or Beastmen, and are not considered 'human.' Exceptional accounts of matings between men and daedra do not fit smoothly into this scheme. Elves consider themselves the only 'truly human race,' being descended directly from the gods, and regard the Manish and Beast races as highly intelligent animals. On the other hand, Imperial scholars consider Men, Elves, and Beastmen as 'men,' on the basis that individuals of all three groups can mate with one another.

[bolding by op]

This seems to be a reference to our world's Biological Species Concept

The biological species concept defines a species as members of populations that actually or potentially interbreed in nature, not according to similarity of appearance

to quote a Berkeley evolution explainer. Of course, defining species is more complicated than that, when you get into the nitty-gritty, but it's a popular definition that I think Morrowind's dialogue is working off.

Of course, nothing was stopping you from making your OCs whatever mix of TES species you like, but you've now got a source to point to if someone turns their nose up at it! Previously, everyone referred back to Notes on Racial Phylogeny which says:

After much analysis of living specimens, the Council long ago determined that all "races" of elves and humans may mate with each other and bear fertile offspring. Generally the offspring bear the racial traits of the mother, though some traces of the father's race may also be present. It is less clear whether the Argonians and Khajiit are interfertile with both humans and elves. Though there have been many reports throughout the Eras of children from these unions, as well as stories of unions with daedra, there have been no well documented offspring.

In this newly discovered context, Notes seems to represent an earlier state of knowledge. By the late Third Era, scholars accept reproduction among the beastfolk, humans, and elves.

There is one Argonian/Altmer mentioned in lore, the son of the Count of Vitharn, who was born in the Shivering Isles. Morrowind's dialogue makes it more likely that he really was the naturally born child of his parents, rather than an oddity of Sheogorath's making. I hope we will eventually meet npcs who are a mix of Khajiit/Argonian and Elf/Human.

Why the Altmeri Commentary on Talos is Important to Lore Discussion (Even if It Isn't the Thalmor's End Goal) 

Originally posted on r/teslore three years ago. To be clear, important in this context means if you're trying to guess where TES might go in the future. And as the years go by, and we now have an almost complete turn-over of developers at Bethesda, it may be less relevant. Still, the new developers will have all these old ideas to rummage through.

This begins with a split among fans, though I don't think it has to be a nasty split. There is a very strong opinion in /r/teslore that Out-of-Game texts are valid if you want them to be, if you find them interesting enough for your Tamriel. And there's another very strong opinion that only official lore is really valid for theorizing. To be completely honest, we all probably dabble in one or the other at different times. Sometimes we are more creative and speculatory about Tamriel, other times we are arguing out the Lowest Common Denominator of agreed-upon lore. (It's never actually agreed upon, but that's part of the fun.)

But there's a third possibility: examining Out of Game texts for the perspective they can give us on In-game lore. A really good example of how this works would be the document: On the Nords' Totem Religion. It was a design document for Skyrim which was not incorporated into the game directly. However, the document gives a lot of insight into the little we do see in Skyrim of the ancient Nord religion. It is useful in interpreting the game itself.

It's also useful for going forward. When ESO returned to Skyrim this year, we could bet that the devs would be taking a closer look at the local religion, as they had in Elsweyr last year. And we could also guess that they might turn to that unofficial Skyrim design document which best explained the original ideas for the Nord religion. As of a few weeks ago, much of the Totem Religion document's lore has been added to the official lore as in-game books in ESO.

The totem religion document is as uncontroversial example of this process as you can find. Most everyone in lore circles has regarded it as a very useful document. You won't find that agreement about all OOG unofficial writings. But I'd like to make the argument for why the Altmeri Commentary on Talos is worth knowing and discussing even if you don't end up thinking it's true.

So, I'll begin with quoting the whole thing. It's pretty short.

What appears to be an Altmeri commentary on Talos To kill Man is to reach Heaven, from where we came before the Doom Drum's iniquity. When we accomplish this, we can escape the mockery and long shame of the Material Prison. To achieve this goal, we must: 1) Erase the Upstart Talos from the mythic. His presence fortifies the Wheel of the Convention, and binds our souls to this plane. 2) Remove Man not just from the world, but from the Pattern of Possibility, so that the very idea of them can be forgotten and thereby never again repeated. 3) With Talos and the Sons of Talos removed, the Dragon will become ours to unbind. The world of mortals will be over. The Dragon will uncoil his hold on the stagnancy of linear time and move as Free Serpent again, moving through the Aether without measure or burden, spilling time along the innumerable roads we once travelled. And with that we will regain the mantle of the imperishable spirit.

What it doesn't say: Nowhere does it say it's a Thalmor document. Nowhere does it mention the Towers. Those two points are pretty well-known in lore circles, but they come up enough to make it worthwhile to point out.

Second thing to notice: its date.

Submitted by Lady N on Sun, 09/19/2010 - 19:53 Obscure texts Author: Michael Kirkbride Librarian Comment: Many of these are in-character snippets taken from various forum posts.

It doesn't have an exact date; the old forums have been deleted. But we do see that it was re-posted on the Imperial Library on 09/19/2010, the year before Skyrim came out. This important detail is glossed over in a lot of the discussion of its relevance. It is not a document written after Skyrim trying to put a creative spin on some details in-game. It's a document published before Skyrim came out, and hence a window on the discussions that were going on in the development of Skyrim. We need to look at the stuff in Skyrim with the question: Does the Altmeri commentary shed any light on what's going on here?

Well, the fact that the Altmeri Commentary suggests that Talos needs to be erased from the mythic makes it very relevant. Maybe this is not the reason for the Thalmor's Talos ban in the game that eventually was released. But it's evidence that during the development of Skyrim, the reason was being kicked around by someone in discussions with the devs. It's that context that finally informs the two lines in-game that might refer back to the Commentary.

The first and most often quoted is Ancano's boast:

You think I can't destroy you? The power to unmake the world at my fingertips, and you think you can do anything about it?

It's pointed out that he can simply be boasting of his power there, without any reference to a supposed greater plan. And yes, that's true. But remember, we aren't interpreting that line in a vacuum. There was a development-related post that brought up a fanatical Altmer idea of unmaking the world before Skyrim, and it's just a coincidence that a fanatic Thalmor member boasts of having the power to do so in the game? These things have nothing to do with each other?

