Interview with Lawrence Schick and Phrastus on Altmer Culture (2021/2023)

The Eltheriad

A Q&A with Lawrence Schick: Legendary Edition

Back in 2021, I was fortunate enough to be allowed the opportunity to pose a number of lore questions to the venerable Lawrence Schick, former Loremaster of The Elder Scrolls Online. However, further answers and clarifications were offered after the interview was originally posted. In this complete edition, I've added some information to explain the purpose and scope of the Q&A, included additional material and reordered it in a more readable format than the original conversations offered, while maintaining the accuracy of the original.

What was the reason for this Q&A?

The Q&A was conducted to support a lore project known as The Eltheriad. Lawrence kindly agreed to help out where he could by providing his thoughts on the lore and further insight into texts he wrote for the game. It was agreed that this was a purely unofficial Q&A and that none of these answers are absolute truth or intended to constrain future lore in any way.

How was it conducted?

It was split into two parts. The Phrastus Interview was conducted by email. I asked a number of questions which were intended to be rewritten in-character at a later time. Lawrence responded in-character as Phrastus. We initially considered having Lady Cinnabar provide her own answers but time was against us. The rest of the Q&A was held over a number of weeks via Messenger, with questions asked and answered whenever we both had the free time to do so. 

What is the Eltheriad? 

A fan-project to create an illustrated primer on Western Tamrielic religious and cosmogonic beliefs from the early Merethic Era onwards. The intention is to explore the mysteries of the Anuic philosophies of Tamriel since so much of the more esoteric lore to date has focused on Padomaic beliefs. I have been supported in this by many great people over the years and I cannot thank them enough.

How does this differ from the original?

It includes more questions and answers (new ones in bold), a more streamlined layout, further background information and clarification where I felt it was necessary and, finally, a rewrite of the Phrastus Interview in-character. The only thing I have not included is any private conversation not relevant to the Q&A. I hope you find it enjoyable reading!

---

Part I: An Interview with Phrastus of Elinhir 

• Atharaon:

• Loremaster Emeritus, 
  I shall aim for eleven of the most important questions for The Eltheriad chapters since you're clearly a Psijic.

• Lawrence Schick:

• Well, that's very flattering, thank you very much. I'm just one more over-educated game designer, really. I'll do my best to answer your questions, and if I can't be illuminating, perhaps I can at least be entertaining.

  However, my answers will be constrained in two ways. First, I have retired from the role of Loremaster, but that task continues to be ably performed by Leamon Tuttle, Kurt Kuhlmann, Bruce Nesmith, Bill Slavicsek, et al., and I will be careful not to step on their toes or box them into a corner, even in an interview as unofficial as this one. Second, answering lore questions in an authoritative voice from outside the game is just not a thing that's done in The Elder Scrolls—all lore proceeds from in-world sources, and there are no ex cathedra answers from game designers that decide things definitively. So I'll be answering your questions in the voice of a Tamrielic, in this case good old Phrastus of Elinhir.

  Now, let me just don the black-and-gray plaid beret of an Elinhiri scholar, and we can begin!

---

Valoria Vocula is the author of the popular Unexplained Tamriel series.

• Phrastus:

• Hmm. 

• Valoria Vocula:

• While researching my new book, I took an extended sojourn through High Rock. As in other provinces of late, it's become fashionable there to apply the label of "Ayleid" to almost anything of ancient elven origin, regardless of region or period. I noticed that every elven ruin I came across was categorised as an Ayleid structure - even those which predate the Alessian Rebellion. Strangely, not a single ruin was clearly labelled as Aldmeri or Direnni. Are any of these purportedly pre-Alessian Ayleid ruins in High Rock - Enduum, for example - actually mislabelled Direnni ruins? What about those elven ruins that predate the establishment of the Direnni themselves?

