#elves on snow

[cycas]

Legolas walking over snow carrying his personal possessions : does not sink.

[soosoosoup]

snowzone

[silusvesuius]

baby👶 drawings. these are very dear to me rn.. 2nd pic is my Nelavis with @barvin0k's Varonur 🩵 last one is a baby bosmer and snow elf, hairiest of them all. although the bosmer was meant to be my girl Barletta too lols

[lotusfaebell]

“ You sought the truth for years, but did the revelation justify the sacrifices you made along the way? “

⊱ Done by PaniWolf ⊰

[falmerbrook]

It’s interesting that there’s no snow elf structures or ruins left in Skyrim (that we know of or see in the games) besides the Chantry of Auri-El. I can see a few reasons why that might be:

From a Doyalist perspective, the game developers just didn’t add any for whatever reason. Maybe they didn’t even consider it, maybe they didn’t have time, maybe they didn’t want two sets of abandoned elf ruins (alongside the dwemer), etc.

The snow elves used building materials that degraded faster or didn’t last thousands of years. Given the Chantry of Auri-El and the way shrines and arches around it have stood relatively in tact for thousands of years without anyone tending to them makes me doubt this option though.

The Nords/Atmorans destroyed any snow elf structures or settlements. This would be plausible if, like the last option, their structures weren’t very big or permanent, but like with the last option that’s sort of doubtful. Dragons, however, could’ve helped with that.

The Nords/Atmorans converted snow elf structures or used them for their own purposes, and now we just can’t tell they were ever something else. Our one reference for snow elf architecture (the Chantry of Auri-El) is made of stone (either built or carved out of the mountain (the cooler option imo)), and perhaps old snow elf ruins were just used as templates for Nord barrows or cities because of their sturdy build and location. There’s a theory I’ve seen floating around that the College of Winterhold either at one point was a snow elf ruin that was converted into something else, or was built on top of one, due to its similar architecture style to the Chantry of Auri-El. Maybe cities like Windhelm or (the original) Winterhold were built on top of snow elf cities.

Perhaps it’s just a mix of the above. Maybe only their important or significant religious structures were built of stone and the rest of was easier for the Nords/Atmorans to raze and then degrade back into the environment. What wasn’t destroyed was eventually incorporated into the Nord’s society as tombs or cities.

And none of this is in the game because the developers maybe perceived the snow elves as just a prerequisite for the falmer, rather than a group of people with a culture of their own. Or maybe for some behind the scenes reason in the development of the game like I mentioned earlier. Who knows.I have fun speculating about it though

[arlenianchronicles]

Some designs for my Tolkien/Snow White crossover, Glossuiel and the Seven Dwarves! This time I've included the Huntsman, the Evil Queen, and the Prince XD Technically redesigns for my old Glossuiel painting!

I drew these back in June 2023 but never got around to posting them because I thought I'd include some actual paintings to go alongside the designs :''') But I never finished those, and this has been sitting in my drafts for a while, so I've decided to just post it (especially since there are more Snow White live-actions coming out eventually).

For Glossuiel, the two designs I have for her include a dress the Dwarves made for her (left) and her Sindarin dress (right)! And as you can see, I've reused her Disney colours; same goes for the Evil Queen and the Prince. For the Dwarves, I redid their colours (mostly; the red one is still Grumpy hahaa); I also pulled a Tolkien and took their names from the Dvergatal in the Poetic Edda.

Speaking of names, the Evil Queen is also known as Grimhild, meaning "masked battle," so I had it loosely translated to Sindarin as Dagorwen (battle-maiden). The Prince's name is apparently Florian, so it's now Lothon (using Sindarin "loth" for flower). And the Huntsman's name is just a mix of name elements from the House of Beor since most of them don't have any name meanings recorded loll

[guiquart]

Calthar - His birthday is May 18th

Once again, I hope for your likes💙 You can get better quality art on Google Drive

[elderscrollsconceptart]

Why doesn't Paladin Gelebor just fuck an Altmer if he's so worried about the Snow Elves going extinct.

[bookshelf-in-progress]

Reflection: A Retelling of “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves”

The mirror is a gift from the dwarves. Its frame of hammered gold is wrought with delicately-crafted birds and beasts, fruit and flowers. Its silver-backed surface, unlike those created by human craftsman, shows a true reflection.