And then there is the other line from Esbern which I think is even more significant.

I don't suppose they want the world to end any more than we do. Or at least, they'd prefer it to end on their terms.

Esbern's statement does not confirm this is the Thalmor's plan. What it does is confirm that the idea this is the Thalmor's plan exists in-universe. And Esbern is not some random conspiracist; he's a lore-master. Dragons were his hobby but we also know from his dossier that the Thalmor consider him responsible for two of the most damaging operations on Dominion soil. He knows his stuff when it comes to the Thalmor. His opinion may be affected by paranoia, he may not even hold the opinion very strongly (suggested by how he corrects himself there), but he is not some random guy in the pub with a conspiracy theory about the Thalmor. If it's a conspiracy theory, it's an important one in-universe.

So, we have a timeline that suggests the Commentary is important, and two references in the game of Skyrim to the idea presented in the Commentary. The references are independent, coming from ideological enemies, Ancano and Esbern. I'd say that makes a very strong case for the Commentary's ideology existing within the universe.

If this concept exists within the universe, the Commentary is important even if it does not represent the Thalmor's ultimate goal accurately.

But where does one go with that? With Michael Kirkbride's historic and ongoing influence on the TES franchise, elements of the Commentary are quite likely to make it into future games. On the other hand, the Commentary may be a window on an idea in development that was tossed around and ultimately abandoned. Maybe it's not Thalmor belief, really. It could even be Blades propaganda. Maybe Ancano believes in it, but he's actually a fanatic who's out of step with the Thalmor in general. etc. etc. etc.

Acknowledging that an Out-of-Game source is relevant does not mean accepting it as the Truth Bound To Be Revealed by TES VI. TES fandom has had enough of that over-certainty already. I think we've all met someone who takes some random developer's post as The Gospel Truth that cannot be questioned. That's frustrating, for sure. But let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. It doesn't make sense to ignore it completely in discussions about the Thalmor's ultimate goal. There are enough sources to make it worth looking at, both inside and outside the universe.

This post was about the relevance of the Commentary, but if you're interested in how the Commentary's ideology could function within the Thalmor, I can never recommend enough this old /r/teslore post: Analyzing the Altmeri Commentary on Talos.

Additional reply in comments: I thought I'd hedged enough on my statement. I won't claim Esbern as an expert on the Thalmor's ontological goals, although he definitely is more knowledgable about the Thalmor than the random guy at the pub. I do think, however, that his statement confirms that some people within the universe think this is the Thalmor's end goal. I see his statement there as he's not certain himself of it.

In the comments of the original post, a user who has since deleted their account posted a very interesting timeline of the development under discussion. I also recommend this discussion with Misticsan about the post and whether fans give the Commentary undue importance in contrast to other sources on the Thalmor.

This was only the beginning of a very involved journey into the weird fandom status of the Altmeri Commentary and the Towers Theory. It's a lengthy saga, and I've put off formatting it for tumblr but I do mean to eventually copy all the teslore posts over here.

Mages Guild Morass: A Mix-Up over Vanus Galerion's Final Fate

Also posted on r/teslore. A couple months ago, my friend @akaviri-dovah asked a question about Vanus Galerion's timeline.

Ok so I’m reading up on Vanus uesp page again and apparently there was a point wherein he abandoned his guild and left Tamriel?? […] "Over time, Galerion grew bitterly disillusioned with the contrived hierarchies and sinister political environment that the Mages Guild had become. He grew regretful for establishing the guild in the first place, as it had become monster of its own, and was too late for him to fix. After denouncing the guild, Galerion elected to leave Tamriel entirely to travel to other lands. For many years Galerion wandered around Nirn. Eventually, after long his abandonment of the Mages Guild, Galerion claimed that he had found the virtue of magic in his solitary travels." [This description] probably wouldn’t line up with how he still managed to gather so many mages and Lamp Knights (guild specific) in his battle against Manni right?

This question completely confuddled me at first, because it turned out I didn't know my Vanus Galerion lore very well at all. But now I know a lot more and I am here to share a very niche lore puzzle with you all.

I think we're all aware that when the devs imported lore books into ESO, they didn't always make certain the books' contents fit into the previously established timeline. Sometimes that can be explained by Hermaeus Mora moving books about through time, but often books are edited for ESO but some detail is overlooked. This is what appears to have happened with Vanus Galerion.

Origin of the Mages Guild, written by Ted Peterson, has been in every big TES game since Daggerfall except Skyrim. It’s been edited for different games, but the last paragraph is the same in all versions.

One need not be a member of the Mages Guild to know that this carefully contrived hierarchy is often nothing more than a chimera. As Vanus Galerion himself said bitterly, leaving Tamriel to travel to other lands, "The Guild has become nothing more than an intricate morass of political infighting."

In Daggerfall and Morrowind, that is the last heard of Vanus Galerion. This version is backed up by a role-playing thread from 2001 in which Ted Peterson, posting as Tedders, has an exchange with Vanus Galerion (also played by himself)

Tedders: Thank Mara for Vanus Galerion for freeing the Old Ways and founding the Mages Guild. Vanus Galerion: For many long years I did regret that very deed, as it seems I created just another monster of sinister politics. The virtue of magic I found in my solitary travels, many years after I abandoned the Mages Guild and ventured on my own. Tedders: Poor Trechtus. It's too late now.

Oblivion, though, adds a new version of Vanus Galerion’s fate. In Mannimarco, King of Worms, it’s explained that Vanus never did peace out on the Mages Guild. He actually died leading Mages Guild Lamp Knights against Mannimarco.

They say Galerion left the Guild, calling it 'a morass,' But untruth is a powerful stream, polluting the river of time. Galerion beheld Mannimarco's rise through powers sublime, To his mages and Lamp Knights, 'Before my last breath, Face I must the tyranny of worms, and kill at last, undeath.' He led them north to cursed lands, to a mountain pass.

