#sister celdina

[scalecallerpeak]

You have my thanks, mortal. You eliminated Sister Celdina, she never let me choose my happy meal toy. With it I shall conquer Fargrave for Mehrunes Dagon. And after that, I would like the breakfast special!

[nightingaletrash]

okay but what if Celdina survived Deadlands’ main story and became the final Big Bad of the epilogue? So she’s badly wounded by the Vestige but manages to escape via a portal when Nokvroz arrives, vowing to finish what she’s started. She then disappears to recover, knowing that the Vestige will do her dirty work for her by killing Nokvroz and saving the Anchorite.

Sombren’s corruption arc is then less turning the Ambitions over to Dagon in a misguided attempt to save Calia and more attempting to play Celdina. He contacts her under the pretense of giving up the power of the Ambitions in exchange for being allowed to live, lets her take his and Calia’s powers away and then attempts to kill Celdina so that she can’t give the power to Dagon. Except Celdina anticipated Sombren trying something like this and strikes back, saying that she thought he’d have done a better job considering he had a dremora for a teacher. The only reason she doesn’t kill him is because Team Vestige arrives to intervene and Sif and the Anchorite drive Celdina away with their combined power.

Celdina then tries to use the three pieces of the egonymic she has to begin Nirn’s destruction so that she can herald in her new perfect world, all while counting on Team Vestige to bring her the final piece she needs because they need the egonymic too, so they can’t just leave Sif behind in safety.

She just had a lot of potential and would have been a more effective final villain than Sombren, because his arc is entirely offscreen and the Vestige gets such limited time with him that it feels like Blackwood!Sombren and Deadlands!Sombren are two entirely different characters.

Celdina? She's depicted as a cunning individual of significant intelligence and religious fervour that would have made her perfect for the role. And it would have given that final encounter much more emotional weight for the Anchorite, considering that she’s now had time to come to terms with Celdina being her mother. It’s not ‘suddenly remember horrible mother, watch friends kill her’ but ‘suddenly remember mother, watch friends fight her, see her retreat into the dark and wait for her return.’

[psychicduelistrbd]

It’s been a long time since I finished the Deadlands DLC, I think it’s been long enough that I don’t have to worry about spoilers, (But just in case be warned there might be spoilers.)

In the end I had mixed feeling about it. As the final part of the Gates of Oblivion story line there felt something missing.

I wasn’t surprised that The Anchorite was the fourth ambition, considering they’re supposed to be “important” and I wasn’t that surprised that she’s the daughter of emperor Moricar and Sister Celdina, it was probably meant to be more of a shock to the player but, personally even if I didn’t see it coming I wasn’t surprised. 

And then there is Sombren, why zos? I like him, why did you make him betray us? Did you forgot on the previous dlc he was betrayed by someone he trusted? Why did someone had to betray us in the first place? This is worst than Veya in the Morrowind DLC. I mentioned this to one of the people I play the game with but it would be nice to have one redeemable villain.

Lyranth got annoying, the more I spoke to her, I wasn’t that fond of Arox as well, I get that some people like him, but I don’t see it, his true form was actually surprising as I was expecting it to be a different one.

Overall even after finishing the story and still needing more pieces of the sets, I haven’t gone back tot the area yet, the area just feels boring to go back to.

[nightingaletrash]

I'm thinking about this again and yeah I think I want this to be my canon.

When it comes to the Princes, they've almost always got an intermediary that you fight them through - the only exception being Molag Bal because he's a punk bitch of the Amulet of Kings. Vile has Barbus and ZOS' Nocturnal had the Shadow of Sotha Sil and Veya (which we ignore in this house thank you very much.) In the NaNo Swap AU, Mephala has the Spirit of Namira fighting for her, and Namira has her Earl. But Dagon's intermediaries kept changing throughout the story.

First we had Vandacia, who had to die in Blackwood because he was the Big Bad of the chapter. Then it's Celdina and Nokvroz in Deadlands, both of whom get killed off before the epilogue. Except then there's no existing intermediary who's already been firmly established so ZOS goes 'uh Sombren is evil now' and leave it all down to the Xarxes, end of.

Except its half arsed and you get literally a single conversation with him before he goes all villainous and it lacks any real emotional weight because this might as well be a different character and literally no one is interested in trying to save him. Not Calia, not Eveli, and not even the Vestige who had wanted to save all of the Ambitions from Dagon.

If Celdina had survived that confrontation with the Anchorite and the Vestige, you'd have had your final villain prepped and ready to go. She remembers her daughter now, remembers the plan. And now her greatest rival, Nokvroz, is firmly out of the picture. She had the makings of a great final villain, and it would have given her a greater role beyond being the Anchorite's twist mother.

The Xarxes convinces Sombren that an Ambition's power can be given to a new vessel and if the vessel for that power dies outside of a sacrifice, their power won't go back to Dagon, so he comes to believe that he can give the power of the Ambitions to Celdina and then kill her while her back is turned, and that will stop Dagon more effectively than fighting Dagon head on.

And while the Xarxes doesn't lie to him, it doesn't tell him that losing his powers will hurt and leave him weakened. He underestimates Celdina and thinks that he can kill her while she adjusts to having the power of two Ambitions without realising that he needs to recover from the experience too, and it nearly costs him his and Calia's lives. Celdina is driven off, but she now has nearly everything she needs to bring her plans to fruition, and it's enough to get started. And if the Vestige wants to stop her, they'll have to bring the final pieces to her.

Then your final villain is the one who remembers the Anchorite as a child. Who now remembers which buttons to press and how to get a rise out of her. Who tries to get her to make mistakes. A villain who views herself as being made in Magnus' image and will stop at nothing to purge this imperfect world and bring about her vision of perfection.

So yeah, Celdina is the Big Bad of the Deadlands Epilogue now.

okay but what if Celdina survived Deadlands’ main story and became the final Big Bad of the epilogue? So she’s badly wounded by the Vestige but manages to escape via a portal when Nokvroz arrives, vowing to finish what she’s started. She then disappears to recover, knowing that the Vestige will do her dirty work for her by killing Nokvroz and saving the Anchorite.

Sombren’s corruption arc is then less turning the Ambitions over to Dagon in a misguided attempt to save Calia and more attempting to play Celdina. He contacts her under the pretense of giving up the power of the Ambitions in exchange for being allowed to live, lets her take his and Calia’s powers away and then attempts to kill Celdina so that she can’t give the power to Dagon. Except Celdina anticipated Sombren trying something like this and strikes back, saying that she thought he’d have done a better job considering he had a dremora for a teacher. The only reason she doesn’t kill him is because Team Vestige arrives to intervene and Sif and the Anchorite drive Celdina away with their combined power.

Celdina then tries to use the three pieces of the egonymic she has to begin Nirn’s destruction so that she can herald in her new perfect world, all while counting on Team Vestige to bring her the final piece she needs because they need the egonymic too, so they can’t just leave Sif behind in safety.

She just had a lot of potential and would have been a more effective final villain than Sombren, because his arc is entirely offscreen and the Vestige gets such limited time with him that it feels like Blackwood!Sombren and Deadlands!Sombren are two entirely different characters.

Celdina? She’s depicted as a cunning individual of significant intelligence and religious fervour that would have made her perfect for the role. And it would have given that final encounter much more emotional weight for the Anchorite, considering that she’s now had time to come to terms with Celdina being her mother. It’s not ‘suddenly remember horrible mother, watch friends kill her’ but ‘suddenly remember mother, watch friends fight her, see her retreat into the dark and wait for her return.’