The Game Informer article tells us that there are 18 skills in the game. It also tells us that each constellation represents one skill, and that each star in a constellation represents a perk tied to that skill. However, there are only thirteen constellations, as described in the book http://www.imperial-library.info/content/oblivion-firmament. Clearly, there aren't enough existing constellations to match the number of skills in the game.

I created this thread so that we can speculate on how BGS will address this fact, from both a gaming and a lore perspective.

Personally, I suspect that they will create 5 new constellations, but I'm not sure how that will be explainable in the lore. Will these new constellations be birthsigns? If they are, how will this affect the traditional view of associating the birthsigns with the months in a year? If these constellations only recently appeared, what impact could this have on the world of Nirn?

There are lots of stars in the sky, not hard to come up with more constellations.

yeah, i never really got how most constellations looked like things anyway, so it really wouldn't phase me if they added more

Lol, are you guys serious? It's like our own world. There are many constellations but the sun (?) can only be in 12 (13) of them. Which is why we have birth signs. There are still plenty of unimportant constellations around.

I know that there are more constellations than the astrological signs on earth. But I'm not familiar with any source in the Elder Scrolls series that mentions any other constellations. In a series where astronomy and astrology are so important to the lore, I would think that there would be references to other constellations. Even if these constellations weren't magical, they might at least be culturally significant somewhere on Tamriel.

Yes.
Or else I demand mods for Morrowind and Oblivion that incorporates the new birthsigns.
Take THAT game balance!

Good point. I don't recall mention of others, so I guess they'll create some new ones. Because they haven't said there are only those constellations (I don't think) they're just adding, and not changing the lore.

Looking at the GI screenshots, http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Astronomy are not the constellations you're looking for. Don't resemble anything we know.

That's true, I suppose they could be adding in constellations that just weren't important to the Empire or something.


Hrm, good point. The constellation for the school of Destruction looks like the symbol that the Mages Guild used for it in Oblivion.

Ah Bethesda could always create more lore. They'll come up with a way to fit it in.

Although it goes outside "one constellation per skill", here is how I would approach it for a 12 (13) birthsign way:
Warrior 3 x Combat skills
Mage 3 x Magic skills
Thief 3 x Stealth skills
9

Appren. 2 x Combat skills
Lady 2 x Magic skills
Lover 2 x Stealth skills
15

Steed 1 x Combat skills
Atron. 1 x Magic skills
Shadow 1 x Stealth skills
18

Lord Health bonus
Ritual Magicka bonus
Tower Fatigue bonus (?)

Serpent ?

Why would they introduce more signs because there are 18 skills?

There's no reason for them to do this. It's not an issue at all.

Depends on if OP got the "It also tells us that each constellation represents one skill" right. Does one skill means one *set* of skills? Does constellations mean other ones outside the zodiac. Using constellations instead of birthsigns (our zodiac) have me worried. Not a problem to do, but fuzzies up the lore with stuff we don't really need.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrological_sign
It's not impossible that lore will be expanded to include concepts such as Cardinal signs, Fixed signs, and Mutable signs. Other classifications in threes are Personal Signs, Interpersonal Signs, and Transpersonal Signs. Sorry if it's there already, didn't feel like checking up on it atm. Classification in threes fits well with "Combat, Magic, Stealth" and "Major Skills, Minor Skills, Misc Skills". So who knows how it will work out.

Maybe birthsigns will give you the traits of your character, and new constellations will become the skills? Anything is possible, but shouldn't mix birthsigns (zodiac) with other constellations.

This.... makes sense :blink:

Only I'd switch Apprentice and Lady.

Who said they constellations have to be the same? Why can't we have different ones for birthsigns and skills?(18+13)

Judging by the GI issue I think most or all of the skills will have new constellations.

If you look at the skill/perk UI picture, it's clear that there isn't a perk tree for each skill. My best guess is that there are 13 constellations, 13 sets of perks, and 18 skills.

Costellations are only stuff that ppl have come up with, "oh look at that shape of the stars, it looks like a bull"-that's how the first costellation prob came to be. And yes I believe they will give us 5 important new ones. But which.. hmm.

This came up in a thread yesterday. My thought is that there are 2 "sets" of constellations. One set linked to birthsigns. The other set linked to skills, so it's a non-issue. I'm interested to see how they work it out, however.

We've read about perks associated with fighting and stealth skills....it wouldn't surprise me if the magic schools weren't tied to perks. Especially after reading the variety of spells and the different powers they have. Take out conjuration, destruction, alteration, illusion and restoration. It would still make sense to have perks tied to alchemy and enchant, since they aren't spell based. But the five schools that feature spell casting....it woudln't surprise me one bit if they didn't have perks tied to them. And it fits nicely too.

idk if there will be the original Birthsign constellations or not. There doesn't seem to be a reason to remove them. As for the skill perks we don't know if they will be tied to skills or the basic classes (Combat, Magic, Stealth. Was kinda inferred by the last hub update that this is correct, as they said dagger perks fall under the Stealth banner), or maybe something else entirely.

I do know that the constellation in the screenshot was not a familiar one but as far as what I have heard, that might not be related to perks at all. It could just be the symbol for the skill with the new 'iTunes-esque' UI that seems to piss so many people off.

Frankly you guys are getting way to worked up over something you know nothing about.

No the picture clearly showed a perk tree over various magic schools so we know they have perks.

There are multiple mods for Morrowind that add new birthsigns. Been around for a long time at that ^^ Was the first mod I ever d/led for Morrowind actually, lol

I was under the impression from the wording and the screenshot that each skill "constellation" was really just a small sub-structure of stars within that skill-category's governing constellation. All the combat skills would be contained within the Warrior constellation, the magic skills in the Mage, and the stealth skills in the Thief.

It seemed clear to me that each skill was represented by a constellation, and that the stars in each skill represented the perks associated with that skill, which would "light up" once you had selected them. I am sure you can find 18 formations of stars to represent each of the 18 skills. Based on the skill constellations in view of the image, the skills will average 10 perks each. That's a lot of perks, and probably where most of the character development will come from.

They might just double up on some astrological signs.