[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, as well, like in conjunction with Mephala, which is kind of like what the Dark Brotherhood is if you buy into the idea that Night Mother is Mephala, but I guess Sith is just being sort of an embodiment of chaos and stuff anyway, like...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I know that's how it works with the aedra, but even with the daedra, even though they choose to appear differently, they have way more autonomy for their actions. I think the reason that we have this, there's so much like inf- like mortal perceptu- perceptive influence on the aedra is because they are kind of unconscious or sort of dead in a way.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And to be true, all of the, to be fair as well, I'm pretty sure all of the Sithus dealing stuff, he never speaks directly. He goes to the Night Mother and then to, to the listener. So there is no like, it's not like all the Dark Brotherhood members are like listening to Sithus or hearing Sithus or even the Night Mother. It's just the listener. So listen.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But yeaah, I know with the Elder Scrolls 6, it kind of depends, my only take on the Dark Brotherhood is it just depends on the time difference. If it's really close, like two years, I think that's kind of like, silly, just because of how


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, there's only, you know, Nazir Babet and like a listener and a few other like new apprentices, having them expand into Hammerfell all of a sudden or something is just so like.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cause I can imagine like what they did with Skyrim, one of the gameplay demos, and then they're like, he get a courier, comes and delivers a letter, and then it says, we know on the thing, like the black hand. It's like, everyone's like, ahhh. Yeah. For sure. But yeah. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't know, do you guys have anything else to uh, to say about the Brotherhood?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Actually, you know, I was just mentioning about Scythus or something. One somewhat tangible element doesn't have to be directly related to Scythus, like it could be created by the Night Mother or something, but the Wrath of Scythus, the big like wraith ghost thing that attacks you in Oblivion if you, uhm, you know, betray one of the Five Tenants.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To relate that a little bit more too, it is interesting that the Sith, uhm, that the Argonians, you know, they've had a connection to Sithess, but then also by extension, have had a connection to the Dark Brotherhood through the Shadow Scale program thing. So, there's sort of a little bit extra that maybe, I wonder when that all started.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cause we know it ends in like the late fourth era, the whole shadow scale program thing, but.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Alright, well, ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for watching this Dark Brotherhood Elder Scrolls podcast, and, uh, we will be back to nerd out with you all again next time. Or put your hands to the screen, say we know. Do it true.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'll do it. So, the snow elves are basically extremely, extremely pale elves. Like a lot of elven races, they're very good at magic. And uh, they're not around anymore.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Unless you delve far deep under the grounds of Skyrim and find the corrupted version of them that they've become, the Falmer. Now Falmer means Snow Elf, but I think for this episode, if you two are okay with it, we'll separate the phrases Snow Elf and Falmer.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, for sure. I think there's even references to that in the game.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeaah, he doesn't like that, you know, foulmouth now the connotations is that they're corrupted and foul and twisted. But who's he to say, oh, we don't like that? He's, what, one snow elf?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Absolutely despise them. It is interesting, if you think about Top of the Pilots voyages around Tamriel, he didn't really speak about Skyrim, did he? I don't think so, I think he's basically-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, of course. So it's not like he met any snow elves or saw any of them, so the idea that they could have always been there definitely holds up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, they could have left from Somerset Isles when the other elves or the Uldmer departed to various provinces and became different races, but at least in my headcanon, I kind of like that idea that they were always there. Or at least have been for a very long time and that they kind of always were.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, so he says, if you say, who were your people to Gelibor, which is the snow elf you meet in the Dawngarde DLC, he says, we were once a wealthy and prosperous society that occupied a portion of Skyrim. Unfortunately, we were constantly at war with the Nords, who claimed the land as their ancestral home.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then he goes on to say we'd always maintained an uneasy alliance with the underground dwelling dwarves, but we'll get onto that later, but he is saying that they were constantly at war with the Nords.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, you never, you never know. He could just even be referring to once Isgramore returned.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Another thing to consider as well is while Gelobor is obviously very old by the time of Skyrim when the player meets him, you don't actually know when he was born back then.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cause this was all going on in the late merethic era, very early first era. He could have been born even.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, like being quite young at the time that everything was going on. So for most of his kind of life back then that he remembers, it was kind of, you know, filled with war. We just don't know the context of where he fits in exactly.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think Gallabor even says that they, they did worship the same, uh, pantheon, like including Trinimax, Sirubane, um, Jephyr and Finaster or Finaster.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Um, but obviously Oriole was definitely a important one based on the, the Chantry and all the trials and so forth. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, especially if you believe that little kind of off the cuff quote that Encarno says at the end of the College of Winterhold storyline, which is having the power to unmake the world at his fingertips, it's no small, you know, little magical trinket.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's obviously extremely powerful and you know, if we like this idea that elves kind of, well at least some of them have this idea where they would almost want to unmake the world.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you know, follow the path of Aurel and, and ascend to...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Godhood and, or go back to how things were before, to their original forms, then, I mean, surely they would want it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If I, if I could just interject for a moment about Azadhal staying on topic, it says that he went to all kinds of elves to learn.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, more and more. But I find it a bit strange. Can you imagine Alids teaching him?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, about dawn magic and ancient runes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I know. It just feels like a bit of a stretch, like the aliens are like, yep, come here human, it's time to teach you some masterful enchanting secrets. Yeah. Our Dawn Magics.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Look at this cool floating turquoise ball.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, another thing about the Eye of Magnus as well is if, just going on what you were saying,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Fair enough, but I feel like, just, just hear me out, regardless, I'm not saying they're like terrified, like it's uguh buguh, kind of stuff.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But if you were one of the Nords and then you found the Eye of Magnus and you know that you kind of supposedly live peacefully with this extremely magically adept race, you'd want to show them. They'd be one of the first people you'd want to ask about.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, for sure. I mean, it's like every, every race, people make a big deal out of it with, with this one part in the timeline, but every race in the Elder Scrolls has done something like this, whether it's the Akudans coming over and just killing every single thing in Hammerfell or like, everything.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, maybe. Maybe. But anyway, he hated the elves, uh, massively.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think one of the diaries that you translate in the Dawnguard DLC actually talks about someone's experience. From the sounds of it, they don't specifically use the word Nords, but it sounds like they're actually living with a Nord family. Or like being hidden or sheltered somewhere.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, so anyway, eventually, uh, the snow elves, it's actually one of these translated texts, kinda talks about it, they're saying that the, they say young ones and old ones, but from the sounds of it, it's just their society, like the young people, the older people, like the snow elves.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think that even mentions to them that they were called honorable and that they can help us and that we're gonna go and, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Speak with them and see if they can save us and help us.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Take back our home and we all know what happens next.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's ancient steel, but the story talks about it being some super shining armor. So whether it was just really shiny steel or whether as the story describes, because it's imbued with magic, it just looks like it's shining so brightly. And as the snow Prince goes across the battlefield, the kind of snow.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, by throwing a sword too, it's some Force Unleashed level stuff. Yeaah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I feel hopeful that the Dwemer will help us to avenge our fallen and reclaim our land.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We had always maintained an uneasy alliance with the underground dwelling dwarves, and when faced with extinction we turned to them for help.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Surprisingly, okay, surprisingly, they agreed to protect us, but demanded a terrible price, the blinding of our race. So according to Gelibor, it's not like, like when I first played Skyrim, I kind of thought like, oh, you know, yeah, you can come and it was like a trick.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] At least, that's what he's saying, they agreed to protect us but demanded a terrible price, the blinding of our race. There were splinter groups that resisted the agreement, and even some that sought alternate alliances. But when it was all said and done, those elves were either slaughtered, vanished, or gave up and took the dwarves' bargain.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, you know, this toxin was not like a, that they didn't know about it. And to me,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I dunno, it seems a bit cowardly. I personally think I'd rather die. Hmm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean they had torture rooms as well. Yeaah. That they would use, so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know? Like, just go somewhere else. I don't know. Take your chances in Cyrodiil.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, cause supposedly Valok and Mirak have a big fight and that kind of rips Solstheim off sky.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The, kind of worship of Oriel, I know they weren't all devout religious folk obviously when you go and visit Gelibor and that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] How do you pronounce it? And go through all these crazy trials and stuff.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Ascend up the stairs and reach enlightenment and all that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I feel like going into a cave in darkness and agreeing to be blind could also be like a, almost, it sounds a bit extra, but could almost be like turning your back on kind of your principles.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And like, oriel and light and even magnus and...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, eyes are a portal to light as well, at least in our human scientific realm of things. It seems like a real descendants away from, especially considering the fact that they'd be aware that the Dwemer are a kind of godless race too.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like you're agreeing to go blind, live among a godless race, and turn your back on kind of who you are.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well here's something for ya. They lost their soul.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you, if you go by game mechanics, the soul trapping and stuff, they don't have the, like the mortal, like grand soul. It's all different types of souls, I believe.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think it was a gradual, I think they, the agreement was you will go blind. That doesn't mean it's like, boom, you ate the first fungus and your eyes disappear. I also had this whack theory.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That may be, it's just silly, but I just thought of it. May as well say in the Sealed Scrolls podcast that the eyes of the Falmer, the actual like items, these big powerful gems, that maybe they could hold some secrets into like restoring the Falmer's sight.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So whether that's the gems or actual their eyes, the dwarves thought they took them from the Falmer, Falmer, but they were fooled.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A statue built in secret by the slaves. The eyes burn into you, and I see them even now.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, and then it goes on about other stuff which isn't like as relevant. But I do like the idea that these artifacts


