General Lore

•The Scholar Vondham Barres is a man of scholarship dedicated to careful and

detached analysis of the less popular subjects other scholars may consider humorous
or boring such as the workings of Crop Rotation, the Orc digestive system and most
famously his published essay on the sexual practices of the House of Dibella, he
claims the immaturity many take these with is barely bearable though he understands
his descriptions may make even the most debauched strumped of Skyhawk blush. This
knowledge must be catalogued properly and continuing this trend, he turned the
subject of the language and culture of Nymphs long neglected due to the rumors of
their appearance as beautiful naked female luring men for sex. From months of
study, he found the melodic tongue of the Nymphs to remind of Faerie and Wild Elven
though sharing not vocables with them, literature on them being little more than
pornography and information on their culture confirming their promiscuity. Next the
scholar sought from his home in the Imperial City someone who could lead him to a
real Nymph, finding an ally in Magister Oitos of the School of Julianos in Sentinel
who allowed him to discover a secret grotto off the coast of Hammerfell where he
left gifts through a period of time as a sign of courtesy and respect for the local
Nymph, being incredibly shy and reclusive creatures despite the tales of their
sexual behaviors, until he finally met with the Nymph. Beautiful and physically
perfect, she marveled him and her low giggling laughter was melodic sound of beauty
and suggestiveness that left him awestruck but nonetheless able to speak in the
Nymph tongue to ask politely for learning of her and her people while presenting a
gift in the form of a bouquet of purple and white tetias. Of what transpired later,
the author simply writes: "Nymphs are the wisest, most wonderful creatures in
Tamriel. My nymph, her name is Ayalea (a poor phonetic transcription of a word that
sounds more like a light wind blowing through a small crack in a hollow chamber)
and she knows more about the behavior and varieties of the deep woodland creatures
than the greatest wood elf scholar I ever met. She taught me of flowers and ghosts
and creatures too fast and timid to have ever been seen by man.
Ayalea taught me how to learn for the very first time. How to open my mind to all
of the possibilities of life and how to use that knowledge, not just to hold in my
cramped brain like a dragon's horde." The author left his notes and the imperial
city behind afterwards, disappearing for the wilds and not being seen ever since.
It's notorious that the Nymph referred to the Scholar as "a mortal" implying
transcendence of that condition.
-A Scholar's Guide to Nymphs by Vondham Barres

•There are many popular ingredients in the provinces of Tamriel:

The White/Black Poppy of Hammerfell grows in the wilds of the mountains as is a
safe food for those who find themselves lost without rations and can also be
crushed and mixed with milk of the agile Mountain Goats to make potions allowing
one to glide safely above the ground. The plant known as Dragon's-Tongue is another
wild flower of Hammerfell growing around Fang Lair known by its red fernlike
foliage around it's golden flowers, it's consumption is lethal but Argonians can
extract the sap of its root and use it to bolster their Endurance. The
Ginko Leaves which are found along the banks of rivers and lakes in Hammerfell are
most inconspicuous, only its peculiar halfmoon shape makes it noticeable. It is
very sweet and tasty. Legend has it that when mixed properly with the pulp of the
Aloe plant, the potion has the ability to increase one's stamina for a short while.
The Fire Fern is a perennial plant of Morrowind of an evergreen foliage and often
inconspicuous or hidden flowers which resist the natural heat and light of
Morrowind and can bestow Fire Resistance to withstand the pits and streams of lava
around Dagoth-Ur.
Valenwood's Domica Redwort is an herb that grows up to three feet in height and
sprouts featherly leaves and bright red flowers of great beauty which also are
rumored to enhance the looks of those bearing or wearing them. There's also the
rare Arrowroot, it's above-ground foliage being scrawny and meager, but the paste
made from grinding it's roots is not only tasty but increases the skill with bows
and arrows.
Ironwood Nuts produced by the Ironwood Trees of Skyrim, named so for the resilience
of it's wood supposedly as hard as iron, are succulent delicacies of Skyrim and the
rare Black Ironwood Trees are said to produce resilient nuts whose consumptive
enhances strength.
The Somnalius Fern, unique to the swamps of Black Marsh, shows a thousand delicate
and fragile light green fronds which must be picked carefully to be properly
removed and can be used to put a foe to sleep when placed under their noses for
them to catch its scent.
Nightshade is a reputedly poisonous and infamous herb but the variety found in
Elsweyr is favored by Khajiit Thieves who wear it beneath their leathers to
increase their stealth ability.
-Special Flora of Tamriel by Hardin

•Lyrisius was an ancient champion who led an army against Akaviri Slavemasters
before it was scattered and he himself had to fled from Akaviri Chariots into
Blasted Lands where a Wyrm lived, the scaly monster mocked him and melded his
shield Fearstruck gifted to him by Boethiah with fiery breath and stood impervious
to his enchanted spear, forcing him to surrender and promise slavement to the beast
to not be devoured and he agreed in it's pride. Lyrisius then played on the
Dragon's vanity to be granted access to polish his one tarnished scale between his
great wings which he couldn't reach and when the beast instantaneously agreed,
Lyrisius slid his dagger in-between the scales into the beast's tender flesh and
remained there to cause him pain no matter all his attempts to break free until
Lyrisius demanded the destruction of his enemy Akaviri army in exchange for letting
the creature go. The Akavari had no chance against the great Dragon and were
destroyed or fled, never to trouble Tamriel again. As promised, Lyrisius left the
beast but jumped into the air knowing the dragon would try to slay him for his
actions, Prince Boethiah appearing to congratulate his victory over the army for
Akavir and turning into a raven. Lyrisius soon was lost to the Wyrm who yet lives
vowed to never trust two-legged bearers of weapons again and nurtures for eternity
his grudge against Lyrisius. This is an unattested First Era Legend but if true,
it's the only reference to the Artifact of Boethiah known as Fearstruck there is.
-The Story of Lyrisius by Bresne Smythe

•A Rude Song is an amusing composition speaking of rather embarrassing sexual

habits of important figures in the Iliac Bay including claiming that Queen
Barenziah is unfaithful to King Eadwyre and has had relationships with all sorts of
men in the city, that the Baroness of Lainlyn does the same while the Baron prefers
little boys and girls and in Daggerfall the Queen Mynisera is herself in an affair
with the Captain of the Guard and King Lysandus is with Court Sorceress Medora.
-A Rude Song by Anonymous.

•No one -- not the oldest Dark Elf of Mount Dagoth-Ur or the Ancient Sage of
Solitude himself -- can recall a time when the Orc did not ravage our fair Tamriel.
Whatever foul and pestilent Daedra of Oblivion conjured them up could scarcely have
created a more constant threat to the well-being of the civilized races of Tamriel
than the obnoxious Orc. Orcs are thankfully easy to recognize from other humanoids
by their size -- commonly forty pertans in height and fifteen thousand angaids in
weight -- their brutal pig-like features, and their stench. They are consistently
belligerent, morally grotesque, intellectually moronic, and unclean. By all rights,
the civilized races of Tamriel should have been able to purge the land of their
blight eras ago, but their ferocity, animal cunning, and curious tribal loyalty
have made them inevitable as leeches in a stagnant pool. Tales of Orcish barbarity
precede written record. When Jastyaga wrote of the Order of Diagna's joining the
armies of Daggerfall and Sentinel "to hold at bay the wicked Orcs in their foul
Orsinium fastness... and burn aught in cleansing flame" in 1E950, she assumed that
any reader would be aware of the savagery of the Orcs. When the siege was completed
thirty years later, after the death of many heroes including Gaiden Shinji, and the
destruction of Orsinium scattered the Orcish survivors throughout the Wrothgarian
Mountains, she further wrote, "The free peoples rejoiced for that their ancient
fell enemy was dispersed into diverse parts." Obviously, the Orcs had been
terrorizing the region of the Iliac Bay at least since the early years of the First
Era.
-The Pig Children, by Tystone Bane

•There are over one hundred distinct kinds of vampire in Tamriel. The Iliac Bay
region alone has nine variations with unique powers and abilities. Vampirism is a
disease, like brain rot or cholera, but far, far more insidious. One can become a
vampire through certain magical items or by the curse of a powerful wizard, but the
most common cause is the bite or scratch of a vampire. There are no symptoms of
vampirism except this -- if the victim sleeps after the attack but before he
becomes a vampire, his sleep will be plagued with nightmares, commonly of terrible
deeds performed by themselves on others. During this two to four day period, when
the disease has been spread but the victim is still mortal, most any temple healer
can remove the curse of vampirism. There will be no further warning. Once the time
has passed, the infected will die the next time they sleep and for two weeks they
will be properly dead, usually being entombed in a mausoleum in the manner popular
in the Iliac Bay before awakening two weeks after dying as an undead creature
unrecognizable as who they were in the former life and plagued by the thoughtless
bloodlust that typically drives them to kill and feed on the first living being
they find till leaving them dry before regaining their senses.

All of this the author knows not only for his ten years of study of the disease but
because through the seven years prior to those, he was himself a vampire who used
to be a famed knight who rescued a lady from one such creatures but was beaten in
the fight and turned in the midst of his five days journey back just to awaken as
an undead two weeks later with his Wench friend in the town not being able to
recognize who he was and he himself learning what he had become when the bloodlust
took hold immediately afterwards and he drained her dry, a friend on his former
life, a common first kill among vampires. For the next few weeks he went back to
the mausoleum to contemplate his fate and nature and relearned what he was capable
of doing, finding himself stronger, faster, tougher, and more agile than before
with the extra benefit of powers that as a knight he had only seen powerful mages
wield. Later, he discovered additional abilities, such as a total immunity to
disease, which was helpful when descending on a plague-stricken city like a jackal.
Yet, he could no longer stand the light of the sun -- exposure to it for longer
than a few seconds burned terribly. It also pained him to enter temples and other
places of worship. The worst effect, of course, had to be the blood lust: Not
killing a warm blooded creature once a night and drink its blood meant that hunger
would gnaw at him, and any wounds suffered would not heal no matter how much he
rested. For a time he enjoyed this new existence.It wasn't impossible to live only
at night, merely occasionally inconvenient. And he hadn't to kill humans every
night, merely warm-blooded creatures, finding thus that Orcs have a delicious, rich
brothy blood; rats are a little sweet for the only meal of the night; and
werewolves are a real treat, almost decadent the tincture between human and beast,
a real gourmet's delight.

About a month after starting his new existence, the Montalion Bloodline contacted
him via letters claiming to be the line that sired him and bade them serve them in
exchange for tutelage to develop vampiric skills and occasional rewards and
guidance. It seemed that the bloodlines had different special powers unique to them
with the Montalion's being teleportation and that each bloodline had a territory of
their own and competed with one another but we're otherwise very similar. His
mentor (that was the titles they used) gave him missions and congratulated success,
eventually building trust and sharing secrets of the bloodline and their conflict
with the other Bloodlines and how they played their conflicts through mortal pawns
and influenced mortal society. This frightened him as he realized just how
monstruous they were and so he started to seek out a cure, fail quests and further
the goals of guilds opposing them but the mentor didn't turn violent, only quieter
until he refused conversation at all but remained in his cover at the tavern,
watching as only immortals can with their luxury to afford eternal patience. But
even then there those among the vampires who found the cure and returned to mortal
life as men learned on the curse and equally patiently watching and conspiring to
seek out, contact and help other young vampires join them and find a cure. So it
was that this former knight found out how be returned to mortal life and from then
on, reveal what he knew of the curse to combat it. With finality, he surmises:
"Ending the curse is possible, but only just. It is very dangerous, but when you
are cursed, the only real danger is no escape."
-Vampires Of The Iliac Bay Chapters I & II by Anonymous former vampire

•The author of "On Lycanthropy'' used to be a child with both a sister and Priest
Father in Falcrenth. They welcomed beggars and travelers into his temple during
winter until one of their guests transformed into a Werewolf, the most common type
of Werecreature and ubiquitous to all Tamriel, and had to keep him on a cellar
until a Battlemage of the local Mages Guild who owed his father a favor could come,
kill, and take the carbonized corpse of the beast away, like most scholars on
Lycanthropes, this is how he entered the field and passed many seasons researching
the presence of Werebears in Skyrim against whom the Nords warded their homes with
Canis Roots left on their doorsteps. Because Werewolves are so common, Lycanthropy
has become since ancient times the common term for the curse of all less common
Werecreatures as well despite the term strictly applying only to Werewolves.
Werewolves don't transform back to human form upon death and their deadly claws act
as naturally enchanted weapons allowing them to damage magical beings normally
impervious to mundane weapons. There are seven forms of Lycanthropy recorded in
Tamriel: In Black Marsh and southern Morrowind, werecrocodiles stalk the swamps.
Black Marsh also shares with the Imperial Province and the wetter parts of Elsweyr
the vile presence of werelions. Valenwood's werevultures are not found in any other
province. The wereboar has found both the climates of High Rock and Hammerfell
amenable. The werebear is the most common lycanthrope in Skyrim, and is also found
in the northern parts of High Rock, the Imperial Province, and Morrowind. The
werewolf can be found in every province. The seventh and most lycanthrope, which
the author has never seen but his trusted peers have assured exists, is a wereshark
that roams the oceans around Tamriel. The disease can he cured before the infection
takes root but the victim is doomed once it has, only a few Witch Covens in High
Rock like those in the foothills of Glenpoint claiming to be able to actually cure
it. The stomachs of werewolves hold more remnants of roots and berries than flesh,
meaning they likely don't need to kill to survive but are driven by some sort of
bloodlust or procreative instinct to spread their disease to attack others, a
mystery forever unknowable to those not infected.
-On Lycanthropy by Varnard Karessen

•In the wilds of most every province of Tamriel, descended philosophically if not
directly from the original inhabitants of the land, are the Ayleids, commonly
called the Wild Elves. While three races of Elven stock -- the Salache (or High
Elves), the Boiche (or Wood Elves), and the Moriche (or Dark Elves) -- have
assimilated well into the new cultures of Tamriel, the Ayleids and their brethren
have remained aloof toward our civilization, preferring to practice the old ways
far from the eyes of the world. They speak a variation of Old Cyrodilic and shun
Tamrielic and the trappings of civilization even more than the less urbanized of
their other elven cousins and appear taciturn and dark-spirited to outsiders (or
Pellani in their tongue) and the common of Tamriel in turn fear and despise them as
an alien culture, though this outward meanness is probably not so among their own
tribes. One of the finest sages of the University of Gwilym was a civilized Ayleid
Elf, Tjurhane Fyrre (1E2790-2E227), whose published work on Wild Elves suggests a
lively, vibrant culture. Fyrre is one of the very few Ayleids to speak freely on
his people and religion, and he himself said "the nature of the Ayleid tribes is
multihued, their personalities often wildly different from their neighbor[ing]
tribes" (Fyrre, T., Nature of Ayleidic Poesy, p. 8, University of Gwilym Press,
2E12). The Ayleids continue to be one of the greatest enigmas of the continent of
Tamriel. They seldom appear in the pages of written history in any role, and then
only as a strange sight a chronicler stumbles upon before they vanish into the
wood. When probable fiction is filtered from common legend, we are left with almost
nothing. The mysterious ways of the Ayleids have remained shrouded since before the
First Era, and may well remain so for thousands of years to come.
-The Wild Elves by Kiergo Chorvak

•The school of magic least understood by the magical community and the most
difficult to explain to novice mages is Mysticism. The spells effects commonly
ascribed to the School are as wildly disparate as Soul Trap -- the creation of a
cell for a victim's spirit after death -- to Silence -- the extinction of sound and
even to lock and unlock thresholds. But these effects are simply that: effects. The
sorcery behind them is veiled in a mystery that may go back to the oldest
civilizations in Tamriel. Throughout the Second Era, many attempts to understand
the aspect or aspects of magic Mysticism entailed emerged, mainly from the Mages
Guild obsessed with finding answers to all things, with many theories by respected
scholars emerging: Some speaking of it's power originating in Aetherius or in the
Daedra while others suggested it came from recessive elements of successfully or
unsuccessfully cast spells. The Psijics of the Order of Artaeum's term for
Mysticism is the Old Way. The phrase becomes bogged in a semantic quagmire, because
the Old Way also refers to the religion and customs of the Psijics which may, or
may not, be part of the magic of Mysticism. Contact with the Psijic order after
it's return led some to postulate that Mysticism is more spiritual in nature, that
either the intellect or emotion of the believer influences the energy pattern and
flow. Mysticism seems to derive its power from its conundrums and paradoxes; the
act of experimentation, no matter how objectively implemented, can influence the
magicka by its very existence. Thus, the Mystic mage must regulate himself to find
consistent patterns in an imbroglio of energy. In the time it takes him to find a
source with a consistent trigger and result, other mages may find a dozen and thus
Mysticism becomes an esoteric and uncompetitive field few mages choose to
specialize in over the other far more predictable and fathomable schools. For the
beginning student of Mysticism, it is best to simply learn the patterns
distinguished in the maelstrom in the centuries past. The more patterns are found,
the clearer the remaining ones become. Until, of course, they change. And then the
journey begins anew.
-Mysticism: Unfathomable Voyage by Tetronius Lor

