/tgesg/ - Weekend Elder Scrolls General

Lesser races edition

>Tabletop/P&P RPGs
[UESRPG - P&P RPG] docs.google.com/document/d/1pTgTN2aJUoY95JtquowagfUJLL7tCQYhzJKcCAcbvio/edit?usp=sharing
[Scrollhammer - Tabletop Wargame] 1d4chan.org/wiki/Scrollhammer_2nd_Edition
Discussion in #Scrollhammer (irc.thisisnotatrueending.com (port 6667))

>Lore Resources
[The Imperial Library] imperial-library.info/
[/r/teslore] reddit.com/r/teslore/
[UESP/Lore] uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Main_Page
[Pocket Guide to the Lore] docs.google.com/document/d/1AtsWXZKVqB4Q825_SwINY6z4_9NaGknXgeOknOCDuCU/edit
[Elder Lore Podcast] elderlore.wordpress.com/
[How to Become a Lore Buff] forums.bethsoft.com/topic/1112211-how-to-become-a-lore-buff/

>General Rules
This is NOT /tesg/ minus waifus, so behave properly.
Keep the squabbling to a minimum.
No waifus/husbandos except for Ascended Sleepers and Ash Vampires

Previous Kalpa:

Other urls found in this thread:

reddit.com/r/teslore/comments/66a7h9/eso_morrowind_36_lessons_of_vivec_sermon_37/
en.uesp.net/wiki/Daggerfall:King_Edward,_Part_XII
en.uesp.net/wiki/Daggerfall:The_Old_Ways
en.uesp.net/wiki/Daggerfall:An_Overview_of_Gods_And_Worship
en.uesp.net/wiki/Daggerfall:The_Light_and_the_Dark
en.uesp.net/wiki/Shadowkey:Scroll_of_Shadow
en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:The_Faerie
pastebin.com/ekQtNmk6
twitter.com/NSFWRedditImage

first for the three stooges

Remember to praise Azurah.

Any theories on if the Nerevarine could Shout?

The Lost Prophecy names him Dragonborn, among other titles. Perhaps he had the power but there just weren't any dragons to slay.

It's referring to him as "born under the dragon" as part of the empire.
>"From seventh sign of eleventh generation,
>Neither Hound nor Guar, nor Seed nor Harrow,
>But Dragon-born and far-star-marked,
>Outlander Incarnate beneath Red Mountain,
>Blessed Guest counters seven curses,
>Star-blessed hand wields thrice-cursed blade,
>To reap the harvest of the unmourned house."
>"I've annotated your copy of 'The Lost Prophecy' with our best efforts at interpretation. But a rough summary might be: 'An outlander -- foreign-born, but welcomed as a guest -- confronts seven curses beneath Red Mountain. His hand, blessed by Azura, uses a cursed blade to bring justice to House Dagoth, or House Dwemer, or both.' The Nerevarine? An outlander? That wouldn't please many Ashlanders, and may explain how the prophecy got lost."

And desecrate Azura

Sounds too farfetched to me...

I hope you're joking.

I fucking hate ESO, but this deserves attention nonetheless.

Sermon Thirty-Seven

You have discovered the thirty-seventh Sermon of Vivec, which is a bending of the light, long past the chronicles of the Hortator who wore inconstant faces and ruled however they would, until apocalypse.

Vivec was borne by ribbons of water, which wrote their starward couplings in red. This was a new place of speed. His eyes broke on the spikes above the tower, Where the Void Ghost squatted over a drake-scaled drum, imbecile in its rhythm. And he asked of it:

"Who are you that need no signature at all?"

Three in sum, the robes of Ayem stretched towards the bright black rim of memory, roping an arch of purchase. This was a new sprinting task. And Seht held his swollen body to its name, clockmakers daughter, swimming the dead confession along a century ahead. Naming her, uneaten, a golden cache of Veloth and Velothi, for where else would they know to go?
"Go here, world without wheel, charting zero deaths, and echoes singing," Seht said, until all of it was done, and in the center was anything whatever.

And the red moment became a great howling unchecked, for the Provisional House was in ruin. And Vivec became as glass, a lamp, for the dragons mane had broke, and the red moon bade him come.

