Has anybody here played a tabletop game in the Elder Scrolls setting? Are there any rules for this out there?
>>94708337You tesfags seriously need to play something else for once. TES is trash and also>video games
>>94708515>tabletop
>>94708337I think modiphius is making a game? I’m half remembering it, it might be some figurine shit
>>94708540>Woosh
>>94708337I got invited to a D&D 5e TES conversion the DM found online. It sucked absolute shit though. There was literally no reason not to play an Altmer or a Dunmer because they got extra spell slots and other bonuses to magic, and caster classes are already overpowered as fuck in vanilla D&D where no races really get racial bonuses to magic outside of cantrips, let alone shit like extra spell slots every level. Also, Wizards could learn healing spells because of how TES treats Restoration as it's own school of magic and not a "divine" thing like D&D's lore does. Because you know, the class that could do literally everything in the game EXCEPT healing needed to be able to do healing too, to compliment all the extra spell slots they got if you played an Altmer and Dunmer. Yeah, it was an absolute trash fire of a game and I ended up quitting after like 4 sessions.
>>94708582Wizards can also 'heal'Just become a necromancer and use spells like wither and bloom or vampiric touch>I'm sick of necromancy being so underpowered>Justice for necromancers! Make necromancy powerful again
>>94708337There's UESRPGIt's based off of WHFRPGNever played it though
>>94708582>There was literally no reason not to play an Altmer or a DunmerUnironically lore-accurate. In the videogames all the races are "balanced" for gameplay reasons, but in the actual lore Altmer and Dunmer are just on a completely different level magically and have literal centuries to refine their talents. With the exception of Shalidor (who stole immortality from dragons), every mage of any importance in the lore has been an Altmer or a Dunmer. While human mages are over here struggling to learn levitation, Altmer Psijiics are freezing time and Dunmer Telvanni wizards are making harems out of magical female clones of themselves. If you could choose what race you were in the setting, why the fuck would pick anything other than one of these two?
>>94708905then simply don't let PCs pick altmer or dunmer
>>94708958>Nord fingers typed this post
I've always wanted to GM an TES campaign, however I can never think of a good campaign plot. What would be some factions or NPCs you would use?I've always wanted to play a campaign set in Daggerfall. For some reason I like the faux French medieval setting with the 8 gods and all the factions vying for power.
>>94708905you think with the bretons being basically an entire nation of half-elves they'd have more great mages>well, at least they get higher magic resistance
>>94708337>old elf race is called 'Altmer'>dominant elf race is called 'Bossmer'>dumbest elfen race is called 'Dummer'Bravo, Morrowind.
>>94709045Black guard is called 'Redguard'. Nordic guy is called 'Nord'.
>>94709018I mean... Bretons tend to be the best mages amongst the races of Man... but that's like saying the best player on your kid's Little League team is best baseball player ever as long as you ignore that the Major Leagues exist. Bretons unfortunately don't live for the centuries necessary to truly excel at magic, nor have they maintained the purity of bloodlines that Altmer and Dunmer are so obsessed with. Because in TES, maintaining that Ehlnofey blood legitimately does have an impact on a race's natural aptitude for magic.I like Bretons. I genuinely do. I have a thing for scrappy underdog races. I'm not going to pretend they can actually compete with the best of the Altmer and Dunmer mages though. Really the only reason the other races haven't been conquered yet (though as of Skyrim the Altmer's ruling Thalmor party are trying) is because they outnumber the Altmer so much. Same reason Morrowind's tribunal capitulated and agreed to peace with Tiber Septim. Doesn't matter if your wizards have a power level of 9,000 and your enemy's wizards only have a power level of 2,000 if they're outnumbering you 20 to 1.
>>94709066>they don't live for centuriesyou could just become a vampire
>>94709095Contrary to how Vampirism works in the games, in the actual lore Vampirism tends to drive it's victims mad over time as all other mortal desires and start to wither and fade, replaced only by the ever-present desires to hunt and feed. For the particularly strong-willed this can take decades, even centuries, but it does always happen eventually. Also getting infected with a disease that makes the Aedra (good gods) abandon you and gives the Deadra (evil god) prince of "DOMINATION, RAPE, AND ENSLAVEMENT" claim over your soul is uhh... probably pretty fucking retarded, honestly. Especially in a setting where the gods are, y'know, provably real.
So, Breton Knights, huh?Bretons don't have a single physical skill in any TES game, at all, ever. The closest is ESO where their robe skill is classified as light armour. That's it.Why do they like pretending to be knights when they suck at it? Should they have any bonuses to being a knight in a TTRPG? In the video games you can just fight better via player skill but on tabletop your character's skill is the determining factor and it'd suck to be under powered for playing a thematically appropriate character.
>>94709138Literally every race in TES has melee fighters, even races that are worse at it than the Bretons (see Bosmer).
>>94709144Bosmer at least mostly stick to lightly armoured fighters, which is their strength.Bretons made a culture based on those melee classes. The main part of their culture.
>>94709095Ah yes, I love combusting in the sun, being unable to think of anything other than how much I want my next fix of blood, and being damned to an afterlife of getting pounded in the ass by the evil god of rape sounds great.You do realize that vampirism is considered such a horrible curse in-lore that finding a cure to it once fully infected is something people treat like finding a cure cancer. Something they will do or sacrifice ANYTHING for.
>>94709167Just raise your Willpower. You'll be fine.
>>94709180Willpower doesn't change the fact that your ass going straight onto Molag Bal's spiked horse-cock when you eventually do die. Given that Vampirism slowly kills you and leaves you a souless husk (in Morrowind and Oblivion it literally kills you before you awaken as a vampire) your actual soul/"self" might already be taking a literal ass-pounding from hell by the time your souless corpse gets cool vampire powers.
>>94709192It's fine, it's fine. Just live long enough for a Hero to appear and get them to find a cure for you. You can tell they're a Hero since they'll become the leader of most of the guilds.Make a daedric tier sword with a unique appearance as a reward for them and they're guaranteed to do it.
>>94709138You have to remember about 3 things here I think1. This is largely a simplification for gameplay purposes and I'm sure members of each race are much more internally diverse than what their racial bonuses would indicate. Think of those as stereotypes basically: they stem from somewhere, but are an overgeneralisation2. Everyone in TES universe can do some magic and even warrior archetypes often support themselves with at least simple spells. Given their racial aptitude, I imagine lots of Bretonian Knights are like that and support themselves heavily with alteration or restoration magic, as well as enchantments on their armour 3. At least if gameplay is anything to go by, racial bonuses aren't THAT big of a thing. It's usually just 5-10 percentage points difference in stats, something that could be overcomed with an equivalent of 2-4 levels of experience and training. So sure, they might have a slightly lower potential for it, but a trained Bretonian knight is still going to wreck a rookie Nord or Redguard in melee. But yeah, all in all I do agree that given their culture and overall vibe it's a bit weird that the knight archetype isn't represented in their stars at all. Especially that we don't even really have a "warrior/mage mix race", which is a niche they would fit in perfectly. Argonians are close to that I suppose
>>94709756>Especially that we don't even really have a "warrior/mage mix race",This is literally what Dunmer's niche is... it's just that in the lore they're ALSO really good at magic too.Strangely it's also Imperial's niche in alot of the games, as they get Restoration bonuses frequently, although the lore doesn't really support this.