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Have some kind of magic or powerful potential beyond just like a prized thing for a thief to take.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah. Nah, anyway, that's just some food for thought. We'll get back onto some more, uh, canon stuff.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That makes sense. I still find it hard to believe that that war went on for decades, especially considering that you're in Dwemer home territory, like.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The Falmer are eating this toxic fungus and the Dwemer.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's what I was thinking, because Forgotten Vale is a secret area untouched by the Nords. So, if I was like a Nord and I hated snow elves, right, I wouldn't want their architecture, you know, within sight of where I lived or where I traveled.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Absolutely. You just get rid of it. Although, it makes you wonder why the alien ruins are still around in Styrodiil. But. Yeaah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's pretty wild to think then that the farmer must have been breeding.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I subscribe, I subscribe more to the theory. There's a book about them and one of the theories is that they're kind of just like another manifestation of a nerd, like a spriggan or something of that nature.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, there's, there's a Valen, there's a Valenwood, uhm, one I think.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And also as well, not that it couldn't be, it absolutely could because you don't know how curses work and things like that, but they're all female too. It's like, oh, we just, just female snow elves became these.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I've noticed we completely ditched our idea of separating the terms Falmer and Snow Elves.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Everyone can grasp what we're talking about.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, exactly. I mean there is, there is that uhm, at some point it would be nice to read the, there's a book.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Touching the sky that talks about the pilgrimage that they actually make. So it kind of touches on their religion and how it's viewed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Take a chance on not Skyrim territory. And then maybe build force and come back, but underground with a godless race who, according to Gellabor, you've always had a uneasy alliance with? I dunno.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, not to be confused with Drew's favorite Kanye West song, Touch the Sky. Touching the sky.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Touching the Sky, it's a book about like the journey with the chantry and stuff.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It says the pilgrims struggled not only against the natural elements of the treacherous veil, but with a myriad of tests upon their faith and loyalty.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now, a lot of them, cause think about it as well, like you're the dragonborn, you can go all through it, but imagine actually carrying the ewer, like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That thing of water actually carrying it, not just putting it in your inventory and off you go. It would suck man. And like, without food and like, anyway.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They copped so much rebuke when they came back, and it was cru- supposedly crueler than any punishment that may have lay ahead of them along the path.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In their failed attempt, they were forced to live in the shadow of those who did continue on to achieve the great glory and honor of ascension into the light. And then forever after that, their faith and loyalty to Oriel would be scrutinized, and they would live the rest of their life with shame and regret.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So it's an interesting like idea that if you embark upon these trials, like you do not want to turn back. Like you're basically a joke to all of the religious society.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's, that's an interesting take that it definitely could be. I mean, you don't know how they would have looked at it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Just leave him in the sun for a long time. Just let them soak up all that magnus glory and see what happens.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeaah, just take a whole bunch of stun damage and die.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, but no, I can kind of believe that they, they could. I mean, look, I said this, I've said this before when we've had questions and I know it's not the answer that people necessarily want to hear, but it's just like, it's the Elder Scrolls and anything could happen.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Nah, but this is not like that. If the question is reasonable, as in could there be some magic ritual to turn a Falmer back into what they were before? Sure.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But will they come back en masse and be like a snow elf society again? Probably not. At least that's what I think.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, fair enough. Anyway, going back to this book.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, I like how as well, once they actually reach the inner sanctum, that they're not really who they were before, but not just in a like, oh I'm enlightened now sense, as in like they're just shells of what they were.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which you could almost say is like kinda like an ego death thing, perhaps?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But it says like someone mad from sleeplessness and starved to the point of frailty and that it's, you know, it's a marvel that they had the strength to carry their vessel and ascend the stairs of the temple, which was the last true testament of their loyalty. And then I really like this, this part.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Regardless of each individual's tale, the final words remain eerily similar. It is said that every pilgrim ascended, bathed in light, a look of relief and contentment on their face.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I like how they talk about that the noises that the snow elves are making almost sound like a cheery happy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm on board with that. It's the story of what happened to them that's cool.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And we'll look forward to noting out with you again very soon.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was about to dab, but I don't want that on video. Nocturnal is the patron of thieves. She's the queen of night, shadows and plunging necklines.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And uh, she's the prince of darkness, but I think it's important immediately to distinguish that her darkness is very different to the idea of like, the void. You know, Namira's void. Her darkness is like a tool, it's like, hiding in the shadows. So that's kind of a distinction between the two.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She's very popular, which is a bit ironic, given that she's the patron of thieves, but at the same time,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you're gonna have shrines to her, they're generally like hidden away or something like that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, and yeaah, so her like relationship with mortals I find is very, kind of almost transactional. It's like, she benefits from them, they benefit from her. They're like associates. You know, kind of like the nightingales. But uhm, yeaah, that's generally nocturnal, and we'll get into detail on all of those things.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I feel like it's very personal. It's like a, it's like a thief kind of like quietly praying for some luck before they pull off a job, rather than a, you know, a big, like a big gathering of people all praising, praising Nocturnal out loud. So it's, it's much more subtle, but still potent.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I think, I mean, we'll talk more about it soon, but I think she almost kind of likes people stealing from her in a weird way. It's almost like it's, you know, I think some thieves actually do it as a means of proving themselves to her, is to even attempt to steal something from her, which, you know, is unusual, but kind of makes sense in a weird way.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well I love the curse of that cow specifically is really cool, like I know we're gonna talk about the grey cow, but I just love the idea that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, like a lot of, I think a lot of thieves, they want to go down in history as like an incredible burglar or something like that. But specifically this one, it's like, no, you will be the best thief around, but you'll never ever be remembered. You won't be like Rajin who becomes like a god hero of the Khajiit. You'll just be forgotten.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, first thing, I think it's hilarious that of all the Daedric Princes to a lion, you've got dodgy deals, you've got like the, the mother of betrayal and assassination, all of this stuff, and then Nocturnal, and Nocturnal's the one who screws them over as well.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My interpretation of that was it's almost like she wants to become more than just Daedra. It's like she wants to have influence in Aetherius as well, like to break out from oblivion and kind of become such a, an infinite being that she's almost like as Aedric as she is Daedric. But it's kind of, it's a weird area to try and broach.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah. I think ESO did a great job with Nocturnal, because uhm, especially in the Khajiit myths, is that you really do flesh her out. So, you know, you've got the idea that she's born from the black blood of Lorcage at the steps of the Void Gate. So even though we've said, you know, she's not kinda, she's not the great darkness like Namira, you know, because shadows,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You can't have shadows in just pure darkness, but she's still made from darkness. She's kind of a meshing of the two. So there is the, the kind of


