For those who have no idea what I am talking about, here is a link to the Story of Shadowkey:

http://www.imperial-library.info/tsosk/


So, my question is pretty simple: Does shadow magic still exist in the world? I've seen nothing to imply that it DOESN'T exist, but it's not really mentioned outside of Shadowkey and it's obviously not displayed as a School of Magic in any other TES game.

Does this mean that the art of Shadow Magic was lost after the War of Bendr'Mahk? Or is it safe to assume that it is still in the world of TES, but just not displayed in the games? Or is it simply something that was just dropped after the dismal sales of the N-Gage and, thus, Shadowkey? And if that is the case, how much weight should we apply to the "Canonocity" (copyright KT01 2008) of Shadowkey?

So many questions....

The games should be viewed as a window to Tamriel. It's not exact and it's not perfect but we're looking into Tamriel. As such it can't really disappear from the world just because a game didn't sell well.

That it hasn't been seen afterwards can be explained in terms of lore, Shadow magic was quite obscure afterall. However things out side of Tamriel are a much bigger and a much more obvious influence, so there is no real reason to try and see if the Lore can explain the lack of shadow magic in other games. This is important to keep in mind, otherwise these excuses might get in the way of future ideas.

Cannonicity is a Starwars thing where to many book licenses started to murky the fictional galactic history. Lore is less susceptible to this because it already has a build in amount of biased views and opinion as well as historical inaccuracies. This means that when there is a contradiction, it's possible to find a third way that explains how both views came around.

I'm aware of both these points. Perhaps "Canonocity" was the wrong word for me to use....anyway, what I was trying to get at was that since Shadowkey didn't sell well, the Devs kinda figured there was no need to include it in future games....but it is still implied to exist. Or something like that....sometimes, even I can't read my own mind. <.<

Anyway, I figured Shadow Magic was obscure to begin with, but I didn't realize HOW obscure it really was....so I guess that answers my question. It's assumed to be around, but we don't see it in any other games because very few people know how to use it, or even just know OF it.

Thanks for the reply.