General:ZOS Correspondence

The following are lore questions asked by the UESP via email and answered by loremaster Lawrence Schick. 

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Q: You'd said [in the episode of ESO Live] that the Redguard name prefixes are as follows, but weren't 100% sure you had them correct off the top of your head:
:at-  = "of/from", followed by location
:af-  = "offspring of"
:al-  = "family of"
Are those indeed accurate?

:A: Redguards have a Given name and sometimes derivation name:
::"Direct descendant of" is expressed by at-, e.g., Hosni at-Tura
::"Related to" (niece/nephew/cousin) is expressed by af-, e.g., Uwala af-Ador
::"Comes from" is expressed by al-, e.g., Shelmar al-Bergama
 
Q: House Dres, the Pact, and Slavery 
In the base game, House Dres is clearly part of the Ebonheart Pact - the cities of Kragenmoor and Ebonheart are Dres-controlled; in Kragenmoor, you meet the Dres Grandmaster as part of the EP storyline, and in Ebonheart you have to reconcile the Pact races under the city's Dres leadership. It was also stated in official materials that House Telvanni was the only Great House that didn't join the Pact. As a condition of joining, all Houses had to release their Argonian slaves (this was one reason that Telvanni didn't join), but there was never much said about Khajiit slaves. It is hinted at though that there was an agreement between Dres and the Pact that allowed them to keep their Khajiit slaves. In-game, you can even see some Khajiit slaves in places such as Kragenmoor and the Dres Farmhouse outside Mournhold. Now this seems to be in contradiction with the information that has come from ESO: Morrowind. The Pact Pamphlet stipulates that all slavery is abolished, and all Khajiit are free in addition to all Argonians. Concurrently, only Indoril, Hlaalu, and Redoran have agreed to this. Deminah Salvi also says that slavery is outlawed in Morrowind "in all territories controlled by Great Houses which support the Pact", and she specifically excludes Telvanni and Dres territory. This seems to imply that House Dres is not part of the Pact, which directly contradicts evidence in Stonefalls and Deshaan.

:A: Deminah Salvi says, "I've been, er, requested by the governor to clarify my remarks to the effect that 'If you stray into Telvanni or Dres territory, the practice of slavery remains strong and vibrant.' This was, of course, a misstatement regarding House Dres, who, despite persistent slander and calumny to the contrary, is a Great House loyal to the Ebonheart Pact and all it stands for. I'm sure the Dres House Dunmer would never officially condone the perpetuation of slavery in any area under their administration. Really."
 
Q: The Origins of Telvanni Towers
In TES3, we see a new Telvanni tower built from scratch - Tel Uvirith is grown straight from the ground with spores and soul gems. In ESO however, we see that some Telvanni towers were apparently grown over a pre-existing stone tower. Now it's unlikely that the Telvanni built these stone towers themselves, and just covered them with mushrooms afterwards, as that's impractical; if they wanted a brand new tower, they'd just grow it from scratch, like they did with Tel Uvirith. So where did these stone foundations come from? The answer appears to be given in "Before the Ages of Man", which provides this snippet: "During the Middle Merethic Era, Aldmeri explorers mapped the coasts of Vvardenfell, building the First Era High Elven wizard towers at Ald Redaynia, Bal Fell, Tel Aruhn, and Tel Mora in Morrowind." Now Ald Redaynia is inaccessible in ESO, and whatever tower may have been at Bal Fell seems to have been supplanted by a Daedric Shrine, but what about Tel Aruhn and Tel Mora? There's no Velothi towers there, but there is a great mushroom tower. So the logical conclusion is that the Telvanni have repurposed the ancient Aldmeri wizard towers for their own purposes. And there's no reason to suppose the same didn't apply at Tel Naga, Tel Branora, and Tel Galen as well. (If not, then there's a bunch of First Era wizard towers which have just gone missing from the same locations.) 
So the question: Is this statement correct? Telvanni towers in ESO have a stone tower as a foundation because they were originally the Aldmeri wizard towers, built in the Merethic, which the Telvanni have just occupied more recently, and repurposed for their own uses.

:A: Divayth Fyr says, "Some Telvanni mages, the so-called Mycoturges, are so in-tune with fungality that they can grow giant mushrooms into any shape they desire, including towers. Others build tower foundations and grow great funguswood timbers around them. Telvanni wizard-lords are nothing if not individualists."