#dovahzul

[elderscrollsconceptart]

"Dying Dragon Breath = Aurora Borealis = Outdoor Rune Experience"

Instead of simply absorbing Dragon's souls to be later spent on words learned from word walls, it appears Adam had an idea wherein a Dragons dying breath would burn Words of Power into the sky as an Aurora.

Concept art for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Art by Adam Adamowicz

[aldruiel-scribbles]

[helgiafterdark]

if you have a dragon oc (that is, you have an oc who is an elder scrolls/skyrim dragon) please tell me who they are. i want to write a poem about them.

i'm writing a selection of small poems for an in-fic book about dragons. i already have written about many dragons i invented, but i'm thinking maybe i could use some "variety" since i lean toward a lot of the same themes over and over.

even if so far you have only thought of their name or maybe you haven't thought of this at all, this will prompt you to get creative and make something up!

send anything to the replies or reblogs, please. i won't be turning on messaging/asks on this blog bc too many bots send me stuff constantly.

tell me:

their name. MUST be a proper dovahzul name. if they don't have one, i will invent one for you if you want and will work with you to achieve this. otherwise, i'm not writing about them. and NO non-canon dovahzul (semi-canon is possibly fine if you also consider yourself to be a dovahzul speaker)

any deeds they have committed, good, bad, evil, cruel, strange, etc. that may be noteworthy historically

any obscure but major facts about them that could be lost in time. something the ancient nords knew but that 4e people do not and cannot find this info anywhere else

a physical description, such as the color of their wings and scales, what their horns look like, how big they are, etc. if you have made any art pls show me!!

any other interesting/unique abilities they possessed

info that i do not need at this time:

their recent actions after alduin resurrected them, if applicable

if they never died and lived in obscurity somewhere throughout the millennia and what they did during that time

if they weren't in skyrim or solstheim pre- and during the dragon war, or if they would've been unknown to the ancient nords, they can't be included

don't worry too much about what to share/not share, feel free to just yap about your dovah! i'm here for it!

the point of this is that my ldb haela has inherited an ancient family book of poems/stories about the dragons and has passed it on to her children. the poems are scattered throughout the work and referenced by the characters sometimes. i want to put them all together at some point to have a more "complete" set of poems which represent the book of poetry my characters possess – separate from the main work. your dovah will not be mentioned in the fic whatsoever, it's just to fill up my poetry selection and flesh it out more!

i have written many poems in dovahzul and in this specific free-verse style. in fic, the poems are inferred to be written in dovahzul. i, as the author, am kindly translating. i would consider them free-verse, as they are written in a way that mimics being translated from an ancient dialect (dovahzul).

i can't say when i'll finish writing it, as it's a small part in a very large work. but if i end up writing about your dovah i will definitely share it with you :D thank you if you choose to send anything!

*there is no time limit on this and i'll keep this post pinned until i no longer need any more info!

‧₊ ˚ ⊹ ࣭ ⭑ . ₊ ⊹ .₊๋ ‧₊ ˚ ⊹ ࣭ ⭑ . ₊ ⊹ .₊๋ ‧₊ ˚ ⊹ ࣭ ⭑ . ₊ ⊹ .₊๋

small excerpt as an example:

Horrid blood-seeker

who devours man and beast

tearing the flesh

and swallowing the blood

Fearsome one,

who has ended many mortal lives

And when the battle-horns sound,

when the screams pierce the clouds,

wherever blood should be spilled,

the dovah Volyahsos

would join in slaughter

No pleasure is greater

than to kill in the name

of himself

(this particular poem is in fact translated from a larger dovahzul piece i wrote. it was not written in english and then translated to dovauzul. this is how i write almost all of my dragon poems)

[blakistan]

I was struck with the sudden realization that Kung Pow Penis has the exact cadence of a Thu'um so I found a tool online and made this

(I used the transcriber here https://www.thuum.org/learn/grammar/alphabet.php#3)

[hastvic]

The Dovahkiin, Roars-With-Dragons, and her husband, Derkeethus. They are bonded do not separate ❤️

[jiubilant]

Hii. Going through your Ayo featuring fics on ao3 and having thoughts :^) Has Ayo ever created a Shout herself? What are your general thoughts on Shout creation, actually? 👀

hurray thanks for the excuse to talk about this (and for reading!)

