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I wouldn't be surprised if a future game made reference to Emperor Mournoth. And my guess is that Bethesda is going take advantage of a great deal of ESO's library. And if they irreconcilably contradict ESO lore without explanation, I imagine it will not be intentional. In other words, ESO lore is unavoidably going to be part of TES lore discussions moving forward. Resisting it is just going to make for many unappealing discussions.

Surprised this hasn't been brought up yet...
Orcs in ESO: Pretty much humans with fangs. And suddenly they're the most nimble of all the races??
Orcs in TES: Big, ugly green-skinned slow-moving brutes with low intelligence but high strength.

Nimble can be pretty subjective.. then again.. I wouldn't go far to say their the best in that attribute<_< Much of what has been an orc in TES never really changed.. or at least the basic characteristics i.e. Strong warriors whom favor heavy armor, smashing skulls, and are forever shunned from ever partaking in a beauty pageant Though to be fair as graphics improve, so too has the overall appearance of orcs.. just look at them in oblivion and skyrim. Be if they may look more like man or mer is debatable.. they kind of stand off in their own little group.. though genetics clearly imply elvish decent. Not to mention the intelligence thing.. warrior based cultures, especially ones that are in a way primitive and brutish.. value other virtues. But I digress

Also back to the nimble bit>_> if you're referring to their swift ability.. it makes sense when you think about it. Strong, full of endurance and stamina.. I mean look at bears, we don't associate them as being very fast but there is no way you'll out run your eminent death >_< something tells me a bosmer would get exhausted from running long before the orc would.. and in a long term situation.. endurance would prove victorious. Though in all fairness.. most orcs carry heavy equipment

Yeah, I'm really not seeing the big issue here with agile Orcs. Agility and Strength go hand in hand. Same with Speed. If Orcs are these big, hearty, rustic people who live at high altitudes and herd wooly centipedes, it makes sense they'd develop a lot of flexibility through herding, mining and protecting their home from invaders. Remember that most Orc warriors double as hunters, because they have to provide meat and hides to their strongholds. Hunters are agile and silent. This does not contradict with their tendency to wear heavy armor or wield big weapons. These are not mutually exclusive skills. A single individual can excel at both types of activities, especially a physically fit specimen.

Mutually exclusive, no. But compensatory, yes. An Orc with high stamina may be able to run very far in relatively heavy armor, a surprise to anyone who didn't know an Orc could have such endurance. But that higher vitality has to compensate for the fact he's wearing that heavy armor— strip him of the metal shirt, and he'd be able to run even faster.

Fleetness of foot + heavy armor = guy moving at medium speed.
Fleetness of foot + light armor = guy moving at high speed.
Average running + light armor = guy moving as medium speed.
Average running + heavy armor = fast as a constipated horker.

I really doubt they go hunting in heavy armor, in lore. That'd just be cumbersome and restrictive. I'd imagine the heavy armor has its place, and that place is war and training for war, but I'll bet most Orc hunters walk around in hides or furs usually. In fact, most Orc NPCs in Skyrim don't wear heavy armor. This is probably just a design choice as many of them are bandits or Hunters, but it gives you a good idea of how you're likely to encounter an Orc in his element. He's probably breaking rocks in a mine shirtless or hunting in the mountain passes wearing deerskin or centipede chitin, if it's in his native land and feels comfortable. When the Bretons and Redguards show up and start ignoring the sovereignty of the Orsimer people in Wrothgar, that's when you start seeing the Orichalc equipment come out.

Please read it next time, I'm kidding.

A question, i have not played eso yet, but the idea of multiple heroes a the same time bothers me, i mean, are all they considered "World changing, owners of their own fate, Scrolls driven beings of mass destructions" (i mean, shezzarines, dragonborns and the likes) or are they considered regular individuals that are lacking souls thanks to molag bal ?

They could be. Keep in mind that the Scrolls show all possible futures, not a certain one. They are all the same person, and not, at the same time.

If the fact that thousands of other people are saving the world at the same time as you bothers you, consider the fact the same is technically true of every single other Elder Scrolls game. It's just you couldn't see them then. Same difference, though.

If you simply must have a lore reason, the game hints at a Dragon Break. There's little things, such as the Soulburst that caused the Planemeld in the first place being Akatosh's power quite literally being broken and corrupted, and little references like Almalexia mentioning the Hurling Disk in her dialogue. The Hurling Disk only appears during a Dragon Break.

I don't know if it's necessarily that, it's just that there are only so many times that a person can channel the Divines and then cut down Molag Bal before it becomes a commonplace story.

So, in future tes games there is the chance that the events of eso will be attributed to one hero due to a dragon break ? (dragon breaks makes things a lot more easier and complicated at the same time, sheogorath would be pleased with this confusion, or not... whatever)

Long story short, we have no idea. ESO gives mixed signals on whether there's one Soulless One from a lore perspective, or an enormous horde. My shot in the dark is the latter, but we'll see.