•The Tamriel legal system has its basis in the civilized, reasonable credo uttered
by the prophet Marukh in the first era: "All are guilty until they have proven
themselves innocent." These definitions and their punishments as described by Legal
Experts like the author may fluctuate wildly among locations and situations and in
the Imperial City there are a number of available Legal Counselors, like the author
of this book, though the provinces have no such system in place yet. The following
are but the most universal of Tamrielan laws and regulations and local provinces or
principalities may have unique laws of their own. As a citizen of the Empire, it is
one's right and responsibility to know and follow these laws of the land and
ignorance of them is not considered an acceptable defense.
Breaking and Entering
any act including, but not limited to opening, breaking, incinerating, magically
transporting, or in any way causing a door, window, or other portal that has been
magically or mundanely locked or which a reasonable person would assume to be so
restricted to be passable, and the act (though the act is not required for the
definition) of entering the house, business, or public location through said
defined portal. The punishment for this crime may include a fine or incarceration,
or a fine and incarceration. The fine and incarceration, or both, or neither, may
be less in a crime of Attempted Breaking and Entering. A crime of Attempted
Breaking and Entering is defined as an any act that a reasonable person would
perceive as the preparation for, an attempt (whether successful or not, or
perceived to be possibly successful or not) to perform the act of Breaking and
Entering as defined above, successful or not.
Trespassing:
This refers to walking, flying, riding, teleporting, floating, or in any way moving
or existing on a property without the explicit written or spoken permission of the
owner or caretaker of the property. The punishment for this crime may include a
fine or incarceration, or a fine and incarceration.
Assault:
Any threat or attempt (whether successful or not) to do physical, emotional,
mental, or magical harm or injury to another person, group of persons, or entity a
reasonable person might assume to be sentient. The punishment for this crime may
include a fine or incarceration, or a fine and incarceration.
Murder:
Any act of premeditated or malicious or premeditated and malicious or accidental
but criminally intended purpose that results directly in the death (or destruction
with implied death) of a person, group of persons, or entity a reasonable person
might assume to be sentient. The punishment for this crime may include a fine or
incarceration, or a fine and incarceration.
Criminal Conspiracy:
Any meeting, communication, or encounter with the purpose of preparing or arranging
crime(s) of any kind to be committed or caused to be committed. The punishment for
this crime may include a fine or incarceration, or a fine and incarceration.
Vagrancy:
Any act of idleness, disorder, begging, or conduct unbecoming a person with
occupation, gold, or a home in any combination or what a reasonable person would
consider idle, disorderly, beggarly, or unbecoming. The punishment for this crime
may include a fine or incarceration, or a fine and incarceration.
Smuggling:
Any act of bringing in, taking out, teleporting, or causing to be brought in, taken
out, or teleported an object considered illegal or, if not illegal, requiring an
import or export tax which is not paid. The punishment for this crime may include a
fine or incarceration, or a fine and incarceration, and will include confiscation
of the offensive or illegal object. It may also include, but not be restricted to,
execution or banishment, or execution and banishment.
High Treason:
Any act against (whether directly or indirectly, or any nonaction which results in
circumstances, directly or indirectly, against) a allegiated sovereign or by a
vassal to a liege, resulting or that would result in physical, emotional, mental,
or magical harm or injury in said sovereign or liege. The punishment for this crime
will be death.
Pickpocketing:
Any act of stealing, taking, or, without explicit written or verbal permission an
item or items a person, group of persons, or entity a reasonable person might
assume to be sentient has on his, her, its, or their own person. The punishment for
this crime may include a fine or incarceration, or a fine and incarceration.
Theft (sometimes called Larceny):
Any act of stealing, taking, or, without explicit written or verbal permission an
item or items from a person, group of persons, or entity a reasonable person might
assume to be a sentient's place of residence, business, person, or other location a
reasonable person would assume is secured from looting. The punishment for this
crime may include a fine or incarceration, or a fine and incarceration.
-Legal Basics by Anchivius, M.Z.F

•"Jokes" gives some useful information on prejudices among the races: Argonians are
mocked for their hard to spell names, Nords for stupidity, Bretons for promiscuity
and naivety, Redguards for their lack of action in the War or Betony along with a
passing mention of cannons in their ships, Dark Elves both male and female for
adultery and promiscuity, Khajiit for their cat-like features and unwillingness to
conform with norms and authority, and Wood for their reputation as liers, cheaters
and thieves.
-Jokes

•During or even before the days of the Elder Ones there have been a series of
mysterious magically-attuned and somehow mischievous creatures of magic and
unpredictable nature called Faerie, Fey, Illyadi, Sprites, Pixies, and Sylphim, and
their natures seem to flit from one story to the next with the same variation. It
could almost be said that Faeries are anything unpredictable in nature. The noted
scholar Ahrtabazus studying at the time in the Crystal Tower of Sumurset Isle
developed an interesting if controversial theory about Faerie. He organized the Fey
variants on a chain, beginning with the glimmering sparks called Pixies or Whilloki
by the Redguards at one end and the godlike beings such as Gheateus, Chonus, and
Sygria at the other. In the middle are human and semi-human beings generating up to
intelligent trees, brooks, rocks, even mountains. All of this was a new and
completely original theory and would have prompted enthusiastic, if somewhat
skeptical response had Ahrtabazus not added this footnote: "It may be that elves as
a whole are part of this chain, above whilloki and below nephrine. They certainly
have similar features and propensities for magicka as the other Faerie."
(Ahrtabazus, "The Faerie Chain" Firsthold, 2E 456) but the idea of including elves
as just slightly above whimsical pranksters like the whilloki brought quite an
outrage against Ahrtabazus from elven populations but his Faerie Chain with some
modifications has since then acquired acceptance. The hierarchial chain is not, in
the strictest sense, an order of command. While Gheateus and Sygria are said to be
surrounded by a host of minor Sylphim, faerie on the whole are not followers nor
leaders. Their plans and schemes are not governed by a higher purpose, simply by
their own whim. To this most faerie scholars agree. Because it is based on
coincidental evidence and supported by auxiliary theories, it may very well be
wrong.
-The Faerie by Szun Triop

•Baan Dar, Bandit God, Thief, Warlock, Shadowmaster, Ruthless Assassin, Undying
Avenger, Dark God, Robber Baron, Mastermind of Nefarious Plots is both God and Man
is in fact an idea and way of life with no fixed beginning or end of an anonymous
traveling rogue using that name and armed with knowledge of weapons, stealth and
subterfuge as well as sharp and educated mind fixed on an strict moral code of
punishing injustice and helping the desperate and destitute, all directed by a
simple pragmatism to do what is needed to make the world better under the idea that
evil comes not from how widespread evil men are but from the inaction of good men
to impose what they know is right over them. There is no one such Baan Dar but
many, disorganized, spread to the winds and taking apprentices among the
downtrodden to pass on their cause across space and time and the Legend grows
still. Of the Dark Avenging Blade on the Wings of Night that make no sound. The
Patron Saint of the Lone Wolf. The Thousand Eyes and Ears, the Hundred Arms
direspectful of Time or Distance. Undying, Master of Disguise, Man of a Thousand
Faces, Shapes and Sizes, Gentle, Rough-Edged, Gay, Stern. All the Mystery of the
"Man Unknown and Undying". However there are those among them who have turned to
evil themselves, some of their victims who survive to misinform, and bands of "Baan
Dars" bandits who use the name as a mask for their crimes, which has caused the
name of Baan Dar to evoke contradictory meanings. One of the true Baan Dar, a child
orphaned by slaver raids during an interprovincial conflict who turned to crime and
was saved from abuse and trained by a Baan Dar to eventually become one himself,
supposedly committed this truth to paper in his dying moments after a battle and
left this document alongside recordings of many legends and songs passed from bard
to bard regarding Baan Dar and hidden meanings behind them in a cave where a
Wanderer of Elsweyr found it and eventually made it fall in the hands of Arkan,
Scribe of Daggerfall, who translated and published the confessions of this true
Baan Dar in 2E 24. Ultimately the document claims that "But, by and large, the true
Baan Dar is a string of beings taught to act upon what they believe in, and stand
to take the yoke of needed action upon their own shoulders. Don't fight if you can
avoid blood or war, But if you must make War, do so with all your Heart and Might.
Leave it at Threats if Threats be enough - but never make threats you are unwilling
to carry to conclusion if required. Use all the arts at hand. But ever keep the
true purpose in mind. Stand Tall, but never forget how to bend your knee to help
another."
-The First Scroll of Baan Dar, by Arkan

Imperial Records

•The official imperial records in Brief History Of The Empire by Stonach k'Thojj
III claim that the time before the rise of the empire was an age of chaos called by
the Poet Tracizis as "The days and nights of blood and venom" under petty grasping
tyrants of kings whose disorganized and dissolute nature let to their fall before
the stern hand of Emperor Tiber Septim leading to his conquest of all is Tamriel in
the year 2E 896 and the declaration of the Third Era the next year, with legends
speaking of a rain that lasted a fortnight as if the land itself was weeping. A
just, pious and glorious age where prosperity and justice was known to the lowest
serf and the highest king alike followed and when Tiber died, his eldest son
Pelagius continued this trend until his infamous murder by the Dark Brotherhood
hired by some unknown enemy, thus dying childness. Pelagius's less than three
years long reign was succeeded by that of his cousin and daughter to Agnorith,
brother to Tiber Septim, whose reign was a time of prosperity and good harvests,
and was an avid patroness of art, music, and dance succeeded in turn by his son
Uriel I whose legislative reforms.were greatly influential and promoted the
Fighters Guild and Mages Guild to reach their current prominence but with his death
came the reign of his son Uriel II from 3E 64 to 3E 82 in a time accursed by plague
and insurrections on which his tenderhearted nature inherited from his father
served little. Pelagius II inherited his father's financially ruined kingdom and
installed taxes for membership in elder councils both in the imperial court and
among those of his vassal kings to recover financially but his critics claim that
this placed many rich but unwise men in power that led to Pelagius' heir,
Antiochus, whose flamboyant character, good humor and libertine lifestyle was
unusual in the austere Septim Family and suffered many civil wars with the prime
example occurring just twelve years after the coronation in the 3E 110's War of the
Isle when the Island-Kingdom of Pyandonea under king Orgnum almost took Sumurset
from the empire, taking the Emperor's forces in liege with the United Alliance of
the Kings of Sumurset to defend the province when a freak storm sunk the enemy's
main forces along with their king, an event attributed in legend to the Psijic
Order of the Isle of Artaeum. When Antiochus' heir, Kintyra II, was crowned, her
cousin and son to Queen Potena of Solitude Uriel Mantiarco claimed her to be
illegitimate pointing at her Father's decadent lifestyle but failed to oust her and
then planned with her mother and various disgruntled kings of High Rock, Skyrim and
Morrowind three attacks: One on the Iliac Bay to capture Kintyra during an
entourage and imprison her for two years somewhere in Glenpoint or Glenmoril Wyrd
before having her slain, attack imperial garrisons on Morrowind's coastal islands
defended by Kintyra's consort Kontin Arinx to have him slain and then take
advantage of the Elder Council sending troops to deal with the rebels in western
High Rock and eastern Morrowind to take the poorly defended Imperial City for
himself to be crowned as Emperor Uriel III and Start the infamous War of the Red
Diamond.
-Brief History Of The Empire, Part I by Stonach k'Thojj

•The murder of Kintyra II in prison is considered by some as the end of the "pure"
strain of the Septim line and most agree that it certainly marks an end to
something. Uriel Mantiarco took the name Uriel Septim III for himself, starting the
tradition of emperors not of the main Septim Line taking on that surname and under
him civil war raged for six years between the children of Pelagius II: Potema who
was Uriel's mother fought alongside him with all of Skyrim and northern Morrowind
in their back, while the other two sons of Pelagius, Cephorus and Magnus, managed
to make High Rock turn from Uriel and Potema while Hammerfell, Sumurset Isle,
Valenwood, Elsweyr and Black Marsh remained divided but with most kings eventually
becoming loyal to Magnus and Cephorus. In 3E 127 the battle of Ichidag in
Hammerfell saw Uriel III captured and escorted by Cephorus to the Imperial City but
a mob on the way burned him alive within the carriage transporting him and Cephorus
was supposedly proclaimed emperor popularly when he reached the city. War marked
Cephorus It's reign as his intelligence and kindness were overshadowed by the
warrior attributes he possessed and Tamriel needed the most at time to bring down
Potema, and after ten years of war the siege of Solitude finally resulted in her
death in 3E 137, but Cephorus only lived three years longer and childless due to
his concentrating on the conflict not allowing him to marry. So it was that the
fourth child of Pelagius II, the now old Magnus Septim, became emperor and passed
his remaining years punishing the traitor kings of the war of the Red Diamond and
reinstituting order before passing away in 145. Pelagius III is sometimes accused
of murdering his father Magnus but he reigned over solitude and seldomly visited
him thus rendering this unlikely. Still Pelagius the Mad was truly deserving of the
title as he threw eccentric balls and at least one attempted to hang himself at the
end of one, offended his vassal kings and embarrassed many dignitaries before his
long suffering wife Katariah was granted the regency and Pelagius himself given to
a series of healing institutions before dying himself in 3E 153 at the age of
thirty-four. The forty-six year long reign of Empress Katariah, Dark Elf wife of
Pelagius III and completely unrelated to Tiber Septim, is seen by some as the true
end of the Septim line (Thus who don't consider this to be the death of Kintyra II
and prefer to ignore that her son with Pelagius did continue his line) but despite
racist sentiments against her, Katariah traveled extensively across Tamriel instead
of remaining in the Imperial City (which supposedly made her uncomfortable) and
repaired the relations between nobles that the wars and complex politics had
muddled for many years, the common people loved but the nobility came to see her a
somewhat meddlesome before her death in a minor skirmish at Black Marsh (a favorite
of conspiracy theorists now revealed by the Sage Montalius to have been
orchestrated in part by a disenfranchised branch of the Septim Bloodline).
Cassynder Septim, formerly King of Wayrest and son to Katariah and Pelagius, aged
like a Breton being only half-elven and assumed the Throne out of pressure as the
only son of Pelagius III but his poor health had already made him abandon the
throne of Wayrest to his half-brother Uriel Lariat (son of Katariah's second
marriage after the death of Pelagius, with the Breton Noble Gallivere Lariat of
Wayrest, Uriel was adopted into the Septim family by Cassynder to give him the
throne of Wayrest when his poor health led to his retirement and, seven years
later, crowning as emperor) but Cassynder died soon enough two years later due to a
disease and so Uriel Lariat was crowned as Uriel IV just three years after
Cassynder's own coronation on the basis of his adoption by Cassynder.
-Brief History Of The Empire, Part II by Stonach k'Thojj

•Many saw Uriel IV as illegitimate and so his long forty-three year long reign was
full of sedition and the Elders Council, composed of the wealthiest men of Tamriel
since Pelagius's reign and having grown in influence to manage most affairs of
state during the reigns of Katariah and Cassynder, struggled with this new and
strong-willed emperor whose lack of a direct link to Tiber Septim (Despite the
Lariats being distant Septim cousins anyway) put him at odds with the council in
many matters on which the council won most battles, the last being that which came
posthumously for Uriel as his son Andorak was set aside in favor of a more closely
related family member to Tiber Septim's original line, a Nordic King proclaimed
Cephorus II whose first nine years of rule were marked by Andorak's rebellion
against him ended when the Kingdom of Shornhelm was ceded by the council for him
and line to rule (which they still do), this rebellion was called by the Sage
Eraintine as "Tiber Septim's heart beating no more," but worst was what came after
as Eraintine also described: "out of nightmare" came the man who called himself the
Camoran Usurper boasting armies of Daedra and Undead to conquer kingdom after
kingdom of Valenwood before advancing northward to Hammerfell where each and every
mercenary force sent against him by Cephorus II being bribed, slaughtered or
joining the unholy horde as undead, with the later defeat of the Usurper by an
alliance of lesser kingdoms unrelated to the emperor increasing nationalist ideas
and opposition to the seemingly inefficient empire. Cephorus was suceeded by Uriel
V who pointed the raging urge of violence between Tamriellians outwards to conquest
as he embarked on a series of invasions beginning almost from the moment he took
the throne in 3E 268. Uriel V conquered Roscrea in 271, Cathnoquey in 276, Yneslea
in 279, and Esroniet in 284. In 3E 288, he embarked on his most ambitious
enterprise, the invasion of the continent kingdom of Akavir. This was ultimately a
failure, for in two years later Uriel V was killed in Akavir on the battlefield of
Ionith. Nevertheless, Uriel V holds a reputation second only to Tiber as the great
warrior emperor of Tamriel.
-Brief History Of The Empire, Part III by Stonach k'Thojj

•The line of Tiber I was secure even with the death of Uriel V far away, as his
five-years old son at the moment of his death remained behind when he went to
Akavir and his twins with another woman, Morihatha and Eloisa, were born just a
month after his departure. Uriel VI was crowned in 3E 290 but his age meant that
his mother Thonica enjoyed a restricted regency while the Elder Council, the real
people in charge since the rule of Katariah I, managed the affairs of rulership to
make laws and profit until Uriel reached 22 years old age in 3E 307 and was given
power reluctantly by both the council and Thonica, a limited amount of it almost
restricted to a Veto in desicions he regularly employed along defunct Spy Networks
and Guard Units to coerce the Elder Council into giving him more and more power
with help from his sister, whose marriage to Baron Ulfe Gersen of Winterhold
brought her considerable wealth and influence. In the words of the sage Ugaridge,
"Uriel V conquered Esroniet, but Uriel VI conquered the Elder Council" and indeed
by 3E 313 Uriel VI could indeed boast that he truly ruled Tamriel. The well-
learned, vivacious, athletic, and a well-practiced politician Morihatha was
suceeded Uriel VI in the throne after he fell from his horse and not even the
greatest imperial healers xould save him, she brought the Archmagister of Skyrim to
the Imperial City and reiamtitutes the position of Imperial Battlemage, the second
since Tiber's own time, and labored to bring the Elder Council and the Imperial
Province under her unchallenged authority as Uriel VI did, later doing the same
with the provinces which had becomes unruly and enduring rebellion since the days
of her grandfather Cephorus II but her successful campaings on her vassals had an
exasperating pace for many in the Elder Council and one Councilman, an Argonian
named Thoricles Romus, furious at her refusal to send troops to his troubled lands,
is believed to be the man who hired the assassins who claimed her life in 3E 339.
Romus was tried and executed, though he protested his innocence. Morihatha had no
surviving children, and Eloisa had died of a fever four years before. Eloisa's 25-
year-old son Pelagius was crowned Pelagius IV. Pelagius continued the work of
Morihatha with her patience but not her success as the provinces has enjoyed too
much autonomy and opposed even the most benign imperial interference, but
nonetheless his labors brought some fruit in his long forty-nine years of rule that
saw Tamriel coming closer to unity than at any other time since the days of Uriel
I. Since then, a new emperor has arisen, his Awesome and Terrible Majesty, Uriel
Septim VII, son of Pelagius IV, has the diligence of his great aunt Morihatha, the
political skill of his great uncle Uriel VI, and the military prowess of his great
grand-uncle Uriel V. For twenty-one years he reigned and brought justice and order
to Tamriel but ten years of treachery saw his disloyal Imperial Battlemage Jagar
Tharn imprisoning him in a dimension of his making and using illusions to suplant
him and use imperial privileges but not continue Uriel's schedule of reconquest and
unity, bringing ten years of chaos on which Tharn's own goals and deeds are poorly
recorded before his defeat by a loyal champion and the return of the new more
shrewd and wise Uriel VII whose lost momentum in his reconquest due to Tharn's
madness has not prevented his tireless effort to restore order and bring unity to
the empire which has since brought about the prospect of a new golden age to equal
that of Tiber I.
-Brief History Of The Empire, Part IV by Stonach k'Thojj

•The official imperial records in Biography of Queen Barenziah by Stern Gambone

claim that Barenziah was born in the closing days of the Second Era as the heir
girl child of the royal family of Mournhold in Morrowind but when she was five
years old, his Excellency Tiber Septim came to demand the institution of imperial
reforms in Morrowind and the decadent Dark Elf Nobility trusted instead in their
vaunted magic to keep the emperor from claiming their land. Barenziah's misguided
father thus rebelled against the righteous Emperor in a war where Morrowind was
laid waste and Barenziah taken and, on General Symmachus of the Imperial Legion who
was himself a Dark Elf of Mounrhold's counsel, reared to a retired ally of his
named Sven Advensen, Baron of Blackmoor in Skyrim, to educate Barenziah in imperial
virtues and piety that made her a sweet, nature-loving and well-mannered girl
fitting for the nobility of the new imperial regime. She was well loved by Sven's
family and his five young sons came to see her an elder sister when a villainous
and orphaned stable boy of Sven's estate named Straw befriended her and convinced
the innocent Barenziah that Sven planned to sell her as a concubine to a movie of
Rihad since no Breton or Nord would ever marry her due to her ugly black skin. The
innocent child believed he who she considered a friend and escaped with her to
Whiterun disguised as a boy to act as guards for a caravan using side roads to
avoid the lawful tolls of the Highway to Rifton near the border with Morrowind,
where Dark Elves were a common sight.

