*chimes aggressively at you*

collect my roots boy

[nirnroot-dot-wav]

I am not a roleplay blog I'm just here for the bit ✌️

Anyway hi. tes sideblog time so I can stop flooding the dashes of my non-tes loved ones with homicidal clowns. perhaps if I get brave enough I will also post about my ocs, but for now, I will probably just gush about other people's ocs. organized tags are a solid: maybe

main blog: @slumbering-shadows

Edit: I'm slightly braver now. Here is characters kinda

Edrisi: Dunmer. She's an orphan from Pelagiad who was taken in by the imperial cult and shuffled off to the Chapel of Stendarr in Chorrol. Eventual Listener of the Dark Brotherhood, reluctant Hero of Kvatch, and extremely unwilling Sheogorath. She doesn't really know what she does want to do but she knows at pretty much every juncture in her life that the answer is Not Fucking This.

Varyna: Also a dunmer, this time from Solstheim, though she moved to Windhelm when she was young. Mostly freelance intelligencer working primarily for the Thalmor. Reluctant Listener of the Dark Brotherhood and super ecstatic Last Dragonborn. She is so stoked to be killing dragons and eating their souls. She can't wait to fight Alduin, not to save the world or whatever but simply so that she can say she's killed a god. Daedric Princes love her because she lowkey sucks <3

Adrienne: My newest and also least developed, background-wise. Breton from Windhelm. She was originally apprenticing under Wuunferth the Unliving to eventually take over as the court mage. Highly gifted Restoration specialist, although eventually she does start getting more and more interested in Conjuration, and ends up joining the College of Winterhold on Wuunferth's suggestion. Cue College bullshit, becomes Arch-Mage, fucking hates it, but by the nine she is going to improve the College's relationship with Winterhold if its the last thing she does. Varyna's very dear childhood friend :)

[sulphuricgrin]

Miraak and Lilliandra of House Nivulirel

The villain power couple is here! Miraak and Lilliandra have made it to the @tes-gala this year and just barely on time! XD This is my post-Apocrypha Miraak design after Lilli resurrects him. Miraak is the Tower and Lilliandra as the Ritual.

Apocrypha-era and pre-Apocrypha era under cut, as well as close ups and some lore bits :)

This took me 30 hours. I wish I had done more but I ran out of time. I hope y'all still like it! 💚💚

Apocrypha-era Miraak || pre-corruption Miraak

Here's close ups of their faces :)) The ring on Lilli's necklace is one of Miraak's old ones. She has a habit of creating him newer, stronger ones to use while she wears he's old ones! The scar-like pattern on his face (and right hand) is the Apocrypha corruption he once had now scarred/healed in his freedom on Nirn.

Possessive claims in many ways! 🤭 One the left is close ups of their wedding rings. I'm still not positive what material they had them of, but all the same, I wanted to add them in! And the burned hand mark the right! Oh! That's just another claim — specifically Miraak's hand burned into her through magic (oh, she definitely asked for it 😩)

I have an accompanying fic to go with this, but sadly that'll be out tomorrow!

[witch-bag]

alright i play skyrim again... something never change...

[sanch0us]

(Sheo’s) Haskill’s holiday

Just a quick funny sketch before the serious one

[hvarra]

my dragonborn again

[venacoeurva]

"He spoke not a word as he died. Not a whisper. Even in death, he mocked me with his silence!"

-Please do not reupload/edit/use without proper credit or linking back. Preferably ask first.-

[chippypiper]

The Poison Gardens yes that is voryn

this painting is sort of about the personal issues i headcanon voryn having and the whole thing symbolizes a cage, the question of whether its better to be free but with risk or stay safe but painfully constricted. The hands are supposed to reference the Dagoth family (or more specifically the matriarch, Voryns mother) and the hardship that comes from being born with expectations of getting a position of such importance as a high councilor, not being able to choose what you actually wanted to do with your life. I did also kind of want to contrast this with the kind of luxurious palace environment, despite voryns issues you should still keep in mind that this doesnt compare to the more extreme struggles of a peasant. I also just wanted to try and design a building interior that feels sort of House Dagoth.

the text on the pillar is translatable but i know its a hastle, so ill just say that its about not being able to escape fate, multiple implications when it comes to that

close ups:

[getvalentined]

Thinking a lot recently about the constant comparison of Oblivion to Skyrim, particularly claims that Oblivion is superior in every way strictly by virtue of quest length and the greater grandiosity of the organizations in Oblivion, and I think there's been a fundamental misunderstanding of what's actually going on with Tamriel during the time period of Skyrim. Even though it's like...one of the core concepts of the main storyline.

Putting most of this under a cut for length, but I just...I think people misunderstand what's going on here. This is not a "One Game Good Other Game Bad" post, it's an analysis of a major, key difference in story basis between the two that I think gets lost in the (frankly asinine) argument about which is superior.

See, everything in Skyrim sucks. Every organization you can align yourself with is falling apart. Literally every single one.