Well, Mannimarco stole a huge amount of souls. In the opening cinematic you were one in a large chain gang being herded into the Temple of the One. Mannimarco was standing behind a desk, with a pile of black soul gems and a daedric dagger, stabbing people in the chest and sucking out their souls. He almost looked bored, like an office worker. Like this was what he did for most of his life for the past few months and he needed a vacation. Probably was. Anyway, long story short, we know a lot of people escaped Coldharbour during the opening scene. The Prophet opened the portal and you followed him, but earlier on there were dozens of people breaking out. Logically at least a few more got out before the rift was closed.

The thing is, the Vestige goes through a very specific sequence of motions and events. You could make the argument that thousands of soul shriven joined the fight against Bal, but in lore there's only one Vestige. The Vestige is the Nerevarine or Dragonborn of this story. He/She is the Protagonist. You really are meant to be "the chosen one". And yes, on a surface level this is problematic since you see other people doing those quests, but the game wisely chooses to make all the main quest content solo zones. That means, when you're in the Harborage talking to the Five Companions or fighting the big bad bosses, you're always by yourself. This portion of the game is the most like the traditional ES games. You won't see ten other people fighting Molag Bal while you do. That's all you. It hearkens back to Dagoth Ur days. In this regard you are very much a special flower.

I didn't realize that was supposed to be Mannimarco himself in the opening cinematic. Interesting.

Yep (although it doesn't look the Temple of the One and black soul gems haven't been invented yet). It's referred to several times in dialogue that he was your killer,

Those aren't black soul gems? The one in his hand certainly appears to be a similar type of vessel at least. There are entire shelves of obsidian shards similar to black soul gems in certain places in Coldharbour. Perhaps these are some precursor to them? I swear I read a book or two on soul trapping in ESO that mentioned trapping human souls, but I can't recall. It was probably two months ago when I uploaded the majority of the ESO books over at the Imperial Library, so there's no way in hell I remember the titles of the books. I realize there's some lore from Oblivion that suggests the black gems were a recent development since Mannimarco became a god during the Warp in the West, but I suspect that information was mistaken or incomplete. It stands to reason the Ideal Masters and beings like Vile and Bal had such gems manufactured from the Merethic Era on up.


The devs of ESO said your character was killed at the Temple of the One during the Quakecon demo, I believe. They could have (and probably did) mistake the Temple with the Imperial Palace, which Mannimarco would more logically spend his time at, being an adviser to Clivia Tharn and the de facto power behind the throne during the Planemeld.

At the time of ESO, it was still general practice to trap humanoid souls in generic soul gems. This book helps explain things. The soul gem piles in Coldharbour certainly do look pretty dark though.

We can see the Temple of the One in that new Imperial City PvP video from this year's QuakeCon. Didn't bear much resemblance to Mannimarco's dungeon from the opening cinematic, so that idea was possibly scrapped.

Hmm, would that even be possible? It shouldn't be, as that would completely defeat the purpose of black soul gems and the Necromancer's Moon, all things Mannimarco is credited with.

We're led to believe that it used to be possible, and that "black" souls were just made up by the Mages Guild to counteract necromancy. There's even a guy in Kragenmoor who talks about how certain people have different sized souls. This matches ESO's game mechanics, which allows trapping NPC souls.

I guess black soul gems were Mannimarco's way of messing with the guild's hard work, allowing even regulated soul trap spells to be used for necromancy (although the gems are notoriously unstable).

But then, one day, it suddenly stopped becoming possible for anyone, because everyone, just forgot that spell. And Mannimarco wouldn't know a spell to trap anyone's soul anymore, and wouldn't teach it to his followers......seems legit.

Ah, I see. Yes, that's the book, and it does clarify things a bit. So, the original soul trapping spells could trap anyone's souls, therefore circumventing Arkay's Laws. Makes sense there would be more than one version of Soul Trap. After all, there are differences between Detect Life or Protection spells from various games, and what they can and can't do. (Oblivion and Morrowind's version of Detect Life detected Undead as well. Skyrim divides the spells into two distinct types.) I suppose a spell used by master Necromancers like Mannimarco and presumably Dragon Priests and other ancient Liches would be of a more sinister and potent nature than what the local Guild hall teaches.

Still, Mannimarco becomes a literal god who communes with his followers just to make black soul gems, and if Skyrim is any indication, he still does it, or taught them to do it, 200 years after his death. What would be the point if he could just as easily, or more likely easier, teach them the spell to Soul Trap "black" souls? Honestly confused on that. Enchanting was also pretty common place, and none taboo, well before the end of the Second Era, and the Empire(s) even ran/runs on Soul Trapping, but that's another discussion.

Maybe modern soul gems work differently too? There's no perfect explanation given, but I think it's easy enough to roll with.

Hmm, true enough. Now that I think on it, black soul gems, or the gameplay equivalent, are mineable/