Summary of the Census of the Empire of Tamriel, in the 1st year of our 4th era; Skyrim

(Part 1: https://www.reddit.com/r/teslore/comments/5oiwgz/summary_of_the_census_of_the_empire_of_tamriel_in/ )

A summary of the findings of the census commissioned by Chancellor Ocato, in light of the conclusion of the Oblivion Crisis. The purpose of which is to report on the status of the provinces, the losses of that horrendous intrusion into the mundane, and to pronounce official declarations regarding which places have been ruined.

The Province of Skyrim, as of the 3E430 census: approximately 5.8 million. As of now, 1.9 million. Skyrim has been utterly devastated and every inch lies in ruins, and the authors of this report could not go ten miles before finding another burnt out husk of a city or town or hold, littered with charred and ashen bones of men, women, and children. The people are lost and frightened, and all seem staggered and overwhelmed even a year after by their experiences in the months of the Crisis. A struggle of faith has come over the people, and many feel their gods have forsaken them, or simply do not care for their well being. From the scattered interviews with the shaken populace, logs and accounts recovered from ruins, and recountings from surviving warchiefs, thanes, and generals, it appears the invasion of the province was in full force yet aimless. Frequently corroborated accounts depict hordes of daedra moving across the landscape in warbands and destroying every settlement in their way, fires so expansive they lit the horizon at night, and clouds so laden with ash and smoke that the falling snow was grey. Many also have reported seeing what they describe as being a dragon appearing on occasions, bathing a roaming patrol of daedra or daedra moving to sack a location in fire. Exact description of it is inconsistent, and in light of his involvement in the Imperial City many nords are swearing it must have been Akatosh coming to their aid, despite the Nords usual disdain of the time god- it seems that they are beginning to embrace both Aka and their Ysmir. The authors of this report personally find the whole thing not very credible, but have included mention of these sightings on the grounds of sheer numbers that insisted they had spotted it.

The authors of this report estimate that more than a staggering three quarters of the settlements across Skyrim have been entirely destroyed or left as only barely salvageable ruin, most notably the cities of Ambirgard, Amol, Doletsk, Dunpar, Helarchen, Kurbrucken, Keljeborg, Neugrad, Nimalten, Sunnigardr, and Valikstadt, as well as the great cities and jarldoms of Snowhawk and Falkreath. More on the status of the great cities below.

Dawnstar: 36,916 as of last census, 14,865 as of current. The Greeter of the Sun survived the invasion, if tenuously, though its Jarl Macalla, at the time residing in Solitude, did not. The current Jarl, a favored thane of hers named Vilkemir, stated that the city came under the direct assault of the gates on 3 different occasions, and that each instance was successfully fended off, though at the cost of many thousands. He stated that most losses were not directly the result of the gates, to which by his count only approximately 10000 nords were lost, but rather to starvation in the final two months. By that time what cold-hardy farms existed in the vicinity had been razed by daedra, shipments of food had long ceased arriving, and during the second assault on the city, the grainhouses had been set ablaze and burned entirely to ash. More than half the city is more or less intact, and the authors of this report expect rebuilding to be fairly easy. The old city walls are in shambles and in most places absent, blasted apart under the weight of multiple assaults. What homes and structures had been toppled and burned have already been cleared and reclaimed by the locals, and repair is already underway on the damages to most still standing structures.

Falkreath: 78,495 as of last census. A complete loss. The northernmost reach of noble Old Colovia is nothing but a burnt out husk, nearly 3 square miles of blackened soil, charred hardwood, and shattered brick and plaster. Heat-cracked bones, ashen skeletons, and dessicated corpses fill every cobblestone street and burnt out plot. The ancient meadhall-palace that dated back to the city's early first era founding is gone, nothing even left to salvage. The great cemeteries and burial mounds and mausoleums that surrounded the city have been ravaged beyond repair; nearly every headstone has been smashed, every structure crumbled, the mounds and cairns blasted apart, and over half of the area depicted on city maps to be burial sites is unrecognizable as such. No reclamation efforts seem to have taken place in this city, though the ash, bodies, and what few buildings remain show extensive signs of looting. The entirety of the hold is a smoking ruin, and the few settlements and cities and fortresses that have survived seem shaken and huddled, afraid to venture forth and begin rebuilding. The author of this report is uncertain this part of Skyrim, once one of its most populous, will ever truly recover.

