Tamriel Eternal: One Man’s Journey Through the Elder Scrolls

Christmas, 2004. There I was at the tender age of ten, unwrapping my presents with the customary fiendish delight. I came to the last gift, a mysterious rectangular parcel from my eldest brother, which was cause for even more excitement (he usually gave the best presents). After tearing off the wrapping, I laid my eyes upon the black and gold motif of the Game of the Year edition of The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. Other than the few glances I had stolen at the flashy box set at Walmart, I knew nothing about the game. Poring over the evocative descriptions and pictures of werewolves, battle-hardened elves, and warriors in crimson armor, I knew it was going to be something special, and I experienced one of the first instances I can remember of gaming-related “hype.”

Later, after the holiday festivities had died down, I finally got to tear open the box and insert the multiple discs into our shitty Compaq Presario. In the hours that followed, I stepped into the realm of Tamriel for the first time. Accompanied by Jeremy Soule’s timeless score, I was greeted by a strange and alien world, a world of fog and rain, a world of strange faces and mysterious creatures, and of course, walls and walls of text. This was my first “real” RPG, I had no idea what I was doing, what statistics did, and what was viable or effective. But I learned, and I got hopelessly lost more than a few times in the process. Morrowind is my favorite game to this day, one that I use as a yardstick for other RPGs which come up short more often than not.

As the years passed, I played the other Elder Scrolls games as well. Oblivion was a staple of my teens. I did the required tinkering to play and complete Arena and the labyrinthine Daggerfall. I was there with the other nerds at the buzzing midnight release of the ubiquitous Skyrim, which was an introduction to the series for a new generation and changed the scope of the RPG industry forever. I’ve spent some time with Elder Scrolls Online, and I’ve even played the spin-offs Battlespire and Redguard, the latter of which I’ve yet to complete due to technical issues, although I intend to rectify that.

These games aren’t perfect and have their fair share of flaws. Their buggy awkwardness is the subject of memes which transcend language. Morrowind’s combat is wonky by modern standards. Oblivion’s level-scaling is atrocious. Skyrim can be as wide as an ocean, but deep as a puddle. There are games with better combat, better stories, deeper mechanics, and richer customization. But something about the freedom these games provide, the worlds they let you inhabit, the moments of bloody triumph and quiet comfort they facilitate, has captured my heart and the hearts of many, and I frequently come back to them when the mood strikes me.

For years now I’ve had the idea of playing the whole series in order, and I’ve started and stopped that process several times, getting as far as Oblivion in my last attempt before over-indulging in mods and deleting Kvatch in the process, rendering the main quest organically impossible. More recently, I’ve hatched the idea of a series playthrough with as close to a “canon” character in each game as possible. Obviously, there is no true canon character in the Elder Scrolls beyond the role they fill in the events which unfold, being able to be who you want to be and play the way you want to play is one of the strengths of the series I espoused above. Despite that, I think it makes more sense to slay Alduin and enter Sovngarde as a Nord warrior in Skyrim than a lizardman without pants who goes inexplicably invisible when crouching down. I think Morrowind is more meaningful when you play a Dark Elf, an outlander returned to his ancestral homeland, realizing their gods are far more human than they’d wish, rather than a vampiric Orc bee-bopping around Vvardenfell at Mach 3 with the Boots of Blinding Speed and the Scrolls of Icarian Flight. For all the freedom you’re given, there is a character archetype the story is catered to, and I want to play that way in a grand undertaking of the series. This playthrough will be heavy on RP and immersion, and I’m going to equip each game with a well-researched and curated selection of mods that enhance the experience.

This will be a lengthy and time-consuming undertaking, and I want something tangible to come of it, hence this blog series. Maybe others will find joy in reading about my experience and the exploits of these characters, but if not, it’s for myself first and foremost, a living record of my journey through one of world’s most celebrated game series. Most of my gaming time these days falls on the weekend, and I’m going to shoot for a post each Monday to recap any events of note and push the narrative forward. I may sometimes deviate and write about other things as they interest me, or maybe I’ll come up short on game time or there just won’t be much to write about in a given week. With all that out of the way, this is the beginning of the adventure, one I’m excited to share with the three or four people out there who may take interest. Look for my first post next week, where Talin the Breton Spellsword will undertake his long journey to recover the pieces of the Staff of Chaos in The Elder Scrolls: Arena.