Fun With TES Back Stories

A man cannot live off platitudes alone. He can’t be too serious all the time either. I played a lot of vidya as a kid. My all time favourite game series’ are The Elder Scrolls, Fable and Fallout. Maybe even in that order. Anyway. There are guiltier pleasures, and older games had a certain charm. World building is a healthy exercise, and imagination, which good videogames require to play, challenge thought. At least they do for me, in my waning hours of free time. Anyway, I started hosting an event called the Spergmoot, nothing fancy, just boardgames of the roleplaying variety. Why not? Sinister Nationalists are often harmless nerds at heart. Anywho. Long and short is the first thing seasoned nerds recommend is back storying your player character, even if it’s for a videogame. Helps make your experience richer, etc. Gives CNN ammo to shoot incels with. So. In the spirit of my world needs laughs to prevent me from becoming a humourless online dictator of spergery, I thought I’d share a backstory from my Skyrim character. A character from a game I haven’t played in a couple years, but still. Skyrim, part of The Elder Scrolls franchise, is copyrighted et cetera and published by Bethesda. Most of my friends hate Todd Howard. There. It needed to be said.Todd, are you listening? I didn’t think so.

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Saxo Digressus was born on the Cyrodiilic border to Skyrim. His parents, like their parents before them, were Imperial loyalists – as were many Nords – or Colovians, only don’t call the that – at the time. It was a proud tradition. The Digressii Clan was proud of its Nordic roots, claiming their patriarch had travelled with Talos Stormcrown while he was still just Hjalti Earlybeard. The Digressii liked to remind their Colovian friends that there wasn’t an ounce of Elvish in them, and if it weren’t for politics, they’d have been Jarls of Solitude.

In the foggy annals of history, the Digressii claimed their proudest moment was when their hero-saints had marched against the Dwemer during the Battle of Red Mountain. It was this story which inspired the young Saxo to enlist with the Imperial Legion. Young Saxo was a cerebral sort, which got him into trouble rather often. There were some officers in the army who were of the opinion there were only 8 Divines and there was talk of stripping Talos of his divinity. Young Saxo felt this wasm ludicrous, and often argued with his unimpressed superiors the finer theology of Talos’ divinity.

It was quickly determined that a career change was in order and Saxo was reassigned to guard duty and transferred to the province of Morrowind. Shockingly to his superiors, Saxo was thrilled. Morrowind was a territory colonised by his ancestors and lost, only to be reclaimed by the Empire. He considered it a birthrite. And off he went. Stationed at Fort Moonmoth, Saxo Digressus crossed paths with the Nerevarine many times, whom he accused of smelling like a filthy elf-lover and generally impeded wherever possible. It has been said that Saxo was the only Imperial guard to resist the Nerevarine’s superhumanly effective taunts owing a magically inflated speechcraft. Some say that the two eventually became friends when the Nerevarine showed his loyalty to the Emperor, for whom he was a spy. Others say that it is not true. Alas alack, that is the problem with history.

At any rate, Saxo was a dilligent patrolman, taking exquisite pleasure in sadistically maiming the odd bandit and shooting down Dwemer looters in the neck to secure the Emperor’s peace. He was especially hard on Dunmer dissenters, typically beating them unconsciously repeatedly and then pushing their unconscious bodies into the river where they would float into the sewers of distant Vivec, and routinely extended unwarranted investigations in nearby Balmora. It was said that he also sometimes leaned on the Thieve’s Guild to ensure that Caius Cosades’ moon sugar deliveries were often missed. It’s been said that this kept him sharp enough to lead the Emperor’s spy-ring in Morrowind until he was recalled shortly before the eruption of Red Mountain. When Caius Cosades’ was reassigned, the Balmora authorities quickly grew tired of Imperial overreach and pressured the legion garrison at Moonmoth to reassign the overzealous Captain. The Legion was slow to move, and demanded evidence of transgressions. However, the Legion knew that Saxo’s zeal for Making the Empire Great Again (M.E.G.A.) would be the end of diplomacy, and being politicians, they were no strangers to sacrificing their longterm racial interests for incredibly fleeting temporary gain.

