/tgesg/ - Weekend Elder Scrolls Lore General

A little.
>"Remembers our lessons from the sword masters of Alcaire?"

That's simple: they don't. Don't want to destroy the Towers, that is. This was a something people believed to be the case under a misunderstanding of what the Towers actually are and what the Thalmor actually are doing.

And what do the Thalmor actually want and are doing?

>They don't

Elaborate?

Well, what they want was never a source of confusion. To unwind Mundus and return to their pre-Dawn, pre-kalpic incorporeal forms. The actual act of doing that just has nothing to do with destroying Towers, at least not most of them.

Every Tower that has been destroyed so far has been largely incidental. The role of the mer-made Towers has been grossly overestimated. They are instruments of ascension, not pillars of reality.

The jury is still out on exactly what role Ada-mantia, Snow Throat and Red Mountain play in this. These may need to be destroyed in order to fulfill the plans of the Thalmor, as in
>"All will change in these days as it was changed in those, for with by the magic word Nu-Mantia a great rebellion rose up and pulled down the towers of CHIM-EL GHARJYG..."

>Could the Towers be construed as Tuning Forks, given your music statement yesterday?
>Yes, maybe. More like maestros.

Also, when I use the word "incidental" I don't mean to imply that they all weren't destroyed in part of the same "dawntime conspiracy" that saw the end of the Septims and the rise of the Thalmor. Just that they don't matter as much as people used to think.

Huh, alright, 'spose I can see your point there.

Don't really like the Thalmor as a lore point or the whole 200 gap between Oblivion and Skyrim.

Is there a canon lore source on Breton knights from Highrock in the times Skyrim takes place in ? There's the guy from ESO but that's a different time period and he seems more like an assassin.

I want to make a roleplaying playthrough as one but I don't know if they prefer heavy or light armor, if they use magic or leave it to their wizards or if they even tolerate ranged weapons.

To be fair, the Thalmor do have an organizational and ideological precedent in early iterations of the Dominion and the same philosophy of the Aldmer that saw the creation of the first Towers taken to a logical, ultra-gnostic extreme.
>Most elves hate [Lorkhan], thinking creation as that act which sundered them from the spirit realm.

>To unwind Mundus and return to their pre-Dawn, pre-kalpic incorporeal forms. The actual act of doing that just has nothing to do with destroying Towers, at least not most of them.
[citation needed]

C0da isn't canon, user, it's fanfic tier

See the quote in These are foundation building blocks of the setting.

imperial-library.info/content/spirit-nirn
imperial-library.info/content/monomyth-altmeri-heart-world

There isn't much lore of High Rock in the Skyrim era, unless you count the forsworn. You could just take the classical medieval knights that High Rock's knights would be based on and throw in some magic like mage armor and healing spells to augment your natural martial abilities. As far as specific weapons goes I don't see why wouldn't Bretons wouldn't use bows but if melee is your bread and butter it makes sense to have some destruction magic on hand to do some ranged damage.

Forsworn aren't Bretons

IIRC all the TES games (I mean the actual main ones; so not, say, Redguard for instance, and certainly not Zenimax's little fanfic) are set pretty close to one another, so most likely Breton's knights are just as they were in earlier eras. Aristocratic warrior-gentry, generally (or at least often) belonging to either one of various (literally hundreds of) knightly orders owing allegiance to some noble house or region, or to a religious templar order dedicated to one of the Divines, or just bound in service to some feudal lord in exchange for land, rights, and titles.

That certainly doesn't look like a knight, as every TES game is pretty consistent that knights wear heavy armor, and generally prefer plate.

As for magic, yes they use that. However, they aren't specially trained or educated as magicians, and knightly orders do not offer training in any form of magic. What magic knights use is generally fairly basic, mostly healing spells and minor things to supplement their martial skills.

As for ranged weapons, High Rock knights do in fact (at least as of Daggerfall) use ranged weapons, and most knightly orders do in fact provide training in archery. However, the main and iconic weapon of the knight is the longsword.

Funnily enough most High Rock orders don't seem to be fans of blunt weapons. You'd think maces would be a big thing but apparently not as much as you might think.

