#daggerfall texts

[daggerfool]

The Daggerfall gang as funny texts I've found on the internet

i did this instead of my uni work, enjoy

More of this stuff here: Part 1, Part 2 Some messages I also made: I. II.

bonus:

[margieargie]

[ x ]

[f4nta5y-f4n]

NOBODY TOLD ME THAT I CAN PLAY DAGGERFALL AND ARENA FOR FREE ON STEAM

[venusmage]

hi! sorry if this is a weird question. do you ever get stuck in your own head when it comes to making tes ocs to take the place of the protagonists? like, i see everywhere that the hok HAS to be an imperial, and the ldb HAS to be a nord etc. because those are canon? this might just be a personal/skill issue but those things being considered canon makes it really hard for me to stray, but you do it so well! if it's something you've never struggled with then feel free to ignore this, but i'd love to know your process for making protagonists! thank you!

Not a weird question at all! Because here’s the thing, I totally understand why you’d feel the pressure to conform to what is seemingly the “canon” portrayal of the character. However TES is great in that even if you DO stray….it’s still canon. Let me hold your hand and walk with me nonny and maybe my logic will help you get over that hurdle, too. I’m against these three being “musts” for several reasons, and would argue it isn’t a requirement at all.

Firstly, I’d argue that the game giving you the option, consistently, to play any of the available ethnicities in TES inherently implies that any of those options ARE canonically valid. While it’s true that gameplay and lore/story is sometimes (often) at odds in the series, something as major as your PC’s core identity isn’t proven as impossible in any of the storylines of the three main games. For example, in Morrowind Argonians are highly resistant (or impervious. Don’t remember which because I haven’t played unmodded Morrowind in 80 million years) to disease. Theoretically this could imply that they can’t catch The Blight - but you catch it regardless of what race you play. You could reason this in a myriad of ways, but mine has always been that Corpus is not a normal disease - it’s , additionally, magical. After all, Argonians can also become vampires, which are considered diseases in canon. Buuut they give you magic powers. So.

Neloth refers to the Nerevarine as “he” in Dragonborn BUT 1) IIRC Kirkbride said it was an error and 2) Telvanni/The great houses in general aren’t exactly known for being pillars of feminism. I totally believe that he’d just lie if your Nerevarine happened to be a woman because it’s less bruising to the ego. “He” is also in the opening of Morrowind, and again I never thought this meant the Nerevarine HAD to be male. You can justify that one however you want: trying to go for a gender-neutral “he” (like saying “man” to refer to humanity), the prophecy assuming the Nerevarine will be the same gender as Nerevar himself, etc.

This goes hand in hand with my second point: TES is a series RIFE with revisionist history and unreliable narrators. The Thalmor and Black Marsh both insist that THEY defeated the Oblivion hoards during the crisis, for example. But we played Oblivion. We know that’s not how it went down.

Think on it: would the proud Dunmer not want to pretend the Nerevarine was another proud (male) dark elf? Would the weakening Empire NOT want to pretend that the HoK was one of their own - decked out in legion armor no less, despite the fact there’s no way to acquire it in-game (without murder? and you’re literally a prisoner in the beginning)? Same goes with the Nords. They tend to want to think Dragonborn-ness is exclusive to them and them only, but that’s literally not true in any capacity. Nearly all of the lore we don’t directly interact with in-game is historical texts from a vast array of biased sources.

And, finally, to make a point outside of the fourth wall: I think the default protagonists are just always the ethnicity that’s associated with the homeland the game is set in. This is why the Arena and Daggerfall protagonists are genuinely faceless and you don’t see the same argument: those games span all of Tamriel. I think for III - V it’s more a way for Bethesda to showcase a unique aspect of the region we’ll be playing in. And they’re always men because gamerbros piss their pants if they even ASSUME they must play a woman (think about reactions to the most recent Witcher game announcement).

I think people who insist the protagonists of this series “must” be X or Y are either misguided or unimaginative. TES is great because of how rocky and vauge it’s historical foundations are. You can decide whatever you want and you can PROBABLY find a way to bullshit the lore to your own means to make it “fit”. For example, Dondras is the Champion of Cyrodiil but by the 4th Era in Skyrim’s timeline, the HoK is confused in some texts as being an Ohmes Khajiit, due to the fact M’rasha was also documented as being Hok. The two stories of them ultimately got confused by the passage of time and incomplete record-keeping. So later historians saw mentions of a khajiit and/or mer and assumed it must’ve been the furstock that LOOKS like an elf.

I hope this helps/makes sense! It’s a mix of appealing to Gamers and there being no actual canonical reason why they have to be anything at all. Be free!

