I recently gotten into Warhammer fantasy, and its the same thing about the northern europe focus. At least for human factions. The main focus is the Empire which is german, then theres Bretonnia, which is france, Kieslev, which is Russian, Norsca which is vikings. Minor stuff like Tilea( Italy) and Estallia(spain). But then theres other human nations like Araby (Arabic), Cathay(China, and Nippon (Japan) that get no focus at all! Cathay only recently gotten its own lore and army revealed in Total Warhammer 3. Theres some other non human races like the Tomb Kings which are Ancient Egyptian, the Lizardmen which is just a general ancient South American aesthetic. One thing that is very interesting to me is the difference of the Dunmer of TES and the Drucchi of Warhammer. Both are Dark Elves. But the Drucchi are stupidly evil, they worship Khane, a god of murder and war, they enslave people, and they are edgy as fuck. The funny thing is the Dunmer share some of these aspects, but its alot more in depth and interesting. House Dres and Telivanni engage in slavery out of tradition, and its seen as bad everywhere else. Dunmer worship Mehpala and Boithiea, which combined seem similar to Khane. But the Dunmer worship these gods has they helped the ancient chimer survive in such hostile lands. One last thing that I think is funny. Tiber Septim and Sigmar are the same character. Both are the first emperor of the major human empire who acended to godhood. This is only surface level though, the story of Talos is fucking weird and confusing. anyways good video
On top of that the dunmer worship Azura as sorta the head of the true tribunal. Her being over all generally considered a "not so bad" to straight up good daedra balances out the other two. And how they see the other daedra as more so beings who create challenges the dunmer people must over come rather than objectively evil beings, coupled with the intense ancestor worship and saints just make the dunmer theology super interesting
Yeah, Warhammer Fantasy, in comparison to 40k, has a lot less work put into it since it's not the cash cow. I will say though, the Drukarii in 40k have a lot more depth and have an actual reason to do all the terrible stuff they do, while somehow managing to make them more evil. Not to mention, a lot of them actually leave the faction to join the other elven factions.
To add onto your point about Orcs: It's established in Elder Scrolls that despite the dislike of Orsimer by many they're renowned for their craftsmanship It wouldn't be surprising if there was an npc in one of the games that said something like: "I don't trust Orcs but damn do they make fine weapons and armor" or something like that. And the ones that aren't bandits in Skyrim are either plying their trade in one of the cities or most likely living as a member of one of the strongholds
There's an interesting story to why The elder scrolls is so familiar on the surface but really unique when you dig a little deeper. When they made TES arena they wanted to make a combat focused game about gladiatorial battles and brought in a story writer late into development to create a bare bones story. However during testing they found out that people liked doing side quests a lot more than arena battles and changed the focus of the game towards a more generic fantasy quest. This ment they didn't have the time to create a new flashed out world for their new story and just ran with what they had. After the release a lot of people complained about how boring and basic the world felt. Because of this the writer of arena wanted to prove to everyone that with enough time he can create a unique and interesting universe for daggerfall. So, he took all of the basic concepts of arena and greatly expanded upon them in Daggerfall. A lot of people don't give Daggerfall enough credit because on the surface daggerfall still felt very generic. It wasn't until Todd changed the focus of Morrowind from a grand and massive world to a smaller hand crafted one that the story could really shine.
Nice video, dude. The uniqueness of the Elder Scrolls is what really sets it apart for me from so many other fantasy series. There's just so much of it and it's great. I do wish they just outright embraced the weird stuff like in Daggerfall and Morrowind because it's easy to play Skyrim and Oblivion and assume it's just typical fantasy if you never really bother to look into the lore.
Thanks! Yeah Skyrim and Oblivion are probably the less weird of the games but they both have their own weirdness. Oblivion's got the shivering isle and Skyrim has the Dragonborn DLC both of which stray from a more normal path. I think Vaermina's quest in oblivion is great weirdness, making something like a "dream orb" out into this powerful artifact that can warp reality into an incomprehensible nightmare scape. It also ties into the theme of dreams in the elder scrolls but thats a whole other can of worms.