• Phrastus:

• The answer, as I understand it, is that High Rock was settled by the Elves only sparsely and in a few specific locations, so while there were specific Altmeri, late Ayleid, and probably even ancient Falmer settlements scattered about, there were never enough Elves to form a broad culture or society. Even during the Direnni Hegemony, they ruled largely through Nedic clients, who became the later Breton nobility. You can find some well-expressed ideas in yet another of my lorebooks, "The Bretons: Mongrels or Paragons?"

• Valoria Vocula:

• You mention the Altmer which leads to my next question: how does one define a High Elf? Tall, lanky, snobbish creatures with pointed ears and forked tongues, yes, but that's not what I mean. Were the Ayleids of Ald-Cyrod really High Elves? What about the Direnni of... High Rock? Presumably you know what they called that province in their time but the name escapes me.

• Phrastus:

• Well, the Ayleids, of course, deliberately left Summerset and went to Cyrodiil to become something other than Altmer, and so they did. Clan Direnni left Summerset and went to High Rock, but they were seeking new geography rather than a new identity, and so they remained an Altmeri clan. As regards an Elvish (not Elven-matters of language are Elvish) name for High Rock, I have never come across a word in any of the Aldmeri languages for the entire region. Best to ask the Direnni, since they once ruled nearly all of it.

• Valoria Vocula:

• As you know, the Arcane University houses the most accurate orrery ever built, a true masterwork of old Dwarven engineering. It is the linchpin of the Cyrodilic Standard Model of Mundus.

  However, on my travels across the continent, I've noted a number of orreries that appear to portray an entirely different celestial arrangement of the heavens. Those of Ayleidic or Sehtian origin I can put down to deficiencies of understanding, but when even the Dwarves left behind a multitude of orreries displaying unknown planetary orbital paths, one can be forgiven for questioning just how accurate the university's orrery really is! I recently crossed paths with a contact who has links with the Psijic Order. He informed me that they possess "lighting globes" made from a large floating globule of water orbited by eight smaller ones in the manner of Mundus. Needless to say, the design of these watery replicas don't reflect the Cyrodilic Standard Model either! If we cannot trust our academics when it comes to the movement of the eight planets, who can we trust?

• Phrastus:

• Ah, that's interesting. I've never been invited to visit Artaeum, and am thus personally unfamiliar with Psijic luminary furnishings, but I would caution against reading too much meaning into decorative details of what are, after all, ornamental objects. The one actual Psijic I had the displeasure to meet wore a mantle embroidered with all manner of astrologica, and I don't think it was meant to be a wearable map of the heavens. However, that said, the different cultures of Tamriel demonstrably have varying ways of rendering the Mundus and its planets, according to their differing mythic understanding of the relationships between the heavenly objects. The planets are actual manifestations of divinity, everyone understands that, but inasmuch as the nature of the divines, and of divinity itself, varies from culture to culture, the symbolic representation of the heavens clearly varies as well. An orrery is nothing but a mortal attempt to represent, in tangible mobile sculpture, the metaphysical relationship between the divine planets—but mortal minds cannot apprehend more than a few implications of the aspects of divinity, and thus an orrery can only represent a limited subset of the few implications we can understand. And that's why, though I'm no mundial astronomer, I still feel completely confident in stating that every mortal orrery ever built gets everything all wrong, or at least only slightly right. If I had pursued cosmographical studies rather than mythohistory, I could probably have straightened out a few of these misconceptions and produced an orrery of my own that would rather better represent the relations of the moons and planets, but such was not to be.

• Valoria Vocula:

• And so the gods hold on to their secrets a little while longer.

  My next question relates to the planets themselves. Imperial dogma states that there are only eight planets, each of which corresponds to one of the eight divines. Other provinces may worship other gods, but they are fundamentally the same deities in local guise. Is it fair to say all Aedric religions share the same understanding of the god-planets, albeit with differing naming conventions? Or might there even be more than eight planets, with each culture choosing to recognise their own select eight?

• Phrastus:

• The answer, I believe, is mostly the former with a little bit of the latter: mythopoeia is real, or "real," so the reality-warping force of cultural belief must be accounted for. In other words, they're all the same planets but not exactly the same divines-and if that doesn't make sense to you, I scarcely know where to start. Where did you say you studied, again?