[znnavigator]

Daggerfall's Sheogorath, i love this design but canonically draw Sheo in oblivion's appearance btw thank you for your likes, reblogs and comments in #, i read them all 🥰 i will post my answers from sheo's ask while i'm the active artist here but it will not be for a long time so just yk when you follow because of them, sorry 🙏 I was already the artist for Sheogorath in 2015-2016 "ask tes" in VK and now I decided to return there and make a few more answers and tell my headcanons. I hope you like it here too, I will try to duplicate future answers with eng, for all the past ones I did not have files to format them so only text description.

[elderscrollsconceptart]

I've been playing Skyrim lately and have been having a lot of fun reading the lore books. Do we know which authors wrote which in-game books?

So quite a few people from what I understand, but two standout names are Ted Peterson and Michael Kirkbride as being writers who wrote a large % of the in-game books.

Alot of the books in Skyrim are actually carry overs from books you can find in Oblivion and Morrowind which is where Kirkbride and Peterson did most of their writing

----------

Ted Peterson wrote this for an interview in 2005 regarding what books he wrote for TES III:

"Just for Morrowind? Looking at the Imperial Library listings:

The Ancient Tales of the Dwemer; Fragment: On Artaeum; Mysticism, The Unfathomable Voyage; Notes on Racial Phylogeny; On Oblivion; The Old Ways; Origin of the Mages Guild; An Overview of Gods and Worship; Response to Bero’s Speech; The Wild Elves; 2920; Biography of the Wolf Queen; Brief History of the Empire; Dance in Fire; The Firsthold Revolt; Galerion the Mystic; A Game At Dinner; How Orsinium Passed to the Orcs; The Madness of Pelagius; The Pig Children; The Wolf Queen; The Armorers’ Challenge; The Axe Man; The Black Arrow; Bone; Breathing Water; The Cake and the Diamond; Chance’s Folly; Feyfolken; The Final Lesson; The Four Suitors of Benitah; The Gold Ribbon of Merit; Hallgerd’s Tale; A Hypothetical Treachery; Ice and Chitin; Incident in Necrom; Last Scabbard of Akrash; The Locked Room; Marksmanship Lesson; Master Zoaraym’s Tale; The Mirror; The Mystery of Princess Talara; Night Falls on Sentinel; Palla; The Poison Song; Realizations of Acrobacy; The Rear Guard; Silence; Smuggler’s Island; Surfeit of Thieves; The Third Door; Trap; Vernaccus and Bourlor; Withershins; The Wraith’s Wedding Dowry; The Death Blow of Abernanit; The Horror of Castle Xyr; A Less Rude Song; Lord Jornibret’s Last Dance; Cherim’s Heart of Anequina; Invocation of Azura; The Charwich-Koniinge Letters; The Buying Game… I think that’s it…"

And since Peterson worked on Daggerfall he wrote books for that game as well:

"I edited all of them [the books] in Daggerfall, but the ones that I wrote completely (and some of these are in Morrowind too):

Galerion the Mystic; The Madness of Pelagius; Ius, Animal God (regrettably); The Asylum Ball; A History of Daggerfall; Brief History of the Empire; The Fall of the Usurper; A Dubious Tale of the Crystal Tower; Banker’s Bet; Healer’s Tale; Jokes; Rude Song; The Arrowshot Woman; A Scholar’s Guide to Nymphs; An Overview of Gods and Worship; Broken Diamonds; Confessions of a Thief; Etiquette with Rulers; Fragment: On Artaeum; Ghraewaj; Holidays of the Iliac Bay; Invocation of Azura; Legal Basics; Mysticism; On Oblivion; On Lycanthropy; Origin of the Mages Guild; Special Flora of Tamriel; The Alik’r; The Brothers of Darkness; The Faerie; The Old Ways; The Wild Elves; Vampires of the Iliac Bay; Wabbajack; The Pig Children; The War of Betony by Newgate; The War of Betony by Fav’te; Wayrest, Jewel of the Bay."

-----

Skyrim has something like 307 books but the VAST majority are from previous TES games.

If you wanna learn more, the Imperial Library website is a GREAT resource for both

A. Readings the books online

and

B. Learning the IRL author information

Here is a great example:

https://www.imperial-library.info/content/real-barenziah

This Imperial Library article has both the full book text AND lists the IRL author as. Marilyn Wasserman.

I'd super recommend you check out the Imperial Library website. Its great!

[imsobadatnicknames2]

Elder scrolls worldgen presets for Dwarf Fortress

People seemed to like the BotW Hyrule worldgen preset I shared for for Dwarf Fortress a few months ago so I thought I'd share these ones too.

