The Elder Scrolls Theories

A blog dedicated to The Elder Scrolls lore, theories, lore illustration and fanfiction.

[calebwittebane]

since i’m a full-on TES killjoy today. the traitor thing in the oblivion DB questline is just absurd to me to be honest, having given it some thought. lucien lachance gruesomely murdered a kid’s mother in front of him, and said kid grew up to hate him and conspire against him. the fact that the DB are the good guys here, that lucien is the good guy here, wronged by the unfair revenge of some dude who dared to be fucked up by such an experience, is just. bizarre to me. youd think there would at least be some moral ambiguity here. but matthiew bellamont is unambiguously presented as a repulsive, creepy, unjustified freak, for wanting revenge for what happened to him. fucking loser traumatized by seeing his mother be gruesomely decapitated, look how over the top and gross and crazy and depraved he is. look at him relishing in lucien’s death. the fucker. not like literally everyone in dark brotherhood relishes in death and mutilation, like the dude bragging about murdering an entire birthday party full of kids, or yknow, all the talk about the beauty of bloodshed and gore. oh and that fucker arquen. who would be so happy about gruesomely murdering someone like this?

…

like, dont get me wrong, lucien is definitely a likeable charming character, and its obvious on some level that if youre an assassin, youre probably at least morally dubious, and i guess thats the charm. its 100% harmless to pretend you’re an assassin in a fictional world in a video game. i’m not making moral judgements here or trying to say this or that is problematic. but just. man. this is a little weird

[calebwittebane]

perhaps this is, again, the point. the point that was maybe not conveyed clearly enough, because it went over people’s heads. and the point is that the dark brotherhood are a bunch of complete idiots with 0 regard for human life, and absolute monsters. which maybe should be obvious, but is it?

i think the main difference between the morag tong and the dark brotherhood is that morag tong is a safer, quicker, and less messy equivalent of house wars. its an institution within a special context of a country divided into regions and great houses that rule them, and said houses having conflicts with one another. you know, let the rich tits just get a morag tong assassin to do their business, rather than involve innocent people in it, the lower class members of the houses to fight and die for them. morag tong, while allowing public execution if its absolutely necessary but still really frowning upon it, favours quick and swift and quiet executions away from the public eye. now im not saying that a faction of assassins is necessarily a good thing, obviously, im just saying that its much more justified than dark brotherhood, and a completely different kind of guild.

because DB dont shy away from just loving gore and death and mutilation. theyre a religious cult that values death over life. in a way that really backfires at them often. many of them are complete monsters who killed people before joining, and joining simply gave that bloodlust a cause and a price. they’re nonchalant about murder, nonchalant about who theyre killing and who theyre killing for, and nonchalant about their own lives, and lives of their fellow members. there are no good guys in the DB. and when you join it, all situations are put in the same context: where lives just dont matter. where someone gruesomely murdered someone, so the response is to gruesomely murder someone else, and so on, and so on. 

that once the value of human life is forfeit, it is forfeit for good, and you REALLY CANNOT rationally feel unfair about the black hand dealing with the situation by just blindly murdering a member of their guild, blindly murdering is exactly what youve been doing. to an absurd degree. murdering entire families. murdering because a piece of paper told you to. purging an entire sanctuary - murdering all the people you just spoke to, had friendly relations with, because another character told you to. and the purge is often seen as a sad, tragic moment too - but you are the one carrying it out, and wasnt killing off all the sons of a woman who seems to trust you, and then her, a sad and tragic moment too?

naturally the death of lucien lachance is meant to be a shocking, sad moment. the violence dealt to him is really grotesque. but is it in contrast with what you’ve seen and done so far, or is it consistent? is it meant to be a moment where you go, huh, this is actually horrifying. it had to happen where i wasnt expecting it, to a character i really did not want to die, who has been nice and loving to me, for me to realize how much this sucks. that maybe this whole thing is just fucked like this.

that there is something fucked by the implication that a bunch of ruthless monsters in a religious cult dedicated to killing for money, where money seems to be a minor benefit anyway, could be the good guys

disclaimer: im mostly talking about oblivion DB here. skyrim DB is a bit of a different story: similar, but the opponent and the way the brotherhood operates is different in ways that matter.

