Ok. So A few months ago I read the book in Oblivion that discussed how modern day Orsinium came to be.

So I was intrigued and began to research the lore behind the orcs as they were I race that I really knew nothing about, as well as the fact that in the Elder Scrolls Universe, they are actually a civilized race. This indulged my sense of curiosity and I immediately began compiling as much information as I could about the Orcs and Orsinium. Out of my curiosity and research I constructed a wikipedia page devoted to Orsinium entirely. I did the same with the Wiki page for Elder Scrolls as well.

All though I like to think of it as well constructed and full of knowledge, it is actually, somewhat tragically short in my opinion. This is why I have created this topic.

I searching for more lore behind the Orsimer and their city of Orsinium so I can further construct and build my pages.

I am also looking to see if their is an actual picture or rendering of Orsinium out there somewhere so I have a complete idea of what it looks like as well, despite it being described. I figure it looks somewhat like the homes of Daggerfall, rather High Rock, but with more walls and armaments as well as more menacing idols and embellishments.

Any information would be greatly appreciated.

(I am also adding the links to my page so you can see the information I have already compiled. I am hoping that by doing this you, the reader, have the opportunity or learn more about Orsinium, or, if you have something to add, that you can avoid posting information that has already been compiled, thereby avoiding repetition (although I have the feeling this is not possible. Enjoy. )

Orsinium Wiki Page

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Tamriel:Orsinium


Orsinium Wikipedia


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orsinium

Not a bad start. "converged together" strikes me as a tautology. And if someone notices the article on Wikipedia, there's a good chance it'll be slapped with a non-notable tag and dumped.


The city's purportedly made of iron, and http://www.elderscrolls.com/images/items/armor/mw_10B.jpg is a strikingly ornate mix of Japanese and western influences, so I tend to imagine something a little more fantastic. Wrought iron pagodas with heavy, vile gargoyles on every eave, surrounded by sheet metal iron huts? Dunno. No picture of Orsinium exists, so you're out of luck.

Darn. I was actually hoping there would be one. Oh well. Maybe I can find someone to draw one. :hubbahubba:

Intersting thoughts about the Japanese styled influence. It almost seems as if the armour takes a samurai look to it. If not, it seems rather orriental.
For architecture, yes the iron and gargoyles...but I would imagine something maybe similar to that of Caldera from Morrowind. There seemed to be a large Orc population there. Well...at least a large grouping of orcs. The orcs are supposed to be civilized. Perhaps they would not live in iron huts, but maybe large, dark, menacing stone structures like the grandure of Skingrad, but even larger and darker. I could imagine orcs making huts though, just not iron. Iron is heavy and hard to shape into moveable and compact huts. They would probably be made of fine cloth or hides with wood or iron stands. Also, the huts would just have to be in their legion training grounds or in the lower class districts of the city. I would evern say outside the city as great camps used by hunters those adventurers you ran across every so often in Cyrodiil.

Well, so's stone, and I'm not sure why it has to moveable and compact. I really wanted to get away from more obvious architectural designs - overly gothic castles - and think something a little more distinctive with the iron; i.e. gothic iron pagodas. On the huts I was thinking http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/30/Corrugated_iron_shed.jpg/800px-Corrugated_iron_shed.jpg, ignoring the anachronism of that image.

On Caldera; yes, large orc population, but the style of buildings was in line with other Imperial villages. I see that particular style as functionally homogenous, perhaps built by the legions for the accommodation and comfort of all races, themselves included. It's similar to the buildings of Seyda Neen and Pelegiad, and Cheydinhal, to an extent.

Dammit, Albides, you langauge is becoming too complicated again! You're forcing me to extend my knowledge of English... :meh:

On topic, though:

Actually, if Orsinium takes after any other culture in their building, I think it would be Imperial (rather than High Rock-ish). And by that, I do not mean lower, medium, or upper class Cyrodiilic style buildings - I mean a kind of "official Imperial style". Roman-based, in a nutshell.

And I do not mean that the average Orsimer suddenly starts building http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Colosseum.rome.arp.jpg instead of "iron huts", I simply meant that they might be building in such (Roman-based, not Colloseum look-alikes) for their more Official buildings.
Gortwog is going for Imperial Province status, after all.


Most cities have little other than lower class "districts"


Those adventurers were sent out from Orsinium on their quests; they would proably have normal housing back home, not live in camps outside the city.

I also question the notion that Orcs are "civilized". Intelligent, yes; differing personalities (as in not http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AlwaysChaoticEvil), certainly; but civilized? They are still barbarians, in my book. At least, I think the countryside would be, and well, that's where the majority of the population would be.

edit: I'm also sorry if the post turned out confusing and hard to make sense of. It felt a bit so while writing it, but I can't come up with any way around it at the moment...

I meant to say that their huts would be traditional cloth huts. Their buildings, their permanent place of residence, would be made of stone, not the huts. I have trouble visuallizing iron huts, but then again, it could be anything. I am after all asking for opinions and other info, so I wouldn't dare tell anybody they were wrong unless it defied the already known lore.