Markarth: 95,481 as of last census, 32,215 as of current. The men of the reach and the nords that inhabit the city and lands surrounding it fought fiercely and bravely against the incursions of the dremora, but the invaders eventually struck against the city by causing landslides on either side of the wide canyon the city is set inside. These landslides crushed the man-made structures within the city, and covered much of the entrances to the catacombs and mines, as well as blocking the river's ability to exit the city wall, flooding what was left of the interior. Those who became trapped in interconnected catacombs that contained stored food as well as an exit further up the city would eventually survive, but the vast majority of those residing in the Dwemeri ruin were either crushed beneath stone, or would drown or starve trapped in chambers throughout the city. The current populace of the city is not indicative of the survivors; less than 10000 men survived the landslides and waited out the rest of the siege. The others are those who have resettled to the now empty city and who are taking part in clearing stones and rubble, for parties interested both in resettling and in reopening the many mines.

Riften: 98,096 as of last census, 50,352 as of current. The beating heart of southern Skyrim and gateway to Morrowind still thumps with a degree of pride, though its surviving people are shaken, tired, and worn from fighting, even the young bearing the countenance and manner of one who has campaigned for decades. Much of the rubble from parts of the city that have been lost as well as the hastily constructed barricades and ramparts made from birch and elm remain and have not yet been cleared. Those surviving communities across the populous and well inhabited lands of The Rift fought hard and many instances to the last man against the daedra, and under the guidance of the jarl succeeded in responding quickly and establishing a plan of defense early in the Crisis. Much of the expanse of the Fall forest is burnt and ashen, but does not seem to have been assaulted with the same magical flame that was used on many of the Niben's forests; it is already recovering, and will return to its natural state in good time. Though hit repeatedly and hard, and emptied of nearly half its people, Riften still stands and will eventually return to its status as an urban center of Skyrim.

Snowhawk: 55,812 as of last census. A complete loss. Not only was the city itself ravaged and ruined, but the ancient canals constructed in Harald 1st's reign that kept the Hjaalmarch drained and viable as farmland for Solitude and later Snowhawk alike have been destroyed beyond repair, many of them gone completely and others leaving behind only traces of their structure. In the year since the crisis the hold has already become swampland and mire, the ground sinking and inundating and flooding over with mud, muck, and sinkholes. Most of what was once farmland is unrecognizable, and those villages that dotted its fields that survived the Crisis could not survive the flooding, and exist only as half sunken and abandoned ghost towns, most already waterlogged and decayed and on their way to dissapearance. The burnt and crumbled remains of snowhawk as well lie sunken and smothered in equal parts swampwater and mud, much of the ash washed away with the water and remaining surviving structures already collapsing as their foundations have given out. All that remains with a semblance of wholeness is the old Reman fort perched on the rocks above the site of the city, but it too lies half in ruins, and lies deserted and empty.

Solitude: 80,094 as of last census, 35,711 as of current. The Imperial home away from homeland was left with little organized defenses aside from Jarl Thian's personal oathmen when most of the legionnaires stationed at Castle Dour were recalled to Cyrodiil following Uriel's assassination. Though geography and high walls defended the majority of it for a while, the 30000 or so people who lived in the sprawl outside of the formation of the city were left to practically fend for themselves, and nearly all invariably perished. Stockpiles within the walls were significant enough that the flooding of Hjaalmarch did not result in starvation, but lives would still continue to be lost. In a surprise attack more than a thousand dremora climbed the rock upon which the Blue Palace was set and made it over the walls from there, entering and sacking the Blue Palace in the dead of night and killing Thian and his wife Macalla both, alongside 7 of their most prestigious thanes. Leaving the palace they then went on rampage, setting as much of the city alight as they could before the oath-warriors and remaining legionnaires managed to repulse and send them back to the void. Damages in the attack would include much of the noble district of the city and many of the inhabitants of it, who burned alive as their homes began burning in their sleep. The Bard's college has also been significantly damaged, many copies of their histories and songs burnt to cinders. They are still reviewing what has been lost and what has surviving copies, and while the damage is not completely total, a regrettable portion of their collection is lost for good.