[boethiah]

Almalexia’s Back Tattoos: What Are They?

this is a writeup of a conversation between me and @mistressdratha because we think almalexia’s tattoos are neat

the first thing we noticed was the lower back

this appears to be a vortex, trailing two flames and a few other strands. my first impression was that it was a burning eye; it also seemed, to me, that it was the reverse of the tattoo on her cheek, which looks like a closed and weeping eye

vivi drew this comparison, and noted that it felt meaningful that the eye on the front was closed and weeping, while the one on the back was open and burning. 

we were more stumped by the shape on her upper right shoulder, however. vivi’s preliminary observations were that it looked like a beetle, and that it had scars running through it

she also noted that it looked kinda like the patterns on a butterfly’s wing, or another eye. i suggested that it could be a shield. 

then we came up with a somewhat novel idea

that its a map of mournhold as viewed from the side, with the more prominent right side representing the temple, and the dark central fragment representing the plazas

(alternatively, wouldn’t it be poetic if the tattoo were in fact old mournhold, and the scar marring it was obtained when she fought dagon…?)

vivi also noted that the fragmented, wavy line separating the upper part of her back from the lower part, and the second pair of lines curving around the ‘burning eye’, stating that they looked reminiscent of the border of the sea

so it struck us– if the circle on her shoulder was, in fact, mournhold, could the rest of her back be a map as well? and could the ‘eye’ in fact be, as vivi had originally assumed, a planet– or a moon? 

what if almalexia’s back is a prediction of the red year? 

we know almalexia’s a prophetic dreamer, powerful enough to prophesy the oblivion crisis thousands of years before it happened. what if she also saw the demise of morrowind and, in a fit of bitterness resulting, opted that instead of warning anyone she’d have it tattooed on her, possibly to get back at her fellow triunes for never fucking including her in anything or asking for her advice or opinions despite her being basically responsible for running the whole country singlehandedly? would that not be the biggest power move you’ve ever seen? jesus christ, almalexia is amazing. i love this bitch 

[i-am-sharmat-deactivated2020121]

Conspiracy theory of the day - Dagoth Ur and by extension, AlmSiVi (at least Almalexia and Vivec) are not dead and live on in some way or form.

The original game ends on a rather uncertain note. If you go visit the key players after Dagoth Ur’s defeat, they will tell you the following:

“Dagoth  Ur is dead. I would like to rejoice. But I feel uneasy. I cannot forget  that Lord Nerevar once thought Dagoth Ur dead, long, long ago. He was  mistaken.” – Nibani Maesa

“Dagoth  Ur is dead. I hope we will no longer be troubled by his dreams. But I  wonder, too, what the ghost of a god would be. And can a dead god  dream?”  – Hassour Zainsubani 

“He was a god, and now he is dead. IF one can truly kill a god.” – Vivec

While there is a general agreement that Dagoth Ur is dead, there is that uncertainty that plagues even Vivec - can you truly kill a god? After all, being dead to some degree isn’t new to Dagoth Ur at all.

But, you will say, the Heart of Lorkhan is destroyed, so everyone connected to it should have turned to dust as well. False. The Heart of Lorkhan was never destroyed. Kagrenac’s enchantments on it were unwoven and the Heart vanished from the Heart Chamber inside the Red Mountain. But here are a few things to keep in mind about the Heart of Lorkhan:

“But when Trinimac and Auriel tried to destroy the Heart of Lorkhan it laughed at them. It said, ‘This Heart is the heart of the world, for one was made to satisfy the other.” So Auriel fastened the thing to an arrow and let it fly long into the sea, where no aspect of the new world may ever find it.’“ — The Monomyth

If Trinimac and Auriel themselves could not destroy it, I highly doubt anything Kagrenac and the following users did to it could even scratch it. And if it’s truly the heart of the world, for as long as Nirn persists, so will the Heart.

And if the Heart of Lorkhan exists, then it isn’t a stretch of imagination to suggest that those who were tied to it for millennia do as well.