The queen loves to gaze at herself in the mirror. It tells her that she is beautiful—skin like milk, hair like midnight, eyes as blue as a crystalline lake. She is young, healthy, graceful, charming—perfection in human form. Truly a queen worthy of this kingdom.

Then, one day, the mirror’s message changes. It shows that the queen has lines around her eyes, sunspots on her nose, wicked glints of silver in her night-black hair. The queen does all she can to hide the damage, spends hours before the mirror with cosmetics and concealers. To the rest of the world, the queen is as perfect as ever.

Yet every morning, the mirror tells the truth.

Worst of all, her husband has a little daughter—barely fourteen years old—who grows lovelier by the day. Every morning, the mirror says that before long, those who worshiped the queen’s beauty will transfer their devotion to the princess—and will be right to do so.

The queen's beauty would not seem so tarnished if the princess were not there for comparison. The queen tries to send the princess to an isolated estate—tells her husband it is better for the girl to grow up away from the corrupting influences of the court. But the girl is too dear to her father. She wastes away with homesickness, until her father the king orders her to come home for the sake of her health.

The queen tries neglecting the girl in ways the king won't notice—refusing to let her wash with good soap, denying her a maid, forbidding her fashionable clothes and hairstyles. Through it all, the mirror tells her that the girl’s beauty shines out brighter than ever.

Before long, the queen spends hours by the mirror each day, locked in a futile endeavor to restore what is lost forever. One moonlit night, she finds a dagger, and considers plunging it into her heart just to end this ceaseless torment, but the morning shows her a better path.

She will never be perfect, nor make the princess less so—but she can destroy perfection.

It would be easy to take this dagger to where the princess sleeps and shove it through her perfect heart, but the queen doesn't dare to mar her own beauty with blood-stained hands.

She gives the dagger to a loyal huntsman. He takes the girl into the forest—and returns holding a small, bloody heart.

That night before the mirror, the queen's smile makes her glow with a new kind of beauty.

*

People often tell the princess she is beautiful. She believes them, for she has never seen an ugly face. Old Sal’s missing tooth is an open door into her smile. The chambermaid’s freckles make a daytime constellation. The little stable boy’s one good eye glitters green as an emerald. Her stepmother owns a beautiful mirror, but the princess barely gazes at it. Why would she waste time examining her own familiar face in a world with so many other lovely faces to gaze upon?

One day in early spring, she asks to go berrying in the forest beyond the castle, as she once did with her mother. To her surprise, the queen permits it—the queen rarely allows the princess anything that might be a luxury. She even sends one of her huntsmen as protection.

In the eaves of the forest, the princess finds strawberries not far from the path, and she hastens to gather as many as she can. She invites the huntsman to join her, but he stands statue-like at the edge of the clearing, always on guard. Not wanting him to go without, the princess brings the berries to him, and offers him the largest, sweetest one.

As she does, she gazes at his face. Scars make mountain ranges along his cheeks and brow. His hair is edged with silver. The lines of his face are solid as stone. His deep gray eyes hold storm clouds.

“Oh, my,” the princess says in awe. “You are beautiful.”

The huntsman’s face disappears as he hides it in one of his hands. “I can’t,” he says, his voice rough with unshed tears. “I must betray my queen."

His other hands darts to the side, quick as a serpent, and the silver flash of a blade disappears into the undergrowth.

The huntsmen places both of his hands on the princess’ shoulders and crouches to look into her face. “You must run. The queen wants you dead. If you stay at the palace, she will find a way to kill you. You must flee into the forest and never return.”

“The forest?” the princess asks in terror. She has often wandered in the eaves, but she has never dared the strange terrors that are said to lurk in its interior.

“There is nothing there that can harm such innocence,” the huntsman says. “You will find shelter.” He turns her around and pushes her toward the depths of the forest. “Now run! As fast and as far as you can!”

The shadows of the forest embrace her, and the flowers make a path at her feet. She crosses shallow rivers, climbs rocky slopes, winds through twisted groves of trees. She couldn’t return home even if she wanted to.

She had not been blind. She had seen something like ugliness in the queen’s face whenever they were alone. But hatred? Murder?

