01-12-2011, 10:26 PM
As promised to Zurke, this is the beginning of a short summary of changes to Morrowind since the end of Oblivion that will have affected the area of Silgrad Tower. I am very grateful to TOYB and Lady Nerevar for reading through the novel The Infernal City and extracting all the important lore points from it.
For a full, detailed list of lore notes on the book by Lady Nerevar, see here: http://www.imperial-library.info/content...lore-notes
On to the summary:
1. During Tes4, Vivec mysteriously disappears. A few years later, the rock he miraculously stopped in the air above the city that bears his name (ie. the Ministry of Truth) starts to regain its previous velocity. The mages of Morrowind all get together to build a soul-powered machine to stabilise the rock, but unfortunately two of them have a falling out and something breaks in the machine.
2. The Ministry of Truth hit Vivec with an asteroid-scale impact, triggering an eruption of Red Mountain.
3. According to the book, "most" of Morrowind's cities were destroyed, either by the tidal wave from the meteor strike, or the subsequent ash storms, smaller tidal waves, earthquakes and landslides.
4. In the aftermath of the disaster, some tribes from Argonia took advantage of Morrowind's weakened state to launch a full-scale invasion of the south, driving out the Dunmer into the north.
5. By the time of the novel (4E 40, ie. 40 years after Oblivion ended), the majority of Dunmer are scattered across the rest of Tamriel in a massive disapora. There is a particularly huge colony on the island of Solstheim, which apparently escaped the worst of the disaster.
So what does this mean for Silgrad Tower?
Take a look at this picture by Lady N, which estimates the area of the Ministry impact (purple), the eruption epicentre (red) and the Argonian invasion (green). Now, we don't have anything official, and so this is just a guess, but it seems a reasonable one:
http://img543.imageshack.us/img543/3318/morrowind4e.jpg
You can see that the Silgrad area in the north of Morrowind would have escaped the initial tsunami and the invasion. However it will have been hit quite badly by the eruption (though nowhere near as bad as Vvardenfell), and the coastal region will probably have been altered quite a bit by smaller tsunamis and earthquakes.
Now, of course, TES5 will be set 200 years after TES4, meaning that we don't really know the extent to which Morrowind will have recovered by then. I suspect we'll have to wait for the game to come out before we get an answer, and that will have a large effect on how the mod should look - whether the land is still covered with ash or green and revived once again.
However, as a rough guess it would seem reasonable to assume:
1. Silgrad Tower area is probably one of the better off areas in Morrowind, as it escaped the worst of the disasters.
2. The area will have been swamped by refugees fleeing from the south. Although many will long since have moved on, it's quite likely that there will be a lot more Dunmer of Hlaalu, Dres and Indoril in this area.
3. Silgrad Tower is most likely not occupied by the Argonians directly, since it's quite far north and we know from lore that their armies don't fight so well in cold conditions. However, there may be raiding parties in the south still.
4. Silgrad Tower is pretty close to the largest Dunmer colony on Solstheim, so if the Dunmer are in the process of recovering parts of their homeland then this would logically be the first area they would come to.
5. It's been 200 years since two of the Tribunal were killed and the remaining one disappeared. It's therefore quite likely that the influence of the Temple is greatly reduced. On the other hand, some Dunmer may see the disaster as punishment for abandoning the old ways and become even more conservative as a result.
I think that should be enough to get a conversation started. Let's discuss!
For a full, detailed list of lore notes on the book by Lady Nerevar, see here: http://www.imperial-library.info/content...lore-notes
On to the summary:
1. During Tes4, Vivec mysteriously disappears. A few years later, the rock he miraculously stopped in the air above the city that bears his name (ie. the Ministry of Truth) starts to regain its previous velocity. The mages of Morrowind all get together to build a soul-powered machine to stabilise the rock, but unfortunately two of them have a falling out and something breaks in the machine.
2. The Ministry of Truth hit Vivec with an asteroid-scale impact, triggering an eruption of Red Mountain.
3. According to the book, "most" of Morrowind's cities were destroyed, either by the tidal wave from the meteor strike, or the subsequent ash storms, smaller tidal waves, earthquakes and landslides.
4. In the aftermath of the disaster, some tribes from Argonia took advantage of Morrowind's weakened state to launch a full-scale invasion of the south, driving out the Dunmer into the north.
5. By the time of the novel (4E 40, ie. 40 years after Oblivion ended), the majority of Dunmer are scattered across the rest of Tamriel in a massive disapora. There is a particularly huge colony on the island of Solstheim, which apparently escaped the worst of the disaster.
So what does this mean for Silgrad Tower?
Take a look at this picture by Lady N, which estimates the area of the Ministry impact (purple), the eruption epicentre (red) and the Argonian invasion (green). Now, we don't have anything official, and so this is just a guess, but it seems a reasonable one:
http://img543.imageshack.us/img543/3318/morrowind4e.jpg
You can see that the Silgrad area in the north of Morrowind would have escaped the initial tsunami and the invasion. However it will have been hit quite badly by the eruption (though nowhere near as bad as Vvardenfell), and the coastal region will probably have been altered quite a bit by smaller tsunamis and earthquakes.
Now, of course, TES5 will be set 200 years after TES4, meaning that we don't really know the extent to which Morrowind will have recovered by then. I suspect we'll have to wait for the game to come out before we get an answer, and that will have a large effect on how the mod should look - whether the land is still covered with ash or green and revived once again.
However, as a rough guess it would seem reasonable to assume:
1. Silgrad Tower area is probably one of the better off areas in Morrowind, as it escaped the worst of the disasters.
2. The area will have been swamped by refugees fleeing from the south. Although many will long since have moved on, it's quite likely that there will be a lot more Dunmer of Hlaalu, Dres and Indoril in this area.
3. Silgrad Tower is most likely not occupied by the Argonians directly, since it's quite far north and we know from lore that their armies don't fight so well in cold conditions. However, there may be raiding parties in the south still.
4. Silgrad Tower is pretty close to the largest Dunmer colony on Solstheim, so if the Dunmer are in the process of recovering parts of their homeland then this would logically be the first area they would come to.
5. It's been 200 years since two of the Tribunal were killed and the remaining one disappeared. It's therefore quite likely that the influence of the Temple is greatly reduced. On the other hand, some Dunmer may see the disaster as punishment for abandoning the old ways and become even more conservative as a result.
I think that should be enough to get a conversation started. Let's discuss!