Now in what form? Who knows. Let’s return to Hassour Zainsubani’s words. “But I  wonder, too, what the ghost of a god would be. And can a dead god dream?” I wonder the same. But also he isn’t the first one to talk about gods and sleeping. Vivec does: “ Perhaps for other gods, the completely immortal ones, it is only like that being asleep. Out of time.“

Could it be where Dagoth Ur and Almalexia with Vivec ended up in after their “death” on Mundus? Somewhere out of time? Wherever that may be.

Also let’s consider what we know about the “dead gods” from the lore. Which isn’t much, but we have some examples. The Nine Divines. 

The Nine Divines are from the original et-Ada who gave their power away (sources vary on whether they gave up all of their powers of most of it) for the creation of Mundus. They are said to have become the planets. The same is said to have happened to the Lorkhan’s corpse, hence the moons. But they are never truly “dead” in the truest sense of the word. In Oblivion, the avatar of Akatosh defeated Mehrunes Dagon and before that Akatosh was said to have made a pact with Alessia (hence the Amulet of Kings). This pact protected Mundus from the invasion of Daedric Princes for millennia.

In other words, in TES lore, gods don’t truly die, disappear and so on. Some parts of them remain even in the physical world, and their subtle presence continues to influence it forevermore.

So what does it mean for Dagoth Ur and the Tribunal?

[elderscrollstheories]

So I have this one theory, blossoming from all of the time you have to spend in Dwarven ruins. What if the Dwemer never disappeared? Every animunculi that you come across has a soul gem in it, so what if in those soul gems are the souls of the Dwemer? Lore says that they threw off the gods in favor of science. What if it's because they found immortality without the gods' help?

[elderscrollstheories]

It'd be really cool if Bethesda compiled a bunch of these, edited them, and published them as works of literature for the next Elder Scrolls game.

i’d volunteer to write the lorebooks! -ayem

[kagrenacs]

I like to think the detect life spell is often used by healers to see how fast a person is fading or if there’s any life still left in them. If a person is healthy their glow is intense, if they’re hanging on by a thread the glow is dim.

It’s also used for checking areas where a large mass of people died in order to see if anyone’s unconscious but still alive, or areas that aren’t easily accessible/dangerous so nobody else has to die.

[colonel-killa-bee]

I'm curious, why do you like Boethiah?

Where to begin… (warning, rather long.)

Keep reading

[mazurah]

I… really want to work this into my writing somehow… This is such a great interpretation of Molag Bal, Boethiah, Lorkhan, Amaranth, and CHIM! Also, I think this might be an interpretation of “reach heaven by violence” that I have not actually seen before! I’ve been attempting to work my way through the stuff by @rottendeadite over at The New Whirling School, and as far as I can tell, that’s got a different interpretation for it. I think I might actually like Molag Bal now! Well not like. Appreciate him in relation to CHIM maybe? Iunno. Lemme see if I can TL:DR the most relevant parts of this thing real quick.

Part of Molag Bal’s sphere of domination and domination through consumption.

Molag Bal sees what Lorkhan tried to do through the creation of Nirn as an attempt to dominate (CHIM) and ultimately consume (Amaranth) the Divine Dreamer/Godhead.

Boethiah disagrees with this interpretation of Lorkhan, and becomes bitter enemies with Molag Bal.

Boethiah’s sphere is deceit, conspiracy, secret plots of murder, assassination, treason, and unlawful overthrow of authority.

Boethiah sees what Lorkhan tried to do through the creation of Nirn as a conspiracy to betray (CHIM) and ultimately violently overthrow the authority (Amaranth) of the Divine Dreamer/Godhead.

Both Molag Bal and Boethiah attempt to teach their point of view to mortals through The Psijic Endeavor and CHIM, but Boethiah was way more badass about it. Which is why Boethiah is the best.

Good gods that is oversimplification.

I must now squirrel this away in my collection of TES lore interpretations for future reference!

[colonel-killa-bee]

This is a good TL:DR I’d say :) I’m glad all that made sense to someone, and that people actually read all that 😄

I get what you mean about Bal too, I don’t like him, but I appreciate him more now as far as his concept goes.

[boethiah]

my first reaction upon reading this was “no no no, thats an awful interpretation of lorkhan,” and then i realized that i was half-asleep and reread it as molag bal’s messed up interpretation of lorkhan and… i do see how molag bal might interpret him that way. and this is  really, really interesting notion, that molag bal and boethiah’s enmity comes from conflicting interpretations of lorkhan.