The file contains world prests in different sizes for Cyrodiil (generated from the Oblivion heightmap), Skyrim (generated from the Skyrim heightmap), Vvardenfell (generated from the Morrowind heightmap) the Iliac Bay (generated from the Daggerfall heightmap) and Tamriel (generated from this fanmade heightmap)

Elevation should be relatively accurate bc I generated them from the games' actual heighmaps using PerfectworldDF, althought I had to make some minor alterations (such as connecting the Imperial City Isle to the rest of the world with a little land bridge). I did my best with the biome placement but I'm only human and the DF biome editor is not exactly easy to use, look at this shit:

This was made for classic DF but I've confirmed it works with the Steam version too.

How to use:

Download this world_gen.txt file

Go to your Dwarf Fortress install.

Go to data>init

Replace that folder's world_gen.txt file with this one.

(Make a backup of the old file if you want to keep your old world presets. Or merge the two files into one by copying the entire text of one of them and pasting it at the end of the other)

In game, choose "Design new world with Advanced Parameters"

Choose one of the presets from this file.

Before generating, you can tweak details like history length, number of civs, etc, etc etc.

[mint-in-the-moonlight]

Daedric Princes summoning days

in Daggerfall there is this gameplay element where you can only summon the Daedric Princes on certain days to gain access to their quests and then their artifacts. while the entire concept was removed in the subsequent games, i thought this could be an interesting thing to incorporate into an Elder Scrolls-inspired pop-culture practice. it's ultimately up to you how to choose to perceive and celebrate those days if you do decide to incorporate them as there does not seem to be much lore surrounding these days.

thankfully the Tamriel calendar corresponds exactly to the Gregorian calendar, so i will be mentioning both names of the respective months for your convenience and the entries are sorted alphabetically. i am basing this list entirely on the Holidays page from the Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages, which can be found through this link.

Azura's Summoning Day - the 21st of First Seed (March) also called Hogithum. More information can be found in the short text of the book Invocation of Azura.

Boethiah's Summoning Day - 2nd of Sun's Dusk (November)

Clavicus Vile's Summoning Day - the 1st of Morning Star (January)

Hermaeus Mora's Summoning Day - 5th of First Seed (March)

Hircine's Summoning Day - 5th of Midyear (June)

Malacath's Summoning Day - 8th of Frost Fall (October)

Mehrunes Dagon's Summoning Day - 20th of Sun's Dusk (November)

Mephala's Summoning Day - 13th of Frost Fall (October)

Meridia's Summoning Day - 13th of Morning Star (January)

Molag Bal's Summoning Day - 20th of Evening Star (December)

Namira's Summoning Day - 9th of Second Seed (May)

Nocturnal's Summoning Day - 3rd of Hearthfire (September)

Peryite's Summoning Day - 9th of Rain's Hand (April)

Sanguine's Summoning Day - 16th of Sun's Dawn (February)

Sheogorath's Summoning Day - 2nd of Sun's Dawn (February)

Vaermina's Summoning Day - 10th of Sun's Heights (July)

[chameleonspell]

HTDC commentary - 17: VCDRKAA & 18: language & 19: knowledge & 20: again

[Looking back at HTDC after nearly ten years: comments on lore, character notes, influences, art, whatever. May contain spoilers for later chapters.]

chapter text: 17: VCDRKAA & 18: language & 19: knowledge & 20: again

I hope no one was expecting a line-by line complex exegesis of chapter 17, because I generated a wall of TEXTSLOP. It was never intended to mean anything specific, although I did edit it selectively, for poetry and interest. I didn't really expect anyone to read it, I just wanted them to open the chapter and go "what the fuck is this shit??"

I think I used this page to generate it, which must be twenty years old, at the absolute minimum, and the code is from the 1990s. It's beyond irritating that Markov chain text generators, along with other venerable methods of cut-up and creative mixology, are probably now tarred with the same brush as bullshit like chatGPT. Anyway, you could call it a Small Language Model, in that it only uses the text you put into it, doesn't steal it to do plagiarism, and doesn't require the energy and water usage of a small country to run.

I... had totally forgotten which texts I put into it, and had to spend way too long cross-checking fragments. All I remembered was that the nonsense-title of the chapter was taken from the title-letters of the input books, and it was supposed to be things Iriel had recently encountered, to represent a chaotic vomiting of his subconscious.

