Tag: The Elder Scrolls

What Does Aryon Know About the Siege of Odirniran?

I’m still surprised at how effectively Master Aryon managed to forge me into a weapon which only he can yield. I’ve only just recently realized, for example, how much dialog Gothren has for stalling over his decision on naming you Hortator. I never even spoke to Gothren to see if maybe he would consider naming me Hortator of House Telvanni – Aryon told me that I should kill Gothren, so I did, and didn’t even try to find a way out of it.

Usually when I get those sorts of quests, I investigate every angle to try and find any way possible out of killing a character. But not when Aryon gives me those quests. Apparently. Even though Aryon was absolutely correct in this particular case, it is still surprising that I charged in so devoutly and unquestioningly.

I’ve also recently learned that Aryon’s description of the Siege of Odirniran was not exactly the full picture. Aryon informed me that Odirniran was under siege by House Hlaalu and that we needed to assist Mylin Faram, the lord of Odirniran, in repelling the siege. He explained that, for the vision of a stronger and more unified House Telvanni, we needed to send all the houses the message that you could not simply lay siege to a Telvanni tower without dire consequences. If I were to slay the Hlaalu forces, then even minor Telvanni nobles would be safer from the rival houses.

So of course I went straight to Odirniran and slew the Hlaalu forces to a man. It seemed slightly strange that the Hlaalu troops putting Odirniran to siege all appeared to be under-equipped irregulars, but I had never encountered a Hlaalu fighting force so it didn’t give me too much pause.

Not until much later did I learn (via reading about some tangentially related Hlaalu stuff online) that Mylin had actually kidnapped a Hlaalu noble and had her imprisoned in Odirniran to perform experiments on her. Her sisters raised a fighting force to rescue her and bring her back home. This is then the objective of your quest should you join House Hlaalu.

I’ll admit I was a bit shocked by this revelation. If you play House Telvanni, you never hear a peep about any of this. And, honestly, I might not have done the quest (or at least would not have slain every standing Hlaalu in the tower) if I had known. We have three possible reasons for why Aryon did not divulge this information:

  1. He was not aware of all the circumstances surrounding the Siege of Odirniran
  2. He was aware of the situation, but did not feel that the reason for the siege was important or worth mentioning
  3. He was aware of the situation, and deliberately withheld most of the information in order to manipulate me

I’m going to come right out and say that I think #1 is very unlikely. I seriously doubt that Aryon was unaware of the cause for the siege. It is possible, but it doesn’t quite fit his character.

#2 seems like it could be very likely. Aryon’s retainers and servants all speak of him as being very brilliant, but spacey and not very grounded. That’s why they’re there, to take care of mundane matters, freeing him to pursue his lofty and unfettered creativity. This is also strongly suggested by the fate of his foreman working in the lower levels of Tel Vos whilst Aryon was growing his tower. Aryon’s tower kept growing roots deeper and deeper, destroying the construction below about as fast as it was built, and his foreman complained about how Aryon up in his lofty tower didn’t seem to think it was important enough to mention or worry about. Aryon’s further magical experimentation (apparently?) also opened some kind of portal under the tower, which ultimately resulted in daedra being released and killing many of the men his foreman hired. So I can definitely see Aryon being well aware of the kidnapping, and not really thinking that it was important. Indeed, he might not have even thought I’d care to know why he ordered me to Odirniran. My briefing was certainly brief.

#3 also seems pretty likely, alas. I can just as easily see Aryon being fully aware of the situation in Odirniran, and suspecting that if he gave me all the information I might not follow so willingly. He may or may not have even been sympathetic to the Hlaalu involved, but ultimately he decided that the good of House Telvanni was more important than anything else here. He has his vision for a stronger House Telvanni, and that starts with presenting Telvanni as a unified force whose nobles will not fall to siege or invasion by rival houses. If the situation could have been identified earlier, before it came to the siege, perhaps he would have asked me to negotiate the release of the Hlaalu noble. His dealings with the Ashlanders in particular make me believe he would have done this. However, the situation had already spiraled out of hand. Odirniran was under siege, and at that point wrong or right didn’t matter anymore. If the Hlaalu successfully broke the siege, then the might and prestige of Telvanni everywhere would be weakened. Young nobles from rival houses looking to make a name for themselves would be much more likely to consider Telvanni strongholds as targets. And therefore he chose to keep key details to himself, to ensure that I would not hesitate or question my orders.

