The Blood-Gold Epoch

Penned by Rivalen Mothril, Knight, East Empire Company.

As the last chapter ended, so too had the first decade of the Fourth Era, and with it, the bloody, gruesome Accession War, which is also quite simply called the Argonian Invasion. To the Saxhleel of Black Marsh, in the written and verbal histories sponsored by the An-Xileel, the conflict was called the War of Justice. It had ended with the Battle of Bloodmoor, a victory against the “Army of Justice”, wrought chiefly at the hands of House Redoran and House Sadras, and finally with the Treaty of Tear. The treaty had formally ceded Morrowind’s southernmost marches to Argonia, who had already magically flooded these lands.

The end of the first decade of the Fourth Era thus saw Morrowind existing as a House Divided against itself. And this was in more ways than one. Its population was scattered among the territories to the west and north; tens of thousands of desperate Dunmer refugees had fled to Cyrodiil, Skyrim and also to the Island of Solstheim, which was eventually ceded fully to Morrowind, in 4E 16. The war had shown that the government which ruled from the White Gold Tower was weak and fractious and it had certainly sewn resentment of the ruling Potentate amongst Morrowind’s people. Only one legion had in the end been levied for the defence of the east; House Redoran’s beleaguered army, bolstered by lavish spending on sellswords, had managed to save the land, but at great cost. This legion, despite being less than the expected levy, had nonetheless played an important part in the war, and was now, under Hlaalu command, stuck in Cyrodiil. Vedam Dren, Grandmaster of House Hlaalu refused to countenance any suggestion of returning to Morrowind without an army behind him. House Dres, who had evacuated west with their Hlaalu allies, was also stuck in Cyrodiil, as they lacked the strength to act on their own.

The stage was now set for the final collapse of the Imperial Government in what is now called the ‘Stormcrown Interregnum’. At the time, and in a few works of both fiction and non-fiction, many eastern authors simply called it “The Blood-Gold Epoch” or simply “the Days of Blood and Gold”. The origin of “Blood” in the poetic name came not only from the ceaseless battles that were fought in this second, decade long interregnum; a short span in the lives of some races, but also from those who had fallen in the period immediately preceding. It was as violent an epoch as any could recall. “Gold” came not only from the collapse of the Imperial government in White Gold Tower, but also from the overwhelming increase in mercenary activity, and how the Septim seemed to be becoming the only true item of value in the world. There was a widespread awareness among Easterners; Nords, Dunmer and Saxhleel, that the coming years would chart the course of Tamriel. And that it would be Blood and Gold that would mark the course of this charting.

4E 9-12 – The Eerie Calm, the Fracture of Councils

The ninth year of the Fourth Era actually ended as a reasonable one for Morrowind. The rains were good and House Redoran began attempting to have those Dunmer who were still on the land begin to work it once more. Search parties began to scour ruined Vvardenfell for any survivors and such action was undertaken jointly by the Great Houses Sadras and Redoran. The Grand Council sent out a general appeal, distributed amongst the provinces in various media, for Dunmer refugees to come and return to Morrowind. Few however, were willing to do so. The pain and death were simply too strong in the minds of those who had survived the Chaos.

Aside from the petty game of thrones that the houses always played, only one real bone of contention existed among them at this time: House Redoran had unilaterally moved the capital city to Blacklight, which was untouched by the Argonians. House Indoril objected vehemently, but alone they had no strength to oppose the other houses. None of the other Great Houses desired accommodations in a pile of sodden rubble that many still felt was desecrated earth.

Things might have seemed almost tranquil were it not for the fact that the remaining people of Morrowind were aware that more than half of the realm’s populace had fled into Solstheim, Skyrim and Cyrodiil. Vast areas of land were empty and only in our time today thanks to determined leadership, have these districts begun to repopulate.

But the first to return to Morrowind were the insular Ashlanders, many of whom, while they had fled to Solstheim and Skyrim, earnestly yearned to return to their own nomadic wandering of Vvardenfell. In our time, the Ashlanders are divided between Vvardenfell, their traditional home and the Velothi and Valus Mountains and Solstheim. Umeni, an Ashlander I had the privelige of speaking to called the Valus/Velothi and the Isle of Solstheim the “Cradles of Refuge”. The insular and nomadic tribesfolk were grateful that they had received succour in these foreign lands, and many still make regular migrations to the visit the lands and peoples amongst which they had sought refuge. Some Ashlander tribes never returned to Vvardenfell and still live permanently wandering the wastes of Solstheim or the peaks of the Valus Mountains. As we shall see, these returning tribesfolk were to cause more than a little carnage in the coming years.

