The Elder Scrolls XVI: Sworn to Carry Your Burdens

[Fyraltari]

They're not equivalent; remember Tamriel's legal system is 'guilty until proven innocent' NOT the other way around.

Hold on, the law protects entities "any reasonable person might assume to be sentient." That means all those people with minotaur heads mounted on their walls are breaking the law. Or those people enslaving ogres.


On an unrelated note, Lucien Lachance's name translates to Lucky Luke, but the characters have nothing in common. Does anyone know if that's intentional or not?

[Rater202]

Hold on, the law protects entities "any reasonable person might assume to be sentient." That means all those people with minotaur heads mounted on their walls are breaking the law. Or those people enslaving ogres.


On an unrelated note, Lucien Lachance's name translates to Lucky Luke, but the characters have nothing in common. Does anyone know if that's intentional or not?

Morrowind has you find the last words of a man named Peke Utchoo. Pronounced exactly the way you think it is.

I would assume that any shoutout you think you see is deliberate unless otherwise stated.

the elder Scrolls Series is lousy with them.

[Grim Portent]

Hold on, the law protects entities "any reasonable person might assume to be sentient." That means all those people with minotaur heads mounted on their walls are breaking the law. Or those people enslaving ogres.

Minotaurs, ogres and goblins are generally considered non-sapient (or non-people, which is probably a more accurate statement) savages by the races of men, mer and khajiit/argonians, so I would think that the various law enforcement groups in the empire would scoff at the notion that the protections of the law apply to them. Of course the same groups used to consider orcs as not being people.

I do recall some of the in game books speculating that the goblins at least are sapient, so some scholars in universe think they should be considered people, and goblins and ogres have been part of some of the iterations of Orsinium alongside the orcs.

Minotaurs are stated to have been considered people in the early days of the Alessian Empire, but were dehumanized by the political efforts of the Alessian Order and driven into the wild. Since then they seem to be considered as being non-people. All this despite the assumed link between them and Morihaus Breath-of-Kyne and Belharza Man-Bull, which would make them literal descendants of the first emperor of Cyrodiil and Kynareth.

[Rynjin]

To put it another way, any given minotaur probably has a better claim to the throne than Titus Mede did but they were un-personed a long time ago by a group of religious zealots and have devolved into bestial tribes. A lot like the Falmer in that last respect.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

The Dunmer at various points considered humans, Khajiit, and Argonians to be animals. I think we can safely say that Tamriel in general is extremely prejudiced.

[snooker]

The Dunmer at various points considered humans, Khajiit, and Argonians to be animals. I think we can safely say that Tamriel in general is extremely prejudiced.

I don't blame them -- Khajiiti are crooks, savages, smugglers, junkies. In the games, almost every khajiit we see falls into one of these categories. Who do you think creates the skooma? Why are khajiit thieves so common? Or, more importantly, why hasn't Ulfric stormcloak done something about all the dunm*r living in his backyard?

[Rynjin]

Yeah, the funny thing about the racial prejudice against Khajiit snd Argonians (especially the former) is the prejudice is fairly well justified.

Khajiit are the next best thing to RELIGIOUSLY OBLIGATED to be *******s, and Argonians are weird, unknowable eldritch horrors with unknown motivations and unclear loyalties...who may or may not be a hivemind.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

Khajiit are the next best thing to RELIGIOUSLY OBLIGATED to be *******s, and Argonians are weird, unknowable eldritch horrors with unknown motivations and unclear loyalties...who may or may not be a hivemind.

But you’ll note that none of that makes them animals. Also, until ESO we didn’t meet many Khajiit or Argonians in their homelands, just the ones adventurous enough to leave home or who were forced to leave for whatever reason. How many Twilight Cantors did we meet in other games? How many priests of Khenarthi, or Sap Speakers? We’re only getting a tiny subsection of either culture.

[Keltest]

But you’ll note that none of that makes them animals. Also, until ESO we didn’t meet many Khajiit or Argonians in their homelands, just the ones adventurous enough to leave home or who were forced to leave for whatever reason. How many Twilight Cantors did we meet in other games? How many priests of Khenarthi, or Sap Speakers? We’re only getting a tiny subsection of either culture.