Oh, sweet, I actually wanted to make a new year TES thread, I miss when that was a regular thing here so much. It's such a cool and comfy setting>>94709015From my experience doing what vidya did and basically making a sandbox works very well for TES. But if you want something more linear>PCs are a group of Blades agents tasked with investigating and stopping an emerging anti-imperial conspiracy/daedric cult/rising magical threat>PCs are a group of adventurers searching for a particular lost artefact or treasure>PCs are members of a criminal organisation or mercenary guild trying to rise up the ranks and make a name for themselves, while also fighting the members of a rival organisation>PCs are a group of adventurers hired by an ambitious mage to hunt down a bunch of artifacts or ingredients he needs for a major magical project his working on. Obviously while they finish the job the project ends up going very badly and in the second half of campaign they have to deal with the aftermath>PCs are a group of explorers/mercs hired by a merchant guild or some Imperial organisation to explore and map a wild and largely uncharted area (for example some part of Black Marsh or a previously uninhabited island)Just a few extremely basic concepts ouf of top of my head, but really most fantasy campaign plots should work decently for TES>>94708902UESRPG ain't perfect, but it's pretty good for a fan project and does have some neat ideas. I can certainly recommend it, especially for people who are familiar with Warhammer family of RPG systems and enjoy them>>94709821Dunmer in most games are more like a 33%/33%33% split between warrior, mage and thief when it comes to their stats and skills, they're the most jack of all trades race
>>94708515Obviously it started as a homebrew and you can make it into a DnD compliant game.
>>94708337>Has anybody here played a tabletop game in the Elder Scrolls setting?I'm playing a PF1e game set in Tamriel>Are there any rules for this out there?DM hasn't done anything special to try to coerce the magic system into a more TES-looking form, which is probably for the best desujust going around with a regular pathfinder party fighting ESO monsters, dealing with daedric princes, getting played for fools by the thalmor, etc
I have trouble wrapping my head around how injuries, diseases and healing are supposed to work in TESObviously I understand that what we see in vidya is probably a bit of an abstraction of how it's actually supposed to work in-universe, but nevertheless:On a metaphysical level, inhabitants of Tamriel are basically spirits made of magical energy trapped in physical form and made to forget their true nature - but their bodies still work like you would expect them to, with all the blood and vital organs and stuff, correct?So then what does restoration magic and potions actually do? Do they greatly speed up the natural healing processes of the body? Do they somehow heal injuries in a different, magical way? Do they just instantly replace damaged tissue and body parts with unharmed ones?What about more complex stuff? The infamous "arrow in the knee" line, as well as some other things probably, implies that unlucky wounds can result in permanent injuries, like in real life. Why can't restoration magic fix those? Or maybe it's possible, but more complex and tricky to pull of? How about blindness? Or lost limbs? Or old age and degenerative diseases? I mean, all of those are ultimately just fixing damaged body parts, right?What about diseases? Are those caused by viruses and bacteria like IRL or basically transmitable magical curses? 50/50?Another thing that's potentially important is traditional medicine. Does that even exist or are people of Tamriel fully dependent on magic for healing, given how widespread it is? Can they even stop a wound from bleeding or fix a broken limb if there's no restoration mage nearby? Could they perform a surgery?I know I'm overthinking this shit, but in an TTRPG all sorts of injury is bound to happen and I feel like it's good to understand what wounds actually do and represent and what can be done with them, rather than just stoping at "yeah, you've lost 8 out of 12 HP"
>>94708337Yeah, a few. So far the most fun was Genesys.
>>94709066>the only reason the other races haven't been conquered yet is because they outnumber the AltmerWell I can't speak for every OTHR race, but as for the Nords, the reason is...
>>94709066>Doesn't matter if your wizards have a power level of 9,000 and your enemy's wizards only have a power level of 2,000 if they're outnumbering you 20 to 1Don't forget the part where your enemy has a huge ass magical mecha that literally wipes you from reality by shouting at you
>>94708337PF2E has an unofficial conversion that includes the 10 ES Ancestries as well as the Aedra/daedra deities. Additionally they've got the thu'um as a collection of focus spells and a few creatures. I've been enjoying running it.
>>94709045>old elf race is called 'Altmer'do you mean aldmer>dominant elf race is called 'Bossmer'altmer are the dominant elves
>>94711902Aren't those kinds of inconsistencies common across many games? Basically every game where HP = Meat Points.I think this is something you have to decide for yourself because the players in these games can never be injured beyond HP damage while there are debilitated and wounded NPCs that operate on their own rules.
>>94713233Oh yeah, that's for sure. But my problem isn't so much with the nature of injuries themselves, but more so with the fact that healing magic is supposed to be a very widespread thing in TES, but I'm not sure whether it has ever been really specified what this magic can or cannot do and how exactly it works. And the fact that biology gets a bit weird and wonky once you read more deeply into this setting doesn't helpAnd conventional medicine is a thing that's been bugging me pretty much since I've started running RPGs in this setting. Like, it feels perfectly natural for players to declare that they're trying to use some first aid on their wounds, but then again do people in TES even know how to do that when there's a person who can just make all injuries go away with a wave of their hand in most communites? I honestly don't recall anything resembling conventional medicine in any source material, ironically the closest thing are mummifying traditions in Skyrim
>>94713593>>94711902Seems the closest thing to medicine is alchemy.As for how injuries can happen, it might be that that while magic and potions can heal wounds it could be possible for them to heal wrong.The seeming lack of anesthesia would likely discourage letting someone cut your knees open to try to put it back right. Assuming healing magic heals bones. Then again, there's magic to grant courage and potions to fortify health so maybe a substitute can be set up.On the effects of old age, Master Neloth has an ointment made by Arara Uvulas for his joints because "He is old, you see, and has trouble moving about." The ingredients she lists make a potion that both restores and fortifies Agility so, yes, it seems the effects of aging can be counteracted via alchemy but presumably this only lasts as long as the ointment does and that any effect from restoring agility will eventually wear off.
>>94708337DnD 5e exists.>Elf, elf, elf, orc, tabaxi, human, human, human, human, lizardfolk
>>94713593daggerfall has a medical skill that basically amounts to a characters know how in patching themselves up
>>94712084was there a specific resource you used to run it in genesys?
>breton mage worshipper of molag bali'm set
>>94712160You mean that thing that only completely useless pacifists can do now, aside from one retarded terrorist and a player character who ends up getting enslaved as a pet for a tentacle monster? Hooray, the Nords are saved.
>>94714451Yeah, set up for an eternity of slavery and buttrape, lmao
>>94708582>5e TESI mean, what did you expect? Uestrpg, brp and mythras do exist and actually work out of the box for that sort of game, to have 5e run TES you need a complete system overhaul.
>>94716156To run D&D 5e period you need a system overhaul.
>>94708582I don't know if my group uses the same conversion, but I have a different experience. Our party doesn't have any -mer except for an orc in it and from what i've seen you can be powerful as an inferior race. Rogue kinda sucks in combat tho
>>94708958N'wah
>>94708905In the games with a decent magic system, yes. Skyrim has shit magic and only works as a supplement to a warrior or archer build
>>94715614yesi will have endless slaves and rape pretty bitches up the ass
Is the anon who asked for Polynesian Bosmeris? How many of you think Bosmer should sound like Polynesian? Someone in the /tg/ lore general requested a Polynesian design and I think I found a way to make it work. Conlang anon here, by the way.
>>94717857Looking cool anon! I don't know the context though, why make Bosmer polynesian?
I didn't make it, and during a regular ES general I asked if anybody had any ideas for the more difficult to finalize languages like Orcish and Wood elvish.
>>94717872>>94717864Forgot the link. Sorry.
