http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/WMG/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim

1. Skyrim My Ancestors Are Smiling At Me Lyrics

'My ancestors are smiling at me, Imperiais. Can you say the same?' – popular memes on the site iFunny.co.

Go To

As some of you might know, the Nords have their own, distinct pantheon from the rest of Tamriel, which reflects the primacy of Lorkhan and the animosity between mankind and mer, where Akatosh is in fact Alduin, the World-Eater and a figure of evil. However, when Akatosh/Alduin appeared through Martin Septim - himself a descendant of Talos, the Second Mantling of Shor - and saved the world, Nords had a great deal of trouble reconciling their traditionally negative view of Akatosh with his event. Eventually, attempts by Nord priests to rationalise this in line with their traditions fell flat, forcing them to instead discard the Old Nordic view of Alduin/Akatosh and instead adopt the interpretation of the Nine Divines. This in turn paved the way for the Nine/Eight to increasingly make inroads into Skyrim in the 200 years before the events of the game, which is why we rarely hear about the Old Nordic gods now.

Of course, the actual coming of Alduin and the overall negative view of the Empire of many Nords will cause them to go back to their original tradition, eventually paving the way for the resurgance of the Old Gods!

Hail Shor, Hail Wulfharth!

Though mostly Lordaeron.

• Whiterun = Arathi Highlands: Lots of big hills, very few trees, and a giant stone. Also Fort Sungard would basically resemble a smaller version of Stromgarde Keep.
• Falkreath = Western Plaguelands /Alterac Mountains: Helgen is Strahnbrad, while the eponymous town would represent Andorhal. Fort Neugrad would be the Ruins of Alterac.
• Hjaalmarch = Wetlands: A swamp with trees scattered about, and if only Morthal were on the shore, it would represent Menethil Harbor.
• Winterhold = Dragonblight: Giant cracks of ice on land, has a snowy coast, and icebergs and floating ice caps in the sea.
• The Rift = Eversong Woods/Silverpine Forest: A combination of trees from these two regions and lush grass. Fort Greymoor is Shadowfang Keep, while Goldenglow Estate is Fenris Isle. In addition, the lake is to Lordamere Lake.

It's a Daedric artifact that goes unmentioned throughout Skyrim, so it seems most logical that that's why. One of the Daedric artifacts has to be destroyed in Oblivion, so the one missing from Skyrim seems most likelyThe Elder Scrolls games have had multiple, impossible to reconcile endings in the past. In Daggerfall, the main quest had numerous endings, regarding who got the local superweapon. All of them are canon, which is even, in canon, extremely confusing and regarded as an act of the gods. It is called 'The Warp In The West' and it turned 44 city-states into 4 nations.. in three days, all of which swore loyalty to The Empire. It also supposedly killed the hero involved, which was the one cut ending, meaning even cut content was canon. This could also seem to be reflected in the game's procedurally generated world. Now, where else in TES are both of these things common, but not as extreme? Skyrim. Radiant quests, quests which vary and are completely random, and therefore not uniform from game to game, and two alternate ways the Civil War could have ended, both of which seem to be impossible to reconcile in one canon. So, perhaps the Skyrim timeline is something along the lines of 'Main Quest -> All side quests besides the Civil War -> DLC -> Civil War'. Furthermore, consider what the Graybeards say when you retrieve the Horn for them. Namely, their speech in the Dovah language. They outright are saying that you are the rightful High King/Queen of Skyrim. There's absolutely no gray area for this. The only gray area is if they're saying that you are inheriting Talos' legacy and titles, or if you ARE Talos, in a sort of Jesus/God relationship. So, perhaps future Elder Scrolls games will go with a 'Warp in the North', in which the following happens: Skyrim leaves the Empire. The Emperor is assassinated by the Dark Brotherhood. The Dovahkiin's allegiances are unknown, some claiming they fought for the Imperials and were slain, some claiming that they fought for the Stormcloaks. However, Ulfric and Tullius both kill each other, and a Dragonborn, perhaps not THE Dragonborn, since nobody is sure, takes the throne and reunites Skyrim, making it strong and powerful. Many Nords claim this new High King/Queen as their own, but for some reason, nobody is sure of the leader's gender or race, just that they are Dragonborn and rule Skyrim, but are rarely seen by anyone but their court, which is known to be a ragtag group of mercenaries, mages and criminals, and due to the fact that they never remove their ornate armor, nobody who has seen them even knows if they're a man or a woman. Those that interacted with the Dovahkiin during the dragon crisis give conflicting reports about their race, sex, age, skills, personality and more, as if the battle against Alduin, being the son of Akatosh, damaged time so much that millions of timestreams have merged together. Thus, ALL Dovahkiin are canon, all quest outcomes are canon, and everyone's heads hurt.I've been wondering about the discrepancies between how the dragons are described by the characters and in-game lore and how they actually appear in gameplay, and I've come to the conclusion that, since some of the dragons are referred to as 'Ancient' while others are not, and Parhuurnax makes a reference to age differences between dragons, it's possible they are not, in fact, as powerful or mysterious as they and the other characters claim. Alduin himself may be an aspect of Akatosh, but that doesn't make all dragons Aedra.

Therefore, I propose that the dragons are in fact capable of reproduction of some sort, which would explain why, after thousands of years of absorbing each other's souls, as well as the occasional Dragonborn running around doing the same, there were still so many of them killed by non-dragons waiting to be resurrected by Alduin. They're just powerful mortals that have developed a mythical reputation due to their natural magical and physical prowess, historical cruelty, and the time it's been since anyone has seen one.

• Miraak both steals from (when killing a dragon) and releases (when he's killed) dragon souls to the Dragonborn. Perhaps if no one's around to grab them, dragon souls are let loose when their collector dies and can reform like daedra. For immortal aedra, waiting for a mortal Dragonborn to die of old age, if not sooner considering their violent lifestyle, might be no more than a short time-out to them. They certainly don't act like it's genocide, they're not fleeing Skyrim en mass, and even gather around the Dragonborn after Alduin (the toughest dragon ever) is defeated.

Advertisement:

• The problem with Miraak though is that his soul is technically a Dragon's too, meaning that the 'release' of the souls within him was triggered because another Dragonborn was close by to take it. Dragon Souls might very well be forever lost if the Dragonborn dies and no one else is around to take his/her soul.
• I think we can be reasonably certain that dragon souls remain in some capacity if a Dragonborn isn't nearby. I mean, that was like half the plot. How would Alduin have resurrected them if their souls weren't still around? And if he could do so regardless, then the Dragonborn wouldn't be able to kill dragons permanently, right? But to the original idea, I think it's on the right track. While I think they are in fact lesser Aedra, it seems likely that they do somehow reproduce, or something like it. Certain anecdotes seem to indicate that they do age, like Paarthurnax talking about Numinex. And their numbers should be dwindling, if they can't be replaced after a Dragonborn kills them. Which is just depressing, honestly. So I think they probably are replenished, possibly by whatever means they were first created (splintering off from Akatosh or whatever).

Think about it, they sternly believe that they're descended from these beings and by all rights that they should be 'Divines'. Why worship something you envy? They probably pay respect, but not love and worship the way other races do.

• Well, Dunmer worship their ancestors.
  • Yeah, but Dunmer are weird.
• I think the Thalmor have been known to be Daedra-worshippers, so you're probably onto something here.
  • Maybe they're all secretly Jygallag worshipers, trying to force their own interpretation of his Order upon Tamriel. The real reason they hate Talos worship so much? Because following the events of Shivering Isles, their master is sore about mortals ascending to godhood.

So..As everyone knows, the Dragonborn is almost always depicted wearing his signature Iron Helmet. But he can't possibly actually be wearing this throughout all his adventures because he just can't, alright? But think about this.The Dragonborn is apparently a Nord, canonically. Which makes no sense because he doesn't seem to know anything about Skyrim, but whatever. Now, Stalhrim is an ancient Nordic building material. It would make sense for the highly Nordic Dragonborn to prize it.And here's the kicker: the Stalhrim heavy helmet pretty closely resembles the Iron Helmet, in general shape. So by the end, our Dovahkiin is probably wearing a set of heavy Stalhrim armor!Harkon has the same over-arching desires for world conquest that most Dragon/Dragonborn tend to have. He is far more powerful than other vampires (including two Daughters of Coldharbour, which are supposed to be the most powerful Vampires in Tamriel), and seeks even more power through Auriel's Bow.

Valerica flat out states that blotting out the sun would not do any favors for Vampire-kind and only serve to draw unwanted attention to them. But it makes more sense that he wants to use the bow to rebel against his master Akatosh (known as Auri-El in the Elven pantheon), just as Miraak tried to rebel against Hermaeus Mora.

While it's true that he does not use any shouts, he is not the only Dragonborn in history to not actually use shouts; Tiber Septim is defined as a Dragonborn despite not using the Thu'um, and there were many other examples from earlier eras. Since Harkon hails from at least before the Second Era, it still fits within the lore that no Dragonborn had been summoned since Tiber/Talos.

Finally, the most telling piece is that the Dragonborn musical theme, which otherwise only ever plays in combat against a Dragon or Dragonborn (i.e. Miraak), plays when you enter into the final confrontation with Harkon.

• A problem with this theory is that Tiber Septim was actually very well known for using the Thu'um. In fact, the Greybeards even tell you in game that they trained him in its use.
• Presumably Molag Bal has rights to the dragon soul and claims it the second Harkon dies, preventing you from taking it and patching the big hole I see in this theory.
• I feel as though the music that plays is generic boss music (and most dragons are considered the 'bosses' of Skyrim)
  • The boss music doesn't play against Mercer Frey, Ancano, Ulfric, or Rikke, who could be considered the final bosses of the Thieves Guild, College of Winterhold, Legion, and Stormcloak campaigns respectively. All four could wipe the floor with a dragon themselves.

Not really a guess, more of an observation. The popular bard's song 'Ragnar the Red' states that the eponymous character was from Rorikstead. If you visit that village, you will find that the founder, Rorik, is still alive and well. Assuming that the song is based on a real event then, it probably only happened within the last few years.

• I forget which book, but there are books in previous games that mention Rorikstead being in skyrim, obviously before Mr. Rorik was born. Popular theory is that there's been more than one Rorikstead throughout history.
  • The song doesn't just reference Rorikstead, but old Rorikstead. Therefore, the Rorikstead we visit in the game is actually New Rorikstead. I guess this still means the song is recent, though.
• That, or simply a developer oversight.
  • Likely, but that's seriously no fun at all.
  • Or it could just be that many people do have the same name.
  • Rorik, son of Rorik, comes to mind.

This theory has been tossed around in various places, but it may actually have some truth to it. See, the song mentions that Ragnar the Red 'came riding to Whiterun from 'ol Rorikstead.' For those not familiar with the 'Ragnar the Red' song, it ends with Ragnar, after spending some time bragging and drinking the tavern dry, getting decapitated by some girl named Matilda. Well, the Headless Horseman, if followed, stops at Hamvir's Rest. Where's Hamvir's Rest? Right between Whiterun and Rorikstead. So it looks like poor old Ragnar wound up forever riding back and forth on his original route between Rorikstead and Whiterun.A 'hero' comes to town (Ulfric, according to his supporters), someone leaves in the rough direction of Whiterun (the Dragonborn), and a woman decapitates someone after he says something arrogant ('my ancestors are smiling at me, Imperials - can you say the same?'). Also, there's nothing to say the Imperial Captain isn't named Matilda. Maybe someone escaping all the trouble in Helgen bumped into a bard on their travels, blurted out a story about what had happened, and the bard combined all these stories into one, and wrote the song 'Ragnar the Red'. With the speed at which news seems to travel in Skyrim (for instance, if you join a guild or commit a crime, every guard in the hold seems to know about it), it wouldn't be long before the song was played in every tavern in the province.It is well established that the civil war in Skyrim is actually helping the Thalmor, since the humans are fighting each other while the altmer sit back and wait. Ideally the war will be drawn out and drain resources. Problem is that the Dragonborn could contribute with a decisive victory for either side, the Thalmor will find themselves facing either a victorious and confident army of Nords lead by High King Ulfric Stormcloak, or a pissed-off and disillusioned legion lead by General Tullius, a man who has been quietly awaiting the opportunity to bring the fight to the Dominion for years.

And —unless the Dragonborn is an Altmer sympathizer for some reason— Ulfric or Tullius will have assistance from any combination of a Dragon Riding-Vampire/Werewolf-Harbinger-Arch Mage-Listener-Nightengale-Dawngaurd/Volkihar leading badass who can shoot mouth lasers, summon Dracoliches, and manipulate time itself to slaughter embassies full of elite Thalmor super soldiers.. Alone..With a dagger and party clothes.. Yeah they're screwed.

That's why you cannot, and there has never been an official patch to fix this, display the Ebony Blade. IT falls right off the shelf, almost as if Mephala is trying to send a message. The weapon isn't for display. It's for death.

• Maybe the other daedric princes want you to use their stuff, not to mention every single blacksmith (Especially the Skyforge's current users), and even the aedra (Or a trolling Sheogorath) will not let you put your weapons on display, because you have quests to be doing and Nirn to save.

Karliah and Gallus. She ran away from the Thieves' Guild roughly twenty years ago, when he was killed by Mercer Frey, who framed Karliah. The Dragonborn is roughly twenty years old. She and Gallus are suggested to have had feelings for each other. Is it possible that when she ran away, she was also bearing his child? Roughly twenty years later, said child shows up and unwittingly avenges their father by killing Mercer. While quite unlikely, it seems an appropriate trick for Nocturnal to pull: bring mother and child together without either knowing who the other is, and then use them to avenge the father, and in the process restore glory to Nocturnal.

• Further to this, putting together certain bits of lore reveals that Karliah may well be descended from Tiber Septim. Yes, THAT Tiber Septim. Karliah's grandmother was Barenziah, who got pregnant by Tiber Septim. In theory, the pregnancy was aborted, but she fled the Imperial City not long after Septim found out about the pregnancy, AND she had a bastard daughter who just so happened to become Karliah's mother, not to mention that Barenziah herself was a former member of the Thieves' Guild. If the above theory holds true, then that would make the Last Dragonborn the great-grandchild of Talos.
• Officially, the father of Dralsi Indoril (Karliah's mother) was a Nightingale named Drayven Indoril. However, according to 'The Real Barenziah', the Nightingale that Barenziah had an affair and a child with was none other than Jagar Tharn. This opens up the possibility that Karliah is the granddaughter of - and a Dunmer Dragonborn might just be the great-grandchild of - the Big Bad from the very first game.

So there is a multunational state whose people face a hard time. There are (at least alleged) evils threatening its people, there are economic difficulties, there are thousands of immigrants coming in. The superstate is accused of weakness, of complacence towards the ideology of the outsiders, of being incapable to lead its people towards any goal. The superstate actually wants to let migrants come in. Some feel that their religion is threatened. There are potential leaders who want to fix those alleged problems. And the people are torn between remaining in the superstate or leaving it.Ulfric is Hitler, White-Gold Concordat is the Treaty of Versailles, the Empire is Russia

• Really? I always saw Ulfric like a combination of William Wallace and Engelbrekt Engelbrektsson and the Empire as the Wilhelmine Empire.
• Alternatively, the Empire is the Weimar Republic fresh off World War I. This makes the Nazi-Stormcloak parallels more noticeable in terms of historical formation.
  • Blaming a whole race of people for losing the war, despite being half or more of the army.
    • The Stormcloaks don't generally single out any particular race for the loss of the Empire in the Great War so much as they blame the Empire itself as a political institution.
  • Having a terrible understanding of what it means to have continuity with previous Empires or Reichs. Although in this case, the Stormcloaks believe that the Empire is somehow not Nordic, while the Nazis believed that the German Empire was somehow the successor of the Holy Roman Empire.
    • The Empire isn't Nordic. It had one Nordic ruler in the beginning. That's it. It's been culturally Imperial since the days of Pelagius Septim I. Seriously, anyone whose actually played the previous games and seen the empire first hand would laugh at you if you even suggested such a thing. I don't think it's possible for a 'profoundly Nordic institution' to say things like 'I'll have your head, you filthy Nord!'. In all honesty, what you're laying at the Stormcloak's feet is in fact more applicable to the Imperials themselves, as they're mainly the ones who are trying to assert that they're the direct successors of 'Talos's Empire' despite the fact that such an assertion relies on a very creative view of history. The Stormcloaks make no such revisionist claims. Their arguments boil down to their belief that the Empire has forsaken Talos and Nordic ways in spirit.
  • Relying primarily on racial supremacism, white pride, and an ideal of barbaric strength that never actually applied to their people.
    • No, they're actually relying on the fact that the Empire is an incompetent, corrupt institution. Also, the whole 'barbaric strength' has always applied to the Nords, even from a metal standpoint. They've always been good for rolling a barbarian/warrior. From a storyline perspective, hell, Ysgramor hunted down a dozen giant beasts solely for the purpose of laying something at his son's funeral pyre.
  • Claiming to be good for a specific religion, but being rather contrary to the way that the religious figure actually lived.
    • You mean fighting against Elves and destroying your other general enemies? Talos is a war-god for a reason. The way the Stormcloaks pursue their agenda is perfectly in tune with how he acted.
  • Killing a lot of their own people, just to remove 'undesirables' who are making the rest of them weak. Even though their efforts might be better spent on killing their stated enemies more effectively. And the people who are being killed systematically would be considered a credit to their society in history. For the Stormcloaks, it is Imperials, elves who support the Empire and oppose the Aldmeri Dominion, and Empire-supporting Nords like Legate Rikke and Brunwulf Free-Winter who actually fought in the war. For the Nazis, it was Jews (who were actually friends of the German people in the past), Communists (founded by all Germans), anyone who actually fought in the war and told the truth about it (like Erich Maria Remarque), etc.
    • Sorry, what? The Stormcloaks are not eugenicists. Both the Stormcloak army and the Legion have a lot of Great War veterans in their ranks (Ulfric himself is one). Rikke is a military commander on the other side of the war, and they don't appear to have anything against Brunwulf, who happily continues to live his previous existence after a Stormcloak victory. Frankly, I think it would have been better writing if the Stormcloaks had been more xenophobic, their supposed racism is very much an Informed Attribute in-game.
  • That seems more likely. But how did the OP get it into his head that the Empire could possibly be Russia? They're the foreign power trying to take over an nation famed for poor weather and obstinate people.
    • The Empire is not a foreign power. The Empire is a profoundly Nordic institution from its very founding.
    • No it isn't. For one thing, it had only one pure-blooded Nordic ruler, who got his start serving as a general for a Breton king. The incredible level of Cultural Posturing Imperials have been laying on the Nords since at least Morrowind is further proof that Cyrodiil's is all too prone to biting the hand that feeds it.
    • Or, rather, the pro-Imperial and pro-Stormcloak Nords disagree on whether the Empire had kept enough of its Nordic character.
• Kind of unrelated, but the fact that Ulfric has been compared to both Adolf Hitler and William Wallace just goes to show what an awesome job Bethesda did of making a complex, realistic character.
  • Yes, Ulfric is indeed quite awesome.
• Thanks for accusing everyone who likes the Stormcloaks of being a Nazi, OP!
  • The parallels are still there and still obvious.
  • Only if you're biased towards the Empire.
  • Sorry but this is one hell of a stretch. Their supposed 'Racial Purity!' thing in game mostly amounts to bitching about the Dark Elves and keeping the Argonians and Khajitt out of their cities unless they prove themselves valuable. The Nords really do have all the 'barbarous strength' their ancestors had, they understand their past connection to the Empire perfectly well, etc. The fact that an Altmer can walk right up to Ulfric and all you have to say to join their army and get treated like any Nord by Ulfric and his soldiers is 'I live here, too, buddy' is pretty solid evidence that he isn't Hitler. A closer analogy might be the American revolution with tweaks. The Civil War started because the great empire Skyrimerica was a part of fought a massive war with a foreign power with many of the citizens of Skyrimerica fighting in it personally and feeling betrayed when they saw their freedoms restricted at the end of said war which they had proudly served in. So the guys wearing blue rebel against the guys wearing red and with a mix of Guerilla tactics and straight up field battles they start pushing them out. They also receive aid (though in Skyrim this is very secret) from the foreign power they had fought against as a means for said foreign power to spite and try to drain their old enemy. The country is split, the shot that started it all is grey and heavily disputed and there are Hollywood Native Americans running around shooting people with stone arrows and killing them with primitive axes and getting massacred by the white people who see no hypocrisy there because they think of them as mindless savages. Clearly Ulfric Stormcloak is Viking George Washington.
    • On a somewhat similar note, Ulfric defeating the Forsworn calls some parallels to the Saxons defending the Celts from the invasions of the Caledonians under Hengist and Horsa, during the period of Sub-Roman Britain.
• It is interesting that the Stormcloaks and Thalmor BOTH resemble the Nazi party. I consider the Stormcloaks to be the 'Beer Hall Putsch' Nazis; back before the party gained power: Wildly nationalistic and arrogantly proud, but their animosity towards other races has not grown to active aggression. The Thalmor are 'Kristalnacht' Nazis, after they gained power and started practicing open violence against the lesser races. Justiciars are marching about Skyrim in an appearance and demeanor almost identical to the Einsatzgruppen. Just mouthing off at them gives them the authority to kill you with absolutely no questions asked. They are kill squads tasked with interring and executing those who follow a specific faith. They both display sentiments comparable to 20th century faschism, but the Stormcloaks are reactionary and paranoid while the Thalmor are active and totalitarian; two sides of the same coin. That being said, I prefer the company of Stormcloaks, because their soldiers are more likely to just insult me than tie me up and execute me in an open ditch.
• Alternatively: Empire = China (Kuomintang), Stormcloaks = Chinese Communists and Warlords, Aldmeri Dominion = Empire of Japan, Valenwood = Korea. It's not what the writers intended, but it made understanding the situation better for me.
• From a French point of view, it is pretty obvious: The Thalmor are Nazis, who put the Empire (Vichy’s Regime) to his knees. The Empire sought peace, and agreed on ultra-harsh terms: the loss of Hammerfell, banishment of Talos worship, enforcement of it within the “Independent” Empire = the loss of all Northern France, utter freedom of Germany against the Jews in Occupied Northern France. In both cases, the kneeled State de facto lost its independence. In real life, Vichy was even worse than the Empire because the Southern administration and policemen enforced anti-Semitic policies (including murder and deportation) without being even asked by Germany. In response, a group rises (the Stormcloaks/La Résistance), led by a General gone rogue who refuses the end of fighting (Ulfric/De Gaulle). Both generals don’t actually hate the country (France/The Empire) in itself, but its current government (Vichy, Mede dynasty). The General is promoted leader at the end of the war. For French historians, the infighting in France during and after Germany’s downfall was almost a Civil War. For French people, the choice of joining the Stormcloaks is obvious, since Vichy’s Regime is (almost, sadly) universally despised in France. Save for Ulfric’s nationalism and racism^note , and some aversion for independentists.

• The Stormcloaks are the analogue of the South: some of their social practices are horrible, but their critics go way too far and stomp over the rest of them as well, not just the bad ones. They wish to become an independent nation in their own right, even if that independence would ironically rob other people (such as blacks, in the real life example, or elves/Argonians/Khajiit in the Skyrim example) of their own independence. They have a local economy in which they're self-sufficient, but as 'petty lords' in their own right (the 'every man a king' example, complete with the uncomfortable corollary question of 'but then who plays the serfs?'). They take pride in their agrarian-and-hunting way of life, compared to the 'milk drinkers' of the Empire; this can be compared to the South taking pride in having a culture of 'honor' based around the farm, as opposed to the alienation of Northern industrialism. This would make the Empire the North analogue: their criticism is correct in that the Stormcloaks are horribly racist and some of their local traditions are self-destructive, but they use the Stormcloaks' flaws as a pretext to serve their own ambitions and they punish the innocent locals along with the guilty ones with scorched-earth policies; they also demonize everything about the Stormcloaks without acknowledging that the Stormcloaks have some pretty good traditions along with the whole anti-elf thing. Also, the Empire represents the centralized tyranny of the North instead of the localized tyranny of the South, in that the Empire has a strong central government that decides everything, rather than lots of tiny local governments some which are good and some which are bad, and as such the Empire makes some very out-of-touch decisions that make no sense except supposedly as 'foreign appeasers' (the White-Gold Concordat).
  • I'm sorry, are.. are you claiming that Skyrim is an elaborate Lost Cause metaphor? The difference being, of course, aside from all the very valid critiques that can be made against the idea of Stormcloaks = Confederate South and Empire = Union North, that if one dubbed the Skyrim Civil War 'The War of Imperial Aggression' it wouldn't be automatically and utterly laughable.
  • Eastmarch and Eastern Skyrim's economy isn't based on farming, it's based on the same industries as western Skyrim. In fact, Riften is the main supplier of the nation's fish and main alcoholic drink. And Eastern Skyrim's main traditions aren't even that harmful, if anything they're fairly positive as they breed tough, strong warriors. You know, exactly like those of the medieval Norsemen the Nords are based off. I guess you could say that Eastern Skyrim is more like Scandinavia during the Viking Age, whereas Western Skyrim is like Christianized Scandinavia post-Viking Age. In fact, considering that the Empire insists that Skyrim put aside Talos (Shor also, probably, since all Elves despise him), 'heathen gods' by their measure, it could possibly turn Ulfric into King Radboud, who briefly ended Christian domination of Frisia and restored the worship of Pagan gods, similar to how Ulfric restores the worship of Talos, the Thor stand in for the Elder Scrolls (as he is a friend of mankind and protector of the world, his amulet also evokes Thor's hammer pendent). Shor, of course, is the ES version of Odin. I think it's much more appropriate to see the Stormcloaks as a sort of Pagan resistance fighting against foreign religious and cultural domination. In any case - it invites far fewer negative implications.
    • It invites more negative implications, because my initial example was meant to put both the Empire and the Stormcloaks in both a positive and a negative light. The second interpretation basically puts the Empire in an awful light ('religious and cultural domination') and doesn't even mention the Nords' flaws (their practices against the elves/Argonians/Khajiit just for starters), so this interpretation is heavily skewed towards painting the Stormcloaks as saints, which doesn't make sense: they dominate the elves/Khajiit/Argonians, but then suddenly domination is wrong only when the Empire does it? That was why I initially chose an example where you could see the good in both sides, in order to avoid having my example be used to push players towards making Empire or Stormcloaks choices.
    • The above only paints the Stormcloaks as complete saints if you're a pagan with a hatred of Christianity. The Christianization of Scandinavia had its good points; but it was essentially the forcible replacement of one system of beliefs with one that was foreign. Therefore, with that in mind, it's far more accurate to paint the Stormcloaks as a faction of King Redbads or King Horik I of Denmark type guys. Also, I wouldn't call what the Stormcloaks do as 'domination'. They sometimes oppress minorities, but they don't particularly care if they leave or if they maintain their belief system, if they did force Imperials to believe in Talos or Shor as Nords interpret them (Nordic and Imperial interpretation of the gods is pretty different - in Cyrodill Talos is a god of good governance first and a warrior second, in Skyrim he's almost totally a warrior god) and don't try to close down Imperial shops (no, not buying from them doesn't constitute 'oppression', which is what they do with Ulfberth's Imperial wife in Whiterun). No matter how you sugarcoat it, what the Imperials are basically trying to do in Skyrim is force the Nords to give up their religion and beliefs and follow on completely with how Imperials view the world. Yes, what the Nords do to elves and so forth is bad; all of those Norse kings who resisted Christianization did bad things too. But religion is more at the heart of the Stormcloak's agenda than an arrogant desire to put down other races.
  • Alternately, the Civil War is an analogue to the Germanic struggle for independence from Rome as fought by Arminius. The Empire is Rome. Ulfric is Arminius, and the Stormcloaks are the Cherusci. Even more so when you realize that the Imperial's heavy taxation of Skyrim and their ignorant imposition of their own laws on the Nords is exactly what caused the Germanic tribes to band together to drive out the Romans
  • Probably unintentional, but I couldn't help but see some similarities between Ulfric and Alaric I, king of the Visigoths. Both watched their people fight and die for an empire that they felt was too weak to support itself, and both ended up turning against said empire. Even their names sound somewhat similar. Admittedly, Ulfric probably has no intentions of sacking the Imperial City.
    • Another good comparison.
    • The Goths were not participants in the founding of Rome. The Nords, on the other hand, are the founders of the Empire. Therefore, to oppose the Empire is to oppose their own institution that allowed them to spread into the rest of Tamriel. It would be more accurate to say that the Stormcloaks are like Italians who think that the Byzantines are not Roman.
    • The Nords founded the Septim empire, not the Mede empire. When Martin died, so did any connection or obligation Skyrim had to Cyrodiil.
  • I would like to at least point out, that while the Stormcloaks may seem racist, they are in fact downright cosmopolitan compared to the Dark Elves in Morrowind. Who hated you even if you were a Dark Elf because you weren't born in the home province. It should also be noted that back in Oblivion Khajits and Argonians were treated as second-class citizens in one Imperial city. With the heavy implication that the count and countess there tortured Khajiits and Argonians, (Leyawiin for those of you who never played Oblivion). The Stormcloaks never do anything that bad.
    • The Leyawiin situation was played for laughs, though, and was also even more of an Informed Attribute. There were quite a lot of upper-middle-class beastfolk there and a truly racist city would have quickly investigated and run out the Blackwood Company by itself, if it would allow them to buy property in the city at all.
    • Excuse me, played for laughs? Informed attribute? The count and countess were openly racist and hateful of all other races aside from Nibbenese Imperials, and would casually insult the player if he was an Argonian. I suppose the fact that the damn servants fearfully whispering of their mates going missing in the palace is just a dose of Black Comedy, right? Ulfric may be cold to other races, but he's more than willing to give them utmost respect after they prove themselves loyal to Skyrim. Alessia Carro would have been fine with torturing every last Argonian and Khajiit in Leyawiin to death had she the power to do so.
    • Well, every Argonian, at least. And yeah, I agree that the Thief Guild's questline makes that attribute to be a reality when it comes to Argonians.
  • Honestly, Ulfric pulling an Alaric on the Imperials is probably the best thing that could happen for the setting, since we owe the Goths a great deal seeing as how they preserved a great deal of Roman culture after defeating them.
    • The West Britons (Irish & Welsh), Byzantines, and Gauls also did quite a lot to preserve Roman culture.
  • The Stormcloaks as a whole aren't actually that racist. It's mostly just some people in Windhelm who look down on the Dark Elves and Argonians, and Khajiit aren't really welcome anywhere in Skyrim (the Kahjiit trading caravan never sets up shop inside a city, always outside it.) Ulfric himself doesn't seem to care one way or another, and as mentioned, will welcome an elf, Argonian, or Khajiit Dragonborn into his army just as readily as a Nord. Hell, he'll accept an Imperial Dragonborn. One could certainly criticize Ulfric for not paying attention to the living conditions of the non-Nords in his holdings, but there is a war on that's occupying just a bit more of his attention at the moment. It's also never explicitly stated (to this troper's knowledge) that Ulfric himself commands, say, his soldiers to not frequent shops run by non-Nords (like Adrienne Avenicci's Warmaidens). That seems more like the troops themselves being racist, not orders from on high to be racist, which is a subtle but important difference. Note that you don't see many Argonians, Khajiit, or Elves in Imperial armor, either. That said, the Civil War isn't really an expy of any given conflict in real life history. It borrows elements from many to create something wholly it's own. Which side is ultimately right isn't the point. Both have good and bad points, and trying to cast one faction or the other as pure hero or villain is an exercise doomed to failure.

