We here at the Imperial Library pride ourselves on hosting everything related to Elder Scrolls lore, whether it is in-game books, cut content, interviews, developer posts, storylines, maps, or anything else.
What’s your favorite item in our collection? Comment by Monday, October 1st to be entered into a drawing for a set of TES character pins or your choice of an Elder Scrolls game from Good Old Games!
Here are a few of our favorite pieces:
I would have to say the first Pocket Guide To The Empire. With its transparently propagandist tone and the critical commentary scribbled in the margins, it's a wonderful bit of world building. It has deservedly been one of the major foundations of the Elder Scrolls universe for two decades.
-Adanorcil, librarian 2006 - 2017
The Great War by Legate Justianus Quintius. Aside from being one of the few books from Skyrim that I have actually read all the way through, it gives tons of details about a really important piece of recent history in Tamriel, though the exact details of the White-Gold Concordat are still unknown (well we know like 3 conditions, but I'm sure there are more).
-Tailin Sero, Assistant Librarian
The first few that come to mind are The Thirty-Six Lessons of Vivec, The Black Arrow, and Surfeit of Thieves.
- B
Nu-Mantia Intercept, Song of Pelinal, Loveletter
- Xui
I really like Zeph's treasury. I've referred to specific blue links for Morrowind dialogue in a lot of online discussion over the past few years. It's an invaluable resource. You can tell a lot of effort was put into it, and it's a great resource.
-Pilaf_The_Defiler, one-time Librarian and Balmora Bandit
The entire Language & Arts section
-Stygies VIII, Assistant Librarian since 2017
It is hard to decide on anything specific. I mainly search for in game books, which I think rarely anyone takes the time to read while playing. You can learn a lot from those, and I don't mean only raising skills! "Immortal Blood" is one of my favourites.
From a lore standpoint, the 36 Sermons are hard to beat. With enough metaphor and doublespeak to give the Tao Te Ching a run for its money, it's a brilliant amalgam of symbolism and hidden meaning.
On the fiction side, I like A Dance in Fire. The tale of Decumus Scotti is an interesting look at some of the finer and more obscure portions of lore. The worm tunnels as rapid public transportation? Brilliant.
At the moment my favorite is probably 'Wabbajack.' It's just so succinct and explains itself so well without saying a whole lot other than 'Wabbajack.'
My favorites are Decumus Scotti's and Barenziah's adventures. In-game fiction is just the best thing. Love me some strangely likeable antiheros. Scotti's bigotted, cowardly, greedy, selfish, yet sometimes brave, selfless and thoughtfull. The body horror ending to "A Dance in Fire" is noteworthy.
On the antihero side, I also love me some "Real Barenziah". She's a flawed, passionate, interesting female character. The whole setup with the official biography existing alongside the "secret" one is brilliant and certainly held my attention when I read both for the first time in Skyrim, even without having any clue who Barenziah was.
Then there's "Palla", a tale worthy of Edgar Allan Poe ...
So many favorites!
I think I'd have to say Trinimac getting eaten and being placed among the daedric pantheon as a result
I'll never forget spending a good 2 hours reading the multi-volume books in Morrowind, "A Dance in Fire" and "Mystery of Talara" especially. Never thought a video game could have actual stories like those.
Also "A Game at Dinner" for the twist at the end.
If we're talking in-game books/notes, "A worn and weathered note", that's easy. An all-time favourite piece, unsurpassed by anything despite the amount of new stuff. 36 Lessons are invaluable, yet to me that peculiar little thingie is one of those bits of lore which really make the world a living substance.
TIL-wise, it's the Obscure Texts section. Again, an invaluable collection of rarer articles which speak about less popular concepts, and the first place I've come to learn about those, as well.