Kind of like the worshipers of the Faceless Ones in the Skulduggery Pleasant series, if anyone has read those. :shrug:

No, you are most right. But then again, world ending entities have been apparent since Morrowind.

The problem is, people often forget the merish view of Mundus. The mer (save for dunmer) would have agreed with Mankar and his plans to release Mehrunes Dagon to destroy Mundus. Alduin destroying the world would also be a good thing to the mer, as he'll liberate his people from the perceived prison of Mundus and return everything like it was in the Dawn. Plus, like with Mehrunes Dagon, it's Alduin's job to destroy Mundus. The only difference between the two is the motive. With Alduin, he must consume this kalpa, as it has lasted longer than it "should," and he's hungry. With Mehrunes Dagon, he wants to be rid of the curse of being Mehrunes Dagon.

To us, having Mundus destroyed would most likely mean the end of TES, and that would just svck. Though, depending on what happens at the end of Skyrim, we won't have to worry about world ending entities.

Yeah, I mean it really does seem like they are taking Oblivions storyline, switching characters, keeping events, and just going with it.
In Oblivion, Emeperor dies.
In Skrim, doesn't the "king" or something die?
In Oblivion, you are the "chosen one" set out to do a certain thing, chosen by the stars and by the Emperor.
In Skyrim, you are the Dovakhiin: Dragonborn, set out to save the world and kill Alduin.
I really just hope they throw us for a loop tbh.

From what we know so far, no, it doesn't. Allthough, to pull out an example from WoW, Deathwing wants to kill all life in the world, he has many fanatical and insane minions of all races to help him out with that, he's just going to kill them last. Then again, Deathwing is unquistionably evil, mostly due to him being bat[censored] insane. Alduin is all about balance it seems, creation from destruction etc. That's not really evil, his motives are just beyond the mortals of Tamriel and the fact that they take issue with the whole world being destroyed doesn't seem to phase him, they are beneath his notice pretty much.

Who knows, you could have a fanatical dragon cult convinced that they are meant to aid Alduin and the dragons, the dragons themselves don't really need to agree with that. Imagine fighting some cultists and having their leader go "Behold! I have tamed a Dragon! Bask in the power of Alduin!" only to get eaten.


I haven't, but there are entities called Faceless ones in Warcraft lore as well and the Twilight's Hammer cult sounds very similar, they wish to bring about the end of the world to have a new world appear or something like that, their insane ramblings tend to just blur together after a while when you slaughter them by the hundreds Anyway, they see Deathwing as the perfect way to do that, and he sees them as expendable pawns for his insane plans.

What kind of loop? Alduin actually wanted a belly rub? Mundus ends? Dunno about you, but ending Mundus would mean no more TES, unless we really want to have a nearly new IP.

Also, I highly doubt Alduin can die, let alone having a lowly mortal kill the god of time. Likely, we prevent him from destroying Mundus either by becoming Shor, keeping Alduin asleep, or we try to bring Shor from the "dead" to subdue Alduin. Maybe Alduin's other personality, Akatosh and Shor come together and try to preserve Mundus.

Going to iterate a point, the mer welcome the return of Alduin, as they see him as Auriel, defender and liberator of the mer who will remove the prison, known as Mundus, and return everything back to the Dawn. We're only against it because we want TES to stay, or you are a fellow Shor follow.

I mean, not a game ending loop or something outrageous, just something that we don't expect ya know? I don't know about you, but the first time I played through Oblivions main quest, I was not surprised at all. I pretty much guessed every turn in events before it happened. It was extremely generic and dull IMO.
I just hope Skyrims MQ is different.

What about EVERY elf?

The dunmer are the exception. Though I do believe the Redguard see Mundus also as a prison, but they have a weird mythology.

they do but they hate the snake-eater (not gunna try and spell skatakal) and so wouldn't help the dragons

I know! It's like they can't decide on anything! They mix up too many things and have too many gods. The HoonDing is BA though.

too many gods and mixups? we must like lore for different reasons. What do you mean 'mix up"? maybe they have it right and the Dunmeri scholars have it wrong. That is one of my main draws to TES lore.