It is interesting to think about, and certainly gives Master Aryon another dimension that I hadn’t seen before. He’s usually so open, honest, and supportive. And I do still think he is all of those things. Most of the time. But he’s also always pragmatic.

Not much has changed in light of these revelations: I’m still ferociously loyal to Aryon. I kill at a word from him, I would die for him, and would follow him to Oblivion and back. And I still live in Tel Vos and keep all my junk on his floor, even though I actually have my own tower. That’s just how it is!

I guess the Steen and Aryon relationship is some kind of strange mix between “Todd and Bojack” / “Childermass and Norrell. ” Yeah, that sounds about right.

Recursion in Alchemy

Apparently it is always pajama party time in Tel Vos or something. I don’t know why, but whenever I write the scripts for these comics, people end up in their pajamas. I guess it highlights the fact that Steen never leaves Tel Vos and basically lives there. Also, I thought it would be hilarious if Master Aryon wore one of those nightcaps that you always see in cartoons but nobody actually wears anymore.

Right. Recursive alchemy. We’ve all done it, just to see what would happen, of course. And we’ve all taken it to an extreme. By the end of my experiment, my intelligence was astronomically high, and the potions wouldn’t wear off for a kabillion hours or something like that. It was really more of a curse.

I made a strength potion, and it made me super strong! But I was so strong that as soon as I would strike a monster, my katana would break. The monster would die instantly, of course, but I’d have to repair the katana. And as soon as I’d repaired it, some other monster would come by, and bam! One strike later, my trusty katana would be broken again. I was so strong, I could no longer meaningfully interact with objects hewn by mere mortals!

I made a levitation potion. But I would levitate so fast, that gently moving forward would launch me on a complete circuit of the planet in a second. So I couldn’t really move or go anywhere, there was no finesse or control.

I made a personality potion. But then everybody loved me, even bandits, and nobody would ever attack me for any reason so it was very boring. I’d go into some dungeon and all the ne’er-do-wells would look up in glee at my arrival. “Oh my gosh, it’s Steen! Oh wow, she is soooo cool, I want to hang out with her!” Come on, you can’t attack people after that!

Pretty much most of the potions I tried were disasters. But it struck me that shooting your intellect into the stratosphere – shattering your mind by forcing the transcendent awareness of a god into your puny mortal meat brain – sounded like a very Telvanni thing to do.

Is Master Aryon an Imperial Sympathizer?

Everybody seems to talk about Master Aryon as being an Imperial sympathizer because he has a reputation as being the “progressive Telvanni”: he’s hired a racially Imperial mercenary as captain of his guard, and his tower is in the middle of what appears to be Imperial architecture. Therefore, this seems like it would be a logical conclusion to reach. But is it the correct conclusion? I’ll admit, I hope not, since my character is fiercely anti-colonial and one of the reasons she joined House Telvanni is because of how they refuse to recognize Imperial rule as legitimate.

Let’s look closer at the evidence.

Speak to Aryon’s captain, and you will realize that, while he is indeed racially Imperial, the man is a mercenary and is in no way affiliated with the Imperial Legion. Aryon does have a rather diverse cast of characters on his staff, after all. I’ve seen, among his host and retainers: Khajiit, Argonians, Altmer, Bretons, Imperials, and of course Dunmer. Because he is the “progressive Telvanni”!

Does the Legion recognize Aryon’s claim in Tel Vos as legitimate? Aryon explains the permitting process, and how nobody may develop land or lay claims in Vvardenfell without express permission from the Empire. After explaining this, Aryon tells the Nerevarine not to worry about him though, as he is confident he can hold his own against the Empire if they decide to siege his tower for building it without “official” permission.

So it would seem that Aryon does not have any Imperial recognition of his holdings in Tel Vos, as he admits that the Empire might try to unseat him. This would be pretty typical for a Telvanni. Indeed, all of the Telvanni Masters with holdings on Vvardenfell are there explicitly in violation of the Imperial decree, which is also a major reason for their being there. Things are getting pretty crowded and cut-throat for Telvanni on the Mainland, especially since many of the established Telvanni nobility on the mainland are either liches or vampires, and have probably ruled their holdings for a thousand years or more. This doesn’t leave much room for young Telvanni nobles to advance or gain holdings of their own. So when the Imperial decree about Vvardenfell came down, the established Telvanni aristocracy hatched a plan to kill two birds with one stone.

