Never have the threads of fate become so twisted...

Syldras

I also just checked "2920, The Last Year of the First Era" by the way, because there's interesting lore about the Morag Tong, but their name's origin also isn't mentioned there.

Generally, it should be kept in mind, especially with the Sermons, that a narrator isn't necessarily reliable. Actually it always baffles me when people see everything Vivec wrote as facts, to be honest. As if fiction within fiction couldn't exist, and as if they'd never learnt what a metaphor or a symbol is - and how prevalent they are especially in poetry and religious text or myths.

colossalvoids

Syldras wrote: »

I also just checked "2920, The Last Year of the First Era" by the way, because there's interesting lore about the Morag Tong, but their name's origin also isn't mentioned there.

Generally, it should be kept in mind, especially with the Sermons, that a narrator isn't necessarily reliable. Actually it always baffles me when people see everything Vivec wrote as facts, to be honest. As if fiction within fiction couldn't exist, and as if they'd never learnt what a metaphor or a symbol is - and how prevalent they are especially in poetry and religious text or myths.

Unreliable narrator is probably the main thing here, interpretation and connections we're making are up to us always, which is the best part leaving enough room for the player. Kinda same deal as we have with inspirational texts for those writings like The Book of the Law, which seems like the main inspiration in this case for me at least.

LittlePinkDot

chessalavakia_ESO wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

I'll be pretty disappointed if we have to muck about with Hermaeus Mora. He ranks only second after Sheogorath as the most irritating character I've ever encountered.

Yeah, I might skip this years expansion if it looks to be mostly him and doesn't have much else of interest.

From an RP perspective, few of my characters would actually interact with him because he's creepy.

The thing is, we already have an existing quest in ESO where

he has questionable dealings with his mortal partner and then stiffs us

so I'm unsure of why even my characters that are a bit slow and ignored the creepy behavior would work with him either from an RP perspective as he didn't appear to exactly be "reliable".

Well you would have to know what the story/context will be. Maybe it's a matter of necessity and not want.

NotaDaedraWorshipper

Syldras wrote: »

I also just checked "2920, The Last Year of the First Era" by the way, because there's interesting lore about the Morag Tong, but their name's origin also isn't mentioned there.

Generally, it should be kept in mind, especially with the Sermons, that a narrator isn't necessarily reliable. Actually it always baffles me when people see everything Vivec wrote as facts, to be honest. As if fiction within fiction couldn't exist, and as if they'd never learnt what a metaphor or a symbol is - and how prevalent they are especially in poetry and religious text or myths.

I find it even more baffling when people take things as facts, when they come from characters such as Vivec. The man is known for lying, bending the truth, and constantly talking in metaphors. If he said the sky is blue I would go outside and make sure it was. ...and probably find a giant meteor in it, but that's a different topic.

shadyjane62

Sounds like another chapter to skip.

JoeCapricorn

There's been something for monster lovers virtually every year just about.

You had dragons, then vampires and werewolves, then daedra and finally those cute fauns that are so cute

and now tentacles. We've reached the tentacles.

And this album is going to be my head-canon unofficial soundtrack for it. https://www.metal-archives.com/albums/Tyranny/Tides_of_Awakening/76751

TaSheen

JoeCapricorn wrote: »

There's been something for monster lovers virtually every year just about.

You had dragons, then vampires and werewolves, then daedra and finally those cute fauns that are so cute

and now tentacles. We've reached the tentacles.

And this album is going to be my head-canon unofficial soundtrack for it. https://www.metal-archives.com/albums/Tyranny/Tides_of_Awakening/76751

So is there no way to listen to clips on that site?

Syldras

It's on Youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_SPphEU2lM

NotaDaedraWorshipper wrote: »

I find it even more baffling when people take things as facts, when they come from characters such as Vivec. The man is known for lying, bending the truth, and constantly talking in metaphors.

"But there's a lorebook about it!" I had people telling me that Vivec was part dreugh with this "argument" (and no, they weren't joking), obviously unable to recognize that the tale about Vivec's origin in the first Sermons (his mother being a Velothi woman changed by the dreugh to be able to live underwater with them, then brought back to the surface by Sotha Sil's fabricants, visited by several Daedra and nature spirits, and finally being killed by Dwemer, who then placed the unborn Vivec into a machine crafted as her effigy,...) has the purpose to link him to all kinds of different factions, not only to to the Velothi, but also to the Daedra, the Dwemer, to nature, magic and technology, to everything basically. It's a story of legitimation. Even Sil's ending dialogue in the CWC main story ("He wishes to be all things at all times. Every race, every gender, every hero, both divine and finite... but in the end, he can only be Vivec.") didn't convince them. So I've given up. Some people just seem to believe everything they read somewhere without even thinking about questioning and proving it first; in case of a game, it's weird but harmless. In real life, this mindset can be dangerous, but that's a different topic.

