#Daggerfall City

[babyblueetbaemonster]

The City of Sentinel is a free city. Like no fence in sight kind of free.

[margieargie]

Ugh, I hate retail monopolies

[nientedenada]

Five Skyrim Lore Facts You May Not Know!

And unlike some of the clickbait videos on Youtube, these ones are absolutely true. Let me address some of the most common lore confusions I regularly see. As a Listicle, because why not? (It's easier than writing out long lore posts.)

The Blades never served the Mede Empire. Martin was the last Emperor they served. They then devoted themselves to looking for a new Dragonborn and working against the Thalmor. Titus Mede I created a new organization called the Penitus Oculatus, which handled all intelligence and security for the Mede Dynasty. The Penitus Oculatus has been the official Imperial organization for more than 175 years, while the Blades have been an independent force. It makes the Mede decision to outlaw the Blades a lot easier to understand if you know they weren't their employees at all. The Blades were loose cannons they couldn't control.

Ysgramor didn't destroy the snow elves. The stories about Ysgramor say he and his 500 Companions showed up in Skyrim, killed or sent the snow elves into exile, took all of Skyrim, and then wandered over to pick fights with the neighbours. In reality, the Falmer weren't completely driven from Skyrim till the reign of King Harald, thirteen generations after Ysgramor. In the interim, there was a whole Dragon cult and war, culminating with Alduin being flung through the time wound. It's a long period. The real Ysgramor definitely clashed with his snow-elf neighbours but he's accumulated the stories of hundreds of years around his mythic name.

The Companions haven't been a Nord-only organization for a very long time. You might think that a bunch of warriors venerating the legacy of Ysgramor and his Companion would be Nord only, and that was probably true way back in the First Era. But by the end of the First Era, the Companions had boasted both a Redguard and Elf (Altmer or Bosmer) Harbinger. Cirroc and Henantier are some of the most famous Harbingers in the history of the Companions. We're in the Fourth Era now, so if you're playing a non-Nord, you're following in a long tradition by joining the companions. (As is Athis.)

The Imperial Legion didn't win back most of Cyrodiil in the Great War. People often ask why Titus Mede II agreed to the harsh peace of the White-Gold Concordat after his army had destroyed the Dominion army in Cyrodiil and taken back the Imperial City. But that's not what really happened. The Legion destroyed "the main army". Other Aldmeri armies are mentioned in Cyrodiil. After Red Ring, the Dominion still occupied Anvil, Skingrad, Bravil, and Leyawiin. "The Great War" doesn't say that any of these cities were liberated. Put those territories together and you'll realize the Empire never got back its coastline or the Niben river. Titus Mede made his deal while the Dominion still occupied half of Cyrodiil. Maybe he could have won if he'd pushed on, but his decision is a lot easier to understand with this context.

The Bretons Don't Worship Talos. This is one of my favourite lore bits to explain. Talos is not a god in TES II, Daggerfall, though he is a historical figure, Tiber Septim. He's only introduced as a god in Morrowind. So, a lot of people assume that he's been retconned into the Breton religion, like he was into the Nord/Imperial religions. This is not true. In both Morrowind and Skyrim, the book Varieties of Faith in the Empire does not list Talos/Ysmir as part of the Breton pantheon. They worship the Eight (and sometimes Y'ffre, Magnus, and Phynaster), as they always have. Tiber Septim is an important historical figure whom some Bretons regard as one of their own, but he isn't an official god. I love this tidbit because it makes the White-Gold Concordat absolutely brilliant. One remaining province, Skyrim, gets all upset while High Rock wouldn't care. Cyrodiil is presumably somewhere in the middle. It's a perfect way to drive a wedge among the provinces. (Hammerfell's left the Empire, but for the record, they don't worship Talos either.)

[daggerfall]

M's Updated New Player Guide for Elder Scrolls Online

I have to simplify a great deal of this information since the intended audience is people brand new to ESO looking to get into it for questing (not pve or pvp), so if anyone thinks bits of this are a little wrong or lacking nuance, please understand it is likely intended. Credentials: trust me.

Top 3 Important things to know before you get started

Character creation: You pick your class during character creation and this can never be changed. Trust me, people miss this. Your race, appearance, and name can all be changed but for a cost (crowns, the in-game micro transaction currency), and little bits of your appearance can be changed with cosmetics that may or may not be free. Any class can quest just fine, some will be better at solo content than others, but don't sweat this. Some classes are also DLC (warden, necromancer, and arcanist). Make the character you want and can stick with, as you will need a Main for purposes of crafting and crafting knowledge can't transfer to other characters you may make. Also, plan for them to deal damage primarily. Supports are not needed in questing and you'll often be alone anyway - save yourself the pain of killing enemies at a snails pace and invest in damage with a smidge of survival.