"The sign of royalty is not this," a signal blueshift (female) told him, "There is no right lesson learned alone."

cont.

He refused the twine on her catching net, spiteful that an uncontinued people would not become fuller by their searching, and yet were wracked in their spirits for flight. But the male signals were offended, and Vivec took a fighting form. He undid his eastern light, saying to the ALMSIVI that through war, they had become brides in glass, which no power could observe.
The light bent, and Vivec donned a cuirass made of red plates of jewel, and a mask that marked him born in the lands of Man. Wheeling, he spread into an insect salve, worn on the neck of hist-bulbs when at challenge. He roared up and fed his fingers to mammoth ghosts. The signal fires wondered if they mistook this for surrender, for Vivec had told the void that he could learn to undo it all.

The light bent, and somewhere a history was finally undone. Of it, Vivec remembered the laughing of the netchimen of his village when the hunts were good. He marched with his father in the ash, growing strong in the hooks and sail, able to run a junk through silt. At eleven, he sung to an ashkhan. He became sick after Red Mountain, with the nix-blood and fever, and was infirm a hundred years. His mother survived him and laid his body on the altar of Padhome. She gave him her skin to wear into the underworld.
The light bent, and Vivec awoke and grew fangs, unwilling to make of herself a folding thing. This was a new and lunar promise. And in her Biting she tunneled up and then downward, while her brother and sister smeared across heaven, thin ruptures of dissent, food for scarabs and the Worm. She took her people and made them safe, and sat with Azura drawing her own husbands likeness in the dirt.

"For I have removed my left hand and my right, he will say," she said, "for that is how I shall win against them. Love alone and you shall know only the mistakes of salt."

The worlding of the words is AMARANTH.

Apparently this was written by MK for ESO and leaked.

Even better than Sermon Zero.

>Apparently this was written by MK for ESO and leaked
when, where?

>world without wheel, charting zero deaths, and echoes singing
>[w]orld [w]ithout [w]heel, [c]harting [zero] [d]eaths, [a]nd [e]choes [s]inging

It was posted on teslore but then got deleted because of some non-disclodure bullshit.
reddit.com/r/teslore/comments/66a7h9/eso_morrowind_36_lessons_of_vivec_sermon_37/

>MK is doing shit for ESO
Well I might just set out to explore Vvardenfell again after all.

For me personally it drags MK down, not ESO up.
Then again, MK is already known to make questionable lore (Many-Headed Talos).

>borne by ribbons of water, which wrote their starward couplings in red.
stopped reading there, I can already tell this is some faux-kirkbride pretentious shit

This is a contestable point since in every other instance "dragonborn" is interpreted as being the blessed of akatosh and among those worthy of the ruby throne with the souls of a dragon so you could consume other dragons, and for some reason soft retconned in Skyrim to also mean having the natural ability to shout (Tiber Septim did not have this, as Wulfharth had to shout for him, likely leading him to slit his own throat and blame it on another breton assassin so he would have an excuse not to use "his" abilities after a disagreement with Wulfharth; most Tongues were not dragonborn anyway). However, the wise women in Morrowind interpret dragon-born as meaning born in the Empire, corroborating the later identification of the Nerevarine as an outlander, and iirc it's also the only time it is actually written with a hyphen. The wise women are by no means infallible, though, and a typographical quirk doesn't necessarily have deeper meaning. You could as easily argue that it would then be redundant with the later statement that the Nerevarine is an outlander (or that said statement would be redundant, rather).

So yeah it's possible that he was dragonborn as in dovahkiin, and it's also possible that "dragon-born" is what Ashlanders call those born in Cyrodiil and that the prophecy was written with that in mind.

Why? He's just been taking the piss since C0DA, and was already in a clear state of decline before that. I don't think he actually cares about the setting at all anymore, he just cares that there are a bunch of people that will latch onto anything he says about it no matter how stupid and give him the attention and validation he craves.

>the seven fights

Yeah, I vaaaastly prefer Cyrodiil's transformation having zero explanation whatsoever. Not!

>Cyrodiil's transformation
Never happened, Oblivion is not canon.