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So you do get, yea, you get both. You know, you get elements of the light and the dark, I guess.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The idea is that they can, can kind of bestow luck onto other, other thieves further down the line. But it, it does like, yeah, it seems counterintuitive for a thief to want to sign up for a lifelong pact.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And what, an eternity long pact? Because thieves, at the very core, are selfish, you know? It's like you make a deal, but you do it because you want something in return.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The mistress of mystery. But you do kinda get immortalized as like a great thief if you become a nightingale. It's like the opposite of if you achieve it with a cowl. You know, there's...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, you know, you give your eternity to nocturnal, but eternally you're an amazing thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That is the deal with Nocturnal and Thieves, I guess, is that it's, you know, it's in the shadows. It's not like, really out there and everyone knows about it. So, you know, just like how Nocturnal isn't really worshipped that much in public. If you become a Nightingale, you, yea, maybe I'm wrong, maybe you just get forgotten, it's all shit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] See, I hate the Wraith of Crows. Really?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, you might remember this, this is, uh, very anecdotal, but we were in the office trying to get, well, I was trying to get all the footage for the Clockwork City video, and I fought against the Wraith of Crows, and I'm fairly sure you were, like, watching over my shoulder as I did it. I killed the thing, and then the game just completely bugged out. There was no way to advance the questline.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, no, so with that, it was fighting against the shadow of Sofa Sill, and I was way underleveled because I was just grinding through it to get to the end of the DLC, and you're like, alright, let me have a go, let me have a go, and the second you take the controller, some like level 90 dude rolls in in one shot and you're like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So she, cause she went into a mel- during the events of Battlespire, I'm trying to remember it without getting anything wrong, but Meirin's Dagon's hordes essentially screwed, screwed them over. She went into a melancholy so she wasn't really doing anything to protect her pocket realm. And then her apprentice essentially tries to


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Get her to wake up from this, so the only way to do it was to sacrifice herself so that she snapped out of it and actually fought for her realm. So that's kind of, you know, that's pretty sweet.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, like her servants or worshippers can become gloam knights in the evergloam I think.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As basically, it's like, it's all part of the curse. It's like, there's no way it looked like that on the back of Nocturnal's hood, but when it gets cut off and cursed, it's like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, not only will you be forgotten, but you're gonna look like a gimp as you do it. It's like, it's like, it is forgettable to look at. It's kind of a bit silly. It's not like, imagine if it was some really awesome looking cowl that would fit on Nocturnal's cloak. It's like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They're gonna be very memorable, where it's like, yea, you have to be forgotten and look shit in the process.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, but these are oblivion guards. They're not the cleverest.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, it's gotta be somewhere with a hole. And it's gotta be one that anyone can have as well. So, yeah, I'm not sure. Your mouth.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Plus the lore ramifications are way cooler with that origin.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, you know, you've got, uhm, in the Khajiit creation myth, you've got Azura is responsible for creating the lunar lattice, which is the barrier between Oblivion and the mortal realm of Mundus. So,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Having the Skeleton Key, it's, you know, it not only would kind of explain how Nocturnal can open portals between Oblivion and the Mortal Realm to her own realm, but it's a way of like, essentially, the Skeleton Key's potential is that, like opening any door in the real world,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It can open gates to every realm of oblivion. And I think, I don't think it has the power to yet, but it has the potential to possibly open into a furious. And that's kind of what she wants to realize. I mean, she tried to realize that with so for sales artifact, but failed. And I think that's kind of, she's just trying to unlock everything, you know?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think Aetherius is like the ultimate master lock, you know, to access as well.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, it's what the Daedra have been kind of pushed out from. They're not a part of it. Uhm, you know, she can access the mortal realm. I think she can probably access a lot of oblivion with it, with its potential, but like, the ultimate lock is the, the aedric realm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well that's the thing, the expansions are focused. You know, whereas uhm, all of the really bad stuff about ESO was when they just shoved the whole of Tamriel at you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, whereas when they foc- maybe not so much Morrowind, but when they focused on Merckmire and focused on Elsewhere, it really delivered. Uhm, but yeaah, it did seem a bit rushed when it was the whole thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The problem with a bow of shadows though is like, if you're playing a nocturnal worshipping stealthy character, why would you ever want a bow? You know, like, who plays a stealth archer?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Sounds raw. I'm not, uh, yeaah. For a lot of people, it's just getting a bit of luck. You know, it's not like you're not giving everything to her and she's not taking everything from you. I think as far as worshipping princes go, she's one of the better ones in my opinion. You know, so long as you don't end up being a, um,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That she may essentially steal you, or steal your soul, I feel like that. It at very least is consistent of what to expect from her. Whether or not it's good, is another question.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I guess like, you know, if I'm trying to rationalize it just off the top of my head, it's like when I'm thinking of these urdra, it seems like they're...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Um, you know, the beginning of time, you've kind of got Azura's passage of night and day. And then when you've got like the darkness and Nocturnal being an offshoot of the darkness. So she's like the shadow, the interplay of Anu and Padamai, the shadows against the light. Sorry, the darkness against the light creating the shadows.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If Nocturnal is like the patron of shadows, then she's there pretty early. You know, as soon as you've got the, the meshing of light and dark.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She kind of is born off from that. So that's one reason. And whereas like a Hamaez Mora is left over from the creation of the Munda. So he's inherently is going to be there when it's created. So it's like these are very early.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, well like, there's nothing to say that these are kind of like...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Um, like a prince like Clavicus Vial or Sanguine for example, they're not gonna predate mortals. You know, they kind of, they rely upon mortals to have their sphi- Well, obviously they do predate them because they're spirits who were there before the creation, but yeah, like what they kind of resemble isn't- I know what you're getting at. But that's literally just off the top of my head, so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well if you think about the fact that you've got, you know, however it came into being, whether it was Akatosh who did it with the dragonfires and stuff, the whole idea is you've got a barrier between


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Alright, alright. What I would like to say is, and this is something I find really interesting about the first Thalmor, cause we gotta separate them from the Old Mirri Dominion. We don't know when they started.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, when you look into the lore, it's like, oh, the Thalmor were there, and then the First Dominion started in the Second Era, and then the Thalmor were incorporated into the First Dominion. But before, they were kind of like a...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I just find that quite interesting because we don't know what that means and often a lot of the quotes you get about the Thalmor are from the Thalmor.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I always just, I always just wondered if maybe...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They weren't this kind of, you know, Ben Stiller night at the museum watchkeepers of heritage.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like one might infer, but instead more like a propaganda machine, if that makes sense. Like safeguarding Old Mary heritage in the sense of, you know, working with misinformation and defaming any, I don't know, political rivals or upstart groups that threaten the


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because safeguarding altmeri heritage, I mean, you could assassinate someone in the name of doing that. Do you know what I mean?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, for sure. But even, even before that, I mean, like before they were even in the Old Mary Dominion, there's just this, there's just this line that they were just, um, safeguarding Old Mary heritage.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But I don't know man, like, you could plot various plans to sabotage other provinces and keep the kind of dominant ideologies in other societies as those that see the Somerset Isles in a good light or are beneficial to the goals of the Somerset Isles government.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Or at the very least a weakened and easy targets if like other places need to be attacked.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But pretty much everything they've been doing recently, that type of thing, maybe that was going on way before the first dominion kind of came to be anyway.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I just don't know man, I would be, I would be really surprised if that's all they were. If they were like, oh we're gonna start this dominion really powerful thing and do you know who we're gonna get and make responsible to be all of our diplomats?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then, and like kind of engage in all these nefarious affairs. All these historian bloodkeeper genealogy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Just the more I was reading into it, the more I was thinking that they could have easily


