Skyrim's Dragon Claws and Arena's Staff of Chaos : The Elder Scrolls Series Discussion

» Thu Dec 08, 2011 2:50 pm

So, during a break from Skyrim, I decided to install TES: Arena and check out where it all started. One of the first things I noticed is how strikingly similar the head of the http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Arena:Staff_of_Chaos is to the http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Dragon_claws found in Skyrim.

Here's a screenshot I took of the Staff of Chaos in Arena:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v490/davi-chan/staffofchaos.jpg

The claw at the head of the staff is even bent at the same angle as the dragon claws. So anyone have any ideas what this could mean, lore-wise? Am I crazy for thinking it might be more than mere coincidence?

» Thu Dec 08, 2011 9:33 am

Huh....now that you mention it, the top of the staff does kinda look like those dragonclaw keys. I chalk it up to coincidence, since Bethesda has almost forgotten Arena exists, except for a few remarks about Jagar Tharn here and there.

» Thu Dec 08, 2011 6:48 pm

Huh....now that you mention it, the top of the staff does kinda look like those dragonclaw keys. I chalk it up to coincidence, since Bethesda has almost forgotten Arena exists, except for a few remarks about Jagar Tharn here and there.

No way... Todd says his favorite game is Arena. It could be coincidental... but the more I look at it the more I doubt it.

» Thu Dec 08, 2011 4:25 pm

Nice eye. I don't think anybody can deny that they look alike, sadly we have next to no information on the Staff, certainly not enough to draw any conclusions.

» Thu Dec 08, 2011 11:04 am

The Staff of Chaos and the Horn of Summoning. The two greatest mysteries of TES.

» Thu Dec 08, 2011 5:00 am

The Staff of Chaos and the Horn of Summoning. The two greatest mysteries of TES.

And the Eye of Argonia... and why nobody mentions that whole floating island of death thing that happened a hundred or so years ago...

» Thu Dec 08, 2011 5:23 pm

Huh....now that you mention it, the top of the staff does kinda look like those dragonclaw keys. I chalk it up to coincidence, since Bethesda has almost forgotten Arena exists, except for a few remarks about Jagar Tharn here and there.

And...you know...Labyrinthian.

On the topic of the Staff of Chaos, does anyone know where it is now? Wasn't it being kept in White Gold Tower? It's possibly the most powerful artifact in all of Tamriel and yet we haven't heard anything about it since Arena. I say we need the Staff to return!

» Thu Dec 08, 2011 9:33 am

^^^ The Thalmor probably took the Staff and are planning terrible things with it...

» Thu Dec 08, 2011 5:41 am

I'm sure it's no coincidence, but I expect it's nothing more than Bethesda drawing visual inspiration from their previous works.

» Thu Dec 08, 2011 6:28 am

Nice find.

I wonder if this means that the Staff opens some Nordic tomb somewhere?

» Thu Dec 08, 2011 2:32 pm

Arena didnt even have "official" Elder Scrolls Lore. Correct me if i'm wrong but it had Demons instead of Daedra. It's the only (main) ES I havent played.

» Thu Dec 08, 2011 7:39 am

Arena is essentially a mish-mash of stolen ideas and doesn't need much attention at all directed towards it.

» Thu Dec 08, 2011 6:20 am

Arena is essentially a mish-mash of stolen ideas and doesn't need much attention at all directed towards it.

Despite it being the best game in the entire series.

» Thu Dec 08, 2011 9:29 am

Despite it being the best game in the entire series.

Na, Eye of Argonia was the best game in the series.

» Thu Dec 08, 2011 7:59 am

That is cool.....coincidence no doubt, but still cool.

» Thu Dec 08, 2011 6:30 pm

Despite it being the best game in the entire series.

Na, Eye of Argonia was the best game in the series.

Mainstream watered-down console-loving kiddies you lot are. Anyone worth their salt knows that the Secunda Moon Colony RTS was the only decent game in the series.

On topic: Considering that they did acknowledge the staff of chaos' destruction as one of the factors that brought about the return of Alduin, I wouldn't be surprised if the similarity wasn't a coincidence. Pity Alduin's wall didn't play any real role in the narrative.

» Thu Dec 08, 2011 6:06 am

Mainstream watered-down console-loving kiddies you lot are. Anyone worth their salt knows that the Secunda Moon Colony RTS was the only decent game in the series.

Touche, but my RTS allegience goes to C&C's made pre-2000.

Besides, SMC-RTS had a pretty lackluster interface, not to mention that every few minutes you'd fall through the map (though that might have been some comment on the deterioration of the lunar surface).

