Support NeoGAF

[Schlocky]

This thread Is incredible. I've spent hundreds of hours in the last three games and had no idea how much stuff I wasn't paying attention to!

 

[killatopak]

I read everything about chims and the metaphysics behind TES. I am now questioning our own world. I hope I don't zero sum.

 

[Darkstorne]

This thread Is incredible. I've spent hundreds of hours in the last three games and had no idea how much stuff I wasn't paying attention to!

Yeah, someone could compile a fantastic "did you know" list of TES lore.

Did you know: as the player, you've been inadvertently furthering the Thalmor goal of ending existence by destroying or deactivating a tower of Nirn in almost every game? Numidium in TES2, Heart of Lorkhan in TES3, Amulet of Kings in TES4, Snow-throat in TES5. The Thalmor took care of the Crystal Tower themselves, and may well have meddled about in Valenwood already. Not many towers left to fall, and most of the blood will be on our own hands.

Despite the face value narrative of the games, the real theme and overarching story seems to be focused on the world ending one game at a time.

 

[Forkball]

I put a good sixty hours into Skyrim and didn't know any of this shit. So the crazy preacher in Whiterun is LEGIT?

Summary of my Elder Scrolls lore knowledge:

Elder Scrolls: Macguffin ancient magic nukes

Daedric Princes: Similar to Greek gods with their own specialties. Some are jerks and want to ruin everything

Oblivion: Hell.

Morrowind: Mushrooms.

Plot of Skyrim: There used to be dragons but now there's not but an evil dragon wants to eat everyone so Mario dragon helps you. Imperials are invading because they're Rome-ish jerks.

 

[speedpop]

Love it. I could get lost in The Elder Scrolls lore for hours just because of how ridiculous the threads are that weave and flow in to more mysteries and it isn't all fully explained. It's the only videogame franchise where the rabbit hole is hidden away but bottomless in its depth.

Yeah, someone could compile a fantastic "did you know" list of TES lore.

Did you know: as the player, you've been inadvertently furthering the Thalmor goal of ending existence by destroying or deactivating a tower of Nirn in almost every game? Numidium in TES2, Heart of Lorkhan in TES3, Amulet of Kings in TES4, Snow-throat in TES5. The Thalmor took care of the Crystal Tower themselves, and may well have meddled about in Valenwood already. Not many towers left to fall, and most of the blood will be on our own hands.

Despite the face value narrative of the games, the real theme and overarching story seems to be focused on the world ending one game at a time.

This theory is brilliant because of the oft-said belief that the current age is a fantasy post-apocalyptic scenario. Things can only get worse, why not push for the catalyst on this rollercoaster.

 

[Doc_Drop]

Huh,did not know this. It would explain the player character's interactions with the world to a point in that they are self aware and therefore almost godlike in their ability to manipulate things around them and would also be a convenient way to justify a lot of the stranger story things in terms of being the head of so many of the factions whilst also saving the world.

A lucid dream almost

 

[gblues]

CHIM is the player character from the perspective of the people of Tamriel. It's basically the in-universe explanation for why you can learn all these skills and become super-powerful while the plebs spend their whole lives lamenting arrows in their knees.

With Vivec, Talos, etc being PCs of the Bethesda designers.

Man I used to be heavy on TES lore board back in the run up to Oblivion. Unfortunately those boards don't exist anymore so I can't go dig up conversations I had on this topic.

 

[Zocano]

Did you know: as the player, you've been inadvertently furthering the Thalmor goal of ending existence by destroying or deactivating a tower of Nirn in almost every game? Numidium in TES2, Heart of Lorkhan in TES3, Amulet of Kings in TES4, Snow-throat in TES5. The Thalmor took care of the Crystal Tower themselves, and may well have meddled about in Valenwood already. Not many towers left to fall, and most of the blood will be on our own hands.

What deactivates the Throat of the World? I don't recall anything as such in Skyrim happening unless the Alduin dragonbreak was what did it.

 

[GLAMr]

I spent HOURS of my life reading every book I could find in TES3-5, and I have forgotten so much. I seem to recall something about reality possibly being the dream of one of the gods?

I love in Morrowind how through a series of misadventures, you gain all the traits to fulfill the prophecy and become black elf Jesus.

 

[JonnyDBrit]

Wow, thanks Trojita. I had no idea about this and had wondered exactly what had happened to Talos.

Was this, to a lesser degree, what gave Vivec his powers? I feel like I read what the lore is for him but it's been a while.

This is where things get a little confusing, and one has to remember that Vivec is his own in-universe character, and not an infallible source. Much of Vivec's powers - lets take this as his 'baseline' - are taken from the Heart of Lorkhan. The plot of Morrowind is partially kicked off by the fact that he and the rest of the Tribunal weren't able to top up their god powers derived from the Heart because Dagoth-Ur had taken over its hiding place. So despite supposedly achieving CHIM, Vivec wasn't able to use it to solve his problems, which means either CHIM is not all as all powerful as it seems (in the sense that even Vivec must bow to the whims of the devs), is not sustainable and has to be re-achieved to be used, or Vivec is full of shit as to how well he understands it.

 

[Darkstorne]

What deactivates the Throat of the World? I don't recall anything as such in Skyrim happening unless the Alduin dragonbreak was what did it.

Some people think it's killing Alduin, closing the time wound. Others think it's Paarthurnax being killed / leaving the mountain, so no more dragons.

So despite supposedly achieving CHIM, Vivec wasn't able to use it to solve his problems, which means either CHIM is not all as all powerful as it seems (in the sense that even Vivec must bow to the whims of the devs), is not sustainable and has to be re-achieved to be used, or Vivec is full of shit as to how well he understands it.