Telvanni, as a house, will often go out of their way to violate an Imperial decree to demonstrate that they do not answer to the Emperor. House Telvanni announced that any holdings their nobles could take and keep on Vvardenfell would be officially recognized by the house, and would advance said noble in the Telvanni hierarchy. So of course, several young Telvanni made their way to Vvardenfell to try their chances. At last, this was a way to advance! This was a very clever thing for the established Telvanni to do for a few reasons: it gave the frustrated young nobles an outlet to spend their energies on instead of always fighting the older Telvanni to claim their holdings; it would ensure that Telvanni interests were established on the island of Vvardenfell; and maybe those young nobles would kill some Imperials or even each other while they were at it. Win/win for those old liches holed up in their towers on the mainland!

The plan seems to have worked, for the most part. Several Telvanni masters have established holdings on the island of Vvardenfell, and due to the vast power (and even vaster wealth) of the Telvanni, the Empire seems like it is essentially powerless to enforce its decree and stop the Telvanni from claiming land on Vvardenfell.

So why does Aryon live in a hybrid of a Telvanni tower surrounded by Imperial architecture? If you search the South Tower, you might find some clues. Here, Aryon has set up a Dwemer museum, as well as an Imperial museum, with several artifacts from these cultures on display. There is an unusual exhibit in Aryon’s Imperial museum, though: a live Imperial guard, held captive in a barred cell and put on display for the museum. Aryon, in fact, has several Imperial soldiers held captive in his fort. This should begin to paint a picture for you: after the aforementioned Telvanni decree, Aryon took his host and retainers to Vvardenfell to seek his fortune. There, his host came upon an Imperial fort at Vos. They managed to siege and take the fort by force, and the surviving defenders which Aryon could not ransom back to the Empire are currently held as prisoners of war. Aryon proudly displays the plunder from his conquest around his tower, hence all the Imperial paraphernalia around the place. We can only speculate as to why one of the prisoners was selected to be put on display in the “Imperial Museum” with the rest of the plunder. Maybe he was the captain of the fort?

Then, depending on whether you think Aryon’s tendencies bend more towards the petty or more towards the pragmatic: he either planted his tower in the middle of the fort as a giant middle finger pointing straight at the Empire, or he figured there was no reason to let a perfectly good structure go to waste so he decided to plant his tower in the middle of the fort for extra protection. Or both.

That pretty much covers Aryon’s history on Vvardenfell and his motivations. And now for an extra detail that is largely incidental but I think really seals the deal:

Trebonius Artorius, Arch Mage of the Mage’s Guild Morrowind chapter tasks the Nerevarine with killing all of the Telvanni councilors in Vvardenfell: Master Neloth, Arch Magister Gothren, Mistress Therana, Mistress Dratha, and yes, Master Aryon. This also does not seem surprising, since the Mage’s Guild and the Telvanni loathe each other. The Empire expects the Telvanni to register with and pay dues to the Mage’s Guild if they want to continue providing magical services. However, as you might recall, the Telvanni reject the Empire’s right to rule in Morrowind and pretty much flaunt the fact that they refuse to join the Mage’s Guild. The Mage’s Guild seems to occasionally get the young Telvanni here and there, but they seem to drift away after realizing that the Mage’s Guild is nothing but a bureaucratic nightmare and a racket designed to scam them out of their money. And of course, the Mage’s Guild intends to hunt down these young Telvanni and either strong-arm them into paying all their back-dues or murder them (or both). Gee, I wonder why they left the guild? So, as an official government organization of the Empire, if Master Aryon was indeed working with the Empire in any capacity, you might expect Trebonius Artorius to grand Aryon some clemency in this regard.

Take all these details and observations together, and you realize that although Master Aryon is a very atypical Telvanni Master in many respects (most likely due to his relative youth), in regards to his attitude towards the Empire he seems to be a very typical Telvanni. And, I mean, he put a living Imperial soldier on display in an “Imperial Museum.” That is a rather Telvanni thing to do.