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.)
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.
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.
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.
Is it fair to say Tiber Septim nuked Alinor?
- The nature of Numidium as a weapon
Reposted from r/teslore.
Yes. It's completely fair.
Lately, I’ve read and participated in a bunch of arguments over
whether it’s right to compare Numidium to a nuclear weapon,
whether it caused nuclear-weapon level destruction in Tiber Septim’s conquering of Summerset.
I’ve seen the argument that if you go by official Bethesda sources only, there is nothing to support 1 & 2. It’s alleged that only Michael Kirkbride’s unofficial writings support this. Specifically, this post:
Numidium's siege of Alinor:
It's not the Brass God that wrecks everything so much as it is all the plane(t)s and timelines that orbit it, singing world-refusals.
The Surrender of Alinor happened in one hour, but Numidium's siege lasted from the Mythic Era until long into the Fifth. Some Mirror Logicians of the Altmer fight it still in chrysalis shells that phase in and out of Tamrielic Prime, and their brethren know nothing of their purpose unless they stare too long and break their own possipoints.
That’s a reflection on how the Numidium worked in Alinor by one of the devs who wrote parts of this story about Tiber Septim and Numidium. I think it influences Bethesda official lore (as we’ll see when we get to ESO) and will continue to do so. However, we’re going to put unofficial lore aside for this post, and take a look at what the official lore says about Numidium and whether it supports the nuclear weapon comparison.
Numidium of course doesn't work like a nuclear bomb. That's not what anyone means when they're comparing it to a nuclear bomb. They're comparing it to a similarly feared horrible weapon of mass destruction. For us, the nuclear bomb represents the worst weapon imaginable, for Third Era Tamriel, it’s much the same way.
There are not many sources on Tiber Septim’s invasion of Summerset. The Pocket Guide to the Empire, First Edition, which is one of the main Tiber-era sources, is written before the Armistice with Morrowind and the invasion of Summerset. The anti-Imperialism game Redguard is also pre-Numidium, with Tiber Septim’s deputies searching Dwemer ruins for weapons. We never hear the story of the invasion from a Summerset source. We’re stuck with some very vague references. We know Tiber Septim used Numidium to conquer Summerset, but what happened there?
The Pocket Guide to the Empire, Third Edition says,
Thus, the Dominion thrived until the coming of Tiber Septim.
The conquest and assimilation of Summerset into the Empire is remembered by many a living Altmer with horror only partially diminished by time. Certainly, the pride of the people has never recovered.
People argue over whether the “horror only partially diminished by time” refers to the horrific nature of the Conquest or to Altmer horror at humans conquering them. I believe that, from what we know of Numidium, it’s both, but the source here doesn’t say outright.
During the War of the Isle in 3E 110, the Maormer of Pyandonea were very nearly successful in conquering their ancient enemy, and the Altmer had to call upon the aid of the Psijics and the Empire to help defend themselves.
The Dominion’s ability to defend itself was still not restored 110 years after Numidium.
So, given how scant our sources are on the use of Numidium in Summerset, we have to look at the general cultural memory and opinion of Numidium in Tamriel, and at the one time we get a detailed canon look at its use: the Warp in the West.
Sotha Sil, quoted in the Truth in Sequence, calls it “the walking horror.”
But most profane is this: the walking horror that bears the Name, NM. The Brass Tower of Vanity. The mindless guardian of the Nirn-Prior. The Antipodal-God-Thing that reigns on the darkest pole of the sacred Nirn-Sphere. Of all the threats to Tamriel Final, NM is the greatest. Anuvanna'si. The Daedra can be banished in thought, but NM must be sundered on Nirn. It is the welded knot at the center of Anu that must be untied. The God-Puzzle. The Mainspring Ever-Wound remains silent on this point. And where there is silence, there is great wisdom.
In Where You When the Dragon Broke? the tender to the Mane speaks
You did it again with Big Walker, not once, but twice! Once at Rimmen, which we'll never learn to live with.
