Lore:Gardens of Flesh and Bone

The Gardens of Flesh and Bone are an ancient ruin and root tunnel complex located just west of the town of   inside  , the walled-off region of the Shivering Isles to which mortals are confined until they receive Lord Sheogorath's "gift" of madness and can enter the realm proper. 

Like all ancient ruins found in the Isles, it is a relic of the "Predecessors", the mortal inhabitants of the realm whose civilization was wiped out in a previous  .  By the  , root tunnels had broke through into the ancient subterranean halls of the Garden.  
 

History
At some point, the sorceress Relmyna Verenim was invited to the Isles to continue her research into Flesh Magic. She took up occupation of the Gardens and labored painstakingly for many years in order to cultivate the mystical forms of Meat, Blood, Bone, and Breath—the four essential components of true Flesh, the "sixth element".  Blood took the mystical form of Blood Liqueur, bubbling up from a root-twisted wellspring in the Natatorium of Wound Bled Tears; Bone and Meat took the form of Osseous Marrow and Dermis Membrane respective, bony plants which bloomed in the Conservatorium Corpusculum; Breath took the form of the Essence of Breath, a green gas which flows through the twisting tunnels of the Caverns of Susurration like a giant lung, gathering in its center. 

By harvesting these four components, together known as the Essence of Flesh, Relmyna was able to construct a vessel for "child", a powerful flesh atronach known as the Gatekeeper of the Fringe.  She would then animate this vessel with Soul—the Quintessence of Flesh—by ritualistically binding it to an  's   spirit (or vestige)  summoned from the waters of  . Although many of his "siblings" perished in the Garden, Relmyna eventually created the first Gatekeeper through a painful and bloody birth, using Sheogorath's divine madness as the seed. The Gatekeeper was then charged with guarding the Gates of Madness against interlopers who would try to exit the Fringe without Sheogorath's blessing. 

Circa  , the Champion of Cyrodiil entered the Shivering Isles at Sheogorath's invitation and killed the Gatekeeper. It is believed that the Champion broke into the Gardens of Flesh and Bone to harvest the bones of a failed Gatekeeper in order to craft arrows which could be used to kill it. 

Later that year, the Fringe was invaded by the forces of Order, and the Champion was tasked by Sheogorath with assisting Relmyna with creating a new Gatekeeper. Relmyna sent the Champion back to the Gardens of Flesh and Bone and granted access to her Sanctum to gather samples of the four essential components of Flesh.  The complex at this time had become overrun by "creatures of the sorceress' doing and undoing": undead shambles, skinned hounds, flesh atronachs, and hungers.  The Champion succeeded in harvesting the components, and a new Gatekeeper was formed. 

At some point after 3E 433, a Redguard madman created the Garden of Swords in the Fringe, where metal weapons seemingly grew from the ground. He had used the body of a previous Gatekeeper to fertilize the soil; an axe grew from this plot, and was said to have been used by Talym Rend to slay the new Gatekeeper. 

Gallery
  
 
See Also
For game-specific information, see the Shivering Isles article.

References