#dunmeri

[erika-xero]

Queen Morgiah, daughter of Queen Barenziah

[igorlevchenko-blog]

Morrowind: Scenes from Dunmeri Bazaar.

The three dunmer drinking and smoking hookah are, left to right: Telvanni (brown), Redoran (Red) and Hlaalu (yellow).

P.S: Fugly pictures to be honest, and the red is stifling, but still somewhat relevant as illustrations.

Digital paintings. Photoshop. 2018

[saalazart]

Dunmeri Bridal wear exploration and concept art

Got a bit too inspired with my last sketch and decided to take a deep dive.

This is all fan speculation and fun little fashion design work

[lithiumrev]

be me: *is scrolling eso reddit* “whats your go to race?” *people talking about people playing as dunmers are LARPing slavers* and *people literally RP’ing slavers in the comments* me: “well, im uncomfortable.”

[whitegoldtower]

Redoing this. My meow meow. My baby. My precious. My favourite skyrim OC; Severin Nervayne - an explanation. (Below the Break. If anyone actually reads this, I commend you, and also thank you for putting up with my shit)

You can also use this layout for your own OC posts, if you like!

Appearance

How does he look?

Severin’s a middle-aged dunmer (would be in his 50s in human years), with deep dusky grey skin; curly, black salt and pepper hair (Texture 3A/3B); a well-groomed beard, and reddish-grey eyes. He’s quite short (5’4”), and there’s evidence in his build of someone who used to be extremely physically fit. He has stretch marks on his lower abdomen from where he carried his daughter, Llevana, and almost the entirety of the left side of his body is covered with scarring from third degree burns. He is naturally flat chested, with a prominent adams apple, and the tattoos on his body (that weren’t destroyed by his burns) are an amalgamation of hand-poked pieces, including traditional Dunmeri motifs making up sleeves, and a crudely done ‘treasure map’ on his right hand.

What does he sound like?

His voice suffered some damage from the ash, and he’s a smoker, so his voice is pretty deep, raspy and heavy on the vocal fry (which is common of British accents anyway). If we’re giving him a regional British accent, considering how most of the Dunmer sound, he sounds like he’s from the North of England, most likely Yorkshire (think Sean Bean, just a little deeper). He speaks well and smoothly, though tends to compress his words (again, regional dialect). He has a great ‘bedtime story’ voice, and tends to speak at a gentle, soft volume. He is incapable of shouting/screaming.

What does he smell like?

At arm’s length, he smells warm and comforting, like old tomes and canis root tea. He tends to wear resinous oils, which would smell like a mixture of labdanum, frankincense and ylang ylang, with hints of tobacco and warm vanilla. In close proximity, the smell of sweet and smoky herbs linger on his fingers and on his lips, and the scent of his skin is electric, like the earth just before lightning strikes.

How does he feel?

Fully clothed, you’d embrace him to feel some well-loved robes, and the firmness of muscle with just a bit of squish. He’s warm. Very warm. Nude, the heat of his skin hits you before you even touch him. His body is a map of scars, each with a different story, though quite a few mysterious ones too. His body hair is quite soft, albeit quite thick, and he takes pride in his appearance. His blood runs hot, his lips are soft, and his hands are rough yet gentle.

His general demeanour?

The impression he gives off is one of a caring father. Perhaps the first noticeable personality trait is his gentleness, paired with a stern yet kind educational streak. He’s the teaching sort… although, he also just has that vibe when you look at him that you know he was a wild-child back in his day, and a demon in the sheets. And whilst those days may be past him, if you were to think of him in an intimate aspect, you’d be likely to imagine a sensual and romantic, smouldering slow-burn with buckets of stamina.

What does he usually do?

He’s the Professor of the History of Necromancy and the Undead at the College of Winterhold, and his course is important because he teaches his students very thoroughly about the dangers and risks involved in dealing with necromancy, undead and daedra - he, himself, being a walking example. He can often be found either in the Arcaneum, teaching in the Hall of the Elements, sparring with his daughter in the Midden or counselling students in his assigned office quarters. He has unintentionally become the ‘school therapist’ (or rather, the ‘dad’), because his students find him easy to talk to. (If you like Buffy, he’s a bit of a Rupert Giles)

Personality?

