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Marine Rifle Platoon

2018-07-06T22:45:56Z

2600:8803:1C00:BB00:890B:1B73:C173:7257:

{{Topquote|They shall be my finest warriors, these men who give of themselves to me. Like clay I shall [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_Corps_Recruit_Depot_Parris_Island mould]them, and in the furnace of war forge them. They will be of iron will and steely muscle. In great [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interceptor_Body_Armor armour] shall I clad them and with the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M16_rifle mightiest guns] will they be armed. They will be untouched by [http://theconversation.com/how-world-war-ii-spurred-vaccine-innovation-39903 plague or disease], no sickness will blight them. They will have [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_unit_tactics tactics], [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leapfrogging_(strategy) strategies] and [[AAVP7|mac]][[M1 Abrams|hin]][[UH-1 Huey|es]] so that no foe can best them in battle. They are my bulwark against [[Communism|the Menace]]. They are the Defenders of Freedom. They are [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Nicholas The Marines] and they shall know no fear.|[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Washington George Washington]}}

[[File:Rifle Platoon.jpg|right|300px|thumb|Semper Fi!]]
The United States Marine Corps is part of the Department of the Navy along with "the" Navy and the Coast Guard, though in practice they are very much treated as there own separate branch of the military. The United States Marines Corps is one of the largest and only combined-arms marine forces in the world, possessing their own armor, artillery, recon, and air capabilities for performing amphibious and deep-strike missions far from naval bases. Whether you need to fight a campaign against a [[Japan|sprawling sea empire]] or send a [[Raven Guard|well-equipped reconnaissance team deep behind enemy lines]], accept no substitutes. Oorah!

==In Team Yankee==
[[File:Marine Rifle Stats.jpg|300px|left|thumb|The Stats]]
The less mobile option for marine forces operating from AAV7 landing craft and Hueys (for fluff players). They also pack more punch than most other infantry platoons, capable of tackling anything on the ground (given the right tools). The options for the marines focus heavily on fire support weapons and can include M60 LMG teams, two SMAW teams and one 60mm Mortar team.

Due to the different organizational structure of the Marines having less artillery with an average of 2 mortars per company, the rifle platoon serves a different purpose as well. Unlike the mechanized platoon whose typical role is to protect armor or hold positions (due to their dragon ATGMs and smaller size), the Marines have WAY larger unit sizes which rival smaller Soviet companies. This means your troops can go on the offensive rather reliably, with the numbers to take MG fire if your defensive smokes fail.

Their primary counterpart is the US Airborne, who serve a similar role as shock troops with the numbers and 5+ rifle fire to reliably close in and destroy the enemy. However, they have access to SMAW teams which allow them to have a legitimate chance to actually hurt tanks at close range.

In terms of options, you may purchase an additional weapon team for a point each. M60 teams are swapped with rifle teams instead. While players may consider purchasing all of them (which isn't necessarily a bad choice), those who wish to use their platoons for a specific purpose may choose to adapt their unit composition instead.

As a rule of thumb, platoons in an offensive role would take the 9 rifle team for sustaining casualties and adding on 2 SMAWs. Conversely, the M60 and Dragon excel in a defensive role due to their range increases and stationary requirements. Taking a 6 team platoon is ideal, as the 3 cost for 3 additional rifle teams would be somewhat unnecessary. Note that Marine infantry mortars do NOT have smoke(<s>THE ONLY SMOKE WE NEED IS FROM THE CORPSE OF THE COMMIES WE KILL</s>) We need to do something about this R. Lee Ermey ghost.

A solid infantry unit which may replace the British hordes as the meta NATO army, due to their superior numbers and options.

==IRL==
[[File:Marine Rifle IRL.png|300px|right|thumb|Does anyone know where my sunscreen is?]]
Marines have a bit of a reputation to be had, and they often act like they're a step between regular army soldiers and Special Operations Forces like Rangers or Force Reconnaissance. Given however that they are the primary force used to perform Amphibious landings, which are often done in the face of enemy aggression, and expeditionary warfare which involves fighting away from supply's base, it is not hard to see where the Marines' (in)famous esprit de corp comes from. Most assuredly, the Germans, who dubbed them the "''Teufel Hunde''" or "''Devil Dogs,''" or the Japanese who had island after island clawed away from them, would not be one to dispute their right to have their attitude.

The roots of the Marines' tough reputation lies in their history of shoestring budgeting. As a department of the Navy, Marines get the scraps of whatever is left after spending on fancy warships and missiles. This created a culture of making more with less: the Marines had to perform as well as the army despite fewer resources. With a focus on an exceedingly strong esprit-de-corps that some would consider cult-like, no one argues that the Marines are a force that works.

Today as with much of the Cold War, the Marines are an expeditionary unit expected to be the first frontline combat troops deployed to any hotspots around the world, with expeditionary units in various regions worldwide. Doctrinally, expeditionary warfare focuses on infantry tactics due to tanks on beaches being science fiction for the moment and incredibly silly thanks to the power of ATGMs. As many marines would tell you, the core of the Corps is the riflemen.

{{US Forces in Team Yankee}}

Warhammer Meta-Setting

2018-07-06T22:13:14Z

2600:8803:1C00:BB00:890B:1B73:C173:7257: /* The Cycle */

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Possibly hinted towards in the original fluff, definitely revealed during the [[End Times]] and expanded upon in the [[Warhammer: Age of Sigmar|Age of Sigmar]], the Warhammer Fantasy universe isn't, as previously thought, a single universe constantly assailed by Chaos, but rather one universe out of many. The Warhammer Fantasy universe is in fact locked into a perpetual cycle of birth, stagnation and destruction, with every cycle ending with Chaos consuming as much of the worlds as it can, sating themselves and giving time for the powers of Order to recollect themselves, recreate the universe and gather the souls of the last universe so new life can be created.

How this fits with 40k is not known, but at least it is known that the Warp has connections to both the Fantasy and 40k universe, and that the Chaos Gods from the two settings are the same.

Needless to say, the concept has an inherent bounty of [[Skub]] around it.

== The Cycle ==

[[File:Crossover.jpg|thumb|500px|right|[[Araloth|Elven heroes with spears]] alongside [[Kaldor Draigo|high tech demigods]] in the same setting? It's more likely than you think.]]

When Chaos wins in a cycle and devours it, the universe is left as a half-empty void, with the surviving souls bobbing around, alongside leftovers from the old world and what not. The surviving characters are (usually) the ones who can be considered gods or half-gods (since they'll be bound up into powers about as strong as Chaos, such as the Magical Winds). From here on, it's essentially a free-for-all, with the vying Gods now having the ability to take the raw magic of the universe and form it into something, the way they like. The general world is created by a sort of godly being by the name of Dracothian, a dragon made of starlight whose only purpose in existence is to recreate a physical world for the beings of the new one to live in, using what's left behind after Chaos is done with the previous world as raw materials. As such, he's more of a cleanup crew for the Warhammer worlds than anything else, as he's not shown to have any inclination towards intervening in whatever universe ends up coming into existence until after its inevitable destruction, at which time he will again recreate it. Similarly, the Chaos Gods neither seem to know nor care about its existence.