(Short interlude: this is not quite as bad as Mannimarco's own poetry, but it ain't good)

In this text, Vanus Galerion is killed in the fight against Mannimarco

A thousand good and evil perished then, history confirms. Among, alas, Vanus Galerion, he who showed the way,

This version is supported by Mannimarco’s claim in Oblivion that he had Galerion’s corpse in his possession.

I must say, I expected Arch-Mage Traven, rather than his star pupil. I am disappointed to see that he could not face me himself. I have met so many of his predecessors over the years. I developed a particular fondness for Galerion, ill-preserved though he may be.

So, depending on whose version you believe, Vanus either left the guild calling it a morass or led the guild in a final battle against Mannimarco.

In comes ESO to complicate matters.

The ESO Devs did not include Mannimarco, King of Worms in the game, since Vanus Galerion is still alive in ESO. But they didn’t ignore the text. A lot of the details of Vanus and Mannimarco’s early life from Mannimarco King of Worms are fleshed out in the Summerset expansion via. Vanus’ ESO autobiography: Artaeum Lost, as well as in ESO flashbacks to their time with the Psijics.

However, base game ESO stumbled with their version of Origin of the Mages Guild, which still ends

One need not be a member of the Mages Guild to know that this carefully contrived hierarchy is often nothing more than a chimera. As Vanus Galerion himself said bitterly, leaving Tamriel to travel to other lands, "The Guild has become nothing more than an intricate morass of political infighting."

When you bring this book into ESO, you get the implication that Vanus got into a snit at the Mages Guild, left Tamriel to travel other lands, AND THEN came back from abroad for the events of ESO where he’s very involved in Mages Guild business again.

So to sum it up

Version 1: Daggerfall to Morrowind: Vanus is said to have called the guild a morass and left Tamriel at some unspecified date. That is the last mention of him.

Version 2: Oblivion to Skyrim: It's suggested that story is untrue and he actually died leading the Mages guild in a fight against Mannimarco but many believe he instead left Tamriel after calling the Guild a morass.

Version 3: ESO: Doesn't go into Vanus' death because it's not happened yet but keeps details from that Oblivion/Skyrim Version about his earlier life with Mannimarco. ESO devs miss the detail of the morass line referring to Vanus Galerion's permanent disappearance in both Versions 1 and 2.

I think if we go with Version 3, which is the most up-to-date, we would conclude that he did get into an earlier snit with his subordinates, went globetrotting, and then came back to guide the Mages Guild. Centuries later, someone misattributed the morass remark from the earlier situation to the latter disappearance.

Or you could go with time-travelling books.

Or you could just shrug your shoulders and ignore the obvious developer error and continue with the timeline established by the previous games.

UESP has cobbled all these sources into one timeline: ESO Events -> Morass Remark and Exit from Mages Guild -> Leading the Mages Guild against Mannimarco/ Death. But unless we go with the time-travelling books theory, this doesn’t seem possible.

End of Morass Gate.

Five Skyrim Lore Facts You May Not Know!

And unlike some of the clickbait videos on Youtube, these ones are absolutely true. Let me address some of the most common lore confusions I regularly see. As a Listicle, because why not? (It's easier than writing out long lore posts.)

The Blades never served the Mede Empire. Martin was the last Emperor they served. They then devoted themselves to looking for a new Dragonborn and working against the Thalmor. Titus Mede I created a new organization called the Penitus Oculatus, which handled all intelligence and security for the Mede Dynasty. The Penitus Oculatus has been the official Imperial organization for more than 175 years, while the Blades have been an independent force. It makes the Mede decision to outlaw the Blades a lot easier to understand if you know they weren't their employees at all. The Blades were loose cannons they couldn't control.

Ysgramor didn't destroy the snow elves. The stories about Ysgramor say he and his 500 Companions showed up in Skyrim, killed or sent the snow elves into exile, took all of Skyrim, and then wandered over to pick fights with the neighbours. In reality, the Falmer weren't completely driven from Skyrim till the reign of King Harald, thirteen generations after Ysgramor. In the interim, there was a whole Dragon cult and war, culminating with Alduin being flung through the time wound. It's a long period. The real Ysgramor definitely clashed with his snow-elf neighbours but he's accumulated the stories of hundreds of years around his mythic name.

The Companions haven't been a Nord-only organization for a very long time. You might think that a bunch of warriors venerating the legacy of Ysgramor and his Companion would be Nord only, and that was probably true way back in the First Era. But by the end of the First Era, the Companions had boasted both a Redguard and Elf (Altmer or Bosmer) Harbinger. Cirroc and Henantier are some of the most famous Harbingers in the history of the Companions. We're in the Fourth Era now, so if you're playing a non-Nord, you're following in a long tradition by joining the companions. (As is Athis.)

The Imperial Legion didn't win back most of Cyrodiil in the Great War. People often ask why Titus Mede II agreed to the harsh peace of the White-Gold Concordat after his army had destroyed the Dominion army in Cyrodiil and taken back the Imperial City. But that's not what really happened. The Legion destroyed "the main army". Other Aldmeri armies are mentioned in Cyrodiil. After Red Ring, the Dominion still occupied Anvil, Skingrad, Bravil, and Leyawiin. "The Great War" doesn't say that any of these cities were liberated. Put those territories together and you'll realize the Empire never got back its coastline or the Niben river. Titus Mede made his deal while the Dominion still occupied half of Cyrodiil. Maybe he could have won if he'd pushed on, but his decision is a lot easier to understand with this context.

The Bretons Don't Worship Talos. This is one of my favourite lore bits to explain. Talos is not a god in TES II, Daggerfall, though he is a historical figure, Tiber Septim. He's only introduced as a god in Morrowind. So, a lot of people assume that he's been retconned into the Breton religion, like he was into the Nord/Imperial religions. This is not true. In both Morrowind and Skyrim, the book Varieties of Faith in the Empire does not list Talos/Ysmir as part of the Breton pantheon. They worship the Eight (and sometimes Y'ffre, Magnus, and Phynaster), as they always have. Tiber Septim is an important historical figure whom some Bretons regard as one of their own, but he isn't an official god. I love this tidbit because it makes the White-Gold Concordat absolutely brilliant. One remaining province, Skyrim, gets all upset while High Rock wouldn't care. Cyrodiil is presumably somewhere in the middle. It's a perfect way to drive a wedge among the provinces. (Hammerfell's left the Empire, but for the record, they don't worship Talos either.)