A very caring INTJ. A good listener, a logical mind, and tends to offer more practical advice than purely emotional support; he’s caring enough to try to help you solve your problems, instead of just patting you on the back and telling you that you’ll be ok. He can be quite socially anxious, but it’s not obvious at first glance; during lectures, he commands the room, speaks very well, cracks jokes and engages everyone (all in all, a beloved and popular teacher), however one look at his hands can tell you that he’s not as calm as he appears - it’s subtle, but they tremble. He’s docile and friendly, but genuinely frightening when pushed too far; he’s got an extremely long fuse, but when set off, he blows up VERY suddenly. 0 to 100 at lightning speed, speaking gently one minute then pinning someone against the wall by their throat the next. The only sure-fire way to piss him off is to threaten his daughter. He’s a very patient man, otherwise. But that’s not to say he won’t warn you first; if he rolls his shoulders, squares up, and asks you something politely along the lines of ‘would you like to clarify?’… back off. He’s also got a fun (if somewhat reckless) rebellious streak that doesn’t show itself often. The easiest way to get a glimpse of Severin’s naughty streak is to take notice of the antics his daughter, Llevana, gets up to.

Backstory

Part 1 (Somewhere Near Necrom, Morrowind)

Severin was introduced to pit fighting as a child in order to survive and earn his keep (he was paid in food and smokes), which he brought home to his sickly mother. At first, he was put up against skeevers. As he got bigger and smarter, so did his opponents. Eventually, the pit-fighting lead into grave-robbing and tomb-raiding, anything he could do to get his hands on gold, quickly, to look after himself and his mother. When his mother died suddenly, he found himself completely alone, and so began his obsessions with disease and death. He started fucking around with necromancy, trying to find a way to end disease and ultimately bring his mother back from the dead, wanting to bring her back so that she was completely impervious to sickness. He discovered he had a real knack for it when he found himself effortlessly raising ash spawn and fallen bandits, and over the span of his late teenage years, he was a fully fledged necromancer, and a pretty powerful one, too. His problems really started when he began experimenting; it came from a good place at first - experimenting with different strains of disease on the undead in order to attempt to create a vaccine-potion of sorts, but when he started mixing diseases, he got too far in over his head, ending up mutating his undead thralls into monstrous, violent, plagued abominations, barrelling his way down the rabbit hole of altering their very makeup, taking certain elements of the diseases to make his thralls faster, stronger, feel less pain and experience more bloodlust, and ‘live’ longer. In a way, he was making his own organic and genetically enhanced vampire. The end to his necromancy career came when he accidentally gave his creation sentience. The abomination he had created was in a staggering amount of both physical and mental agony, consistently screaming and begging for death. In a desperate bid to not destroy his research, Severin bargained with the Ideal Masters to take away the creature’s sentience again, but as soon as it was so, his creation simply devolved into complete violence and chaos, turned on him and almost murdered him, forcing him to kill it. Severin barely survived the encounter.

Part 2 (Vvardenfell, Morrowind)

After ditching necromancy and conjuration, Severin began down the path of learning restoration, alchemy and history, under the wing of the Telvanni mages who took him on after obscene amounts of begging. It was with the Telvanni that he met his late-wife, Llunela (They’re a T4T couple), with whom he often found himself after getting injured doing spellwork and alchemy. Eventually, Severin and Llunela moved in together and began building their lives on Vvardenfell, and soon enough, along came Llevana. When Llevana was two, however, the Red Mountain erupted. Hearing the rumble in the distance, Severin and Llunela fled their home, Severin with his daughter in his arms. As they were fleeing, Llunela fell, lost to the ash-flow pretty much instantly. With no time to react, Severin kept running, shielding Llevana from the ash and the heat with his body, holding up his magical ward for as long as he could, despite his skin beginning to blister and burn. He ran as far as he could, as fast as he could, and when he ran out of land, he started to swim, holding Llevana above the water. Sooner or later, though, he became exhausted and floated on his back, keeping her on his chest, so that if he died, she would not drown. He managed to stay awake, though, channelling his magic in alternation into keeping himself afloat and healing both himself and Llevana (whose arms had suffered some burning), and soon washed up on the coast, somewhere near Blacklight.