However, another weapon of the knight -- perhaps the greatest -- is their silver tongue. They are expected to be charming and diplomatic, they're taught etiquette and how to manage in high society, and all knightly orders also offer training in the languages of Giants and Dragons, in addition to Etiquette.

I'd say the a typical Breton Knight has charm, heavy armor, twohanded longblade, and varying degrees of piousness.

Topkek, this is what assblasted Nordies actually believe.

Isn't Breton Knight lore just a relict of older TES games where they weren't the most magical humans? I know that this lore can be also found in later TES games, but for me it always clashed with how Bretons are shown in the games.

>Forsworn are the true Bretons
fify

Reachmen aren't Bretons, and have severed their ties from the true Bretons of High Rock.

This. Bretons invented the claymore.

Even then, a long sword is one of the better things you can use against armor, despite Veeky Forums memes that the only way it do incinerate armor. They're pretty good at finding chinks in armor, and even then in Morrowind it says warhammers were adopted by western knights.

They were always magic humans.

Here's the Arena description:
>Bretons are a tall, dark-haired people. Bretons are highly intelligent and willful people, and have an outgoing personality. It is said that Bretons are weaned on magic, for it seems to suffuse their very being. As a result Bretons take half damage on any Magic based attack, and no damage on a successful save. They are excellent in all the arcane arts.

When you selected Bretons, you got the following:
>Know ye this also:
>Thy race is descended from the ancient Druids of Galen, quick witted and strong in the mystical arts. Thy folks are crafty and intelligent, a learned people who use their gifts to guide others to enlightenment...

And here's the Daggerfall description:
>Bretons hail from the province of High Rock. You are part of a tall, fair-skinned people, highly intelligent and willful. Magic seems to infuse the very being of the Breton people. As a race, they are more resistant to the effects of hostile magic than any other group, and thus are excellent in all arcane arts.

They were feudal, but also magically gifted. For the most part though I think the grand wizards were kings and powerful feudal lords, members of the Mage's Guild, or priests. Knights were lesser nobility, generally the lesser sons of noble families who stood to inherit little or nothing, or ascended peasants granted knighthood in exchange for valor or service to a noble lord. They generally had a basic grasp of magic because Breton, but they weren't really trained in it and generally weren't very good at it by Breton standards (though they were still better than most non-Breton men (unless you count Nortic Shouting as magic)).

I always thought that was one of the dumbest decisions ever. Back in the days of Morrowind, you had three groups (possibly more).

"House Bretons": Normal run of the mill, far more human than elven, Knights N' Sheit.

Horse Bretons: Spiritual horseback barbarians who had some sort of ancestor worship or spiritual tie to them.

Reachmen: Spooky witch people. Even more intune with magic than the already adept house/horse Bretons. Secretive and haughty. loads of shamans who serve as mediators between the worlds.

>Bretons being described as tall when they're the shortest race

What High Rock propaganda is this.

I got to disagree with how you use the feudal structure of High Rock, knights ranged from social and merchant knights in it for social climbing to martial warriors who served as the military arm of a king. There's nothing to suggest the kings were powerful wizards, or that they even used magic as the ones you meet in Daggerfall would seem more social and martial leaning. They do have an inborn ability for some magics, but its mostly support types. Something a warrior might use to augment his natural abilities, or healing like a stereotypical paladin or knight.

Maybe female Bretons, but male Bretons are average.

Breton men are the same height as Imperials and Dunmer. Only the women are capable of being qt Shortstacks.

That actually depends. Knight is a title, there are mage knights and merchant knights. It's more like a samurai clan thing than a literal class of charming warriors (even if that makes up the bulk.).

Various Knightly Orders also have different focuses. Some might be more upfront warriors, some might be battlemages, and some might be archers.

I thought it was more like

>House Bretons
The average Breton, scholarly, and artisans. More social.

>Horse Lord Bretons
The martial, more human than elven, knights n' shit Bretons that formed the first traces of modern High Rock nobility.

