/tgesg/-Weekend Elder Scrolls General

Where does the name Colo come from?

Colovians must've been a powerful tribe, who knows

I like to think it comes from the Nedic word for "hill".

In that case, no, I can't think off the top of my head about anywhere made up of mostly women.

There were multiple migrations, some of them became the Nedic people and some of them were the forerunners of the Nords who clashed with the Mer there, as far as I am aware. The Nedes were more like Nords who adapted to the rest of Tamriel whereas Skyrim was the most like their home and retained the most of its Atmoran heritage.

Colovan maybe? Like Nibenay and Niben?

What part of Colovia do you see this architecture fitting in? To me, it looks more like remnants of the lost Nedic civilisation in Hammerfell desu.

>some of them became the Nedic people
Oh, those are the migrations mentioned? The whole "Out of Atmora" theory is said by many to be Imperial propaganda; it's Tamriel where the Nedes originate from and the ancestors of Atmorans originated in Tamriel as well.

i really want to hire a silt strider for a week or two for a gigantic tour of vvardenfell

>murdered by camonna tong on second day

That last picture seems more fitting with some changes to be a Redguard structure.

As far as it goes for the Nedes, it's a myyyyyystery as far as I know, but personally I like the idea of them being a far earlier wave of human migrants who started their own unique culture before the later waves of Cyro-Nords.

redpill me on dark elves

It's to show how detailed adobe architecture can be.

They like building walls and killing foreigners.

The Empire tells you that they don't condemn slavery, but they don't imprison abolitionists! Wake up, n'wahs!

I think I'll stay with the indigenous theory, I trust Antabolis on this one.

Antabolis? And no hard feelings about that, I just personally like the idea of the Nedes being migrants turned natives who ended up so removed from their homeland that their homeland didn't recognize them. Not to mention its funny that the Cyro-Nords had a huge hard-on for liking to see themselves as the savior of Men.

The scholar Hasphat Antabolis:
>The usual Imperial arrogance. The hoary old "Out of Atmora" theory has been widely discredited (no reputable archaeologist would publicly support it these days), but the Imperial Geographers continue to beat the drum of the Nordic Fatherland in the best tradition of the Septim Empire. They seem to think that the imprimature of officialdom gives their outdated scholarship added weight -- which, unfortunately, it appears to in the eyes of the ever-gullible public which continues to snap up the latest Pocket Guides along with the rest of their Imperial Certified pablum.

Why doesn't Kirkbride just make his own setting and stop wasting all his creativity making lore for a series that will bury or ignore all the interesting things he comes up with? He just needs like a partner or editor to keep him from going off the deep end too much.

While that's fun to read, I like to think that Antabolis might be a tad bit arrogant. But moreover, I think it would be best if the whole thing remain up in the air. I always like the fact that Tamriel's history is up in the air(though there are some things I feel as though are a bit too obscured).

You don't want to abandon your baby, user.

>nordic fur + turd helmet

Well according to most those earlier nedic migrations ARE what became the proto Bretons, Reachmen, and Cyrodiilic people.
But it's more likely these people were indigenes of tamriel

We wuz Ysgramor and sheeeiiiit.

The Nords/Skyrim is a place I would have liked to have seen more...work done on. Skyrim really did a number making it a bunch of dumb barbarian men.

Aspiring lorefag here. Just finished going through the trial of Vivec stuff. Why does Kirkbride hate Azura so much? Does she have a real world analogue anyone is aware of?

>looks more like remnants of the lost Nedic civilizarion in Hammerfell
I agree, they look like desert structures, very old ones at that.
Colovia is far from a desert, it's one of the Empire's principal and likewise infrastucturally advance regions.

Honestly, I think it's more that Kirkbride has a love affair with Vivec. I like the character...just...not as much as the writing seems to.

I just don't like Vivec at all

They have dark skin because they were cursed by a God they pissed off. They were originally if glorious Chimer stock, but they pissed then of too and decided to walk across the continent to start their own civilization and be muck farmers.

They also take the Hist tree's slaves as their own slaves because it's easier than trying to enslave each other or the Nords.

