/tgesg/ - Weekend Elder Scrolls General

In these games it is impossible to have antagonists that live up to expectations. Vivec is supposed to be a god but you can kill him with a fork.

Yeah but atleast he's trying.

What kind of sources do we have for orc lore?

Skyrim has the stronghold culture, and Morrowind has all the Imperial-Orc lore, but what else?

I'm particularly interested in the non-stronghold, more imperialised orcs. Where do all the ruins-squatting orcs in Morrowind come from? Are they migrant tribes, or local legion vets, or just Imperial bums? How long do orcs live provided they don't have to worry about being murderised by the beta males?

Also, does the chimp society of the strongholds predate Skyrim?

>two threads in a single day
What happened in the other one?

It's better not to talk about it.

There was no other thread.

So how do you pronounce mehrunes' original name "The Leaper King": Leper as in the disease, or Leaper as in leap frog?

Yes.

...

I always say "Leper" for some reason. It's probably "Leaper"
now the more important question: is Trainwiz canon?

>gets penetrated from behind by Mora's 20 foot long tentacle
>after he completely restores himself 3 times by devouring dragon souls without even needing to kill them, just using a four-word shout, something utterly unique as far as shouts go
>and is in invulnerable ghost form while doing so
Who knows what other shit he could've pulled out of his ass.
Consider your dragonborn status, would it be unreasonable to say that shout may have worked on you? Mora basically ganks Miraak so he can win you over with power and apparent protection.
Personally, I think it was fine, at least well enough. It's not like most of you didn't potion-spam against Dagoth Ur at least once. Just saying, the big bad is always cooler on paper or in the lead up to the fight.

Yes.

So, how would one go about modding the special edition?

I'm not a fan of the Nexus, but I'm being told it's the only way?

SE is just like the normal edition, there's just no SKSE for it yet.

SKSE?

I'm sorry, I've only ever used the Workshop; I don't know what any of that means.

Wrong thread.
Wrong board, actually.

Script Extender. Lets the big mods actually work

I am debating trying to get the Special Education version even before it gets SKSESE/SKSE64 because NO SNOW INDOORS (When "Outdoors") without looking as wimpy as the mod does.

Tfw my toaster can't even run SE

Frog.

He leaps kalpas

What's the lore explanation for the absence of birthsigns in Skyrim?

WHAT IS THE LORE EXPLANATION FOR THE ABSENCE OF POLEARMS IN SKYRIM?

en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Pocket_Guide_to_the_Empire,_1st_Edition/The_Wild_Region#Orsinium
en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Pocket_Guide_to_the_Empire,_3rd_Edition/Orsinium

Vivek took all the hurt-dicks with him when he left

y'all niggas got some skooma?

are suthay-raht trustworthy?

Except in TES all fluff is in books too. In-game books, granted, but at this point lore is pretty much divorced from the in-game presentation.
Not to mention shit shit just devolves into full blown game discussion every single time.
Just keep this shit in /tesg/ where it belongs, it's not some tonal science. Both here and there would become a bit better as a result.

Why are you wearing tattered rags in the beginning of Skyrim?

You were caught in an ambush crossing the border from Cyrodiil, right? Did the imperials then hand you some prisoner clothes and tell you to change in middle of nowhere wilderness before loading you on a cart to be taken to Helgen

They let Ulfric keep his clothes and all the Stormcloaks were still in full armor
Only you and Lokir were in rags

Replace "science" with "resonance."

I can answer this for you, but understanding my answer requires that you've read the Mahabharata.

Ok I did it

Ok, so do you remember when Varuna gives Gandiva to Arjuna?
It's kind of like that.

Maybe you were in a prison for a couple days before being sent to Helgen? I don't remember if it was staed that you were just caught or not...

Aah, so it's like that, huh
I understand everything now

...

Miraak was pretty heavily underdeveloped, and his writing and presentation weren't strong enough to make up for it.
Also (imo) the initial setup for the what's happening on Solstheim mystery is so compelling that Miraak seems even more underwhelming in comparison.
The core questline for DB was probably the weakest part of DB in general.

What do we know about Tonal Architecture and Swordsinging? I suspect it's related to shouting in that you use sound to affect the world around you.
Using tonal architecture, could we build the Towers of Ar Tonelico and sing Metafalica into existence? No need to answer this last one.

Tonal Architecture manipulates the Earthbones.

What are the Earthbones? Sorry for my lack of enlightment.

Original spirits who sacrificed themselves to become nature/laws of nature.

The Ehlnofey that didn't become Mer and Men? Then how did swordsinging work in the previous kalpa?

Let me tell you about them Orcs.

A lot of our sources on Orsimeri history and culture are textual, and are found in all the games. The Pocket Guides are as always a good place to start, but other than that I'd read The True Nature of Orcs, Sixteen Accords of Madness, How Orsinium Passed to the Orcs, The Warp in the West, The Wraith's Wedding Dowry and so on. Reading everything listed, as well as having a basic idea of the plot of Daggerfall, should be a good place to start. The Daggerfall Chronicles is your friend.
Naturally, a lot of our sources deal with either the period between the fall of the first Orsinium and Gortwog's rise, or the period of Gortwog himself. The Great Siege of Orsinium also pops up a lot, though these texts are usually about Redguards.

