Monkey truth is commonly known as feces. It is picked apart by monkeys.

Monkeytruth is [censored]. It's not "lore", it's not "truth". Just [censored].

But it's well written [censored]. All it does is add some colour to an otherwise underdeveloped setting. Take that Orchish Creation Myth (I forgot who made it) for exampe. Nobody believes that to be "lore". But it's good enough that it could have been.

Albides did that one. I found it rather amusing.

If you don't mind, I'll break this into two parts because these are separate issues.

Loranna's RP was not lore, however as I said before, when it comes to imagery and mood, the excerpt posted by Syronj is an excellent illustration of the extreme puritanism of the Allesian Order. As such you shouldn't be so dismissive of this excerpt as 'merely' fanfiction because it was shown with the purpose of illustrating the Alessian puritanism.
That the Alessians had puritan ideals is a matter of fact that can be established from other sources.

Now the Trial of Vivec. I originally only mentioned it to add more credit to Allerleirauhs name and this isn't the right discussion to go in depth. Still when all the story writing devs are involved it really can't be called fanfiction without looking silly. Generally it gets classified as Obscure Text because it wasn't in the game. If you don't think it's lore because of that, that is cool but don't bother the majority of people who do.



I'm afraid the 'generation' gap is starting to show.

I did as well. It also opened my eyes to what Orcish culture could be, or rather, why Orchish culture could be that way.
The whole pariah race thing, I mean.

For clarification, I just wanted to say that the censored word in my post above is just bull feces. Why would they even censor that?
Maybe it's the language barrier, but I just can't get the idea of that word being so loaded it would need censoring.

To give a little more support, entirely from a personal, subjective and probably biased opinion:
The Loranna RP wasn't lore. But it took what the lore had to offer and wrought it into a story.
On many occasions, it had dev input, some open (i.e. actual participation), some just hints "behind the scenes". The main purpose of it was very simple: to have fun. However, due to said dev input, there are some things in Oblivion which very much resemble some events in the RP. For those demanding proof. Look for the word "Welwa" in the PGE 3rd edition and in Loranna's RP. The near-destruction of House Indoril and Redoran and the rise of Dres (and the Alliance of Dres with House Hlaalu) was a theme in the RP about a year before Oblivion was released.
Again, no, I don't consider the Loranna RP lore. But yes, I can't deny that there are some tiny snippets of said RP that I found in the game. Make of that what you want. Or don't make anything out of it. The important thing is that the people who played in it, be it devs or just fans, had fun.


Couldn't have said it better.


Yes. To me, it's two factors: First, bashing "not-in-the-game"-content has always been there, in stronger and weaker cycles. Second: most of the people who had a grasp of what's really going on don't frequent the forums anymore. Again, my own opinion. But when looking at the lore forums these days, it's pretty obvious.

And i'm sure everyone respects it for what it is. And it is nice for you to help us out by posting her fan fic and in no way discrediting her or her fan fic, but I think the tone was more like "well that's nice, but do you have anything more?" As in do we have more TES official information concerning the order?



I'm sorry but a retired dev writing with some of his fans and having some lines dropped by a few other devs does not make the RP official lore anymore then me writing an RP somewhat related to TES and then have a dev drop some lines in it. Do you get what I mean? If for example say I had written the trial of vivec with a few of my buds and it was the exact same thing, would you call it lore? Probably not, even though the same thing would have been written. But simply having a dev write that RP does not make it lore. It isn't like two people can do the exact same thing, but the thing is or isn't lore based on who did it. If it was published in game or actually had the same "umpf" as say the Lessons of Vivec, that'd be different. Someone had told me that same people like to act as if it is official lore just to drop some famous names and feel important in their fanboyism/fangirlism. I refuse to believe this myself as I expect better from people in general and though not always an optimist, I think it's a duty to try to see the better in people in all things.

While saying that i did read through the Trial of Vivec a while ago and found if very humanizing of Vivec and Azura. My personal take it is that it really showed a spoiled child complex of Vivec and an arrogance complex of Azura. A joy reading since I also enjoy Greek Mythology and the gods in those stories were also flawed in a similar manner. However it would be interesting to hear Frued's take on Vivec's "manners". anol expulsive I think the term is.



