Mapping Oblivion

I just decided to write up some descriptions of what the major Daedric Princes' planes of Oblivion might look like, and come up with some names for things that don't have names yet. Please keep in mind that I haven't played ESO, Shivering Isles, or Dragonborn, so I will not comply with their lore very much, but this is just for fun anyway and is very much fiction.

FILLING IN THE BLANKS IN THE MAP OF OBLIVION

It is understood that the Planes of Oblivion are infinitely unknowable to mortals, impossibly vast and ever-changing, subject to the whims of their inscrutable Princes. For a mortal to even consider quantifying them is laughable. Nonetheless, this helpful guide will seek to chart out everything that is known of each of the sixteen (seventeen?) Daedric Prince's realms, as well as quite a lot that is not known.

AZURA - MOONSHADOW Moonshadow, the Twilight Eclipse, is an ellipsis in shape, composed of two orbits that intersect at two points. Moonshadow perpetually exists in both Dawn and Dusk, as the Eye of Azura, the sun of that world (a Daedra's interpretation of Magnus) is continually setting and rising. One half of the ellipsis is Starlight, a garden of such beauty that it drives mortal minds mad. Moonbeams gently pour from ivory spouts, singing with the voice of stars. Sun-mist is festooned on the paths' edges, but it is growing old, a burnished orange as it trickles across the realm in impossible, well-seeming forms. At the garden's center is the Blaze Blue, the isthmus that links to Eclipse, the darkened side of Moonshadow. Here is a land of crystal wreaths and valleys of pondering light. This is the home of the Winged Twilights, daedra who serve Azura as guardians and envoys. From Eclipse they look down (or up, or across) at the mortal souls who roam the Starlight gardens, for they have been charged with protecting them, from danger as well as from finding out about Azura's true nature.

BOETHIAH - ATTRIBUTION'S SHARE Attribution's Share is a hierarchy of power, trickery, and conflict. The highest point is Snake Mount, a city built into a mountain that triples in steepness with every twenty paces. There are twelve Arenas here, where mortals and daedra are locked in eternal combat for prestige in the eyes of their Prince. Two rivers flow from the Snake Mount, wide and strong their flows, but they are made of the blood of the fighters who perish in the arena. One river carries victors in their longboats to the City of the Ten Bloods, a settlement much lower than Snake Mount, but quieter. It has a steady foundation in bedrock, and is shaped in the form of two fighters, one with an axe raised over his head, poised for striking, but the other with a quick dagger flashing from his belt toward his enemy's gut. The second river from the Mount is more sluggish, but much broader. It carries the defeated to Mors Adthel, a city which hangs on a cliff over nothingness, where spindly river-rover-men pluck them from the water and pile them up to build a dam to stop the river from taking their city over the waterfall and into the abyss.

MEPHALA - SPIRAL SKEIN Mephala sits at the center of her web, twitching her lines and pulling the souls in her grasp ever closer to her maw. Her Spiral Skein is a twisted tower of lies and deceit, with eight strands of silk reaching from the roof of Mephala's Tower Palace to the edge of her realm and a sin in each void. The first is lies, a cavern full of pillars pretending to hold up the sky. The second is made up of cramped chambers representing envy, while the third is maggot-filled grottoes filled with seductive light. The fourth contains eternally dark tunnels of fear; the fifth, a place of betrayal; the sixth, an arena of murder. The seventh space is home to arcades of avarice and appetite, containing all things mortals would kill or die for, while the eighth is a flaming skein of fury, representing the death that comes to all mortals.

JYGGALAG Jyggalag's realm is a series of two-thousand, three-hundred and twenty-eight parallel lines, linked by a million fractal pillars in a system that only Jyggalag understands. He and his Knights of Order have been busy putting these pieces in place for more than seven-thousand years, by the Dragon's arrow, because the Prince of Order's own form of Madness imprisons him in that task. To mortal eyes, Jyggalag's realm is gradients of grey and intersecting prisms of black, with tapered points of vivid ultramarine, though that is not how most would explain it. Jyggalag of course rules from a high and important throne, in a castle made of perpendicularity at the center of infinity. It is thought that Jyggalag is the only Prince who believes that he can quantify infinity.

