Six things you will and will not find in The Elder Scrolls Online
The Elder Scrolls series launched in 1994 with Arena. The game was sold on floppy disks, for goodness' sake. It's been around for a long time. With that extended life comes convoluted and complicated lore. Even after I'd heard the time period for The Elder Scrolls Online, I had to research to find out whether certain pieces of lore would actually appear in the game. Of course, I'm not going to be able to tell you everything in this one article, but before ESO launches, I can hit some of the highlights.
You will not find dragons
After Skyrim, I know that many players will look for dragons around every corner. Unfortunately, all the dragons are currently in hiding. I'm a fan of Skyrim, so this gives me a sad. However, since they are just in hiding and not extinct, it is possible that we will run into them someplace -- maybe an endgame dungeon.
You will find Dragon Priests
The Dragon Cult is known to far outlast the presence of dragons. And the priests ordered their followers to bury them in dragon tombs because they believed it would grant them a second life. As you might know from Skyrim, it does, but only in the form of a lich.
You will not find dwarves
Dwarves in the Elder Scrolls universe are called Dwemer. To simplify, any names ending in "mer" are elves, descendants of Aldmer. So Dwemer are technically elves and are depicted as short and stocky with long beards. They lived deep in the earth and were sometimes referred to as Deep-Elves. The Dwemer, however, disappeared long before the second area, but they left much of their technology behind.
You will find dwarven technology
The Dwemer mixed magic, alchemy, and science, created machines and tools unlike anything else in all of Tamriel. As you journey through Tamriel, you will certainly run into different items that the Dwemer created, even robots. Watch out for those, though. The guardians of Dwemer caves are not something to be trifled with.
You will not find Talos
Talos, or Tiber Septim, was a famous Emperor of Tamriel who was able to unite the Empire again. Eventually, he ascended to the heavens to become one of the Divines. Perhaps I should have rephrased this section and said, "You will not find nine Divines." In all other Elder Scrolls games, there were nine. However, Talos has not ascended to the throne of Tamriel or become a Divine yet. So you might hear of Akatosh, Arkay, Dibella, Julianos, Kynareth, Mara, Stendarr, and Zenithar, but not Tiber Septim.
You will find Daedric Princes
The Daedra are creatures from Oblivion, and each Daedra who rules over a plane of Oblivion is called a Daedric Prince. There are 16 at the time of ESO, and it's possible that you will run into all of them. Most Princes like to toy with or wish harm or love upon the people of Tamriel. I know for certain that if you take the right quests, you will run into my favorite, Prince Sheogorath, and get a chance to travel to his plane, called The Shivering Isles. And of course, in the opening tutorial, you run smack dab into Molag Bol in his plane of Coldharbour.
Those are a few important things you will and won't find in the Elder Scrolls Online. What things will you miss from previous Elder Scrolls games? What are you most looking forward to finding?
My biweekly column on ESO, Tamriel Infinium, pops up again this Tuesday, and the game officially launches on April 4th. I hope to see you there.
