The Telvanni Coast: Inquiry and Discussion

Earrindo

I found a similar thread from some time back, but it was mainly people arguing about slavery and necromancy, neither of which, I feel, are really integral to House Telvanni*, nor their interests on the eastern coast of Morrowind.
My purpose behind this thread was to open a discussion concerning ESO era House Telvanni and to theorize story, content, etc from the inevitable (though it may be years) Telvanni Coast chapter.
*

I understand fully that slavery is, in fact, integral to House Telvanni. It is a major part of their story to date in ESO, what with them declining to join the Pact in order to maintain not only their slaves, but their independence from an outside government.
It isn't that I want to skim over the slavery, I just feel there are other, more interesting and less fraught elements to House Telvanni worth discussing. For what it is worth, a side story that involves freeing slaves or initiating the Twin Lamps group seen in TES III would be really interesting to me.

What I would love to see is further involvement with the research being done by the different magisters, assisting them and perhaps thwarting them if they are doing something awful.
I am also very keen to see what more...established Telvanni settlements look like. Their seat on Vvardenfell at Sadrith Mora is clearly less developed than in TES III, but Port Telvannis is the capital city. Its not like the Dunmer only just arrived in Morrowind, Port Telvannis MUST be more developed.

As far as gameplay content, I don't really see a class being introduced with a Telvanni Coast chapter. They are all basically mages and sorcerers. Then again, Wardens have little to nothing to do, lore wise, with Vvardenfell, so who knows.
A Skill line though could be interesting.
While the Psijiics are focused on Mysticism, the Telvanni seem more focused on Alteration than anything else. An Alteration themed skill line could be really interesting, though they are also heavy into Conjuration.
I am also excited by the idea of, with a whole Telvanni themed expansion, the possibility of growing our own tower. I love housing in ESO, but something that I would love to see is a feature from Skyrim and Morrowind (TES III) which is earning a house with a faction through earning their respect.
In Morrowind, you had to rise quite high in House Telvanni to earn a spore that you then grew into Tel Uvirith. Something similar for such an expansion would be not only a wonderful nod to TES III, but also a very cool way to earn a house through gameplay (and gold, even in TES III you needed a fair chunk of gold to build it) as opposed to just buying pre-built homes.

Please feel free to discuss, add ideas, comment on mine, I just think it would be cool to have a discussion with other folks who are fond of House Telvanni and want to pass the time chatting about what we would love to see.

SapiarchofScrying

Yeah I hope there is some sort of Telvanni themed dlc later on. A chapter probably won't happen though. I think the little interaction we got in Morrowind was definitely not enough. IMO it would be cool to be working as like an agent of one of the magisters in order to bring the rise of a new one. It would be a good opportunity to maybe show the rise of neloth or aryon through the demise of maybe Firuth or Otheri. For me any new Telvanni content would be amazing.

MythicEmperor

I feel the need to give my views on a few points.

1. Necromancy is not integral, persay, but it is important enough to be specifically mentioned as a Telvanni practice in Ancestors and the Dunmer (http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Ancestors_and_the_Dunmer)

“Telvanni "Necromancy"

The Telvanni are adept masters of necromancy. They do not, however, practice necromancy upon the remains of Dark Elves. Sane Telvanni regard such practices with loathing and righteous anger. They do practice necromancy upon the remains of animals and upon the remains of Humans, Orcs, and Argonians -- who are technically no more than animals in Morrowind.”

As such, I feel it should at the very least play some role.

2. “The powerful define the standards of virtue,” so I doubt we’ll be doing any thwarting unless its beneficial to our questgiver

3. I have to admit, I was very disappointed by the stone structures presented to us as ‘Telvanni settlements.’ It’s like the developers would rather their entire game be stone buildings than present us with the lore’s unique architecture.

4. An Alteration or Conjuration skill line would be wonderful. The former could allow for a limited version of levitation (perhaps hovering as a means of faster travel?) and the latter could allow for necromancy in the form of TES:III-esque summon spells.

5. I’d love to grow a Telvanni house. The feeling of achievement would be greater than in any other player home. Too bad they’d take the easy way out and base it on a stone structure, making the transformation a purely cosmetic one (more than likely, of course; this is just hypothetical speculation).

6. I’ll add more points as I have more ideas.

Earrindo

MythicEmperor wrote: »

1. Necromancy is not integral, persay, but it is important enough to be specifically mentioned as a Telvanni practice in Ancestors and the Dunmer (http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Ancestors_and_the_Dunmer)

“Telvanni "Necromancy"

The Telvanni are adept masters of necromancy. They do not, however, practice necromancy upon the remains of Dark Elves. Sane Telvanni regard such practices with loathing and righteous anger. They do practice necromancy upon the remains of animals and upon the remains of Humans, Orcs, and Argonians -- who are technically no more than animals in Morrowind.”

