Song of Pelinal I

An Examination of 'The Song of Pelinal'

Pelinal fighting Umaril the Unfeathered

Pelinal is a fairly well known part of history, and possibly the most well known part of the Alessian Slave Rebellion. His story is, in a word, cool as hell. So I thought a good way to start examining that character is to have a look at the most authoritative in-game record of Pelinal, The Song of Pelinal.

Here, in its entirety, is the first volume of The Song of Pelinal, complete with editor's note:

"[Editor's Note: Volumes 1-6 are taken from the so-called Reman Manuscript located in the Imperial Library. It is a transcription of older fragments collected by an unknown scholar of the early Second Era. Beyond this, little is known of the original sources of these fragments, some of which appear to be from the same period (perhaps even from the same manuscript). But, as no scholarly consensus yet exists on dating these six fragments, no opinions will be offered here.]


That he took the name "Pelinal" was passing strange, no matter his later sobriquets, which were many. That was an Elvish name, and Pelinal was a scourge on that race, and not much given to irony. Pelinal was much too grim for that; even in youth he wore white hair, and trouble followed him. Perhaps his enemies named Pelinal of their own in their tongue, but that is doubtful, for it means "glorious knight", and he was neither to them. Certainly, many others added to that name during his days in Tamriel: he was Pelinal the Whitestrake because of his left hand, made of a killing light; he was Pelinal the Bloody, for he [drank] it in victory; he was Pelinal Insurgent, because he gave the crusades a face; he was Pelinal In Triumph, as the words eventually became synonymous, and men-at-arms gave thanks to the Eight when they saw his banner coming through war; he was Pelinal the Blamer, for he was quick to admonish those allies of his that favored tactics that ran counter to his, that is, sword-theory; and he was Pelinal the Third, though whether this was because some said he was a god guiser, who had incarnated twice before already, or that, simpler, he was the third vision given to Perrif, anon Alessia, in her prayers of liberation before he walked among the quarters of rebellion, is unknown."

Pelinal, or perhaps someone wearing his armour

Now, let's break this down.

"That he took the name "Pelinal" was passing strange, no matter his later sobriquets, which were many. That was an Elvish name.."
"...Perhaps his enemies named Pelinal of their own in their tongue, but that is doubtful, for it means "glorious knight", and he was neither to them..."

Pelinal is a derivation of Pelin-El (As we will hear in volume 2). This naming convention suggests that Pelinal has intrinsic ties to the mer of mundus. This does not, however, mean that he has to like it. Or them. As evidenced by:

"That was an Elvish name, and Pelinal was a scourge on that race, and not much given to irony."

This tells us both that Pelinal really does not like the elves (and believe me, we will be hearing rather a lot about Pelinal's views on our pointy eared friends) and also that he is a very serious fellow.

"Pelinal was much too grim for that; even in youth he wore white hair, and trouble followed him."

From this we can infer that the natural colour of Pelinal's hair is white. This again makes mention of the inherently serious nature of the man. The trouble also points to the arrogance and aggressively confrontational character of Pelinal that will continue to colour this narrative and inform the story of his life. Pelinal does not play well with others in general. We then go on to learn much about the role Pelinal played through the following listing of his titles:

"Certainly, many others added to that name during his days in Tamriel: he was Pelinal the Whitestrake because of his left hand, made of a killing light;"

At this point it bears mentioning that Pelinal is almost certainly a time travelling robot sent from the future.* Well, probably not a robot in the sense that if you opened him up you'd see whirring cogs, but robot in the sense of an artificial life. The left hand of killing light we are quite sure refers not to a usage of magic, but to some manner of laser based weaponry integrated into his being. 

"he was Pelinal the Bloody, for he [drank] it in victory;"

Now here's a happy chappy!

Pretty straightforward, Pelinal drank the blood of his slaughtered foes. Whether this is for some manner of sustenance or simply for sheer intimidation is unknown. 