One of my biggest priorities is phonetics to make words and names immediately identifiable as from a certain background. When you hear an English, a German, a Russian, an Arabic, or a Chinese word, you can nigh instantaneously identify them as such thanks to certain quirks in phonology.Let me give you an example with Bosmer and Dunmer, and also Ayleidoon:They look exactly the same.So how do we tell them apart? Phonetics.Fargoth and Dagoth look similar enough to the eye to showcase what I'm conjuring up.In the old non-Polynesian-sounding Bosmerese - now the hoity toity high Bosmeris - the name Fargoth is pronounced close to Anglophone would say, stress on the first syllable, only with a rolled R.Dagoth however would put the stress on the last syllabe, the A is dark like Farsi or Hungarian, the O is closed as in the two previously mentioned languages, and resyllabification moves the G of the root *DAG to the next segment, making it sound very different.FAR-goth vs daw-GOOTHIn the new Polynesian-sounded Bosmeris the R is tapped like Japanese and Hawaiian making it sometimes sound like an L, G is an allophone of K and final vowels are unvoiced; fricatives like F are realized as stops like P. Sometimes T and K are reversed or replaced with a glottal stop.Fargoth - Palakoto - Palakoko - Palako'o.
Making grammar is easy.Making provisions for dozens of dialects and dozens more subdialects is easy.Piecing together the lexicon of individual words is time-consuming.I don't know how to integrate or how not to integrate spiritual themes so they can be used for fan works.Only thing I have is the 36 sermons are divided between ye olde Dunmeris for the main text and almost modern for Vivec's line for the anachronistic effect. I have this idea to add gematria to Dunmer use of the Daedric alphabet and this is a major roadblock.
>>94712391also orcs are the dumbest mersecond to bosmer
>>94717896>>94717928I don't have nearly enough knowledge on the subject to give any constructive feedback, but just wanted to say I have immense respect for people doing weirdly specific in-depth analyses like that just for the sake of it and I love the fact that TES can inspire such compelling autism
>>94709138presuming in high rock where the majority of the population is breton, you still need to pull from that population for your army and guards and such. and if everyone has inherent magic resistance, having martial prowess is much more valuable.
My opinion is that the various races of human don't actually exist or that it's a spectrum except for the Redguards, and that Imperials are just Bretons.
>>94714210>Seems the closest thing to medicine is alchemy.This is always true when alchemy is the closest thing you have to chemistry.
>>94720581Yeah, that makes sense. When everyone sucks at fighting then it doesn't matter that you're the weakest Men if you're mainly fighting each other.Plus, looking it up some more, it turns out that in none of the games did Bretons ever have Destruction as a racial skill so there was even less reason for them to bother.
>>94718931This desu.
>>94711902Restoration as a school is generally identified as the transfer of lifeforce and energy. By converting magicka into lifeforce and giving it to the target, you're kind of artificially telling the body 'be healthier'. You're doing the equivalent of hacking into a computer to change your grades, except that number has actual effects on reality- wounds and injuries vanish.Higher levels of restoration involves actually knowing what the damage is, how to fix it, and using a combination of lifeforce transfer, stat restoration, and permenant shapeshift effects to seal wounds, which involves less fiat and thus is more magicka-efficient.I could see something like permenant injuries causing actual stat damage, and spells that, say, Restore Agility or Restore Intelligence fixing things like joint pain or brain damage. Same with chopped off limbs. If they weren't relatively easy to fix, more people would be missing limbs. One thing I'm not sure about is disease. As someone whose gone way too deep into the TES lore, it's possible that diseases are living viruses and bacteria (which curing would involve actually pulling lifeforce from the disease in question) but I get the feeling that it's closer to a transmittable curse.
>>94709138There's a few reasons:A: Magic resistance. If you're keeping law in an area where everyone and their dog resists a fireball, one good way to actually keep them down is to punch people in the face.B: Dragonskin. It's a natural, instinctive ability amongst most bretons to just give themselves physical resistance to things. Stack it on some plate armor, and you can become invulnerable for a while.C: Restoration and Alteration. It doesn't matter that you don't have an orc's strength boost when you can fortify your own strength and endurance to the point where you can throw around boulders. Feather your own armor, and it's like it's not even burdening you.
>>94721845Using buffs spells would actually be a great way to have Bretons be able to play knights in a tabletop game without giving them explicit racial combat bonuses.Just need to make those buff spells accessible and work in such a way they they're not under powered.
>>94710988>Homegame adaptionThis is far less common than you might think.There are only a small handful of classic crpgs that have their roots as an adaption of their creator's home games. What's more common, and didn't happen in TES at all, is that bits and bobs from various designer's home games popped in. Moon/Moonglow was the starter town for Richard Garriott's home games, Skara Brae from Ultima, Wizardry, and Bards Tale was from Roe Adams's game, etc. Now it is very safe to assume that the guys at Bethesda Softworks were D&Drones, you didn't have a job working on crpgs in the 80s and 90s without being a D&Drone (or GRUPSfag if you worked in the Austin TX area, as that was the system of choice at Origin after working on Car Wars brought Richard and Warren into Steve Jackson's home group).All of that goes to say that, if anyone at Bethesda's crew did import anything from their home game, it was minor inclusions.
>>94721827where exactly do you get this restoration lore from, I don't remember it being stated anywhere that this is how it works.
>>94722038morrowind was heavily influenced by runequest, you can see it in the d100 percentile rolls.Earlier games like daggerfall borrowed a good bit from GURPS, you can see this in the advantage pointbuy system with the magery trait.Not to mention bethesda wanted to originally license GURPS for fallout, but they did not get the license from SJG games, and thus had to make their own stat system (which would become S.P.E.C.I.A.L in fallout 1)
>>94722139The fact that it's Willpower rather than Intelligence based means that it's not one of the more cerebral and literal schools of magic- means it's one of those based more on tricking reality rather than playing within reality's rules.Here are some direct quotes:On Fortification magic, 'Four Suiters of Benitah'>visualizing magicka streaming through his body, pumping through the very fibers of his muscles for a time,>how to entrench his mind for the sudden assault of awareness and aptitude that would assail it, how to give himself to the sudden thoughts and theorems that would invade his consciousness.>make his endurance like that of the oldest stone. He learned how to shrug off the effects of frost, poison, fire, and charges of lightning, pulling the pain into a reservoir of magicka and expelling it.>fire his impulses with magicka. Over several weeks, he learned how to supplant his own natural energy with the spell's, how to view the world at the slower pace a man with advanced agility sees.On resistance spells, '2920, Rain's hand'>Your imagination and your willpower are the keys. There is no need for a spell to give you a resistance to air, or a resistance to flowers, and after you cast the charm, you must forget there is even a need for a spell to give you resistance to fire. Do not confuse what I am saying: resistance is not about ignoring the fire's reality. You will feel the substance of flame, the texture of it, its hunger, and even the heat of it, but you will know that it will not hurt or injure you."Mystery of Talara 2, it's implied that you don't necessarily need to know what's wrong to heal someone. (Though the character failed)>"Her little heart just broke, and for a while, it looked like her mind did too. [...] I found her afterwards, [...] and she was like a little broken doll. She wouldn't speak, she wouldn't eat. I tried all my healing spells, but it was quite beyond my power. So much more than a scraped knee."
>>94722224If learning spells requires being wacky I think I'd just learn alchemy.
>>94721827Okay, that mostly makes sense I think and makes it a little bit clearer, thank youAlso it is now my headcanon that restoration adepts buy off tonnes of bodies and specimens and perform hundreds of sections to understand the body better and improve their spells>Same with chopped off limbs. If they weren't relatively easy to fix, more people would be missing limbs. This is something that's so strongly dependent on vidya engine limitations that I really wouldn't treat it as an indicator of how things are supposed to look like in lore. Bethesda definitely wouldn't bother to add a separate limbless option to human models just to shove a few amputees into their game, especially since this would probably cause all sorts of issues with animations, clothing and item usage
>>94722540Technically, I don't think Restoration uses that sort of biological knowledge directly. While I'm sure it could, earlier games have the Medical skill and Restoration magic done separately. Restoration is one of the more willpower/empathy based skills, rather than one that expects you to know what you're doing. There's specific mentions in some of the lore books that just feeling empathy for your target makes you a better restoration user. That said, I'm sure a devoted healer or a restoration specialist would study both, for a better picture of things, but it's not necessarily a requirement. In a system where part of casting 'resist fire' involves deluding yourself to believe fire's not dangerous to you, knowing how burn wounds are formed wouldn't help much.But as far as amputees/prosthetics go, there's a lack of mention of amputees in the lore either. With flesh sculptors, chirurgeons and 'flesh magic' mentioned, the lack of prosthetics is glaring. That's why I could completely see it being a thing where you can just get limbs regrown or reattached, not just the lack of amputees in the games. Perhaps not 'easily', but I'm sure there'd be at least one capable caster in any largeish town.