The new gods are then essentially allowed to do whatever they want with the universe. Many of them will likely want to fight Chaos to avenge the world they once lived in, but nothing necessarily requires them to do so. It is normal for them to create new races or form new armies that are made to fight Chaos, but since no one has been able to stave the Chaos Gods forever, no one seems to be able to make an army that can actually resist Chaos completely, or at least repel it from their universe. That said, [[Sigmar]] is suggested as being the first entity to be considered an equal to the Chaos Gods in power, and the [[Emperor]] has similarly held out longer than the Ruinous Powers anticipated (albeit with more grimdark than in Sigmar's case).

Just as the worlds, realms and universes are formed, Chaos gets its shit up and running, and after having picked the last few mortal souls out of their corrupted, jagged teeth, begin taking on the physical world again and corrupts it as much as possible. Though they might lose many times before any actual damage has been done to the physical world, a little corruption at a time will let the [[Grimdark|thirsting Gods enjoy a little refreshing souls]] from time to time, while planning out new ways to kill the world off for good. The Chaos Gods often have mutually exclusive goals in every Cycle, [[Khorne|as some]] [[Slaanesh|of them]] enjoy wracking up shit better [[Nurgle|than]] [[Tzeentch|others]] do, so they rarely have the entire force of Chaos behind them, just as the different Gods left from the last cycle might have their own agendas to pursue.

Then, when Chaos finally get tired of the current Cycle, or when a sufficiently powerful [[Abaddon|Chaos]] [[Archaon|Champion]] rallies the forces of Chaos behind him, Chaos goes all out and begins taking over the Material worlds, until the worlds are so strained that they can't keep themselves running and the Gods of the Cycle can't keep it together anymore, the world simply rips itself apart. All creation is engulfed in the Warp, and everything goes back to the Void it started as. While the Chaos Gods go snack on souls and the old Gods are destroyed, new gods formed from the mightiest heroes and warriors of the past world will inevitably escape and witness the creation of a new world.

And then the Cycle begins anew, as it has ever since Chaos first came into existence.

TL:DR- It's basically [[Vikings|Ragnarok]], as GW, being big fans of Norse myth, couldn't pass up taking the Germanic concept of cycled fate and destiny.

== Known Cycles and their Gods ==

As far as we know, the Fantasy and 40k Warhammers are separated in terms of their timelines - The End Times has hinted towards the current 40k timeline and the Fantasy timeline being parallel to each other, with the Warp providing a faint connection between the two. For example, after randomly pressing buttons on a Lizardman communications device, the [[Skaven]] managed to make contact with beings whose voices sounded [[Eldar|like High Elves, but with an otherworldly accent]]. The cowards promptly destroyed their gadget of course, but you don't get better hints than that. It's possible that the Warp screws this up big time, since time doesn't really work there, but as far as we know, the cycles are separate in the two settings. Or perhaps the 40K setting hasn't gotten through its cycle yet, we don't know.

=== Fantasy ===

Knights knights vikings daemons hammers horses knights

====The Proto cycle====

The cycle that came before the fantasy cycle. We don't know anything about this one but we can infer a couple things. First off we know the gods of the fantasy cycle came from the Proto-Cycle and perhaps the Old Ones were survivors of this cycle, as age of Sigmar shows the lizard men could survive the destruction of the old world which is perhaps how the Old Ones came to be.

====The Fantasy Cycle====

Yo, whata ya want from me. What Cycle name could you come up with, huh?

This is essentially [[Warhammer Fantasy]] as we know it - It is comprised of one planet, two moons and one star, has some different Gods from different pantheons and, of course, Chaos. The Fantasy world was destroyed in the [[The End Times]], when Chaos upped its game, Archaon went berserk, Sigmar came back into the Emperor's body, the moon (no, the other one) was blown up and the Lord of Death ate three gods. Long story.

The gods of this world were leftovers from the last one, according to [[Lileath]], who first revealed the existence of the cycle during the End Times. The first beings to have an influence on the created world seem to be the Old Ones, who ''supposedly'' created all the races, including, but not limited to, the humans, elves, ogres and dwarves, all in the pursuit of making the perfect anti-chaotic race. When that didn't end well (all races being susceptible to Chaos in one way or other), they created the Lizardmen, who worked, but were both misplaced (being placed far from anything of importance) and too few to do an actual difference. It's unclear how much of the old fluff is still holding about the creation of the other races, but since the elven gods are also leftovers from an old universe it's unlikely.

Speaking of elven gods, the elven pantheon is one of the most active ones in the Fantasy world, as all of them ([[Asuryan]] especially) are actively battling Chaos. As they are now fluffed to have been survivors of the old proto cycle this make sense.

Timelines from the High Elf army book (7th edition is the copy I'm looking at) say that a cycle lasts longer then 4 and a half thousand years. For a point of reference the bronze age was roughly 4,000 years ago.

====Age of Sigmar cycle====

It's unclear if the age counts as a cycle yet. The problem is the age of Sigmar still exist as a number Realms made of each of the winds of magic, (likely meaning that the winds of magic are consistent across each Cycle), compared to the last cycle there is nothing we would understand as a 'planet'. If this is a Cycle and not a period of time between cycles where the realms will collapse into a single planet that says there is a high degree of variances between the actual make up of the world between Cycles. The Fantasy Cycle was just one planet, in total, not part of a larger galaxy that presumable also would have been unmade.

The date "4,500" we got from the warhammer high elf army books is the start of reign of the first phoenix king, Aenarion the defender, who became king in the wake of the first chaos incursions into the world before that we don't have any dates. This means that from the point chaos first begins to invade in bulk to the end is somewhere in the ball park of 4.5 thousand years. In age of Sigmar canon the point where chaos broke into the world would either be the "[https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Warhammer:_Age_of_Sigmar#The_Age_of_Chaos Age of chaos]" or the later part of the [https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Warhammer:_Age_of_Sigmar#The_Age_of_Myth The Age of Myth] so from that point Sigmar's got him self 4.5 thousand years until the next cycle assuming that's a constant.

Here's where things start unraveling; when Chaos first came to the Mortal Realms, they WON. All organized resistance was crushed except for Sigmar's realm of Azyr, the chaos hordes being left to raid and despoil all of the now-isolated kingdoms and empires of the other seven realms. They then proceeded to putter around aimlessly while Sigmar got his counterattack ready, making no attempt to destroy the world and dragging their fights with the remaining centers of resistance out as far as they could. The time period the game is set 500 years later (reference: The Realmgate Wars - All-Gates, page 4), when the powers of Order are finally striking back to reclaim a world that Chaos has dominated for half a millennium.
*The counter point is that something similar happened to the high elves. Chaos invaded and they got there shit kicked (While dwarfs hid in there mountains) in until Aenarion the defender, became the Phoenix king and the High Elves started writing dates down. While it did not last an age, there was a large period of time where chaos ran rampart across the world before the elves got it's shit together to pull together win by deus ex machina (Caledor's vortex). So this pattern of chaos coming, then receding at first does not seem to be unprecedented.
*On the other hand, this time Sigmar is here, alive and kicking, the Celestial Prime can purify Chaos enslaved people with Ghal-Maraz, and the novels have shown even Nurgle can get hurt by the power of Azyr, while things are still on the balance it's the first time the potentiality of a real victory against Chaos is pausible.

=== 40K ===
Marines marines cultists daemons bolters bikes marines

40k is scale is a lot larger then warhammer's, being a galaxy and not a single planet. If however, age of Sigmar is a full cycle then it's possible to imagine that in this cycle rather then make one world, the Dracothian made the entire universe we can see looking up with a telescope, and remember 40k is OUR cycle, we live in the age of Age of Terra.