That's fine, not going to hate you for that opinion. But Vivec is a major figure to a lot of Kirkbride's writing and he is sorta...played up, I would say? Like how Kirkbride just sorta said one day "Vivec killed Tiber Septim once before" and I don't think he ever explained what that actually meant. The Dunmer's just gotten a lot of love.

its because vivec achieving chim means kirkbride can have vivec do literally anything

>36 Lessons of Vivec, Sermon 69: Vivec fucks a Flame Atronach

Yeaaaaaaaah...CHIM and godhood feels kinda weird to me. It's one of those parts of the lore that I have a love/hate relationship with not so much because it's esoteric, but because there isn't a lot of information to nail down what exactly it entails. It's like some of the weirder bits of the Bible without the context to piece it together to me.

its why its never directly mentioned in the games, because its broken and kind of silly when you think about how it fits into the history

on the other hand, a man reaching enlightenment and having to confront how much he believes he exists and then either winking out of existence or achieving godhood from his epiphany is pretty rad

It's rad as hell, it just clashes with a lot of various ideas. How can Vivec be dying or wasting away without the Heart if he can rewrite reality itself?

I always prefer to see CHIM as a moment, a fleeting glimpse of the shape of the world in which you can change it to your whim. And like a lot of the moments in your life when you really got something, it doesn't last. Depending on what level you are, it might be longer or shorter but the world is going to change in some way and your moment of CHIM is going to be lost. You'll walk away a changed man, you'll have greater powers, but either you reach that moment of enlightenment again and pull it off another time or you settle for the position you found yourself in.

i think vivec is still alive but he just fucked off somewhere, which makes the ministry of truth falling that much more fucked up

almalexia went insane because her connection with the heart of lorkhan was ceasing to be, sotha sil was weakening as well

>almalexia went insane because her connection with the heart of lorkhan was ceasing to be, sotha sil was weakening as well
forgot this
>because they never achieved CHIM
drunk

It's okay, user. I'm drinking as well.

Well maybe Vivec should have put his space rock down gently in the first place.

What is the best drink in Tamriel?

>Well maybe Vivec should have put his space rock down gently in the first place.
But then how would people know he"loves" them?

By making his palace float instead?

blackbriar

Get out of here, Maven.

Threadly reminder that Bosmer are criminally underrated.

Trips and dubs, not bad!

Are you the Valenwood user from last thread? Sorry we didn't get a chance to talk that much.

Anyone but Dunmer are under utilized and underrated, except maybe Argonians.

I'd say all of the TES races are underutilized, there's only so much time and effort to show them all in their own games and then a big part of what stays and what goes depends on marketing.

Which is why we theorycraft in order to make our RPGs better.

>Bosmer are criminally underrated
I disagree; they are just normnally underrated. The beast races, Khajiit, Argonians, and Orsimer, are criminally underrated.

Orsimer (as the mer part of the name suggests), aren't a beast race.

>Argonians
>underrated
Yeah the same people in the lore who have the Hist meme, kicked deadra ass out of their providence with no help, and are now raping their rapists. When was the last time Valenwood did something not Camoran or getting taken over by Altmer related, or High Rock after the Warp in the West how much of their lore has went completely stagnant?

>not Camoran

Explain, not sure I understand this bit. Not being a dick...just...don't get this bit.

Nah, Orsimer are beasts.

Other than getting some shitty ESO lore to expand them the Argonians don't have much going for them. Yeah they did those things you mention, but they get almost no focus in the games outside of being "those weird lizard guys".

I'll grant you that the Bosmer don't get much and ESO shit on them too, like everything else, but they are far from criminally underrated.

The Camoran Usurper, the first raised an army of undead, mercs, and raised undead mercs. Mankar Camoran was his son and well you know what he did in Oblivion, so other than the Camoran Usurper and Mankar Valenwood hasn't really done or been involved in anything relevant.

Alright, I get you on that. Thanks for the explanation.

I think however, I'd direct it all back to this...

This

Same here

Remember that the expanded lore is written by people who like obscured and esoteric details, we don't get solid information outside of the games and sadly, as fun as games are, they are an expensive medium to build your lore within.

and bosmer are just those merlet elves
bretons are wrote off as generic fantasy knights or typical eccentric artisans because their starting skills are always shit

>merlet

>Merlet

God fucking dammit, user. Maybe I've drunk too much, but I'm dying here.

In any case, to bring this thread forward a bit. Using the stats in the PDFs we have in the OP, how would you stat some of the races?

>Eyes not solid black
2/10

>TES will always be shackled by modern Bethesda's inability to let the series be weird

i hate it

I do as well, though I think there is a balance that hasn't been found yet. Not shitting on you, just bouncing off of you. Most people don't want to sit through gnostic musings or semi-Vedic sermons, likewise, not everyone wants the same droll and repeated fantasy staples. There is a middle ground between that and production that hasn't been reached, but I always hope will be.

I hate that things have been sacrificed as well...just...wish there was some middle ground.

Speaking of underrated Valenwood folk, what about the Imga?