>>94708337I was going to say there used to be tesg threads on tg once a week but that was fucking 10 years ago.
>>94725090I'm pretty sure they were still semi regular like 3-5 years ago, weren't they?
>>94714425There should be a TES supplement in the /gengen/ pastebin
>>94708337Would everyone still be a stealth archer?
>>94729055I mean, there's no reason not to be. You get a free hit in before initiative even if you suck at it. You won't suck at it for long, of course.
>>94729055Just do drugs.
>>94708905>If you could choose what race you were in the setting, why the fuck would pick anything other than one of these two?Nord and then recklessly summon frost atronachs that I am entirely immune to. Use the home grown standing stones to swap to atronach birthsign too. Just stand next to my own summon. Just stand there. The only fear I have is another nord.
>>94709066This is particularly relevant if we take earlier versions of TES at face value on things like health pools. Even strong mages fall to simple tactics when you consider they are still essentially mortal. Even elders should fall to one good shank, and you can't hide behind gimmicks like 1 million mirror images and infinite AC like DnD. Yeah, just having more guys is suddenly incredibly relevant, and races like Nords tend to have nasty tricks up their sleeve just by being them. I think there's a reason the Nords were the ones posed as a threat against the mer in older lore. The voice for one, but being a Nordic witch is kind of fucked in it's own way. And let's stop and admit that guys like >>94708905are exceptions even among the Dunmer. Nuclear grade magicians are not standard, and most will have shitty magicka reserves to boot. Imagine planning to be a mage and having the reserves to cast a spell. Singular. Being set up to be a good mage in TES requires time AND fortune of birth. It's a massive advantage if you can do it, but this isn't something you decide to just.. do.. even with all the time in the world. IF we go by the in game lore books, it seems the ability to cast a SINGLE fireball is actually a really huge deal. This is a far cry from whatever mental image the PC of the games can cause people to have. Side note, what about enchanting/alchemy? They always seemed the pro choice for nonmagical races. Practice all day without near as many constraints, but then you've traded for needing to be wealthy instead. Not a poor man's game.
>>94709821>This is literally what Dunmer's niche is... it's just that in the lore they're ALSO really good at magic too.Funny cope by the lore given, in practice, having huge magicka reserves is your real stumbling block. Which they have no better advantage in than anyone else. Altmer inbreeding massively undercuts their own advantage in that. They can horn about all they like, but putting it in practice tells a different story. Bretons really are the default choice for a warrior mage as such. Usable magic without needing to be born under a sign for it. If we go by the default everyman.Are we sure it's not more like> X fancies themselves powerful mages but only among themselvesinstead? Particularly with how popular overhyping your own history and outright lying about it is. Example, how likely is it nord tongues could actually do half the things the books depict them doing.. from nord perspectives? And the stolen valor effect. Not every person is going to be, what, Shalidor himself? I bet even most Altmer and Dunmer are no better than dumb hedge wizards. But now with an ego. Also something like a Nord makes a suspiciously great mage.. if they are born under the right sign. Being immune entirely to one element and half of another is a huge jump start, and your natural robustness fixes a lot of practical issues. INT is a fixable issue, and they have natural WIS. Ironically why orc shamans are kind of legit too. These are great starting positions, and it comes down to birthsign anyway. It's only upsides.
>>94708515Ruinfag, Why are you trying to ruin the board? You do this to every thread that isn’t political bait, gooner slop, or 40k.
>>94723332Consider this, anon.Much like real life, availability of medical treatment isn't the same as it existing. The requisite alchemists or restoration mages would need to be local and you have the money for the injury. Also the arrow in the knee thing is an old joke about having a wife.
>>94725150Yeah here's one of the threads from the archive https://archive.4plebs.org/tg/thread/70211834Has a lot of links relevant to OP like rules and monster manual for TES.
>>94717215>he doesn’t know Lol, I’m a mehrunes chad and I’m ACTUALLY going to be doing that in paradise.
>>94731031>he doesn't know
>>94717896I feel like it’s such a sad waste when people put so much effort and passion into corporate owned commercial settings, why not just make your own?I love the TES setting but Bethesda doesn't and it’s going to get worse and worse and more watered down every year.
>>94731794Because making your own is a full time job, and most people don't have time for that.Taking one that's already mostly made and adjusting it is much easier, and you can pick and choose what parts to use when new stuff comes out.
>>94730632>Being set up to be a good mage in TES requires time AND fortune of birth.Wouldn't that just require being born under the Mage or Apprentice birthsigns? Can say that birthsigns don't affect NPCs like they do the players but NPC mages in the last 3 games tend to have magicka pools above what the player can get so it might be relevant.But, yeah, a 2/13 chance of getting the right sign isn't very high.As for learning, there are plenty of hedge mages out there. Bandit mages and entire ruins full of mages exist so I don't think access to magical education is too far out of reach for most people if they go out and look for it.
>>94732693I'm under the impression that being born under a 'certain sign' isn't a given either? I think that's one thing that makes the PC special in every game. Not everyone gets a guardian sign watching over them. It's like being born awesome in the first place. Though sometimes with big drawbacks too.>Bandit mages and random hedge magesCast less than five spells and pull out the knife. Granted, with healthpools in earlier games, you only need to land the one fire touch on most people. So your int score being 1 for 1 your magicka pool is fine. You'll just.. also never be incredible. One thing to consider that is detached from general game mechanics. Having more magicka would mean more practicing per day. So being born rich means you get richer even faster. Though this also means dunmer have no real reason to be better mages by default. Other than having hate boners for learning fire spells so they can torch n'wahs. Which is the only reason any dunmer would EVER know fire spells. Other dunmer would be mostly immune. Honestly maybe that is the entire reason. Motivation can do a lot for a man.
>>94708905>every mage of any importanceGyron Vardengroet (Breton, also immortal.)Hannibal Traven (Breton)Shalidor (Which you did mention, but still: Nord)Azra Nightwielder, man of some variety (Breton or Imperial)Zurin Arcturus (Breton)Potema Septim (Imperial)Azhidal, Miraak, and the other Dragon Priests (Atmoran)Wulfhearth/Ysmir (Atmoran)So, while I'm sure the 'average' elf has a handful of spells, and the 'average' man is a talentless newb, I feel like any men who do practice spellcasting turn it into their life's work- making them Experts and Masters. Meanwhile, any elves who practice magic just know it as part of their culture and don't view it as special.The ones who are fucked are the beastfolk. But they've got their own weirdness going on.>>94732693If you want to become a great mage, Guardian Stones and Doomstones are things, the Battlespire (was) a thing, fortify magicka potions are things... Doping is a perfectly acceptable way to power.
>>94715598Originally all nords could learn to use their shout in all manner of ways.Literally just shouting the opposition into submission.
>>94736913guardian stones and doomstones don't work for everybody, just like birthsigns are not a thing everybody has.Beastmen are about as skilled at magery as humans by most measurements(stats, magicka bonuses etc..), we just don't know much about elsewyr and blackmarsh to begin with.For the cats we do know they have a rich tradition of mysticism and likely many famous (for them) mages, there just was no game set in elsewyr and they do not tend to write down things as much.Similar for lizards.
>>94737306Doomstones don't work for everyone, but why would you assume guardian stones don't? First thing that happens in skyrim is the dude's like 'oh hey dude pick a guardian stone.'