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, and it's like, oh, here's this faction and their goal is safeguarding Old Merry Heritage. I just...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I dunno, maybe it's just my own personal headcanon, but I can see some conspiracy theory stuff.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, for sure, for sure. I'm not saying obliterate other, like, main factions, I just mean kind of controlling the viewpoint of the people in their own dominion territory. Since they have been, like, we know they, they will cull populations of, like, kind of families and stuff involved with rebellions and things like that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the thing that's interesting though is as soon as Queen Iren kind of...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, got the Thalmor involved. There were multiple branches too. It wasn't it. So there was.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The, the Thalmor in the diplomatic kind of sense, but then they had this other group, which was the, the, the fist of the Thalmor, which was kind of like a more militant arm. And then there was also a divine prosecute, divine prosecution, I think it was called.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In charge with like hunting, hunting down heresy, basically Daedra.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which really annoys me when you look at what they did with the Great War, but we'll discuss that later. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So you're talking about the Second Ordinary Dominion? It's not stated like in a way that's completely simple to understand, but from what I can see, it may just be that the Thalmor was kind of a group given to control Valenwood, but not the Somerset Piles.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Prevents, uh, sorry, prevalence in the Somerset Isles too.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But yea, they used the, they used the ancient treaty to take it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There was this ancient treaty where it was basically saying our ancestors signed this treaty like a thousand years ago and we have claim to the throne. Cause in Valenwood at the time,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Different wood elf groups were kinda like, no, the throne's ours, no, the throne's ours. Meanwhile, they're having skirmishes with like, collovians up from Cyrodiil.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then I think one of the groups was like, um, you know what, we're going to make a kind of peace alliance with the Collovians in order to, um, if, if they help us put our claimant on the throne, we'll give them some territory. And then the thumb, uh, the Somerset Isles kind of government hearing this was like, no way.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So then they came in and kind of took over. And like you said, with many other goals, such as the piracy and stuff, it was kind of being harbored in Valenwood and also Hammerfell, I think. Um, and then, then Tyberceptin came with the Numidium and it was all gone.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Classic Thalmor behavior though, isn't it? There's always an altruistic kind of motive. Cause they were also saying it wasn't just pirates. They used their old claim to then be like, you know, we're bringing stability to the, the Bosma people because they're constantly fighting over a throne. So like, oh, I'll just be the leader and you guys can chill out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, absolutely. I actually find that super interesting, cause when I was kinda doing some research for this podcast, I'm like, who is the leader of the Thalmor? Like, there's no name that you hear in Skyrim, like this is the current leader, like Queen A-Ren or something like that, you know?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But we do know that Queen Eren, and this is way before Skyrim, she had this inner council.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Of various dominion, uh, members and you had Khajiit and you had Bosma, but they were seen more as like figureheads, like kind of leaders who are there for representation, but they don't really wield any actual power. I would, but we also know that many of the members were confidential.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I can imagine that a similar situation could be enforced around the time of Skyrim, where the Thalmor kind of has this council of sorts, but it's not like there's a figurehead leader, you know? It's a bit just like a party.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, and that is an effective thing in a way, if you think about it, that really helps them because if you don't know where the head of the snake is, you can't really cut it off. Like with an empire, kill the emperor, you cause a ton of chaos.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But that, I mean, that makes the Thalmor a big threat in that way.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, and then elsewhere gets involved eventually. The moons mysteriously disappear, they use some kind of special dawn magics to bring them back, take credit for it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Wizard of Sigic Monk type capabilities to take them away for a bit, but I do agree with you. It could have just happened from some mysterious force and they're like, no, let's take credit for this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What I do like is apparently originally their plan was to uhm, just kind of attack Cyrodiil to weaken it for the moment while they take Hammerfell.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And there's this idea that they were like, wait a minute, serial deals are much weaker than we thought. Let's go for gold.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I always wondered the logistics of that. How do you bring that many heads and not have someone see it first and be like, oh my God, there's a bunch of decapitated heads in there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm pretty sure, or at least Summer said I was in Vaelum, but it was, it was, it was all the blades in kind of dominion areas, I believe.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But it's canon. I think the main thing that annoys me about it is that you can just continue to write the Thalmor in as the evil.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like kind of faction with the aedric influence. Like you can do an aedric faction evil well. They were doing it. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They were doing it, and then they just like, oh, let's just chuck in the kind of generic kind of fantasy enemy that we always like to use as the evil, like, you know, evil armies.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And just give them to the most aedric opposed faction in the game. I mean, like I was saying before, they even had this kind of Thalmor branch early on and their whole purpose was to seek out heresy and Daedra worshipers and like kill them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Everything went the Thalmor's way. I mean, in one of the texts, it even says that, because obviously after the, uh, Hammerfell was able to defeat them, they kind of looked at the Empire as weak and you should have just kept fighting, like we kicked them away. How come you couldn't have just kept doing that?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Um, but apparently that kind of fractured alliance between Hammerfell and the Empire was a long-term goal of the Thalmor anyway. And then obviously they just, yeah, and then they just create more division obviously with Skyrim and the Civil War. So they've, they're like the puppet masters.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, I guess we should note that the Thalmor have always been, like, super supremacist-like, you know? Yeah, at the very least. At the very least, at the very least.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Look, I'll even say this, if you go back to the First Dominion, go play Elder Scrolls online,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But they have all those same quotes about men sucking, but even the other races in the dominion. Like unless you are a high elf, some of the kind of higher ups will treat you like you're dirt.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, and they've always had this kind of look of, we need to control the lands because the foolish other races can't do it. It gives me massive animal farm vibes, like all animals are equal except some animals are more equal than others.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Their allies are literally cat people, uhm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But ultimately yeah, then they go back even further, you go through their heritage, you go back even more and it's about kind of them being descended from spirits and wanting to kind of go back to that form without mortality, without being trapped.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But I can't imagine that they'd be bent on total Tamrielic domination just because they're, you know, a bit mean.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'll just, I'll just, I'll just give a quick primer for anyone who doesn't know, like, the basic idea of the towers just in case we skimmed over it a bit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But basically there are these towers all around Tamriel that supposedly like kind of hold up the world or hold reality in place. And then there's this other concept that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] All of these towers have what's called a stone, and that if you kind of remove the stone, you, or destroy it, you deactivate said tower.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then it goes even further to say if you dis- if you deactivate all the towers,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then the idea with the Thalmor is that that's what they want so they can go back to the spirit form. Just like a little spark.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, I just like it explained like that. It's just a, it's like a really nice, I can really see the wheel. You know what? That's cool.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it's also worth noting that just to clarify again, the tower's idea that there's these towers that kind of prop up reality as the mortals know it, that is more canon.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is this the Taurus quote? Yea, it's Prince Atrebus made. I can read it if you'd like.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, some think that the White Gold Tower and some other towers around Tamriel help, well, hold the world up or something like that. Others believe that before the dragon broke, the tower helped protect us from invasion from Oblivion.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They help keep Mundus, the world, from dissolving back into oblivion, or something like that. Anyway, everyone seems to agree it has power, but no one knows exactly what kind.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's a bit, it's a bit hard to understand. You know, I have heard this really weird idea out there that Talos is a tower. There's like all these things you go convention 2.0 and like, there's heaps of heaps of weird stuff, which honestly I don't want to dive deep into because I don't think I'd do it justice.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't know. I think I prefer the idea that these towers have to be deactivated, not just a story.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I know a lot of, a lot of listeners love all this stuff, but I'm feeling sorry for the people who clicked the video like, yeah, tell me more about the high elves in their black robes and f-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Taking some Talos worshipper as prisoner through the lands of Skyrim and using magic spells and having bound swords and then it's just like... It's time to wake up. You know, the story's ongoing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, you could just, you could just give them some beautifully, um, carved elven looking sword, but then enchant it and then that would be a perfect magic. I know that still involves soul gems and like that, but it's less like I'm calling this sword from oblivion type, you know? Yeah, yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I definitely agree. And I think cause I, I was brainstorming a video, which is kind of like the five most likely plots for Elder Scrolls 6.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But as I was looking at them, what you really could have, and look, everything Todd says I take with a massive grain of salt, in terms of it's gonna be this ambitious, it's gonna last this long, I mean obviously, it's in their interests for it to be a good game, but you know, you never know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But uhm, basically you could put all of these plot ideas into the whole game. Like it could involve all of them to various degrees. Like there could be, you know, uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Another great war. People talk about that. People talk about infighting and controlling kingdoms in Daggerfall and like having siege mechanics and stuff and things like that. And then they also talk about a...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Akaviri invasion even. I know that gets really crazy, but Todd also talked about this idea with the original idea they kind of were throwing around for Skyrim. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] About Akavir being involved, you could have a whole lot of stuff in Elder Scrolls 6 that involves the Thalmor, another great war, um, even, I mean, even soul singing. I hope not. I don't want them to just drag and pawn soul singing, but you could, you could see it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It is, and just let me reiterate, I'm not saying this is what I want.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm thinking about what they would do, potentially. You know what I mean? It doesn't mean I endorse it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And we also don't know what the canon is with Skyrim either, that could definitely be interesting depending on which way it goes with the civil war.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I think, I think a lot of the questions we would get would be things that we've already answered anyway, like what do you think of the towers theory?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] All the outcomes, and I'm happy with any of them. I'm happy with a Stormcloak victory, I'm happy with an Empire victory, I'm happy with leaving it how it is. I think you could pull off a really cool kind of narrative whichever way you go, it's just gonna be different.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It strengthens them a bit much that makes the Thalmor not seem like as much of a threat. Stormcloak's winning is cooler, I think, for a more