ELABORATE

Sorry, still drinking. Tell me what you love about them, this kind of discussion is my favorite.

did you guys know that Morrowind is legitimately multiplayer now? It's pretty new, released in July and uses OpenMW.

it's called tes3MP, there are a bunch of servers and the gameplay is awesome. Blows my mind how well it actually works.

In valenwood, I imagine there are the metropolitan, civilized bosmer, which are what we see in every game. They're basically normal short people with pointy ears.

And then there's the uncivilized, hick, redneck, aboriginal native (whatever adjective you want) bosmer. These are the kinds that still religiously observe the green pact, embrace the wild hunt, have all sorts of fun shapeshifting rituals that seek to get back at their roots as shapeshifters.

Well the Green Pact always seemed to me as either in or out. You either observe it our you don't. Which means that inside Valenwood, it should be pretty strict whereas outside, Bosmer should be pretty odd yet trying to adapt to society around them.

I like your idea though.

Well there's not much official information to base anything on. There's the information in the first PGE and Marukh was supposedly an Imga but that's it. Perhaps ESO elaborated on them, I don't know.
I'd be interested in their relationship with the Bosmer as wellas the Wood Orcs.

Yeah, I don't think the ones inside Valenwood have any choice.

I'm both of those anons, so you get two response for the price of one.

Now you've gotten my interest as well as made me start speculating on the Green Pact in Valenwood. I can see something like the Ashlanders in Vardenfell where it's not everyone who believes 100 percent but it's something you should go along with because otherwise it's gonna be bad. There's room for a boiling pot that people are whistling and ignoring.

I believe they do, because valenwood hasn't been ruled by bosmer at any point in its history for the last 500 years.

I seriously doubt the empire would tolerate forced green pact observance, and I doubt the aldmeri dominion would allow it either.

And at least source suggests that parts of the green pact are not respected by bosmer in valenwood, only respected by the savage ones.

en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:War_Customs_of_the_Tribal_Bosmer

Also, that "Mourning War" thing they described sounds like an excellent way to begin an elder scrolls game.

You're a prisoner in some city. Due to a mixup before the game began, the thalmor garrison killed a few bosmer from the most savage back asswards bosmer tribe there ever was, which retaliates with a hostage raid, that gets you. During the midst of the hostage raid, the city bosmer start involuntarily turning into monsters, as a result of their nonfollowing of the green pact. The Wild Hunt has been called. Your rescuers/captors escape with you

You're incorporated into the tribe, and you help them to end the wild hunt.

I don't know why we've stumbled upon a possibly interesting lore bit but I like it. My knowledge of Valenwood is slim. Bosmer-Bros, take it away.

What do you want to see in a Valenwood game, buildings, peoples, customs, CHIM, so on and so forth?

a vertically designed map. If you've played GW2 heart of thorns, I want something like the Verdant Brink zone to be the template from which valenwood is based.

I want bethesda to introduce a non sponge difficulty scaling.

Lore wise, the bosmeri nature as shapeshifters and the wild hunt are the most interesting to me.

I have not played Heart of Thorns! GW1 was my jam, but I just couldn't get into GW2.

But explain how you'd like to see the shapeshifting and Wild Hunt.

IS Morrowind a largely female population?

I'd like to see cultural collision between "civilized" Bosmer who have adopted Altmer customs and tribal Bosmer. But this is a pipe dream most likely. BGS can't even represent more than one culture in the European inspired provinces.

BGS?

I don't know about this whole "civilised" Bosmer thing. I mean, I can see the more Altmerised Bosmer along the coast trying to act more like their western brethren, but can they really go against the Green pact? Even if they didn't necessarily live in the bush, I think they'd have to abide by the rules laid down by Y'ffre whether or not they wanted to, but they could probably find some ways to live by the rules of the Green pact while remaining a bit more moderate.
Also, I can imagine any Bosmer with disfigurements that came to be due to the effects of shapeshifting (which, if I remember correctly, are permanent once they happen) being looked down upon in the more "civilised" parts of Valenwood but the more wild Mer might see the disfigurement as a sort of mark of Y'ffre, giving such an individual a higher ranking in the tribal structure.

You got it. The Green Pact has to do with their entire physiology. If they don't abide by it they literally lose their minds and shapeshift uncontrollably, going on a murderous rampage. I also love the idea of keeping animal features, kinda like the concept from morrowind, but more moderate.

I don't think antlers and various other things sticking out from the head would be too radical. Anyway, there's also the matter of Bosmer women being hotties while the guys are not exactly a sight for sore eyes.

