#and I know this is bc Bethesda was probably going for a very generic spooky vampire castle design

[noxcorvid]

think I’m almost done deciding when serana gets bank chuted w her elder scroll, sometime between 1E 2331 and 1E 2703, the end and beginning times of the alessian and reman empires, bc the main hangup in figuring out when that happens is her line of “cyrodiil’s the seat of an empire?” when you wake her up. I decided against it happening during the interregnum in the 2E, bc while Cyrodiil doesn’t have a solid cohesive empire at that time, it still was kkkkkkkind of an empire? it was nominally an empire (the empire of Cyrodiil) so I decided against it, and then that segways right into Tiber septim septiming all over the place into the 3rd era, so 1E it is. Considered before the Alessian Empire, but that began 1E 243 and for the sake of keeping the story relatively cohesive (for perspective, the Dwemer getting thanos snapped and chimer->dunmer happened around 1E 700, and the yokudans began sailing en masse for Tamriel in 1E 792), and I initially didn’t want serana to be so violently out of the loop... I was gonna save that level of dissonance for a potential miraak doesn’t die in apocrypha arc but the ideas been growing on me. Like a fungus. ALSO, re: language: I don’t care what the official lore (or at least uesp) says there’s no way all of tamriel was using high elvish for legal documents continent-wide, serana would speak primarily old Nordic either way, but at least with the Alessian empire having already happened it makes sense if she at least spoke a little bit of old cyrodilic ……… but also very early 1E serana so. Hm.