In todays episode of Dareloth’s Lore Dives, we talk about a bunch of out of game lore written and spearheaded by Michael Kirkbride, a.k.a., Mankar Camoran, a.k.a., Vivec, a.k.a., the man who haunts my nightmares. We go through Tower lore, and I hope to bring you closer to understand what all of this stuff is really about.
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Khajiit Tower Theory: https://www.reddit.com/r/teslore/comments/kemzw4/the_khajiit_tower/
BlackRose’s 6 Walking Ways: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZr-4FH7O1Y&t=1679s
ThinWhiteDuke’s Clockwork City Master Difficulty Playthrough: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDgbV17sT-o&list=PLZKmVLX7K-nP2st1y3M9sMKnMbvOQAzRT&index=3
Brynjar’s Compendium of the Six Walking Ways, part I: Introduction:https://www.reddit.com/r/teslore/comments/4n8i1y/brynjars_compendium_of_the_six_walking_ways_part/
Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
2:47 Chapter I: Forum Lore
5:56 Chapter II: Divine Metaphysics
27:33 Chapter III: Throw Me The Whip
36:54 Chapter IV: Throw Me The Idol
1:11:35 Chapter V: Literally Baseless Theorycrafting
1:27:40 Chapter VI: The Thalmor Spoke-Idol Shuffle
1:34:10 Chapter VII: The Towers End
Art Credits:
Imperial City EFMaps: https://www.patreon.com/EFMaps
Imperial City samofsuthsax: https://www.deviantart.com/samofsuthsax/art/T-E-S-IV-Imperial-City-183199185
Soundtrack: Moth, Butterfly, and Torchbug from Elder Scrolls Online’s OST: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30pHKjToImc
Mankar Art: https://www.reddit.com/r/oblivion/comments/nll2tb/mankar_camoran_by_freecolat/
Aurbis Image (I Couldn’t Credit This One, Unfortunantly): https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ5bFQNvuY0FOnuIg4HLaMNfAuu4vKm10lwTqrxkQDAfuUp_yVkO7-9ZNuWDh37TOrn0w06p3mcClG8cvOH1hZ4M3p5fZhNkWU6nDEf2ZdqgYm2DXIMBUuLDaZpSeojkYuR8t0eptNOqkj/s1600/Cosmolog%C3%ADa+TES.png
Lorkhan Art: https://www.deviantart.com/vanuchka/art/Revival-Lorkhan-309456843
Bibliography:
https://www.imperial-library.info/content/michael-kirkbride-reddit-ama
https://en.uesp.net/wiki/General:The_Thief_Goes_to_Cyrodiil
https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Subtropical_Cyrodiil:_A_Speculation
https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:The_Towers
https://www.imperial-library.info/content/nu-mantia-intercept
https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Aurbic_Enigma_4:_The_Elden_Tree
https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:The_Annotated_Anuad
https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:36_Lessons_of_Vivec,_Sermon_21
https://en.uesp.net/wiki/General:Cosmology
https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:The_Monomyth
https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:CHIM
https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Mythic_Dawn_Commentaries_3
https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Spirit_of_Nirn,_God_of_Mortals
https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Further_Notes_on_the_Sload
https://en.uesp.net/wiki/General:Six_Views_of_the_Egg_of_Time,_V._III
https://www.imperial-library.info/content/michael-kirkbride-irc-quotes
https://en.uesp.net/wiki/General:Michael_Kirkbride%27s_Posts
25 Comments
This video is the culmination of tons of hours of research and editing. I hope my efforts were not in vain and you enjoy the video. I had to pick and choose specific things to put in this video, so there are plenty of things that, just for the sake of time, are not included. I have a feeling I probably missed something along the way, specifically with the Orichalc Tower… I just get a bad vibe from that one. Regardless, please tell me what I got right, wrong, or anything in between. I'll try to update this comment if there's anything huge that I genuinely think I got wrong.
1:50 and 1:12:46 hahahahaha okay I can explain this issue. My Sotha Sil thumbnail was labled "maxresdefault," which is the normal name of a YouTube thumbnail when downloaded. I had both the Sotha Sil video thumbnail and that Dark Souls thumbnail downloaded for something else entirely (Original video: https://youtu.be/6aIqWOGLM3A?si=heAq9W_z2is86Xal), and the images got swapped in my editing software. So, it's just a funny thing we'll have to deal with, but the original intention was to have that be my Sotha Sil thumbnail lol.
14:02 I meant to say Adamantine Tower, not White-Gold here
55:55 Bad audio take in here. Didn't find it while editing.
Also, this is the 3rd upload of this video, technically. I apologize to all of my channel members with notifications on who had to endure me reuploading this over and over. Special thanks, again, to Alexis, for helping me proof-read the final product to make it the best video that I could. Also, thanks to FaustsLament for the $5 Super Thanks on the last upload. It is extremely appreciated.