NOCTURNAL - EVERGLOAM Nocturnal's realm is as unknowable to mortals as she is, though some have journeyed there. It is a dark place, subject to squalls of ravens' feathers and wrought smoke. There are conduits of ebony, great shovel-shaped tongues of shadow that whip across the plane. Tentrils of leather and birds' beaks make shapes that seem familiar from a distance, but become alien at the approach. There is a distant glittering, like the lights of squid-fishers on a bay at night, and it permeates all the mood of the place. Coiling around the Cradle of Shadow, Nocturnal's castle and the seat of her power, are two intertwined hands, forming a diamond of infinite blackness. Their weapon, a club, is said to be nearby, in the hollows of darkness that are the castle's foundations. The heart of Nocturnal's realm is her throne, and though it has never been seen, it is thought to wear a cloak and call itself Ota-be, or Taste-Note. On each arm of the Ota-be sits a raven, who are called Rorin and Orin, and they bring Ota-be souls, food and information, though Ota-be does not care. Mortals do not understand Nocturnal or her sphere, but she also does not care about that.

CLAVICUS VILE - NERIUM Nerium is the Flower that Bites, the Beautiful Snake, a glittering world of alluring smell and hubric brimstone. Curtains of incense cloud the doorways, and vistas of success open up before sudden plunges. Clavicus Vile floats in a caravan pulled by a Breton who was once an Orc, bound in silk and encircled by a gold band of seven leagues. Banners and standards float from Vile's body, trailing throughout the crimson night. There are three windows; through each of them a moon can be seen, and before them all is a dog, who was once a scamp, who sits on a tasseled pillow. The pillars and arches of ornate stone give way below to a vast drop, and then a tangled briar of not-quite-trees and almost-flowers. There are beings down there, though it is not clear who or what they are, or once were.

HIRCINE - HUNTING GROUNDS Hircine's Hunting grounds are a fertile island of labyrinthine woods, where Hircine and his Wild Hunt sweep across the land in pursuit of the Twelve Trophies. When Hircine rests at the Hunting Lodge, a low building of elk-antler and cobblestone, then the dawn will herald a Great Hunt. The Trophies are the Great Bear, the Long Wolf, the Uderfrykte, the Wereshark, the Star Eagle, the White Stag, the Eye Fox, the Carven Crab, the Undying Crow, the Unicorn, the Man-Bull and the Hare. Hircine never speaks a word to his Hunt, but he blasts upon his great Horn at at that the Grounds grow silent and Hircine's quiver grows into a tree. Then the hunt begins and there is no more need for speech. All of the mortal werefolk end up in Hircine's Hunt, so he has no need for Daedra. It is unclear if his Trophies are Daedra, because he has little control of them. His whole realm is ungoverned, in fact, the power is located in three tribes of primitive men and one of mer, who have persisted living there since the beginning times. They are often slain for their fingers when the Hunt rushes past them, for in that land of green and crimson the Hunt is a force of nature, it is what the world is built on. The Hunting Grounds are trapped in a cycle that Hircine will never tire of, but his mortal charges may.

MEHRUNES DAGON - DEADLANDS Mehrunes Dagon's Deadlands are devoid of any life or hope. No Daedra live there but those who are pressed into service from other realms, it is a blasted and desolate wasteland. Obsidian outcrops jut from oceans of lava and evilly organic claws rise from the ground. This is the product of neglect and destruction; there is no rule of any sort, no thought given to the lands. Dagon's only constructive pursuits have been in aid of destruction, and for that he needs lesser daedra that are not of his own being. The Dremora clans that swear fealty to Dagon constructed citadel Towers across the realm in their own style, to house the Stones that would anchor Gates in Nirn for Dagon's invasion. Since Dagon's defeat, those Towers are in ruin, empty and slowly being destroyed by the very nature of Mehrunes Dagon's being, and his world.