Sure, which is why if i make a coat out of a khajiit, i'll get arrested for it in most areas of Tamriel. But also, if only criminals and crazy people leave their homelands... Thats not a good way to advocate against prejudice.

[Lurkmoar]

So... Wuunferth the Unliving, Ulfric's Court Wizard, is a necromancer, right?

I thought the Archmage mentioned that Necromancy hasn't been banned at the College since the Oblivion War. There's always the off chance that Wuunferth is so old, he wasn't technically lying.

[Grim Portent]

I think the thing with Wuunferth is likely a miscommunication when writing dialogue that never got fixed, it seems likely that they originally wrote necromancy as banned but then changed their mind while writing/recording the dialogue for the actual college but had already done Wuunfeth and never got around to going back and changing it.


Speculation is fun though, so there's a few options. It's worth remembering though that the woman who says he dabbles in necromancy is generally considered the town gossip, so she probably spreads around basically any rumour she hears or makes up and isn't an authority on the matter.

Wuuferth could be mistaken about the current rules from the college, but Savos Aren says necromancy was never forbidden by the college, only by the Mages Guild which is a separate institution, so no matter how old Wuunferth is he can't be mistaken when he talks about the college stance on necromancy, so he has to be lying.

He could be lying despite having nothing to hide, possibly a habit he's developed as a result of having to shut down all sorts of nonsensical accusations by the magic fearing populace. Given his age he would have had to deal with a lot of such issues over the years and might have simply decided to shut it down in a terse, if false, manner when it arises to save time.

He could be a necromancer and lying about it because he finds the negative attention inconvenient despite it being legal. He's opposed to people bothering him and just wants to do his research in peace, so if he does dabble in legitimate necromancy he'd probably lie about it anyway.

His familiarity with the Necromancer's Amulet is most likely harmless, Mannimarco and his cult are a major part of magical history in Tamriel as well as a major threat to society that wizards are likely to have to face. As court wizard his job is to advise and protect the city from magical threats, which would require a basic familiarity with long term threats like the necromancers and similar groups like daedric cults. Especially since the priests in Skyrim seem less magically competent than their counterparts in Oblivion and Morrowind.

He seems interested in stopping the murders in Windhelm, but due to his crotchety and isolated nature he's never bothered to tell anyone he's been trying to figure out if there's a pattern. Calixto doesn't mention a co-conspirator in any notes, so Wuunferth probably wasn't helping him.


Wuunferth could be a necromancer who's keeping it quiet, it'd be an entirely legitimate thing for him to be. Doesn't violate any laws when done properly, is fine with the college and he doesn't seem to have any nefarious intentions despite being a bit rude at times. I don't think he is though, partly for the reasons outlined above, partly for the fact he isn't a conjuration trainer. He's an adept destruction trainer, but not a conjuration trainer, which generally indicates that he's more personally interested and skilled in destruction than anything else.

[Vinyadan]

Sure, which is why if i make a coat out of a khajiit, i'll get arrested for it in most areas of Tamriel. But also, if only criminals and crazy people leave their homelands... Thats not a good way to advocate against prejudice.

I don't know, what if you make a skirt out of him?

[Rater202]

Sure, which is why if i make a coat out of a khajiit, i'll get arrested for it in most areas of Tamriel. But also, if only criminals and crazy people leave their homelands... Thats not a good way to advocate against prejudice.

Since Kaijit are prejudiced against in most parts of tamriel, it's entirely possible that it's less "only thieves their homeland" and more "legitimate work is hard to find so it's mostly the ones willing to be criminals that stay outside their homeland."

[Keltest]

Since Kaijit are prejudiced against in most parts of tamriel, it's entirely possible that it's less "only thieves their homeland" and more "legitimate work is hard to find so it's mostly the ones willing to be criminals that stay outside their homeland."

From my understanding, its their crazy moon cycle birth thing that keeps them mostly in Elseweyr. Its hard enough to raise a family when you dont give birth to a giant talking tiger, so i'd imagine they really want that support network in place for all the different types. Likewise, the alfiq probably dont have a good time in, say, high rock where they can and will be constantly confused for a housecat and generally be unable to do anything.