She nearly collapses with grief, but through the trees, she sees a wisp of smoke. A chimney. A roof over a tumbledown cottage. The princess runs through the open door, collapses on the floor, and is glad to find a safe place to weep.

Her father will think her dead, and she will not be there to comfort him. She will never again see any of the beautiful faces that fill the palace. The hundreds of hidden details that made the castle home are forever out of her reach. The huntsman saved her, but to what end? A lifetime of loneliness and misery? Is this truly a better fate than the quick death of a dagger through the heart?

She opens her eyes. She has looked too long at the sorrows in her heart. She must find solace from without.

She gazes upon the cottage.

And sees seven beautiful faces.

*

The dwarves love their princess. She is beautiful, not only because of her face, but because of the way her soul shines out through it. She is endlessly beautiful because she sees the beauty in everyone and everything.

There never was a girl so selfless. Her every waking moment is spent filling their days with a million small comforts. The cottage has never been so clean. The food has never been so lovingly prepared. There is nothing she would not do for them, and in return, they devote their lives to her service.

She needs their protection. One so naturally kind and innocent can’t recognize when strangers might have ill intent. One day, after being out in the woods, the seven dwarves return to the cottage to find the princess nearly strangled by a set of stays. When they revive her, she tells them of a ragged old woman (with such beautiful hands!) who asked for food and water and then repaid her generosity by giving a nearly-fatal gift. The eldest of the dwarves caught a glimpse of the stranger’s retreat, and saw enough of her form to suspect the queen.

The dwarves keep a closer guard on the princess, but six months later, a few minutes go by when all seven of them are away from home. They return to find the princess nearly killed by a poisoned comb in her hair. The story she tells is similar to the last one—an old woman in need of help repaid their kind princess with a gift meant to kill.

After that, the princess is never alone. The dwarf on guard duty always has the envied task, so lovely is it to be in her presence. A year, then two, go by with no signs of danger.

Then one winter morning, after a night of birthday feasting, all seven of the dwarves sleep late. The princess rises at her usual time, hoping to fix them a holiday breakfast. By the time the dwarves stumble out of bed, they find the princess sprawled across the kitchen floor—cold, pale and lifeless, with a poisoned apple in her hand.

They despise themselves for having failed her, but their love for the princess drives them to serve her the only way they can—by laying her body to rest. The cold, hard earth won’t take her, and they can’t bear to hide her away in the realm of death. Knowing that decay will not touch one so innocent, they place her in a coffin of glass and lay her in their garden, where her beauty can brighten the world in death as it did in life.

They keep a constant vigil, lost in loving grief. They ought to have known she would end this way. This is the fate of all innocence in this dark and sinful world—to be destroyed by wickedness. Even as they see this truth, they know that it is wrong. The world should not be this way, but what can they do? They wish and pray for better, but they can’t hope. How can innocence ever overcome such evil?

In the spring, when the last snow melts and the first snowbells bloom, the dwarves see movement in the woods beyond their cottage. A prince approaches on a snow-white horse. He is ruler of this forest and its mysterious ways—a king of kings, even more beautiful than their princess. His face shines with a wisdom that does nothing to defile the innocence of his heart.

He leaps from his horse, approaches the coffin, raises the lid, and takes the cold hand of the princess between his.

“Beloved,” he says, “arise.”

In his words and actions, the dwarves find the answer to the riddle they have pondered in their long vigil of grief. In a world of wickedness, the salvation of Innocence is Love.

The princess opens her eyes. Takes a breath. Sits up and gazes upon the world she loves, upon the one who loved her back to life. Something of the prince’s wisdom is reflected in her, so that her beauty is almost painful to behold.

The dwarves rejoice, and the princess rejoices with them. She kisses each one atop the head, but does not release the hand of her prince.

Eager to serve one who served them so well, the dwarves cook her breakfast, and she eats with even more enthusiasm than she showed in her former life. Yet when the meal ends, she stands with her prince at the threshold of the cottage.

“I must return to my father,” the princess says.

The dwarves protest. What of the queen? What of the danger?

The princess looks at her prince with eyes full of love. “I have nothing to fear.”

*

The king rejoices at his daughter’s return—he has thought her dead for so many years. Grief has aged and weakened him, but there is beauty in his face that grows brighter with every minute he spends in the presence of the princess.

