I understand this goes in the Lore Forum but idk how many of the Skyrim followers go onto that forum as well and y'all are extremely reliable. But can anyone and everyone please catch me up on the Lore behind what Guilds/factions have been said to be doing over that last 300 years. Or at least point me too where I can read up on all that.

Thx

from what i have been told the empire crumbled with the guilds along with it. i could be wrong. the Dark Brotherhood wasn't with the empire they just operated out of cyrodill so they are in Skyrim and i feel like their will be guilds like the fighters and mages just called something different

..The peeps on Skyrim section I would't say are the reliable group to go to concerning lore

all imperial institutions erected Pre Uriels death have been disbanded, because they were imperial chartered, so mages and fighters guild no longer stand.

DB is still standing per say Todd.

most if not all morrowind houses are probably gone

the guilds dealing with magick are the Synod and College of Whispers(made by Tiber septim)

there is also a Bards College as well.

and a number of other guilds we have not been told of.

and its 200 years not 300.

Here is a plot summary of the Infernal City, which brings us up to about 40 years after Oblivion.

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:The_Infernal_City/Plot_Summary

Regarding what happened for the next 160 years, we will have to wait until 11.11.11 Sept 27 2011 (release of the next novel) to find out

http://www.amazon.com/Lord-Souls-Elder-Scrolls-Novel/dp/0345508025/ref=pd_sim_b_3

So is it confirmed that the Empire is one of the sides in the Civil War or is Cyrodiil just on it's own now?

My guess is that somebody picked the pieces in the cases of all the guilds that could have been nailed by the empire crumbling. UESP says that the Mages guild has splintered into Synod and The College of Whispers. You can go here if you want to learn more: http://uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Main_Page

And I really don't know (or care) about the fate of the Empire until November 11th.

Oh dang ha maybe on this site their not so reliable. Haha. Thanks for tht info though. That actually changes alot about what idk because 100 of those years don't exist yet haha.

The only one I can say for sure is that the Mage's Guild fell with the old empire (because they are a political body and their survival requires a governing entity). After who-knows-what-turmoil and the birth of a new empire, the remnants of the guild found themselves sorted into two different groups: The College of Whispers and Synod. The differences between the two are uncertain, but it's speculated that Synod is religious.

The Dark Brotherhood is confirmed to make an appearance in Skyrim, because it was very popular in Oblivion.


The rest is speculation.

The Fighter's and Thieve's Guilds may reappear, because they are not tied to the empire.

The Imperial Cult still probably exists, though I doubt we'd see it much at all in Skyrim. We'd probably see traditional Nord religion most often.

Politics:

The Empire is still around, though it is not the same empire from Oblivion. It is ruled by a new line of emperors, and it is much weaker than it used to be.

The Summerset Isles and Valenwood seceded after the fall of the old empire. They exist under the rule of the Thalmor, a political system reminiscent of the old Aldmeri Dominion from back in the day.

Morrowind has experienced huge upheaval, and it's demographics have changed heavily as a result. Given almost 200 years, the land itself has likely recovered, though the Dunmer would have restructured society. New cities would be built, and potentially new great houses would rise after some resourceful Dunmer jumped at the opportunity for power when all of society crumbled. Some of the old houses may have remained structured and influential, but with the destruction of all of their properties and large losses of their members, they were essentially no better off than any other refugees.

Black Marsh has seceded from the empire under the rule of the An-Xileel. They had occupied Morrowind after Red Mountain erupted and sent the Dunmer fleeing to Solstheim. After the events of The Infernal City, it is uncertain how many Argonians are still present in Morrowind, if any at all.

Elsweyr also seceded from the empire shortly after Black Marsh

The Necromancer faction has also been confirmed by Todd to appear in Skyrim

Thanks that one helped alot.

I did hear Todd say that there would be necromancers in Skyrim, in that recent German interview. But I don't think this means, necessarily, that there will be a necromancer faction. Or perhaps Todd revealed that info somewhere else?

No [censored], huh? ^_^ Is there a necromancer skill or is it just a faction of conjurers?

All of these NPC groups are set up as factions in the game mechanics.

Whether the Necromancers will be a joinable faction or not, I have no idea, but I certainly hope so. I think it would be stupid to learn Necromancy spells like Summon Zombie from, for example, the College of Whispers, who are probably at war with the Necromancers.

Especially when there are perfectly good Necromancers around that can teach you these spells.

I'm pretty sure "Summon Skeleton" is very different from actual necromancy. Actual necromancy involves getting a corpse and binding a spirit to it, not just calling one out of nowhere. Conjuring undead is distasteful, but not as abhorrent as using actual people's bodies.

I'm pretty sure that's correct, conjuring undead does not require the player to first acquire a body and soul for the proccess, which what we've learned about necromancy indicates necromancers need to perform their art, and the undead summoned by the player only remain by the players' side for a short period of time, whereas undead reanimated through necromancy seem to remain indefinitely, until they are destroyed, thus, if undead summoning spells are meant to represent necromancy, they're a VERY poor implementation of it, and in any case, if they were necromancy, than the Mages Guild in Morrowind would be openly breaking laws, since necromancy is illegal there, and the one in Oblivion would be quite hypocritical, since as of Oblivion, the Mages Guild had banned the practice of necromancy, and in both games, guild mages sell undead summoning spells.

I wouldn't expect to be able to join the necromancers, though, because that would kind of require a proper mecromancy mechanic, and I'm not sure if Bethesda wants to create an entirely new form of magic just for the sake of one faction.

But we really can't be sure what joinable factions are in Skyrim, we know the Dark Brotherhood is in and I'd assume they're joinable, and we know that the Mages Guild had split into two factions, with some speculation as to their nature, but little confirmed information, but this was in the time of Infernal City, over a hundred years before Skyrim, so it may be that the situation has changed, even if both factions still exist at the time of the game, there's no guarentee that they're both in Skyrim at all, let alone both are joinable. What I can say is that I believe that at the very least, an equivalent to the Mages, Fighters and Thieves Guilds will be in the game, but they may not be the same groups we remember from past games, 200 years gives Bethesda a lot of time to change things around with factions, and we really can't say what they'll do, I just think they will want to at least cover the basics. I'm hoping we can also choose to join one of the factions in the civil war as well, though Bethesda might have that as part of the main quest instead.

To get the full picture you have to trudge through http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Infernal_City.