[Grim Portent]

From the other side, in Black Marsh and Elsweyr most men and mer are probably running from criminal prosecution, crime syndicates, or are part of the empire/aldmeri military occupation depending on time period, plus the odd missionary, so the Argonians and Khajiit who stay in their home provinces probably take a dim view of humans and elves. A human in Black Marsh has good odds of being someone who can't go back home without living in fear or who is actively trying to suppress or undermine Argonian culture.

You saw the same sort of prejudice in Morrowind, and in Skyrim. Not quite as much in Oblivion, the racism there was less about fear and resentment of change and more just outright supremacy.

[Triaxx]

I have two theories on Wuunferth. One is simply that he made up the ban as a way to convince people he's not a necromancer. The second is he was a member of the Mages Guild, but ledt when they got too political and even though he joines the college, he just assumed they had also banned Necromancy. Not an unreasonable assumption given the general Nord attitude towards mages in general and necromancer's in particular.

Of course you also get the guard lines post Saarthal stating nothing good comes of mages in a burial tomb. Of course you also have the conflicting Dunmer views of honored ancestors we'll totally not raise vs Calling Grandpappy's spirit for a game of smite the foe.

[Rater202]

Of course you also have the conflicting Dunmer views of honored ancestors we'll totally not raise vs Calling Grandpappy's spirit for a game of smite the foe.

You ever consider that maybe Grandpappy's willing to come back to smite the foe?

There's a world of difference between desecrating a corpse and calling back a willing spirit.

[Vinyadan]

The Dunmer are big on communing with the spirit of their ancestors, but they also believe that proper burial is needed for a happy/less unhappy afterlife. The skeletons found in the ancestral tombs are people who didn't serve their own family well enough in life and were bound to the tomb in death. Telvanni do necromancy, but it's only acceptable on non-Dunmer. Lore:Ancestors and the Dunmer - The Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages (UESP)

[Destro_Yersul]

I've been thinking about this on and off.

You go to sleep tonight and you wake up in the morning on the cart being pulled to Helgen. Your body has been altered to remove any problems that might make it difficult to be the last Dragonborn with no feelings of dysphoria or dysmorphia(I mean things like being severely overweight, being aged past your prime, or having bad vision but feel free to interpret this how you wish) and you're just... The Dragonborn now.

You keep your meta knowledge, and to make up for just springing this on your whatever being is responsible* gives you a few extra perks: Enough ability to use CHIM to interact with something roughly analogous to the game interface, something or other to help you deal with the psychological effects of being in a 'kill or be killed' situation so you won't break under pressure, and a big of enough "starting upgrade" to make up for the fact that chances are you have either no skill at fighting or no skill at this kind of fighting.

The starting upgrade can be anything from "a spell weapon spell to summon a modern gun" to "you wake up at level 76 with all of the Destruction, Restoration, Alteration, and Illusion spells and perks and your level up magika/health/stamina upgrades split as evenly as possible between the three" and anything in-between

I'm quite partial to "start as vampire lord sans all vampire weaknesses, pre-dawngurd frost resistance, and let anyone who cares about that be confused by your resistance to sun damage, not needing to feed if you don't want to, and always being at full power but never being obviously a vampire to anyone who can't innately sense them." Don't give a damn about the Lore implications, let anyone in-universe be confused. If I have to explain it I'll lie.

It works... Kinda like in-game in that things don't happen till you get there and you can take all the time you want, but neither you nor the 'npcs' are limited to acting like the game is coded, you can do whatever you want and other people will react as appropriate letting you take their options like we've discussed before. Things that are obviously exploits like putting buckets on people's heads so they don't see you stealing are also not gonna work.

What do you do?

I'll take immunity to disease and waterbreathing as my special perks, if I can. Then..

Start fishing. Catch as many abacean longfin and cyrodillic spadetail as I can. Scrounge up some cash chopping wood, walk to whiterun and grab the carriage to Dawnstar. Work in the mines for ore and cash, make salt by evaporating ocean water. Pick snowberries while I'm at it. Catch a few butterflies or buy wings from the local alchemy shop. Save all of those. Use any other ingredients I can find to craft potions, earning alchemy XP and cash in the process. Get the cart to Riften. Hire a mercenary and let them clear out the randos in the ratway for me. Take their stuff and sell most of it. Money is the big limiter. I need to buy many many soul gems. Fortunately, there's some gold in Lost Prospect Mine near Riften. Go there and mine it. Smelt it, turn it into jewelry, sell that for fat stacks. Keep checking shops until I find something with a Fortify Alchemy effect.

