Lore(ish) Discussion Latest Topics

[Question] Speaking about education (including spanking), which aedra and daedra would you connect to it?

Sun, 23 Dec 2018 23:09:16 +0000

Let's talk about education. Strict education. Explicitly including spanking to discipline absentminded students and enhance the lectures.

Now, the question comes up, which aedra and which daedra would be MOST pleased with such an education?

Like Zenithar is considered the god of trade, which would be the aedra/daedra god of strict education?

And why?

Whose shrine would the head mistress/master have in the main hall of such an educational institute?

Mind you, that I am NOT asking about slavery, whipping, brutality, rape , etc...!

Please vote and explain your opinion below. Thank you.

Help with lore firiendly faction names for Bay of Voices mod

Sat, 24 Aug 2019 16:48:00 +0000

Hi there!

I'm working on a mod - Bay of Voices - that will have three quest lines that tie into lore and need a bit of advice. The three lore areas that I am dealing with are the The Arcturian Heresy, the Taesci, and the Dragon Cult. It is the dragon cult that I am hoping for a bit of advice on at present (though the other two lore areas will tie into the cult).

My premise is that Akatosh would not have created a World Eater without also creating a way to reboot the world, thus, as per the Parthanax convo, allowing one age to end and another begin. So how does that happen? I propose that it is done through a fertility cult associated with the Dragons and Dragonborn. To wit, that the Dragon Cult was originally led only by Dragonborns and that at the end of an age, a male and female Dragonborn would act as a cosmic original couple to start a new world ... give birth to a new age, if you will. I think it fits with lore and I am going on the premise that the Dragon Cult in Skyrim was corrupted by Alduin thereby leading to the Dragon Wars.

As the plan is for all the lore areas to tie into each other I need to make sure that my ideas for the dragon cult make sense so I can seed the other questlines and ambient dialogue with little info dumps here and there.

So ... a couple of questions:

- I am currently calling the servants of the Dragon Cult Keepers but realize that there are Keepers in the Soul Cairn and need a new name for them. These current servants are the descendants of the guys that betrayed the Dragon Cult oh so many years ago . They protect the temple and the dragonborn priest inside as a way to restore their families honour. What would be a good lore friendly name?

Next question gives away some quest secrets so I will put it in a spoiler just in case you'd rather not know:

- Other problem, that dragonborn priest (who is going to be the Underking if I can make it work) ... I was calling him The Betrayed, but that is the name of the Snow Prince ... soooo ... he needs a new name too. I don't want to flat out call him the Underking because I want that to be something the PC has to figure out but I do want to have a suggestion of who he might be. My intention is to make it that the Akaviri locked him in so his temple has the same 'face' door that Skyhaven has. Freeing him will require tracking down the Heart of Lorkhan and will involve that dwemer device in Septimus' Outpost. Thoughts?

Anyway ... thanks for your help with this fellow lore-ish aficionados

If it isn't too much to ask, I will probably be in here poking around for help with some of the deep lore stuff as I get into it.

[Question] What is a good death in the thinking of orcs/Malacath?

Sun, 28 Oct 2018 18:28:22 +0000

[Question] What is a good death in the thinking of orcs/Malacath?

You all know these old orcs idling around somewhere and waiting for a good death.

But what IS a good death?

I tried it this way... https://www.loverslab.com/blogs/entry/7731-what-why-are-you-looking-at-me-that-way/ with a singe cut.

But was THAT a good death for our old orc?

And after that remains another question: what to do with the body? Bury, Burn, bring back to the tribe, letting it rot right there... ?

Hoping for answers

Famous Figures

Wed, 21 Nov 2018 06:37:27 +0000

So, it struck me that a lot of Edgar Allen Poe quotes could fit quite neatly into the lore in some way. I just wonder what the people there would say if they met him.
Therefore, I hereby present:
Famous Figures Talk To Famous Figures: Edgar Allen Poe in Tamriel edition.

EAP: Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing...
Sithis: Dude, stop staring. You're creeping me out.

EAP: They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.
Vaermina: Call me ignorant one more time and I will seriously mess you up.

EAP: I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.
Sheogorath: Finally, someone who understands me.

EAP: The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins?
Arkay: Me.
EAP: I was actually trying to make a point that -
Arkay: Nope, it's me. I say.
EAP: No, you don't get it. I'm saying that -
Arkay: Sorry, you'll have to speak up. I can't hear you over the sound of me being the dividing line between life and death.
EAP: Dick.

EAP: All religion, my friend, is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination, and poetry.
Talos: Go fuck yourself.

EAP: I would define, in brief, the poetry of words as the rhythmical creation of Beauty.
Dibella: Are you coming on to me?