Let's make a checklist.

• Heroic leader damn near worshiped by his troops and made leader as soon as the war ends? Check!
• Distant Empire with an 'East _____ Trading Company' running shipping? Check!
• Distant Empire considers themselves enlightened and superior to the 'savages' who live in the rugged lands that they're fighting for? Check!
• War only possible thanks to the arch-rivals of the distant Empire? Check!
• Locals fighting for the land they live on have some shitty social practices that aren't as bad over in the distant Empire? Check!
• The Stormcloaks/Americans are a ragtag army that's less of an army and more a bunch of angry men with weapons? Check!
• The Empire/England is a far more unified military that, by all logic, shouldn't have an issue with the rebels, but between another war and the fact that the rebels know the land so much better, they do? Check!
• The rebels claiming to own the land they live on, but they stole it from the people who were there before them? Check!
• Larger than life hero leader isn't a fan of war, but feels like is is necessary? Check!
• Larger than life hero leader can give speeches like no other and motivate troops that in any logical world wouldn't be motivatable? Check!
• Heroic leader uses unconventional tactics while the people he's fighting are stuck with crappy old tactics? Check!
• Heroic leader willing to work with people he usually wouldn't in order to fight the war? Check!
• Area's colder than Satan's ballsack? Check!

It's pretty damn clear that Ulfric is Washington, Skyrim is America, The Empire is England, the Thalmor are the French and the War is the American Revolution. Hell, the East Empire Trading Company makes this SO BLATANT.To be exact, the war between the Alliance and the Browncoats. A distant rebellious location? Check. An empire forcing them to live by rules not fit for them? Check. The backwater heavily outmatched in terms of equipment and technology? Check. Their names provided by an adjective and article of clothing? Check. Outer planets' own governments correlate well to the holds, with each planet ruled by someone, and them subservient to a higher power. The Thu'um and Readers match up pretty well, in that most apparently go mad with the power, or if not, at least have to keep themselves away from human contact. Skyrim and the Outer Planets are both much more rural, years behind anything the other side has. Judging by the first episode, the Browncoats were likely more religious, especially going by the standard tropes of the setting, which also matches up with Talos worship.This explains why J'zargo is the only NPC capable of level up all the way with you to level 81. Arngeir has hinted that you might not be the only Dragonborn of this era. The only reason J'zargo is not absorbing those dragon souls is because your dragon soul is more dominant/aggressive than J'zargo's.

• But Arngeir is level 150; is he a Dragonborn too, then?
  • Arngeir is way older than J'zargo. Presumably he's only reached level 150 after many years of dedicated training.
  • Arngeir spent his entire life studying the art of yelling at reality and making it listen under Paarthurax.

• He and his wife (Ahlam) seem convinced that he spends a lot of time up in Dragonsreach (and she dislikes him, so is unlikely to lie on his behalf), but you never see him up there
• Perhaps when the Dragonborn arrived in Whiterun, Balgruuf became instantly more interested in him/her than in the advice of stale, patronising Nazeem, so for one reason or another, Nazeem lost whatever privileges he had
• He cannot accept that the Jarl no longer cares for his advice, so continues to peddle the story that he is a respected man of status, despite living in a tavern and spending his time wandering aimlessly around a marketplace (may double as Tearjerker).

It was Loli-gagging.

They're pulling our strings, manipulating us into doing what they want! The Dragonborn, The Chosen One? He's just a pawn in their dastardly master plan to take over all of Tamriel.

• Don't laugh at this guy, look what those buzzards did to Hyrule.
• This would also explain why the guards attack you if you kill just one chicken. You have identified yourself as an enemy to their cause, and the foul fowl send their minions to dispose of you. Fortunately, they still have little control over their pawns, which is why sheathing your weapon will temporarily cause the guards to come to their senses and stop attacking. The chickens are also unfamiliar with money values, which is why you do not recieve a higher bounty.

The dragons are gone, and the Civil War is finished. Seems like the only antagonistic force left in the game is the Thalmor, and everyone would love to get a crack at them. The height map for a good chunk of the province is finished too, and they can draw from Oblivion for the general layout of the continent, so that would be less work for them. And finally, since the Dragonborn originally crossed the border from Cyrodill to Skyrim, maybe we can explore a bit of his past too! Seems like a very good expansion opportunity, and Bethesda already laid a fair amount of the groundwork down.

• The plot changes depending on which faction you joined during the Civil War. If you were Empire, then you would be able to drive the Thalmor out of Cyrodill, rip apart the Concordat (maybe literally, if you can find the original treaty), and then restore the Empire to its former glory. If you were Stormcloak, then you invade a Cyrodill recently conquered by the Thalmor, but since they are weakened, the independent Skyrim has a chance.
• Jossed. Bethesda confirmed they will not be making any more DLC for Skyrim.

Hammerfell is important to both factions; Stormcloak Skyrim needs to make alliances with other nations if they want even a slight chance at destroying the Dominion, while the Empire needs to patch relations with Hammerfell ever since the Concordat. When the Second Great War starts, the Dominion will invade Hammerfell, and the Dovahkiin will accompany either the Stormcloaks or Imperials to Hammerfell to help them out and prove their worth.

• With the recent rumours of the next DLC being called 'Redguard' (owing to Bethesda getting a copyright for it) and that it might take place in the traditionally Redguard-Nord disputed and thematically appropriately-named city of 'Dragonstar', as well as rumors of there being two final DLCs succeeding Dragonborn (the last of which deals with the Thalmor) there might be some truth to this.

TES lore has never been above having in universe books simply be wrong. It also neatly explains why the dragons are around in the first place.Alduin is 'a terrible, ravenous dragon who presides over the cycle of existence and devours the universe at intervals', described as a firestorm, his coming is feared by the religious Nords..

• And since a number of people find Dragons to be a sort of analogue to angelic spirits in Akatosh/Alduin's service, it does explain why the dragons seem to be an antagonistic force.
• Also, the lyrics in the teaser, when translated, do involve Alduin.
  • Deuxhero: Hmm, seems like a pretty good guess for something I came up with during a quick look at Skyrim and Nord lore.
• CONFIRMED! The Dragons as they appear in Skyrim are servants of Alduin.

JH finds this somewhat obvious. You (The player), have to make your way around the cival war, convincing people that your the Dragonborn, kinda like convincing people your Nerevarine in Morrowind and will not only bring the civil war to an end, but defend the place from the dragons that are going to try to annihilate the place.

That or you may end up bringing the doom to the land and aid the dragons in destroying the place.

• This being The Elder Scrolls, it's likely that you will be able to decide (remember Daggerfall).
• Not just Daggerfall, technically you fit only about half of the requirements to be the Nerevarine, and at the end of the main storyline, while you talk to Dagoth Ur, you can say: 'I am the Nerevarine,' 'I'm not the Nerevarine,' or 'I'm just as confused as you are.'
  • Don't forget 'I am going to defeat you, not Nerevar'
• This one's looking to be somewhat less ambiguous. Being the dragonborn isn't just being the guy foretold to stop this; it's about physical/magical capability regarding the use of dragon-shouts and the absorption of dragon souls for that purpose. If there's ambiguity it may be in regards to whether or not you're in fact the last dragonborn, or if there are others who may fill the role or even be working against you, but you're almost certainly a dragonborn.
• Confirmed. You are the dragonborn.

Feel free to add any points I have missed.

• What will Jyggalag do now that he is free?
• Will the new Sheogorath become immortal? Or stay mortal and have to constantly be replaced?
  • Yes, the new Sheogorath became immortal. And changed form to look like the old Sheogorath.
    • Or, were the events in Shivering Isles all an aspect of the Mad God's, er, madness, and none of it was actually true, with the original returning to reclaim his throne when he got bored? Or did the Sheogorath personality slowly take over the 'new' one? Either of these fits the character better than the events as presented, and would explain why he looks and sounds like he used to, not to mention the absence of old Jyggy. The world may never know.
• What became of the artifact of Azani Blackheart in the Fighters Guild quests?
• What would happen if Clavicus Vile gets a hold of Umbra?
  • From the sound of his dog familiar, Barbas, it'd be more accurate to say 'What would happen if Umbra got ahold of Clavicus?'
  • The Infernal City already clued us in on this front.

Similar to Daggerfall's Atronach's being Golems while every other game uses it to refer to Daedra or how 'Ash Vampires' have nothing to do with blood vampires. I suspect the ones in Skyrim are servants of Alduin, unrelated to the Akaviri race. Correction: I hope this happens, Oblivion's divine terraforming killed enough brain cells.

• Confirmed! The black dragons are actually Jills, aedric servants of Alduin.
  • Er, not quite. The Blades certainly seem to think that the Dragons are the same.

IF Alduin really is Akatosh, Chief Deity of the Imperial pantheon, then would it be too far fetched that they're on Alduin's 'side'? Perhaps the Empire, desperate to restore it's former glory, made some kind of weird eldritch pact with the Akatosh statue in the Temple of the One, 'resurrecting' it. Of course, this will probably bite them in the ass later on.

• Alduin is Akatosh, who is also Lorkhan. So it's not an unreasonable guess.
  • .. Lorkhan being one with Akatosh.. kind of depends on who's myths (and which versions) are true. And they are a bit of a mess, compounded by boatloads of syncretization. In many they're distinct, even directly antagonistic, entities; in others they appear to be a single entity; some accounts even have multiple versions, in which an identical character with an identical role takes identical actions, but is either called Lorkhan/Shor/Shezzar, or Akatosh/Auri-El/Alduin (precisely who gifted the Amulet of Kings to Alessia being a prime example).
    • All that only confirms Akatosh and Lorkhan being the same. Self-contradiction is the most important aspect of a god in TES lore.
    • Actually, the Eight/Nine Divines being BS is historical fact in the game's universe, the pantheon is known to be a merging of the Proto-Elf and Nord pantheons by the first Emperor to please all her allies. 'Akatosh' is merely a merger of Auri-El and Alduin. Not that it really matters, as Bethesda doesn't give a shit about their own lore in Oblivion.
  • Another Sheogorath-Jyggalag 'identity crisis' then with Akatosh?
  • That would be, frankly, amazing. Do that!
  • Lorkhan being directly antagonistic to Akatosh means that he is Akatosh in some of the more esoteric backstory. Gotta love that Kirkbride.
  • You're forgetting though, Akatosh is the Dragon god of TIME, what is the most important aspect of time? It builds things up, then consumes them, sort of a Shiva/Kali sort of thig, Alduin is the cosuming and decaying aspect of Time, whereas Akatosh is the nurturing, building aspect of time.
• JOSSED! But it is close. Alduin is Akatosh's son!
  • It's important to note that, given the extremely metaphorical approach TES lore takes to reality, being his son and being an aspect are by no means mutually exclusive.
    • Which, if it sounds mindscrew-y, just think of how in Christianity, Jesus is God and the Son of God (and the Holy Spirit is.. there, I guess).

The Warp in the West, mere mortals interfering with spacetime for their own ends, mightily pissed off the 'Dragon-God of Time.' The Nerevarine's destruction of the Heart of Lorkhan unintentionally removed the eponymous god's last link to Nirn, and thus any chance of timely intervention by the greatest champion of mankind. When Martin shattered the Amulet of Kings, he fulfilled and ended Akatosh's oath to Alessia. No longer bound by ancient promises or wary of the power of his foe, Alduin's ready to exact some vengeance..

• Sorta confirmed. The events in all four previous games (The shattering of the Staff of Chaos in Arena, The appearance of Numidium in Daggerfall, The eruption of Red Mountain that's said to happen after Morrowind, and the Oblivion Crisis in, well, Oblivion) were all described/prophesied in the Elder Scrolls as events that fortold the coming of Alduin, along with an event that would happen during Skyrim, which would be a civil war between the Nords (after their king dies, the Nords would have a civil war over whether or not they should stay in the Empire).
  • Not really. Alduin was trying to destroy the world well before the events of the last 3 games. The nords in ancient times couldn't actually defeat him, so they just flung him forward in time until someone who could defeat him came along. The Elder Scrolls never fortold his coming, they fortold his return.

We know that Uriel Septim had prophetic dreams, so him having Martin could have been a plan of his to save Nirn from Dagon, an event he had perceived. However, he had a second illegitimate child, as a back-up plan. He arranged events in both of their lives, so that they would eventually be brought together to fight Dagon's invasion. When Martin died, people thought the royal bloodline had ended, and the Champion had no idea of his heritage. So, he went on with his life, travelled the world and eventually started a family in Skyrim. 200 years later, it would be revealed the Champion and all his descendants were Dragon-Born, to give the world a chance against Alduin.

• Er, what if the Champion of Cyrodiil was Argonian or whatever?
• I don't think Uriel Septim cared all that much about what he screwed.
• Impossible. It is clearly stated that the Amulet of Kings can only be worn by a member of the Septim bloodline. While it is unknown how Mankar Camoran manages to wear it, it always slips off the player's neck if they attempt to do so. If the Champion of Cyrodiil was indeed Uriel's child, then the player should have been able to wear it and relight the Dragonfires personally.
  • The Amulet of Kings was created and worn by emperors long before the Septim dynasty was established, up to and including Reman III (but not by the Akaviri rulers of the Second Era). The exact prerequisites for wearing it are indeed bit hazy, but seem to require the wearer be able to be considered an heir of Alessia, by blood OR position.
  • Again, though, Uriel was an heir of Alessia. If the Champion was indeed his son, then that should be a direct tie back to Alessia. Uriel's son = wearing the Amulet of Kings, no problem. The Champion of Cyrodiil couldn't. Then again, it is also possible that the Champion of Cyrodiil was Dragonborn without being closely related enough to the Septims/Alessia to wear the Amulet.
    • Especially since even a madman could wear the Amulet (Pelagius) since he was a Septim.
• The games seem to indicate that there are multiple sets of Dragonborn. See The Book of the Dragonborn in Skyrim. It's entirely possible that the Champion was a Dragonborn unrelated to the various royal dynasties of Tamriel. But since there weren't any dragons around to absorb souls from until Skyrim, we'll never be able to tell. Personally, I like to think that all the various heroes of The Elder Scrolls, from Barenziah's Champion on down, were Dragonborn.

This is The Elder Scrolls - 90% of the complaints of Morrowind were that it wasn't Daggerfall enough, and yet 90% of the complaints of Oblivion seem to be some variant of 'It's not Morrowind.'

• Doubtful. Daggerfall fans who disliked Morrowind are nowhere near as vocal as Morrowind fans who disliked Oblivion. If anything, 90% of the complaints on Skyrim will probably be that it's not Morrowind enough either.
  • They are less common since Daggerfall was not a very popular game. This particular RPG genre was far more niche when it came out then when Morrowind came out and the people actually following the genre generally viewed it as a mediocre game that sounded better on paper than actual execution.

Both involve a land inhabited by a viking-like people who are terrorized by dragons, which sets the stage for how the plot in the latter got started in the first place. The dragon that we see in the trailer bears some similarities to the Monstrous Nightmare (especially in using its wings as forelimbs while on the ground). And it explains just what the Red Death is and what it was doing: it's Alduin, recovering from His defeat in Skyrim and gathering strength to make His return.

It was really just clearing Mehrunes Dagon out of the way so that Akatosh/Alduin could take Nirn for itself, it just disguised it's goals as saving Cyrodil because it was necessary, seeing as the Skyrim Civil War that was supposed to herald it's reappearance hadn't happened yet. Having Dagon taking over Nirn would prevent the Skyrim Civil War from happening, keeping Alduin sealed wherever he was held. Luckily for him Martin was there to unwittingly aid his plans to escape.

• Well, thing is that by stopping Dagon's invasion, and in doing so killing Martin, Akatosh was actually causing the Skyrim Civil War. The war starts/started because the Nords were undecided as to whether they should remain with an empire that no longer had divine right to rule, which any ruler after Martin wouldn't by virtue of not being an heir of Alessia. So there's that dual motive to it; if Dagon succeeded then obviously Akatosh wouldn't have a world to make a move on, but in stopping Dagon Akatosh wasn't just clearing the way for his own invasion, he was actually setting it into motion.
  • Um, did you just play the main quest and pay no attention to the lore or anything else? The civil war only started in the last couple decades, after the Aldmeri Dominion forced the Empire to outlaw Talos worship. This didn't go over well with the Nords, mainly because Talos, a.k.a. Tiber Septim, the founder of the Empire, was a Nord.
    • Actually that post(made by me) was made well before the game was released, based on incomplete information. It's wrong, very wrong, but at the time it was more in line with what we knew.
  • Also an important point to make: Alduin is not Akatosh. He is related in some form to him but the two are not one and the same. What Akatosh wants and does and what Alduin wants and does do not have to line up.

Skyrim My Ancestors Are Smiling At Me Lyrics

Everything we've seen so far indicates that the main antagonist of the game will be somebody who fills a pretty important position in the Nine Divines. For reasons described above, he's probably mad enough at humanity that a Heel-Face turn would be very unlikely.

Jyggalag, the Daedric Prince of Order, by contrast, seems to be a pretty nice guy in his ending speech in Shivering Isles. At the very least, he owes humanity a favor for freeing him from his stint as Sheogorath. He's also described to be hypercompetent, even for a Daedra. And, as of the end of Shivering Isles, he's out of a job.

So when Akatosh/Alduin is inevitably defeated, the Nine Divines will need a new guy to keep clocks running forward. The most logical choice for a replacement would be the guy who's going to be trying to do that anyway, and the game will end with Jyggalag becoming the new Akatosh.

• Extremely doubtful. It's implied in most of the lore that Akatosh/Alduin/Auriel is a reflection of a reflection of Anu Who IS. You could no more kill the A-Dragon than you you can kill an image projected on smoke (though you could stir the smoke up quite a bit).
  • Maybe you can't kill him, but some variant upon the ancient art of can sealing could occur. Whatever happens to him in the game, it's unlikely that he's going to go back to his day job in the Nine Divines after trying to destroy the mortal world.
    • Alduin, Akatosh, and Auriel are different interpretations given pantheon; Alduin will try to eat the world and Akatosh will oppose him because Akatosh loves man. Sying anything more than this would be pure speculation.
    • Only sort of true. While yes, they are all just how different cultures interpret Time, Akatosh is only partially separated by a powerful and mysterious ritual and the collective unconscious of the Imperials. This is all pretty explicit in the lore. Whether or not that will have an effect on the immediate plot is an exciting question.
• Jossed, Alduin isn't Akatosh, he's Akatosh's son.

With the player character in prison. The shocking swerve will be that we will actually be told why we're in prison this time.

• Inciting drunken Nords into an unusually large barfight?
• For assisting enemies in this civil war?
• Jaywalking
• Probably Necrophilia, like the last protagonist..
  • OP here. Original thought was being brought in on suspicion of being the Dragonborn, either by a/the faction serving Alduin, with the intention of killing you, or by the faction opposing them bringing you in with the intention of putting you through some test or such to find out if you're the real thing, and recruit you. In the former case, the rebells break you out just in time. In the latter, Poor Communication Kills and you escape and fight off this faction believing them to be the enemy for the first act of the game until they reveal that this could have all been avoided. Jaywalking's good, though.
• The way crime worked in Oblivion, chances are you were put in jail for accidentally picking up a fork.
  • At least partially confirmed. According to an interview with Todd Howard, Skyrim opens with the player awaiting execution for crossing the border.
• Partially Jossed. You're not in prison, your tied up in a cart being transported to your execution from just being captured with the leader of the rebels.

Since you absorb a dragon's soul after you beat him to gain his magic, the opportunity for a Shout-Out is too great. Ahem: 'THE QUICKENING!'.

• If it turns out there's more than one dragonborn, at some point one of you will say 'There can be only ONE!'
• In the latest expansion, it is revealed that another dragonborn exists, and centers around defeating him and you end up absorbing his soul.

The real Dragonborn is killed in battle at the beginning, so for whatever reason Esbern begins grooming you to replace him. With help from the Greybeards, they convince the public that you are the real Dragonborn, well meanwhile searching for some kind of MacGuffin to help you beat Alduin.

• And the dragon-shout thing is faked by magic?
  • Either it's magic, or it's NOT unique to the Dragonborn at all. The Greybeards lied, anyone can do it! It's not as if it has any real historical precedence..right?
    • here's some pre-Skyrim lore on thu'um (shouts). general, andan important figure
  • A minority of characters other than the PC will be able to use Dragon Shouts, so it isn't something that only the Dragonborn can do so much as a rare and coveted ability. Maybe that's the reason why Esbern wants the PC specifically even though they aren't Dragonborn; they're one of the few who can actually become good enough with Dragon Shouts to actually pull off faking being Dovahkiin.
    • Or perhaps simply by being the best at the shouts the soul of a dragon infuses you and you BECOME the Dovahkiin
• 'Walk like them until they walk like you' is a common theme in The Elder Scrolls lore. The Nerevarine is said to not be born the Nerevarine, but is one who may become the Nerevarine. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy kind of deal. You may not be The Dragonborn, but that doesn't mean you can't become The Dragonborn.
• Dev team's been stating pretty hard that you don't 'become the dragonborn, you are the dragonborn', and that's a non-negotiable aspect. Which, assuming this really is about lineage, makes sense; you can't choose to be part of a bloodline. On the other hand, mayhaps the devs doth protest too much..
  • Supposedly the case with werewolves, so not unlikely.
• Well, seeing as the ability to absorb dragon souls is said to be something only Dovahkiin can do, I'd say that he/she is in fact a Dovahkiin.
  • But wait, if only the one and only Dovahkiin can absorb dragon souls, how is it that others who aren't Dovahkiin can use Dragon Shouts? You need the soul of a dragon for every word you unlock.
    • Maybe Dragons Souls are just a shortcut to mastering a shout? Maybe other people who learned Thu'um managed to unlock their shouts by more practice than would be feasible for gameplay? I don't know for sure, but chances are someone will find a lore-friendly answer to this. Maybe there will be an answer in-game.
    • I'd think the previous Troper's conjecture is confirmed during the main quest. From what the eldest Greybeard said, during a great war between the Dragons and Mortals, Kynareth blessed Mortals with the ability to use The Voice. The entire group of Greybeards you meet are old masters who have spent YEARS training to even understand and speak Dragon well enough to use The Voice (with a result that all they can do is use the Voice; they refrain from speaking to ensure that they don't kill anybody who isn't used to hearing it). As a Dragonborn, you have the ability to siphon this knowledge and power directly from dragons you slay or certain people who willingly give up the knowledge of Words without having to bother with figuring out what those Words do or mean.
• The above troper is completely correct. You are the dragonborn, you are special not because you can shout but because you can shout instinctively and easily.
  • Also notice how most characters can only do a few of them, and have to practice them for many hours per day. And the heroes of Skyrim always have to do their dragon shouts in unison to achieve the same effect as the Dovahkiin shouting by him/herself.

• Or, at least, one of the OTHER dragonborn dynasties that ruled Tamriel in the past(The Allesians or the Remans) and was an unknown heir to the Dragon Throne. With luck, this character might, in an expansion pack, then journey to Cyrodiil and claim the Dragon Throne and found a fourth Empire(and we also get to see what's happened in Cyrodiil since the Oblivion Crisis).
  • But that would completely rule out playing as Argonians and Khajitt,and quite possibly the Orcs as well. It seems unlikely the devs would do that.
  • Probably wouldn't rule out the Orcs; they aren't a beast race, but a kind of elf who were cursed and took on a new form, rather like the Dunmer, but in a different circumstance. In Oblivion the Grand Champion of the Arena is a half-Orc who is the son of an Imperial father ( and a vampire to boot!) and an Orcish mother, and he appears as mostly Orcish but with pale skin, so Orcs with human ancestry isn't entirely out of the question. The point about the Argonians and Khajiit is valid, though, as they are radically different from humans and there has never been the confirmation of a half-breed between them.
    • IIRC, Any sentient species can interbreed with any other sentient species, as long as the equipment's compatible, but the resulting child takes on the species of their mother (so if an Imperial male and Argonian female did the nasty, an Argonian would result. If an Orc male and a Khajiit female did it, a Khajiit would result.). However, my lore knowledge is a bit rusty, so I may be wrong.
    • There's never been any confirmation that all of the ten races are interfertile with each other. All human and elven races, yes, but not the Argonians and Kahjiit. The possibility, and the problems thereof, is discussed in greater detail in this in-game document. It hasn't been ruled out, but it is definitely not confirmed, either.

• And we'll be treated to a reference to Oblivion during his Shrine Quest.
  • This could be the reason why the Champion didn't do a better job of holding the empire together. The champion could very well have been master of the fighter's guild, archmage of the mage's guild, would have had the full support of the blades, could be personal friends with every count and countess in the province, and if one assumes the Knights of the Nine takes place before the Shivering Isles, then they're pretty much a Messianic Archetype. Being the most politically powerful(not to mention, flat out most powerful) person in the country, the champion could have made a grab for the throne themselves with a fairly decent chance of success, and that's likely what Martin had in mind before sacrificing himself. However, upon becoming Sheogorath, the champion was forced to abandon Cyrodiil to tend to their realms of Oblivion, eventually losing interest in mortal affairs.
  • Pretty much confirmed. He may look and sound like the old Sheogorath, but he makes references to the Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood quests and other things that only the Champion would have been there for when you run into him. Hilarious, and somewhat sad, at the same time.
    • Actually I can counter that, Sheogorath can see everything that's happening. In fact the game tells you he's watching you (Despite being far away) when you return the Scamp Staff. But then again you were in his Shrine so..
    • Confirmed by Word of God - the Sheogorath you meet is the Champion of Cyrodiil, hence why he seems more actively benevolent that his predecessor. The quest involves curing a madman, after all.
    • Word of God being the voice actor that claimed Fawkes was a woman.

• Haskill steps in instead, with the excuse that Sheogorath is busy at the moment, in order to create ambiguity. The statue itself will probably be of the old Sheogorath, as his mortal worshippers probably didn't know about what happened in the Shivering Isles, and didn't make a new statue to reflect the change.
  • Jossed: He definitely appears, and seems largely the same as he was in Shivering Isles, to boot. Exactly how that works is anyone's guess, though..
    • Obviously, the new Sheogorath slowly changed shape and image until they looked and acted exactly like the old Sheogorath, slowly changing to fit the role.
    • Or he just used the Wabbajack on himself so as to fit the image of himself as shown in the Sheogorath shrines.
    • Actually in Skyrim he looks like a Dark Elf somewhat, So.. canonly the Champion of Cyrodill was a Dunmer all along?
    • There's also the fact he's a Daedric Prince and can change shape at will.

It will be the location of a New Vegas equivalent. It will also introduce Imga as a playable race.

• Surprised this one went untouched for so long. Anyway, the allusions to the Summerset Isles in the random npc chatter from Oblivion seem to have been foreshadowing the rise of the Thalmor and the succession of the Altmeri Dominion. While Summerset being a possible location for a future game or dlc are decent, it does raise some questions as access to the island was restricted for non-altmer before they got taken over by the nazi elves.

The PC was born when Alduin, planning his assault on the world some decades before the start of the game, sent one of his most powerful Jills to take on a humanoid form, being born as one of them and living among them, to act as a general and a leader to his forces when the time comes. However, the Jill has forgotten who he/she was upon being born as a mortal, and thanks to the tutelage of Esbern, turns against Alduin and uses their aedric power to fight him. The PC's ability to use dragon shouts and absorb the souls of other dragons do not come from being Dragonborn; the last true Dragonborn was Martin Septim, and Bethesda seems to hint that the Dragonborn in this game will be different from previous ones. The power of this 'Dragonborn' comes from the fact that they have the soul of a Jill, and thus can use their powers.

• Um, actually a dragon soul in a human body is exactly what the dragonborn IS so.. yeah this is kinda confirmed..
  • The point isn't so much the PC having a dragon's soul, but being specically the soul of one of Alduin's personal Jill servants. True, that would still make them Dragonborn, but a different kind of Dragonborn than those like Esbern are probably expecting.
• This would also explain why non-human player characters are also Dragonborn.
  • Explanation of that is not required: as in-game documents comfirm being the Dragonborn is not a matter of descent alone. The Septims were a line of Dragonborn but other Dragonborn have existed outside that bloodline.

It's been said that the PC is different than other dragonborn, maybe he/she is Akatosh in mortal form? I have no other proof for this other than it would be awesome.

