Official hints for the next chapter received

Syldras · January 8

msetten wrote: »

emilyhyoyeon wrote: »

Yeah that southeast side symbol looks like a Mora eye and the southern side symbol looks like the Mages Guild eye.

Not sure that is the Mages Guild eye. The symbol for the Mages Guild looks a bit like it, but also different:

The symbol on the glass-stained window has three additional pieces in it.

It also reminds a bit of the crest of the College of Winterhold.

SerafinaWaterstar · January 8

Gods no. Not bloody Eveli.

And not a whole year of badly voiced Bosmer that sound like D v D (can’t actually write his name on this site!) on a very bad day….its too painful to contemplate.

Soarora · January 8

SerafinaWaterstar wrote: »

Gods no. Not bloody Eveli.

And not a whole year of badly voiced Bosmer that sound like D v D (can’t actually write his name on this site!) on a very bad day….its too painful to contemplate.

Yeah. I’m excited for everything else but I’ve never done Orisinium so I’ve only ever heard her Blackwood version. Her voice gave me a headache.

WhiteCoatSyndrome · January 8

Soarora wrote: »

SerafinaWaterstar wrote: »

Gods no. Not bloody Eveli.

And not a whole year of badly voiced Bosmer that sound like D v D (can’t actually write his name on this site!) on a very bad day….its too painful to contemplate.

Yeah. I’m excited for everything else but I’ve never done Orisinium so I’ve only ever heard her Blackwood version. Her voice gave me a headache.

She’s slightly more bearable in Orsinium, if only because she gets a bit of character growth…which vanished for Blackwood, so my hopes for her in any future content are not high.

msetten · January 8

Someone on one of my discord noticed that in the border, you can recognize the Oblivion logo:

This would match with the rumors from a leak at the end of last year regarding Skingrad being part of the next chapter, which was in the Oblivion game.

tomofhyrule · January 8

I'm very much believing the eye symbol represents the Mages Guild. It fits together with the lantern as well - in Daggerfall, there was the Order of the Lamp, which is the knightly order that protects the Mages Guild. We don't have much else on them, but it's likely we'll see more of that lore coming up since that's almost too obvious of a symbol.

The Fargrave symbol is also obvious in the first image. This is all looking very Falinesti, what with the leaves and the trees and the fact that it disappeared and that one of the most popular theories in 2E is that it was taken away to Oblivion. Falinesti's probably not enough for a full Chapter though, but it'd make a great Fargrave-esque hub city for an external plane.

I haven't done the Necrom line yet, but it'd make sense that the One who Knows would... know where Falinesti is...

The other thing that's jumping out at me is the author of the letter. We last saw Beragon in the Gates of Oblivion prologue because his younger sister was the lead character for the Blackwood Chapter. I... really hope she's not our lead again, or at least she's written much better this time. I was not the biggest fan of Eveli, and I was especially not a fan of the fact that the story railroaded the player into needing to be dumber than her so she could explain everything to us. I didn't like that every other quest stage was "Talk to Eveli" - I felt like I almost had to ask her if I could use the bathroom (but of course, I'd have to first ask her how to do so because evidently my character was too dumb to even breathe on his own). It really felt like there were only three brain cells in the entire Blackwood storyline, and Lyranth had all three of them (though to be fair, that's three more brain cells than were in the entire High Isle storyline, so that's something at least). I also know that the fact that there were no branching dialogue options, e.g. to lie about being in the Brotherhood, was not popular and I hope that is also not returning.

acastanza_ESO · January 8

msetten wrote: »

Chima84 did some rotating and resizing and came to a better combined photo:

I'm not sure this is correct. I don't think the bottom right piece fits there. I think there might be two more pieces we haven't seen. I suppose it could just be a scaling issue though.

phaneub17_ESO · January 8

phaneub17_ESO wrote: »

Falinesti actually could be a possibility, while it doesn't make a reappearance for another 500 years, we could be the catalyst that sets it in motion for it to return to Nirn. Instead of a chapter where we win with overwhelming power, we beat it through being clever, we trick the trickster and undo his magic over time.