That's what I meant by more moderate. Male Bosmer are supposed to be ugly cause they're all half beast, and fucked up. It should be toned down a bit. Like some have tusks and horns and shit, but they shouldn't look like fish and wereboars and goblins

Bethesda Game Studios

>Trying out something new, feedback appreciated...
I noticed an error, here's the revised version.

That would make them unique.

Plus their women still being hot would enrage people.

I would've been more interested in playing a bosmer if I could look like a goblinoid boarelf thing, shame we got Fargoths instead

So, Orcs were mentioned in Father of the Niben - do you think they were some wild kind that predated the Orsimer? A transcription error? Are Orsimer older than previously thought? Or was it just goblins?

I'm gonna say Goblins. Aldmer may use the same word for Orc as they do for Goblin, or maybe it was just an error in translation, but Orcs didn't come about until around the time of the Velothi Exodus

I like the less alien Bosmer, then again that's only the for the females, and I'm a fan of the age old girl hunter that's kinda hippy when not hunting.

We don't actually know if the green pact is part of their physiology, what that means, or even how much of that, if true, applies at all to the various tenets.

We've got conflicting sources saying different things. It would be possible for the green pact to be more of a societal thing: as long as some of the bosmer honor it, all of the bosmer won't shapeshift. It would be possible that some of the tenets of the green pact as we know it are superfluous, added by time and word of mouth.

Either would certainly explain things like War Customs of the Tribal Bosmer mentioning how cannibalism is no longer universally honored, and how your bosmer characters, regardless of game, can go for in game years without eating the bodies of their enemies.

I don't know if it's something that Y'ffre makes sure the Bosmer follow or if it's just tradition but I can't imagine a Bosmer not honouring it while in Valenwood without dire consequences of some kind.

The strident coast was also known for its pirates, which ruled the seas until the ra gada arrived

Got it.

Looking good, you really like the idea of an ethnically distinct Anvil, huh?

How much would you make it differ?

And as far as Valenwood goes, it's all good dicussion but I just don't have much to add at the moment, sadly.

Then you lack imagination. Somebody in the lore writing department did imagine it though, which is why we have that one book that suggests only the most savage tribes still cannibalize people they kill. It could be wrong, but it is possible.

I think there's room for both sides of this here. Valenwood could certainly be a hodge-podge of ways that people follow the Green Pact in some form that have tried to adopt it to their circumstances. Like whether they're near the coast or if they're in other provinces, the Tribunal was something that affected all of Morrowind, there's no reason the Green Pact can't effect all of Valenwood, that just doesn't mean it's universal throughout it in effect.

But Valenwood, Elsweyr, and the Black Marsh are my weakest areas of lore, so I haven't read too many books on the matter.

This sorta reminds me of "On the Preparation of the Corpse". The bit about how the northern Bretons prefer to cremate their dead while the southerners give them Imperial burials in tombs, was the first sanctioned lore I read that separated the Iliac Bay and northern HR culturally.

Huh, neat! Haven't read the book, but do you know if the difference is being of them worrying about undead and the bodies being desecrated?

I could've gone on but I was going for a short overview that fit into what little space there was in the pic and didn't clutter it too much.

They're not necessarily a group of people completely alien to a Colovian from Chorrol but even if you were to consider them sea Colovians, their locatino would still lead to a development in a different direction. In my vision, the Abeceans were Nedic tribes related to (and in contact with) their eastern neighbours who went their own way; Colovians are seen as these tough men from in-land who sneer at the magic and trade-loving Nibenese - and trade is exactly what the naval Abeceans would thrive from. There's not a lot of information on the people of the region but looking at the name of one of the region's greatest heroes, Bendu Olo, I thought they might be a bit more divergent than commonly thought, because that name doesn't sound quite Colovian. The other aspect were the names of Kvatch and Sutch - the suffix connects the two and I thought that was something I could show to be a sign of a common Abecean heritage.
All things considered, Abeceans and Colovians are still close enough that union is not too far-fetched - but one where the coastal people still like to thump themselves on the chest. A linguistic and cultural continuum between the two regions would see Kvatch pretty much a staple Colovian city, but the average Colovian might find himself out of element in Anvil (by the way, I just noticed I made a mistake when naming Anvil - I was going for "Olo's City" but it came out with an N instead of an L. Will correct that), where everything from architecture to language to culture is based on a different foundation.

It's established that , the term "Oloman style" exists. So you'd think the name would be more commonplace along the coast. Such as, "the Olo" being a distant tribe of Colovan stock that settled along the coast and founded Sutch and Anvil or "Oloman" referring to the Olo dynasty that founded the Oloman kingdom. I like to think the Colovans learned the art of sailing from the Nords and would soon even surpass them.