Ratzkifal

Syldras wrote: »

I also just checked "2920, The Last Year of the First Era" by the way, because there's interesting lore about the Morag Tong, but their name's origin also isn't mentioned there.

Generally, it should be kept in mind, especially with the Sermons, that a narrator isn't necessarily reliable. Actually it always baffles me when people see everything Vivec wrote as facts, to be honest. As if fiction within fiction couldn't exist, and as if they'd never learnt what a metaphor or a symbol is - and how prevalent they are especially in poetry and religious text or myths.

Pretty sure the Morag Tong are called such because they are meant to be like gardeners of Morrowind, taking out the "weed" so that Morrowind can grow. It's just a poetic name probably.
Fun fact: Mora in elvish means forest, because mori ( 森 ) means forest in japanese. So when two things are called "mora" I wouldn't automatically expect they have anything to do with each other.

But then again, if we consider that Mephala, Sithis and the Night Mother seem to have some sort of connection and the Dark Brotherhood is an off-shoot of the Morag Tong, you can't help but wonder if Hermaeus Mora might have been more involved in the beginnings of the Morag Tong after all... perhaps even more than the webspinner herself, which would explain why she would create the Dark Brotherhood under the guise of the Night Mother.
At least I doubt we can have Morrowind content without Naryu making an appearance, so I wouldn't be surprised if we got some Morag Tong content, even if it has nothing to do with the main quest. That is, if the chapter is even set in Morrowind lol.

Syldras

Ratzkifal wrote: »

Pretty sure the Morag Tong are called such because they are meant to be like gardeners of Morrowind, taking out the "weed" so that Morrowind can grow. It's just a poetic name probably. Fun fact: Mora in elvish means forest, because mori ( 森 ) means forest in japanese. So when two things are called "mora" I wouldn't automatically expect they have anything to do with each other.

I don't enjoy quoting myself, but I had written that just a few posts before:

Syldras wrote: »

SilverIce58 wrote: »

What does HM have to do with the Morag Tong? He's only tangentially related by association with his "sibling", Mephala, which she's more related to the Tong than he is.

The exact relations are unclear, but even the name Morag Tong derives from Hermaeus Mora (while it literally means nothing more than "forest", it is said that this is the origin of the guild's name).

To be more precise and provide a source: The connection between Hermaeus Mora and the Morag Tong is made in "Varieties of Faith in Tamriel", in the paragraph about "Herma-Mora (The Woodland Man)": "Also called the Demon of Knowledge, he is vaguely related to the cult origins of the Morag Tong ('Foresters Guild')". Then again, this book (which is about all kinds of faiths of whole Tamriel) is written by an Imperial who doesn't necessarily have reliable knowledge about everything.

TaSheen

Syldras wrote: »

It's on Youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_SPphEU2lM

*shrug* I don't use youtube.

TheImperfect

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

https://twitter.com/TESOnline/status/1616442936065167365

"Never have the threads of fate become so twisted. Two worlds hang in the balance. Come, champion. Let us preserve what threatens to unravel, like pages tossed in a roaring fire.""
Developer_Direct & ESO Global Reveal - Jan. 25 @ 3pm EST twitch.tv/bethesda"

Don't know if anyone mentioned it already but reminds me of the quest in Khenarthi's Roost

where you can toss the book in the fire (if that's what you choose) involving Hermaeus Mora

Syldras

A new Twitter post:

Faulgor

Syldras wrote: »

It's on Youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_SPphEU2lM

NotaDaedraWorshipper wrote: »

I find it even more baffling when people take things as facts, when they come from characters such as Vivec. The man is known for lying, bending the truth, and constantly talking in metaphors.

"But there's a lorebook about it!" I had people telling me that Vivec was part dreugh with this "argument" (and no, they weren't joking), obviously unable to recognize that the tale about Vivec's origin in the first Sermons (his mother being a Velothi woman changed by the dreugh to be able to live underwater with them, then brought back to the surface by Sotha Sil's fabricants, visited by several Daedra and nature spirits, and finally being killed by Dwemer, who then placed the unborn Vivec into a machine crafted as her effigy,...) has the purpose to link him to all kinds of different factions, not only to to the Velothi, but also to the Daedra, the Dwemer, to nature, magic and technology, to everything basically. It's a story of legitimation. Even Sil's ending dialogue in the CWC main story ("He wishes to be all things at all times. Every race, every gender, every hero, both divine and finite... but in the end, he can only be Vivec.") didn't convince them. So I've given up. Some people just seem to believe everything they read somewhere without even thinking about questioning and proving it first; in case of a game, it's weird but harmless. In real life, this mindset can be dangerous, but that's a different topic.

