Talos, The Mantella & the Warp in the West - Daggerfall Lore

it's common for people to ignore daggerfall's importance to the law of the elder scrolls while kirkbride's morrowind contribution to the series should not be understated it seems many attribute a lot of the elder scrolls world building to his style of writing when he was often just following the form of the previous law in the series when you look into just how much of the law was first introduced not in that third installment but instead six years earlier undoubtedly daggerfall lore needs more love there are so many things we owe to the elder scrolls too the eight divines the sixteen daedric princes jigalag bandar the history of the yokuda sword singing the history of the septum empire the skyrim conquests and the war of succession the durani clan prophet marook and the elysian order the battle of the glanumbria moors the siege of orsinium the dark brotherhood every single guild the psijic order and last but not least the new medium while this video won't focus on every aspect of the law introduced in daggerfall because as that list shows along with the vast number of books on screen right now is that there is far more than people may realize when they discuss the big three as they seem to have become known instead this video will take a deep dive into the aspects that affect daggerfalls main story the most and the effects that leave the largest lasted impact on the series as a whole this boils down to two features in particular the mantela that powers the mighty numidium and the warp in the west the first documented case ever dragon break as a quick disclaimer to help explain some of the more complicated aspects i will be pulling from lore that was written after daggerfall this intro may have had a snarky undertone against those that dismissed daggerfall's law but the new law added by kirkbride as well as peterson in morrowind and later still helps to improve the stories within said lore the mantella in its simplest explanation is a soul gem created by tiber septim's imperial mage to power the numidium it is commonly believed that the bright green crystal contained part of the soul of said battle mage sir and octus when tiber septim began to abuse his newfound power arctus confronted the brass titan and defeated it in combat destroying the numidium scattering it across tamriel and trapping the mantela with inapheres by accidentally trapping the mantela away from noon zurin arctus was forced to live a cursed life of immortality where he would become known as the under king if you have played oblivion you may know him as the infamous septum hated mage who cursed the rest in place of the armor of tiber septim sanka thor what is commonly believed about the mantela however may not be entirely true it may be more than just the underking who was powering this gem during the time of tiber septim's conquest the invasion of morrowind hit a crossroads due to the power of the false tribunal gods understanding that a military victory was unlikely diplomacy between septum and vivec began the tribunal gifted with a level of foresight from their false divinity sensed doom if they continued to fight septum yet they did not want to show their hand too early and let him know that thus a deal was struck more with joined the empire under unique conditions where they maintained their independence while also allowing imperial colonization into the region in return for this compromise the tribunal gave the numidium to septim the nominee up until this point sat dormant within the red mountain the dwemer had built the colossus before their eventual defeat at the hands of the kyma the ancestors to the dunmer the nomidium was intended to be powered by the heart of lorcan but it was never realized how to actually do this on the cusp of a military defeat at the hands of indorel nerefor's kaimu army the dwemer attempted to awaken the numidium using specialized tools on the heart and in doing so the entire race simultaneously vanished vivek knew that the numidium was useless without the heart and was also very aware that without their regular pilgrimages to said heart the tribunal false godhood would slowly fade as it is by tapping into the heart of lorcan that they maintain their divinity not wanting septum to demand the heart be handed over vivec instead lied to septum claiming that the dwemer never discovered howard powered a machine septum agreed to the terms having received the gigantic but otherwise useless dwarven construction he asked his most trusted imperial battlemage to find a way to power it as mentioned earlier zurin arctus invents the mantella a powerful soul gem beyond normal understanding the official story that tiber septim would like history to remember and the one that daggerfall contains is that the mantilla was powered by arctus's soul but the reality may be a whole lot more interesting the actuarian heresy details these discrepancies after researching the new medium for some time arctis concluded that the power required for the new medium needed to be godly in nature such as the previous intended power source the heart of lorcan the literal heart of a deceased god if you ever look into the elder scrolls law you may notice that there are two under kings mentioned throughout history one being our box art model and the other being a legendary nord eastmere wolf half ishmael wolfhoff the original underking was an undying aspect of shore sure being the nordic name for lorcan meaning that the heart of lorcan and wolfhoff are similar in nature septim and arctus in a cut-in plan decided to lure wolfhoff into a secret meeting convincing eastmere that they intended to invade and destroy marwyn's dark elves a little backstory to this izmir wolfhoff was the original invader of skyrim the man who conquered the land from the native snow elves wolfhoff continued his warmongering and began forming his own empire he opened war against the khymer of morrowind where he allied himself to the dwemer in an attempt to wipe out the golden elven people however he suffered a crushing defeat as his dwarf and allies vanished as they attempted to activate the heart of lorcan concluding that his dream of a human-led tamrielic empire was over ismir stepped away from the public eye becoming the first under-king also known as the ash king due to being an aspect of shore ismir was a demigod of sorts he was immortal or at least very long living allowing him to puppet many events throughout history from behind the scenes centuries later as