I think it's this:

V = 36 Lessons of Vivec

C = Chimarvamidium

D = The Book of Dawn and Dusk

R = A Less Rude Song

K = The Ruins of Kemel-Ze

A = Song of the Alchemists

A = Words of Clan Mother Ahnissi

...but I'm pretty sure there's also Special Flora of Tamriel there, in an uncredited role. I don't think that, or Song of the Alchemists is mentioned as something Iriel reads in-fic, but since Ire's an alchemist, I shovelled them into the word-hopper, too. I suspect I never noticed at the time that Song of the Alchemists is not an alchemical textbook, but silly Marobar Sul doggerel, and not exactly something Iriel would read.

Anyway, please do go ahead and cancel me for "writing fic with AI".

Playlist pick: Of Montreal - Heimdalsgate Like A Promethean Curse. For when you really, really need the drugs to work. Or something to work. Anything. It's all just chemicals, right? C'MON, CHEMICALS!

Once we're done with the psychedelic breakdown, we have a temptation scene, specifically, Iriel wakes up in a wizard's bed, and barely resists intellectual seduction by House Telvanni.

The mage laid the book across the bed and opened it, revealing page after page of writing in Dwemer script.

Neither of them can read it yet, but the book is Divine Metaphysics, one of the three books you need to solve Trebonius' Dwemer mystery quest.

He sighed, and turned another page, revealing a complicated diagram of… Iriel wasn’t sure, but he was interested enough to sit up fully, and examine it. “Chimarvamidium,” he said, eventually.

Iriel is reacting to the diagram in the book of an anthropoid Dwemer construct, a theme that also occurs in Chimarvamidium. The picture under his nose is almost certainly Numidium, something he should be at least theoretically aware of. Tiber Septim used it to conquer Summerset in the Second Era, within living memory of older Altmer, and if Ire wasn't concentrating in history class, he was fourteen years old at the time of The Warp in The West. Admittedly, the giant robot was stomping about in Daggerfall, by then (so no trying to claim it had any weird effects on Ire's developing psyche!), and perhaps even a Dragon Break was barely a blip on his radar, compared to the horrors of being a teenager in Lillandril. Either way, Ire misses the obvious fact about the picture, and makes a more remote connection, something Baladas takes as evidence of a subtler, more esoteric intellectual approach, when it's actually far more to do with:

“I’m sorry. I think I’m still sssomewhat under the effects of an Imperial fuckton of skooma.

Iriel was previously only ever doing moon sugar. Skooma is much, much stronger, more addictive, and, for a magic-sensitive Altmer, extremely psychoactive and hallucination-inducing. He also drank two bottles, straight. Skooma is a liquid, and can be drunk, but is more commonly smoked (inhaled as a vapour?) through a pipe. I am assuming that smoking is the preferred method because the effects are slow and gentle, whereas drinking it is extremely neither of those things.

Yes, fine, the line about skooma being like "eight hundred orgasms tied to a brick" is an echo of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy description of the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster cocktail as being "like having your brains smashed out by a slice of lemon wrapped round a large gold brick". NO that is NOT a pop culture reference, that's just me stealing shit, which is totally different okay?

“Was that a Daedroth back there?”

Baladas keep a pet Daedroth. Wait... is it a pet? Are they sentient? Some of them are named, and have relationships to other characters that could imply they were intelligent. But... hmm. Dangerous tangent. Let's assume it's just a pet, yeah?

“It’s adorable! What’s its name?” Ire poked it, giggling in delight as it contracted its metal limbs back into its shell.

Again. Please let the record show that the first time Iriel interacted closely with a non-hostile Dwemer automaton, he was overcome with nothing more lascivious or sinister than childlike glee and wonder. You filthy animals.

Poor little centurion, does your daddy not even care enough to–”

He did indirectly call a Telvanni wizard "daddy", though. I can't really defend him from that one, since I'm pretty sure he knew exactly what he was doing*. And so did Baladas, because he shut that bullshit down FAST.

(* exactly what he was doing = being very silly and no-filter. Iriel is not actually looking to get "mentored" by a much older wizard, even if he could find one more interested in doing it.)

“The miners report that a screaming, semi-transparent Altmer, covered in weeds and soaking wet, broke into the eggmine from the lower levels.

This whole bit is confusing, and I don't like it. It's not funny, and it really doesn't matter about the stupid route Iriel took to end up with the book on Baladas' doorstep. But yes, you can get into the Gnisis eggmine via the riverbed outside town, and from there, into the Dwemer ruin and back. If he knew, Iriel would feel smug about the fact Edwinna would have tried to make him go there, on purpose, later, if she hadn't expelled him by then.

“Auri-El, what did you do to them?” Ire had heard about Telvanni methods.

While he hasn't encountered many Telvanni in Morrowind, he would have read things like this, in which Telvanni mages are notorious for being fans of inventive magical torture.