MERIDIA - COLOURED ROOMS The Coloured Rooms are a rotating Wheel, a mournful imitation of Nirn, which Meridia so longs to be a true part of. Her wheel has no temperance, though; it is impatient and whirls this way and that, changing faster than a mortal can comprehend, if indeed it has ever changed at all. The Dragon's arrow is weak here, and the Coloured Rooms threaten to eliminate the visitor by old age as much as by the denial of their birth. They never quite do though. The seven spokes of Her Wheel are the Gilded Dawn, the Azurite Rift, the Fawn Thicket, the Scarlet Sand, the Mauve Wood, the Hoary Mountain and the Silent Pool. There are many wanderers in the Coloured Rooms; they become Strangers to each other and to themselves. They are watched by the Aurorans, inscrutable beings in armour, who are nigh invisible because of their armour, which blends in with their surroundings.

MOLAG BAL - COLDHARBOUR Molag Bal's Plane is Coldharbour, a dark, twisted reflection Tamriel in which daedra have triumphed and the mortals are shriven of their souls. Reptilian daedra stalk the land, from the Clannfear to the Daedroth, preying on the vestiges of mortal life, or how Molag Bal imagines it. Bal rules from the Imperial Palace in Cyrodiil, beneath the smouldering ruin of the White-Gold Tower. He sits in a throne some two miles high, and his feet crush twenty men every day. Every building in Coldharbour can sprout horns at Bal's wish and force their inhabitants to succumb to whatever the Prince demands of them at that time. He exists to dominate, and every part of his realm is stratified to place him at the top of the cosmic food chain. The blasted and blackened heath is inhospitable and dastardly hot during the day, and fearsomely cold at night, when the lizards sleep. Bal has no imagination, and can only replicate what hee sees from Mundus, and then seek to dominate it.

SANGUINE - MYRIAD REALMS OF REVELRY Sanguine's realm is a simple affair - a sprawling, lively, Nibenese town engaged in eternal celebration. The occasional drunk has been known to find himself in an unfamilar town square, between a tall inn, a brothel, a brewery and a fountain that runs with mead. This is Rockton, Sanguine's debauched capital, where hedonism and lust run rampant and the sky blushes gold from jubilation. There are stone baths rimmed with amethysts and more than five hundred rooftop statues. Sanguine himself can be found at every place - he is in the inn, dancing on the tables, while Sanguine is drinking in the square, while Sanguine watches drowsily from a grassy patch by a tree. It is no surprise that mortals end up coming here, but they do grow bored as their Prince and his daedra do not. They eventually flee into the groves and dells of the surrounding forest, where fouler creatures than drunks dwell, kept infinitely alive on a diet of ale and sex, and driven mad by lust or gluttony or stagnation. There is no fulfilment to be found with Sanguine.

VAERMINA - QUAGMIRE Perhaps of all the major Planes of Oblivion, Quagmire defies exploration the most. It is the most visited plane by mortals (for we visit there every time we suffer a nightmare) but also the most changing. Vaermina changes her plane to a fresh horror every few moments, with a tremendous flash of lightning. A mortal might find himself falling from the top of the White-Gold Tower one moment, the next, trapped in a corner as a mountain lion approaches. Another flash, and he is face to face with Vaermina herself, who is an unassailable mass of bone and horn, suspended from above by sinew like a macabre marrionette. Her eye sockets are hollow but alive with malice, and her jaw swings open to consume her victim a split second before he awakes, sweating, frightened, but alive and in Mundus again.

NAMIRA - SCUTTLING VOID The Scuttling Void is a vast field of mud under a cold, white sky. There is no landmark, but a single tall, wooden post, upon which sits a ragged figure with the skull of a vulture for a head. If one dares listen, it whispers the way to Namira's throneroom, deep under the mud, where no light reaches. Inummerable sharp arms pass one down through the suffocating earth, and they take an entrance tax. No mortal finds audience with Namira without losing something, perhaps an eye, skewered by a chitinous leg, perhaps the juicy flesh from beneath their fingernails, drilled out by quick mandibles. Namira herself is unassuming after this ordeal, a diminutive crone, but her world breathes with her, as her hands and legs and intestine, and her garb is made from the remains of past visitors.