As such, I feel it should at the very least play some role.

Oh I don't disagree at all. The Telvanni are definitely dabblers in the necromantic arts. What I would offer though is that it is less about the Necromancy as a theme, and more along the lines of a Telvanni wizard going
"well, its conjuration, so lets push it as far as we can while pissing nobody off"
hence the predilection for only raising the corpses of animals (of all kinds, hehe)

That's why I dont necessarily want to see "Necromancy" with the skulls and the dank lairs as a theme for the Telvanni.
What would be really fun is to see some of the more powerful magisters resurrecting their slaves that die (naturally or not) to continue serving them in undeath. There could be a whole questline where you help reanimate a beloved servant who died of old age.

It's not the act of raising the dead that I find to be unrelated to House Telvanni, its the disney villain themed skulls and lairs and evil aspect I don't think would fit well at all.

MythicEmperor

Earrindo wrote: »

MythicEmperor wrote: »

1. Necromancy is not integral, persay, but it is important enough to be specifically mentioned as a Telvanni practice in Ancestors and the Dunmer (http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Ancestors_and_the_Dunmer)

“Telvanni "Necromancy"

The Telvanni are adept masters of necromancy. They do not, however, practice necromancy upon the remains of Dark Elves. Sane Telvanni regard such practices with loathing and righteous anger. They do practice necromancy upon the remains of animals and upon the remains of Humans, Orcs, and Argonians -- who are technically no more than animals in Morrowind.”

As such, I feel it should at the very least play some role.

Oh I don't disagree at all. The Telvanni are definitely dabblers in the necromantic arts. What I would offer though is that it is less about the Necromancy as a theme, and more along the lines of a Telvanni wizard going
"well, its conjuration, so lets push it as far as we can while pissing nobody off"
hence the predilection for only raising the corpses of animals (of all kinds, hehe)

That's why I dont necessarily want to see "Necromancy" with the skulls and the dank lairs as a theme for the Telvanni.
What would be really fun is to see some of the more powerful magisters resurrecting their slaves that die (naturally or not) to continue serving them in undeath. There could be a whole questline where you help reanimate a beloved servant who died of old age.

It's not the act of raising the dead that I find to be unrelated to House Telvanni, its the disney villain themed skulls and lairs and evil aspect I don't think would fit well at all.

I definitely agree in that regard. I never wanted lairs of skulls and bones; this isn’t the Worm Cult. I just want the taboo sides of magic explored as morality isn’t a real boundary within the Great House.

That being said, it would be interesting to see a more laboratory setting for necromancy. This could be a place where undeath is tested on mostly slaves and animals for the sake of furthering magic.

Earrindo

Yes exactly!
A research lab where they experiment on the boundaries between life, death, and undeath. Something like that would be super interesting ^_^

I have always been dismayed by most peoples two dimensional way of viewing things like that, where the concept is interesting, but the execution is rote and tedious.

House Telvanni presents a fascinating avenue of exploring more esoteric branches of magic, via questing or skill lines, without resorting to the same tired old clichés.
I may not be in 100% support of the somewhat questionably colored fungal growths on Vvardenfell, but even so, the Telvanni hardly qualify as doing anything as one would expect.

TelvanniWizard

An MMO would never do justice to the greatness of House Telvanni.

Earrindo

Perhaps not, but that shouldnt stop those of us who love the Telvanni from speculating and discussing ^^

Vanthras79

I want to see more of Morrowind! And proper Telvanni Mushroom Houses.

MasterSpatula

Keep in mind that the Dunmer tend to despise Necromancy, but they also tend to define Necromancy differently from the other races.

Basically, if it falls under Dunmer cultural traditions, Dunmer don't define it as Necromancy, whether or not every other race in Tamriel would. For example, summoning a virtual army of skeletons, bonelords, and ghosts to guard your ancestral tombs isn't Necromancy to the Dunmer.

MythicEmperor

6. I would love to see Thieves Guild-level verticality in the Telvanni cities. This could be accomplished with rising fungal ramps and exterior levitation pads. Imagine a city that looks like it meets the demands of a city travel-wise with paths and roads on multiple layers.

7. Cephalopod helmets!!!!!!! In ESO: Morrowind we were given Redoran helmets. Why? The Cephalopod helmets are so iconic and unique. You’ll never see my Telvanni without one in TES: III.

8. Ceremonial Bug Armor. Of all the concept art that didn’t make it into TES: III, this was one of the most unfortunate. ZOS, this is your chance to show us you want to expand the lore in a positive direction. Give us at least one or two Telvanni Masters with Ceremonial Bug Armor. You won’t regret it.


9. I’ll add more as I think of more.

MythicEmperor

MasterSpatula wrote: »

Keep in mind that the Dunmer tend to despise Necromancy, but they also tend to define Necromancy differently from the other races.