Yeah, agreed. I like skyrim, but I exhausted my race/lore discoveries quickly because there really isn't much in it compared to Daggerfall. I'd say Morrowind too but I haven't played it yet. Daggerfall (I have the unity version atm) has so many freaking creatures in it by comparison that it took me a good chunk of time sifting through the game's Beastiaries. By comparison of the two games existing/present races, Daggerfall makes Skyrim feel a tad empty almost.
It's actually somewhat surprising so many people think dragons can breed in the elder scrolls like they do in some other fantasies. I once played a mod for skyrim in which you had to fight a dragon/argonian hybrid race who all came from a common dragon ancestor. Wild stuf
Another thing about Cyrodill that I lOVE lore-wise is that fact that its not just actually "Fantasy Romans." It's "Fantasy Romans, Greeks, Slavs, and Asians all mixed together." Oblivion didn't really make a great show of it and while ESO did a better job, the divide between Nibanese and Colovian culture having been retconned since Morrowind hurts my soul man. For context Cyrodill has two prominent cultures; The Nibanese which live in eastern Cyrodill and are supposed to be descended from the Akaviri from that time they ran the Empire after Reman III died. And then you have the Colovians who live in the west and while descendent of Nords and Nedes, they have a mix of Greek and Slavic aesthetic! The Heartland is suppose to be like a mix of both Cultures and goes full roman with the Aethestic. The fact that the "Main" Empire/Setting is in-lore so culturally diverse is fuckin awsome and I wish we had gotten to see that more in both ESO and Oblivion. I don't mind the Roman aesthetic and in fact LOVE it (Imperial Armor in ESO is my favorite in the game) but I would love things like Byzanthine-inspired lamellar armor in Colovia and maybe Korean-like armor in Nibeny.
Working on a fantasy novel of my own so far . it be taking place in a country it's heavily Celtic influence with a protagonist who comes from a place Greek/hebrew influenced. However there won't be any elves or dwarves in it mostly humans with different tribes.
Never really considered that the greater fantasy demographic only saw two legged flying reptilians as Wyverns. I'm familiar with what that is but really, any flying lizard that breathes fire and talks has always been a dragon to me, the wyvern type being the most prominent example, in my mind.
Huhh, I would have hoped you also mentioned one of the most interesting tid bits about Orc Lore. Namely their origin, which happened when a group of High Elves who worshiped Trinimac, the god of crusading for the elves, engage in a fight with the Velothi (followers of the prophet Veloth, whom they would later become the Dark Elves we know). Boethiah the god of combat, appeared to defend the Velothi whom she favored and in the ensuing battle of divine porpotions - Boethia devoured Trinimac whole and then shat him, covering the followers of the defeated god in his divine excrement which transformed them into what we now know today as the Orcs, and also from the godly menure, Malacath, the god of the Orcs arose. Also this is why Orcs are sometimes refered as Shit Elves by the community. Elder Scrolls has definitely one of the most inspiring lores.
I could have mentioned that but that would fall into the same reason I sorta just brushed off the dwemers advanced technology. Orcs are almost always in some way "corrupted" elves, thats why I focused on the fact that they're just like normal people instead of monsters.
@@snowycity I see. Well I might argue that it's not because your great great grandpa was covered in shit while in the army that it defines you. Lord knows what our ancestors did way back when, and some of us are definitely what one might call normal people. 😃 Plus it's a hell of an original way to corrupt something - being vored and come out of the other side.
The elder scrolls is often a bit ahead of the curve on so many things, but it's old enough and the old stuff remains good and relevant enough that it still feels like ut ages poirly unless you compare it to it's contemporaries,
1:43 Warhammer has the Chaos Dwarfs which are an offshoot of regular Norse Dwarfs, I think as far as the Babylonian aesthetic Dwarfs Warhammer did it first but I'm not so sure on that.
I'm pretty sure there are female dragons in the lore. They're the "dragon maidens" (I think) and their the force responsible for dragon breaks, like the one seen in Daggerfall. Otherwise great vid bro, you got a sub.
