Pete sent over some questions to Greg Keyes, author of The Infernal City, for Bethesda Blog.

You can check out the interview http://bethblog.com/index.php/2009/11/18/infernal-interview/

Nice, so when is the game coming?

There are http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=1055026 for that question.

Interesting interview Gstaff - thanks for the link.

Nice interview. Now to await the book's release next week.

Interesting stuff...although I'm not sure how long someone would live if they were 'trapped in Oblivion' for a substantial period of time...particularly if it's the Deadlands. Bloodgrass can't be good eating. But then again, Zenas survived in Herma-Mora's realm for some time. Maybe you just don't need to eat in the planes?

Anyway, I'd be interested to see what's in the second book. Do we have any info at all (even a title?) in regards to it?

My opinion of him just went up slightly.

And Uriel Septim spent years in Oblivion, and he came out of it in one piece, even if a bit upset.

Displaying the grittiness of court politics that can potentially be as dangerous as direct combat? I'm down with that.

When I was reading through it for the first time, that was my favorite comment in the interview as well.

It would seem to show that he understands a big part of what TES is about.

But that also seems like a boilerplate item that should be obvious to people who play the games. Isn't it status quo that he realized this?

Very interesting. From what I've read in the Interview, Umbriel the flying city appears to be inhabited!

Umbriel is the city? I thought it was the villain character. It could be both.

Nothing like having a conversation with yourself, to get all the facts straightened out.

WHAT. You can't destroy an entire friggin' province just to make one Dunmer be angsty.

Still not impressed. If he does lurk, then he know what fans are wary of, and doubtless he'd try to reassure us. Everything he says is undermined by the fact that the best plot he and the devs could think of involve a freakin' flying city that kills life and raises corpses as zombies. Too much Left 4 Dead, methinks.

And the whole Prince & Co. to rescue bumbling idiot girl and destroy the polarized evil (oh, but it isn't eeeevil, it's hauntingly beautiful. Giving it a pretty paint job doesn't make it morally grey. :shakehead: ) is so... ugh. Why can't the prince be the one in the kitchen, and the underdog rescues him. Hah, nothing like having your future emperor rely on a nobody - that's what TES games are made of.

And yet the player decimates the Temple and MK http://www.imperial-library.info/obscure_text/fallofaldruhn.shtml and no one blinks an eye? Morrowind's MQ effectively guts Morrowind's platform of social stability, and anecdotal and not-so-anecdotal evidence from Oblivion indicates that Morrowind got hit hard by the gates. Is Morrowind destroyed to satisfy a characterization, or is the characterization based off evidence Morrowind's destruction (or at least hardcoe decline)? I'd have to lean towards the latter.

Besides, Dunmer angst isn't exactly something new anyway.

But it opens the way for a lovely invasion of drunken slobbering nords! Hooray!

The lore destroyed the province and the writer just used the situation. I doubt that he has privileges to bring such big lore decisions anyway.

I believe you outlined the exact reason right there. You should know MK can do no wrong when it comes to changing Lore. :rolleyes:

Anyway, that interview actually really made me feel more confident about the novels. I was worried they were just going to be generic fantasy in the ES setting, but Keyes does seem to know what he's doing. I also found it particually interesting when it said he visited TIL, considering the somewhat....cold reception that this novel has received over there.

Problem is, if they made a MK-type novel, only the Lore Buffs would actually understand it. TES Lore has developed beyond what the average TES fan knows or understands. And they want to appeal to the masses.

The temple didn't even exist in lore prior to the game that destroyed it. We were hardly going to go back to Morrowind in the games anyway, so its not as if we miss much apart from a bit of political development.

Indeed, God have mercy on us all if we get a CHIM book. :ahhh:

What I found interesting was "Destruction of Morrowind". Is this referring to a literal destruction (say from the fall of the Ministry of Truth moon) or the city raising an army of undead Dunmer? Or is it just referring to political destruction, say, with the House system collapsing and anarchy breaking out. Either way, should be an interesting read.

I've been wondering the same thing, as it's contested between Nords and Dunmer and unstable, both politically and geologically.

The book actually sounds pretty cheesy, sheesh, someone driven by revenge from the death of their lover, that is kinda trite. Whatever, I am interested how it will correlate with TESV though.

Not quite. The Tribunal exited before Morrowind in the PGE1. So, at the least, the Tribunal existed as of Redguard.


Whether you disagree with MK's work or not, you can't deny that his work is the apex of interest and debate. And interest and debate is the lifeblood of TES lore.

I don't think most people really want to debate it or argue about it. It's just background stuff for the games, but if it's interesting enough it makes people want to know more about it. I don't think the mystical stuff is very interesting. My favorite game books were Poison Song and he stuff about Barenziah. I hope the books are like The Real Barenziah but better.

I'm glad that Keyes realizes that TES is very much a gray vs gray affair, and that everyone has their own secrets and issues.