Lore:Pocket Guide to the Empire, 3rd Edition/All the Eras of Man

:What follows is only a brief overview of what has preceded this time, for those who lack even a basic knowledge of the prehistory and history of  . Those who find their appetites whetted will be no doubt avail themselves of the many fine works of history in the libraries and bookshops of the  .

The Elder Wilds
:History, of course, begins with creation. Sadly, all the objectivity and solid evidence we require of other events in our records must be dismissed at this early point. Within each province, each culture, each religion, each family there exists a different understanding of how this world came to be. It defines us, this belief in where we came from, and the   prefers to leave that to you, gentle reader.

:That said, one persistent story that is accepted by many cultures is that as the world congealed into reality, the   made a great tower to discuss how best to proceed with the making of  . The physical, temporal, spiritual, and  al elements of   were set at this Convention, and the tower itself remained behind even as some of the Gods disappeared into  . Today it is the   on the little island of   between   and   in the  . That such a humanoid structure remains the sole footprint of the   speaks perhaps of the essentially mortal nature of our world.

:It is generally understood that neither the proto-elves, or  , nor the proto-men, or  , lived in Tamriel during the earliest years of creation. The   trees of  , most say, were the original life forms on our continent, followed by the progenitors of the modern  , the modern  , the modern  , the modern  , and other " ," some now gone our land, some so shy or rare that their presence is seldom detected.

:In what historians called the  , the years before formal historical reckoning, the Aldmer came to Tamriel from a legendary mysterious land called   or  . They settled in  , and then began to spread out eastward. The Nedic people meanwhile came from the frozen land of   to the north to what is today  . Where elves and men met, inevitably, there was hostility.

:The Aldmer changed over time culturally according to their new environments, being at first temperamentally and then physically very distinct "races" separate from one another. The ones who stayed in Summerset became known as the  ; in  ,  ; in  ,   and  ; in  ,  ; and in High Rock, a mix between Nedic and Aldmer birthed the  s. The   or Orcs were also created at this time; Aldmer warped by the destruction of their leader  , who it is said became the    . This disparate chorus may have been crafted consciously by the   or by the shifts of the  , but the reason why is not necessary for this history. Change they did.

:The Nedic people also changed over the centuries of their invasions from Atmora. The original Nedics of Skyrim are now known as the  s. The ones who crossed west to High Rock, as we have said, interbred with the Aldmer there to create the Bretons, who are most commonly considered men, not mer. The Nedics who crossed south became the  , eventually the prisoners and slaves of the bellicose Ayleids of that region.

The
:We begin counting time forward at the founding of the   in Valenwood. It is perhaps an arbitrary starting date, but Dynasty (discussed in the   below) and King   himself were visionaries of the civilizations to come. In the center of Tamriel, the Ayleids were creating an empire of their own with Cyrodilic slaves; while to the north, the Nords began to unite into a common whole that was to be called Skyrim.

:The Nordic influence on their southern cousins was equally dramatic, inspiring the Cyrodiils to revolt against their Ayleid masters, under the banner of  , former slave turned queen. The   of Cyrodiil was born in  . The expansionist Nords also harried the kingdoms of the Dwemer and Chimer in  , which is today called Morrowind. Eventually, in response, the embattled clans formed their own alliance with the Dwemer king   and the Chimer king   ruling jointly in  .

:In a few hundred years, however, the alliance between Dwemer and Chimer disintegrated into bloody battle, the  . The aftermath of the war is legendary: the Dwemer were vanquished into extinction, and the Chimer were transformed into the red-eyed dark-skinned  .

:Together with the Nords, the Alessians turned their eyes west towards the fertile land of High Rock, ruled by the hated elves. For much of the First Era, the west was disputed land, until the Bretons rose as the empires, too extended, fell back.

:The  , or "Warrior Wave," from   arrived in   to the west in  , conquering the land and renaming it  . Once settled, the Ra Gada, or  s, joined with the Breton kingdoms in destroying an empire in its infancy, the Orcish homeland of  .

:As the various Tamrielic cultures battled one another, there were threats beyond its shores. The   from the Sloads washed over the land, decimating the population from coast to coast. The   of   preferred a more straightforward attack, invading Tamriel in  , only to be defeated by the Cyrodilic emperor  .

:The death of the Emperor   in   left the   with no heirs. The   of power were ably taken up by Reman's Akaviri chancellor, whose ancestors had entered the Imperial service after their defeat by Reman I. Thus began the line of  s at the opening of the  , who continued to rule the Cyrodilic Empire until its demise more than four centuries later.

The Second Era
:The Cyrodilic Empire continued to be a force of great power for the first four hundred and thirty years under the rule of the Akaviri Potentates.  Though alien to our culture, they established some of the great traditions of our land, granting charters to organizations such as the   and  s. Another sign of peace and prosperity occurred in the year  , when   was created by the unison of two Khajiit tribelands,   and  .

:When the last Potentate,  , was assassinated in  , leaving no heirs, the great Empire was finally destroyed. Black Marsh forcibly split from the lands of men, as the   made the land uninhabitable by all but the Argonians themselves. Akavir once again invaded Tamriel, barely rebuffed after attacking Morrowind in  . From one end of the continent to the other, war and rebellion struck at the heart of every great tradition of the land.

:The first sign of reunification occurred in the west. The Altmer of Summerset, long concerned with their own wars with other island kingdoms, allied with Valenwood to form the   for their common good. Still greater, however, was the force that rose from the ancient seat of emperors, Cyrodiil. A great general,  , liegeless after his lord's assassination, began his career as the greatest conqueror in the history of the land.

:Better known by his Cyrodilic name,   and his armies conquered all of Tamriel, creating the Empire that bears name even today, and ushering in the  .

The Third Era
:For thirty-eight years, the Emperor Tiber Septim reigned, bequeathing the throne of Tamriel to his grandson   on his deathbed. The  , occasionally inclusive of adopted and married members, has ruled ever since.

:Within a few generations, however, the family had begun to develop rivalries and jealousies which exploded into a civil war in the year  . The   ended with the death of   and his mother Queen   of Solitude, but its reverberations may still be felt today. The unity of Empire was never again to be assumed.

:The Emperors who followed, such as the  -kissed  , yielded to the authority of the   to keep some semblance of order in the land. It was only too evident what occurred when the Empire was without a strong leader. In the most horrible example, the people of Valenwood, the  n West, and Hammerfell suffered under the depredations of the  , who ravaged their land with undead and Daedric hordes for nearly twenty years before his defeat in  .

:Beginning with the Empress  , however, the rulers of Tamriel have been extraordinarily strong and capable. This has not meant that the last one hundred and twenty years have been the most peaceful in Tamriel's history, utterly devoid of bloodshed, merely that the wars and troubles of our recent past are a pale imitation of what has occurred before.

:The most famous trouble of recent years came early in the reign of our current emperor,  . By wile and sorcery, his trusted battlemage   imprisoned and impersonated his liege. The ten years that Tharn reigned, the so-called  , was a time when old troubles resurfaced, forgotten grudges rekindled, and wars flared throughout the land. In the east, Morrowind attacked Black Marsh in the  ; in the north, Skyrim battled High Rock and Hammerfell in the  ; in the south, Elsweyr took arms against Valenwood in the  ; in the west, Valenwood also lost land to its old ally Summerset in the  .

:Yet all of these troubles, and the even more recent bizarre circumstances in the   and  , paint only a picture with blood. In the year  , the year of this Guide's publication, the Empire stands strong and united. In the chapters that follow, a more detailed portrait of the history and current events of each Province is presented.