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I like, remember that video you made where you were saying, imagine the Dragonborn helps the Stormcloaks and then he'd be leading the Stormcloaks but also has all the powers of the Thornmen can bend will and you know, control dragons. That's a game changer, no matter what happens.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I don't know, maybe, maybe he dies and or like becomes like trapped in Apocrypha after dealing with Mirak and becomes the new champion, who knows.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah. Alright, well, thank you everyone so much for watching. Stay tuned to the community tab on YouTube because we will remember, I hope, to post the topic of next podcast before we do it so we can get questions ahead of time. Social media links are in the description.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This has been Michael Scott and Drew from Fudge Muppet and we look forward to nerding out with you all again very soon.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Very much with the way the various Elven exodus has happened, you know, like imagine the Bosmer and Valen would, whether or not you believe they came from Altmer stock, but


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that's kind of what seems to have happened with the Sea Elves. They would have been very similar to the High Elves, the Uldmer, at one point, but then living on this very...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The inhospitable Isle of Pandania has really changed them as a race.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, it's the idea that they're kind of, no matter where you are in this, in this place, you're always at least up to your, you know, shins in sea, in the ocean. So it's like, you know, it's not exactly.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, I imagine it used to bother them probably quite a lot. I mean, maybe when Orgnum first got there, I don't, you know, most of the sea elves in his, uhm, of his race wouldn't be alive today who were there when they initially found it, but Orgnum himself must have had some trouble adapting.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Um, from, you know, from how you imagine Old Marys, which we're gonna be talking about a lot, I think, um, versus this new place.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, that's the thing, they've been, they essentially attacked Somerset for huge chunks of the first and second eras, failing every single time. So in a way, you know, like, King Orgnum is maybe the worst king I've ever heard of, but I guess at least we have heard of him. Yeah, that's true.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they, you know, they're supposed to be very good sailors. They're, you know, they're literally, they live in the middle of the ocean. They should be able to find their home, you know, but they can't do it. And I think this, this, the idea that the mists keeps them away from it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is kind of, you know, it is a coping mechanism for not being able to find this place, but at the same time I don't necessarily blame them for not being able to find this place because I personally, which we'll talk about, don't believe they came from Aldmeris. I believe they came from Somerset. And it seems like the sources are fairly divided on which it is.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We do have confirmation that with the owner, well confirmation as in it's the annotated annuad which is one of the creation stories, the explanations for how everyone got where they are.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, that's a bit, yeah, if we take it literally, then, yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, well, I mean, it could be one of those cultures where, you know, you have this kind of cultural god, uhm, essentially who once lived, and then the leader of your people essentially fills that role, takes that mantle whenever they become the new monarch.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, however you want to put it. But that, that, that's the, that's the interesting thing. I mean, like, uhm, one of you probably tell the story of Orgnum.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] How we- how we even came to be exiled in the first place, but uhm, it- it seems that even the- the pocket guide can't decide whether it's Somerset or Old Merus. You know, cause the po- the first edition of the pocket guide says that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So it explicitly says they were exiled from Somerset. Whereas the third edition says they were exiled from Aldmeris and said specifically not Somerset. So it is a bit of a conundrum.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The reason I lean more towards the idea that Aldmeris is just an idea is when you see descriptions of it, like uhm, there's one that says, the land is shown as an endless city built upon itself over and over again until no trace of nature remained. And the way I interpret that is it's just,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cultural changes drowning out previous ones to the point where you forget about your history.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Um, because the new thing has taken over and it's just, you know, it's like, say for example, you've got like a culture where you just destroy all the shrines of this pagan religion or whatever and you build your cathedrals over it. Um, and you say, yeah, it's the same place, but the old ideals have been forgotten completely.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And all the aedra, they were just in vaults to survive the nukes and the turning of the kalpas.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But uhm, at least at the time, you know, when he was prominent.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is, imagine being told that you're the incarnation of a god you've never heard of. You know, the only way the seals would really know about Sadakal as a concept is from going to Hammerfell post the migrations of the Yakudans.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, whoever, you know, wrote that connection into the lore, it probably needs to be fleshed out a lot more before a real connection can be made. Because I don't think they ever elaborated on it unless it's from a part of ESO that I didn't play.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, and I guess Patima would be probably describing the- the flagship, you know, Orgum's per- Orgnum's personal ship as well, so perhaps it's a lot- I mean, yeah, it's boring to imagine it that way, but perhaps it's just a lot nicer than all the other ones.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But, uh, you know, and that's the thing about, uh, the Sea Elves is...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't think they could create the largest navy, but I think per vessel, per sailor, they probably have the most capable seafaring force, naval force. And it's the reason why the high elves became such good, such a good naval power is because of this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So if we just assume, if we just assume that Old Merus existed, Old and Olden Fate is a place that they came from, you imagine that, you know, even if they are unable to find it again, they're bringing over their, their culture, they're bringing over their religion and their god, the gods of the, the Oldmer.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, and you'd think they'd have a lot more, um, you know, C based.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, elements, if there's a chance that the sea elves are close.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It makes the ancestry idea, it makes the ancestry idea a bit weird, because I guess if you're, you know, if you're, if the baseline for elves is to be these kind of like undefined chameleon-like, we don't quite know what we are yet, it does, it undermines all of the ancestor stuff, but at the same time perhaps that is the, the Altima.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, yeah, it also, you know, the translucent skin works perfectly with being an aquatic race. But at the same time, dude, I 100% think it's a cool idea because it does lend credence to the idea that, wow, these elven peoples, when they move to a different biome,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The Reef, the Reef providers. They're kinda like, uh, they're in ESO, aren't they?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They're kind of treated as just like a standard mob, but I guess uhm, you know, the sea elves were able to.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's kind of the awkward thing about the sea elves is, you know, I make fun of them saying that for two eras they attempt to take over this island and fail constantly.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As we're talking about now, they're a very formidable force on the ocean, but it's one of those situations where I feel like a lot of the time, if you're a high elf on Somerset, you know, like you're terrified you're gonna lose your navy and all of this, but then you're just like, oh wait, I'll just step back onto the shore. And now they see us, like, what do we do now? You know, like they really do.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, it seems like it, yea, cause it was a freak storm. Basically, in the War of the Isle, which is year 110.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It seems like they were on the verge of a huge success in this, in this war, which is, you know, it happened in the third era 110, which is a long time after they first started trying to take the Isles. Seemed like they'd won it and then