Part 3 (Somewhere Near Blacklight, Morrowind)

The first thing Severin did after washing up on the coast with his daughter was getting rid of their clothes, to prevent the fabric from sticking to their wounds. Still fuelled purely by adrenaline and the will to keep Llevana safe, Severin walked along the volcanic beach, naked, burnt and glassy-eyed, until he was found by a random civilian, who mistook him, at first, for an ash-spawn, until seeing the child he carried in his arms. They were taken in and tended to, healed and sheltered as much as possible, before they were well enough to move on.

Part 4 (Windhelm, Skyrim)

Severin moved into the Grey Quarter with Llevana as a refugee, where he took up pit-fighting again to provide for her, too unfamiliar with the region and afraid. For Llevana, he fought all sorts, from Orcs in their Strongholds to lowlifes in Riften’s Ratway, to corsairs on Smuggler Ships, only this time his skirmishes were made more interesting by his abilities with magic - this excited those who came to watch, resulting in him being paid more handsomely. Pit fighting in Skyrim had the same rules as pit fighting in Morrowind: none. Just survival. Bloody, brutal survival. Soon, however, he faced his most impressive fight - surrounded by blazing bonfires, scared out of his wits, he faced off against a giant. And despite his now traumatic fear of fire, he used the fire to his advantage, goading the Giant into chasing him around the pit, using his magic to augment the flames each time the Giant passed them, before finishing his opponent off by climbing onto the giant’s back and forcing its head into the fire. An altmer mage had been watching the fight, and recommended that Severin join the College of Winterhold, since his magic and intellect was ‘wasted’ in the pits.

Part 5 (Winterhold, Skyrim)

It would be many years (seventeen, to be precise), working with Nurelion in Windhelm, before Severin mustered up the courage to apply for a position at the College of Winterhold, afraid of not being good enough to teach and turned down, and also afraid of what the mages would think of him to look at him if he was accepted. Savos Aren, however, took a keen interest; whilst Severin didn’t quite have enough academic experience, he did have hell of a lot of field experience, and after a long interview, Severin was granted his position of Professor at the College.

Additional Info

What is he currently working on?

Alongside his teaching, Severin’s current research includes alchemical experimentation with blood compounds, so that he can help the more reasonable vampires who wish to be helped with their afflictions; he’s trying to create an artificial blood alternative.

What is Llevana like?

Llevana, now aged 19, looks a lot like her father, and she has her mother’s eyes and cheeky smile. She’s got her mum’s quick wit and academic prowess, and her father’s adventurous and experimental streak alongside his resilience. Her fascination is with the Dwemer, and she spends most of her time as Arniel Gane’s pupil, although the other portions of her time are spent either with Enthir, going dungeons crawling in Dwemer ruins, or trying to convince poor Severin that she’s perfectly safe. Her current pet project involves her dismantling dwarven centurions, spheres and spiders with intent to re-create a sort of dwemer pod-racer (which she intends to drag Enthir into in order to race around Blackreach faster, and to more efficiently avoid having to deal with the Falmer during her research).

Does Severin have PTSD?

Absolutely. No questioning it. He also has a permanent tremor in his hands and has absent PTSD triggered seizures (that look a lot like dissociation).

Will he find love again?

There is a certain closeted and repressed Thalmor mage who could learn a lot from him (and whom he could also learn a lot from)…

Did Necromancy have an effect on him?

Other than the trauma, yes. Dealing with the Ideal Masters corrupted quite a hefty chunk of his soul. Falion in Morthal might be able to help, if they research together.

What are his main proficiencies?

His very best skills are in Conjuration (Necromancy), Restoration (from his studies) and Alchemy (from his experiments), followed by One-Handed (from Pit-Fighting), Sneak (From Tomb-Raiding), Speech (From Teaching), Lockpicking (From Graverobbing) and Pickpocketing (Also from Graverobbing).

Does he have any special interests?