It was then revealed that Saxo had been savagely executing Khajiit drug dealers by skinning them alive while sprinkling skooma in their eyes and turning them into rugs, which he sold to Nordic merchants in Khuul for shipment back to Skyrim. Curiously, Saxo accepted no profits for himself and had donated all proceeds to a very silent Imperial Cult office in Ebonheart whose Argonian Mission had pools full of very fat slaughterfish. This wouldn’t have been a problem, were it not for the fact that the local Dunmer were largely dependent on the beast-folk for their moon sugar crystals. Without a heavy import of emotionally crippling drugs, the Dunmer began to question the authority of the Temple and even consider Imperial stoicism! The Temple in turn accused the Legion of sewing apostasy. There was also the allegations that Saxo’s boots were made of Argonian leather, along with all those men he had bartered boots for food with, but in all honesty nobody believed anyone anywhere cared about the Lizard men at all, ever. In addition, there were convincing rumours to suggest Saxo had been working with the Twin Lamps, but rather than delivering escapees to their freedom he had delivered them to their Gods by way of stabbing them to death with an enchanted gladius named Iustitia. There was also the somewhat troubling business of there being rumours that Saxo had stood guard, uninvited, in place of the Hlaalu Guard when they fell drunk and specifically refused to allow Redguard into Balmora on account of their not being worthy of being called men or even mer, and being worse than elves and generally beastfolk who were a burden on all the Empire. Now, that second to last part was what upset the local Elven population, who were themselves often nationalist in nature and unaccustomed to seeing Imperial patriotism applied to them rather than the reverse.

With increasing financial pressure, the Legion Garrison Commander signed off on Saxo’s reassignment. He was sent to Fort Frostmoth on Solstheim on account of his love of Nords. It was hoped that he might open a dialogue with the local Skaal – which he did at great personal risk to himself. However, something odd happened. When confronted with their religious prohibitions against Imperial Religion, which Saxo held to be the completion of the Nordic Pantheon, it is said Saxo burst into vengeful fits, frothing at the mouth and convulsing, calling them all “dirty hippies.” He was recalled to Frostmoth where he was questioned by Falx Carius. Pressed, Saxo confessed that having skinned so many Khajiit had hastened his accession to CHIM. He had seen the great Cyrodiilic Champion Pelenal the Whitestrake who had taught him the secrets of battle frenzy, and the true meaning of Imperial loyalty. Falx Carius was concerned, he had Saxo confined to the brig, and that is where he would stay. And he would have stayed there indefinitely, for during his imprisonment, Red Mountain happened to erupt, covering Frostmoth in Ash.

Being the only man in the brig, Saxo was spared the brunt of the seering heat and was preserved in the ash as if by magick. He thawed many years later, and found himself on a changed island. He swam back to Morrowind and was shocked to find no Imperial presence. In a fit of desperation Saxo strangled an inebriated Dunmer for his gold in an alleyway of the former city of Vivec, which had since become Morrowind’s largest skooma den following the Nerevarine’s murder of Vivec by way of emotionally charged fisticuffs. When Saxo emerged from his rage he realised that he didn’t have to worry about corpse disposal due to the 49 other dead addicts who all looked exactly the same. Saxo hired the ferrymen who got him to the shipyards at the former Castle Ebonheart, which had since been peopled with rogue Telvanni quite eager to offload their Khajiit horde who all of them “made indecent slaves.” From there, Saxo booked passage back to Cyrodiil. He attempted to rejoin the Imperial Legion, entirely out of patriotism but mainly in an attempt to determine what fell Elven trick had befallen his people.

He was appalled and disgusted to learn that the Talos Cult had indeed been outlawed, he was further crestfallen to learn that during the reign of Chancellor Ocato the Empire had lost Morrowind during the Oblivion Crisis, a Crisis in which the very Amulet of Kings had been lost and the line of Emperors from the Saint Alesia destroyed. Saxo was irate, and it was not long into his post at Bruma that he secured the ire of his officers for suggesting that womanly weakness and the inclusion of inferior races into the Empire had lowered her value, and for his noncompliance was stripped of his rank and sent to Skyrim to be executed. And he would have been, too, were it not for some business with a Dragon.