Straw loved her in his own twisted way and the lie was meant to allow him to take
her for himself and make her his bride eventually even though she didn't love him
but his earnings were too small to afford a farm and instead turned to a vile
Khajiit named Therris to steal an Imperial Commander's documents for a traitor to
the empire. Barenziah overheard this and, torned between loyalty to the empire and
her friend, surrendered her true identity and her friend's plans to the imperial
commander. General Symmachus who had been looking for her since her disappearance
then took her and revealed she was meant to return to rule Mournhold once she
turned eighteen, until then she went to live with the Imperial Royal Family in the
newly built Imperial City where she learned of governance and important
personalities, befriended Tiber Septim in the last years of his reign, became
almost a sister to his heir Pelagius and her beauty, virtues, chastity, wit and
learning won her the love of the people until the fateful day when a procession
carried her to Mounrhold at last.

After being escorted to Mournhold by Symmachus, Barenziah ruled under his counsel
wisely and fairly until they fell in loved, married in a ceremony officiated by the
emperor himself and ruled wisely for hundreds of years until the blessings of the
goddess allowed them to have a child, Helseth, and eight years later a second one,
Morgiah, named after Symmachus' mother. Soon after, the mysterious Bard Nightgale
stole the Staff of Chaos from deep in the Mournhold mines where it was hidden and
the period of tumult of the Imperial Simulacrum started with the souring of
relations with the throne of Tamriel and riots and rebellions affecting Mournhold
until Barenziah herself went with her children to meet the emperor and ask for
help. In the Imperial Palace, Barenziah's magical aptitude revealed to her that the
Bard Nightgale who stole the Staff was in fact masquerading as the emperor through
illusions but she managed to hid this knowledge and soon after learned of
Symmachus' death in battle and her city's fall to rebels. I'm her despair, King
Eadwyre of Wayrest approached her and revealed that Jaguar Tharn has stepped out of
his office of Imperial Battlemage and ceded them to his apprentice Ria Silmane not
long ago but he didn't truly leave the city and got his hands on the Staff of Chaos
to ambush and trap the emperor in an alternate plane to take his place as emperor
and murder Ria when she discovered and tried to hide this. But Ria's ghost remained
and told Eadwyre of what happened in his dreams and that she had another contact
imprisoned in the imperial dungeon, seemingly of lesser importance, but with a
great untapped potential for greatness that would be Tharn's downfall. Since then,
Barenziah's acted with help from Eadwyre to spy on Tharn and woo him into allowing
her into his personal sanctum to read his diary and overhear his conversations to
discover that he had divided and scattered the pieces of the Staff of Chaos, allow
her to find and bribe guards into leaving the key to Ria's champion-to-be in his
cell from whence he escaped through a shift gate deep in the dungeons where the
Goblin Guards feared to tread and finally learn the locations of all eight pieces
of the staff of chaos for the champion's Quest. When they gathered as much
intelligence as possible to aid Ria and her champion whose name they didn't know,
Eadwyre and Barenziah retired with her children to Wayrest to weather the storm of
Tharn's sporadic quest for revenge, since most of his efforts were spend trying to
thwart this champion and dangerously so since for all that can be said of him,
Tharn was nobody's fool except perhaps for Barenziah herself. They welcomed the
news of Tharn's downfall and the return of the true emperor by the eternally great
and yet unnamed champion of the empire, assisted the solemn grand state memorial of
Symmachus in the Imperial City as befitted one of his long service to the imperial
throne and just a year after their flight from the imperial city, Eadwyre married
Barenziah as her queen and accepted her children as princes whileMournhold was
ruled by an appointed regent until Barenziah's eventual return to the office once
Eadwyre, already an elder, died which will be pretty soon by the reckoning of time
elves have.
-Biography Of Queen Barenziah Volumes I, II and III by Stern Gambone

•Thoriz Pelagius Septim was born as prince of Wayrest in 3E 119 at the end of the
reign of his uncle Antiochus Septim and to King Magnus Septim of Wayrest whose
realm was prosperous as Antiochus' favorite brother. When Kintyra II, Antiochus'
daughter and cousin to Pelagius, ascended to the throne after a life of learning as
a mystic, her abilities proved unable to peer into the future enough to prevent the
tragedy or her usurpation in the well recorded War of the Red Diamond by their
cousin Uriel Mantiarco and the infamous Potema of Solitude. Magnus then allied
himself with Cephorus to battle Uriel and Potema but this and Kintyra's own capture
and death in the imperial dungeons of Glenpoint brought Uriel's wrath upon High
Rock and Wayrest in particular, moving Magnus to flee with Pelagius and his wife
Utheilla of the Direnni line to her's family's ancient manse in Balfiera where is
well attested that Pelagius grew as a handsome and polite youth interest in art,
diplomacy and magic. When he was eight, Cephorus slew Uriel and crowned himself
Emperor, ten years later Pelagius led military forces on his first battle in the
Siege of Solitude that ended the war with the death of Potema, with Cephorus
crowning him King of Solitude for his deeds, this being the point where his
insanity started to emerge. Four months after taking the throne, a diplomat from
Ebonheart called Pelagius "a hale and hearty soul with a heart so big, it widens
his waist"; five months after that, the visiting princess of Firsthold wrote to her
brother that "the king's gripped my hand and it felt like I was being clutched by a
skeleton. Pelagius is greatly emaciated, indeed." with few having the nerve to
speak ill of him for his state of grace with the emperor. Three years later,
Cephorus I died and elderly Magnus became emperor with his heir being Pelagius,
whose growing madness was becoming notorious. There are many legends about his acts
as King, but few well-documented cases exist. It is known that Pelagius locked the
young princes and princesses of Silvenar in his room with him, only releasing them
when an unsigned Declaration of War was slipped under the door. When he tore off
his clothes during a speech he was giving at a local festival, his advisors
apparently decided to watch him more carefully. On order of his father and despite
the infamy this would cause among the Nords of Solitude, Pelagius was married to
the beautiful dark elf heiress of the Ra'athim Clan dominant in Ebonheart in an
effort to use her shrewdness and beauty to conceal his son's madness and in a
political move to improve relationships with Ebonheart after it's role of helping
Uriel III in the war (a poorly kept secret) and it's historical rivalry with
Mounrhold, which had always been a favorite of the empire under Queen Barenziah and
Symmachus, himself a loyal imperial hero who won many battles in the War of the Red
Diamond.

On the 8th of Second Seed, 3E 145, Magnus I died quietly in his sleep. Jolethe,
Pelagius' sister took over the throne of Solitude, and Pelagius and Katariah rode
to the Imperial City to be crowned Emperor and Empress of Tamriel. It is said that
Pelagius fainted when the crown was placed on his head, but Katariah held him up so
only those closest to the thrones could see what had happened. Like so many
Pelagius stories, this cannot be verified.Pelagius III never truly ruled Tamriel.
Katariah and the Elder Council made all the decisions and only tried to keep
Pelagius from embarrassing all. Still, stories of Pelagius III's reign exist: It
was said that when the Argonian ambassador from Blackrose came to court, Pelagius
insisted on speaking in all grunts and squeaks, as that was the Argonian's natural
language; It is known that Pelagius was obsessed with cleanliness, and many guests
reported waking to the noise of an early-morning scrubdown of the Imperial Palace.
The legend of Pelagius while inspecting the servants' work, suddenly defecating on
the floor to give them something to do, is probably apocryphal; When Pelagius began
actually biting and attacking visitors to the Imperial Palace, it was decided to
send him to a private asylum. Katariah was proclaimed regent two years after
Pelagius took the throne. For the next six years, the Emperor stayed in a series of
institutions and asylums. Whispered stories spread by "traitors to the empire" of
hideous experiments and tortures performed on Pelagius have almost become accepted
as fact. The noble lady Katariah became pregnant shortly after the Emperor was sent
away, and rumors of infidelity and, even more absurd, conspiracies to keep the sane
Emperor locked away, ran amok but Katariah claimed her pregnancy came about after a
visit to her husband's cell. When Pelagius died at age 34 in his cell at the Temple
of Kynareth in Betony, Katariah kept ruling for over 46 years before passing the
scepter to her only child with Pelagius, Cassynder. Pelagius' wild behavior has
made him perversely dear to the province of his birth and death. The 2nd of Suns
Dawn, which may or may not be the anniversary of his death (records are not very
clear) is celebrated as Mad Pelagius, the time when foolishness of all sorts is
encouraged. And so, one of the least desirable Emperors in the history of the
Septim Dynasty, has become one of the most famous ones.
-The Madness Of Pelagius by Tsathenes
High Rock Lore

•The Book "The Sage" details the Sugar remembering his past: Gyron Vardengroet was
born to a poor and humble Breton family in the village of Moonguard. The only child
of Frieda and Horstle Vardengroet entered life during a rare eclipse of Tamriel's
moons. It was soon apparent that he was unusually gifted in the magical arts. He
was found levitating the family dog when he was only a year old. Most Bretons have
a great talent for magic, but as he grew Gyron displayed a talent far greater than
that of his peers. The village wizard, Grungdingler, taught him despite his rowdy
character and when he surpassed his mastery and was filled with questions of
matters of life, death and immortality decided to send him away to meet Morkledder,
Guildmagister of the Sharnhelm Mages Guild with his recommendation and the blessing
of his parents.

At the foothills of the Kurallian Mountains did Gyron enter the ancient and
majestic gates of the city in the mountainous terrain of High Rock, awestruck by
the place, he explored and then gave his letter of recommendation form Grungdingler
to the Magister who welcomed him warmly and after a night of rest and meditation,
he went before the leading Council of three in the guild along other magic users
and was given three task to fulfill for them as a test and he did accept and
succeed despite his anxiety at the attention and demands. Returning to Shornhelm
several years later, Gyron was admitted to the Mages Guild and shown to the Council
Chamber where he was met by Morkledder. The ancient mage reviewed the journal
entries, the artifacts gathered, and most especially the spellbook entries
presented to him by Gyron. The youth's impressive work made the Guild declare him a
full Wizard and Morkledder himself taught him many years until he too was surpassed
and Morkledder sent him to seek further wisdom in the Crystal Tower of Sumurset.

In the years-long Journey through Hammerfell he lived many adventures, shared

knowledge, helped lesser mages, and uncovered tales of plants mixed to restore life
for the dead and prolong it for the living; in the proper combination even
bestowing immortality. He won great fame and discovered a passion as teacher and
guide, arriving at the Crystal Tower a famous Master with the several mages
clamoring for his attention and then fall in hush at the arrival of a figure with
Indigo blue robes trimmed with gold and carrying a highly pointed hat and the most
beautiful carved staff Gyron had ever seen. It was the elder of the council of
wizards, Esthlainder, who led him with s gesture to council where it was explained
that his coming was foretold as the arrival of one chosen champion who would bring
guidance, knowledge and aid, and despite his confusion and uncertainty, Gyron
accepted their apprenticeship and for many years he studied with the sages until
the Crystal Tower had no more secrets for and he departed again with a package he
was told not to open until at least one day passed from departing the tower to
Tamriel to make further discoveries. The next night, while camping on a glade
before a stream of the cleanest water, he unpacked his gift and found that the
package itself was an identical copy of Esthlainder's own robe, hat and staff which
according to a letter in it also held many powers Gyron.had to discover on his own,
the letter also gave him a title that would become the name most will know him for:
The Sage.

After many great adventures, the Sage returned to Moonguard and was received as
hero by his parents and people. News of his coming had preceded him and the whole
village had worked hard to build and furnish a cottage for the mage in the pleasant
forest just outside the town. After a festive banquet that evening, Gyron retired
to his new home. The Sage settled into his life outside Moonguard. He received many
visitors who have traveled from near and far to seek his guidance, help, and
training. The years passed. It was not long before first Horstle and then Frieda
died. The Sage was devastated by his loss. In his grief he swore to dedicate the
rest of his life to defeating death so that grief like his could be avoided by
others. Determined, Gyron returned to the Crystal Tower to research and experiment
on the formulas and mixtures of magically active plants to develop a potion capable
of surpassing death itself and through many years he studied and tested them on
himself before it became apparently that he no longer aged and that somehow he had
succeeded without knowing and the change had been so subtle that the exact formula
that achieved was lost to him, life neverending was his but the secret to it
escaped him. As the years continued to pass, the Sage traveled to help other mages
but his fame grew until the calls for aid became unmanageable and he went into
hiding to build a magical castle for himself in the Kurallian Mountains where only
the worthiest of mages could pass the tests to meet him and receive his aid though
the Sage does follow the wishes of his altruistic heart and at times returns to the
world to help young mages find their way.

The introduction of the book provides a description of Gyron's aspect: The fire in
the hearth provides light and heat. Neither seem to affect the old man. His
reclining figure stares into the flames and flames reflect back from his deep dark
eyes. Indigo blue robes reflect and yet absorb the firelight and highlights of
golden threads twinkle as the flames flicker. His beard and hair are long and snowy
white; in the firelight they almost appear to be ethereal like that of a godling.
At his side is a tall pointed hat which is the same color as his robe and also
twinkles with highlights of gold. The face is lined with age, yet almost appears
youthful; wisdom and intellect exude from his personage. This is the Sage who is
known in all of Tamriel as the champion and counselor to all users of magic. The
tale ends with yet another worthy mage knocking the great oaken doors of the
fortress, the Sage is needed again.
-The Sage by Aegrothius Goth

•The origin of the city of Daggerfall is rather obscure since the site of the city
has solid evidence for historians to suggest it was inhabited at least for a
thousand years prior to the start of recorded history and there are many plausible
legends of the origin of the name, one being that the Chieftain of the area threw
knives around the place to mark the borders of his domain. The first mention of
Daggerfall occurs in the year 1E 246 when the Nords had conquered all of High Rock
and brought a rough form of civilization to the province, their census in the Book
of Life including a segment saying: "North of the Highest bluffs, south of the
moors, west of the hills, and east of the sea is called DAGGERFALL. 110 men, 93
women, 13 children under 8 years of age, 58 cows, 7 bulls, 63 chickens, 11 cocks,
38 hogs live here." Since then and almost four thousand years later, the two
hundred and sixteen people of the arena have multiplied exponentially with the last
census of 3E 401 placing the population to over 110,000 inhabitants of the main
capitol, though the counting of so many individuals is believed to have a great
margin for error, it's still believed that this number places Daggerfall as more
prosperous and inhabited than their rivals in Sentinel and Wayrest. The reason for
the inhabiting of the area across history is believed to have started with coastal
fisher communities who quickly found out that the land around the coast was
sufficiently rich to also raise livestock, making the place strategically useful
for survival and prosperity. Daggerfall thrived under the Skyrim Occupancy and when
the Wild Hunt killed King Borgas and the northlands entered the War of Succession
in 1E 369 and later lost their hold over High Rock and Morrowind, Daggerfall and
the Iliac Bay became strategically valuable and developed an extensive army and
navy proven useful during the conflict between the dominant Direnni Family and the
Alessian Reforms as the Dirennis were native Bretons and excessive religiosity was
never of their liking. Daggerfall served as a minor base of operations for the
Direnni and their allies, with the notorious enchantress Raven Dirennis who helped
to secure victory over the Alessians on the Battle of Glenumbra Moors being one of
the first occupants of Castle Daggerfall. Over the centuries that followed, the
Dirennis felt into obscurity, but Daggerfall continued her growth. In 1E 609, King
Thagore of Daggerfall defeated the army of Glenpoint and became the preeminant
economic, cultural, and military force in southern High Rock. A position the
kingdom has precariously kept ever since. Ironically, it was another successful
military exercise three hundred and seventy years later that ended Daggerfall's
monopoly of Bay trade: the annihilation of the orcish capitol Orsinium by a joint
effort of Daggerfall, the new kingdom of Sentinel, and the now extinct Order of
Diagna. The scattering of the orcs from southeastern High Rock made the river route
to the Bay more accessible and thus allowed the tiny village of Wayrest to thrive,
I'm twenty years equalling Daggerfall's profit on Bay Trade, in forty becoming the
undisputed masters of that trade and in one hundred and twenty years later becoming
the Kingdom of Wayrest. The Kingdom of Sentinel did not exhibit Wayrest's
aggrandizement during the First Era. The Redguards were warriors learning the ways
of the merchants, and their land was enemy enough to keep their population checked.
Indeed, the number of people in all areas of the Iliac Bay was halved once in the
First Era by the Thrassian Plague, once again by the War of Righteousness, and a
third time by the invading Akavari. If Daggerfall had not spent its first thousand
years preparing for the battles of the next thousand years, it is indeed
conceivable that the Iliac Bay today might be Akavarian. The Second Era, like the
latter part of the First Era, is a tapestry of wars, insurrections, and plagues.
Daggerfall, Sentinel, and Wayrest continued to expand and improve their military
and economic positions in the Bay. Daggerfall and Wayrest would transpose positions
as major trading center of the Bay, and Daggerfall and Sentinel likewise bandied
over which was the superior military power. The third era saw the Iliac Bay remain
important for the new imperial government and the local polities continúe their
rivalry and allying only occasionally such as when a coalition of realms opposed
and defeated the Camoran Usurper. The recent War of Betony was typical of Iliac Bay
warfare: sincere, frighteningly violent, and peaceably resolved.
-A History Of Daggerfall by Odiva Gallwood