And yes I agree that Hunding is a badass. I still think that the hunding's are really just shezzarines, but that debate will have to happen in a Lore thread.

By mix up, they seem to combine a lot of the known gods, and have gods of gods of something. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if they had a god of there's too many gods in our mythology.

There's always an underling.

Hey, its better than 'mehrunes dagon mad. Mehrunes dagon SMASH'

Well that's the problem, there really isn't "stereotypes", it's more of archetypes. I mean, what really made Dagoth Ur stand out from other evil beings that want to rule the world and kill lots of people, or any villain for that fact. It's an Archetype. Every villain is basically the same, they may have different reasons for what they do but it's all basically the same. Mankar Cameron is the archetype of "Manic Cult Leader" but he has different ambitions from another manic cult leader. Even Mannimarco was the archetype of "Manic Cult Leader" but his ambition was absolute power and he got it with the mantella, which is a much separate goal than Mankar Cameron but still the same thing and Mannimarco was awesome. Mankar Cameron was a great minor antagonist, but some people don't see that because you almost never had contact with him in the game but if you read his writings and get a feel for the characters personality and then match it with his talking character in game, he has much more personality. But that's just my thoughts on the matter.


Now we need a separate antagonist like Mannimarco or Mankar Cameron (or the underking :thumbsup: ) but give them more face time and they will pop out more to those that don't wish to read their writings (if they have any).


Well, it's a little of a recurring theme. Daggerfall had the King of Daggerfall die. Redguard had the High King die. Arena had a kidnapped emperor (not really dying but you know hehe)

But the real first "world ending" plot was in Oblivion. Dagoth Ur was just going to conquer Tamriel with his brass god, Arena was just Jagar Tharn controlling the empire which would've eventually ended with the world ending as Mehrunes Dagon would've got into the fray to kill people. Battlespire was a danger to the world by Mehrunes Dagon as well but not really in any immediate danger. So basically just the last two have had really "Nirn is going to explode plots" which doesn't really hurt as long as it isn't used in every game from now on. That's usually how stories get ruined if there is always the next thing and the next thing that threatens to destroy the world but TES is far from having to do that because they don't always have to have the next villain stronger than the last to make sense, because your a new character.

Mankar Cameron was really YOUR big boss fight, you weren't the hero, just the hero's (Martin) bestest firend and the guy that saved his ass on a number of occasions.

But yeah, each dragon should be like a miniboss, then the mega-dragon's consort (his name escapes me) should be the second to last boss (encountered halfway through the game), and the mega-dragon himself at the end of the game for a supah-epuc-wtfpwnage-fest that makes up for the last 200 years of nothingness that didn't deserve a game to be made in reverence of it happening.

Well, on the subject of a secondary antagonist, Bethesda DID mention that "a few, very few, other NPC's can wield the art of Thu'm". Perhaps we will find another Dragonborn, one serving Alduin/Akatosh. Also, Skyrim differs from OB in the fact that YOU are the subject of the story, and, hopefuly, YOU will get to kick Alduin's ass, instead of watching someone do it for you.

Well the users of Thu'um aren't nearly as powerful at it as the dragonborn or dragons. So you might find a evil Thu'um user but he won't be another dragonborn. As for you not being the subject of Oblivion, yes you were. You did all the work, Mehrunes Dagon was in no way going to be banished by you, a lowly mortal. You were instrumental in the closing of Oblivion and without you, kvatch would've still been overrun by daedra, Martin would've been killed, then Mehrunes Dagon would've destroyed the world. I mean, think about it. You closed the great gate in front of Bruma, something you and only you could do and so on. I didn't realize people saw that Martin turned into the Avatar of Akatosh and defeated Mehrunes Dagon as a affront to their heroism, I just assumed everyone saw it that Mehrunes really wasn't a boss. It never bothered me because I knew I was the true hero of the story and the only thing Martin did was help get the amulet of kings back and then sacrificed himself to banish Mehrunes Dagon. You don't have to defeat everyone to be the hero or focus of the story.