High Isle Antiquities

Amalien

Oh, black pearls! According to the Bedtime Tales of Borwaeliel, they're the result of Trinimac slicing off a handful of Hermaeus Mora's beady little eyes and scattering them across the Eltheric. So, be careful handling them!

There's a (presumably Altmer) story about Trinimac cutting out Mora's eyeballs! I wanna read more of it!

Go Ahead and Give Your Altmer Family Five Kids (or more)

If you've hung around TES for a while, you've probably heard that elvish women can only have four kids and usually even fewer. But do you know where that comes from?

A scandalous tell-all in the second game of the entire series: Daggerfall. The Real Barenziah says

Children are few among elves. No woman conceives more than four and that is very rare. Two is the allotted number. Some bear none, some only one.

After her first pregnancy, Barenziah has problems conceiving, and it takes centuries of marriage to produce her two children Helseth and Morgiah in pretty quick succession. (And possibly another child before or after them, the game/book details are a bit confusing.)

And on that one book, which wasn't even presented as gospel truth in Daggerfall, rests all the fandom's takes on elven fertility.

That's crazy, particularly since the next game Morrowind actually rebutted the story of overall terrible elf fertility! The scholars in Morrowind will tell you

Elven cultures and social institutions are stable and persistent; Elven nations are neither economically expansive nor militarily adventurous. Elves are conditionally fertile -- that is, they only conceive when population pressure is low -- so expanding populations do not force them to explore or war with neighbors.

How that is achieved is up for debate - perhaps their fertility is naturally low but can be magically supplemented? Or perhaps most of the time they use contraception to keep the birth rate low and this is a cultural trait interpreted as biological. Imagine if someone looked at the low birth rate of First World nations today and assumed that their citizens were infertile.

In the years since Morrowind, nothing has supported the Barenziah version as far as I know. ESO, for example, supports the idea of three children as a cultural ideal.

Three is the Number of the Prime Celestials, as embodied in the sun and the two moons. It is also the number of my perfect daughters, which is why we shall produce no other heirs.

and smashed the idea of a four-child limit for elves in general with Eveli Sharp-Arrow claiming her family of twelve was pretty normal in her corner of Valenwood.

So, if you write elves with more than four kids, you aren't crossing some hard canon line, you're well within the muddled possibilities of canon TES lore.

Some Mixed Ayleid/Colovians for the Collection 

Originally posted on r/teslore. A good reference next time someone tells you that people in Elder Scroll exclusively take on the "race" of their mother.

Which collection? you may ask. Why, the one that comes up in the comments of any discussion post on inter-racial marriage and children in Tamriel. You'll find all the usual examples in this post and the comments, but I've found an example I've never seen referenced before.

From ESO's Gold Coast Zone, the story of Lord Faleria and his elven children: The Lost Fort Faleria.

In short, during the Alessian sect's rise, Lord Faleria secretly married an Ayleid scholar. To hide the family from the Alessians, he and his wife carve out a secret magical underground living space, murdering the Minotaurs they hire for the job. She dies giving birth to their third child, and he confines his "elven children" underground to keep them safe.

The children grew into adults, rarely seeing sunlight. Well into adulthood, his youngest son could not take his confinement any longer. He managed to escape, and did so easily and often. Inevitably, as these things happen, the son fell in love with a merchant's daughter. Soon, she was with child. The girl's family, horrified at the child's Elven traits, forced the young woman to confess that her lover was Lord Faleria's son. Horrified at being discovered, Lord Faleria took his grandson and hid him with the rest of the family.

When the Empire comes calling to siege his fort, he destroys his fort, his besiegers, and his family, then seals himself away as a lich whom you have to face in the associated quest.

The details of this text are supported by the quest, and by the tombstones you can find of his children and grandson.

Epitaph for Lucina Faleria The tombstone of Lord Faleria's oldest child Let the Weeping Cease Lucina Faleria Died S Dawn 19 421 Age 47 years Epitaph for Neransi Faleria The tombstone of Lord Faleria's middle child May My Actions Bring You Peace Neransi Faleria Died S Dawn 19 421 Age 38 years Epitaph for Ianus Faleria The tombstone of Lord Faleria's youngest son Boundless Eternity Awaits Us Ianus Faleria Died S Dawn 19 421 Age 35 years Epitaph for Maxivian Faleria The tombstone of Lord Faleria's grandson You are the Light in My Darkness Maxivian Faleria Died S Dawn 19 421 Age 1 year

As well as being a great and awful story, this is as far as I know, the only identification of a specific person in lore as inheriting "elven traits". The possibility is mentioned in other places, and generally was observed as happening with the Bretons, but here we have the full genaeology of such an individual, with the family history of the unfortunate Maxivian Faleria.

Maxivian's mother was Colovian. His father Ianus was the child of a Colovian father and Ayleid mother, and referred to as "Elven". Maxivian's "Elven traits" were obvious enough to out his father's identity.

Skink-In-Tree's-Shade

Can I talk to you for a moment about my lord and saviour Skink-in-Tree's-Shade?

Morrowind has these NPCs who stick in my mind, despite not having much dialogue. No one in Morrowind has much individual dialogue to be honest, except for Dagoth Ur who is nice and chatty and sends you letters and erotic dreams.

Skink-in-Tree's-Shade has more dialogue than most. He's the head of the Mages guild in Sadrith Mora. Let that sink in! He's an Argonian heading the Mages' guild tiny outpost (they have a big room to themselves!) in the middle of Telvanni territory. This guy has balls. He's made the Telvanni respect him.

Locals of Sadrith Mora will offer reluctant praise.

"Of course, most Mages Guild wizards are pathetic clowns. But I must admit, that lizard that goes by the barbarous title of 'Skink-in-Tree's-Shade' is a very astute practitioner, almost as sage and learned as Telvanni aspirants five times his age. But I have heard he carries his anti-slavery politics a little too far, and much farther than Imperial law allows."

The implication is he is using his position in Sadrith Mora to help slaves escape and the Mages guild must know this.