Or maybe they just want to believe because they think it's cool.

Syldras

There's one thing even worse than ignorance: Willful ignorance.

acastanza_ESO

I'm more hyped for this DLC than I have been for anything ESO has done in a long time!
Between this, and the director's letter with the new roadmap, I think ESO's got a solid chance to get back on the right track

Ashtaris

Jim_Pipp wrote: »

Billium813 wrote: »

colossalvoids wrote: »

Kinda love-hate how on a verge of leaving the game it makes me guess the next arc/destination still lol.

I think many of us are in the same boat.

I'm not playing at the moment, but I've been hovering on uninstalling since the December tease. I think this reveal is the make or break time for many players ESO.

I’m pretty much in the same boat right now. Just not playing ESO anymore as I’m getting more excited about the upcoming new IP from Bethesda, Starfield. Once that comes out, it’s going to take something really compelling for me to get back into playing ESO again. Oh well, I guess I’ll still be supporting Bethesda/ZOS in some way.

Alpharos7

Just hoping that if the chapter does indeed revolve around Hermaus Mora as expected, that Neloth also makes an appearance. That would be amazing!

colossalvoids

Alpharos7 wrote: »

Just hoping that if the chapter does indeed revolve around Hermaus Mora as expected, that Neloth also makes an appearance. That would be amazing!

Pretty sure he's yet to be born in our timeline here.

Syldras

Is there anyone else here who's suspicious we might get a Telvanni antagonist? A stereotypical slave sacrificing evil genius trying to steal Hermaeus Mora's knowledge or even replacing him and causing chaos by this attempt?

RaddlemanNumber7

There has to be a mortal instigator, and who better than a mad scientist Telvanni Magister. No one else could possibly be more credible in the role.

Syldras

Another thing, because having Hermaeus Mora as a more or less positive figure this time brought up the question who the opponent could be, if it might be another Daedric prince:

Never have the threads of fate become so twisted. Two worlds hang in the balance. Come, champion. Let us preserve what threatens to unravel, like pages tossed in a roaring fire.

The whole "threads of fate" thing with its weaving metaphor made me think of Mephala, the Webspinner, before, while others thought of Vaermina, the Dreamweaver. Mephala is considered a "sibling" to Hermaeus Mora, while Vaermina is his traditional opponent.

Now I made a fast check on UESP and found two things:

Hermaeus Mora dialogue:
"The individual yarns of fate do not concern me. It is the tapestry they weave that I watch and record. All threads, even yours, only make up a small part of the whole."
There the phrase doesn't seem to relate to any other entity at all.

The Sweetroll Killer quest:
Fate-Bearer Subjugator: "The threads of fate align! Kill them now!"

Razum-dar: "But these Fate-Bearers. Do they worry you as much as they worry me?"
Player character: "That's a problem for another day, I imagine."
Razum-dar: "Raz likes how you think! Now the apprentice Elf and I will return home and continue her training. This one wonders if Naryu and the others will ever be truly safe. Vvardenfell sounds like a dangerous place that just got more deadly."

Player character: "If the Fate-Bearers return, we'll just have to be ready."
Razum-dar: "Raz wishes you the best of luck, my friend, but Vvardenfell is a bit out of my jurisdiction. If they show themselves in the Dominion, Raz will deal with them. But in Dark Elf lands? That's someone else's problem, yes?"

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Fate-Bearers
"The Fate-Bearers are a group of prophetic assassins based at their shrine of the changing fates out of Vvardenfell. They use the rare gift of sight to see what the future holds, eliminate targets that have the potential to cause unmitigated disasters."

I know this quest was basically forshadowing Morrowind and Summerset, but maybe the Fate-Bearers will play a role again this time? We don't know much about them, neither about their origins nor where they get their prophecies from.

Just wanted to throw this in.

Elsonso

Syldras wrote: »

Is there anyone else here who's suspicious we might get a Telvanni antagonist? A stereotypical slave sacrificing evil genius trying to steal Hermaeus Mora's knowledge or even replacing him and causing chaos by this attempt?

Interesting, but do you really think ZOS will let us kill Sun-In-Shadow? Me either.

Syldras

Elsonso wrote: »

Interesting, but do you really think ZOS will let us kill Sun-In-Shadow? Me either.

They'll just make up a new one. It's not difficult to build a cliché mad scientist character. Actually they already did this once with Arkasis, the alchemist in the Stone Garden dungeon.

That said, I find clichés rather boring. Foreseeable. Always the same.

SilverIce58

Syldras wrote: »

Is there anyone else here who's suspicious we might get a Telvanni antagonist? A stereotypical slave sacrificing evil genius trying to steal Hermaeus Mora's knowledge or even replacing him and causing chaos by this attempt?