• Valoria Vocula:

• Oh, here and there... you know how it is! Besides, intellectual titans such as ourselves obviously know all about matters celestial, but we wouldn't want our loyal readers to feel alienated by not having it explained to them in terms even a fool could understand, right? I've heard that the elves of Summerset refer to the planets by their own divine names. If they truly recognise our gods via an elven mirror, can you tell us which names they use for which planets, and why? How do they fit this around the convoluted mythic narratives of their most popular eight gods, like Trinimac or Syrabane?

• Phrastus:

• Altmer of my acquaintance absolutely refer to the planets by the names of the Altmeri gods. To think that some of the Altmeri divines take precedence over others because their origin myths denote them as ascendant mortals or theonarratively transfigured is to apply a simplistic mortal concept of linear time to mythic events, which is a basic undergraduate error. To a devout Altmer, Syrabane is as mythically "present" as Auri-El, and it is not up to mortals to judge their relative prestige or "force-of-existence," a concept for which there is definitely a specific Altmeri term that slips my mind at the moment.

• Valoria Vocula:

• Are these elven gods very old cultural misunderstandings of the true divines, akin to Kyne or Jhunal of the primitive Nordic pantheon, or is it a case of ancestor worship gone mad?

• Phrastus:

• There you go again, using terms like "old" that connote linear time in matters where it simply does not apply. Do not map an artificial grid of similarity across the Tamrielic cultures or you will soon lose your way in confusion. The divines partake of a reality deeper and richer than can be described by mere philology. What matters is the actual worship of the peoples of the various societies of Tamriel, not structural theory: study who the people worship if you want to know which gods are real, and don't be misled by surface similarities.

• Valoria Vocula:

• Let me rephrase then, for surely even the High Elves are aware of the true pantheon. To whom do they offer thanks for the divine gifts of sensual Dibella, wise Julianos or lofty Kynareth? The last, for example, is clearly found in other faiths under the sobriquets of Khenarthi, Kyne and even Tava, whether their respective faithful choose to acknowledge this reality or not. Which deity fulfils the same divine functions for the High Elves?

• Phrastus:

• Kynareth, et al., are all associated with wind, birds, and flight, of course. If you look at Altmeri iconography, one quickly sees that in High Elf religion these aspects of divinity are associated with Auri-El. Does that make Auri-El the Altmeri Kyne? No, don't be silly.

• Valoria Vocula:

• This is all very confusing. Let's try a simpler comparison. One popular High Elven creation myth mentions "Xen," possibly some kind of archaic iteration of Zenithar. Unfortunately, other than the name drop, no further details were provided. I've never even heard a High Elf mention this Xen and you know they will go on for hours if you inquire about their ancestry. Forgive me for slipping into serial literary parlance, but has Zenithar been "retconned" from the Altmeri mythosphere? Does the name crop up among their planetary names at least?

• Phrastus:

• I don't know what your word "rentconed" is supposed to mean, but as I understand it the Altmeri use of "Xen" is simply their spelling of the Bosmeri "Z'en" which they use in discussion with their cousins the Wood Elves, and also the adjective that refers to the divine sub-sphere ruled by that Bosmeri deity. I have never read a definitive tract on which divinities the Aldmeri recognized as planetary Aedra, so I'm unable to answer that authoritatively.

• Valoria Vocula:

• The High Elves are known for their duplicitous tongue and tendency to speak in riddles. For a people who are remarkably convinced that they "descend" from the Aedra, you'd think they'd have some kind of consistent genesis narrative. Instead, they are famous for promoting a multitude of conflicting origin myths for each of their "divine ancestors.” In some, they are mortals who ascend to godhood through great deeds while in others, they are personified aspects of reality itself. I believe the technical term for this bizarre fusion in your field of study is "aldmeretada aggregation." Do they apply the same paradoxical nonsense to Mara and Stendarr?

