The Elder Scrolls. Don't even get me started. This game series has captivated me for thousands upon thousands of hours between the gameplay, story, modding, apocrypha, and chatting with developers. But the lore and world building done by Bethesda? I have yet to encounter a video game world more richly detailed, inspired, and beautiful than that found in the Aurbis. The entire world is the creation of a sleeping god, whose Dream begets further Dreams born of murder and marriage. Inside we have the conceptualization of the subgradiation of the divine "spheres" and the importance placed on mortality (the "letter written in uncertainty"), the notion of waking dreamers and erasure of those who realize the truth of their existence, the clash between order and chaos and their place in the "prison" of the Arena. It's Aladdin caves levels of nonsense that is just so wonderful to see and simultaneously frustrating to not see more emphasis placed on. I always find it difficult to explain my captivation with this series without coming off as a hyperventilating lunatic. You have the inversion of Tolkein's 4th Era with the decline of Man in place of the Elves, you have the concept of emulation of divinity leading to divine power ("walk like the gods until they walk like you"), you have the great tragedy of the pantheon both old and new (from Magnus' lost daughter to the hubris of the Tribunal). You're living in a world where a prostitute becomes advisor to a warchief and uses a divine understanding of the universe to rewrite hir history to the point where a hermaphroditic bug god gave birth to itself in the shell of a dwarven similacrum of his mother and created a bible with actual magic written into it. You have dancing apes breaking time to tear a god in half, to cats that can climb to the moons, to a nation of black imperialists who had a sword technique so potent it could split an atom and sink a continent. It's weird and vulgar and strange and brutal and wonderful and poetic and mundane all at once and I love it with every fiber of my being.
The point of the post is to get people like yourself started. I'm a lover of lore, a fan of The Elder Scrolls, and your writing is captivating. I, for one, would be delighted to read about your fascination with the series. I thought I had read through enough of the in-game books in Oblivion and Skyrim to understand some of the more abstract concepts, but from reading your piece, I can confidently say that I have no idea of what's actually going on. I never played any of the previous games, but my brother bought me the anthology for my birthday, so I think I'll go ahead and install all of them when I get home. In the meantime, if you'd like to share, I'm a sucker for a good story.
Okay, then let's go with probably my favorite story-that-needs-to-be-adapted-by-HBO present in the games: Potema the Wolf Queen and the War of the Red Diamond. Let's set the stage: We begin in 3E 63, with the future emperor Pelagius II. After being widowed and left with two children from his first marriage, the emperor travels to Camlorn in High Rock, and comes to court with the Princess Quintilla. He arrives to find the castle besieged by a werewolf, and aids the princess in defeating the beast. The princess soul traps the werewolf into a gemstone, which Pelagius later fashions into a ring. He proposes to Quintilla, who gives birth to Potema shortly thereafter. It is said, however, that the soul of the beast they slayed stayed with the couple, and made itself present in their firstborn daughter, a child who was described by her grandfather Uriel II as being "like a she-wolf about ready to pounce." Potema was eventually married off (at the age of 14) to the king of Solitude in Skyrim, where she grew and manipulated those in her husband's court. She staged circumstances so that the child of her husband's - Mantiarco's - previous marriage would be deemed an illegitimate bastard. After numerous miscarriages, Potema eventually gave birth to a child named Uriel, who was now perfectly positioned to become king of Solitude and eventually vy for the Ruby Throne in Cyrodiil. Years pass, Pelagius II and dies, and his children convene at the coronation of the new emperor, one of Pelagius' other children, Antiochus. Mantiarcho passed away shortly thereafter, and Uriel came to rule as King of Solitude alongside his mother. In the Imperial City, Potema meets with Quintilla, who gives a gift meant for Uriel when he comes of age: a necklace carrying the gemstone of the werewolf's soul, enchanted with Illusory magic to charm those the wearer speaks to. Potema meets with Antiochus in an attempt to blackmail him into abdicating his right to the throne. Though she failed to shake him, she spent the next several months manipulating the Mages Guild, Psijjic Order, and the Maomer of Pyandonea in an attempt to leverage a planned invasion to weasel millions in gold into her own coffers to finance a coup against her brother, who had already taken the throne as emperor. Antiochus was a debaucherous emperor, whose lust is perhaps only eclipsed by The Remanada in its perversity. The Empire was left with Kintyra II as a claim to the throne after Antiochus mysteriously died after a visitation by his nephew, Uriel. Potema visited the Elder Council and declared that Kintyra was, in fact, a bastard and attempted to leverage her charm to convince the Council to appoint her own son as emperor. Her efforts were in vain, and Kintyra II rose as Empress in 3E 120. In her years of planning and preparation, Potema had acquired allies in the many disgruntled nobles of Skyrim, Morrowind and High Rock. Raising and army on three of Cyrodiil, Potema made to declare war to unseat Kintyra as Empress and install her son in her place. Kintyra moved her army into position near Glenpoint Castle in High Rock, planning to oversee the destruction of her aunt's forces personally after the insulting testimony she gave to the Elder Council. Once again using her skill at blackmail and forgery, Potema convinced Kintyra's husband-to-be to evacuate the troops remaining in the Imperial City, ordering them to meet with Kintyra's forces in a week's time. Under cover of night, Potema's troops committed the mass assassination of Kintyra's forces, carving their way to her quarters where she was captured, presumably