>>94709066Bretons are actually more magically inclined than Dunmer. All this “pure blood” stuff is cope. Sorry chud, in-game lore takes precedence over everything else. Take it up with Todd.
>>94737320because to them its superstition/tradition, they only actually grant their blessings to heroes e.g. the dragonborn.See: skyrim book watcher of stones, which describes it.
>>94737375I looked into it, and shit, you're right.I have been proven wrong on an argument on the internet.
>>94708515you don't play games
>>94717928Gematria for Dunmeris makes a ton of sense, but why Polynesian for Bosmeris? Shouldn't the Maormer & Cathnoquey fulfill that niche/analogue better?>>94721089WRONG, you MOR-ON!>>94721827Solid insights>>94737346As if; were that the case most Bretons wouldn't be stuck as peasants without any means of wealth &/or social mobility.
What province/region would everyone like to run a game in the most? What province/region would everyone like to play a game in the most? For me it would be either a sandboxy game set in High Rock with lots of intrigue and rivaling faction, or a survival heavy nightmarish expedition into the depths of Black Marsh. Or anything set in Morrowind really. But I find each province cool in its own way.I honestly don't enjoy playing RPGs that much as opposed to GMing, so no opinion when it comes to the second question
Highly surprised to see some interesting discussion on /tg/, about TES no less. I think the most interesting times to set a campaign in are the Nord Conquests of the First Era before the Battle of Red Mountain, the Second Interregnum at the tail end of the Akaviri Potentate (ESO time period, but the alliances would need to actually make sense), the Tharn Interregnum/War of the Bend'r Mahk, & the early 4th Era while High Chancellor Ocato attempts to maintain control. The Great War of the 4th Era could be interesting, but I hate the direction Legends & Blades took it in where the Thalmor were actually Daedra worshippers & so was the Emperor of Cyrodiil. Absolutely ridiculous.
Location-wise, the mountain borderlands between High Rock, Skyrim, & Hammerfell, including the Reach, Falkreath, & a bit of the Colovian Highlands. The Northern Velothi Mountains, Solstheim, & the many Out-Islands of the Sea of Ghosts, with Redoran Houselands & Eastmarch Hold serving as the two centers of civilization & commerce for the campaign. The outer periphery of Black Marsh, bordering Morrowind & Nibenay, with the ruins & remnants of the many tribes that could not thrive in the Argonians' native territory: Kothringi, Yespest, Orma, Horwalli, Liilmothiit, Barseabic Ayleids, Cantemeric Velothi, Birdmen, etc.
Haven't had a TES thread so this seems the place to ask, but can anyone give me the lowdown on Julianos? He's a member of the largest and most wiespread pantheon in the setting but there appears to be next to no lore about him.
>>94740851Mage, nerds and scholars. Since mages, nerds and scholars are not the most faithful kind he goes mostly unseen. The rest just pay lip service to him.
>>94740532>As if; were that the case most Bretons wouldn't be stuck as peasants without any means of wealth &/or social mobility.Most Dunmer are dirt and egg farming peasants. The two races aren’t so different. The common people are a far cry from the Master Telvanni wizards (who still job to lizards). As for social mobility:>Find a new hill, become a king.
Just use gurps lolhttp://tesg.cosmogoblin.com/
>>94740549I've sometimes thought about running a game that starts just before or after the events of morrowind.Gist of it being a twin lamps agents campaign which naturally lends itself to dramatic stories, lots of intrigue and stealth, aswell as occasional combat.I'd imagine an average mission that goes somewhat like a shadowrun module.Look around, scope places out, talk to people then do a heist to free slaves or whatever.Overarching story that's going to culminate with the groups involvement in the imminent end of slavery that happens just after morrowind, and it's aftermath.My main problem was system, I was eyeing GURPS but I'd frankly have to redo a lot of things, make a custom gcs setting and shit and I couldn't be bothered designing it, the TES gurps writeups I had found online left a lot to be desired from my point of view.I was even gonna draw my own lil battlemaps and shit, pic related is the scraps that I could find (can't find the actual files anymore) of me starting to draw the necessary tiles to make the starter cave.
>>94709138i would assume it's same school of thought as the School of Ramius among House Flambeau in Ars Magica: basically if everyone has magic resistance then throwing a fireball is a waste of effort so better to just learn buff and defensive spells and stab people with swords
>>94742996That's a cool idea, make sure to escalate threat as Cammona Tong, Telvanni, Dres and other factions that profit heavily from slave trade get more and more pissed with the party's actionsWhen it comes to system, Blades in the Dark and its derivatives are pretty much made for these sorts of campaign concepts, but it's a very unorthodox system and since you've mentioned GURPS I assume you would prefer something more conventional
What should each Race in TES have for attribute bonii & maluses, broadly speaking? There are prior examples to pull from in Morrowind & Oblivion especially. Subraces as well.For simplicity's sake, I would divide the Khajiit between Ohmes (Man/Mer resemblance), -Raht breeds (with large size & high strength), & the usual walking cat breeds as three types, the exact furstock just being narrative.Bretons have some interesting subraces being fleshed out by Tamriel Rebuilt/Project Tamriel based on degrees of admixture & cultural isolation.Imperials of course should be split between their main three divisions of Colovian, Heartlander, & Nibenese, along with further sub-subraces of Colo-Nords, River Eels/Snake-Blooded/Potents of Nibenay & Rimmen, & lastly Septimanians as I would term the many Breton-descended Imperials that are offshoots of the "Septim" line. (bit of a historical reference as well to the Carolingians)Orcs could be divided between Common/Steel, Stone, Iron, & Wood.Bosmer between those who have manifested aspects of the Green Pact (one of the few things I liked about ESO), Ayleidic, Altmeric, & Colovian-blooded Arenthians.Altmer shouldn't have subraces beyond perhaps some small substratum with Falmeri ancestry, some lessers of the Direnni Kinship with Ayleid-blood, or the shunned offspring of Maormer raids.Nords could have plenty of cultural divisions such as Roscreans, Skaal, Out-Islanders/Ghost Sea Raiders, Brumahts, Colovian Highlanders, & the Reich(s)men who remained in High Rock after the collapse of their empire in the First Era (see Reichsgradkeep from Arena).As for half-Elves beyond Bretons & some borderland Bosmer, there should definitely be a small "new race" of cosmopolitan mongrel dogs of the Empire residing in the Imperial City & perhaps the Illiac Bay as of the Late Third Era. Also, half-Orcs who are embraced by Orsinium but rejected by Strongholds.
>>94748018I don't think it's very needed, in my opinion distinguishing between the biology of nords,imperials,redguards and bretons is already pretty much bloat.TES tended to mix in culture and biology and I think you should probably separate them if you are making a ttrpg.