EAP: The true genius shudders at incompleteness - and usually prefers silence to saying something which is not everything it should be.
Hermaeus Mora: Go fuck yourself.

EAP: If you wish to forget anything on the spot, make a note that this thing is to be remembered.
Sheogorath: I love this guy!

EAP: The pleasure which is at once the most pure, the most elevating and the most intense, is derived, I maintain, from the contemplation of the beautiful.
Dibella: Yeah, I'm with Sithis. Stop staring at me, it's wigging me out.

EAP: I am above the weakness of seeking to establish a sequence of cause and effect, between the disaster and the atrocity.
Mehrunes Dagon: Go fuck yourself.

EAP: We loved with a love that was more than love.
Mara: Are you coming on to me?

EAP: Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore...
Nocturnal: ...you're my new best friend.

EAP: Science has not yet taught us if madness is or is not the sublimity of the intelligence.
Sheogorath: Let's go get a beer!

EAP: All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.
Vivec: Yes.
EAP: I was actually saying that -
Vivec: Yep, sure, aye-firmative.
EAP: No, see, I'm making a philosophical point that -
Vivec: Sorry, you'll have to speak up. I can't hear you over the sound of everything being a dream.
EAP: Dick.

Feel free to add more quotes, or from someone else if you want.

Possible Locations of Next Elder Scrolls Game and Where the Lore Fits In

Wed, 27 Dec 2017 05:31:34 +0000

Let's discuss the lore of the elder scrolls in it's current canon video game represented state and how that might effect the setting for the next game.

Lore(ish) videos

Mon, 13 Nov 2017 02:45:02 +0000

Do you know great videos about the TES lore?

Here is one to start with - The Elder Scroll Detective, by Camelworks.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBMxuCsa_iZozdFSNV9Tl7HxN6IXsN2yI

I am not too fond of the emphatic style of the narrator, but the details brought to light in the series are sometimes mindblowing. I listened to the backstory of Rorikstead (which aligns very nicely to something I wanted to do very early on in SexLab Stories, more on that later) and the story of the glowing tree guarded by Giants near Whiterun. Narin's Red room is cute too.

The Lore of Sanguine Debauchery (and other stories)

Mon, 13 Nov 2017 03:38:42 +0000

Over time, I tried to weave threads between my mods to extend the Lore and give them more coherence and back story.

Here are a few ideas and principles I have been following.

Feel free to reuse them, discuss or critique them in case I missed something.

And many thanks to Content Consumer and several others who contributed ideas to this list!

These are just the key 'facts' of the Lore as I see it related to Sanguine and the rest of my mods. Each could use their own thread with details and speculations.

(in a spoiler tag because of spoilers for the mods and because of the wall of text).

Spoiler

A long time ago, Sanguine became smitten with a whore from Stross M'Kai named Alicia (yes.. the one from the bandits song) while he was partaking in mortal pleasures
He tried to bring her back with him, permanently, but she could not handle long term exposure to his realm in Oblivion and perished in horrible circumstances
Sex with Daedra/Dremora is risky for mortals. They carry with them traces of the creative power behind Mundus. Side effect to exposure include gender change, gender mix, body part changes, mental changes (bimbo curse) and after a while, permanent split of a shard from of the mortal's
The soul shard remains linked to Oblivion and leave a void inside the mortal. One way to fill that void is through sexual energy, which is how succubi are born
The succubus shape is the soul shard ripped from a mortal soul. When a mortal turns into a succubus shape, they are in fact trading places. The mortal goes to Oblivion and the succubus goes to Mundus
In rare cases, both the succubus and the mortal shapes coexist in the same space. That usually doesn't end well... and in the case of Alicia, they ended up ripping each other to pieces.
Since then, Sanguine has been trying to recreate his perfect lover
He is selecting women that catch his eye during his travels and give them a proper training in one of his pocket realms. They all take the name of Alicia.
The slave queen, St Alessia, was in fact one of his chosen ones. She went further than most in her worship of Sanguine under the rule of the Alyeids, but she became terrified at the thought of losing part of her soul and made a deal with Akatosh to reclaim her soul and start open revolt against her masters. Sanguine did not take that well, in particular when other Aedra helped her champion, Pelinal Whitestrake with unique artifacts, especially Dibella.
Sanguine can take many forms, including forms of the opposite sex
He started the corruption of the Temple of Dibella in Markarth as one of many attempts at getting back at Dibella for her role in helping Alessia. He has a certain affinity to Dibella since they both trade in sexual pleasures - Dibella for the sacred beauty of it and Sanguine just for the sheer indulgence of it.
As the patron of brothels, he has created a network of recruiting grounds for new Alicias
The Dragonborn is of particular interest to him because of his ability to absorb dragon souls. He believes that makes him/her uniquely qualified to resist the soul shard effect (or at least, control it better)
One of his pupils, Alicia (the pain slut from the mod), was trained by a group of bandits and a mage under his guidance. They showed her how to embrace pain instead of sex as a way to control her succubus form.
Dremora outcasts are dremoras who stayed behind aftert he Oblivion crisis and tried to blend in as mages or healers. They use their residual powers in exchange of very simple lives with mortals. Outside of Sanguine or possibly Clavicus Vile, they are the only ones who can reverse some of the effects of exposure to daedric sex.
One of Sanguine's pocket worlds includes his favorite pet - none other than Crassius Curio of the Lusty Argonian fame. He rewarded his life of debauchery with a job of scribe for as long as it pleases him.

