#tes lore

Just saying they don't or that they're primitive doesn't work when no explanation is given & there is nothing stopping them from learning it from more advanced neighbours.

ESO's Iron Orcs are actually one of the greatest flaws to it in how they do have a metallurgy narrative. The Iron Orcs are their southern neighbour who believe its blasphemy to break rock & mine, but did so anyway in order to compete with more advanced enemies. So why hasn't the Reachfolk done so?

My first justification is that for them, leather & bone isn't inherently weaker than steel. Reachfolk uphold Hircine as one of their most important gods. So by dedicating their hunts to him, they can receive blessings on items made through hunted materials. Reachfolk equipment can therefore match steel through divine blessings.

This is combined with straight advanced leatherworking skills since they do it so much.

My next justification is that they do indeed have a cultural stigma against mining, but for obvious practical reasons. If you tunnel deep in the Reach (at least the eastern part), what you're going to find is dangerous Dwemer ruins, and Blackreach full of Falmer. They even have old stories of vampires coming from below to plague them.

This actually brought about one of the only exceptions to their disuse of forging. The Wayward Guardians started using silver & scavenged dwemer metal in response to the extreme threat of the Grey Hosts vampires & werewolves. This practice did not last however.

Mining is just inherently dangerous and not worth it while Hircine enables leather.

Finally is that the easterns reach's mineral wealth just isn't in martially useful metals anyway. Sure there is iron & such, but the majority of mines available are for silver. Cool if you want to get jewelry for your beloved, but currency is mainly a foreign tool to them. The clans have more use for directly trading & bartering goods. Not like any unifying state of reachfolk can standardise the currency (not counting foreign occupiers).

Some of the Reachfolks few experiences with mining is when colonisers push them into working the dangerous mines for them. A deeply negative connection.

In conclusion, the Reachfolk could mine if they wanted to, but they don't want to take part in the dangerous, miserable work so long as they have a more culturally appropriate alternative.

"Yeah the moons disappeared for two years. It was pretty scary I guess but not really that big of a deal? Well except for the Khajiit who hold the moons as centrepieces of their culture, religion, and reproduction.

Oh, how did the Khajiit reproduce or have their forms decided while this was happening? IDK.

But its fine. The moons came back eventually, somehow. The Thalmor said it was them that fixed it which probably isn't true but ok.

Its not like we already knew that the Moons could remain consistent through a Dragon Break. So whatever this was was probably even more nuts.

Beyond what she'd already picked up, Delvin started widening her education into the corners of the trade nobody thought to teach a child until they were too old to learn it sideways. Disguise and quick-change work, for one — how to make a market dress and a flower basket sit on her shoulders one minute and a stable-lad's jacket and cap the next, with the whole switch done behind a barrel in under a count of ten. Voice work, for another — Delvin had a useful talent for putting on a different accent if wanted, and N proved a sharp little parrot after she trusted herself to open her mouth. Vex layered in the harder pieces: how to read which window in a row of windows was the one with the loose latch, how to clock a guard's rotation in three passes of the gate, how to slip a dagger out of a man's belt and back into it before he'd registered the brush against his hip. Brynjolf, between his own jobs and duties, took her on her first proper distraction runs — small enough that nothing too valuable would land on her if it went sideways, real enough that she had to actually do the work. Each lesson slotted perfectly into the last, which also served to improve her overall chances of survival on the streets. By the time she'd invested her flower-coin into a proper dress, a creative idea turned into a detailed little dodge.

Vex leaned against the alley wall, arms crossed, and studied the girl with a critical eye. "Use your cuteness, Sweetie. People forgive an adorable little orphan with a basket faster than they’d forgive their own mother." "Hmmm, dunno. Y' sure?" "Very sure —" She delivered the advice in that flat, dry tone of hers, but the words landed and the girl took them to heart. The flower-girl act was damn near flawless. A small figure in a patched dress, bright eyes, basket of lavender and dragon's tongue on one arm. As Vex pointed out, the very stutter N had hated all her life could now be put to good use as her sharpest weapon on the streets. When a mark felt a tug at his belt and turned, she only had to let her lip tremble and whisper a shaky "S-sorry, m-mister…" Most of them melted on the spot. "Guards might just ruffle your hair and tell you to be more careful, you see?"

Ironically, it was Brynjolf who nearly gave them away the very first time. He stood at the next stall, hawking overpriced trinkets, when N pulled off her debut. "S-Sorry… M-Mister? M-me mommy… j-just died… I'm s-so hungry. W-Would you buy a flower, s-so I may have f-food?" The moment she turned those wide eyes on a portly merchant and let her lip quiver just right, Brynjolf choked on his apple. He had to turn away, coughing and wheezing, fighting back a laugh that threatened to ruin the entire performance. After that, they settled into a rhythm so smooth it felt insulting.