You're basically retarded if you seriously think the Nerevarine is a Dovahkiin. It's wordplay.

You aren't canon.

LotR hype cashgrab. There you go.

It's actually just kirkbride's regularly shitty pretentious shit trash.

>flimsy justifications are totally better than accepting a handwave

Just because something is justified after the fact doesn't mean it wasn't a retcon. Drawing attention to it with bad lore just makes it worse. Instead of being a meta thing it's now pulled down what's canon to include something worse.

There is actually no reason at all to assume that isn't what it means beyond the wise women saying they think it means born in the Empire.

>it's wordplay
It would only work as a play on words if the Nerevarine WAS dovahkiin (as in using "dragon-born" to mean both "dovahkiin" AND "born in the Empire"), retard.

Yep, that's the reason it was done from a game development standpoint.

No one said it wasn't a retcon. Tiber doing godshit isn't "bad lore". Having any explination at all takes it from "stupid" to "acceptable". Literally any explanation.

If you don't like Kirkbride, but still like TES, I don't know what to say: you must be some sort of fucking idiot, because he's the only good thing in the entire franchise. The rest is generic fantasy trash.

Do you seriously think that any time anyone, anywhere uses the term "dragon" and "born" in the same sentence that it implies someone has dragonsoul? That no one has ever just referenced the concept? It is 100% intentionally referring to the Nerevarine coming from the empire, nothing else.

I'll have to agree with this.

It honestly doesn't read much like one of the lessons. Like, Sermon Zero feels more fitting to the lessons and that was written by Goodall. Do we know for sure Kirkbride wrote it?

Is it intended to be genuine, or are we supposed to be guessing if that's true like with sermon zero?

>Having any explination at all takes it from "stupid" to "acceptable". Literally any explanation.
>he's the only good thing in the entire franchise. The rest is generic fantasy trash.
Typical MKocksucker from teslore.

It references a lot of concepts that only he would probably reference, c0da stuff, the Magne Ge, Dies Irae (supposedly). I buy it.

Supposedly some Khajiit once stole the 37th Sermon before it was written, but who knows?

>If you don't like Kirkbride, but still like TES, I don't know what to say: you must be some sort of fucking idiot, because he's the only good thing in the entire franchise. The rest is generic fantasy trash
Spoken like a true fucking lorelet

>people are actually talking about sermon zero
Haven't seen that in a while.

What the fuck kind of fantasy world do you want, shithead: one where half the discussions start and end with
>well, uh, I guess it was just a meaningless retcon
or one where there's actually something to fucking talk about?

Yeah, because those Tedders books really have the content to drive 20 years of lore discussion alone.

>Do you seriously think that any time anyone, anywhere uses the term "dragon" and "born" in the same sentence
>the literal term "dragonborn" is the same as just using both words in the same sentence and definitely does not refer to a dragonborn
2/8, a point for each reply you got from me.

>Having any explination at all takes it from "stupid" to "acceptable"
So I take it you're willing to gobble up any kind of bullshit as long as it comes from Kirkbride's second aperture?

Yup, the term "dragonborn" can never be used in allegory, everything must be taken at face value, even when NPCs spell out the meaning directly.

In this case, where literally anything would be less bullshit than
>it just is, okay?

I don't know about you, but I'm perfectly content with ES Lore 3E Edition, with jungled Cyrodiil and full Nordic pantheon.

Would have been lovely. Unfortunately, it's not the case. Blame Bethesda. The change wasn't make on account of MK's explanation. Make do with what you've got.

Or do you mean Project Tamriel? It's going to be great.

The original explanation was, "yeah, we know we fucked up, sorry about that." Cyrodiil being mostly forest and plains instead of more extreme biomes bordering each other wasn't canon, word of god was "we wanted the lotr audience, no it isn't actually supposed to be like that." This isn't hard to understand.

>The change wasn't make on account of MK's explanation.
Yes, but on the other hand he didn't have to try justifying what was obviously just a marketing move. At the end we have not only a bullshit retcon, but also a bullshit explanation, a loss-loss situation.

