- http://www.imperial-library.info/content/doors-oblivion

- http://www.imperial-library.info/content/liminal-bridges

- http://www.imperial-library.info/content/elder-scrolls-legend-battlespire-storyline

- http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1327177-tatterdemalion-the-lunar-province-of-secunda/

- http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1336585-tiber-septim%E2%80%99s-sword-meeting-with-cyrus-the-restless/

- http://www.imperial-library.info/content/pocket-guide-empire-and-its-environs-first-edition

- http://www.imperial-library.info/content/pocket-guide-empire-and-its-environs-third-edition

There are probably many more though.

Name:

Age:

Race:

Gender:

Birthsign:

Skills: (generally, that is, not "conjuration level 90")

Appearance:

Clothing/Armour:

Misc. Items:

Weapons:

Magic: (general overview of preferences and capabilities)

Background: (come on now, be creative)

Name: Ulwaen “the Daedroth”
Age: 89
Race: Bosmer (more or less, his father was a Breton and his mother’s line quite mixed)
Gender: Male
Birthsign: The Tower

Skills: Conjuration, archery, mysticism, languages (particularly Daedric), oblivion survival/“geography”, astrology/metaphysics

Appearance: Ulwaen is of lithe and wiry build and chestnut skin, with sharp, angular elven features and narrow black eyes. On one high cheekbone the Daedric letter Oht is branded, and magicka burns have scarred him quite extensively (especially on his palms, but liberally splashed elsewhere). His hair is charcoal grey, shaved close to the scalp except for a long horse’s mane that spills to the left. Most strikingly, a single curved-back grey horn protrudes from his right brow, about six inches long.

Personality: Ulwaen is wise and experienced beyond his years (in elf years at least), but his confidence in his own abilities makes him petulant and often arrogant. A loyal friend to mortals (even if he considers many of them to be exceedingly dull), he nonetheless tends to give off an air of duplicity, not always imagined. The daedra, on the other hand, he considers to be exceedingly interesting, but entirely undeserving of any sentiment – they are unlikely to give it, and thus unlikely to receive it (Ulwaen is rather quid-pro-quo oriented in that way). So far, he is alive only because he knows how far he can push his cheek.

Beneath his sometimes-abrasive ego, however, the fact remains he is capable, intelligent, and resourceful, enough to earn his respect from some, and contracts from many.

Clothing/armour: Ulwaen’s armour is fairly limited – a mananaut’s repurposed briastplate, some leather bracers and sturdy boots. Under this armour he wears a traditional Secunda tattersuit, although of course without the helmet – he learned long ago to breathe on Secunda, and uses magic elsewhere.
Weapons: Ulwaen’s weapon of choice is a bound bow, of which he knows dozens, ensuring one is always reachable, no matter the plane. In close combat he will bind a sword or else rely on a silver dagger, his only mundane weapon.

Misc. Items: an impressive collection of assorted Explorer’s paraphernalia, in particular a rock of anti-madness in a Dwemer lockbox, an Aldmeri-esque mirror in telescope form (of the type used in Sunbird navigation, albeit far less sophisticated) helpful in finding one’s way through Void, and a sigil stone of uncertain origin.

Magic: A talented conjurer, Ulwaen is well-practiced in communing with, summoning, and binding Daedra. Bound weapons are something of a speciality. He also of course has something of a “toolbox” of assorted spells helpful in his line of work – water breathing, levitation, elemental shields and the like, and if the worst comes to the worst, can use basic destruction spells. Schools less relevant to Oblivion hold little charm for him, and he knows very little indeed of illusion, for instance.

Background: Born on a dying outskirt of Imperial Tatterdemalion, Ulwaen was perhaps predictably destined for a supermundial life. His magickal talents, with a little cultivation, grew rapidly on the edge of the Void, and he was a capable mage by the time he reached advlthood. By the time he entered the Battlespire as a recruit of the “shadow legion”, he had mastered numerous conjuration spells and was making inroads into self-determined intra-planar travel (that is, ceasing to be here, and beginning to be there). But the Battlespire, as it happened, was not for Ulwaen – there were rules, and the Daedra were typically viewed with a fearful reverence he found entirely distasteful.

So on one rare sortie into the Soul Cairn, he slipped away from his comrades and slid through the weakened limen into another realm, and his new life. From the Soul Cairn, his unpractised circumpenetration took him to a tiny, insignificant realm, the forgotten side project of some prince or other, or perhaps the magnum opus of a long-forgotten sorcerer. In any case, it was the first in a disturbingly lengthy sojourn in the outer planes. As is to be expected on such an unplanned and uncharted journey, Ulwaen had little idea of how to reach Nirn or some other familiar plane, but by chance (or perhaps not) one transliminal slip carried him to the realm of Clavicus Vile.

From there, he knew, Nirn should be easily reachable, but the Prince of Wishes was notoriously careful with his borders, at least some of the time. Fortunately, nothing is impossible with Clavicus Vile, and the young (or perhaps not so much, any more) Explorer bargained his way back to Nirn, a realm in actual fact almost as alien to him as Vile’s.}

What was almost a cautionary (if, logically, untellable) tale for would-be Explorers had, then, turned out well enough, and so Ulwaen learnt no lesson. Or at least, he didn’t learn not to practice unorthodox and unaided transliminal circumpenetrations. What he did learn was how to do it much better, and what he learned from that was how enjoyable and indeed profitable it could be. A world of opportunity opened up to the scholar-[censored]-adventurer, and his numerous exploits were enough to give him a chapter heading in the history of Oblivion Exploration.