•Nowhere in the much vaunted censuses of the Skyrim Occupation is Wayrest

mentioned. In the Annals of Daggerfall, King Joile's letter to Gaiden Shinji of the
Order of Diagna contains the following reference: "The orcs have been much plaguing
the Wayresters and impeding traffic to the heart of the land." The date given for
the letter was 1E 948. It's known however that a fishing and trading settlement had
existed in the coast of where the Bjoulsae River feeds the Iliac Bay since at least
1E 800 and that this settlement won the name of Wayrest due to the Orc Capitol of
Orsinium and Akaviri Pirates that plagued newcomers in the eastern end of the Bay,
dangers from which they found rest only when reaching the small settlement. Wayrest
only truly bloomed after the razing of Orsinium in 1E 980. The hard-working traders
and merchants were instrumental in forming the Masconian Trade Way and thus
reducing the pirate activity on the Bay. At this time, Wayrest occupied both banks
of the Bjoulsae. A successful mercantile family, the Gardners, built a walled
palace on the High Rock side of the river and, over time, allowed banks and other
businesses within its walls. It was a Gardner, Farangel, who was proclaimed king
when Wayrest accepted ambassadors from the Camorian Empire, and was granted the
right to call itself a kingdom in the 1100th year of the 1st Era. Wayrest has
survived blights, droughts, plagues, piracy, invasions, and war with good humor and
practicality. In 1E 2702, the entire population of the city was forced to move into
the walled estate of the Gardners as protection against the pirates, Akaviri
raiders, and Thrassian plague. A less resourceful community would have withered,
but the Wayresters have survived. Although Wayrest became a kingdom under the
command of one family, the merchants continued to wield incredible power. Many
economists have alleged that Wayrest's eternal wealth, despite all her hardships,
comes from this rare relationship between the merchants and the crown. The Gardner
Dynasty fell, followed by the Cumberland Dynasty, which was followed by the Horley
Dynasty, and finally, in the Third Era, the Septim Dynasty. No citizen of another
kingdom of comparable age can, with one hand, name all the families who have ever
ruled. Never has a king of Wayrest been deposed by revolution or assassination.
Except for those of the Septim family, every king of Wayrest can trace his line
back to a merchant prince of Wayrest. The merchants and king respect one another,
and this relationship strengthens both. One need only walk down the great boulevard
of Wayrest to see physical proof of this unique alliance. Going north to south,
Wayrest Boulevard suddenly divides, one half going west and the other going east.
Both halfs end in identical squares: one at Castle Wayrest, the original palace of
Aphren Gardner, and the other at Cumberland Square, where the oldest and wealthiest
marketplace in Wayrest. The message here is clear: the king and the merchants are
joined and equal. Thus Wayrest is one of the most glorious cities of western
Tamriel: sparkling in her contemporary beauty, lustrous by her past. She is prized
above all cities in High Rock -- no other city has contributed, and continues to
contribute so much to the culture of the Bretons. The spirits of her genius
children continue to haunt the streets; you can see them in the gabled roofs, grand
boulevards, aromatic marketplaces. The people of Wayrest have an instictive
appreciation of their past, but are not obsessed by it, as the people of Daggerfall
seem to be. One feels that one is in a modern city when one visits Wayrest, but
there is a magic in the air that could only come from thirty-two centuries of
civilization. That, at least according to their own official version of their
history.
-Wayrest, Jewel of the Bay by Sathyr Longleat

•The nobility of High Rock is an extremely convoluted series of rulers lesser and
greater, starting with the traditional eight kingdoms at the top in the following
regions: Northpoint, Daggerfall, Shornhelm, Camlorn, Farrun, Evermore, Wayrest, and
Jehanna. Each ruled by a King or Queen whose children and grandchildren are princes
and princesses. Kings and Queens many have consorts of the opposite sex and same
rank but more often than not they don't really hold it. Consort Queens whose King
has died hold the rank of Dowager Queen if there's no active Dowager Queen already
(Although in Daggerfall multiple Dowager Queens may exist) but no equivalent of
this exist for a Consort King whose Queen has died, instead usually assuming a
lesser title of his family of origin or even simply being addressed as mister, as
has indeed happened with a few such consorts across history. Beneath the royal
families and in theoretical order of power beneath them are lesser yet semi-
autonomous regions ruled by Dukes and Duchesses, Marquises (or Marquesses) and
Marquises (or Marchionesses), Counts and Countesses, Viscounts or Viscountesses,
Barons or Baronesses, and Lords or Ladies. This list is in in theoretically an
order of power from most to least important but in regions such as the Barony of
Dwynnen the Baron rules above any nobles in the area even though these may hold
titles as superior to baron as Dukes are. These nobles may hold more than one title
at once and their eldest child is traditionally given their parent's second highest
title, so the Duke of Northmoor who is also Marquis of Calder will give his eldest
daughter the title of Marchioness of Calder. Kings and Queens are addressed as
"Your Majesty" while Dukes and Duchesses are addressed as "Your grace" and all
other rulers may be addressed with their title and name, or Lord or Lady and their
name. Typically rulers demand or prefer at least to be addressed with politeness
while the youngest and more temperamental of their number may prefer a more slangy
and straightforward speech but infrequent are those who regard straightforward and
direct talk as offensive on it's own. It's relatively easy to discover who is the
master of the region you're in through rumors and the names of different locations
in their territories.
-Etiquette With Rulers

•The people of Dwynnen celebrate Othroktide every 5th of Suns Dawn, the date when,
according to legend, a man emerged from the wilderness of High Rock and defeated
the undead of Castle Wightmoor to become the first Baron of Dwynnen. Few people
believe the legend anymore, but there most certainly was a Baron Othrok of Dwynnen
who was destined to become one of true heroes of High Rock, if not all Tamriel.
Scholars agree that the people of Dwynnen were indeed ruled by a Lich with an army
of zombies, ghost, vampires and skeletons who were cast down by Othrok leading an
army of men and animals supposedly given by the gods who brought order to the
region and made it a prosperous barony, most agreeing that this occured in 3E 253.
By 266 word of the Camoran Usurper's rampage and conquest of Valenwood and
Hammerfell brought fear to High Rock as his army composed by Daedra and Undead
according to legend but likely mostly composed of Wood Elf and Redguard Mercenaries
(Most Valenwood armies have historically been mercenaries and is believed that the
Usurper summoned his Daedra and Undead to march from Arenthia and slowly replaced
these original forces with the natives of the lands he conquered). At the time, the
primary powers of the Iliac Bay were ruled by particularly inept monarchs - Wayrest
and Sentinel both had kings in their minority, and Daggerfall was torn by
contention between Helena and her cousin Jilathe. The Lord of Reich Gradkeep (now
Anticlere) was deathly ill through 266 and finally died at the end of the year, and
is known that a number of rulers, The "Eight Traitors" according to legend, allied
themselves with the Usurper to spare their lands of suffering. It must also be said
that a secondary reason for the lethargy of High Rock had to do with the depth of
relations between the province and the Septim Empire. For the first time since the
beginning of the Dynasty, an Emperor ruled Tamriel who was neither Breton nor had
spent any of his childhood in High Rock. The difference between Cephorus II and his
cousin Uriel IV who preceded him was appalling to the people of High Rock. Even mad
Emperors like Pelagius III revered the Bretons over all other races, and cousins
and younger siblings of the Emperors have ruled in High Rock since the foundation
of the Empire. Cephorus was a Nord, with Skyrim and Morrowind sympathies. The
attitude of the common men of High Rock was sympathetic toward the Camoran Usurper
as an archfoe of this hated Emperor. In any case, Othrok's supernatural forces were
not enough to face the Usurper alone and is worth noting that at the time Dwynnen
was in fact smaller than what it is currently, instead Othrok convinced the rulers
of Ykalon, Phrygias and Kambria to aid him and spread mostly true word of the
Usurper's evil deeds and cruel treatment of conquered lands leading to many other
regions joining their league to form a mighty navy comparable only to Uriel V's own
force assembled for his ill-fated conquest of Akavir. The subsequent Battle of the
Firewaves saw the Usurper's downfall and many attribute the weather's working
against the Usurper to divine intervention in High Rock's favor. Many hold that
Othrok's legendary role in laying the Usurper low is overstated in legend since
Dwynnen itself wasn't reached by the Usurper and his forces were just a few among
many that partook in the battle but others point at what the poet Braeloque wrote:
To find the facts, the wisest always look first to the fiction.
-The Fall Of The Usurper by Palaux Illthre

•Bretons have been in Tamriel since before recorded history and their holidays,
though various new ones have been added, have remained almost unchanged since their
origins: The oldest holidays still observed in High Rock must include Waking Day,
on the 18th of Morning Star, when the people of the Yeorth Burrowland wake the
spirits of nature after the winter, very nearly in the tradition of their more
reverential ancestors. Flower Day, held on the 25th of First Seed in the smaller
villages of High Rock is most likely just as old or older. The old cult of the
flower is also remembered as Gardtide in Tamarilyn Point on the 1st of Rains Hand.
Daggerfall's Day of the Dead, on the 13th of Rains Hand, suggests the ancestor
worship that marked the Breton religion of antiquity. Finally, the ancient goddess
of the moons, Secunda, is remembered in the Moon Festival in Glenumbra Moors on the
8th of Suns Dusk, just as the nights begin to grow longer. The more recently
created holidays of High Rock are those like Tibedetha, "Tibers Day," celebrated
every 24th of Mid Year in honor of Alcaire's most famous, son, Tiber Septim.
Likewise, Othroktide on the 5th of Suns Dawn is held in honor of the first and most
illustrious Baron of Dwynnen. In quite extreme contrast, Marukh's Day on the 9th of
Second Seed, is a solemn holiday, immortalizing the lessons of the equally solemn
1st Era prophet Marukh. My favorite of the modern Breton festivals has to be Mad
Pelagius, held in mock honor of the most eccentric of the Septim Emperors. Pelagius
was, after all, a prince of Wayrest before he became King of Solitude, and then
Emperor of Tamriel. The Bretons like to boast that it was his time in High Rock
that drove him mad.
-Holidays of The Iliac Bay by Theth-i

•The Breton perspective of the War of Betony is that Lord Mogref of Betony asked
for vassalage to King Lysandus and his council which they accepted encouraged in
part by the Archpriest of Kynareth, Lord Vanech. Lysandus accepted this out of
charity and not of greed, since the isle was prey to pirates despite its prosperity
as a fishing isle and strategic significance but it was King Camaron and the
warlords of his council and traditionally bellicose nation who made of the event a
conflict citing some obscure and likely illegal two hundred years old document
suggesting Betony was a vassal to Sentinel while their main advisor, the Oracle,
was dismissed for predicting the failure of Sentinel in the effort. Prince Gothryd
and Lord Bridwell carried the day for Daggerfall in the great victories at the
Battle of the Bluffs and the Siege of Craghold but the seemingly effective efforts
in the field were condemned on court by the sorceress Medora and the Dowager Queen
Nulfaga who ultimately left the court for seclusion in protest to Lysandus, who
reconsidered things on this basis and arranged a meeting with the losing an
therefore slightly more polite forces of Sentinel at Reich Gradkeep under the
patronage of the neutral Lord Graddock. King Camaron was initially civil, as the
losing side of a war is often civil, but when he realized that the proposed treaty
would have included a formal declaration that the kingdoms of Sentinel and
Daggerfall would share Betony, he flew into a rage. With no thought for the
protocol of attacking a neutral peaceable lordship, Camaron order his army to riot
through Reich Gradkeep while the Daggerfall Army tried to kept their barbarity
under control. The Sentinel army fled to the Yeorth Burrowland, and the Daggerfall
army chased them as far as the Ravennian Forest before making camp, fighting one
last battle over the Cryngaine Fields separating them just one week later. In the
mystic mist that covered the field, Lysandus fell to to an arrow and Gothryd was
quickly crowned behind the Battle lines to lead his army for vengeance in full
regalia, inspiring his troops and sending the enemy into panic before meeting and
slaying Camaron with his superior swordsmanship despite the older king's own
experience. With that, Lord Oresme of Sentinel signed the surrender and committed
suicide the way back to Sentinel while Gothryd claimed the throne and took the hand
of Princess Aubk-i of Sentinel as his queen with permission from her mother, Queen
Akorithi of Sentinel, to bring a semblance of peace between their realms. The only
surviving member of the ruling family of Reich Gradkeep was a sickly infant, so the
councilors of state appealed to Lord Auberon Flyte, a cousin of Lord Graddock, to
rule the lordship in regency. Lord Flyte accepted, and his strong, almost
dictatorial style was just what Reich Gradkeep needed to restore order after the
bloody Treaty of Reich Gradkeep. His subjects were grateful that when the infant
heir died, they not only elevated his wife Doryanna and him from regents to rulers,
they agreed to rename the lordship in his honor. Reich Gradkeep became Anticlere,
named after his ancestral home. This account was made official in the 14 Suns Dawn
of 3E 404.
-The War of Betony by Vulper Newgate

Hammerfell Lore

•The ancient tales of Redguard History are well recorded but mostly blurred by the
mist of time, with little differentiators between Myth and History, que mostly in
the Ancient Redguard Tongue. The Redguard Historian Destri Melarg is likely the one
who has done most to uncover and translate these texts to the common tongue of
Hammerfell. This particular text deals with the later history of the homeland of
the Redguards and the Hundings that brought them to Hammerfell:

The people of the Old Land were once Artisans, Artists and Poets but the
overthrowing of the traditional rule of the Emperors in 2012 by the old way of
reckoning resulted in 300 years of strife between the Provincial Lords, Warrior
Monks and Brigands over power and territory with the greatly reduced powers of the
emperor being unable to stop the conflict. the ever evolving strife forfeited the
old peaceful ways and made the way the sword inevitable - the song of the blade
through the air, through flesh and bone, its ring against armor: an answer to the
people' prayers. In the time of Lord Frandar the first Warrior Prince, lords called
Yokeda built huge stone castles to protect themselves and their lands, and castle
towns outside the walls begin to grow up. In 2245, however, Mansel Sesnit came to
the fore. He became the Elden Yokeda, or military dictator, and for eight years
succeeded in gaining control of almost the whole empire. When Sesnit was
assassinated in 2255, a commoner took over the government. Randic Torn continued
the work of unifying the Empire which Sesnit had begun, ruthlessly putting down any
traces of insurrection. He revived the old gulf between the warriors - the sword
singers - and the commoners by introducing restrictions on the wearing of swords.
"Torn's Sword-hunt", as it was known, meant that only the singers were allowed to
wear swords, which distinguished them from the rest of the population. Although
Torn did much to settle the empire into its pre-strife ways, by the time of his
death in 2373 internal disturbances still had not been completely eliminated. Upon
his death, civil war broke out in earnest; war that made the prior 300 year turmoil
pale in comparison. It was in this period that Frandar Hunding grew up.

Frandar Hunding was born in that time and in the deserts of the old land, in the
year 2356 as part of the Sword Singers, an emergent class of society that grew from
the youth of the desert artisans and we're the first to make a temple to the
Unknown Gods of War and the training Halls, Halls of the Virtues of War. Within a
few generations the way of the sword - the song of the blade - had become their
life. The people of the blade kept their poetry and artisanship in building
beautiful swords woven with magic and powers from the unknown gods. The greatest
among them became known as Ansei or "Saints of the Sword". Each of these began
their own training schools teaching their individual way of the sword. Those Ansei
of the highest virtue wandered the country side engaging in battle, righting
wrongs, and seeking to end the strife. To sum it up. Hunding, was a sword-singer, a
master, no, a Master Ansei at a time when the peak of the strife was reborn out of
the chaos of Torn's death. Many singers put up their swords and became artists, for
the pull of the artisan heritage was strong; but others, like Hunding pursued the
ideal of the warrior searching for enlightenment through the perilous paths of the
Sword. Duels of revenge and tests of skill were common place, and fencing schools
multiplied.

Frandar do Hunding Hel Ansei No Shira, or as he is commonly known Frandar Hunding,

was born in the far desert marches in the province of High Desert. Hunding is the
name of the High Desert region near where he was born. No Shira means noble person
or person of noble birth and Hel Ansei is his title of Sword Sainthood. Hunding's
ancestors reach back to the beginning of recorded time in the high desert and were
artisans and mystics, his grandfather was a retainer of the Elden Yokeda, Mansel
Sesnit, and led many of the battles of unification prior to Sesnit's assassination.
When he was 14, Hunding's father died in the one of the many insurrections, and he
was left to support his mother and four brothers. His prowess with the sword
however, made his life both difficult and easy. Easy in that his services came in
great demand as a guardian and escort. Hard in that his reputation preceded him,
and many awaited their turn to face him in battle and gain instant fame through his
defeat. By the time Hunding was 30 he had fought and won more than 90 duels killing
all his opponents. He became virtually invincible with the sword, gaining such
skill and mastery that he finally stopped using the real swords created through the
artisanship of his people and began using the Shehai or "way of the spirit sword".

All sword singers learn through their intense training and devotion to the gods of
war and way of the sword, the forms of discipline that allow the creation of the
spirit sword, a simple form of magic or mind mastery where by a image of a sword is
formed from pure thought. A singer forms the sword by concentrating, and it takes
shape in his hand - usually a pale thing of light, misty and insubstantial, a thing
of beauty and a symbol of devotion to the Way and the gods, but no weapon. However,
those Ansei of the highest level and sensitivity and those with talent in magic,
can at times of stress, form a spirit sword, the Shehai which is far more than
light and air - it is an unstoppable weapon of great might, a weapon which can
never be taken from the owner without also taking his mind. The Shehai became
Hunding's weapon, and with this he slew bands of brigands and wandering monsters
than infested the land. Finally upon finishing his 90th duel, defeating the evil
Lord Janic and his seven lich followers, he was satisfied that he was indeed
invincible. Hunding then turned to formulating his philosophy of the Way of the
Sword. He wrote his Learnings down in the BOOK OF CIRCLES while living as a hermit
in a cave in the mountains of high desert in his sixtieth year. In that year
Hunding having enlisted in the many battles of the empire, defeating all opponents,
had thought himself ready for death and retired to his cave to capture his strategy
and mystical visions to share with other Sword Singers. It was after his completion
of the scroll of the Circle that the Singers found him composing his death poem and
preparing to join the gods of war in final rest. At sixty he was a vigorous man,
who thought himself through with life, but his people,the sword-singers needed him.
They needed him as never before.