When arriving there, the residence have no idea their city has vanished and act as if nothing has happened, you have to wake them up, unlock their memories, and make them realize they are trapped.

We do battle with Rahjin

emilyhyoyeon · January 8

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

msetten wrote: »

Chima84 did some rotating and resizing and came to a better combined photo:

I'm not sure this is correct. I don't think the bottom right piece fits there. I think there might be two more pieces we haven't seen. I suppose it could just be a scaling issue though.

I think you're right about this. Even with scaling, the tree in the bottom right piece is weirdly cut off; the gold piece near the middle is shorter than the other side; the star-looking symbol in the middle is also off.

Either there's two more pieces or an intentionally-missing spot between the bottom two. It doesn't look like that area is huge though, probably not a new piece with its own symbol; it just looks part of the bottom right piece is missing.

msetten · January 8

emilyhyoyeon wrote: »

Either there's two more pieces or an intentionally-missing spot between the bottom two. It doesn't look like that area is huge though, probably not a new piece with its own symbol; it just looks part of the bottom right piece is missing.

We don't even know if they ought to fit perfectly. Maybe there are a few versions which broke differently. But for now, I think it's large due to that fact that each photo was taken under different circumstances.

Danzio · January 8

Ashnarug wrote: »

I looked but couldn't find the answer:

Why do you call the Ebonheart Pact the "Red Pact"?

Because in PvP they associated with red color at Cyrodiil map. Dominion is yellow, Covenant is blue. Respectively, as they called at my guild, tomatos, bananas and eggplants!

Fata1moose · January 8

The middle thing looks like the antiquarian's eye.

alternatelder · January 8

How many tubers have claimed this is spellcrafting confirmed?

Tornaad · January 8

Oh yay! We might be getting a Wood Elf chapter.

Bo0137 · January 8

Wouldn't the panels in blue be a iteration of the different "schools" one can learn in magic? The autumn trees and the lyre thing should be dividers. Now, which magic school the blue panels represent, that is beyond me.

Fata1moose · January 8

I don’t like the idea of a Wood Elf chapter only because they still can’t do actual forests in the engine. Maybe they fixed that and there will be more than just a few trees scattered about.

LunaFlora · January 8

Bo0137 wrote: »

Wouldn't the panels in blue be a iteration of the different "schools" one can learn in magic? The autumn trees and the lyre thing should be dividers. Now, which magic school the blue panels represent, that is beyond me.

no i doubt that.

the eye with wings likely refers to the Mages Guild.
the other eye would be Mora.
the lamp could be referring to the Order of the Lamp, the Mages Guild's knightly order.

and the leaf is probably the Ayleid life tree.

DragonRacer · January 8

Another thought about the lamp, though maybe an oblique thing to try and tie-in, but on Sharp-As-Night's questlines, there's this underground railroad of Dunmer and other folks helping slaves escape the Telvanni and they mark themselves with common lamps like that.

Araneae6537 · January 8

DragonRacer wrote: »

Another thought about the lamp, though maybe an oblique thing to try and tie-in, but on Sharp-As-Night's questlines, there's this underground railroad of Dunmer and other folks helping slaves escape the Telvanni and they mark themselves with common lamps like that.

That was twin lamps though, wasn’t it? And two of the portable Dres lamps rather than the common lanterns.

Soarora · January 8

I’m wondering if the moon shapes are a Bosmer faction. There is a tiny moon within another moon. Moons stacked is the symbol of the Khajiit, who share the same creation myth as the Bosmer. The lyre shape could have to do with how the Bosmer are storytellers and sing shape into plants, while the tangled strings could refer to their original endlessly changing nature. (Which also goes into abandoning the Green Pact…)

Edit: Or even it’s not a lyre at all, but a basin. The strings could be the Ooze.

LunaFlora · January 8

Soarora wrote: »

I’m wondering if the moon shapes are a Bosmer faction. There is a tiny moon within another moon. Moons stacked is the symbol of the Khajiit, who share the same creation myth as the Bosmer. The lyre shape could have to do with how the Bosmer are storytellers and sing shape into plants, while the tangled strings could refer to their original endlessly changing nature. (Which also goes into abandoning the Green Pact…)

Edit: Or even it’s not a lyre at all, but a basin. The strings could be the Ooze.

i don't see moons, but Skingrad has this symbol with moons

Syldras · January 8

Soarora wrote: »

Or even it’s not a lyre at all, but a basin. The strings could be the Ooze.

