[blockquote][b][url=/profile/Dragonborn2121]Dragonborn2121[/url] said:[/b]

I know that it's not the only meaning of the word, but I can't help but imagine that the Moon Beast is just screaming profanity at the Khajiit in an attempt to get them to turn 'evil' or whatever. It's ridiculous and we've had our chats about whether the Moon Beast is related to Namira or Lorkhan and all that, but it's sorta funny and I can't get it out of my head now. 

But yeah, it's all really fascinating to me as someone with 0% real exposure to Khajiit mythology (I know there's a tonne of new stuff but I'm not exactly up to date on the older stuff). 

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Ha! It's in my head now. Canon! It's quite Star Wars with the light side/dark side thing, only TES'd in that "force" of the lunar lattice is made up of souls. Vastarie is talking about duality and this potential flaw all cats have, and that she doesn't understand Kahjiiti souls. It could be that no matter how good and pure a cat might be, a tiny piece of its AE will go to the Moon Beast. It's just as likely I could be way off base.

I wanted to share this bit of Dragon and Pelinal lore for those who maybe won't play Sunspire, Elsweyr's trial. The premise is that one of the Dragons has convinced the Adepts of Sunspire that he's Alkosh, and commands them as a god - like a kitty Dragon Cult. At the top of the spire is a time wound, said to have been created when Alkosh shouted Pelinal down.

We get to ask the Moon Bishop of the Sunspire more about that:

Moon-Bishop Azin-jo: "This is his temple, walker, but not just any temple. It is built upon holy ground! It was on this summit that Alkosh stood and defended us from the White Snake, Pelinal. There would be no Khajiit left if not for his divine intervention."

PC: "Sounds like a story there."

Azin-jo: "Indeed, walker, indeed! Long ago the White Snake terrorized the lands to the north. His hatred of Elves knew no end and he was so hungry for their blood that he saw Elves where there were only Khajiit. Khajiit were nearly wiped out by his blind rage."

PC: "Pelinal was killing Khajiit?"

Azin-jo: "The White Snake stained the savannah in our blood, but Khajiit are natural climbers. They scaled this peak to escape the madman, but what he lacked in grace he made up for in ferocity. Pelinal wrestled the mountain until he too stood above it."

PC: "And this is where Alkosh stopped him?"

Azin-jo "Hearing Khajiits' prayers, Alkosh descended from the heavens like a shooting star. His battle cry split the sky as he cast the crusader out of Elsweyr and the wound remains as a reminder of the debt we owe. Too few remember that since Riddle'Thar."

We can also ask him about why the Khajiit think of Alkosh as a cat and a Dragon, what that means from their perspective:

PC: "You said he (Alkosh) is the Dragon King of Cats. What's that mean?"

Azin-jo: "He is the First Cat! Winged and Glorious! Radiant as the sun and eternal! It is only fitting Khajiit follow in his footsteps. Khajiit are close cousins to Dragons, you know? Can you not see the resemblance?"

PC: "How are Khajiit related to Dragons?"

Azin-jo: "All the races are children of Nirni, but when Azurah made Khajiit she made us in the image of perfection. Alkosh was swift and graceful, but also great and powerful. And clever. And wise. What else could be all those things but a Cat?"

PC: "But how is a cat a dragon?"

Azin-jo: "Are we not sleek as the Dragon? Do we not have claws as sharp as the dragon? Are our eyes not like those of the Dragon? Azurah was wise to conceal our true nature under silky fur, but we are as near to Dragons as Cats can be!"

I figured that's worth thinking about, even for Skyrim character interpretations.

Ha! It's in my head now. Canon! It's quite Star Wars with the light side/dark side thing, only TES'd in that "force" of the lunar lattice is made up of souls. Vastarie is talking about duality and this potential flaw all cats have, and that she doesn't understand Kahjiiti souls. It could be that no matter how good and pure a cat might be, a tiny piece of its AE will go to the Moon Beast. It's just as likely I could be way off base.

This seems to be the conclusion we reach with just about everything so far doesn't it :P Sure, we could be totally right, but we could also be so off base that we might as well be talking about another universe's Lore. I do like that idea, but as you said it's something that could be entirely off base. 

