Information About The Imperial Library

Welcome to The Imperial Library, the single largest and most detailed online source of Bethesda Softwork's The Elder Scrolls lore. Its shelves feature all official texts from the Elder Scrolls games, information gathered from interviews with game developers and articles by some of the most respected scholars in the lore community. There is also a very detailed Timeline that details all the main (and not so main) events that have occured during the World's vast history. Put simply, almost any piece of Elder Scrolls knowledge released can be found here. When this site was first started, it was known as Xanathar's Library.

Of course, all this can be quite overwhelming, so where should you start? The Pocket Guide to the Empire is an easy to read introduction to almost all aspects of Tamriel, since it gives an introduction to each province. It's probably worth noting that not only is it biased, it's rather old, and therefore not everything presented is still accurate. If you don't mind spoilers, then the Timeline gives a very detailed account of all currently known events ranging from the Creation of the World of Nirn up until the end of Morrowind. However, for interesting pieces of information on pretty much any topic, you can't go past the in-game books from Morrowind and Daggerfall. Of course, feel free to wander these halls - you never know what you might find.

All that is interesting, but what exactly are the Elder Scrolls? This rather apt description can be found in the FAQ on The Official Forums:

Content Adders/Editors

Adanorcil

Leuven, Belgium

He fell in love with the Elder Scrolls series in 2003, playing Morrowind for months on end. Not much later, he joined the official forums, where he witnessed the halcyon days of lore discussion. He wrote a couple of articles for the Scholars Guild, hung around a lot on the forums and in the Imperial Library chat (and stil does) and was asked to join the Library in July 2006. Apart from Morrowind and its expansions, he has also played Arena and Oblivion and is familiar with the content of all other games in the series, save for the mobile phone games. He is also an passionate user of Morrowind and Oblivion's Construction Sets, though the surplus of ideas in his head sometimes prevent him from finishing a mod project.

He was born in 1988 in the northern part of the country, Flanders, where the people speak Dutch (or Flemish, rather). He is a student in Leuven, Flander's most famous university city, where he studies English and Dutch. Living in the bilingual state that Belgium is, he speaks Dutch (native language) and French (second language) and speaks English and German quite fluently. (To the point where he sometimes thinks in English, which is quite annoying.) He believes he has no clear-cut hobbies, though he indulges in reading or a good movie, and is a fan of beautiful gardens, though he probably could not be bothered to make one of his own.

B

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

In 1994, while at college, he purchased a little known game called Arena. He and his friends were sucked in almost instantaneously. Several years later, Daggerfall was added to B's collection, and he started to become interested in The Elder Scrolls Lore. Even though he hasn't played Battlespire and Redguard, B is familiar with the storylines and the lore contained within. After joining the Official Forums and purchasing Morrowind, B became an active member of the ES community. A short while later, he joined with Raptormeat, GhanBuriGhan, Striker, and Salohcin to create an ingame publication called the Modern Adventurer. In July 2003, B was asked to join The Imperial Library.

In real life, B is known as Brian. He is 34 and works to educate the future scholars of our planet.

Lorus

Seattle, Washington

She first discovered the Elder Scrolls with Morrowind in 2004, loving its well-developed history, culture, and storyline. Since, she has sadly only played Oblivion and very small amount of Arena. Being quite the nerd, she really loves the idea of video games with books, some of her favorite lore-writings being “2920: The Last Year of the First Era” and “The Aldudaggavelashingas”. Lorus greatly enjoys discussing the lore and letting her imagination run rampant in Nirn. She became an Imperial Librarian in October 2006.

Currently, Lorus is 19 and a freshman at the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington, where she is majoring in anthropology. People in her real life generally call her Jennifer or even Dusty if they feel like it.

Proweler

Netherlands

Proweler got into Morrowind at the same time as everybody else, around 2002 and fell in love with it reading the previews that spoke of a "completely handcrafted world". He didn't actually get into Lore until a few years later when the expansions came out and it all started to make a bit more sense. He was inducted into the Imperial Library's Staff in September 2007.

Xan

Jakarta, Indonesia

Xan, also known as Xanathar, can speak English and Bahasa. His real name is Enrico Suhartanto. He works as an IT admin for a local company. As of 2006, he is 35 years old.