Iriel knew the score. Baladas Demnevanni was a serious Dwemer scholar, [...] He could make far better use of it than Ire ever would. And yet, something in Iriel resisted.

Iriel does know the score, and part of the score that he knows is: while Baladas is much older and more powerful, he's not technically Iriel's senior. Because Ire's not in House Telvanni, or any other structure that makes him Demnevanni's subordinate. Which Ire leaves free to resist. Sure, Baladas could take the book by magical force, but Iriel has enough pride to want to force him to do that, to not capitulate based purely on academic bluster. (Yes, of course Iriel can have a powerful and resilient scholarly ego, while simultaneously having zero self esteem. You've met academics, right?)

“It’s mine,” he said. “I found it. And I never asked you to take care of me.”

Saying this feels good. It's true: he didn't ask to be taken care of. And Baladas' reasons for doing so are cleanly self-interested, and make perfect sense to Ire. There's no messy pity involved, no need to spare the feelings of someone who thought they were being a good person, when you're too bitter and damaged to be grateful. This whole conversation is, in many ways, Iriel's ideal type of social interaction.

I will give you information about the location of Dwemer ruins on Vvardenfell, and in return, you will bring me any more books that you find there.”

The location of known Dwemer ruins on Vvardenfell is not, at this point in time, especially secret information, so Baladas is rather getting the better end of this deal. But if he wasn't, he wouldn't be making it, would he?

The only people qualified are my fellow mages, but Telvanni do not co-operate. Anything they found, they would keep for themselves.

His reasoning checks out, though, so Iriel is inclined to trust him. I really did think Ire would take him the other books at some point, and Ire himself intended to at various points, but... in the end, things got complicated. Iriel comes back to Gnisis, but not to Arvs Drelen, and he keeps all his findings to himself.

“Sweet Mara, no. I just want to be left alone to read.”

“You have just spoken the unofficial motto of House Telvanni.

The problem, I suppose, is that Ire is entirely too Telvanni at heart. It was always touch-and-go, as to whether he'd find an excuse to join the House. After all, he's perfect for it... but that's exactly why he resisted.

Iriel knows he's an obsessive, isolationist weirdo, who's probably going to end up alone in a tower, reading esoterically taboo books all day. Surrounded by robots and summoned Daedra, because that's the only level of social contact he's capable of tolerating. He knows all that, he knows exactly the sort of person he is. He just doesn't like that person. And when Telvanni start tempting him to fully embrace weird hermit mage life, he's forcefully reminded of what Telvanni are known for, and how isolating yourself with only Daedra for company makes you lose all contact with pedestrian concepts like "morality", and "not torturing people to death with lightning spells".

Clearly, Ire's being ridiculous to think his own morality is so fragile, but after the day he's had, he's feeling fragile in all sorts of ways, and unwilling to trust his own limits.

each mage seeks only solitude and freedom to continue his or her work.” [...] “Knowledge may be power,” he was declaiming, “but for some of us, it is enough that knowledge is knowledge.

And Ire's right to question the actual content of Baladas' rhetorical  flourishes: freedom to do what? Power to do what? Knowledge of what? Doesn't it matter? The Telvanni answer certainly seems to be "no". But Ire's experiences with education have left him questioning the value of the "knowledge" he obtained. Certainly, if he was supposed to convert it into power, he appears to have missed a crucial step in the process. He's not sure he wants Telvanni instruction, for taking that step.

He stood up, and began to concentrate a sphere of magicka between his hands. “Where should I send you?”

I have a question about teleportation. What are the rules? Guild guides only transport people to other guild halls, but is that restriction due to rules, or ability? UESP says that guides "maintain magical contact with their counterparts in other branches", but I can't find an ingame source for this. If true, that would explain the restriction, but I'm not sure I buy it. It's possible for a guild guide to send you into a guildhall where the "receiving" guild guide is no longer there, for example during this quest. And the mage who sends you to Mournhold in the Tribunal expansion isn't a guild guide, but sends you as a favour, since she's a "powerful mage".

So: my theory is that it's totally possible for a skilled mage to teleport people to other locations without another linked mage "catching" them, but the right location helps. Receiving chambers are magically set up in guildhalls to act as teleportation beacons, and that's the focus, rather than the other guide. This fits with how Divine and Almsivi Intervention work, not to mention Mark and Recall. Guild guides are trained to be specially attuned to these beacons, but any sufficiently powerful Mysticism expert can sling people into them, as Baladas does, here. Really powerful ones might not even need beacons, though I imagine there are exponential risks to the subject, as the location gets more distant and/or unfamiliar.