"he was Pelinal Insurgent, because he gave the crusades a face;"

It is possible that, although Pelinal is undoubtedly a central figure to the Alessian Slave Rebellion, the details of his story and the deeds of other heroes may have become blurred, with some achievements of other heroes being attributed to an already powerful figure, both in might and in myth. This also holds with a recurring theme of certain things being "eaten" conceptually by other things, and being absorbed into the eater. 

"he was Pelinal In Triumph, as the words eventually became synonymous, and men-at-arms gave thanks to the Eight when they saw his banner coming through war;"

Pelinal was very good at fighting, and very good at tactics too.

"he was Pelinal the Blamer, for he was quick to admonish those allies of his that favored tactics that ran counter to his, that is, sword-theory;"

Having said that, the tactics Pelinal favoured weren't big on finicky stuff like magic. Pelinal liked to wade in and smash things. Direct confrontation, that's the ticket!

"and he was Pelinal the Third, though whether this was because some said he was a god guiser, who had incarnated twice before already, or that, simpler, he was the third vision given to Perrif, anon Alessia, in her prayers of liberation before he walked among the quarters of rebellion, is unknown."

The god guiser part refers to Pelinal being a Shezarrine, or reincarnation of Shor/Lorkhan. As to the third vision of Perrif (it is noteworthy that Alessia is a corruption of "Al-Esh" or High Highness, and was thus originally a title rather than a name) Alessia is known to have prayed to the Aedra, and specifically (probably) Akatosh for salvation from the slavery of men in Cyrodiil. As Akatosh is the dragon god of time, it is not impossible that he gave her a glimpse into the future where exactly the hero her cause needed might be found. 

A moody picture of a Silt-Strider, because I very much enjoy moody pictures of Silt-Striders.

So there we have it, an examination of the first part of The Song of Pelinal! You can see that this simply must be broken down into parts, and even then I worry this post may be a little too wordy. 

Footnotes:

* Or, at least, so Michael Kirkbride tells us, and as he wrote The Song of Pelinal, we can be pretty certain he'd know. 

Have any questions? Think there's something I missed? Have an amusing anecdote about forcing the Nights of the Nine to dance to 'What is Love'? Let me know in the comments below!

Unofficial Elderscrolls Roleplaying Game

Unofficial Elderscrolls Roleplaying Game

The view from inside an Ashlander camp

It is probably inevitable that any popular and enjoyable fantasy world will sooner or later gather interest from more traditional gamers. So, too, it is with TES. The Unofficial Elderscrolls Roleplaying Game, or UESRPG for short, is a collaborative fan effort to create a traditional pen and paper system to allow tabletop gamers to frolic about the landscapes of Tamriel and weave their own, original stories. As this is an unofficial system, and no official system exists, this game is entirely free. 

Just imagine, this could be you

I have previously run a short campaign with this system, and my group found that the system (not quite a finished product) was fun, albeit not the simplest to use. Combat tends to heavily favour the party with the most actions to spend in any given round of fighting, and there are a few kinks to work out. I would recommend this to anyone with a group that both wishes to explore the TES setting, and has a fairly relaxed selection of players, as some ad hoc rule tweaking and system changes are fairly inevitable, and neither will mix well with rules lawyers or "that guy". 

If you really wanted, you could even play as a party of lesser Daedra...

A link to my hosted version of the current core rulebook can be found here, or the blog of the creative team with links to additional stuff can be found here. 

Got questions about the campaign I ran? Ideas for stuff you would like to see explored in a pnp version of TES? Small, beautifully crafted snuffboxes you'd like to brag about? Let the world know in the comments below!

The Nature of Alduin

The Nature of Alduin

Alduin World Eater

Alduin, the main antagonist of TESV, Skyrim, is heralded as several things. World Eater, and first-born of Akatosh*. Throughout the course of the game it is revealed that the coming of Alduin represents the ending of the world. However, Alduin represents not so much the ending of the world as the rebirth of Nirn**, or rather, the re-setting of Nirn.