tortured, and summarily executed while Uriel's armies marched on the now-undefended Imperial City. With this brutal coup complete, the remainder of the Empire turned against Potema. Her two half-brothers Magnus and Cephorus gathered their own armies and spent the next few years waging war against Potema and Uriel, fracturing the continent in a civil conflict not seen since the Interregnum. Years pass, and Uriel is engaged in a battle with his uncle Cephorus in Hammerfell, while Potema staves off her half-brother Magnus' advances from Morrowind (which he has made by co-opting the Argonians into his cause). During the Battle of Ichidag in 3E 127, Uriel was captured by Cephorus' forces and transported to the city of Gilane, where he would await his eventual return to the Imperial City and supposed trial. However, as Potema stalled Magnus in the swamps in northern Morrowind, she hears word that Uriel's caravan was intercepted by an angry mob, and that he was burned alive. Cephorus was raised to the title of Emperor while Potema's army finished their rout of Magnus' forces. With Uriel dead, the nations of the continent struck deals with the Cephorus emperorship to attain greater autonomy than was had under previous rule. Skyrim, High Rock, Hammerfell, the Summerset Isle, Valenwood, Black Marsh, and Morrowind all gained sovereignty. The War of the Red Diamond had ended, but Potema continued to fight against the forces slowly closing around her sphere of influence in Solitude. With the death of her son, Potema fell into madness. The lands of Solitude became lands of death, as she summoned daedra to fight for her, reanimated the corpses of her enemies' soldiers to serve as her own army, and conversed with the wraiths, vampires, and other necromantic fiends. As Magnus' armies close around her, she escapes from her castle one last time and chances a meeting with her half-brother's son, Pelagius III. Her nephew does not recognize her, but she gives him a gift in the form of a necklace, one with the amber gemstone carrying the soul of a werewolf. However, the trinket no longer held its enchantment of charm. It had been replaced by Potema with an enchantment of poison, which would slowly sap the strength and wits of the wearer until they lost their minds. Returning to her castle, Potema waited out the remaining month-long siege before dying in her sleep. Magnus granted stewardship of Solitude to his son, Pelagius III. Years would pass as Cephorus and Magnus eventually died, and the "eccentric" Pelagius III would eventually rise to the throne of Emperor.
Well, now I know how Pelagius the Mad came to be. Very interesting read - thank you for taking the time to type it up!
Who would you nominate as the baddest of badasses? We'll say one diety and one mortal. I found myself fascinated by Hermaeus Mora, though I don't know how he'd stack up in a brawl.
If I had to choose? ... Hrm. As far as gods go, I'd probably have to give it to Talos as much as I'd like to say the Aka-Tusk. Simply put, Talos is the replacement of a dead god (see: Lorkhan) who achieved divinity through multiple pathways: he mantled the original enantiomorph between Tiber Septim, Zurin Arctus, and Wulfhearth and created a Tower to fortify the Mundus, he achieved CHIM (see: "From the Many Headed Talos", Heimskr), and united the Empire by reactivating Walk Brass, which I'll get to later. Discussing deities gets murky, because the Aedra - though diminished - had a great deal of impact on the Mundus. The different Daedric Princes all have constantly changing waters of Oblivion and none of them have been "removed" by the others yet, so I'd assume that within their own domain they're pretty much unstoppable barring an intervention from literally the entire Pantheon. The kalpic cycle further complicates this, as whenever Alduin eats the world, everything goes back to Convention (where Lorkhan gets killed by Auri-El and his heart is shot into Red Mountain) and the Aedra and Daedra all play musical chairs and switch places. It's easier to think of the divines as "ideas" or concepts that are preeminent in the Aurbis, and considering that they're all more or less equally powerful because A) if there's an "idea" that isn't represented in the Pantheon, it's probably not that important and B) in some way or another, the strength of a god is dependent on how fervently they are worshipped. This is where you see examples of "dead gods" like Alkosh springing to life to backslap the murderous Pelinal Whitestrake from continuing his pogroms into Elsweyr. But if I had to pick the most dangerous entity in TES? The Numidium. Hands down. The Dwemer saw the Aurbis for what it was: a prison. Same as Lorkhan, who saw the name of God - "I" - and tricked the Aedra into building the Mundus and subgradiate far enough down that someone might find a way to escape. Lorkhan's plan was to keep going further down (see: Anuiel -> Aka-Tusk -> Auri-El -> Alduin & Akatosh & Alkosh etc.), until mortals could find a way to reconcile the fact that they were part of the Godhead's dream and escape. His hope was that people would see the universe ("I AM"), renounce it ("I AM NOT"), and manage to not get zero-summed out of existence. Those who do achieve CHIM. Those willing to go the next step - becoming a new Dreamer - achieve Amaranth. But no, the Dwemer were not interested in this. Their plan was one of antegradience: unify the entirety of the Dwemer into one singular being, one God, and move back up the ladder until they reach the starting point. To do this, Kagrenac build a massive machine, Walk Brass, the golden-skinned golem that would serve as the ultimate World Refusal. The Numidium is the Anti-Metaphysic personified. He causes the Warp in the West and the Red Moment. His activation in Rimmen by Tiber Septim at the end of the Interregnum created a temporal distortion that destroyed the Halls of Colossus and irradiated the surrounding area for centuries. His fight with the Altmer is still going, as he fights their mathemagicians well into the Fifth Era in alternate dimensions. He is destruction incarnate and a weapon the likes of which has never existed on Nirn. You know how the Yokudans can blow up continents? Numidium can blow up planets. He exists to destroy the Aurbis, and thereby reject it entirely. He's the kind of crazy you just don't mess with.