So, because it's theoretically possible, if difficult, I also think there are strict rules about where guild guides can send people, just like you can't ask the bus driver to take you anywhere you want, even if he technically could. Because teleportation would have to be a highly regulated skill! You can't just send people anywhere, that could cause all sorts of trouble.

As an aside, every guild guide in Morrowind is a beautiful woman. There's something a bit retro air stewardess about that, isn't there? Male game devs thinking women should be in travel service roles, or something? Hmm.

“Um… Ald'ruhn, please. The Mages’ Guild, for preference, but as long as you don’t teleport me inside a wall, I’ll be happy.”

Iriel's not keen to launch into his Queer Coded Villain arc, yet. So despite Baladas' blandishments, it's back to the loving arms of the Mages' Guild, for now.

“I want you to know,” Edwinna was saying, “that this is not about the Dwemer tube.

...Ah. Never mind.

“Whilst you were gone, some disturbing information came to light. When I agreed to mentor you, I was unaware of the crimes for which you were convicted in Cyrodiil. I’m sure you understand why the theft of magical artifacts is not something I can simply ignore.”

I realised something really funny just now, which is that if Edwinna has been digging into Iriel's background check, presumably through a contact at the Arcane University, then she must know Iriel is also supposed to have straight-up murdered one of his professors. But that's not what's bothering her at all!

“In addition, there is the matter of your drug abuse.

I can only assume that when Iriel took a little too long returning with the Dwemer tube, she couldn't resist the temptation to go through his bedroom. In her ensuing freak-out at finding DRUGS, it emerged that no one had ever actually looked into the squirrelly-looking Altmer's claim on application that he'd studied at the Arcane University.

Ire stopped recasting the Paralyze spell on himself

I was determined to try and find creative ways to use Illusion spells, and to some extent, that was the motive for this whole scene.

He had fully expected to burst into tears as soon as he was alone, possibly sooner, but instead, he found himself gripped by a cold fury.

So, I had planned to get Iriel expelled for a while, and originally I, like Iriel himself,  assumed that he would be devastated, because the number of times he's got himself kicked out of magical institutions is ridiculous at this point. But coming right off the conversation with Baladas, that wasn't where his head was at, at all. He was furious, and when a character gives you the gift of an unexpected emotional reaction, you always gotta lean into it, because it's one of my favourite things about writing. Iriel's vitriolic contempt for the Mages' Guild (and Edwinna Elbert in particular) gave him the motivation to do all sorts of fun things later, and really channel that "I'll show those fools at the institute!" energy. Even if he never did join House Telvanni.

At the last minute, he stopped, turned back, and retrieved Vivec’s Sermon 14 from under the bed.

On the one hand, yes, I am making fun of Iriel for considering porn* an essential, but also... not entirely? At the risk of getting too brutally real about mental illness, masturbation can be a key hammer in the mental toolbox, albeit one that tends not to get included on cute little listicles of harm-reduction coping techniques like taking bubble baths or snapping an elastic on your wrist. For people who spend their lives trying to manipulate their brains into staying above the line marked "basic functionality", orgasm can occasionally seem like the brief boost of feel-good chemicals that might kick it over that line. It is, at any rate, cheaper and safer than many alternatives, and while it's not nearly as effective as skooma, at least you don't have to fight smugglers in a cave for it. Or worse, interact with Tsiya.

*Iriel's current opinion of said text. We can make fun of him for this one.

“I’m sorry, Iriel.” Erranil shook her head, primly. “I’m no longer authorised to transport you.

It is the stupidest fucking thing that you don't have to be a member of the Mages Guild to use guild guide transportation, but if you've been expelled from the guild, they put you on a permanent no-fly list! This was often extremely annoying, ingame.

That said, it was funny to be playing the opposite of a "proper" Morrowind character, who ends up head of all the factions, including being Pope of two different religions at once. Iriel, by contrast, got expelled while still Apprentice rank in the Mages, never got past the early ranks in Thieves, and while he got one or two Imperial Cult ranks, he stopped once it wasn't going to get him laid any more.

But yes, I did get Iriel ingame-mechanically-expelled from the Mages' Guild on purpose (possibly by stealing a spoon?). For immersion. Method gamer, y'know.

next: 21: refinement & 22: fragile previous: 13: legs & 14: plan & 15: claws & 16: door

[nientedenada]

Jungle Cyrodiil? Nah, says Decumus Scotti

Originally posted on r/teslore. Everyone's heard of the late lamented Jungle Cyrodiil, but this is Unjungled Cyrodiil before it ever was supposed to exist.

Another twist in the never-ending Jungle Cyrodiil tale. Perhaps others have noticed before but this one surprised me today.

