The Fall of House Telvanni, preface

The Fall of House Telvanni By Athaso Valas, College of Winterhold, 4E 202.

Despite two centuries having elapsed, one can only look in vain for a reliable history of the supposed fall of House Telvanni. The widely-circulated report issued by the Imperial Commission entitled 'The Uprising of the East' does not seek to explain the fall of House Telvanni, but rather shows more interest in illuminating how a lapse in Cyrodiilic suzerainty resulted in widespread chaos and destruction. The recent re-issue and distribution of the work in Skyrim as a result of the Stormcloak Rebellion furthers this point. Men only care only for history when it illuminates them in a desirable fashion. Furthermore, the Commission wrote hastily, relying mainly on dated oral testimony as their archives were either in Telvanni hands or had been destroyed by imperial officials during the retreat.

In addition to the blatant problems with the standard account, the widespread exodus during the Red Year and those that followed brought many sad tales to the rest of Tamriel (and which, at least in High Rock, has resulted in a popular set voyeuristic, tasteless novels, with each year bringing more lurid tales than the last). Many stories are preserved in the Dunmer diaspora, but they are anecdotal ancestral memories and myths of longing for a lost homeland, not a synthetic attempt to understand the events that led to exile.

Thus in the popular imagination and in what passes as history taught in the universities of central and western Tamriel, the fall of House Telvanni is a simple event. In disarray after the Red Year, vengeful Argonians seeking retribution after centuries of abuse and enslavement poured over the border and laid waste to Morrowind, and House Telvanni along with it. Reality, as any well-travelled individual knows, is much more complicated. Some Argonians did take advantage of the situation in Morrowind, but the Argonians who despoiled Telvanni holdings first did so after having been invited by the Telvanni themselves. House Telvanni remade itself in an orgy of redemptive violence spurred on by the spectre of catastrophe. As anyone who has visited eastern Morrowind can attest, House Telvanni was not destroyed during the Red Year and as of the writing of this book is still the pre-eminent power in the northeast of the continent.

The Red Year set in motion a series of events that resulted in the radical and sometimes paradoxical transformation of the House. A variety of underlying factors brought its instability to a critical point, and the strife that was unleashed left the House so changed and so many of its members dead that the House of 4E 200 would be almost unrecognizable to a Telvanni of 3E 200. The relative decline of imperial power, the widespread challenges that rocked Morrowind following the return of the Nerevarine, and the slow breaking of Telvanni social structures set in motion by the Oblivion crisis all played a role. Pedants may complain that the title of this work should then refer to the fall of the classical form of the House, or the birth of a new House Telvanni in the Fourth Era; this is irrelevant.

House Telvanni destroyed itself. When faced with serious threats from the outside, the Telvanni demonstrated two great strengths. Their pragmatism allowed them to work together effectively, while the nucleated and isolated nature of Telvanni society meant that as long as one sadrith and its wizard-lord remained, the House could reproduce its social structures. This was amply demonstrated during the Akaviri Invasion of the Second Era, where fierce initial Telvanni resistance prompted the invaders to land in Skyrim. The Oblivion Crisis of 3E 433 scarcely touched the Telvanni lands, as Mehrunes Dagon rapidly learned that not only could the Telvanni shut his gates with only a modicum of effort, but that they rather preferred to keep them open as an easy means of access to Oblivion. The Red Year presented a less tangible external threat and instead magnified the instabilities in Telvanni society, shaking it to its roots. Factionalism, an issue in a society where anyone can claim the rank of magister provided they can ward off any challengers, divided the House into two main groups. The scale of the conflict escalated quickly. Historically, changes of power amongst the top levels of the Telvanni are rare, for many of the masters had centuries to establish their power, but when it happened it was usually quick and limited in scope. A siege, duel, or a simple assassination may lead to a transition of power with no more than a body destroyed, or more rarely, a city. The escalation of this conflict put armies in the field, though, and the Telvanni lords, unaccustomed to such methods of warfare, soon found themselves involved in a spiral of destruction that annihilated much of the old elite and devastated the east of Morrowind.

The conflict changed House Telvanni in radical and sometimes paradoxical ways. A war that began in opposition to efforts at centralization resulted in a much more centralized House. Centuries of Telvanni hostility to Imperial rule culminated in one great raid that set off a chain of destabilizing events, each more destructive than the last. The long-time eastern and western polarity of a House based mainly around the Zafirbel Bay and the Telvanni Isles came to an end and was replaced with a new north-south axis. While the Telvanni have been considered xenophobic even by Dunmer standards, now one of the great Telvanni masters is an Orsimer, and pockets of Argonians live in the southeast as subjects, not slaves.

This is the account of that war. This book is intended for an audience in the Empire, and so some effort is made to explain Telvanni society. No general history of House Telvanni after the war exists, although readers interested in certain aspects may find interesting Athaso Valas’s ‘Accounting of the Establishment of the Telvanni Principality of Bal Oyra’ and ‘The Argonians of Alt’Bosara and the Boethian Lake’, both commissioned for and published by the Imperial Geographical Society in 4E 192 and 4E 196, respectively.