Torn's Sword Hunt, had separated the Singers from the common people, and the rise
of the Last Emperor began the last great strife of the desert empire. The Emperor
and his consort Elisa's final effort to wrest control of the empire from the people
was destroying the sword-singers and Hira did vow to search out every Singer with
his Brigand army composed of Orcs and castoffs of the wars of the empire, and to
scourge them from the face of the planet. The Sword Singers were never a numerous,
the harsh desert kept the births few, and growing up in the unforgiving wastes
eliminated all but those of iron spirit and will. Thus the final strife which
became knows as the "War of the Singers" found the people of the sword unprepared
and unready to join together their individually great skills into an army that
could defend their homes and lives. To the unknown gods of war great thanks is owed
that Hunding had the time in his cave to write down his years of accumulated
wisdom, of strategy, of the way of the Shehai but not his death poem, interrupted
unceremoniously by the Ansei seeking him to command them. The singers fled from
their camps up into the desert hills and mountains. Fled to the foot of Hattu "the
father of Mountains" where Hunding had gone to write in peace and to die, and there
these remnants formed into the Army of the Circle - they learned Hunding's Way, his
strategies his tactics, and the final great vision for a master stroke.

Hunding devised a plan of seven battles leading the Armies of Hira further and
further into the wilderness to the foot of Hattu, where the final battle could be
fought. Hunding called his plan the "Hammer and the Anvil". With each battle
Hunding's Singers would further learn his strategies and tactics, grow strong in
the use of the Shehai, and be ready to defeat their opponents in the seventh
battle. And thus it was, the six first battles were waged, each neither victory or
defeat, each leading to the next. The larger armies of Hira following the small
army of Hunding. Outnumbered thirty to one, the singers never faltered from the
Way. The stage was set, Hira and his Army maneuvered to the base of Hattu Mountain,
where the hammer blow was delivered. The battle was pitched, and many singers fell
that day. Hunding knew, that the singers who lived would be few, but Hira and his
empire of evil would not live and so it went. At the end, the evil army was crushed
and it's survivors scattered to the winds while Frandar remained alongside some
twenty thousand sword singers behind him.

The singers packed their lives, folded their tents, mourned their dead, and
followed Hunding to the great port city of Arch, in the province of Seawind. There
Hunding had a flotilla of ships waiting. The Singers left their desert for a new
land. No longer welcome in the desert empire, they left to be sung about and spoken
of in legend. The final great warrior, the singers of Shehai, the Book of Circles,
all leaving that land where their virtue was unappreciated. Red, red with blood
they were in the eyes of the gentle citizenry, never mind that they had saved them
from a great evil. The singers vowed to learn new ways as they traveled across the
great ocean to their new land. To adopt a new name, but to honor the past. In honor
of their final battle, they named their new land Hammerfell and adopted the name
Redguards.In honor to Hunding the great warrior prince, each household in
Hammerfell has a place by the hearth an alcove really, just a niche, big enough to
hold the scroll, The Book of Circles.
-Redguards, Their History And Their Heroes by Destri Melarg

•According to Divad, The Singer by Destri Melarg Divad Hunding was born around the
1E 760 or the year 2396 in the old way of reckoning when his father Frandar was
away waging his great duels and taking part in the many insurrections and unrest of
the time. At eleven he joined the Hall of Virtues of War but left at sixteen and
broke his sword out of adolescent rage against his father who had neglected his
duties as caretaker to join a circus as Acrobat and then become a singer and later
a bard who travelled across the empire and thrived on popular song and gained no
small amount of fame and popular conserts. It is said however that he kept
practicing the Way of the Sword he supposedly forsook and that his tent in the
night was bright with light that betrayed his practicing of the form of the Way
known as Shehai Shen She Ru -- the Way of the Spirit Sword, or simply the Shehai.
When the last emperor, Hira, and his consort outlawed the Way of the Sword he sent
100 men to arrest Divad since he was no fool and knew that even unarmed Singers
were very powerful. Divad was chained as he was dining with his mother and the
soldiers simply pushed her away with a strike that killed her and sent Divad into a
rage that made the famous artist become a warrior, taking his own chains as a
deadly weapon to kill four of his captors and jump from a window into a river to
escape. From then on Divad was spotted many times and told of in many more rumors
all across the empire -- far more places than a mere mortal man could have ever
been. At every point where Hira's men gathered to do mischief, the resistance was
attributed to Divad. When the High Desert was about to be invaded by Hira's growing
army, it was Divad who organized the singers to seek out his father in Hattu, at
the cave where he was writing his Death Poem. What few know is that Frandar formed
his Shehai in anger as the elder singers came to plead for his leadership in their
campaign as he wanted peace and death in solitude at last but as the elders
retired, Divad returned to spoke alone with him for five hours of shouting and
light on which nobody knows what they talked about until both men came out of the
cave to lead the Sword Singers in a bloody campaign against Hira on which Divad
acted as advisor to his father, a student of the newly completed Book of Circles
and as a simple soldier in the Hammer and Anvil Campaign. It was not until the
Ansei abandoned their native empire to arrive on New Land that Divad's history of
glory of the most renowned of Redguard Heroes, possibly the most accomplished Ansei
to ever live and heir to Frandar's cause truly began though it must not be
forgotten that he always was two people in one body: The Artist and the Warrior.
-Divad The Singer by Destri Melarg

•Destri Melarg, born Destri at Rihad in 3E 20 and having assumed the surname Melarg
after traveling to the Imperial City to study at age nineteen with fellow Redguards
possibly to fit in the Breton, Nordic and Dark Elven cultures he found there,
became possibly the greatest expert in Redguard History with many of his books of
research and translated works from the Redguard tongue remaining as a rich legacy,
though his death 94 years after his arrival in the Imperial City saw him leaving
behind many unfinished works and manuscripts, one of which he send on a letter to
his publisher in the imperial city, Melius Kane, later uncovered and published by
an admirer of his, Vune, Redguard First Scholar of the Imperial University. This
unfinished work was the outline for his last chapter in the Redguard Heroes Series
composed of translation from the heavily charged with dialogue storytelling of
Dendle, a Wagon master who shares the story with Melarg while smoking together, a
story about the Five Swords that kept cropping up during Destri's research despite
the long time since it's supposed events, with Dendle affirming that they were
deadlier that magical or ebony weapons and that one survived the closing of the
Goblin Gate and remains hidden somewhere in Hammerfell, though Destri finds hard to
imagine such a weapon given the unrivaled sharpness and resistance of Ebony and the
destructive power of magical items such as a Claymore of Firestorm or a Saber of
Life Steal, also contending against this storyteller her claims that in the
countryside around Skaven there are still those who practice the old ways and can
form the Shehai though Destri himself only found a possible case only once with an
Old Hallmaster who could barely form an spirit sword without substance or form to
be a proper weapon despite the proliferation of youths in the rural areas assisting
to Halls of Virtues.

At the time of the story, Hammerfell is firmly Redguard with the old Dwarven Cities
except the Ghost City of Dwarfhome being now Redguard and the threat of a new Giant
Goblin Invasion emerging with only a few disparate Halls of Virtues of War standing
as the only hope for an unprepared Hammerfell. The Goblin forces are titanic but
the only Ansei, Hallin, rallies and leads the forces of Hammerfell and restores the
old ways by having them read the Book of Circles to face the Goblins, the result is
an standstill but the Goblins just as in Divad's songs are somehow endlessly
supplied with troops and arms, rendering defeat an eventuality. The old Hall Master
of Hallin had a copy of Divad's will and testament and reads it to him: The Five
Swords aren't lost, they remain in five caves of Hammerfell protected by a maze and
one old Ansei Master, all blind, and each with one meaningful trait: one Katrice,
possessed feline grace, and had become very catlike; another, who had icy calm was
something much like an Ice Golem. Derik must be accompanied by other of pure heart
to face these trails, defeat the Ansei Masters and claim the swords to defeat the
Goblins. Derik scours the rural Halls for Brothers of the Blade and Maidens of the
Spirit Sword to accompany him in the quests. He finally one by one finds his
companions, and wins each sword. They learn from the blades and together wield the
force of the 5 swords to seal the rent in space time that the Goblins have made and
from which springs their invasion. They learn from the blades and together wield
the force of the 5 swords to seal the rent in space time that the Goblins have made
and from which springs their invasion. Hallin's companions avoided blinding by the
magic swords by hurling the swords together into the void, and sealing forever the
giant Goblins in the void between their world and ours. The land is saved and
Hallin and his companions (3 women and 2 men) become Ansei and restore the
teachings of Frandar Hunding to Hammerfell. The letter finishes with Melarg making
it known to his publisher that "I understand that you are considering using a
better known writer, Uthilla Abuhk or Casmyr Kreestrom, to write the stories I've
researched. I can understand that a better known writer may mean that a few more
copies of the books will be sold, but that should not be your only concern. Abuhk
and Kreestrom, while fine writers and poets, will need to be lectured on the true
history of the Redguards. Even if you are willing to pay me to do that, you will
have to acknowledge that the books will take longer to write than if you just
allowed me to do it." Before finishing the letter.
-Notes For Redguard History by Destri Melarg

•From the Memory Stone of Makela Leki is the commitment to paper of the thoughts of
the homonymous Redguard Hero of the Bankorai Pass when her death was about to come
in 1E 973, recorded in a Memory Stone she bought from the Mages butGuild (An
inconsistent detail since the Guild wasn't formed at the time) for 25,000 gold
crowns and recorded rather informally and in first person since she herself didn't
consider the proper protocols used for such recordings. The stone, once unwrapped
from it's silver foil and leather bag,just simply touch the flesh of the user to
start recording their thoughts, including those of pain difficulting later readings
of it, though as an Ansei Makela was trained in the Hall of the Virtues of War to
wall away pain from her mind though the threat of it's resurface was ever-present
and she did this to continue her recording of her life, with the brief introduction
of her status as nearly mortally wounded, her ring and crystal of healing powers
drained away, and with no magic to heal herself since her only remaining gift of
the gods was that of Sword Singing, for as a second level Ansei she could form the
Shehai, the spirit sword - The mystical blade formed of pure thought as serpents
intertwined with vines of roses to form the blade. She grew as the only one of
three brothers and two sisters to dream with developing a Shehai and feel it hunger
for battle and crush her foes, the Song of the Sword as this phenomenon was called
was also felt by his father in his youth, who was himself a powerful Swordmaster
who set aside his warrior ethos to form a family. Becoming a Maiden of the Spirit
Sword was her dream since the start of her memory for she knew many remembered
their ancestors were Artisans and Poets back in their desert home and we're
starting to return to those ways in their new home of Hammerfell as well but her
way was always only that of the sword. So it was that Makela joined a Hall of the
Virtues of War under the Hallmaster at age eleven alongside daring Julia, solid
Patia, big Kati, svelte Cegila and wise Zell, her companions as Maidens of the
Spirit Sword already dead as of the time of the recording and to whom she would
join soon enough in the halls of the unknown Gods of War. As they joined in their
learnings in the Hall with their Brothers of the Blade, they learned from each
other, and they all sat at the feet of the Hall Master striving to learn the depths
of the Shehai - making the spirit blade into a real weapon as Frandar Hunding had.
Only a few have the purity of heart and virtue to be able to take the step and
learn the mysteries of Ansei. Sword Sainthood. Of them all, only Makela possessed
the unique qualities, the faint but strong enough flicker of magicka to call forth
the Shehai, to be able to summon her Spirit Sword out of thought but at the time
she couldn't make it substantially enough to be a weapon, but still being
considered an Ansei of First Level since summoning the sword alone was the only
requirement of that rank and so she became the single student to reach Sword
Sainthood in two generations in that particular Hall. She also had a lover, Raliph,
and many other memories she decided to not record in favor of that of the Final
Battle as death neared. When a band of Maidens reaches a certain point of their
training, they perform the Walk About or Walk-About, which for those not of the Way
of the Sword can be described as a reenactment of Frandar Hunding's quest of
righting wrongs, defeating monsters and defending virtue in battle in a pilgrimage
across the land which sometimes takes years and claims the lives of many performing
it. The six maidens of her group survived it and told their stories and acted as
instructors for new maidens and brothers, thereafter meeting once a week in the
hall on a day of fasting and prayer to share their stories in comradeship, one such
days falling on a Mid Year Celebration when a Guardian of the Bankorai Pass came
hurried to them and spoke of betrayal and invasion from the north sponsored by the
Crystal Tower of High Rock and led by King Joile of Daggerfall, their ally in the
siege of Orsinium ongoing for more than a decade at the time by the forces of
Sentinel, Daggerfall and the Order of Diagna. The six maidens spent a crystal of
healing to save the guardian and send him to warn the king while they took to their
arms and armors of power and as many potions, marks, crystals and rings of magic
they could to march against the invaders, standing gloriously with their song of
the sword slicing apart through the armies of evil. Julia was the first to fall, a
cowardly poisoned dagger finding a rent in her armor. Then one by one all fell
except for Makela. then the sword of her father, the one with the serpent's crest,
fashioned by the master sword smith Singer Tansal broke in her hands, and all
seemed in vain to her as many of the Bretons still remained and could easily prey
on their people. Then did she remember the Book of Circles of Frandar Hunding in
the hearth of her home, The Way of Strategy and as she did this her Shehai finally
manifested true: It was alive. Alive with fire. It formed in her hand. Ablaze with
power with which she slew mightily, right and left, like a scythe through wheat.
All the way to the Lord of the Tower she fought. With one blow she cut his magical
armor asunder, one more took his head. But that deed costed her dearly as her own
wounds began to claim her and her breath to fade for her armor, magical though it
was, was not as invincible as her own Spirit and Spirit Sword. But with the felling
of King Joile, his army crumbled. They fled before her wrath. All ran back through
the pass not even pausing to collect their dead and wounded. All who could stand
ran for their lives, and she slew all she could catch until none remained before
her and she could finally rest upon a rock and use the memory stone she had bought
on a whim with the loot of one of her many adventures. As the eternal night fell on
her slowly, she contemplated recording more of her life or details of the battle,
perhaps of Raliph and their beautiful children when her mind, confused but at
peace, finally slipped away into the silence of death.
-The Memory Stone of Makela Leki, recorded by Makela Leki and recorded on text by
an Anonymous (Unknown author, not anonymously per se)

•From The Alik'r by Enric Milres, Weltan is a famous Redguard Poet from the Alik'r
who writes in the old Redguard Tongue rather than in Tamrielic since he finds that
language superior for art. The word in this tongue for cheese is mluo. Enric Milres
of the Imperial City befriended Weltan and told them stories of the vibrancy,
noise, high culture and decadence of his native city, White-Marbled and populated
by industrious citizens convinced of their own importance by the lustration of the
streets and closeness to the emperor, being even said that in the boulevards of the
city, even the low beggars live as though in palaces and also of descriptions of
the swarming marketplace of Riverhold; of dark, brooding Mournhold; of the mold-
encrusted villas of Lilmoth; the wonderful, dangerous alleys of Helstrom; and the
stately avenues of grand old Solitude. Weltan's writings including the poem "On The
Immortality of Dust" inspired Enric to explore and become a true citizen of the
planet by visit the Alik'r, seeing by himself the vast, fire-like red mist where
some say the spirits of the dead fly, the sunken cities and ruins emerging from the
sands in blows of wind to be entombed again, ever ephemeral in their death and life
before the eternal might of the mountains of sand, the massive rocks burning with
heat and light from the heart of Tamriel itself in the night. The petty borders of
the regions of Hammerfell in the Alik'r were meaningless before the shifting sands,
the peoples of Bergama Or Antiphyllos not truly seeing themselves as being in those
regions but in the Alik'r at large or rather part of it, an idea closer to the
philosophy of these desert peoples. Two years did Enric live in the Alik'r and
reflected upon his the Redguards decided to settle such unforgiving land,
concluding that they are at the end a Warrior Culture supreme in this definition
beyond any other as a group who finds no value in anything if it isn't won with
struggle, while none fought them for the Alik'r, it itself is their opponent in an
eternal struggle without rancour, a holy war in the truest and most pure sense. So
did Enric go native and when he finally left for Sentinel he joined the poets and
artists discrediting the at the time starting War of Betony for the meaningless
product of greed and pride it was, an ajcea (spiral down) or tragedy in the Old
Redguard Tongue. He wrote about all of this in "The Alik'r" But decided to finish
on a hopeful note: 'Yet, I cannot be sorrowful. In the years I spent in the glories
of the Alik'r, I have seen the eternal stones that live on while men go dead. I
have found my inner eye in the tractless, formless, changeless and changeable land.
Inspiration and hope, like the stones of the desert, are eternal though men be
not.'
-The Alik'r by Enric Milres

•On the twelfth of Hearth Fire every year, the people of the Hammerfell township
and barony of Lainlyn celebrate Riglametha. Riglametha in the Banthan dialect of
the ancient Redguard tongue means "grateful-offering" and is a festival of the
graces the gods have granted the people of Lainlyn over the centuries. Tradition
dictates the performance of a number of plays about the great moments from
Lainlyn's past, and one of the most popular is Ghraewaj, which may be translated as
"The Crows Who Were Punished" or "The Crows Who Punish." Old Redguard is somewhat
vague with its objective case. The play represents an old tale of a coven of Female
Daedra Worshipers who craft lies, curses, murders, and suicides to hurt the people
of Lainlyn. Most of all, they used their beauty as a weapon to drive men to mayhem
with their leader, the temptress Noctyr-a, seducing the unnamed baron of Lainlyn
and being about to force him to commit suicide to prove his love, when the baroness
arrived and feigned submission giving Noctyr-a a white robe of hers enchanted to
transform her into a giant crow the Baron, no longer bewitched, kills. The Baron's
cook roasts Noctyr-a's corpse and serves it to her Witch Brethren who had for that
time already transformed the palace of Lainlyn into a den of decadence and
debauchery for their orgies and they welcome the feast to keep their energy up but
when the Baron and Baroness appear and reveal just what they are eating, they go
into a frenzy and turn also into monstrous half-bird creatures and flee, this being
the supposed origin of Harpies who are indeed especially active in Lainlyn and have
been a plague in the Iliac Bay for millenia, have intelligence and a language of
their own but the few who have mastered it without being killed by their harpy
teachers and manage to interview them note that the Harpies seem to have no
knowledge of their origin much like the people of the bay themselves. While the
truth is likely never going to be revealed, it is worth noting that in some
versions of the story, Noctyr-a is an innocent peasant seamstress and it is the
baroness who is the cruel and wicked leader of the harpies. Noctyr-a prays to
Dibella and is given the charm to make the magical robe, and she and the baron live
happily ever after once the harpies have feasted on the transformed baroness.
During the long reign of the virgin baroness of Lainlyn, Viana the Pure (2E 120-2E
148), the baron was portrayed as a willing conspirator of Noctyr-a. The harpies
thus have two birds to dine on. In a different vein, one of the best known of the
Daedra Princes is named Nocturnal, who is often portrayed as a beautiful dark woman
holding two black crows. It is not a difficult etymologic trick to derive the name
Noctyr-a from Nocturnal, or vice-versa.
-Ghraewaj by Tidasus

