hey. i'm creating a mod and i'm looking for some help as to the political and military structure of skyrim

does skyrim have a single powerful leader? if not who would the most powerful and influential be?
does skyrim have an organized military force? are there any notable commanders/warriors?

thanks

Here's the situation in Skyrim mentioned in the PGE 3rd (but written a few months or years, in-game, before the Oblivion Crisis): http://www.imperial-library.info/pge3/skyrim.shtml

ok from what i can gather from that

skyrim is far from unified, but has considerable military power, apparent from the war of bend'r-mahk
there's also a mention of a king thian but i can't find any information about him on the UESP

does this sound right?

Most countries aren't all that united. Skyrim doesn't have a single leader, and according to that pocket guide, I'd say Solitude is the strongest.

Edit: There's a king for every major city. Markarth Side is not a major city, it's mislabeled on the pocket guide map. The city in that area is Snowhawk. The king of Snowhawk in Arena was named Torbens.

or Markath Side became a major city after Arena, or bethesda decided that Snowhawk is a lame name and changed it to Markath Side. That map is strait out of the newest lore available, and its much more reliable than Arena's randomly generated names.

It could be, but I doubt it. Think of what we're talking about here.

not really sure what you're getting at, but i'm talking about fundamental retcon of what can barely be considered lore. its happened in morrowind, its happened in cyrodiil, why is one city in skyrim any different? Markarth is also mentioned in the 1st PGE, while Snowhawk is a name on a map.

I'm saying their intern who doodles their maps put the wrong name down, because if they WERE going to recon something about the map they wouldn't have left off Karthwasten and Dragonstar. To that end, the first pge didn't have Whiterun, Markarth Side, Snowhawk, or Dawnstar, so I think it's more likely that they haven't retconned anything, they're just screwing up.

why wouldn't they? Dragonstar is part of Hammerfell according to the empire, and is listed in that province. Markarth is mentioned in the 1st PGE's section on Thu'um, so i think it is likely they decided to scale it up to city level rather than making up lore for Snowhawk. Besides, 440 years have passed between the PGEs - is it really that hard to imagine that cities have risen and fallen during that time? I find the growth of Markarth and the decline of Karthwasten much more interesting than "an artist screwed up and the editors didn't catch it." If you're going to argue over any new lore that contradicts old lore (Tamriel-as-a-D&D-setting lore, at that), we're going to be here till we both die.

P.S. i object to your view of cartography as "doodling." i suppose the whole PGE was written on a napkin during a lunch break?

Tamriel does look like a coffee stain.

one hell of a rectangular cup

I thought it looked like a splash of coffee you might find on a napkin during lunch break. :shrug:

Mostly. Cocktail break as well.

One other point to consider is that the politics of the leadership is often unrelated to that of their subjects. They do have to rouse the rabble from time to time to start wars and the like, but the peasants will still be feuding with their neighbor on the same side of the border and marrying that cute foreigner from the other side, as if the boundaries didn't exist. So you have a lot of flexibility in a mod for any likes and dislikes between individuals, and need not be constrained by race or location for who supports whom. If you're setting a mod in a small section of Skyrim, such as a single town or city (are you?) then there may be influences from the local count's relationship with others, and one would expect their direct entourage to follow their leanings, either because they were selected for that, or they know where their pay's coming from. The rest of the townfolk can disagree completely - as with the "Beast races" in Leyawiin not caring for the Caro's too much. Even if there's a strong central leader in a province, there can be undercurrents of secret dissent at high levels, so invent away!