A Concise Report on the Various Types of Mer, Chapter V

Pontius Cerallius, by the Divine Grace and request of the Emperor Titus Mede the Second, 4E 170

###Chapter V: TUSK

On the previous section I have already given a bit of an introduction to the pariahs of Tamriel, the Orsimer, or Orcs as the men of common mind would call them.

At first, the Orcs were not distinguished from the rest of the Aldmer except for social status, for the group that would one day be turned into the Orsimer were once the mighty and proud Knights of Trinimac, the main order of knights and soldiers of the Summerset Isles and the Aldmer people. They were the enforcers of law and custom of the Aldmer, suffocating dissident movements as well as rebellious citizens, all in name of keeping order, which, for the Aldmer, meant stagnation.

The order apparently was very successful, for, during centuries, and maybe millennia, there were only a handful of seceding branches of the ancient race. But the records of their acts has been lost to history, so there is no certain way to chart how many early movements they supressed, neither how many they may have killed (for the act of murdering the ones who don’t abide to their ideals does not seem to have been born with the latest incarnation of the Thalmor, only inherited), and neither the methods which they used, but, taking their later nature, I am led to believe such methods were extremely violent and merciless. And when one looks on which concepts the Altmer attribute to Trinimac – honor, strength and unity – it’s not so much of a stretch to believe the Knights of Trinimac were unstoppable in their quest for the unity of the Aldmer.

The next verifiable account of the order is that of the Chimeri exodus, when the order was exiled from the archipelago, never to return, marking the metaphorical birth of the Pariah Folk.

How it happened is long lost, but by the few remaining records, and what little truth I have been able to sort from the Eras of added mythos, I am led to believe that the Velothi, a group of Aldmer that were being hunted down by the Knights, following the ill-fated teachings of their patron (or would it be matron? I swear I will never understand these creatures or those who follow them) Demon, infiltrated the ranks of the Order of Trinimac and either corrupted the belief system of the Knights, making them the pariahs they once hunted down, turning them against their own Aldmeri culture, or exposed the corruption and decay of their own ideals, the hypocrisy behind their faith, shaming them so that their only option was to leave the archipelago, taking with them the worship of Trinimac, who was then renamed as Malacath or Mauloch, depending on which clan you may ask, by then twisted into something different from what it was initially, making Trinimac fall from the position of honored ancestor of the Aldmer.

After the fall from grace, worshippers of Trinimac turned to the only ones that would accept them, their own immediate family members and brothers-in-arms from their time serving the Aldmer, that now despised what they had become, and slowly became the self-reliant and isolated clans they are mostly known for. From this turning point can also be traced their surprisingly gender-equalitarian social structure, with females performing just as much hard-work as the males, and sometimes it can be observed that females contribute more to the well-fare of their strongholds than some males, all derived from the fact that in the beginning of their history, they had not the necessary numbers to have idle members.

Some accounts tell that their hideous appearance was caused by the transformation caused on Trinimac by Boethiah, but one is wise to pursue more concrete, and real, explanations for such myths, and so I would theorize that their current appearance was caused by centuries of adaptation to a more savage lifestyle, having to rely heavily on hunting, camouflage and apparently eating raw meat from their kills, explaining their more greenish skin tone, perfect for hiding in the forests and woodlands they are known to reside, and tusks perfect for tearing flesh. Some scholars, the same that would classify them as no more than beasts, suggest that their physical morphology is due to a long story of interbreeding with goblin-kin and ogre-kin, but their culture seems too self-contained for such interbreeding to have occurred beyond isolated cases. But one thing that is apparent is that there is no reason to believe they were transformed by any Demon.

The logical spot for their landfall on mainland Tamriel is Valenwood, and by all accounts this seems to be the correct theory, given that the Wood Orcs of Valenwood make the bold claim of having arrived there even before the Bosmer (which doesn’t appear to hold true after some investigation, but the point that they have resided in Valenwood for very long a time still stands), and from there clans settled and occupied lands all across the western parts of Tamriel – from the Gold Coast to various regions of what is now Hammerfell and the mountain ranges of High Rock and Western Skyrim – though never as a united land, instead, as a series of small settlements spread across those lands.

But as my liege must know, it was not always so, the Orsimer eventually learned that they needed at least some degree of unity in order to survive, but it was not without cost that they learned that.

All those small settlements, ranging from small strongholds - little more than a fortified longhouse where single small clans live, all of which can be easily torn down by the resident clan and moved somewhere else in case of need - to small villages - more well-defended and permanent than the strongholds, being able to house a small group of related clans -, were constantly harassed and attacked by neighboring populations of both men and mer. Who started those conflicts is unknown, if it were the Orcs trying to claim plots of land for themselves or if they constantly attacked farms or settlements in search of food or any other form of loot, or if it were the neighboring populations motivated by fear of those wild-beasts (as they would have seen them), as they would attack a cave of goblins or a coven of vampires. What is known is that, ever since the Orcs left the Summerset Isles and settled down in Tamriel, they have been scorned, despised and attacked by all other inhabitants of Dawn’s Beauty.