What happened at Rimmen with Big Walker that the Khajiit can never learn to live with? Well, there's an official Bethesda Q&A promoting Morrowind from 1999 that makes the nuclear comparison clear
Jodenjone! Don' let Marshee lie to you about Big Walker. The Blades took It from here, sure, but they din' take It back to Cyrodiil and rebuild the thing. Talos, he "annexed" a swath of our bounty-land in Ana'quinal and cleared the Khajiiti out by force. There's where he built the Hall of Colossus—a mighty name for a secret testing warehouse—and that's where Big Walker was born. And that's why that part of our Elsweyr is still poisoned glow-rock, where no cats go. Ach, for the lunacy of you Wayward Folk!
"Poisoned glow-rock". It’s not just the fans comparing Numidium to a nuclear weapon It's clear that was the devs' intention here.
The horror of the Numidium is also the foundation of the main quest of Daggerfall. Throughout the Agent’s quest, s/he receives letters from various random people and factions in game detailing the Numidium’s reputation.
The first letter the Agent gets reads
You have probably not heard the fairy tale of Numidium, but you need to. The legend dates back to the earliest parts of the third era [sic]. Numidium was supposed to be a giant so big his hands could knock the moons from the sky. I do not recall from the stories whether Numidium was supposed to be good or bad, but the legends used to scare me as a child.
Followed by another letter:
Numidium was Tiber Septim's secret weapon in his bid for supreme power: a thousand foot tall automaton, a golem or an atronach of sorts powered by a gem called the Mantella. The Mantella was infused with the life orce [sic] of Tiber Septim's Imperial Battlemage, and with it, Septim crushed all who stood in his way. After the complete and total defeat of all his opponents, Septim began using Numidium to crush the neutral royal families of Tamriel so that he could enthrone only persons he knew to be loyal. His Imperial Battlemage was furious at this use of his creation, and fought to reclaim the Mantella.
The letter writers aren’t certain how it worked or what it did exactly - which matches Tiber Septim’s secrecy, Numidium’s immediate destruction after its first big use, and the nature of a time-breaking machine that messes with people’s recollections of how things happened. But they are sure that Numidium was a horror, a weapon of mass destruction unlike anything else.
The people of the Iliac Bay would soon get a front row seat to that horror.
The Warp in the West is the only time in canon that we get extensive details on the aftermath of Numidium’s use. As could be expected from the general fear of the Numidium in the above sources, the picture isn’t pretty. We don’t know exactly how Numidium would have functioned in Summerset, but we do know that Numidium works by breaking time. The clash of many different narratives and timelines in the Iliac Bay brought about massive losses of life and property, and huge environmental damage.
The shorter account of the Warp in the West is in the Pocket Guide to the Empire, Third Edition. Bolding of phrases attesting to the destructive force of the events mine.
In the year 417, however, the province redefined itself in a most mysterious way.
They call the event the Miracle of Peace. On the 10th of Frostfall, a strange force exploded over the Iliac Bay, displacing armies and decimating whole territories. Though its nature is still unknown, most Bretons believe it was the ancient Gods who had once made High Rock their home scouring the land, making it whole once again. Though it was a painful process for most - the Miracle is sometimes spoken of as the Warp in the West - the result of it is a province that is more unified than it has ever been in modern history.
Where once there were a hundred small squabbling kingdoms, today, just two decades after the Miracle, there are five.
Even the ever-optimistic PGE3 admits it was a catastrophe for those who lived through it, but claims the resulting hegemonies and peace were worth it.
The Book, The Warp in the West, which is a private Blades’ report on the event is less circumspect about the details.
Speaking of the official “Miracle of Peace”:
The catastrophic destruction of landscape and property and the large loss of life attending upon this miracle is understood to have been 'tragic, and beyond mortal comprehension.'
And
The other remarkable features of these events -- mass disappearances, armies mysteriously transported hundreds of miles or completely annihilated, titanic storms and celestial phenomena, apparent local discontinuities of time -- fit comfortably into the notion that these events are part of a vast, mysterious divine intervention.
Mass disappearances of people, armies annihilated, titanic storms: all these are part of the catastrophe caused by Numidium. The Blades agents on the scene had more details. I’m quoting the bits that specifically attest to the destruction and harm caused by Numidium.
The Blades have on file few reports from agents dating from the "Warp in the West" period. Most of our agents were lost in the initial dislocations, and others were lost in the confusion after the event.