I think you can see where this is going.

[Caelestion]

Yes, about to run hard into the "no obvious exploits" proviso.

[Rater202]

Yes, about to run hard into the "no obvious exploits" proviso.

Abusing absurd enchantments and ore veins respawning are less a case of exploitation and more "this is how the world works."

Tamriel's physics be whack.

My headcanon is that there's a gentleman's agreement in place between all master Alchemists, Smiths, and Enchanters across the continent not to abuse such things or sell anything too absurd in large quantities less it bite them in the ass and everyone turns a blind eye to the Nevarine/Hero of Kvatch/Last Dragonborn doing it because they're only one guy, it's kind of an emergency, and it's only a gentleman's agreement rather than hard law.

[Lord Raziere]

Abusing absurd enchantments and ore veins respawning are less a case of exploitation and more "this is how the world works."

Tamriel's physics be whack.

My headcanon is that there's a gentleman's agreement in place between all master Alchemists, Smiths, and Enchanters across the continent not to abuse such things or sell anything too absurd in large quantities less it bite them in the ass and everyone turns a blind eye to the Nevarine/Hero of Kvatch/Last Dragonborn doing it because they're only one guy, it's kind of an emergency, and it's only a gentleman's agreement rather than hard law.

......

it would explain why the Dwemer ruins are still running and have resources to keep making their robots despite all the Dwemer being gone. apparently their tonal architecture manipulated reality to the point where all their machines just run themselves, if they mine up ore from all the same places as well without it running out....

[Rater202]

......

it would explain why the Dwemer ruins are still running and have resources to keep making their robots despite all the Dwemer being gone. apparently their tonal architecture manipulated reality to the point where all their machines just run themselves, if they mine up ore from all the same places as well without it running out....

And think of it this way: Cidhna Mine would make no sense if Mining worked like it did in the real world.

The mine/prison is implied to be the Silver-Blood Family's main source of income and dealing in silver is presumably how they got their name, implying that they've been at this for a couple of generations. A mine is usually played out in between 5-70 years, and Cidhna Mine is not a big mine. Those silver deposited would have been exhausted well before The Last Dragonborn turned up if this was a regular siver mine.

Then you'd just be throwing all of the Hold's prisoners in a big room together without checking on them for no reason.

Not to mention that if you were actually digging with those pickaxes... The guards don't check on the prisoners who are all together and ar expected to be using those pickaxes regularly. The more ore they mine the sooner they get out and all.

If that was a mine that worked on IRL logic then the prisoners could have easily dug their way out.

[Lord Raziere]

.....and of course, we never see any used up mines from previous ages.

but yeah, Elder Scrolls physics is some cross-between myth logic, game logic, and whatever esoteric branch of magic is interacting with the world at the moment. I think a quote from Prequel sums it up nicely:

Aggy: Exactly! Nothing makes sense! The world doesn't make sense! You have to make sense of it! The Cyrodiilic mages have a word for it: mysticism! It's about knowing the "facts", but being smart enough to know that maybe facts are wrong. It's about doing something pointless, but giving it a point... It's - it's realizing that sometimes, sometimes you just have to -
Katia: ...go a little crazy.

[Keltest]

.....and of course, we never see any used up mines from previous ages.

but yeah, Elder Scrolls physics is some cross-between myth logic, game logic, and whatever esoteric branch of magic is interacting with the world at the moment. I think a quote from Prequel sums it up nicely:

Theoretically, Raven Rock Mine is depleted when the game starts. We discover a "new" ebony deposit deep in the mines that causes the game to spawn a bunch of active deposits in the main mine (presumably for us to not have to run through the entire dungeon to get to it every time). This is, to the best of my knowledge, the only time we see any mine not be active and ready to mine in Skyrim.

