I am curious how the political hierarchy of the Empire works? Obviously the Emperor has powers over all the land and is the top. But what about the lower ranks? Is each providence controlled by a king (like king Heselth in Morrowind)? And in Oblivion there were counts that controlled the different regions so does this mean that each providence in divided into regions controlled by counts? And there was a Duke in Morrowind, what exactly do Dukes do/ what power do they have? And are there barons or lords or any other royalty in Tamriel?

I'm definitely not the expert on this, but I do know that by "providence" you mean "province."

I believe most of the cities portrayed in Oblivion were city-states, ruled over by a monarch. That being said, everything in Oblivion must be taken with a grain of salt, as things portrayed in the game are limited by game design etc.

I imagine most of Cyrodiil would be split up into baronies/ counties, swearing fealty to their respective king.

In Morrowind the Temple has the majority of the power over the land due to the terms of the armistice, and the Temple delegates this power to the Great Houses. The head of Imperial power there is the Imperial Proconsul, in the southern Hlaalu capital of Narsis (near to the Cyrodiil border). The king is just a figurehead, and until Helseth was barely recognised by the people as having any power at all. Each administrative district of Morrowind (of which there are six) has its own duke.

@gobbleyking, You can't throw out in-game presentations of modern cyrodiil's political structure like that.

Anyway, Cyrodiil seems to be split into counties, named after the cities. (County Kvatch, for example) Each county is ruled by a count. It seems that the only authority directly above the counts is the Empire itself, which would make sense considering Cyrodiil is the seat of IMperial power.

High Rock is split into a set of kingdoms which don't really like each other. Orsinium, Wayrest, and Daggerfall are the big territory holders. Might be smaller ones like Camlorn in the northwestern coast. Can't say for certain if they were assimilated by the nations that profited from the Warp in the West.

Hammerfell's most prominent kingdom is Sentinel, and is politically divided by supporters of Lhotun (sentinel's ruler), the crowns, and the forebears.

Morrowind was(check out what happened in the Infernal City) controlled by the Tribunal Temple and House Dres, Indoril, Redoran, Telvanni, and Hlaalu. Due to the events of the Infernal City, Morrowind's now pretty much a hell-hole under the control of the Argonians.

Black Marsh seems to be run by the Hist trees and Argonian factions. Not too sure what their like.

the Summerset Isles, as of the Infernal city, are now ruled by the Thalmor, who've resurrected the Aldmeri Dominion.

Valenwood is in the same boat as the Summerset Isles as of the Infernal city, I think.

So, short answer is, Each Province has a unique political battlefield.

At least Hlaalu towns also seem to have governors, such as Odral Helvi in Caldera and Serjo Avon Oran in Suran.

Also, Vedam Dren is the Duke of Vvardenfell, which implies that he has foremen on the Morrowind mainland. According to Wikipedia, "A duke is a member of the nobility, historically of highest rank below the monarch, and historically controlling a duchy. The title comes from the Latin Dux, 'leader', a term used in republican Rome to refer to a military commander without an official rank (particularly one of Germanic or Celtic origin), and later coming to mean the leading military commander of a province."

So Dren 'controls' his dutchy, Vvardenfell, although we don't know how except for granting a construction contract or two every now and then. It seems he only answers to Helseth, though.

Then again, the true power at least in Vvardenfell seems to be with the Great Houses and Vivec (Temple). Those are actually the parties that are shaping and moving Vvardenfell.

I'd say there are no clear highest ranks, which is also seen in Tribunal where Helseth and Almalexia basically aren't the best of friends and have different opinions about who's supposed to wield the power. You'd want to think though that the Temple and Empire are two separate political factions, but somewhere along the line it becomes hazy which position represents which party. I'd think of them as the Church and State on most western countries in real life, with the Church part still having much more power than they have nowadays.

A quick note on the Imperial Proconsul in Morrowind, taken from a Tamriel Rebuilt discussion and posted by a respected member of the lore community:



If you're interested in reading further, the thread itself can be found here: http://www.tamriel-rebuilt.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=21531

It's true, you're right. I was just playing Oblivion a while ago and they are all counts, aren't they. For some reason I always thought of them as kings, how silly of me. That makes a lot more sense now, because having 8 or so kings with their own city state never sat very well with me anyway.

Apologies for the misinformation TS.

Tamriel follows a pretty standard medieval hierarchy in terms of the human provinces: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_hierarchy

Other than that, we only have bits and pieces. In the Third Era, Summerset Isle, Morrowind and Valenwood followed the standard human model as well, but that's been thrown out the window in the Fourth Era. Morrowind has been blasted to hell, and it's safe to assume Helseth's head (well, skull) is sitting on a pike somewhere in northern Black Marsh (formerly southern Morrowind).

