#septim

Almost immediately after the moons’ return, amidst the joyous celebrations of the Khajiit, an Aldmeri ambassador from the Summurset Isles has landed in Torval, the capital of the Elsweyr Confederacy and seat of the Mane. The ambassador claims that Altmer mages have been hard at work to discern the cause of the moons’ disappearance, and with the development of a new kind of “dawn magick”, they have been able to unveil them and return the moons to Nirn. The Mane, their political and religious leader, endorses this claim, and the Aldmeri Dominion gains massive influence within the province, almost overnight. Before long, every notable Khajiiti aristocrat or merchantlord has Aldmeri courtiers and court-mages at their ear. Within fifteen years, the reach of the Imperial Empire, which Elsweyr had been independent of for just barely a century, has dwindled enough that the Dominion stage a coup, dissolving the unified Elsweyri Confederacy, re-establishing the ancient kingdoms of Anequina and Pellitine, and absorbing both as client states of the Dominion.

Within the new Aldmeri Elsweyr, the worship of Rajhin, a folk-hero, and apotheosized God of Thieves, is banned, much like the outlaw of the mangod Talos within the Dominion, due to the Elven assertion that no mortal could never become a god. Though not as heavily enforced as worship of ‘the Ninth Divine’, it is still used as a tool of oppression, and in some cases punished by death. Despite this, worship of Rajhin still persists in the shadows, and word begins to spread that the Trickster God’s legendary Ring of Khajiiti has been found. While the richest Khajiit in Elsweyr rub shoulders and drink with Aldmeri benefactors, the common-cats suffer enforced moon-sugar rationing, ever-increasing taxes, and a racist bureaucratic regime. All the while the Aldmeri preach of unity between Elves and Cat-folk, and their mages and scholars assert that the Khajiit themselves are descended from Elves, an idea which sways even some Khajiiti nobility.  But in practice, the High-Elves’ sense of ethnic superiority pervades every aspect of the alleged “alliance”. And on top of everything else, spies within the Renrijra Krin, a band of anarchist Khajiiti freedom fighters and Elsweyri separatists, learn a deadly secret: the Void Nights was staged by the Dominion. An act of genocide too cruel to forgive, and a truth that, if revealed, would shatter the Dominion’s grip on their land faster than they made it.

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KHAJIITI takes place some time before the Dominion invades Hammerfell and the beginning of the Great War. It is told from the points of view of multiple characters within and without Elsweyr, and covers events over a number of years. It centres a story of rebellion, and of a people who have been the rope in a game of tug-of-war between two indifferent occupying forces for too long.