PICS VIII: 10% LARGER THAN PICS VII

[Trivial]

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Oh that is the BEST. !

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

THREEF!

[Cain]

[Cain]

The truly scary thing is the theory put forward by Anon there is at the very least consistent with Elder Scrolls lore, if not actually 100% what occured.

Vivec's weapon of choice is indeed a spear, but in the 36 Lessons of Vivec, it's sometimes a not very subtle metaphor for something else.

See, for example:

The holy one returned at last, Vehk, golden with wisdom. His head found its body had been tenderly used. He mentioned this to Molag Bal, who told him that he should thank the Barons of Move Like This, 'For I have yet to learn how to refine my rapture. My love is accidentally shaped like a spear.'

So Vivec, who had a grain of Ayem's mercy, set about to teach Molag Bal in the ways of belly-magic. They took their spears out and compared them. Vivec bit new words onto the King of Rape's so that it might give more than ruin to the uninitiated. This has since become a forbidden ritual, though people still practice it in secret.

Here is why: The Velothi and demons and monsters that were watching all took out their own spears. There was much biting and the earth became wet. And this was the last laugh of Molag Bal:

'Watch as the earth shall crack, heavy with so much power, that should have been forever unalike!'

Then that stretch of badlands that had been the site of the marriage fragmented and threw fire. And a race that is no more but that was terrible at the time to behold came forth. Born of the biters, that is all they did, and they ran amok across the lands of Veloth and even to the shores of Red Mountain.

But Vivec made of his spear a more terrible thing, from a secret he had bitten off from the King of Rape. And so he sent Molag Bal tumbling into the crack of the biters and swore forever that he would not deem the King beautiful ever again.

Vivec wept as he slew all those around him with his terrible new spear. He named it MUATRA, which is Milk Taker, and even the Chimeri mystics knew his fury. Anyone struck by Vivec at this time turned barren and withered into bone shapes. The path of bones became a sentence for the stars to read, and the heavens have never known children since. Vivec hunted down the biters one by one, and all their progeny, and he killed them all by means of the Nine Apertures, and the wise still hide theirs from Muatra.

[Junkenstein]

It's shit like this that reminds me why Morrowind was so good. The more recent instalments have had little in the same vein and moved more  into somewhat generic fantasy. There's a few rumours about the next one being set in Black Marsh. If that's the case then I'd hope for weird awesomeness like this making a big comeback.

[Cain]

To be fair, the weirdness is still there, but it's pretty well hidden.  Oblivion had the Mankar Camoran Commentaries which, among other things, make the blasphemous (and possibly accurate) claim that Nirn is nothing more than another plane of Oblivion, thus making Lorkhan a daedric prince.  And then there was the Shivering Isles in all its glory.  We also got to see the dark side of Meridia in Knights of the Nine.  And Skyrim, though very generic in many respects, was also rushed as fuck.  Despite that they managed to tie the plot back into the earlier games (prophecy of the Dragonborn) and introduce a ton of new lore regarding the Thalmor, the Ideal Masters and Apocrypha.

I suspect ESO has also been something of a trial-run for how well people will react to the more weird aspects of TES lore being part of the gameplay.  So far, it seems to be going fairly well.  Also my bets are on Hammerfell for the next game.

I mean yeah, there's nothing that has been written that is quite as good as The 36 Lessons, but the 36 Lessons are a very special category of their own.

[Junkenstein]

True, it's just that the jump from daggerfall to morrowind was such a step that subsequent ones have fallen a little short for me. I'd guess against hammerfell due to Redguard and Daggerfall. I suspect there's more money to milk out of one of the more exotic settings (Eleswyr or the other continent, cant recall name but it's mentioned a lot and has half a dozen "new" races kicking around in it. Imperial Expansionists with a colony/invasion aspect would probably be a huge game but that may be being saved for ESO DLC / ESO2.

[Cain]

Well allegedly (this comes from Kirkbride, and while he no longer works for Bethesda, he's still in touch with people there and occasionally writes things for them...like the Camoran commentaries and Heimskr's speech in Skyrim) the theme for the coming Elder Scrolls games is "the fall of the empires of man".  Furthermore, before Bethesda declared they were stopping support for Skyrim, they registered a copyright for the name "Hammerfell".  At the time, people thought it was for another Skyrim DLC...but obviously not.

Hammerfall already has an existing strange power thing which could be applied to the player in a similar manner to the Thuum (sword-singing) and it would give further opportunities to look at the Thalmor as a faction.  It's not part of the Empire, but the Empire has a presence there (the Legion veterans who stayed behind to fight the Thalmor...and maybe runaway Blades).  Also, a mostly human province means they can use a greater variety of voice actors.  One big factor I can see with non-human realms is that it would require comparatively more skilled or unique voice actors, whereas anyone with a mic can do a Redguard voice, pretty much.

Of course, that Redguard was a game is an issue, but that was at the founding of the Empire, so no doubt a lot has changed.  And at least one of the TES Adventure series was also set in Skyrim, so there is precedent.

[Junkenstein]

they registered a copyright for the name "Hammerfell"

Conceded on this alone, it's how they worked for the last few. That said, I'm still a little disappointed. In any event, development has yet to start apparently so we're anywhere from 2-5 years from finding out.

[Cain]

Incidentally, I've recently got the furthest I ever have in Morrowind.  Just cured the Corpus Disease, and I'm close to completing the Morag Tong questline.

[Junkenstein]

Wait, what?

So you've not dealt with the "Visit these multiple remote places because plot" yet? It's tedious as fuck but the plot afterwards makes it worthwhile.

There was a morrowind speedrun video kicking around where the entire thing is done in less than a few minutes. Glitches and exploits everywhere but amusing to see just how broken the CK was back in the initial era. Not that it's much changed or advanced from that.

[Cain]

Yeah, I've not had to do the Ashlander or Hortator quests yet, other than the first one, where you retrieve the bow for the Ashlander chief.  However, I am a member of the Morag Tong and Mages Guild.  I've been sent off to plenty of random locations for no good reason and a thousand drakes.  Thankfully, my character is fairly skilled with Mysticism, or else that would be tedious as fuck.

Also at this point I'm level 25, decked out in full glass armour with the curaiss of the Saviour's Hide, glass tower shield and an Ebony longsword.  So basically I'm unkillable by anything short of an Ash Vampire or DLC enemy, I think.  Not that I've started Tribunal or Bloodmoon yet, but I hear they can be tricky for lower level characters, and I'm not really abusing alchemy too much at the moment. 

[Junkenstein]

Yeah, both DLC can be a pain if undergeared. Though Dark Brotherhood armour is game-breakingly priced and usually enough to gear a character to a decent level from just selling 1/2 sets. After the first couple of tribunal quests, money just isn't an issue. Also, vendors in mournhold had tons of cash compared to anyone on the island so you can actually sell all the crap without having to purchase the entire store at the same time or deal with every npc merchant.

Unless you're playing with the difficulty turned way up, you're probably golden to blitz everything left in the main quest, it's just a lot of travelling. It;s a bit of a shame because it's the worst designed part of the game and can end up taking a ridiculous amount of time unless you know where you're going and why. Tribunal is a little better at avoiding this issue, and bloodmoon gets it kinda right and pretty much lays out the kind of story progression you later see in the dragonborn DLC.

[Cain]

Yeah, I've been abusing DB armour and Creeper for a while now.  Though since I looted all the Great House Vaults, money's not so much of a concern.   And of course there's always alchemy, when I'm bored.  I've got the "fortify intelligence" potion abuse sorted.