I wanted to share this bit of Dragon and Pelinal lore for those who maybe won't play Sunspire, Elsweyr's trial. The premise is that one of the Dragons has convinced the Adepts of Sunspire that he's Alkosh, and commands them as a god - like a kitty Dragon Cult. At the top of the spire is a time wound, said to have been created when Alkosh shouted Pelinal down.

We get to ask the Moon Bishop of the Sunspire more about that

The Pelinal stuff fascinates the hell out of me, you've managed to make me at least a passive Pelinal/Alessia fan with all your mini-rants over the year (:P) and it creates a really fascinating idea. I think I briefly mentioned my theory that he met...Okay wait, was this always in Pocket Guide to the Empire, 1st Edition/The Elsweyr Confederacy?

Indeed, Pelinal Whitestrake, Nibenay warlord of the Elven Pogrom, mistook the khajiit for another strain of Aldmeri and killed many of their number before realizing his error.

I have no idea why but I really thought this was completely new information but I guess it's not exactly new...maybe. 

Anyway, the stuff about the Dragon convincing everyone he was Alkosh was neat, I like the idea to some extent but I wonder how that works for the Dragon himself. I feel like the natural power of a Dragon (or the lower divinity of it) would mean that it would have to twist it's existence somehow to believe that. What's his name by the way, could be interesting to know.

[blockquote][b][url=/profile/Dragonborn2121]Dragonborn2121[/url] said:[/b]

Ha! It's in my head now. Canon! It's quite Star Wars with the light side/dark side thing, only TES'd in that "force" of the lunar lattice is made up of souls. Vastarie is talking about duality and this potential flaw all cats have, and that she doesn't understand Kahjiiti souls. It could be that no matter how good and pure a cat might be, a tiny piece of its AE will go to the Moon Beast. It's just as likely I could be way off base.

This seems to be the conclusion we reach with just about everything so far doesn't it :P Sure, we could be totally right, but we could also be so off base that we might as well be talking about another universe's Lore. I do like that idea, but as you said it's something that could be entirely off base. 

I wanted to share this bit of Dragon and Pelinal lore for those who maybe won't play Sunspire, Elsweyr's trial. The premise is that one of the Dragons has convinced the Adepts of Sunspire that he's Alkosh, and commands them as a god - like a kitty Dragon Cult. At the top of the spire is a time wound, said to have been created when Alkosh shouted Pelinal down.

We get to ask the Moon Bishop of the Sunspire more about that

The Pelinal stuff fascinates the hell out of me, you've managed to make me at least a passive Pelinal/Alessia fan with all your mini-rants over the year (:P) and it creates a really fascinating idea. I think I briefly mentioned my theory that he met...Okay wait, was this always in Pocket Guide to the Empire, 1st Edition/The Elsweyr Confederacy?

Indeed, Pelinal Whitestrake, Nibenay warlord of the Elven Pogrom, mistook the khajiit for another strain of Aldmeri and killed many of their number before realizing his error.

I have no idea why but I really thought this was completely new information but I guess it's not exactly new...maybe. 

Anyway, the stuff about the Dragon convincing everyone he was Alkosh was neat, I like the idea to some extent but I wonder how that works for the Dragon himself. I feel like the natural power of a Dragon (or the lower divinity of it) would mean that it would have to twist it's existence somehow to believe that. What's his name by the way, could be interesting to know.

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Passive Pelinal and Alessia fan but full on Morihaus fan, amirite? Best way to be imo xD

None of it's exactly new, but what we're seeing is a huge amount of expansion on a single pragaraph from Varieties of Faith:

Alkosh (Dragon King of Cats):
Pre-ri'Datta Dynasty Anequinine deity. A variation on the Altmeri Auri-El, and thus an Akatosh-as-culture-hero for the earliest Khajiit. His worship was co-opted during the establishment of the Riddle'Thar, and he still enjoys immense popularity in Elsweyr's wasteland regions. He is depicted as a fearsome dragon, a creature the Khajiit say "is just a real big cat." He repelled an early Aldmeri pogrom of Pelinal Whitestrake during mythic times.

The dialogue from Sunspire takes that and runs with it, giving us the Khajiiti point of view on the Pelinal event and expanding upon the "real big cat" thing.

The Dragon's name is Nahviintaas, and all I can reallyv say is that he is doing something to the time-wound but I'm not exactly sure what so can't really address the divinity point you raise. These Dragons all have an ulterior motive, but a lot of the subtext went over my head in the controlled mayhem of the trial.