Alliances and the Main Quest: The start of the game for new players should always be the base game main quest and your respective alliance's main quest. Unless you started with the expansion that unlocks any race any alliance, your alliance will be tied to your race. Bretons, Orsimer, and Redguards: Daggerfall Covenant. Dunmer, Argonians, Nords: Ebonheart Pact. Altmer, Bosmer, and Khajiit: Aldmeri Dominion. Imperials are DLC but any alliance. This can be changed later for crowns, but only affects what alliance you fight for/against in PvP zones, minor dialogue interactions, and certain cosmetics. The starting city/zone for each alliance is as follows: DC: Daggerfall, Glenumbra. EP: Davon's Watch, Stonefalls. AD: Vulkhel Guard, Auridon. Interact with any wayshrine to port to that city (wayshrine to wayshrine travel is free). Find the Hooded Figure in your respective city and you will get the main quest starter Soul Shriven in Coldharbour, which can never be deleted and will get your started on the main quest. It's fairly easy to follow from there. Heads up that if you're reading this after November 2024, the tutorial has changed drastically since I last played it!

DLC, Chapters, and ESO+: Depending on the version of game you got, you may be pushed to play the newest chapter (biggest story DLC released each year) first. This is a trap. ZOS advertises the game as play how you want and in any order you want, and any longtime player hates this marketing strat. Functionally, any DLC can be played at any time in ESO, but you will miss certain bits of dialogue and story by playing out of release order. Characters will remember previously meeting you if you play in order, but not out of order. They may drastically change their appearance to the point of the story making no sense if it happened in that wrong order, or even die and reappear with no acknowledgement of their death. If this is your first time playing ESO, I Highly recommend playing everything in the intended release order at least once, and then decide for yourself what stories you think work as independent stories for other characters you wish to play.

The intended order is (without listing every single dlc) the Coldharbour main quest and your alliance's main quest at the same time ➡️ Cadwell's Silver and Gold (the other two alliances' main quests) ➡️ Imperial City (PvP zone with a solo storyline, but can be skipped/played at any point) ➡️ Craglorn ➡️ all dlc in release order (including dungeons, zone dlc, and chapters). Dungeons can be done in any order (base game I and II dungeons should be done in the numeric order) up to Wrathstone, which is when year-long story arcs began and included dungeons in the plot, and more returning NPCs appear in dungeons.

The Infamous "ESO DLC flowchart" can advise you the order of when you should play certain storylines (base game and dlc), but basically it's just the release order and natural flow of the storylines. It updates too often for me to post the image here, but you can easily find it by searching those terms. Another good ESO starter guide I like is this one, that explains which story points to hit and when.

The base game alone is good and contains hundreds of hours of content. Get through the base game's main quests and decide for yourself if you like the game enough to continue on. And if you do want to continue, then the best way to play DLC is to buy the subscription ESO+. Among many other things, the main use for the sub is access to every single DLC in the game* while the sub is active. The sub also gives free crowns each month which can be used to purchase permanent access to specific DLC for if/when you end your sub. Or spend them on a cute outfit. Up to you.

*ESO+ does not give access to the newest chapter, until the next one comes out usually a year later.

ALRIGHT big stuff out of the way. More advanced stuff for once you're already in the game and playing now.

Avoid any quest that goes into your journal as a Prologue - delete it right away. Prologues are like introduction/teaser quests for zone DLC and chapters. Doing prologues out of order should also be avoided. Once you're onto playing DLC, there is a prologue for each starting with the Morrowind chapter.

Start researching item traits at crafting stations ASAP. The timers for research grow exponentially with each trait, so an early start is good. This is necessary for crafting later on, and everyone should have A crafter (ideally their main for resource reasons)

Find the stable master early on and begin "training your horse" each day for 250 gold. Also buy a mount there. It takes 180 real life days to fully complete on each character, but you'll notice the difference with your mounts speed and stamina, and to clarify, inventory means YOUR inventory. That's 60 more inventory slots! And mount training affects all mounts on that character!