What I meant to say is that the ors would set up camps when traveling long distances. An example includes those adventurers who traveled to Cyrodiil from Orsinium. They wouldn't just walk the entire way, then carry 200 extra lbs of loot on his back all the way back.

Apologies, Vill. Perhaps a transient caprice, perhaps some queer affliction of periphrase for which I hold hope over the peradventure of some serendiptous medicament.


Caldera is also a good example here. Ghorak Manor would be an impessive home. If the orcs that live there hadn't made it a bit of a mess.

http://www.imperial-library.info/dfbooks/b008_pig.shtml gives the Breton view of them.

Culturally it doesn't seem likely they would go for gargoyles considering the purpose they serve in our world and the fact that http://www.imperial-library.info/bestiaries/bestiarydaggerfall.shtml#Gargoyle are a common enemy around the bay. They seem much more utilitarian than the sort to go for that. A city made of iron like that would be rust colored and in constant need of repair it would seem, but there can be a better meaning to it that just having the orcs live in http://members.iinet.net.au/~gduncan/images/belsen_oven2.jpg (they would surely cook in such buildings). A city made of iron could have the http://english.pravda.ru/photo/report/church-2835 all around it and the trappings inside furnished with metal, and have the major mining source of iron be beneath the city.

Take a good look at their society and glean from it what you think their buildings would look like. The stereotype is that they like war and aggressive action, this necessitates good farming. Farming lets them have children four times quicker than hunter-gathering societies, it lets them have professions such as soldiering, it also provides them with the logistical advantage of not living siege to siege out in the fields.

Stone is also much more durable and far better thermal mass.

To be living in cities they have to be generally civilized in a manner of speaking, but the trick is to make them only seem civilized to each other. The Gods Must Be Crazy 2 makes a good example of this, the bushmen think of themselves as very civilized and the "heavy people" are the ones being rude to everyone around Africa.

Replace gargoyles with grotesques if you want to be pedantic. I was thinking of some baroque yet hideous, like the armour. And hideous is certainly culturally desirable as far as the pig pariahs are concerned.


Exactly the sort of think I was thinking of. Now imagine it 20 times bigger, festooned in orcish imagery and maybe as rugged as the Eiffel tower.


Of course it is. It's impractical, unlikely and mad. In a word; fantastic. Which is exactly why I chose that image.

A city of iron isn't too ridiculous for a TES game. Especially after seeing Vivec City.

...


Hence the quotation mark around "civilized".

I wouldn't make a city out of iron. If it rains, it rusts.

"The city was rebuilt on a mountainside between Menevia and Wayrest. As the city harbors statues of Orc heroes such Mauloch and Torug, and is built of iron..."

This is a quote from uesp.net, so that means that the city is actually built from iron, and instead of gargoyles, there is statues of orc heroes. I can imagine a huge city made of iron, it is durable, and knowing about the neighbours reaction to Orsinium, iron is the most perfect choice for a city.

And what I would like to know, what were those rare, shaggy, giant centipede herd-beasts that can only survive at high altitudes. And why were the orcs dependant on them.

From "The Pig Children, "foul Orsinium tower". I'm not sure whether to take this literally or not, but this could mean they congregate around one, large central tower.

Here is the picture of Orsinium
http://www.imperial-library.info/realms_iliac/xanarticle2_castle_orsinium.jpg
Well I imagine it a bit different, but still, atleast we have something

As I recall the Daggerfall town hall was also built from stone in the style of a 1925 bank in New England and stuck out like a fusion reactor in the Pyramid of Cheops, so imagine as differently as you like.

Thank you very much for the pic. It helps.

Um, if I'm not too late on the boat, and if you still want a rendering (wrong and inaccurate as it may be) I've got a little sketch up of what I tend to picture. The buildings ended up more gothic/Victorian than what I was originally going for but that may be due to the obscene amount of iron work added to the houses, and I liked Albides' idea of corrugated steel roofing. This is the higher end, more upper class district so no huts or tiny lean-to's. It's undoubtedly wrong on many levels, but I just couldn't help myself in drawing. Still, not quite happy with it so I'll probably work on it more.
http://misslizz.deviantart.com/art/mountain-lake-city-92931995

Or perhaps their King and his court live in a tower and most Orcs live in simpler buildings and settlements.

HOLY COW!!! That's pretty good. Definately a good artistic rendering of what Orsinium could be. Thanks. And no, nobody's ever too late on the boat. Anything and everything is appreciated.




That is most likely the case. For a tower, they may have an iron tower that doubles as a copy of the Imperial City's White Gold Tower, with Baroque styled variations, and a fortress.
Two reasons mainly being:

1.) To establish themselves as a powerful nation and a strong civilized barbarian one as well, they need to give the appearance that they are very powerful. No better iconic structure is more powerful than White Gold Tower, the center of the Imperial City. This is why they would build a citadel mainly in the city.

2.) Because the orcs are a barbarian race who suffer from extreme predjudice from the surrounding city-states of High Rock, I would imagine that the orcs would first set up a fort or a citadel to patrol their kingdom to keep would-be-raiders and bandits and maybe even mercenaries off of their back. This would allow them to control their land as well as allow building to run smoothley without interruption.