Name: Mademoiselle Alliele Pierrel

Age: Who is to say? Milady certainly looks like she could hardly be older than her mid-twenties, but - time is a strange thing in Artaeum...

Race: Breton of Daggerfall

Gender: Indubitably female

Birthsign: The Apprentice

Skills: Beyond the arcane? Few, woefully few; some sense of courtly etiquette, long since perverted by her inborn peculiarities, a familiarity with a scattered few languages (including some dialects from the deeper void of Oblivion), and an amateur's enthusiasm for dance... and that would be it. But, ah, step away from the mundane, and she will take you through some of the strangest and least explored pathways of the Old Way, far exceeding that pathetic piddle of a school the Galerionics dub Mysticism.

Appearance: Honey-blonde hair curling down to her shoulders, disconcertingly vibrant eyes of violet only a shade deeper than lavender and a figure invitingly svelte - the mademoiselle is no stereotypical witch, that much is certain. Indeed, one might easily mistake her for Bretic nobility - and she actually is, in her own way, - were it not for that faintest whiff of something well and truly arcane which she wears as one might perfume. Somehow, that alone is enough to outweigh all her simple elegance (when she bothers to show it, which is not nearly as often as her family would prefer) and twist the nigh-on naive amiability that pervades her pleasantly soft features into something altogether more troubling; an instinctive unease, perhaps, that the proximity of irresponsible mages often inspires.

Clothing/Armour: To put it bluntly, a dress - none too extravagant or restrictive, if elegantly cut, and of a pleasant navy-blue that matches well with milady's hair. Prospective travel partners might be glad to know she has sense enough not to couple it with high heels, favouring instead ankle boots elevated just slightly on a flatter, much more practical heel.

Misc. Items: A dazzlingly colourful butterfly is nestled in her hair, very much alive. Some number more seem to make home in the least likely parts of her dress, apparently just waiting for their mistress's cue to burst dramatically forth at the opportune moment.

Weapons: Conventional? None whatsoever - though she does carry the discreet lady's alternative, a sharp hairpin of Morrowind glass. If ever there should be need of pricking a daedroth's thumb, she has it covered.

Magic: The Old Way of the Psijic Order is not the flash and bang that most of Tamriel recognizes as "magic!", the cheap parlour tricks peddled by the Guild of Mages to unwary adventurers; it rests, rather, on rhythm. The gentle tug of one aetherial thread here can build an echo a thousand planes away, and if you listen just closely enough, you may hear the all-encompassing connection - and connection is what Alliele excels at, an infallible arcane compass even when up becomes down and north becomes zero. Where a battlemage might weave magic by pulling the carpet spectacularly from under your feet, she will tug patiently at a single string until the entire pattern unravels - or something distracts her. Which, given the joyous fickleness of her character, does tend to happen sooner rather than later.

Background: Perhaps the least likely of all Artaeum's Psijics, the so-called Mademoiselle Pierrel was not born to witches and wizards - but rather, the cream of the crop. Of Daggerfall's four ancient archducal bloodlines, House Pierrel might not be the richest or boldest, but it is the most spectacularly prolific; which, on reflection, would make the emergence of an oddball of Alliele's sort something of a statistical inevitability.

She was a straight enough child. Unduly obsessed with butterflies, maybe, and a little too eager to play around in the dusty parts of reliquary - but nothing to suggest that, on a bright and unbearably hot summer day in her thirteenth year, she would give one of the serving maids the fright of her life when she plucked a mouse's soul from its body. After some initial fluster over whether her exceedingly noble parents should be elated or horrified, the search for a suitable tutor to guide little Alliele along in this tumultuous period of her life began in earnest. Unfortunately, as the mouse incident had already demonstrated, events do not always proceed in a neat and orderly fashion.

The local wizards could not contain her. In the wake of their grumbling, the Guild of Mages would not take her. A witches' coven might have made her perfect home, but, as conclusively established by the Archduke Pierrel himself, "no daughter of mine will EVER! BE! A WITCH!" The months wore on, and hope seemed in shorter and shorter supply.

Until, one day, an Altmer that didn't look like any Direnni they'd ever seen knocked on their castle's gate. And, after a surprisingly brief chat with her parents, whisked little Alliele away to distant Artaeum.

To say that her life has since taken a turn for the strange would be the underestimation of the era. The butterflies were larger, the towers - more ancient and time far more fluid; blink, and little Alliele was, all of a sudden, not-so-little.

Unfortunately, events still refused to unfold in any tidy way. No more agreeable than her juvenile counterpart, not-so-little Alliele soon started coming up with new and interesting questions - why were certain rules there? What happened if you prodded a Psijic just so? Could you ever have a proper tea with Daedra involved? Was there anything she couldn't use a butterfly for?

And so, it will come as little surprise that, a bit of pestering (and a whole lot more mischief) later, the - presumably - young Psijic-in-training has been shunted out the proverbial door and on her way to join a famed explorer's newest and most reckless voidstep yet as the Order's official envoy; whether in a show of goodwill, or the hope that they'll both break their necks somewhere far, far away from Artaeum.