#Wrothgar

[elderscrollsconceptart]

Orsinium

Concept art for The Elder Scrolls: Online

Art by Mathew Weathers

[zerotigg]

[madameriascreenshots]

Old Orsinium, P2

[tophattable]

Found in the Wrothgar Library

[thieves-oasis]

nothing but Valdea gro-Eashi on the brain. gotta love trans orc women ❤️💕💕💕❤️❤️❤️✨✨

[morniae]

Commission work, a map of Wrothgar and an orsimer clan for a The Elder Scrolls Online rp campaign.

[tamrieldrifter]

The new walls of Orsinium

It is oft said of the Orcs that they cannot pass by a pile of stones without either building a wall, or chucking them at something. The Orsimer seem to share an innate instinct to either build or destroy; sometimes they will build something with the sole intent just to destroy it… usually with a rock.

The stone city of Orsimium towers up from a rugged, inhospitable terrain; it’s very walls are wrought from the mountains that surround it. The silhouettes of it’s soaring towers and turrets pierce the sky, casting dramatic and intimidating shadows across all of the landscape. It’s sturdy foundations right up to it’s monumental ramparts upon which stand catapult and ballista, are built to endure weather, spell, missile and ram. Walking through the winding streets within these seemingly insurmountable bulwarks one is struck by the skill and pragmatic beauty of their architecture. The facades of even the most sturdy, functional dwellings and public structures are decorated with elaborately carved doorways and stone work. The wooden scaffolding all about also tells of a city yet half complete, the finished construction will no doubt be a stunning testament to the strength, will, and skill of its Orsimer builders… if ever it is allowed to stand.

Since the Orsimer first escaped the binds of the Camoran Dynasty and laid claim to their harsh Northern realm, great Orsinium, the seat of all Wrothgar, has been sacked and rebuilt more times then Queen Ayrenn’s virtues When the walls finally fell for good, and the Orsimer tribes were scattered, the idea of Orsinium, a monument to the strength and potential of the Orsimer, endured in their hearts. So when Ranser attacked Wayrest in 2E 566 and Emeric came crown-in-hand to Wrothgar, he promised the return Orsinium to the Orcs in exchange for their aid. Kurog gro-Bagrakh answered his call.

Kurog however surprised everyone when he chose to abandoned the ruins of Old Orsinium and rebuild the city in eastern Wrothgar, near the mountainous border with Skyrim. Not every tribe was to follow him however, for although Kurog forbade any army from High Rock or Hammerfell from entering Wrothgar in his terms, many saw this new Covenant as just consenting to Breton hegemony, and his new city not a symbol of Orsimer potential and freedom, but a betrayal of Wrothgar’s founding tribes.

No other city embodies, and yet divides a people more. Because for most of us our memories are like stones that only time erodes, but not for the Orsimer. For the stones of Wrothgar remember every day of the 30 years siege of Orsinium like it were yesterday. They recall the name of their fallen gates of the old city, Smelter, Hammer, Temper, as clearly as they remember the names of their warrior heroes, or the regions founding clans. This is why for an Orc there is little more frightening and unnerving then to watch a stone wall crumble. And why Wrothgar remains, many tribes, one nation… protected, and yet divided, by the new walls of Orsinium.

S.K

[elder-dochfroya]

Graystone Quarry, Wrothgar

[bam-monsterhospital]

Wrothgar's Main Quest

When you look for people's overall opinions on the main quest in Wrothgar, you'll inevitably get the response that it was one of eso's stronger questlines; better written, not about a world-ending threat and so more down-to-earth and relatable, better characters, on and on. Then you go to play the main quest...

Wrothgar has the same problems as the rest of elder scrolls online. While it doesn't suffer the skeletal, bare-minimum, idiotic, did-you-just-use-chatgpt-to-produce-this? lack of writing skill more recent dlcs suffer from, Wrothgar still carries the root attitudes present all throughout eso that drag everything else down:

Spoilers for orsinium down below

The new king who is promoting change -in this case, progress- in a civilization is evil. His progressivism, enabling women of an entire species to step out of the unchallenged traditional role of marriage-slave and actually be people, is actually evil and needs to be stopped. It's toooooootally not about allowing women to be people because he too has an entire harem of wives in his palace. No really guys, he's bad news and you shouldn't go along with him or like him because he killed a guy!