Find the bag merchant in town and spend your gold on maxing out your inventory space when you can afford it. Bankers can also be found in each town and you can store a lot of items in your bank with them FOR FREE. No other player has access to your bank. Your bank space is shared across all of Tamriel and all of your characters as well, to allow for easier item transfer to alts

Back on crafting, don't worry about materials or crafting your own gear for a long time. You pretty much need ESO+ to be a crafter due to the craft bag. Just put on random gear you loot off enemies or get as a reward, and replace it as you level up and outlevel your old gear.

As a quester, you can use any gear and any skills you want - with a few suggestions. Don't use heavy armor as your primary armor type (a few pieces are okay), ice staves, 1 hand and shield, or restoration staves. Those are primarily support armor types and weapons. Also, read your tooltips and skill descriptions, and don't use skills that state they will taunt the enemy. ESO's aggro system works differently than you may expect from other MMOs. Anything else is free game. Though I will advise this isn't Skyrim, and using skills will deal far more damage than spamming "basic attacks", or light and heavy attacks. Stealth archer isn't a thing here, sorry.

DON'T fall for the crown store trying to sell you respec scrolls, werewolf and vampire skill lines, etc. You can redo your skills and attributes at any point for gold in a capital city, other players can give you lycanthropy or vampirism for free upon request. Merchants and banker assistants from the crown store I don't consider a scam. Those are good uses of crowns.

The build advisor for each class/role is painfully out of date as it hasn't been changed since launch, and entire skills/morphs have changed over the years to be entirely different. With no nuance to avoid it getting complicated, stick to either investing in magic or stamina as your primary resource, and most of your skills costing that same resource. Skills scale their damage with your highest offensive stat, so splitting evenly doesn't do anything besides make your pool bigger, but you can use both stam and mag skills and they will deal similar damage. You just might run out of your "off" resource faster. Light armor benefits magicka users better, medium benefits stamina users better, generally speaking.

Join the Mages Guild and Fighters Guild ASAP in your starter town. Regardless of RP, they have storylines you'll want to complete, as well as skills and passive abilities you may want, and it's better to get a head start on this leveling process. Undaunted is related to dungeons and can be skipped early on, but if you start doing dungeons, make sure you join! It has no respective storyline.

Weapon and class skill lines progress by having those skills on your bar upon gaining experience while On that bar, not with each cast of the skill. Individual skills rank up and can morph into other skills by gaining experience with that skill on your bar. Guild skill lines have their own unique progression requirements - read your tooltips!

Main quest marker icons appear slightly fancier than generic quest markers, and I would advise to avoid taking them out of order. Most main quests will guide you to the next quest giver easily, so if you find yourself going far out of your way, you may be getting lost or starting a different storyline. Blue quest markers are for repeatable daily quests.

Delves are public instances and can be done solo. Public dungeons are public instances and may be able to be soloed depending on skill. Dungeons/group dungeons are for 4 people, not public instances, and you should not try to solo them. Trials are raids for 12 people, not public, and you very much should not attempt to solo them.

Depending on what DLC may have come with your version of the game, you may be pushed to try the various DLC features added with each chapter. This includes psijic order, antiquities, companions, tales of tribute, and scribing. All of these individually (except psijic) can be started/done early without spoiling yourself on future DLC. But there's no real need to rush through getting access/completion of them right away either.

Add-ons (PC only) are allowed in ESO, mods and macros are not. The application Minion is how most of us download and update our add-ons for various UI and QOL features.

Once you reach level 50 on a character, you start gaining levels in Champion Points, which are shared across all of your characters. Once you hit CP 160, you will stop out-leveling your gear and can start making gear you plan to keep. CP goes up to 3600, but you'll hit the cap on effectiveness around 1500 (role dependent) I think.

The fashion system in ESO is either using the outfit station to apply motifs (purely cosmetic) you've learned to that character to your outfit, or costumes you can get with crowns or other means (questing, collectables, etc). Motifs learned on one character allow any character to use that motif in the outfit station, but only that character can Craft an item in that style.

There is no auction house system. There are guild traders instead - storefronts that guilds bid on weekly to gain ownership of and use for their guild to sell items to other players, for a small cut of the profits. Anyone can buy from them, only guild members can sell. Most of the junk you find in questing is worthless to other players, and most players use add-ons to know the marketplace average worth of any item in game.