(under a cut cause long)  

Keep reading

[mazurah]

So I’m just barely keeping up with all this, but I just remembered an old theory I heard a while back that Lorkhan intentionally created Nirn in order to give the et’ada a means to complete the Psijic Endeavor, leading to CHIM and ultimately Amaranth because he knew that there was no way that the et’ada were going to do it on their own, being too much influenced by their natures. They had to experience the chaos of mortality to achieve it. He could have achieved Amaranth on his own because he had already achieved CHIM or something like that, but he wanted to give everybody else a chance too, so he intentionally failed, thus anchoring Nirn to the center of existence. Thoughts?

[colonel-killa-bee]

I don’t think Lorkhan already had CHIM, but I do think he understood what it was, and knew it would take sacrifice and hardship to gain it. Beings that are made to anchor the dream into existence, beings that exist as concepts to give shape to the dream, wouldn’t as easily be able to manipulate the world because they’re dominated and enslaved by these concepts, though the gods less so than the Daedra. But it still holds true for them, as beings of stasis.

So that had to change, they had to be made lesser, and experience the dream from a different perspective to ever be able to control it. And eventually make their own. It’s like spoiled children given everything and in doing so, being completely helpless and unable to do anything on their own. The only solution, is to strip them of these crutches, and let them mess up, make mistakes, and learn on their own.

[ghartokpadhome]

The Honoring Days of the Saints

Though the Dunmer Saints are collectively honored on Triune, or the New Year, the Saints individually hold their own days of honoring and certain offerings and ceremonies dedicated specifically to each.

Saint Nerevar the Captain

Saint Nerevar is to be Honored on the 1st of Last Seed. Traditional offerings include any form of weaponry, silk, gold, and the coda flower. It is also traditional to conduct non-lethal battles of valor in honor of his military prestige. 

Saint Veloth the Pilgrim

Saint Veloth is to be Honored on the 23rd of Frostfall. Traditional offerings include ash, travelers rations, and daedra hearts. It is also traditional to fast on the day of Saint Veloth’s honoring.

Saint Rilms the Barefooted

Saint Rilms is to be Honored on the 17th of First Seed. Traditional offerings include the shoes from one’s feet, monetary donations, and bread. It is also traditional to dress modestly when offering to a shrine of Saint Rilms, and one is expected to leave the shrine barefoot.

Saint Aralor the Penitent

Saint Aralor is to be Honored on the 3rd of Sun’s Height. Traditional offerings include ebony, incense, and scuttle. Saint Aralor’s Honoring is also an occasion to confess to sins or crimes and receive ancestral forgiveness; these are written on small scraps of paper and are burned in a bowl before the shrine.

Saint Seryn the Merciful

Saint Seryn is to be Honored on the 6th of Midyear. Traditional offerings include potions of cure disease, ash yams, and any form of alcohol, usually poured into an offering cup.

Saint Felms the Bold

Saint Felms is to be Honored on the 9th of Evening Star. Traditional offerings include slaughterfish scales, pearls, and ash salts. It is also traditional to offer a reading of a tale to the shrine of Saint Felms, as he was unable to read himself.

Saint Roris the Martyr

Saint Roris is to be Honored on the 23rd of Morning Star. Traditional offerings include sujamma, chitin, trama root, fire salts, and monetary donations.

Saint Olms the Just

Saint Olms is to be Honored on the 13th of Rain’s Hand. Traditional offerings include void salts, blood oranges, silver, and ash. 

Saint Delyn the Wise

Saint Delyn the Wise is to be Honored on the 22nd of Sun’s Dusk. Traditional offerings include raw glass, pottery, myrrh, and flatbread. 

Saint Meris the Peacemaker

Saint Meris is to be Honored on the 17th of Sun’s Dawn. Traditional offerings include potions of health or medicines, candles, incense, and iron. It is traditional to wear white at the shrine of Saint Meris, and disregarding of this will be seen as a sign of immense disrespect.