• Actually, that's a theory that holds some merit. If the PC is going around collecting the Jills souls, maybe it's not to stop Alduin's invasion. Maybe it's to become Alduin (since Alduin = Akatosh) in the same way that Martin used the amulet of kings to become an avatar of Akatosh, and the plan is for the PC to actually start the next cycle for Tamriel (which would necessitate destroying the old one, according to lore). Basically making you the hero AND the villain.
  • Jossed. Alduin is not Akatosh and neither is the PC. Alduin is trying to destroy the world (possibly ahead of the appointed time), the PC is trying to stop it.
  • There is a fan theory that the souls of all dragons, including Alduin and Dragonborn, are fragments of the soul of Akatosh.

Ok lets look at the facts, General Talos (Aka Tiber Septim) used an shout based ability called the Thu'um, but he didnt seem to have it early on for one, it has verious powers, much like Dragon Shouts, teleporting, knocking down walls, ect. He is reffered to as the 'dragon born' by others, and later it is said that the Blood of the dragon flows in septim veins, 'allowing them to see more than lesser men.' It out and out states that the Amulet of Kings is made of the divine blood of akatosh, and the references from when he speaks to Alessia, 'If no heir of our joined blood wears this amulet' (stress of joined blood)Also, you may recall that the last person to wear the amulet before Tiber Septim was Reman the III and they were entirely unrelated, same with Allesia and Reman. in short it's not winning the position, nor being born to it that makes one an Emperor, it's the blood of the Dragon, also, after Martin's death in Oblivion, if you speak to about any of the blades(especially Barus of Jauffre) what do they say? 'We will wait until the next Dragon-born arises' you're not the LAST dragonborn at all! You're the first of a new line!

• Also, if instead of supporting the imperials you support the Stormcloak rebels, you'll take over as their leader and become King in the North.
  • Alternatively, once the Dragonborn rises to lead the Stormcloaks he or she will lead a re-conquest of Tamriel.
• This could be why marriage was introduced, so the Dragonborn can start a new ruling line.
• The Big Question would be how they'd handle this in future games - people would probably dislike if their choices were made clearly un-canon, and while Sheogorath has in-built handwaves (to begin with, it is Sheogorath - he might well be mad enough to remember all the different possibilities that he could have done, back when he was Champion of Cyrodiil, as things he did when he was Champion of Cyrodiil), the Emperor not being a Khajiit/Argonian.. does not (those two races are the problem - all the others are interfertile, but not them).
  • They could add an 'import your save file' feature to TES 6, kinda like BioWare did with Dragon Age II. That would solve the problem quite well, and open the door for plotlines like some political tensions resulting from the choice of player race in Skyrim (e.g. people getting mad about having a Dunmer on the Empire's throne, or worried that the Empire is secretly supporting the Renrijra Krin if the Dovahkiin was a Khajiit). It'd be a lot of extra work, but well worth it IMHO.
    • Maybe, thanks to the influence of the Companions, the Dovahkiin makes Emperor an elected position. Like in the Holy Roman Empire or Warhammer.
    • For a setting where every race opposes every other (most of the time), that's a terrible idea. The guy with a platform of killing all orcs would probably get elected.
    • It's not like either of the examples had mass elections. The only voters were the provincial and church leaders.
• This would be good DLC. Becoming a god in Oblivion is a tough act to follow, but I suppose the Dragonborn could settle for merely becoming an Emperor.
• If the Dragonborn becomes Emperor, Ulfric might well swear fealty to them. He objected to the Empire as it was ruled, but he might be willing to serve under the Dragonborn if they'd proven themselves in combat beside him. So, Skyrim could rejoin the Empire regardless of how the war turns out, which would tie up a few questions about how Bethesda would handle the next game.
• If the Dragonborn does become Emperor by the time of the next game, they'd most likely become an Unseen Character, along with maybe their spouse and/or any children they birthed or adopted. And the Dragonborn Emperor may possibly have ties to whoever the next Player Character will be, be it has one of the Dragonborn Emperor's children, a protege to the Dragonborn, or maybe even just a loyal supporter. And the next game in question will likely involve the Dragonborn Emperor waging war with the Aldmeri Dominion. Hey. This troper smells some Fanfic Fuel over here!

Since it's entirely possible that Talos has been weakened by lack of worship thanks to the Thalmor, it's possible that he will fade. But as the heir to his titles and legacy (as we know from the Greybeards) the Dragonborn will build a new Empire with Skyrim as the center, then on their death will ascend to take the place of the weakened Talos as the guardian of mankind. The Hero of Kvatch became a Daedric Prince after all, and Talos was mortal to start with.Since Todd Howard already said you are arrested and awaiting execution for crossing the border in this game, it makes sense you won't cross the borders, seeing as they're locked down for the duration of the Civil War, and with Skyrim being a mountainous county, one CAPABLE of stopping people trying to border hop, they block the border with mountains except for a couple passes with Insurmountable Waist High Fences that happen to be heavily guarded. Voila, border guards, logical reason not to cross the border, better immersion. (and if Bethesda doesn't do this, I'm sure some modder eventually will.)While the 'Champion of Cyrodill' will be completely vague on what exactly happened, the final Archmage of the Third Era, the (re)founder of the Knights of the Nine (ect) will be spoken of as if they were another character. They may or may not have any other details assigned.

• This is actually pretty likely, in part. In Oblivion, they never made links between all the questlines of Morrowind when they were being talked about, but rather than being actively attributed to multiple people it is left ambiguous so that someone who didn't play Morrowind at all or only did certain questlines in Morrowind would see them as having been done by someone else. This will likely happen again.
  • Jossed. Several of the in-game books and Sheogorath himself confirm the Champion of Cyrodill as having completed all the side-quest as the same character, refering to them as Grey Fox, etc, etc.

A trailer has already confirmed the exsistance of werewolves in this game. How you look as a werewolf is decided by what race and gender your character is.

• What trailer are you talking about? Because if you're talking about what I think you're talking about, that was a Frost Troll, not a Werewolf. In fact, I think the Devs are still tight-lipped about the existence of Were-creatures.
  • Ah shit, sorry. I'm blind. D:
  • Confirmed!

Bethesda made Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas, and there you could have followers. Maybe you can have followers here.

• It's been confirmed that you'll be able to convince people to come along and adventure with you. The interview was vague, but it seems this will apply to most any NPC as opposed to the select few you could have in the fallout games.
  • Ah, I didn't know that. Should the wmg be removed then?
    • Nah, good enough place to leave it up for speculation. From what I'm hearing(and a lot of this is second hand+), the original plan was that you could recruit anyone who liked you enough to follow you, but that was nixed. There will supposedly be more followers than in Fallout or Oblivion, but they'll be less distinct and developed than the ones in Fallout. Whether this is due to conservation of detail or to allow more player freedom by not giving followers personalities that would conflict with player choices, I have no idea. They might be trying to avoid situations like in Fallout 3 where you had to be a set alignment to have certain followers(and the best follower was for good characters only), or the situation in New Vegas where certain followers would abandon you if you sided with/against certain factions. Whether or not that's worth trading off the increased character development is something subjective, I suppose. the YMMV filter is dumb
    • Hate to be a pedant, but Bethesda merely published New Vegas. It was developed by Obsidian.
    • True. However, New Vegas should still be taken into account when discussing what they will and won't do in regards to Skyrim; its the game from this family that's most recent in peoples minds and it's the game this one will be held up against. outside of people saying it still isn't enough like Morrowind.
• The apparently genuine manual that has been leaked recently has a secton on 'hirelings' freelancers whom the player can recruit for a fee. Interstingly, this means that there are now NPC's who follow the tried and tested career path of many PC's - hanging round taverns bothering people until someone offers them a job.
• Bethesda didn't actually make New Vegas, they just published it.

Bethesda's been pretty enthusiastic about releasing lots of DLC. If we're getting werewolves, it's probably like this.

• Nope. The quest chain is even available fairly early on in the game, the day it launched.
  • Semi-correct. The Dawnguard DLC will introduce new perks for players who have become Werewolves in the vanilla game.
    • The Dragonborn DLC also introduces effect-altering jewelry for werewolves akin to those that Vampire Lords get in Dawnguard.

Hopefully they're not psychic in this game.

• Hopefully there's a balance. Yes, it's stupid when you can't sell anything stolen, but on the flip side if you could sell them the stuff you just stole from them, that's not much better.
  • That one has been impossible since Morrowind, since shopkeepers can recognize when you sell them their own stuff.
• Confirmed! One of the perks for the Speech skill is 'Fence', which allows the player to sell stolen goods to shopkeepers they've invested in.

Oblivion had 'A Shadow Over Hackdirt', a quest based on 'The Shadow Over Innsmouth'. Fallout 3 had the Dunwich Building, a shout-out to The Dunwich Horror. If the trend continues, then following the theme of Lovecraft's most famous stories, the next one will probably be a shout-out to 'The Call of Cthulhu'. The story of the game is already about an ancient god awakening and trying to destroy the world.

• If it does have one, my bets are on At the Mountains of Madness.
  • Confirmed! Well, the second part is. Sheogorath's quest in Skyrim is called The Mind of Madness.

Dark Elves (at least the Telvanni, I don't recall anyone else getting a quoted age) are long lived (Tharn is half Dunmer and one of the books says mixed race children normally have their mom's race), easily enough to last till Skyrim. My guess: They will appear as a claimant to the throne of Morrowind/be mentioned as leading Morrowind, as either an ally or potential enemy of Skyrim.

• Partially confirmed: The Thieves' Guild questline gives us Karliah, Barenziah's granddaughter. However, there is no relation to Jagar.

Skyrim will not force the player onto one side of the loyalist vs. secessionist civil war. Instead, much like Daggerfall's multiple endings, the player will be allowed to choose which side they end up supporting and due to their actions, that will be the one that wins the civil war.

• So, err, does this mean the dragon is going to break again? Actually, come to think of it, now isn't an odd time for that to happen..
  • This one seems to be confirmed by the achievement list.
  • Confirmed. The Civil War questline is essentially an entire military campaign with the aim being retaking enemy cities, culminating with an assault on Windhelm (if you support the Empire) or Solitude (if you support the Stormcloaks).

I mean, think about it; in Morrowind, your character became ageless (neither blight nor age can harm him, according to The Seven Visions, and IIRC a side-effect of Corprus is agelessness and immunity to all other disease. Divayth Fyr's potion just removed the contagiousness and stat changes), in The Lost Prophecy, it says:

This means the Morrowind character is both dragonborn (fulfilling requirements for Dovahkiin) and ageless (200 years? Pah! Puny mortals). Perhaps Uriel Septim knew this, and had your character mind-wiped after every game. Which would explain why you always seem to be in prison. With amnesia. As for how your character is suddenly disease-prone in Oblivion (and presumably Skyrim), i don't know. Maybe there's a rare spell out there that decreases disease resistance? Or perhaps Bethesda Retconned the disease resistance so you're only immune to blight. If you made your characters different races in every game, well, shame on you. Assume you played the same race every game, and this makes so much more sense.

• Technically, the reference to Dragon-born doesn't prove that Morrowind character is a Dovahkiin - The Lost Prophecy is annoted, and an alternate explanation is presented: it simply refers to the main character coming from the Empire proper (you were shipped to Morrowind from the Imperial City Prison), so the Nerevarine was 'born under the Dragon', IE, the Septim Empire or Cyrodiil itself. That the terms are the same in Cyrodilic does not prove that the meanings are the same - Dragonborn for Dovahkiin is a literal translation of the draconic term, while both The Lost Prophecy's Dragon-born and the Oblivion reference to Martin as Dragonborn both seem to be logical derivation from the sign of the Septims. Of course, this being Wild Mass Guessing, there is nothing hindering a theory that yes, there is a connection, and it might be that the Nerevarine is up to tricks in Skyrim two hundred years after Dagoth Ur's death.
  • Maybe they are, but they keep getting amnesia. They almost died against Tharn, and got amnesia. However, the Emperor, grateful, built them a new backstory that still had them be besties. During the Warp in the West, they were assumed dead, but were only mostly dead, and had amnesia. The Emperor, realizing this was going to keep happening, sent them to Morrowind to solve the issues there. During Morrowind, they became ageless, but almost died and proceeded to lose their memory again. The Emperor found them and locked them up because at this point, they're not a person, they're a WMD with legs. They eventually became Sheogorath, but realized that they would be needed again and split off their mortal persona, becoming more like Sheo because of it, and plopped it back into the world right at the border of Skyrim, with requisite amnesia. It proceeded to cross the border and the rest is history.

It's a game with a brand-new engine, by a company known for releasing games in unstable state, on a gimmicky release date (11/11/11 because they knew it would stick in your heads). The reviewers will be paid not to mention these bugs.

• If they do manage to succesfully and covertly bribe every major game review organization, I'd consider that an even greater achievement than making a good game. They really can't lose here.
• Very possible (except for that insane reviewer-bribing part), but YMMV. When you consider the huge quantities of flak Bethesda has taken for buggy games, the fact that they're now paying close attention to the modding community to improve their own products, and the fact that the game's manual has already been completed, it's likely that they're well into bug-testing stages and are doing a better job of it this time around. Bethesda have also done away with the Gamebryo engine, and built a new one, so either they took note of Gamebryo's flaws/quirks and tried to avoid similar problems when building a whole new engine, or their unfamiliarity with this new engine will result in more flaws.
• Jossed, thank Crystal Dragon Jesus-it had an unfortunate tendency to crash before post-release updates, but nary a bug in sight. There's a bad menu for the PC version, but that's due to it being the same as the console variety. So, either bribes only happened in the minds of certainFan Dumb, or Bethesda wasted their money covering up the flaws they fixed through honest work.
  • Actually, a few people on consoles have run into quests that will never start and cells that will never load. Quite annoying when it means you can't complete quest lines.
    • This troper has had the game crash over a dozen times leaving corrupted data as saves (can only be prevented by turning off autosaves), Books become irretrievably trapped on shelves in owned houses, Missions that can't be completed for trivial reasons (stupid hargravan vengeance/Gaulder amulet/etc quest), shortly after starting the game an NPC ran up to me with a tale about escaping from kidnappers and asks me to stop them but the quest did not appear, A dead dragon appeared in solitude after I fast traveled there and has been stuck in the middle of the street rag-dolling around ever since, during the defense of Windhelm quest I had to deal not only with the stormcloak army but a second army of endlessly cloning copies of an NPC from a completely different city, nearly every mannequin I equip armour on simply turns invisible in the affected area and these are just the bugs off the top of my head. Two patches later and non of these have been fixed (PS3, by the way). Saying this WMG is jossed is a pretty big stretch.
    • The main point of 1.3 was fixing bugs introduced in 1.2. The other part was optimisation, which, while good, is not exactly bug-fixing.. and there's still quite a number of various bugs featured.

She's a red-eyed horse who can't die. What if she's immortal, possibly an avatar of Sithis or the Night Mother?

• Why would the avatar of Sithis or the Night Mother want to spend their time as a steed to members of the guild that serves them? 'Hey, Lucien, guess what, I'm not just your horse, but also the god of death whom you worship. Now, the Dread Father demands another carrot.'
  • You wouldn't suspect it would you? Considering that the Dark Brotherhood has a lot of enemies it would make sense that Sithis would want to keep a close eye on his subordinates.
  • She could be some kind of daedric servant of the NM or Sithis, too. And just because the NM and Sithis are gods doesn't mean they're proud and arrogant. They might not care about serving the members of the Black Hand the way the Black Hand does them, as a kind of reward for loyalty.
• CONFIRMED! She comes back again in the Dark Brotherhood story, along with another amusing old friend.

The Falmer being, for those less versed in the lore, the Snow Elves—the original Elven strain that inhabited Skyrim. As far as anybody knows, they're all gone, much like the Dwemer. But it's possible some parts of Skyrim might reference them or even make them a major plot point.

• Perhaps the ruins of Falmer cities will take the place of Dwemer and Ayleid ruins from the previous two games?
• It has already been confirmed that Skyrim will have Dwemer ruins, like Morrowind.
• Well, it's been confirmed Rieklings will be appearing. Not quite the same as Falmer, but they are said to be their decendants.
  • 'Said' is far different from the truth: Fall of the Snow Prince and the works of modern historians in-universe suggest that the Riekling connection was made by the Nords to simply bash on the Falmer. Personally, I'm wondering if maybe some of the Thalmor might have some Falmer behind them pulling the strings, what with them stirring up trouble in Skyrim, the Falmers' hated enemy.
• CONFIRMED! The Falmer appear, but they're a little..different than you might imagine.
  • So not blue-skinned beings with features somewhat elvish and somewhat orcish, sometimes called Ice Warriors?
    • They look a bit more pale-green/white skinned to me.
    • Also blind and possibly really dwemer.

Anyone else notice how every game so far has a sort of god killing theme? (the Dwemer building a living God, the Warp in the West, Morrowind's entire plot, Sheogorath becoming a mortal, etc) Im thinking this will all lead to the prophecy in the Elder Scrolls where Akatosh will return and its up to the main character to bring him and all the other gods down as well.

• Of course, the consequences of that would lead to events even worse then Alduin's return, like an Oblivion Invasion, and not just by Dagon this time. Not to mention the whole Lorkhan thing.. I smell plot twist!
• Actually, the Warp in the West added to the number of gods. In a manner of speaking - the God of Worms does appear to exist in some form. However, let's change it to god-changing theme, and it fits (deaths are changes.. as are someone becoming a god, a god changing in nature, a new god arising, etc).

The developers have outright stated that eventually you will be able to summon your own dragon to come to your aid towards the end of the game. Who better to help banish the evil dragons (it is implied that there is more than one species of dragons) than the guy who turned into the avatar of the 'good' version of the dragon god?

• Jossed: The dragon's name is Odahviing. and he's Alduin right-hand dragon even.

One of his non-sequiturs is 'M'aiq was soul-trapped once. Not very pleasant.' Ergo, his soul sat in a stone unused for 200 years, until his spirit was transferred into a new body. I guess that also makes him a lich. Go figure.

• He does tell you how to become a lich in Morrowind..
• I suppose that's more entertaining than my assumption that he was a Legacy Character.
• One of M'aiq's comments is that both his father and his father's father had the same name. It's very possible he's simply the original's (great?) grandson.
  • That's just what he wants you to think.
  • No, it's true .. but his father and grandfather were born before the events of Morrowind.

With the Thalmor and Empire already locked in a Cold War, I doubt it would take very much to fire it up again, but this time with Hammerfell (With their elf-hate), and Black Marsh (Who are basically the Vietcong) involved as well.'We agreed not to use it!' There is a good reason why they agreed to that. That is because invoking its power at a place known as THE TIME-WOUND is going to have serious consequences. And, after using it, one of the heroes notes, 'May the spirits have mercy on our souls.'

• Time-wound was a result of using the scroll the first time. I'd think the reason to not want to use it is because it's like fighting Godzilla by glassing the planet.
• CONFIRMED: The original heroes of Skyrim used an Elder Scroll to send Alduin through a time-wound, ending up in present day Skyrim.
  • The Time Wound is a result of the temporal expunging of Alduin's physical form. It was not there until Felldir invoked the Elder Scroll's power to do that.
    • Is it just me or is what happens to Alduin similar to the fate of Satinav from The Dark Eye? And Satinav is even also the God of Time, just like Akatosh!

• Will focus on a Daedric Prince, à la Hircine in Bloodmoon or Sheogorath in Shivering Isles.
  • Maybe Azura's realm or Meridia's?
  • Technically Azura had a whole game and expansion to herself. Meridia is technically an important part of Knights of the Nine. And, Clavicus Vile has Redguard and a novel series. Maybe Peryite for the dragon theme, Boethiah for the upheaval theme, or Hermaeus Mora for using the Elder Scrolls themselves more?
    • Hermaeus Mora would be amazing, although they'd have to work out a reason for you not forfeiting your soul as soon as you stepped in his realm. He's the most Lovecraft-esque of the princes for a reason, after all.
    • The trailers for Dragonborn DLC imply that you might be able to visit his Apocrypha.
  • What about Jyggalag? He doesn't have a shrine in Skyrim, and probably has forged a whole new plane of Oblivion, which you have to either defend against some threat or destroy with the help of said threat.
    • I seem to recall from Shivering Isles that Jyggalag's idea of perfect order is no life whatsoever (though it would've been nice to have had somebody build a shrine to him). Then again, it was Sheogorath who said it, so maybe this isn't the best proof. In any case, I'm throwing in a vote for Malacath, god of outcasts, maybe in a DLC prominently featuring the Orc strongholds.
    • The 'visit a realm of Oblivion' part has been sort of done in Dawnguard, though none of the above Daedric Princes were involved ( since Soul Cairn, last visited in Battlespire, is not under the control of a Daedric Prince).
• Will deal with the Falmer and their former civilization.
  • Will deal with the Falmer (and their former civilization) while having the Dwemer figure heavily in the DLC (they were responsible for transforming the Falmer into their present degenerate state, after all).
• Is set in, or focused on, Atmora. For those that don't know Atmora is an island north of Skyrim where the ancestors of the Nords came from.
  • Isn't Atmora the place where the High Elves are native to?
  • That would be Aldmeris, the lost continet where Aldmer (the first elves) come from.
    • Aldmeris have been implied to have been metaphorical rather than a physical place ('the sundering of Aldmeris'='the division of the Mer into many Mer races'), but yes. As for Atmora, it is supposed to have frozen since Tiber Septim's day at the very latest.. but that doesn't hinder a DLC, it just implies there wouldn't be many native NPCs, if any.
• Will travel to non-Imperial factions like Hammerfell or Argonian Morrowind and explore how these other powers view their political neighbours.
• Will involve a comeback from Divayth Fyr.
• Will be a redux of Bloodmoon - a quick scene in Hircine's quest indicates the Bloodmoon has come again.. but this time Solstheim is full of refugee Dunmer, and the Skaal might not even be around as a culture anymore to recognise the signs..
• It'll involve tying up the whole matter of the civil war, with the Dragonborn getting a proper reward (Becoming an Imperial General if you helped Tullius or becoming High King if you helped Ulfric. Neither of them are invincible after all..)
  • Perhaps the Stormcloak reward would be becoming the new Jarl of Eastmarch. The entire point of the Stormcloak Rebellion is to put Ulfric on the throne, so making you High King wouldn't make sense, and no real person could rule from two cities on opposite sides of the country.
    • I got the impression from some of Ulfric's statements that he intended to move the capitol from Solitude to Windhelm. He mentions that Solitude was the capitol mainly due to imperial influence when talking about Elisif, and speaks very sentimentally about the Palace of Kings, how it was the throne of not only his beloved father, but the throne of Ysggrimor. Also, whoever posted that suggestion seemed to be implying that it could be sparked by Ulfric's death, in which case the Dragonborn might be seen as a suitable replacement. Not that I'd mind becoming jarl of eastmarch if only so I could pull a Free-Winter and help out the dark elves and argonians.
• Will give the Dragonborn the opportunity to help the Forsworn Rebellion if s/he didn't kill Madanach. Madanach will be able to replace the Jarl of the Reach.
  • Should be noted that it is fully possible for Madanach to die even if the player doesn't kill him; during the escape from Markarth, the forsworn are generally too weak to fight through the guards without taking some losses, and he might end up as one of them.
• The Dragonborn will get the chance to become a Divine. The last game's DLC ended with the player becoming a Daedric prince. This time, you'll get to go the other way: you get to take the place of Talos. After all, worship of Talos was banned, but if another mortal takes his place, then that mortal can be worshipped freely.
  • Kind of unlikely. The Divines don't (Or can't) interfere with mortal affairs like the Daedric princes, so if it was possible to become a Divine you'd be spending ALOT of time in Aetherius.
• It'll be about the Nerevarine's expedition to Akavir, mentioned in Oblivion. It'll be set in a small portion of Akavir, and finally let players see the mysterious land.
• Will feature Draugrs growing in power under the command of one dragon, who they worship as they did in days of old.
• Hammerfell. Think about it: it's distinct enough from Skyrim so as not to feel like a rehash (bonus points if they slip in a reference to The 13th Warrior somewhere); it connects well to the Civil War, since Hammerfell also declared independence and drove out the Thalmor; it borders Skyrim, so it would be easy to link in; and it features the city of Dragonstar, which is home to feuding populations of Nords and Redguards - with what's going on in Skyrim, I doubt that the Nords wouldn't be somehow interested. Really, the potential is enormous.
  • All of Hammerfell is rather unlikely — Hammerfell is about the size of Skyrim, so either there'd be some majorly confusing variation in size compression, or it would be far, far too large a project for even an expansion pack, let alone a large DLC. However, a Dragonstar DLC would cover most of the things you mention, while keeping it at a reasonable size..
• Will take place in High Rock, and will center around conflict between the local orcs who want to retake Orsinnium(again) and the bretons, who want to crush them(again). Could further explore the Forsworn plotline as well as tie in to the Civil War, with a Stormcloak Dragonborn trying to solidify a potential alliance between Skyrim and High Rock and an Imperial Dragonborn being sent to restore peace to the region.
• Dragonborn does put a large focus on Hermaeus Mora. So.. Confirmed, I guess?
  • Everything not involving Herma Mora is jossed. After Dawnguard, Hearthfire, and Dragonborn, Bethesda has announced that there will be no further dlc.

In Skyrim, there's a severe lack of Daedra to encounter/fight compared to previous games. Memorable types such as Scamps, Daedroths, Golden Saints, and others are gone, with only Dremora and the three Atronarch types remaining, and even then they're incredibly rare to find. I've got two explanations for this, a lore-one and a real one.

• Lore explanation: When the barriers between Oblivion and the Mortal Realm were sealed by Martin and the Champion Of Cyrodil, it changed how Daedra could be summoned, making it more difficult to summon them into the world. After 200 years, most of the Daedra that were still in the world were sent back into Oblivion, and Daedra summoning became rare as people were afraid of another Oblivion Crisis (even though one could never happen again thanks to the aforementioned heroes). By the time of Skyrim, so few Daedra were left it was hard to find them.
  • It has been observed on the Elder Scrolls forum that several of the Daedric quests hints that the Daedra have a harder time interacting with Nirn these days than in any of the previous games. To add that to that, one of the pre-release Developer Lore Post Series in the same forum mentioned that restrictions on Daedric summoning in the wake of the Oblivion Crisis was one of the causes of the split of the Mages Guild.
    • On the other hand, you have both Sanguine and Nocturnal showing up in the flesh on Nirn, something that took Dagon quite a bit of effort to do in Oblivion.
  • It's mentioned in the Lore that the essence of several Aedra (the 'dead' Aedra) is becoming more and more closely bound with the matter of Mundus through each reproductive cycle of humans, Mer and other humanoid species. That would make the realm more resistant to Daedric entry as time goes by without affecting Aedric intervention as much.
  • Could be simplier than that. Daedra can only get to Mundus via magic. Nords, as a whole, don't care for magic.
• Real explanation: After so much time working on a game and several expansions that focused on the Daedra, the devs were tired of them so didn't spend much time on them (instead favoring the Dragons), so they left most Daedra types out while only keeping a precious few to help remind everyone that they still exist.

The problem is that the Dragon word for Hello is Yol Toor Shul, which causes fire to spew forth and burn things.More specifically Yol = Hi, Yol Toor = Hello, Yol Toor Shul = Hello, how are you?This is evidenced for the fact that Paarthurnax ask you to greet him with the full Fire Breath Dragon Shout. Saying it had been a long time since anyone greeted him in the proper dragon tongue.So, the Dragons don't mean to burn down your village and roast your live stock. They just woke up from a long nap and are trying to get to know the new neighbors, it's only polite. And then you flip out and start shooting arrows at them, so they get pissy and bite you to death.

• The dragons serve Alduin. Is Alduin just trying to say hello?
  • Of course not! He just thinks you look awfully cold in those rags.
  • Maybe they serve Alduin, BECAUSE people try to kill them for saying hello.

• Think about it. He may have exploded, but you never did absorb his soul.
  • Almost definitely. He's an integral part of the cycle of worlds (called kalpas in-setting). Unless of course, this is the final kalpa, as each kalpa has 'one new thing' - this one could be the death of the whole kalpa system. But probably not.
  • The new thing in this kalpa is implied by several sources to be the existence of Talos. Talos binds the wheel together: as long as he exists, the kalpa continues.
• Since Alduin is a piece of Akatosh that was retconned into being his first son via a Mind ScrewCosmic Retcon, it's possible that 'killing' him may have just merged him back with Akatosh. That means the desire to devour and destroy everything that Alduin embodied is a part of Akatosh again.
  • Not necessarily a retcon. Like you said, Alduin is an aspect of the god Akatosh: he is Akatosh in having his godly 'I', and he isn't Akatosh in having a personality of his own. Too esoteric, but this is TES lore.

• If not the next game. Skyrim sets it into the player's head that the Thalmor are NOT good, at all. Add to that that everyone in Skyrim dislikes them, for the most part: the Empire is just forced to work with them on threat of invasion.
  • It could even have a different feel, if same ultimate outcome, depending on the side the player took during the Civil War. For the Imperials, it would involve the rebuilding of the Empire's forces to contend with the Dominion's army and helping the Empire reforge its alliance with Hammerfell. For Stormcloaks, it would also involve the building of forces, and maybe negotiating a temporary alliance with the Empire against their common foe.

It explains away both choices you can make in the game perfectly. Rebelled against the Cyrodillian Empire? Yes you did, and you founded your own located in the more defensible region of Skyrim. Supported the Empire? Yes you did, and you wisely founded a new dynasty to support it and intelligently moved the capital into the defensive region of Skyrim.