Presumable this was done to give chaos a lot more 'toys' so as to delay the cycle a lot more. Given that 40k has lasted at least 13 billion years, which is something on the order of 9,111 times longer then fantasy did, assuming that not too much time passed before Aenarion became the phoenix king and the elves started writing shit down. The length of time 40k's has existed compared to fantasy gets longer if you throw our understand of planet formation in as well, but we will assume our current models and theory's don't work in 40k for simplicity sake (it's the problem with science fiction, your always tempted to apply them). Maybe Chaos was playing in the Andromeda galaxy or something while earth was evolving us, if we did evolve and did not just get plopped onto our planet at the end "Age of Sigmar" during the last ice age.

Slaanesh was born during the eldar fall. If the other cycles are canon to 40k, then Slaanesh was reborn showing that gods can appear within a cycle.

No signs of the winds of magic though given the different discipline in the last couple 40k rule books it could they exist but have different names or are thought of differently.

The big question is, is 40k going to go through it's own End time? (assuming game workshop does not end up "once bitten twice shy" about major setting shake up's after the Age of Sigmar reaction.) It is a tough call. 40k is explicitly said to be in the 'time of ending' but that by Imperium's metrics. Yes things are getting pretty bad with Aliens like the Tau and Tyranids banging on the door step, chaos sneaking up the back way, Rebellions starting and the Emperors throne failing, all of which are bad, but it's not clear if that means it's all going to be unmade and that Chaos is going to win anytime soon. It has been suggested that if the Emperor actually dies it will submerge all of reality into the warp, which would be the 'end state' for any 40k End Times but it's unclear if that's true as a god was made in setting, Slaanesh, and it did not cause a reality collapse like at the end of the Fantasy cycle's End times. If chaos did 'win', things might get unmade but by the same token they would need a total victory to drag the whole of the galaxy, or maybe even universe since the Tyranids need to be coming from somewhere. Even if 40k as we know it goes kablooey and the galaxy becomes a massive eye of terror that just might mean it's time to move on to the next galaxy and the settings true "end times" is only when every galaxy in the universe has been individually consumed by chaos, which is not actually mathematically possible for a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZL4yYHdDSWs assortment of space time reasons]. And of course if the Tyranids win and devour the entire galaxy and kill off the chaos gods from starvation (and everyone else) who the fuck knows what would happen. If the Dracothian making the 40k universe was to make sure he did not have to do this shit again for a while, he fucking succeeded.

Alternatively, they have absolutely nothing to do with eachother and only Warhammer Fantasy suffers from the cycles - thematically this makes more sense than it sounds, since not only is 40k a lot more removed from fantasy tropes and (begrudgingly) closer to scientific fact (there's a whole universe out there, it's 13 billion years old, we have definite points of origin for both chaos itself and every major chaos god rather than their existence predating the setting), it also suffers cycles of its own in-universe. The order of the Dark Age of Technology led to chaos of the Age of Strife led to the order of the Great Crusade led to the chaos of the Horus Heresy, and so on and so forth, and that's only within the history of humanity.

If 40k exists in this cycle, it seems very likely it was the first and influenced the later additions rather than resulting from something prior. Yeah, that's right. The truth you all feared. 40k is canon and Fantasy was Tzeentch's fan fiction.

== So who the hell is the Architect of this shit? ==
Unless you count [[GW]] itself, nobody knows. The Chaos Gods are the most powerful beings in the meta-setting, but even they seem to be just one more part of the endless cycle and they sure as hell wouldn't be interested in actually creating anything that wasn't already corrupted by Chaos. No other god seems to have enough power to create or sustain a cycle on its own either, assuming that the meta-setting was even created by a sentient being. Just one more question of many that most people can only speculate over.

== Theories ==

As a surprise to no one, a lot of theories began popping up the instant we began knowing about the inner workings of the Warhams - In fact, they had been there all the time.

=== The Dracothion is a [[C'tan]] ===

In the [[Age of Sigmar]] rulebook, it is explained that [[Sigmar]] held fast to the core of the old [[Warhammer World]] after Chaos consumed it, and flew through nothingness until it stumbled across the Dracothion, a "dragon made of starlight". This seemingly immortal being gave Sigs a manual with information on how to make new things out of nothing with cheat codes and console commands. Together, they began creating the new world, shaping the Winds into shape and creating Sigs' new clubhouse for his "We hate Chaos" club.

What is striking about the Dracothion is that it shares a lot of similarities with another "dragon", namely the Void Dragon. Both are described as being 'light' in their physical forms (the Dracothion being "made of starlight", and the Void Dragon looking like "dark light" when consuming stars and having the light of devoured stars within it, are both described as "dragons" for reasons or other (the Dracothion physically resembling a dragon, and the Void Dragon remembering itself taking that form when it was defeated on Earth by the Emperor).

So, what does this imply? Are there more creatures around like the Dracothion in Age of Sigmar, representing the Deceiver, the Nightbringer and so forth? If so, what are their role in the setting? The Dracothian is supposedly the clean-up god that keeps things together while Chaos fucks everything up, so what do the others do? Are there even "others" to do anything, at that matter?

The most interesting part of this theory is that, if the Void Dragon can do the same rebuilding shit as the Dracothion, what does it mean that the Emperor put it to sleep? It would imply that the Emperor didn't wanted it to recreate the world, and that there was the risk of it doing it... The Void Dragon also supposedly allows the Adeptus Mechanicus to control machinery, and it's canon that the Void Dragon can control machines. This doesn't sound much like what the Dracothion does (creating new worlds and stuff) but, think about this: The Dracothian can literally create things in the setting, and is outside the powers within the setting (being immortal and untouchable by Chaos), which could mean that it simply has control of the setting's "core programming". Programming. Which machines use.

So the Emperor has essentially made it so the future of the setting is in the hands of [[Techpriest|technophiles who have no idea what they're doing]].

But all of this begs the obvious question: if Dracothion really is a C'tan, why is it the only one who has the power to create new life and new worlds, and why does it care so little about the rest of existence when other C'tan would have used that power to enslave the material universe several times over? For all we know, it's just a really weird dragon with too much time on its hands.

Though seeing as this theory is based on the fact that both are dragons and made of light, you'd have to be [[Thanquol|sniffing warpdust]] to take it seriously.

=== 40k goes through the same cycles as fantasy,===

Stop me if You've heard this before. [[Sigmar| There was an human]] [[God-Emperor of Mankind|ruler who would be worshiped as a god]], who created a [[Imperium of Man|mighty]] [[The Empire (Warhammer Fantasy)|empire]], but then the ruler was [https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Sigmar#Abdication trapped]/[https://1d4chan.org/wiki/File:God-Emperor_Goldlich.jpg crippled by chaos]. Without the ruler the man's empire had good times, and bad times, but slowly slide backwards into darkness. Then there is [[The End Times|a big battle]] [https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Cadia#The_Fall_of_Cadia with chaos], the empire loses, a planet is destroyed and [[Great Rift|chaos]] [https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Warhammer:_Age_of_Sigmar#The_Age_of_Chaos spreads]. To fight Chaos a [[Sigmar|great]] [[Roboute Guilliman|hero]] thought gone returns, and creates a [[Primaris Marines| new type]] of [[Stormcast Eternals|solider]] to fight Chaos as he leads the nation back to it's former glory.