IN SHORT: my thought is that the thu'um as represented in tes v's gameplay (i.e. "shout these exact words in this exact order for this exact thing to happen; the more words you shout, the more powerful the end result") is a nonliteral game mechanic and that the "creation of new shouts" is essentially ubiquitous among those who use the thu'um. a master of the thu'um can and will combine any number or permutation of dovahzul words into a shout that does whatever they want it to

NOT IN SHORT: the ability of a thu'um user—i'll be saying 'tongue' from now on—to shape the world around them by communing with the ehlnofey depends on several factors:

their training or, in the dragonborn's case, latent and instinctive ability. not everyone knows how to draw upon their su'um (inner spirit, vital essence, the source of one's thu'um) in order to shout. esbern, for example, is probably fluent in dovahzul—but he's not a tongue trained to draw upon his su'um, so the language holds no power when he speaks it

their knowledge of dovahzul vocabulary. a tongue fluent in dovahzul will almost certainly be a better, or at least more versatile, tongue than someone who has a remarkably strong su'um, but only knows two or three words of dovahzul

the strength of their su'um, which determines the extent to which the ehlnofey are willing to listen to them and act in accordance with their will. taking the above example of a tongue who only knows a few words of dovahzul, but has a remarkably strong su'um—maybe this person only knows "fus," but they're going to be able to level towns with it

the last point is key; a tongue might improvise the shout "MAH STRUNMAH" in an attempt to topple the throat of the world, but even alduin, who of all dragonkind seems to possess the strongest su'um, would probably lack the power to move the tallest mountain in skyrim. if the world's comprised of ehlnofey, the world has su'um, too—and any shout a tongue devises will only work if their su'um is powerful and persuasive enough to appeal to the su'umme of the earth and air. nirn is an animist world in which every inanimate object has a consciousness that can be communicated with in dovahzul, which is why the thu'um works at all (i love how @boethiah represents this in her writing, particularly in barfoksdaga)

so in essence ayo's coming up with unique shouts every day as she continues to explore the possibilities of the thu'um. highlights in what you might have already read include "come here, vole," "heal, little man," "wind, make a staircase," "die," and "i'd like a, uh, double cheeseburger"—which, jokes aside, didn't work because the ehlnofey of the college recognized that she didn't actually want something else for dinner. she wasn't putting her su'um into it

[missreve]

The Greybeards held a ceremony recognizing me as ‘Dovahkiin’. Apparently I’m Ysmir, Which would technically make me Talos.

Better keep that to myself less I be the heart of this civil war…

[onrei]

Alduin, enjoying his power

[crynwr-drwg]

?????????

[the-daily-male]

Today's daily male is Paarthurnax, The Old One from Skyrim!

[eghostsofdeadchildren]

Boethiah's Shrine.

[elderscrollsconceptart]

Word Wall

Concept art for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Art by Adam Adamowicz

[typophobiaart]

Oops! All Odahviing

[nerevar-quote-and-star]

Meet me at midnight to see how dark we can take this crackship

Only, not as dark as I thought it could be? Oh well, @elder-dragon-reposes REALLY liked it! I mean really.

ao3 | masterlist

Her footsteps on the stair were not the first inkling he had of her presence in his tomb.

There was a shift in the air, a whisper through the stagnant corridors hissing of a presence that had not been in the halls of Forelhost since the Traitor was a young acolyte in the Order. But as alike as her presence was to that lir, there was something light that was entirely this being, this volaan that was all her own.

He would handle her. Did he not handle the Nordic invaders long ago?

"You know how you dealt with the last wave of volaan."

Froda's ghost sneers in his hollow ear, a draft that persisted in invading his chamber even after millennia. He snarls into the darkness, and silence falls again.

Tremors worble through the air, sometimes brushing the stones and at others, pressing against his ears. The volaan's encroachment into the catacombs was neither explosive nor vivid. If he weren't so attuned to the wards and runes of Forelhost, he would not have known she was there until it was too late.

Time passes. It creeps forward, frost covering the ground with the advancing winter. A chill curls down his withered spine, coiling in his chest with the harshness of a cold drake. He could taste the blizzard building in the air the closer the volaan came. He would last through her winter, just as he did others before.

"You call this outlasting the winter? It has broken you, wuth jul."

The whisper dissipates, but the growing chill does not. It permeates the stone so that frostbite threatens the dead nerves of his skin. The temperture continues to drop.

Hours pass.

Then, with a gust of icy wind, the doors open. The volaan arrives.

"Will you kill her, then?" Yes. "What a shame."

He prepared to rise, to release the ward sealing his sarcophagus, and burst into the room in a blaze of glory. But then Froda's words touched him. Why was it a shame?

Power coiled in the air, the crick shrrr hiss of ice crystals drifting through the air and shattering on the dusty stone. Dusty stones in a broken temple at the heart of a fallen city, dedicated to dead gods and a forgotten religion. Long ago, was Forelhost not the last remnant of the Dragon Cult's power? And now what was left, but dust and bone and shattered stone? Yes, yes, it would be a shame. It would be a great shame to meet such power, only to incinerate it.

Rahgot would not join the ashes on the altar to his god.

He feels her skirt the room, her chill pushing back against the heat of his wards. Closer and closer she came to him. What to do when she arrived?