Valenwood and the Summersets are now the (new) Aldmeri Dominion, run by a group calling themselves the Thalmor, which according to the Pocket Guide to the Empire (3rd edition) was, (http://www.imperial-library.info/content/pocket-guide-empire-third-edition-wild-remain-valenwood) a "congress of Bosmeri chieftains and Altmeri diplomats". It's safe to assume the new Thalmor is set up in roughly the same way.

Elsweyr was ruled by the Mane, but again that's gone to hell in the Fourth Era. Presumably the Mane was equal parts king, and equal parts Dalai Lama, in that he's a spiritual leader whose birth and leadership is preordained. There doesn't appear to be any sort of nobility set up to decide this, a Mane could be born to two stray Alfiq on the streets of Senchal, or he could be the son of a wealthy Skooma Baron. All that matters is the phase of the moons.

Black Marsh is an interesting one. It's ruled by the Hist, naturally, whose Argonian representatives are the An-Xileel (an extremist anti-Imperial political party) and the Organism, which I take is some kind of parliament or tribal council, which I assume is mostly or entirely manned (lizarded?) by the An-Xileel.

Thousands of workers ply the rice fields after the floodings, or clear the foliage of the surrounding jungle in the alternate seasons. Above them are the merchant-nobility, the temple priests and cult leaders, and the age-old aristocracy of the battlemages. The Emperor watches over them all from the towers of the Imperial City, as dragons circle overhead.

Clan identity is important, and the largest go armed.

I was disappointed in the version of Cyrodill that was presented to us visually...lack of dragons, gondolas, and Battlemage aristocracy...

No Nibenese face tattoos either.

There were Nibeneans, though. They were the slippery ones. :thumbsup:

forgot the y

No face tattoos, no deal. It's in the rule book.

Face tattoos are the alpha and omega of TES lore.

With regards to the original question, I don't think it's ever been fully established. I've been with this series since just about the beginning, and I still have no idea if the "provinces" represent large administrative districts within the Empire or simply historical and ethnic regions. For example, High Rock seems to now be ruled by Daggerfall, Sentinel and Wayrest. Is there a "Governor of High Rock" above them, or is High Rock just the term for the region, like "the Balkans"?

It also doesn't help that the Empire is portrayed differently in the different games. In Daggerfall it was essentially powerless; Tamriel was ruled by a nominal Emperor, much like medieval France or the later Holy Roman Empire, but he had practically no real power outside of the Imperial Province. That's why he had to work through an agent. In Morrowind, the Empire was strong enough to be building forts in distant, contentious lands and much more closely resembled the classical Roman Empire in terms of structure. In Oblivion...?

Unfortunately, if any game was going to answer these questions, it would have been Oblivion. My own theory is that the Imperial presence in Morrowind was a still functioning relic of an earlier, stronger Empire and operated more or less independently by the time of the game. By the end of the 3rd era, the Empire lacked the power to do much in most of the other provinces. The Elder Council, made up of the richest and most powerful people in the individual provinces, functioned as the only meaningful liason between Imperial and local power, and even that was pretty illusionary. Thus the Emperor's death didn't really have much of an impact, except maybe to further isolate the provinces.

...so to answer your question, I don't know.

You might be on to something there. In Oblivion, Ocato was unable to exert control over the Legions stationed in other provinces in any meaningful way. His excuse was they were busy protecting those territories, but most of those territories had their own standing armies at any given time. Surely he could have spared SOME troops - unless the Knights of the Imperial Dragon in each province were not completely under his control, in which case they'd just do whatever the hell they wanted and he'd come up with some excuse to save face.

It works as a hypothesis.

It's like the old Breton proverb - "Find a hill, be a king." (paraphrased from memory)

If you can't be Emperor of Tamriel or even Duke of a province what's the next best thing? Being the supreme commander of the Legions in a province.

Then again, Ocato was a [censored] in Oblivion. He was much cooler in Daggerfall.

This and fixed

Back on topic. Empire had Forts in Skyrim too. In DB quest in Oblivion, Nels the Naughty complained that Legion refused to help his vilage.

One of the results of the Warp in the West was for the Empire to gain control over Numidium. While that didn't really last very long, it was enough for the Empire to beat a little more submission out of the provinces. Not complete submission, of course, and an ultimately temporary effect, but it did happen.

Note, that every faction in Iliac bay got the Numidium, so the result was balanced out.

Only in the Bay, though. Every kingdom but the four Daggerfall winners got their ass kicked by a gestalt golem.