The Dragonborn confronts Alduin

To understand this we must first understand the nature of dragons and time. Time, in Aurbis***, is a metaphor, and as with all metaphors in the TES universe, is physically embodied. Before the creation of Mundus† time was non-linear, and was embodied in the being known as Aka-Tusk. Aka-Tusk was broken in a time before Convention†† and became several different entities, each embodying a different aspect of time. For the moment, we'll be focusing on two particular aspects.

This diagram probably merits an entire post all of its own

Akatosh, the concept of Linear time, and Alduin, the concept of the End of time. Essentially, how this works is that Alduin consumes the world, and in doing so ushers in the new one. Another way of looking at this is that Alduin represents a process whereby linear time is re-set, or brought back to a certain point to run again, either seeming much the same or radically different to the previous iteration. Crucial to understanding the nature of time in the ES universe is the Hindu concept of a Kalpa. A Kalpa is the period of time from creation to re-creation, and could be represented as a cycle or ouroboros (Which is typically depicted as a dragon or snake consuming its own tail) The Alduin event could be viewed as the mouth of the ouroboros, representing both destruction of the present and the ushering of the future. I've made a diagram to hopefully provide a handy point of reference:

This was a solid 2 or so minutes in paint

Which, hopefully, should be fairly easy to understand. I shall be expanding upon the nature of Aka Tusk and a more in-depth look at time in general in future posts.†††

Footnotes:

*The dragon god of linear time, one of the Nine Divines

**Nirn is the name of the plane(t) upon which the TES series is set

***Aurbis refers to the entirety of creation, the universe

†Mundus refers to the mundane, the section of creation in which life as we know it can exist.

††The end of the Dawn Era and the beginning of more conventional history.

†††Or, at least, I certainly intend to. 

The Nature of This Blog

The Nature of This Blog

This blog serves as a guide to various aspects of the Lore of The Elder Scrolls Series (Along with the occasional interlude to discuss other TES related stuff). This is based from both in-game literature and reputable conjecture and extrapolation from the finest lore-hounds to be found this side of Aurbis. 

A depiction of Sotha Sil

The lore behind this series of games has enthralled and delighted many over the years with a depth and complexity that is truly astounding. I would be remiss, however, in neglecting to mention that there is no small amount of confusion and contradiction within the lore, not least because of conflicting accounts from various in-game sources and large gaps that have been filled largely with informed postulation. 

A Dunmer Ashlander

Nonetheless, there is a lot to love about this world and if you are not careful you may find yourself spending hours upon hours pouring through pages of text, rapt with fascination for this truly delightful and immersive thing.

An Ascended Sleeper of the sixth house cult

A few sites that are well-worth keeping on hand/reading for background information on the Lore of the Elder Scrolls series are as follows:

The Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages - This is a wiki for all things Elder Scrolls and has been around since 1995. In terms of reputable sources, the UESP really cannot be beaten.

The Imperial Library - This is a site where every in-game text, along with noteworthy external works (by lore writers for the Elder Scrolls) is dutifully inscribed and archived. This is an excellent reference source.

The Elder Scrolls Wiki - This is a rather more recent wiki than the UESP, and some of the content is of variable merit. I would recommend cross-referencing information from here against the UESP. 

The 8chan /tes/ Board - Whilst subject to the usual problems that chan style imageboards tend to face, the community of this board is fairly well-informed, and the anonymous nature of posting leads to more well-reasoned posts. In addition, some solid mod recommendations and general conversation about the series can be found here. 

The New Whirling School - This is an in-depth examination of a series of religious texts which appear in-game, the 36 lessons of Vivec, by a respected member of the community. This lends a great deal of insight into an important character and the events leading up to the third game in the main series.

C0DA - This is a series of works by Michael Kirkbride, one of the writers behind the ES series. This website looks into events surrounding the end of time.

The Provisional House - This is the blog of one Lady Nerevar, one of the people who helps run The Imperial Library and one of, if not the, most respected TES lore nerds around.

If you have any questions, queries or elaborate death threats, let me know in the comments below!