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] From the Isle of Artaeum comes a great storm that just destroys them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So in the same source it says they literally brewed it too.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, it's, it's kind of like a, a bit of a MacGuffin, but it's, it's like, the way I imagine it is because, you know, his origin story, he's this phenomenally wealthy nobleman. I imagine it's like because it can just continuously generate gold. It's kind of like in a metaphorical sense. It's like his, it's his heart in this box.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I could just imagine a really cool questline where, you know, you gotta steal the key to it from around his neck while he sleeps, and you're getting a fire on it like a spinning wheel and stuff like that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was going to say, how valuable is gold to the Sea Elves on their remote Isle of Pandania?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, once you make some races playable as well, the way the games tend to go is they become more generic by virtue of being playable.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Um, cause I, I, I personally think when they portrayed sea elves, they could have, they could have done a lot more. Like giving them, even just giving them like webbed hands and feet and things that make it seem like they've spent generation after generation in the ocean.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Weather controlling is like, it's not- The nords, you know, using the voice, obviously have a lot of access to that as well. There's been plenty of weather control.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I take back anything I said about the Sea Elves not being that bad in terms of combat, because that's woeful. If that's, if someone's just swam, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, she's absolutely exhausted from this journey to a place she doesn't even know really where it is. What a story, Mark.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Their leader isn't the best role model ever. So, it makes sense.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, yeah, as you said, everyone will be familiar with them from their adventures through Skyrim, but there's more to them than just being mindless mammoth cheese-eating yeeters, you know, the high elves spend a lot of time trying to find their way back to the heavens, back to Aetherius, when all you have to do is go and piss off a giant. That's all it takes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We'd be a good mode of transport for the Bosmer, seeing as they couldn't chop down trees to make carts and things like this. Oh, true, true.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well there's the, you know, there's also the idea that, uhm, the Nords, you know, this is, this happened on Skyrim at least, but kind of drove them up into the mountains, you know, when you hear the stories of Isgrimor and his companions just killing tons of, uhm, frost giants, uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Being driven into the mountains and kind of like being pulled away from their civilizations and being forced to live nomadically in really harsh terrain, you can imagine they kind of like...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I've become more primitive naturally as a result of that as well.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To preface this, for a lot of the Giants topics, we're going to have to somewhat delve into uncannon sources, so like a lot of Michael Kirkbride's writings, which kind of get canonised in lore sources, like Giants of Discourse seems to kind of canonise some of his ideas, as well as seeing painted cows.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Or seeing a painted cow in Skyrim is a good reference to his stories, but in one of Kirkbride's writings it says,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Up acro- up there across the northern ice, back in the gone to twilight now age of myth.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So the idea is that rather than sailing on ships, which would seem really unusual, especially if they're as big as they seem, this is when either there was a landmass or the ice was, or it was so cold that the ice bridged Skyrim to Atmora that they were able to just walk. That's how I imagine it happened.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] One thing about the sea giants as well is depending when we think the giants lost their intelligence or lost most of their intelligence, this, uh, this Kirkbride text talks about how the Nords fell into fighting and drove the giant kin up into the mountaintops.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I imagine that perhaps when, when some of the giants were driven into the mountains, it's possible that some other giants were driven away and decided to make a life.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Out on the sea, perhaps they adapted somewhat in a way that the sea elves did, and as a result of their prey being much more difficult to catch, you know, like needing to kill whales to survive, maybe they became more intelligent and more magically gifted as a result of it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When it comes to stealing livestock, rather than just kind of like slaying them like beasts or like separating them from your stock, uhm, a lot of Nordic farmers would


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] would pick one peace offering cow and paint swirls on it as we, as we mentioned before and design it in the same motifs that you see the giants quite like that they do with their mammoths and on their skin. And this would be like a peace offering. So it's like, you hear you have this cow and please don't steal from us. And it seemed to work a lot of the times.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And one thing that's kind of sad is it does seem like, uh, as you said, it's kind of mythical is that it pretty much is becoming myth now because you see descriptions of Atmora as it's changed over, over the eras, you know, uhm, one of his grimoire's companions describes it as like the green summers of Atmora.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, uh, whereas now it's, it's considered to be pretty much uninhabited. It's, it's frozen over and there's no sign of human habitation. There are rumours of it in the third era, but also expeditions that come up with nothing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, they can kind of move slightly south when it gets very cold and wintry because in a way you could almost consider the way Vivec describes those frozen beaded kings as imagine you were to see Atmora in the fourth era and you go there and the frozen beaded kings, they're statues, they're giant turned statues from the cold and they're frozen in their thrones.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, you know, that'd be really cool imagery and, and it makes it much more kind of, um, bittersweet to, to see the less intelligent giants that are more abundant in Skyrim. It's like, oh, this is, you know, the last remnants of them in a sense.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The funny thing about fairies in general and considering the Iliadi to be, uhm, of the same strain is that when I think of fairies I almost feel like they don't really exist materially.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So it's, it's almost like they're purely mythological or spiritual or what, so it's, it's almost hard to say, it's hard to say what fairies are like in uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think it's funny imagining the early giants coming to Skyrim and encountering the dwar- well, encountering the Dwemer and calling them dwarves and that name just sticking.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which is a cool, cool bit of the lore about the fact that, you know, Dwemer are no smaller, uhm, not noticeably smaller than any of the other elven races. Yet we commonly call them dwarves.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, they need to just make it a dragon break so that in the future they can just be like, all that weird stuff that supposedly happened, did it actually happen?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, but perhaps it's the final DLC for ESO before Elder Scrolls 6 comes out as it results in a dragon break. It's the final questline or something. And it just like somehow rewrites that whole era of all of this ESO stuff.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Thanks for that mental image. Well, it's not impossible that Nords may have, may just like coexist with these sea giants in their civilizations. They may actually have men amongst them. I mean, there's no evidence to say they definitely don't. Right? So, you know. Who knows.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I mean, here's a one fun fact about the Giants. The, uh, the artist who, who came up with the Giants, a guy, well, I don't know if you came up with them, but you know, made the models for them in Skyrim, a guy called Jonah Loeb. He modeled the face of the giant in Skyrim after his dad.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And uhm, I'll say, I'll have to send you the photo, I think he tweeted it out, there was a photo of him and his dad. And his dad looks exactly like the Scrum Giants, it's freakish. That's so good. I wanna look that up. To get immortalised.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah. Yeah, it's funny, but I'll make sure we got that so we can put it underneath the podcast.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] His bow called Long Launcher. Yeah, that's it's name.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, is that out of canon, or is that canon? No, it's Elder Scrolls Online. It is Elder Scrolls Online.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think there's even like erotic, you know, but like I'm going into, they have an erotic charade in some, in some places called the king and the amorous giantess.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, enacted with bedroom stilts and large furry mittens. So you can imagine that, you know, they may not be able to unlock their jaw like a snake, but still, it's a pretty big women. Just what you might want to know about that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So a lot of the time it seems like they kind of blend into their surroundings. So the reason the sea giants would be dark blue is if they're hunting whales and they're these big gleaming white things, um, it's going to be a bit more difficult to hunt your prey.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Although if they lived underground, they'd have, they should have paler skin, cause they don't get as much vitamin D. Like, you know, speaking as a, as a basement dweller myself, you know, you're very pale, if you stand out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Essentially. Came to ancient Skyrim, uhm, and he was basically all about the Nordic pantheon. And he wanted to reinstall it because Elysia, uhm, had kind of ruined it for him and everyone was following the Elysian ways. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He couldn't, he couldn't say it with the kind of heroism that it would need. I think he could whisper it, but then it wouldn't sound too strong. So it was scribed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And not just that, he can learn to use the Thorn incredibly easily, kind of like the Dragonborn. Yeaah. Like, his ability to just watch what happens, uhm, in one of the songs of Palinal, when the ghost of Ardorn is fighting, and kind of just teach himself a dragon shout, to kind of reverse age.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And Dragon of the North, meaning I guess originally from Atmora, right? Yeaah. Like Dragon of Atmora or something like that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I guess we can move on to Kain's song. That basically covers, cause there's the five songs of, songs of Wolfarth, and that basically covers Shou's tongue.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So he then goes on to fight the eastern orcs, and basically destroy their chief by supposedly shouting them into hell.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Um, which I think is pretty cool or shouting them into oblivion. Yeah. And then he does a bunch of other stuff like rebuild. I don't know why that's significant rebuild the 418th step of High Hrothgar. Like that's a massive deal, but.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like he shouts and the clouds kind of disappear and it's like, it kind of looks like he swallowed it. It's cooler if he swallowed it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I guess we could actually read from the five songs of Wulfar and read the old knocker section cause it is quite a nice text and I think it's a shame to just kind of paraphrase it when it's just written so nicely. Go for it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, the third song of King Wolfarth tells of his death. Orkay, an enemy god. And I will just interject and say Orkay is like this, uhm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Antithetical kind of god of loans that's always a thorn in the north side.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, so Orkay, an enemy god, had always tried to ruin the Nords, even in Atmora, where he stole their years away. Seeing the strength of King Wolfarth, Orkay summoned the ghost of Alduin, Time Eater, again. Nearly every Nord was eaten down to six years old.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He used this new magic to change his people back to normal. In his haste to save so many, though, he shook too many years out of himself. He grew older than the Greybeards and died. The flames of his pyre were said to have reached the hearth of Kain itself.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So basically all the Nords get turned into children, including Wolfarth.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But then, and this is another reason I was kind of hinting at earlier about him potentially being dragonborn, is he was able to not only use the thumb well, but teach himself a new shout just by watching Alduin in the sky. And then, I say reverse age, but he's re-aging, I guess.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] All the nords. And himself, but himself too far.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Maybe, but I can't think of it off the top of my head either. But I can think of, I can think of Adria kind of mixed together, but not Adria in a day drive.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yes, because orcs were said to have lived long, kind of like elves did. Which makes sense. But they, yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So that's pretty cool. And one of the most interesting things about Wolfarth is, no matter how much he dies, he seems to return. Yeah. So the next song of Palinor, oh sorry, of Wolfarth, is uh, The Ash King. Drew, would you like to read The Ash King? Everyone loves Drew's voice.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like it just sends everyone flying or something. I assume the default is Fus Ro Dah, right? Like a kind of unrelenting force shout. Or something, yea. Well it's in- Well they wouldn't just speak and turn everyone to ice, for example.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't know about that. I feel like I can just remember going and trying to talk to one of them and they just say a line or something.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It could be a created memory. It's been a long time. Mandela effect. Look, Highrothgar, when you've played Skyrim so many times, is a place you tend to try and get in and out of as quick as you possibly can.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Let's have a look. But uhm, I guess we could move on to Red Mountain. So, well I guess just to catch them up to speed as much as we read the Ash King song, um, Shor's Ghost comes into the world and then he basically remakes King Wulfar.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, so Wolfarth's back in the game. Uhm, so Red Mountain.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Alright. Red Mountain. The fifth song of King Wolfheart is sad. The survivors of the de- The survivors of the de-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As soon as Shaw's army had got to Red Mountain, all the devils and dwarves fell upon them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Later, Kain lifted the ashes of the ashes of Izmir into the sky, saving him from hell and showing her sons the color of blood when it is brought by betrayal, and the Nords will never trust another devil again.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I should have had Drew read that one, but my tongue got tied. I definitely wouldn't be a good thumb user, would I? Wouldn't be good.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, here's an interesting connection for you. Malacath has Volandrong as his artifact.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Look, here's something I will say which is kind of interesting as well. The five songs does say, this Nerevar is the son of Boethiah, one of the strongest Patamaics.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, and that's down the bottom section there. Uhm, which is interesting because later on Boethiah, sorry, Boethiah has dueled with Trinimac and Maedad Malacath, but the interactions of Nerevar and Jumac later.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, like, there's some, just some weird tie-ins, isn't there?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The five songs, right? And then there's the secret song, which