>>94748018It kind of depends on the system you're using, but generally when it comes to attribute bonuses/maluses I would stick to 10 "main" races to not overcomplicate things. However, I would allow to pick a "subgroup" in addition to that and perhaps make it grant some additional skill proficiencies or stuff like that For example I would give all Imperials a bonus to whatever social attribute the system has and a malus to agility or its equivalent. And then on top of that I would consider giving Colovians a bonus to athletics or some sort of craft/trade skill, since their culture has a strong work ethic and the region is focused on logging and agriculture; Nibenese a bonus to some scholarly skills, since their society is highly cultured and has well developed philosophical and magical fields; and Heartlanders a bonus to some mercantile or politics skill, since it's the centre of both the province and the Empire. I think doing any divisions more complex and small scale than that is a bit of an overkill, especially since your players likely won't be TES lore autists. Although that being said I absolutely adore this setting for being detailed and thought out enough to have such nuanced ethnic groups
>>94748063Sure, Race should contribute more to Attributes & Culture more to Skills, since the prior is largely inborn & the latter is largely learned. This isn't DnD, each group has a distinctive origin & niche in the universe fulfilled on a metaphysical level, much like real life for those who have eyes to see, especially if one simply looks at meta- & epi-genetics, bone structure, the Western taboo of IQ, all spiritual traditions beyond Abrahamic ones, etc.Besides the distant holdouts & leftovers of bygone ages in other lands, the Old Holders, & the Western/New Holders, I would posit another major cultural division of the Nords: Middron-Men. Hailing from Whiterun Hold, consisting of free-riders of the plains (the only Nordic horsemen subculture), as well as the inhabitants of the Jeralls due South & the small villages that should stand at the foot of the Throat of the World, some of whom give up their children to become Greybeards or have them from those who fail to master The Way of the Voice. Helgen should be included culturally, as Falkreath has a distinct identity separate from it & should only own it politically. This group would be a middle-ground between the West & East, swaying in either direction during conflicts between the two half-kingdoms historically, open to trade with foreigners, but ultimately safeguarding their traditions far more than Solitude's neighbor-holds. Falkreath itself should really be a mixture of Nords, Colo-Nords (since Cyro-Nord seems to be a historical proto-Colovian term), & Colovians based on their history as part of a Nede kingdom freed from the Ayleids, the Empire of the Nords, the Colovian Estates, & the High Kingdom of Skyrim.
>>94708337Why are Nords and Argonians naked?
>>94748405the real question is why do they look like they were drawn by wikihow freelancers
>>94748195Solid insights; the Race should definitely be the main set of bonii & malii, with the Subrace tweaking it slightly like you said.I've had an idea for sometime of a mongrel "race" within the Velothi Mountains, with no racial consciousness of their own or endonym at all, simply similar admixture in distinct tribes & the exonym of "Velothians." A better name is likely needed since Velothi already refers to too many distinct groups. It would consist, in varying degrees by tribe, of the scions of Dwemer who fled from Kagrenac's experiments or left upon the founding of Resdayn, Nords who held out for their claims upon Dunmereth, Orcs who sold their swords at the Battle of Red Mountain, Dunmer who abandoned the Velothi Philosophy upon being cursed by Azura, Falmer who fled their kingdom's destruction, & Ayleids who sought refuge with the Chimer/Dunmer thinking that Daedra worship would give them common cause. These small groups, surrounded by hostile Nord recidivists, Orc strongholds, Giant clans, & Dunmer reavers who maintained their own bloodlines, dwindled in numbers but coalesced over time due to scarcity of resources, the risks of inbreeding, & the microeconomy of the Velothi Mountains (which really needs a Nordic/Dovahzuul/Falmeris name). When Kagrenac struck the heart, those Dwemer who could not find refuge with their warring kin in Skyrim disappeared, leaving their half-breed children behind with fragments of their skills & knowledge. The tribes with more Ayleid & Falmer blood coalesced to the South near the Valus Mountains, & a few tribes even have Giant ancestry. Essentially they would be reverse Reachmen, more Elf than Man, but still mongrels. The unique part would be their cave-architecture & spiritual traditions, which I need to fleshout further. I'm envisioning Telvanni mushroom-tower like interior walls that are edible, Falmeri crystalline gates, solar-charged lights, & sigil-stones that open otherwise impassable slabs of stone....
>>94748405Because the former are uncivilised barbarians and latter are farm equipment
>>94748405Unarmored Chads The Dunmer isn't naked because she is a lady and that would be immodest. EBONHEART RACES 4 LYFE!!!!
>>94748463>Dunmer women>ModestKudos for Ebonheart Pact though, it makes no fucking sense as a faction, but when once you get over it it's easily the coolest to play
These Velothians' brownsmiths would forge arms & armour from scraps of the Dwemer-Brass of their partial ancestors; due to scarcity, & the risks of claiming it from Falmer, Trolls, Automata, & worse, each piece would be used sparingly. Rather than heavy plate, a ring-mail of mammoth-leather & dwarf-steel loops would be donned by the average Portal-Guard (cave doorme(n/r) need a better name). Crossbow quarrel-heads, javelin-points, mattocks, & war-picks too would be made of it. A Cavern-Khan could gain his status by way of plundering more significant pieces from a Dwemer ruin, & are usually bedecked in partial Dorf panoply, passed down to sons. Due to the cramped spaces, dagger/knife-fighting would be the primary means of settling honor duels, & generally would only go to first blood in light of their low populations. The blending of Orc shamanesses, Nord cleverwomen, & Dunmer mabrigashes lead to the primacy of wome(n/r) as spellcasters, healers, mystics, & apothecaries. They combine the bounties of the caverns into debilitating dusts that can be blown through vent-chutes perfectly bored with ancient Dwemer tools into choke-point chambers, stopping intruders by unseen means. Dwemer obsession with "astronology" contributed to vision quests as rights of passage, consuming the blends of glowing cave fungi bred by wisewome(n/r), climbing atop the highest peaks at night, & carefully recording the movements of the stars within crystals to be compiled & reviewed by the administering crystal-witch. The lessened Nordic blood of the tongues who did not join Jurgen Windcaller persists as evident in the whispers that wind through vast tunnels & dull the crystalline lights to cast intruders into darkness, or brighten them to ward off the beasts that dwell in shadows. The greatest of them speak curses in a pigeon Chimeris that cause the very stones to constrict & crush their enemies from hidden mushroom-middens, their first mutterings echoing back as a form of echo-location.
A few tribes have been enslaved over the ages as thralls to the Nords, livestock to the Falmer, slaves to the Dunmer, or mammoth-delousers for the Giants, but the greatest threat has always been the Dov. Dragon Cultists fleeing into the mountains & outright subjugation by the Children of Aka have instilled in them a great hatred of the Drakes & their Father Deity. Some have been made to wage war against the Giant clans to steal away their mammoth herds, others forced to giveup their dead, elders, or children. The resulting spiritual outlook of this fact & their various origins has led to a condemnation of Akatosh/Auriel & Shor/Lorkhan, leading to traditions that venerate the Magne-Ge above all, then some of the Daedra, followed by a select few Aedra. Their foundational myths are incomprehensible to anyone else on Tamriel due to these disparate views. Their equivalent of Kyne/Kynareth is viewed as a sacrificial mother for example, due to the common practice of stealing eggs from the high-up nests of hawks for vital sustenance.
Hircine is celebrated & reviled in equal measure, as amongst the Velothians are were-bears, -wolves, & -boars, generally relegated to the position of night-hunter for the well-being of the rest of the tribe, or breaking off to form packs amongst their own. One such pack are led by an outcast Giant, blursed to life as a were-troll & known to have crushed & eaten the bones of several Cavern-Khans. Occasionally the reavers known as Ghost Sea Raiders & Out-Islanders, whether Ashen or Pale in origin, make land for a season to raid the people of the mountains, with loot being a remote secondary concern compared to their cause of cleansing what they see as tainted blood. So long as they do not target merchant ships & coastal villages in their passing, these attacks are ignored by the neighboring Redoran House-Lands & Nord Holds. Following the Red Year, a few hopeless Morag Tong sojourned to the caves of whom they denigrated as "n'wahs" for a milennia or more, to teach them their killing arts & attempt to rouse them to attack the Argonians to reclaim lost Dres lands along the old borders. None were swayed to leave their way of life within the caves for the promises of fertile fields & valleys, as the Velothians know only the cultivation of underground fungi & eyeless fish. Some value did come of the exchanges however, as the diffusion of martial traditions benefitted both parties, & a tribe or two had their Cavern-Khan usurped in dagger-duels by the Mephalite assassins. As the tribesfolk made it clear that the surface world holds no value to them, some völvas have glimpsed at plots by The Spinner to have them carve out a realm below where Dwarves once ruled...
what's with the walls of text?Kinda rambly.