Her hand on the lid was a shard of arctic ice. In life, he was familiar with the clever men and mages' magic lurking under their skin, leaving tell tale signs of each person's strngths--and weakness--in the arcane. But hers was not subtle; it was a raging storm.

IF he concentrates hard enough, he can recall a similar potency in the Traitor's presence, electric and biting in its intensity.

Both are a storm.

Dovahkiin . . .

His whisper is kiss of warmth through the coolness. He can feel her hesitate above him, and he thinks he moved in error. She was leaving. He should have remained silent.

But then the lid is sliding, solid and heavy, to the floor. Snowflakes flutter into his sarcophagus, and Rahgot sees the Dovahkiin for the first time.

He is struck by her resemblance to the Traitor, chestnut curls framing an almost golden face, wherein sat a pair of eyes so blue that the sky would weep with envy.

But yet, there is a softness in her face that wasn't present in the Traitor's, a light in the eye and draw of the mouth that spoke of exhaustion and perseverance. Where the Traitor was full of pride, this woman, this fahlil was patiance.

Where the Traitor came and went with the flash of a summer storm, hers was the long cold that seized Atmora and threatened to outlast the world.

"She'll outlast you."

But Froda's warning goes ignored.

Her hand is on the staff. Though he has not wielded it since beyond the reach of mortal memory, its heart of flame still burns like an inferno. Her mouth purses when her hand grips the stave, its heat daring to thaw the permafrost under her skin.

It is as she draws her hand back, steam curling around her finger tips, that he takes the staff in familiar hands and rises from the grave.

The Dovahkiin stumbles back, her ring-clad hand held to her chest as his presence looms before her. He can taste the power trailing from his staff to her hand.

It is quick. It is almost easy. Vahlok did not have such a fortunate confrontation. Rahgot is up and over her in a vengeful blaze.

She drops to the floor, not in defeat, but to escape his fire, and Rahgot descends--

--but she is not there. In a whirl of smoke, he turns to find her poised on the side of his coffin, ice gathered in her hands. Her face is hard, her eyes frozen.

YOL TOR SHUL! "FO KRAH DIIN!"

The songs of fire and ice meet and burst against each other, dousing the chamber in a blanket of steam. He hears her gasp at the heavy air.

But a lich does not need air, nor does he need to see.

As she stumbles backward into his sarcophagus, Rahgot falls on her, a smothering shadow. She screams when his spidery hands find the collar of her armor and the pillar of golden skin above it.

"FEIM—"

But his hand crushes her windpipe, silencing the Thu'um in her mouth. Her eyes are blown wide, sightless in the dark.

How simple, how exquisite it was to have a creature so full of power within his hands.

She is bound up in a hard shell of silver ice, but Rahgot would see to that later. His hand still on her throat, he traces the other over her face, cresting over sharp elven bones and soft mannish cheeks. He reaches her ear, and feels a tremor in her throat when his finger catches on the leaftip.

Long ago, they said Traitor's power was born from dovah sos in his veins. At the time, Rahgot did not, would not believe such a blasphemy to the gods. But over the long ages in rumination with nothing but Froda's ghost and the mountain winds to haunt his ears, he pondered the possibility of a true Dovahkiin.

Now he believed, and now he holds one in his hands. A goddess in a mortal's skin. The power of the gods could be, would be his!

"You are a fool, Rahgot."

His hiss is ghastly, banishing Froda's ghost to the fringes and washing over the Dovahkiin's face in a cloud of decay. She gags beneath him. In retaliation, he pinches her ear between two bony fingers, and she chokes, gasping.

But it wouldn't do to kill the goddess of his new religion before he's preached his message. He would seal her in his own coffin as he prepared his ascension to a new priesthood.

His wards hold the lid in place, sealing the Dovahkiin without suffocating her. He would return for her soon, but first—

There is a gasp, a brush of frost, and then from the confines of the coffin, a whispy voice Shouts, her Thu'um penetrating through stone and death.

Rahgot rounds on the tomb, pivoting from his place on the stairs from his funerary dias. But it is too late. The Shout has burst from the air into the bones of Nirn itself.

"OD AH VIING!"

Odahviing tugs at a distant thread in the long tapestry of Rahgot's memory with the strength of iron tongs pulling teeth.

Odahviing. His old master.

But how did—?

"You've sworn fealty to your own doom."

Froda's taunting voice dances in his ears as thunder rumbles in the distance. The sarcophagus on the dias is still, but dust and debris fall from the ceiling like rain. Rahgot draws back, his staff raised to meet whatever new being threatened his sanctum.

"You know what's coming."

There was a crack! followed by a heavy crash. Dust choked the air, bitter in the cold and lingering smoke steam. Then, early morning light filters in, thin and golden. In its midst is a horned head and sharpened claw. Claws that would destroy Forelhost.