If you're looking to just make enough money to get by, you can sell all the random gear you loot to merchants. It will despawn from their inventory with enough time or items being sold. Once you get ESO+ and the craft bag, daily crafting writs is the best way to make easy money with little effort. Get certified in all 7 professions and do your daily crafting writs for about 5k gold per character per day. With enough skill point investment in hirelings that send materials in the mail daily, you never have to spend any gold to do writs.

Thieving is mildly good for making gold, but it has a cap on how much you can sell a day. Sell or launder at outlaws refuges in each city. Thieves guild and dark brotherhood are DLC content so don't look for them in the base game.

Before you start doing dungeons, at any level of difficulty, you should understand how ESO dungeon etiquette works. People here aren't as friendly as final fantasy, but hear me out before you say we're all mean. ESO does an extremely poor job of keeping the casual questers from the sweaty endgamers, and forces them to share the same dungeon queue when they're in that queue for entirely different reasons. Endgamers need transmute crystals quickly, questers just want to see the quest, and each person needs the other to achieve their goal, but you can't do both at the same time. Both are valid reasons to do dungeons. Quests can't be repeated on the same character, so they can't even do the quest with you if they already did it years ago. Quests also give a skill point for completing, which is another valuable endgamer resource. In general, if you plan to use the group finder to find a team for a dungeon, do not expect them to sit around and wait for you to sit through dialogue. At best they will wait for you to spam through it for the quest completion, if you warn them in advance. Randos aren't going to be overly social, even a "hi" at the start may be ignored. It's to be expected, but not intended rudely. If you want to see a dungeon's quest in full, this is the time to find a friend to group with you! It's an MMO! Be social! Many ESO dungeons are unable to be soloed unfortunately, for strange mechanical reasons.

Also, you need to know your role before queueing, and that includes knowing how to actually deal damage as a damage dealer. You don't need to be amazing, but please don't just spam light attacks. Don't queue as a tank unless you actually understand the basics of ESO tanking, same for healing. Look into resources online for beginner builds. If you don't want to learn your role or how to git gud, then I'm sorry but doing dungeons with strangers is not for you then. It's a team effort, and their time should be respected too.

This isn't meant to be the most strictly followed list of all time, but things that I end up inevitably telling people or wish I had learned sooner. It's meant more as something to refer back to and to gently guide you in the right direction, as well as get you in the right mindset for character creation when planning a character you'll play for Years of quests.

[maxwellatoms]

What kind of video games do you like to play Mr. Atoms?

So many! Assuming there's time. These days there's generally not, so I've been bingeing Vampire Survivors in half-hour doses.

Above is a gif from Noita, my top game of the pandemic. It's an old-school "Metroidvania", but every pixel is simulated and you're a witch who can manipulate her spells (and thereby the world) in a seemingly infinite number of ways. Here, I've built magical "buzzsaws" around myself, which blinded me to the shadow amoeba. In Noita, almost every death is due to hubris, and I think I love that pendulum swing. If you're lucky and skilled, you can become a walking whirlwind of destruction, but you're always your own worst enemy. Bonus: You can turn your vomit into rats.

I'm currently on a break in the midst of my Baldur's Gate 3 run, with a party consisting of my BG2 character's daughter, Karlatch, Lazelle, and Shadowheart. Ladies' Night!

I'm also playing a bit of Shadows of Doubt. I'm not sure it'll hold up long-term, but it's got a lot of potential.

I don't really limit myself by genre or platform, but I'd say that I primarily play indie PC games. The games in my Steam library that I keep going back to again and again?

Cities: Skylines: A chill City Building Simulator. Lots of fun mods.

Darkest Dungeon: This thing is a classic strategy game IMO.

Death Road to Canada: A light, fast Project Zomboid. Dogs with guns!

Dwarf Fortress: For me, it's the ultimate fantasy sim. I love it so much. Looking forward to Adventure Mode finally appearing on Steam.

Project Zomboid: The ultimate lonely 2D zombie apocalypse survival game. Or non-survival game, I suppose.

Total War: Warhammer: For when I'm in a strategy-y mood. Like a lot of people, I'm a bit soured on the modern DLC scene, so I'm still waiting on #3 even though I'm a Chaos stan.

Not on Steam? I do play some Star Citizen from time to time. I backed it a decade ago. I used to joke that it was the game I was going to retire into, but more and more that's looking less and less like a joke. Still, it's made some good progress in the last couple of years and I'm hopeful that repair and engineering turn out to be fun.