• Phrastus:

• I am unfamiliar with any mythic narratives that designate Mara or Stendarr as ascendant mortals, though I wouldn't be surprised to find such a heretical belief among, say, the more fanatical Resolutes of Stendarr.

• Valoria Vocula:

• Heretical indeed! How does one separate fact from fiction in their tall tales? Take their hero-god Phynaster as an example. In some tellings, he was a mortal Aldmer or old Ehlnofic spirit raised to divinity in the Mythic Age. In others, he's an et’Ada, perhaps even one of the true pantheon. And in the strangest stories, he's neither elven nor divine! Is there anything to point to the truth behind the myth?

• Phrastus:

• That is scarcely up to me to decide, student! Myths are not either/or matters, they are as they are, in all their variants. Such mess hall arguments are for first-year mythohistory students, or perhaps Lady Cinnabar of Taneth-go put that question to her!

• Valoria Vocula:

• It's funny that you should refer me to Lady Cinnabar when she also recommended I speak to you on such matters. It's genuinely heartwarming to see such scholarly cameradie! She also cautioned me against "offering even an ounce of credibility to the useless utterances of that bloviating Elinhiri windbag," which is why I sought you out and declined to interview the equally well-known mythohistorian Magister Blovius of Elinhir.

  Perhaps you can offer a more definitive answer to the mysteries surrounding Archmage Syrabane, a High Elf who supposedly reached divinity through great feats of magic in the First Era. Strangely, there are historical records from the Merethic Era which refer to a powerful ancestor of the same name. Did the Archmage appropriate the name of an old god to elevate his status? Do the High Elves believe him to be the latest incarnation of a recurring hero-figure throughout history, akin to Ysmir of the Nords or the Yokudan HoonDing? And how does his epithet, the "god-ancestor of magic," connect him to Magnus?

• Phrastus:

• Hmph to your first question. As to your second, some Altmeri texts refer to Syrabane as a sort of protégé of Magnus, a student who became the master when the master "retired," while others refer to him, confusingly, as a "facet" of Magnus. I must admit I'm not quite sure what to make of the latter.

• Valoria Vocula:

• A facet, you say? Might the same be said of Xarxes and his "created" wife Oghma? Do the High Elves worship this Oghma as a goddess or is it simply a myth related to the creation of the Oghma Infinium?

• Phrastus:

• "Simply a myth?" Pardon me while I chuckle into my posset cup over that one. Simply. A myth. Heh heh. Anyway, here philology is actually useful, as "oghma" is a word with many meanings, most of them related; one of them is "a journal, or record." Your assignment is to now read my own treatise on the matter, "The Onus of the Oghma," available wherever fine lorebooks are sold.

Part 2: Q&A with Lawrence

General

• Atharaon:

• What is the difference between Aldmeri and Aldmeric? For example, is The Eltheriad an illustrated primer of Aldmeri or Aldmeric Religion?

• Lawrence Schick:

• Aldmeri describes culture and society, Aldmeric refers to language. It's like the difference between Elven and Elvish.

• Atharaon:

• Would you like me to quote you as Phrastus in the Eltheriad, or not include you so directly? Also, would you mind if I pester you in future once in a while if we hit a stumbling block?

• Lawrence Schick:

• It's okay to say it was me speaking as Phrastus. And you can always send me questions, just, as you know, I might not have time to reply.

Phynaster

• Atharaon:

• Thank you (or Phrastus, if you prefer) immensely for your responses to my questions. It's amazing how beautifully some of them sync up with our own ideas - Syrabane in particular. You've also cleared up our understanding of Xen. I confess I was hoping for a little bit more about Phynaster so we can build around it.

• Lawrence Schick:

• Sorry, on Phynaster, I got nothin'.

• Atharaon:

• That's cool. He's so obscure as it is. Like the other gods, we have the possibility he was also et'Ada, which allows us to go beyond the stories surrounding his Ring. Was there ever any discussion about him when developing Summerset, or any indication if any of the sculptures in game might represent him? We could then try to decode the symbolism.