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Hmmmm. So the- I mean, we do know the Heart of Shore was in Resident. Yeah, so this is- yeah. That's true. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, just quickly for those who don't know, uhm, like, Narcissus' position from Vvardenfell. Narcissus' like on the mainland, like down, uhm, in kind of the middle of the curve, so it's quite far south.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But didn't- but didn't they know that? Or I guess not, because Dagotha obviously didn't get up and speak to every single Nord and say, hey, the heart of Shor's over here.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is some Avengers Endgame like stuff, isn't it? All the members are there for the final battle. But, there's gods now.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Nerevar carried Keening, a dagger made of the Sound of the Shadow of the Moons. His champions were Dumak, Dwarf King, who carried a Hammer of Divine Mass, and Ilandro Sol, who was the immortal son of Azura and wore the Wraithmail.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They met Lorcan at the last battle of Red Mountain. Lorcan had his heart again, but he had long been from it and he needed time. Wolfarth met Saul but could not strike him, and he fell from grievous wounds but not before shouting Saul blind.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The heart had been made solid by Sunder's tuning blow and Keening could now cut it out. And it was cut out and Lorkhan was defeated and the whole ordeal was thought over.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It, it, it reads like the end of a Shakespeare where this person killed that person and this one that one and you're not sure exactly. It'd be easier with a video, wouldn't it? A visual depiction of it all.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was just wondering who wrote the secret song, because it's, it's written quite differently to the first five, almost like someone else added it, added it on.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, for example, Lorcan. Lorcan is only mentioned after the Secret song. Like, it's always, like, sure, uhm, before that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, it's still interesting though that it's suddenly, it does just feel like something changed, like different, different person just wrote this. Actually, here's what happened.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, this is, this is the thing about Wolfarth, and he's involved in so many things that don't have clear answers.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so it's very easy to feel confused about it because it is, there, there's no, this is the correct answer. Everyone's got their own theory about it. I mean, there's the Arcturian heresy, which is another text which talks about Wulfarth and says all kinds of other things. Um, and you know,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's all magic as well, it's not like as easy as just talking about a single mortal person because, well, he dies again and comes back and if we believe that Vivec or Vec shouted him into ash again and then his ashes were carried away,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's then an epilogue section, basically, where Wolfarth comes stumbling out of Red Mountains to earthquakes and a land on fire, which is Sun's Death, as you were saying.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, and then turns into ashes again. Yeah, well- And the winds take him back to Skyrim.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I guess then you move into the stories from the Arcturian heresy, which is a very controversial book. Which even, I think Kirk contradicts so much stuff.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I looked into that a bit more actually, and it seemed to me that he actually likes the content of the book. And when he said it was his worst, he means like just the style of writing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's actually, I mean, like me personally, I'm not a massive fan of reading it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It seems to be like lots of extremely small sentences, like...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] With his god destroyed, Wulffarth finds it hard to keep his form. He staggers out of Red Mountain to the battlefield beyond.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's like cramming tons of info. Well, it- which is very effective to get a lot of information across. It's almost like a- when you read a character bio versus a backstory, you know?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Three pairs in Talos, the... So it's got the Underking and it's got, you know, Kala over Izmir and Zoran, Mantala over Hylte and Zoran, Tiber Septim with Hylte and Izmir and Talos with all three.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I might, I might need some more clarification on the Mantella one.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But the way, that's why the diagram confuses me because it's, it hasn't got Izmir in their red circle when it says demand teller. But like, I agree with what you're saying.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, I've, I've heard the theory that, uhm, Xurinactus and Wolfarth or Izmir's soul went into the Mantella in that moment.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm not even taking on this, uhm, Nordic or Moran kind of name, like Talos. Yeaah. That's not his name.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cause that's the idea of the Underking anyway, is that, and why people aren't sure who it is, it's just the idea that the Underking wants to reclaim his heart from the Mantella, so that he can finally die.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I should mention, which is what I was gonna say before, it was said that when Wulfarth's soul was transferring to the Mantella, so if Zuran tricked him and put a soul trap spell on him and then he was killed, uhm, that the actual soul transferring to the Mantella tore a hole through Arctus's chest, killing him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, that's from the Arcturian heresy, so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It is, it is funny when you look at, um, one of Kirkbride's writings, cause obviously they, you know, they say, um, Wulfarth is a Shezareen, like an avatar of Shor. And they're, it kind of starts spelling, or does it spell Lorkhan? It doesn't. It's like Wulfarth, L, Hjolti, O, Izmir, R, Talos, K, but hold on, where are these letters coming from?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Anyway, it starts, it starts spelling out Lorcan and it kind of looked like an acrostic poem until I realized that none of the letters are actually like the first letter of their names.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, thanks everyone for watching, we hope you enjoyed this episode, and we will see you next time to nerd out with some more Elder Scrolls.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, I guess as much as we don't want to talk about Sheogorath, it is technically part of him, as all Daedric realms are part of the Daedric Prince that, you know, created them and is them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, I think if you're bringing up the geography and the map, I guess, that we go to in the DLC for Oblivion, it almost looks like a cross-section of a brain.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You've got kind of, I guess, bipolar elements of a insane mind. You've got on one hand, uhm, two polar opposites. You've got mania on one side and dementia on the other. And that's how the realm is split into your two different, you know, geographic areas with the inhabitants in those areas belonging to the theme of it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So on the mania side, you've got all these really hypothymic