His mom is eeeeevilll. Never trust an old lady. Never trust a mom, OR a momma's boy. The new religion she's pushing is pushing out the old religion, and no we're never ever going to talk about how (even in orc cultural knowledge) the otherworldly foci of these two religious movements are the SAME BEING. NEVER ADDRESSED. NEVER TALKED ABOUT. What, you want a solution to this problem? you want integration or mixing or acceptance? fuck you, this is eso. Religions that the writers don't see as xtianity stand-ins are evil cults; that's how things work right?

Lesbians? hahaha, no lesbians don't exist. Why would orc women be into other women, they're state-mandated to not be. Those two ladies running the bathhouse in orsinium? no shhh don't pay attention to them.

you have to kill the change. obviously the best resolution for this entire questline isn't to allow space for more than one way of orcish life, no. we gotta go back to the butchering mormon-izing of malacath, and every woman needs to be a wife. that's the only way.

orcs are barbarians. look at this landscape littered with ruins; those ruins are from previous attempts at building up orsimer civilization. all destroyed by humans: bretons, nords, redguard. But shhh, don't think about that. Just traipse right on in, don't feel bad for the orsimer, that's not what this is about, pshhhhh ignore it. orcs are barbarians.

Of course there are good bits to it. Eveli's character is refreshing in that she actually goes through an arc: what starts as a naive eager-to-adventure person realizes adventuring involves a lot of politics, it's all very complicated, and people will always get hurt no matter what you do. Does she swear off adventuring? No, but she needs a breather to re-think things. It's good. They butchered her in blackwood, but in orsinium she's got the foundation for an interesting character.

And honestly I think that's what people remember most about the main questline in orsinium. That it had characters who acted like characters: consistently, in ways that make sense to what was established before, y'know, the basics of writing competently.

It's been a while since I've done orsinium and I enjoyed that aspect of it back then (also i love the architecture of the city of orsinium, its tall towers and how it actually looks like a city... not to mention wrothgar is beautiful)... but woof... yeah wrothgar is not devoid of its faults. I only really touched on one aspect, and didn't even go into detail on it; just tip-of-the-iceberg stuff i could remember off the top of my head.

[elderscrollsconceptart]

"Initial concept of Orsinium"

Concept art for The Elder Scrolls: Online

Art by Mathew Weathers

[ladyluscinia]

I have finally gotten around to playing through the Orsinium questline in ESO for the first time, and I think the whole thing actually makes much more sense if you headcanon that the real "villain" of the chapter is Boethiah.

Like... Ok, so the fundamental problem with revealing that Kurog plans to kill all the chiefs who won't bend the knee and seize power by force to implement his orc kingdom vision is that if he simply said that part openly then it would just be orc politics? Probably the kind that would get some orcs judging him for being too bloodthirsty / ambitious, but he openly murdered a chief in his throne room and everyone just shrugged at how emotional orc men are. The culture that does ritual challenges and death duels for leadership positions absolutely would accept a guy taking over rival clans and killing off their leaders as a valid method of (temporary) kingmaking, even if a bit gauche.

Mixing it up by adding the whole Trinimac vs Malacath religious angle doesn't really do anything, either, since his attempts to impose a new state religion help explain why diplomacy isn't working but not why force wouldn't work. Trinimac is if anything more of a warrior god than Malacath, and you would think worshippers of a champion of honor would be even less inclined to use a secret cult to frame their political enemies and scapegoat for assassinations. They'd become corrupt crusaders or something. Also they kinda suck at the subterfuge part - like a Boethiah plot being enacted by small children.