Most Blades agents in the area died or vanished in the Warp. Others fell to the after-effects.
The Report of Hammerfell Agent 'Briarbird'
'I was on assignment in the Alik'r Desert, a few miles south of Bergama on the 9th of Frostfall. I was encamped, as it was still early morning, when I felt the ground shake so violently, I was thrown to the ground. Dazed, I was aware of a great roar of a sandstorm, which alarmed me, as I had been on a high dune and had seen nothing like that on the horizon. It was on me before I was even on my knees, burying me and my camp.
The first detail on the “titanic storms”. Here, the ground shakes violently and sandstorm buries people in its way.
Briarbird continues:
When I crawled my way out of the sand, I realized that I must make haste and get to Bergama as soon as possible, as all my food and water had been swept away. The sun was just rising as I began, like I said. When I reached Bergama, it was nightfall. The town was in chaos, filled with the soldiers of Sentinel. The Lord of Bergama's fortress was in ruins.
Bergama got off better than other places, as we’ll see. The fortress is said to be in ruins the Sentinel armies have defeated its own troops (who can’t recall how or when it happened), but the town is still there.
Much unluckier is the next account:
The Report of High Rock Agent 'Graylady'
’I was, at the time of the Warp, undercover as a witch in the Skeffington Coven of Phyrgias [sic], in central High Rock. In order to give my report, I had volunteered for an expedition to gather supplies, which would allow me the freedom to reach my contact in Camlorn. I was traveling north-east along the foothills of the Wrothgarian Mountains, on the 9th of Frostfall, when I felt a great heat behind me, like a fire. I turned, but I regret to say I cannot tell you what I saw. The healers tell me my eyes were burned out of my sockets.
This bit btw, about the wave of heat, seems to be consciously modeled off accounts of Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivors.
I think I must have fallen into a state of semi-consciousness, for I distinctly remember falling as the ground seemed to give way beneath me. Then there was a series of explosions in the distance, to the south, and I heard high whistling noises that were getting louder, coming closer. I had my shield with me, and fortunately anticipated that volleys of some sort were falling from the sky. Though I could not see them, I could hear them coming from a distance away, and was able to use my shield to block them from striking me.
The assault stopped suddenly, and I could smell smoke. I learned later that most of the forest of Ykalon and Phygias [sic] had caught fire, in an inferno that started further south in Daenia and the Ilessan Hills. Fortunately, I kept my bearings, and moved north, finally reaching a temple in the wilderness where my wounds were healed, as well as they could be.
People here experienced the Warp in the West as a fiery inferno and volleys coming from the sky. Even after the Warp itself ended, the forest fires that it began kept burning.
It was there I learned that there had been a three-way clash between Daggerfall, Wayrest, and Orsinium not far from where I had been, and that the land midway between their kingdoms had been decimated.'
‘Graylady’ doesn’t say that the land decimated was all wilderness or countryside, just that it’s the land midway between the kingdoms. In the heavily populated Iliac Bay, it would have included towns and villages and farms.
Lord Strale encountered a tsunami-like wave on the River Bjoulsae.
'We had just passed the delightful riverside village of Candlemass when the captain sounded the alarum. There, in front of us, was a colossal wall of water, at least thirty feet high. It smashed our barge to splinters before any of us had a chance to react. I woke up on the shore, having been rescued by one of my servants who had miraculously not lost consciousness. He and I and one other man were the only survivors.
Strale finds every town along the Bjoulsae on fire in the aftermath, with soldiers fighting along it.
there were seven great battles in the Iliac Bay, and no one could describe them at all, only their bloodsoaked aftermath
And
to summarize: on the 9th of Frostfall, there had been forty-four independent kingdoms, counties, baronies, and dukedoms surrounding the Iliac Bay, if one includes the unconquered territories of the Wrothgarian Mountains, the Dragontail Mountains, the High Rock Sea Coast, the Isle of Balfiera, and the Alik'r Desert. On the 11th of Frostfall, there were but four - Daggerfall, Sentinel, Wayrest, and Orsinium - and all the points where they met lay in ruins, as the armies continued to do battle.
And
The battles continue on, now months later, as I return to the Imperial City to make my report. What more do I have to say? They are bloody, violent clashes, as is always the case with modern warfare, but I have been to the blackened, desolate no-man's land between the four remaining kingdoms. No mortal army caused that devastation.
