Grimoires
Inhuman003
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Do Grimoires exist in Elder Scrolls, If so then how? And can Grimoires work like Staff Weapons?
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Best Answers
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VaranisArano✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭Grimoires as in a book of spells? Well, in Skyrim you can use a book to learn a single spell and the book is consumed.
If you are looking for a weapon-style application, you are looking at Scrolls and the old TES 3 style Cast-on-Use enchantments.
Scrolls contain a single spell and are consumed on cast. I think you could enchant paper to make one-time-use scrolls in Morrowind, though I never tried it. I know Skyrim can be modded to have scroll-crafting but its not in the base game.
In TES 3 Morrowind, some enchantments were cast-on-strike, which mirrors the ESO and Skyrim weapon enchantments as going off when the player hits an enemy, or constant effect which mirrors ESO and Skyrim armor and jewelry enchantments. However, Morrowind also had the "Cast On Use" class of enchantments, which basically granted you the spell on the item and let you cast that spell from the item for free as long as the item was charged. So if I needed a surefire escape from a bad situation, I'd grab my amulet of Almsivi Intervention, cast that spell from it, and get out of dodge. Furthermore, in Morrowind most wizard's staffs didn't fire spells the way they do in Oblivion and Skyrim, instead they hold powerful Cast-on-Use spells that the wizard can power using the staff instead of their own magicka reserves.
So it seems like scrolls or old-school Cast-on-Use enchantments from TES3 (that were phased out because they were kinda clunky) are the closest thing I can think of in TES lore to what you are talking about.
Morrowind enchtanting: http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Enchant1 -
starkerealm✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭Inhuman003 wrote: »Do Grimoires exist in Elder Scrolls, If so then how?
Yes. Mages do record spells in spellbooks. The first example of this was starting in the final years of the Third Era, though the practice may predate that.
It's actually quite likely that spellbooks have existed for far longer, but simply weren't available to the player. Similarly, there's a mechanical one spell per book limit that is probably entirely a gameplay consideration. (Though, it is possible that a single spell would fill a reasonably sized book.)
Grimoires in The Elder Scrolls do not work like their incarnations in D&D or other systems. A mage does not need to keep their spellbooks around while adventuring, or lose access to their spells. A mage will study and learn a spell, after that they're unlikely to continue referencing it (in fact, the in-game books are consumed after being read.)Inhuman003 wrote: »And can Grimoires work like Staff Weapons?
The short answer is, "no."
In very abstract terms? Sure, a grimoire may be considered a weapon, or a receptacle for a weapon (the spell itself.)
Not as true in ESO, but in The Elder Scrolls, staves normally are usually enchanted to mimic casting a specific spell. So, in the strictest reading, "yes." You could have a grimoire that would teach you to cast the exact same spell as your staff, though it would draw on your Magicka instead of the staff's enchantment.
But, ultimately, they're books. You don't attack people with them, you attack people with the information contained within.1 -
Everything's a weapon if you throw it hard enough ^^starkerealm wrote: »But, ultimately, they're books. You don't attack people with them, you attack people with the information contained within.
In all seriousness though, the question depends on the definition of grimoire. If you consider it to be like a spell book, then no, it's more like a tool rather than a weapon. And as already mentioned, mages in the Elder Scrolls universe don't seem to depend on their spells being recorded in a spell book unless they want to share them with others (see the spell tomes you can buy).
If you think about them as a conduit to cast spells with as you do with a staff, then probably no (regardless of whether you have to actually wield it or just carry it on your body). I don't recall any instances where this was mentioned anywhere in the lore - at least not with books.
Edited by ScattyThePirate on July 4, 2018 10:40AM5