Top 10 Facts - The Elder Scrolls

Video Statistics and Information

Video
Captions Word Cloud
Captions
The Kelle. Elder Scrolls as you name them. They have often been used for prophecy. Yes. Your prophecy comes from an Elder Scroll. The Elder Scrolls is an open world action role-playing game series developed by Bethesda. The franchise began with the release of The Elder Scrolls: Arena in 1994. This was not only Bethesda's first attempt at an original concept, but also their first RPG. But it didn't start out that way. Initially, the game was simply known as Arena and was not to be an RPG at all. Instead the player and a team of fighters would travel about a world fighting other teams in various arenas until the player became the grand champion. A sort of gladiator type of game. At some point during development, Bethesda decided to include side quests to bring some much needed variation to the gameplay. It wasn't long until they realized that the side quests where a lot more fun than the tournaments themselves. The gladiatorial gameplay was dropped altogether and Arena became a full blown open world role-playing game focusing on quests and dungeons. But there was a slight problem with this decision. All material had already been printed using the name Arena. Even the cover art for the game give the impression that this is some sort of fighting game with an audience. They decided to add the title The Elder Scrolls with Arena as a subtitle to give it more of an RPG-sounding name. When it was first released in 1994, it wasn't exactly a success with only a couple of thousand units sold. But as time went on, the game spread through word of mouth and eventually became popular enough to get a sequel two years later in 1996. The franchise slowly grew in popularity with each new installment and is today one of the most popular video game franchises out there. Open world RPGs are known to be quite expansive regarding both features and actual in game world size. The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall stands out from most other games because of its ridiculous, and some might say, unnecessarily vast map size. It's just over 160,000 square kilometers. To put that into some kind of perspective, that's almost the size of Florida in the US or two-thirds the size of the UK. I mean, if you think the world of Skyrim was huge it's not even 0.03% of the size of Daggerfall. It would actually take real-time weeks to get from one side of the map to the other. But Daggerfall ain't got nothing on Arena though. Arena's map size is over 6 million square kilometers. As a comparison, Australia is roughly 7.5 million. It would likely take you several months trying to cross this world. The thing is that almost all of this was done using procedural generation and not by hand. So while these games are not exactly comparable to their finely tuned and hand crafted modern relatives, it is nonetheless an impressive feat for games released two decades ago. When Bethesda worked on Oblivion they considered adding children to the game to make things more realistic. But this proved to be a very difficult decision. Because if you could kill children in the game, it would no doubt make for some extremely negative press. But if they made the children invincible, it would undermine the purpose of adding children in the first place, as it wouldn't be realistic. In the end they decided to exclude children from the game completely. When development began on the next game, Skyrim, this dilemma was brought up once more and this time they did indeed include children in the game. But as most of us know, they where made invincible. However this decision was most likely made very late into development. Because if you use console commands or mods that disables their invincibility, you can actually kill them. But what's interesting here, and possibly morbidly so, is that the children actually make unique noises upon death. This could mean that Bethesda planned for this to happen at some point during development. Furthermore, if the player kills Braith. Then Lars Battle-Born, who was bullied by Braith, will thank you for doing so. This is even though killing her would of course be impossible during normal gameplay, suggesting that this was at one point a feature in the game. In many Elder Scrolls games you will find subtle references to fish sticks. For example in Morrowind there's this book called Capn's Guide to the Fishy Stick. In Oblivion, M'aiq the Liar has this to say... If you approach Sheogorath in Skyrim he also mentions fish sticks. This all began back in 2001 on the official forums when a user started rewarding others with an image of a pirate holding a fish- or (in this case) fishy stick. This practice soon spread outside of the website and grew to become a quite popular meme and even continues to this day as a sort of greeting when welcoming new users to the forums. Bethesda took note of this and liked it so much that they decided to include Fishy Sticks in their games ever since. If you find yourself at this location on the map in Skyrim you'll find a stone bridge near a waterfall. If it's your first time crossing the bridge, you'll witness two goats walking across it. Soon after a third goat climbs up from under the bridge and joins them. This is a reference to a popular Norwegian fairy tale called "Three Billy Goats Gruff" about three goats trying to cross a bridge with a fearsome troll trying to eat them as they pass by. In the fairy tale the goats manage to defeat the evil troll and if you take a look underneath the bridge in Skyrim, you'll find a dead troll. In The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, there's an extremely well hidden sword named Eltonbrand that can only be acquired if the player performs a very specific set of actions. First of all you need the sword Goldbrand. You must then complete the quest Shashev's Key and then talk to Sirilonwe. Before doing so, make sure you also have exactly 11171 gold coins in your inventory. If everything was done correctly, a message will appear saying "Go to Hell, Carolina!", and your Goldbrand has been replaced with the Eltonbrand sword. The reason behind this elaborate easter egg is just as elaborate. The name of the sword is a reference to Elton Brand, an