• The only leaves how they'd explain who is the Emperor of the Empire - put it long enough after, and they could account for all man and mer races so long as they avoid mentioning what the founder was (a stretch in itself) - but Argonians and Khajiit are, to all indications, not interfertile with men or mer. So, uhm, the problem with that plan is that while it explains how Skyrim's Dragon Break would merge the civil war endings, it conversely makes it significantly harder for Bethesda to leave the Dovahkiin vague.
• All future portraits and statues of the potential Dovakiin emperor represent the Dovakiin either as a stylized dragon or wearing incredibly heavy armor to solve the problem with the identity of race and gender. They could also give the character an assumed imperial name ala 'Tiber Septum' or just refer to the character as the Emperor Dovakiin to further mask identity. It does, unfortunately mean that the Dovahkiin could never have been a Khajiit or Argonian, but they've never been an Emperor in canon (as far as I know), anyways. Depending on how the time skip and portrayal is handled it could still work.
  • Exactly: it'd discount Khajiit and Argonians. Which is the problem.
• If they wanted to go this route, then the Khajit/Argonian problem can actually be solved fairly easily by making the renewed Empire even more of a Roman expy, and having the dynasty adopt heirs into the imperial family rather than going by blood, with a 'must have the gifts of the Dragonborn' as a pre-qualification. Throw in a couple of less mysterious Emperors/Empresses who were Khajit or Argonian in the time between the games, and I think the lore works out quite well. It opens up the space for the books in the next game to disagree violently over whether it started in Loyalty or Rebellion, and relate various secret history rumors of the dark deeds the founder of dynasty may (or most certainly did not) comit on their path to the throne.
• Or they could just include an 'import your Skyrim save' feature.

It works for Mass Effect, after all, and since the game will undoubtedly take place in a new province, the changes will likely be as cosmetic as they are in Mass Effect as well; all they'd need to do is tweak random dialogue based on a few notable factors, like whether or not Skyrim is part of the Empire or not. This would also allow them to tailor any descriptions of the Dragonborn based on the player's selection of race and sex, providing more than just a generic description. Besides dialogue, perhaps it would affect the outcome (or even existence) of certain quests, but that'd be pretty much all they'd have to do. For players that DON'T have a complete Skyrim save-data, the game will either allow you to pick from one of several pre-made scenarios (a la Dragon Age II) or merely Road Cone the events of Skyrim as they seem to have done with Oblivion. It would also give players a further sense of continuity, by having their choices in Skyrim directly affect the future games. In any case, might not be a bad idea to hold onto that save game data..As we all know in Skyrim, you can assist the Empire or the Stormcloaks. There are three general outcomes: One is an Empire victory, two a Stormcloak victory, three a treaty between the two. Now, the Empire was weakened by the Oblivion Crisis and the Aldmeri Dominion largely won the war and forced the White-Gold Concordant. As several Thalmor seem to prove, they will strike the Empire again to cause genocide or just enslave. In the 6th game, depending on your save import (if they include it, they could just have beginning questions about the original outcome) the Dragonborn will support the Empire in the second Aldmer war, or just leave it behind altogether. If the Dragonborn does help, then your character will be in a regiment commanded by the Dragonborn and you will be the Dragonborn's second-in-command. Your unit will be captured, and placed into a dungeon that the Blades have secret knowledge of. In your cell, because of recent Thalmor victories, will be a member of the Blades who will help you out. After this, you'll decide the fate of the Empire and the Dominion. Will you overturn the Concordant, allowing Talos worship and giving a headstart for the Empire's reawakening? Or will you help the Dominion, overturning the Empire and keeping the Concordant? The state of the Empire is directly proportional to how well it is after the civil war: Terrible, basically overrun (Stormcloak victory). Staggered, but not done (Treaty). Trading hit for hit, evenly (Imperial). There are two initiations for both sides: Saving the Dragonborn, or executing the Dragonborn. Along the way, the various guilds line up for their side. If one side wins, that side's guilds will take over the others'.

It's improbable, but I think it'd be pretty cool.

• The only problem with that is that there is no 'Treaty' option. Unless you mean the temporary truce that is formed while the civil war is still going on, that ends after beating Alduin, so there is only two outcomes. Both of which are very plausible.

The Thalmor dossier on him mentions that the Stormcloaks winning the war is in no way ideal for them. Ulfric got what he wanted from the Thalmor, be that funds or intel, and cut ties from them when the time came to achieve his goal.

• Unlikely. He refused any future contact with them after they demanded his arrest in Markarth for worshipping Talos, even though the Jarl had promised Ulfric and his men freedom of worship in exchange for their help in taking the city.
  • Given that they outright state that he's given them nothing since Markarth, the only reason he still counts as an agent is that his actions continue to hurt the Empire and not the Thalmor. Which still sucks, but really the best result in Stormcloak playthrough is to win the war quickly with minimum loss of life on both sides, so Ulfric can turn his troops against Summerset like he promised.
    • It's also worth noting that Ulfric is trying diplomatic overtures to gain alliances with neighbouring countries, such as High Rock. Though Hammerfell joining up with Skyrim seems quite likely given their mutual elf hatred and independence from the Empire.
    • If Hammerfell can throw out the Thalmor, then Skyrim can do it the same. Especially considering that they already kicked out the Legion.
    • Hammerfell only had to face a Dominion that had already been severely weakened by the Great War against the Empire. And yet, Hammerfell apparently managed only a Pyrrhic victory: Dominion kicked out, but Hammerfell ruined. Now, consider that the Civil War only managed to weaken both Skyrim and the Empire, with the Dominion sitting on the sidelines, resting and recuperating for decades while cackling at the foolish, self-defeating humans..

All of the species are there, all of the government positions, weapons, magic, and so forth. The Dragonborn is the predecessor to the Dragon riders, with the Dragon Rider surpassing the need to absorb souls to gain dragon power.

• Alternately, the Inheritance Cycle is an alternate universe sequel to Skyrim where the Dovahkiin teamed up with Alduin and began the line of kings that led to Galbatorix.

400 gold for a pitiful Destruction enchantment? I'd rather believe that the shopkeeps just gave you a bit extra because you gave them the thought of a prissy elitist Thalmor mage being naked, facedown and dead in the snow. Worth every septim.Past, present, and future. I mean, they are the only humans who are even close to fluent in Dragonspeak. It should really just make sense that way.

• or perhaps it is sung by everybody in soverngard, being dead would allow a lot of time to learn dragontounge. even then they could just follow along with the others.
• If that many Greybeards spoke so many words in the dragon language for so long at such volume the Throat of the World would be a four kilometre high pile of rubble by now.
  • Actually, not every word spoken in draconic causes shit to happen. Parthuunax talks to you, occasionally throwing draconic words in there, as do Odaving and I believe Alduin. Alduin does try to talk to you (probably some gloating), but then gets pissy when he realizes you don't speak the language.
    • The impression I got from the above evidence is not that not every word has power, but that there's a difference between simply speaking a word and using it in a shout. Arngeir and Paarthunax both use words of power in casual conversation. Whether or not they could do so with a raised voice is another question, but there's probably a difference between Shouting and shouting.
    • Alternatively, both. Sometime somewhere, all the Greybeards in Sovngarde get together to shout at the skies or whatnot.

In Skyrim you find that the Thieves Guild and the Dark Brotherhood are shadows of what they once were. The Thieves Guild has lost almost all of its resources and is now a group of barely organized thugs while the Dark Brotherhood lacks a Listener and, without the ability to contact the Night Mother, is reduced to taking any contract possible just to survive. The reason? Well, during his quest Sheogorath drops hints that not only was he the Champion of Cyrodil but he also completed the Dark Brotherhood and Thieves Guild questlines. So it’s no wonder those organizations are so broken by Skyrim; their leader was a literal madman who most likely abandoned them when he embraced his role as Sheogorath. And since they lack the infrastructure of the Mages Guild or the Fighters Guild once their leader left the Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood probably descended into chaos. Heck, knowing Sheogorath he probably did for fun!

• Jossed for the Thieves' Guild. The reason they're down on their luck is due to Mercer Frey, the current Guild Master, killing the old Guild Master and stealing Nocturnal's Skeleton Key, has drained the 'luck' from the guild. Oh, and he's been stealing gold for himself from the vault.
• While I haven't advanced very far into the thieves' guild questline, I'm so far under the impression that this is not the same thieves' guild as Oblivion's. Dialogue with some of your guildmates seems to imply that each of the provinces has their own guilds and syndicates that are independent of each other, though usually maintain contacts between them. I did get the same idea about the Dark Brotherhood, though.
• Unlikely for the Dark Brotherhood and impossible for the thieves guild. Other than a bust of the Grey fox as a minor item salable to the guild, nothing indicates that this guild has any contacts outside Skyrim or is related to the one in Cyrodil. As for the Dark Brotherhood, Cicero's journals indicate that it still had a Listener within at least 50 years of the game. The Brotherhood has fallen on hard times, but it was more of a gradual slide than the sudden drop one would expect from the Madgod.
• What about for players who chose the Fighters Guild, Mages Guild, Nights Of The Nine, or the other 'good' quest lines instead? It seems like a sort of 'take that' by Bethesda at a lot of players to say he was only in those two guilds.
  • That would be why it is left as hints. Remember, even if Sheogorath is the Champion of Cyrodiil, he is still the Madgod - normal rules about what he remembers, what actually happened and what he says need not apply (say, remembering things that the Champion potentially could have done, but in fact were done by someone else, as things the Champion did). Alternatively, what could be more fitting for madness than being both a champion of goodness and a murderous bastard, as well as leading the Fighters', Mages' and Thieves' Guild?

In the next game, it will be revealed that Skyrim became independent following a civil war. This may seem problematic, especially if one both sides with the Imperials (thus stomping out the Stormcloak rebellion) and destroys the Dark Brotherhood instead of joining them, thus saving the Emperor from assassination. However, if the Dark Brotherhood is 'destroyed', it notably lacks the members Babette, Cicero, and the Night Mother herself. This would allow the organization to barely survive and potentially acquire a Listener, providing the prestigious contract on the Emperor (and also preserve the organization for future games). Alternatively, another assassin might be contracted by Amaund Motierre to do the job regardless, probably doing it in a Dark Brotherhood disguise. Regardless of the semantics, the Emperor is assassinated by a member (or apparent member) of the Dark Brotherhood. The resulting succession crisis weakens Imperial rule and possibly causes the Empire to collapse entirely, resulting in Skyrim gaining independence for both its own protection and to escape the maddening political landscape.

• Skyrim founded the Empire once, why can't it do so again? Cyrodiil took the brunt of the great war, and the Imperial City has been sieged three times in the last 200 years. As for Skyrim, no matter what you do Elisif The Fair is likely to be the mother of the next high king and with Skyrim's new power and stability, a dragonborn standing behind the throne and the alligance of the Blades that child will be perfectly placed to declare themselves the new Emperor.

The current ending of the game is a little bit too open. You may have defeated the baddest evilest dragon of them all, but the great threat of the Thalmor is still lurking around. According to some lore, the Thalmor will stop at nothing to eradicate all other races from the planet, because they believe it will grant them godhood. These guys are not something to be just ignored by such a powerful person as the Dragonborn.

• The main 'blow', so to speak, against this theory is that the downfall of the Thalmor is such a grand story that it might well be better suited to be the story of Elder Scrolls VI rather than a mere expansion. They are, after all, the government of an empire controlling directly or indirectly a large portion of Tamriel.
• The downfall of the Thalmor is played out as an overarching story in all the expansions, a la the overarching story of Ulysses in the FONV DLCs.
  • Jossed. The Thalmor don't feature at all in Dawnguard or Hearthfire and feature only in a very minor side quest that's completely irrelevant to the plot in Dragonborn. Bethesda has since announced that there will be no further dlc.

Being the Prince of Insanity is an important job, but most of the post's responsibilities can be either saved for evenings and weekends or delegated to Haskill. Unless there's someone who needs to be driven insane right that minute, Sheogorath is generally free to shapeshift back into his/her natural form, sober up a bit, and go wandering the Planes of Oblivion.

• Because of this WMG, this troper just had a mental picture of their old Oblivion character whistling merrily with the Sword of Jyggalag on his shoulder in Sheogorath's Regalia. Maybe a bit of a crazy smile too, as he cleaves Dremora..Wow. The Champion could then eternally torment Mehrunes Dagon for making Martin sacrifice himself..Mehrunes must REALLY be appreciating Jyggalag right now.
  • It gets better. Sheogorath mentions that Martin was the best Septim who ever ruled and that Martin did, in fact, become a dragon god. This means that they can probably still hang out together!
    • This troper's mental image is of my character dressed as Sheogorath riding Akatosh firing incredibly powerful spells he created into the hordes of deadra below.
  • ..This Troper's mental image of that mental image now includes Sheogorath wandering Oblivion whistling TwistedNerve.

My own theory is that, as our avatar, the Champion came to love the original Madgod as much as we do. Losing him hurt, especially seeing what he became. So the Champion wears his face and manner out of a mixture of professional respect and sorrow. Even the mad may mourn.

..also it's probably fun as hell.

• Another theory is that spending extended periods of time in the Shivering Isles had caused Sheogorath's essence to seep into his successor, gradually altering his/her appearance into that of the realm's original master.
• Though as of now, nothing has been said. Daedric princes can take whatever form they please and the Champion may have not seen any reason to let the world know what happened, lest their own name and reputation risk being smeared by it. The Champion may simply take that form when meeting mortals as it's 'expected' for Sheogorath to look like that.

One of the face paint options for characters in Skyrim looks like the Mark of Khorne, and there's an Eight-Pointed star on the Stormcloak Officer's armor's loincloth!

• Does this mean that Sigmar is a Dragonborn? He is, after all, similar to Alessia, Reman, and Tiber in the sense that he founds an empire.
  • Sigmar was the a Champion of Ulric. And no, the Nords can't become Norscans, because they didn't come from the Chaos Wastes. See the Legend of Sigmar trilogy.

He is the first and most glorious of Akatosh's creation. He's prideful, desiring power and lordship of humanity in his father's place. His father sends a hero to travel into the realm of the dead and put him in his place.Said organization is a crack squad of marksmen, who single out aspiring adventurers, wait for the perfect moment to ambush them, and then let fly a devastating barrage of arrows. At their knees.

• You know, this is surprisingly plausible, as far as fantasy goes. Imagine a military unit dedicated to crippling countless people for life. That's terrifying! You'd think twice about double-crossing these soldiers' masters. Machiavelli must've been a mer.
• It also explains why the guards are so tough. Before their injuries restricted them to their posts, they used to be adventurers just like you. The only difference is, they were MORE experienced.

Think about it, according to so much lore, Numinex was a very powerful dragon, yet he is not amongst those raised by Alduin, because his corpse is his Dragonreach (his skull is above the throne). Alduin, unaware of this, sent Mirmulnir to locate his powerful servant Numinex' body so that Alduin could then resurrect him. Mirmulnir has an unfortunate meeting with the Dovahkiin and Numinex' body is never found by Alduin.Yeah, yeah, I don't like it either, but somebody's got to put this theory forward, so I may as well play Mehrunes' advocate.

Sheogorath is a Daedric Prince, and would have had ways of observing the events of the Oblivion Crisis, and besides that would have taken an avid interest in the career of a wildcard like the Champion. That means that all his references could be to things he's seen rather than things he's done. Or it could just be random blather; Madgod, and all that. This would also mean that the events of The Shivering Isles aren't canon, which is untidy from a narrative point of view, but, again, Madgod.

• But then, if the Sheogorath we encounter in Skyrim is the same Sheogorath who 'kissed' Pelagius Septim, why is it Martin is his favorite of the lot?
  • You could argue that finding the best emperor to be one that never actually got around to ruling, or even doing the coronation rites, is not necessarily an entirely sane position to take..
  • Martin was mixed up with Daedra in his younger years. While it's implied he was closer to Sanguine than to Sheogorath, the Princes seem to have similar senses of humor. Martin might also be dear to the Mad God because he's the source of a delightful contradiction: His sacrifice simultaneously saved Nirn and threw Tamriel into chaos.
• However, as is outlined above, the Champion becoming Sheogorath explains why he or she didn't do a better job of holding the Empire together. If the Champion didn't go insane ascending to a higher (or at least weirder) plane of existence, why couldn't someone with so much power and respect at least manage to get themselves named Regent or something? Even the Thalmor would think twice about messing with the Champion of Cyrodill/Archmage/Master of the Fighter's Guild/destroyer of Umaril the Unfeathered! And that's not even counting the shady stuff like Listener of the Dark Brotherhood and Grey Fox.
• Besides, the Sheogorath we knew ceased to exist after the events of Shivering Isles. After all, Sheogorath was simply Jyggalag, transformed by the other Daedric Princes, and the main quest was breaking the cycle of transformation. Since the Champion of Cyrodiil was 'crowned' as the new Madgod..the Shivering Isles are a Daedric realm, after all. Give a man the staff of office, run him through the trials, and place him on the throne of Madness? The Champion was already granted a few decidedly superhuman powers over the realm, and it would make sense that in such a place, the title of Madgod actually holds power. It simply took time for him to grow into that power. And, since becoming the Daedric Prince of madness is probably a taxing enough ordeal, the Champion modeled his physical form after..well, after Sheogorath.
  • As the WMG-er admits, the theory does require an acceptance that nothing that transpired in The Shivering Isles actually happened. The problem there is that there's no real reason to assume that expansion wouldn't be canon, while everything else is.
    • Oblivion did establish that what the Champion sees happen and what actually happened does not necessarily fit together (through the Thieves' Guild storyline), and what could be a more fitting form of madness for someone that rapidly acquired great power than to think they have become a God?
• As Sheogorath says; 'A madgod. The madgod actually. It's a family title. I pass it on from me to, well, me, every few thousand years'
• Now apparently Jossed by none other than Wes Johnson himself.
  • Wes Johnson being the one who claimed Fallout 3 Fawkes was a woman.

It seems to be trend with Elder Scrolls heroes these days; the Nerevarine became immune to age when his/her corprus was cured, and thus, even 200 years later in Skyrim, would presumably still be alive (in Akavir still?), provided he didn't die in battle (and considering how powerful the Nerevarine can become, this seems unlikely). Skyrim hints, but does not outright confirm that the Champion of Cyrodiil became Sheogorath, and is therefore, also immortal (since you can't 'kill' madness). Therefore, I posit that a later adventure of the Dragonborn (one of the 'larger DLCs' Bethesda talked about), will see the Dragonborn gain some form of immortality through a transformation, or ascendance, or what-have-you. Why that would be I can't rightly say, but it's a trend I've noticed. Perhaps Bethesda has some long-term plan for the games that requires most of its heroes to stick around on Nirn? Of course, this theory excludes the Eternal Champion from Arena and the Emperor's Agent from Daggerfall.

• Technically, we know that Bethesda does not plan to have an expansion pack. However, since their plan is 'larger DLCs, no expansion pack', that doesn't invalidate your theory - it would just be done in one of the DLCs rather than a more proper expansion pack.
  • Hadn't heard that part, I just assumed one was coming based on the last two games. Thanks for the heads-up. The WMG has been edited appropriately!

It is suggested that a dragon's name is related to a dragon's nature. Paarthurnax means Ambition Overlord Cruelty.. which means that if the suggestion is true, being a cruel overlord is even more in Paarthurnax's nature than it is for the average dragon!

• Along with that, and if you spare Paarthurnax after the main quest, Odahviing will fly in, and tell you that 'Not all dragons will follow his tyrannical Way of the Voice', which keys in a bit more about his personality than what it seems to be.
  • That could be some Blue and Orange Morality at play, though; everything we know about the way of the voice shows it as being a strict philosophy of peace and isolation; dragons are inherently violent, destructive creatures who seek to dominate those around them. That's their natural state; a path that doesn't allow for that may be seen as tyrannical in their eyes.

Someone had to bring this up. Especially with Babette mentioning the Motierre family being an old and powerful Breton family from Cyrodiil. Old Francois probably passed on the story to his children of how the Dark Brotherhood saved his life, and they in turn passed it on to their children, which lead to Amaund thinking the Brotherhood could solve his problem.

• Is this actually a guess? They share the same name, Babette references the right town and mentions a famous family. They may not have said it directly, but what other conclusion can you reach?

And if you dual wield Sunder with Keening while wearing Wraithguard (which will be retconned to be a set of gauntlets instead of just one), all three of Kagrenac's Tools will have their powers restored.

• No retcon necessary - there were two Wraithguards in Morrowind. One was from questing with Vivec, and one from killing him.
  • Overruled: lorewise, there was one Wraithguard - you were supposed to get one or the other, with the two Wraithguards separated to allow for different effects (one comes pre-adapted to you, one requires the help of the Last Dwarf).
• Who's to say they can't just model Wraithguard so it's only one gauntlet, with the other hand being bare?
  • Because people really want to dual-wield Keening and Sunder.

• After promising his or her soul to Nocturnal, Hircine, Sithis, and possibly more, an observer may wonder how the Dovahkiin intends to repay the same debt so many times. However, the entire purpose of being Dragonborn is the ability to devour the souls of dragons and add them to your own power. Therefore, it is not too far-fetched an idea to say that upon the Dovahkiin's death, there will actually be multiple souls released, quite likely having changed to reflect the nature of the person they were a part of. Each party can lay claim to only one soul, and the others will ascend to Sovngarde.
  • Considering that the Dovahkiin is a dragon in terms of soul, and only a dragon can permanently kill a dragon by absorbing its soul, if s/he meets his/her end at a dragon, then all those people who were planning to take the Dovahkiin's soul just look at the dragon and go 'Shit.'
    • When the Dovahkiin is at the end of his natural lifespan, he simply just asks Paarthurnax, Odahviing, or Durneviir (or all of them) to eat him. Problem solved, and the dragon in question gets a power boost. Paarthurnax is now truly unquestionable in terms of thu'um, Odahviing is FREE AT LAST, FREE AT LAST!, and Durneviir may or may not get to return to Tamriel from that many dragon souls.
  • The Dovahkiin could also be pulling a John Constantine. For those not into comics, the titular character sells his soul to a bunch of different entities without their knowledge. Then when it comes time to collect, none of them can agree who gets it, so he's got effective immortality until the squabbling demons can sort it out.
    • Or, the Dragonborn intends to forcibly patch up relations by making everyone, daedra, aedra, or otherwise have to share the dovahkiin, possibly with a Jygallag-drawn timetable and chart where everyone's orders are prioritized based on approximate power, holy days and summoning dates, nature of order, planar proximity (The dwemer apparently figured out how the physical planets representing the aedra are supposed to orbit, maybe Jygallag is an avid cartographer and astronomer in his spare time to order the landscape and skyscape?), et cetera. After being forced to share the hero, eventually either someone will get sick of it and something explodes, or everyone gets along nicely.

• Think on it: By the time the Champion became Sheogarath, he'd have become the leader of the Fighters Guild, the Mages Guild, the Thieves Guild, and the Dark Brotherhood, as well as the most important and famous person in Cyrodil (having gained multiple knighthoods and various positionsv for service to the people). Had he remained mortal, he'd have likely become the next ruler, being the most qualified person for the job. Instead, he abandoned his post in exchange for godhood. This caused the Mage's Guild to collapse, since their leader disappeared while the Mages Guild was trying to put itself back together after the battle with Mannimarco and his minions. The Warriors Guild would likewise fall without a leader to guide them. So would the Thieve's Guild. And without a Listener, the Dark Brotherhood would come apart as well! Worse, without the hero of Cyrodil to become the new Emperor, the Empire would have suffered from internal strife and infighting over the position of Emperor, which would weaken the Empire severely. By the time the infighting was over, the Empire would never be able to recover, and the Thalmor could easily begin taking over. Nice Job Breaking It, Hero!.
  • Which, when one considers it, is a certain amount of brilliance on part of the developers. There's no way the Champion wouldn't have become Emperor after all that awesomeness, and he would have kept the Empire together. But having a fragmented Empire makes for a wider scope and opens more possibilities, especially with the Thalmor on the rise.
  • While the College of Winterhold, the Thieves Guild, and the Companions are all distinct from their Cyrodil counterparts, the Dark Brotherhood is not. According to Cicero's journals, there was a Listener within 40 years of the game at most. Additionally, we have no information on what happened to the Cyrodil Thieves Guild, and all we know about the Fighter's Guild is that it doesn't operate in Skyrim, not why it doesn't. The Champion disappearing does explain his not becoming emperor, but we don't really know what happened to the guilds from the last game.
    • Also most of the groups seem unlikely to collapse simply due to their leader going away. The Mages lost a lot of people but the Fighters didn't, they'd probably just elect an new leader, Mdren Oryn probably. And the Theives Guild might not even know, all the Champion would have to do is hand over the Gray Fox's cowl to a competant subordinate and the cowl's effects would mean everyone would assume it was the same person.

• This was prompted by an encounter I had with M'aiq the Liar, where he said, 'The disappearance of the Dwemer has nothing to do with the Falmer. Absolutely nothing.' My first thought was that this was a preemptive measure by the devs, since they've been using M'aiq to lampshade and give out Take Thats, but then I started thinking. He's M'aiq the Liar, afterall - why should we trust implicitly what he says? And the way he says that phrase.. maybe the Falmer retaliated and wiped out the Dwemer. Maybe the Dwemer fled the revenge of the Falmer. Something caused the Dwemer to vanish, and it probably had something to do with the Falmer.
  • Having said all the above, however, I can't discount the more mundane possibilities that M'aiq was telling the truth ((From a Certain Point of View, perhaps?), or that this is a Batman Gambit from the devs to provoke WMGs and keep interest in Skyrim alive.
  • For what it is worth, at least one of his Morrowind forefather's statements was perfectly truthful, so familial tradition doesn't necessarily dictate lies, even of the Half Truth variety. There is also the fact that while the characters in-universe may have lost some of them by Skyrim, Morrowind gave us first and second-hand sources that connected the Dwemer's disappearance temporally to Kagrenac's usage of his Tools on the Heart (note that the Falmer were not actually a threat to the Volenfell and Resdayn Dwemer, at the time of their disappearance).
  • Kagrenac tweeked the Heart of Lorkhan and caused all the dwemer to disappear. You see Arniel Gane replicate the phenomenon in microcosm in his own little quest.
  • The Falmer managed to sabotage Kagrenac's Tools/notes and the reason Arniel was able to replicate it is because he managed to do the same thing wrong.
    • Except we saw not a single Falmer anywhere near Red Mountain, where the whole Heart-tweeking occurred.

• If the player wants to, they can join either side of the civil war. However, because Bethseda won't be able to cater to every option in future games, the Thalmor will have taken over everything as a compromise. This also may be why the PC is never able to launch a full-out assault on the Thalmor; if you beat them, who would be the one screwing everything up in TES VI?
  • Alternatively, TES VI will be about the Dominion's attempt to take over everything. After all, Skyrim may not be so averse to rejoining the Empire if the Concordat is overthrown and the Empire fights the Dominion directly once more (there would be problems in avoiding mentions of who won the Civil War, even if it didn't really matter in the end.. but that would the case for a Thalmor victory, too). Ulfric may be, but that doesn't necessarily apply to all those of his subordinates that joined up with the Stormcloaks in the first place
  • If you talk to Ulfric after the stormcloak campaign, he makes it clear that while he's intends on keeping Skyrim independent and self-sufficient, he has no intentions on turning it into an isolationist state; he's fulling willing to work with the Empire, independent Hammerfell, and the Argonian state against the Dominion, he just doesn't think that the empire is worthy of ruling Skyrim anymore.
    • That doesn't mean the Thalmor can't take over. Remember, these are the people who killed most of the Blades.
  • Also, I doubt the Dominion is as much of a threat as it's feared to be. It won the great war due to a combination of surprise attacks and the stupidity of the imperial leadership. It's actually the third smallest power on the continent in terms of landmass; the Empire and the Argonian state both control more territory, even if they control fewer provinces(even with an independent Skyrim, the Empire's bigger than the Dominion). It also has a great deal of internal strife of it's one, what with these purges and reeducation camps we keep hearing about. Soon as someone gets the idea to send agents into Elswyr and Valenwood to rally a resistance movement from the inside, the whole thing comes toppling down.
    • The indications in-game and in the books is that the Dominion is the second-largest power, at least if one includes vassals - Argonia didn't conquer Morrowind, they overran Morrowind.. and then withdrew to the contested territories (which previous sources said was Narsis and the area south of Narsis). The Dominion proper and its Khajiit vassals together are larger than that. As for the stupidity of the Imperial leadership.. firstly, I would disagree (Cyrodiil was devasted and the Empire was not in a position to know just how weakened the Dominion was), secondly it is not so easy as sending agents to rally resistance movements from the inside - the Empire already has done that, before the Great War. The Valenwood rebellion was crushed.
    • This troper would like to add that the amount of territory a military power possesses does not equate to its military strength.
    • It does in terms of primitive, medieval warfare.
    • Real-life history disagrees. Portugal, the Netherlands, and Venice were all dangerous military powers despite being some of the smallest European nations (Venice was just a single city-state). Having high-quality troops, brilliant tactics, a powerful economy, and outstanding equipment goes a long way. In the specific case of the Thalmor, the Altmer and Bosmer are some of the best mages and archers in the world, respectively - Superior ranged capability is a massive advantage in medieval combat.
    • Unfortunately for the Thalmor, Altmer have a shitty birth rate in general and the Thalmor purges make that worse. Simply put, the Thalmor CANNOT win a war of attrition, and they are out many of their best mages because the Psijic Order will have nothing to do with their bullshit. The Psijics, mind you, are at least on par with Divath 'I treat Corprus as an interesting research material' Fyr.
    • And air supremecy is even better. And whoever the Dragonborn sides with has that, via Dragons.
    • Plus, the real objective of the Thalmor isn't conquest. They want to blow up the Towers. And the remaining ones are: Adamantine in High Rock, the only province that has its act together, and positioned such that the Thalmor have to either attack by sea or conquer Hammerfell or Skyrim to get there. The Throat of The World: They have to conquer Skyrim, then fight the Greybeards and Paarthurax to do that. And White-Gold, which requires them to break the agreement with the Empire: who have been gearing up for the war, can replace losses infinitely more easily than the Thalmor and are far closer to recovered from the Great War than the Thalmor.

Upon completion of the last main quest, both Tsun and Parthunax say the dragonborn will do more great deeds.

The last target of the Dark Brotherhood. the Emperor says that he senses great ambition in you.

Of the five big questlines, only the civil war does not leave small jobs you can do forever.

The dragons are stopped, not vanquished, and the far more evil Thalmor receive no comeuppance.

No expansion, but a bunch of big DLCs planned.

And finally, the game includes low-level rendering of most of Tamriel.

What does this add up to?