What prevented any sense of peace was that there was also the undeniable fact that the people of Morrowind who remained were all too aware that several very important issues remained unresolved and on everyone’s mind. The first was that Houses Hlaalu and Dres were in Cyrodiil; their army and their councillors were still to have their say. This of course meant that the Redoran levies could not return to their homes and though no member of House Indoril would admit it, if not all voices were heard, the Grand Council was a house divided.

The second was the issue of the Morrowind Monarchy. At some point before the An-Xileel arrived at Mournhold, King Hlaalu Helseth had quite simply vanished. To this day, questioning amongst surviving members of the Royal Guard, both under torture and via magical and chemical induced means, has resulted in the same dearth of information. Nobody knows what happened to Helseth. Thus it was asked: who would wear the crown? Helseth’s mother and sister were both alive and in contact with members of House Hlaalu and with Imperial Officers. The Royal Guard had spirited Queen Mother Barenziah from Mournhold to Cheydinhal at the earliest possibility and she had sent for her daughter, Morgiah, who was, at any rate, growing anxious about her place in the Summerset Isle (note: see Lathenil of Sunhold’s Rising Threat volume IV and Maveus Cie’s The Firsthold Revolt). She had gone to the Imperial Province with a small company of Battlemages that constituted a good deal more than a mere household guard and was in regular contact with Duke Vedam Dren. After Ocato’s debacles in the An-Xileel invasion, the Grand Council felt that the matter of Imperial Intervention in Morrowind was to be feared far more from the hands of the Morrowind Royal Family, than from the Potentate himself, who had shown none of the vigor of Vedam Dren.

But before any action could be taken by either side, disaster struck.

4E 10-15 – The Death of the Potentate

At some point between 4E 10 and 4E 15, the sources, both written and eyewitness, are unclear, Potentate Ocato, who had, since the end of the Oblivion Crisis, been ruler of the Empire, was murdered. Although I have served for years as an Inspector in the Penitus Oculatus and an agent for the East Empire Company, I can only admit that to this day, the Potentate’s murder was an entirely mysterious event. One friend of the potentate called it

“a fitting end for the last remnant of the strange destiny of Uriel Septim VII”.

The Culprit of the deed was never found, though Lathenil of Sunhold insisted it was the work of Thalmor assassins. Most agree with him. The Black Horse Courier only reported his death in 4E 15. Lathenil, the Potentate’s close friend and advisor, gave an account confusing in its timeline, as it states that the Stormcrown Interregnum- the result of Ocato’s death- lasted seven years, and during this seven year timeframe, the Imperial administration of Alinor was overthrown. However, he is extremely vague regarding the date of the Potentate’s death. Sadly, I could not convince Lathenil of Sunhold to agree to an interview during his lifetime. Only a week before his death did he finally consent to discuss this with me and we were never to have our interview.

On the other hand, Justianus Quintius’ “The Great War”, places the Thalmor takeover firmly in 4E 22- Quintius however, makes little mention of the length of the Stormcrown Interregnum. I have questioned multiple witnesses of sound mind, extensively, on this subject and have received answers, which I have no doubt are, to the mind of the witness, reliable. These answers state that Ocato was seen and confirmed dead at various points before 4E 15. Conversely, he was reported as healthy and speaking to various people up until the 20^th of First Seed, 4E 15. The Imperial Watch confirmed Ocato murdered in 4E 12, though I and many others in the military police believe the Imperial Watch have previously displayed shoddy detective work. Whilst one must make concession for the chaotic nature of the interregnum, I conclude that the Potentate most likely died at the end of 4E 12 and that it is extremely unlikely that he lived any later than First Seed, 4E 15.

Though by the standards of Mer, he had not lived a long life, it was certainly eventful. Arriving all but penniless in Cyrodiil in his youth to study magic away from the claustrophobic restrictions of the Isle, Ocato had met a young Septim prince at the Arcane University and they had formed an unbreakable bond. As legionnaire, battlemage, Imperial Battlemage and High Chancellor, Ocato had lived his life in service to his friend Uriel, who entrusted Ocato with everything. And when the Septims were gone, it was Ocato who was again turned to, entrusted by Cyrodiil to sit upon the Ruby Throne, a task that his record as Potentate shows he may have been unsuited for. But nonetheless, Ocato had been a good and loyal, if necessarily ruthless and political, mer. Given more of a chance, he might have held together the Empire and may eventually have made a strong Emperor. But it was not a chance he was given, for more sinister forces had deemed him unsuited for the throne.

