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Game Informer wrote:All the organization in the world can't hold back Murphy's Law, but sometimes companies find a playful way to deal with narrative discrepancies. "One of the main things we've always done with the Elder Scrolls is to maintain deniability" explains Kurt Kuhlman, a senior game designer at Bethesda Softworks. "As long as the lore is presented from the point of view of someone within the fictional world, it's okay for someone else from within the world to have a different point of view. As soon as we step outside the game and say 'This is actually true.' it's much harder to reconcile any contradictions."

A classic example of this in the Elder Scrolls lore is referred to as "The Dragon Break." During development of Morrowind, the writers at Bethesda noticed a gap in their timeline. Nothing happened historically over a period of over 1,000 years. Details of the world's history jumped from the year 1190 to the year 2260, when the later date likely should have been 1260. The gap was likely a result of a typo that happened when someone input dates on Bethesda's internal timeline. But before the typo was discovered, the game's fiction had already expanded past the point of making a simple fix. Events and details taking place after 2260 had already been established, so altering the world's chronology would have been a massive headache. The solution? Maintain deniability

"One of the designers decided to jump on that and started writing about the Dragon Break - an event where a group of religious fanatics actually 'broke time' through some esoteric ritual," Kuhlman explains. "I responded with another in-game book, The Dragon Break Reconsidered, which explained away the lost 1,200 years as a simple error in interpreting ancient records." Which of these explanations is true Elder Scrolls lore? Bethesda has never officially specified, and likely never will.

Dlarsh wrote:I find it interesting to note that these have (to date, at least) always occured when new gods/god like beings are created (or in the case of the Dwemer, almost created). Is it an attempt by the Gods to prevent others from joining their ranks? Or perhaps simply a natural reaction of the world/universe caused by an immense influx of power into one point?

Unfortunately, according to the quote from Bethesda, we will likely never know (beyond the obvious "they were covering their butts" of course ).

kertaw48 wrote:Erm... The thing with the Dwemer is a theorized dragonbreak... There is no acctual reffrence for the dissapperance of Dwarves to be a dragonbreak (only the book "Where were you...")

The two dragon breaks that are recognized as such are:
1) "Maruhkati Selective" dragonbreak - Where Were You When the Dragon Broke?
2) "Miracle of Peace" dragonbreak - The Warp in the West

There is a book on each one that descibes it best...

These are our best source for a disscusion on dragonbreaks...

mptrj wrote:When the Champion of Cyrodiil undergoes apotheosis in the Shivering Isles, there isn't a Dragon Break...

r wrote:

mptrj wrote:When the Champion of Cyrodiil undergoes apotheosis in the Shivering Isles, there isn't a Dragon Break...

Yes, but that's outside of Mundus, outside Akatosh's sphere of influence, and New Sheogorath loses all of his godly powers when he returns to Mundus.

At the top of this page, mptrj wrote:The Dragon Breaks are extremely interesting and controversial events in TES lore. The 1st Era Dragon Break that results in the disappearance of the Dwemer, the Warp in the West that results in dozens of kingdoms around the Iliac Bay becoming four when Talos and Mannimarco undergo apotheosis, the first activation of Numidium, and the Tribunal tapping into the power of the Heart of Lorkhan are all of the known Dragon Breaks.

kertaw48 wrote:Tribunal tapping into the power of the Heart of Lorkhan?
How is that a dragonbreak?

kertaw48 wrote: So who did notice the 10th?