The game in the box is only the prologue.

The real story is about how the next Dragonborn Emperor conquered Tamriel.

• Unless Bethesda completely breaks pattern and Elder Scrolls VI turns out to be a true sequal(which would be a first for the series), then this is Jossed. Dawnguard, Hearthfire, and Dragonborn have nothing to do with the Empire, the Thalmor, or the Civil War, and Bethesda has announced there will be no further dlc.

Think about it. If the Greybeards could pick up that a new Dragonborn is on the rise, then you can bet that Alduin and his ilk know it, too. Players have been reporting dragon attacks in places like the College of Winterhold that are far from anything that would be important to a dragon. Well, anything besides yourself. If you were a dragon and noticed that the Dovahkiin frequented a certain location (particularly a location with little other defense), then wouldn't that be the best place to find and attack them?

• Also, they never attack when you're NOT around. Just fly around.
  • They do attack when you're not around. One of the larger quest-related issues is non-essential quest NPC's getting killed by attacking wildlife, such as giants, trolls, and in rare cases, dragons.

The dragon acts like he's faking his demeanor, and only seems to sound in a subtle happy mood. Skyrim legendary edition nexus mods. What's he normally like? Well, his voice actor is Charles Martinet..

• So he's going to fight another fire breathing dragon and save the same princess in multiple sequels?

They appereantly have developed a technic that allows someone to read Elder Scrolls without side-effects.

• A tecnique to extract knowledge safely from Elder Scrolls and put them in another object without side-effects, actually. It is a subtle difference, but the series being what it is, subtle differences can be very, very important. A problem would be that it can be said that we already got a game that put general focus on the Dwemer (Morrowind - the Sixth House was echoing the Dwemer, the final dungeon was a Dwemer fortress, Dagoth Ur's plan centred around a modified Dwemer project, the Last Dwarf was a character [and in one way a fairly important one - he is one of the very few Essential characters that actually is essential to all paths to the endgame]..). That, and the Elder Scrolls haven't really been important to the series - they flat-out played no part at all in Daggerfall, got a name-drop as part of the reason the Emperor sent you in Morrowind, and while they did play a central part in a storyline in Oblivion, that storyline wasn't the main one.
• Also, there really isn't any old dwemer territory left to put a game in. Skyrim, morrowind and hammerfall were all already featured in a game.
  • If one wants to be technical, while the heart of Dwemer settlement in Morrowind has been covered, they did have settlements on the mainland, which haven't been featured officially (beyond Mournhold itself) since Arena. There is also the possibility of Dwemer settlements in the Western Reach - after all, before Skyrim Skyrim wasn't thought to be quite so settled by the Dwemer as it turned out to be, so handwaving in Dwemer settlements in an area that borders both the Reach and Hammerfell seems not so much of a stretch - and while Daggerfall did cover parts of High Rock, the Western Reach was not one of them.

His dossier says that he was interrogated during the Great War, by the Aldemeri Dominion. That explains the elves. The Forsworn could easily sway someone against Bretons, Orcs and Beast Races, well, no one ever really liked them anyway.

• It's most likely because their Nords in Skyrim. They are a very proud people and don't think much of those who don't measure up to their standards of honor and such and with the whole Aldmeri Dominion thing and the White Gold Concordat they are especially hostile towards outsiders.
• Tamriel's history involves lots of bloodshed because of racial conflicts. The most prominent is, of course, Man vs Mer, but everybody's fought against/enslaved other races at one point or another. Men and Beastmen hated elves because of Ayleid and Dunmer slavers, and the elves hated men because their creation myth holds humankind responsible for a sort of 'fall from grace'. Even within an individual specie there have been conflicts; the Forsworn, who hate the Empire and the Stormcloaks equally, are quick to point out that their culture was all but eradicated when the Nords conquered Skyrim. Sadly, racial tension within the Empire didn't start with the Great War, it was only exacerbated by it.

Think about it. One guy says that he owned a skeever as a pet when he was a kid and claims they used to be smaller. That's a pretty short time frame for them to change. When you read Hamelen's journal it's clear he's been experimenting on skeevers for a long time. Perhaps his earlier experiments managed to escape and replace the native skeevers.Ulfric frequently insists that things be done for the sake of drama, or because they'll make better songs. This troper firmly believes that this is because Ulfric had no interest in learning the Voice; he wanted to learn how to sing at the Bard's College. This is also why he wants to take Solitude so badly (and why the Bard's College is unharmed after the assault).

• Aside from it being the capital city of Skyrim, anyway. But most Nords seem to have an appreciation for stories and oral tradition, so he may have been interested in Skalds in his youth. Hell, it may be a hobby of his to this day.
  • It does explain why he's so grumpy though. He just wanted to learn how to sing.
    • Hitler just wanted to paint.. Fride Horror?
    • Not just that. Even as a politician, Hitler saw his whole life as one big Wagner opera.
• Nords are based on Norse mythology/history. Old Scandinavian cultures were eminently focused on battle and song. Therefore, Jarl Ulfric's dramatic leanings do not necessarily mean 'he wanted to be a bard/skald', but rather it may simply mean 'he wants to be immortalized in song one day'.
• I like to think of him as a troper to be quite honest.
• In actual fact, it's more likely down to the fact that his voice actor once acted in the Czechoslovakian theater in his childhood. Yes, that's how awesome Vladimir Kulich is.

As a result of the player's actions in Skyrim, the Thalmor will eventually destroy the 8th tower, which would normally bring the world to an end. However, the Brass Tower was removed from Mundus with the Dwemer when.. whatever happened happened. My WMG is that the final tower which is still active and in Mundus will, when destroyed or deactivated, cause the Dwemer to return to Nirn, possibly without their tower. The main plot of ES 6 will be convincing the Dwemer to go to war with the Thalmor, and keeping the Thalmor from accessing the Brass Tower. Possibly, the reason why the Dwemer disappeared will be kept a cosmic Noodle Incident, possibly as a plot point: to keep the Thalmor from learning how to access the Brass Tower.

• The Dwemer became Brass-Walks' skin. If they returned in force, it would imply they stopped being Brass-Walk, and that Brass-Walk is therefore inoperative.

It's a lesser version of Unrelenting Force, which is why it knocks the targets back slightly.He was suspiciously absent in Skyrim. Not to mention that destroying Talos seems exactly like something he would do.

• Why would the lack of his presence be suspicious? The Champion of Cyrodiil killed Wimpy Altmer Mannimarco, so that one has a perfectly good reason for not being around. The God of Worms would be doing whatever non-Daedra gods do (like being the reason for Black Soul Gems), and the King of Worms is a bit too blatantly not-fitting with Thalmor ideals - the guy is a lich, which is hardly pure Altmer. On the plus side of things, he does share an enemy (the Psijic Order) and a common origin (Altmer of Summerset Isle) to the Thalmor.
  • When you're a lich, being killed wouldn't put a damper on you coming back at all.

Ulfric: Based on Ulfric not being fully hostile towards you, and based on him being willing to answer any questions you may have about the Greybeards before you go, he may consider you a friend. His training might have allowed him to sense out word-walls and Thu'um users like the Greybeards do.

OR

Farengar: He studies dragons, so it wouldn't be too strange if he managed to figure out where it was. He seems really egotistical and jerkassy, but he probably finds it just fascinating. He's in sort of a position of power, so keeping track of a roaming Dovahkin might not be so hard for him.

OR

Maiq the Liar: He travels everywhere. Who knows what he knows?

• Before M'aiq the Liar is discounted based on his name, it is worth pointing out that his Morrowind predecessor at times showed accurate knowledge of relatively obscure facts. He said less accurate things too, of course, but about the sunken Shrine of Boethiah he was spot on.

OR

A random NPC who saw you in action but didn't want to write their name down for fear of being labelled a 'dragonborn sympathizer' by their fellow villagers: this one seems somewhat more likely, since the courier with the letter could show up just minutes after the incident that prompted it. Word of mouth can't spread that fast.

• Yes it can. You can do a quest for someone, kill them without being caught, and a courier will find you outside and offer you your inheritance money.

I just feel I ought to point out the fact I got a letter for shouting inside the Dark Brotherhood's sanctuary. It must be someone who can track you. But it can't be the Dark Brotherhood themselves, because I killed them all, and am still receiving letters.

OR

Delphine: Farengar's source on where to find the Dragonstone.

OR

Talos: The Dragonborn has very few opportunities to work for the Thalmor (Ondolemar's quest to help him convict a Talos worshipper might be the only one) and plenty of opportunities to antagonize them (Ending the Civil War for either side, restoring the Blades, the Mages Guild questline, freeing Stormcloak sympathisers during the Gray-Mane's quest, assaulting Thalmor who are transporting prisoners, etc). Talos has a motive to help the Dragonborn become as powerful as possible so they'll continue to be a thorn in the Thalmor's side, and might even be planning to use them as a champion in future (DLC). But as a god, he's forbidden from directly interfering in the Dragonborn's destiny, and can only communicate with them via courier.

• This one actually makes the most sense. Imagine a Talos worshiper, overt or secret, witnessing you Shouting, and then goes to a Talos shrine to pray. They pass on the knowledge that they saw a Dragonborn wielding the Thu'um while praying, and Talos quietly arranges for a courier to deliver a message from the god himself.
  • Or, Talos tells the worshiper to deliver a message, via courier, directing the Dragonborn to a spot with a Word Wall. The worshiper sends the message, Talos gets back to reinforcing the world, and the Dragonborn becomes that much stronger of an asset.
• I vote Talos, too. Between Wulf in Morrowind and The Prophet in Oblivion, Skyrim would otherwise be the first time since Daggerfall he hasn't pulled a God Was My Copilot.

OR

The developers: the letters are a hint system in disguise.

• You can trigger a letter from a friend in any area marked as civilized or something like that - including Western Watchtower when nobody is there. It could be none other than Akatosh himself!
  • That might make sense. Because it can't be anyone you've met. The first time I got that in my new playthrough was directly after Cidna Mine after using Ice Form on Madanach. An event in where the only three people I had saw in there were that one dude in the enterence, Borkal the Beast, and the big guy himself. And Borkal was less then thrilled when I left Madanach's room. It makes more sense that it was a divine being, likely Akatosh. Probbaly hoping for you to smack some sense into his first born son.

OR

Hermaeus Mora, the Daedric Prince of Knowledge and Secrets.

• On a playthrough of Dragonborn, I received a mysterious note that referenced my use of a Shout in Apocrypha! If there is any being, man, god, or otherwise who could see you there and anywhere it would have to be our blobby tentacled friend.

OR

These are all true. Add in the Night Mother and Nocturnal for getting notes by shouting in the Dark Brotherhood Sanctuary and the Thieves' Guild, and this starts making sense. Every single person in this wild mass guess entry has a vested interest in seeing you become the most Badass motherfucker in Skyrim, because you are the only hope of stopping Alduin. If Alduin succeeds, then everyone else loses. Not hard to see Aedra and Daedra getting along to fight the most common enemy.

You only open up marriage dialogue when you're wearing the amulet, despite the fact that it isn't that hard to ask someone whether you're interested in them. Also, no matter what their dialogue was like to you beforehand, despite the fact you might just have beat them up in a Bar Brawl, they still call you 'love' and 'my dear', and will move to your house, which could be at the other side of Skyrim, despite the fact that you're an adventurer and rarely stay in one place for long. And they will ditch whatever job they were doing, and open up a shop selling junk, just so you have a source of income.

• Fridge Horror: If the above is true, does that mean that, with every single married couple living in Skyrim, one of the two parties involved has been mind-raped into believing they love the other? (It certainly puts a much, MUCH darker spin on the quests the PC can run for the Priesthood of Mara.)
  • Not necessarily. The custom seems to be that the Amulet is put on once you've gotten a feel for the other's feeling.. meaning that the person mind-controlled sometimes would already have loved the other.
  • That was my thought, as well. The amulet doesn't work at all on complete strangers, as you need to do something for your fiancee to get their disposition high enough for the marriage option to be available, so having the amulet on simply signals that your interest in someone (and vice verse) isn't just platonic. On a more meta/practical note, it allows Bethesda to easily designate dozens of NPC's as marriagable without having to write individual, gameplay-month-longcourting quests for each one, which would have been a ton more work for the writers.
    • Unless I'm mistaken isn't hypnotism based on the power of suggestion? Perhaps wearing an Amulet of Mara amplifies whatever amount of appreciation/admiration/attraction the victim had for the user. That's why you can beat people in a fight and they are willing to give up what they were doing and live in you shack in Whiterun selling 'trinkets, odd and ends, that sort of thing'. However, it's likely Mara prevents this from being abused (courting certain individuals isn't an option).

• When you meet Sheogorath, he tells you that you can call him Ann-Marie (a Breton name), then threatens to kill you if you do. It's possible he was briefly reflecting on his mortal life before ascending to godhood.

Pretty simple, really, except for one catch: the Champion didn't just take on the identity of Sheogorath, but also of Pelinal Whitestrake, and upon ceasing to be Sheogorath they would fall back into being Pelinal. So instead of an Affably EvilMad God, what you'll be dealing with is an Ax-Crazytime-travelingelf-killingcyborg. The effect would, in fact, be similar to a Greymarch: the Daedra, including those on the Shivering Isles, backed the Ayleids back in the mists of time, and while Pelinal had issues even with the Aedra, it's expected that he'd be even angrier about the Daedra and thus likely to try to destroy the Shivering Isles. This works especially well in light of the above guess: Sheogorath says you'll be flayed alive and have an angry immortal skip rope with your entrails is you call him Ann Marie. He doesn't say it'll be Sheogorath doing so, though he also doesn't say it WON'T be.

• The champion got to live a normal life after being crowned, considering you can still leave the Shivering Isles. It's possible that s/he died and was reborn in the Shivering Isles with Sheogorath's form.
• S/he can take any form and just took that form out of respect to his/her predescesor.
  • Word of God confirmed this. The Champion apparently used the Wabbajack to take Sheogorath's previous form for fun.

• A prominent Nord noble kills the High King using the dragon tongue, which most of Skyrim thinks is an old Nord myth? The Greybeards would know better, having trained him, but Alduin may not have. It just wasn't until you killed Mirmulnir that Alduin figured out he had the wrong prisoner.
  • Doubtful; Alduin leans more towards areas you're in/have been in as opposed to areas Ulfric's been in.
    • Not at all. Alduin never specifically 'leans to places you've been in' and the only time he does is when you'e in a tower. Coincidentally, Ulfric is there too. Furthermore, when you find him in Kynesgrove reviving Sahloknir, he is surprised to find that you are the Dragonborn. As he says he senses no Dragon soul about you. Though, he could just be insulting you for nothing. It's just as likely that he only found out who the Dragonborn precisely was after you killed Mirmulnir, rather than him knowing as soon as he emerges in the Fourth Era.
  • It does seem more plausible that he shows up at Helgen to attack the high-profile captive Ulfric than some random prisoner attempting to cross the border.
  • It's likely that, upon just leaving the Time Wound, Alduin was intent on killing the Dragonborn and felt the Dragonborn's soul (which is something Dragons can do, as Durnehviir was able to subconsciously tell the Dragonborn was a dragon even if you didn't do the associated quest). When he heard about Ulfric enroute, he assumed that Ulfric was the Dragonborn, since it would be the logical conclusion. It's not until the prolonged combat that Alduin realizes the Dragonsoul he's sensing is not Ulfric, but some random prisoner that just coincidentally got scooped up along with the Jarl.

• Basically it's all a conspiracy to injure heros so the healers can make a buck.

• It seems like a pragmatic adaptation, considering their subterranean nature. Although it would normally take millions of years to evolve to that point, the Dwemer did screw around an awful lot with their physiology to begin with- who's to say it wasn't a contingency measure, or an unexpected side effect of their experiments? (Also, they do seem to make odd clicking sounds when you are nearby, but not visible.. though that might be the Chaurus.)
  • One of the loading screens does state that the Falmer's other senses have become very acute to compensate for their blindness.

It might have been unintentional, though, perhaps through messing about with very old magic they didn't quite understand, which is why the Void Nights lasted for two years until the Thalmor figured out how to undo it. Of course, it's just as likely (perhaps even moreso) that the Void Nights were engineered specifically to bring Elsweyr into the Dominion, because the Khajiits relied so heavily on the waxing and waning of the moons. Thus, they brought about the Void Nights to throw Elsweyr into chaos for two years, then pop up conveniently with the solution (Dawn Magic), and thus earn the loyalty and trust of two of the Khajiiti kingdoms, who throw in with the Dominion, thus weakening the Empire (this was before the Great War, mind) and strengthening the Dominion since the Thalmor then used Elsweyr to attack Cyrodiil from the south at the onset of the Great War. This will probably be a plot-point when the Elder Scrolls get around to making the Thalmor the major antagonists.

• Kirkbride (who still has some lore-ties to Bethesda) has heavily implied that this theory is correct, although the goal was not to bring Elsweyr into the Dominion (at least, not in the way it happened) but rather an eugenics experiment (the Khajiit, as you say, relying on the moons).

As reality falls apart due to Talos' death, the Dragonborn will sacrifice himself/herself to save the world by taking Tiber Septim's place among the Divines, becoming the new Talos. And since everyone on Nirn now knows the consequences of letting Talos die, the Thalmor will be overthrown by an alliance of the other peoples of Tamriel, who will set aside their differences because they would rather keep existing.

• I love this idea, make it so!

When the Dovakiin first discovered s/he is Dragonborn, she seemed very resistant to the idea of a legendary warrior saving the day Because Destiny Says So, which chimes with the whole message in Morrowind of the Nerevarine possibly being a self-made hero rather than one who was chosen. She claims to have been all over Tamriel and to have seen many improbable things, and being a mer she could easily have lived 200 years.

• Irileth wouldn't even have to be a mer to have lived over 200 years if she's the Nerevarine; over the course of Morrowind's MQ the Nerevarine becomes immune to sickness, and age, rendering him/her effectively immortal unless s/he dies in battle.
• And if asked about her own backstory ('How did a dunmer became a housecarl?'), Irileth mentions serving with Balgruf in their youth but quickly turns suspicious and evasive before dropping the issue. Though that might just be her being Properly Paranoid about threats to the jarl.

• Or, maybe she's just a former Ordinator. She does say 'I've got my eyes on you' quite often and uses the word 'sera' instead of 'sir' - old habits die hard.
• JOSSED, apparently. In 'Dragonborn,' Neloth, a returning character from Morrowind, makes an offhand reference to the Nerevarine as a 'he.'
  • He's hardly the most reliable source - he barely notices when you've completed the Dragonborn main quest. He knows about the Neverevarine and what he/she did, but didn't pay enough attention to note specifics like name, race or gender.
  • Alternatively, when Neloth says 'he', he was referring to Nerevar himself, not the Nerevarine. Sure, the Nerevarine could have been a female Argonian, but Neloth was talking about the spirit of Nerevar that lived within that body.

• Let's see: Elaborate Underground Base? Check. All sorts of long-forgotten technology that can kill you? Check. Also, the Falmer are the descendents of elves that were being held prisoner when the fortress fell.
  • Makes sense. Numidium was just their Megaproject. Thankfully for Tamriel the Hidden Fun Stuff has yet to be encountered.
    • Original poster here: Maybe Oblivion IS the Hidden Fun Stuff..

• In Universe M'aiq the Liar has skooma when you scan his inventory, he breaks the fourth wall, and because he's Mythic and is M'aiq, he's developed a resistance to skooma and has access to the Fourth Wall regularly but gets tired after too much. The other mortals have no resistance and become insane with knowledge they don't know of and must have more to prevent relapsing. The PC has no ill effects because he is controlled by you.

• If confronted during Blood on the Ice, he will deny the accusations of necromancy, citing that he is a member of the College of Winterhold in good standing and that the College doesn't allow necromancy. The thing is, you can find out from one of the members at the College that necromancy is perfectly acceptable to them, so long as it is kept low-key to avoid offending the locals. So why would Wuunferth lie? He panicked under the press of there being actual evidence of necromancy, of course! Of course, he presumably is Sharn gra-Muzbog style about it rather than Wormite style.
  • Perhaps he isn't just a necromancer, but a lich as well. 'The Unliving' isn't exactly a title you'd expect for a perfectly normal human being. He looks normal because he became a lich in the relatively recent past and hasn't begun to decay yet.
    • Not only that, he is probably the strongest lich out there, considering detect life reveals him. His powers just sort of destroy your own magic.
    • Alternatively, he discovered some way to become a delayed lich and will only be one if he dies of anything. His body is currently alive and well, so he doesn't lich out until he's dead.

• Over the course of the past few games, most of the argonians we met were either friendly or victims and we only got a few glimpses into their greater society, not even knowing how they joined the empire. And none of those glimpses promised anything good. In oblivion, we learned that the argonians had a pact with the dark brotherhood. They knew the oblivion crisis was coming(through the hist trees) and didn't warn anyone. They used the crash of the ministry of truth to do massive damage to morrowind. They haven't suffered any major losses for at least three hundred years, while the empire and the thalmor have been exhausting their power on each other. And now skyrim is falling apart as well. Truly, the time has never been better for the argonians to attack.
• And given their reptilian nature, they could amass thousands of Argonian soldiers in years by sheer force of reproduction on a grand scale in a short amount of time.
• Also notable is that, even before the empire fell apart, the infrastructure of black marsh kept falling apart, which made sure that as few people as possible ever visited the province and that it was very easy to keep secrets.
• Assuming this is theory pans out, this troper personally hopes it will be possible to support the argonians just as it is possible to support the stormcloaks in skyrim.

• If the existing Gods didn't wipe them from existence first. Despite being mostly benevolent, they did not like the idea of a huge influx of n00bs. They waited until there were no doubts that the Dwemer would succeed, in the hope that they would stop before it was too late. But the Dwarves went to far and had to be erased. The Falmer were already enslaved by the Dwarves at this point, but were still relatively unchanged. The Gods changed them into what they are today to keep any other nosy mortals from poking around and finding out what the Dwemer knew. This second part of the guess comes from one of M'aiq's lines: 'M'aiq knows why the Falmer are blind. It has nothing to do with the Dwemer dissapearing. Really.' A future expansion or sequel will feature some group learning the method to achieve Godhood, and trying to use it without realizing that doing so will cause the Gods to destroy them.

Going by the story reported in Report: disaster at Ionith, the failed expedition can be attributed to two factors: weird weather and weakened magic. The empire had used magical scouts on akavir for four years prior to the invasion, and yet those two factors came completely out of nowhere. The book suggests that it may have been Tsaesci magic, but also notes that there is no real evidence of them having this power(even when they invaded tamriel). However, both powers are associated with the psijic order, which is not exactly friendly with the empire.

• Furthermore, in fragment: on arteum it is mentioned that the emperor apparently ignored the advice of the psijic order when he attempted to invade akavir.

Which explains why it is no longer as strong, grants no negative effects and is less addicting.Earth was ultimately saved by the Aedra, dragging Earth into the Mundus and expelling the Combine. Remaining living humans were put in suspended animation while the Aedra began work repairing the planet. Once humanity emerged, the entire planet had changed from what it once was and the Beast Races and Mer were already there.That's why the Space Core is there. Underground facilities are largely intact, hence the presence of Aperture. Also Earth's old moon orbits the planet, it's just only visible under certain conditions. So now Chell has emerged on what is likely Tamriel.

• So, how do you explain Shor/Lorkhan/Shezzar's death?

As a prominent member, if not the listener himself.

• But you are already the Listener after Astrid gives you your first job.
  • That assumes there won't be another time skip, or that something won't happen to where the dragonborn takes off. Bethesda's never done a direct sequel in TES, and it's unlikely they'll break that pattern now.

Pay close attention to some of the stuff the space core says when you interact with it. Its father is 'all the dragons', and somehow also space. Now, as anyone with even the faintest grasp of general relativity can tell you, space and time are effectively the same thing. And which of the Divines is represented as a dragon? Akatosh, the god of time. Clearly, having despaired at the destruction wrought by Alduin and those who aided him, the Dragon God of Time decided to fashion for himself children that had no such obsession with conquest and slaughter.'They scorned the Daedra and mocked our foolish rituals.'The Dwarves clearly weren't buying any of the 'Voodoo Bullshit' that people claim Nirn runs on. The went into there cities and fortress' and built for themselves. They didn't feel a need to have to pay tribute to Daedra or Aedra simply because they don't believe in them. 'They instead embraced there gods of Logic and knowledge.' They don't have any, but they worshipped science as thoush it was a religon so the Nords thought they had science god's. This also explains why none of their ruins have any shrines to Mara, Akatosh, Talos, Diabella, Molag Bol, Boethiah, or even Namira.

• Or even better, they worshipped themselves and praises there abilities to create robots thousands of years ahead of anyone else.
• If they did use logic, it wouldn't take them long to deduce that gods do exist in the Elder Scrolls universe. It would require a ridiculous number of coincidences for there not to be.
  • They might have been atheist in the classical sense; they believed the gods existed, but but that doesn't mean they have to worship them.
    • So why try to become gods, then?
    • Unlimited cosmic power?
    • Clearly not, as there is a tale where a Dwemer manages to outfox Azura herself.
    • Not exactly unlimited, but if you have an army of people rivaling Sotha Sil, Vivec, and Almalexia in terms of personal firepower, and that's just stealing a divine spark from the Heart of Lorkhan which must be recharged on a regular basis, look how easy it'd be to finally unite all of Nirn on one side. Now imagine if everyone hit the apotheosis mark and wasn't over-invested into keeping the Mundus working or trying to bend it to their whims. Ouch.

The Falmer are weak to fire but easily embrace the frost, Dunmer are just the inverse. The Falmer created the first dark elves using Dwemer science or black(er) magic to learn how to become invunerable to fire.

• Thing is, we know the who (every Chimer) and when (at or just after the Battle of Red Mountain) of how the Dunmer came to be. So the Falmer would have had the means to transform an entire race, most of whom lives in another province.. while preparing for the final offensive on the Skyrim Dwemer?
  • Also, Azura is responsible for the Dunmer. Unless Azura is actually a fangirl of Auri-El or something else absurd that could bribe her into treating the abuse of the Heart of Lorkhan for free divine power to 3 people (which is plenty of reason for Azura to intervene without any bribery: The Almsivi were disobeying Nerevar's last wish, and Sotha Sil managed to make the new dunmer think it was a big blessing) as something offensive with only a few cheap begging contacts with random snow elves..

Ya'know just 'cause.

• Actually this may not be a Troll theory. It's already been established that the games take place on a different planet. Plus, on a skyrim related note: Alduin is called the World Eater. If Nirn is the ONLY planet in this universe, how would anyone understand the concept of planets, stars and world eating. Alduin must have eaten other planets in the past. IT ALL MAKES SENSE AHAHAHAHA!!
  • Nirn isn't the only planet in the universe. Of course, Alduin, so far as is known, haven't eaten them, so the Canonical Answer is that Alduin re-starts the world by eating it when it is time for a new 'kalpa' (he just jumps the gun from time to time). As for why it is known, partly because Alduin and a number of other sources not exactly of Nirn says he is going to eat the kalpa/world.
  • Or both the Daedra and the Divines are warring factions of Ancient Astronauts, they made used their alien technology to give the peoples of Nirn 'magical' abilities. Which are basically telekinetic powers.
• Given how much power the gods have, calling them 'aliens' instead wouldn't really make a difference.
  • Power is an illusion. A mortal like the Nerevarine or Champion can throw down with 'gods' and come out on top.
• The Dwemer believed or at least depicted that the Divines were like Planets. Which in turn would make Mundus a Solar System, Oblivion a or Galaxy, which each individual 'plane' being another planet and Aetherius the rest of the Universe. I don't know about you guys, but the concept of The Elder Scrolls having serious science behind it is lighting my fire.

Just Because.

• The Dwarves certainly thought so.

After sinking into the Swamp of Sadness, Artax's grief consumes him, body and soul, and transforms him into a twisted version of his former self that rises from the black waters to greet its new home and master- what was once the proud, white steed of a warrior is now the dark, heartless horse of an assassin. He also became a female horse for some reason.

• It was clear he was wounded at the end of the game, perhaps leading Mono to put him down shortly after. The sorrow of the girl he helped revive killing him causes his soul to become corrupt and become Shadowmere as we know.. He/she/it.

• H/She knows that he's a figment of someone's imagination, and he's just A okay with it.
  • What the hell is CHIM?
    • Omnipotence, otherwise known as console commands. No Seriously, Vivec was a meta guy.
  • According to Vivec, implied to be for every PC.

During playing through skyrim, the player will probably have his/her soul indebted to at least two divine entitities, probably more. The player is also a being of immense power, able to snack on dragon souls like they were mashed potatoes, and destroying Alduin. A being of this power would surely be fought over by all those that have any claim to his/her soul. It would also give new storytelling opportunity for elder scrolls VI, as this would mean the thalmor could achieve their ultimate goal, leading to a new great war.

• Or more likely an An all out War between the Daedra and Aedra over who gets to keep the savior of the Universe.

• The Dragonborn kills people because a corpse in a casket that he refers to as 'Mother' tells him to. He's the only one who can hear her voice.
  • In a less specific speculation, Norman Bates could just be the Listener (whoever he may be) of the Dark Brotherhood.
• This sounds a little disrespectful.

• His near obsession with song and Romanticism may not just be a character quirk. Finnish power metal band Sonata Arctica is pretty popular among gamers and fantasy fans in general. It wouldn't be much of a stretch to think that some Bethesda employees are fans as well. It makes sense, given the game's icy Scandinavian theme. Oh, and they're nearly identical, so there's that too.

• I've wondered why the Nine seemed to allow their chosen hero to become the new Sheogorath. Certainly not to hopefully replace him with someone better, because as we see here, the Champion eventually became a lot like the old one. Taking the Champion away from Cyrodiil was probably a bad thing(no doubt if they'd made the Champion of Cyrodiil the new Emperor, things would have gone better), as eventually morphing into a daedric prince would rob the Champion of the ability to appear in Mundus. Except for one thing.. Jyggalag was restored in the process. Perhaps the divine plan eventually sees Jyggalag play an important role in the Empire. How so, hard to say, but Jyggalag is about order, and the Thalmor's reign is causing anything but in the grand scheme of things.