Whatever the case, the death of Ocato was undoubtedly a disaster for Cyrodiil, and undoubtedly very serious for Tamriel, though some parts were more affected than others. The fracture of the Elder Council caused the collapse of the Nibenese Bureaucracy and thus, the Imperial Government. In this environment, the provinces went their separate ways, although arguably the process had already begun. But without Ocato, the sundering of Tamriel was hastened and could not be easily stopped.

4E 10-22 – The Stormcrown Interregnum and the East

So began the Stormcrown Interregnum or “The Blood Gold Epoch”. But how do we define it, when the dates of Ocato’s death, traditionally considered the inception of the chaos, are so confusing? Typically, many historians choose a simple range of 4E 10-17, as based off an interpretation of Lathenil stating that Ocato died a decade after certain events described earlier in “Rising Threat” and the capture of the Imperial City was seven years after Ocato’s death. But since Lathenil very rarely specifies dates and timeframes, this interpretation is meaningless. Thus, I dispute it. In 4E 10, it is reliably stated on numerous public works in Leyawiin, that the city was proclaimed as the “Archonate of Leyawiin”. Thus was Leyawiin the first city to be fragmented from the rule of the Imperial government. Moreover, numerous battles, some of them exceptionally important, took place well after 4E 17, the earliest possible time Mede could have conquered the Imperial City. More likely, he did so the year after, in 4E 18. Leyawiin only submitted to Imperial rule in 4E 22 and then only on the basis of a favorable treaty. It is more appropriate for the historian to consider the Stormcrown Interregnum over in 4E 22, after the Thalmor took control of Alinor and established the foundations of the chief socio-political divide of Tamriel today. Even then, Morrowind remained isolated until a significant time after this. Finally, even today, Argonia remains insular, with foreign trade taking place only through controlled avenues in Lilmoth, Leyawiin and Narsis.

For the Eastern Part of Tamriel, the most serious consequence of Ocato’s murder was not that the provinces were cast adrift; even under the Septims, regional independence and separatism had been a phenomenon that rose and fell with the seasons. The most serious result of the potentate’s murder was the fracturing of Cyrodiil, not merely into Nibenay and Colovia, but into multiple smaller kingdoms, all at each others throats, all claiming independence, or the ruby throne. Most of the military campaigns fought by these petty kingdoms are by and large meaningless to describe in the context of the Eastern Provinces, and have little bearing. Each season, a new man might rise to prominence through one pathetic skirmish, or proclaim that his patch of dirt was now a kingdom in its own right.

There were some social trends, phenomena and even notables of the period however, that do warrant mention as relevant to a history of the Eastern Provinces. Though the region had always been home to a considerable Dunmeri population, since the Red Year, Nibenay’s populace had been swelled by Dunmer refugees, and now they found themselves in a difficult situation. For just as Dunmer had fled into Nibenay from a war with the An-Xileel, they now found themselves confronted not only with a considerable populace of Saxhleel already extant in Nibenay, but also with Argonian refugees. Nibenay, especially the south, had been the overwhelming relocation of choice for those Saxhleel who disliked or found themselves at odds with the An-Xileel; a portion of the Argonian people most Saxhleel of Black Marsh describe as Lukiul, meaning “one who is assimilated” or “one who is Imperialised”. Though less common than bar room scuffles, there were, in the first years, some street skirmishes and riots between Dunmer and Saxhleel. Leyawiin, notably, broke out into bouts of vicious street violence in 4E 7, 8, 10, 13 17 and finally in 4E

24. No less than twelve such riots took place in Bravil. Most frequently however, the most serious outbreaks of violence were the handiwork of rapidly formed and consolidated criminal syndicates, a number of which were formed on racial grounds. More frequently, the newer and smaller syndicates had racial elements, whereas the established cartels with their old and prestigious names, were a more open environment, with Dons and Capos of all races. It is a deep and ill-acknowledged irony that the older Nibenese Criminal Cartels and Families were in part responsible for the healing of the egregious rift in relations between the Eastern Races that could have brought even greater strife to Nibenay in the time of the interregnum.