• Lawrence Schick:

• Some discussion of tying him to the Direnni, I think, but it never went anywhere, as the Direnni ended up pretty peripheral to the story.

• Atharaon:

• So the door is open to him being pretty much anything we wish, I take it? Our thoughts were to provide multiple conflicting stories, with some saying he had been around at Creation and others saying he came along later. The Direnni we had as followers of Phynaster who actually left Summerset due to a prophecy/Phynastic religious edict/fate but whose actions seemed eccentric to the more standard Aldmer.

• Lawrence Schick:

• That sounds fine, pretty much on the money.

• Atharaon:

• We were not sure whether to promote the similarities with Kynareth either. Did that ever get mentioned?

• Lawrence Schick:

• No, for the reason I mentioned -- Auri-El gets all the bird stuff with the Altmer.

• Atharaon:

• Ah. It was mainly the similarities like journeying, the "Phynaster guide our sails" quote in the Sailor's Guide to Sea Elves and so on. Oh, the Direnni bird names too. Peregrine, Swan, Raven, Corvus etc.

• Lawrence Schick:

• You could make an excellent case based on those factoids. Go for it.

• Atharaon:

• Thank you! I believe we'll have at least two voices arguing for and against it. We don't want to pigeonhole either, merely open up the field for ideas. You might notice familiar imagery - the bust that appears above the Aldmer doors and on the ceramic vases in Alinor (guy with a feather or leaf crown?) we ended up using as a basis for Phynaster. Assuming he wasn't Y'ffre!

• Lawrence Schick:

• He wasn't.

• Atharaon:

• Just generic, I guess?

• Lawrence Schick:

• Easier to say who a statue doesn't represent than who it does.

Trinimac

• Atharaon:

• In regards to Trinimac, was there any discussion about his role at all? I admit this one causes no end of problems for us since people argue he's linked to Arkay, or Zenithar, or even three different deities. Did the team ever have a preference of whether he was a singular deity or a tripartite one?

• Lawrence Schick:

• We pretty much felt we'd dealt with him as much as we were going to in Orsinium.

• Atharaon:

• One other question we'd had was regarding the Heart of Transparent Law. We played around with the idea that the mythic symbolism of two Hearts on opposite ends of the continent, one associated with Order and one with... Lorkhan?

  Was there any discussion about the idea it might be the Divine Spark of, say, Trinimac or some other deity?

• :

• No. It was meant to clearly echo the Heart of Lorkhan, but nothing specific beyond that.

  But what we meant is no more important than what you make of it.

• Atharaon:

• Nice! Very kind of you to confirm the echoes.

Arcane Lore

• Atharaon:

• Regarding Phrastus' Exegesis of Merid-Nunda. was there ever a full list of the Nine Coruscations, or was Xero-Lyg invented without background at the time of writing for the purpose of suggesting more were named without actually naming them?

• Lawrence Schick:

• Suggestion.

• Atharaon:

• In terms of the Ayleidoon four elements, does Light correspond to the Altmeri Fire or Aether?

• Lawrence Schick:

• Fire.

Dibella

• Atharaon:

• On Dibella, we're assuming the Altmer don't do Dibella or anything really like her beyond Mara and possibly Y'ffre. Would that be correct?

• Lawrence Schick:

• Yes, but you can assume that the spheres represented by Dibella are nonetheless represented in Altmer society in other ways, clubs, social movements, et al.

Aldmeris

• Atharaon:

• In dealing with Aldmeri history, was there any discussion of whether the Aldmer actually landed on Summerset in the middle Merethic or if they were there all along? If we go with MK's idea that Aldmeris is Tamriel, we're not sure if we should present anachronistic Aldmer ruins in Summerset or even in High Rock, around Adamantia.

• Lawrence Schick:

• Our working theory was that Aldmeris was not continental Tamriel, but there was no reason to be specific and every reason to leave it vague, so that's not addressed by any in-game sources.