From A Dance in Fire, first published in Morrowind. Decumus Scotti leaves the Imperial City:

Ten wagons in all set off that afternoon through the familiar Cyrodilic countryside. Past fields of wildflowers, gently rolling woodlands, friendly hamlets. The clop of the horses' hooves against the sound stone road reminded Scotti that the Atrius Building Commission constructed it.

Conventional wisdom has it that Todd changed Jungle Cyrodiil to the temperate climate we see in Oblivion, but here's Ted Peterson writing the Oblivion landscape for a Morrowind text. Scotti has never seen a jungle before he gets to Valenwood.

For Decumus Scotti, the jungle was hostile, unfamiliar ground.

Meanwhile, in Morrowind, sages will tell you

Cyrodiil is the cradle of Human Imperial high culture on Tamriel. It is the largest region of the continent, and most is endless jungle. The Imperial City is in the heartland, the fertile Nibenay Valley. The densely populated central valley is surrounded by wild rain forests drained by great rivers into the swamps of Argonia and Topal Bay. The land rises gradually to the west and sharply to the north. Between its western coast and its central valley are deciduous forests and mangrove swamps.

I have a hunch the out-of-game explanation is that Cyrodiil was never a jungle in the devs' vision in Arena and Daggerfall, and Ted Peterson as a Daggerfall writer, just didn't switch over mentally to it being the jungle Michael Kirkbride and Kurt Kuhlmann had defined it as in the Pocket Guide to the Empire, First Edition. I may be wrong. Please correct me if I am.

But it does put a different complexion on Todd's Oblivion landscape if it was a reversion to the vision they'd started with.

I'm all for Jungle Cyrodiil as the much cooler option, but Oblivion's Cyrodiil looks like it has a long pedigree too.

More comments I wrote from ensuing discussion:

I think you're right about it having multiple climates, in both incarnations of Cyrodiil: the PGE1's and Oblivion's. But I think the truth is simply that there isn't any overarching sense to be made of the whole issue. No disrespect to those who labour in the trenches to make something in-world that works for them, but nothing anyone puts forward seems convincing to me. I just go with "These are separate versions of the setting".

So, yes, the PGE1 has a humid "grassy plain" surrounded by tropical rainforest around the Imperial City. And if we had the same in Oblivion, we could wave away Decumus Scotti's version as a bad description of that. But instead we have an Oblivion landscape around the Imperial City that perfectly matches Scotti's version.

It's hard not to conclude that it was Ted Peterson's vision that prevailed, not Kirkbride's.

and

I find a lot of the responses bewildering, to be honest, trying to find ways in which Scotti's narration can be made to fit with the Morrowind dialogue. Sure, you can do that, playing the in-universe game of making sources fit, but there really was a change in development vision. We get to Cyrodiil and it doesn't look like it was described in Morrowind or Redguard. It does look pretty much like how Peterson described it in Scotti's book.

It's evidence for the development process, however awkwardly or successfully people then can try to make it fit in-universe.

[thaliendir]

so , kossai do not usually install outright sex mods in games - mods that add some more suggestive tones , sure . but sex mods do not usually fit with characters or play preferences , and besides that , too often not allow for gayness . understand animation is hard work , whether 3d or 2d , so people tend to prioritise most popular audience of straight men , but like ... boo .

but daggerfall did originally have some cut content for prostitute NPCs , which seem to include actual use of services . of course , modders out there re-enable and build on this content - and best of all , one mod in particular put no limitations on gender , since this is all just text and that would be kind of silly .

did debate whether or not to add this mod , but realise this particular character is kind of cocky flirtatious type , so this would be fun addition ... let this man have reputation which game can actually reflect !

all of this to say :

after meet lady brisienna , fa'zel poke around town of ripleigh , and stumble on temple of kynareth . though not member of temple , someone did give quest - travel to another town's temple of kynareth , and practise rite of dibella with representative man . not entirely sure how kynareth tie into rite of dibella , but OK - and completely fly over head that this might not be vanilla .

about 3 days worth of travel time to this new town - which , kossai also install travel options , so much fun ! - and look for this representative of dibella . and , well .

this detour was worth every second just for that realisation . :D

[xenzfable]

Nothing says studying like typing my lecture/lesson notes in TES: Daggerfall Book Text Files-

[icicleteeth]

Went on a tangent a bit about this on twt but the useless hill I'm ready and willing to die on is wanting these rpg worlds to have a more fleshed out (from a lore perspective) explanation to how the currency system works, because so many just use single gold pieces, which makes sense in a gameplay way but how does this work in terms of commerce... Are we just carrying around sacks of several hundreds of thousands of coins...