PERYITE - PITS Peryite's Pits are cold and ininviting, but with occasional great belches of sulfurus heat. The Pits are infinite rolling hillocks of dirt pounded solid by workers' feet , broken there and here by grey-leafed pine trees. All the mortals here wear masks, and all the Daedra are in human form, and go without. They are a busy and determined lot, trooping to and fro listening intently to the commands that come from the crevices that open up in a geyser of bronze fog and a booming, nasal voice. With haste, the masked mortals set about sealing the fissure first with tools, then with the bodies of their fellows, until the wound is healed. The Men wear masks of wood, monstrous faces upon them. The mer wear cloth, and they have babies' faces. The beast-folk wear metal, and they are smooth and featureless. They traipse back into their towns at the end of each working day, afflicted with contentment, and then devour one of their number. Peryite sits at the center of all of this, in the deepest Pit, in a pool of ink and oil, which fills steadily before igniting at a regular interval. When it does, Peryite orders an audience with every mortal soul in his possession, but what they speak of is unknown.

MALACATH - ASHPIT Malacath's realm is an empty world of swirling ash, populated by broken dreams and lost promises. To an outsider, it is inhospitable, alien, and deadly. It is neither cold nor hot, and there is not a ground nor a sky, but endless ash. At the center is the vast spine of some long-dead beast, once the last of its kind, now gone, and at the head of this column is a Death's Head, a smoking pyre in the shape of a skull, ancient and fatherless, formless but formidable. Pass through the balin about its maw, the savage and gore-spattered visage, and here is the Ashpit that every Orc wishes to find himself in after death. Still smoky and ashen, but here and there in the smog is a longhouse, the glow of a victory fire penetrating the dark and casting gleeful shadows on the distant clouds as the Orc Chieftains celebrate, for every Orc here is a Chieftain. It is said that far enough through these disparate parties, on the very outskirts of the Ashpit, a much smaller fire can be found. Malacath sits alone here, sword cleft in twain, naked, and scarred. The hollers of orcs echo numbly through the choking mist and Malacath takes his head from his hands, prods his fire, and smiles.

SHEOGORATH - SHIVERING ISLES Sheogorath's Shivering Isles are a kingdom of tyrannous unrule and frivolous laws. Here there is to be found the Isle of Mania and the Isle of Dementia, which are both filled with exotic and toxic creatures, both lesser daedra and the Madgod's collection of bizarre creatures. His personal daedra are the Golden Saints and Dark Seducers, who have been known to be seen in Tamriel, luring many off the precipice of madness to join Sheogorath in the Isles. For that is the principle trait of the Shivering Isles - its form is more familiar to the mortal eye than most planes, but its populace are the most alien. They are mortals, sure, but given over entirely to madness, a consuming disease beyond any of Peryite, a corruption of the mind beyond Vaermina. It is an affliction on the soul that can not be lifted, but by the Madgod himself, and, when he insanely decides to lift his curse from some madman, the loss of Sheogorath's comfort can be just as damning to the mortal mind. The Shivering Isles should not be approached without an offering of cheese.

HERMAEUS MORA - APOCRYPHA Hermaeus Mora's realm is Apocrphya, an infinite library of all of the forbidden knowledge of the world. It is a claustrophobic, damning space, where there is little of design or interest but the innummerable black-bound, unmarked books. Souls drift through the shelves, trapped forever in their search for some piece of knowledge that was once of import to them. The corridors are narrow and winding, often passing back in improbable or impossible ways. There are bridges over chasms, lined the whole way down with shelves of books, accessible only by the coils of snaking rope that lick over the edges of the boarding with murderous intent. The longer one spends in Apocrypha, the more tenebrous depths one can reach, though this should never be desirable, for to become a Seeker is to end up like Herma Mora himself, powerless to his lust for knowledge, unable to use the information he has already gleaned because a new quest has then begun for yet more knowledge. Hermaeus Mora's tentacles can be seen snaking throughout his vast library, if they are looked for, in the dark corners and in the ropes, his twitching presence always watching.