• Atharaon:

• But to be clear, it wasn't the whole "smoke and fire" themed realm set in the South, was it? The place expressed in The 36 Lessons, Ysmir the Forefather and the new Khajiiti religious lore? You know, the "opposite of Atmora" idea? Or am I wrong and it is vaguely in that direction?

• Lawrence Schick:

• No, we just ducked the whole mythic origin thing and left it to Bethesda.

• Atharaon:

• That's what I was hoping for. We can have a lot of fun arguing over this in the Eltheriad.

The Aldmer of High Rock and the Adamantine Tower

• Atharaon:

• You were still going with the idea that the Direnni left very early in Aldmeri history though, right? And I doubt you ever settled on if, or when, the Falmer and Dwemer left Summerset?

• Lawrence Schick:

• No, didn't touch the latter.

• Atharaon:

• Based on Phrastus' responses, does he believe the Aldmer became Altmer before the exodus of the Direnni, Ayleids, Velothi and so on? Our working theory was that the name stemmed from the building of the Crystal and White Gold Towers plus subsequent culture shift, so we're just wondering what Phrastus used as a turning point.

• Lawrence Schick:

• I think Phrastus would tell you that you'd better ask a Sapiarch that question, and expect different answers depending on who you ask. Aldmer/Altmer. It's a really fuzzy distinction if you go way back.

• Atharaon:

• We had the problems defining the Direnni, since they appear to have left before the distinction was made.

• Lawrence Schick:

• No, they left after. The Direnni are Altmer.

• Atharaon:

• We were going by the timeline presented in texts like Before the Ages of Man and Subtropical Cyrodiil: A Speculation, wherein the Aldmer rediscovered Ada-Mantia before building Crystal-Like-Law. We were also toying with the idea that House Ravenwatch might be a similarly old Elven house but without the prominence of the Direnni.

• Lawrence Schick:

• All those events are sufficiently far in the past that trying to impose an exact before-and-after timeline on them is probably not feasible. That doesn't mean you can't take a stab at it! That's the nature of TES fandom. But it's also in the nature of TES that you can never ... quite ... be... sure.

• Atharaon:

• The author of Before the Ages of Man, Aicantar of Shimmerene, was reused in ESO as the Sapiarch of Indoctrination. He's our only source for certain historical information that was taken to be fairly standard before ESO was released. Should we take all of Aicantar's written works as irredeemable propaganda, or does he take due consideration for historical accuracy in his scholarly works while exercising his propaganda skills for wartime diatribes?

• Lawrence Schick:

• Sorry, pal, I am absolutely not going to give out levels of reliability on what NPCs have to say! You have to assume that every character has their own agenda based on personality and cultural background.

• Atharaon:

• In Lady Cinnabar's text, Subtropical Cyrodiil: A Speculation, she states the following: "At one of these mystical joint-points the Aedra erected a great structure, the Adamantine Tower, where they held a conclave to decide the fate of Lorkhan and the Mundus. In later times mortal mages discovered the Tower, and deduced its reality-affirming properties. The Merethic Elves then imitated it, erecting the White-Gold and Crystal Towers at other joint-points." Is Lady Cinnabar referring here to the tale of the Direnni rediscovering the Adamantine Tower and bringing their newfound knowledge back to the Aldmer of Summerset?

• Lawrence Schick:

• Yes. I wrote that book, after all.

• Atharaon:

• We hit a timeline snag with Topal the Pilot taking orders from Crystal Tower, but the Direnni having beat him to Iliac Bay to find Balfiera, even having magisters there, but not properly colonising it till the First Era. We solved it (sorta) by suggesting the Direnni, following that whole Phynaster "destiny" plot you guys considered including, reached Balfiera not via normal sailing but by magically sailing and reaching it like that, so technically they don't chart the Bay. Would that sound reasonable or was it meant to be that Direnni Cygnus just sailed there before Topal?

• Lawrence Schick:

• Sorry, Topal is a Franchise Mystery and not to be demystified!