That's the point.

To summarize:

The Companions (equivalent to the Fighters' Guild) are about a dozen strong, literally cursed, and their most beloved leader gets murdered very early in the storyline.

The College of Winterhold (equivalent to the Mages' Guild, not to the Arcane University) has seemingly only been saved from collapsing into the sea because a master of Restoration fused himself with the structure itself when the Sea of Ghosts tried to tear it down a little under a century ago and his presence is constantly physically "healing" the foundation.

The Thieves' Guild has lost the favor of every possible patron deity, having been outright cursed by Nocturnal after one of her Nightingales murdered another and stole the gift she offers her champion, while the boon that the organization's founder claimed from her in ages past (the cowl) is missing.

The Dark Brotherhood has been all but completely dismantled, the Night Mother's tomb in Bravil having been raided and struggling to persist without a Listener for over a decade; the bodies of the Night Mother's children have been lost and she's essentially being smuggled from region to region in an attempt to find a safe place to continue operations.

The Empire itself has been kneecapped, forced into a traumatic treaty by a fascist regime determined to strike the beliefs and culture of anyone not Altmer off the face of the planet; the Thalmor have gone so far as to torture and radicalize the figurehead leader of the Nords in order to use their own nationalism and superiority against the Empire, sparking a civil war that will further weaken the Empire and allow the Aldmerri Dominion to destroy it wholecloth.

This extends out into the rest of the world, too! We have confirmed existence of Hist-deaf Argonians. The Dunmer are floundering to recover after the quadruple-whammy that is the fall of the Triumverate, the destruction of Vivec City when Baar Dau finally made impact, the Red Year, and the Argonian uprising. The Bosmer are literally endangered due to habitat loss following a super-isolationist cultural shift due to wars with the Khajiit and Altmer. The Void Nights were devastating to Khajiit culture and population in ways that have yet to be fully explained.

The world is falling apart. Everything is dying.

And then Alduin shows up.

We all kind of talk about Alduin carrying on as World-Eater through the course of the Skyrim storyline like it's him being a piece of shit, since he'd started it ages ago and was just displaced in time to land on the Last Dragonborn's head in the Fourth Era, but I don't think that's the case.

Based on the state of things, I think Alduin arrived right on time. I think it's the end of the world. The only reason he "should" be stopped is because the Last Dragonborn has the capacity to stop the world from ending in a more down-to-earth sense than just defeating Alduin: they can't save everyone, but they can "fix" every single organization that's holding "the world" together.

They can align with the Imperials and keep the civil war from further crippling them, keeping the Empire from being too weak to push back against the Aldmerri Dominion.

They can save the College of Winterhold, the only group in the right place at the right time to stop the Eye of Magnus from opening, and in doing so make sure that the Psijics are able to put it somewhere nobody else can find it.

They can lead the Companions, cure the curse for those members who don't want to run with Hircine after death, which bolsters their spirits enough to keep doing what they can even when everyone else is trying to kill each other. A single neutral martial force in the middle of a civil war.

They can regain Nocturnal's trust for the Thieves' Guild, restore the Nightingales, and in doing so they can return the luck that was stolen from them as punishment for Mercer Frey's transgression. They can even reclaim the Crown of Barenziah and award the guild with a paragon to increase their newly-regained luck.

They can hear the Night Mother, becoming Listener for the Dark Brotherhood to restore the balancing force of Sithis in the world, purify the most broken Sanctuary the Brotherhood has ever had, and finish a story set into motion way back in the Third Era—Emperor Titus Mede II is murdered under the order of a Motierre, a descendant of a mark the Brotherhood specifically kept from dying during the Oblivion Crisis.

The Last Dragonborn can't do anything outside Skyrim—there's nothing they can do for the Argonians or the Bosmer or the Khajiit, and they can only do very little for the Dunmer via work in Solstheim—but they can work with every single guild or guild-adjacent group, strengthening the Empire to stand against the biggest threat to Tamrielic culture since the First Era, and in doing so they can make it so the world isn't ready for Alduin to eat it.

The Hero of Kvatch exists when Tamriel, and presumably Nirn as a whole is in the prime of its life, that's what makes the Oblivion Crisis such a big deal. This is a world that isn't ready to give up, it still has the strength to fight, it just needs someone standing at the head to direct it. The Last Dragonborn comes into the story when everything is falling apart and nothing really feels worthwhile, when it's hard to see why the world is worth saving. They have the chance to prove that there's still some life left here, that the world isn't too far gone to save—Alduin arrived right on time, it's the Last Dragonborn's job to change that.

I can see how coming from Oblivion to Skyrim would feel disappointing and hollow, but I'm pretty sure that's literally the point of the story.

Oblivion tells you the world is worth saving because it's got so much left to live for, even with the odds stacked so high against it. Skyrim asks you whether a world that's dying is still a world worth saving, and it's up to you to prove that it is.

