The Nibenese Flamboyancy

Antonius of Niben, Imperial Historians Guild, 4E 203.

Many tourists to the Imperial City are fascinated by what has been described as the Nibenese flamboyancy, a peculiar preference of the Eastern Cyrodiils of Nibenay to extravagance, luxury, and aesthetic complexity in the form of garishly colorful silk costumes, bizarre tapestries, opulent housing, and a plenitude of spiritual orgies. To the Colovians, it is a tiring and irritating depravity; to the Bretons, it is a culture to admire and imitate; to the Dunmer, it is a fascinating Western culture that still pales in comparison to their own; to the Altmer, it is the perfect example of why men do not deserve to govern empires. In order to properly understand the Nibenese flamboyancy, one must understand the history of the Nibenese.

The people who could come to be known as the Nibenese emerged out of the Nedes of Nibenay, the enslaved race of men who toiled for their masters, the wicked Ayleids. Under the Ayleids, the Nedes’ chains were placed on both the wrists, and the mind, for they were permitted to keep no names, wear no clothes, own no possessions, and, in some cases, speak not at all. The Nedes were little more than animals and playthings for the Heartland High Elves, the worst of whom abused their slaves in sickening rituals to worship the Daedric Princes. Following the Alessian Slave Rebellion and the destruction of the Daedraphile Ayleids, the newly-freed men found themselves starved of culture, and, in reaction to the inhuman austerity they had suffered at the hands of their masters, began to develop one of the richest and most vibrant cultures found in Tamriel.

The Nedes knew no names under the Ayleids, and as such, upon their liberation, they took as many as they could remember, ranging from two or three to nine or twelve, for it was an incredibly novelty. They had worn no clothes, but now that they owned the silk farms they had worked in for decades under the Ayleids, they began crafting extravagant costumes of bright colors, adorned with all manner of attractive trinkets. They had been permitted no possessions, and as such, took towards collecting as much material wealth as possible. In the newly-emerging culture of the Nibenese, complexity, extravagance, and flamboyancy became paramount, as expressions of personal success. Anyone who possessed merely one name, or one dreary garment, or a simple home, was perceived as little more than a slave by the Nibenese, and these people were thoroughly rejected and ostracized. The Nibenese class structure that would dominate the Valley for the rest of its civilization emerged shortly following the Alessian Rebellion, as wealth became an affirmation of liberty itself, and poverty because a symbol of personal failure to liberate one’s self from the mental chains of their long-dead masters.

This connection between prosperity and individuality was exacerbated as the Imperial City began to trade with its neighbors, primarily Skyrim and Pelletine, for all sorts of exotic Cyrodilic goods, including its legendary silks and ancestor-silks, newtscale armor, and the moon-sugar that grew on the banks of the southern Niben, as well as the rice that was native to the Nibenay Valley and the Nibenay Valley alone. This massively increasing wealth lead to the class divide between the wealthy and the impoverished to grow even further, cementing this class divide in Nibenay permanently; some call the Nibenese a materialistic people, who care only for their individual gain and not for the well-being of their brothers, and from the perspective of an outsider, this is difficult to dispute. After all, they say, the Colovians are a very egalitarian people: their various kings, war-lords, and Highland tribe-leaders do not respect the Nibenese flamboyancy, and believe instead in the creation of purely economically practical kingdoms with no regard for beauty in its architecture or people.

However, the Nibenese flamboyancy is a central aspect of our culture, and, if anything, it is a representation of the pervasiveness of the wealth that the Nibenese contribute to the Empire, and that the Empire contributes to the Nibenese. The merchant-nobles speak in tongues of gold and silver, but their palaces also serve as a secretive language to communicate the wealth of the merchant, which is incredibly useful in business; the Nibenese merchants are also famed for their stupendous generosity, and the well-known Lucius Octavius, a devout Imperial Cultist who has earned the nickname of the Silk King of Cyrodiil, has recently opened his private zoo to all citizens of the Empire to admire his collection of exotic creatures, including cliff racers of Vvardenfell, dragonlings of High Rock, Argonian wamasu, and a Sload. The Nibenese flamboyancy is not simply a materialistic obsession with wealth and extravagance, but is a formal rejection of slavery and tyranny, and is an affirmation of the liberty, individuality, and humanity of the Nibenese man. Consider that the next time you look upon our tattooed faces and silk-draped bodies, and think of us depraved and debauched hedonists, for there is nothing more insulting to a Nibenese than to be compared to his dead, elven masters. .