Neloth's Mouth says of him:

Skinks-in-Trees's-Shade seems like a decent sort... for an Argonian. But he has an unhealthy interest in vampires."

The unhealthy interest? He's actually searching for a cure! He sends you to find the testimony the Temple suppressed from a guy cured of vampirism. I would call this a healthy interest myself. Again, this guy has balls.

Last but not least, Skink-in-Tree's-Shade enables my favourite resolution of the Mages' guild quest. Arch-Mage Trebonius is more and more erratic towards the end of the Mages questline and ends up ordering the assassination of the entire Telvanni council and telling you to find out what happened to the Dwemer. You can fight him or decide to live with him as Arch-Mage, but If you bring him up to Skink-in-Tree's Shade, he says

"[if you are Argonian] Ah, the current Guildmaster. It is rumored that he was promoted to his current position to get him out of Cyrodiil. It is one of the weaknesses of the soft-skins. They can have power without wisdom." [Else.] "Ah, the current Guildmaster. It is rumored that he was promoted to his current position to get him out of Cyrodiil. It is a shame that men can have power without wisdom. It is different for us lizards."

Then hands you a letter to deliver to Trebonius. It's a letter from Chancellor Ocato firing Trebonius as Arch-Mage and replacing him with you. Skink-in-Tree's-Shade saw how badly Trebonius was fucking everything up, and quietly wrote Chancellor Ocato to get him fired. Skink-in-Tree's-Shade, head of this very small, powerless chapter of the Mages guild, has the ear of the Chancellor of the Empire, and when he has had enough, he gets what he wants.

This guy is obviously a powerful and influential wizard who has come to Sadrith Mora because his work there is important and abstained from climbing the career ladder back in the Imperial City. He won't even try for head of the Morrowind guild. But in this finale, you finally get a sense of his full reputation and influence.

One of my favourite things in all of TES is Mannimarco's terrible, terrible poetry. As laid out in the ESO book, it's hard to see all the amazing rhymes. So let me present to you with the lines divided and the rhymes bolded. You will notice that he starts with no rhymes at all, switches rhyme schemes, pays no attention to meter and believes that "necrotic" is a noun.

Worm Saga by Mannimarco

Mage from infancy, blood-selected for magicka,  descended from isles of Artaeum forever!  Destined was I from long before birth to exceed all mortals. Altmer? Nay, Aldmer: scion of et'Ada by direct descent,  summoned to Ceporah, and there was I sent:  to Iachesis, to tutor, to test and ferment. No magicka handler Iachesis Ritemaster,  sage of the Elder Way, gentle spellcaster!  To warp not the wind, unlike guild of the latter day, courting disaster. Necromancy, death art, chose me stern and fast.  To change not the present, but call up the past,  obverse of Elder Way, forbidden without cause,  deep-delved in death's way, against Gray Cloak laws. Ill-timed then arrived one, Trechtus by name:  ambitious, obstreperous, blind and deaf to shame,  talented, reckless, thought himself my equal,  his arrogance and envy determined our sequel. Magic he practiced: open, raw power,  flouted the Elder Way, endangered the tower,  then with lowborn cunning cast me as the villain,  engineered exile, made me Tamrielan. All undervalued my will and resolution,  my knowledge formidable, my wit and acumen.  Thus found I new allies to study the death-rites,  the sacrifice rituals, the summons of ghost-wights. Robed all in black goes the Order of Black Worm,  bringing wisdom to seekers who see beyond death-term,  but Trechtus-now-Vanus pursues us to continent,  to persecute worm-wrights his evil intent. Come, all necrotics, defend practice and life,  against Mages who wield magicka like a knife,  heedless of heresy and ignorant of Elder Way,  hating necromancy yet heralding doomsday. Child of Nirn ponder, which would you choose:  tyranny of mages, restricting spell use,  or necromancy, communion with thy dead,  ancestors returned, generations reunited?

"That Heimskr's Crazy." Brenuin wasn't kidding.

Originally posted on r/teslore.

Let me share a realization about Heimskr that's reminded me of the division between intepreting lore as an outside observer and how things are seen inside universe.

I've got used to all the endless debates about how Cyrodiil was transformed from jungle to temperate forest, and Heimskr's chosen theory nestles in with the rest.

But you were once man! Aye! And as man, you said, 'Let me show you the power of Talos Stormcrown, born of the North, where my breath is long winter.' 'I breathe now, in royalty, and reshape this land which is mine. I do this for you, Red Legions, for I love you.

Talos using his attainment of CHIM to retroactively fix things is debated on this subreddit, and while it's questioned a lot, with new theories from ESO springing up to explain the climate shift, it's still a legitimate matter of debate.

But I never stopped to consider how absolutely bug-nuts Heimskr must sound to his audience. He doesn't sound like he's proposing something that could account for lore weirdness, he just sounds like he's really mixed up about Cyrodiil's climate at the time of Tiber Septim.

So there's my revelation for today. Heimskr is even nuttier-seeming than I thought, and we need to think more about how people experience the lore within the universe. Any other examples of this gap in understanding?

Jungle Cyrodiil? Nah, says Decumus Scotti

Originally posted on r/teslore. Everyone's heard of the late lamented Jungle Cyrodiil, but this is Unjungled Cyrodiil before it ever was supposed to exist.

Another twist in the never-ending Jungle Cyrodiil tale. Perhaps others have noticed before but this one surprised me today.

From A Dance in Fire, first published in Morrowind. Decumus Scotti leaves the Imperial City:

Ten wagons in all set off that afternoon through the familiar Cyrodilic countryside. Past fields of wildflowers, gently rolling woodlands, friendly hamlets. The clop of the horses' hooves against the sound stone road reminded Scotti that the Atrius Building Commission constructed it.

Conventional wisdom has it that Todd changed Jungle Cyrodiil to the temperate climate we see in Oblivion, but here's Ted Peterson writing the Oblivion landscape for a Morrowind text. Scotti has never seen a jungle before he gets to Valenwood.

For Decumus Scotti, the jungle was hostile, unfamiliar ground.