This could even be instigated by Sheogorath, finally fed up over the land 'he' once saved having been ruined, sending the Dragonborn on an important quest.

• Well, it is still possible to say that the old Sheogorath was replaced with someone better - it just ended up with a somewhat better but still a lot like the old one Sheogorath. After all, old Sheogorath would, as far as we could tell, be disinclined to help someone become more sane - which is exactly what you do in Sheogorath's quest in Skyrim. Otherwise, it is worth noting that it is implied that Heroes (IE, player characters) in The Elder Scrolls exist outside the ordinary fate.. so the Nine might well simply not have had say in the matter (especially since it was not a simple matter of them chosing the Champion, the Champion also choose them as he/she elected to move towards becoming the Divine Crusader). Still, regardless of the reasons, one can only hope that Jyggalag - the Daedra that took so long to be seen after having been heard of, appeared on a grand scale, and then was not heard from again - will play an important rule in the future.

Evidence:

• In one winterhold sidequest, one researcher tried to repeat the ritual that caused the disappearance of the Dwemer by using 'warped' soul Gem.
• Soul gems can be used to make magic. They may be used to enchant weapons, and with certain perk they will recharge your magicka.
• The Soul gems from 'Sentient' beings like humans and mer are powerful enough to completly restore an artifact given by a daedric lord into full 'charge'. So what kind of wonders could be achieved with a soul gem containing a Soul of a God?
  • I doubt it. The word 'Heart' is in the name. If it said 'stone' of Lorkhan however..
• Keep in mind that you get to see the heart up-close and personal at the end of Morrowind, and it looks like a living beating heart.

• If these questlines aren't completed, the associated factions are more or less doomed. Without returning the skeleton key, Noturnal's influence over the world fades drastically which could have dire consequences, and without a listener the dark brotherhood will eventually die out. These quests need to be done for the factions to continue existing.
  • Ah, but the Dragonborn isn't necessarily necessary - Karliah could have done a lot of what was done on her own, especially since she would have been more successful during the early part of the Thieves' Guild storyline, when she was trying to create a schism between Maven and the Guild. All she needs to do is get back the Skeleton Key, and preferably pay back Mercer Frey's betrayal on the way, and the Thieves Guild is well on its way to ressurection.. with or without the Dragonborn. For the Dark Brotherhood, it is even easier - the Night Mother isn't destroyed, Babette is never killed, and unless you do the Dark Brotherhood storyline, Cicero is never killed. End result: everything is in place for someone to become Listener.
  • Alternatively they could pull a Mass Effect and let you import your actions regarding the Guilds into the next game.
    • Probably not, as that could screw with people who modded some of the questlines.
    • People modded the quest chains in Oblivion, too.
    • And Skyrim didn't import what people had done in Oblivion. That was the point: Mass Effect-style importing really only works well if the modding capabilities are more limited than what they are in Skyrim.
    • People who modded questlines dug their own graves.

• Hey, why not? They're another sentient race of pointy-eared humanoids, ain't they? They could be Jotmer (from Jotunn, the Norse giants) or somethin'.
  • At the very least, they are liable to be Ehlnofey-descended (that is, they share the same ancestor as men and mer).

The IV from oblIVion formed the roman numeral 4. The top half of the Y in skYrim formed the roman numeral 5. Only area left that fits VI would be akaVIr.

• While the reasoning behind this is..questionable, it's entirely possible. Elder Scrolls games are never direct sequels and people have been wanting a look at Akavir for a while now.
• There's no III in Morrowind, though.

Having played through the lower levels a few times I almost always get a band of mercenaries after me with a contract from someone named Moira. When I couldn't get my head around why the other Moira would want me dead for stealing some flowers from a shack in the woods I concluded that it must have something to do with the Patron of thieves herself! Perhaps she's been scouting for new Nightingales a little longer than we thought?

• Moira is actually a hagraven associated with a Daedric quest. Those flowers are her property.
  • She's from A Night to Remember, Sanguine's quest. Sadly, you cannot marry her and have a hagraven for a wife, but you can spare her by lying to Ysolda and saying you have to get to the wedding.

• Well is you elaborate I might believe you.

He is the firstborn of Akatosh, but the meaning isn't that he was born as a mortal would see it. Rather he, he was an aspect of Akatosh.. but spun-off again as his own. Thus, he is firstborn of Akatosh: the first aspect to become so diverged from Akatosh as to be non-aspect. Any reference to him being a son and the like of Akatosh is a result of Dovah and divinities dumbing it down for mortals.

• Alternatively..

He decided to save Nirn, just so he could kill it later. While he was using his Alduin ruse, he lied and said he was his own son. Just to throw the accusations off of him.

• There is a reason that the Daedra hate him.
• Not likely. Paarthurnax, who is both the character in the best position to know and very upfront with you (he outright tells you 'I'm dangerous, the people who want to kill me have a point') states at the end that he mourns Alduin, but he nonetheless had to die since 'Alduin sought to usurp the place of our father, Akatosh.'

He does say he can 'shout whenever he wants', so it's a distinct possibility.If you choose take help from the blades and restore them to their former glory Esbern will probably suggest that you should try to re-concur Tamirel, because the Blades would surely believe that the Dragonborn is the only worthy enough to rule Tamriel. This will lead to a similar tale of how Talos became emperor and later become a divine. Maybe the Thalmor succeeds in their plans, and you are the only one that can restore the balance.

• If they won't let you talk to them without killing one of your friends, I doubt they think you're that worthy.

He chose to become a mortal again for one or two reasons.

• The Empire he founded banned his worship.
• Alduin.
• There may be some proof.. The White-Gold Concordat was signed in 4E 175. The game takes place in 4E 201. Assuming Talos was reborn as an infant in response to the Concordat, that would make you a reasonable 26.
• Also, some things the Greybeards say suggest it pretty strongly. When the Dovahkiin proves himself after bring back the Horn of Jurgen Windcaller, they greet him in the dragon tongue. The translation is: 'Long has the Stormcrown languished, with no worthy brow to sit upon. By our breath we bestow it now to you in the name of Kyne, in the name of Shor, and in the name of Atmora of Old. You are Ysmir now, the Dragon of the North, hearken to it.' Stormcrown is significant because the name Talos means Stormcrown. Most important is the declaration that the player is Ysmir, the Dragon of the North. Ysmir is simply the Nordic name for Tiber Septim. The Greybeards all but flat out tell you that you're either the reincarnation of Tiber Septim or are mantling him and destined to take his place in the pantheon.
• So the Dragonborn destined to defeat Alduin actually means.. 'Talos' destined to defeat 'Akatosh'? OH MY GOD BETHESDA MAKE THIS CANON!

In the mission where you first meet Astrid, the contract was on the mother. She doesn't take your shit, which is ballsy, by a mother would rather see her children again.

• I assumed there were either contracts out on all three of them(each gives ample reason for people to want to kill them), or there was no contract, and Astrid just picked up three rather unpleasant people for you to kill. If there are contracts out on all of them, it's win win for her. Which ever one you kill, you're doing her job, and if you choose not to kill all three, she can pick off the other two while they're wandering through the swamp later. If there are no contracts, it doesn't matter because that isn't the point. The point of the exorcise is to see if you'll ask 'How high?' when she says 'Jump.' One of the members of the Brotherhood(I want to say Babbette but I think it might be the dunmer) mentions she pulls this stunt fairly regularly with new recruits, though.
  • Jossed. Word of God is that none of them had contracts and Astrid really did just want to see if you'd ask 'How high?' before extending her formal invite. (Technically, it's possible that someone was performing the Black Sacrament with the intention of putting a contract on one or more of them. Since the Brotherhood, lacking a Listener, is relying entirely on word of mouth, if someone was doing so in secret, Astrid would never know.)

The Space Core landing in Skyrim is a canon mod, and it shows that The Elder Scrolls takes place in the same multiverse as Portal, and therefore, Half Life. It is likely that the Combine would see an overall gain in conquering and colonizing Tamriel, then all of Nirn. However, considering the presence of many forms of magic in Tamriel, the people of Skyrim will be able to repel the Combine before the entire armada can arrive.You're not even the only one alive at the time. The Greybeards outright discuss this as a possibility, and there's no evidence otherwise. Maybe they don't live in Skyrim, maybe not even inside Tamriel, but he or she exists.

• The Akaviri prophecy associated with Alduin's return (which accurately foretold not only the chronology of events leading to his return but also the events preceding it no uncertain terms) does in fact state that you are the last.
  When misrule takes its place at the eight corners of the world
  When the thrice-blessed fail and the Red Tower trembles
  When the Dragonborn Ruler loses his throne, and the White Tower falls
  When the Snow Tower lies sundered, kingless, bleeding
  The World-Eater wakes, and the Wheel turns upon the Last Dragonborn.
  • That's pretty flimsy as evidence goes. Prophecies are often intentionally worded in confusing and somewhat inaccurate ways. Besides, minor detail like that have been misunderstood or wrong before. The Tyranny of the Sun stated that Akatosh's influence would be severed from Nirn, but instead it was merely interruped, and that's only if the dragonborn used Auriel's bow that way.
  • They called Aang the 'last Airbender,' look how that turned out. The player might be the only one now but there could be more in the future..
    • Aang was never prophesized to become the last Airbender.
  • And Luke Skywalker was the last of the Jedi, not meaning that there would be no more after him, but that he was the only one at the time.
• Well, there is that theory that the Nerevarine and The new Sheogorath are Dovahkiin too. So that could work. The prophecy could always mean the last Dragonborn meant to be alive right now.
• Would it be possible that the prophesy would just assume that the world was going to end, instead of Dovahkiin saving it?
• Confirmed, in a way. The first Dragonborn was a Dragon Priest, and he's coming back for revenge in the Dragonborn DLC.

.. Yep.

• Personally, it seems like the homeland of humans/elves would be the best places for an Elder Scroll game. The Khajiit and Argonians are meant to be the 'mysterious' Beastmen and setting the game in their homelands would sorta take away from their mystique.
  • Except of course that you went to their homelands in the first game, right? And I'd still like to commit genocide on them. Or at least find out how they have a concept of chronology without having a word for time.
• I'm thinking 'The Elder Scrolls VI: Summerset' will be more likely. Black Marsh and Elsweyr could still be featured, of course, but the Thalmor need to be dealt with first.
  • Summerset Isle has been theorized as the Next Setting since Morrowind, which may either be seen as a negative (people keep on guessing that Summerset will be the next setting, and keep on being wrong) or positive (third time's the charm). On another note, dealing with the Thalmor would really have to be done before having Summerset as the main setting (the place had xenophobic rules in place even when it wasn't ruled by the Thalmor), while Elsweyr has a handwave for allowing Mannish visitors (they are not actually part of the Dominion proper).
  • Since its inception the individual games that made up the Elder Scrolls franchise have had single-word grandiose-sounding names that belied adventure,danger and glory: Arena, Daggerfall, Battlespire, Redguard, Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim. While the titles have at times taken the names from the respective games' main setting, it always seemed that the developers preferred to use the place names that had simpler, 'epic' sounding designations. TES IV may have been called 'Oblivion' instead of 'Cyrodiil' not only because of the Oblivion Crisis' significance, but it also had a more marketable and 'cooler' sounding title than that given to the Imperial heartland. While I think that the Summerset Isles and the Thalmor will most likely have a very important part to play in the next Elder Scrolls, I'd wager that the developers will expand the game area to include not just the Isles but all regions under effective Thalmor control to allow for free-roaming flexibility, to facilitate a possible plotline for another Great War and the possibility of an 'endtimes' scenario that might play out with the 'death' of Talos, the struggle for control between Men, Mer and Beastfolk as Nirn begins collapsing. Thus, I believe that instead of 'The Elder Scrolls VI: Summerset', the likelier title for the next game will be the more badass but also appropriate: 'THE ELDER SCROLLS VI: DOMINION'
  • In regards to the xenophobic rules: You All Meet in a Cell. It would indeed be difficult for most races to infiltrate the Summerset Isles to take down the Thalmor. Your player character, however, will not travel to the Summerset Isles by choice; he or she will be taken there as a Thalmor prisoner, and escape.
  • This troper would still rather see Argonia than Summerset. My two cents, anyway.
  • Alternatively, as was said on the Main Elder Scrolls WMG page, it could be while the war is going on and/or set during the occupation after the war.

• Wouldn't it be Elder Scrolls VI: Black Marsh? That's where the Argonians come from, as I don't think there is an Argonia.

A huge sub plot of the game is how the end of the world is coming, and is unavoidable. The most you can do by beating the main big bad of the main story is stop him from getting it done too early. And in the background the Nazi elves are literally trying to kill Talos by wiping out worship of him because they know he's the only thing holding the current reality from ripping itself apart. In all likelyhood there'll eventually be some DLC expanding on stuff much in the same vein as Oblivion (since that game was more or less a testing grounds to see what could be done with this new downloadable game add on thing), but the last DLC released for the game will play out the final days of the Elder Scrolls universe as we know it.

• Oh, please. If Bethesda intended to make Skyrim the last game in the series, they would have said so by now. Besides, with a Cash Cow Franchise like The Elder Scrolls, plus how successful both critically and financially this game alone has been, who would want the series to end here? Especially when there is still an uncountable amount of potential for the series, so many unexplained details, unexplored locations, and much, much more yet to do before it all ends. Plus, ending the series here would contradict the 'And the Adventure Continues' tone that the Main Quest ends on.
• Well it would explain why you are able to make such pivotal decisions like
  • Does Titus Mede II live or die?
  • Does the Dark Brotherhood survive past this year?
  • Who's going to win the war?
  • What happened between Sheogorath and Jyggalag?
  • Does Barbas live or Die?
  • What happened to Azura's star?

I mean these are all lore changing decisions right here.

• I'm sorry, but except for (3) (which won't matter until we see how the Thalmor are dealt with) those decisions aren't pivotal at all: (1) the Elder Council lives and there's more than one way to skin an emperor (2) Even if you destroy the Brotherhood, Babbette, Cicero, and (most importantly) the Night Mother are unaccounted for (4) How is that even a decision in Skyrim? (5) Barbas is a daedra, he'll reform eventually even if you kill him. (6) Is Azura's Star really THAT important?
• It's entirely possible to destroy Azura's Star in the main quest of Oblivion. I don't think many people did, considering it's one of the most useful items in the game, but it's still very possible. With that in mind, it could full well appear in a future game with the handwave of either Azura having cleansed it or made a new one.
  • Given the whole 'bound to the Prince's essence/disappears and reappears when least expected' aspects of Daedric artifacts, it is entirely possible to just handwave it as being Azura's Star now and leave the whole Malyn incident/possibly being turned into a Black soul gem out of it.
    • Azura implied that Princes' personal gift Daedric artifacts automagically fade back into Oblivion in a few centuries, and that she could fix her broken star, but she thought the Dovahkiin didn't want to wait and had the dragonborn just fix it for her (unless you bring it to Winterhold and break it more into a big black soul gem)

Think about it. The Empire has been divided and considerably weakened, Ka'Po'Tun has yet to invade Tamriel, and a certain Tiger-Dragon (Tosh Raka) has been interested in taking it over, once he has conquered the Tsaesci. Plus this could make the result of the Civil War in Skyrim ambiguous, and the Thalmor would be destroyed by a much more powerful foe. Seriously, it would take another invasion from a foreign power to fix this mess that Tamriel has been plunged into.

• Technically, Mysterious Akavir is not the most reliable source (to quote from the Third Edition of the Pocket Guide to the Empire: 'It should be noted that these various races of Akaviri have never been sighted by modern scholars. While tales that survive from the Akaviri Potentate describe these races in detail, it is unknown how literally they should be taken, given the possible mistranslation of the complex Tsaesci language').. but this is Wild Mass Guessing, not In-Universe Source Criticism.

But he knows that we remember playing the Shivering Isles DLC and is pretending that it was canon in order to mess with us.

• I just want to point out, that at the point where you're Listener of the Dark Brotherhood, it seems absurd that you'd try to join up with the Thieves Guild. Or try to do both at the same time, which sort of invites a bit of disappointment from your 'family members'.
  • Yes, but look at who we're talking about. The Champion could well have gone Dark Brotherhood -> Shivering Isles -> Thieves Guild, at which point joining up with the Thieves' Guild is a case of 'Well, I'm the Daedric Prince of Madness now. I can do whatever the hell I like. Time to go be a thief!' That, and there's no telling how being a Daedric Prince would interact with being the Listener..

Your mind is using that familiar image to fill in the holes in your memory. Why are there holes in your memory? Because Sheogorath was wearing the Cowl of the Grey Fox.

• But I never played the past games.
  • It works from an in-character perspective as well. Presumably, your character has seen or heard descriptions of the god of madness.

It is Dawnguard, after all. Also considering the items on vampires discovered in). The Vampire questline could be this generation's Bloodmoon, while the Dawnguard questline could be the Shivering Isles.

Jossed, but the storyline does involve a jaunt to a Plane of Oblivion — Soul Cairn, last visited in Battlespire and one of those planes without a Daedra Lord master.

It just destroys the gem. Trapping a soul inside a soul gem causes some bizarre chemical or nuclear reaction that imparts prodigious energy to the gem (the Dwemer powered their automatons with the thermal energy from soul gems). When you recharge or enchant a weapon, you destroy the gem and use the power that the presence of a soul has given it to create the enchantment. The soul returns to Oblivion.

There's really no reason to think this other than the fact that it makes you less evil for using Black Soul Gems.

• This is somewhat comforting for those of us who try to play somewhat moral characters.
• I suppose it's worth mentioning that in-universe information dating back to at least TES 3 says that enchanted items are powered by souls that are trapped there, and are in fact used up in the process. That's just for limited-use items. Weapons and armor with constant enchantments? Souls are trapped there forever. Daedric armor and weapons are supposed to be ebony armor and weapons with enslaved daedra souls inside of them.
• Confirmed, in the worst way possible: Souls that are used for enchantments (whether constant or as power) are sent to the Soul Cairn, where souls are in constant agony for all eternity. You might want to put away the Black Soul Gems right now if you want to stay moral.

Because Kodlak alludes to it at the end of the chain and damn it, wouldn't it be awesome? Of course we'd have to account for the many Harbingers who may be okay with being Hircine's hounds, such as Terrfyg. But still. He can be a boss in that quest too.

• Alternatively, for a Dragonborn Harbinger who likes being a werewolf, the DLC will instead be about defending Hircine's Hunting Grounds and the spirits of previous Harbingers Hircine has captured from Kodlak and Ysgramor's raid.
• Unfortunately, jossed. Bethesda has announced there will be no further dlc.

Obviously the Big Bad would be Elenwen. Since the Thalmor do seem to stick around even if the Stormcloaks win the Civil War, it stands to reason the final piece of DLC for Skyrim will involve finally driving them out of Skyrim, either because it's the last thing Ulfric needs to do before he's named High King or because General Tullius has received orders that the Empire is ready to take them on again. This will be the event that begins the Second Great War and set the stage for the Elder Scrolls VI, where the war with the Thalmor will take center stage.

• Jossed. Bethesda has announced there will be no further DLC.

Seeing as how Lucien became a Spectral Assassin in Skyrim, it would seem fair that in the next game (either because he was killed or died from other causes.) Cicero makes a reappearance as a Spectral Assassin.Skyrim is the first game in which Dwarven Ruins and technology was crucial to the main plot. It seems as time goes on more about the Dwemer have been revealed.

• They established Hammerfell.
• They were unbelievably advanced.
• The manner of the disappearance (Ala, Arniels Endeavor).
• This entire time, they've been hoarding an Elder Scroll

Since every sequel is hinted during gameplay, whos to say that next time the Dwemer won't reappear? Maybe this time as an army of gods.

• The main flaw with this theory is that it starts with an inaccurate assumption: Dwemer ruins and technology where extremely important in the main plot of Morrowind. Remember, the Ash Vampires you are most likely to meet are in Dwemer ruins, Dagoth Ur himself is in a Dwemer ruin, Akulakhan was a derivative of Dwemer technology, Sunder, Keening and Wraithguard were all three Dwemer artifacts (and of course the Tribunal and Dagoth Ur got their divinity by modifying Kagrenac's plan)..
  • Well excuse me for not having the patience to fully explore the storyline of Morrowind sir!
    • So, you say that you've never played Morrowind before, but you claim to know that the Dwarves have had more and more involvement? Explain to me again how you classify as an Elder Scrolls fan?
    • Not having the patience to fully explore the storyline of Morrowind is perfectly acceptable (indeed, if one does not pay attention Akulakhan's very name, let alone what it is, can be missed, as can the fact that Kagrenac's Tools is Kagrenac's Tools). However, it does not take fully exploring the storyline to know that Dwemer ruins are crucial to Morrowind's main plot, just playing through it at all would do that — and there is the fact that you have to meet the Last Dwarf. Leaving all this said, it is nonetheless entirely possible that the Dwemer will be involved in a big way with another of Skyrim's downloadable content. They do have quite a presence in Skyrim for a race that is long gone, and Morrowind did get an expansion pack where Dwemer ruins and Dwemer technology played a key role..

You will be playing as the bodyguard of Kagrenac (The guy responsible for the disappearance). The game will end with you alone, in Kagrenac's laboratory, wondering what the fuck just happened.The Aldmeri Dominion has always needed extraordinary measure to bring about their defeat. Reman Cyrodiil never managed to do it; the best he could manage was tribute after beating them about the heads and shoulders. Tiber Septim needed the freakin' Numidium to bring them down. The Mede Empire had neither a Dragonborn nor a giant stompy robot in the Great War, and thus didn't fare very well against them. The forces against the Thalmor have a Dragonborn amongst them again.. but what about the largest force to bear? Numidium is long since beyond mortals' reach. That leaves.. Dragons. The Dragonborn will convince Odahviing and/or Paarthurnax of the existential threat that the Thalmor pose, and then, through either of those dragon allies, rally most or all of Dragonkind to fight against the Thalmor.

• Assuming the whole 'World War II' thing that everyone is assuming to be DLC ever get's put to game, then why not?
• Considering how I tend to murder each Thalmor I come across, and like to think that each of my characters would eventually fly to Summerset Isle with an army of dragons, I'd be disappointed if this didn't happen.

It's the guy in iron armor who hangs about the Bannered Mare in Whiterun all day. Bethesda did this so that they wouldn't have to be overly vauge about who the Dragonborn was and that those who played Skyrim would recognise him...because lycanthropy provides immunity to vampirism. Sure explains why there are now werewolf perks..

• Jossed.

Think about it: They eat souls, the forms they take look a lot like Molag Bol's servants the Winged Terrors, and you can clearly see an altar of Molag Bol in the trailer. Plus, the realm they have access to matches the description of Molag's realm, Coldharbour. Oh, and not to mention that of course, Molag Bol created Vampires in the first place.

• Partly confirmed. They aren't a cult per se, but their leader and his family received their vampirism directly from Molag Bol himself, which is why they have the power to become Vampire Lords and have the ability to pass that power on to others.

Since the Dawnguard gets crossbows, the undead will get a ranged weapon suitable for a Vampire Lord; throwable wine glasses.

• Jossed. Dawnguard gets the cool weapons and equipment, the vampires get the vampire lord form and associated powers.

A Dragon in TES lore is a Reality Warping, cosmic level badass. You are a dragon. Just with a different body build (Extra points if you're an Argonian). Now before you get your panties in a bunch and ask me 'What about Martin and Uriel dying?' those deaths were not natural. Let's look at the facts about Dragonborn.

• Uriel Septim VII and his sons were stabbed to death.
• Martin Septim sacrificed his body to allow Akatosh to enter the mortal world.
• Pelagius Septim was a pussy.
• Tiber Septim was cheapshotted

All true facts. Basically, as so long as Dovahkiin's body is in decent codition He/She/It cannot die.

• Oddly, this troper finds himself agreeing in some way. Uriel was very late in his life, but seemed to still be physically active to enough of a degree. It's highly possible Uriel Septim could've lived forever if he wasn't physically killed. This would explain why Aedric soul-holders tend to have some battle or killing as their end instead..Unless being an Aedric soul just means it's unavoidable, which I doubt.

I don't mean Oblivion or Atherius oh no, I'm talking much much larger. The Scrolls don't just see through time and space they can see alternate tales of the Dragonborn or of Existence in general. All kinds of what if scenarios and alternate histories.

• What if Boethiah never corrupted Malacath?
• What if Alduin was never born?
• What if Talos declined the offer from the Divines?
• What if Martin was never abandoned?
• What if The Champion was able to save Uriel Septim?

But not only these super important parts of history, but also little nitpicks.

• What if Nerevarine spilled juice on their favorite shirt?
• What if Valen Drethwas in Summerset Isle with your wife?
• What if Dovahkiin was a woman?

Basically, Imagine looking at every save game of everyone who had ever played Elder Scrolls in a magnificent flash of light that lasted less than a minute.

• Would explain why someone would go blind from reading them.

And it will be powered by you, the Dragonborn. Maybe this time it will be powerful enough to make sure that the Thalmor stay dead.

(For those not familiar with the lore: The first Big Stompy Robot was powered by Talos' battlemage and almost single-handedly defeated the First Aldmeri Dominion. The second one was supposed to be powered by the heart of Lorkhan but its construction was halted in the final battle of Morrowind)

• Of course, this implies a Heroic Sacrifice by the Dragonborn, given what happened to Tiber Septim's battlemage..
  • Since Zurin's heart was blown into Aetherius, perhaps that will happen to you just as Talos dies, and you become a new Talos.]]
    • Actually, what ended up in Numidium was probably a mishmash of Arctus's soul and Wulfharth's soul. Numidium was originally powered by the Heart of Lorkhan, and since Wulfharth was a Shezzarine, a low echo of Lorkhan, that's what Numidium needed.

Remember what the Augur said? He first remarked that the path the player walks is not walked on by many. Considering that there have been a fair number of magical college headmasters, this most likely refers to your status as dragonborn/shezzarine. In order to help you, he gave you an instruction: use the staff of magnus to see through the eye of magnus. However, what happens at the end of the mages guild questline? the psijic order teleports in, taking the eye away before the player could take a look.They were written by those after the time of the Dragon War, disguised as tombstones, messages, etc. with the word safely tucked in there. When the prophecy of the Last Dragonborn was devised, the carvers of the walls made them so that the Dragonborn could access the Words of Power on their own.In Shroud Hearth Barrow, just outside of Ivarstead, there's a guy running a Scooby Doo Scam. He's been chugging a potion that makes him look like a ghost for six months, a potion he invented himself, on the fly, without time to test it's potential long term side effects. This, combined with the long term isolation and the stress at the futility of his search is what eventually drove him mad.Compared to most of the other named Dragon Priests, Morokei is given much more characterization, to the point where he talks to the Dovahkiin at several points in his dungeon, despite being subdued. He is also located within Labyrinthian, which is among the longest dungeons in the game and apparantly contains one of the strongest concentrations of magic in Skyrim. On the outside ruins of Labyrinthian lies the Dragon Priest monument where the final mask is obtained. His mask is made of silver, and the final mask is made of gold.Elder Scrolls strike people blind when they read them, but the Dwemer found a way to circumvent that and get all the knowledge out of them they wanted. They messed with a kind of power that they shouldn't have, and their entire race paid the price for it. In fact, given that you find the Elder Scroll still locked inside the machine, it's reasonable to believe that they were using it at the moment they vanished. Coincidence? I think not.

• Though this theory causes a massive coincidence at another end: we have, from multiple if not entirely reliable (but they're differently unreliable) sources an exact point for when the Dwemer disappeared, which was when Kagrenac desperately tried to use his Tools on Lorkhan's Heart (IE, a kind of power one probably shouldn't mess with), as well as first-hand sources saying the Dwemer were not entirely unaware that using the Heart in that kind of way could hold major risks for the Dwemer.
  • Unless it was the combination of the Elder Scroll reading and Kagrenac screwing with Lorkhan's heart. Meddling with one power beyond their ken might not have had quite as drastic a result, but two.. Though there is a quest chain involving someone trying to replicate the situation with Kagrenac which winds up implying that the Elder Scroll situation wasn't necessary for the disappearance.

Think about it.. the Thalmor rewrote history books to take credit for ending the Oblivion crisis. Certainly Sheogorath, with the ability talk to damn well ANYONE, would just clear the matter up and say, 'hey, I used to be the Champion and I can prove it! I was there!'. After all, it seems while HE can't come to Mundus, that gateway that allowed the Champion to pass back and forth is still working and mortals from the Shivering Isles can cross through.

However, the Champion also seems aware that being believed would be difficult, 'he' can't cross through directly, and reveling himself to be the Champion would probably really damage his reputation in the eyes of those who know the truth(perhaps the same reason you couldn't go around telling everyone what happened in Oblivion, why you couldn't change the shrine statues, etc). So he will occasionally talk about those days, in aa way that arises no suspicion(because all the Daedric princes were around then anyway), and even likes to drop odd hints of their past in ways that may or may not make people suspect the truth, coupled with lies.

Which, to think about it, what did he say? 'A fox'? Well that doesn't mean you become the Gray Fox. You'll be hearing about the Gray Fox regardless because the newspapers and Imperial guard are always talking about him. 'A severed head'? There was one as a plot device in the Dark Brotherhood quest but it wasn't the only one in the game. There are plenty in the Kvatch ruins and Oblivion Deadlands. Or hell, it could even refer to something that happened outside of the game itself. Bethesda threw them in because both guild quests were popular, but even they'd be totally hesitant to canonize them explicitly- there were other guilds in the game and a major DLC add-on centered around being a noble hero. It'd piss off and alienate players who preferred those choices. They could just have easily thrown in 'a tree' and 'necromancers' to vaguely refer to the other guilds in a way that wouldn't solidify anything. Plus we're dealing with a person who is clearly not all that stable, along with the possibility of lying just to mess with you.