While Brynjolf worked the market square with his charming silver tongue and carefully rigged sales, she wandered the rest of the city like a stray breeze. Small, nimble fingers brushed past belts and pouches, lifting coins and small treasures that disappeared among the flower stems. Every so often she would drift back through the square, slip past his stall, and in one seamless motion drop her takings into his open hand, so he'd store it safely for her to retrieve later. And to any onlooker, it was simply a kindly merchant offering a sweet to a dirty young girl with petals in her hair.

It all sparked an interest in Alchemy, which didn't come too easy to her. She was too impatient for the slow, precise work — always tempted to taste strange leaves instead of grinding them properly, too quick to throw ingredients together and hope for the best. Still, she learned enough through what most sholars' considered the "fuck around and find out method." What she learned was enough to spot a useful herb at twenty paces, enough to brew a decent healing draught when one of the lads stumbled back bleeding, enough to clean and stitch a wound without making a mess of it before treating it with anti-inflammatory ointment.

But the real value wasn’t in the potions or the salves. It was in the feeling of being useful. Of finally giving something back to the people who had taken her in without question. Loved ones that had been taking care of her from the very first day, and new tutors that recently taught her so much, seemingly without asking for anything in return. When one of the older Guild members returned from a job with a deep gash across his arm or a badly sprained wrist, she could be the one who met him at the door with bandages and a steaming poultice… So, maybe she could be the one who fixed things for once… instead of burdening others in need for protection…

⋆⭒˚｡⋆ᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷ⋆⭒˚｡⋆

Niruin stepped back into her life again a few days later. Brynjolf had arranged a private word with Gallus, which followed a calm, reasonable argument about further investing in future talent, and one old favour quietly called in. Gallus, who always played the long game, needed little convincing. Niruin needed even less. He had already met her, after all. He was the Bosmer from the Bee and Barb — the one who had slid his alchemy notebook to N across the table on a rainy afternoon. The moment he saw her move, he recognized the sharp, natural talent beneath the dirt and nerves and fears. A future fellow thief. A kinsman of sorts. And, perhaps most importantly, someone worth early mentorship. The next morning the Archer slipped down into the Ratways, found the small stone nook where she had been sleeping, and plucked her up by the collar with the easy care of a man retrieving a stray kitten. "Listen, kid," Niruin grunted. "If you’re gonna keep sleeping down in the Ratway, I’d rather you know how to defend yourself. Here." Letting go of her, he pushed one of his old wooden bows into her hands, "And don’t you dare lose it." — "F-for me? Really? Thank you!!" Excited, her eyes lit up as she took the bow, before the Marksman jerked his chin toward a dark alcove. "From now on, you better use that route out—through the grates and down the crawlspace. It’ll get you out of Riften without being seen, but—" raising a finger with one hand, he handed her a quiver of iron arrows with the other. "Skeevers love that tunnel just as much as we do. Watch the floor for tripwires, check every corner, move fast, be careful. Understood?"

Excitedly, N bounced up and down on the balls of her feet, eyes bright, voice all squeaky, "U-understood!" Niruin offered the energetic little bundle a quick smile before leading her through the secret passage out of the Ratway. He taught her how to read a trail through the underbrush, how to light a fire during rainy conditions, how to skin a hare clean without wasting the meat, and which bitter forest herbs could turn an ordinary arrowhead vicious. By the time the sun slipped behind the trees, she had learned the most important lesson of all: how to melt into the green, breathe with the woods, and stay so quiet the forest itself would forget she was there. The girl had the talent already; Niruin just gave it a direction. And apparently, some focus, as she tended to get distracted rather easily. He started her on a small, seasoned bow, making her put fifty arrows into a straw target and retrieve every single one before she was allowed to aim at anything with a pulse. Tracking followed, then the slow craft of improving her sneaking. Under his casual tutorship, her innate gifts were honed into something that'd significantly improved her chances of survival. And to her own quiet surprise, she discovered she was actually good at something without Delvin or Vex needing to explain it twice: bows, food and flowers! And that did something to her confidence too.

