Taken from UESP



That sounds awesome.

Bosmer being one of my favorite races (I love being a stealth/archer), I think a game taking place in Valenwood would be great. I just wish they were a little taller.

Plains to the north, jungle in the middle, and sea to the south. It would be awesome.

And those Tree cities would be great to.

Have you read "http://www.imperial-library.info/content/oblivion-dance-fire"? You should if you're interested in Valenwood, it's got some wild stuff in it.
Valenwood would be an incredible setting for a game. But then again, so would most of the lands of Tamriel.

Will we ever see Valenwood? I'm sure we will eventually. Visiting every province of Tamriel individually seems to be what the series is doing right now, so we'll have to hit Valenwood at some point. But, also keeping in mind how frequently a new game in the series is released, we could be seeing Valenwood 10 or 20 years from now.

If Falinesti's anything like Bladerunner's LA, depleted from the Thalmor's expansion wars, Valenwood will slaughter Skyrim and anything in between. I don't know if the cyber-punk influence is better for Sumerset or Valenwood... I'm thinking of a heavily commercialized Aldmeri Dominion, not just either province, is the way to go. The wizards keep hives/clans/corporations, each with a brand reaching thousands of years back. The clans pioneer magic experiences, which are anologous to our video games or entertainment industries, from miles up in their chrysalis towers. Hammerfell would be an excellent setting to contrast with Valenwood/Aldmeri Dominion.


I know I'm far from concept here, but Human Rev. is going to svck.

I'm not too sure about this, unless the games industry takes a big turn, or Bethesda finds another cash cow and TES dwindles into a niche product that they will risk setting any of the main series TES games in an overly exotic setting, more likely that high rock would be revisited, or far worse, the more exotic settings will be watered down to suit mainstream tastes. Sorry to be negative and talk about far too much out of game stuff, but I reckon this isn't a question for the lore forum anyway.

No, it isn't for the lore forum, and I think you're right about the current trend.

Although, Avatar 2 and 3 are due out sometime around 2014/15, so perhaps if people get obsessed with the huge fantasy-alien themed tropical rainforests of Pandora again then there's hope for mainstream interest in a Valenwood game.

Except Valenwood's people aren't anything like those bastards.

Eh, the Navi are close enough to Space-Elves for a cross pollination of interest.

My possible problem with Valenwood, is that I've heard they do not ever use wood due to their green pact, and live mostly in tribes rather than cities, I mean, creating infrastructure without wood would be nigh impossible.

don't they inport wood from the other provinces ?

This sounds like a failure of imagination on your part.



It has been mentioned in lore, yes, but I've never liked the idea very much. It ranks up there with 'Falinesti has rooted' 'Levitation has been banned' and 'Cyrodiil is a temperate woodland now' in the big list of things altered because gosh, it'd be hard to think around.

Totally. I can't imagine what wood elves would do without wood. Dear me, how will they build?

I'm thinking bosmer work as teams, chewing a native leaf, until it has the property of cement. Then they spit the cement out and pack it into the form of their dwelling.

They can't chew leaves as it would violate the Green Pact. One assumes they could use wasps or other insects that chew leaves for this purpose, however.
So add insect nests to the chitinous remains of giant insects, trees (as in Falinesti and others) bones of giant animals, coral, seashells, stone, metal, amber (as in Silvenar), giant oak-apples, underground tunnels, etc etc

I have a fairly detailed version of Valenwood culture/law/religion/etc in my head and hard drive (because my brain has dork problems), and in it I have their society dominated largely by sort of corporations/socal clubs/political parties called lodges. I didn't realize until now how similar they were to the idea of a cyberpunk megacorp as mentioned above. I note this because I had one of the major lodges as the Spinner Lodge (every lodge has a totem, usually animal). The Spinners train and ride giant spiders which puts them in high demand. Spider silk, if you're not aware, is stronger and more flexible than steel. It can also be woven onto a tree without damaging it, which is why I imagine it as the backbone of all Bosmer tree-based cities.

Ah-ha! That's right, they can't chew leaves... damn it! Maybe they chew the bugs? I think tunnels (termite and bee hives) and giant apples are the next best.

I knew I couldn't be the only person who saw the mega corp connection, but now that you recognize the cyberpunk angle, can you think of an anologue to cybernetics?

I have one for nano-tec. Before war season, Bosmer will take the eggs of a beetle and spread them over an open wound. The beetles hatch and possess the Bosmer for the campaign's duration, where the beetles maintain the elf's body and augment their reflexes. After war, the beetles are offered the body of the Bosmer for their faithful service. They devour it from within, then fly away; but as a token of promise, the beetles bleach the warrior's bones and leave his small heart to the clan.

I don't think it's helpful to try to model it one-to-one on cyberpunk.
That said, I'd say the Wild Hunt would be a good start on some post-human hive mind body horror weirdness.

No, but if the idea's good, it doesn't matter where you took inspiration from.

The Wild Hunt reminds me of the Myrmidons, from the Invisibles. The Hunt is Y'ffre by proxy.

Yup, but it's made out of people. And those people get changed into weird monsters. And they stick around when the Hunt is over.
So suddenly you have a bunch of people with their bits replaced with weird monster bits, who have experienced a group possession by a god.
Replacement of body parts; group minds; mind portability; and merging the mind with another, vast consciousness
Not far off from cybernetics; networked brains; transhumanism; symbiosis with AIs

The Wild Hunt reminds me of the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_Hunt. Just slightly tweaked, naturally.

Well, the Myrmidons are the Wild Hunt of the Invisibles. They even appear in the red jackets, following their hounds. Then they tare up some poor [censored].

When I see Myrmidons I think Ovid and ant-people before I think Wild Hunt, but I've also never read the Invisibles.

Sorry, I realize just saying what I'm reminded of doesn't help, but I couldn't help myself.

I say the Bosmer are anologous to the Myrmidons of the Invisibles, because they're ant-men, like from the Greek myth, but these ant-men are fragments of an invisible, hive mind, unity of all things, or nature; and likewise the Bosmer are fragments of nature, named Y'ffre. ( Lorkhan also appears in the form of an insect, and we know Lorkhan is the God of Mortals, the divinity NIRN, Heart of Mundus. More reason to believe Kinareth and Lorkhan are merged in the god Y'ffre. ) The Wild Hunt is just a bigger piece of Y'ffre than an individual Bosmer.


Edit: Yes, elves in general are 'greater', 'older', or 'higher' than men, because they're bigger pieces of the Godhead, as represented by their long lineage with Auri-el himself.

So, can humans live in Valenwood in the wilderness secluded from the world? I mean Valenwood is a large jungle with very few roads.

Probably. It looks like humans are pretty stubborn when it comes to traveling into harsh environment. The Argonian Account has a good description of travelers in Black Marsh being eaten alive by flesh eating bugs and still traveling further into the province. In the novel, there are generations of humans living in the jungle.

And apparently, before Talos and some retcon, Cyrodiil used to be jungle.

Whether or not Bosmer allow humans to live in Valenwood, I don't know. There might be issues if the humans decide to build their homes and forts out of wood from the forest or eat any fruit and whatnot (the Green Pact is it?).

They've traded with humans, and they only enforce the Green Pact among themselves. The Green Pact has no 'rules for infidels,' if that's your question. However, the border between Valenwood and Cyrodiil is likely tense, with the Dominion in the ascendent.