As George Lucas said: ''"It's like poetry... It rhymes."'' The plot points and exact details are hardly 1:1 but they do Rhyme at least. 40k Defiantly experiences cycles similar to fantasy, in fact if one looks closely enough one could probably posutate that the rise of the Emperor him self marks the closing of one cycle, the [[Dark Age of Technology]] and the start of cycle/age of the Imperium which spans from [[Great Crusade|M31]]-[[Age of the Dark Imperium|M42]]. In M42 though Guilliman rise marks the close of the Imperial cycle and the start of a new one. The only difference is with so many more planets, they can afford to have a few ([[grimdark|hundred]]) blown up or lost to mark the change from one cycle to the next without the galaxy going suffering from a divide by zero function.

[[Category:Warhammer Fantasy]][[Category:Warhammer 40,000]]

The Elder Scrolls

2018-07-06T21:00:23Z

2600:8803:1C00:BB00:890B:1B73:C173:7257: If this is a troll by Todd Howard, then it's a very expensive and inconvenient troll. At any rate, the game HAS been confirmed, so the likelihood of Beth trolling us is low.

{{/vg/}}
[[File:Crabomancy.jpg|300px|thumb|right|During the Oblivion Crisis, the Dunmer of House Redoran revived a whole city, Ald'ruhn, which was made out of shell of the Great Skar to fight on their side, as a Giant Friendly Crab. This series is hardcore like that. They still lost.]]
'''The Elder Scrolls''' is a [[video game|vidya]] series, and the setting of five main games and a number of spinoffs. Despite being a vidja, it is considered a type II game.

/tg/ also has a [[Scrollhammer|40k/WHFB hack named Scrollhammer]], and a number of pen and paper games (notably [[Morrowind PNP]] and the [[Unofficial Elder Scrolls RPG|UESRPG]]) set in [[The Elder Scrolls]] universe.

Its canon is notoriously unstable. Long story short: imagine every canon clusterfuck 40K has ever experienced, only there are no editions to draw a neat line between lore changes. And on at least one occasion, time has been known to break in order to allow simultaneous mutually exclusive outcomes. You know how in 40K everything is canon, but not everything is necessarily true? Here, nothing is canon and everything is true, especially when it contradicts itself.

==Setting==
[[File:Elder_Scrolls_Cosmology.jpg|400px|thumb|right|An approximation of the cosmology of the Elder Scrolls. Not shown: mindfucks.]]
The games mainly take place in Tamriel, a continent consisting of nine separate lands. After being [[Anal Circumference|buttfucked]] by the [[Eldar|Ayleid]] for several centuries, humanity rises up and overthrow their elven overlords, and took control themselves. Then, a few thousand years later, a man named [[God-Emperor|Tiber]] [[Alpharius|Septim]] steps up and leads his armies to [[Great Crusade|conquer all of Tamriel to found the Third Empire of Cyrodiil]]. But instead of exterminating all the elves and beast races, they were allowed to co-exist with the other races and a time of prosperity began, ending with the death of Emperor [[Star Trek|Jean-Luc Picard the 7th]], and [[Khorne|Mehrunes Dagon]] then began to fuck his way from [[Warp|Oblivion]] into Tamriel, starting a chain of events that resulted in him being kicked back into hell by the Emperor's lost son, [[A Song of Ice and Fire|Sean Bean]].

Being Sean Bean meant he died in the process, and without an Emperor the Empire began to crumble. The Aldmeri Dominion (think Ayleid 2.0) sensed their weakness and began a war to subjugate the lesser races. The Empire only barely managed to stop them, and a tense cease-fire is currently in effect. The fluff of this series, unfortunately, suffers greatly from dissonance between written background and shown foreground due to all the shit mentioned in the intro.

There's also a bunch of other weird cosomology crap involved, but it's all kind of trippy and kind of in a grey area when it comes to canon. Don't think too much about it.

===Creation of the world===
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJD-Ufi1jGk Listen to this.] This is the main theme of Morrowind, the third game in the series. It also contains the history of the cosmology of The Elder Scrolls. Listen to it, because it's a damn fine tune. But as you listen to it, you might realise there are no spoken words in this music. So how can it tell the history of a setting? Well, sit that five-dollar ass of yours down before I make [[Tzeentch|change]].

Long ago there was an entity who had fallen deeply in love, but his brother loved the same person, so he out of jealousy killed his loved one. That brought such distress to him that he fell into a coma of sorts, he "hid in a sun" and started dreaming. Thus he became The Godhead. From his dreams sprung Anu and Padomay, Stasis and Change. These "brothers" (the term used in the loosest sense here, solely on being related but different forces) accidentally created Nir, Grey maybe, personification of creation itself. But Padomay grew jealous of the relationship between Anu and Nir and out of spite decided to break her. Nir was killed and Creation was shattered, maimed for ever. Anu then fought Padomay and they were cast out of time forever, even though they still exist and will always exist as long as there is Order and Chaos. You might have thought to yourself, "Didn't that happen twice?", yes it did. Everything in the Dream mimics original Godhead and his mind, everything comes from it. In this case Anu was avatar of the Dreamer while Padomay represented Godheads brother and Nir their shared love. Same scenario of two mirror brothers, one being force of Stasis, The King and one being force of Change, The Rebel always repeats. The souls or core concepts of Anu and Padomay on which all of creation runs are called, Anui-El (IS) and Sithis (IS NOT).

Eventually from endless energies and "blood" of Anu and Padomay came the Et'ada (Et'ada means original spirit, while Ada means just generally any spirit), each representing different idea and concepts. Et'ada tended to categorize themselves with Anu or Padomay. Auri-El, Kyne and other Et'ada who lean more towards Order are Anuic while more chaotic ones like Mehrunes Dagon or Molag Bal are more Padomaic. Later after creation of realms those who were Anuic became Aedra, which means "our ancestor" in Ehlnofex, because Aedra took part in creation of the world we usually visit in TES games, while those Padomaic spirits who did not take part in creation and created their own solo realms became Daedra, which translates to "not our ancestor" (though that was not always the case, Jyggalag for example is a Daedra, but he is clearly Anuicly aligned.)

In the Dawn Era, time, in the shape of Akatosh (Ara, Auriel, Auri-El Tosh'Raka, AKHAT; take your pick), was non-linear. It flowed freely wherever it wanted, without direction, form of shape. In this temporal soup floated the souls of the proto-Mer. Think pea soup, except with millions of Ada of all sorts instead of peas. Time, in this form, was a single point. It was called the Ur-Tower, Ada-Mantia. Except it was not really a point or a tower, but more of a sound.

''Bom. (0:00 to 0:01 of the song)''

The Et'Ada saw it, and it was good. Except for one. A being born from Padomay who wanted no name, but eventually came to be first known as Lorkhan (LKHAN, Shor, Sep, Shezarr, maybe even Shepard). Having little interest with the rest of the Et'Ada's activities, or more likely inactivity, he spent his time wandering the Aurbis (all of existence), eventually coming to the very edge. He saw the universe, shaped like a wheel with eight spokes. Then he looked at the wheel from another perspective, and it looked like a Tower, a perfect line. An I.

"I."

This was his first word, and he would never, ever forget it. He understood everything right then and there, all of creation and its true nature was revealed to him.