>>94748838Just on my worldbuilding shit, anon
>>94748838That was actually fairly interesting for AIslop, besides it mixing up the Ayleids with the Direnni.
>>94708337why did half you guys show up naked to the painting class
>>94748838extreme amounts of autism
>>94748838>calling the ancient altmer godsis this thalmor propaganda?
>>94736913Not that Anon, but unless ESO retconned shit, Azra was a Redguard, Zurin was a Nibenese Imperial, and Ysmir was an aspect of a deity, not necessarily a "mage".Gyron is LITERALLY a fictional character in-universeCalling Hannibal Traven "important" is kind of a joke. Especially when the only thing of importance he ever did is 90% the Player Character's accomplishment.
>>94751372Zurin is another name for Arnand the Fox, who was a breton. Azra's specific race is never explicitly said, but he's clearly not a redguard when you meet him in Shadowkey.They're all still human, though, so my point stands.Hannibal Traven stood up to Mannimarco and has literally maxed out casting abilities, mechanically, and is an archmage of the mage's guild. I mean, I wouldn't call Trebonius Artorius a great mage, but considering Traven has stats equal to the best the Hero of Kvatch can ever get at spellcasting...Gyron's real- or the stories he's based on are real in-setting, otherwise why would characters like Mannimarco be like 'that's not his real name'?Ysmir's a title. I was saying specifically Wulfhearth. There's still a bunch of confusion there. But Wulf's still a powerful, legendary Tongue who shouted time back into place, summoned ghosts and gods and shit. Shouts are magic too.
>>94752760Arnand the Fox is probably just an earlier incarnation of "Zurin."When Pelinal died, Morihaus told him he would return to the world as a "fox" (ie Arnand/Hans the Fox) or "light" (Reman "Light-of-Man")I think the closest thing to a race given to Zurin is kirkbride hinting at him being Tsaesci.
>>94718931>>94721500Thanks. It's like playing the games: not difficult but a lot to memorize in a sequence. First you go here, then there, then over there, and back here.>>94740532During previous threads of the formerly regular general I had issues deciding on a couple of details like how Arabic-like Dwemeris had to be, how Native American-like Argonian would become, and what to make otheoryingf Bosmer and Orcish.One anon asked for Polynesian wood-elves.>>94731794>>94731836Once you're good in a thing like drawing a single drawing doesn't take much time or ressources. Conlanging, which is an ugly word, is another skill which doesn't take much time with one exception:Every single word is like a brushstroke.When you're writing a new fan theory or revising an old one it's maybe very easy to you because you've spent a lot of time on fan theories.Coming up with phonology, grammar, and syntax is so straighrforward the only thing you need is time to comb through different language pages to get the reconstructions.One big problem many conlangers have is working on one for an extended period of time before getting bored and moving on. Elder Scrolls? Long time franchise and many playable races to work with.
Let's assume Akatosh, Alkosh, and Alduin are related words from the same source without borrowing from or into another tongue.Akalatusin, the U may be long.How about Sheor and Shezarr? Sheor comes from Shehor which derives from Shesor, common source with Shezarr, but the double R implies something more like a missing suffix or a simple in-universe writing convention.Often you need a lot of descendant words to get a single ancestral root word.
>>94708905>Altmer and Dunmer are just on a completely different level magicallyDoesn't seem to help them much.
>>94754163If he was chosen by Lorkhan the planner of the Aurbis he was, likely, imbued with the pattern of the Mundus.
>>94752817I don't think these are answerable questions though. Even the actual identity of zurin is intentionally obscured. It's kind of lame as forced ambiguity goes, but it is what it is.
>>94754206ELEVEN POGROMS BEST DAY OF MY LIFE. NO ELVES IN TAMRIEL. I DON'T WANT THEM GONE, I WANT THEM DEAD. ACHIEVE CHIM AND KILL ELVES. DIVINES BLESS.
>>94754163>>94754420Based & Ruby-Redpilled>>94754001That's fucking dope. What do you think of my Velothian concept I spurged out about above? What language parallel do you think would best suit such a mongrelized people? Also, why Arabic for the Dwemer? Shouldn't you choose a more advanced language, perhaps one actually used by human beings? Based on the spelling on the page, are you German?
Anyone looked into the lore being cooked up by Project Tamriel & Tamriel Rebuilt? I'm especially interested in the lost holds of the Empire of the Nords, plus the recidivists & holdouts who still claim them. There are some canon lore precedents such as Reich Gradkeep/Anticlere & Reich Par(th)keep.
>>94754001>otheoryingfEither I'm typing too fast or computers are getting slower.>>94754859>What do you think of my Velothian conceptVery good read. ES is unique among games for not only endorsing but actively encouraging fan theories.Dunmeris in my notes is simple: standard modern Dunmerese as of ES3, Ashlander with a very strong Dwemer substrate, southern House Dres dialect with an Argonian adstratum, and ye olde post-Velothian Chimeris.>Based on the spelling on the page, are you German?Nope. Didn't even notice it. I pulled the image from a search engine. However German is one of my go-to inspirations for run of the mill temperate zone fantasy kingdom along with Czech. Very easy reconstructions.>>94754859>Also, why Arabic for the Dwemer?It's Yagrum Bagarn, not Yagrm Bgarn, isn't it?I was musing about the deficient writing system - they don't write short vowels - before going over to Persian - same issue - until finalizing on Caucasian languages like Georgian or Kabardian thanks to a discovery of similar headdresses. Also memes.https://youtu.be/watch?v=m2y08gVeJHs
>>94758353Why Dwemer for Ashlanders?
>>94740549>What province/region would everyone like to run a game in the most?High Rock>What province/region would everyone like to play a game in the most?Black Marsh or Elsweyr
>>94722150>bethesda wanted to originally license GURPS for falloutWay to out yourself as having no fucking clue what you're talking about
>>94765410Yes yes, it was interplay, very cool.Does not fucking matter for the argument.
>>94762933Ashlander "dialects" look very different from regular Dunmer speak; so much so I classify them as mutually unintelligible languages on a dialect continuum, which is fancy words for "dialect you can't understand nor they can understand you". Some dialects in the north of UK are like that for us.Dwemer have a decidedly Akkadian-pre-Turkic-Anatolian design.Ashlander looks Akkadian-like and lived around the mountain.It just fits.First I wanted to make Dwemeris Akkadian-like, then looked into Arabic, upon realization that the common ancestor of Akkadian and Egyptian is 15 *thousand* years old I had to look somewhere else. Without a canonical Tower of Babel incident how do you explain change over generations in a world barely over 8,500 years old? I finalized on a Sumerian-Caucasian-like with very long verbs.On a related note I assume that Orcish and Dwemer are closely related based on the "title" Dumalacath Dwarf-Orc, but Orcish is the reverse with very long nouns and simple verbs instead.tl;dr - Ashlander is a dialect of Dunmeris so strongly influenced by Dwemer contact that they can't understand each other.
My hot take is: the Direnni tower is the closest to a Tower of Babel but instead of where that's "when" the racial splits between Men and Mer were finalized and major language families like Mannic, Meric, and Argonian were established.Khajiit is a very early split of Mer earlier than Redguard Yoku from Mannic.Ehlnofex you see in lore pages? In-universe reconstructions made by Aldmer-phile philologists who think the Meric stories are preferable to Mannic myths. It's like the very first Proto-Indo-European texts based on Sanskrit during a time of Indomania. Close but not really.
Highly intriguing stuff, so the implication is that the Ashlanders descend from those who did not go to war with the Dwemer, as well as the Sixth House Unmourned? What of the Orcs, I don't see a connection with the Dwarfs beyond the instance of that name, although they were at Red Mountain during the battle to my understanding along with Nords & possibly Khajiit.