Just think about how much of a pain in the ass it would be to buy an enchanted weapon from an enchanter for, even just 1k gold, okay maybe we can assume there's like some standardized 500 gold sleeves (like how there are coin rolls irl) well what if that weapon is a weirder number like 1439 gold, okay well now you gotta get more specific, and the vendor's counting all the coins to make sure you got the right amount (assuming we're talking purchasing rather than bartering, but at least in TES, bartering has long stopped being a thing) And don't even get me started on large quantity sales like purchasing estates... I know we're never going to get an actual banking system like Daggerfall again, but at least...idk have a bank or mention of that stuff somewhere, even if it's just flavor text or decorative and has no gameplay function to it... I am begging....

[kyotocosmology]

The weight of the game world

The greatest trick a game can pull is the sense of its world having weight. We know it doesn't really: it's a paper-thin stage floating in a void. But cities, people, history, seasons, the sensation of life itself-- all these things have weight. They exert a nostalgic gravity. They invite players to add the weight of their own experiences like palimpsest. Like sentimental graffiti.

Sometimes it's obsessive dedication to a bit that creates a weighty world: Shenmue, GTA, Yakuza, Riven. Sometimes it's luck-- Daggerfall is thin as gauze, you were constantly at risk of falling out of the world, but I will spend my life looking for an experience like stepping out of its first dungeon into the overworld & running through a snowbound forest into a town at dusk.

A lot of weightbuilding (sorry) falls on visual design disciplines and QA but as writers & narrative designers we should be always be asking How can we make this heavier? How can narrative easily and cheaply tip the scales? How does it make you feel?

To quote an old tweet: When I say I don't like worldbuilding you know what I mean. The wrong kind. The kind you've spent 3 years writing fanfic for a game that behaves exactly as you tell it to &, crucially, does not exist. & then I play it and the world is a movie set. You've missed the weight of life.

Edit: that said, lmao, sometimes the artifice is the point per the text & comments of Leigh Alexander's latest https://xleighalexanderx.substack.com/p/components-of-reality-the-setting . Particularly tickled by the idea of horror game mansions as McMansions - so many fit the bill

[bubblegumsunshine333]

I beat An Elder Scrolls Legend: Battlespire for the first time today! I installed it for the first time just two days ago. I quickly became addicted and just kept wanting to play more, no matter how janky or absurdly hard it got. I love it so much and have already planned out how I'll do things differently in a second playthrough.

It's a short game (only 7 somewhat linear levels) but it's like old shooter games, where every damn obstacle you encounter is an unnecessarily confusing puzzle, so each level takes way longer than you could imagine from the start. Weirdly enough, it's kind of like Dark Souls or similar in that you need to run past certain enemies in order to survive, because it's impossible to kill everything in one go. The game outright tells you this in written text by the way, the devs made sure you knew certain enemies are practically or literally impossible, and in one level they give you hidden items that let you 1-hit-kill certain enemies with a special dialogue option.

So it was a bit much, between the tough hordes of enemies, and the weird one-off scamps with (literally) 10,000 HP, just as a little prank from the devs. There are even water pits (which you can't escape from; you must reload if you fall in) with notes behind them that say "Intelligence Training" and it's the most troll bs ever... It's funny coming from the same series as Skyrim, which aims to be as player-friendly as possible.

It's so hard, I think the only more difficult games I've played are Wildfrost and maybe Star Wars Dark Forces or TIE Fighter. I had to save and reload so many damn times, and if you clip into any geometry, you are most likely stuck until you die or reload. And the game fucking stops when you die... It has to boot up from DOS again every damn time. Every single misstep is a huge punishment, especially considering the Level 5 save bloat bug which means if you need to reload 30-50 or more times during that one level, your character will become unplayable unless you take specific steps to prevent said save bloat. Thankfully I found out about it beforehand, or I'd have been screwed.

Anyway, fun game, hard as fuck. I've played all the numbered TES games except Arena, so I know what I'm doing, and still had a rough time. In the help section of the game, the devs even recommend that "Experienced Players" try multiple builds in the beginning of the game, meaning that even if you know exactly what you're doing and how the Daggerfall-style stat and combat systems work, it still doesn't mean you'll be able to complete the game. I had to start a second, better character build after I couldn't defeat certain enemies in Level 2. So wack. I don't ever think I've had to create a new character in any game I've EVER played because I literally couldn't kill certain enemies. I highly recommend it if you have the patience.

[elderscrollsconceptart]

Art prompt for "The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall" promo art to be shown at the 1995 CES

Not Clear if text and Sketch is a combination of Julian Lefay and David Lee Anderson.

David Lee Anderson completed the final promotional art for the CES.