>Reachmen
Not Bretons

Thanks, in such case I'm thinking about something roughly like this:
>fourth son of a minor noble house
>too far in the succession line to inherit anything, not magically gifted enough to spend coin on to train further in a major school
>as he grew up he did prove himself good at mediating and and trading due to his position among the siblings, took care of the house treasury for some time and even dipped into trade despite it being a bit looked down upon among nobles
>this resulted in a hidden sense of inferiority and upon reaching adulthood he left Highrock to try proving himself in the only way he could in his position: as an errant knight
>and while at some times he acts closer to a mercenary to feed himself and his horse, he still has his pride and honor intact - doesn't soil himself with common guard work or murder, instead opting to hunt down monsters and bandits for bounties as that's something knights of old tales do

>heavy steel plate armor
>skyforge steel sword
>some healing and summoning magic, maybe destruction

How autistic does that sound ?

What's something that really irks you about the lore community?

For me it when people forget that people are individuals, and while probably influenced by their culture, are not all stereotypes.

For example, there are nerdy and reclusive Nord mages like Farangar. There are Altmer who despise the decadence and haughtiness of their people like The Beautiful. There are turbo alpha chad Breton warriors. What you see in games is a generalization.

Seems pretty good to me.

>turbo alpha chad Breton warriors
Isn't that all Breton warriors?

Elven blood is stronger in nobility, but keep quite about that because it's viewed as a thing of shame among most.

Horse Bretons eventually settled in Wayrest, I believe. I'll have to check.

Reachmen were always Bretons up until Skyrim. The Witchmen of High Rock. Even synonymous with Bretons if you ask Cyrus.

The best book on these subethnic groups and how they interact would probably be The Mirror.

I'd imagine yes.

Sounds really good.

I think you need to come to Daggerfall and worship at the Temple of Kynareth for some favor on your journeys.

When people try and make things as "exotic" as they can by picking vague "foreign" places. I like a sense of alien or unique lands in my TES, but I see people acting like "interesting" Cyrodiil has to be super Indian/Chinese/Some Vaguely "Far East" place.

There is a lot of interesting stuff close to home and yet some people always act like TES worldbuilding is only interesting when it's ripping off Hydarabad or somewhere else.

Still need to decide which stone to get at the beginning, if I want to use magic which could make the playthrough too easy, if he would use poison against "not worthy" opponents, etc. But I consider it a good start.

What game are you playing?

Want to play Skyrim with the character. Hard to decide between Warrior and Thief stone - if I went with the latter I would probably switch to light armor. Still, I will probably pick the Archon stone soon after so it probably won't make a difference.

Atronach is is the best, followed by The Steed and The Lord. Especially if you use magic, but if not so much, then you're still the ultimate Antimage Knight.

I don't think places have to be non-Western to be interesting, I just go by pre-Oblivion lore in which Cyrodiil just so happened to have had pretty noticeable Chinese influence.

I think High Rock is cool and that's about as European as you can get in this setting. I like knights and castles and feudalism and pine forests and all that. But I also think Cyrodiil in Oblivion seemed like a bad renfaire and nothing like Cyrodiil as described in literally all earlier games.

I also think that if they wanted to change everything about Cyrodiil from everything that described it in earlier games, they should've just gone full Daggerfall, put detail into their new society, and given it a real feudal system with bitter, cutthroat feudal politics. You didn't even get any real sense of culture or politics or the political landscape of Oblivion Cyrodiil. It didn't feel like a Medieval kingdom. It felt like a Ye Olde Days theme park, or a bad renfaire.

I like Europe. I like Medieval Europe. I don't think a hate-on for places that aren't incredibly non-Western is why people complain about Oblivion/ESO Cyrodiil. Ever notice how no one has any problem with High Rock or Skyrim even though they were also incredibly European in the games they appeared in? Just sayin'.

What High Rock kingdom would actually have to deal with the Eastern Reach's Reachmen? Jehanna is far north along the coast, so would it fall to Evermore to deal with them? Evermore was sacked by a Reachmen horde in the Second era.

Yeah, I'd say Evermore. If you're willing to reeeeeeeeally stretch the definition of kingdom though then you could say Wrothgar though. Wrothgar isn't really a kingdom -- more a few city-states and a large number of Breton, Nordic, and Orcish villages scattered throughout a vast inhospitable mountain -- but it technically has a recognized king in the city of Wrothgaria.