tiber septim began his ascension through the ranks eventually declaring himself emperor and beginning a conquest across tamriel eastmear saw and septim his chance to attain the goal he had set himself all those years ago yet tiber septim did not defeat the dark elves as wolfhoff had wanted but once chimeri people were still not conquered not only that but the elves had bargained for some very favorable benefits izmir felt betrayed his dreams were still unfulfilled and he promptly cut ties with septon it was the promise of destroying the dumb of a good then using the very dwarven machine they had given the septum that convinced izmir to come visit the emperor and his imperial battlemage zurin arctus planned to use the soul of ismail wolfhoff to power the mantela essentially creating his own heart of lorkhan when wolfhof arrived and he realized the deception a battle ensued where wolf halves arctus and potentially even a part of tiber septim's soul were all trapped into the gem this is the second lesser known story that the emperor didn't want the public to know he simply told them that his battlemage had figured out a way to power the golem this is why the underking has the best claim to the totem of tiber septim in daggerfall as his own words state it is my heart it is my mantilla it is my totem he not only made the mantella but his soul is within it and it was only by tiber septim's betrayal a betrayal of his closest friend that the underking finds himself in his damned position he only desires the release of death and will cause no harm to anyone else if you give the totem to him making it the most peaceful option while a lot of this lore came later in morrowind it was alluded to at times in daggerfall for example the king of worms tells the player that zurin arctus was betrayed by typoceptin alluding to the second theory of how the mantello was powered manny marco isn't very reliable however as he also claims that the underking would surely throw all of tamriel into conflict if he regained his body a fact that that ending quickly dismisses as the underking simply destroys the new medium regains his soul and then passes on to death it is this second feeling then in which esmere wolfhoff zurin arctus antibes septum souls or at least part of their souls reside within the mantela that helps explain the biggest change after daggerfall and it isn't just the warp in the west it is instead the inclusion of a new god one that didn't exist previously talos before the events of daggerfall talos simply didn't exist within the law there were still nine divines but the ninth one was sure aka lorcan so how did talos attain his godhood the world of tamriel by that i mean the planet it sits on is known as nurn nirn resides within the plane of mundus which was created by lorcan shaw sure was known by another name by the imperials to them he is shezar shaitaar is not worshiped by the imperials however for he is known as the dead god or the missing god his power and presence is not felt unknown whereas a player can pray to a divine such as dybella receive her blessing and gain noticeable benefits for their devotion praying to shazar does not come with any proof of his existence hence he is missing the whole history and law is very complex with a ton of celestial size happenings occurring during the creation of the universe but basically lorkhan is a part of the world of mundus itself hence why his heart sits within the red mountain his rotten body forms the two moons within the night sky too so uh yeah this is some pretty strange law while worshipping shazaar does not show any proof of his presence the theory is that he does show his presence via his use of incarnations within select humans these incarnations are then known as cesareans one that we already know of is ismir wolfhof within the elder scrolls universe in means incarnation where the nerevarine is the reincarnation of indorel nerevar is an incarnation of shazam aka the nordic god sure aka the elven god lorkhan it's confusing i know some of those confirmed to have those aspects of shezo within them would be taibu septim himself east mere wolfhoff as we already know and possibly even zurin arctus which means ironically wolfhof may have never been needed to power the numidium due to the unreliable narrator used within the test law as well as fan theories and various interpretations izmir's role becomes cloudy and not 100 percent clear but his role as a cesarean is vital to how his soul alongside type of septums and xeronautuses were able to combine when they were released from the destroyed mantela all three cesareans combined were powerful enough to mantle the empty space left by lorcan they rose together and became talos a real divine whose presence can be felt when he has prayed to the man-god became real only a single one of them dying for example tiber septim despite how great his achievements were was not enough for him to ascend to godhood hence why he wasn't a god in arena or daggerfall but three great souls combined together is enough fittingly talos is the tamrielic god of conquest with all three of his souls being responsible for conquering the continent in one way or another thalos is both the cause and the largest effect of the warp in the west i should also mention that there are theories that the numidium itself is so powerful that the simple act of powering the device was enough to break time so it is possible that the warp would have occurred without the releasing of the souls and the mantling of talos the warp in the west so we've discussed how the warp in the west happened but what were the effects of its occurrence going into and then out of it when you choose your ended in daggerfall they are all in vain the three great powers conquered equal land within the iliac bay becoming neighbors and erasing the minor kingdoms consolidating the region and all of them becoming loyal to the empire the orcs gained their equality among the races of tamriel the under king vanished from the annals of history and manny marco achieved the goal of godhood splitting into two forms a pathetic physical version that we come to meet in oblivion and a true god-like being who roams the sky as the necromancer's moon and helps the necromancers to create black soul gems whenever he is present within the night sky the numidium in all this vanished perhaps it is at the bottom of the bay or it was blown across the continent as before we don't know for sure but so far no one has found any proof that it still exists everyone gets what they wanted and the deadly weapon of mass destruction becomes lost once again this became known within history as the miracle of peace retcon meaning to retrospectively revise typically by introducing a piece of new information that imposes a different interpretation on previous described events the warp in the west and the concept of dragon breaks within the elder scrolls are the very definition of this trope but it is important to note that the warp was not invented to simply write off the player's choice of ending in daggerfall instead it was to ensure that there is no singular canon ending by choosing to make every ending cannon a player can switch from daggerfall straight into morrowind and see the effect of their choice with playable orcs a strong empire and some new lawbucks confirming what really happened unfortunately we don't actually know the minutia of what was happening within the iliac bay during the dragon break itself we do know that the time warping effects were localized to only the bay region the bucks in more wind are vague and as it's set on the other side of the continent the people of vardenfeld don't know nor care what happens in the west very much some famous characters were present during the war such as bao and zaya but she won't say anything on the matter all we know is that the event started on the 9th of frostfall and had concluded by the 11th the book where were you when the dragon broke details accounts from four people including manny marco it becomes clear that everyone lost track of time for those two days and that only the stars and moons remained constant a khajiit scholar mentions that the numidium was seen rising and all three provinces simultaneously and the king of worms simply states that he was here there and here again seemingly explaining that he has ascended and descended godhood becoming the necromancer's moon and remain an unknown simultaneously it essentially sounds like a huge when used sparingly these retcons can be an interesting law mechanic and in the case of this one it was necessary in their goal of giving the player freedom daggerfall unfortunately left bethesda with little choice between deciding a singular cannon ending and hence betraying all those that had chose otherwise or making the compromise that they did nevertheless my issue with these retcons and specifically dragon breaks is that people are using them too much to wipe out all contradictory accounts when discussing the law sometimes contradictions are on purpose by the game writers to make the player not just blindly trust what they see and hear but to think more deeply about it and this thought process ties in perfectly to wanting the player to embody a detective while they investigate the ongoings in daggerfall daggerfall was even the first game in the series to deliberately incur unreliable narrators and contradictory reports with its war of betany accounts and these different perspectives are not the result of some dragon break it's simply too convenient to subscribe every little lore tidbit to a dragon break when there are more interesting reasons for different accounts on events i don't know what to make of the idea of retconning as a whole it feels curious that later game materials have the authority the strikeout law by virtue of being the most recent title for example with daggerfall ebenom is a deity for the red gods but with the elder scrolls online he has been rewritten as a nord and possibly even written out of history itself so where does it stop what is to keep future installments from erasing manny marco or perhaps even talos the nature of video game development indeed means that writers change over time microsoft could ask bethesda to wreck on the games from the beginning although of course they won't well hopefully it's also important that we bring up that there are such things as a good retcon such as the adamantine tower in daggerfall it's well less than impressive from the outside let's be honest and the cities from arena have been retconned a ton too even daggerfall was guilty of this changing not only the design of the cities but their locations within the geography even the ecology of the world changed with a rainforest now being present in north west hammerfell which i guess begs the question of what is a retcon and what is simply the development of a game's universe over time i think we can all agree that the later games would have suffered if bethesda felt it was necessary to adhere closely to what was designed and put together back in 1994. fortunately with the elder scrolls true retcons without any kind of in-universe justification are indeed rare nevertheless these retcons give a lot of power to the later games which can confirm refute or specify things mentioned in previous installments as morrowind did with daggerfall because it was the first lore heavy game of the series daggerfall regrettably gets the short end of the stick in many regards that doesn't mean however that its law is bad in fact it boasts many books that have reappeared in every single elder scrolls game but unfortunately its sources can and have been more easily undermined by later titles and that concludes all i have to say regarding daggerfall's story and lore the law within the game itself is as entertaining to read as the later titles and offers the structure that later titles would follow within game books alongside dialogue being the main methods of divulging information to the player next time we'll be taking a look at the age of daggerfall because while the majority of the analysis so far has looked at the unity port of the game it is only fair to review the game properly by diving into the dos version in all its glory thanks for watching subscribe for more and i'll see you in the next one the physic the the the physics order the physicist is a contradicted contradictory to wipe out all contradictors convicted [Music]

Channel: Jwlar

Views: 38,400

Keywords: the elder scrolls, elder scrolls, daggerfall, tes II, tes 2, tes 2 daggerfall, tes II Daggerfall, making of daggerfall, daggerfall gameplay, daggerfall unity, daggerfall documentary, Daggerfall Analysis, jwlar, daggerfall plot, elder scrolls lore, lore, TES Lore, Daggerfall lore, Elder scrolls analysis, the elder scrolls (video game series), the elder scrolls ii: daggerfall (video game), warp in the west, numidium elder scrolls, numidium daggerfall, numidium, talos, talos lore

Id: tkQ4hM4XNfI

Length: 21min 37sec (1297 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 27 2022