Meanwhile, in Morrowind, sages will tell you

Cyrodiil is the cradle of Human Imperial high culture on Tamriel. It is the largest region of the continent, and most is endless jungle. The Imperial City is in the heartland, the fertile Nibenay Valley. The densely populated central valley is surrounded by wild rain forests drained by great rivers into the swamps of Argonia and Topal Bay. The land rises gradually to the west and sharply to the north. Between its western coast and its central valley are deciduous forests and mangrove swamps.

I have a hunch the out-of-game explanation is that Cyrodiil was never a jungle in the devs' vision in Arena and Daggerfall, and Ted Peterson as a Daggerfall writer, just didn't switch over mentally to it being the jungle Michael Kirkbride and Kurt Kuhlmann had defined it as in the Pocket Guide to the Empire, First Edition. I may be wrong. Please correct me if I am.

But it does put a different complexion on Todd's Oblivion landscape if it was a reversion to the vision they'd started with.

I'm all for Jungle Cyrodiil as the much cooler option, but Oblivion's Cyrodiil looks like it has a long pedigree too.

More comments I wrote from ensuing discussion:

I think you're right about it having multiple climates, in both incarnations of Cyrodiil: the PGE1's and Oblivion's. But I think the truth is simply that there isn't any overarching sense to be made of the whole issue. No disrespect to those who labour in the trenches to make something in-world that works for them, but nothing anyone puts forward seems convincing to me. I just go with "These are separate versions of the setting".

So, yes, the PGE1 has a humid "grassy plain" surrounded by tropical rainforest around the Imperial City. And if we had the same in Oblivion, we could wave away Decumus Scotti's version as a bad description of that. But instead we have an Oblivion landscape around the Imperial City that perfectly matches Scotti's version.

It's hard not to conclude that it was Ted Peterson's vision that prevailed, not Kirkbride's.

and

I find a lot of the responses bewildering, to be honest, trying to find ways in which Scotti's narration can be made to fit with the Morrowind dialogue. Sure, you can do that, playing the in-universe game of making sources fit, but there really was a change in development vision. We get to Cyrodiil and it doesn't look like it was described in Morrowind or Redguard. It does look pretty much like how Peterson described it in Scotti's book.

It's evidence for the development process, however awkwardly or successfully people then can try to make it fit in-universe.

Argonian Raids and Presence in Morrowind in the 4th Era 

I still don't have any real good conclusion about this jumbled set of facts. So basically, TES has been slowly retconning away the scope of the destruction of Morrowind after the Red Year. When it's first mentioned in the Keyes novels, it's almost absolute. It still sounds pretty bleak in base game Skyrim, but there are still Dunmer in Morrowind. Then the Dragonborn DLC really limits the destruction, with information about how Morrowind began rebuilding within weeks of the Red Year. And then there's this stuff, which may or may not be retconned. Originally posted on r/teslore:

I know what a lot of you are already thinking: the idea that the Argonians kept any of Morrowind after the War of Accession is a fandom myth. Morrowind has been rebuilding for nearly two centuries, and is currently run by a council presided over by House Redoran. In-game maps show that the borders of Morrowind haven't changed. And all that is true but .... is it exactly true?

As a fandom, I think we've over-corrected when it comes to Argonians in Morrowind. I don't think there's enough information to exactly determine the situation, but there is more than enough information to suggest that there's on-going Argonian presence in some of Morrowind's territories, and that hostilities may never have entirely ceased. Let me present the sources.

1. The Keyes' Novels: 4E 40, 34 Years after the Acession War

Argonians are said to control the Scathing Bay, the former site of Vivec City on Vvardenfall.

“This is all controlled by Argonians now,” he said, “although they obviously don't live here. But they do have some ritual associated with this crater, what is now called the Scathing Bay. I arrived here during the ritual, so after running through half the realms of Oblivion, I had to keep running until they gave up, somewhere in the Valus Mountains."

They are also said to have settled in large numbers in southern Morrowind.

Ash, lava, and tidal waves had done their work, and when that was calmed, the Argonians had come, eager to repay what survived of his people for millennia of abuse and enslavement. Of course, those that had settled in southern Morrowind were likely regretting it now, as Umbriel moved over their villages."

The distinction of whether Argonians are settlers inside a Morrowind without new borders or Argonians control those areas is an important one. The information on Scathing Bay is definitely the second. The information on Southern Morrowind is less clear on that. (And we also don't know how those Argonian settlers were effected by Umbra in the end.)

2. Argonian Raids Don't Stop With End of Accession War

We have two separate sources with information on Argonian raids long after the Acession War. The first, from A History of Raven Rock, details an Argonian raid on Solstheim.

In 4E150, a small force of Argonians landed on Solstheim with the intent of wreaking havoc on the island, and Councilor Morvayn led the charge against them personally.

and Dreya Alor in Raven Rock says

We lived in a settlement perhaps a league from the border of Black Marsh, the homeland of the Argonians. Even though the Argonian Invasion ended a long time ago, there are still a few scale-skin clans that live within our borders. To put it simply, they attacked our settlement and slaughtered almost everyone. It was horrible."

3. Argonian Presence Inside Morrowind's Borders

Two more sources on Argonian settlements inside Morrowind's Borders, to add to the ones above.

Talen-Jei tells you:

Keerava has some family at a farm just inside of Morrowind.

This might just be an individual family, but I include it because of another Riften conversation, overheard in the Thieves' Guild.

Delvin: "Puttin' together another shipment from Morrowind, Vekel. Lookin' for anythin' special?" Vekel the Man: "Well, if some Moon Sugar should fall into your lap........" Delvin: "Maybe. That stuffs gettin' tough to bring across the border with all the Argonian patrols." Vekel the Man: "Well if it turns up, I'll be willing to buy."

The Morrowind/Skyrim border near Riften is patrolled by Argonians, huh?

4. Putting It All Together

Well, I can't. There's not enough evidence to put together a clear picture of Argonian settlement or power in Morrowind. But it sure doesn't look like hostilities ceased entirely with the Accession War or that Morrowind territory is exclusively under Dunmer control.