The change in her was obvious to anyone with eyes for it. She didn't cower as much anymore, and if she did, it was usually to lift something from a pocket. The stutter was fading more and more, replaced by a growing vocabulary of her own slang mixed with the Cant of Thieves. She laughed more often, and louder and without holding back! Brynjolf, Vex, and Tonilia took a quiet sort of pleasure in watching her grow more confident, exchanging glances whenever she came back from a session with Niruin, grinning and out of breath. It was the kind of pride family takes in family. None of them were strangers to worrying about "the baby of the bunch", nor to lazy hours or idle afternoons at the lake. But the Mouse worked harder than the three friends she’d grown up with, and the gap was widening, not closing. She was always the first up, despite not being an early bird. She was always the last to bed, studying plants late into the night or insisting on one more route, one more set of locks. Brynjolf raised it with her one evening, casual-like. "Easy, Mouse. You'll burn yourself out before you've even started, eh? Plenty of time." In response, she gave him a crooked grin and shrugged: "D-Dun call me Mouse, Bryn! — And m'just tryna catch up. Besides, m'havin' fun!" It was the right answer for the question he’d asked, but it wasn't the whole truth. Brynjolf knew the difference and let it pass. Truth was, it was fun. And she did feel a need to catch up. But the secret was she still believed she was a burden the Guild carried out of kindness and she wanted to give something back to her friends too. So, the only way to repay them was to make herself indispensable. None of them ever thought any such thing and the work was all inside her own head.

Hence, she spent the next few months honing her scouting skill, gathering herbs in the hills above the city while keeping up the flower-girl dodge in the market. On her own initiative, she started picking up coin as an informant. Word travelled cheap through Riften's streets if one knew which ear to bend, and she had a fast, quiet way of becoming invisible in a crowd. Whatever she overheard—a merchant grumbling about his shipments, a guard captain drinking with the wrong woman, or a stranger in the wrong cloak—she carried back to the Thieves Guild. It was good practice. Brynjolf took every word she brought him, paid her fair rates, and never breathed a word that half of what she reported was already Guild business. The work mattered. The earning mattered. And he loved encouraging the Mouse. 

Beyond Grelod's walls, Riften opened up. The orphans ran errands, picked up odd jobs, scavenged what the market wouldn't miss, and survived the way street children always had — by being useful and staying light on their feet. The Thieves Guild watched them as they did, partially with affection, partially with smiles. Here, among the thieves, the kids were tolerated. They were fed, when there was a heel of bread spare. They gave them beer, which was not something children should drink, but at least it was fun, no? Furthermore, a few of the older hands looked out for the strays in a loose, "unofficial" way — not always out of sentimentality, but because clever children made good informants, and the Guild always kept an eye on the long game. Two birds, one stone: feed the urchins, and grow the next batch of thieves out of them while they were at it.

To the children themselves, the bargain didn't look like a bargain. The Thieves were their heroes! Men and women who walked through Riften with coin in their pockets, mead in their cups, and nobody who'd dare lay a hand on them. To a kid sleeping on cold stone under Grelod's roof, that wasn't a profession. Hence, becoming part of the Guild turned into their biggest dream. A thief was rich. A thief was fed. A thief picked locks and walked through the doors, and nobody slammed them into a closet for the night, right? Besides, there were worse career choices in this world to pursue. They could become cannibals, join a cult, worship Daedric Princes, or turn into bloodthirsty murderers. Becoming a thief? It was likely the lesser evil…

Bread and a bit of butter was usually offered from Vekel. Bearded, well into his time behind the bar of the Ragged Flagon — but he'd grown up at Honorhall himself, in the better years, long before Grelod's name had ever been stamped on the door. He'd never forgotten what the place felt like from the inside. Whenever a hungry-looking orphan turned up, Vekel handed over food without asking for a name. On the harder nights of midwinter, when the wind cut clean through the canals, he'd slip the smallest of them a cup of warm cider with a finger of something stronger stirred in to take the cold off. 

Delvin Mallory told the same story from the other end. Much younger than Vekel and already with Guild ink high on his arm, he'd come through Honorhall in the in-between years — after Vekel's time, but before Grelod had taken the place over — and remembered it as what he kindly called "a shithole." The bitter joke between them, and others in the Guild or its associates, was that they'd been raised in the orphanage when it had been almost decent, only to watch the next lot raised by a monster. So they did what they could. Slipped coin. Slipped food. Slipped, every so often, a quiet word about which guard could be paid off and which one couldn't. And maybe that was the whole reason the Guild bothered with the strays at all. Most of its members had a story very like the children's own.