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Um, you know, high energy manic people who are highly indulgent, euphoric and on the dementia side, you've got all the kind of like paranoid, um, evil, um,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah. Or is mantling him, I guess. It's like you become him, but not like, to the full extent, in actual gameplay at least.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I guess if we go back to the geography, uhm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Um, and that's where the realm is kind of divided in two. Like there's the city there, which is divided in two as well.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, and it is, it's not in the very center. It is on the east side, but it's.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And of course, as we know, they have their respective Daedra guards. You've got the Mazken or the Dark Seducers on Incrucible and also the rest of Dementia.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the Golden Saints in Bliss and the rest of Mania and both of them then kind of go up into


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, the palace there where Shaya Gorath resides with Haskell, and from there it's split into two with the Duke of Mania and his, you know, part of the castle area, I suppose, and the Duchess of Dementia, Syl, on the, uh, Dementia side.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He would feel, he would feel a bit more like Sanguine, like if you just went to a shrine of Shaya Gorath and he said, go do this insane, nonsensical thing. It'd still be really cool. Like, I mean, even before the DLC in Oblivion, he was cool, like, with his quest.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Nowhere near as cool as when you could actually, you know, use the portal and the nibbin to go into his realm and, and just, you know,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was just gonna say, it's kinda like the mortal trappings of, of the civilization on Tamriel as you know it. Like, there's shopkeepers. There's a blacksmith.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's a, um, you know, curiosity's kind of museum. There's all kinds of different people that have different desires and interplay with one another based on...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, all the different things, but then on top of that, they're all nuts in their own special way. You know, there's sickly Bernice and her kind of in, in, um, crucible.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's, uhm, is it Dumac or Bonk? I think is the name of the amber blacksmith, which we'll get into eventually. And there's like, there's just so much going on. They even have like, the jail system there is unique, but they've got one.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, we can, there's nothing stopping us. Obviously outside the city, whichever way you go, you've got very fittingly giant mushrooms stretching to the sky in all directions. Obviously the ones in Mania are a lot more colorful.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And a lot of the trees here, uhm, have an entrance that you can go in and you can delve around in them and explore as kind of the in-game dungeons, but they have this root system that goes underground and these roots are so powerful that they literally push through, you know, massive amounts of, uhm, rocks.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, uh, um, and this kind of creates, um, well it does create the unique amber found in the Shivering Isles.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's cool. Yeaah. That's cool. And that's where amber comes from and amber is used to forge the, you know, powerful amber armor and weapons with the secret techniques of the blacksmith.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, the problem is in Skyrim's creation club they implemented, you know, some shivering all stuff with amber and basically just made


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Those specific, uhm, those specific elytra in, in, I think it's called Dunroot, Barrow, Habit, not all of them. Yeah, yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So this is the confusing thing, understandably. So there's two psychedelic, oh, well, I guess you could just say two substances.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, that are both green. So you've got green moat and you've got, uhm, gosh, what did we just say? Literally, you've got green moat and felled you. They both have different effects.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Greenmote is found in like some of the smaller, like just mushrooms around the place. But the thing about it is, is that's unrefined greenmote and supposedly doesn't really do anything.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Um, but the refined green moat, which is what you see in the massive silo in, um, kind of like the basement in the Duke of Mania area.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is, is super potent, powerful and dangerous and you can overdose on that and your heart literally explodes and you die and that's how.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, that's actually involved in the ritual of a successor, a successor for a Duke of Mania. So they have a grand feast where the one who's leaving overdoses and dies and then the successor takes his blood into the church and we'll get into more of that kind of stuff.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean yeaah, there's a lot of psychedelics, uhm, that's green mode.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Felju has, uhm, some really addictive substances, uh, effects. So the first time you have it, you get addicted. Like, first time you consume it, no matter what, and withdrawals kick in into 90 sec, uh, after 90 seconds.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Um, and then you get to increasingly worse stages in further 45 second increments and it can even change what you look like. So you'll remember there's a dungeon you go through where the Felju is, but then you end up coming into like a actual, um,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's a room with beds and stuff, like an actual stone dungeon. And there's the chalice of reversal there to cure the addiction, which they're all guarding. And they've also got a copy of the lusty argonian maid. But their faces are all mucked up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, like, like, completely, they did a special fa-faces for them. Right. In the DLC, like, their nose will be off sideways, one eye is up here, one's down there. I vaguely remember, I haven't actually replayed The Shivering Isles in a long time. Yea, and I mean, you can miss it too, depending on,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And eventually though, once you reverse it and permanently cure the addiction, you can then consume Felju to get plus 5 to intelligence strength and agility and plus 20 to health and magicka. Uhm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you run away from an elytra while you're playing the shivering isles and you think you're going to swim under the water, they like just run on the top, which is pretty cool.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But do you remember though with the scale on like a lot of the lore behind that being related to grummites is...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's somewhat questionable, like you can believe it, but it's not like, like for example, uhm, they're in the grummites card category in legends. And they're also like, believed to develop from an adult balawog is like an in-game rumour you can hear. So it's not like, uhm, and then there's an out of lore reference.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, and if anything, you can actually see that the scalons tend to look a bit, just a little bit more like grummites in the Legends card art, like the way that their face and their outer lips are pulled out and down, it looks, I don't know, to me,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They look more related in the card art than they do in-game.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As we were talking about, they don't feel like Daedra, they feel like, uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like if you used a banished Daedra spell on them, you wouldn't expect it to work. In the same way that you can pick up a Grumites dagger and say this is formed from things in Sheogorath's realm, which is technically Sheogorath.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But you wouldn't be like, this dagger is a Daedra artifact or something like that. So it's a bit, it's a bit questionable. It's like are the people born there also Daedra?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like if you, if two mortals in the Shivering Isle breed, that is native to the Shivering Isles. I don't know. I guess that's not the best example actually, but you know what I mean.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They have a huge presence in the Shivering Isles. Hungers have, like, plenty of statues built, like, off, like, off buildings for them. Like, all the shop signs, I think, it's incrucible. Could even be in both.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, are there like statues too? Like statuettes? Yea, the statues, uhm, that, uh, actually serve as traps that shoot out a orange magical spell to damage you. Uhm, there are heaps of hungers. You can really imagine them as a Shivering Isles based creature.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, their presence is super strong, even the, uhm, is it the zealots? I think it's the heretics actually, the heretics summon them. So this is the mages living, kind of the hostile mages living on the mania side of things, will actually summon hungers as their preferred spell.