>>94767688Okay so this is going to be a bit complicated.When you're a polyglot you lose the connection between sound and meaning but also you make new connections. Many fantasy games are based around "primordial words" which have magical power given to the speaker. Instead I go by sound symbolism. What does the Arabic word qahqaha mean? Laugh. You can kind of see it. The German word for laugh is lachen with an ach sound. You can kind of see it. Both very different words and yet similar.When making the languages I first look at the names, try to come up with phonology, and then construct a basic grammar for "dachsprache", a fancy word to mean a language everybody can agree on, and then families like Meric-sans-Khajiit, Khajiit, Mannic-sans-Yoku, Yoku, and Argonian. From then on it gets easier.Next I'm assuming a later bifurcation from the West/East split of Cyrodiil, the Forebear/Crown division among the Redguards, and the mainstream Nords and Skaal. I'm stretching it but bear with me.Every major mannic language like Imperialese, Nordish, Yoku, and Bretoncais has two major distinctive macro-dialects which are little idioms on their own; Cyrodiilic, Nord, and Breton form a sprachbund, a fancy word for neighbours. Contact usually causes change over time. Mers don't have major sub-families in the same sense but making provisions for hundreds of dialects is easy.Ashlander Dunmeris is simply ancient Dunmeris which had extensive contact with Dwemeris-speaking trade partners triggering similarity in sound if not in grammar. The same is true for Southern Dunmeris which is slightly more similar to local Argonian slavers."Dwarf-Orc" suggests to me that back then the two sounded similar enough to be lumped together. I like to think Dwemer were former worshippers of Trinimac who got disgusted instead of smearing themselves with his remains.
Sorted in an ascending order of perceived closeness to Ehlnofex; conversely, a descending order of how early they split:Jel - Yoku - Orcish - Dwemeris - Ta'agra - Cyrodilic (Tamerielic) - Bretoncais - Dunmeris/Bosmeris - Falmeris - Ayleidoon - Nordish - Altmeris - AldmerisThis means the list of changes gets longer towards the left.I still like the idea that Jel is somehow related to the others, maybe by mimicry or by ancient Black Marsh Mer.
>>94767950>Jel is somehow related to the othersIt shouldn't be. It should be completely alien, since the Hist and their creations are supposed to be from another world.
>>94767688Ashlanders did go to war with the Dwemer, that's the whole point of the needing to be named Nerevarine by the Ashlanders plot of Morrowind.
>>94741871Man, those race templates are busted. Lore accurate maybe, but just too expensive.
>>94767963I know you're right. That's why I called it "perceived" and in any way Argonese so far removed if it was ever related you couldn't reconstruct it and every semblance is coincidence or mimicry. Last time I checked Hist don't have a mouth.In my scheme the languages of Man, or Mannic as I call, them are each divided into two major sub-languages with dialects each. In order to make them stand out and more unique I'll take phonetics and grammars from widlly differing backgrounds.Cyrodilic, also called Tamrielic or Imperial, has a Slav-like and Greek-like split; Nord has a Gaelic-Slav-like and Finno-Eskimo-like split; Bretonnish has a Gaelic-French-like and Basque-like split; and Redguard has a Sub-Saharan-African-like and Arabic-Berber-like division between the Crowns and the Forebears.Elder Scrolls is a game of switching things around a little. Sub-Saharan African nobility. Imagine that.Don't get me wrong. I'm not going to give you Japanese if you're interested in Altmeris, but you will see the inspiration in much the way Tolkien took Welsh for his Common Elvish which forms the basis of the Wood elvish and Dark elvish of fantasy games.>>94768033Let me put it in another way: despite being so different, with few exception, every European language follows the "Standard Average European", a collection of grammatical rules they share which makes them more similar to another and quite unique in the world.Ashlanders and Dwemers were still foreigners to one another.
Telvanni: "tower-resident", vanni means live in the sense of reside rather than being alive, and tel originally meant long which later became a long structure directed above.Hlaalu: "caravanman", hla is a term akin to caravanserai for silt striders; oad may mean a watering place or well.Dagoth: "mountain" or more precisely "peak", dagoth is the term for a free standing mountain rather than a peak within a mountain range; they're the most Dwemer-like of the dialects and likely intermarried with Dwemers; ur may mean both red and first or foremost and previous.Dres: unclear, however they're unique for sounding very "un-Dunmeris" due to extended contact with Argonian slavers - notably, the soft "hl" sound is instead realized like a lisp.I've got nothing for the others.
>>94768343With House Indoril being so hidebound and conservative, I could see a large portion of their speech being full of loanwords from whatever you have for the chimer- like they learned their and try and dig up their own history and relearn it from books and poetry.
>>94768462>like they learned their [] and try and dig up theirSorry, a section got cut off while I was editing my post.>like they taught their children using exacting enunciation and tried to dig up their
>>94768462>>94768478Very good. Don't get me wrong when I now make a comparison with Icelandic. When I make comparisons it's meant to show you I'm not making up stuff.During the independence movement Icelandic intellectuals sought to remove words of Danish origin and what they perceived to be of Danish origin, used old books to replace the lexicon, "artificially rejuvenating" their language until a amateur like me would think Icelandic has only split from Old Norse only 500 years ago.Members of House Indor-il may have suffered the curse of Azurah more deeply than the others seeking to "right wrongs" and reverse the supposed effect the curse had on their mother tongue. "Shakespearian" or even older to other Dunmer, so to speak.
I suspect the -il in Indoril to be similar to -iil in Cyrodiil. On an unrelated note, I think the original name of the Imperial City was Cyrod and by extension the province, conquered land, became known as "of Cyrod".I'm 100% open to suggestions, questions, and contests to my abysmal autism.
Hot take: Ayleid means they're descended from a folk hero called Ayle.
>>94768738Ayleid means something like "hidden" or "hiding." It's probably not the actual term Ayleid's used to refer to themselves.
>>94768833I keep forgetting the scientific word for the process of "some words happen to change so much they sound the same". Ur in my reconstruction is an example, meaning both red as a color and first as a specifier. Did you know arcane actually means hidden away, closed away? Maybe there's a connection. Literally closing away secret knowledge in boxes never to share with non-Ayleids. Imagine that.
One thing that really helps is the cyclical theory of fusional to analytic to agglutinative to fusional again. For my reconstructed Cyrodilic I found making it Chinese-like really helps.Let's take Crassius Curio's name. *krat together with *yus results in Kratt-yus, the T is long and then turns into S, so we get Crassius. *kur and *yo give Curio. Literary standards can make them look a lot more Latin and influence by Ayleidoon can make them sound a lot more Latin, but the average people speak something else entirely.
Most fun I had? Argonian. No need to doublecheck tables for sound correspondences. Although I can't decide between North American and Semitic, both entirely alien in structure to the majority of the world, it's really nothing more than an extra text document on a computer and a couple of sheets of sound changes.Originally I planned on making a believable naming pattern without copying real words and once the names were there the words followed and from words came proverbs (think "ae gartoc altadon") and then so on. I want to make them sound as natural and believable as possible. Obviously they'll differ from official voice actor lines like they differ between language versions of the games.For examples: Hlaalu is pronounced [l̥a:lu], with a softly hushed L, not huh-lah-loo, and Saxhleel becomes [saʂ.ɬi:l], where the X is an sh formed with a rolled back tongue followed by a lisp.Pic related is what I imagine the Hist's newest darling Argonian looks like.
My main beef is that none of TES's entries feel at all compatible with one another in the world they're depicting. Morrowind is also the only interesting one besides Battlespire (which was a pretty bad game, but had a cool base idea).
>>94769636Every next game is a soft reboot.
Don't do polyglautism. I write like a caveman holy fuck.
Have you looked into Beyond Skyrim or the joint-teams of Project Tamriel & Tamriel Rebuilt? Modding teams such as those that give a damn about the lore could make use of your talents & insights.