Evermore and the Knights of Saint Pelin work for me.

An extreme lack of creative vision

Oh and something else. People occasionally say "but Cyrodiil shouldn't be a jungle because Skyrim is north of it and it's super cold."

Honestly, Cyrodiil as described in earlier games makes sense, and would realistically be tropical.

One thing to keep in mind is that altitude trumps latitiude. Skyrim is extremely elevated -- akin to the Tibetan Plateau basically -- and it's likewise largely a cold region (though plenty of it is quite temperate), just as Tibet is a cold, inhospitable place despite being in the subtropics. High Rock is mostly at about the same latitude as Skyrim but (except for the Wrothgarian Mountains in the East) is at a generally lower elevation, so it mostly has a very temperate European climate, transitioning to a Mediterranean climate along the Iliac Coast. Hammerfell is at the same latitude as Cyrodiil, and it's basically like this: arid deserts, badlands, and sweltering coastal grasslands in the east, tropical jungles and savannas in the west, separated by the Dragontail Mountains.

Most likely, Tamriel sits right above the equator of Nirn, and that (along with it being about the size of Greater Asia as Michael Kirkbride described it) seems to make sense with everything we know about Tamriel.

tl;dr Cyrodiil being a jungle makes geographic sense -- in fact it's the only thing that would make sense. If it should be temperate because Skyrim is to its north then why isn't Hammerfell also temperate? And why isn't High Rock a frozen shithole?

Whoops, I mixed up my directions.

>arid deserts, badlands, and sweltering coastal grasslands in the WEST, tropical jungles and savannas in the EAST, separated by the Dragontail Mountains

Colovia wasn't meant to be a jungle, you're thinking of the Heartland around the Imperial city and South/Southeast.

>This monotheistic religion was once very popular, but today only remnants of its faith remain. It started in the coastal jungle of what is now the Colovian west
en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Pocket_Guide_to_the_Empire,_1st_Edition/Cyrodiil

I hate that a lot of the day to day lore simply doesn't exist in any authoritative source.
There's no books on what color lipstick is the best, if showing ankles is slutty, if some new guy walking around with facepaint would weird people out, or if men wear high heels. It's mostly just assumed if it exists in tes but isn't outright stated, the you assume the irl implications, but as we learn with race comparisons that irl implications fuck everything up.
If I barge into a castle with a rainbow colored mudcrab as a codpiece, am I gay? No one fucking knows because there's no fucking lore about it.

What really irks me is how Veeky Forums has ruined the games for me.

>see these threads start to pop up
>"hey I'm an Elder Scrolls lore expert! Let's contribute."
>no I'm fucking not. Don't even know what CHIM is.
>Spend couple hours out of each day for days researching and beefing up my knowledge about TES
>Fill in blank spots with my own or other's theories and head canon
>Finally have a knowledge of a fictional fantasy world on par with my knowledge of real history.

Now I'm stuck in a limbo where I can barely even touch the games anymore because I know my personal interpretation of this wonderful setting will never be properly represented in a game.

Nobody here actually plays the games, user. That'd be ridiculous.

Really? I still play Morrowind to this day, and Skyrim when I'm at my girlfriend's place.

She also has all three volumes of all the lore books in Skyrim, so I'll look through them and tell her some cool stuff.

here. I play Morrowind, and I can assure you it's still great.

As for Oblivion, I just mod the everloving shit out of it and pretend it's a completely unrelated game in a completely unrelated setting. If you use the right mods and pretend it's not an Elder Scross game it can actually be pretty fun.

Also Skyrim's good, and I have a massive soft spot for Daggerfall even though I'm sure Bretons and Redguards probably aren't supposed to be quite that lewd.

>aren't supposed to be quite that lewd.
High Rock is lewd, and nothing you say will change that

>y'all n'wahs need vivec

High Rock is a lewd place, they have authorized and unauthorized orgies all the time. The only people thinking about the children are necromancers, Gods help us.