Whiterun: 79,789 as of last census, 61,383 as of current. The great city upon the plains fared relatively well during the crisis, as well as the towns immediately around it, though those settlements and cities and strongholds on the far end of the jarldom from Whiterun are as devastated as the rest of Skyrim. The city is surrounded by rows upon rows of spiked barricades, and in the dirt are scrawled massive networks of sigils, filled with salt and iron shavings and accompanied by totems and mystic fetishes. Jarl Jsashe is missing; there is no record amongst her thanes or her populace of her dying, and it appears she simply disappeared late into the crisis. According to corroborated accounts by her warriors and citizenry, Jsashe had ordered and oversaw the construction of the huge set of sigils and runes that encompass and encircle the city beginning months before the first gates opened. Though the exact function is unknown to the populace, an oblivion gate never once opened inside the city, and neither could the daedra themselves enter. Jsashe had armed and pressed into oath-service every able bodied man and woman in the city, and had all those who had never done so before trained to use the sword. Jsashe used this impromptu army of her populace to patrol and maintain the tundra, farmsteads, and settlements immediately surrounding Whiterun, and most of the losses suffered by the city come from those who perished valiantly defending their fellow northerners.

Windhelm: 60,814 as of last census, 22,052 as of current. The first city of Skyrim stood physically strong against the Crisis, its old stone buildings repulsing the flames and taking blow after blow, but its people were not so fortunate. Two things whittled its population down to its current state over the course of the Crisis: Attacks by the daedra, and horrific starvation. Across the normally fertile volcanic soil of Eastmarch and the Lower Yorgrim, the invading daedra had razed and burned hundreds of farms and villages to the ground until the river had ran grey with ashes. Cut off from food supply and surrounded by sieging dremora, the nordic warriors of Windhelm struck out against them in repeated raids, and vice versa the daedra, and so on and so forth in a war of attrition against an enemy that did not bear mortal needs of sustenance. It was the nords themselves that destroyed the old bridge to the city, to deny an entrance to their front gates, but the toppled walls and ransacked empty streets of the Snow Quarter were committed by a succesful daedra offensive, one that killed nearly a third of the city already slowly dying of starvation over the course of four nights. Nearly every structure in the Snow Quarter had been defiled by the time a successful counterattack was mounted. Though nothing remains of it, all accounts indicate that to cover the hole that had been made in the Snow Quarter's walls, the frozen corpses of those who fell on those nights were stacked into a firm barricade of meat. Some also stated that many in the city took to cannibalizing their fallen brethren as well in order to stave off starvation, but this is far less corroborated, and most of the survivors deny this vehemently. Repair is already underway on the docks and the city walls, and construction of a new entrance bridge is in planning, but few of the city's nords show significant interest in resettling the Snow Quarter, many interviewed going so far as to indicate that that portion of the city is now 'a bad place'.

Winterhold: 58,967 as of last census, 16,006 as of current. The old capital and home to Skyrim's esteemed College of Winterhold was in a poor position at the start of the Crisis. Long a hub for the raiding bands of very traditional nords, the vast majority of Winterhold's fighting men and shield maidens, in both the hold and the city, were at the time ransacking and pillaging Redoran holdings and towns for glory, spoils, and the premise of border dispute. As such, when the gates opened, most communities and the city itself were near defenseless, and were very quickly overwhelmed. The hearthwives and children of the warriors perished in near entirety across the villages and towns, wiping them from the map and burning them down, where the snow buried them. In the city surprise attack claimed thousands quickly, but the College was quick to open its doors and let as many townsfolk as they could shove into their halls in. Over the course of months the daedra sieged the college, pillaged and ransacked the homes, and killed what unlucky nords hadn't made it in before the College was forced to seal their doors. With the surviving warriors having returned, many of them now without family, rebuilding damaged homes and disposing of the bodies the daedra left behind is underway. Though damaged immensely, the city will likely recover, though it'll be a long time before it has healed.

-Bulio Viatorius, Office of Census and Excise.

(https://www.reddit.com/r/teslore/comments/5p6boj/a_bit_more_census_details_of_skyrim/ more information on it all. )