•The official records of the Siege of Betony as it is known in Sentinel, called

"The War of Betony" by some, claims that Redguards by their nature are a modest and
practical people, not phlegmatic like the High Elves, nor cowardly like the Wood
Elves and Khajiiti. But what would infuriate and enrage the swaggering,
vainglorious Nords and Bretons would not merit a shrug from a Redguard. Betony's
trade would have been seriously restricted; its religion subjugated; its people
bound by active and constant pledges and duties of vassalage should it had been a
Breton domain. But Betony was not a Breton dominion. Betony was part of the Kingdom
of Sentinel by ancient treaty and it was base greed that led King Lysandus, may the
Old Ones continue to torment his soul for his wickedness! To threaten, lie, perform
piracy and finally invade Betony while dismissing the counsel of the sorcerers and
wise in his court, prompting the benevolent King Camaron to declare war even while
knowing very well the wicked black magic and espionage the Bretons called righteous
warfare, tactics Lysandus proved to exceed in wickedness during the war to gain
victory until the attempt at treaty at Reich Gradkeep under the auspice of Lord
Graddock.The ill-fated Treaty of Gradkeep began civilly; the terms of peace were
discussed, agreed on, and set to paper. The terms were excessively generous.
Camaron had agreed to give up some of his rights to Betony in order to placate the
madness of Lysandus and bring peace back to the Iliac Bay. It was not until King
Camaron read the Treaty he was about to sign that he realized the outrageous
perfidy of the Bretons: the Treaty had actually been purposefully miswritten by the
Daggerfall scribe in an attempt to trick Camaron into giving up Betony, the
following outrage resulted in the battle of Cryngaine Fields where the daedric
sorcery of the Bretons once again was used to blind their enemies with mist, though
this time one of Sentinel's great archers manage to kill the wicked Lysandus even
in the fog, with his capricious son who has spend the battle in lugubrious
relaxation being crowned without ceremony and demanding a duel with the exhausted
Camaron who lost the duel and was backstabbed by trickery and black magic even
though many times Gothryd's superior in combat. So did Sentinel mourn and
surrendered with the wicked Gothryd demanding Princess Aubk-i as hostage, but
because of this the Redguards consider her their martyr and believe firmly that her
love and loyalty remains with her people.
-The War of Betony by Fav'te

•The Iliac Bay in its long history has developed numerous ancient and new holidays
unique to the Cultures of Bretons and Redguards in many ways similar and in others
very different. Redguards, as any Schoolchild may know, are a relatively recent
addition to Tamriel who came from their native desert land to Tamriel in the year
808th of the First Era to the mostly uninhabited and unclaimed deserts and
mountains of Hammerfell. Having already had a developed culture in their land of
origin, many holidays of the Redguards are echoes of their ancient traditions
adapted to Tamrielic Culture or outright the same holidays they practiced in their
ancient home: The orgiastic seasonal celebrations seem unusual in a province with
few changes in the weather from month to month, yet on the 28th of Suns Dawn, the
Redguards of the Banthan jungle celebrate Aduros Nau to relieve the wintertide
lethargy; on the 1st of Mid Year, the people of Abibon-Gora celebrate Drigh R'Zimb
in honor of the sun, which no normal Redguard worships in this day; similarly, on
the 29th of Suns Height, the festival in the Desert called Fiery Night, seems
almost perverse in such an environment; the Koomu Alezer'i on the 11th of Last Seed
in Sentinel has been translated as a harvest thanksgiving, though many scholars
have suggested that it was once a springtide holiday; similarly, the Feast of the
Tiger in the Bantha on the 14th of Last Seed was probably once a religious holiday
to a Tiger God, instead of a thanksgiving. Other old Redguard holidays have either
been acknowledged as part of the old culture or adjusted to fit with the climate of
Hammerfell. The Serpent's Dance of Satakalaam is patently an old festival honoring
a Serpent God of the homeland who evidently did not survive the journey to
Hammerfell and the significance of the date, the 3rd of Suns Dusk, has been lost
with the Serpent Priests. Baranth Do on the 18th of Evening Star and Chil'a on the
24th of the same month are both New Years festivals likely moved from their
original dates to fit the Tamrielic calendar.
-Holidays of The Iliac Bay by Theth-i

General Religion

•The view on Gods and Deities in Tamriel is commonly based on the perception of
their activity and interest in the affairs of mortals. From intervention in
legendary quests to manifestations in common daily life, no pattern for the Gods of
Tamriel activities is readily apparent. The concerns of Gods in many ways may seem
unrelated or at best unconcerned with the daily trials of the mortal realm. The
exceptions do exist, however. Many are the stories of heroic figures being guided,
blessed or receiving artifacts of power from these deities for the cause of that
deity's agency in the mortal world and that of that deity's temple or of great
priests summoning blessings or supernatural aid from their gods in times of need.
Other times Gods seem completely unconcerned with the affairs of mortals and might
be appear indifferent to the suffering of war, plague and famine which discounts
the fundamental notion of many cults in the utter benevolence of such beings, whom
are better regarded as having complex minds and agencies of their own beyond mortal
knowledge and possibly beyond understanding of the most minuscule fraction of their
logic and reasoning.

Gods do however seem to have an universal interest in worship and deeds. Deeds in
the form of holy quests are just one of the many things that bring the attention of
a Deity. Deeds in everyday life, by conforming to the statutes and obligations of
individual temples are commonly supposed to please a Deity. Performance of ceremony
in a temple may also bring a Deity's attention. Ceremonies vary according to the
individual Deity. The results are not always apparent but sacrifice and offerings
are usually required to have any hope of gaining a Deity's attention. While direct
intervention in daily temple life has been recorded, the exact nature of the
presence of a God in daily mundane life is up to great speculation. A traditional
saying of the Wood Elves goes "One mans miracle is another mans accident." While
some gods are believed to take an active part of daily life, others are well known
for their lack of interest in temporal affairs.

It has been theorized that gods gain power from worship, praise, sacrifice and
deed. It may even be theorized that the number of worshippers a given Deity has may
reflect on His overall position among the other Gods. This conjecture of the author
comes the apparent ability of the larger temples to attain blessings and assistance
from their God more easily than smaller religious institutions. There are reports
of the existence of spirits in the mortal world that have this same capacity to use
the actions and deeds of mortals to strengthen themselves as do the Gods and the
understanding of the exact nature this being would allow the understanding of the
nature of a God's relationship with his worshipers. The implication of the
existence of such spirits leads to the speculation that these spirits may even be
capable of raising themselves to the level of a God or Goddess. Motusuo of the
Imperial Seminary has suggested that these spirits may be the remains of Gods and
Goddesses who through time lost all or most of their following, reverting to their
earliest most basic form. Practioners of the Old Ways say that there are no Gods,
just greater and lesser spirits. Perhaps it is possible for all three theories to
be true.
-Ann Overview of Gods and Worship in Tamriel, by Brother Hetchfeld (An Associate
Scribe at the Imperial University, Office of Introductory Studies)

•The Psijic Order holds that their philosophy is that of the practice of Grave and
Faithful Council on the basis of the Old Ways which make them conscious of an
hypostatic supernatural reality, an spiritual world invisible to the unenlightened
just as the commoner may believe the complex issues of rule and the vicissitudes of
life in the form of peace treaties, new laws, tax increase, war, plague and famine
as result of mere incomprehensible chance whereas the rulers understand, counteract
and act towards or against such things and this is deplorable in Psijic eyes, as
the great Cuilean Darnizhaan moaned, "The power of ignorance can truly shatter
mithril like glass". The Order holds that this invisible realm is populated by the
spirits of the ancestors that move the strings of the Mundus for their own agencies
and that the Gods and Daedra are but the spirits of Ancestors who have attained
great power in the phantom world and were once mortals as perplexed by the power of
their ancestors as we are of theirs and so on back to the original Acharyai.

Thus for their sacred duty to seliffrnsae, or "provide grave and faithful counsel"
the Psijic Order recognizes the need to make good men strong and strong men good,
recognizing the threat in evil men in power causing cruelty that feeds Boethiah and
spreading hatred that feeds Vaernima, even being able to perhaps ascend to rule in
Oblivion should he die performing a particularly malevolent act and worst, inspire
other villains to power or other powerful men to villainy. The Order acts subtly to
prevent and discourage such demeanors by working as intelligence gatherers and
diplomats to orchestrate the fall of such men through crippling, humiliation,
impoverishment and imprisonment rather than through war, assasination and violence
which besides their spiritual significance are expensive, aleatric and likely to
cause as much damage as the downfall of such tyrants. However, the Psijics are
Faithful in their counsel in that they are loyal alone to the Old Ways detailing
that it is essential always to remember the spiritual world in watching our world.
Performing the Rites of Moawita on the 2nd of Hearth Fire and the Vigyld on the 1st
of Second Seed are essential means of empowering the salutary ghosts and
debilitating the unclean spirits. The tension between loyalty to those the counsel
and the ideology of Artaeum is a dangerous one for a Psijic may indeed become bound
to service to a lord in order to act as advisor and this lord rejects wise counsel
and orders the Psijic to commit an act contrary to the teachings of the old ways,
few options are available, mainly suicide and breaking the oath to the lord and
thus bringing shame upon the self and Artaeum, which may result in the Psijic not
being allowed home again. The proper balance of these practices is expressed in the
fundamental principle of their religion best described by the Sage Taheritae: "In
Mundus, conflict, disparity is what brings change, and change is most sacred of all
the eleven forces. Change is the force without focus or origin, and it is the duty
of the disciplined Psijic (enlightened one) to dilute change where it brings greed,
gluttony, sloth, ignorance, prejudice, cruelty ... (Taheritae lists the 111
Prodigalities) ... and to encourage change where it brings excellence, beauty,
happiness, and enlightenment. As such, the faithful counsel has but one master, his
mind. If the man the Psijic counsels acts wickedly and brings oegnithr ("bad
change") and will not be counselled, it is the Psijics duty to counterbalance the
oegnithr by any means necessary."
-The Old Ways by Celarus

•The God Jephre the Singer is said to be worshiped as God of Forest and Song and to
have walked with the elves in the elder days when they sang songs of power among
the trees and stars while walking the land alone. It's said that in those times
Jephre gave heed to the nature of the forests and delighted in the gurgling streams
and brooks. It was Jephre who taught the birds to sing their songs of the seasons
and He that taught the streams the tinkling ethereal tune. The very trees are said
to have moved close to hear him sing on the warm summer nights of those elder days.
It was in this time that the first great ballads of the elves were made, crafted
from the songs that Jephre taught to the sylvan youth who frolicked to his lively
tunes and ballads of nature and the unspoiled forest. In Valenwood, Jephre is among
the Major Sylvan Gods worshiped in the temples and altars in the deep woodland,
favorite of the Wood Elf Rangers and believed to have blessed those children gifted
for song and to have given the Wood Affinity with nature and the forest. In
Sumurset, Jephre taught the Sea Birds to sing, molded the crashing of waves in the
coast with whispers of power and gifted the High Elves with a beauty to match that
of their Island Home, to this day they hold the belief that the birds watch over
the land for him in repayment for his teaching of songs to them and that Jephre
sees and hears everything within distance of the crashing waves of the sea, be
beach, brook, stream or fall. The dark elves have a legend that Jephre walked the
earth before the first day, and in the light of the stars weaved a song so
beautiful that the very stars moved to its sway. Some of the stars to this very day
still wink and blink in memory of the song of night and darkness. Due to his
influence most if not all Elven Bards pay homage to Jephre. Jephre's temple has the
natural order of things as its basis in Valenwood and Sumurset and the one thing
Jephre won't forgive is the harmful manipulation of this natural order.
-Of Jephre by Anonymous

•In the mountains and valleys of High Rock there are those old Bretons who preserve
in oral tales passed to the young the knowledge of the origin of the universe as
they understand it, different and devoid of the fears in the interpretations of the
same story as told by priests as they themselves are haunted beings who have seen
too much and remain marked by the sight of ancient horrors, rendering them fearless
to anything but the fear that their people will forget. The storyteller, referred
to by his grandchildren as Granther, seeks to transmit this tale with the girl
Solara and her brother, the former having those slightly pointed ears betraying her
elven ancestry and magical heritage that reminded Granther of her grandmother. The
story is one of the two opposite primordial forces and calls them the Light and the
Dark, though others use different names such as Good and Evil, Bird and Serpent,
Order and Chaos, this is unimportant, only that they exist and their conflict
shapes all that is matters and this Battle will likely never be resolved. Immortal
as they don't really live, opposite and equal in every way and in an eternal
conflict, these two forces generate energies distorting their surroundings and life
can emerge like an eddy in a stream from these powers. Tamriel is the arena of
their battle and indeed, the gods and their Daedric Enemies, the tales of the
Eternal Champion, of King Edward and his Companions and of Reymon Ebonarm, all are
but pale reflections of this primordial conflict taking place across the ages. In
some of the ancient tales, The oldest inhabitants of this world -- no one seems to
be sure what race they were -- had a system of myths that they believed in for a
thousand years. The "people of et'Ada'' believed for so long and so well, that
their beliefs may, just may, have drawn upon the energies surrounding Tamriel to
bring the gods themselves into being. If that is so, the conflict between the Light
and the Dark provided the energy, and the et'Adans the structure that created the
gods of Tamriel. The truth of this is moot due to how ancient such events must have
been and the gods have their own existence now, and mostly align with the Light,
except for a few who are more ambiguous. Inmensurable and transcendental as the
Light and Dark are, mortals and the beings of the Aetherius sometimes can perceive
traces of them and affect them. Therein lies the danger for mortals can influence
them and their power and the Light and the Dark may too interact with mortals. The
destruction of a fire daedra strengthens the Light and weakens the Dark just a
little and in the same manner, destruction of a unicorn strengthens the Dark for
instance. Similarly, Mortals, even the misunderstood Dark Elves, are more aligned
with the light and it is true that the Undead and Daedra of Oblivion are closer to
the dark. But one shouldn't mistake this, the dark is not evil, nor is the light
good. Perhaps somewhere else it's different but in the world of Tamriel most
mortals see the Light as more congenial, even inspiring, and moving to behavior
that they would call good. To creatures like them, the Dark seems utterly evil.
Those who have visions of it are often driven mad, and the ones who are not would
be better dead. The Dark is a monstrous emptiness, an emptiness that sucks the soul
toward it -- to be twisted, maimed, and ultimately destroyed. Jagar Tharn himself
was so evil and dangerous not because he was a black mage like many would have us
believe but because he was almost utterly aligned with the dark, and this is what
made his reign such a dark epoch and both almost killed and drove Granther insane
with what he unleashed. Indeed, Tharn was only the greatest of the many weak-souled
beings the dark beckons with power to use them as agents to bring about its
insidious ascendency on the Arena. Though Tharn's reign has ended, the Dark still
lurks insidiously to bring chaos and new heroes will be needed to counteract them.
With this, Granther's story ended and he could continue playing with his
grandchildren.
-The Light And The Dark by Irek Unterge
•The statues of a Misshapen Humanoid holding a giant rod found throughout Elsweyr,
Valenwood and Hammerfell according to this mysterious text likely written by Madman
or a Sheogorath Worshiper is actually Ius, the Animal God and the origin of the rod
in his statues is said to originate in the tale of The Ox and the Evil Farmer
detailing a farmer who made a great meal killing systematically all of his
livestock to make a great meal until it was the turn of his Ox, who uttered a loud
moo in praying for rescue to Ius who immediately appearing holding a very large set
of Balance Weights and ate the farmer without explanation and then vanished, ever
since then Ius The Extremely Agitated has been portrayed carrying a large set of
scales. The author claims that his worshipers seemingly don't question or care
about this and the story is unattested but he himself has spoken with a racoon who
confirmed it by having talked to the Ox of the story before he became filler for
the local inn's larder. A second myth taking place in the town of Rockcreek in
Black Marsh exist though the author hasn't "confirmed" this second myth since it
happened long before the rule of Uriel VII, Cephorus II and even of Pelagius III
(whose name the author praises). The story speaks of a wombat who was the pet of
Lady Greelina, daughter of the Lord Prufrock of Rockcreek. Lady Greelina loved her
wombat so, and it loved her too with all the passionate intensity a marsupial can
muster. Unfortunately, it was a time of great sorrow in Rockcreek. A pestilence had
come through the town, destroying all their cash crops (which consisted of
raspberries and a few scraggly odd weeds that caused Argonian women to look very
attractive to those who partook); Then a plague had come, inflicting nearly every
cobbler with chronic hiccoughs; finally a witch had cursed the townspeople so the
only words any could utter were "Hmmm. Precisely." All the businesses, stores, and
guilds fled from the town and despite her adolescent life phase rendering her
uncommunicative with her father, Lady Greelina remembered that her wombat was a
sacred animal to Ius and went to her father for him to ask a wish of the wombat for
it to pray to Ius, but the Lord asked for a single business to forever remain in
the town and, having won the hatred to the wombat for licking it and attempting to
stick to the walls of the castle, it instead arranged for Ius to bring an Equipment
that would never go away blocking the entrance to the palace or Rockcreek which
remains to this day, this drove the royal family mad and to cannibalistic frenzy
upon each other on which the Wombat was the first victim.
-Ius, Animal God by Buljursoma