On topic: Considering that they did acknowledge the staff of chaos' destruction as one of the factors that brought about the return of Alduin, I wouldn't be surprised if the similarity wasn't a coincidence. Pity Alduin's wall didn't play any real role in the narrative.

Really, where's it mentioned as destroyed in-game? I don't recall it, and the end of Arena leaves it completely ambiguous.

» Thu Dec 08, 2011 12:45 pm

Speaking of staves, did anyone else find that the Staff of Magus was pretty badass? Sure, I wish it was stronger still, but I could turn any dragon priest into a deaf and dumb npc within seconds. That and we were able to absorb the power of the Eye of Magus like it wasn't sh*t.

I wonder how the Staff of Chaos would carry over in today's mechanics. Surely it wouldn't let you go around summoning Oblivion Gates and unleashing hoards of daedra upon your enemies?

» Thu Dec 08, 2011 4:20 pm

Touche, but my RTS allegience goes to C&C's made pre-2000.

Besides, SMC-RTS had a pretty lackluster interface, not to mention that every few minutes you'd fall through the map (though that might have been some comment on the deterioration of the lunar surface).

Really, where's it mentioned as destroyed in-game? I don't recall it, and the end of Arena leaves it completely ambiguous.

The beginning of Arena. Draining all of it's magical power, then splitting it into eight is destruction in my book.

» Thu Dec 08, 2011 1:49 pm

The beginning of Arena. Draining all of it's magical power, then splitting it into eight is destruction in my book.

Yes, but it's put back together at the end to free Uriel. Other than "under security", we don't know what happened to it. It's possible it could've been destroyed permanently somehow, (The Shattering of the Staff of Chaos is one of the events on Alduin's wall; though this could refer to the beginning) or still chillin' in the basemant, or Vehk knows what...

» Thu Dec 08, 2011 5:57 pm

The beginning of Arena. Draining all of it's magical power, then splitting it into eight is destruction in my book.

As Zango said it's put back together in Arena, accomplishing this task is pretty much the entirety of the main quest. As for it being destroyed afterward, if I remember correctly it states somewhere that the staff cannot be destroyed (due to be tied to or constructed from the land or somesuch) - this inabilty to destroy is why Tharn sufficed to hide it's pieces all over the continent.

» Thu Dec 08, 2011 7:41 pm

According to the description of the wall in the GI previews, it does indeed refer to the breaking of it in the beginning of the game. I thought that it broke in the end, too, but looking back at the sequence it seems that it just emitted light.

...The first is the shattering of the Staff of Chaos, an event depicted in The Elder Scrolls:Arena. The staff was an incredibly powerful relic that could open gateways to other worlds and obliterate living beings. Imperial Battlemage Jagar Tharn used the Staff of Chaos to imprison Emperor Uriel Septim VII within the realm of Oblivion, after which he broke the staff into pieces to assure the artifact could never be used against him. ...

» Thu Dec 08, 2011 5:39 pm

According to the description of the wall in the GI previews, it does indeed refer to the breaking of it in the beginning of the game. I thought that it broke in the end, too, but looking back at the sequence it seems that it just emitted light.

Yea, one would think keeping the staff on his person would have been a much better way to guarentee it's safety.

» Thu Dec 08, 2011 7:47 am

Is it possible that the orb on the Staff of Chaos could be the otherwise conspicuously absent stone of Snow-Throat Tower? It would make a twisted sort of sense, since the other events foreshadowing Alduin's return all had to do with the depowering of a tower (Walking-Bronze, Red Tower, and White-Gold) and the powers of the staff seem on par with something like the Amulet of Kings.

EDIT: Not to mention it would provide one explanation for why it can't be destroyed, since the same was true of the Heart of Lorkhan.

» Thu Dec 08, 2011 5:30 pm

Is it possible that the orb on the Staff of Chaos could be the otherwise conspicuously absent stone of Snow-Throat Tower? It would make a twisted sort of sense, since the other events foreshadowing Alduin's return all had to do with the depowering of a tower (Walking-Bronze, Red Tower, and White-Gold) and the powers of the staff seem on par with something like the Amulet of Kings.

EDIT: Not to mention it would provide one explanation for why it can't be destroyed, since the same was true of the Heart of Lorkhan.

I was under the impression the Staff of Chaos was a tower, specifically the staff/tower the Maruhkati summoned and danced on during the http://www.imperial-library.info/content/dragon-break-study.
Presumably its stone would be the http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Jewel_of_Fire.