Pocket Guide, First Edition: "A forbidden city for nearly fifty years, Alinor is both capital of the Summerset Isles and the heart of the Aldmeri Dominion. For clarity I've bolded some of the most critical phrasings: (It should be stated that the Emperor's Guide explicitly talks about Auridon, but if our lore is consistent, the attitudes and philosophical themes behind the architecture should be consistent, even if the designs themselves differ.) Here are the excerpts. As supplementary content, we also have the Emperor's Guide to Tamriel which came with Elder Scrolls Online's Collectors Edition, which has one particularly interesting passage. This image is still the only image in Arena crafted specifically for the Altmer, and is at least some small hint of the visual intentions of Bethesda at the time.)īut the most significant source of lore we have on the Isles are the Pocket Guides to the Empire both the First Edition which debuted with Redguard and the Third, which came with the Collectors Edition of Oblivion. It presents us with this image of the Crystal Tower illustrated here as a tall, Gothic structure: (I'd like to note that Crystal-Like-Law looks quite different in Summerset, and I have a number of thoughts on it, but I'd like to see more of it before I really come to a favorable conclusion or indictment of it. Most importantly to this topic it's the first visual (and only one of two) we had of Summerset prior to this release. Some races, like the Dunmer, appear exactly as they do in later games, whereas others like the Khajiit do not. While many aspects of Arena have been overridden as the TES universe has been built upon, a surprising amount carries on to today all the provinces, many of the cities in the provinces, and even many specific locations, like Labyrinthian, Fang Lair, Selene's Web, and the Crypt of Hearts feature in later games, as do characters, like Uriel Septim VII, and the Tharn family. Our very first brush with Altmeri architecture is in The Elder Scrolls Arena the very first TES game ever made. Surprisingly, there's a lot less than you'd think. To start off, let's see what information is actually available. I'll also do an analysis with how it fits in with other aspects of established canon, as well as some narrative themes that the new visuals imply. I've decided to take some time to dive into the information that's available from in-game and supplemental sources and see what it actually says about Altmeri culture and architecture and see how it fits with what's on display. Many people are saying that the architecture is lorebreaking, and that Summerset is supposed to be a land of crystal prism houses, villas made of poetry, and exotic, kaleidoscopic wonders, and that what is shown is insultingly far from that.
I've noticed that there seems to be something of a minor controversy brewing about the nature of the visuals in the upcoming Elder Scrolls Online: Summerset expansion.