I can say that the force that shook the Iliac Bay on the 10th of Frostfall 3E 417 was infinitesimally [sic] greater than the power these mighty kingdoms are wielding today.
Is the Numidium a nuke? No. Is it a catastrophic weapon of mass destruction, one of the worst weapons the people of Tamriel can imagine? Yes. Did it cause mass destruction in Alinor as well? Almost certainly yes. That’s how it works. It meddles with time, but not bloodlessly: Numidum retcons reality, but in the process it also burns, maims, drowns, and kills people, and destroys regions, as seen in the Warp in the West. It’s the perfect weapon to bring down an island nation that can otherwise defend itself against outside invasion.
That is why we compare it to a nuclear weapon. It's a comparison that I believe the developers intended as well, for what it's worth. And if I'm a bit over-passionate about the point, here's why. The developers went out of their way to show the horror of modern war and weapons of mass destruction. It's a bit of reality they injected into this fantasy world. I think it's worth taking in, rather than arguing that actually, Numidium isn't that bad, and it's an exaggeration to compare it to a nuke.
Even if you don't think you'd personally compare Numidium to a nuclear weapon, it should be clear that it's a quite rational comparison other people can make based on the evidence.
This post sparked some interesting and passionate discussions as well as some very angry politically-charged ones that are now thankfully deleted! You can read the full discussion here, since I don't want to copy large bits of other people's responses on to my tumblr. But I'll append some stuff I wrote in the comments.
We see something very specific with the atomic bombs, and with the TES reports of Numidium's wreckage, which I think are actuallly modeled in part on eyewitness accounts from HIroshima and Nagasaki.
Both are a horror that's incomprehensible. A single moment in which the entire world around the witness goes from normal to apocalypse without any seeming explanation or warning. The laws of reality themselves seem to bend and the earth tears itself to pieces. Nuclear war really was a historical departure from previous experiences in this regard.
If you compare historical atrocities by which was worse, the bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki didn't claim many lives compared to other horrifying deaths in WWII. They still haven't been followed up. All the many atrocities of the 20th and now 21st centuries haven't involved the use of nuclear weapons on populations.
But the threat of Nuclear war still stands out as something categorically different and horrible, the potential for the complete destruction of humanity in such a short time. The Numidium was probably only used once or twice in history, but it has the same terrifying potential, and is even more inexplicable to the residents of Tamriel than the nuclear bomb is to us today.
Roak67 made some interesting comments about whether we can trust certain sources, given Bethesda has retconned a lot. I replied:
You have to take any lore with a grain of salt, since it's bound to be contradicted at some point, but you're right that older sources like the Skeleton Man interview are most likely to be contradicted. However, I'd say it's important for a few reasons.
It's official lore, copyright Bethesda, and contradicts the idea that the Nuclear comparison is unofficial lore from Michael Kirkbride's pronouncements post-full-time-employment with Bethesda. Nope, the nuclear comparison was there during Morrowind development as shown by the "glow rocks".
The origin of the Halls of the Colossus has been retconned twice, first by Skeleton Man, then by ESO. However, unless there's something in the future that retcons the information Numidium was rebuilt, tested, and activated there, that lore should still stand. It's a big place with a spot for the Numidium, no matter who first built it. "Where were you when the Dragon broke?" refers back to what happened there, and continues to be in the games.
I think it was turned on in Rimmen and then went to Alinor in one incident. Breaking time is, as far as I can see, a function of the Numidium, how it works. It's possible it can work in other ways, as you've proposed, but it wouldn't be my favoured interpretation.
If Tiber Septim had better control over it - which is likely enough - I'd suggest he was still breaking time, because its advantage is getting to a place and defeating defences while the opposition is unaware, but could better direct it to hit his targets in Alinor.
About Summerset's lowered defence capabilities after Numidium.
I'm not making that assumption. That's simply the only baseline we have for the condition of the Isles post-Numidium. It's 110 years later.
However, we do know that prior to Numidium, Summerset always was able to push back invaders. According to the PGE3 at least they weren't able to after Numidium.