Wanting to share this revelation with the other Ada but knowing that none of them would be able to comprehend it as they were, he came up with a plan for a creation and showed it to Magnus, The Grand Architect. Magnus went along with the plan and recruited the help of the Et'ada that we know as Aedra today: Akatosh, Dibella, Julianos, Kynareth, Mara, Stendarr, Zenithar and many other lesser spirits that you probably never heard of to serve as the basis of their creation. Except that they did not know this last part, Lorkhan had fooled them. Their divinity was drained into the creation, or re-creation of long shattered Nir, Nirn was born. When they discovered they were tricked the Et'Ada were [[RAGE|not amused]]. Magnus buggered off into infinity along with his servants, tearing through the edge of Mundus and creating The Sun and The Stars in the process...yeah, everything you see in sky is a giant non euclidean portal to realm of infinite energy, the original crib of Et'ada, The Aetherius. Others gave Lorkhan his due: [[RIP AND TEAR|Trinimac tore his heart out and Auriel(Elven aspect of Akatosh) shot it out over the sea]], where it landed in a spot and created a crater that would gain the moniker "Red Mountain". The halves of Lorkhan's body became the moons Masser and Secunda, [[Emperor|the last visible remnants of a corpse god.]] But this was [[just as planned]], throughout the whole thing the Heart of Lorkhan was laughing at them like a maniac, because Red Mountain was Red Tower, the second Tower, and the beat of his heart would be added to the sound of Akatosh. His Heart would become the prison for The Dragon God of Time.

''Bom bom. (0:01 to 0:07 of the song)''

This completely, utterly and irrevocably buttfucked spacetime. Because there now was a second point in existence, time could no longer flow anywhere it wanted and had to flow from Akatosh to Lorkhan. With time becoming linear, Nirn could start to grow. Aedra were drained and "dying", so they had to reproduce, create worshipers or someone that could sustain them. Slowly Ehlnofey, the "Earth Bones", Ada of all forms and shapes, some descendants of crazy reproduction, started popping up. Some created simple truths and laws for Nirn, for example gravity, others reproduced more, creating less energized spirits that slowly stabilized in different ways, slowly becoming mortal. They are ancestors of Humans (Men) and Elves (Mer). These Ehlnofey fortified their borders from the chaos outside, hid their pocket of calm, and attempted to live on as before. Other Ehlnofey arrived on Nirn scattered amid the confused jumble of the shattered worlds, wandering and finding each other over the years. Eventually, the wandering Ehlnofey found the hidden land of Old Ehlnofey, and were amazed and happy to find their kin and a comfy place, built by them. The wandering Ehlnofey expected to be welcomed into the peaceful realm, but the Old Ehlnofey being arrogant douchebags, refused to accept their kin. Anywho, war broke out between them and raged across the whole of Nirn and sunk large part of planet in ocean. Old Ehlofney (the asshole ones), who primarly lived in Tamriel, became Elves (gee, you didn't expect that, did you?), while their kin on other continents became Humans (Yokudans, Atmorans and Akaviri/Tsaesci).

''Bom bom. (0:07 to 0:39 of the song)''

The Mer, one of the first to mortalize were not [[RAGE|not pleased]] by this. They blamed Lorkhan for their predicament, naming him the Doom Drum, bringer of mortality, death and the herald of all misfortune. But they made the best out of the situation, and the races of Mer prospered. New Towers came into existence, one by one: Walk-Brass Tower, White-Gold Tower, Snow-Throat Tower, Crystal-Like-Law, Orchalc, Khajit and Tree-Sap.

''Bom bom. (0:39 to 1:19 of the song)''

But, as time went on (something new back then), more and more happened. New peoples stood up. Empires were founded and fell. The races of Men were discovered, the beast races prospered, and the Empires of Men were founded.

''Bom bom. (1:19 to 1:42 of the song)''

Yet nothing is eternal. The Thalmor, the ruling faction of the High Elves, desires nothing less than the destruction of the Doom Drum and all of creation so time once again becomes non-linear, mortality would get destroyed and they could return their eternal soup-floating. Removing Lorkhan would stop the music of existence, and everything once again becomes singular.

''Bom bom. Bom. (1:42 to 1:55 of the song)''

And then... silence.

===On the importance of Towers===
For every Tower there is a Stone, an artifact that can be used to activate or deactivate a Tower. For Ada-Mantia Tower this is the Moment of Creation itself (making it rather difficult to obtain), for Red Tower this is the Heart of Lorkhan and for White-Gold Tower this is the Amulet of Kings. The Towers serve many purpose besides keeping [[Homestuck|spacetime]] from becoming a massive alinear clusterfuck. What is this? Well, it's easier for you to do it yourself that for me to explain. Make yourself a print of the map of Tamriel further down on this page. Then get yourself a pin board and a black, a red, two brown, three white, and two green tacks. Put the map against the pinboard and do the following:

*Put the white tacks through the map in the Imperial City in Cyrodiil, the Throat of the World slightly south-east of Whiterun in Skyrim, and Crystal Tower in the Summerset Isles (northern part, west of King's Watch). (White-Gold, Snow-Throat and Crystal-Like-Law)
*Put the green tacks in Yokuda (exact location unknown) and in Valenwood (somewhere in the middle). (Orchalc and Tree-Sap)
*Put the brown tacks in Daggerfall (southernmost tip of High Rock) and in Elsweyr (again in the middle). (Walk-Brass and Khajiit)
*Put the red tack in the middle of Vvardenfell in Morrowind. (Red)
*Put the black tack on the little island deep in the Iliac Bay near High Rock. (Ata-Mantia)

That's the locations of the Towers that keep time flowing. All's fine and dandy with those holding the world together, right? Wrong! Some have been destroyed or deactivated over the course of time; three times, this was done by the player. [[Fail|Whoops]]. Remove the following:

*Red Tower (deactivated in Morrowind by you)
*White-Gold Tower (deactivated in Oblivion by you)
*Crystal Tower (destroyed in Oblivion by the Daedra)
*Khajiit Tower (Their leader, the Mane was killed, likely assassinated by Thalmor. S/He was also known as the Mane Moon which appeared when Secunda and Masser overlap)
*Tree-Sap Tower (both located in Thalmor territory, likely deactivated)
*Orichalc Tower (destroyed along with Yokuda)

Snow-Throat Tower is very much active (but damaged), but its Stone is an unknown cave. Walk-Brass Tower is very much active, but somehow it is "besieging reality well into the Fifth Era", meaning that it's in the future yet somehow active. Which is not a bad thing, since [[Titans_40k|Walk-Brass tower is a fuckhueg robot]] that has a nasty habit of fucking Time so hard it breaks. So yeah, the only things standing between Tamriel and the primordial time-grog are a mountain and one of the [[Void Dragon]]'s action figures. Unless, of course, Akavir and\or Pyandonea would be revealed to host their own Towers, which is likely since certain prominent rulers of both lands somehow managed to achieve godhood, something that Towers are very helpful at.

Removing the Tower-Tacks has another side effect: the veil between [[Materium|Nirn]] and [[Warp|Oblivion]] becomes thinner. At the time of Oblivion it had even grown so thin that the Daedra could slip into this realm on their own accord. So your actions in Morrowind partially caused the Oblivion Crisis. [[Fail|Way to go, champ.]] And what happens if you remove all the tacks? Right, your map falls off the pin board, Mundus falls into Oblivion.