Oh of course the Devs implimented their ideas into the RP and probably furthered some ideas writing in it as well. Similarities of chance and of influence certainly are to be expected but I don't think it makes a fan/dev RP into lore. I don't say that in a disrespectful tone at all. And we've seem to have fallen off topic again.



I hate to make a Frued refrence again, I don't much care for him, but this reminds me of my psyche class where my prof was talking about how when he went to a psyche meeting for his university when he was younger he noticed how there were older psychologists and younger ones. The older ones read Frued like the bible, word for word it was exactly as it said with no room for opinion to argue specifically concering dream interpretation. Then there was the younger students (younger i mean in their 40s and 50s as opposed to their 60s and 70s) who were more "well maybe it isn't word for word. Maybe the knife and boat don't always represent those things in dreams." And were more open to other ideas.

I'm seeing this very much so here in the short time i've read through this forum.

a few devs (who were at that time not retired at all) writing things dont make the RP official, but it does make what they say official. dev posts provide valuable insight without which TES lore would not make much sense at all. hypothetical: if MK says that Talos is the love child of Alessia's ghost and Akatosh, and backs it up with a neat little story that expands lore's horizons, we need to believe it. it may not be in game yet, but it does explain other parts of lore and does not refute anything (within reason). same goes for the trial of vivec: it explains what happened after morrowind, it elaborates on vivec and azura's character, as well as on the extent of their power, and it provides an eyewitness account of CHIM in action. its not just fan-[censored] about face [censored].

as for freud, youre the old professor. you accept only the 'bible' of what is in game, not the texts and explanations provided by people outside it. it is those against who you are arguing that see a wider approach to lore, one that accepts developer commentary and the occasional monkey truth. it is us who are having fun with lore and taking our own direction, it is you, in this case, who is arguing for a strict interpretation of the underdeveloped.

Ad Hominem argument, but your threads/posts on this forum dont really establish you as an authority in lore...

I think it might be easier on GeraldDuval and Immortal Blood if you guys stop debating what is and isn't lore.

You know what Immortal considers lore, now, so be constructive and answer his question if you have something to say.

I already answered the question. Everyone else, especially ImmortalBlood is perpetuating an absolutely irrelevant off-topic discussion.

Perhaps i'd be one of the unbelievers on the mount when the tablets were struck. But seriously though we weren't talking about dev posts. We were talking about RPs. Again the purpose of my post isn't to go back and forth between fanism in "ya huh na huh" fashion endlessly. I placed a question, it was partially answered, that's the end of that. Although I respect your opinion just as much as any other stranger on the forum I don't think this is the place and time to defend what you percieve as an "ad hominem". Mind you it means something a bit different then what you implied. I didn't attack anyone.

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

In refrence to freud i was refering more so to the people who consider RPs with dev participation as "heavenly inspired" which is the established mind set here on the forum, vs the newer "not everything a dev does has to become lore." And i'd agree mostly with the latter. If I have an RP in which said character invents an airplane and whatever devs joins in on it, doesn't mean airplanes are now part of TES lore. To me and it seems to most don't consider said RPs anymore "inspired" then the fan fic provided.

Now again i'm not really a die hard fan, I don't consider TES the end all be all in a story really. Much of it is really a milk shake of norse mythology with far eastern influences as Hinduism and Zorastrianism with many of the race base types borrowed from else where. In so saying however I prefer it over DnD and whatever else they have out there for me because it doesn't have such a "cartoonish feel". In so saying that...I respectfully couldn't care less and have no motivation to carry on such a boring discussion, and would prefer if we stayed on topic concerning the question posed. If there is no further answer in that sense might I suggest we do something more productive with our time.



"He started it!" Isn't helping anyone i'm sorry to say. Might I interest you in taking the same advice I offered Lady Nerevar?

Don't care what things you're sorry to say. I appreciate you stay on topic. So, follow what you said...



Otherwise, I'm not going to reply to you except if it's about the Alessian Order.

Speaking of which, crazy people. Though the animal cults and the non meat-eating thing needs to be mentioned more. Just cuz...