Xan has finished Arena, Daggerfall, Morrowind (and its two expansions) and Shadowkey. He has played Battlespire and Redguard but has never finished either due to various reasons. At the time Daggerfall was released, there were no websites dealing with the vast lore Bethesda Softworks had established. He felt that a website was needed to store the lore, which is why Xanathar's Library was created in 1998. The Library, at that time, consisted of two main sections: a The Elder Scrolls section and a Dragonlance section. In 1999, Xan got married and a year later his daughter was born. Real life became hectic soon after that point. Having no choice, and hating to see the library die, he gave the control of the Library to Qwerty. Xan came back in 2002 and the Library was renamed to The Imperial Library. It became a website fully dedicated to The Elder Scrolls lore. In 2005, his second daughter was born.

Programmers/Technical Advisors

Attrebus

Adelaide, Australia

The first Elder Scrolls game he played was Daggerfall back when it was released, and he's been hooked ever since. Attrebus has finished the main quest in Daggerfall, Morrowind, Tribunal and Bloodmoon, and has also completed Battlespire and Redguard. Thanks to Bethesda, he's currently working on the main quest in Arena. A frequent visitor to both Xanathar's Library and the Unofficial Elder Scrolls pages, he discovered the vast amounts of detail in the lore, which started his obsession. A little while before Morrowind was released, he took over control of Destination: Morrowind from kathode and still updates it with news. He has also worked on the Modern Adventurer in-game publication along with Raptormeat, B, GhanBuriGhan and Salohcin and was asked to join The Imperial Library in late 2004.

In real life, Attrebus is known as Stewart and is currently employed as a computer programmer.

Honorary Members

Qwerty

Potomac, Maryland

Qwerty's real name is Vsevolod (Seva for short) Alekseyev (Âñåâîëîä Àëåêñååâ). He was born in Moscow, Russia in 1976, which makes him 30 as of July 2006. He became familiar with the Elder Scrolls series over there in Russia, mainly due a magazine article that mentioned that tavern rooms in Daggerfall sometimes had prostitutes. The prostitutes turned out to be an empty promise, but Qwerty already got hooked on the game. In 1997, he found out about The Essential Site (then Andel Crodo's Daggerfall Fashion Gallery) and became rather active in the community. In 1998, right after graduation, Qwerty moved to the United States, by pure accident settling in the very town where Bethesda Softworks was headquartered. Because of emigration-related stresses, Qwerty completely missed on Battlespire; to date, he still has to see it as much as running. However, he bought and beat Arena and (as soon as it came out) Redguard. And, of course, Morrowind.

For some time, Qwerty used to be the only webmaster of The Imperial (then Xanathar's) Library. Then, Xan came back and there was a baby born in Qwerty's family. Due to the family-related duties, he does very little actual site work now, and has yet to best Tribunal and Bloodmoon. As far as webmastering goes, Qwerty's forte is scripting and server-side programming. He cannot draw to save his life, and sucks profoundly when it comes to things visual and pretty. Might have something to do with the fact that he's a geeky programmer in real life.

Other than English, Qwerty speaks Russian, understands (more or less) other Slavic languages and can read Japanese.

Raptormeat

Rockville, Maryland

He is known as Brendan in real life and hails from upstate New York where he has spent most of his life. His first introduction to the Elder Scrolls was through a friend, who turned him on to murderous rampages through the streets of Daggerfall while being persued by "HALT!"-ing guards (A pastime which, alas, has yet to be duplicated). As time went on and development on Morrowind began, he developed his website Aldrien's Chalice in honor of other classic Elder Scrolls sites. He also was fortunate enough to work on the Modern Adventurer with fellow librarians B and Striker, as well as GhanBuriGhan and Salohcin. He became a TIL Librarian in September 2002.

After graduating from college, Raptormeat became a programmer at Bethesda.

Zeph

Dortmund, Germany

In real life, Zeph is known as Carsten Flaake and works as a library assistant at a city and state library in Germany. His other 'fields of research' include the life and works of H. P. Lovecraft, orientalism, ethnology and the science of religion.

Former Members

Sinder Velvin

Staff Member from 2004 to 2006.

Sinder lives in Romania. He's 25 years old and works as a photographer in real life. He loves reading comic books, especially Sin City ones, and his favorite musical band is Radiohead. The only two video games he likes more than TES 3: Morrowind are Heroes of Might And Magic 3 and Planescape: Torment. He loves the Planescape campaign setting for Dungeons And Dragons. His favorite movie of all times is Shichinin No Samurai (Seven Samurai).

As for his experience with the The Elder Scrolls series, he's finished all the games expect Dawnstar, Stormhold and Shadowkey. After he wrote several articles for the Imperial Library back in late 2004, he was asked to join the Imperial Library. His departure occurred in 2006.