I’m a big lore buff, especially when it comes to RPGs. I spend a frightening amount of time scrolling wiki pages, absorbing every inconsequential connection between the various parts of the narrative apparatus of any given RPG. Once, on a childhood family holiday in Portugal, I paid to use a resort computer for the sole purpose of taking notes on Dragon Age: Origins lore. I wasn’t soaking in the sun or playing in the pool, instead I was knee-deep in the history of elven-human relations.

I’m the kind of person who reads every book in Elder Scrolls games cover to cover, even if I can’t always understand exactly what I’m reading. The Elder Scrolls is especially fascinating because there are many overlapping cosmic elements to consider. There are multiple planes of existence, alternate timelines, and a general sense of abstract weirdness.

It’s interesting that despite the mega-popularity of 2011’s Skyrim, I’d guess that the vast majority of people who have played that game don’t understand what a Dragonbreak is, despite this “temporal phenomenon” underlining the main quest line. After all, why would you listen to Paarthurnax drone on when there’s Draugr to stealth archer, or Falmer to immolate?

A Student Of The Game

For those unaware, the concept of the ‘Dragonbreak’ was created to account for the multiple endings of TES 2: Daggerfall. To explain how multiple distinct endings could exist in the same timeline, the Dragonbreak mechanism was created. It’s the convergence of multiple timelines, everything that could have happened at the end of Daggerfall did happen, and now the timeline has been unified into something that sort of makes sense, with a couple of ‘glitches’ in history. There are conflicting historical accounts, but none of them are more or less true than the others. It’s a clever little plot device that furthers the sort of surreal lore of the Elder Scrolls.

The inaccessibility of the lore is actually a positive aspect of the Elder Scrolls, there’s a mountain of lore for those looking for it, but the people you interact with aren’t going to provide excessive exposition. Most of these characters aren’t concerned with the cosmos, and probably couldn’t comprehend the temporal mischief that befell Nirn, anyway.

I’m not the only person intensely interested in Elder Scrolls lore. There’s a dedicated subreddit where knowledgeable folks hold hearty discussions on the material. Then there’s the Imperial Library, a dedicated repository of Elder Scrolls lore, including every in-game document, and even relevant material that doesn’t appear in the series, like forum posts from ex-Bethesda writer Michael Kirkbride.

So, you have an informed community group that engages in debate and access to a central information hub and third-party experts. It sounds a lot like a university, doesn’t it? It’s the only series I’ve seen people regularly post well-constructed essays arguing a certain point about the lore. Usually, in games, everything in the narrative is so well-established that there is little room for interpretation. There’s nothing to discuss when the developer has provided all the answers. It takes a talented writer to leave enough ‘wiggle room’ in the lore to allow informed discussion to take root.

Take this discussion that popped up on the subreddit last year regarding the existence of CHIM, a metaphysical state of unlimited creation. Our original poster proposes a theory that Vivec, the god-king of Morrowind, invented the concept of CHIM to maintain his deifical status after the destruction of the Heart of Lorkhan (the main quest of Morrowind). The commenters disgaree with this notion, providing sources to the contrary. However, nothing is definitive because we aren’t dealing with perfect information. It really is a beautiful thing.

A lot of this narrative finesse is credited to Kirkbride. In an interview with the Imperial Library, Morrowind writer Douglas Goodall said “No one writes like Kirkbride. I admire him. He’s a genius. A little crazy, maybe, but still a genius.” He continues, saying the Elder Scrolls would be “indistinguishable from dozens of fantasy games” without Kirkbride’s work. Goodall recently returned to the Elder Scrolls community to create expansive quest mods for Morrowind. Seeing ex-writers still getting involved with the series speaks to the magnetism of the narrative.

The contrast between those who engage with the narrative casually and those who spend a lot of time reading up on it is one of the most interesting aspects of the Elder Scrolls to me. It’s an overused metaphor in contemporary critique but the Elder Scrolls lore really is an iceberg. A normal playthrough where you don’t actively try to absorb the game’s narrative elements will leave you with a surface-level understanding of the writing. However, for those interested and well-read on the topic, you can pick up a lot of interesting knowledge during a playthrough.

I don’t think I’ll ever understand the lore as well as the true scholars, but maybe if they begin to offer a BA in Elder Scrolls Lore, I’ll be able to elevate my knowledge.

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