You make a good point.

We don't know for certain Alduin won't have much personality, I mean, we haven't seen anything to indicate that he'll have any personality, but we haven't seen anything about him at all beyond knowing that he is behind the events of Skyrim. However, I suspect he will turn out to be one of those villains that has no real personality and essentially feels more like a device that exists to provide an antagonist for the story rather than an actual clearly defined character. Of course, we don't know this for certain, but "Dragon god that wants to destroy the world" just doesn't sound like the kind of antagonist that I'd expect to have a unique personality. But I could certainly see Bethesda adding in some sort of secondary humanoid antagonist serving Alduin, probably some sort of cult as it would be pretty hard to justify someone working for an entity that wants to destroy the world otherwise. Alternately, it could just be people with plans that you happen to be a threat to, and they either don't understand the threat Alduin poses, or think they have their own way to deal with it, after they've accomplished their current goals, but we'll see, right now, there's a lot about the game that's still up to speculation.



While it's true that the player did most of the work in Oblivion, I still feel that the game treats Martin as the real hero. Not because of the fact that the player isn't the one who defeats Mehrunes Dagon in and of itself, though that is kind of a letdown because the boss we get in his place was pretty underwhelming and the solution for defeating Mehrunes Dagon essentially amounted to a deus ex machina. It's more because, at the end of the day, Martin is the one who gets the real credit. I mean, Martin is the one people talk about as the chosen one who is needed to save the world. It's always "You need to save Martin!" or what not. Now, that alone doesn't make Martin the hero, as there are many stories where a secondary character plays a necessary part to accomplishing whatever needs to be done in the story, but the real hero is still the protagonist, but what really gets me is that at the end of the day, Martin is really the one who gets the credit. It seems pretty clear that Bethesda meant for Martin to be the real hero, despite the player being the one who does everything, and really, I think that's the problem with such a method of storytelling in games. In other mediums, you can have the protagonist be someone who isn't the one who does everything as long as that character is there to see it all. But in games, it will get pretty boring if you just stand aside and watch while oher people do what matters, so unless it's a game where you control more than one character, the main character pretty much needs to be the one who does the most important things in the story. And really, that's my problem with Oblivion's main quest, the story would have us think that Martin is the real hero, but we're always the ones doing the work, and at the end, it just feels less satisfying because you feel like you're not given credit for you're work.

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1171243-rivals/page__p__17269665#entry17269665 could add a lot of depth to many of the stories, not just the main quest. We don't necessarily have to be fighting against a thu-um user, maybe that thu-um user is another person trying to hold back the waves of dragons and we happen upon each other in our travels. Just cause we're the only one they actually fear doesn't mean we're the only one with a sword/staff/dagger.

That said, if they do something like this I hope they make full use of the radiant story, making lesser characters in the main story that we deal with differ from time to time based on our actions and choise of combat, at least a little bit. Like if you play a knight-like character, a rival for you would be a theif whom could use thu-um to face dragons as well. A theif may get a knight that dedicates himself to chasing you down and finally stopping you. A mage could get a second mage as a rival whom uses simmilar magic. And their personality would be the opposite of ours, like a person with a lot of fame would go up against someone with infamy, and vice versa.

Throw a side story onto the main quest would be welcomed by me at least. Make the world feel as if there are other people trying to fight, and it's once again not just us left up to do all the dirty work...again.

Yes, I would hope for a secondary villain and more recurring characters in general. A rival, or a sub-plot involving some sort of assassin who hounds you throughout parts of the main quest or both.

Can any one give me the back ground of the nords? Thats the race in oblivion that I found to be drawn to