I'm trying to stay on topic but it seems someone's trying very hard to be pointlessly arguementive. Please don't spam the thread, thank you.

im pretty sure everything about the Alessians has already been answered, and i feel that the topic that we are now disusing is perfectly relevant. let me just sum stuff up. Marukh, a monkey, saw visions of alessia, and decided to rid cyrodiil of all elven influence. this included mass genocide of the remaining elven population, as well as general war between the rulers of the already weakened empire. the marukhati realized that Akatosh is part Auriel, so they decided to remove that elven influence from their god. which, as you must know, is impossible since they are one and the same. they danced around a tower and broke time, sending us into the first dragonbreak.

what more do you want to know?

as for the 'spam':
i was saying ad hominem to my own attack of you, not referring to you attacking any other people. i just wanted to cover my back and state before hand the low shot of my argument.
as for the RP issue: im saying that *only* what a dev says/does in an RP becomes lore, and *only* if it doesnt [censored] previously established lore. if you invent airplanes in an RP, it has nothing to do with lore. if a dev comes along and RPs some random character, it still doesnt have anything to do with lore. however, if a dev comes along and RPs a character who contanstantly uses plains and tells us about how planes fit into an elderscrolls culture, it could be accepted as lore (but would not, due to the fact that air planes make no sense in TES and are quite BATW). likewise, if a dev roleplays something and never refers to it again it doesnt have to be lore. things like the trial of vivec are however spoken about by devs multiple times after they are roleplayed and supported by other documents.

what has come of devs involved in RPs? the rough structure of the trial of vivec, the fall of indoril and redoran, the dissolution of slavery. maybe a few names here and there. most of the RP is not lore, and a lot of what the devs said there is not lore. its about how well it fits into and expands the TES universe, and about how it is supported by other facts.

I suppose there is nothing else to know.

I wasn't sure what you meant by the ad homenim because most people don't point out the flaws in their own statement. That is an admirable trait.

I really don't see it as such. TES is first and foremost a game and though there are fun writings outside of it, if it isn't of the game then what is it? Like wise the examples of Indoril and Redoran seemed more or less logical to me even if you played through Morrowind for the first time when it came out. The slavery thing isn't really all that imaginative either in the sense that it doesn't really blow anyone's mind. If people in said RP want to take pride in the similarities they can go ahead, but to come to a discussion saying "you should believe what I tell you cause devs RPed with us, and by the way look how similar our RP is to Oblivion" isn't a very good point to me.

No, because you don't write as well as Allie.

Oh snap!

I'm sure you've been following all my writings to make such a judgement and even though it is a negative one I am so flattered you would read along. Thank you for your kindness and your graceful words are truley a monument to the level that you are at.

To expand upon your point however, there are things in TES lore that aren't written well from a technical point of view either. I don't know what your studies have been in literature and writing but for example some writings of lore I have seen rely on unsupported weak allusions to pass it off as depth which the fan crusaders are more then happy to carry on their backs and rally in its support as 'great lore' and though I am not going to argue for or against that notion, from a technical perspective 'great lore' does not always mean 'great writing'.

Just my 2 shillings.

Nor does it have to. I think you're missing the point of writing in character. In RL, the devs are who wrote the in-game books, but are they who wrote the books in-game? No, of course not. So, therefore, they must write books as if they were actually the individual to whom the book is credited. That doesn't always mean they should write as if they were some sort of divinely inspired literary genius; quite the contrary, as a matter of fact. Now, bear in mind that I'm merely playing devil's advocate here, and this is merely an example, but MK can write so much better than what he does in something like the Aldudagga. Aldudagga, you see, is an oral tradition of Nordic origin. The Nords have never been notoriously artsy, therefore Aldudagga is presented in a poorly written, converstional tone, but it done so deliberately.

I wasn't refering to that writing. But this is besides the point.

You seriously didn't get the part about it being an "example" of sub-par writing did you?

Oh I got it. Just letting you know I wasn't talking about something your example would be relevant to. But good read anyway!

Don't bother, Dude.

Post summarized:
Stilted moral high ground,
'I know you are but what am I' with a vocabulary update,
'And now, a word from our culture wars...'
Gilded bile,
Everyone starts snickering.

You sure take a pessimistic approach. I'm sure nobody here had any bad intentions regardless of the bad show of etiquette by some.

You know, what? Nevermind...

I give up. You'll get no food from me.

Forget I said anything.

You may be difficult to talk to, but at least you're polite.

We have no beef, the two of us.