Thalmor, who often claim the need to deactivate all Towers, don't really need that. Their main goal is the biggest and newest anchor of existence, Talos (essentially Lorkhan 2.0), hence why they try to ban his worship so hard and unmake him. Thalmor want him and all of mankind to be gone, believing their extermination necessary to unmake the Mundus.

===How to Break your Dragon===
You might have heard the phrase "Dragon Break" (both words capitalized) a few times. Simply put, this means cock-slapping Time so hard it breaks and becomes non-linear for a while. But not just any cock-slap, oh no. This is the hard part: Imagine a dick if you will. A really big dick (no, this does not make you [[gay]] <s>unless you imagine balls touching</s>). So big in fact, that even Long Dick Johnson would say "That's a big fucking dick". Right, you see it? The biggest fucking dick your feeble mind could comprehend? Good.

Now, imagine if you will, Time. How you do this is up to you: [[Doctor Who|causality, a linear progression of cause and effect]], floaty magic thingies, [[Tallarn|sand]], a clock, perhaps even a more anthropomorphic presentation in the shape of a [[loli]] or a cute [[monstergirl]]. Right. Now take the dick and slap Time in the face. Cockslap it so hard that time itself just outright breaks and loses its linearity. This is a Dragon Break. The name itself is derived from the notion that the Linearity of Time is Akatosh, who is a dragon. Hence if you break time, you "Break the Dragon". While inside a Dragon Break time is perceived to pass normally, but when one exits it might appear that a lot more or less time than you observed has passed in the rest of the world.

The first known Dragon Break occurred near the end of the Dragon War, where a trio of [[Vikings|Nords]] confronted Alduin the World-Eater, First-Born and Aspect of Akatosh that personifies the End of Time (meaning that somehow he was [[Wat|his own father]]), the leader of the [[dragon]]s. The Nords created a localized Dragon Break to fling Alduin into the future so that he wasn't their problem anymore. Mind you, they had no idea where the stuff they shunted was actually going; they just knew it disappeared things, and decided that making Alduin someone else's problem was as good as killing him, essentially causing (or at least amplifying) all the problems in the 4th Era out of laziness. [[Eldrad|What a bunch of dicks.]]

The second known Dragon Break happened during the Battle of Red Mountain, where the First Council of the [[Elf|Chimer]] went to war with the [[Dwarves|Dwemer]]. The Dwemer were working on a giant golem they called Numidium. However, it had one minor design flaw: every time someone pushed the "ON" switch it fucked the dragon right up the butt, no lube. This allowed for the multiple truths on the events that transpired on Red Mountain: Ayem, Seht and Vehk stood by their friend Nerevar as he succumbed to his wounds. Almalexia, Sotha Sil and Vivec murdered their Hortator (war-leader) Nerevar. Ayem Seht Vehk = Almalexia Sotha Sil Vivec = ALMSIVI. Everything is true, nothing is correct.

The third suspected Dragon Break occurred during the time of the Alessian Empire, when Saint Alessia freed Man from the slavery of their Mer rulers (think of her as a booby [[Sigmar]]). A cult of the Alessian Order known as Marukhati, lead by monkey man Marukh. wanted to exorcise the aspects of Auriel from Akatosh, basically substracting the Elf from the Dragon. This is said to have resulted in a thousand-and-eight year Dragon Break and might have resulted in creating more Dragon aspects than just Auri-El and Akatosh. But some claim that this was little more than [[Administratum|a fuckup of the scholars and historians of the time]].

The fourth known Dragon Break took place when [[Emperor|Tiber Septim]] unleashed Numidium on the Khajiit of Elsweyr. This included the subjugation of Elsweyr, Valenwood and eventually the Summerset Isles. Tiber Septim threatened to activate it again and have it wreck the Aldmeri Dominion, but they liked their assholes to only be violated by one another, so they too stood down. It has been recorded that Numidium was then used to destroy hostile royal families to replace them with the Emperor's puppets, likely by having it step on them.

The fifth and currently final known Dragon Break occurred during the events of Daggerfall, where it was turned on in the Iliac Bay. But because of the nature of Numidium fucking space-time a new lovehole when it activates (hence, "turned on"), a number of the states in the region obtained the "FUCK EVERYTHING" button of Numidium and pressed it at the same time. Two days of hilarity later, everyone conquered one another until the Empire ended as top dog and everyone swore fealty to the Empire. Because of the events surrounding the activation of the Dragon Break, Numidium disappeared and fell into the future, where it still stands as Walk-Brass Tower.

When the Dragon Breaks happen, Akatosh deploys the Jill to fix time so that everything does not fall apart. These minute-menders (akin to angels) tend to take the form of great wyrms who fly around and fix the little bits of time with the power of their Voice (i.e.: they shout at holes in space-time until they bitch down). If this sounds familiar to you... it is! Jills are female Dragons, while Drakes are the male ones; Dragons can't really reproduce and are born of Time/Akatosh, but it's more of a conceptual thing, with Jills having the concept of healing while Drakes have the concept of Domination. So yeah, Dragons you kill, fight, kill and soul-rob to increase your own unholy power are actually servants and minor aspects of Akatosh. So in other words, [[Adeptus Evangelion|you have been killing the heralds of a new era]].

...Or at least ''you would be if they were actually doing what they were supposed to do'' - as it turns out, some time before that first Dragon Break Alduin, who is also aspect of Akatosh himself decided that he would rather rule over the broken bits of time himself, and the dragons are bound to obey him without question. It's not certain if he did it because he knew that he wouldn't get to eat the world this time around or if he just felt like ruling the world instead of resetting it. So all of reality is increasingly fucked and the only beings who can fix it stopped giving a shit a long time ago. Gods plotting against themselves is fairly common in TES since most of the Gods are broken and crazy with tons of split personalities.

There is also the whole issue of Aka-Tusk, or simply Aka. Apparently all the Dragon Aspects of time at one point or another were Great Dragon God of Time known as Aka-Tusk, but got broken and shed millions of times, maybe even before the Marukhati Dragonbreak. We may never know because Dragonbreaks are usually at least partially retroactive.

And then there is the whole issue of Akatosh and Lorkhan being one being and Akatosh being trapped in Heart of Lorkhan literally. This timey wimey bullshit is really getting out of hand.

===CHIM===
[[File:Chim explained.png|300px|thumb|right|CHIM. It's sort of like this.]]
That muffled explosion you just heard was caused by a number of people exploding out of sheer [[rage]]. Sit tight, because this shit is meta wrapped in an enigma inside a mindfuck.

In Morrowind you can find a series of books titled the 36 Sermons of Vivec. If you pick them up and read them at face value they might appear as parts of a religious text, filled with metaphors, truths twisted throughout the ages, and copious amounts of [[Anal Circumference|buttfucking]] (no, seriously). In these books you will find several references to CHIM, The Tower, and The Ruling King. Now, early on in the books Vivec is shown as the teacher of Lord Indoril Nerevar (more on him below), yet Nerevar does not understand the lessons. Because he was not the intended student. Instead, these lessons were meant for you. Not only for your player character, but for ''you'', the player. For if one attains CHIM, one's physical form becomes a mere avatar of the self.

But now you may wonder, what the Charles fucking Dickens *is* CHIM?