"Rahgot, mey! My teeth to your neck!"

THe roof was gone, and morning sun flooded the chambers, catching on the dust motes like magicka in the air. The smoke and steam dispersed quickly, and Rahgot, for the first time in nearly five thousand years, saw his god face to face.

Of all the dov, Odahviing was always a fierce and active ruler. Always quick to action and swift to speak his thoughts. Rahgot always knew his recklessness was why he fell in the war with the Nords. But before, Odahviing was a stalwart supporter of Alduin Thuri. His priesthood followed the example set by the High Priests in Bromjunaar. He sent lesser dov to heed Alduin's call against the Traitor.

Yet here he was, heeding the call of a weak fahlil with the blood of the gods. Why—?

But Rahgot could not ponder it any longer. His master was in the chamber. A large, brilliantly formed dovah, Odahviing's size forced Rahgot to sweep back across the cracked floor, all too aware of the heat and strength of a dragon's body. But his god did not look at him.

Odahviing's claws were prying open the lid. It fell away and he lowered his snout. Rahgot could just see small golden hands grasp at the crimson scales.

"Odahviing, I can't breathe—"

Her voice, faint, speaks a language Rahgot doesn't know. But whatever she says to the dovah turns the horned head in his direction. Odahviing is snarling.

"Mey lir, Rahgot! Ruth hi!" Odahviing, thur—

But the jaws are on him. As his bones are broken by his god's teeth, Rahgot sees the Dovahkiin sitting up. in his coffin, her arms draped over the side as she tries to catch her breath. Her hair is a whirlwind and her eyes crystal. What a ravishing goddess she would have made!

Her eyes catch his through the slits of his mask. Her face is as green as the cold orichalcum. But then her mouth turns up, a sneer, and she resembles the Traitor so utterly that Rahgot, for the first time in countless ages, grew truly cold.

"Save his mask for me, won't you, darling?" "Geh, Judsedov."

Rahgot doesn't know what the Dovahkiin says to Odahviing, but his god calls the fahlil the Queen of the Dov. The Queen.

His last thought was that she was already a goddess, and Odahviing, a god in his own right, was her loyal priest.

Froda's laughter is the last thing Rahgot hears over the rumble of the dovah's throat and the crunch of his own bones.

When the mask falls to the floor, bereft of its priest, it is several long minutes before Leara can muster the strength to retrieve it. Even then, Odahviing offers his head to help support her, and he guides her across the floor.

Picking it up, Leara fingers the cold orichalcum, tired.

"What happened?" "Well . . ."

She trailed off, warm and comfortable against Odahviing but embarrassed to continue. At Odahviing's gentle huff, she relents.

"He caught me off guard. I tried to stand on the coffin for leverage, and then the bloody lich tripped me up." "Lech." "What was that?" "Nothing, Kunziiyol."

Sighing, Leara turns her face into the warmth of Odahviing's snout.

"Let's go home."

Guiding the Dragonborn to the safe hollow at the base of his neck, Odahviing takes flight, leaving the ruins of Forelhost and the Dragon Cult behind.

"Drat, I forgot about the Word Wall!" "Ruth, vahdin."

fin

[tallysingatsby]

@99corentine It’s been a while, but it seems summers are the time for my (somewhat) annual Gol Hah Dov art! If you haven’t read it yet, I highly recommend, without much spoilering, they finally made it to Sovngarde and the description was so visceral I knew I just had to draw it! (This is my new official art account, by the way, just to avoid confusion)

Tumblr, as usual, hates anything I spend more than two hours on, so the google drive host link is HERE. Please go look at it and zoom in on the details. This took seven hours and fifty four minutes and yes, I did hand write all that dovahzul, thank you for asking! Translation under the cut!

Translated, it reads:

Nuz aan sul fent alok fod fin vul dovah nok

But a day shall arise when the dark dragon's lies

Fen kos nahlot mahfaeraak ahrk ruz!

Will be silenced forever and then

Paaz Keizaal fen kos stin nol bein Alduin jot

Fair Skyrim be freed from dark Alduin's maw

Dovahkiin kos fin saviik do muz!

Dragonborn be the savior of men

[hastvic]

Some additional doodles I did for the margins of the Skyrim OC sketchpage 🙇‍♀️

Written down proper text since my handwriting is messy— Top page says “if the married Argonians kissed would they kiss like this? Or like this?” And tiny nom nom nom text around the last one.

Bottom page has Roars-With-Dragons asking if you’re “pissing all by yourself handsome” saying “fuck the storm cloaks” with a hand full of flame, and her reading the Lusty Argonian Maid saying “hehe nice” with her oblivious husband in the background (Derk has a bi wife…)