It never seizes to amaze me how little you people actually appreciate the lore once you get down to it. I haven't even indicated I'm even against Kirkbride's writings here, you just immediately jumped to this defensive stance, where you dismiss everything Krikbride hasn't written.

Well let me tell you something, none of Krikbride's lore would even warrant a discussion, without those supposedly "generic" texts.
I mean, have you people never even heard of the concept of "worldbuilding." Literally everything Kirkbride wrote is meaningless without the immense amount of substance and depth that already exists behind it, it's nothing, you wouldn't even give a shit about any of it.

Do you even realize how actually large the overall Elder Scrolls lore is, or did you just learn everything you 'know' from circle jerking with other likeminded people on reddit?

That's not the case. Even if it ever was, it isn't anymore, not when you have scholars IN-UNIVERSE saying "hey, why do all these old texts say Cyrodiil was a jungle? What's up with that?" Not when there are alternative theories to explain it, like Towerforming. Regardless of WHY, these things enrich the setting. This is the only reason TES is worth discussing over some other shitty fantasy universe.

Nah. I repeat: imagine someone asks "so, what's with Oblivion not being a jungle?"

You have two answers:
>Tiber did it.
>There is no reason, so lets ignore it

Besides, what's bullshit about Tiber doing it?

>Having any explination at all takes it from "stupid" to "acceptable". Literally any explanation.

Oh so you have no standards okay.

>It never seizes to amaze me
sayings like this are a diamond dozen in this doggy dog world.

Seriously though, people give kirkbride WAY too much credit. He wrote the mythic dawn commentaries, which a lot of idiots don't even consider canon or consider to be in-context falsehoods because they don't understand the comparison of the Princes to their enantiomorphs, the lessons of vivec, which are okay but not stupendous or anything, and parts of the PGE, which is his most important work. Kuhlmann is far more important and responsible for the grand themes of the setting, and much more credible to boot, given he 1: actually still works at BGS and 2: hasn't made a sport out of fucking with idiotic fans the way MK has

>not when you have scholars IN-UNIVERSE saying "hey, why do all these old texts say Cyrodiil was a jungle? What's up with that?"
>he thinks ESO is canon
other guy was right, you're a total mkocksucker. Bet you also hated ESO when MK did right up to the point where he was paid to throw in his support for it.

>Regardless of WHY, these things enrich the setting.
They don't though. They cheapen it, reduce it to the level of something like a shonen anime or the sillier iterations of superhero comics.

I've read everything in the series. Everything.

Everything. Goodall's forum posts explaining the version of Ta'agra that never got finished. Speculation for Morrowind before it was released. IRC chatlogs. I am exaggerating slightly, there are other good writers in the series. But it's the other way around: none of it would matter without Kirkbride. None of it would be enough to make the series any more than "mildly interesting but ultimately forgettable fantasy series #123563457."

Plus, Kirkbride was a participant in all of those early worldbuilding exercises like the PGE1. For some reason people (who don't actually know anything about the lore) think that MK only does "that wacky metaphysical stuff." But he doesn't.

And you can't read, clearly.

He's written a hell of a lot more than that, dude. For starters, everything we know about the Ayleid.
>But, what abo-
No, seriously, virtually everything we know about them is derived from his work.

Are you from /v/ or something?
>made up names like "nintoddler" "sonygger" and "mkocksucker"
>completely baseless accusations of "shilling"

>made up names like "nintoddler" "sonygger" and "mkocksucker"
I only used one of those and I was literally quoting another poster. Are you okay, user? Did you take your pills today?

>completely baseless accusations of "shilling"
So did you only get into TES after that or something? MK was having a fucking meltdown over ESO until suddenly he just stopped, deleted a bunch of old forum posts he had made even predating the announcement of ESO that could be interpreted as being anti-ESO and started talking about how cool it was and how much he loved it. The only other likely explanation for this is that his dumbshit girlfriend hopped on board and he wanted to play with her and didn't want to seem like an ass the entire time.

Paranoia is a sign of mental instability. Coming up with inane conspiracy theories too. Did you remember to take your pills today, or is your live-in nurse responsible for that?