Did Tiber Septim use Numidium anywhere else than in Elsweyr (turning it on) and Summerset?
The legends surrounding Numidium posit that he was in the process of turning it on neutral parties, at and some point the Underking stopped him. According to the Arcturian Heresy, he didn't actually get that far. The Arcturian Heresy is clear that he only used it on Summerset Isle and the Underking destroyed it right after.
Daggerfall lore has him using it to conquer all of Tamriel, but no one after speaks of it, so I would guess that's been retconned? It's certainly been removed from later versions of the in-game book, the Real Barenziah. The Daggerfall version had the Numidium conquer Morrowind, that is gone from later games, and the new Numidium origin story is that the Tribunal gave Tiber Septim the Numidium in return for peace.
All of the above leads to the lore post I've never written, but need to some day, which basically would be. "Yeah, Tiber Septim is a bad guy and he was MEANT to be a bad guy. Each TES game is learning more about stuff he did and there's rarely anything good." But it's a delicate subject, particularly since some devs. started going on like he was the best thing since sliced bread because he found CHIM. (Press X to doubt). Anyway, that's another story for another time, but the bottom line is the gods in TES are not necessarily good, they're just powerful. See every other Daedra who might help you out sometimes but has also been involved in some plot against humanity. And the Aedra aren't always nice either. Talos fits into the crowd as one of the better documented and more recent stinkers.
I’ve rediscovered lately how many people think it’s canon that Talos is three guys in a trench-coat: Tiber Septim, Wulfharth of Atmora, and Zurin Arctus.
So time for another reminder. NOWHERE IN THE GAMES OR OFFICIAL LORE TEXTS IS THIS EVER STATED.
“What about the Arcturian Heresy?” you might ask.
To which I say, “Read it. Talos the god isn’t even mentioned in the text.”
(I could add that it’s the Arcturian Heresy which doesn’t mean it’s automatically the truth and that the Greybeards in Skyrim contradict one of its biggest claims, that Tiber Septim never went up to High Hrothgar before his first big battle. But that’s another story for another time.)
“The Arcturian Heresy” is a book about how Tiber Septim managed his public profile by taking credit for two other guys’ stuff. It never says anything about the three becoming a god together afterward.
Now, if you decide to take the Arcturian Heresy as fact, it’s an interesting theory that they got all tangled up together and became a god, and of course, we had devs who endorsed the idea in non-official works. There’s a hint in one corner of Morrowind for it when we meet a guy who may be Talos and he introduces himself as Wulf. But it’s not canon, and there are a whole bunch of other possibilities for Talos’ origins.
Six Alternate Explanations
1. The most suspicious Official Imperial cult one that no one seems to buy in fandom: The gods were happy he did such a great job and said, join us. Yeah I’m suspicious too.
2. Tiber Septim engineered his own cult of worship in his lifetime (canon), and after. Somehow, he fiddled around to give himself power. (Come up with your own theory how he leveraged the people’s worship.)
3.The Book THere Be Dragons implies he ate a bunch of dragon souls to ascend.
4. He’s tapping into the Missing god Lorkhan’s power somehow. The extreme version is he mantled Lorkhan. There’s a lot of circumstantial evidence for a link between Talos and Lorkhan, but again nothing official.
5. CHIM. Speaking of mostly out-of-game theories championed by devs. CHIM is mentioned a tiny bit in game, but never explained, so it can be made to do a lot of stuff in your head-canons..
6. The Thalmor would like to remind you that Talos is not actually a god. Sure, you can get blessings from shrines, but consider that in Morrowind, you can get blessings from saints’ shrines and it’s explicitly stated that the Tribunal priests enchant them to give the blessings. The Imperial cult is completely capable of setting up Talos shrines. (There are some issues with the Thalmor’s stance, particularly involving the DLC Knights of the Nine, but if you’re really in denial, here are your starting points.)
Final Note:
This is a jokey round-up of a bunch of theories and headcanons and I’ve left out a lot of the details. But if you want my opinion?
I’m Talos-Agnostic, though I lean towards there being something to do with Lorkhan. Not fully mantling him, though, because then we’d be talking about Lorkhan not Talos, who would no longer be the Missing God. But what do i know? Have fun with all the possibilities.
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.
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.