A Less Rude Song is the worst thing to come from Morrowind. My headcanon is that it's just trying to say that Dunmer are freaky, but I know it's the developers trying to tell us what we say in Daggerfall isn't canon.

Speaking of High Rock, what were they thinking when they put all the races with the best waifus into one alliance ?

>short pale nerdy waifu
>fit brown fighter waifu
>muscle green blacksmith waifu

How could the other factions compare ?

user i still Play TES, i still revisit skyrim or try to get courage to do arena again once and another, i still make sure that my anthology box look like an ol tome

and i still want to play TESO, but then President Count Dracula still thinks that PC and console Games are "related to casino games" so its 72% +Taxes up everyone asses because the senators needs to pay the Porches for their Daughters

>somewhere in the warp, a certain chaos god giggles after hearing the word Free and liberated Orgies
Talos helps us is slaanesh makes her way into Nirn

I'm pretty sure A Less Rude Song and the occasional mentions (entirely by Western (and mostly Imperial or Breton) sources about Dunmer being lewd sluts is basically just the in-setting equivalent of Orientalism. Same with the Lusty Argonian Maid. The in-setting equivalent of old colonial-era pulp fiction about how Muslim and East Asian women were the sexiest sluttiest things ever and crave Western cock and were totally not prudish like these gosh damn Western women.

In-setting prejudice is and has always been a massive thing in-setting. Look at The Pig Children. Or at that Breton book of jokes in Daggerfall (I forget the name), in which IIRC all the Redguard jokes were about how Redguards (and more specifically the people of Daggerfall's rival kingdom Sentinel) are retarded incompetent worthless pussies who can't fight for shit, can't win a war to save their lives, and can never hope to stand against the armies of Daggerfall and their massive BBC (Big Breton Cocks). IIRC all the "jokes" about Bretons were also about how much smarter and stronger and generally better Bretons (and more specifically those of the author's native Daggerfall) were than everyone else but admittedly I could be misremembering.

Though I do agree that I don't think the Bretons are supposed to be super lewd. Sexually lascivious perhaps, and definitely shockingly scantily-clad for a temperate European climate, but in Daggerfall at least it seemed like things like giant orgies were basically just a Dibellan thing.

The jokes about Bretons in the joke book are more about how dry their humor is and how they fuck like rabbits, the jokes about Redguards are how they lost the war.

That Dunmer women are pretty promiscuous in early ages has been noted by other sources, though, if I remember correctly.

Tell me more about Big Breton Cocks~

Don't forget that Morrowind is the game with the House of Earthly Delights. You know, the barely disguised strip club/brothel.

Don't forget that it's run by a Breton.

IIRC the only non-Breton sources I can think of are the statements of Barenziah in The Real Barenziah when she was a confused youth who had never been to Morrowind, never met another Dunmer and had only heard about Dunmer from stories and jokes told to her by non-Dunmer.

>Barenziah screwed up her face. "I might as well be back in Black Moor. Elves are promiscuous by nature. Everyone says so."
Note that it's not even "Dark Elves," but just "Elves," because this is just shit she heard from humans since that was basically all she'd ever been around.

>"'Everyone' is wrong, then. Some are, some aren't."

That was run by a Breton, and all of the strippers/prostitutes were humans. One was a Breton, one was a Nord, and one was a Redguard.

If anything, that's just Bretons being lewd like always.

I think A Less Rude Song is honestly more about the weird, somewhat depraved, approach to sex that is seen in some Dunmer circles rather than the whole 'promiscuity' meme.
Sex has a lot more darker undertones in Morrowind than it does in other places. There's a forbidden danger and power to it, no doubt ingrained since pre-tribunal times. Think of the forbidden sexual practices mentioned in the 36 Lessons, think of the whole "Boethiah's Pillow Book" thing in Morrowind.
Essentially the Dunmer get known for having strange sexual appetite and rituals.
>I can see how this might not be of much value in Morrowind, where lycanthropy is more rare than a sexually normal Telvanni mage
imperial-library.info/content/xal-gosleigh-letters
So A Less Rude song is less about being a slut more about having a thing for say fucking your clone daughters.