As I mentioned in my previous chapter, the Nibenese cosmopolitanism that was so vitally adopted by the Empire, has something of a miraculous effect on the querulous races of the East. In Nibenay, though not something that happened overnight, but rather through long and difficult years of living in shared space, heated discussion, trade, fistfights and mutual participation in the pointless wars of the interregnum, the Saxhleel and Dunmer of Eastern Cyrodiil were able to achieve détente. Although it took some time, the Dunmer of Nibenay were able to come to an understanding that not all Saxhleel were affiliated with the An-Xileel, who were regarded as the desecrators of Morrowind. However, it is still to this day difficult for a Dunmer to accept that the Argonians can be connected to the Hist, but not to the An-Xileel, who had all but proclaimed themselves as the chosen voice, or prophets of the Hist.

Additionally, several of the warlords of the Interregnum period are worth mentioning for their dealings which affected the Argonians, Dunmer, the Nibenese and the even the Nords. The Terentius Counts of Bravil had been replaced by the end of the Oblivion crisis, during which they died. The title and seat of County Bravil was bought (a shocking, though never denied fact) by the Orum Family, a clan of Orsimer from Cheydinhal whose genteel sophistication and entrenchment in the nobility of Nibenay did not mitigate their thuggish dominance in the Nibenese Skooma trade. By profitable alliances with the city of Rimmen in Elsweyr and the Renjira Krin, the Orums gained monumental wealth, living as petty kings, even as Bravil’s populace remained in desperate poverty. When the Red Year and Argonian Invasion occurred, many members of the Camonna Tong and other Dunmer involved in the Skooma trade set up shop in Bravil and their and other’s work has resulted in Bravil becoming the crime capital of Cyrodiil.

However, profitable alliances with the Renjira Krin and the heavy taxes levied on Skooma in Leyawiin, brought Bravil into contact with Marius Caro, the Count of Leyawiin, who had proclaimed himself independent as the “Archon of Leyawiin”. In the early Fourth Era, Caro wed the Nibenese merchant princess, Hlidara Mothril, one of my own relatives, and an influential figure in the court of Leyawiin. This was after his first marriage, to Lady Alessia Caro was ended violently at the hands of a mob. It was (and remains) murmured that the death of Lady Alessia, who was widely hated amongst the Khajit and Argonian folk of Leyawiin, was engineered by Hlidara Mothril herself and executed not by a random mob, but by Blackwood Company Mercenaries. The lady Hlidara both kept herself in, and eventually fell, from power through some astounding means, which may be recounted later. At any rate, Caro managed to carve out a not insignificant territory around the shores of the Topal Bay and in the Blackwood, as he actually managed to build up a significant fleet around a core consisting of former Imperial warships. Caro was also instrumental in the increase in mercenary activity in Cyrodiil. He gave rights of charter to numerous new mercenary companies and gave them leave to establish headquarters in Leyawiin. In a spot of irony given his first wife’s infamous racial loathings, Caro also aided in the re-establishment of Blackwood Company, perhaps the most infamous mercenary band in Cyrodiil today, after their troubles during the Oblivion Crisis. Today, Leyawiin remains a mercenaries’ haven and the greatest centers for the hiring of sellsword companies outside Hammerfell.

Imperial Intelligence indicates that Marius Caro’s ambitions on the island of Topal and the An-Xileel’s contrasting ambitions on Blackwood were the cause of the short, bloody war between the An-Xileel and Leyawiin from 4E 12-16, which came to be known as the Soulrest Rebellion. Caro won a number of impressive victories in the marshes, but none moreso than during the “Silent Step”, where he masterfully extricated his army from a flagging war in Black Marsh, and then at the Topal Shores in 4E 16. A popular beach resort now stands at Topal Shores, where Count Marius won victory against an An-Xileel army numbering some fifteen thousand, which had attempted to seize the Blackwood. Moreover, it gave Caro the fearsome reputation of a ‘giant-killer’. Although Caro’s first wife Alessia was rabidly racist against the many Saxhleel, Dunmer and Khajit migrants of Leyawiin, which predictably caused much civil unrest, he eventually did much to heal matters between the various migrant races of Leyawiin. He was the last Count in Cyrodiil to bend the knee to the restored Imperial Government at the end of the Stormcrown Interregnum, and even then, his submission was made at the point of a pen, in exchange for privileges, instead of at the point of a blade.

Chapter Conclusion

So with the death of one of Tamriel’s most renowned leaders and an exploration of the effects on the East, ends the first segment of my chapter on the Stormcrown Interregnum, the Blood Gold Epoch, in relation to the Eastern Provinces.

This will be continued in the second part of this Chapter, “Through Eastern Eyes Part II.2”