The Elder Scrolls
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The Elder Scrolls is a 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 40k/WHFB hack named Scrollhammer, and a number of pen and paper games (notably Morrowind PNP and the 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
The games mainly take place in Tamriel, a continent consisting of nine separate lands. After being buttfucked by the 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 Tiber Septim steps up and leads his armies to 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 Jean-Luc Picard the 7th, and Mehrunes Dagon then began to fuck his way from Oblivion into Tamriel, starting a chain of events that resulted in him being kicked back into hell by the Emperor's lost son, 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.
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
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-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
- 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.
- 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 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 make them all happen in an event called the Warp in the West, a Dragon Break, where time and space took it up the ass hard.
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 perpetually shirtless crackhead called Caius Cossades to investigate a 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.
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
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
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An average day for a TES protagonist.
See also
- 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.