Ordolane's Bestiary, vol. 17

Being a complete listing of the Fauna of Tamriel, with truthful description, assembled from the reports of sundry Savants, Naturalists, Mystics &c from across the breadth of the Empire.

  

Common parlance necessitates the inclusion of the Dreugh in this bestiary, but its place here among the baser creatures of lakes and oceans is otherwise wholly unwarranted. Pearl divers, shipwreck survivors and many others who make their living by the water will speak to their sapience. Indeed, tales of their deep water palaces come to us from all the known oceans, suggesting their civilization is in few ways inferior to those of the terrestrial denizens of Tamriel. This fact is the basis of a long-standing theory that the Dreugh are survivors from some unknown earlier age of the world, though much reduced in power. Whatever the truth of it, the Dreugh are reclusive and their aquatic habitat means few can follow where they go. Perhaps the catastrophe that separates their epoch of glory from our own taught them the simple virtue of remaining as unfathomable as the waters that are their home.

 

Vicious bipedal lizard-monsters that roam the rugged wilderness of the High Rock-Skyrim borderlands, Wormmouths are characterized by their insatiable drive to rend flesh with their massive filth-spewing jaws. Known for breeding surprisingly fast given their large size, Nord tradition attributes their origin to the maggots that feasted on the corpse of their Chief-God, Shor. The Witchmen warriors of High Rock commonly don armor stitched together from their thick hides.

 

Portents of shifting luck that trace and inhabit the warrens of Nirn. Hares can change sex at will, though only when they reach adult age. They breed so confusingly fast that females among a litter are said to sometimes give birth while still in the mother's womb. Depending on its gender when caught, hare flesh is accordingly used to treat barren women or seedless men. Hares are associated with deception and cunning, and Wood Elf sorcerers are said to favor their form as a disguise when traveling incognito through the lands of Men.

 

Much is written in Nordic lore of the snow whales, majestic beings that live among the highest mountain peaks and freely move through air, snow and ice as if swimming through water. Childrens' stories portray snow whales as the singers of clouds, and claim that their emanations are the cause of all the joy in the world. This is why Nords and children alike grow cheerful in the snow, and celebrate the cold weather even as it obstructs their paths and endangers their crops.

 

There are many kinds of moths to be found in Tamriel, but all are derived from the Luna Moth, which migrates annually between Nirn and its moons in swarms of a million or more and in so doing marks out the safe aurbic currents used by travelers and mystics. In more recent times the moth has become a symbol of the Empire, the Legion and of the Elder Council. They have a relationship with the dead (hence the Cult of the Ancestor Moth), but the nature of this connection remains a secret to the uninitiated. They are not indigenous to our world, but can be found in Skyrim, Cyrodiil and High Rock. Their migrating swarms sometimes attempt to reach Morrowind, but they are killed by the ash cloud of Red Mountain and fall to the ground like countless autumn leaves. 

IN DEDICATION TO THE EMPEROR URIEL SEPTIM VII