I'll go back through my screenshots and see if there is anything there I caught...

Not much to go on I'm afraid. I was screencapping like mad lest I hold the entire group up - a definite risk. Everyone was talking about mechanics and sets and boring shit, while I was trying to get a conversation going on the architecture, story, and what the Riddle'Thar's impact was on Khajiit culture and how much of their old ways were lost. You know, the important stuff xD

Moving on a bit, anyone up for looking at some Akaviri lore? The Akaviri in Elsweyr are more pieces of old lore to get fleshed out. The PGE 1Ed talks about the Akaviri very briefly, Elsweyr takes it and runs.

We get to explore Hakoshae, and while there I took a snap of this lady saying something I found interesting:

Have to say, there is something incredibly unsettling about her hair in the final picture...Just doesn't clip well maybe? More importantly, I think the new information about the Akaviri is kind of fascinating, I wasn't aware that they settled in Elsweyr at all so there's that but their beliefs on waterways is pretty interesting. More because it's information on Akaviri culture rather than it being particularly interesting by itself, but it's still a really cool little story/myth.

It took me by surprise a bit, too. They get a mention in PGE's Elsweyr Confederacy chapter but I was pleasantly surprised to see the Akaviri legacy in Northern Elsweyr is pretty massive, and can be seen in the architecture (remember how you said on page one how Rimmen reminded you a bit of the Imperial City?) and as we saw in last night's ESO at E3 showcase, the Dragonguard survived in secret. Thought we could have a little look:

Believe it, Flaminius.

There are twelve of these tablets (iirc) in Dov-Vahl Shrine. I didn't want to post all of them, just a select few to show how goddam cool they are. Full of spirituality and words of wisdom, these tablets give us more of an insight into the culture of the Dragonguard. Of note is the last tablet mentioning the Dragonhorn - these weapons (we saw one in action in last night's trailer) are what the Dragonguard use to bring down Dragons.

There are twelve of these tablets (iirc) in Dov-Vahl Shrine. I didn't want to post all of them, just a select few to show how goddam cool they are. Full of spirituality and words of wisdom, these tablets give us more of an insight into the culture of the Dragonguard. Of note is the last tablet mentioning the Dragonhorn - these weapons (we saw one in action in last night's trailer) are what the Dragonguard use to bring down Dragons.

It absolutely is really cool, actually I sort of want to try a build that fits this now, which is something I very rarely say :P  I mean, a lot of those tablets would just be perfect as quotes through the build to bind the character to a central path. 

But the Burial Rites book is really, really fascinating. I love the concept of them using their armour as a sort of enchanted defence against tomb-raiders, and the concept of the masks they wore is just as fascinating. The idea of the Akaviri dead outnumbering the local Khajiit is interesting as well, it's a fascinating idea of just how many survived and made it to Rimmenite, even if the Khajiit weren't entombing all of their dead in these crypts or something. Just an excellent, small piece of news about the Akaviri.

[blockquote][b][url=/profile/Dragonborn2121]Dragonborn2121[/url] said:[/b]

It absolutely is really cool, actually I sort of want to try a build that fits this now, which is something I very rarely say :P  I mean, a lot of those tablets would just be perfect as quotes through the build to bind the character to a central path. 

But the Burial Rites book is really, really fascinating. I love the concept of them using their armour as a sort of enchanted defence against tomb-raiders, and the concept of the masks they wore is just as fascinating. The idea of the Akaviri dead outnumbering the local Khajiit is interesting as well, it's a fascinating idea of just how many survived and made it to Rimmenite, even if the Khajiit weren't entombing all of their dead in these crypts or something. Just an excellent, small piece of news about the Akaviri.

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Now that is a great idea! The quotes would really shine in terms of a build. I mean, this is all new and exciting. There have been Blades builds and Dragonguard builds before but we've not had much to go on. But like, it's hard to see where Arngeir is coming from when he refers to the Blades as "Akaviri barbarians" when we read a tablet inscribed by those same barbarians which says, "none take spoil, none seek glory when the kin of gods must die, though more beautiful than we."

Do you want me to post the other tablets, or would you prefer to discover them yourself as part of a research quest?