Gods I hope not. Thats so boring and passé. Id love a twist villain like something from Orsinium. Like a slave that eventually escapes and tries to destroy everyone and everything even the innocents and other slaves, but acts super friendly towards you in order to get you to free them and help them start their plan.

Jaraal

Syldras wrote: »

Elsonso wrote: »

Interesting, but do you really think ZOS will let us kill Sun-In-Shadow? Me either.

They'll just make up a new one. It's not difficult to build a cliché mad scientist character. Actually they already did this once with Arkasis, the alchemist in the Stone Garden dungeon.

That said, I find clichés rather boring. Foreseeable. Always the same.

Based on ZOS's penchant for bringing back well-known characters with little regard for lore continuity, this seems the perfect opportunity to recycle Mannimarco,

even if you left him securely in the hands of his nemesis instead of freeing him.

.

Syldras

SilverIce58 wrote: »

Id love a twist villain like something from Orsinium. Like a slave that eventually escapes and tries to destroy everyone and everything even the innocents and other slaves, but acts super friendly towards you in order to get you to free them and help them start their plan.

Oh, there's an easy solution to avoid this, actually... Whether prisoners, slaves, people captured by cultists or bandits, mages entrapped in magical spheres or other dimensions - just don't free them, then they can't cause any trouble. Which leads to another thing...

Jaraal wrote: »

Based on ZOS's penchant for bringing back well-known characters with little regard for lore continuity, this seems the perfect opportunity to recycle Mannimarco,

even if you left him securely in the hands of his nemesis instead of freeing him.

.

I did free him so he could go after Vanus Galerion. No, honestly, in TES4 Oblivion he returns anyway, so he must have been freed by someone, we just don't know who did it and when it happened. So I wouldn't necessarily see it as lorebreaking (bringing back the Companion whom we sacrified at the end of the main quest was much worse, in my opinion). I still think they won't recycle a villain. Of course we don't know for sure.

SilverIce58

Syldras wrote: »

SilverIce58 wrote: »

Id love a twist villain like something from Orsinium. Like a slave that eventually escapes and tries to destroy everyone and everything even the innocents and other slaves, but acts super friendly towards you in order to get you to free them and help them start their plan.

Oh, there's an easy solution to avoid this, actually... Whether prisoners, slaves, people captured by cultists or bandits, mages entrapped in magical spheres or other dimensions - just don't free them, then they can't cause any trouble. Which leads to another thing....

True, but if we don't get them out, maybe they escape themselves without our help, or they influence events from behind the scenes, which eventually lead to them taking power. With how the Telvanni view having and utilizing power, maybe half the Magisters take their side, and the other half rebel.

Syldras

SilverIce58 wrote: »

Syldras wrote: »

SilverIce58 wrote: »

Id love a twist villain like something from Orsinium. Like a slave that eventually escapes and tries to destroy everyone and everything even the innocents and other slaves, but acts super friendly towards you in order to get you to free them and help them start their plan.

Oh, there's an easy solution to avoid this, actually... Whether prisoners, slaves, people captured by cultists or bandits, mages entrapped in magical spheres or other dimensions - just don't free them, then they can't cause any trouble. Which leads to another thing....

True, but if we don't get them out, maybe they escape themselves without our help, or they influence events from behind the scenes, which eventually lead to them taking power. With how the Telvanni view having and utilizing power, maybe half the Magisters take their side, and the other half rebel.

That's problematic, I see... How about imprisoning them ourselves then? I have a "room" beneath a trap door in my Daggerfall castle that I never use. Also, it's a nice occasion to explore Dunmeri customs more, I think. You would be astounded how many Dunmer keep hostages somewhere at home.

SilverIce58

Syldras wrote: »

SilverIce58 wrote: »

Syldras wrote: »

SilverIce58 wrote: »

Id love a twist villain like something from Orsinium. Like a slave that eventually escapes and tries to destroy everyone and everything even the innocents and other slaves, but acts super friendly towards you in order to get you to free them and help them start their plan.

Oh, there's an easy solution to avoid this, actually... Whether prisoners, slaves, people captured by cultists or bandits, mages entrapped in magical spheres or other dimensions - just don't free them, then they can't cause any trouble. Which leads to another thing....

True, but if we don't get them out, maybe they escape themselves without our help, or they influence events from behind the scenes, which eventually lead to them taking power. With how the Telvanni view having and utilizing power, maybe half the Magisters take their side, and the other half rebel.

That's problematic, I see... How about imprisoning them ourselves then? I have a "room" beneath a trap door in my Daggerfall castle that I never use. Also, it's a nice occasion to explore Dunmeri customs more, I think. You would be astounded how many Dunmer keep hostages somewhere at home.

Ah #justdunmerthings, love the culture. We can do the same in our homes with the excess of houseguests and basement rooms lol