Basically, if it falls under Dunmer cultural traditions, Dunmer don't define it as Necromancy, whether or not every other race in Tamriel would. For example, summoning a virtual army of skeletons, bonelords, and ghosts to guard your ancestral tombs isn't Necromancy to the Dunmer.

Yes, but according to established lore, The Telvanni are adept masters of necromancy. There is clearly an exception for House Telvanni.

MythicEmperor

9. I’d llike for the ranks within ESO’s House Telvanni to be fixed. In Morrowind, Master was the rank used by ESO’s ‘Magisters.’ Magister was just the rank used to challenge the current Telvanni Archmagister, but it seems to have been interchanged with Master.

10: More exotic architecture and culture. The Dunmer are arguably the most alien TES race we can play. House Telvanni is arguably the most alien Dunmer Great House. This aspect has been heavily toned down in ESO, as is evident by the stone towers and the helping of a slave in the Telvanni quest line. In the East, in House Telvanni’s ‘heartland,’ we need to see the layers and depth of their culture.

11. An intelligent Telvanni questline. To be frank, we were treated like imbeciles in the ESO: Morrowind Telvanni questline. How did our characters not feel used by this low-life slave who thought herself clever? Why were we forced to help her instead of being given the option to side with the Dunmer traditionalists? The whole quest felt insulting.

12. CHOICES. As I touched on in the last point, we need more choices in our quests (All of them!!!). We can’t roleplay if every quest has the same (or nearly the same) outcome! Our choices need consequence and reward. We need to be able to side with the morally ‘bad’ guys to make our decisions impactful and more individualized.

13. I’ll post more when I get more ideas.

Wump

Thank you for creating this thread about one of the most fascinating aspects of the ES Lore!

I love to read about the great house Telvanni as they clearly differ from most of the established Fantasy tropes. So while I enjoy reading your thoughts about architecture, quest design and so on (pls keep these post coming!), I'd like to hear your view on a more pragmatic question I have right now:

At the Moment I'm unsure which ESO class fits the Telvanni theme more: The Magika Nightblade or the Magika Dragonknight. Sure, ESO's classes are little more than technical requirements which a Video game needs to work. But nonetheless I love to have some Input, which of the two mentioned is more "Telvanni-Like" (the Sorceror class is no Option for me since I dont want to create a new Char). So here are my reasonings:

• The MagBlade has this sinister Aura which fits the whole Telvanni-Culture. While I dont think Telvanni are per se "evil", I view them as morally indifferent and therefore considered "dire" or "sinister" by outsiders. The Magblade delivers this dire or sinister theme very well. In Terms of mechanics the Magblade has siphoning and blood Magic, shadows and drain health spells. Illusion Magic makes them blur and elusive and the can conjure shadows. In Terms of aesthetics (which is more important to me than mechanics), the Magblade is engulfed in black and red spell effects, can throw out blood red Magic blades and draws runes.
• The MagDK on the other Hand is clearly not as dark as the Magblade, but fits the Dunmer Ancestry very well. The fire spells of the DK give the DK-Telvanni-Wizzard a more destructive facet, making him a menacing Master of Fire and Flames. The DK passives almost read as a perfect description of the dunmer ancestry: "Searing Heat", "World in ruins", "Eternal Mountain" and so on fit the Dunmer theme brilliant. On the other Hand I never saw the dunmer as a race that particularly cares about Dragons (as the Nord do, for example). So while the fire theme seems extremely fitting, the Dragon theme funnily enough feels a bit "wrong" for the Dunmer (at least in my view)

So, tl dr: Do you consider the MagBlade or the MagDK a more Fitting class für a Telvanni Wizzard? Would love to read your thoughts about it!

Best regards,

Wump

Earrindo

That's what is so wonderful about House Telvanni, you could definitely make a case for either. it is all in how you think about it.
Any exploration or expression of magic could be tied to the Telvanni. If your NB or DK are part of House Telvanni, then either of them would fit right in as magic users.

Absolute parity/synchronicity with the House is going to be tough though. The Telvanni are researchers, mad scientists, insane wizard lords who look down on all other races (even other Dunmer to a certain extent) and in this way, how your character behaves/interacts with the world will tie them to the ideals of the Telvanni more than the flavor of magic they wield.

At least thats my view ^_^

TelvanniWizard

Earrindo wrote: »

That's what is so wonderful about House Telvanni, you could definitely make a case for either. it is all in how you think about it.
Any exploration or expression of magic could be tied to the Telvanni. If your NB or DK are part of House Telvanni, then either of them would fit right in as magic users.

Absolute parity/synchronicity with the House is going to be tough though. The Telvanni are researchers, mad scientists, insane wizard lords who look down on all other races (even other Dunmer to a certain extent) and in this way, how your character behaves/interacts with the world will tie them to the ideals of the Telvanni more than the flavor of magic they wield.