Vampires are a strong favourite of his; even though he’s not in his prime anymore, he’s definitely akin to a sort of Van-Helsing type figure. He may yet join the Dawnguard if his curiosity takes him there. With his daughter all grown up, a mer’s gotta have a hobby… but Isran would probably detest him, as Severin’s less excited about killing vampires and more excited about talking to and studying them to see if he can help them.

Have any of his other experiments gone wrong?

Many, but research is what it is. Trial and error. He’s accidentally paralysed himself a few times, contracted Sanguinare Vampiris by stupidly sampling a vampire heart, cured it, and blown up his alchemy table. He’s also been bitten by vampires SO many times.

Who are his friends?

He’s good friends with Tolfdir, Colette Marence and Urag Gro-Shub. Further back, he’s friendly with Nurelion and his old neighbours in the Grey Quarter, however there is one person he goes wayyyy back with: Teldryn Sero. He and Teldryn used to go Tomb-Raiding on the regular before the disaster. They met up in Solstheim when Severin was pit-fighting and raiding again to provide for Llevana and teamed up. Llevana calls him ‘Uncle Tel’.

As always, feel free to ask questions if there’s anything else you want to know about Severin ☺️

[psijicdominion]

This got me shadowbanned

[stellastra-scribbles]

July 26-28, 2022 - Some headshots I did awhile back of a few TES characters.

Individuals images below the cut.

Martin Septim - TES IV: Oblivion

Tolfdir - TES V: Skyrim

Cyrus the Restless - TES Adventures: Redguard

Mistress Therana - TES III: Morrowind

Vanus Galerion - TES Online

Archmaster Bolvyn Venim - TES III: Morrowind

[skyrim-forever]

Dunmeris headcanon: the glottal fricative /h/ is silent in onset position (at the beginning of a syllable), that's why Hlaalu is pronounced /la:lu/

[aanthirin]

please infodump about vivayth <3 if you gotta narrow it down, her relation with hircine and/or mehrunes dagon

sits down. right so-

the bases of vivayth's entire worldviews, her developments and delusions, her copes, it can all be led back to her introduction to lycanthropy. she couldn't really reconcile her zealous, century-long faith in the tribunal with the fact that she had become exactly what she was taught to hate, what she was taught stands against everything dunmeri society was: an abomination. she's long since made peace with that and happily embraces the title of 'demon' a lot of people toss her way, but a lot went down for that to happen... (more info below)

she went through a lot of effort to try and figure out exactly why this happened, why the living gods would allow hircine to infect her so, and allow her to remain this way, to be shunned by their servants and soldiers, their hands, their very mouthpieces. when she couldn't turn to her estranged family nor those she loved, she was led down a very dark road by another once-zealous faithful corrupted by the forces of oblivion, so it was only inevitable that she'd crack. after the things she's seen and done, and when she realized exactly who and what she'd become, who wouldn't?

she spent a long time searching for answers, uprooting secrets that would've been better left of alone. many sleepless nights were spent poring through texts that scrambled her mind or destroyed themselves upon being read, or going out of her way to beseech the long-dead for answers. between all the scraps of knowledge that she collected, she came to believe that hircine was a servant of mehrunes dagon, his personal huntsman to test the mettle of his armies (and later on she develops the idea that perhaps hircine himself is a sort of demiprince or daedra lord under dagon's service, or an avatar of dagon himself). this is based on old lore jsyk, like battlespire-era

this mostly happened because she's very morrowind-minded from a metaphysical point of view. even though she's spent a significant portion of her 180 years alive dedicating herself to studies on the metaphysical, mystical and occult after a brush with a renegade wise-woman—which theoretically should not even be remotely bound to something so arbitrarily mortal like culture—she can't help but be very conservative and patriotic in mindset and that warps a lot of her perceptions of reality, creating some very, uh, eccentric interpretations of the most foundational aspects of the aurbis. that is all to say her mind struggled a lot to reconcile an inherently outlander consequence such as lycanthropy with an explicitly dunmeri foundational belief, that being the house of troubles and their role in the theology.

soon enough she started to believe that dagon had a direct hand in the events that cursed her with lycanthropy, and that it's one of two of oblivion's sacred tools to help mortals (more importantly, her specifically) break free from the shackles of limitation imposed by the aedra (the other being vampirism, which she reveres FAR more than the comparative self-loathing she feels toward lycanthropes)

[garygoldenbignaturals]

the javafication of morrowind (only sketches at the moment hehe lol✌️)

[truth-01001001-liar]

No one’s allowed to look into the Archcanon’s personal journal.. because they’d find thousands of Vivec sketches and heretical scriptures such as this one:

A page about J’uhna’s name, the script reads:

A secret

where both the words JUN (sil) and luhn (LUN) are hidden by way of Khajiiti honorific;

Twilight’s boot in the teeth of the Mother,

telling her she is a divorcee not a widow.