The Wood Orcs of Valenwood have never been able to live peacefully with the Bosmer, all Bosmeri records concerning the Wood Orcs tell of their constant conflicts (and it is also important to notice that these records are always of petty territorial disputes, nothing that would ever attract much attention outside of the territories involved, and the reason for this will become clearer in a moment). There are also records of Orc slaves in the Summerset Isles, meaning that they did not have such a peaceful coexistence with their former kin as well. In their early years of rebellion, the Alessians, led by Saint Pelinal the Whitestrake, were known to lay rampages on Orsimer settlements in the Gold Coast during their campaign against the Ayleids. And of special note are the Redguards, who laid quick waste to all Orsimer settlements in the region of Hammerfell, driving all the Orcs from the Redguard newly-adopted home in a span of only a few years.

But, more than just decimating the Pariah Folk, the Redguards, in their wave of conquest and slaughter, made it possible for the weakened Orsimer tribes to seek one another for safety, and soon they discovered what their cousins had discovered already: that mer are stronger when united. The famed city of Orsinium was first built in the years following the arrival of the Yokudans on Tamriel, thanks to the enormous wave of refugees fleeing north towards the Wrothgarian Mountains, since they could not call Hammerfell (or Hegathe, as it was known then) home anymore, nor could they flee south to the holdings of the Alessian Empire.

Turog gro-Igron, a great Orsimeri warchief of the time, and a visionary, began to join different clans, with the promise of safety and of the ability to protect themselves from any future attacks from the races of men or mer, and soon the city of Orsinium grew into a mighty kingdom. And this kingdom turned out to become the Orsimer Tower, and, among all other Towers, this one is quite unique.

As soon as the Orsimer built their kingdom, their Tower, becoming an established culture rather than a series of few and far between weak tribes, the human residents of the countries of High Rock started to give them relevance, even if as a threat.

All children in the Imperial City have already seen the Arena, and its signature quote: “the best techniques are passed on by the survivors” by Gaiden Shinji. But Gaiden Shinji is known for more than simply founding the Arena, his most memorable feat has always been the thirty year siege on the First Orsinium (one of the reasons I strongly suggest your Majesty give the Orsimer fair treatment and respect, for their allegiance would turn out marvellous in our favor in the occasion of a war with the Aldmeri Dominion, their cultural heritage is fantastic in terms of preparing them for such long-lasting conflicts).

Since my goal is not to describe the Siege, and my Liege can certainly find scholars much more well-versed in that event than me if you so desire to learn more, I’ll proceed in history, only saying of the conflict that the Orsimer were defeated, scattered, and their city and Tower destroyed. For the first time, of many.

During the Second Era, it is reported that Orsinium was rebuilt at least three times, with two of these times being razed quickly after being completed, following the same destiny of the First: as soon as the Orcs became an important culture, others felt threatened by them and made great efforts into taking them down, probably because they already knew the harm that could follow from a mer race and their Tower, after being subject to the Direnni for generations. But this third time, which is only mentioned in obscure and fragmented sources, claim that, during the Interregnum, Orsinium was rebuilt, and that, rather than being quickly attacked by the neighboring countries, they forged an alliance between Bretons, Redguards and Orcs, certainly to help accomplish the goals of whatever scheming Breton happened to be leading this alliance. But it is important to notice that the alliance was only thought of after the city of Orsinium was built and the Orcs were organized into a kingdom, before that, no one ever bat more than a suspicious eye towards their tribes. During the last days of the Septim Dynasty, Orsinium rose one more time, in the days of the Warp in the West, and, if it were not by the interference of the Mythic Dawn cult and the Oblivion Crisis, it would have almost surely be recognized, for the first time, as a province of the Cyrodiilic Empire. But, after the disaster at the end of the Third Era, the combined forces of Hammerfell and High Rock once again razed the city, and the Orsimer activities or their comings and goings were almost unheard of until in recent years they settled in a region between Skyrim and Hammerfell and began rebuilding their city there.

The point here being: The Orcs have ever only been important to the bigger political and cultural picture of Tamriel when their Tower, their city, was functional, and thus, I would strongly suggest that my liege took the opportunity to ally the Orcs now that they are rebuilding their city once more, for now they will certainly prove themselves a great asset against whatever the Altmer of Alinor may be planning, and before the Orsimer, whose nature and culture are violence and conflict with every other culture other than theirs, start making trouble to our own, diverting our attention from the Aldmeri Dominion.

On the next chapter I will be discussing another group of mer with a Tower of peculiar characteristics, the Bosmer and their not ever-falling-and-rising Tower, but their multitude of Towers.