[dibellas-moth]

stare into the abyss and the abyss stares back // oil pastel on paper

the alternative title for this piece is ‘punishment’ and there is a reason within it that explains why, you just might need it to be a little brighter :)

[drunk-librarian-art-deactivated]

Новый арт, приуроченный к выходу статьи, в которой я рассуждаю о том, что Цицерон не является религиозным фанатиком.

Её можно прочитать в моём тгк: beeplidrery

Beer Library 🐢

You can view and join @beeplidrery right away.

[vvivecc]

Teldyni by arttair

[feykrorovaan]

Every time I see an oversexualized/air brush shiny Serana mod:

LEAVE HER ALONE.

[sulphuricgrin]

I'm so fascinated by the way you write magic in your fics. It feels so... scientific, I guess? Very grounded. How do you do that

Omg thanks for the question :D I was very excited to answer this when I saw it last night! I can only assume this question may be related to my most recent fic update, but this does show up as early as my main fic!

Fate-Touched Ch 9: Lilli V 

“The rest of the afternoon turns to debates on various hypotheses, before falling back on axioms and magic theorems, and trying to see what sticks. They take turns writing with chalk onto the large slate board that’s on one wall ― a weird mix of their different scripts, mathematical equations, and magic theory.” 

I think a big part of it is that I treat magic as a real discipline inside the world, not just as an aesthetic or miracle machine. While TES game mechanics are obviously limited in showing you how magic really works, in the world, magic has schools, guilds, teachers, universities, formal study, experimentation, and people who specialize in different branches of it. So, when I write it, I try to think of magic less as “random impossible thing happens” and more as “this is a force people in-universe have studied, categorized, misunderstood, refined, and argued about for centuries.” 

When I write it, I don’t think “what cool spell can happen here?” and more in terms of:  

What is the mage’s skill level and knowledge? 

What is the mage trying to affect?  

What do they understand about the mechanism?  

What variables matter?  

What are the risks if they get it wrong? What are the limits? 

What assumptions are they making?  

What would someone trained in this field notice that another person wouldn’t? 

There’s also something in writing called soft and hard magic systems, coined by Brandon Sanderson. Feel free to read about it directly from him if you like here. But I’ll try to condense the ideas.  

Soft magic systems are often mysterious, vague, lack strict rules, often have no set limitation. Think magic in the HP series.  

Hard magic systems have more clearly defined and consistent rules. There are limitations and costs to what magic can do. There may even be consequences to certain spells or categories of magic. This magic system is often more explained to the reader, like rules of a game. One example of this would be the alchemy system of Fullmetal Alchemist. This system can feel more like a science than magic.

I write with more of the hard magic system in mind! Sometimes magic should feel mysterious, mythic, or unknowable, especially when related to the Divines and Daedra. Other times, especially when the POV character understands what they’re doing, it makes sense for the mechanics to be more visible. So, I don’t necessarily think every spell needs a rigid explanation, but I do like giving the impression that there is a structure underneath it, even if the reader is only seeing part of it. (I know from experience writing a very nerdy magic tes oneshot that it’s not always everyone’s cup of tea for it to be explanation/structure heavy :’)) 

Also, in my opinion, POV matters a lot too. Most of my main POV characters are mages, so they naturally notice magical theory, structure, technique, and consequences in a way a non-mage might not. A novice mage won’t know the specifics of their spells just yet but still manage a few small ones – whereas a master will know the magic theory behind how it should work. 

Lilliandra, in particular, is basically the fantasy equivalent of a scientist: she experiments, observes, compares results, tests limits, and thinks of magic as something that can be studied. Because of that, when the story is close to her, the magic tends to feel more analytical and grounded. She’s not just seeing a spell happen; she’s thinking about why it worked, what school(s) it belongs to, what variables changed, what could go wrong, and whether the result can be repeated. 

But that detail level would change with another character. Someone with no magical education might describe the same event much more vaguely or emotionally: light, pressure, pain, heat, fear, awe. The mechanics might still be happening in the background, but the narration wouldn’t linger on them because that character doesn’t have the language or training to understand what they’re seeing in full.  

TLDR: I try to let magic feel like a science to the people who would treat it like one, while still leaving room for mystery, myth, and horror when the story needs magic to feel bigger than the characters’ understanding. 

But yeah, I'm a really big science nerd, so that also overlaps into my writing :) Hope you find this answer helpful, anon!

[alackofghosts]

once upon a time @curufins-smile drew my attention to an extremely important thought: baby guars and baby netches

[unknown-mel]

first art post um

happy oblivion remaster anniversary!! (it's been more than a week) (i'm literally so late) never forget martin's sacrifice 😢😢😢

this painting took me like?? 17 hours total and it's HUGE i genuinely dont know if tumblr is gonna fuck up the quality so below the cutoff there is a close up

[viv36c]

FALSE GODS

the ending of the words is ALMSIVI

[skyrim-forever]

Sorry I’ve been gone I found this thing and you know how Meridia is…