>inane conspiracy theories
A key component of those is that they lack tangible evidence. So that's a yes to "did you only get into TES after that or something?" I guess.

Yeah, all that juicy tangible evidence that LadyN convinced him to get into it, or maybe your access to his bank records. Do you have their place bugged? Do the transmissions beam directly to your tinfoil hat?

>Keep the squabbling to a minimum

See, I agree with you that Kirkbride's writings are important, a lot of my favorite texts are his, and yes I'm aware Kirkbride worked on the first Pocket Guide (arguably the most important part of the lore).
This doesn't change that you are giving him too much credit. Kirkbride isn't the sole savior of the lore, he is not its face. The lore was created by a whole bunch of people and every single of one of them played an important and crucial role in building what we know. The sooner people come to accept this fact, the sooner the lore can finally be seen for what it is. A whole.

When you have to resort to fallacies to prop up your argument (or rather, attack an opposing argument), your position is not very strong. Maybe you should keep that in mind.

It's a joke, everybody knows /tgesg/ is autism central and people only come here to fling shit at each other

Not long ago (less than a year) this actually was a great place for discussion and when people acted like retards they were frowned upon.

That's why I don't give free games away anymore...

You're right. Sometimes it just goes so far in the opposite extreme with people trying to discredit MK, acting like other people were way more important and whatever. But it's not really an exaggeration to say that TES, as we know it, only exists because of him. The only reason we're here talking about it now, and the only reason that all of those other creators had something to work off on in the first place is because of him and Kurt messing around with crazy sci-fi ideas and Todd going "hey, put that in Redguard."

Yeah, without that TES would still exist, but there wouldn't be anything deeper than the word "daedra."

You're entire "argument" is made up slander from the start, man.

I got one from you, so thanks again.

No, this place has frequently been better, and resigning ourselves to the notion that it's "autism central" isn't going to help anything.

That period was unusual though, before that /tgesg/ was also shit. I mean, the thread was mostly frequented by people actually dumb enough to get butthurt when newfag anime lovers in Veeky Forums's /tesg/ would bitch about lore discussion (while most of the oldfags didn't give a fuck or participated themselves). Most of the good shit two years ago was C0DA discussion and actual discussion of the parts of the thread that belong on Veeky Forums (ie the homebrew TTRPG systems), it was 90% memes and vicious arguments over shit like whether "dragon-born" means "dragonborn" or Kirkbride's credibility. We should of course aspire to have a better thread but this is more of a return to form than anything.

It's half the fun.

It's actually pretty sad.

I used to think that too but arguing recreationally gets old after a couple of years, especially if it's about the same tired subjects all the fucking time.

Time for serious lore talk.
Daggerfall bestiary was mostly generic fantasy critters plus a couple setting-specific ones (like Dreughs). What unique creatures could High Rock theoretically have if it was made after ES strayed away from common fantasy tropes?
For example, in Shadowkey there were flying rays and jellyfish/octopus-like creatures and, of course, wormmouths. But these all are from Western Reach, what about other parts of the province?

>but there wouldn't be anything deeper than the word "daedra."
You see, there you go again. What you say is not even true.
Even in Daggerfall there were books that already established lore musing on the nature of the gods and metaphysics in the series.

en.uesp.net/wiki/Daggerfall:King_Edward,_Part_XII
en.uesp.net/wiki/Daggerfall:The_Old_Ways
en.uesp.net/wiki/Daggerfall:An_Overview_of_Gods_And_Worship
en.uesp.net/wiki/Daggerfall:The_Light_and_the_Dark

All of which introduce concepts that seem to have directly inspired a lot of the lore Kirkbride would later write into the series.

There were even all sorts of subtle little hints towards something bigger, beyond the worldly frame, driving the plot behind Daggerfall. Especially in regards to Numidium.

Wormmouth.

Floater.

None of those are particularly deep or interesting or worth discussing.

If that was all the series had to offer, it would be no better than any of the other series that litter this board.