The border doesn't appear to have shifted, but this does not mean the state of affairs on the ground is the same. In comparison, the Empire doesn't seem to have every acknowledged Morrowind's secession, yet we know that they are in practice treated as Independent. It's perfectly lore-compatible for Independent Argonian communities to exist within the borders of Morrowind and exert some level of control of their areas (as seen near the Riften border). These folk aren't even necessarily all immigrants to Morrowind since the 3rd Era; there were plenty of ex-slaves for whom Morrowind was their home.

Some of these communities may have peaceful relationships with the Dunmer government of Morrowind. But Argonian raiding has continued to be a problem in the centuries past the Accession War, as demonstrated in Lleril Morvayn and Dreyla Alor's life stories.

The Time Daggerfall Plagiarized a Japanese History Book

One of the funniest bits of TES trivia for me is that a lot of Redguard History is copy-pasted Sengoku -> Edo Period Japan with the names changed. That’s still apparent in the books the franchise uses, but it started in Daggerfall with straight-up plagiarism. Redguards: Their History and Their Heroes plagiarizes from the translator’s introduction to Miyamoto Musashi’s Book of the Five Rings.

The original:  The traditional rule of the emperors had been overthrown in the twelfth century, and although each succesive emperor remained the figurehead of Japan, his powers were very much reduced. Since that time, Japan had seen almost continuous civil war between the provincial lords, warrior monks and brigands, all fighting each other for land and power. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the lords, called daimyo, built huge stone castles to protect themselves and their lands and castle towns outside the walls began to grow up. These wars naturally restricted the growth of trade and impoverished the whole country.

vs. Redguards: Their History and their Heroes: The traditional rule of emperors had been overthrown in 2012, and although each successive emperor remained the figurehead of the empire, his powers were very much reduced. Since that time, our people saw 300 years of almost continuous civil war between the provincial lords, warrior monks and brigands, all fighting each other for land and power.In the time of Lord Frandar the first Warrior Prince, lords called Yokeda built huge stone castles to protect themselves and their lands, and castle towns outside the walls begin to grow up.

I haven’t checked the rest of that text or any other Daggerfall texts for plagiarism, but it cracks me up how blatant it was. There might be more out there. The text was dropped from the games after Redguard, but ESO brought it back in all its plagiarized glory.

The Best Out-of-Game Dev Text in TES

In my opinion, it’s definitely Interview with Three Writers (by Ted Peterson) just for this bit:

Xan: Why didn't Vivec use his powers while fighting the Empire? Considering the fact that he had an array of god powers, why did he use just common troops and war strategies?

Carlovac Townway: There are definitely tales of Vivec's extraordinary feats during the Four Score War which I didn't include because they didn't take place in 2920. Vivec is an extraordinary character, I think, because he's a General as much as he is a God. He does the things one expects of Gods -- Flooding the land, stopping rocks that fall from the heavens -- But he also is a leader who inspires his men to victory. I think he sometimes, maybe not always, but sometimes, preferred to use his wits, his ability to devise strategy, rather than his raw power in battle... It's pure conjecture, but I suppose sometimes he just wanted his men to learn, instead of just saving them, and after eighty years of war, he was tired...

Waughin Jarth: That's a lot of conjecture. Maybe he just wasn't as powerful as people said he was.

Who cares about CHIM when you can have Waughin Jarth roasting Vivec?

Where are the Mixed-Race Characters? Hiding out in the continuity errors, of course!

Originally posted on r/teslore. I've been inspired by /u/jotting_prosaist 's magnificent apocrypha: A Commentary on the Misinterpretation of “Notes on Racial Phylogeny” and the discussion in the comments. People really are interested in seeing more mixed-race characters in TES, and while we have an increasing number of such characters, and more on their way (if some of those Skyrim babies are ever born), there aren't that many.

But what if they've been under our noses the whole time? What if one of them is Belethor, our favourite Breton shopkeeper the Prima guide describes as Bosmer?

Now, before I go into the details here, I fully acknowledge that these racial discrepancies certainly began as continuity errors. But why not embrace them to give the NPCs deeper backstories and flesh out the world?

'Belethor' is a much more Bosmer-sounding name than Breton. That suggests the Prima Guide is based off an earlier draft in which he was a Bosmer, but that in game development, he was changed to a Breton. However, for in-world purposes, Belethor could have had a Bosmer or part-Bosmer parent who bequeathed him a Bosmer name to honour that part of his ancestry.

Aringoth, the owner of the bee hives in Riften, appears to be an Altmer, but is called a Bosmer by Vex and Brynjolf. Why can't he both?

Enthir appears to be a Bosmer but identifies himself in conversation as Altmer.

So they were like your kind? "Like the Altmer? Yes, I would say their culture quite possibly rivaled our own."

Hlidara Mothril in Oblivion is Countess Alessia Caro's Altmer advisor who is working with her to Imperialize Leyawiin. And yet, the court mage Tsavi calls Hlidara "Nibenean". What if, despite Hildara's Altmer appearance, she is more attuned to her Nibenese ancestry?

I'm sure there are more folk who are referred to as the "wrong" race. And interpreting the continuity errors as lore would make the world and the characters really interesting!

Further examples: Xatriks on Hlidara: Not to mention her Dunmeri name. Also Angaredhel. 

One dialogue mistakenly refers to him as "Angaredhel the Altmer" and his name is more typical of an Altmer name than a Dunmer name. However, two other dialogues correctly describe him as "Angaredhel the Dunmer".

And Mankar Camoran of course. Half of these inconsistencies may be actual mistakes though. Me:  Ooh, nice additions. I'm sure they start out as mistakes, but they can become lore. :) Someone asked why we needed more mixed-race characters.

Me: Because, given the world, there should be a lot more of them. We see mixed-race couples continuously in-game, but the people we meet rarely are presented as anything but pure [insert race here]. It's an impoverished version of a richer possible world. We can assume it's both game mechanics, and a limit on how much dialogue can be written for each character (most characters aren't going to tell you about their relations), but this lack of characters that don't fit inside homogenous racial slots has actually convinced a lot of TES players that race is, in fact, an immutable biological state in Elder Scrolls lore, even when the one text we have on the subject doesn't claim so. TES would definitely benefit from making this subject clearer. If you look at the game of Skyrim, I can think of two mixed-race characters: the Breton/Redguard Lylvieve siblings. That's ridiculously low. And we know absolutely nothing about their experience, so they're not interesting either in that respect. Until the games give us better examples (and ESO is doing a little bit of that), we're on our own imagining anyone interesting at all.