That about sums it up :)

Serana and the Nord Queen

Mon, 13 Nov 2017 09:05:24 +0000

Back in late June of last year, there was some discussion in the CCAS support thread on the origin of the Ancient Nord Queen from Sexlab Stories. It's an interesting discussion and I figure this might be a good place to put a link to that for anyone who's interested.

I was going to copy/paste the whole thing, but that's kind of pointless, and formatting would screw it up anyway. Instead I'll just be self-aggrandizing and copy my own comment, with a link to the post that started it. I recommend reading from the start, it's not a lot and doesn't even take up a full page on the support thread. Let's not post in the CCAS support thread though, that's why I'm putting it here. ;)

Spoiler

http://www.loverslab.com/topic/60586-content-consumers-alternate-starts/page-29#entry1601468

Rather than do any modding, I've been sitting here screwing around trying to figure out this whole Nord Queen thing.

Specifically, if we do NOT use known histories as the recognition point for the Nord Queen, we have to use direct knowledge. Which limits our pool of people who can recognize the Nord Queen, or at least recognize something about her as being the individual in question.

So I just sat here coming up with this crap. Wall of text, feel free to ignore.

Part 1: The Nord Queen

We know that the Nord Queen was alive alongside Gauldur.

We know that Gauldur was alive during the time of Harald, in the First Era. We will assume that Gauldur was not more than approximately 40 years old when Harald was born (see the note on Nord ages below).

We know that Harald was crowned High King in 1e 143.

Since she would have to have abdicated before that event, we therefore know that the Nord Queen was murdered on or before 1e 143.

NB: So far, this is predicated on the premise that she was a Queen, but not necessarily the High Queen. Either status would work, in fact - we can assume that she abdicated her queendom in favor of Harald becoming High King, or that she was murdered thus paving the way for Harald to become High King.

NB/Aside: I tend to favor this second theory. There is some debate as to whether Harald was involved in Gauldur's murder. It is well known that Harald did do his level best to expunge the family name of Gauldur from all record, and whether one believes it was because he was a murderous usurper or because he and Geirmund wanted to wipe the crimes of Gauldur's sons from his legend is entirely personal choice.

Therefore, we'll set 1e 143 as her last living date.

We know that she was a Nord, and Nords rarely live beyond 100 years of age or so (we're discounting some of the more obscure legends regarding Old Knocker/Orkey and the possibility that Wulfharth learned a shout that extends lifespan).

Therefore we're setting her birth at no earlier than 1e 43.

We don't know exactly at what age she became a Queen, but we must assume somewhere between 1e 43 and 1e 143. We'll just split the difference - 1e 93. The exact date is irrelevant.

What is relevant is that she was a Queen (or High Queen) after this point but before 1e 143. Dealing with round numbers is easier - we'll just say that she was alive during 1e 100.

Part 2: Serana

We are using Serana here rather than any of the other Volkihar purebloods or "grandchildren" because she is the only one who even remotely gives any evidence of a timeline. It might be reasonable to use that Vyrthur and Gelebor instead, being that they were alive before the Falmer were betrayed by the Dwemer, but given the unspecified length of Snow Elf lifespans, this is problematic.

We know that Serana was entombed some time before Cyrodiil became the seat of an empire. Since the first Cyrodiilic empire can be assumed to have been founded by Alessia in 1e 242, we must assume that she was entombed before this event. Note that 1e 243 is not a hard number, but it is a convenient one, happening at the conquering of White-Gold Tower by the Allessian forces.

NB: The argument that Serana was speaking of a different Cyrodiilic empire, there having been different dynasties that could be considered emperors of a Cyrodiilic empire, is entirely valid. But that leads us into a neverending rabbit hole of possible origin points. Since we're basing this all on Serana's words, I feel justified in basing it on her tone of voice too, which would indicate her surprise that there is any Cyrodiilic empire, not just the "most recent" one.