The game I'm looking forward to most would be the next Elder Scrolls. I know it's still a ways off. Ever since my Nereverine landed in Morrowind with the intention of becoming a just and righteous cleric and instead found herself an unwitting villain and colonizer, I fell in love with the Elder Scrolls and it's deep, gray lore. It is (for me) a great way to really get into a character's head. Roleplaying... go figure.

Since Morrowind (and a backtrack into Daggerfall), I only allow myself one canon playthrough. My rule is to "let it ride", so that aside from death, if I screw up or if something unexpected happens I don't save-scum. All of my characters are related, either by quest or bloodline. I already know that my next character will be Aventus Aretino (the kid you catch summoning the Dark Brotherhood). My Skyrim character (above) had adopted him and then left him in the hands of a vampire, so I should be covered even if there's a big time jump. Now I just have to wait six more years for the game. And then maybe two for mods. God I'm so old.

I need to spend more time with Dave the Diver.

Anything current I'm missing out on?

[ournameisfun]

"move the cloudrest url over to your tes blog" and give up my LEGIT canon url for a main series game title? As if

got into BG3 way too late to try and get a canon url as much as I may have wanted one, but honestly I'm more than happy to have my canon url for a niche raid/lore city in a DLC for an unpopular MMO

[what-even-is-thiss]

So Daggerfall is the only elder scrolls game where you don’t start out as a prisoner and you’re a friend of the emperor and the emperor is like my friend is haunting his old city for some reason find out why and also while you’re there I lost this letter sent to the queen just a side thing but it’s not a side thing and in fact the whole reason he’s sending you to Daggerfall is to track down that letter that got lost but the king that haunts his old city is there too and he tried to run away with his court wizard but he got killed by some guy trying to get rid of witnesses with getting support for his wife to be the heir of another kingdom instead of his wife’s stepbrother so you go to a witch or something and kill some people to find all this out and get his killer killed to death but that’s not the real reason you’re there because actually the letter got delivered to the wrong queen of Daggerfall because the old king’s son took over and married a royal family of a country they were previously at war with so there’s technically three queens of Daggerfall which is the old king’s grandmother, his wife, and the new queen but the letter wasn’t actually for her it was for one of her handmaidens who’s actually a spy for the blades who are like the emperors body guards and personal spies but anyways it never got to her and a maid stole it and sold it to the thieves guild who sold the letter to an orc king who’s trying to get support to make a kingdom for the orcs and he says he’s gonna sell a copy to everyone in the region but what did the letter say well

There’s a sentient remote control that can control a giant robot and the player character finds it but they can’t control it because they’re a dirty commoner and not a royal so you can decide to give it to

Well there’s also the under king. He’s here. He’s undead because he was betrayed by tiber septim a long time ago and he keeps in contact and there’s also manamarko a big necromancer edge lord who wants to become a god

Everyone wants the magic remote control now. The emperor wants it to keep control of the empire the monarchs of a bunch of kingdoms want it to conquer everyone else the orc guy wants it so he can get his people a kingdom the necromancer dude wants to become a god and the under king wants to finally undo his curse and die

But see all of these things happened because there was a dragon break which means find got all weird and everyone got what they want but also the under king and river septim and this other guy ysmir all turned out to be avatars of this dead god named shor or lorkan or something and the dragon break smushed them all three together and made the god talos who only started existing just now but also always existed at the same time so now there’s none divines instead of eight and there’s a necromancer god that lets you trap human souls in a gem but also since every ending happened he’s also just a guy still so there’s two manamarkos and also I’m skipping over some politics drama here but that’s kind of it I think

[sothasil]

Posting sketchier/unfinished stuff from my files. This is an olddd drawing, since then I changed software even! Little crossover of imagining my Witch Hat Atelier favs as Morrowind characters. How I imagine their backgrounds:

Dagda: Nord orphan who ended up adopted into a Baandari group and since then follows their culture and code. His class I'm unsure of - Scout is the one I picked in the end but he'd be a bit of a jack of all trades, starting off as a thief and later learning warrior skills.

Custas: Lil scruffy Khajiit from the seedier parts of the big city. Would have met his partner when he was passing by. Still a kid so I can't imagine him very high level, but he'd be good at both agility and charisma based stuff. Able to steal your heart and wallet both but would never. I based his outfit on the lil bard boy sprite from Daggerfall

[ratlibrarian]

I want to talk about The Elder Scrolls and its lore for a minute.

The lore is, officially, whatever you want it to be. (If you ask the only person worth asking.)