What Sheogorath says may not be truth. It may be a deliberate lie, it may just be goofy nonsense. It's Sheogorath we're talking about here. That may even go into why he manifests in a form like the old one- to keep the truth hidden.

Not all that wild really. Only two of the daedric artifacts from Oblivion don't reappear in Skyrim: The ring of Khajiiti and Goldbrand. However, goldbrand was said to be used by emperor Tidus Mede during the retaking of the imperial city, so that just leaves the ring of Khajiiti.Knight-Paladin Gelebor is quite an interesting character. Alive for thousands of years, and the one who hands you Auri-El's Bow. He mentions being the protector of Auri-El's cathedral, and that is obvious. But the age is one that is unbelievable to some.

This troper believes he has an answer. Gelebor is sustained by Auri-El to be a witness to what the Snow Elves once were. He is the protector of Auri-El's main worship site. He is the one that holds the bow. He is the one who could potentially bring back the Falmer to their previous state of being Auri-El's worshipers. He is the only one who can allow initiates the ability to become a true Auri-El faithful in the original traditions. Thus, this troper believes he is being sustained by Auri-El. This troper believes that Auri-El is using all his power to keep Gelebor alive and well.

This brings me to something I would enjoy seeing. I would enjoy helping Gelebor defend the Cathedral, and see Gelebor's abilities in action. This troper believes he would be using a bow, but that each strike would produce similar effects to the bow he hands over.

It's either that, or in actuality it is something similar to Oblivion's Knights of the Nine. Gelebor could in fact be Auri-El himself. Gelebor could have died when the Falmer originally attacked, but Auri-El possessed his dead body like Boethiah had done and made sure to keep his own Cathedral protected. Or Auri-El merely lied, stating he was Gelebor. Highly unlikely, but it would be interesting. It would partially explain why the Sunhallowed arrows are quite good, and would explain why Gelebor always holds the bow. It's merely a thought, but this troper believes that his first idea that Auri-El sustains Gelebor makes more sense. But the second idea is still possible, considering the ES universe.

Shivering Isle leaves the PC in control of the last stable portal between Oblivion and Tamriel, and neighbors with a Mehrunes Dagon who is still pissed at the PC for thwarting his plans. The PC didn't abandon the Empire during the chaos after the Oblivion crisis, they were stuck defending the Shivering Isle so Mehrunes Dagon couldn't use the portal to invade again.

• To apply greater context what I mean by that is that there actually was one guard, let's call him Bob, that had this happen to him during his adventuring days. Bob survived and eventually healed from his injury but was so traumatized by his injury to the knee that he became a coward who made excuses to take breaks off his guard duty, something that his fellow guards took notice of. The guards make fun of Bob by telling every passerby, 'I used to be an adventurer like you, then I took an arrow to the knee.' This reminds Bob of his mistake and that his buddies will never let him live it down.
• Similarly, 'Let me guess, someone stole your sweet roll' is a Dead Horse Meme that started in Whiterun. Dagny, daughter of Jarl Baalgruf, insists that it's impossible to get a good sweetroll in Whiterun. A certain troper who happened to type this guess got three 'Let me guess, someone stole your sweet roll's in a row out of the guards in front of her room, the stationary guard and a passing guard (two from one guard, one from another). Perhaps Dagny was sent a Solitude sweet role, one of her siblings swiped it (or a mouse tried to eat it), or it had gone stale and she believed it had been eaten and replaced by someone, and insisted that the Whiterun guards hunt down the perpetrator and throw them in jail forever and ever. Thus, it became a common jibe in Dragonsreach, and eventually spread to the rest of the guards in Skyrim (most of whom had no knowledge of its origins, and thought it was just something to say to people who walked up to a tired or bored guard while looking like they wanted help).

• The former Sheogorath claims to the Hero of Cyrodiil that it will take time for him to fully adjust to his mantle of Daedric Prince of Madness, this logically means that the player character had some amount of time left as a mortal before he had to formally take up his post. As time went on the Shivering Isles and other Daedric Princes requested more dedication on his part towards his post and he was more or less forced to give up on the affairs of the mortal realm and fully took on the mantle of Sheogorath. Though another possibility is perhaps things aren't so strict that Princes can't be involved in mortal politics, but he enjoys the fun that his job brings more than being in politics does.

• It's just a hunch, yes. But every other 'faction choice' (Empire/Stormcloak, Dawnguard/Vampires, Blades/Greybeards, etc.) is pretty balanced in terms of quests and rewards. Here, it's downright suspicious how unbalanced the gain/loss for join/destroy is in terms of money, items, and experiences. Further, in keeping with that balance, I'll guess the PO questline would've also ended with the emperor's assassination, which would fit the PO's 'praetorian guard' theme.
  • And at the end the Dragonborn would've received Goldbrand from the Emperor himself. *sigh*
  • I think the main reason that the possible PO questline was scrapped was because it just wouldn't make sense to join both the PO and Stormcloaks at the same time. Joining the DB and Legion is somewhat acceptable (Motierre believes he did the Empire a favor by killing the man that signed the Concordat), but it just doesn't work the other way around.
  • Alternatively, it was more of a questline than a faction. It seems odd that you learned the password right off the bat.

• Perhaps it is a requirement for all guards in Skyrim to have suffered an injury to their knee in order to join.
  • Well, there's one dude in Morthal (Benor, I think) who really, really wants to become a guardsman, but they won't let him, instead sending him on odd jobs. Perhaps they're waiting for a bandit archer to do the deed..

• She claims a number of generations of women in her family have been Companions, including her mother. She and her father used to hunt 'everything' in her words, the emphasis on everything made this troper believe her father was also a werewolf. The fact Aela's blood is used in the ritual over Skjor, Farkas, Vilkas or Kodlak's seems to support this theory as does the fact she is the only member of the circle who does NOT want to be cured.

Besides the Don't kill rule and the bust of The Gray Fox, there appear to be no connection with the Thieve's guild that we all know and love from Oblivion.The real reason why the Thieve's Guild is in such bad shape (besides not being the one from Oblivion) is because after the betray of Mercer Frey, find a way to kick the dog: Hunt and skin a wolf that happened to be Sai, the god of Luck who decided to stay the fuck away from Riften

• Half-contradicted, half-confirmed: there are several things that point to ties with Cyrodiil's Guild.. but it stays at ties, and the Thieves' Guild never was a continent-spanning organization the way the Mages, Fighters or Dark Brotherhood were (the Mages' Guild in Vvardenfell reported to the Archmage in Cyrodiil, the Thieves' Guild in Vvardenfell had contacts in Cyrodiil),

• A nuclear power station. While it is indeed massive, it's worth noting that a lot of that space is just rock and huge mushrooms. The 'Silent City' in the middle has four or five buildings and no actual houses. One possible interpretation is that Blackreach is actually a large self-contained nuclear power plant. The exposed ore veins are actually a result of Dwemer mining for fissile material to use in the reactor core (located underneath Silent City). Why the focus on water, pumping stations, and chugging pumps? The river and pumping station are used to supply coolant water in order to generate steam to power the turbines, which are buried deep underground. That blue glow? Cherenkov radiation. The three Great Lifts are actually escape systems for personnel in the event of a catastrophic excursion. As for why this reactor is even here, the Elder Scroll in the Tower of Mzark requires a highly elaborate containment and reading system. To be able to transfer the contents of such a ridiculously complex and alien object into a legible format must require an absolutely massive amount of power, and the Dwemer built a reactor to supply this power. People in Skyrim, with their low tech level, can't actually understand that what they're seeing is a reactor; they interpret the nuclear power as generic 'steam' power, and ignore the radioactive elements in the Geode Veins and instead just dig up soul gems and the occasional bit of corundum. Of course, if this is true, the Dovahkiin probably has severe radiation poisoning by now..
  • Not that radiation poisoning is much of a problem for a supernatural being.. But on a more serious note this is all very interesting stuff, sounds like grounds for the Elder Scrolls to have a tie-in with the Fallout universe. There was a post in another WMG page that talked about radioactive power being a type of highly sophisticated magic. Sounds like excellent crossover material, canon and fanon alike!

• Alright, I know that the events of Skyrim take place 200 years after the events of Oblivion, but think about it: It's a known fact that Elves are capable of living for several hundred years, and Ancano's age is never addressed. For all we know, he very well could be about 200 years old. Also, they look very similar, don't you think? And if you listen, they even sound a little similar. Then we have the fact that Mannimarco was the antagonist for the Mages Guild questline in Oblivion, and Ancano is the antagonist for the College of Winterhold questline in Skyrim, as in a college for mages. So, either Ancano is a major Expy of Mannimarco, or there's something more to it. You know what they say about apples and trees..
  • It could be noted that — the end of Daggerfall being what it is — it might not even be necessary for Ancano to be 200 years old to be connected to the Mannimarco that was met in Oblivion. After all, there's evidence to suggest that at least in some ways the King of Worms did become a god, while at the same time also staying on Nirn and losing the badass robe-and-glowing-eyes getup in favour of boring old Altmer. The Mannimarco of Oblivion was killed, but who's to say Ancano might not have ties to the God of Worms (or perhaps he deliberately modelled himself on Mannimarco — 'walk like he until he walks like you' is an established path towards godhood in the setting, after all)?

This wouldn't be the first time that Talos interacted with a Player Character under a guise: Wulf in Morrowind and The Prophet in Knights of The Nine were material aspects of Talos. Think about it: You can start getting them before you're even vetted as Dragonborn by the Greybeards, the response time in which a letter is sent out is inhuman, and you can get them from Thu'um usage from a wide variety of places from which 'A Friend' couldn't possibly have been at coincidentally at the same time you were.. unless they were more than just mortal.The rumors going around is that the next DLC will be located on Solstheim, an island given as gift to the Dunmer by the Nords. Considering the events of Morrowind, it's not that hard to imagine that most Dunmer emigrated there.

• Partially correct. The majority of Dunmer have settled in Raven Rock, having mostly rebuilt the town from the ground up, meaing it's features are heavily influenced by their own style. However, most of the rest of the island still maintains it's traditional look and supports a heavy Skaal population.

It's got the same properties as taproot, so it is more than likely a derivative of it. Perhaps the Dwemer originally enjoyed it as a salad dressing.. but then discovered that it was an excellent lubricant for their machines.Let's take a moment to talk about their similarities. They both serve as advisers to people of high authority, as in Savos Aren and Lady Myschala. They are both evil sorcerers, and they both ended up trying to screw things over for everyone. Their voices are very similar. And there's one more thing: The Augur of Dunlain states that Ancano 'seeks information about the Eye,' as in the Eye of Magnus. Zola is seeking information about the Mother's Eye.Shouting isn't a dragon power, it's Brian's No Indoor Voice.

• Jossed, alas. Some guy called Jurgen Windcaller is said to have done it, and you can meet up with him in Sovngarde at the end of the game.

People have been making Highlander comparisons to this game since pre-release. It is inevitable. You'll also be able to say 'There can be only one!', of course.

• He's actually impaled by Hermaeus Mora. Although there is a Quickening, since you absorb his soul afterwards.

We never get to see the runes, but we do see lots of Draconic. Maybe those are the runes attached to him.I say this because they have they sound alike, look a bit like and have the same beard style.It will happen about midway through the dlc and showcase that the older dragonborn/their enemies isn't/aren't someone to mess with. There will also be a timer(a rather generous one but one never the less) where if you don't complete some kind of quest in time will lead to the serious injury/death of your spouse/children/companion. There will also be an awesome storming the castle sequence to rescue them with the allies you've gotten so far both in the dlc(s) and the main game because combined blade/greybeard, empire/stormcloak, companions, vampires/dawnguard, etc assault is to awesome to pass up.

• .. Hell yes. Storming Solstheim with the Dawnguard, the Greybeards, the Mage's College, the Companions, Odahviing and Paarthurnax would be about a thousand CMoAs crammed into one.

The trailer starts off with a shot of the priest mask receptacles at Labyrinthian, and Konahrik is the only dragon priest not fought in vanilla Skyrim. It stands to reason that the leader of the dragon priests has a quest/quest chain of his own.

• Would Konahrik have turned against the dragons? His mask is set above all the other priests in the Labyrinthin, as if he is honoured highly among their number. If that was the case, I don't see why these fanatical holy men would afford such to a traitor among their number who murdered their gods.
  • He may have been highly honoured before he became a traitor who murder their gods. After all, the exact timing of when that feature of the Labyrinthian was built, when the First Dragonborn betrayed his gods, and when the Dragon War was is still a bit unclear — if Konahrik went rogue during the Dragon War, the other dragon priests may have been too busy to remove Konahrik's mask-holder (or not had the opportunity, if Labyrinthian was denied to the priests by the rebels early enough).
  • What if his mask was sealed away by the other dragon priests after the betrayal? It's the only mask that cannot be easily reached by confronting the priest wearing it, first by being sealed in a pocket of time that can only be accessed with a magical artifact, and second behind a device that can only be unlocked when all the dragon priests (or their masks) are gathered in one place. That sounds less and less like veneration, and more and more like they were sealing it away because they were terrified of his coming back to reclaim it. And his mask was the strongest of the ones available, implying that he was the most powerful of the Dragon Priests before he gained the power of the voice and awakened as a Dragonborn, and after he obtained it, he was nearly unstoppable.
  • Also supporting this is the difference between the meaning of his name as opposed to the names of the other masks. Other masks have names like Krosis (Sorrow), Morokei (Glorious), Vokun (Shadow), etc. Konahrik's mask carries the meaning 'Warlord', implying that he was something much more powerful, and dangerous, than the other dragon priests.

• Hmm. One thing in favor of this is that you have to travel back in time to get Konahrik's mask. This WMG might explain why that is, i.e. in the original (untampered) timeline, the mask was stored in the labyrinth for a brief time then buried with him outside Skyrim.
  • Jossed: The First Dragonborn is named Miraak.

If the 'first Dragonborn' really IS Konahrik, then the Thalmor will have some involvement in the storyline. After all, Valmir's orders stated that he was to bring the dragon priest mask to Labyrinthian. Presumably they were after the ninth mask, and if its owner is in this storyline they would logically be interested as well..

• Good. There aren't enough of them to kill in the main game anyway.
  • That's one thing we can agree on..
  • What if Vahlok's mask IS Konahrik?

The Dovahkiin has a dragon soul, right? Well, what if every time you mess up and get killed, the Greybeards use Alduin's Shout to resurrect you?

• Arngeir, looking through a telescope, sees the dead dragonborn. Arngeir says 'He's dead again! SLEN TIID VO!', and the dragonborn revives.
  • So, Save and Reload happens in-universe?

The Dunmer have always had a sizable presence in Solstheim, it is true, but not at such a level as is likely as the remnants of the entire race flee to sanctuary on the island nation. There will of course be suspicions from the Skaal, as it is often so in this kinds of situations. It may reach a boiling point at the time of the DLC and one optional quest line may involve assisting either side in conflicts.

• Jossed: The Skaal have so far lived with the Dunmer on Solstheim for nearly two centuries in relative peace.

It would make sense. Consider Azura's Star - if you look at the model close enough, you can see crystals packed tightly inside. Now look around you when you go in to purge it. Notice any similarities?

Now consider how the portal looks an awful lot like the swirl in the sky while in the Soul Cairn. (Oh, the swirl also looks like the preview icon for the soul trap spell.) Hm.

The Soul Cairn is a truly enormous soul gem in the possession of an Ideal Master, or it IS an Ideal Master, who are enormous soul gems.

• Considering that the various realms of the Daedric lords are literally their bodies (with the humanoid forms/avatars seen on Nirn being a metaphorical extension of their essences), this has quite a bit of merit to it.

In Dragonborn DLC, one of Hermaeus Mora's Black Books allows you to upgrade the Unrelenting Force Shout. What does it do? It increases damage done, and it also has a chance to cause something similar to what's described happening to Torygg. While Ulfric does not seem the type to do so, it is possible he gained the power temporarily by a short-term deal with the aforementioned. It was likely done in secret, without anyone nearby as well. Previously mentioned grants him a bit of a power boost as plot demands, and Ulfric kills Torygg. Ulfric's powers are removed afterwards due to the deal, and if things had gone to plan Ulfric would've been High King and not been in need of the extra power.

Instead, the Imperials gained resolve and the Jarls stepped in line behind them.

As I said, Ulfric doesn't entirely seem the type to do that. But if he needed it, and believed it would stop bloodshed, he may well have. He didn't want the war to drag on, he wanted it to end. While he would despise working with the aforementioned, it would guarantee an end to the war and leave him in power with no one to challenge him that he could not deal with himself. This plays off his more apt description as being what he says he is, and deciding to do something no one else would believe necessary.

• If he thought it could avoid the unnecessary bloodshed then it's possibl. But the Imperials were going to force themselves into Skyrim's politics regardless of what he did, since losing the province in any way would have been a massive blow to them. Though how do you propose he found the book in the first place?

This thought came to me when I saw a set of stalhrim armor, and realized it was about the same color as the sword Chillrend. Then, I found out that frost based enchantments are more powerful when applied to stalhrim armor and weapons. this lead me to believe that Chillrend was made of stalhrim, not glass.

So why does the blade look like a glass weapon? Well, my guess is that whoever forged it was experimenting with applying different forging techniques on different materials, and tried using glass forging techniques on stalhrim. The experiment worked, and resulted in a blade that looked like blue glass. After that, the forger enchanted it with the most powerful frost enchantment they could find, and the blade we all know and love was created.

• Or alternative it could be a hybrid, by going on the experiment thought. Meaning it is made out of both stalhrim and glass. Not that unlikely either, since regular steel is basically two different metals combined into one stronger type of metal. Backed also by the fact to Chillrend is also does more damage than regular glass swords.
  • Actually Stahlrim is magical ice that's as hard as ebony. You wouldn't need to enchant it. It's already a magical ice blade.

Dragonborn apparently points to Hermaeus Mora as being the Bigger Bad of the Dovahkiin's story, something that is foreshadowed in the main game, given Mora's quest's connection to the main questline.

• I wouldn't be surprised if he was responsible for everything and turned out to be the main boss. The guy's a watered-down version of Tzeentch.
• We can probably tie him to being responsible for Oblivion as well; Mora taught Xarxes who taught Dagon who taught Camoran, thus Mora planted the seeds for the Oblivion Crisis.
• For all we know, he might be the one who gave the Thalmor the idea of destroying Mundus by killing Talos in the first place. All to ensure that the last Dragonborn would one day be forced to make a deal with him to save Mundus from the Thalmor plot.
  • So basically he's manipulated all these events and caused all this bloodshed just so the Dovahkiin will make a contract with him?

That would explain why all of them say it..

Because, well, he has to have done something important enough to be Top Dog in the Mask hierarchy.Not quests, mind. Plotlines. Either faction-specific or some sort of Main Quest, but something that makes them relevant for more than one sidequest. So far, the Daedric Princes to have gotten this treatment have been Mehrunes Dagon (Bigger Bad of Arena and games in that era, as well as the Big Bad of Oblivion), Azura (orchestrated the events of The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind), Hircine (Big Bad of Bloodmoon), Sheogorath/Jyggalag (Your boss/antagonist from Shivering Isles), Nocturnal (does factor very heavily into the plot of Skyrim's Thieves Guild), Hermaeus Mora as the Bigger Bad of Dragonborn, Molag Bal as the Bigger Bad of The Elder Scrolls Online and I suppose if you wanted to be generous, Meridia factored into the backstory of Knights of the Nine for Oblivion by providing mook Aurorans for Umaril the Unfeathered, and Clavicus Vile did have some relevance in the Action-Adventure spin-off game The Elder Scrolls Adventures: Redguard. But that still leaves plenty of other Daedric Princes to act in more plot-relevant roles beyond a single Daedric quest in later games and expansions; Mephala, Boethiah, Malacath, Vaermina, Sanguine, Namira, and Peryite. It seems likely that Bethesda will be keeping them in the back of their heads for more relevant roles in later games and/or DLC. Personally, this troper thinks Vaermina and Namira both have potential as absolutely terrifying Bigger Bads in their own right.It makes very little sense for someone who took an arrow to the knee to become a guard (since he's unlikely to still be able to run at high speeds), so its far more likely that it is a codephrase. When the guards suspect that a player is actually working undercover for the jarl, they use this phrase and wait for the proper reply. Of course, the player doesn't know the proper reply.Let's look at the facts here.

• Atmora is a cold land to the north of Tamriel, from which the nords originated. Solstheim is a cold land to the north of Tamriel, filled with ancient nordic ruins. The general geography fits.
• Atmora was said to be part of Tamriel, until a war between the ehlnofey seperated it from Tamriel. Solstheim was said to be part of Tamriel, until a battle between two dragon priests seperated it from Tamriel. There has been some indication (book: The Dragon War) that the ancient dragon cults of Atmora and Tamriel differed in their ways, which could have been the cause of such a conflict. This is also why the dragon priests of Solstheim and the dragon priests of Tamriel wear different masks.
• Atmora had to be abandoned because of a disaster that would kill everyone on it. Solstheim has signs that the nords once populated the entire island, but only a single village now remains. Maybe the Skaal survived due to the protection of the all-father?
• And for the clincher. Atmora was said to be ruled by dragons in ancient days, a rule which was said to be more benevolent than the rule over Tamriel. Despite the fact that there is no mention of the dragon war ever reaching Atmora, there has been no mention of the dragons from that continent since then. However, if Solstheim is Atmora, it would explain where they went: Miraak ate them.

All in all, the idea that Solstheim is actually the lost continent of Atmora is pretty sensible. With no idea of the actual sizes of either Tamriel or Atmora, the ancient proto-nords used the same word for both, which later got translated into continent. When Atmora was eventually rediscovered, no one even considered this island could be the legendary Atmora. Tiber Septim's claim of having come from Atmora was false, he was just invoking the legendary continent as a way of becoming more popular amongst the nords.

• Except for the fact that Atmora is described as being north of Skyrim and not east of it, right? And no, the proto-Nords called Tamriel 'Mereth', after the Mer who lived there. Atmora was never ruled by dragons, Nordic myths state that it was ruled by the Elves and Auri-el before Shor rallied Men and killed them.

The symbols hidden on the underside of the lids of the bug jars are actually runes which, when read, seem to indicate 5 towns in Skyrim. When plotted on a map, these 5 points form a transmutation circle, between which are 5 fights with dragons and the center point is the Weynon Stones, which has an altar. This all points to an elaborate ritual that the Thalmor want to make use of to eliminate all Men to advance their goal of undoing reality.To either serve or fight Herma Mora, leaving the Thalmor to be dealt with by someone else.In the book 'Sovngarde: A reexamination,' the author mentions that Rolf, a Nord who spent his life searching for Sovngarde and returned, having failed, to Skyrim, only to be killed by a group of giants, saw his body - and the giants playing catch with his head - as he rose into the air. This is similar to what the player sees if they die - the camera cuts to a third person view of their corpse and slowly zooms out before the player's save is re-loaded. Therefore, the player's soul is ascending to Sovngarde just as is described in the book.

• What if you're a Khajiit or whatever?
• Khajit and Argonians have souls (if the latter are a bit less conventionally gained) since you can soultrap them, and as a dragon soul the point is null and void anyways, so they can still go to the Khajit afterlife or back into the Hist for recycling.

At least not as a person. It's just an artifact, stored in Bromjunaar so that, in times of great emergency, all the Dragon Priests can place their masks on the shrine and retrieve it to use in battle. The shrine works that way so that it can't be stolen by any one Priest – it requires the cooperation of all eight. This explains why, even in Dragonborn, we never see any mention of Konahrik the Priest, and why the mask looks different from all the others.Will be 'Attend Your Coronation' and will deal with the player being crowned the new Dragonborn Emperor of Tamriel. Much like your wedding, people you helped will appear, leading to mages, mercs, killers and crooks all cheering for you as either Tulius or Ulfric puts a crown on your head.

• Alternatively, the Final Boss will, with his dying breath, shoot an arrow into your knee, thus ending your adventuring days and creating the objective 'Apply to be a guard.'
  • Jossed; Bethesda's announced that there will be no further dlc for Skyrim, and that they're moving on with their next project.

There's plenty of possible things that could have happened with the Dragonborn. Their race might have been incompatible with their true love, their dragon-soul might have been passed on to their children, the world's population would be entirely replaced with unkillable dragonborn-descended badasses..However, adopting a Nord child or two in Hearthfire would mean that your 'descendants' would all be Nords, no matter your race. The Dragonborn's original race might have been replaced by 'they are a Nord' at some point, probably by some pro-Nord historian who goes 'look, he used the power of the ancient 'NORD' tongue! He must be a Nord!'. And thus, we shall all be able to see our empire kick the Thalmor's butt.And why the Dragonborn wasn't recorded better? Because he didn't actually take the throne, he supported his children in achieving it!Although a democracy could also work.

• Being a dovakiin isn't hereditary, the Septims were because the line had been blessed by Akatosh rather than just an individual. The idea that the legend will state he's a nord because of the adopted children (and the natural racism of the peoples) would help decomplicate the story in any subsequent media though, so there's that.

• Hevnoraak May have been a Big Eater, judging from his mask's enchantment. He may have also been incredibly fussy, to the point where everything was poison to him.
• Krosis may have been The Kleptomaniac, and quite depressed at the fact.
• Morokei was likely The Smart Guy, being almost certainly a mage. Also might have been a Knife Nut.
• Nahkriin may have been the support, preferring to attack from a distance.
• Otar could have been an Implacable Man on the battlefield.
• Rahgot may have been a messenger mostly, and likely founded the freakishly efficient mail system used in the games today.
• Volsung might have been a scavenger with a silver tongue.
• Vokun was not much of a combat mage, and likely invented the Alchemy spell.
• Konahrik was a One-Man Army for their side, if not the leader of the priests.
• If the Wooden Mask was actually meant for someone as opposed to simply accessing the pocket of time that Konahrik's mask was stored in, the wielder would have been an explorer of Oblivion and in general the kind of person to pick up that kind of thing.

For Dragonborn-added,

• Ahzidal has his own lore page on how he acted in life. Long story short, Embittered Destroyer loves enchanting and knowledge. And apparently burning things. Like elves that burn down his hometown.
• Dukaan was dishonored (assumably for associating with Miraak) and so fled to Solstheim and eventually Hermaeus Mora. In general, as defensive, cold, and sneaky as his battle style suggests.
• Vahlok was often little more than an order-following flamethrowing guardian, who gladly stayed with the one specific order to wait for Miraak.
• Zahkriisos was simply a lightning specialist his whole life, to the point even his mask is enchanted for it. He also had a flair for unique puzzles and may be responsible for the amount of complicated puzzles and traps in most Nord burial grounds. He was buried unknowingly next to a massive amount of minerals from stahlrim to ebony, and simply reacted to his grave being breached.

Their names are so similar, for one. And Svana was implied to have a relationship with Sibbi Black-Briar so.. Why not? When an immediate creation/child of Time reads thouroughly what has been shown to be capable of raping spacetime to shove dragons into the future and possibly cause events like dragon breaks, and in general is unfriendly to time, that happens. From the Elder Scroll, the player inherited the appear out of nowhere (and probably later going to cause all sorts of dragon break later on before mysteriously vanishing), the uncanny knowledge about certain elder scrolls and not going blind from reading them (An Elder Scroll can safely and effectively 'read' another Elder Scroll, is generally not going to be considered a problem by whatever mind the Elder Scrolls apparently apparently have), being involved in multiple prophecies such as the Tyranny of the Sun and being able to BEND it how they like (You can either keep the sun or block it out) and the Alduin-related main quest (where you don't have a choice because the alternative is to let Alduin destroy the world and even fragments of creation probably do not want, and even then you can still kill Paarthurnax or not thus deciding between the Blades or the Greybeards, and host a peace treaty or deal with the civil war when it comes time to catch Odahviing), and a few other aspects of being a player character that weren't explained anywhere else, such as somehow balancing the duties of hordes of factions which if are not diametrically opposed, should be, and being able to win for the Stormcloaks yet still assassinate the Emperor or destroy the Dark Brotherhood under Maro, despite the fact it makes no sense for the Emperor to be in what from that point is technically enemy territory, and for an Imperial military leader to be just sitting there without the slightest trappings of being a prisoner of war. Again, Elder Scrolls are responsible for this kind of thing. From the dragon, the PC gets a dragon soul, an affinity for shouts, the ability to use dragon souls to bypass the years of training it takes to get said shouts (Or have the Greybeards insta-teach you all of Unrelenting Force, the first word of Whirlwind Sprint, and the entire Clear Skies shout), the ability to absorb dragonsouls, and all the kinds of things that dovahkiin are supposed to have or do. From both, the rest of the PC traits such as comparatively obscenely fast skill development (From what took years for some people to learn, you can get in a few months tops, and not just dragon shouts), ability to survive without sleep or even food and presumably water for extended periods of time to no ill effect, and for most diseases other than complete vampirism or lycanthropy to be only a minor detriment a simple potion of easily available vampire dust and mudcrab chitin or something can cure anything and everything (Except vampirism and lycanthropy, which can simply be cured via Falion's summoning circle and some Glenmoril Witch Heads, respectively), regardless if said potion is not always effective in everyone else's case.

• Now let's just hope the person reading the scroll was someone other than Alduin being sent through time by one. Because awkwardness.