Imagine if you will, a great wheel with eight spokes. The wheel is everything that exists: Aurbis. The hub is Nirn, the world that the series takes place on. The spokes are the Aedra, the <s>Nine</s> Eight Divines. The space between the spokes is Oblivion, where the Daedra reside. Mundus encompasses both Nirn, its moons and the realms of the Aedra. Now, if you were to turn the wheel 90 degrees, you'd be looking at the rim of the wheel so it resembles I (as in, the thin side of a disk). This is the Tower, the Secret of Aurbis, holder of the secret. CHIM. The wheel is the entire universe. Outside there exist only two forces: Anu and Padhome, stasis and change. Think a great void filled with only two bubbles: there where these bubbles touch exists the wheel. Now, the Tower is not something physical, but an ideal. Something that can be attained, conquered, stolen. For one to reside within the tower, is to know the truth of all that is. This was the revelation of Lorkhan's that made him want to create Nirn.

This truth is that everything is a dream. The supreme power in TES is the Godhead, the unknown creator of all. Everything, Aurbis, Anu, and Padomay - all created in the dreams of the Godhead. Attaining CHIM is to know this, the relentless alien terror that is God and your place in it. Everything you know, are and do is but a dream. Now, if you discover this one of two things can happen. The most common one is to realize you do and don't exist at the same time: you lose your individuality (you zero-sum) and become one with the dreamer, the Godhead, and you disappear in the proverbial puff of logic. The second option is the rare one: to realize that you are part of the Godhead, you *are* the Godhead. If everything is an extension of the same thing, and that the thing can reshape reality with a thought, being a dreamer within the dream.

If you thought that shit was meta, just you wait. The principles behind CHIM can be taken further to mean that the Godhead and its dreams are a metaphor for the computer running the game and the game itself. In-universe the metaphor of the godhead and being awake within the dream is needed to prevent characters who realize this from zero-summing out of existence at the resulting paradox. It can be inferred that a character who achieves CHIM essentially gains access to the console and the Construction Set. Talos used the Construction Set to retcon Cyrodiil from a jungle land into a generic European fantasy land (Talos has a terrible imagination). Vivec gave himself levitation abilities by using the console to erase the texture file for his chair (no seriously). Whether or not the player achieves CHIM varies. Generally when a player becomes fully immersed in the game, they do not have CHIM. However, a player who gets fed up of getting bugged by cliff racers every five seconds and installs a mod that removes them from the game is using CHIM. They are remembering that the world they are in is a game and altering it as they see fit. Exploits, mods, console commands, etc can all be explained in-universe as the player character achieving CHIM and using it to reshape reality or bend its rules... or all of that could be stupid speculation.

Meta as FUCK.

You can go deeper than that and find Amaranth though, but that is whole another level of [[mindfuck]].

===It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine===
We've mentioned a few times that the world of Nirn is slowing being destroyed by a few reasons. In a normal fantasy setting, this would be a terrible thing, and the hero must try and stop it; however, the Elder Scrolls isn't a normal fantasy setting. One of the dragons, Paarthurnax, mentions that when the world ends, Alduin, the first born of Akatosh, will/might simply recreate it, thus returning it to the point of creation. Granted he also states liking the current one is a good enough reason to fight Alduin (''that and the fact that Alduin is an absolute prick who would rather rule over the broken remains of the old one instead of actually doing his job'').

This is due to the Kalpic nature of Nirn; Kalpa is the time span from Convention to the end of the world, one turn of a wheel. Eventually, Alduin The World Eater grows in size and literally eats the world, turns the Kalpa like a wheel and everything resets back to the Convention, the moment when Heart of Lorkhan was torn out, time became linear. From that point on things can go differently in different Kalpas; for example, according to Seven Flights of Aldudagga, one Kalpa had Molag Bal as its ruler and Dreughs as the supreme race. That being said, it is possible to end the Kalpic cycle and destroy shit for good, hence what the Thalmor are trying to do. They also believe that this will make them Ada (Spirit/God) again.

In essence, the world might be ending, few care and fewer understand, and Elder Scrolls lore is more complicated than trying to keep track of the number of penises [[Slaanesh]] has at the moment.

===Seriously?===

Remember way at the beginning of this page, we said that how crazy the Elder Scrolls series is depends on if you take an ex-writer's blogposts as gospel? Well, if you don't, and only trust what you see in-game, it looks a bit like this.

The Godhead almost certainly doesn't exist. Neither does CHIM. Only two in-game sources claim it does; one is a colossal liar and the other is shown to be wrong about absolutely everything that comes out of his mouth. They're both bugfuck nuts and they both end up dead at your hands. The big historical event allegedly caused by CHIM could easily not have been. At least two alternate theories have been suggested: either the event never actually took place and was the result of a [[skub|transcription error]], which is boring, or the White-Gold Tower did it on its own after humans booted the elves from the Imperial City and moved in, which is not. Speaking of, the Tower thing is definitely true, because the plot of Oblivion is, broadly, that the bad guy shut one down and tore reality a new asshole. The Dragonbreak is an empirical event that happens within living memory; in Oblivion you can read the Imperial report on what the fuck happened in the last one, and you can see one happen in Skyrim. The kalpa thing is definitely happening, and you hear as much directly from the mouth of a time-spirit who knew Alduin personally. You meet Pelinal Whitestrake's ghost in a DLC questline, and he doesn't ''seem'' to be a robot, or even remotely crazy.

Mantling deserves special mention, even though it hasn't been mentioned anywhere else on the page. Basically, by adopting the mannerisms and vestments of something else, you become that something else. In a word: [[awesome|apotheosis]]. You mantle a daedric prince at the end of Shivering Isles, and use your new divine powers to kick the ass of another daedric prince. Have we mentioned that these games are really, really good and you should play them? SI also added the caveat that whatever you're mantling has to be either dead or gone in a big way for you to pull it off, and you're basically filling in its place in the universe.

==Gods, Deities and other important people==
Most of the Gods in The Elder Scrolls are Et'Ada, the "original spirits" that came from the interplay of Anu and Padomay. These spirits later depending on their alignment with creation got categorized into Aedra and Daedra, if you took part in creation of Nirn you are Aedra, if you were egotistic dick and went to Oblivion to make your small shitty realm, you are Daedra.

===Aedra===
The Aedra (Our ancestors in Aldmeris) are Et'Ada of Anuic origin. Many of them took part in the creation of Nirn, during which they "died", their essences fused together into Mundus. As such they do not have "physical" forms like the Daedra have. Yet their spirits live on in Nirn: as the Gods of the world they live in every part of it. While not as "focused" as their Daedric counterparts they are more widespread, worshiped and give their blessings and artifacts more freely than the Daedra, plus they have control over one realm that everyone wants to have, Nirn.

===Daedra===
"Not Our Ancestors" in Aldmeris, the Daedra (singular: Daedroth, not to be confused with the crocodile-like Daedra called Daedroth) are the et'Ada who did not partake in the creation of the world. As such their powers on the Nirn are more limited than their Aedric counterparts. As such their powers are limited to the likes of curses and artifacts, and can only walk the realm in forms that severely limit their powers. Though Daedric Princes instead have their own singular realms, Realms of Oblivion. In those realms Daedric Princes have full control over everything because it is part of them and their mind, they are made out of them similar how Nirn is made out of Aedra, but with one being and on a smaller scale, leaving them more alive and in control. Despite serving as the setting's "devils" (in that the word Daedra pretty much means Devil) they are not all different flavors of evil; they range from "hate undead" and "wants to hunt dangerous game" to "prince of destruction" and "king of [[rape]]". Even if they are benevolent at times, the Daedra are not to be trifled with and are very dangerous.