Do I enjoy the games that released after Morrowind? Absolutely. Oblivion is Janky Hilarity, Skyrim is Delicious Fantasy, ESO won't run on my PC, but I'm sure it's awesome too.

But to me, personally, there'll always be a divide. The Morrowind-Lore, and the rest of the lore. Because the Lore in Morrowind is so extra, so alien and weird and how it hints at weirdness in the other provinces, the other games feel like letdowns.

Cyrodiil was meant to be this expansive, unnavigable jungle, where one had to stick to the rivers to traverse it. Where the Imperial City was meant to house a thousand temples for a thousand religious beliefs. And beyond the civilized cities of the province, the jungles would hold mystery and danger. Would one be able to encounter an Ayleid? Or a tribal Nede? Who knows?

And we got...

Oblivion. A fun game. Hell, a good game, kind of. But not what had been built up.

Same, but different, with Skyrim.

The political machinations of the Nords. The struggles between local petty kings, the High King, and the Empire. The worship of the Nord pantheon, with Alduin, Herma-Mora, Kyne, Shor, etc.

Skyrim is a great game. It was my first taste of TES. It sparked my love for the series. But I play Daggerfall more often than Skyrim these days, and I barely ever get around to Oblivion.

I don't mean to strip away anyone else's fun or enjoyment of TES. As Micheal Kirkbride said, the lore is whatever you want it to be.

Mine is simply one where the was lore built by Kirkbride and continued by fans ever since. Where Hermaphroditic God-Kings rule through authoritarian Theocracy, where Men and Women and Elves and all sorts attain Divinity through Action, Cunning or Sorcery.

Where the Godhead's dream will Never End.

[bam-monsterhospital]

WHAAAAAAAAT!?!

WHY THE FUCK DID THEY MOVE THE STAR-GAZER HERALD

[imsobadatnicknames2]

Elder scrolls worldgen presets for Dwarf Fortress

People seemed to like the BotW Hyrule worldgen preset I shared for for Dwarf Fortress a few months ago so I thought I'd share these ones too.

The file contains world prests in different sizes for Cyrodiil (generated from the Oblivion heightmap), Skyrim (generated from the Skyrim heightmap), Vvardenfell (generated from the Morrowind heightmap) the Iliac Bay (generated from the Daggerfall heightmap) and Tamriel (generated from this fanmade heightmap)

Elevation should be relatively accurate bc I generated them from the games' actual heighmaps using PerfectworldDF, althought I had to make some minor alterations (such as connecting the Imperial City Isle to the rest of the world with a little land bridge). I did my best with the biome placement but I'm only human and the DF biome editor is not exactly easy to use, look at this shit:

This was made for classic DF but I've confirmed it works with the Steam version too.

How to use:

Download this world_gen.txt file

Go to your Dwarf Fortress install.

Go to data>init

Replace that folder's world_gen.txt file with this one.

(Make a backup of the old file if you want to keep your old world presets. Or merge the two files into one by copying the entire text of one of them and pasting it at the end of the other)

In game, choose "Design new world with Advanced Parameters"

Choose one of the presets from this file.

Before generating, you can tweak details like history length, number of civs, etc, etc etc.

[elderscrollsconceptart]

City Market

Concept art for The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall

*Artist unknown* If anyone knows the artist, comment below!

[wardenofthecoast]

im working on a post for High Rock, Hammerfell and Summerset Isles but im really worried that its very basic and doesnt have a lot of substance. anyway to distract from that ive made some AU versions of npcs in games

Reachman/Forsworn warrior. Instead of just "generic savage" look, I gave them one inspired heavily by Incan society, thick cloak, sandals and sling, perfect for mountain life, but with a dwemer plate and mace. I think Reachman should have more connection with the Dwemer, since so many cities are found in the Reach. Maybe they have a few forge masters who can work the metal, maybe they simply scout in for whatever pieces still remain.

Whiterun Guard, inspired Mongolian armor, lightly armored and built for the dry cool environments. I like this armor cause it makes you feel like they live somewhere cold, but still feels very realistic/low fantasy that Skyrim goes for.

Thalmor justicar. Focusing more their nautical focus, and taking some basis on Philippines traditional armor, with the greek trident. This feels like something a medieval marine troop would wear, especially with glass armor being light. I don't think they would wear this in Skyrim (at least they'd have to put boots on) but in the Summerset Isles it feels appropriate.