I have a few videos planned to hopefully come out soon: a Bethesda Rant, a video about Ithelia, and perhaps even a video pertaining to an Elder Scrolls saint. I will likely be dipping into Avowed's lore as well, seeing as I really really love the Pillars universe, and I don't really here enough people talking about it. Aside from those smaller projects, I will be putting a poll up for Channel Members at Master Thief Tier or higher to participate in soon, which will choose the next large-scale lore topic that we'll be studying.
See you in the next one and in the comments. And thank you.
Shadow Hide You,
Dareloth
I love ur videos, slay
Great effort, dude! Your next project should be a deep dive into the 'old lore' before Bethesda soft rebooted with Oblivion
16:23 The Edgar Allen Poe community has the Orangutan, and the TES lore community has Akatosh’s Spaceship.😂
The Nu-Mantia Intercept really is the first stop on this topic, even though its information has only been selectively canonized so far and there’s some potential to mislead. It provides the best overview, though the concept could be redefined very differently.
It’s like a Rasputin prophecy with demonstrated utility. Except, you know Rasputin… sometimes he’s not marketable. The Toddhead’s not necessarily signing off on everything.
Oh baby this is the good stuff
Oh hell yeah a Dareloth video while I prepare a big and time consuming dinner!
Todd says that it should only be considered official lore if it's in the games. I'd counter with the following: I don't really care if it's "official lore" if it's official enough and it's also cool.
#Chim
Whoa that's a big video, there's no way Kirkbride will be mentioned… right?!?
I haven't heard of tower lore before. Elder Scrolls lore will always be interesting to me. At some point one could consider looking at the lore written by the modding community projects such as Skywind (Skyrim) or Tamriel Rebuilt (Morrowind).
Commenting for the algorithm
1.5 hours of eccentric elder scrolls lore, narrated by some one with an easy to listen to voice? this is my kind of video.
So in a way the stones of the towers work like lodestones for magic from aetherius to be used for creation
I tryna achieve chim, but my boss keeps waking me up :/
a friend of mine helped work on this!
CHIM
I agree about your stance on the Towers and the Thalmor, I think people want them to do something stupid and die like the Dwemer.
thanks, i was needing this
kind of grasping here but you can make a connection between the Snow Elves, Snow Throat, and the allegory of the cave in the way that the Snow Elves underwent an explicit reversal of the normal process of going from the cave to world above and thereby became the Falmer. Maybe there’s some significance to walking backwards
Saying everything that's already said, but it truly delights me that this channel exists to give genuinely well researched and well written videos/essays about TES lore. So much TES content on youtube is honestly slop, or spoon-feeding, or just frustrating levels of Kirkbride worship. Dareloth videos are some of the only TES videos on youtube (In addition to LeftoverPat!) that feels like it's made for fans of the series who's eyes dont glaze over at the weird esoteric BS that I love this setting for. I love that you source your research. I love that you give unique and informed opinions. I love that you're so much different from any other TES creator online.
Thanks for another great watch. CHIM and fivefold venerations, arata ephem.
YEESSSS FINALLY, I LOVE YOU DARELOTH 💕💕💕
Dare has returned! Praise the eight!
CHIM
I was so excited for this video and immediately dropped everything. I firmly believe that you are one of the best TES lore channels, rivaling Drewmora or Fudgemuppet with the level of analysis. I do really enjoy that you take time and effort to both research and relate TES lore to irl stuff from all manner of sciences and occupations. Just as well, your voice is very easy to listen to and the audio quality increase since first vids is notable.
I do agree that the number 8 being central to TES makes sense and a part of me would like for their to then just be 8 towers; but tbh it also makes Tamriel feel too central from a Doylist perspective, as it places all towers in the continent (exceot Orichalc for whatever reason) and as such makes the world feel a tad smaller and less mysterious. Im fine if the people of Tamriel believe themselves to be this central point of creation from an in-universe perspective but being authoritative about how many towers their must be or their origins feels like a bit of sidelining the other continents and regions of Nirn (Except Yokuda once again for whatever reason). Its why I like the idea of "failed towers" or "Towers in all but name" (Such as the Khajit theory), as they allow us to wonder and think of other ways the same rules that applied to Tamriel might represent in other parts of Nirn.
I personally don't think anything that Kirkbride says after his departure from working on TES should be accepted as canon.
It’s stuff like this that makes the elder scrolls one of my favorite game franchises
Six Views of the Egg of Time is a great read, I strongly recommend you give it a full go-through for the pleasure of it, even if its not relevant to tower-lore or chim or anything. The bit you quoted was written by a physician from Wayrest who specializes in curing people of madness and wrote a book about Sheogorath, and claimed in his passage that the Dwemer never actually existed and were purely mythical, so you may not want to take what he's written about The Tower too seriously!