NBA basketball player who once played for the Duke Blue Devils. This is because a designer at Bethesda named Mark Nelson was a big fan of the team and his username, BlueDev, is a reflection of this. In fact, the script that triggers this easter egg is called "bluescript". The message itself is referencing the North Carolina Tar Heels, the Duke's most hated rivals. The quest Shashev's Key is referencing the Blue Devils coach named Mike Krzyzewski. Shashev's Key. Krzyzewski. And finally the very specific number of gold coins is a reference to Mark Nelson's date of birth. If you open the console in Skyrim and type "coc WindhelmPitEntrance" you will access a place known as The Windhelm Pit. This small arena of sorts was cut from the game for unknown reasons but was to be used to get out of prison in Windhelm. To be released from prison, the player would have to fight various characters to gain his freedom. Back in early 2011 Bethesda announced on their blog that if anyone delivers a child on the day of Skyrim's release, 11-11-11, and then names him or her Dovahkiin, they would receive free Bethesda games for life. It's not entirely clear if Bethesda were being serious but when it comes to fans of video games, there's usually someone out there crazy enough to actually do it. Thus, a boy was conceived on 11-11-11 and named Dovahkiin Tom Kellermeyer. And as promised, he and his parents will have free access to any past, present, and future Bethesda made games. During a quest in the Tribunal expansion for Morrowind, you're tasked with stopping a journalist from printing lies about the king. Once you track him down and talk to him, one of the dialogue options is "I'm looking for the Eye of Argonia." This is in reference to the title of the second Elder Scrolls Adventures game that was canceled before release. It was supposed to be a direct sequel to Redguard but as Redguard sold poorly, they focused on Morrowind instead. The character in the game is supposed to serve as an analogue for Bethesda and how they "lied" about an upcoming sequel to Redguard. The lore in this franchise is vast. It's incredible how much though has gone into creating this universe reaching far beyond the scope of the games themselves. Each game takes place in one specific province on the continent known as Tamriel. The exception being the first game Arena which actually lets you explore the entire continent and The Elder Scrolls: Online will eventually encompass all of Tamriel as well. But Tamriel is only one of the continents on the planet Nirn. The other major continents and islands are Akavir, Atmora, Yokuda, Pyandonea, Thras, and possibly Aldmeris if it exists. Very little is known of these other continents and islands but Tamriel and Akavir are said to be the two largest. The planet Nirn also has two moons called Secunda and Masser which you've likely observed during some late night adventures. Personally, I used to be an adventurer like you but then I took an arro- Masser is the larger of the two and Secunda is actually orbiting Masser and not Nirn itself. Nirn exist within the mortal plane known as Mundus. The Mundus was first conceived by a divine being known as Lorkhan. But Lorkhan could not create the Mundus alone so he either convinced or tricked other immortals known as et'Ada to assist him in its construction. Those who helped to create the Mundus became known as Aedra (meaning "our ancestors") and those who did not became known as Daedra (meaning "not our ancestors"). Some of the Aedra gave parts of themselves entirely to the creation of the Mundus and became the eight planets and moons. Also known as the Eight Diviners. In very simple terms, think of the Mundus as something similar to a geocentric solar system, just with you know, a lot of magical stuff. Nirn is the center with the other eight bodies either orbiting around it or in close proximity. Beyond the mortal plane we find Oblivion. This is the home to the supernatural entities known as Daedra. Those who did not want to create the Mundus and thus continues to exist within the realm of Oblivion. The immortal Daedra and the Daedric Princesses are both feared and worshiped by the mortals within Mundus, a theme commonly explored throughout the franchise. The mortals on Nirn cannot actually see or detect Oblivion in any way. Instead, the realm is interpreted as the vast black nothingness of space. The only real indication that Oblivion exists are the stars, including the sun. These are in fact not stars in the common sense but rather holes that go straight through the realm of Oblivion, reaching all the way to the realm of Aetherius. This realm is where the Aedra originate and is a sort of opposite of Oblivion. Aetherius is a realm of pure magicka and through the stars (or rather the holes) permit magic to reach the mortals on Nirn. And that's a very very compressed version of the lore behind The Elder Scrolls.
Info
Channel: LEMMiNO
Views: 3,003,040
Rating: 4.9524117 out of 5
Keywords: did you know, the more you know, TIL, today i learned, facts, 10 facts, top 10, learning, educational, informational, factual, interesting facts, amazing facts, trivia, interesting trivia, amazing trivia, top10memes, top 10 memes, top ten memes, LEMMiNO, the elder scrolls, facts about the elder scrolls, the elder scrolls facts, the elder scrolls trivia, oblivion, skyrim, morrowind, arena, daggerfall, redguard, the elder scrolls online, bethesda, tes
Id: oQiZDjG1SLs
Channel Id: undefined
Length: 12min 42sec (762 seconds)
Published: Sun Jul 19 2015
Reddit Comments

He was wrong about Lars Battle-Born though. You can do a quest for him and talk to Braith, if you threaten her, he will then say what he said in the video if you talk to him.

👍︎︎ 15 👤︎︎ u/kavso 📅︎︎ Aug 07 2015 🗫︎ replies

What did you not know?

👍︎︎ 4 👤︎︎ u/FINGERFUCKMYDICKHOLE 📅︎︎ Aug 07 2015 🗫︎ replies

Nice click b8 m8

👍︎︎ 2 👤︎︎ u/KinkyApplesauce 📅︎︎ Aug 07 2015 🗫︎ replies

Lars doesn't thank you for killing Braith, he thanks you for stopping her bullying him. That line in the video isn't something he would say if he knew she was dead.

👍︎︎ 1 👤︎︎ u/livid_taco 📅︎︎ Aug 07 2015 🗫︎ replies
Related Videos
Note
Please note that this website is currently a work in progress! Lots of interesting data and statistics to come.