Skyrim - The Elder Scrolls V

[Double A]

That looks like almost an entirely different setting, just as it should be. I didn't get excited about Dawnguard, but this is making my spine all tingly, just like the first Skyrim trailer.

 

[Wolfbeckett]

I saw giant mushrooms in the trailer. Dare I hope for some Morrowind flavor? No, I daren't, because Bethesda has disappointed me too often lately. But I'll follow news of it and maybe my pessimism will be unfounded.

 

[Maniacal]

Looks like a proper expansion, good.

It does look like they will have at least part of Vvardenfal in there, but most of the island has been destroyed by the volcano so it might just be part of the mainland (but still). EDIT: Also Dunmer fled to Solstheim to settle it too.

 

[Wolfbeckett]

I wonder if there is any connection to the storyline and Dagoth Ur, I see monsters in the trailer that look to me an awful lot like modernized versions of Ash Slaves and Ascended Sleepers.

 

[Maniacal]

The blight was stopped along with the defeat of Dagoth Ur so I don't know what those would be, I doubt they are really still around after 200 years little alone somehow making it to Solstheim and surviving the destruction of Vvardenfel.

 

[Wolfbeckett]

Yeah that's what I thought, yet the trailer shows guys that are almost unmistakably Ash Slaves.

 

[Maniacal]

Well Bethesda does like their retconning.

 

[LightSpectra]

Vivec's still alive.

Also, doesn't "he was the first" imply that the villain is Jurgen Windcaller? (Or Talos...?)

 

[cybrxkhan]

Like a few others I'm a bit cautious about this one, but the fact that I can really sense that they're trying to play up the fact that they're "going back" to Morrowind - what with the landscapes and funky creatures and all - I really hope they do deliver on that promise. I enjoyed Morrowind's setting greatly, like many others must have, so I hope they do bring back some of that. Not to mention there's a possibility the storyline might actually draw in quite a bit of the lore to give context to the story, which I always thought was the strong point in ES' storytelling (when it is strong, that is).

Vivec's still alive.

Source?

(But really, I thought his whereabouts are unknown?)

 

[LightSpectra]

He never died in the main games at least. Maybe they killed him off in some novel or whatever though

 

[TheDanish]

Vivec disappeared some time after the events of Oblivion. His magic was keeping that big meteor above the city afloat, and when he disappeared the meteor, having retained its original velocity, smashed into Vvardenfell and caused the eruption.

I am SO excited for this. Can't wait to go back to Solstheim

 

[Maniacal]

Vivec's still alive.

Vivec shared the same source of power as Dagoth Ur, and when that was destroyed he lost most of his power and the rest drained away.

Also, doesn't "he was the first" imply that the villain is Jurgen Windcaller? (Or Talos...?)

Tiber Septim was the last Dragonborn before the Skyrim the game is set. I don't think Jurgen Windcaller was a dragonborn, merely someone who mastered the use of shouts. Neither of them ruled Solstheim. Afaik St. Alessia is the first one who had the title Dragonborn, but she wasn't born as a one but later became one. There isn't a lot known about any other dragorn borns afaik, nor about Solstheim's history (in Bloodmoon it had only recently been discovered by the Empire and the Norns hadn't resettled it for long either as it was previously far too cold.

 

[Wolfbeckett]

Talos definitely was not the first dragonborn, only the most famous. Jurgen Windcaller wasn't necessarily either, although he appears to have been amongst the first at least. Imperial propaganda pegs St. Alessia as the first to officially bear the title, but it's Imperial propaganda so it may or may not be true. The imperial connection to the dragonborn is detailed here: http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:The_Book_of_the_Dragonborn

However, when going up to High Hrothgar, there are stone tablets you can read that tell an older story, you can read that here:

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:High_Hrothgar

Stating that a dragon named Paarthurnax originally taught men the Voice. It implies that Jurgen Windcaller was there during the Dragon Wars but it does not state or even imply that he was the first to master the Voice.

Now maybe some of this is common knowledge, I've never gotten farther in Skyrim's main story than the first trip up to see the Greybeards, so anything that is revealed as part of the main storyline is knowledge I don't have, all I'm going on is the lore I could dig up on the UESP wiki.

But as Maniacal pointed out earlier Bethesda loves their retcons. And their writer's haven't shown more than faint glimmers of competence in at least 3 games. So it's possible this guy will turn out to be a totally EVIIIILLLL Tiber Septim or something, I dunno, your guess on that is as good as mine.

 

[Maniacal]

It wouldn't make any sense for that guy to be Tiber Septim since the trailer states this guy was a ruler of Solstheim and Tiber Septim probably didn't go to Solstheim if he even know about it. I'm pretty sure its going to be a new character which there is more than enough room for without retconning, the lore is pretty vague and most of it is gleamed from the in-game books which are (quite realistically) written by biased and often misinformed authors.

 

[Wolfbeckett]

I know it isn't him lol, it was a joke that I was using as a platform to badmouth Bethesda's writers, something that I generally like to take every opportunity to do.

 

[Wolfbeckett]

You know what I really hate? When I explicitly order Steam NOT to automatically update a game, but then it does it anyway, so the next time I try to run it I get an incompatibility error between the game and the script extender. Why you got to be such a freaking sucky POS, Steam?

 

[cybrxkhan]

I do feel like trying out Skyrim again now. Except I will have to update my 10000 mods... well, I guess I'll just start a new game since I forgot most of it, but probably after I buy dawnguard in the steam holiday sale (even though I know the story's really bleh).

Hopefully Dragonborn will be interesting lore-wise at the minmum.


Also, how many major DLC will there be after Dragonborn? My memory is vague, but there's supposed to be 3 major ones, right, so Dragonborn is the second?

 

[GenMarshall]

As per usual, they're making it XBox exclusive first, again .

 

[Wolfbeckett]

Not sure how many there are supposed to be, if it was mentioned somewhere I missed it. Looking at recent Bethesda games (namely Fallout 3 and New Vegas) I would expect somewhere between 3-5 major DLC's of which Hearthfire almost surely doesn't count.

And yes I know New Vegas wasn't Bethesda in terms of creating content but they published it so they probably had a lot of pull in terms of how much DLC actually gets made.

 

[PeteAtoms]

Jurgen Windcaller probably wasn't a Dragonborn. He was a master of Thu'um though. The modern understanding of 'dragonborn' is spiritual in nature and means you are either born with a dragon's sould, can absorb another dragon's soul, or both.

Solstheim was given to the Dunmer refugees so Solstheim is going to heavily reference Morrowind/Vvardenfel. Those mushroom buildings may have been brought to Solstheim and grown by the remnants of house Telvanni. I saw buildings that also looked a lot like Ald'ruhn.

I'm really hoping that Divayth Fyr gets a spot somewhere in the DLC and has brought his clones/wives, his corprusarium, and Yagrum to Solstheim

At this point, I don't think we know who the first Dragonborn is/was. There is a vague reference to ancient Nords being dragonborn, but that's all I could find.

I'm actually thinking that the Dragonborn may be one of the various identities that belonged to Pelinal. But we're all just guessing at this point.