On those errands she'd run, little N met Karliah more than once. A Dunmer woman, soft-voiced, red-eyed, who moved through the Riften market the way a cat moved through a stable — elegant, quiet and always observant. Whenever the small girl spotted her between the stalls, her eyes lit up like oil lamps before she remembered to keep them down. Karliah might have taken to her out of plain patience. Might have seen too much of her own past in a small shaking thing trying to disappear behind Brynjolf's back. Whatever the reason, she made a point of slowing down whenever they crossed paths — kept her hands visible, kept her voice low, never made a sudden movement N could have flinched at. "Hello, little one. Hands cold?" she greeted her, with N nodding but unable to respond. "Hm. Here. This one's still warm. Mind the honey, yes — it's sticky and we don't want it getting stuck on your beautiful hair." Shakily, a small hand would creep out from behind Brynjolf's back, with two blue eyes looking at her as if she were a god. "T-t-t-thank y-y-y-y-ou…." "You are very welcome. Take your time. I'm not in any hurry."

Vex had no interest in being mothered. What she wanted from the Guild was someone harder than herself to measure against, and she'd found it in Sapphire. The two of them took to each other like flame to oil. Sapphire was only a handful of years older but already had a knife on her belt and a faint scar across one cheekbone where someone had tried to teach her a lesson and lived to deeply regret it. The kid would sit cross-legged on a barrel behind the tavern, listening to Sapphire run her mouth about which mark in the market deserved what, while Vex counted the days until she'd be old enough to walk out of Honorhall and never look back. "Soon as I can lift me own keep, I'm gone. See if I care, stupid old bitch," she muttered once, kicking the heel of her boot against the barrel. "Gone, gone, gone. Ain't never settin' foot back in that place," little Vex rambled, to which Sapphire bared a tooth in something that could've resembled a smile. 

Tonilia drifted, by contrast, towards quieter company. She'd worked out very young that the world ran on goods changing hands, and that the ones who kept the goods moving were the ones who never made a fuss about it. So she'd settle, on the long afternoons when she could slip away unnoticed, on the bench beside Dirge at the door of the Ragged Flagon, claiming her spot as if she were part of the Guild already and nobody had a right to say otherwise. Dirge didn't talk much at first. Tonilia didn't need him to and simply enjoyed the company. A wall of a man, with slow eyes and quiet hands — she watched the way he held a whole room without raising his voice once, and made notes. Years later, when she ran the Guild's fence operation, more than a little of it had been learned from a bouncer who didn't say five words in an afternoon.

And then there was the other man. The Imperial. To the children, at first, he was simply Karliah's friend — quietly dressed, soft on his feet, a smile that sat in the corners of his eyes more than on his mouth. What none of them knew, and wouldn't know for years, was that the standing order in the Guild was his: watch the strays. Feed them when you can. Pay them fair when they bring you something worth knowing. Never talk down to them. He moved through the Riften market without fanfare. He'd buy a posy of flowers he didn't need from whichever urchin had one to sell, pay above the asking, and walk on. Treating Brynjolf as one man to another, he'd stop and ask what the lad's opinion was on the price of cut gemstones that week, and listen to the answer like a councillor of the Hold consulting a known expert. "What ye reckon, lad — fair price, or fleecing?" "Reckon he's fleecin' ye, sir. Madesi's got the same garnet down at his stall, cut better, half the asking." "Is that so. Hm." Quietly, he curled the corner of his mouth in something between amusement and approval. "Useful to know. Saved me a fair bit of coin, that. Worth a couple of Septims, I'd say." Five septims changed hands. The Imperial walked off whistling, glad he'd been able to help, and quietly sure the boy would share the coin with the other little one — the one with the rosé-hued hair who hardly spoke a word. Standing there with the coin warm in his palm, Brynjolf knew that this was what being seen by an adult felt like. And that this man, whoever he turned out to be, was someone he meant to grow up like.

Gallus Desidenius had always had a way with children. It left a bitter taste in his mouth, watching them sleep rough on the cold streets, but knowing what waited for them at Honorhall on the other end of the night was worse. A thief, aye. But a thief by code, not by greed — and a man who had decided, long before any of the four were old enough to ask why, that they were worth the long haul. Whatever each of the children took from those quiet encounters — Karliah's patience, Vekel's bread, Delvin's slipped coin, Sapphire's hardness, Dirge's steady silence — Gallus's faith in them sat underneath it all. Word by word, Septim by Septim, errand by errand, the Guild was setting a future for them….

── ⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆ ─

Back to Master-Document: TES:V - Niemand Timeline - MASTER

and actually on a wednesday? yay!

Tagged by @wispstalk 🖤 and @hannah-heartstrings 🩷Thank you <3 Tagging @devilrose, @throwusaboner, @apollinariafh, @tobianidiot, @ego-osbourne. If you want to ofc :3

Anyway I was going to draw some big thing for the gala, but too busy. So have a ballroom with no one in it ^^'

After this and I still get confused of drawing interior and perspective.

And I also I made charts again. For uh, research reason. This time I bring you, the Racial Abilities and Starsign Abilities through different games.