I like the take on nymphs, though I guess that's "generic" in that they draw from mythology instead of star wars. I always felt High Rock would probably be populated with more "generic" beasts anyway, though. It's more of a typical fantasy civilisation, which would naturally be shaped by more of a typical fantasy environment. Hammerfell was also featured in Daggerfall but I feel like there might be all manner of weird sand-beasts in the alik'r for example, like dune-esque worms, amphibious creatures that rarely see water, giant insects as beasts of burden or even some really wild shit like camels.

>None of those are particularly deep or interesting or worth discussing.
That's a matter of opinion and yours is bad

No, seriously. The Old Ways is pretty cool, but other than that do you really think it's enough to sustain decades of in-depth lore discussion?

You'll grow out of it.

Mostly joking.

It help to not show up for months.

Hopefully.

>you will never play Shadowkey

I've seriously been entertaining the thought of buying a N-Gage just to play it. However just the game itself on Ebay is 129 USD.

Here's some dank Shadowkey lore:
en.uesp.net/wiki/Shadowkey:Scroll_of_Shadow

Nymphs are interesting, yes. Somewhat related, there's also an interesting book on Faerie in Daggerfall:
en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:The_Faerie
but sadly, there weren't referenced later. Well, except an offhand mention of Gheateus in PGE3, of course.
Deeper, more obscure celtic mythology inspirations (Aos Si? Fomorians) would fit High Rock rather nicely, I think.

Also, maybe some kind of "speculative evolution"/chimera mammals? Just enough to be weird but still mostly believable. For example, I have this idea of a giant star-nosed mole that occupies same ecological niche as bears. Too dumb?

You are unbelievable. Is it seriously that hard for you to just admit that maybe, Kirkbride isn't the only person that has provided the series depth?
It's like you're fucking threatened by this idea or something.

Lamias, Harpies, giant woolly caterpillars, Gargoyles, Dragonlings, Centaurs. Generally an abundance of half-humans.

Honestly, as much as I'd like to see weirder stuff, visual strangeness is usually secondary to their context in the lore. Minotaurs, Dragons, Giants, Hagravens, and their like are monsters that just lifted from other fantasy, but the lore surrounding them makes them more interesting.
Cliffracers are just pterodactyls, Shalk are just big beetles, Alit/Guar/Kagouti are goofy dinosaurs. It's the lore that surrounds them and the way they're presented that makes them something more.

There's actually probably more to it than that. The Gheateus, trolls, giants and ancient Atmorans, etc, are all connected, if you look hard enough. It's probably the Ehlnofey, from which Fey would be derived.

Sure, lots of people contributed. But it would be stupid and reactionary to pretend like he didn't do it the most and the best.

The new Sotha Sil lore for Morrowind is actually really good.

Isn't there one where he just tells the user to go to www.c0da.es?

the god or the city?

Both.

Yes. A bunch of trainwiz's lore also comes up.

Kwama designs are really clever, though

The god is the city.

>A bunch of trainwiz's lore also comes up.

Nice.

Oh, no wonder why he's shilling it 24/7

Yeah, I guess the problem is that we don't have much info on what Daggerfall creatures actually are. Are Dragonlings smaller shards of Aka went mortal? Are Centaurs a lost Bjoulsae tribe that fused with their steeds? Who made the Gargoyles?

He's right though, he's got a 36 Lessons style book series called the Truth In Sequence and it is actually really good. It introduces a lot of fascinating concepts for Sotha Sil, as well as affirms a bunch of c0da concepts.

You forgot to put your name on, 'Wiz.

Got a link?

I don't have a problem with that, what disgusts me is how he enables all the anticonsumer garbage they pull off.

pastebin.com/ekQtNmk6

>They are the Anti-Gears that turn counter to the Nameless Will. Servants of the Padomaic untruth whose nature is void. Of the Daedra, only the Gray Prince of Order knew his nature, and he went mad in the knowing.

Interesting.

Which parallels Akatosh's madness

Sounds like MK's pretentious gibberish to me, yep

Pretentious, sure. But it ain't gibberish.

What the fuck is a pomegranate banquet?

you mean it drags ESO down. MK is a fucking joke and only gets the little work that he does because reddit is full egotistical circle jerk liberal mode

I was looking around teslore the other day and saw a lot of posts using the xe hir etc for Vivec's gender pronouns
Is this some joke? I don't get it