I'm not sure what it is, but it doesn't look like a lyre to me.

DragonRacer wrote: »

Another thought about the lamp, though maybe an oblique thing to try and tie-in, but on Sharp-As-Night's questlines, there's this underground railroad of Dunmer and other folks helping slaves escape the Telvanni and they mark themselves with common lamps like that.

The Twin Lamps wouldn't be symbolized by a single lamp.

tomofhyrule wrote: »

The other thing that's jumping out at me is the author of the letter. We last saw Beragon in the Gates of Oblivion prologue because his younger sister was the lead character for the Blackwood Chapter. I... really hope she's not our lead again, or at least she's written much better this time. I was not the biggest fan of Eveli, and I was especially not a fan of the fact that the story railroaded the player into needing to be dumber than her so she could explain everything to us. I didn't like that every other quest stage was "Talk to Eveli" - I felt like I almost had to ask her if I could use the bathroom (but of course, I'd have to first ask her how to do so because evidently my character was too dumb to even breathe on his own). It really felt like there were only three brain cells in the entire Blackwood storyline, and Lyranth had all three of them (though to be fair, that's three more brain cells than were in the entire High Isle storyline, so that's something at least). I also know that the fact that there were no branching dialogue options, e.g. to lie about being in the Brotherhood, was not popular and I hope that is also not returning.

Imagine creating a chapter about the Daedric prince of knowledge, about wisdom, scholars and hidden mysteries - and making Eveli the lead

No, seriously (and yeah, I know that we don't even know how big the focus on Mora will be this chapter): I really hope it will not be her. I'm fine with her brother, but please, not Eveli. For the reasons stated above, but also because I think that it would be nice to actually meet new interesting characters instead of always the same ones. Or seeing more of a side quest character that didn't have a big role yet would also be okay with me. But Eveli has had her chance already.

And I really, really hope they don't make the player character look like an imbecile again. It has improved in Necrom, but I still found it a bit unappealing that Leramil regularly aborts her musings and explanations claiming the player character wouldn't understand anyway. I wish ZOS would acknowledge that some of us actually play scholars. And mages shouldn't be strikingly stupid either. We can literally become a member not only of the Mages Guild, but even of the Psijic Order in this game, which would require a certain intelligence. And last, but not least, we can play an Arcanist, who would be familiar with concepts around Hermaeus Mora and Apocrypha. Yet they treat us as if it all would be too complicated for us to understand anyway. I know it's probably because they don't want to write longer dialogues and get deeper into those topics, but there would we other ways to avoid that without making the player character compulsively stupid.

Soarora · January 8

LunaFlora wrote: »

Soarora wrote: »

I’m wondering if the moon shapes are a Bosmer faction. There is a tiny moon within another moon. Moons stacked is the symbol of the Khajiit, who share the same creation myth as the Bosmer. The lyre shape could have to do with how the Bosmer are storytellers and sing shape into plants, while the tangled strings could refer to their original endlessly changing nature. (Which also goes into abandoning the Green Pact…)

Edit: Or even it’s not a lyre at all, but a basin. The strings could be the Ooze.

i don't see moons, but Skingrad has this symbol with moons

The ones by the fargrave symbols. There’s the larger obvious one pointing towards the outside and a much smaller one pointing towards the middle. It could be related to Skingrad based on the shapes, directions differing, and sizes. Though the shapes don’t match, its more of the Khajiit moon at least from my memory.

Soarora · January 8

The strings could also be strings of fate and it’s actually the symbol of the one who has been forgotten, though it’s hard to have a symbol with meaning when you’re not supposed to remember what the meaning is.

msetten · January 8

Lizathy on one of my guilds discord made the three pieces we have so far fit better. In real life they will never fit perfectly as they all have a transparant border that gets in the way. We now only need that fourth part in the top right of the image (which is now a placeholder image)

Araneae6537 · January 8

I don’t see anything that looks like the Skingrad emblem to me. The crescents did remind me of Y’ffre’s lyre, although I don’t believe it’s been depicted in quite this fashion before, but to me it looks more like that than any depiction of crescent moons.

