Dragon Age: Tamriel
“This world is a prison, a paradise and tomb. It is said that the god’s selflessly created this paradise where they might love us, protect us and birth us. It is said that our existence is a gift. But this is not the truth; we are puppets all and shall forever be. This world is a tomb, this world is a prison, this world is no paradise for Man and Mer and Beast... For when moon kissed Nirn with its maddened lips, it awoke something far more fearsome than the spewing red mountain, more ferocious than All gods and Daedra and more ancient than the makers themselves. I am thankful now that my sight is lost and my brothers dead, I am no emperor but on this day, when the Elderscrolls join together as one, I dread to name our final days the final era of man, when the father of Alduin wakes all will march on the Nexus of creation.”
The only surviving page from the Journal of Jourus H’arum A moth priest, found folded in his mouth hours after his murder. 4E100,
Timeline:
4E 22.
- Red Mountain erupts; Vvardenfell is destroyed. In Vivec's absence, the Ministry of Truth becomes unstable. Vuhon creates an Ingenium that uses at first dozens of dying souls, then a small number of living ones to stabilize the rock. The soul of Sul's wife Ilzheven was among them. In a fight to free her, the Ingenium is destroyed and the rock crashes into the city of Vivec with all the energy it originally had. The impact causes Red Mountain to erupt and destroys the entire island of Vvardenfell, as well as causing massive destruction to the rest of the province.
4E 22.
- The Thalmor seize control of Summerset Isle and rename it Alinor.
4E 29
- The Aldmeri Dominion is recreated after Alinor and Valenwood proclaim a union, and all contact is severed with the Empire. The union came about after a Thalmor-backed coup overthrew Valenwood's government. The Empire and its Bosmer allies are caught off-guard and defeated by Altmer forces that invaded Valenwood following the coup.
4E 40s
- Umbriel, a floating city, appears on the coast of Black Marsh, heading toward Morrowind.
4E 98
- The two moons of Nirn, Masser and Secunda, vanish for two years in what becomes known as the Void Nights. What isn’t publicly known however is that with the disapearance of the two moons, every known Elder Scroll in existence also disappears, the information is eventually made public by an unknown source within the Imperial palace.
- Scavengers searching the Lands of Morrowind report of seeing movement on the Isles of Vvardenfel – a team of investigators is sent to search the island but naught is found.
- http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z10/leecarey_2007/DATmap.jpg (apologies for the quality, just a quick photoshop mock up, might do a better quality job if this takes off)
Second Century
4E 100
- The Void Nights end, with the Thalmor taking credit for the return of Nirn's moons. The Khajit credit the Thalmor as their saviors and Imperial influence in Elsweyr begins to wane dramatically.
- The Elder Scrolls return, found gathered together beneath the statue of Akatosh/Martin’s sacrifice. Before they can be gathered but the Moth priests they merge into one.
- Moth Priests commit mass suicide after a reading of the final scroll, a single priest is elected to stay long enough to add the scrolls knowledge to the library before he is found dead due to unknown causes, a coroners verdict reveals that he was poisoned a week later.
- The Grey beards are rumored to have spoken again. The Thalmor retreat from Imperial land, a tenuous era of peace between the dominion and the Empire ensues.
4E 101
- Hundreds of boats are spotted miles off the coast Solsthiem/Skyrim, a temporary blockade is set up. Eventually an emmisary is sent from the armada to greet the Nord, astonished reports of a group of giant horned men spread through Skyrim and the empire. The refer to themselves as the Qun and are believed to be the direct descendants of the men of Atmora.
- The skies in the east burn with black smoke, the Emperor is petitioned by the people to send troops to investigate, but with the Thalmor growing restless once again, he decides against it. The Knights of the Nine step in and offer to journey to the east, a thousand men and women set out in with a group of donated naval ships.
4E104
- Relations between the Qun and the Nords grow, and as a show of goodwill the Nords offer to house the Qun on the Isle of Solstheim. The Qun accept but remain cloistered and deal only with representatives from Skyrim
4E110
- The skies to the east are long back to normal, instead of a burning black hole they look simply like inert storm clouds, the Knights return this year with only two hundred of their previous number. Upon their return only fifty survive the night; many are insane and scream into the night until their hearts stop in pure terror. The fifty who survive bring tidings of dark times ahead; a link is made between the Moth Priest prophecy (as the public now call it) and the burning skies to the east. The Knights of the Nine renounce their servitude to the gods and the empire, founding instead the Order of the Wardens, a group pledged to protect the sanctity of life regardless of creed or race. They are seen as neutral between the Empire and the Thalmor, and begin to build a fortress in the Valus Mountains on the border of Morrowind and Cyrodil. Each member is forced to drink a strange viscous liquid they brought back from their expedition; many rumors begin to circulate about their practices and loyalties, but nothing is confirmed.
* * *
“What I witnessed was for the eyes of no man. We traveled for two years until we met land at last, we spotted Akavir two months before making landfall and even though there was little information of this strange land in the history books, what we saw was surely not natural to the land. The legendary races of Akavir where nowhere to be seen, for weeks we traveled in this strange new world watching as the plants and tree’s turns black and then one day, we spotted the nightmare of the world. A huge rift in the ground a mile wide and twice as long, glowing red and hot in the pitch of night. We got close enough to witness thousands of bodies moving about, what was undoubtedly once the great races of Akavir where now playthings to demons – their bodies rife with corruption. We watched as they were forced to feed on the dead bodies of these strange creatures, we watched as their own bodies were tainted and grew alien and strange.
Then they found us. Before we knew it my men an I where surounded and behest upon by beasts to gruesome to describe, their flesh ripping open to reveal spines, their skin stretched taught with hooks and spikes merely for the purpose of decoration, and teeth as long as daggers used as effectively as the taint covered blades they carried. My Knights and I battled valiantly, praying to the gods for strength and direction. It seemed to take days to break through their number and retreat to the coast.
Several people spoke of swallowing the demon’s blood, and this blood did not change them like it did the Akavir who fed on the flesh, it made them stronger – able to sense the presence of our foe. So in a pact of desperation, we cursed the gods who abandoned us and drank the blood of our enemies.
It gave us the strength to retreat and escape their land, but at what cost? We will forever curse ourselves with this blood, if only to defeat this... dark spawn threat...
-The final words of former Knight Commander an Divine Crusader, on his deathbed in the Order of the Wardens
So thats it so far, I have obviously re-created the Qun, the Wardens and the Darkspawn, Dalish will be represented by splinter groups of Elves traveling through non-Thalmor territory after finding them selves repelled by the Thalmor way of doing things.
I have no idea if i should include dwarves/deeproads as there are no known races present in the TES mythos who could be the dwarves. It's not a longshot that the Men of Atmora developed to resemble the Qun (who will be known as the Qun until we decide it would be better to use a new name for them) I toyed with the idea of bringing back the Dwemmer to represent dwarves but they just arent simular enough. However, I've also toyed with the idea that the race of Dwemmer did not just disapear when they created the Numidium, it might also be possible that they used their own essence to imprison whatever it is that woke up when the Ministry crashed into Vvardenfel. Something they found while tunneling under Morrowind.
Feedback maybe?