The Stronghold societies seen in Skyrim are to the best of my knowledge not seen in any previous title, and while it's hard to prove the absence of something in such a large body of text, I'm very certain that the word "stronghold" is never used in the Skyrim sense in any pre-Skyrim Orc source I have read. In fact, sources from Daggerfall (Gortwog's Minat Tribe) to Oblivion (Emmeg Gro-Kayra's tribe) are consistent in describing Orcs as tribal.

Now, lore being what it is, that doesn't mean that strongholds only started being a thing around the time of Skyrim, but it's kind of hard to know. Maybe they've been a part of Orcish society since the dawn of time, maybe they're a recent result of the upheaval and migration following the destruction of Gortwog's Orsinium. Maybe they're a regional thing found among the Orcs of the Eastern Reach. We don't know, though I think it's more or less safe to assume that since texts mostly talk about tribes, we can assume that in High Rock/Hammerfell, Orcs have historically been tribal.

As for the Orcs strewn across Morrowind, I don't have a single unified cause for them being there (and it's been too long since I played the game), but I'd imagine they're there for a lot of reasons. Migrant tribes are a possibility (seeing as there are tribes outside of traditional Orcish territory, maybe), but it's my impression (mainly from dialogue) that Orcs that travel away from their traditional lands usually do so individually. In Oblivion there's actually a very special reason for some of the Orcish adventurers that you might run across. They reference the fact that they've been sent by Gortwog to scour Tamriel's dungeons for fame and fortune, essentially state-sponsored dungeoneers.

he fact that Orsinium is trying to do a religious reform is also all the more reason for Orcs faithful to Malacath to go wander Tamriel, ending up in places like Morrowind. Plus, there's always bandits. Orcs are generally a people without a homeland, and while they have tribal areas, individuals (usually more Imperialised) will end up in every community and corner of Tamriel.
I'm sorry that I can't come up with any more specific reasons, but I frankly don't think there are any, and I'd have to go back and re-read a ton of dialogue to find out.

Oh, and while it's hard to say exactly, they do at the very least have a diminished lifespan compared to their Merish origins. Somewhere around the lifespan of Men, perhaps a bit longer, but likely shorter. You can thank Shor for that.

I hope this answers most of your questions, even if it was sort of rant-y. That's the nature of just writing out what you can remember on the fly, I guess.

Why do you think they're absent.

>browsing for fanart to add to my library
>find this
What is he doing? What kind of pose is this supposed to be?

He's high as fuck

Some martial arts pose he's practicing maybe?

Not sure, but afaik swordsinging was invented in the current kalpa

Looks like the artist wanted him to casually lean against those crates but it is a bad artist

does anything explain orcs having more intelligence in the later games?

Orcs being dumb is dumb. Not everything has a lore explanation. They just changed it, because Orcs talking like cavemen is retarded.

Stats are stats, don't think too much about them.

Their absence from the game mostly

So can those Khajiit that are gigantic battle cats that are taller than Altmer really fuck and have kids with the housecat sized Khajiit? Or is wearing another khajiit like a fleshlight a bad thing in their culture?

They're spread through skyrim in the standing stones and perks aren't constellations just to look nice.

Standing stones aren't the same as birthsigns though

Oblivion had constellation standing stones too in addition to birthsigns
Birthsign is determined by the time of birth, not which stone you prayed to

It's just a design oversight for the sake of mechanics. There's no deeper meaning to it.

>Standing stones aren't the same as birthsigns though
They literally are.
Just instead of the pc having bonuses for being born during a certain time and no one else, you get the ability from actual magic stuff.

Aren't birthsigns actually pretty rare? You have to be born under a specific constellation, right? It could be that TLD just wasn't born under one.

No?
Having the actual ability or something close to it is probably rare, but everyone is born under a birthsign.
Unless they're some weird born out-of-time shenanigans I guess, but I don't know offhand anything like that.

They're literally not though

Each has a corresponding month
The month of one's birth is the birthsign they're born under

don't even think it's an oversight, they simplified it for the sake of not screwing up people that have no idea what they're doing in their first playthrough

same reason why most races are pretty similar overall in stats(few as they may be).

besides, Atronach best stone in all games

>besides, Atronach best stone in all games
Vampire necromage with atronach stone+perk was the shit

Hm, I guess I kind of made some assumptions when the guy in the Morrowind character creation said something along the lines of "You were born under a specific sign". I was assuming that meant people could be born under non-specific signs or something.

>They're literally not though
They provide the bonuses that used to be chosen at the beginning of the game.
Gameplay-wise they literally are.
The stones themselves are attuned to the constellations themselves. Lore-wise, they literally are.
>b-but you can change the sign!!!
Yes, yes you can. It's changing your fate, it fits right in with the Hero being a prisoner and changing his fate.
en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Watcher_of_Stones

even without necromage that shit was absurd. Makes you immune to pretty much anything, while giving you infinite magicka.