Saint Llothis the Pious

Saint Llothis is to be Honored on the 29th of Last Seed. Traditional offerings include raw dyes, coda flower, any form of alcohol, incense, and monetary donations.

Saint Jiub the Eradicator of the Winged Menace

Saint Jiub is to be Honored on the 12th of Second Seed. Traditional offerings include cliffracer plumes (or other feathers as a representation), arrows, shein, and incense. More controversial offerings include moon sugar or skooma.

Saint S’en the Preserver

Saint S’en is to be Honored on the 9th of Hearthfire. Traditional offerings include potions of cure blight, fire fern, black lichen, and linen wraps. It is also traditional to light a candle or smoke at her shrine.

[kagrenacs]

Something interesting I noticed about the shrine of azura in dragonborn is the huge skull in the middle.

I think it’s due to the Nerevarine prophecies coming true and after vivecs disappearance and the loss of power (to which many probably believe is due to the Nerevarine) the blame for the destruction of the dunmers home was partially placed on the Nerevarine and Azura, thus the skull representing the thousands if not more casualties brought by her.

[boethiah]

i wouldn’t be so quick to write sotha sils new text off as “bad lore” because really all it does is confirm two things weve already known about sotha sil for a while. the first being that he’s anuic as hell and views everything as parts-of-a-whole to be assembled into one final static all-encompassing perfection. and the second

But Sotha Sil said to her, “The old gods are cruel and arbitrary, and distant from the hopes and fears of mer. Your age is past. We are the new gods, born of the flesh, and wise and caring of the needs of our people. Spare us your threats and chiding, inconstant spirit. We are bold and fresh, and will not fear you.” (source)

that sotha sil openly contempts the daedra and seeks to replace them. of course he’d write off boethiah’s teachings and the psijic endeavor in favor of replacing them with his own. when has he cared what the daedra have to say about godhood? 

[wake-forest]

imo sotha sil’s assertion that padhome doesn’t exist is best taken in the context of the anuad and anu-as-amaranth; that is, it’s an assertion that the anuad is (partially) a lie and anu just invented padhome from the aspects of himself he was most ashamed of, i.e. killing nir. 

thus, padhomaic philosophies are associated with amnesia bc they favor the subsumption of what remains of anu into this alter he’s created, glorying in violence and sundering as an end in itself in a rebellious attempt to legitimize his harmful actions and escape shame and guilt. while anuic philosophies, like sotha sil’s, are associated with memory bc they attempt to deal with the reality of what happened and mend anu’s mind.

sotha sil seems to think that that has to happen through at least some sundering, to get rid of et’ada fragments so they can be sewn back together. but then, the dwemer seem to have needed to fuse souls to smash them, so it makes a fairly poetic reversal.

[kagrenacs]

Sermons of Sotha Sil

ESO Morrowind/Clockwork City spoilers!!!

Keep reading

[boethiah]

i still think that namira and sanguine are pals with overlapping spheres

[ayrenn]

namira, sanguine and hircine all have overlapping spheres, and theyre the ones whose spheres reach the farthest 

like, they all deal with instinct. something that every living being, from the smallest fly to dragons. so many other spheres are much more complex, they appeal to ideas only present in more intelligent creatures, whereas sanguine, namira and hircine really are connected to that primal, gritty part of life. 

namira is like, she’s the cycle. the cycle of life and death. but shes also fear, which is a force that drives EVERYTHING. and everything too, thats linked in the cycle. 

sanguine is of course hedonistic, and his sphere is about sex. both as a recreational type thing, but also as that urge. that urge that is within a person, or an animals body to procreate. 

and then hircine, his is the will to survive. your instinct to survive. the whole prey/hunter thing… its something that involves everything and everyone. that fucking fight to BE the hunter and not the prey 

theyre also all really lorkhanesque. like, namira in khajiiti mythos is VERY heavily tied to lorkhan, and hircine of course has other links as well. 