...So what if it was a Boethiah plot??? 👀

Follow my train of thought here - Boethiah is down to fuck with Malacath / the orcs for reasons ranging from "it's Tirdas" to "my inter-cult gladiatorial fights are boring recently", going all the way back to the original incident of eating Trinimac to stop his cult from interfering with the Chimer, pretending to be him for some light heresy, and then leaving him twisted into Malacath (and turning his elven followers into orcs).

Boethiah is also a Daedric Prince associated with plots, conspiracy, deceiving nations, and overthrowing governments to seize power.

I think it sounds fantastically plausible that Boethiah would notice an orc trying to restore Orsinium and all the ingredients for a truly fantastic implosion of a civil war among Malacath's children (including of all things a resurgence of Trinimac worship, which is bait if I've ever seen it) and decide to start backing a faction. For chaos. Especially since Boethiah's other main canonical thing going on in this timeframe is inspiring a Dunmer woman named Vox to start a cult to overthrow the Tribunal, while also appearing to a hero as an avatar named "Aspera" to help them kill Vox for the fuck of it.

(Boethiah is so fun 😆)

So here's the rough skeleton of how I headcanon all this connecting:

🗡️ Kurog doesn't seem to be a particularly devout Trinimac worshipper, and High Priestess Solgra mentions him being skeptical at first - implying she was invited to Orsinium by his mother before he truly converted. Solgra is definitely a true believer who converted in Summerset, while Forge-Mother Alga is definitely the driving force behind the very un-Trinimac-like Vosh Rakh.

🗡️ It seems like the Forge-Mother is the first one who got on the Trinimac train, possibly around when Kurog was first joining the Covenant and starting his Orsinium project. I'm guessing there was a small Trinimac following in Wrothgar without much clout, but they managed to catch Alga's interest. And, I'm speculating, Boethiah's.

🗡️ Alga apparently goes in hard on Trinimac. She's inviting a High Priestess to set up a giant temple, angling to convert her son, and soon declaring Trinimac worship the law of the land. She's also fully embracing a political schemer role that is not remotely in line with Trinimac's vibe and soon to establish a secret police cult that she can publicly disavow. Despite this, I think Alga's far more devout than Kurog ever is - she genuinely seems to think she's getting divine blessing.

🗡️ Theory - A little while after Alga converts, her new god bestows his favor on her and starts directly communicating / inspiring her to set up all the Vosh Rakh stuff... only it's actually Boethiah, speaking to her while impersonating Trinimac in a classic move. Explains the backstabbing, subterfuge, planned coup, all of it. She brings in Solgra to be the palatable face (and convince her son) while not noticing at all that there's some cognitive dissonance in her actions vs teachings. Ah, the hubris of a "chosen one."

🗡️ Boethiah is having a grand time making orcs unknowingly turn away from Malacath for her while thinking they serve Trinimac, and getting to whisper "kill all the chiefs loyal to Malacath and frame the (actual) Trinimac High Priestess for it" is just the icing on the cake. Would Alga and Kurog's plan have just started a civil war? Probably. And Boethiah would have been thrilled. Shame Bazrag managed to reduce casualties at the end, but it was still very worth the destabilizing. 😌

[madameriascreenshots]

Honor's Rest, P4

[noveltwin]

[cinnabon-sweetroll-tiramisu]

Bantum is admiring the stone art.

[ophinaluna]

FFXIV ~eternal bonding~

[tamrieldrifter]

Ice-Heart

The barbaric Reachman practise an ancient form of nature magic that even the long-lived Mer refer to as ‘the old magics’. Fuelled not by magicka, but by their bloodlust and savagery, these dark magics are as much part of Tamriel’s nature as is all of her beauty and majesty.

The powerful frost magic employed by the leader of the Winterborn to freeze these poor merchants in the moutain pass, so that neither sun nor rain can thaw, is why Urfon Ice-Heart is whispered about by both ally and enemy alike with as much fear and reverence as any man of the Reach; save perhaps The Undying Gravesinger of the Bloodthorns.

S.K