• Atharaon:

• Could the Direnni colonists have stuck to the mainland of High Rock throughout the Merethic Era with only priests and magisters living on Balfiera until the First Era, when the clan properly occupied and fortified the island in advance of an Alessian invasion?

• Lawrence Schick:

• I can't think of any reason to contradict it.

• Atharaon:

• Who wrote the text "Tower of Adamant"?

• Lawrence Schick:

• Me.

• Atharaon:

• I'm drawing up concepts for the Adamantine Tower and this one bit seemed to go against what we'd spoken of previously:
  The Direnni High Elves have ruled Balfiera since the beginning of the First Era. In common parlance the tower bears their name, though they can claim only the construction of the more recent keep that clusters around the tower's base. (Who is responsible for delving the catacombs beneath the keep is a matter of debate with no definitive consensus.) Does this mean the Direnni didn't occupy the island until the First Era despite discovering it in the Middle Merethic, or that they didn't build around it until the First Era, or that someone else was there before them? It would help me to know what architectural style to use.

• Lawrence Schick:

• It means the author, a Nord visitor, got only partial information.

• Atharaon:

• So do you think it's likely that the Nord has perhaps misheard then about Direnni only arriving in the First Era? Is it reasonable to suggest that in order of "layers" of architecture we have the Aedric core, followed by Aldmeri architecture (I'm assuming that's why it looks like WGT in ESO), followed by First Era Direnni architecture? And the catacombs, were they a reference to the general weirdness of Ada-Mantia and the spread of divine power, or a suggestion that other races may have once inhabited the island? I'm thinking if the former, it might be fun to tie them into the mystic joint lines connecting reality.

• Lawrence:

• The Nord doesn't have a clear grasp of the difference between First Era and before, and he's completely speculating about what's beneath the tower. "Once" is a better indicator.

• Atharaon:

• Are you the writer behind Telenger the Artificer?

• Lawrence Schick:

• I was the original inventor of Telenger the Artificer, but other writers added to him and he became one of the team's stock characters.

• Atharaon:

• You wrote "Once" too, right? Did you intend for Direnni Cygnus to be an actual person or could it be the name of a ship?

• Lawrence Schick:

• Cygnus Direnni was a person. Sometimes ships are named after people.

• Atharaon:

• Did you imagine Direnni Cygnus returned to Summerset with knowledge of the Adamantine Tower or did you see her remaining on Balfiera and having a family there?

• Lawrence Schick:

• Honestly, I never thought about her beyond the purposes of her lorebook appearance.

• Atharaon:

• Was there any source you used as an influence, or was it just a name for the sake of having one for the person discovering the tower?

• Lawrence Schick:

• No source beyond a loose general feel for the Direnni mages, who all seem to be distinctive and eccentric.

• Atharaon:

• Can you tell me then if you intended her to be the very first elf on Balfiera, way back in the middle Merethic, or might there have been other elves there before her?

• Lawrence Schick:

• I think there were others before her - it's all deep in the mists of time.

• Atharaon:

• When she decrees that all who follow her will bear her name, how is this related to the tale of the Direnni taking their name from the Diren river? Who is she dictating will take her name?

• Lawrence Schick:

• Wow, I don't remember! She may have just been trying to imprint her name on the clan's descendants. The Direnni were pretty egotistical, even for Altmer.

• Atharaon:

• So it's possible she may not have predated Asliel at all then, or even been among the mortal mages who first reported back to Alinor that the tower was there?

• Lawrence Schick:

• I don't know of any source that speaks to that.

• Atharaon:

• Were you involved in the Direnni Acropolis questline at all?

• Lawrence Schick:

• No, not really.

• Atharaon:

• Could she be regarded as the dynastic founder then or does that lie with Asliel or another yet unknown mer?

• Lawrence Schick:

• Wow, I don't remember ever wondering who was the ur-Direnni. I got nothing.

• Atharaon:

• In the case of the mer who "took her name" upon colonising High Rock, presumably not all were of Clan Direnni?