Unfortunately, although we have a high number for her entombment, we do not have a low number. However, we can make some guesses:

Serana is of Nedic stock. This can be inferred from her physical features. This is by no means perfect evidence, but it's a good start. She's certainly not Yokudan, and by this time there were no "Bretons" in High Rock, though the Nedes (Nords) had been settling portions. Daggerfall, for example, was settled in 1e 246.

NB/Aside: I am uncertain as to the date of origin for the people called Bretons. Ostensibly offspring between Nemer (specifically Nords) and Aldmer, we can make some pretty wild guesses about their origin, using such sources as Racial Phylogeny.

Serana would almost certainly have arrived in Skyrim before 1e 68, the last Nedic migration from Atmora. That she could have done so in the First Era is certainly possible, but just for simplicity's sake I'm going to say it was in the Merethic Era. It really doesn't matter though, because...

If we take it as fact (disputed, but bear with me) that Gauldur was no older than roughly 100 years at the time of his death, there's really not much time between the beginning of the First Era and his death.

All of this is just conjecture, but with some basis in fact (given that we are assuming that the recorded history is fully accurate, which is also by no means the case, but if we don't then we might as well give up).

And the whole point of it is:

Part 3: Serana and the Nord Queen

We can assume that Serana may have known the Nord Queen, either personally, or through Gauldur (also either personally or by reputation).

Unfortunately for us, there is actually very little overlap in the timelines here. As I said, we must assume that Gauldur was no older than 100 years when he was killed, and Gauldur is the basis for our knowledge of the Nord Queen.

100 years is really quite a short time indeed when we consider just how old Serana is, and how old she may have been before the First Era started.

In truth, there is no hard evidence that Serana was even alive at the same time as Gauldur. It's a possibility, but not a certainty.

At any rate, Serana is the only individual we have in Skyrim (talking about the vanilla game + DLC here, not mods) besides the Daedra who we might say either knew personally or by reputation the Nord Queen.

She's also the only one with whom the player interacts with on anything longer than a very temporary basis.

There are some other possibile people though.

Part 4: Other possibilities

If not Serana, extraplanar entities are probably the best bet. But the list is actually fairly extensive:

Serana is probably the best bet.

All of the Divines (that is, eight of the Divines, not Talos)

Vyrthur, Gelebor, Harkon, Valerica

Other vampires in Castle Volkihar? It is implied that some of them are also purebloods and thus may be old enough.

All of the Daedra princes. Sanguine is probably the best bet, as his interaction with the player is more direct, and longer lasting, than the other Daedra princes in the vanilla (and DLC) game.

Master Neloth is a (very remote) possibility. The liklihood of his being old enough is vanishingly small, and even then we must assume that he (Chimer at the time, obviously, not Dunmer) was nowhere near Skyrim and the Nord Queen, the Chimer and the Nords being at war at the time.

There may be other possibilities, but I doubt it. Which leads us to:

Part 5: Historical accounts

I am forced to dismiss the possibility of any NPCs being able to speak to the Nord Queen about her past, except Serana, Sanguine, and possibliy Hermaeus Mora. Other Daedra Princes may have knowledge of her, anywhere from limited to full, but it doesn't really matter since we never interact with any of them much. Even Hermaeus Mora is fairly limited. Sanguine, either as himself or in the form of Sam Guevenne, may be able to discuss the matter. Serana too, but it's certainly not guaranteed.

So we're forced to come up with historical accounts of her reign. The vanilla sources on Gauldur can be modified as needed, or new ones created.

Which means that if we really want any sort of dialogue about the Nord Queen, someone will have to sit down and write it up. For myself, I cannot justify dialogue about an historical figure without some form of evidence to back it up, fictional or otherwise. This may be a real failing on my part.

I mean, look at some of my mods. CCAS for example. I wanted to use a nice stone Ogre statue object, but I couldn't figure out a way to use it without some backup. Just plopping it down in some cell didn't feel right. So I had to give a reason for the ogre being stone. A botched stoneskin spell! But just putting a spell tome of stoneskin in his hand wasn't enough, I had to give a reason for it. Enter Dend's journal, and Dend the Ogre Mage was born. Like the player, he was an Aspiring Mage who got in over his head. Was it necessary to come up with this extra crap, bloating the mod with stuff most people are never going to see in the first place, and not incidentally increase the size of the upload which with my internet connection is a pain in the ass? No, it was not necessary, but I had a compulsion to do it anyway.