[Lord Raziere]

Theoretically, Raven Rock Mine is depleted when the game starts. We discover a "new" ebony deposit deep in the mines that causes the game to spawn a bunch of active deposits in the main mine (presumably for us to not have to run through the entire dungeon to get to it every time). This is, to the best of my knowledge, the only time we see any mine not be active and ready to mine in Skyrim.

I mean thats just straight up myth logic and game logic right there:
"and so the Dragonborn went into the mine of the Raven Rocks, all around them saying it was no use: "all the Ebony it is gone!" but the Dragonborn went into the deepest part of the mine, to the lowest level and lo there was ebony there that with their pick did the Dragonborn break it from the earth's clutches and brought it back to show it to them all proclaiming "No! behold! There is still Ebony within Raven Rock!" and so they went in and beheld: all veins of ore were now Ebony as if never mined, and it was good and the ebony flowed ever more from Raven rock mine."

[Keltest]

I mean thats just straight up myth logic and game logic right there:
"and so the Dragonborn went into the mine of the Raven Rocks, all around them saying it was no use: "all the Ebony it is gone!" but the Dragonborn went into the deepest part of the mine, to the lowest level and lo there was ebony there that with their pick did the Dragonborn break it from the earth's clutches and brought it back to show it to them all proclaiming "No! behold! There is still Ebony within Raven Rock!" and so they went in and beheld: all veins of ore were now Ebony as if never mined, and it was good and the ebony flowed ever more from Raven rock mine."

If its a proper myth, we need a part about how the Dragonborn Shouted at the mine to make it yield more ebony.

[LibraryOgre]

You keep your meta knowledge, and to make up for just springing this on your whatever being is responsible* gives you a few extra perks: Enough ability to use CHIM to interact with something roughly analogous to the game interface, something or other to help you deal with the psychological effects of being in a 'kill or be killed' situation so you won't break under pressure, and a big of enough "starting upgrade" to make up for the fact that chances are you have either no skill at fighting or no skill at this kind of fighting.

The starting upgrade can be anything from "a spell weapon spell to summon a modern gun" to "you wake up at level 76 with all of the Destruction, Restoration, Alteration, and Illusion spells and perks and your level up magika/health/stamina upgrades split as evenly as possible between the three" and anything in-between

Assuming something relatively low-powered (while "I know all magic" could be interesting, I'm concentrating on a bit more reasonable and "fun" in a starting character), and since it's 90% of my playstyle:

I start with the Expert Conjuration Perk, the Twin Summons perk (whatever it is called) and the spell Summon Dremora Lord.

a) A Dremora lord is not the BEST summons in ALL situations (I favor atronachs against dragons, since they're better at ranged), but it is a good summon in most situations.
b) With a bit more control, I can make my Dremora Lords do things other than hit people with swords.

With these two, I think I could make a good enough go of it as the Dragonborn.

[Lord Raziere]

If its a proper myth, we need a part about how the Dragonborn Shouted at the mine to make it yield more ebony.

Thats not a proper myth, too much logic and consistency.

Last Dragonborn found ebony and suddenly ebony was everywhere in the mine! Its a miracle! How'd that happen? Last Dragonborn thats how. Then they went on to kill their seventh dragon in Dawnstar, pull a magic sword from its corpse then use it to kill a miner because they also happened to be Listener of the Dark Brotherhood you see, get chased out of town, heard three secrets from Mai'q the Liar, then disappeared with no one finding them until they suddenly turn up in Whiterun having already gotten an item for someone before they ever asked the Dragonborn, as if the Last Dragonborn could see the future!

[Taevyr]

I mean thats just straight up myth logic and game logic right there:
"and so the Dragonborn went into the mine of the Raven Rocks, all around them saying it was no use: "all the Ebony it is gone!" but the Dragonborn went into the deepest part of the mine, to the lowest level and lo there was ebony there that with their pick did the Dragonborn break it from the earth's clutches and brought it back to show it to them all proclaiming "No! behold! There is still Ebony within Raven Rock!" and so they went in and beheld: all veins of ore were now Ebony as if never mined, and it was good and the ebony flowed ever more from Raven rock mine."

I just want to say that you really captured the "ye olde book of folklore and legend" vibe here, nice work