is it love if I take you, or is it love if I set you free?

HEY YOU LIKE FREE THINGS RIGHT

so this is a bit spur of the moment but. normally on Christmas I go hog wild in the crown store and just start gifting my friends things en masse BUT. I have a lot of ESO followers. why not do a giveaway instead? so!

enter now for a chance to get anything available in the crown store (up to a maximum of 3000 crowns, approx. 30$ CAD in value)!

the only rules are:

ends December 25th, 2019,12PM MST (Mountain Time).

this is open to PC only - this is the only platform I have access to, so I’m very sorry console players!

open to both NA and EU.

you do not need to be following me to enter. 1 rb = 1 entry, likes do not count.

like I said, as crowns unfortunately cannot be gifted I will gift you whatever you’d like, up to a maximum of 3000 crowns!

“What brings you to Our Lady’s Temple?” she said with a sweet and gentle voice. The cultist laughed.

“To desecrate you and this place, in the name of my Lord!” he answered. He drew his mace and raised it high, and nearly swung down when the old priestess chuckled. “What?! What’s so funny?!”

“My dear young boy,” she said, the laugher still lingering in her voice. “Don’t you know the ways of Mara? Ours is of love, compassion, and above all, forgiveness. You cannot desecrate what, by its very nature, cleanses itself.”

“Then you won’t mind if I do this!” the cultist wielded his mace, and in one brutal swing defaced the white stone statue of Mara. The old priestess smiled at him. “What?! Why are you smiling?!”

“Because, you silly thing,” the priestess said. “That was only a material object. You can throw your tantrums and burn your banners, but love is the strongest force in this world and all others. It cannot be destroyed with only a mace.”

The cultist grew red in the face, and screamed in rage, “This is the mace of my Lord! It will break your bones as if they were kindling! Why don’t I show you what I mean!” He raised the mace high above his head. The priestess kept her easy smile, which only further enraged him. “Why are you smiling?!”

“You don’t know?” the priestess said. “I suppose you don’t. Molag Bal is as weak as they come, and so too are his followers.”

Before he could swing down, the priestess grabbed hold of his lead wrist, squeezed the flesh tightly until the mace dropped to the floor. With no effort, she pulled his arm down and locked him in an embrace. The cultist kicked back, but found only the fabric of her robe, and there was no give when he stomped her foot.

“Let go!” the cultist snarled as she held him. “Let go of me, or I’ll burn you alive!”

“My wayward son,” she said as her touch grew warm. “Your Lord preaches of strength, but only through the dominance and humiliation of others. Is there anything more cowardly than cruelty? Anything more telling of your own inadequacy than spikes, and chains, and Soul-Shriven slaves?”

“Shut up!” the cultist yelled, and struggled, but the priestess held firm, and her touch ever warmer. 

“You are not the first of the Petulant Brat’s followers to come through these doors.” the priestess said, as calm and quiet as a mother. “They come to me in all ways, empty and afraid, desperate to win their Lord’s favor, and bring despair to me as the Stone-Fire did to Arkay. But I am not Arkay.”

“Bitch! Whore!” the cultist screamed now, and wrenched himself loose from the priestess’ grip. He reached for his mace to find it gone, and looked around to find his muddy tracks disappeared, and the statue he defaced whole again. “I’m going to kill you, slowly and–”

“I have told you already,” the priestess said, her voice filling the air of the humble temple. “Love cannot be killed, and it cannot be destroyed. And in love’s name, can one be reborn.”

–

The evening was quiet in the remote temple, and the priestess made for herself a simple meal. She gently rocked the basket at her feet when the baby began to stir, and hummed a lullaby to send it to sleep once more. A childless couple would visit tomorrow, and pray to Mara for their wish to be fulfilled.

scrambled kwama eggs on rye

scrib jerky, lightly fried. it’s a running joke in vvardenfell that, if you’re out of scrib jerky, boot leather is an acceptable substitute

mashed scathecraw and saltrice porridge, either spiced or drizzled in honey (with dried comberries mixed in) 

another fun fact i just made up: Sotha Sil was originally going to be named Rotha Sil

yet another fun fact i just made up: the letter R was originally going to follow the same pattern and be “rahkem.”

!!! 

high ground gives a strategic advantage? not when ysmir can fus-ro-dah your whole army off a mountain!

(and this is morrowind so god forbid that mountain is actually a volcano and someone’s going to trigger an eruption!)

advantage in numbers? not so useful when the other guy can just turn his fallen men AND your fallen men into a zombie army. unless you happen to have a robot army on hand 

wait for ideal weather? not as if the children of kyne are going to shout the weather into something el oh god they just summoned a storm 

fortify your strongholds and stockpile for a seige? tonal architecture can straight up just erase walls and so can barfok so good luck with those seiges

put the tonal architect wielding assholes under siege? half the province is underground. good luck sealing up those ghost-infested sewers

dwemer airships are not as big as advantage as they might be when fighting against a culture that rose to glory by defeating dragons

though this being post alessian covenant means that there can be no en masse summoning of daedra (which, considering the robot armies and zombie armies already in the mix, thank god), there is NOTHING stopping the indoril nams of the world dropping the brothers of strife onto an otherwie perfectly well-equipped army

i know i griped about the absence of any altmeri takes on the trinimac myth in eso:summurset, but the lack of those takes lines up with a growing body of evidence that the altmer don’t actually have any takes on the myth that go deeper than “fuck the dunmer”