==Races==
[[File:Tamriel.jpg|400px|thumb|right|Tamriel, shown alongside the now sunken islands of Yokuda, the original home of the Redguards, and Pyandonea, a land inhabited by the Maormer, sea-elves.]]
The first two Elder Scrolls games had eight playable races; the three after that added Imperials and Orcs as playable races. There's also a ton of unplayable races as well, but UESP can explain them better than us.

The races of Tamriel are generally divided into three categories; the races of Men are the various ethnicities of [[human]], the Mer races are the different species of [[elf]], and the [[Beastmen]] are explained as "where the fuck did these dudes come from?".

===Men===
*'''Imperials:''' Imperials are a civilised people, more or less Roman in culture.
*'''Nords:''' The First Men of the setting. Basically not-Vikings from the frozen land of Skyrim.
*'''Bretons:''' Best described as [[Half-Elf|half-elves]] from [[Bretonnia]] with a hint of French-ness.
*'''Redguard:''' Skilled warriors hailing from the sunken islands of Yokuda, and the only guys to have invented gunpowder. Fantasy Africans.

===Mer (Elves)===
*'''Bosmer ([[Wood Elves]]):''' Wood Elves in the "Dwarf Fortress" sense, only less insane.
*'''Altmer ([[High Elves]]):''' Every stereotype of Elves being narcisisstic pricks, amplified a hundredfold.
*'''Dunmer ([[Dark Elves]]):''' Elves with a blue-grey tint to their skin who got cursed by their Daedric patron for complex reasons.
*'''Orsimer ([[Orcs]]):''' Descended from a race of Elves who got screwed over due to Daedric faggotry. Mostly assimilated into other cultures.

===Beastmen===
[[File:Khajiit Family.jpg|300px|thumb|right|A family of Khajiit. Given how these things work it is very possible that the housecat that the catgirl is holding is the father of the tiger in the back. TES is weird like that.]]
*'''Argonians:''' A race of warm-blooded lizard people, well-spoken and skilled as both warriors and mages. Have a weird connection to semi-sentient trees called Hist.
*'''[[Catfolk|Khajiit]]:''' Technically related to Elves, but hard to tell by looking. They are skilled desert raiders, merchants and farmers. Their prime export is said Moon Sugar, a substance that can be best described as [[Doomrider|magical cocaine made from crystallised moonlight]].

==Games==
Though several spinoffs were made, when referring to "The Elder Scrolls" only the five central games are being referred to.

===The Elder Scrolls I: Arena===
Jagar Tharn, the Imperial Battlemage and trusted servant of the Emperor Uriel Septim VII turns evil, locks the Emperor inside Oblivion, and takes over Tamriel. His apprentice Ria Silmane discovered this and told the player, so Tharn killed the former and imprisoned the latter. Yet Silmane persisted, and helped the player escape prison and revealed how Tharn could be destroyed: by recovering the eight parts of the Staff of Chaos from all over the empire. The player succeeds, kills Tharn, returns the Emperor and all is well. This was the only game to take place in all of Tamriel.

===The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall===
The player, a personal friend of the Emperor, is sent to the city of Daggerfall, High Rock to investigate a haunting by the ghost of the former king. Things quickly get out of hand when you discover the Numidium, a massive golem used by Tiber Septim to gain control over Tamriel. There are several mutually exclusive endings possible; canon opted to [[what|make them all happen]] in an event called the Warp in the West, a Dragon Break, where [[FATAL|time and space took it up the ass hard]].

===The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind===
[[File:Morrowind.jpg|300px|thumb|right|If you can explain at least 75% of what's going on on this image, you are a true fan.]]
{{Main|The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind}}
Morrowind ships the player to the island of Vvardenfell, in the Dunmer province of Morrowind, where you are to report to the [[Snowflame|perpetually shirtless crackhead]] called Caius Cossades to investigate a [[Cultist-Chan|cult]] that is growing rapidly in size. This cult is revealed to be the doings of the Sixth House, a clan of Dunmer that was destroyed after its leader, Lord Voryn Dagoth, rebelled against Lord Indoril Nerevar, the leader of the war against the Dwemer. Nerevar died shortly afterwards (though it is unclear if he died from the wounds Dagoth inflicted on him, or that his advisors, the Tribunal, killed their lord so they could use the tools of the Dwemer to grant themselves near-divinity), and the Tribunal took over as the god-kings of the Dunmer. There was only one problem: Dagoth wasn't actually dead, and he granted himself near-divinity too.

You take the role of Nerevar's incarnation, and long story short you kill him properly.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ow5lGFju1c Here is a great review about the game. Every N'wah in existence worth their salt must watch it.]

===The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion===
Emperor Uriel Septim VII and his heirs are assassinated, and it's up to the player who was unintentionally released from prison to fix that shit by finding the Emperor's last son who had been sought out the last known child of the Camoran Dynasty, the family who had ruled over man for years before Alesseia came and slap their shit. It was the first big-name RPG to appear on seventh generation consoles, and made the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 work for their money. By the end of the game, you end up driving off an army of Daedra but the Septim dynasty comes to an end.

===The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim===
[[File:Song of Skyrim.jpg|500px|thumb|rightDat Nord Frost Resistance]]
Also known as the Volsunga Saga: The Game.

You're a prisoner, but in a shocking turn of events, this time you're actually told WHY! Turns out you crossed the damn border illegally, you filthy alien (of course, if you are a Nord it's just chalked up to bullshit bureaucracy). And you're to be executed along with the a group of captured rebels called Stormcloaks, along with their leader - Ulfric Stormcloak (who is voiced by Vladimir Kullich). Before you're sent to Sovengarde (Guess what that is. Go on.), a giant dragon god named Alduin the World Eater decides to introduce himself to the world. Alduin being referred to as Akatosh's firstborn son is an outright confirmation that he is also an aspect of him. Some background characters speculate that Alduin is Akatosh himself in the role of a destroyer. You end up learning you're the legendary Dragonborn who can basically do any of the shit a real dragon can do, and defeat Alduin. And possibly stop the civil war too.

===The Elder Scrolls Online===

TES: the MMORPG. Early on it suffered from growing pains and problems, but after surviving the hate and becoming only buy to play, it became a rather nice game.

===The Elder Scrolls VI===

Recently announced at E3 2018, the game was confirmed to be in production. Rumors speculate that, based on the trailer, it will be based in either High Rock or Hammerfell.

==Gallery==
{{promotions}}
<center>
<gallery>
image:Lel.jpg
image:N'wahs with attitude.jpg
image:1402853718622.jpg
image:Averagedayatbeth.png|This is depressingly true.
image:Tribunal_awaken.jpg|[[JoJo's Bizarre Adventure|Almsivi!]]
image:Kobold romance diary by Weaver.jpg|An average day for a TES protagonist.
</gallery>
</center>

==See also==
*[http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Main_Page The Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages, the definitive wiki for the series.]
*[[Scrollhammer]]: if the Elder Scrolls and Warhammer had a bastard son, it would probably be like this.
*[[Unofficial Elder Scrolls RPG]]: A pen and paper [[RPG]] currently dead because Seht decided to take a break, but he's back now. Core 2E is pretty polished and in a playable state but GM/Player handbook are far from it and maybe will never get finished. Some anons are still working on it, but slowly.

[[Category:Video Games]]