What is the Xoleel Ceremony?

Teridax941

So the new Argonian themed skin in the crown crates mentions that this appearance happens when someone takes part in an "Argonian Xoleel Ceremony" and get transformed into a sacrifice to the Leviathans. I'm sorry what? I've done the Shadowfen/Murkmire zones and I have never heard of this ceremony. From what I can gather it seems that it's a "monster appeasement" ritual to keep the Leviathans (who we've seen bones from) from destroying the Argonian's lives, but does anyone have any information lore-wise on this ceremony?

RaddlemanNumber7

Never heard of it before.

"Xoleel" translates as something like "poisonous people". A little ironic given that Argonians lost their poison resistance.

Maybe we'll find out what it's all about when we go to Gideon in a couple of years.

Teridax941

RaddlemanNumber7 wrote: »

Never heard of it before.

Maybe we'll find out what it's all about when we go to Gideon in a couple of years.

You're probably right, in the most recent Datamine for the Potentate Crates, there is a Guar mount that references Gideon.

Aigym_Hlervu

I agree with Raddleman on the translation, though I think the "poison" meant there is either the Hist sap or the liquid we know as the "amber plasm". The ritual seems to be based on drinking sap it or bathing in a pool of it for some purpose.

On Xoleel Scale - "Colorful. Vibrant. Toxic. Those who take part in the sacred Argonian Xoleel Ceremony are transformed into a deadly sacrifice to Leviathans that threaten the Deepmire Hist.";
On Hist sap properties - "Ingesting large quantities of Hist sap is a dangerous affair, even for Argonians. Sap-Speakers routinely suffer the effects of sap-poisoning, including "gold tongue" (permanent change of mouth pigmentation to a golden hue), unbidden hallucinations, "bark-scale" (thickening and darkening of surface scales), and other maladies they were reticent to talk about";

Amber Plasm - a liquid thing similar in it's appearance to the Hist sap, but this one significantly empowers physically the consumer.

P.S. Hmm, a good question you have asked, OP. While thinking over it, I caught myself on a side thought of the thing I've been researching for quite a long time - a thing I've noticed only because of your question.. Thank you for asking a right question at the right time, mate !

Teridax941

@Cygemai_Hlervu also, in addition to the hist properties you mentioned according to the lore behind the Mireheart skin, there is such a thing as corrupted Hist sap:


On Mireheart Skin - Most adventurers who drink corrupted Hist sap die in frothing agony. But for a precious few, the ritual bestows dubious “gifts,” such as polished green scales and veins that glow like precious amber.

Now there's "corrupted" Hist sap? I know in the zone stories that there are Hist trees that are poisoned or tampered with, but this stuff seems to cause a different effect than the Xoleel stuff.

Aigym_Hlervu

Yes, indeed, there are issues of a Hist tree poisoning like the one performed by that traitor. The case shows the very possibility of such a phenomenon that brings it out from a speculation sphere to a certain lore case. If there is a phenomenon, then it's obvious it should have certain consequences either shown on the screen, in the lore or should derive logically from what is shown or written - I think the Mireheart case is another direct evidence and a lore acknowledgement of such a possibility of a Hist poisoning, one of possibly many outcomes depending on a particular Hist and poison used.

Teridax941

Agreed. That being said, why would someone voluntarily drink the stuff? Both of the Mireheart and the Xoleel skin descriptions seem to imply that it's purposefully done, "take part in the ceremony"/"the ritual bestows"...

Of course, the odds of the outcome being favorable is very small it seems, as there seems to be a very high fatality rate for those who are trying to get Mireheart scales, and while the Xoleel ceremony seems to guarantee a scale appearance upgrade, you're off to be fed to the Leviathan immediately afterwards.

I wonder if the Sap Speakers and the Nisswo made a pact way back when, and created different rituals that honored both Sithis and the Hist, if the sap didn't kill you (Sithis) then you were given blessings from it (Hist).

VaranisArano

I've been assuming that the "deadly sacrifice" part involved making the sacrifice toxic or otherwise fatal to the leviathans when the sacrifice gets eaten.

Theoretically, the ceremony itself can't be too fatal to the participants or we wouldn't be able to run around with the Xoleel scale skin. (Unless we say the skin is an illusion or our Vestige nature makes us special, I guess?)

Although that does give me ideas of my Vestige being like:
"Why, sure I'll sacrifice myself to protect the Deepmire Hist!"
*gets the Xoleel scale effect*
"So long, suckers, I'm out!"

RaddlemanNumber7

Deepmire is the bit of Murkmire that leads up to Xul-Thuxis and the player-owned xanmeer. This skin is a (very) late delivery of Murkmire DLC stuff.

Old TES lore (The Argonian Account) says there are swamp leviathans living in the deeper parts of Blackmarsh. I expect the ESO lore people wanted them in the game for Murkmire, but perhaps other devs decide that wasn't feasible (they'd have to be enormous). So maybe the lore writers came up with the idea of the Xoleel ceremony to explain the absence of living swamp leviathans but the presence of dead ones. The swamp leviathan skeletons got put into the game, but the explanation went on the Xoleel skin, and the skin didn't get listed for sale until now, two years after Murkmire was released.

I went to Deepmire in Murkmire and looked at a couple of swamp leviathan skeletons to see if there was any sign they had swallowed an Argonian. Unfortunately, there was no sign they had. What was apparent though, was that neither of the leviathan skeletons I looked at was complete. While one end of the leviathan was in the playable area the other end of it was nowhere in sight. The skeletons just kept on going, and going, out of sight, off into the swamp. They're that big.

The ceremony makes Xoleel toxic to swamp leviathans. It doesn't poison the Xoleel. The "sacrifice" is made when a Xoleel, acting as live bait, goes out and finds a swamp leviathan, deliberately gets eaten by it and is presumably killed.

Tribal Argonians don't think like other people. They are essentially hive animals. They are part of their Hist, and the Hist is part of them. Tribal Argonians seem unusually prepared to "take one for the team". Not only because of the influence of their self-interested Hist, but also because they take the long view of their existence, and that's a very long view indeed, so long it becomes a view of circular time. They're not too bothered by the prospect of their own death. Tribal Argonians and their Hist seem very confident that they will be coming back again after they die, if not in this kalpa then in the next. They know the Hist has an arrangement with the "shadow skin of Atakota" to continue from one kalpa to the next (see Children of the Root). The "shadow skin of Atakota" seems to be the same nameless piece of nothing that in TES's current kalpa is known as Lorkhan (and by many other names as well).

Uncle Sheo tells us that Vestiges have free will and agency, so presumably they don't have to obey the hive-mind imperatives that tribal Argonians do. They can acquire the skin and just walk away.

For me, the big questions are, who is going to perform the ceremony, and where are the Deepmire hist and its tribe.