You're referring to Jills and those debatable canon, they were written by a writer who worked on the games but the story they come from isn't in the game. Sorta like almost official fanfiction but that's not to say they AREN'T canon. A lot of the stuff written outside of official canon ends up generally accepted as canon or his hinted at to be true in later works. But also Jills are yes female dragons in a practical sense but they're more like separate beings also made by Akatosh that resemble dragons. Spiritual counterparts rather than literal counterparts. It's sorta like saying there's "human dragons" because Dragonborns exists. Jills, dragons, dragonborns would all fall under the same Akatosh umbrella but they aren't all the same ya know?
Another twist The Elder Scrolls does is that you can't trust anyone's word implicitly. Characters lie to your face, convincingly, all the time, and there are dozens texts which tell the same events or theories from wildly contradictory perspectives, and with a lot of political flavoring.
Great video, I don't think TES gets the credit it deserves on the many fantasy tropes it manages twist succesfully, I just wish a more in depth exploration could be done but with the complicated lore of the series it does sometimes get very tricky and things contradict each other often. I appreciate the inclusion of ESO as a talking point on the video, as it has a vast amount of constantly expanding lore that many content creators seem to ignore and or dismiss. PS: Dragons and wyverns don't differentiate each other by the amount of limbs but by what they spit, dragons spitting (mostly) fire and wyverns spitting venom, it's just a small nitpick and they still categorize as a type of dragon, in the end it's the Elder Scrolls so spinning concepts it's part of its philosophy.
I recently gotten into Warhammer fantasy, and its the same thing about the northern europe focus. At least for human factions. The main focus is the Empire which is german, then theres Bretonnia, which is france, Kieslev, which is Russian, Norsca which is vikings. Minor stuff like Tilea( Italy) and Estallia(spain). But then theres other human nations like Araby (Arabic), Cathay(China, and Nippon (Japan) that get no focus at all! Cathay only recently gotten its own lore and army revealed in Total Warhammer 3. Theres some other non human races like the Tomb Kings which are Ancient Egyptian, the Lizardmen which is just a general ancient South American aesthetic.
One thing that is very interesting to me is the difference of the Dunmer of TES and the Drucchi of Warhammer. Both are Dark Elves. But the Drucchi are stupidly evil, they worship Khane, a god of murder and war, they enslave people, and they are edgy as fuck. The funny thing is the Dunmer share some of these aspects, but its alot more in depth and interesting. House Dres and Telivanni engage in slavery out of tradition, and its seen as bad everywhere else. Dunmer worship Mehpala and Boithiea, which combined seem similar to Khane. But the Dunmer worship these gods has they helped the ancient chimer survive in such hostile lands.
One last thing that I think is funny. Tiber Septim and Sigmar are the same character. Both are the first emperor of the major human empire who acended to godhood. This is only surface level though, the story of Talos is fucking weird and confusing.
anyways good video
On top of that the dunmer worship Azura as sorta the head of the true tribunal. Her being over all generally considered a "not so bad" to straight up good daedra balances out the other two.
And how they see the other daedra as more so beings who create challenges the dunmer people must over come rather than objectively evil beings, coupled with the intense ancestor worship and saints just make the dunmer theology super interesting
Yeah, Warhammer Fantasy, in comparison to 40k, has a lot less work put into it since it's not the cash cow. I will say though, the Drukarii in 40k have a lot more depth and have an actual reason to do all the terrible stuff they do, while somehow managing to make them more evil. Not to mention, a lot of them actually leave the faction to join the other elven factions.
Dwarves in Elder Scrolls also got named that based on their actual nomenclature "Dwemer", in Elvish that translates to "Deep Elf".
To add onto your point about Orcs:
It's established in Elder Scrolls that despite the dislike of Orsimer by many they're renowned for their craftsmanship
It wouldn't be surprising if there was an npc in one of the games that said something like: "I don't trust Orcs but damn do they make fine weapons and armor" or something like that.
And the ones that aren't bandits in Skyrim are either plying their trade in one of the cities or most likely living as a member of one of the strongholds
There's an interesting story to why The elder scrolls is so familiar on the surface but really unique when you dig a little deeper.
When they made TES arena they wanted to make a combat focused game about gladiatorial battles and brought in a story writer late into development to create a bare bones story. However during testing they found out that people liked doing side quests a lot more than arena battles and changed the focus of the game towards a more generic fantasy quest. This ment they didn't have the time to create a new flashed out world for their new story and just ran with what they had.