•The Temple of Stendarr sworn to the God of Mercy is the only temple that offers
the services of it's healers to both faithful and heathen and these healers act as
both doctors curing disease, poison and wound with medicine and restoration as well
as listeners and companions to the wounded, blighted and desperate that come before
them, giving them great wisdom and emphaty. A particularly amusing tale published
by an anonymous healer of the Temple speaks of how he had to inform a young boy
suffering many maladies that his condition would only get worse and likely die in
very few days before revealing the "good news" by reminding him of the enchanting,
voluptuous blonde woman in the antechamber by the foyer who was the temple's
proselytizer and saying that he will sleep with her, claiming this to be an example
of how healers should be more considerate with the feelings of their patients.
-The Healer's Tale by an Anonymous Healer of the Temple of Stendarr

•The Ebon Arm by Witten Rol is a tale of the intervention in a battle of Reymon
Ebonarm, the God of War also known as the Black Knight and the companion and
protector of all warriors depicted as a tall, muscular man clad from head to toe in
Ebony Armor not covering his reddish golden-blonde hair and soul-piercing blue
eyes, mounted on the Golden Stallion War Master, in his left hand a massive Ebony
Tower Shield with a Red Rose Insignia, in his right an arm and ebony sword fused
into one as result and symbol of wounds from titanic battles during the youth of
this world, followed by lightning and thunder and two looming ravens. The battle
was bloody ad the fields and rivers runner red, the sky reflected a reddish pink
color and the looming ravens and thunder and lightning shook the land as the
Ebonarm appeared, dismounted with the ravens on his arms and elevated his Ebony
Blade until it seemed to touch the sky with the roar of thunder and lightning,
shocking into order all present. The leaders of both armies present their cases for
war to him in search for his favor, Reymon listens but favors none of them as their
respective accounts make the leaders realize the baselessness of their conflict,
embrace and order retreat, entombing of the dead and tending of the wounded. As the
Ebonarm mounts again, he elevates his shield to show the Red Rose to both armies as
they cheer and departs with the ravens and thunder and lightning following behind
him close by while the retiring soldiers of both armies go, convinced he has
answered their individual prayers for victory as all won and none loss.
-The Ebon Arm by Witten Rol

•Ark'ay, the God of Birth and Death or Ark'ay Der Gott (German translation for some
reason in the files) by Mymophonus the scribe claims that the gods were once just
like mortals and sets the example with an old shopkeeper named Ark'ay whose
obsession with knowledge made him a book collectionist of any sort of wisdom until
he finally came to possess a tome promising the secrets of life, death and the
purpose of existence whose convoluted logic and opaque language swallowed his time
until he left his shop crumble, his friends desert him, ignore the plague ravaging
the town and his own family became ready to leave him. After months, he began to
understand but fell sick by the plague and his family tended him in his final days
out of a sense of duty. Feeling himself close to understanding the text completely,
Ark'ay prayed to Mara for more time to understand it and share it's wisdom with
others but Mara suspected this later promise was an invention to appeal to her and
asked for what he had learned. Ark'ay claimed that there far more souls than space
for them in the physical world within the universe and that birth allowed this
souls to learn and progress while death allowed more space for more birth of more
souls to take place in an endless cycle of balance. Mara found this to be not truth
per se but with an element of truth and gave Ark'ay a choice: Die or join her and
the other gods in the field he had chosen, as God of the cycle of Birth and Death,
in eternal labor to balance these two forces for eternity and commanding great
power but ever toiling and doubting the rightness of his choices as all gods do, an
unpleasant duty and condition in Mara's eyes. Ark'ay accepted the latter option and
promised to spread this which he had learned or at least the truest part of it to
mortals. So it was that Ark'ay the Mortal Shopkeeper became Arkay the God of Birth
and Death.
-Arkay, God of Birth and Death by Mymophonus the scribe

Oblivion and the Daedra

•The mad author of "Wabbajack" was a man attempting to summon Hermaeus Mora to gain
the Oghma Infinium but the storm and chance resulted in Sheogorath appearing
instead and giving him all sorts of senseless tasks before having a worshiper of
his surrender the Wabbajack to him. The man says many untrustworthiness things do
to his condition such as having learned the ritual to summon Mora from a voluptuous
woman in the Library while at the same time saying it was from a shady man under
the library and claiming the ritual involved waiting for a storm on Mora's
summoning day and for it to reach its pinnacle to shave a cat at that moment. He
also claims being the newly appointed King of Solitude and wanting the Infinium for
wise advise despite knowing the risks of summoning the forces of eternal darkness
and doing so without help from a Temple, Witch Coven or Mages Guild. In any event
the author surmises that "Maybe the Wabbajack is the Book of Knowledge. Maybe I'm
smarter because I know cats can be bats can be rats can be hats can be gnats can be
thats can be thises. And that doors can be boars can be snores can be floors can be
roars can be spores can be yours can be mine. I must be smart, for the
interconnective system is very clear to me. Then why, or wherefore do people keep
calling me mad? Wabbajack. Wabbajack. Wabbajack." Meaning that Sheogorath probably
did a little more than surrender Wabbajack to him.
-Wabbajack by Anonymous

•Many incorrectly use the term Daedra and Demon interchangeably, an inappropriate
practice probably dating back to the Alessian Doctrines published by the First Era
Prophet Marukh amusingly forbidding traficking with daimons without specifying what
daimons are, the term possiblity having root in the Elven word Daedra (which is
actually a plural, Daedroth being the singular) which describes the manifold
powerful beings of uncertain motives inhabiting the mysterious dimension of
Oblivion. the singular is "Daedroth.") In a later tract by King Hale the Pious of
Skyrim, almost a thousand years after the publication of the original Doctrines,
the evil machinations of his political enemies are compared to "the wickedness of
the demons of Oblivion... their depravity equals that of Sanguine itself, they are
cruel as Boethiah, calculating as Molag Bal, and mad as Sheogorath." Hale the Pious
thus long-windedly introduced four of the Daedra lords to written record. Thw First
Era also saw the publication of many Guides to Daedra Slaying, notices for raelated
Witch Burnings and other accounts mentioning them including diaries and journals
though the true experts, the Daedra Cults and Covens of the time, likely remained
underground and hidden from public eyes. From such texts and the equally
(un)trustworthy interviews with Daedra Lords the author has summoned, it can be
surmised that Oblivion encompasses many synonymous lands including Quagmire,
Coldharbour and Moonshadow seemingly ruled by the foremost among the Daedra, the
Daedra Princes, with the healthy conjecture that each realm is ruled by a prince
being not entirely unlikely. appear over and over in ancient records (though this
is not an infallible test of their authenticity or explicit existence, to be sure)
are the afore-mentioned Sanguine, Boethiah, Molag Bal, and Sheogorath, and in
addition, Azura, Mephala, Clavicus Vile, Vaernima, Malacath, Hoermius (or Hermaeus
or Hormaius or Herma -- there seems to be no one accepted spelling) Mora, Namira,
Jyggalag, Nocturnal, Mehrunes Dagon, and Peryite (Meridia and Hircine mysteriously
missing here). From experience, Daedra are a very mixed lot. It is almost
impossible to categorize them as a whole except for their immense power and
penchant for extremism, though is possible to make such classification for the sake
of scholastic expediency: Mehrunes Dagon, Molag Bal, Peryite, Boethiah, and
Vaernima are among the most consistently "demonic" of the Daedra, in the sense that
their spheres seem to be destructive in nature. The other Daedra can, of course, be
equally dangerous, but seldom purely for the sake of destruction as these five can.
Nor are these previous five identical in their destructiveness. Mehrunes Dagon
seems to prefer natural disasters -- earthquakes and volcanoes -- for venting his
anger. Molag Bal elects the employment of other daedra, and Boethiah inspires the
arms of mortal warriors. Peryite's sphere seems to be pestilence, and Vaernima's
torture. The author is thereafter bend on two further studies on Oblivion: The
first is on the possible Daedra Prince Hircine called Huntsman of the Princes and
Father of Manbeasts he hasn't been able to find much about and neither nobody who
can summon him: and the Second being on finding a way to enter Oblivion itself to
study it despite the dangers.
-On Oblivion by Morian Zenas

•According to an anonymous High Priestess of Azura who has served her for over
three hundred years, for her and her coven Azura is considered a cruel but wise and
beautiful mistress who is the Daedra Prince of Moonshadow, Mother of the Rose and
Queen of the Nightsky summoned each Hogithum celebrated the 21st day of First Seed
to be given gifts of beauty and be asked for guidance except when there are
thunderstorms for those nights belong to the Mad One Sheogorath and Azura
understands the caution of avoiding him. They also may summon her on other dates
and she often responds but forbids summonings on the Summoning Days of other
princes: the 1st and the 13th of Morning Star, the 2nd and the 16th of Suns Dawn,
the 5th of First Seed, the 9th of Rains Hand, the 9th of Second Seed, the 5th of
Mid Year, the 10th of Suns Height, the 3rd of Hearth Fire, the 8th and the 13th of
Frost Fall, the 2nd and 20th of Suns Dusk, and the 20th of Evening Star. The
priestess knows who is summoned on the 3rd of Hearth Fire, the 2nd of Suns Dusk,
and the 20th of Evening Star, but not in the other dates and trusts Azura to the
point that only matters that they are forbidden. The priestess claims that Azura's
invocation is a personal one and that she values the quality of her worshipers and
the truth behind their love and adoration for her. When the priestess was a Dark
Elven maiden of sixteen, she joined my grandmother's coven of Molag Bal, the
Schemer Prince. Blackmail, extortion, and bribery are as much the weapons of the
Witches of Molag Bal as magic is and then she learned that Molan Bal's summoning is
held on the 20th of Evening Star, except in stormy weather. This ceremony is seldom
missed, but Molag Bal often appears to his cultists in mortal guise on other dates.
When her grandmother died in an attempt to poison the heir of Firewatch, she
reexamined my faith in the cult. Her brother, a warlock of the cult of Boethiah,
told her that the Dark Warrior was closer to her spirit than the treacherous Molag
Bal as Boethiah is a warrior Prince who acts more avertly than any other Daedra and
indeed ater years of skulking and scheming, it felt good to perform acts for a
mistress which had immediate consequences and besides for a Daedra of the Dark
Elves. Their cult would summon her on the day they called the Gauntlet, the 2nd of
Suns Dusk and bloody competitions would be held in her honor, and the duels and
battles would continue until nine cultists were killed at the hands of other
cultists. Boethiah cared little for her cultists, only for the spilling of blood
and the horror of the author when she accidentally killed her brother pleased
Boethiah and she saw her smile at that moment. Boethiah's impersonal and savage
spirit wasn't enough for her and thus she passed the next eighteen years studying
and researching about cults rather than worshiping one until one old and profane
tome led her to Nocturnal the Nightmistress As the book prescribed, she called to
her on her holy day, the 3rd of Hearth Fire and in Nocturnal she had found the
personal mistress she had so long desired. She strove to understand her
labyrinthine philosophy and the source of her mysterious pain, for Everything about
her was dark and shrouded, even the way she spoke and the acts she required of her.
It took years for the priestess to understand the simple fact that she could never
understand Nocturnal for her mystery was as essential to her as savagery was to
Boethiah or treachery was to Molag Bal. Thus she writes: "To understand Nocturnal
is to negate her, to pull back the curtains in her realm of darkness. As much as I
loved her, I recognized the futility of unravelling her enigmas. I turned instead
to her sister, Azura." And indeed in Azura she found a Daedra who does care for her
cultists, where Molag Bal wanted her mind, Boethiah her arms and Nocturnal perhaps
her curiosity, Azura wanted all of that and her love, not their abject slavering,
but honest and genuine love in all its forms as it is important to her that their
emotions are engaged and that their love must also be directed inward for if they
love her and hate themselves, she feels their pain. Thus she concludes she will
have no other mistress.
-Invocation Of Azura, by Sigillah Parte

Faction Lore

•The idea of a collection of Mages, Sorcerors, and assorted Mystics pooling their
resources and talents for the purpose of research and public charity was a
revolutionary concept in the early years of the 2nd era. The closest organization
to what we today know as the Mages Guild was the Psijic Order of the Isle of
Artaeum. Magic was something to be learned by individuals, or, at most, in intimate
covens; mages were, if not actual hermits, usually quite solitary. The Psijic Order
served the rulers of the Sumurset Isle as counselors, and chose its members by a
complex, ritualized method not understood by the common people. Its purposes and
goals were likewise unpublished, and its detractors attributed the worst evil as
the source of its power. The religion of the old order could be described as
ancestor worship, an increasingly unfashionable philosophy in the 2nd Era. When
Vanus Galerion, a Psijic of Artaeum and student of the famed Iachesis, began
collecting mages from around Sumurset Isle, he attracted the animosity of all. He
was operating out of Firsthold, and there was a common (and not entirely
unsensible) attitude that magical experiments should be conducted only in
unpopulated areas. Even more shocking, Galerion proposed to make magical items,
potions, and even spells available to any member of the general public who could
pay. No longer was magic to be limited either to the aristocracy or intelligensia.
So it was that Galerion met with the King of Firsthold, Rilis XIII, and Iachesis to
persuade them of approving his charter to form his Mages Guild, in hay transpired
between them was unrecorded and a matter of speculation but the Mages Guild Charter
was indeed approved. Almost immediately after the guild was formed, the question of
security had to be answered. The Isle of Artaeum did not have to have a force of
arms to shield it from invaders interested in stealing its treasures -- when the
Psijic Order does not wish someone to land on the island, the island and all on it
become insubstantial. The new Mages Guild had to hire guards. Galerion soon
discovered what nobles have known for thousands of years: money alone does not buy
loyalty. The knightly Order of the Lamp was formed the following year. Soon enough
the guild spread and formed branches all across Sumurset and Tamriel, some kings
decided to forbid them in their land but their heirs would eventually allow them in
in time after realizing the benefits of their services and the dangers of having
the guild as foe rather than as a disinterested but useful ally. Since its
inception, the guild has attempted to stand neutral in Tamrielic Politics but it's
branches have occasionally acted on such matters and in such occasions has
ultimately decided the result of the struggle. By tradition begun by Vanus
Galerion, the Mages Guild as a singular institution is presided over by a council
of six Archmagisters. Each guild location is run by a Guildmagister, assisted by a
counsel of two, the Master of Incunubula and the Master at Arms. The Master of
Incunubula presides over a counsel of an additional two mages: the Master of
Academia and the Master of the Scrye. The Master at Arms also has a counsel of two:
the Master of Initiates and the Palatinus, the leader of the Order of the Lamp. One
need not be a member of the Mages Guild to know that this carefully constructed
order is often nothing more than an illusion. As Vanus Galerion himself said
bitterly, leaving Tamriel to travel to other lands, "The Guild has become nothing
more than an intricate morass of political infighting."
-The Origin of the Mages Guild by Archmage Salarth

•Sollicich-on-Ker, the estates of a minor nobleman named Lord Gyrnasse was the
birthplace of Vanus Galerion, born as a serf named Trechtus to two laborers. The
Lord had been advised that literate serfs were an abomination of nature dangerous
to themselves and their masters and thus prohibited learning and the functions of
booksellers, poets and teachers outside of his keep, but Trechtus' father had
taught himself and his son to read in secret and directed an smuggling operation of
books. When Trechtus was eight years old, the operation was betrayed from the
inside, some rumors say among other things that the treachery came from Trechtus'
own mother who was an ignorant and heavily religious and superstitious woman, but
the result was an inexistent trial and the hanging on Trechtus' father for all to
see in public dor weeks during the hottest summer the settlement had seen in
centuries. Three months later, Trechtus ran away from Lord Gyrnasse's estate. He
made it as far as Alinor, half-way across Sumurset Isle. A band of troubadours
found him nearly dead, curled up in a ditch by the side of the road, nursed him to
health, and employed him as an errand boy in return for food and shelter. One of
the troubadours, a soothsayer named Heliand began testing Trechtus' mind and found
the boy, though shy, to be preternaturally intelligent and sophisticated given his
circumstances. Heliand recognized in the boy a commonality, for Heliand had been
trained on the Isle of Artaeum as a mystic. When the troubadours performed on the
village of Potansa on the far eastern ends of Sumurset, Heliad presentes the eleven
years old Trechtus to the Magistrate of the Isle of Artaeum, Iachesis, who
recognized his potential and took him as a pupil with a new name, Vanus Galarion,
to be trained in Artium. From the Psijics of Artaeum, Vanus won his magical
mastery, and from his childhood of injustice and abuse, his philosophy to share
knowledge.
-Galerion The Mystic, by Asgrim Kolsgreg

•The Isle of Artaeum (ar-TAY-um) is the third largest island in the Summurset
archipelago, located south of the Moridunon village of Potansa and west of the
mainland village of Runcibae. It is best known for being home to the Psijic Order,
possibly the oldest Monastic Order of Tamriel and one practicing The Elder Way and
acting as counselors to kings and rulers as an already well-established
Organization by 1E 20, when their existence was first recorded by the Breton Sage
Voernet who travelled to the Isle in order to meet the Ritemaster Iachesis of the
Psijics. The Elder Way is a philosophy of meditation and study said to bind the
forces of nature to the individual will. It differs from magicka in origin, but the
effects are much the same. The order along Artaeum itself literally disappeared off
the shores of Summurset in the Second Era around the time of the foundation of the
Mages Guild, an event to which this disappearance is linked according to some
theories. The isle and the order reappeared 500 years later, offering no
explanation — or being unable to — as to how and why they disappeared from the land
and reappeared again or what happened with the original Council of Artaeum and the
Ritemaster Iachesis, but is known that their members consisted of many persons,
mostly elves, who had disappeared and dimmed dead across the Second Era. Currently,
the Psijics are led by the Loremaster Celarus, who has presided over the Council of
Artaeum for the last two hundred and fifty years. The Council's influence in
Tamrielan politics is tidal. The kings of Sumurset, particularly those of
Moridunon, have often sought the Psijics' opinion. Emperor Uriel V was much
influenced by the Council in the early, most glorious parts of his reign, before
his disastrous attack on Akavir. It has even been suggested that the fleet of King
Orghum of Pyandonea was destroyed by a joint effort of Emperor Antiochus and the
Psijic Order. The last four emperors, Uriel VI, Morihatha, Pelagius IV, and Uriel
VII, have been suspicious of the Psijics enough to refuse ambassadors from the Isle
of Artaeum within the Imperial City. The Isle of Artaeum is difficult to chart
geographically. It is said that it shifts continuously either at random or by
decree of the Council. Visitors to the island are so rare as to be almost unheard
of. Anyone desirous of a meeting with a Psijic may find contacts in Potansa and
Runcibae as well as many of the kingdoms of Summurset. Despite how difficult it is
to access it, the isle is extremely beautiful and those who visit it even briefly
are overwhelmed by it and may dream of it constantly. Remarkable features include
idyllic orchards and clear pastures, its still and silent lagoons, its misty
woodlands, and the unique Psijic architecture that seems to be as natural as its
surroundings as well as wondrous in its own right, The Ceporah Tower in particular,
for it is a relic from a civilization that predates the High Elves by several
hundred years and is still used in certain rites by the Psijics. The author of On
Artaeum visited the island once before the publication of the book and was on a
second visit by gracious consent of Master Sargenius of the Council of Artaeum at
the time of the publication.
-On Artaeum by Taurce il-Anselma
•The Thieves Guild, according to confessions from a thief by an anonymous member is
no band of greedy amateurish robbers as many think but an organized association of
criminals from all occupations in a given region under Guildmasters offering all
sorts of benefits including training, payment for jobs, a place to stay and the
possibility to bribe authorities and forge documents to get them out of trouble. So
it is that Guild organized crime and builds power to establish a monopoly and crush
competition but this would make them dangerous and feared by the authorities if not
for the fact that they often treat with them in the shadows or in an unspoken
accord with the Guild regulating crime to stop the clumsy and greedy of their kind,
for as a member puts it: "The trick is to keep it at a good even pace, with a well
timed lull and a minor wave to keep the fat bottoms from becoming complacent" thus
stimulating economy and making profit while keeping rulers placated and freelancers
out of power, making them outlaws but ones who are almost universally tolerated and
look over one another in a business relation some equate with an idea of "Honor
Among Thieves" on which many take pride or of which they are at least not ashamed
and consider themselves better than many merchants and priests.
-Confessions Of A Thief by Anonymous