Titus Mede of Kvatch - A fun link between a scrapped Oblivion quest and the Fourth Era

Originally posted on r/teslore. In an interview after Oblivion, Todd Howard made this comment:

In regards to the politics comment, that's a valid statement, in that Daggerfall and Morrowind both have main stories dealing with a lot of politics, and that wasn't the story we wanted to do this time. There was a time that the Oblivion main quest featured a ton of that, dealing with the Elder Council, but we did end up cutting it while it was still on paper, in all our story reads, it really defocused the main quest from dealing with the daedra, which we wanted the focus to be. Anyway, I think the lack of actually seeing and dealing with the Elder Council is certainly one of my "I wish it had this" things, as we wrote some great stuff for it that just didn't make it in. It was the "nobility" faction line, where you made your way up and became "The Duke of Colovia" and sat on the Elder Council. The only remnant of that questline is the dead Duke in Castle Kvatch, which was to be the beginning of that line.

The dead duke is Ormellius Goldwine and you are asked to retrieve his signet ring, called the Colovian Signet Ring, from his body. He never gets a successor, Kvatch is never rebuilt (unless you download a mod.) It doesn't feel that weird in context. Oblivion in general has all sorts of interesting political problems lurking in the corners of the various courts that never get any quests. (The count of Bravil has hired a Dunmer Inquisitor to go after Khajiit rebels, for instance, and it just comes up in one conversation with the Inquisitor who does nothing in game.)

The player presumably would end up wearing the Colovian Signet ring and becoming Count of Kvatch in the scrapped plot Todd Howard described.

The Pocket Guide to the Empire, Third Edition, released with Oblivion, and written by Ted Peterson establishes that the Count had no obvious heirs. Though, mysteriously, it has a different name for the Count, because continuity even in the same game is not a TES strength.

Family strife in Kvatch claimed the lives of both sons of Count Haderus Goldwine, vying for the inheritance. While peace has been restored, the Count, at the time of this writing, is still in mourning, and has not designated a new heir.

With no heir designated, the Count died at the hands of Daedra, leaving the leadership of Kvatch ripe for the taking. And since it wasn't the Hero of Kvatch who'd complete this scrapped quest, Titus Mede I did.

Or at least I assume. It's never said outright in the books or games that Mede hails from Kvatch and took it over first, but it's hinted at. Let me lay out the bread crumbs of this trail.

Titus Mede began his life as an Imperial officer in Michael Kirkbride and Kurt Kuhlmann's Star Wars fanfic! (I also know that fanfic got a TES rework, though I haven't read either version in whole.) Titus Mede shows up as the new Emperor of Cyrodiil in the official novels by Greg Keyes: The Infernal City and Lord of Souls. Not a surprising transition, since we know Keyes was working off notes given him by the developers, and /u/mkirkbride has previously confirmed that some of the Fourth Era history in the novels originates with his ideas.

We don't get a full sketch of his biography. Here's what we know.

Titus Mede had been—and was—many things. A soldier in an outlaw army, a warlord in Colovia, a king in Cyrodiil, and Emperor.

Lathenil in "Rising Threat" will confirm this in Skyrim, and add an interesting little detail about the nature of Titus Mede's claim.

After seven long, bloody years the Stormcrown Interregnum was ended when a Colovian warlord by the name of Titus Mede seized the crown. Whether he had rightful claim or not is moot. Without Titus Mede, there would not be an Empire today. He proved a shrewd and capable leader, such that Skyrim endorsed him as Emperor.

"Whether he had rightful claim or not is moot" suggests that at least for propaganda's sake, Titus Mede made a claim of legitimacy. He deserved to be Emperor not only because he won the Civil War with Thules the Gibbering.

We also know that he started his career without any rank. His son Attrebus says

Listen-my father was once just a soldier with ambition. Now he’s Emperor. He fought for everything he ever got, and I was born with it. Who should be admired the most?”

So what was his claim? One more detail from the novels suggests the answer.

“You know what that is?” she asked, indicating a small black tattoo of a wolf’s head.

He did, of course. It was the Emperor’s personal brand, worn only by his innermost circle.

The Wolf's Head was the symbol of the Count of Kvatch.

Put this all together, and I think we can conclude that young Titus Mede the soldier first made a bid to take over ruined County Kvatch, on his way to greater things. He probably got hold of that ring to make his claim, since there was no obvious Goldwine heir. It wouldn't matter if people believed he was rightfully the heir to the Count of Kvatch if he made people recognize him. And the same would go for Cyrodiil and the Empire. Many of the Elder Council would privately turn their nose up at him as an upstart. His Nibenese Minister Hierem plots to overthrow him. But he outlasted them all and the Oblivion political plot got a triumphant ending, despite Todd Howard's decision to junk it.

I'm not, of course, the first person to put these pieces together. While researching this, I found that very active fan Pilaf the Defiler wrote a piece that makes the Kvatch connection. The full piece with Lady Nerevar's art is on her tumblr. The relevant paragraph:

The warlord Titus Mede has declared himself King of Colovia and musters an entirely illegal army in the hills of County Kvatch. This misguided bandit king does not agree with the wisdom of the Elder Council in placing his terrible majesty Emperor Thules of Nibenay on the throne. Sadly, the Elder Council has had to place severe restrictions on travel along the Gold Road for the duration of this so-called uprising. If you come across a checkpoint, don’t attempt to flee or go around it. This is for your own safety, citizen. By complying to the law and showing our good faith, we can discourage outlaws like Mede from operating within our borders with impunity. With the support of good citizens like yourself, the Elder Council and Emperor Thules can continue to lead us through this transitional phase in our glorious Empire. Respect the law, for Julianos and the Nine!

I'd love to see more fanworks fleshing out the Medes' origin in County Kvatch.

Added comments: I learned in the teslore discussion that there is an Oblivion mod: Knightly Orders for Cities that adds in Titus Mede as the head of the Order of the Wolf in Kvatch.