• Lawrence Schick:

• High Rock definitely had non-Direnni settlers.

The Nedes of High Rock

• Atharaon:

• When the Nedes arrived in High Rock, was it an immediate clash of cultures with the elven inhabitants, or do you envisage more of a diverse reaction dependent on elven city-state/clan?

• Lawrence Schick:

• I see it as a gradual event, with a variety of reactions and outcomes.

• Atharaon:

• So from roughly ME 1000 - 800 onwards, as suggested in Frontier, Conquest and Accomodation?

• Lawrence Schick:

• Yep.

• Atharaon:

• Would you see them coming over sea to Wrothgar from Atmora, or via land over the mountains from elsewhere in Tamriel i.e. a Tamrielic genesis?

• Lawrence Schick:

• I think the Nedes are broadly considered to have come to Tamriel from elsewhere.

Ayleids in High Rock

• Atharaon:

• Can we finally agree the "Dawn Era Ayleids" of Enduum were actually victims of ESO's early error of conflating the Aldmer with the Ayleids, and so it's actually an Aldmeri ruin?

• Lawrence Schick:

• No; the Ayleid Diaspora sent several clans northwest into what would later become High Rock.

• Atharaon:

• In the Dawn Era?

• Lawrence Schick:

• "Dawn Era" is the error.

• Atharaon:

• So in the actual timeline, would it be early First Era?

• Lawrence Schick:

• Right.

• Atharaon:

• So, assuming it was built after 1E 243 as an Ayleid Diaspora site, it was then co-opted by the Direnni c. 355 to 500ish, and that's generally the case with the Ayleidoon sites across High Rock? I assume any previous Aldmer or Altmer sites are now ruined completely or lost?

• Lawrence Schick:

• Some co-opted, some left strictly alone for reasons later forgotten.

• Atharaon:

• And none of the Ayleidoon sites in the game are from the Merethic Era, unless they are co-opted Aldmer/Altmer/pre-Hegemony Direnni ruins, right?

• Lawrence Schick:

• IIRC.

Miscellaneous Questions

• Atharaon:

• The lead of the Skyrim mod project, Alinor. The Eternal Paradise, has requested that I ask you the following two questions:

  1. Alchemy (the character who transitions when she joins the House of Reveries) - is this a case of presenting herself as female without changing anatomy or an actual magical transition to become fully female? I personally favour the latter but it seems the former view prevails?

  2. How does the Helm of Rilis work (Sorondil was a bastard so couldn't wear the helm)? Does pureblood mean that the wearer's parents had to have been married? Does it mean the blood had to come from a certain member of the family?

• Lawrence Schick:

• Alchemy of the House of Reveries: her exact background and transition are ambiguous (deliberately so, as always) so players can draw their own conclusions. The Helm of Rilis, to those of Clan Rilis, seems to be a mystical relic that can be used to confirm or disavow the legitimacy of those who attempt to wear it; to those outside the kin, it looks more like a self-inflicted family curse that those of the Rilis bloodline just can't shake.

Conclusion

• Atharaon:

• Are you happy for us to go ahead as is with your interview answers incorporated into it in an apocryphal fashion?

• Lawrence Schick:

• You may proceed with my previous responses!

• Atharaon:

• With all that confirmed, I am happy to finally free you from your jail cell!

• Lawrence Schick:

• Choke, gasp, AT LAST!

• Atharaon:

• Thanks so much for all your help, you've been grand and you're gonna get a special thanks. I do hope you'll read the finished product or at least look at the pretty pictures!

• Lawrence Schick:

• The most important thing I want to say is that you and your design group don't need the endorsement or validation from a loremaster, current or emeritus, to add to the lore of the Elder Scrolls. As long as you do your homework (and you do), and follow the rule of subjectivity, anything you decide to articulate is legitimate and within the Elder Scrolls approach to mythohistory, which embraces contributions from all different points of view. Canon is a figment; in the Elder Scrolls, if it seems right, it is right.