Masteroshi430 · January 8

The background has a lot of fragment patterns, the hints are themselves fragments, so we will have to find fragments probably?
The Quakecon 2014 Spellcrafting preview/demo included finding fragments but I won't go there..

"In many cultures, the breaking of glass is often considered a bad omen or a sign of bad luck. This belief may stem from the idea that breaking glass represents a disruption of peace or harmony."

Soarora · January 8

Araneae6537 wrote: »

I don’t see anything that looks like the Skingrad emblem to me. The crescents did remind me of Y’ffre’s lyre, although I don’t believe it’s been depicted in quite this fashion before, but to me it looks more like that than any depiction of crescent moons.

Y’ffre’s lyre with tangled strings makes narrative sense though then the perfect crescents would only be stylization. The crescents also match Hermaeus Mora, though I’m not sure why he even has crescent moons as a symbol. I guess because he controls the tides like our moon does? Always thought that was weird for a Prince of Knowledge to do. He might’ve stolen that power just like he did with fate, but that just leads back into it being the forgotten one’s symbol.

Edit: it could also just refer to fate in general, since there are several strings at each end but the ends are connected by one (1).

tomofhyrule · January 8

I'm hearing Skingrad a lot. I haven't heard about that myself (but I'm not looking into information beyond what's been officially released, so don't tell me if that's where the info is coming from), and I don't see it in the promo, but that doesn't mean it's not there. I can't help but think that the top blue part in that reconstructed stained glass could potentially be the part of Skingrad's moons emblem.

I would really really love Skingrad though - it'd be a perfect hub city, and then Miscarcand would be a perfect Public Dungeon... and the Shrine of Meridia is just outside the city, which would be an excellent way to make a 10th anniversaty reappearance for her (or a primary antagonist please!)

My thing with Skingrad though it I don't see how Falinesti would fit in, and from the letter and the leaves I'm more thinking Falinesti. Falinesti would obviously be a hub city, but that's pointing to a Daedric realm as it's gone.

...maybe this is going to be one as a Chapter zone and then back to a Q4 DLC a la Leyawiin/Blackwood and Fargrave/Deadlands?

EDIT: Wait - hold on, I just reread the letter. "Don't allow any would-be Emperors or Saliache ruins to delay you."
"Would-be Emperors" is pointing to Cyrodiil. "Saliache" is uncommon in TES lingo, only seen so far in the markings from the Ayleid crates. However, the Adalab-a does reference an "imperatum saliache," which seems to be an old name for the Ayleid empire. The Ayleids were all over, but again, we could be talking about Cyrodiil - unfortunately that's also looking at some of Valenwood as well. Still, the West Weald's close to Valenwood and there are quite a few ruins there.

Soarora · January 8

tomofhyrule wrote: »

I'm hearing Skingrad a lot. I haven't heard about that myself (but I'm not looking into information beyond what's been officially released, so don't tell me if that's where the info is coming from), and I don't see it in the promo, but that doesn't mean it's not there. I can't help but think that the top blue part in that reconstructed stained glass could potentially be the part of Skingrad's moons emblem.

I would really really love Skingrad though - it'd be a perfect hub city, and then Miscarcand would be a perfect Public Dungeon... and the Shrine of Meridia is just outside the city, which would be an excellent way to make a 10th anniversaty reappearance for her (or a primary antagonist please!)

My thing with Skingrad though it I don't see how Falinesti would fit in, and from the letter and the leaves I'm more thinking Falinesti. Falinesti would obviously be a hub city, but that's pointing to a Daedric realm as it's gone.

...maybe this is going to be one as a Chapter zone and then back to a Q4 DLC a la Leyawiin/Blackwood and Fargrave/Deadlands?

Searching on the UESP page for Falinesti I saw that Valenwood as a whole has a history with the Colovians attacking them, and Falinesti was the seat of the empire that oversaw Valenwood (Camoran Empire).