At least thats my view ^_^

Mad scientists? Insane wizards? That's worse than the rampant argonian insolence in 4 Era.

Earrindo

How would you describe the Telvanni then?

TelvanniWizard

Earrindo wrote: »

How would you describe the Telvanni then?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AssDQbaIP_I

This can give an aproximate description of magnificence, greatness, glory, and furious inmortality of Great House Telvanni!

MythicEmperor

TelvanniWizard wrote: »

Earrindo wrote: »

How would you describe the Telvanni then?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AssDQbaIP_I

This can give an aproximate description of magnificence, greatness, glory, and furious inmortality of Great House Telvanni!

A great song to be sure, but when I think magnificence, greatness, and glory, I think https://m.youtube.com/watch?t=6s&v=V5q5dVCaCJE

Too bad Prussia no longer exists, or I’d say furious immortality as well

AFAIK, this is the only official Telvanni song: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=M7YtO5haYqU

I quite like the melody and I could see it being quoted in future Telvanni songs.

MythicEmperor

Earrindo wrote: »

How would you describe the Telvanni then?

Profane, isolationist, intelligent, and eccentric.

MythicEmperor

Wump wrote: »

Thank you for creating this thread about one of the most fascinating aspects of the ES Lore!

I love to read about the great house Telvanni as they clearly differ from most of the established Fantasy tropes. So while I enjoy reading your thoughts about architecture, quest design and so on (pls keep these post coming!), I'd like to hear your view on a more pragmatic question I have right now:

At the Moment I'm unsure which ESO class fits the Telvanni theme more: The Magika Nightblade or the Magika Dragonknight. Sure, ESO's classes are little more than technical requirements which a Video game needs to work. But nonetheless I love to have some Input, which of the two mentioned is more "Telvanni-Like" (the Sorceror class is no Option for me since I dont want to create a new Char). So here are my reasonings:

• The MagBlade has this sinister Aura which fits the whole Telvanni-Culture. While I dont think Telvanni are per se "evil", I view them as morally indifferent and therefore considered "dire" or "sinister" by outsiders. The Magblade delivers this dire or sinister theme very well. In Terms of mechanics the Magblade has siphoning and blood Magic, shadows and drain health spells. Illusion Magic makes them blur and elusive and the can conjure shadows. In Terms of aesthetics (which is more important to me than mechanics), the Magblade is engulfed in black and red spell effects, can throw out blood red Magic blades and draws runes.
• The MagDK on the other Hand is clearly not as dark as the Magblade, but fits the Dunmer Ancestry very well. The fire spells of the DK give the DK-Telvanni-Wizzard a more destructive facet, making him a menacing Master of Fire and Flames. The DK passives almost read as a perfect description of the dunmer ancestry: "Searing Heat", "World in ruins", "Eternal Mountain" and so on fit the Dunmer theme brilliant. On the other Hand I never saw the dunmer as a race that particularly cares about Dragons (as the Nord do, for example). So while the fire theme seems extremely fitting, the Dragon theme funnily enough feels a bit "wrong" for the Dunmer (at least in my view)

So, tl dr: Do you consider the MagBlade or the MagDK a more Fitting class für a Telvanni Wizzard? Would love to read your thoughts about it!

Best regards,

Wump

My main has been rerolled from MagDK to MagBlade to MagSorc throughout ESO’s lifetime but I’ve stuck with the latter class for well into a year-and-a-half now (as I find it more suited to vet trials and the like), but I won’t bore you with the PvE perspective; you asked for what class is most Telvanni like.

As sorcerer is off the table, really either will do. It just depends on a few factors:

1. Do you want to be close or long range? (Perhaps it’s changed but in 2015 MagDK’s were in melee range whereas my MagBlade was long range. Not a major concern but I always feel it more wizardly to hang back in combat).

2. Do you prefer a fire-mage flavor to a ‘warlock’ flavor? Look at your character’s backstory. If the character is more likely to use elemental magic, go DK. I must admit that the dragon aspect of the class will feel a little out of place, however. If the character is more likely to use shadow/dark-themed magic, go NB. If you don’t have a backstory as of yet, choose the one you think you’ll have the most fun with. House Telvanni uses all sorts of magic; there are even some Telvanni MagPlars and (presumably) MagDens out there.

Earrindo

Both songs work, I think, but in different ways.

I really like the ways both of you have described the Telvanni, certainly more on point than how I did.
My love of the Telvanni is genuine, but I know I have a lot to learn ^_^

TelvanniWizard

Earrindo wrote: »

Both songs work, I think, but in different ways.

I really like the ways both of you have described the Telvanni, certainly more on point than how I did.
My love of the Telvanni is genuine, but I know I have a lot to learn ^_^

Welcome to the best Great House!

Fvh09NL

Only one word needed to describe the Telvanni: superior.