•The Morag Tong is believed to have originated as an ancient series is disorganized

cults of assassins who couldn't murder any important ruler out of fear but we're
pledged to the Daedra Mephala who encouraged their ritual murder. This changed with
the rise of the Night Mother who united these cults into a dreadful and far
reaching Organization of Assassins under the doctrine that Mephala's power grew
with every murder but more so with those commited because of passions like hate
rather than base and weak desires like greed and that the murder of important
personages meant more than that of relative unknowns. The leader of the Morag Tong
and later the Dark Brotherhood has always been known as The Night Mother but is not
known of she's truly a woman or whether she has been the same person all this time
or have been many women with the same title. Is believed that approximately at the
same time when this doctrine was imposed, the Morag Tong committed it's first known
murder in the year 324 of the Second Era, as the Potentate Versidue-Shaie was
murdered in his palace in what is today the Elsweyr kingdom of Senchal. In a brash
move, the Night Mother announced the identity of the murderers by painting "MORAG
TONG" on the walls in the Potentate's own blood and the fracturing kingdoms of
Tamriel who had previously thought the Morag Tong to be rather harmless came to
fear them and outlawed and persecuted them thoroughly rather than sporadically at
had previously been done in a similar way as the treatment of Witch Covens is
today. The Morag Tong went into obscurity and for many years guilds of assassins
rose and fall before the rose again as the Dark Brotherhood. The first mention of
the Dark Brotherhood that I have found is from the journals of the Blood Queen
Arlimahera of Hegathe. She spoke of slaying her enemies by her own hand, or if
necessary "with the help of the Night Mother and her Dark Brotherhood, the secret
arsenal my family has employed since my grandfather's time." Arlimahera wrote this
in 2E412, so one can surmise that the Dark Brotherhood had been in existence since
at least 360 if her grandfather had truly made use of them.

The Dark Brotherhood expanded quickly and became very influential due to it's key
difference from their Morag Tong predecessors in that they were not only a cult but
also a business offering the invaluable service of assasination to wealthy
merchants and rulers rendering them very rich, far-reaching and impossible to
persecute for the importance of their employment and the power they acquired making
even the most virtuous rulers fearful of denouncing them. Not long after
Alimahera's journal entry came perhaps the most famous series of executions in the
history of the Dark Brotherhood. The Colovian Emperor-Potentate Savirien-Chorak and
every one of his heirs were murdered on one bloody night in Sun's Dawn in 430.
Within a fortnight, the Colovian Dynasty crumbled, to the delight of its enemies,
the nations and petty kingdoms of Tamriel disintegrated into chaos and war for over
four hundred years, until the advent of the Warrior Emperor Tiber Septim who
unified the land under a new empire. The Dark Brotherhood thrived in the years
between the rise of Tiber I and and their famous murder of Savirien-Chorak. Today,
the Brotherhood remains strong and thriving across the empire with no shortage of
"accountings" their favorite euphemism for execution and while they are ofically
illegal as an organization, they are almost universally tolerated most like the
Thieves Guild.
-The Brothers of Darkness by Pellarne Assi

Tales and Stories

•There are many tales about the Bard Kieran, which are classified into three
categories: the Woodland Cycle, Castles and Kings, and an unnamed cycle of lusty
tales (recently destroyed by mysterious accident). Some are in the bard's own hand,
while others, mere shadows of the originals, remain only as bedtime tales for
children. The structure exemplifies the helical form favoured by listeners about
the hearth on a long winter's eve. As to whether they describe real events, be
allegory, or be mere entertaining fancy, the reader must decide. One is about the
Bard being in the road from Wren to Fairtree and being asked by a mother robin bird
to feed her young and having caterpillar bade him be merciful and then an earthworm
claim princedom over earthworms whose millions of subjects keep the growth of
plants to infest the human gardens for eons in check and offered this service to
Kieran's garden in exchange for being spared, which he did to take instead a grub.
Trowbridge ruled by King Caladan and his princess Einlea was a prosperous town full
of commerce despite trouble with Carthan to the west three years prior, which ended
when the little known wandering Wizard Loziard interfered on Caladan's favor to
avoid bloodshed and was allowed to remain in town despite causing discomfort
because of this. But when Caladan chose to give up his crown to his whimsical and
spoiled child, the mage decided it was only just that he should rule instead.

Now, magic is a tricky thing. Like all forces in the world, it must be kept in
balance. As surely as day balances night and summer balances winter, so too must
positive magic balance negative. For every hurtful or destructive spell, there must
be an act of equal goodness or charity lest trouble overflow into the world. For
every black wizard, there must be a white. For every spell of combat destruction,
there must be healing. Know ye this ...if all who practice magic cast naught but
healing or protective spells, dark, horrible forces would build up until chaos and
ruin would burst forth and rain our doom down upon us. Thus may spells of healing
be broken by harm, and the worst of spells be broken by charity.

Thus did the evil Wizard turn her into a worm as she was about to be crowned in her
birthday to prevent the evil act of killing her. The girl was terrified and for ten
days had to avoid predators and learn to survive pass her habits of spoiled child
until by chance, she turned up to be the Grub Kieran found. Unable to kill the
mouthless but clearly pleading creature, Kieran fed the robins his last piece of
fatty mutton and left the grub on a rock to leave when it turned back into a woman,
the act of kindness having broken the spell. The girl took the Bard's cost and went
away, running to her small kingdom disguised as a shepherd to confront the mage who
had tried to get rid of her while the Bard, interested in what had just happened
and wanting his coat back, followed the woman to Trowbridge. What happened next, is
a tale for another day.
-A Tale Of Kieran by Vegepythicus, editor

•The written story of Oelandar's Hammer speaks of two children of the Redguard
village of Granitsta Froedwig aj-Murr and his younger sister Silvanda, who went
into a wood in the wilderness to explore and a wide field with a single Red Rose in
the middle which was said to be the place where Reymon Ebonarm stood the day he
presented himself in a battlefield to make peace between both sides, there a
Redguard Ranger named Groevinger stops them before they enter a hole full of pointy
vines with a resplendent object in the middle. Groevinger reveals that the day
Ebonarm stopped that battle, a man named Oelandar had been fighting in it and held
a powerful and valuable Warhammer given to him by his father and enchanted to
protect him throughout the battle unbeknownst to him and as he retired, an evil
mage came to demand the hammer from him on pain of death but Oelandar laughed at
him and crushed his skull with the weapon quickly just as he was about to cast his
spell, causing an explosion. Both of them disappeared when the dust cleared,
leaving instead am abyss covered on deadly vines with only the Hammer's handle
protunding from the earth remaining, waiting for a noble hero to be able to claim
it once more, which hasn't happened despite many attempts at doing so. The children
decide to return home but the boy considere one day claiming the hammer. It must be
said however, that this story is described as "An Instructive Tale For Children".
-Oelander's Hammer by Krowle

•The legend of Mara's Tear details the relation of Mara and Shandar, to children of
two villages who played with each other and found love when they grew up. This was
very different from their parents because Shandar was the son of Maldor, who was
captured in a war and forced to work as a slave for the village baron. Their
village and another both needed the land between them to feed the villagers, and
fought and fought, until many of the villagers died. Maldor was wounded in battle,
and left for dead by his fellows. He was captured and forced to work in the fields
as punishment. Shandar was not allowed to play with Mara, but she was very small
and the other children didn't like to play with her, so she played with Shandar
against her father's command. And they learned that they were really not very
different at all. One day, they tried to escape for a new place beyond the hate
that divided them and their peoples but were caught and Shandar was imprisoned and
marked for hanging the next day by the Baron while Mara's family betrothed her to a
noble for marriage just a week afterwards. In despair, Mara fled to the woods until
she turned up lost and slept on a rock that was in truth the entrance to an evil
Orc's lair who captured her to eat her, when none could muster the courage to seek
her in the area where the Orc dwelled, Shandar was released to find her and he did
manage to find the cave and kill the orc at the cost of a mortal wound to himself,
when the villagers came, Mara was weeping on his dying body as he prayed for
salvation to Mara, Goddess of Love. With no power over death but moved by the true
love of the couple, Mara took them on her arms and placed them in the sky to become
the Moons of Mara's Tear and Shandar's Sorrow to be together forever and shine a
light in the darkness of the night for others. These events amazed the villagers
who left their conflict and vowed to know each other and learn from the love of the
ascended couple and so it was that their story became immortalized.
-Mara's Tear by Zhen

•In remembrance of the murder of Her Terrible Majesty, Kintyra II, Empress of
Tamriel, on the frozen morning of the 23rd of Frost Fall, in the year 3E 123, each
year the grim holiday of Broken Diamonds is celebrated with special sorrow or some
say shame, for the people of Glenumbra Moors. On the 19th of Frost Fall, every
year, they would walk to a ruined castle in the middle of the wilderness, together
with everyone else in the Moors. Hands clutched in hands, they would form an
enormous circle around the ruins, and with head reverently bowed would sing a
song, the Sepharve or Sephavre, a word and song in Old Bretic passed from parents
to children whose meaning has been lost. Few adults share why they do this but most
children learn from their elders or in universities afterward that they mourn the
inaction and conformance with evil of their grand grand grandparents who knew of
Kintyra's imprisonment yet did nothing to save her and let her die by an unknown
cutthroat under the orders of Uriel III. At this news, all the horrified and shamed
people of Glenpoint and Glenumbra Moors searched out those responsible in every
Imperial castle. They formed barriers with their bodies to hold the killer within.
Flags bearing the Red Diamond of the Septim family were torn and scattered, and
broken diamonds littered the snow. To this day, those scholars who can translate
Bretic can't properly interpret what Sephavre means but the whole song has one grim
translation: "The Sephavre Souls of our fathers, suffer deeply, For you have led us
to the dark time, When our own souls, filled with air, Allowed ignorance and
villiany to thrive In what used to be our land. Howl, ancestors, howl and bring us
Memories of our conformance with evil. We do anything we can to survive, Giving up
our minds and hearts and bodies We will not fight, and we will be torn And like
flotsam in a whirling tide We will be forever the agents of injustice But we will
mourn it forever." The citizens of Glenumbra and their children enjoy all other
holidays like any other even not knowing at early ages what they are really about
but the day of Broken Diamonds still haunts them all.
-Broken Diamonds by Ryston Baylor

•A Dubious Tale of the Crystal Tower is an story told to the author who committed
it to paper, Bibenus Geon, when he first entered to study in the tower, a dubious
story passed from one initiate to the next of a jobless bard in Sumurset who
couldn't find work until a tall, robed elf who turned out to be one of the
Magistrates of the Crystal Tower showed up to offer him an opportunity: The famous
Animal Pens of the Crystal Tower held a recently deceased White Ape and a party of
the royalty of Firsthold was about to come to gaze upon the specimen, this bard was
to wear of costume for a few days to take the beast's place and be paid for it. So
the Bard accepted and with the passage of days found himself fitting perfectly for
the role with his acrobatics and roars before an encounter with a White Wolf who
turned out to be another actor who told him that his cries for help at the sight of
an apparent wolf could get "them all" fired.
-A Dubious Tale Of The Crystal Tower by Bibenus Geon

•The Grey Falcon is an old, anonymously tale in an unknown language (because it

isn't specified, not because it's unknown to Tamriellians) translated for modern
audiences and in a simpler tone for popular understanding by the royal
archeologists Anido Jhone, who dated the document to some point in the Second Era
after Knahaten Flu plague. The tale is one of a High Elven Warship, The Grey
Falcon, of the Sumurset Navy patrolling the deep oceans for a known pirate ship,
the sunset of the 22nd day of the voyage the enemy finally appeared in starboard,
forward quarter as seen by the Lookout who informed the Captain. The hands went to
battle stations, the archers went to their posts but fireballs and ice bolts
shattered the ship's hull and an arrow pierced the Captain's throat. A Khajiit
Mercenary attached to the ship named Helnor Snarlsbane and one the ship's sailors
named Darik Seaspit managed to get in one of the lifeboats, supplied according to
the Sumurset Navy Regulation with enough water and food for seven people for ten
days but their lifeboat had its food confiscated for irregularities by Lieutenant
Inspector Windhollow just before the event, as described in a note where the
supplies were and thus they found themselves with more than enough water but no
food. Six weeks later, the port of Corwich in High Rock welcomed the lifeboat with
the lone Khajiit and the bones of the High Elf, with a local Inquisitor
interrogating the survivor given the dim view of cannibalism in High Rock. The
Khajiit explained that they had no food and they decided that one eating the other
was the only way one of them would survive. The Inquisitor then asked by the Lady
how they came to choose him over the sailor and the Khajiit claimed Darik let him
survive because he himself was a vegetarian. That answer seemed to satisfy
inquisitor
-The Epic Of The Grey Falcon by Anonymous. Translated by Anido Jhone, Royal
Archaeologist

•The Arrowshot Woman is a popular urban legend about a woman in the hot summer of
Riverhold, a city whose Marketplace is ever crowded compared to other cities of
comparable size by both locals and peoples from the countryside. This woman had
been victim of the explosion of a Barley Dough recipient whose arrow shooting-like
sound led her to believe she had been shot in the back of her head and the barley
dough in it was his brains going out, making her stay put in there with her hands
in her head's back to prevent her own death until a friendly man named Terrom
brought healers and knights to help her and discover the comical situation.
-The Arrowshot Woman by Anonymous

•According to Waughin Jarth, his passed across the generations the tale of his
Great Great Granduncle (or Great Great Great Granduncle, he isn't sure), of his
life as warden of n Asylum at Torval when the Mad Emperor Pelagius III was brought
there and given an entire wing for his personal use from a resort in Valenwood, in
an economic crisis and having to children to whom to transmit this story, Jarth
published it: A tale of how Pelagius was truly well-educated and polite while never
being mistreated in his paradoxical role as both inmate and ruler when he was kept
away from the citizens coming to gawk at their loon of an overlord until a member
of the personnel told him of the people coming to visit him. Pelagius went maniacal
with excitement and Empress Regent Katariah, eager to make him happy, conceded the
"asylum ball that was to be organized at Pelagius' wing. A pit had to be
constructed to house the orchestra; servants for cooking and serving the food had
to be hired; gold and ebony candelebras and matching chandeliers were ordered,
Pelagius was given a facsimile of the imperial throne to welcome guests and clerks
helped him to sent invitations according to who was dead, who was alive and who was
imaginary. When nobody came, Pelagius locked himself in his room for days
constantly ordering more wine while maniacally laughing and crying before starting
to cut himself and those trying to help him with the Red Diamond of his imperial
robe. After the incident, Pelagius was transferred to a more secure asylum in Black
Marsh and a few years later Jarth's Great Great Granduncle heard of the emperor's
death just before going through the personal properties of another deceased noble
among his patients, a duchess suffering kleptomania, a pile of treasure behind
elaborate traps including all the invitations send for Pelagius' Asylum Ball.
-The Asylum Ball by Waughin Jarth

•Banker's Bet is an humorous tale of an astute old woman coming to the Daggerfall
Bank to deposit Thirty Million Gold Pieces in two giant bags as big as her to the
bank, meeting the bank president and confessing that her gist for betting was the
reason of her richness, making one right away by betting 25,000 gold pieces that by
the morning of the next day when she returned to the bank along with his son to
make the transaction, the president will have feathers on his testicles. The next
morning, the sleepy and excited president who had carefully kept his organ clean of
any interference met the old lady again and at her petition threw away his plans
for her to examine his testicles carefully, which drove her son mad with contempt
as the woman had bet with him 100,000 gold pieces that by the time of the meeting,
she would be literally holding the president by his balls.
-The Banker's Bet by Porbert Lyttumly

•The townfolk around Gerthland Manor tell often of seeing two lovers in their
nightly meeting. The Boar's Bristle Inn is always rumbling with conversation about
them. Lord Gerthland and Lady Madylina who were betrothed. Lord Gerthland called to
battle to defend the land. Hergen, the castle's resident sorcerer, becoming
enflamed with love and lust for Madylina only to be rebuked by her. Lord
Gerthland's death on the field of battle. Lady Madylina's death by her own hand at
the news. Hergen's curse on both their souls that will not allow them to rest until
Madylina will agree to become Hergen's consort even in death. Hergen, to this day,
wanders the deserted halls of Gerthland Manor hoping that Madylina will agree to
his demands. And the lovers continue to meet for a few moments each night on the
shores of the lake now known as Lover's Lament, sprouting many tales about their
meetings in the night with Madylina coming with a lamp to shed light upon the lake
reflecting the moon and speak with the apparition of her love of their loss and
desire until dawn.
-The Legend Of Lover's Lament By Croll Baumoval