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TES 25th Anniversary Discussion - Favourite Book

Tags: #TES25 
  • Member
    March 27, 2019

    To celebrate the 25th anniversary of The Elder Scrolls, the Lore Group would like to know what is your favourite book from any TES game? It can be a single story or a series of volumes - there are thousands of in-game books to be read and enjoyed.

    Maybe you like fiction and can't get enough of that Brave Little Scrib?

    Perhaps you enjoy religion and metaphysics and find yourself engrossed in the Songs of Return?

    Or possibly you're really into the plays and scripts such as A Hypothetical Treachery?

    So which is your Elder Scrolls desert island book and why? :)

  • March 28, 2019

    Damn, seems like I'm going to have to answer in-game and can't use my current favourites of The Trial of Vivec and What My Beloved Taught Me, cause I'm sort of on that Vivec run at the moment. The Battle of Red Mountain and Nerevar at Red Mountain are both fascinating reads as well, but not my favourites. 

    But hmm, tough to say, I have a real fondness for The Story of Aevar Stone-Singer and Where Were You When the Dragon Broke. They might be two of my favourites for different reasons, with the latter being a pretty awesome Lore book (and I have a strong interest in the Dragon Breaks) with the former being interesting as a story within the TES Universe.

    But I might have more if I thought for longer, these are just the ones that are at the forefront of my mind at the moment. 

  • March 28, 2019

    Doors of Oblivion is always good. Palla. And Mara’s Tear. I owe Paws for pointing that one out, since I didn’t play Daggerfall. 

  • March 29, 2019

    Doors of Oblivion is always good. Palla. And Mara’s Tear. I owe Paws for pointing that one out, since I didn’t play Daggerfall.

    Awww, Mara's Tear kinda touches you in the heart (in the way that wouldn't kill you). It's interesting but to me it really feels like an in-universe story written up by somebody who probably wasn't a writer or that great at telling stories, it has that sort of 'normal' vibe to it rather than feeling like a professional writer has gone at it (if that makes sense). Nice read though so thanks for mentioning it Ilani :D 

  • Member
    March 29, 2019

    Dragonborn2021 said:

    Damn, seems like I'm going to have to answer in-game and can't use my current favourites of The Trial of Vivec and What My Beloved Taught Me, cause I'm sort of on that Vivec run at the moment. The Battle of Red Mountain and Nerevar at Red Mountain are both fascinating reads as well, but not my favourites. 

    But hmm, tough to say, I have a real fondness for The Story of Aevar Stone-Singer and Where Were You When the Dragon Broke. They might be two of my favourites for different reasons, with the latter being a pretty awesome Lore book (and I have a strong interest in the Dragon Breaks) with the former being interesting as a story within the TES Universe.

    But I might have more if I thought for longer, these are just the ones that are at the forefront of my mind at the moment. 

    Solid choices Deebs! Aevar Stone-Singer in particular chimes with me, I think there a lot similarities in that story with the Dragonborn dlc quest. Like almost exactly the same in places that surely can't be a coincidence or I'm a mudcrab! I wish What my Beloved was an in-game book :D "Or does his lordship want it Saliache, weeping and weak-kneed with their lisp, their lilt, as I can do that, too" is just a great sentence!

    ilanisilver said:

    Doors of Oblivion is always good. Palla. And Mara’s Tear. I owe Paws for pointing that one out, since I didn’t play Daggerfall. 

    Doors of Oblivion was a huge influence on a build, profile and story, right? Damn good book, too. I only recently discovered that the Racial Motifs books from ESO's base game (starting with High Elves) continue the story of those characters. Or at least provide a bit more backstory.

    Dragonborn2021 said:

    Doors of Oblivion is always good. Palla. And Mara’s Tear. I owe Paws for pointing that one out, since I didn’t play Daggerfall.

    Awww, Mara's Tear kinda touches you in the heart (in the way that wouldn't kill you). It's interesting but to me it really feels like an in-universe story written up by somebody who probably wasn't a writer or that great at telling stories, it has that sort of 'normal' vibe to it rather than feeling like a professional writer has gone at it (if that makes sense). Nice read though so thanks for mentioning it Ilani :D 

    I like Mara's Tear! It's like a parable in tone and sort of has an old-school feeling of infinite possibility we don't see much of these days. I mean, the modern books are arguably a bit more familiar and limited as the setting has become more defined over the years, so these older texts are refreshing in that they give us legends and ideas of things happening which we don't normally see, in this case divine intervention. That said, The Book of Love quest in Skyrim has a bit of Mara's Tear in it, I feel, where at the end we see the old ghosts get lifted to Aetherius. The book is also interesting in a metaphysical way in that it makes us ask what is actually going on there. If we took it seriously, did Mara turn them into stars? Or are stars holes in Oblivion to Aetherius? In which case, is the book saying she lifted them to heaven and that passage created two more holes? In either case it's a fun question. The tone of the book strongly reminded me of Ilani's approach to lore in her History of the Companions short, so it's wonderful to see that listed :)

  • March 29, 2019
    Yes! Mara’s Tear is more like a storybook than a textbook, so it was the one for me. And it gave me confidence to enter that story in TIL’s contest. I don’t do lore, so it was nice to see other folk tales out there.
  • March 29, 2019
    Yes! Mara’s Tear is more like a storybook than a textbook, so it was the one for me. And it gave me confidence to enter that story in TIL’s contest. I don’t do lore, so it was nice to see other folk tales out there.

    That's fair, I'm more of a fan of the Lore-Heavy books that are on the weirder side (especially some of the OOG books because they can get crazy) but storybooks are a close second for me, or really anything that's written in-universe fully.  Alduin is real and He Ent Akatosh is amazing, and utterly hilarious because it's just...damn funny :D

  • March 29, 2019
    Omg i forgot about that one! It’s so funny. I love it. I found it first time in Jorrvaskr and thought that strangely appropriate, given their adorably simple approach to most everything.
  • Member
    March 30, 2019

    I find this question hard to answer since I remember so few of the books that I've read in TES games (they are all also very short and so would be horrible to have as my only source of entertainment), the first two to come to mind are very... in character for me... volumes VI and IX of the 16 Accords of Madness, back when I first read them I was amused by Sheo's ability to best Hircine and Vermina by pretty much doing nothing.

  • March 30, 2019

    Solid choices Deebs! Aevar Stone-Singer in particular chimes with me, I think there a lot similarities in that story with the Dragonborn dlc quest. Like almost exactly the same in places that surely can't be a coincidence or I'm a mudcrab! I wish What my Beloved was an in-game book :D "Or does his lordship want it Saliache, weeping and weak-kneed with their lisp, their lilt, as I can do that, too" is just a great sentence!

    Yeah, I kept meaning to start a build based on the story following the story awhile back but just never got around to it and barely play Skyrim at the moment. But yeah definitely inspired parts of Dragonborn in my opinion, or even the core focus of those early quests 'cleansing the stones' and all that. I think it was a relatively easy connection to make so they decided to go ahead and insert a little Aevar into the mix. 

    Heh, I'd be kind of fascinated in how they'd work What My Beloved... into the game, because it's most certainly one of those books that the Tribunal Temple would attempt to push behind closed doors so to speak, and maybe something Vivec (the God) would want to keep on the down low. Hard to tell with him but the Temple would certainly try and cover it up, just to cement the Noble, Heoric visage of the Three. But it'd be fascinating, so I couldn't complain :D