It's important to note that the tombs seem to house Akaviri-descended Imperials rather than the snake-men themselves. Elsweyr is very careful to preserve the ambiguity about whether the Tsaesci had tails and that whole thing. Like that picture of the lady talking about water, the game treats the older sources of PGE and Remenada with respect, showing us Imperials with painted eyes and prized Akaviri surnames as we've read about but not actually showing us a Tsaesci of Akavir. It's all really cool, and so much to explore.

Edit: Any idea what language that is on the tablets? I suck at linguistics.

Oh, on the theme of Akaviri wisdom and spirituality, Clever Kail-Perwa and the Great Boast is a wonderful series.

Now that is a great idea! The quotes would really shine in terms of a build. I mean, this is all new and exciting. There have been Blades builds and Dragonguard builds before but we've not had much to go on. But like, it's hard to see where Arngeir is coming from when he refers to the Blades as "Akaviri barbarians"when we read a tablet inscribed by those same barbarians which says, "none take spoil, none seek glory when the kin of gods must die, though more beautiful than we."

 Do you want me to post the other tablets, or would you prefer to discover them yourself as part of a research quest?

Hah, we'll see if it happens. You know my track record with builds isn't that great, a lot get a bit of work done and then stall in the Workshop for years. At the very least I'll have to wait until Dragonguard...eh or I could pull what Ponty did with the Paladin and update it with new content when Dragonguard comes out...Shit alright, I'm going to at least draft something and leave it in the 'Shop. Because there's so much already that's fascinating to me. 

Probably be great if you could post the other tablets, unless they're already up on The Imperial Library. Like, I'm sure if we broke it down you could probably find some sort of meaning in however the tablets are placed and where they're located within the Shrine, but yeah just can't grab them myself so it'd be great if you could get them. 

It's important to note that the tombs seem to house Akaviri-descended Imperials rather than the snake-men themselves. Elsweyr is very careful to preserve the ambiguity about whether the Tsaesci had tails and that whole thing. Like that picture of the lady talking about water, the game treats the older sources of PGE and Remenada with respect, showing us Imperials with painted eyes and prized Akaviri surnames as we've read about but not actually showing us a Tsaesci of Akavir. It's all really cool, and so much to explore.

It wouldn't be TES if we actually knew anything about the Akaviri races :P I'd just feel terrible if we, you know, saw what they actually looked like. It is interesting though, I really love the concept of them being really vague on it, even the way they seem to have combined parts of Tsaesci and Imperial culture to create something really unique, it's one of the best parts about ESO I think, seeing how each region has it's own culture and how much of a difference there can be. It's something we see parts of in Morrowind/Oblivion (and a teeny bit in Skyrim) with how different, Redoran/Telvanni/Hlallu territory could be, but ESO hits on it a lot harder. 

[blockquote][b][url=/profile/Dragonborn2121]Dragonborn2121[/url] said:[/b]

Hah, we'll see if it happens. You know my track record with builds isn't that great, a lot get a bit of work done and then stall in the Workshop for years. At the very least I'll have to wait until Dragonguard...eh or I could pull what Ponty did with the Paladin and update it with new content when Dragonguard comes out...Shit alright, I'm going to at least draft something and leave it in the 'Shop. Because there's so much already that's fascinating to me. 

Probably be great if you could post the other tablets, unless they're already up on The Imperial Library. Like, I'm sure if we broke it down you could probably find some sort of meaning in however the tablets are placed and where they're located within the Shrine, but yeah just can't grab them myself so it'd be great if you could get them.

It wouldn't be TES if we actually knew anything about the Akaviri races :P I'd just feel terrible if we, you know, saw what they actually looked like. It is interesting though, I really love the concept of them being really vague on it, even the way they seem to have combined parts of Tsaesci and Imperial culture to create something really unique, it's one of the best parts about ESO I think, seeing how each region has it's own culture and how much of a difference there can be. It's something we see parts of in Morrowind/Oblivion (and a teeny bit in Skyrim) with how different, Redoran/Telvanni/Hlallu territory could be, but ESO hits on it a lot harder. 

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Life is too short to wait or worry about eventuality, especially when it comes to creativity. That feeling of building, of following a new idea and all the excitement that brings is more important than the destination. Follow the muse, feel don't think, train the mind for clarity and the soul for victory. Move as the wind, bend lke the river, follow that star no matter how far xD

I'm sure TIL have them but, now you mention meaning of the placements, I'm going to dive back into the shrine and see. Plus, I'm missing one tablet so will grab that shot too. Here's the rest: