The Skyrim Mysteries Iceberg (Part 1)

hey how's it going guys it's nate here and over the last half decade or so on this channel we have been investigating more skyrim mysteries than there are tigers left in the real world we filtered through thousands of the most fascinating unexplained phenomenon in the elder scrolls universe from the disappearance of the dwemer to the mysterious symbols found on high hrothgar we've built an encyclopedia of bizarre items a few months ago in search of new ideas i set about creating a giant list of every single mystery that's been featured on this channel before and in doing so realized that this was a perfect fit for an iceberg video icebergs for those of you who have been living off the grid are the video format where a list of related items are broken down into multiple tiers starting with the most familiar items at the top surface levels and gradually descending into more and more obscure and strange pieces of information as the topics go beneath the surface thus over the last hundred or so days i have been preparing a skyrim mysteries iceberg where we break down every single mystery that this channel has covered and dozens that we haven't in such a tiered digestible format originally i had hoped to be able to accomplish this in a single massive video that would go on for a couple of hours but have since realized that such a video would well you know last several hours and actually might be a little too hard on my pc and editing software so instead today i am merely presenting you beautiful people with part one of what will likely be a three-part skyrim mysteries iceberg our great glacier has been broken into five separate tiers and today we'll be breaking down the first two so without any further ado let's do further and dive into this oh so mysterious franchise starting off tier one with perhaps the most famous elder scrolls mystery of them all what happened to the dwemer the dwemer were of course a mysterious race of elves that colonized northern tamriel thousands of years ago they were known for their incredible technological sophistication something that far eclipsed any other society of their day or even of the modern day in skyrim they would build massive cities and structures underground earning them the nickname deep elves unfortunately roughly 4 000 years prior to the events of the elder scrolls 5 the entire deep folk civilization every single member of their species just vanished all at once leaving behind nothing but their ruins and automated mechanations well almost all of them vanished at once in the elder scrolls 3 morrowind we can encounter a character by the name of jagram bagarne he claims to be the last surviving dwemer in all of tamriel jagram believes the reason why he was spared is that at the time of his people's disappearance he was out questing in a foreign realm of oblivion and when he returned he simply found all of his people gone like someone coming back to a house party only to find it empty sadly mr bagarn isn't really sure what happened either he suggests that the disappearance likely has something to do with the dwemer obsession with technology perhaps they just pushed the bounds of reality too far or maybe they experimented with something that they shouldn't have and offended the gods in some way though ultimately he doesn't really know and as a result neither do we next on our list bugs in jars refers to the fact that in various seemingly unrelated locations scattered around skyrim the player can find miscellaneous items called bugs in jars there's about five of these things in total and each jar contains a different bug the one at the alchemist shack contains a moth the one at dushkin y'all contains a b you get the idea now at first glance these jars don't really have an obvious purpose they're not connected to any quests and they can't really be sold for anything however if you take a close look at them you'll notice that on the lids of each jar is a different series of symbols as you can imagine this drove the community absolutely crazy almost as soon as skyrim released and for several years afterwards youtube and reddit were filled with theories about what these symbols could mean and what these jars could be connected to could it be some sort of grand conspiracy theory some players even suggested they were connected to the disappearance of the dwemer i personally have to admit even i was super sucked in and immersed by this i spent hours trying to decipher them myself and ultimately got nowhere for many years it was one of skyrim's most fascinating mysteries alas it wasn't until the year 2018 that we finally got some closure on this matter and you're gonna be disappointed youtuber and god king of australia camelworks reached out to bethesda level designer ryan jenkins on twitter and asked him for some input on this matter after the community met so little progress ryan responded by explaining that this whole phenomenon is meaningless apparently back when skyrim was still in development some of the artists wanted to put these bugs and jars and symbols in the game and had some plan for a story with them but the level and quest designers on the team who would be responsible for implementing said story deemed it to be a half-baked idea that would require way too much work and throw them off schedule so they didn't go through with it however the artists left the bugs in jars in the game how anticlimactic at number 3 the ebony warrior is a mysterious ebony clad character who will randomly appear and track down the player sometime after we've reached level 80 and offer us a duel now the number of things that make the ebony warrior suspicious are simply too great for me to list in this video this guy is pants on forehead weird for one he's huge like he's about 25 percent bigger than the normal maximum height for a humanoid npc um he can also dragon shout at you when you begin dueling with him for some reason it's always been thought that dragon shouts have been reserved for dragonborns and the greybeards but apparently he can do them too oh yeah did i mention he's also like arguably the most challenging boss in the entire game despite being a random encounter connected to no other quests and when you finally defeat him he's not even a nord he's a red guard what's going on here well we don't know hence the ebony warriors inclusion in this video as a matter of fact a few months ago i actually uploaded a full 40 maybe even 50 minute deep dive on this character and i encourage you to watch the whole thing if you're interested in all the theories and whatnot but ultimately my conclusion is that it's unknowable he seems to have some daedric connections and stuff which i elaborate on but frankly only todd howard knows the truth and todd howard isn't talking for number four the town of winterhold is largely an insignificant rural backwater with a small population that's only known for the prestigious magical college that it houses however it wasn't always this way winterhold was once a massive bustling city with a tremendous population and a huge center of economic activity but in the year 122 of the fourth era just about 80 years prior to the events of skyrim a bizarre event known as the great collapse befell the town and changed everything over the course of just a couple of days a series of devastating storms and tsunamis battered against the town causing the majority of it to break off and simply sink into the sea a disaster from which winterhold has never recovered interestingly though as you can see the college was somehow spared from this horrible calamity and remained completely intact because of this many of the town's surviving residents have become deeply suspicious of the college and believe that the mages must have had something to do with the calamity that befell them though the academics themselves fervently deny this accusation and insist it's all some kind of coincidence or something nonetheless winterhold is a strange place for several other reasons and we'll talk more about it later on in the video the village of rorickstead is a small hamlet located just west of whiterun at first glance it looks to be just as normal as any other place in skyrim it has a small population of some lovable subsistence farmers some kids some cows some goats you get the idea but beneath this facade of normalcy there seems to be something sinister going on in rorickstead you see while the leader of the town a man named rorick seems to be normal enough he claims to have found the settlement a few years back after surviving the great war if you sneak into his house and look behind some shelves hidden away you'll discover a copy of the book spirit of the daedra alongside a couple filled soul gems what's this doing here spirit of the daedra is a very very dark book in fact it seems to have been written by an evil daedra itself and it's generally only found in the possession of daedric worshippers rorick certainly doesn't present as that what's up furthermore dialogue with some of the local farmers will reveal that rorickstead produces way more crops than it should its harvests are uniquely bountiful by the standards of skyrim further suggesting some divine perhaps daedric intervention sixth after completing the quest dragon rising and using a dragon shout in any named location it's possible for a courier to appear and deliver the dragonborn a quote-unquote letter from a friend the letter reads as follows dovakin you caused a bit of a stir in insert location when you demonstrated the power of your thumb not everyone is anxious for the return of the dragonborn i for one desire to see you grow and develop your talents skyrim needs a true hero these days after reading this document the location of a new word wall will be revealed in your map and a miscellaneous objective will lead you there but what's not clear is who is this friend that wrote you said letter could it be delphing a member of the blades it seems unlikely seeing as she never confesses to being the author and you can still receive these anonymous letters after meeting her why wouldn't she just tell you the locations of the word walls another potential candidate could be any one of the many members of the greybeards though they all seem quite reserved about your powers until you demonstrate to them that you're acting in good faith so that's also kind of suspicious no matter the identity of this friend continues to be speculated upon 10 years later in countless threads on reddit and even new youtube videos suffice to say it is a great question next what are the elder scrolls not like the broader franchise but more specifically what are the elder scrolls items that we encounter and engage with in the game during skyrim's main questline we'll be sent by parthernax to recover one from a dwemer ruin evidently the dwarves were trying to develop a machine capable of reading these pieces of literature but it's unclear how successful they were and perhaps that had something to do with their disappearance it's not obvious we use this recovered scroll to very briefly visit the past while the summit of hype rothgar though parthernax doesn't quite explain how this scroll was necessary to go back in time or the mechanisms from which this is possible he just says he needs one to do it and voila later on in the dawnguard dlc vampire lord harkin requires an entirely new elder scroll to fulfill his prophecy to quote unquote blot out the sun and it's up to the player whether or not you get that for him though again harkin doesn't go into details regarding how this is necessary or why clearly the scrolls are important i mean they gave their name to the franchise and are fundamental pieces of some of the most important quest lines though that importance isn't elaborated on perhaps the closest thing to an answer to this question we can receive is by uragro shrub the librarian at the college of winterhold who we can ask what is an elder scroll and his response encapsulates the mystery it would take a month to explain to you how that very question doesn't even make sense at any point after escaping helgen and before joining the dark brotherhood it's possible for a dark brotherhood assassin to appear as a random encounter track down the player and attack you now because you are the dragonborn facing this challenge shouldn't be that difficult and the assassin usually isn't prepared for his job after you've defeated him slash her you'll discover a note in their inventory titled dark brotherhood assassin's note and it reads as follows quote as instructed you are to eliminate the dovikin by any means necessary the black sacrament has been performed somebody wants this poor fool dead we've already received payment for the contract failure is not an option signed astrid so the obvious question this letter beckons is who is that somebody who placed this hit on our character it's possible to receive this random encounter at literally again any point in the game prior to the players joining of the dark brotherhood so theoretically whoever this person was could have put the hit on you just after you left helgen or even before of course being the dragonborn makes you a person of interest but literally no one not even yourself realizes this fact until the quest dragon rising and again you can get this note long before then so how could we have made such an enemy so early furthermore i might add it's really funny that despite authorizing a hit on you early in the game astrid herself will never make any mention of this during the dark brotherhood quest line she kind of just brushes that off aside and pretends it didn't happen oh astrid how typical of you during the dawnguard dlc storyline no matter which faction you side with you'll eventually be sent to a mysterious plane of oblivion known as the soul karen in order to rescue a woman by the name of balerica the soul karen itself is a depressing realm of existence where the souls of all people who have been soul-trapped are doomed to spend all of eternity well in this depressing location we'll have the opportunity to interact with countless spirits who are regretful of their fate and beg us for help which we unfortunately can't provide however the real mystery here revolves around the rulers of this realm you see while most planes of oblivion are overseen by a daedric god of some kind maroon's dagon rules over the dead lands shia gorath reigns over the shivering isles but there's not really a single daedric god that watches over this place instead dialogue with many individuals here suggests that the rulers of the soul karen are a bizarre coalition of entities referred to as the ideal masters according to one resident of the karen a dragon by the name of dernavir the ideal masters were once a group of human necromancers who somehow became so powerful that they were able to forge this new realm by themselves and afterwards ascended beyond their mortal bodies to become the sort of gods of this place the game presents us no opportunity to interact or communicate with any of the masters though dernavir suggests that the closest thing to a physical form they do have are these bizarre purple crystals we can see at the top of pillars across the realm so the question remains of who exactly were these once powerful necromancers will we ever get a glimpse in future elder scrolls games and what exactly are their own motivations and ambitions do they have relations with other daedric gods or other entities for now all we can do is speculate at number 10 on tier 1 we have the question of what exactly happened to the falmer so as you're probably already aware the falmer are pale goblin-like creatures that inhabit many dwemer ruins and subterranean caves they are extremely hostile and even blind depending on their ears to handle their own navigation however they weren't always this way the word falmer actually translates to snow elf and the snow elves were once a majestic and even seemingly quite beautiful race of well elves that inhabited northern tamriel back before the humans arrived sometime in the marethic era snow elven civilization was said to be advanced scientific and arguably even more polite than modern human civilization the change occurred in the beginning of the first era when tens of thousands of humans invaded skyrim from the north coming from a now lost continent known as atmora long story short the snow elves were totally unable to deal with this new threat and they were forced to make a deal with the dwemer who had their massive subterranean fortresses capable of protecting them apparently something was negotiated and the dwarves agreed to house large populations of these elves so that they might seek protection it was after seeking this asylum with their cousins that something fundamentally changed about the falmer character some sources argue that the dwarves tricked the elves and actually had been planning to enslave them all along and force-fed them a variety of funguses and mushrooms that fundamentally altered their character as a species and turned them into these slave-like creatures that we see today however other authors and characters rebuke this accusation and say that the dwarves were genuinely acting in good faith and had nothing to do with this transition nonetheless the deep folk would eventually disappear in 700 of the first era leaving the falmer alone to their own devices next on tier 1 we have the curious case of zarya's identity so upon entering the city of whiterun at any given time it's possible to find a small band of red guard warriors arguing with one of white runs guards who refuses to let them any further into the city evidently these men are searching for a certain fugitive woman they believe to be in the area this woman supposedly betrayed a great city in hammerfell to the thalmor and caused unprecedented atrocities to befall its people it's up to them to bring her to justice and they need our help this will begin the quest in my time of need and long story short we'll find out that this fugitive woman is a red guard character by the name of sadia who lives and works at the bannered mare tavern in white run however according to saudia these accusations are completely unfounded and she's actually a victim of unjust persecution she argues that she's actually an enemy of the thalmor and the men who are trying to locate her are actually working with them and just lying about their story for sympathy she claims to have done some spy work or something that ticked off the elves but it's not exactly clear what she was doing against them no matter this leaves us with a pretty big predicament as it's not clear who we should believe if you side with the original warriors they'll have you trick sadia into leaving the city with you and then capture her with the paralysis spell so that they can supposedly bring her back to hammerfell for a free and fair trial if you side with sadia she'll simply have you defeat the captors in battle and make her life a lot easier ultimately though the choice is ours and the answer is never really clear maek the liar is a robed khajiit npc who very rarely may appear as a random encounter when interacted with maek will say several bizarre quotes to the player before refusing to communicate any further take a listen mike wishes your way much snow in skyrim enough snow mike does not want anymore snow falls why worry where it goes mike thinks the snowflakes are pretty skyrim was once the land of many butterflies now not so much mike is tired now go bother somebody else now if none of that made any sense to you well that's the whole point mike just kind of spews off nonsense about whatever random stuff whenever you see him normally we could assume a character like this is just weird you know maybe the kitty took a bit too much scuma but maek has actually appeared in every single elder scrolls game since morrowind and he always fulfills the same role a rare random encounter who just spouts off hilarious and completely untrue stuff one of the most emblematic mike quotes i think comes from morrowind where when asked about the dwarves he'll say quote there is no mystery maek knows all the dwarves were here and now they are not they were very short folks or perhaps they were not it all depends on your perspective i'm sure they thought they were about the right height in the elder scrolls online one of my favorite quotes from his is this maiq always travels forward this way he is certain of his direction so you get the idea he's a meta character but for over 20 years now players have wondered if perhaps maek could be something more given his presence across over a thousand years of elder scrolls events he'd almost have to be a divine entity of sorts by now could mike be a god perhaps not while maek has become a sort of franchise staple it's worth noting that his appearance has changed between the games sure he's always a khajiit but his fur and even eye color vary depending on when we see him in skyrim his code is a sort of lion gold whereas in eso he's a gray kitty cat this has led some to wonder if maybe there have been several maiks across history who have served in this purpose in much of his dialogue across the games maique has claimed to have a father of some kind but due to the nature of how he talks it's hard to know if what he's saying is accurate i suppose only maike knows who he really is and maek is a liar and finally our last tier one mystery in this list concerns the black reach dragon so black reach is of course a massive underground dwarven ruin located just beneath the pale hold the location seems to be the largest dwemer structure of them all and it's home to massive cities villages scientific research labs military sites the whole shebang it really is ginormous well in the central city of blackreach you can find an artificial sun hanging over it and if for whatever reason the dovikin chooses to just drag and shout in the direction of the sun the following event will play out indeed shouting at the sun causes a chime to go off and a dragon to spawn in and attack the player this beast is a fire dragon by the name of vultherial or dark overlord fire as his name translates to in the dragon tongue and he's not attached to any quests or dialogue within the game he's simply a sort of easter egg you can trigger by shouting at that sun but the question is how the heck did a dovah like this find his way into a ruin like black reach which is underground the only way to enter black reach that we know of is by using an elevator at missolved which you know i i guess a dragon could theoretically squeeze himself into there but it's not clear dovahs do have a tendency to be immortal so it's very possible that vultherial could have made his way into blackreach with the help of the dwemer when they were still alive maybe there was an agreement or something but until we get any further information that's just a theory a game that's copyrighted alrighty so that about does it for tier one those mysteries that we've just explored represent what i'd consider to be some of the most familiar and well discussed in the community now that we're transitioning into tier 2 we're going to get into more intimate territory you know i think everyone's heard of the dwemer and maek but tier 2 content is less well documented stuff that's only known to those of us who spend our time researching skyrim lore on the internet so here we go starting off tier 2 we have the bizarre curious case of sabile stentor so sabile stentor is the core wizard of solitude skyrim's capital apparently she's had this job for a very very long time dialogue with her and other characters around the palace reveals that she's been the court wizard for about a hundred years which you know you'd think is a little suspicious but i guess nobody's come to that conclusion yet also her eyes are bright orange which isn't particularly normal oh and she tends to sleep most of the day and is most active at night you get the idea she's a vampire now the mystery itself isn't necessarily that fact i mean there's nothing to debate she's like she's definitely a vampire it says so in the game files but rather what the heck is she doing and why you know is she like genuinely just a vampire that really really cares about the fate of solitude's imperial court and is like doing this job in good faith or is there something a little bit more nefarious at play and i'll be honest the answer's rather inconclusive on one hand she seems to definitely be keeping some secrets during the quest the wolf queen awakened the player will be sent by yarl elisif of solitude to investigate reports of necromancy at a cave near the city when we arrive long story short we confirm those reports of necromancy and discover that there's a particularly strong and powerful undead entity known as the wolf queen who's been behind it all and whom we have to subsequently defeat well while sabile stentor doesn't really have a major role at all in this questline at the beginning of it she can be heard telling the yarl not to investigate that cave and insisting that everything's fine and there's no reason at all to send the dragonborn to check it out take a listen then we will immediately send out a legion to scour the cave and secure the town hafingar's people will always be safe under my rule your eminence my scrying has suggested nothing in the area dragon bridge is under imperial control this is likely superstitious nonsense perhaps a more tempered reaction might be called for oh yes of course you were right falk tell captain aldis i said to assign a few extra soldiers to dragon bridge but beyond this very swift single line of dialogue sabile stentor doesn't participate in this quest any further she doesn't go on to hinder our investigation or anything and after we've defeated the villain there's nothing at all we find that connects them to sabile so it's hard to implicate her in any of this and her opposition may have just been genuinely in good faith maybe she really didn't believe there were undead things going on nearby solitude who knows well definitely not me hence the reason we are including this mystery on today's list next we have the sky forge so the sky forge is this ancient bird-shaped stone structure that has allegedly existed since well before the modern human settlement of whiterun legend has it that when ysgramor and his famous 500 companions came to conquer skyrim from the snow elves the sky forge was already there and they were just as confused about it as humans are today but not only were they confused they were also intrigued as it turns out this structure as its name also suggests is the most powerful forge in all of skyrim and yes grimoire and his buddies were so hyped to have this thing around that they built a new headquarters for the companions right next to it which is now known as yovaskar and it's around this building that the whole settlement of whiterun eventually emerged as we know it today during the events of the companions quest line we learn that there is actually a hidden chamber underneath the sky forge that the guild uses for these daedric ceremonies to her scene and we ourselves use for our first transformation into a werewolf you have to wonder did ysgramor and his buddies see the same purpose out of this right you know maybe it wasn't just the forge they were interested in maybe there's some sort of dark mystical power within this under forge that we don't know a lot about the book songs of the return which documents the return of ysgramor and his 500 companions to skyrim tells us that after ysgramor arrived and took an interest in the skyforge he interviewed some captive snow elves about it and those elves told him that they didn't know anything about it either the sky forge was a mystery to the falmer as well not only that but apparently the snow elves were afraid of it as they believed it contained some sort of dark magical power hmm so we don't know how old this forge is we don't know who built this forge we don't know why it works the way it does and we don't know whether or not it has a dark secret sounds like it absolutely belongs in this video at number three it's time that we talk about the eye of magnus so shortly after joining the college of winterhold the player will be invited to a field trip at the ancient nord ruins of sarthal sarthal according to legend is the oldest nord settlement in all of skyrim and was even personally ruled by ysgramor for a time before it was attacked by snow elves for a mysterious reason and the humans were forced to flee it's argued by many nord historians that the elven attack on sarthal was really the spark that began yeast grimoire's conquest of all of skyrim in revenge though that's up to interpretation no matter during our field trip the professor arniel gain will ask us to go search for some certain enchanted artifacts that the guild's been looking for during this search will eventually be led to a hidden never before discovered chamber of the tomb where we can find a giant blue glowing orb hovering in the air protected by a small army of draugr what on nirn is this well our professors have the same question and they decide to take the ore back to the college for further investigation spoiler alert but nobody at the college is ever really able to grasp the true nature of this device all they can really tell is that it's old and brimming with magical energy shortly after this discovery the chief thalmor ambassador to the college of winterhold a high elf by the name of ankano will go absolutely mad and barricade himself in the college's main plaza attempting to harness the magical energy of the orb for himself though even this is kind of shady like the game doesn't really elaborate on how the eye of magnus's magical energy is going to benefit ankano or even what his plan is if it's endorsed by the thalmor all of this is left grey the player will be forced to put an end to ancono's shenanigans in one final grand battle which serves as the climax for the college of winterhold's questline after the elf has been defeated members of a mysterious order calling themselves sigix will appear before the dovikin and explain how they're like time travelers or something and can't trust us with the eyes power any longer and they take it away for themselves the eye has grown unstable it cannot remain here or else it may destroy your college and this world it must be secured oncano's actions prove that the world is not ready for such a thing we shall safeguard it for now thus is the fate of this fear it serves as the focal point for the entire college quest line yet there's so many questions about it that the game leaves unanswered like for instance what was it doing at sarthal was it already there when the nords decided to set up their city did they find it and bring it there what were their plans with this device could it have had something to do with the reason why the elves attacked the settlement in the first place these questions are left completely unaddressed and again not even the best and brightest academics in all of tamriel are able to figure out how the orb's magical energy works so the eye of magnus really is skyrim's quintessential geometric mystery next during the dragonborn dlc quest lost legacy will help some skull nords on the island of solstein explore the tomb of veylock the jailer evidently long ago when dragons ruled over the realms of men veylock the jailer was the dragon priest in charge of ruling soulstime and so the legend goes when mirak attempted to overthrow the dragons and make himself king of the world veylock the jailer was the priest who stopped him in his tracks so this guy actually occupies a pretty important spot in the game's lore nonetheless when we finally clear the tomb and get to its final chamber we'll face off against veylock in his dragon priest form and have to defeat him in order to complete the quest the bizarre thing is though that veylock doesn't wear a mask as a matter of fact he's the only named dragon priest in the game who doesn't have one why is that according to the game's lore every dragon priest was supposed to have been given a mask by the dragons back when dovas ruled the world the masks came imbued with magical enchantments that helped the dragon priests exercise their control over local populations yet veylock who is clearly documented as being in control of soulstime doesn't wear one i might also add on a possibly related note that not only is veylock the only priest without a mask but he's also the only dragon priest in elder scrolls lore who seems to have been genuinely benevolent and a good faith ruler over his people the book the guardian and the traitor when describing valoc's rule refers to it as quote by all accounts a time of peace and prosperity for the people of the island and he is remembered as a wise and just leader maybe the reason veloc doesn't have a mask is because he didn't need one to earn the respect of his people he didn't need to use magical powers to scare and intimidate his subjects into following him his own charisma and character did that on its own no matter we'll touch upon this mystery a little later on in the video as we're not done with veylock just yet but for now let's move on night mother so since the dark brothers founding in the third era the guild has been led by a mysterious entity known as the night mother during the events of skyrim she's depicted as the decrepit remains of an anonymous woman who occasionally communicates directions and warning to the player at important moments however who exactly she is and how she came to occupy such a semi-divine role is one of the biggest mysteries not only in skyrim but throughout the elder scrolls franchise there's a prominent theory that's given a bit of credence in the elder scrolls online that the night mother was once a member of the thieves guild long ago however she deferred from the other members of the thieves guild in a bit that she thought it was okay to physically harm and often eliminate people she was burglarizing this led to her being kicked out and founding her own assassins guild that would come to be known as the dark brotherhood another arguably more substantiated theory that was heavily emphasized in oblivion is that the night mother was once a dunmer assassin from morrowind who was a member of a different guild known as the morag tong at some point the night mother decided to leave the guild and establish her own residency in cyrodiil where the god of the void and assassinations sithis took a liking to her the legend has it that sithis married and fathered several children with her however when locals around the town she lived in found out about this unholy affair they formed a mob and murdered the woman to death afterwards she was granted semi-divine status by the god and the rest is kind of history finally if you want to get really crazy my personal favorite explanation comes from the elder scrolls ii daggerfall now it's important to understand that so much of the older you know daggerfall arena elder scrolls games lore has since been retconned and changed fundamentally but nonetheless in daggerfall members of the dark brotherhood do not worship a deity called the night mother instead they worship mephala daedric goddess of secrets and plots some players have proposed that maybe the night mother who we encounter in oblivion and skyrim is just mephala in disguise or an aspect of her divinity it certainly would fit her character i mean this is exactly what she likes to do but the lore itself represented in both of those games seems to conflict that idea so it's unclear what's really at the core of her grey beer age refers to the fact that we don't actually know how old the greybeards are i mean they look what like late 60s 70s 80s somewhere around there but there's reason to suspect their age may be a little abnormal you see spread all over hyhrothgar is a rather alarming quantity of restore health potions like seriously they're everywhere every night stand table cupboard has one of these things and given the reality that the graveyards abstain from combat they are staunch pacifists who don't foresee any of that in their future maybe these elixirs could be going towards something else perhaps their life extenders in some way something that a friend pointed out to me several years ago that i didn't think much of at the time though is relevant to this is that if the graveyards are so old if they're all at the end of their lives you know their hairs are are graying they're really wrinkly you get the idea you'd think they would have some apprentices around or they'd be making preparations uh for the future generation to keep this guild going why are they so confident in their current numbers and that could connect to this though at the same time i wonder if the writers would have liked the idea of baby greybeards anyway rounille is an altmer priest of arkay who lives in falkreath and maintains its world-famous graveyard he actually has a rather dark secret you see a couple decades ago he actually fought alongside the aldemary dominion against the people of skyrim during the great war and if you press him a little in dialogue he'll even admit to committing some horrible atrocities that he now greatly regrets but that's not why he's in this video if you manage to build up a friendly relationship with him he may offer you a radiant quest to go locate a diary that he apparently left behind in some old dungeon now it's unclear what ranil was doing running around through old dungeons but he really wants his diary back and it says in there he makes some incriminating admissions that he rather wouldn't be found out by anyone else thus begins the quest find renewal's journal and as you imagine it's pretty much a generic fetch quest you go to the dungeon clear it out open a chest find the journal and bring it back to him for a bit of a reward although if you decide to open up and read runeal's journal before giving it back to him you'll find that he's had some interesting dreams take a listen to this paragraph quote 20 sun's height dreams of the war again but this time something different i was leading a small band of old murray battle mages on a mission deep into the heart of imperial territory we had drawn near our target a supply depot outside of chaden hall when suddenly the sky darkened a great shadow passed over us and there was a roar so terrible it chilled my blood something was flying just overhead so huge and so dark as to blot out the sun the dream changed then i was here in falkreath performing a service for someone who had just passed away though i don't recall who from the corner of my eye i saw a stranger approaching i turned to look but the shadow came again and the roar and then i awoke now that i reflect on the dream i cannot help but wonder was it a dragon why would i dream of such a creature when i have never seen one it seemed so real at the time but now the memory is fading what it means i cannot say probably nothing it would appear as though runella's been having dreams foreshadowing the return of the dragons and the dovikin but how and why it may be insignificant but i think it's still worth pointing out that this entry is dated for the 20th of sun's height the seventh month in the elder scrolls calendar well the events of skyrim always begin on the 17th of last seed or the eighth month of the elder scrolls calendar so renewal had this dream just over 30 days prior to the events of the game fascinating lost continents refers to the fact that while all of the elder scrolls games take place on the single continent of tamriel there are several additional continents spread across the world that we just haven't seen yet and many appear to have disappeared we've already alluded to atmora a mysterious antarctica-like northern continent that's said to be covered in snow and ice and where the nords originally came from oddly enough nobody's been to atmora in several thousand years some tales even suggest talos was the last human to come from there it's not obvious why there's been a lack of interaction with this place though some sources suggest the oceans and seas between tamriel and atmora have just gotten so cold and frosty they're introversible others argue that amora has actually sunk beneath the seas and completely disappeared yokuda is a massive desert-like acapelico said to be far west of hammerfell it's where the redguard people come from and evidently about 2000 years ago it too was sunk by the sea south of tamriel there is said to have once been a place known as payandania home to a people called sea elves or maumer we actually get a lot more lore on the sea elves and interaction with some of them even during the events of the elder scrolls online their continent is said to have been jungle-like and seemingly amazon rainforest based but you'll never get this that continent has also been lost to the sea finally to the far east lies perhaps the most famous of all the lost continents and the most speculated on akavir akavir is apparently the most tamriel like of them all it's apparently of similar size to tamriel and also contains a similar level of biodiversity in different climate zones for different species to muster believe it or not in the early third era the emperor uriel septim vii attempted to conquer the region he mustered an army in the tens of thousands with hundreds of vessels and took off from morrowind landing on akavir's western coast and he was never heard from again that was the end of that emperor and it begot an entire crisis back at home survivors returned with stories of snake men monkey people and ice giants the book mysterious akavir elaborates a little bit further on the races and terrains of this location and i recommend you give it a read if you're interested in the further lore unfortunately while we may know more about akavir than yokudo or pyendinia that's still not a lot and this location remains one of the most mysterious and speculated upon places in elder scrolls history at number 9 for tier 2 this one's actually pretty easy we have the ancient dragonborn so during the dragonborn dlc we can learn a new shout called dragon aspect and once we learn the third word of the shout we'll have the ability to summon a mysterious character called the ancient dragonborn to help us in combat for about 60 seconds but who is this ancient dragonborn he has many unique properties for example he doesn't respond to damage at all like when enemies try to attack him they just go right through him nothing changes which is uncommon even for divine beings in the universe he also wields an ancient nord hero axe a type of item that could have only come from the sky forge in whiterun and he himself wears dragon bone armor implying he may have lived as far back of a time as when men and dovahs shared the world together our next question is just what exactly makes nirnroot so special as you already know skyrim has a huge variety of different plants in the game there's juniper berries canis roots dragon flowers wheat cabbage you get the idea but amidst all those different plants nerd root has always stood out as uniquely exceptional thanks to a number of unique characteristics the plant possesses most notably it possesses its own unique sound take a listen to the nirnroot hum [Music] well it's easy to write off as just an interesting effect this could be rather significant you see in the elder scrolls universe there is this all-important concept of tonal magic tonal magic is the ability to manipulate or change or enact some kind of force upon the world around you with certain sounds an example of this concept would be the dragon shout that our player gets to use but it goes a lot deeper than that the dwemer and certain other groups in tamriel believe the universe is really a sort of song something that can be musically articulated and their idea is that by adding the right notes so to speak to this song it can be fundamentally altered and perhaps to their benefit given the omnipresent nature of this concept in the elder scrolls universe i think it warrants taking the sound of the nirnroot a little bit more seriously it might signify something greater now those of you who played the elder scrolls for oblivion might remember a high elf named cindarion cindarion was a full-time nirnroo researcher and we would be able to collect and sell him nirnroots at an outrageously marked up price well in skyrim which takes place a couple hundred years after the events of oblivion we can actually find cendarian skeleton at the bottom of black reach according to his journal which is right next to cinderian's remains he took the trip from cyrodiil down to blackreach in order to study the crimson nirnroots that can be found here and he was trying to figure out what was causing them to have their unique color in this journal he also mentions something called the sun's death event of 668 of the first era evidently something happened that caused the sun's light to stop reaching tamriel for almost an entire year cinderion claims that before this event nurm roots were much much more abundant and they even used to glow a different color apparently they were a yellowish red hue rather than the bluish green of today now it's not exactly obvious what this sun's death event was the year 668 of the first era almost perfectly coincides with the disappearance of the dwarves so it's very likely there's some relation but it's not exactly clear what that is or what's causing the changes to the nuremberg's biology i guess we'll have to wait for cinderion's child to appear in the elder scrolls 6. next this one's rather quick so you know heimskura white runs priest of talos the guy who goes let me show you the power of tallow stormcrown that guy well many players have noticed that inside of his house he has an alarming number of human skulls just sitting on display this is odd because talos worshipers obviously don't require human remains for their ceremonies or sacraments those are more often than not associated with daedric beings but on the other hand we don't really know much about heimskeer's past or his narrative other than that he really really seems to like talos furthermore if you want to see these skulls make sure you break into his home before the siege of whiterun mission in skyrim civil war as that will destroy the place and render it inaccessible sleeping tree camp is a giants encampment located far west of whiterun its name derives from the fact that at the center of the encampment is a large tree sitting in a mysterious purplish pond further examination of the site will reveal this sort of spigot like device on the tree's trunk that you can use to get a unique potion called sleeping tree sat from which massively rejuvenates your health by a hundred points but slows your character down a little for 45 seconds what's causing this tree to produce such magical sap has been a topic of debate for well over 10 years now in the elder scrolls community and believe it or not a consensus is actually emerged you see nearby the sleeping tree camp is a small cave and inside of this cave we can find the remains of a bandit with a letter in his inventory this letter explains that the bandit came to the camp to steal some sap so he could sell it to yesolda a merchant in whiterun if we go to whiterun with this note in our inventory and confront isolda about the sleeping tree sap she's buying she will admit to it and she'll also reveal that many people believe the sleeping tree quote unquote fell from an island in the sky take a listen how the tree came to grow there is a bit of a mystery some say that when vardon fell erupted a piece was blown to the middle of skyrim and from the crater grew the tree i've also heard that it was a spore that fell from an island floating in the sky but that just sounds like nonsense the island in the sky that she's talking about very likely refers to umbra a floating island that plays a major role in the elder scrolls novels written by gregory keys the elder scrolls novels are set during those 200 years in between the events of oblivion and skyrim and a central theme of both books is this great floating island called umbra moving all around tamriel and just causing chaos everywhere it goes it doesn't just fly over places it has a tendency to also absorb and kind of feed off the energy of the organisms it travels above so it's doing a lot of damage however it's mentioned that the island itself is home to these unique trees that have a particularly valuable sap so it seems very plausible that the sleeping trees inclusion in skyrim is one of the game's very very few sort of easter egg references to the novels that technically predated in the game's lore or at least that's our best guess for our next mystery we're heading on over to the city of windhelm and investigating its largest inno tavern candlehearth hall you see this location supposedly derives its name from a candle that has been burning within the lodge for 163 years consecutively according to the inn's current owner her great great great ancestor of some sort was a man named wundheim who went off to battle and unfortunately never returned home in mourning wundhein's son lit a candle in his honor and that candle simply never ever burned out and nobody knows how or why the flame still lives did you see the candle above the fire upstairs it was lit 163 years ago back when this building was the home of a grand warrior named wound high when word came that he'd fallen his thunder rock lit the candle in his honor nobody knows why it still burns as a side note i just want to point out i find it hilarious that this is you know basically a limitless supply of energy and this random nord family just has it in their attic like oh yeah that's the scp we keep upstairs you want to see it anyway and finally last on our list we have the blank word walls essentially in three separate locations across the elder scrolls five we the player can find well you know word walls that are entirely blank these three locations are sovengard the throat of the world right at the summit and the soul carn as you might imagine the meaning and function of these objects is very difficult to discern we know from dialogue with parthernax and several books that word walls were essentially tablet inscriptions that the dovahs made themselves that's why dovasul the language we see used looks so similar to like mesopotamian clay tablets it's the dragons just scratching in things with their claws so you have to wonder were these word walls once used for something did there used to be inscriptions on all of these but they got filled in or did these word walls get built but they never found the time to write their edicts on them another idea that i don't see discussed very often but i think may be even more plausible is that this could be related to cut content we know bethesda cut dozens and dozens of dragon shouts from the game before release that are now only accessible with console commands these word walls could have possibly been a conduit for any of those or well maybe they just look kind of cool anyway guys that about does it for part one tiers one and two of what will likely be a three or four part skyrim mysteries iceberg if you made it this far in the video thank you so much that does not only does it do wonders for the youtube algorithm but it's also just you know super creatively fulfilling right you know knowing someone uh made it this far in such a project so thank you again i would like to tell you guys you could expect part two um next saturday or somewhere around there that's where i'm going to shoot for but oftentimes these projects just take more time than i'm prepared so maybe don't hold your breath maybe the week after next we'll see about that but again i i really appreciate you guys support and i hope to catch you all in my next video peace out everyone [Music] you

Channel: TheEpicNate315

Views: 2,721,427

Keywords: Skyrim, The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim, Skyrim Special Edition, Skyrim Anniversary Edition, Skyrim Mystery, Skyrim Mysteries, Skyrim Theories, Skyrim Iceberg, Skyrim Tiny Details, Ten Tiny Details

Id: ibf642CCf20

Length: 64min 28sec (3868 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 27 2022