I remember summoning shit and aggroing it so I could feed on its sweet spells in morrowind and oblivion. I love this kind of game breaking.

If Magnus fucked off from Mundus right during the beginning of creation, how come there's artifacts supposedly made by him? You'd think he/it wouldn't care about what filthy material beings do.

Holy fuck nigga how do you not understand that a constellation is not the same as birthsign
Birthsign literally LITERALLY fucking means what sign you were born under, that's the whole concept of a B I R T H sign, whether it grants you power or not is another thing entirely
The constellations are concepts with power and significance on their own that goes beyond just having a corresponding time of the year
Like I said earlier Oblivion had stones too that granted powers relating to the sign if you prayed or whatever to them

>Oblivion had stones too that granted powers relating to the sign if you prayed or whatever to them
And that didn't retroactively change your birthsign aka your birth date

My point is they're obviously still there, they just aren't used with the same mechanics as previous games.
You seem to think that just because you didn't choose the sign at character creation that suddenly no one knows what signs go to what month in skyrim, that the pc just suddenly existed without a beginning.
If we go further with the link I provided, it could be that stones don't work for those born under a different sign than what the stone corresponds to. For some reason it didn't work for the author, but I'm sure he was born within one of the months.
Birthsigns obviously exist, they just don't have the gameplay mechanics as before.

>You were born under a specific sign
I never understood that part.

From what I understand, they can't say "you were born under [sign]" because of roleplay reasons, so what happens is the sign you choose is that sign of phrophecy.
Like if I was born under the Lover, than the prophecy would be "You were born under the Lover".
But as I have no actual source for this, anyone feel free to correct me.

That's the explanation I gave myself as well, but the ambiguity and the NPC's not having any birthsign related power makes plausible.

What did the census and excise guy (best faction in the game) say about it?

uesp.net/wiki/Lore:The_Firmament

This book is in Skyrim too. Everyone go home.

Yeah but see the game didn't ask me what my birthsign is so I don't have one because that's how it works if the game isn't explicit about it then it's nonexistent thats why i just spontaneously appeared at the boarder i wasnt born anywhere i literally did not exist until the game started what do you mean roleplay

Here, take these for next time:
,,,,,,....,.,....

hump

>The Warrior is a Guardian Constellation, and thus protects his Charges from the Serpent during his Season. His Charges are the Lady, the Steed, and the Lord, Minor Constellations which share his Quadrant of the Heavens. The Serpent threatens Different Charges during Different Seasons, and the Warrior's Very Aspect will Change according to the Times. If, for Example, His Lady is being threatened the Warrior will seem as if he is looking to His Left, Eyes blazing towards that Part of the Sky wherein she resides. Thus, to find the Serpent during the Warrior's Season look to where he looks, for that is where the Coiled Beast is Active.

Why was this awesome lore left out from the latter versions of the book?

What are Phynaster, Syrabane and Y'ffre?
Are they gods or aedra? Do they have their own moons?

Y'ffre is a part of Nirn now, he was one if not the first earthbone.
What we have on Phynaster and Syrabane is that they are just altmer-ancestor-heroes.

>Phynaster
One of Aldmeri ancestor spirits, most likely the progenitor of one of Summerset's noblest dynasties.
>Syrabane
Same. Was around at least until late 1E.

>Gradually, as the society grew, social stratification increased. A hierarchy of classes began to form, which is still largely enforced in Summerset to this day...
>...The religion of the people also changed because of this change in society: no longer did the Aldmer worship their own ancestors, but the ancestors of their "betters." Auriel, Trinimac, Syrabane, and Phynaster are among the many ancestor spirits who became Gods.

>Y'ffre
The first of Et'Ada to sacrifice himself and become an Earthbone.

>Phynaster, Syrabane
The real question is if we're talking about the Prolix Tower or Dracochrysalis.

That stance is horrible, it's better to be sturdy yet mobile with footwork.

Yes.

Just the tip. Alternatively mammoth-cat on house-cat bukkakes.

Artificial insemination is a thing in feline husbandry.

All Khajiit can breed with other Khajiit, though that doesn't necessarily mean they do.
Khajiit appear to have a pretty casual relationship with the fact that they're all so different. It's haram to show torso fur, unless you're quadruped, then you sort of get a pass. If you can't raise your kids because of your size, your family will do it for you. So if it's the case that some sub-breeds can't effectively procreate, I'd guess the Khajiit just view that as another fact of life and don't make a big deal out of it. It's just the way things are.
A central part of the Khajiti ethos is "different, but equal", which is arguably even found in certain incarnations of their political structure.

How could an Alfiq possibly give birth to a Senche-Raht?

All Khajiit are same size when born.

Very carefully.

The egg

Is it Mundus?

Or is it Mundus + Oblivion + Aurbis?

I mean Mundus + Oblivion + Aetherius

Drunk