The Towers: Do they effect the lands they are in?

brylars · September 2022

I was thinking about the Towers. The Towers. The Towers are ancient structures that hold Mundus together basically. The known towers are Direnni Tower in High Rock, Red Tower (Red Mountain) in Morrowind, White-Gold Tower in Cyrodiil, Crystal Tower in Summerset, Snow Tower in Skyrim, Green-Sap in Valenwood, and the Brass Tower of the Dwemer. I think the Yokudans also had a tower with the sword being its heart or stone. These Towers are powerful and I wondered if their presence effected the living things of their lands. For example, the Red Tower is a volcano and ash falls upon the land. The ash comes inside and obviously has been in the presence of the stone (Heart of Lorkhan) to some degree. The land has giant mushrooms that don't exist anywhere else. Could the ash be feeding the mushrooms in some way to influence their growth? The same with Green-Sap, could it effect the growth of the graht-oaks? If so, what of the other towers? The lands they are in do not have giant plants.

In Skyrim, the only extremely unique thing about their land are those who have the Voice and can speak as the dragons. We know the legend was that Kyne gave them that power but what if that is just a story and it actually comes from the power of the Tower? Cyrodiil does not seem to have much except its imperialism and its "covenant" through the bloodline of Alessia. What if the gift of "empire" comes through the Tower in some way. We have the Ayleids and then the Cryods/Colovians who became great empire builders that lasted for centuries.

It is just an observation. Thoughts? Could this correlation be there or is it just wishful thinking?

CE_Nex · September 2022

The spike of Ada-Mantia, and its Zero Stone, dictated the structure of reality in its Aurbic vicinity, defining for the Earth Bones their story or nature within the unfolding of the Dragon's (timebound) Tale. The Aldmeri or Merethic Elves were singular of purpose only so long as it took them to realize that other Towers, with their own Stones, could tell different stories, each following rules inscribed by Variorum Architects. - Aurbic Enigma 4

Towers create narratives of reality. Ada-Mantia (Adamantium Tower) is the Time-Dragon's narrative which we call the Mundus. You'll note the phrase Variorum Architects? Variorum are notes within a book made by editors or commentators. Thus, while Ada-Mantia is the prime story of the reality of the Mundus, the Merethic Towers are edits to that story. Or another way to put it, Ada-Mantia is the vanilla game while the Merethic Towers are mods.

Lady Cinnabar asserts the same within her book Subtropical Cyrodiil and we see how the failed Tower or Erokki, the Doomcrag, affects the physical world around itself in Rivenspire.

kynesgrove · October 2022

You've explained the Towers wonderfully.

Supreme_Atromancer · October 2022

I don't know the answer to any of these questions, but I think you've got some fantastic ideas and observations.

Maybe a Tower's localised impact on reality is reflected partly in the type of precipitation associated with that land, and perhaps with characteristics of the people populating it. I got as far as Morrowind and Skyrim with this thought. Maaaybe Valenwood if leaf-fall could be considered precipitation. Old descriptions of Alinor as radiating with the light of their crystaline towers might work at a stretch.

Maybe WG Tower's nature is reflected in its accompanying structures- I know that there's lore about the circular layout of IC around the tower represents something about the spokes of the Aurbis or something- perhaps another reading is that the spokes represent arms to the other towers, and the WG represents the "one tower to bind them" if we were going to borrow from an idea from a work that TES has long been considered partly a response to.

I will say that I think that Tower Lore is an excellent target for writing for the series, whether its ZOS or Bethesda. It seems like the same sort of thing with the actual Elder Scrolls. They were a meaningless name in the first few games. We only get to interact with one on a sidequest in IV, and by V they are major plot elements. In ESO they were largely mechanical until WGT dungeon- we still haven't gotten closure on this, and I'd love to see more about them. I feel like Tower Lore is in the process of being developed and defined in more pivotal ways as the series develops, much like the scrolls themselves have.

KingArthasMenethil · November 2022

There's an ingame theory that WGT did something this to remove the so called "jungles" of Cyrodiil. But Cyrodiil also later has a Dunmeri Empress (in the middle of a Dragonborn Dynasty so she also is somehow Dragonborn) that didn't turn Cyrodiil into looking like Morrowind but that's if it's connected to who wears to Amulet of kings.

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Subtropical_Cyrodiil:_A_Speculation - said ingame theory

Bruccius · November 2022

KingArthasMenethil wrote: »

There's an ingame theory that WGT did something this to remove the so called "jungles" of Cyrodiil. But Cyrodiil also later has a Dunmeri Empress (in the middle of a Dragonborn Dynasty so she also is somehow Dragonborn) that didn't turn Cyrodiil into looking like Morrowind but that's if it's connected to who wears to Amulet of kings.

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Subtropical_Cyrodiil:_A_Speculation - said ingame theory

There is reason to believe that the Ayleids possesed climate-altering magics. The Doomcrag was created by the Ayleids which turned Rivenspire into fertile land before its corruption made it barren again. A leading Ayleid figure also tried to turn Valenwood into Cyrodiil 2.0, but failed because of the way Green Sap worked.