Breton Mages Guild member - This is inspired from Daggerfall, which noticeably showed a lot more skin, and is taken from part of the AU/worldbuilding post I'm making, with big changes to High Rock's cultural inspiration instead of just typical medieval stuff. I also took inspiration from the Sorcerer class art in Oblivion. I actually really like this design tbh.

[lensdeer]

No I can't fucking be normal about the Morrowind intro

After you start the game, Jiub says he "heard [the guards] say you've reached Morrowind", but in the cutscene Azura says they took you out of the Imperial City Prison "first by carriage and now by boat", so what the fuck sort of route did you take that the people driving the boat set sail from somewhere outside Morrowind and only "reached" it near Seyda Neen.

I'm extremely autistic about The Elder Scrolls lore, so I have obsessed about this issue for years: Jiub clearly meant you reached "Vvardenfell" the island within "Morrowind" the Province. I get it; from a marketing point of view, it makes sense to namedrop the name in the game's box right as you start playing, but bear with me here (why they didn't name the game "TES III: Vvardenfell" instead still escapes me; Daggerfall isn't named "High Rock" or "Hammerfell" anyways, so it doesn't have to be a province name! "TES II: Iliac Bay" would've been a significantly worse if more accurate name for that one anyways, but I digress).

With the beautiful amount of care Morrowind's team of writers put into even the most mundane details of the game's lore this detail has always struck me as weird, and since TES canon has an in-universe explanation for even the most minor gameplay mechanics like Oblivion not having levitation spells, I can't stop fucking thinking about it.

See, it's pretty easy to see that this is the optimal/fastest (and therefore most likely) route the guards used to move you from the Imperial City Prison to Seyda Neen:

Out of the Prison through the Imperial City itself, over Lake Rumare through the Talos Bridge, around the Red Ring Road and then the Blue Road, maybe stopping for the night in Cheydinhal, entering Morrowind through some frontier pass in the Velothi Mountains, traveling through the Stonefalls region for a bit, and finally boarding a ship on Old Ebonheart to take you to Seyda Neen.

In this case, you entered Morrowind WAY before even getting on the ship! It makes absolutely no sense that they would say you "reached Morrowind" if you traveled through this, the only sensible route.

So what the hell kind of route did they take you through?

If, for some reason, the guards didn't want you to set foot in Morrowind-The-Province until Seyda Neen and Seyda Neen only, they would've had to have taken you through a laughably inefficient route:

It starts the same as the previous route, but they would've had to split off the Blue Road before reaching Cheydinhal, crossed the significantly colder and more dangerous Jerall Mountains to enter Skyrim somewhere around Riften (rest stop?), wasted a bunch of time navigating through The Rift and Eastmarch, boarded a ship on Windhelm, navigated through icebergs in the Sea of Ghosts, and wasted a even more time navigating all the way through the Inner Sea to get to Seyda Neen (why not drop you off at Gnisis or somewhere else in north Vvardenfell at that point?).

If you were being taken to Morrowind with any degree of urgency it makes absolutely no sense to waste this much time and resources navigating through Skyrim's significantly less hospitable geography. And, even then, wouldn't the guards have said you "reached Morrowind" around the time the ship went into the Inner Sea anyways???

Thing is, that's literally the only other justifiable option. If they didn't want you to touch Morrowind OR Skyrim before getting dropped off at Seyda Neen, the only remaining option is the even more stupid Plan C:

Maybe they wanted to take you for the scenic route! The Nerevarine prophecy can get fulfilled fucking whenever, who cares:

Go down the Green Road through Bravil and board a ship in Leyawiin (maybe the Khajiit heard you're Azura(h)'s champion and let you through the Tenmar Jungle so you board it in Senchal instead?), and strap the FUCK in for the voyage of a lifetime through the Nepal Sea and sail the Padomaic Ocean aaaaaaaaall the fucking way around Black Marsh and mainland Morrowind, dodge a couple icebergs in the Sea of Ghosts, and navigate the Inner Sea to finally get to Seyda Neen (because fuck Tel Mora, Vivec and Ebonheart; we're determined here), like, at this point multiple years after leaving the Imperial City. Hope you packed enough provisions, because these guys are determined to not "reach Morrowind" until the Bitter Coast!

Alternatively: at this point, why didn't they just commit to the bit and just get some weirdo at the Arcane University to teleport you directly to Vvardenfell?

Condense multiple days of travel into a quick afternoon stroll through the Imperial City! Maybe the guards can do some shopping, watch a quick match in the Arena or chill for a bit in the Arboretum on their way back from dropping you off. Why not. Perfection.