After the release a lot of people complained about how boring and basic the world felt. Because of this the writer of arena wanted to prove to everyone that with enough time he can create a unique and interesting universe for daggerfall. So, he took all of the basic concepts of arena and greatly expanded upon them in Daggerfall.
A lot of people don't give Daggerfall enough credit because on the surface daggerfall still felt very generic. It wasn't until Todd changed the focus of Morrowind from a grand and massive world to a smaller hand crafted one that the story could really shine.
Elder Scrolls is hands down my favorite fantasy series. And I am glad ESO does tap into the more weird side of the lore, which is awesome.
Imagine the reason they won't show us weresharks is because it's gonna be playable in TES6
Nice video, dude. The uniqueness of the Elder Scrolls is what really sets it apart for me from so many other fantasy series. There's just so much of it and it's great. I do wish they just outright embraced the weird stuff like in Daggerfall and Morrowind because it's easy to play Skyrim and Oblivion and assume it's just typical fantasy if you never really bother to look into the lore.
Thanks! Yeah Skyrim and Oblivion are probably the less weird of the games but they both have their own weirdness.
Oblivion's got the shivering isle and Skyrim has the Dragonborn DLC both of which stray from a more normal path. I think Vaermina's quest in oblivion is great weirdness, making something like a "dream orb" out into this powerful artifact that can warp reality into an incomprehensible nightmare scape.
It also ties into the theme of dreams in the elder scrolls but thats a whole other can of worms.
If they had embraced Daggerfall the dwarves would be dwarves, though. Try and stomach reading some of ‘Fool’s Ebony.’
Yeah, agreed. I like skyrim, but I exhausted my race/lore discoveries quickly because there really isn't much in it compared to Daggerfall. I'd say Morrowind too but I haven't played it yet.
Daggerfall (I have the unity version atm) has so many freaking creatures in it by comparison that it took me a good chunk of time sifting through the game's Beastiaries.
By comparison of the two games existing/present races, Daggerfall makes Skyrim feel a tad empty almost.
I like their Bretons and Snow Elves.
It's actually somewhat surprising so many people think dragons can breed in the elder scrolls like they do in some other fantasies. I once played a mod for skyrim in which you had to fight a dragon/argonian hybrid race who all came from a common dragon ancestor. Wild stuf
Another thing about Cyrodill that I lOVE lore-wise is that fact that its not just actually "Fantasy Romans." It's "Fantasy Romans, Greeks, Slavs, and Asians all mixed together."
Oblivion didn't really make a great show of it and while ESO did a better job, the divide between Nibanese and Colovian culture having been retconned since Morrowind hurts my soul man. For context Cyrodill has two prominent cultures; The Nibanese which live in eastern Cyrodill and are supposed to be descended from the Akaviri from that time they ran the Empire after Reman III died. And then you have the Colovians who live in the west and while descendent of Nords and Nedes, they have a mix of Greek and Slavic aesthetic! The Heartland is suppose to be like a mix of both Cultures and goes full roman with the Aethestic. The fact that the "Main" Empire/Setting is in-lore so culturally diverse is fuckin awsome and I wish we had gotten to see that more in both ESO and Oblivion. I don't mind the Roman aesthetic and in fact LOVE it (Imperial Armor in ESO is my favorite in the game) but I would love things like Byzanthine-inspired lamellar armor in Colovia and maybe Korean-like armor in Nibeny.
huh i suppose it is actually pretty rare for Orcs to be like... 'normal people'
never consciously thought about that as a quirk of TES before
Working on a fantasy novel of my own so far . it be taking place in a country it's heavily Celtic influence with a protagonist who comes from a place Greek/hebrew influenced. However there won't be any elves or dwarves in it mostly humans with different tribes.
Never really considered that the greater fantasy demographic only saw two legged flying reptilians as Wyverns. I'm familiar with what that is but really, any flying lizard that breathes fire and talks has always been a dragon to me, the wyvern type being the most prominent example, in my mind.
“Hell-“ *shows picture of Detroit*
Instant sub.