I like the latter. He's certainly got nothing on Talos, but it's cute that he pretends! Just an incredibly powerful and resourceful necromancer.

 

[SolVanderlyn]

Might be referring to the novels, the Infernal City. There was a time travelling floating island from Oblivion that royally screwed over Blackmarsh and Morrowind with zombie magic. It had some really interesting trees growing on it though, and Ysolde in Skyrim suggests that the Sleeping Tree outside Whiterun grew from a seed that fell from these trees. There's also a theory that the hist trees of Blackmarsh originated from these trees, since they also speak to people and, well, the island time travels. Something like that.

Yeah, this is the one I was talking about. That stuff is crazy, and I can't believe it even had a direct influence on part of Skyrim's story.

Umbriel

 

[Sulik2]

I thought this was going to be about how freaking cool the reveal was in Oblivion that Tamriel is a daedric plain whose daedra died and its why Daedra keep invading they want another plain for themselves.

 

[Pat]

I've read... hours and hours on the lore via wikis when I finished Skyrim to make sure I understood mostly everything in the game and where it stands in the timeline with Oblivion and the others. I didn't knew that at all.

 

[Youngfossil]

Maybe that why all the dwarves disappeared????

OMG

 

[keraj37]

Agreed.
But still Sonic The Hedgehog lore is much more interesting.

 

[Allnamestakenlol]

This is all really cool stuff. Thank you for sharing, everyone!

 

[Kamina]

C0DA is the wost kind of fanfic, since it even asks fans to ignore or contradict the established lore.


And this is incorrect:

Skyrim's Quest Sovengarde confirms it to be located within Atherius, not with the Aedra spheres.

 

[Raimond]

Wow I've played most of the series pretty in depth and didn't know about this underlying layer to the story!

 

[RudiJay]

I knew about Vivec having save scumming like the player, but I didn't know how deep it went. This thread prompted me to look into all of this further. Today I have come to the conclusion that Morrowind is one of the all-time best works of human imagination. Who knew?

 

[MCN]

People give Bethesda shit, but the things they do well, they do very, very well indeed.

 

[bengraven]

TES lore is the best lore.

For life.

 

[Megalosaro]

Warhammer Lore was better. But Elder ScrolLs is good too tho

 

[rezn0r]

About the Fallout comments, I'm all for a good insane mindfuckery crossover, but Fallout was Fallout a whole lot before Bethesda had anything to do with it.

The rest of what has been posted - awesome stuff.

 

[gogosox82]

As long as you don't try to make to any sense of it or figure out what is cannon and what is fanfiction or "head cannon" as I like to call it, TES lore is really interesting. I just want to say that stuff like C0da is not cannon and shouldn't be believed as such. Its essentially head cannon from Michael Kirkbride who used to work for Bethesda and help write a lot of the game, particularly a bunch of the lore in Morrowind (which I think is the best game in the series) came from him. While I loved what he did in Morrowind, that doesn't mean his C0da (which again, is just head cannon) is correct and should be seen as gospel but too many people treat it like that because he worked on the games and wrote a lot of the lore in the games.

 

[Stahsky]

i am feeding off of this thread and require more

 

[ISee]

Sounds more like a joke about the nature of games.

1.) They are based on someones dream/fantasy.

2.) Players can get sucked into a game and forget about the 'outside world'. Till they remember and just turn off their game. Puff; their character vanishes.

3.) OR they just remember that they can alter the rules because it is just a game. /console, cheats, trainers or mods

 

[Spladam]

If I could become a godlike being I'd improve the fucking combat first thing. Then I'd move it to a new god damn engine as Amaranth needs to stop dreaming in GameBryo.

Part of the reason I never feel bad for cheating in Elder scrolls games. It's canon motherfuckers.

My name is Spladam and these are the best post in this thread.

But yeah OP, this was all fleshed out in Morrowind if you pay close attention to the rather well composed books, and the plot itself was sculpted around these premises, it's what makes Vivec such a great character/ plot device. Unfortunately these things took a back seat in IV and V and were only hinted at. Apparently focus group studies must have shown players didn't want to get this deep.

Like many have stated here, Elder Scrolls has amazing lore.

 

[Corsick]

So how well does ES Online flesh out the lore and tie this all together? Does it skirt around the more metaphysical stuff per usual or does it get into it? I'm downloading the free trial now.

 

[almostjuliuscaesar]

So apparently the actual true nature of The Elder Scrolls universe is that of a dream. A being known as the Amaranth is dreaming the Elder Scrolls universe while it has been in a long slumber.

Now here's where things get extra fuckey and tie into things you've seen in the game.

There are two possible results of you realizing that you are the inhabitant of a dream. If one day in Tamriel you realize that you live in a dream and nothing is real, you *poof* out of existence. You literally have that one thought and instantly disappear.

If you instead realize that you live inside a dream, but fervently maintain your own individuality, you reach a state named CHIM. CHIM is basically like gaining root permissions to the world of The Elder Scrolls. You can manipulate the world as you see fit since you realize it is a dream while at the same time you haven't disappeared.

One very well known character in Tamriel history reportedly achieved CHIM. The god hero Talos that is worshipped on the continent. He achieved CHIM which gave him the abilities of a deity in the world and allowed him to do all the things he was able to do. This is why he is both referred to as a living man and as a god.

So when did this stuff get added into Elder Scrolls lore? I'm guessing most people that play the games, even some that like the lore read in the games, didn't know about this.

Mind. Blown.