Anyways. I like Morrowind, and I obsess over this topic every time I think about it. Hope I passed on my brainworms to y'all.

[vounoura]

ok as promised. I had one of these years ago but it was unfortunately lost in a blog purge, but it's actually really important information ESO goes out of its way to hide at every turn, so dear new players:

despite what the game tells you, you should NOT start with any DLC zone, or at least not any DLC zone that was released before Murkmire. As far as I'm aware (and feel free to correct me if I'm wrong), every story DLC after that is fairly self-contained to its own series of chapters, but everything before that was part of a linear plot that spanned multiple years.

Furthermore, ESOs design has for some backwards reason made it so that you are not required to play through base game MSQ first and also skips the initial Coldharbour sequence, both of which are literally the entire setup for the game's plot and why your character is the way they are. This makes things incredibly confusing and everyone I know hates it with a passion.

Therefore, to clear things up a bit:

In all circumstances, you need to do the base game intro, which can be started from the Hooded Figure found in your alliance's starting city (Vukhel Guard -> AD, Daggerfall -> DC, Davon's Watch -> EP). This will have you go through the original tutorial meant for the base game, and will set up the main plot and explain why your character is the way that they are.

iirc, this should immediately plant you in your alliance's initial starting zone, which is where you'll find the start of your alliance's MSQ which will take you through 5 zones. You need to do one from start to finish to start the end Coldharbour sequence. In addition, you need to also do the Harborage quests which is also necessary to enter Coldharbour.

Coldharbour is the end zone for MSQ content, and is the base game's conclusion. You also need to do this entire zone from start to finish, trust me it's good.

It's not necessary but recommended that you play through the Ebonheart Pact MSQ, either as your first or through Cadwell's Silver / Gold (which basically allow you to play through the other Alliance's MSQs as if you started them). You do not need to, but there is a character introduced in EP who will become critically important later and she will recognize if you've met before, and knowing her beforehand helps. If you're wondering, that character is Naryu Virian.

iirc Imperial City is canonically right after Coldharbour, but as it's a DLC centred in Cyrodiil (a strict PvP zone) I never actually did it. If you're okay with missing some things you can skip it - I did, and was perfectly fine.

Orsinium needs to be done first after Coldharbour or Imperial City. It's plot directly sets up the Daedric War storyline, which is the main plot that runs for a while after base game MSQ. Do not play anything else until you've finished Orsinium.

Thieves Guild is for the most part inconsequential and can be played any time or skipped if you want. You cannot skip Dark Brotherhood - you need to play through enough of it to see the Sweet Roll Killer series of quests involving Naryu Virian and Razum-Dar, because this will directly foreshadow the plot going forward.

Morrowind comes after DBH. You need to do BOTH the MSQ AND the Balmora sidequests, which involve Naryu Virian and a character named Veya Releth. Balmora is CRITICALLY important for Summerset, you CANNOT skip it.

Clockwork City follows Morrowind, you need to do its MSQ. CwC sets up Summerset's plot, and leads directly into it.

Summerset is the Daedric War plot's conclusion, and you need to do its MSQ. If you have not done everything I have just told you IN THIS ORDER, you will be missing context. You will not know who the main villain is and why them being there is critically tragic. You will not know the threads that lead to this point. You will not know Summerset was the conclusion to literal years worth of storyline.

You need to play through everything in this order. Do not deviate. Every DLC after this (Murkmire to, as of the time of writing, Necrom) is as far as I'm aware it's own self-contained thing, but this isn't.

TOO LONG, DIDN'T READ: base game tutorial -> alliance MSQ/Harborage -> Coldharbour -> Imperial City if you want -> Orsinium -> Dark Brotherhood + The Sweet Roll Killer sidequests -> Morrowind + Balmora sidequests -> Clockwork City -> Summerset

DO NOT DEVIATE FROM THIS ORDER FOR ANY REASON!

[allthingstamriel]

Glenumbra

ESO region aesthetic board More >

Glenumbra, the westernmost region of High Rock, contains the city-states of Daggerfall and Camlorn, the great cemetary of Cath Bedraud, and the wild areas of Hag Fen, Glenumbra Moors, and the forests of Daenia.

"Angof is a tremor in the land, a poison in the water. He is a whisper, a shadow a chill wind. He is Gravesinger and Reachmage, necromancer and corruptor. Death and decay are his domains."―Guardian of the Earth

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