[reformed-ghost]

making yet another skyrim oc girl help

[nerevar-quote-and-star]

Neloth: There even are places where Dunmeris completely disappears; in Blacklight they haven't used it for years.

[sheirukitriesfandom]

I know I've said it before but I love the idea of Solstheim Dunmeris being "the hillbilly dialect" of Dunmeris.

[knightnightwrite]

August 14th – ghost or hungry

Day 3 of @tes-summer-fest

K,

Since you enjoyed the scribe���s voice so much from the last copy I sent, I thought I’d include an additional essay they wrote. A warning—they seemed to loathe being commissioned for this kind of brief analytical preface, so it’s a little more caustic than what I’ve previously sent. I pity the writer who paid money for this. Still—I hope it brings contemplative reflection (or at the least, amusement).

~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~

The presence of ghosts within literature of all sorts and from all sorts is widespread, to say the least, and to say nothing of the variations of opinions on the undead themselves. Though, the undead and ghosts remain separate entities even as they retain thematically and categorically linked—I am endeavoring to examine ghosts only in this brief chapter. (Insomuch as a ghost can “stand” on their own, apart from other creatures or contexts.)

Mirroring the reality of ghost experiences, ghosts in textual narratives are bound to Nirn either through another’s will or by unfinished business. Their particular potential for dramatic contexts are much utilized in many stories across both mer and man—and within the particular textual realms through which I am most familiar, their disembodiment is, depending on the tastes of the reader(s), character(s), and writer(s), a hinderance or a blessing. How the ghosts themselves are characterized depends deeply on the particular context they exist in—namely, if one is unfortunate enough to come across a salacious or thrilling Breton text, one might only find ghosts as tonal paperweights desperately trying to pin down any essence of interest, import, or intimidation possible.

As with many creatures and characters, one must strike a balance between enough realistic detail and enough space to sense their importance to the narrative—and, of course, this balance must be struck within the confines of the genre(s) and the author’s creative desires. In many ways, ghosts are very similar to a barkeep or knight, tied to specific character conventions but with as much potential for depth and variety as one’s grandmother—yet it is often ghosts who are narratively saddled with the frankly uninspired ghost narratives of vengeance, trauma, violence, and tempestuousness as bland as uncooked saltrice.

Below, you’ll find one such story in an anthology of such narratives masquerading around the deep, dark, complexities of gloomy, atmospheric pastoral literature.

[jiubilant]

jiub i was looking at fabrics for a custom oc doll and used ur ravi/viarmo fic as an example when explaining that black clothing means marked for death among the dunmer. i can’t remember if that was a headcanon but i explained the whole thing to my partner in the stationary section of a walmart

this cracked me up. means the world to me to hear that my work's being discussed out there

the idea of a gift of black clothing being understood as a threat in velothi culture is a headcanon of mine based on this bit of generic dialogue from morrowind:

By the immemorial custom of Dunmer society, a House may challenge the honor of another House in the person of one of the House's ranking nobles. The ranking noble of the impugned House is 'marked for death'—in ancient times, actually formally marked with a black banner, but in modern times, served with a formal written public announcement. If within a year of the challenge, the marked noble still lives, the challenging House must publicly forego any further complaint or scandal on the matter. [x]

my thought was that in the present day, though the custom of the black banner has been replaced by something more bureaucratic, there remains an ominous connotation to the color black that makes most dunmer shy away from wearing it. to give a black article of clothing to someone is to wish death on them. to WEAR a black article of clothing is to say "i'm not afraid; do your worst"

i love it when people adopt this idea for their own work. read needle-knife