The Elder Scrolls Online: Gold Roadis set for release on June 3, and marks a return to the West Weald region of Cyrodill, first appearing inThe Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion.
The addition of the West Weald and the city of Skingrad to Elder Scrolls: Online has allowed developer ZeniMax to elaborate on some of the region’s lore, and answer some of the questions that Oblivion players have had for years.
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In aninterview with Game Rant, ESO’s creative director Rich Lambert spoke about the team’s approach to including references to Oblivion. In particular, he expressed his excitement about Skingrad.
“We spent a long time going through stuff and looking at what [Skingrad] could be,” Lambert began. “I’m really interested to see what players start to think about and postulate in terms of some of the lore we’ve put in here.”
One of the most interesting aspects of Gold Road for Elder Scrolls lore buffs is the answer to a decade-long controversy. In Oblivion’s Mythic Dawn Commentaries 3, and other in-game texts, it is noted that Cyrodill was a jungle until Tiber Septim changed the region’s landscape to make it more temperate and liveable.
However, The Elder Scrolls Online occurs several hundred years before the birth of Tiber Septim, and Cyrodill is not a jungle. There have been several theories on why this is the case, from transcription errors to CHIM (a convoluted TES lore concept I won’t bore you with here).
A core part of the upcoming expansion involves a Bosmer cult that worships the Daedric Prince Ithelia turning a section of the West Weald into a wild jungle. Inan interview with TheGamer, Lambert said this aspect of the expansion was “absolutely” intended as an answer to the ongoing lore controversy.
The introduction of Ithelia marks the first addition to the Daedric Pantheon since Oblivion. The existence of Ithelia was previously unknown because her fellow prince Hermaeus Mora erased any evidence of her existence. She is the Daedric Prince of Paths and is known as The Unseen.
In Oblivion, Hermaeus Mora worshipper Bruscius Longus tells the player, “Between the seen and unseen, the seeming and the being, lies the gulf of ignorance,” before abruptly ending the conversation. Fans are theorising that this quote may have been the retroactive basis for Ithelia.
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