[elderscrollstheories]

the druids of galen

okay so we all know the bretons have jackshit for lore, so recently i’ve been pondering some things, namely wtf the “druids of galen” from arena could be.

bretons are obviously based on celtic cultures, namely the bretons of northern france. and since druids were a big deal to the celts, it seems they’d be a big deal to bretons - bigger than a one-off mention in the first game. 

i like to think that “galen” was probably an elf (either altmer or ayleid, not really sure) who discovered the ways of nature magic (possibly learning it from….spriggans? idk….maybe from ehlnofey?) and taught it to the manmer of highrock in the first era. 

i think balance would be a very important aspect of his teachings, which is why he believes the manmer should be in control of their own affairs, and kick out the elves, despite being one himself. like, he saw the manmer as a balanced combination of the best aspects of mer and men, and perhaps there was prophecy involved, there’s always fuckin prophecy in the elder scrolls.

but, yeah. i imagine the druids of galen were a bunch of bretons who learned nature magic from galen (who learned it from spriggans or something) and helped push for independence against meri and nordic control.

i imagine nature magic to be a lot like what the bosmer are known to do, i.e. controlling plant growth, commanding animals, etc. there might also be some weird earthbone shit going on, perhaps somewhat like tonal architecture, but less refined. like, i think they probably believed that the roots of the eldest trees could touch the earthbones, so by singing and chanting in rituals to the trees they could affect reality at large.

of course this is all speculation since breton lore doesn’t really exist, but dammit they deserve better, so here’s a rambling look at the druids of galen i guess

[maar-gan-deactivated20180716]

boethiah replied to your post: I’d actually argue that Talos mantled Ebonarm

!!! i wanna hear this argument

Alright! It’s pretty simple, really; Ebonarm used to be the god of War, and was notably the enemy of pretty much… every single Daedric Prince ever, which already puts him in a position of being more aligned with the Divines in terms of Imperial-centrist polytheistic views.

However, at some point, Ebonarm completely vanished from lore. He wasn’t pushed out, really, so much as he faded into irrelevancy. This erasure correlated with the rise of the Empire and Tiber Septim’s rule. Tiber Septim, being one of the three that create the Emanitimorph (or however that’s spelled) that went on to become the mortal god Talos, who is notably the god of War.

So if mantling has to do with taking over one’s sphere of influence, I think it can certainly be argued that Talos mantled Ebonarm. Ebonarm in his original form became completely forgotten and was replaced by Talos who stole his sphere.

[elderscrollstheories]

i'm SO glad there's a place to compile the good tes stuff now <3

So are we! Remember that we'll reblog any posts tagged for us, including fanart and fanfiction, so feel free to submit, tag us in, or link is to anything-- we want this to be a blog for the community as a whole :-)

[boethiah]

Ur du bthun Dwemeris: An Analysis of Calcelmo’s Stone

ive been spending a lot of time on airplanes recently, and occupied myself by… picking apart the dwemeris conlang used in calcelmo’s stone. here’s what i’ve got. 

Dwemer Text: 

Chun thuamer arkngd chend duathand, th ahvardn btham. Amz thuamer ahrkanch kemelmzulchond aka Mora, th thuangz ahrk, th duum melz thuabtharng, th kanthaln duabcharn mzin thuastur, btharumz thua mer zel. Abakch duumarkng tuathumz amakai, th abakch avatheled kagr tuamkingth mzan. Du chal fahl ngark, che du fahl bthun ur. Du chal fahl ngalft, che du bthun ur. Du abak chal thu abazun nchur duabthar, nchul duanchard. Th ur thuanchuth irknd, ur irkngth eftardn, thunch fahlz. Bthun abak dua mzual th nchuan duarkng, chun fahlbthar thuanchardch anum ralz, th eftar thuachendraldch kagren thua vanchningth.

Official Translation: 

And so it was that your people were given passage to our steam gardens, and the protections of our power. Many of your people had perished under the roaring, snow-throated kings of Mora, and your wills were broken, and we heard you, and sent our machines against your enemies, to thereby take you under. Only by the grace of the Dwemer did your culture survive, and only by the fifteen-and-one tones did your new lives begin. We do not desire thanks, for we do not believe in it. We do not ask for gratitude, for we do not believe in it. We only request you partake of the symbol of our bond, the fruit of the stones around us. And as your vision clouds, as the darkness sets in, fear not. Know only our mercy and the radiance of our affection, which unbinds your bones to the earth before, and sets your final path to the music of your new eternity.

[oog 1]

Keep reading