The princess tells him of her troubles since she went away, and the king is horrified by her words. “I knew my wife had lost her reason,” he says, “but not her heart! She must pay for her crimes!”

He moves toward the door as though he will administer justice this moment.

The prince stops him with a gentle hand upon his chest. “There is no need.”

*

The queen gazes at herself in the mirror. She never looks anywhere else. If there is a world beyond the edges of its frame, she has forgotten it. She sees only her own face, searches for the remaining scraps of beauty, tries desperately to erase the blemishes that grow ever more hateful with the passing of years.

Another face appears in the reflection—a face the queen thought she had destroyed long ago. It is lovelier than ever. The queen hides her face in her hands so she can not see the painful beauty of the princess.

“Come away from there,” the princess says. “Gaze with me upon the other beauties of the world.”

“And lose myself?” the queen shrieks. “That is what you have always wanted—to destroy my very self! To take all the honor and beauty that should be mine!”

“I wish to save you,” the princess says. “Come away.”

“Never!” the queen screams, clutching the mirror in two white-knuckled hands. “I have everything I need right here! You can’t take it from me!”

The princess touches the queen’s shoulder. The queen screams and shrinks away, hiding her face once more in her hands.

A man’s voice—painful in its beauty—says, “Beloved, she has made her choice.”

At long last, they leave. The queen looks in the mirror and sees no face but her own. No greater beauty remains nearby to shame her.

In the confines of her world’s silver surface, she is fairest of all.

*

The queen is locked away in the prison of her choosing.

The king stays to do what good he can for his kingdom, and the princess promises to return for him after he has fulfilled his purpose.

The prince places the princess on his snow-white horse, and they travel once more past the cottage of the dwarves, who are glad to see her so beautiful and beloved.

At last, the prince brings the princess to his kingdom at the heart of the forest.

The beauty she finds there is beyond words.

[silvantransthranduiltrash]

Wait, how is it that Legolas could walk over snow, yet fingolfin’s host had elves that fell through the ice when they were walking on the grinding ice?

And don’t say “magic” because i’m asking why it’s not consistent. Either elves are light enough or something to not fall into snow, much less ice, or they are heavy enough to fall through snow/ice.

I don’t care about the explanation, but it has to be either/or, or there needs to be a specific reason why one does work and the other doesn’t.

[kayderrart]

Knight-Paladin Gelebor. WIP

He is criminally underrated (and deserves much love)

I do several portraits of him, stay tuned.

[othabor]

so am I the only one who started playing Skyrim before I first realized I was gay, developed a fascination with Falmer because scantily clad men, and now over a decade later i STILL look at these sickly pale goblin creatures and think “…hot.”

[motherhenna]

Most gentle, cursed, and lonely son / Last of a people come undone. / Such weight: a heavy thing to bare / Without a kindred's strength to share. / Three-thousand years thy lost to sleep... / Now wake to find new worlds to keep. / So rise like the tides and the winter sun / For a cold, bright dawn has just begun.

A partner piece to my blood moon werewolf illustration: Snow Prince Sivasei, the last true Falmer and the foil to the final dragonborn, Vakna True-Thunder. The apparatus in the center there is meant to be a dwemer vessel that contains the fragmented souls of snow elf test subjects, as the limited lore available seems to indicate that it was more than just generations living underground that corrupted the Falmer into what they ended up becoming. It's supposed to set up a whole possession plot point that thematically mirrors Vakna's Lycanthropy.

[lotusfaebell]

I just received one of the most beautiful art pieces of my TES Snow Elf! ❄️ Look at her! 🥺

Artwork done by Paola Pieretti

[falmerbrook]

@tescheer Week 4: Blizzard

Snow Elf headcanon time! (ft. A younger Gelebor and Vyrthur)

We don’t know a lot about the Snow Elf religious practices, but the sun-inspired motifs and imagery in a place that probably gets nasty winter weather and little to no sunlight for several months of the year intrigues me. I like to think the folks at the Chantry of Auri-El think of winter as a more contemplative time and a time to test and strengthen one’s faith.

[thana-topsy]

Sarel teaching Gelebor about the Sightless Alphabet!