Have I been fed lies by antimer-fags this entire time or what? I never trust anything I hear on /v/ from now on.

That makes sense. I could see that.

Kind of like how Japan and India are incredibly sexually repressed and view sex as inherently dark and destructive, and likewise end up prone to developing really weird fucked up fetishes.

Assuming anything you read on /v/ is bullshit made up by a retarded child is generally a pretty good idea.

Wonderful, I've always wanted to lewd a budding Altmeri/Bosmeri teen and get them addicted to my thick human cock.

I always loved how there's a Dunmer there who gets his dick wet between pilgrimages.

Sorry I didn't get back to my computer until now. You make a good point and there's a reason why I like talking about Cyrodiil in these threads.

What I'm just making an issue of is sometimes when people talk about how you would "fix" Cyrodiil, every now and then I see "make it more like the far east!" When I don't think that's any more interesting than what we got. I like Cyrodiil as a bunch of Romans with other influences living in a jungle.

I do like "bad renfaire" that got a smile out of me.

Yeah, I guess I have noticed that, too. Like people on Nexus saying that that one 20th Century Chinese Clothing mod (or really most of Betty's Vietnam War mods) for Oblivion is "more true to lore than vanilla Oblivion" or whatever. It is definitely a problem, I can see what you're saying and I agree.

That said, Cyrodiil as described (or at least Nibenese culture) definitely gives off a bit of a Chinese feel (rice farming, silk, ancestor worship, dragon symbolism). But I do agree, it definitely gets overstated by wannabe lorefags. Making Oblivion into a Wuxia or whatever would not have made the game better.

>Is there a canon lore source on Breton knights from Highrock in the times Skyrim takes place in ?
Just read the stuff about knights in the Daggerfall Chronicles and assume little has changed. Look at what services they provide in that game as well.
If you want to deviate, that's fine. There's a myriad of orders, and at the ends of the day you're playing an individual, not the living embodiment of an organisation.
Unless you are, which is weird, but I guess that's cool too.

Also, you better be an Order of the Raven knight.

Who would I need to contact in order to authorise my orgies?

What exactly happens to the smaller High Rock kingdoms during the Warp in the West? Do they still exist, but not as a political entity? Like is there no more Anticlere as a city, or is it still there just now aligned with Wayrest?

>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.
en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:The_Warp_in_the_West

So those smaller kingdoms are physically not there anymore?

Well, the sites themselves still exist (except for the ones that were destroyed during the war obviously, but a lot of those were almost certainly eventually rebuilt). Some of them might even still be ruled by the same noble houses that ruled them previously. But they're now part of one of the four great kingdoms, and their lords now swear fealty to the kings of those four kingdoms.

>adamantine
>Its just plain boring old rock
Wow ayeiouyelids so fucking powerful totally connected to the wellbeing of retard sleep world.

Alright, think they still have their own Knightly Orders?

Depends on the order.
I mean, Knights of the Owl are a very traditional order that has important ties to their region itself. Even if it took heavy losses or was destroyed entirely it would make sense to recreate it. The Order of the Raven is the same thing, their name means something to the people of Dwynnen.

I wouldn't be surprised if the Host of the Horn was disbanded at some point, seeing as it's less of a regional order and more of a band tied to a singular person.
Likewise the Knights of the Flame is basically created out of the idea of gratitude towards the Flytes, and might just fall apart once Doryanna Flyte eventually dies or loses power. Or once she grows tired of knight cock.

>So those smaller kingdoms are physically not there anymore?
a kingdom doesn't "physically" exists.

Trying to workout a background of being from a city/former kingdom with a knightly order of very little consequence, maybe even unnamed.

Then pick any city.

I think the best is combining elements to make something new. Roman armor with lamellar elements(Byzantine armor is aesthetic as all fuck) or some added elements in architecture. But there's other cultures that are good for Cyrodiil.

Wouldn't Solitude during skyrim's timeline be Full of Breton Knights and some hard hitting nobles from Highrock

Koegria, Knights of Koegria?

Sure.

Generally speaking, the orders don't just carry the name of place they came from.
Regarding the few orders where we actually know where the name comes from, it's taken from heraldry. But do whatever.