Huhh, I would have hoped you also mentioned one of the most interesting tid bits about Orc Lore. Namely their origin, which happened when a group of High Elves who worshiped Trinimac, the god of crusading for the elves, engage in a fight with the Velothi (followers of the prophet Veloth, whom they would later become the Dark Elves we know). Boethiah the god of combat, appeared to defend the Velothi whom she favored and in the ensuing battle of divine porpotions - Boethia devoured Trinimac whole and then shat him, covering the followers of the defeated god in his divine excrement which transformed them into what we now know today as the Orcs, and also from the godly menure, Malacath, the god of the Orcs arose.
Also this is why Orcs are sometimes refered as Shit Elves by the community.
Elder Scrolls has definitely one of the most inspiring lores.
I could have mentioned that but that would fall into the same reason I sorta just brushed off the dwemers advanced technology. Orcs are almost always in some way "corrupted" elves, thats why I focused on the fact that they're just like normal people instead of monsters.
@@snowycity I see. Well I might argue that it's not because your great great grandpa was covered in shit while in the army that it defines you. Lord knows what our ancestors did way back when, and some of us are definitely what one might call normal people. 😃
Plus it's a hell of an original way to corrupt something - being vored and come out of the other side.
It’s all about that Culture, one step closer to Chim
The elder scrolls is often a bit ahead of the curve on so many things, but it's old enough and the old stuff remains good and relevant enough that it still feels like ut ages poirly unless you compare it to it's contemporaries,
My favorite playable race is definitely the orcs
I'm happy i stumbled across your channel, you do good workl!
I'm glad you think so!
Elder scrolls Dwemer remind me alot of the Chaos Dwarves of Warhammer fantasy, Mesopotamian magic steampunk scientists
1:43 Warhammer has the Chaos Dwarfs which are an offshoot of regular Norse Dwarfs, I think as far as the Babylonian aesthetic Dwarfs Warhammer did it first but I'm not so sure on that.
I'm pretty sure there are female dragons in the lore. They're the "dragon maidens" (I think) and their the force responsible for dragon breaks, like the one seen in Daggerfall. Otherwise great vid bro, you got a sub.
You're referring to Jills and those debatable canon, they were written by a writer who worked on the games but the story they come from isn't in the game. Sorta like almost official fanfiction but that's not to say they AREN'T canon. A lot of the stuff written outside of official canon ends up generally accepted as canon or his hinted at to be true in later works.
But also Jills are yes female dragons in a practical sense but they're more like separate beings also made by Akatosh that resemble dragons. Spiritual counterparts rather than literal counterparts.
It's sorta like saying there's "human dragons" because Dragonborns exists.
Jills, dragons, dragonborns would all fall under the same Akatosh umbrella but they aren't all the same ya know?
@@snowycity ah gotcha. I'd assume it's a Kirkbride thing then right? Separating them from dragons also makes sense as their role is different.
So, they're female but not really? If that's the case, then I guess you could just call them 'drags'.......
I'll see myself out.
I only found two portrayal where Orcs are nice but harsh people/Opressed race
Elder scrolls and Of Orcs and Men
YOOOOOOOOOOOOO IT SNOWY
It really do me be
👍
Another twist The Elder Scrolls does is that you can't trust anyone's word implicitly. Characters lie to your face, convincingly, all the time, and there are dozens texts which tell the same events or theories from wildly contradictory perspectives, and with a lot of political flavoring.
Hope you're doing well in college and life bro ❤
Thank u 🍔
Poop Elves are the best.
:)
Great video, I don't think TES gets the credit it deserves on the many fantasy tropes it manages twist succesfully, I just wish a more in depth exploration could be done but with the complicated lore of the series it does sometimes get very tricky and things contradict each other often. I appreciate the inclusion of ESO as a talking point on the video, as it has a vast amount of constantly expanding lore that many content creators seem to ignore and or dismiss.
PS: Dragons and wyverns don't differentiate each other by the amount of limbs but by what they spit, dragons spitting (mostly) fire and wyverns spitting venom, it's just a small nitpick and they still categorize as a type of dragon, in the end it's the Elder Scrolls so spinning concepts it's part of its philosophy.
for more in-depth cosmic weird lore I'd say you could watch my Elder Scrolls Iceberg but for any more i'd say check out channels like Leftoverpat!
@@snowycity Will do!