Neither Babette nor Cicero is present during Destroy The Dark Brotherhood, and the Night Mother may not rescind her stance on Cicero staying the Keeper and not Listener. You can't get into Dawnstar Sanctuary that way. Since without anyone else to use, since the Initiates don't show until Titus Mede II is out of the picture, and without even Astrid to take contracts no matter how many Tenets broken, someone is going to have to hand out work. Plus, it seems an odd tendency in fanart for Babette to either get what the Night Mother wants someone to do (Say, Cicero to leave the room and go annoy mudcrabs.), or direct the Wrath of Sithis at a Listener brave enough to literally dance with the Night Mother to Cicero's dismay/suprise.Wulfgar has honey. Where do you later find honey? Werebears! He probably picked it up somewhere or other as a bear. We don't see bear!Wulfgar because wandering around as a bear takes up time better used for other activites. Such as going up to the top of a tower to shout at the sky, as he does daily. Plus, if he roars too loud he might obliterate Skyrim by accident.There was no way Mercer could sneak away all the gold from the vault for years all by his own without anyone noticing. Brynjolf helped him stash it, and when the time was right, brought a badass One-Man Army into the guild so they could kill Mercer, and he could take all the stolen loot for himself. This also explains away Brynjolf's flimsy excuse for not wanting to become the new guildmaster; he simply wanted nothing to tie him down when he 'retired' with all his stolen riches.Brynjolf got it from Knight-Paladin Gelebor through use of an 'essence extractor' not unlike Septimus gives you for draining random elves to find the Oghma Infinium. Said Knight-Paladin has been alive and well since the late Merethic Era. If Argonian Bloodwine can allow you to breathe underwater (Argonians require large amounts of Hist sap to be what we see ingame, and said blood has been diluted with wine and probably other substances), imagine what mostly pure snow elf blood would do. Brynjolf just lied to Gelebor about trying to find a cure for the falmer. He wasn't stating the elixir was genuine (though this WMG assumes it is), he was stating the falmer blood was from an original Snow Elf as opposed to whatever Dwemer-created blind chaurus-utilizing thing is referred to as falmer.What guards word walls and such until the dragons return? Wispmothers! Plus, a Wispmother appears in Labyrinthian Thoroughfare in the parts too small for the skeletal dragon up front to fit, and Morokei, being a high-ranking masked Dragon Priest, is apparently important. Insert history of Labyrinthian and Bromjunaar sanctuary here. The Wispmothers are probably The Dragon to the actual dragons (irony). Eventually one of his contact methods slipped up and revealed he was a dragon also, and the Blades learned he was a dragon. Since it is a tad embarrassing on their part to have taken orders from a dragon not in human/mer/beastfolk form, they just send the dovahkiin after him and make it look like they figured it out on their own.Vivec implies in-universe console commands, so there's precedent. I think. ANYWAYS, Vulthuryol is trapped in an orb in Blackreach and is released with FUSRODAH. Considering Blackreach is underground, unless Akatosh just put him in there and forgot, he probably would need to know Setrace or set size commands to get in. Since the Dwemer would likely disapprove of bird-sized dragon in the lift, a simple setrace insert-race-here, fake identity, problem solved. Unfortunately, he breaks the law (presumably by stealing a fork or something you find in his inventory upon looting), and ends up imprisoned. Shouting at the orb makes him realize someone with thu'um capabilities is available and he needs to dominate and burn, and with a simple setrace dragon, problem solved.This is why you are brought to your execution in the beginning, this is also your Doomed Hometown.Wanting to cut down on the number of people who go out adventuring and subsequently get themselves killed, the guards repeat this line to travelers to discourage them from getting into dangerous situations.Sheogorath had you kill a Bull Netch with a fork in Morrowind to understand madness. This was so he could examine the lifeform and duplicate it should the original go extinct. When the Oblivion Crisis rolled around, the Sheogorath changed, but the new Sheo kept up Jygallag's save-the-netch project. Shortly after said crisis, the Argonians steamrolled over most of Morrowind and then Red Mountain exploded, repeatedly. Since it's an awfully long distance for netch to float, and they may have been heavily killed by said invasion and eruption, Sheo deposited a few families of netch to make sure the species survived. The evolution of Betty Netches to not have the top bag of jelly, more fluid tentacles, etc. are a side effect of either daedric intervention from Hermaeus Mora (the tentacles, if Miraak affected everything else that bad, All-Maker stones and random dunmer included, why not the netch?), and the fact Sheo had to reverse-engineer netch based on the bull netch genetics (the lack of jelly bag).Here are my guesses, but feel free to add your own.

• The Dragonborn becomes a Sealed Badass in a Can (whether they are Sealed Good or Sealed Evil depends on your alignment), possibly with their friends and family, since it would be cruel to wake up hundreds of years later to find them dead. Or, if Bethesda are feeling cruel, they'll wake up all alone. The reason for this would be to keep Tamriel safe from future incursions, and to maybe stop Alduin from destroying the new world after he inevitably remakes it.
• The Dragonborn, after encountering Knight-Paladin Gelebor, went off to help search for any surviving Snow Elves, or to help bring their mutated brethren back to sentience. Alternatively, they tried searching for any Dwemer that escaped the extinction, though hopefully their searches didn't go as stupidly wrong as Arniel's. Either of these searches may cause them to search beyond Skyrim or Tamriel's borders, travelling to one of the other continents such as Akavir (what the Dwemer or Snow Elves would be doing there I have no idea, it's just a suggestion/example as to where they might have gone).
• The Dragonborn went on to take the Thalmor on personally, after killing Elenwen and drawing their attention. This in turn leads to a few possible variations.
  • The Dragonborn killed the leaders of the Thalmor, destabilising their armies and leaving them open for either the Empire or the Stormcloaks to utterly trash. Alternatively, the Argonian military took advantage of it and handed them their asses.
  • The Dragonborn eventually fell at their hand, but only after inflicting severe damage to both their command and their military, essentially crippling them beyond repair and dying a martyr.
  • The conflict goes unresolved by the time of the next game, for either a new PC or the Dragonborn to resolve (the latter is unlikely, since there'd be a problem with a supposed war veteran of Skyrim going back to being a level 1 nobody, and importing their characters might be a bit difficult).
• The Dragonborn eventually just died, but could return as an undead or a ghost, and hopefully not the malevolent kind.
• The Dragonborn resorted to the assistance of Hermaeus Mora to defeat the Thalmor. It worked, but as a result they became trapped in Apocrypha.

• In Morrowmind and Oblivion, Skooma caused negative effects, but in Skyrim, it doesn't. What's different? The Dragonborn. For some reason, Dragonborn don't suffer any negative effects from Skooma. If it was originally a medicine for Dragonborn, then it wouldn't harm them, but would be dangerous for non-Dragonborn.

• Elsewhyr, Valenwood, Blackmarsh, or even Akavir would be my bets. You'll hear rumors about the civil war in Skyrim and the return of dragons, but nothing concrete.
  • If dragons are indeed coming back at the same time, it stands to reason that they may visit Akavir as that may have been the place they originated from. Correct me if I'm wrong, which I probably am, but isn't Akavir supposedly quite desolate? One can hope for Blackmarsh or Elsewyr though, as it would give the Argonians and Khajiit a better spotlight. If Elsewyr was explored, it might perhaps be a good tie in for the Civil war in Skyrim, as the Thalmor are supposedly occupying it and the natives are seemingly a little more complacent than in Skyrim. If Blackmarsh was explored, we might finally see the nation which could supposedly rival the Aldmeri Dominion (according to the races character sheet on This Very Wiki for TES).

He's laying low during Skyrim, gathering his power and preparing his vengeance to be unleashed on all of Oblivion. He was, after all, the strongest of them.There will be a few, probably optional quests that harken back to Skyrim, wherever or whenever the next Elder Scrolls game is set. The two the leap most to my mind are:

• A Climax Boss fight against a dragon. Assuming the next PC isn't going to also be a Dragonborn, this would allow them to play up the fight against a dragon as being much more of a big deal since a non-Dragonborn PC can't permanently kill a dragon. It would probably be part of the Main Quest of that game and a major part too. The dragon in question may have fled Skyrim following Alduin's defeat so as to put as much distance between itself and the one person who could permanently kill it, and with the Dragonborn too far away (or just plain gone) to help, it will fall to the next PC to defeat it.
• The PC, despite not being a Dragonborn, will be able to learn a single Shout as an 11th-Hour Superpower. There will probably be extenuating circumstances to explain why a non-Dragonborn PC can learn a Shout without the decades of practice and training it takes mere mortals, but it will be reinforced that it is the ONLY Shout the character will be able to learn in this manner, thus preserving the Dragonborn's uniqueness. This one will probably be off the beaten path as part of a side quest, or maybe even an unmarked quest, and the player may be given a choice of a couple of different Shouts (Like learning Unrelenting Force, Fire Breath, or Become Ethereal, the three Shouts that can be augmented by Paarthunax's meditations), having to choose one at the expense of learning others.

• She detests the attention she gets from men and even asks you to dissuade Mikael from hitting on her. Yet she owns a copy of Mikael's guide to picking up women (which you can find in her house). Admittedly, she has a daughter, but it's not like you can't adopt children in Skyrim.
  • Also possible is that her daughter is from a marriage she had before she realized she was a lesbian, and that's why there's no father around; they split up when she realized her sexuality.

Dragonborn are given the souls of dragons by Akatosh to fight dragons. This god didn't create you to go off and have a family, he created you to kill stuff, so he made you infertile as a way of discouraging future distractions. This is why Dovakiin can only adopt in the game and not have biological children.

• This would come as a surprise to Tiber Septim who, last time he checked, was also Dragonborn and perfectly capable of fathering children.

But only with other dragonborn, which you are unlikely to run into any time soon due to being the last one and all.

• Again, we run into the problem of the Septims having a long enough bloodline to form a dynasty. This theory would require everyone marrying into the Septim family to also be Dragonborn, including Uriel VII's wife and Martin's mother. And while retroactively adding a whole bunch of female dragonborns to history would be awesome, it also makes Skyrim's Dragonborn being 'the last' make less sense.

The tales of his defeat of Numinex involves him bellowing the Thu'um. One of the various tales was that he summoned up the Thu'um spontaneously, not knowing he had it to begin with. How is that possible but if he was Dragonborn? Furthermore, the most outlandish mad-lib to repair the Svaknir's verse involves claiming he was a 'Dragon in human form!' and had the ability to switch back and forth between dragon and human form. The part about him being Numinex to begin with is verifiably false as Jarl Balgruuf is of Olaf's line and Numinex's skull hangs over Balgruuf's throne.. but what is the Player Character, exactly? A dragon in human form. What can they do now with Dragonborn DLC? Take on the aspect of a Dragon. Not as outlandish as you'd think.The main character will be able to explore Elsweyr, Summerset Isle and Valenwood.

• The game will start off with the player character as a prisoner again, though this time of the Thalmor, along with a small group of others. The opening scene will demonstrate Thalmor cruelty as a justiciar brutally executes another prisoner for the crime of not being Altmer, then another for fitting into their ideology but refusing to do so, then you are saved by a prisonbreak led by a third prisoner—let's call him Pavel—who you team up with to kill the justiciar and then escape in a quasi-stealth sequence. This being Elder Scrolls, Pavel turns out to be working for a possibly hostile side in the larger setting, but you could still join with him later, similarly to Hadvar or Ralof in Skyrim.
• The culture and society of the Aldmeri Dominion will fleshed out beyond just being A Nazi by Any Other Name, drawing parallels to various other supremacist/totalitarian groups through history, including the historical Spartans (not the idealized version of them in 300 and some other media), North Korea, Stalinist Russia, and war crimes committed by not only Nazi Germany but also communist China, Imperial Japan, and the Confederate States. The climax will center on a plot against the Thalmor by every other side working together, including an Altmer resistance, which parallels the July 20 plot. Furthermore, in addition to the previous analogies established in each culture, the various races and countries will also be analogous to the participants of the World Wars: the Aldmeri Dominion's 'allies' will be based on the other Axis powers and their puppet states, the opponents of it on the Allies, and 'unaffiliated' ones based on those occupied by the Axis.

Rule of Cool

• Except that's not Rule of Cool, that's a drastic change in gameplay. Having one companion with you doesn't dramatically change the difficulty of the game, especially when those companions don't have the best AI. But having multiple companions with you can alter the balance of the game to put solo players at a severe disadvantage, or make encounters trivial.

It does not just lead to her secret room; it leads to a different world altogether. A door leading outside of the building is probably hidden behind the shelves. When nobody is around, Delphine goes through that door to go outside and explore Narnia.

Although Talos was a conqueror, his greatest acts of conquest were not achieved by the strength of the Nord race, nor were they helped by any statues or ceremonies. Rather, he used diplomacy, wealth, trickery, and depending on how you interpret the whole Backup Heart of Numidium thing, betrayal, to get both Morrowind and the whole Aldmeri Dominion into the Empire.

Therefore, in order to support Talos, one should not rely on racial purity or physical might alone. Nor are statues or ceremonies worthwhile for Instead, one should act like Talos. Make deals with elves. Acknowledge gods outside one's own pantheon. Use wealth to buy territory outright. Recognize the utility of foreign technology.

The Stormcloaks are actually worshipping Wulfharth and the like.

• .. Honestly? Whom they emulate through their actions isn't even the same fucking ball game as whom they choose to worship. If they pray at a shrine to Talos and wear his holy symbols, they're worshiping him. No two ways about it. Anyway, Wulfharth, at best, is an aspect of Shor, whom the Stormcloaks already worship through Talos.

Specifically, it's slang for getting married. None of the guards actually suffered career-ending knee injuries, but most of them did probably take a steady, (relatively) safe job after they got married, for the sake of their spouse.

• Some people have claimed this is genuine old Norse slang for getting married. It is not, but it's a fun headcanon for the fictional Nords.

Thus why she has an entire perk Irileth Vs Dragons for no apparent reason, though she does fight Mirmulnir and Odahviing during their respective fight scenes.When you first arrive at High Hrothgar, you're given a shout tutorial by the Greybeards, during the course of which Arngeir refers to the other three completely identical old men by name, saying things like 'follow Master Borri'. But he never bothers introducing the others and telling you which is which, he assumes you somehow know that. In other words, he knows that you're a videogame protagonist and that you can see people's names above their heads when you look at them.

• How exactly is he supposed to introduce you to them aside from gesturing to them and saying their names? In case you haven't noticed, they can't even hold a conversation with you.
• Not to mention it's not that difficult

  Dragonborn: Which one is Borri?

  Argneir: The one who immediately started walking after I said that.

In the Doctor Who episode 'Father's Day,' it is explained that dragon-like creatures from the Time Vortex sterilize wounds in time. The dragons are in Skyrim because of the Time-Wound.The author of the book series 'Rising Threat', about the rise of the Thalmor, suspected that the Thalmor were responsible for the Red Year and the Argonian invasion of Morrowind, although he could never prove it. What if this is also the case with the destruction of Winterhold? We know from that book and other events that the Aldmeri Dominion are well-verse in manipulation and subterfuge, and work to neutralize potential threats behind the scenes, and who is a greater potential threat to the Thalmor than a group who can counteract their own magic users. The Psijic Order doesn't care what's going on and has withdrawn from the world, the Mage's Guild has dissolved, and it's successor groups, the Synod and the College of Whispers, apparently care more about kissing the Elder Council's asses and increasing their own power than doing any ACTUAL magical research. This leaves the College as potentially the last organized group of mages in all of Tamriel. The Thalmor would certainly see them as a threat, so much so that they even had a spy in the form of Ancano. They would certainly want to neutralize said threat, and could have targeted the College for destruction, causing the events of the Great Collapse. Fortunately for the College, the underestimate the College's defenses (another reason they would want a spy on the premises.) If the College ever finds out, the Thalmor would have some problems on their hands.

• Kinda hope that's not the case. Because I mean damn, that's just shoehorning the Thalmor in every possible antagonistic position.

• Or rather, the tales of the Dragonborn to the people of Tamriel end up being tied up in the tale of Talos, resulting in the Thalmor having no choice but to accept Talos as Divine, as once people begin hearing that 'Talos' stopped Alduin the World-Eater, Talos worship would take a serious upswing.

• Just for the Actor Allusion.

• It is a miniature model of the Heart of Lorkhan, and has all the powers of it in a lesser form. With the right ritual, it is possible to become a mini-ALMSIVI using it. Someone should make a mod allowing it.

He (and you if you side with him) fights an empire that is obviously a shout-out to the Roman Empire. And some theories claim that Arminius is also the historical origin of the Siegfried myth, which explains why dragons are involved.

• Or Ulfric is a shout-out to Ned Stark. Their biographies have more than one thing in common.
  • ..How is Ulfric anything like Ned Stark, beyond the similarities between the province of Skyrim and the North? Ulfric is leading a rebellion while Ned was so loyal to the king and his rightful heir that he literally died over it. Ned was never captured and tortured, he never killed any rivals, he has no interest in songs and legends like Ulfric does. Really, the only thing they have in common is 'nobility from a northern province/petty kingdom'.
  • They're both northern rulers opposing a corrupt southron regime. But Ulfric's just smarter about it than Ned.

They take on a 'good' role in order to accomodate mortals to the thought of Daedra worship. Once you've seen 'good' Daedra like Meridia, you're more likely to give more ambiguous Daedra like Sheogorath or Clavicus Vile the benefit of a doubt.

• And some Daedra who are generally considered evil aren't as bad as they look. Sheogorath and Malacath show some measure of actual compassion towards their followers (why get someone to treat the more unpleasant aspects of Pelagius's madness if not to ease his suffering? Why send the Old Orc a vision of glorious death in battle if not to reassure him?).

Hermaeus Mora is an eldritch being, true. However, technically dragons are as well. Puny mortals may not be able to fathom some things that dragons can, but not only can dragons not fathom some things that mortals can, but one such concept have been weaponized against said eldritch beings: namely the Dragonrend shout. Perhaps the concept of self-determination and free will are such an incomprehensible concept to the daedric prince that anthropomorphizes fate. To deal with this incomprehensible concept, he rationalizes that it doesn't exist.These guys are pretty much villain material, given their antics regarding the Falmer and all.Both the Playstation 4 and Xbox One are much more powerful than their predecessors, with live streaming to boot. Even if it still isn't as good as the PC port, it would at least result in console versions superior to the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 ports.

• Confirmed! It will release Oct. 28, 2016, barring delays.

The later games will reveal that the Stormcloaks succeeded in their rebellion, but it will be left intentionally vague so that any decision regarding the Civil War will be true.

• If the player chose to join the Empire, it will be interpreted that the Stormcloaks joined under a new leader. Talking to an NPC in Windhelm after an Imperial victory implies there are those who are still loyal enough to the cause to raise a sword for it again. Also the fact that General Tullius makes mention of there still probably being some of those who would call them Stormcloaks.
• If the player chose the Stormcloak Rebellion, it will be that Ulfric succeeded in kicking the Empire out of Skyrim.
• If the player chose not to engage then, it could go either way.
  • Alternatively they could just say that Ulfric was killed in the Civil War by the Imperials, but that that only served to make him a martyr, leading to the defeat of the empire in Skyrim. A sort of compromise.

The Civil War tells you more about yourself than it does the world The Elder Scrolls. The Civil War stands in for the American Revolutionary War/American Civil War/WW1/WW2/The Romans fighting the Germanic peoples because it's up to the player to interpret it anyway they see fit. So for one person it might seem reminiscent of WW2, but for another it might not. The writers wanted the player to make their own assumptions, because that would just as much shape someone's perceptions of the storyline as the actual in-universe information on it.The Stormcloaks talk of the Imperials letting the Thalmor drag off people in Skyrim for worshipping Talos in the middle of the night, however most of the major Cities have Talos shrines in them. The exception being Solitude, which is only missing the Shrine to Talos. For that matter the Thalmor only occasionally show up doing patrols through Skyrim with arrested Talos worshippers. Some Imperials talk about the Stormcloaks of being racists, which is true there are some. Ulfric also doesn't care for the Elven races or Beast races, however the Dragonborn (if a non-human) can still join the Stormcloaks with no issue. Also there are a few thriving Elves in Windhelm, albeit Altmer not Dunmer.Similar to how The Champion of Cyrodil returns in this game as the new Sheogorath, the Dovahkiin will return, having mastered the 'Dragon Aspect' power to the point that they can transform themselves into an ethereal dragon. They could serve as part of a sidequest/quest-line that would allow the hero of VI to use the Thu'um, and/or they could serve as a summonable ally, similar to Odahviing or Durnhevir...it may not be what people have wished for.

The Champion of Cyrodiil + The Shivering Isles = new Sheogorath, Prince of Madness. The Dovahkiin + 'Discerning the Transmundane' (the one Daedric quest you have to at least start in order to advance the main plot) + Dragonborn = you can dothe math from here.

With Elder Scroll Online coming out and shows that Molag Bal's attempt to destroy Nirn but foiled, Nirn has experienced 2 attempts to destroy it by Mehrunes Dagon and by aforementioned Molag Bal. But, in terms of devastation Thalmor's will topped both of them as the attempt comes from Nirn, not Oblivion, and three races (Altmer, Bosmer and Khajiit) will actively cause it (ESO Dominion had their hands full dealing with two other factions but still give helps to foil Molag Bal. In Oblivion, three races had their hands full protecting their homelands). They, .. I don't know. You know the well-aimed backstab (Nirn people, not Oblivion Daedra)is more fatal than frontal attack right?

The Thalmor love to rule over the 'lesser races' of Tamriel, so why would they destroy it? Perhaps some Imperials had the idea that they hype up the threat they mean after the Legions failed to push them back, and started saying that killing the Empire is essentially killing Talos, and as such, destroying Mundus as we know it - but it was just flowery prose by some poet. The public misread it as 'Talos keeps Tamriel together' in the literal sense, and the Thalmor ran with it, to hype up their own power.. Even while they just want to rule everything as much as they want.

So, while the Thalmor do ban Talos' worship, it does not destroys the world - it destroys the Imperial way of living, which they want to undo totally and claim that they are the first ACTUAL empire spanning the entirety of Tamriel. In essence, it destroys a culture and a god, but not the world; at least until you agree that the Thalmor rule is not the End Of The World As We Know It.

Now of course, some Thalmor agent claimed that their goal is to ascend from the world.. Because he is insane. Why he is in Skyrim? He can not ruin anything in the Dominion, and nobody at the high brass of the Thalmor care if he destroys something in Skyrim.

The fact you can be all of them in game is an example of Gameplay and Story Segregation.

• Nope. You can boast to Tsun about your exploits in the othet questlines. Delvin plays an important part in the DB questline and will comment if you're in both factions. Cicero has a special line about hour ability to Shout.

Jagar Tharn was primary antagonist of The Elder Scrolls Arena, the very first TES game. The complete (read: official) version of The Real Barenziah states that Barenziah had a love affair with Jagar Tharn while he was impersonating the Emperor, and subsequently gave birth to a child by him. Karliah is Barenziah's granddaughter, and implied to be of mixed dark elven and human ancestry, so logically this may mean her grandfather was Jagar Tharn.Nothing major or game-altering, but some examples could include:

• A hidden dungeon where the Dragonborn can find The Master Sword
  • Confirmed: The Master Sword, Hylian Shield, and Champion's Tunic can all be acquired through a Legend of Zeldaamiibo, or found On top of the Throat of the World.
• A special Mount named Epona
• A red-and-white mushroom that boosts the player's attack and health.
• Some new craftable armor and clothing based on characters from The Legend of Zelda or Fire Emblem.
• Paarthurnax will get an Actor Allusion.

• The technology that doesn't exist, according to Todd, has to do with walking tree cities in Valenwood (which were conveniently missing in ESO).
• Parkour is something you would expect something like Bosmer and Khajit can do
• We might we the return of attributes and skills like Acrobatics
• Parkour is cool

He's seen as odd, and no matter how many times his family has taken him to healers they find nothing wrong with him. He could be a high functioning Autistic Person. He talks about wandering and getting lost, and not being here while he's here, people in the Autistic Spectrum often live in their own little worlds.

• From the point of view of a genuinely autistic troper, Calcelmo is possibly the most autistic thing on Nirn. The all-consuming interest in the Dwemer, the forgetfulness concerning unrelated everyday things like picking up Kerah's ring, the need to consciously remind himself of the basic rules of personal interaction, the inability to word around the object of his affections, the 'do NOT touch my stuff without my explicit permission'..let's say that Joric matches the popular conception of an autistic child, whereas Calcelmo is much closer to the lived reality of an autistic adult.

'I have done all that can be done. There is nothing left. No quests to be undertaken. No villains to be slain. No challenges to face. Except for you. You are my last challenge. Only you can send me to Sovngarde with honor. Make your preparations. When you are ready, come find me at my last vigil.'While the Sovngarde is a bit of stretch unless he just want to explore Sovngarde as a passing soul (instead of living soul like the Dovahkiin who only granted limited reign there, only to defeat Alduin, not to mention that The Ebony Warrior is a Redguard), why he stated that there is nothing left, no quests to be undertaken, no villains to be slain, no challenges to face, when if Tamriel is real, he could singlehandedly, at least trying, to take on the Aldmeri Dominion (Thalmor)? Especially when the lingering threat of the dominion continues.Sure, the Dragonborn has the ability to eat souls, and learn a few magic spells, but this inherent power is basically applied time-warping; ANY able-minded mortal can learn a shout after a few decades of training, as Ulfric isn't a Dragonborn but has mastered the Fus Ro Dah shout through decades of study; by using a dragon soul, the Dragonborn skips a few decades of study to get the spell now, and by communing with a Greybeard or reading a Shout Wall, they can learn unique shouts from analyzing a few scratches on the floor and walls, something that would normally take decades of research. And in their short time in Skyrim, they can become the Thanes of every province, become the grandmasters of four different guilds, learn a hundred different spells by simply clicking on books, and master eighteen different trades / combat styles, all in less than a year; this cannot be mere coincidence, something is accelerating their progress (the fact that one second of real-time is about a minute of game time doesn't argue against this). The dragons themselves are said to have souls that exist outside of time itself, hence their immortality; the only way to permakill them is to add their eternal soul to another eternal soul, which also ages the dragon's body to nothing but scale and bone. But most importantly, the player can rewind time by Save Scumming to undo death and sin, perhaps even going back to the very beginning of the game to change the Dragonborn's very identity! What if this is actually a game mechanic, which represents the Dragonborn's mastery over time itself? On one hand, their mastery overwhelms the actual dragons and Miraak, preventing either from save scumming (this may be why dragons are so afraid of the Dragonborn - maybe they can rewind time whenever they die, unless a Dragonborn or some other out-of-time entity forces them to lay down and rot). On the other hand, this means a more powerful Time Thief, like Alduin, is unkillable; your ultimate strength can only force Alduin to leave for a few more millennia.It's canon that the Thalmor aren't particularly popular in their own home territory; consider 'The Beautiful'. If you were a young Altmer who despised the Thalmor and wanted to defy them in every way possible, joining a secret cult and worshiping the Divine they're trying to wipe out would be a much easier route than assassinating political figures. Not to mention there are undoubtedly still older Altmer out there who were raised worshiping nine Divines, not eight, and wouldn't be any more willing to give one of them up on the Thalmor's say-so than, say, your average Nord.It's speculated that the Thalmor want to unmake reality because they're the descendants of the Aedra and feel that they're trapped in Mundus because of what Lorkhan did. if they can eliminate Talos worship, then they'll undo reality. However, according to the Elder Scrolls wiki (paraphrasing from in-game texts) ' Sithis is believed to have created Lorkhan to destroy the universe through trickery and deceit, and return the universe to the void'. If this is true, what if Sithis has convinced the Thalmor that they'll transcend if they unmake reality? What if, after all is said and done, Sithis will lie in wait, ready to consume the weak and vulnerable souls of those no longer protected by reality.It already appears that he's been causing strange things to happen near the abandoned house to attract attention. Perhaps before that, he tried a more subtle methods to shake things up and get someone inside: Negatively influencing the residents of Markarth. He is the Deity of corruption and slavery (among other things). What are two of the main problems in Markarth? The corruption of the guards by Thonar, who is also working with Madanach, and the 'Prison' of the city being little more than forced labor in a mine, in other words, slavery. Now of course, the people in the city could certainly be this evil of their own accord, but this kind of corrupting influence is exactly Molag Bal's style.Let's see here: Hemming is definitely Maven's son. Hemming says that Ingun and Sibbi are his children. In the Creation Kit, Maven is listed as Ingun and Sibbi's grandmother - but she explicitly calls Ingun her 'favorite daughter', and Ingun and Sibbi both refer to her as their mother. Most people accept this as a mistake on the developers' part, but what if it isn't? What if this crew is the Tamrielic version of the Borgias in more ways than just corruption, selfishness, and a thing for assassination..?Arnbjorn is known to be a former Companion, and likely became a werewolf as a member of the Circle (lower-ranking members aren't even supposed to know that the Circle is made up of werewolves). He also seems to be rather young to have white hair already. Clan Gray-Mane in Whiterun is heavily tied to the Companions, and have white hair at all ages, as the family name suggests. Considering how honor-bound the family is, it's entirely possible that whatever action got him kicked out of the Companions got him disowned by his family as well.Both of them take after him in many ways. No idea on the mother, but he would have most likely had a first wife who, he may have killed by accident when he was a Werewolf, got kicked out of the Companions, met up with Astrid, fell in love with her (may have even had a love triangle with Delvin Mallory and won it in the end.) and the pair got married.Due to her essential status in numerous quests in Skyrim, Maven cannot be killed or even knocked down a few pegs. This will make it all the more satisfying if the sixth game reveals that she has been betrayed by the Thieves' Guild, overthrown by the townspeople of Riften (if her becoming the Jarl is canon), lost all her power and connections, and finally killed by the people she has wronged in a manner that only the characters are allowed to know.After the Courier is shot by Benny, he/she is clinging to life - taken by Yes Man and delivered to Doc Mitchel - the Courier's subconscious chooses to represent this as the carriage ride to the Dragonborn's execution, which is overseen by General Tullius - who just so happens to be voiced by the same actor as Doc Mitchel. The main quest line - where the Dragonborn defeats Alduin, is the Courier attempting to 'defeat' his/her injuries, while the Civil War quest line, is the Courier's fight to either stay in (Nords), or come out of (Imperials) his/her coma.How else to you explain the giant bugs? Insects that large cannot exist on present day earth because they wouldn't be able to breath, due to our air's relatively low oxygen concentration.Unless TES 6 will remove the shout mechanic entirely, it's likely that the Dragonborn can return as the protagonist of TES 6. Miraak can live for thousands of years, so age is a non-issue for Dovahkiin.Every time you walk into Proudspire Manor, she challenges you as if you were a stranger, but once you come into the room she greets you as her Thane. It's because she genuinely couldn't recognize you until you came up close. This also explains why her archery is terrible.