The Elder Scrolls
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The Elder Scrolls is a computer role-playing game series developed by Bethesda Softworks. It is often abbreviated TES.
The world of TES is known amongst fantasy buffs for its attention to detail, realism, and the long, complex lists of names, dates, and places. They constitute its extensive history and the vast, interconnected structure of its various societies, cultures, and religions, which is more than what most players would know.
Furthermore, there is no one compilation of all information pertaining to TES, and, within the games, historical references are often vague or unsure. Players are encouraged to draw their own conclusions about situations and events for which the records are few and incomplete or when competing viewpoints obscure the truth. This has spawned a subculture amongst TES players of history and philosophy aficionados called loremasters who frequently engage in long-winded and convoluted online debates as to the specifics of theological insights or economic patterns.
The Elder Scrolls places great emphasis on the idea of the dualism and equality of opposites. This dualism is not the Abrahamic dualism of good and evil, but more closely resembles a fusion of Eastern and pre-Christian Western beliefs on the subject, being the duality of order and chaos. According to Elder Scrolls Lore, the concepts of order and chaos can be translated collectively into everything. These notions might be more exactly approximated using the words stasis (unchanging continuity) and force (unknowable energy). Almost all Tamrielic religions strongly feature the idea that the world was created through an intermingling of these two things, some saying that time is a synthesis of continuity and alteration, and most religious creation-theories deal with one or more mythological characters representing these absolutes either procreating or engaging in mortal combat. Some religions, such as the Psijic Monastic Order maintain that all of existence and even the gods themselves are the representations of the interplay of order and chaos. The concepts of good and evil are said to be derivative of order and chaos, good being the subjective notion of whatever is in the best interests of the speaker, evil being what is not in the best interests, whether these words are used to describe change or continuity. It is said that a good war can be better than a bad peace.
The Elder Scrolls games take place on the continent of Tamriel, a large landmass divided in nine provinces. An exception is The Elder Scrolls Legends: Battlespire, which takes place in Oblivion, an alternate dimension ruled by the Daedra.
The nine provinces of Tamriel are:
- Cyrodiil, inhabited by the Imperials
- Black Marsh, inhabited by the Argonians
- Elsweyr, inhabited by the Khajiit
- Hammerfell, inhabited by the Redguards
- High Rock, inhabited by the Bretons and the Orcs
- Morrowind, inhabited by the Dunmer or Dark Elves
- Skyrim, inhabited by the Nords
- Summerset Isle, inhabited by the Altmer or High Elves
- Valenwood, inhabited by the Bosmer or Wood Elves
The main three Elder Scrolls games, Arena, Daggerfall and Morrowind are known for their open-ended gameplay and their huge environment. The next part of the Elder Scrolls series will be named Oblivion. Oblivion is scheduled to be released in the winter of 2005 for the PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.
- The Elder Scrolls, Chapter I - Arena (1994)
- The Elder Scrolls, Chapter II - Daggerfall (1996)
- The Elder Scrolls, Chapter III - Morrowind (2002)
- The Elder Scrolls, Chapter IV - Oblivion (sched. 2005)
Two expansions packs for Morrowind exist, Tribunal (2002) and Bloodmoon (2003). There are also large unofficial plugins/expansions.
Also, there are some off-shoots that are not role-playing games, but employ the same game universe:
- The Elder Scrolls Legends: Battlespire (1997)
- The Elder Scrolls Adventures: Redguard (1998)
- The Elder Scrolls Travels: Dawnstar (2003)
- The Elder Scrolls Travels: Stormhold (2004)
- The Elder Scrolls Travels: Shadowkey (2004)
TES Travels games Dawnstar and Stormhold only run on Java-enabled cell phones. Shadowkey has been developed for the N-Gage. Morrowind was released for both the PC and Xbox platforms. Other games are only available for the PC.
The Elder Scrolls themselves are not directly featured as a plot device or in-game object in any of the existing TES games, although it is implied that the Emperor's seemingly mystical knowledge is due to his possession of them.
External links
- The Elder Scrolls official site (http://www.elderscrolls.com/)
- Official TES Travels Site (http://www.theelderscrollstravels.com/)
- The Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages (http://www.uesp.net/)
- Wiki by UESP (http://www.uesp.net/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page)
- The Imperial Library (http://til.gamingsource.net/)
- The Elder Scrolls 10th Anniversary Page with a free download of The Elder Scrolls (http://www.elderscrolls.com/tenth_anniv/tenth_anniv.htm)
- Oblivion Source, the source for Oblivion (http://www.OblivionSource.com/)
- Oblivion Portal (http://www.oblivionportal.com/)
- Waiting 4 Oblivion (http://www.waiting4oblivion.com/)
- RPG Codex (covers PC RPGs, has information on older RPGs) (http://www.rpgcodex.com/)
- RPG Dot (covers series and has Elder Scrolls themed forum) (http://www.rpgdot.com/)
- Sorcerer's Place (General coverage of RPGs) (http://www.sorcerers.net/)de:The Elder Scrolls