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 The Elder Scrolls (also called simply Elder Scrolls) is a computer role-playing game series developed by Bethesda Softworks. It is often abbreviated TES. 

 The four main Elder Scrolls games, Arena, Daggerfall, Morrowind, and Oblivion are known for their open-ended gameplay and their huge environments. The newest part of the Elder Scrolls series is Oblivion. Oblivion was released in North America on March 20, 2006 for Microsoft Windows and Xbox 360. 

 The Elder Scrolls, Chapter I - Arena (1994)  
 The Elder Scrolls, Chapter II - Daggerfall (1996)  
 The Elder Scrolls, Chapter III - Morrowind (2002)  
 Two expansion packs for Morrowind: Tribunal (2002) and Bloodmoon (2003).  
 The Elder Scrolls, Chapter IV - Oblivion (2006)  
 Also, there are some off-shoots that are not PC role-playing games, but employ the same game universe: 

 The Elder Scrolls Legends: Battlespire (1997)  
 The Elder Scrolls Adventures: Redguard (1998)  
 The Elder Scrolls Travels: Dawnstar (2003)  
 The Elder Scrolls Travels: Stormhold (2004)  
 The Elder Scrolls Travels: Shadowkey (2004)  
 The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion Mobile (2006)  
 TES Travels games Dawnstar and Stormhold run only on Java-enabled cell phones. Shadowkey has been developed for the N-Gage. Morrowind was released for both the Microsoft Windows and Xbox platforms. Oblivion has been released for the PC and the Xbox 360. 

 Contents [hide] 
 1 The World of The Elder Scrolls  
 2 The Elder Scrolls themselves  
 3 External links  
 3.1 Official Website links  
 3.2 Game Archive and Review sites  
 3.3 Fan Sites  
 

  
 [edit] 
 The World of The Elder Scrolls 
 The world of TES is known for its attention to detail, realism, and the long, complex lists of names, dates, and places. They constitute its extensive history and the vast, interconnected structure of its various societies, cultures, and religions much more than what most players are familiar with. 

 Furthermore, there is no one compilation of all information pertaining to TES, and, within the games, historical references are often vague or unsure. Players are encouraged to draw their own conclusions about situations and events for which the records are few and incomplete or when competing viewpoints obscure the truth. This has spawned a subculture amongst TES players of history and philosophy aficionados affectionately called loremasters who frequently engage in long-winded and convoluted online debates as to the specifics of theological insights or economic patterns. 

 The Elder Scrolls games take place on the continent of Tamriel, and is a large landmass divided into nine provinces. An exception is The Elder Scrolls Legends: Battlespire, which takes place between the realm of Oblivion, an alternate dimension ruled by the Daedra, and the mortal realm of Mundus. It is known that there are continents besides Tamriel in the Elder Scrolls universe, but there is yet to be an official game that takes place in one. 

 The nine provinces of Tamriel are: 

 Cyrodiil, homeland of the Imperials  
 Black Marsh, homeland of the Argonians  
 Elsweyr, homeland of the Khajiit  
 Hammerfell, homeland of the Redguards  
 High Rock, homeland of the Bretons and the Orcs  
 Morrowind, homeland of the Dunmer or Dark Elves  
 Skyrim, homeland of the Nords  
 Summerset Isles, homeland of the Altmer or High Elves  
 Valenwood, homeland of the Bosmer or Wood Elves  
 While each of the ten playable races has a ""home province"" or province of origin, they are not limited to this province and can be found outside its borders, though they are a minority. 

 Other races included in TES lore are Ayleid, Chimer, Dwemer, Ehlnofey, Falmer, Hist, Imga, Kamal, Ka Po' Tun, Maormer, Sload, Tang Mo, and Tsaesci. The Dwemer were destroyed for unknown reasons before Arena, but this is explained in Morrowind (Elder Scrolls III). 

 The Elder Scrolls places great emphasis on the idea of the dualism and equality of opposites. This dualism is not the Abrahamic dualism of good and evil, but more closely resembles a fusion of Eastern and pre-Christianity Western beliefs on the subject, being the duality of order and chaos. According to Elder Scrolls Lore, the concepts of order and chaos can be translated collectively into everything. These notions might be more exactly approximated using the words stasis (unchanging continuity) and force (unknowable energy). Almost all Tamrielic religions strongly feature the idea that the world was created through an intermingling of these two things, some saying that time is a synthesis of continuity and alteration, and most religious creation-theories deal with one or more mythological characters representing these absolutes either procreating or engaging in combat (or both, as t