Dawn's Beauty
| Dawn's Beauty | |
|---|---|
  | |
| Genre | Fantasy, based on The Elder Scrolls |
| Established | 2023 |
| Creator | Dawnstar |
| Progress | Active |
| Contributors | 3 |
| No. of articles | List (469 articles) |
Today is 2 Morning Star, 4E 150.
Dawn's Beauty (DB) is a worldbuilding project set in the universe of The Elder Scrolls. The aim of the project is to fill in the gaps of The Elder Scrolls lore to create a more living, breathing world. Neglected periods of history will be covered; terms that received only a brief mention will be expounded upon; new characters will be created and existing characters will be fleshed out; distant lands will be explored. Inferences will be made from existing lore to accomplish this, but where official content is lacking, a variety of unofficial sources may be consulted, and some content will be wholly original.
The project will attempt to remain consistent with what has already been written, but will not be constrained by the limits of the game series' technology. Rather than adhering to the watered-down version as it appeared in-game, Dawn's Beauty will aspire to imagine Tamriel in its most wondrous scale and grandeur. Whenever lore contradictions are found, this project will favor the most balanced version of events, one that best encapsulates the spirit of the series, not the technical limitations.
Contributors
- Dawnstar (project lead)
- Centrist16
- Thewolvesden
Pages
Etymology
"Dawn's Beauty" is a translation of the Ehlnofex word for Tamriel, the great Arena where the main events of the series take place. It also symbolizes the majesty of the early lore—which this project will try to encapsulate—before it became watered down by technological constraints.
In its draft stage, the project was known by the working title of TES+, and is still known by this name on some other sites.
What's the difference?
Many aspects of Dawn's Beauty are different from the official Elder Scrolls canon, including geography, chronology, interpretation of history, and more.
Chronology
The historical timeline has been modified for a more realistic sequence of events. The traditional length of the First Era is placed under question, while the Fourth Era has been reduced in length. Across all eras, certain historical events have been reordered for plausibility's sake. Additionally, some events whose placement was in doubt have been given a definitive date, such as the Battle of Red Mountain (1E 668), wherein the alternative dates (1E 688 and 1E 700) were the result of a typo and an approximation, respectively.
First Era
The First Era is no longer universally assumed to contain 2,920 years, with some scholars preferring not to count the Middle Dawn, thus bringing the tally to 1,912 years or so according to these interpretations. The debate between these competing schools of thought should be reflected in the new lore.
Second Era
As before, the events of The Elder Scrolls Online still begin in 2E 582, but they are now spread out over the following decade, with the various chapters and DLC taking place in their corresponding year of release, rather than all at once. The Necrom expansion, for example, was released in 2023 (nine years after the release of ESO proper) and will thus have taken place in 2E 591 (nine years after the start date).
Third Era
The Oblivion Crisis still occurs in 3E 433, as do many of Oblivion's add-ons, with the notable exception of Shivering Isles and Fighter's Stronghold, which take place the following year (4E 1).
Fourth Era
The Fourth Era has been condensed by just under a third, with the destruction of Helgen at the start of The Elder Scrolls V now occurring in 4E 136 as opposed to 4E 201. The Dawnguard, Hearthfire, and Dragonborn DLCs take place the following year, 4E 137. The events of Beyond Skyrim: Bruma take place between 4E 136 and 142. The current year in Dawn's Beauty overall is held to be 4E 150, that is, 14 years from the start date, corresponding to the number of real-life years that have passed since the year of Skyrim's release.
Naming
- Main article: List of analogues and retcons (Dawn's Beauty)
Various names of people, places, and things have been altered in the interest of immersion.
Settlements which shared their name with a real-world place (Corinth, Gideon) now have lore-friendly names (Drenithe, Caedon). Certain "translated" place names have been untranslated according to the fanon precedent (Blacklight is now Baan Malur). And places with contrived-sounding names (Skyreach, Evermore) are now given proper names (Calachel, Vetelis). Province names are currently unchanged so as not to cause too much confusion, but an explanatory note has been added to the articles, justifying their name as well as providing an in-universe alternative.
Names believed to refer to the same person (notably "Ormellius Goldwine" and "Haderus Goldwine") are rationalized as being different parts of their full name (Haderus Ormellius Goldwine). Overly-American-sounding names have been replaced or retconned (Gentleman Jim Stacey).
Flavor
This project will contain much in the way of miscellaneous "flavor" articles to add completeness to the world of The Elder Scrolls.
Style guidelines
Writing
A loose encyclopedic style is desirable. Compared to Wikipedia, Dawn's Beauty will have more florid descriptions, richer detail, a heightened narrative focus, and an emphasis on the interesting rather than the notable. Citing in-game sources is encouraged, as is making up new sources to give this lore credence.
However, the intent is to add depth to this world, not unnecessary breadth. DB lore should remain faithful to the overall framework of existing lore. Contributors should not introduce too many wholly original elements (such as new technologies, new landmasses, black swan events, etc.) that would clash with the heart of The Elder Scrolls. Conversely, not all content from the series is worthy of inclusion either—the obviously gamey stuff like racial powers, ESO's 1,001 mounts, Skyrim's crossover content or other implausible addons can be safely trimmed.
Capitalization
Names of species and races: Those typically lowercased in English ("human", "dragon" or "goblin", etc.) need not be capitalized, nor do TES-original terms that are sufficiently broad and generic ("daedra", "atronach", "mer"). Demonyms ("Akaviri", "Argonian", "Khajiit", "Reachman") and other specific culture-carrying names ("Redguard", "Nord", "Dunmer") should be capitalized, as should collective nouns ("Hist", "Sload"), but generic descriptors ("cat-folk", "snake-men", "slug-folk") need not be.
Acronyms that are pronounced as words may be lowercased; for example, "Almsivi".
Completion
Placeholder content should be avoided outside of sandbox articles. This includes blank pages or sections, pages consisting solely of an infobox, "to-be-determined" or "work-in-progress" markers, etc. The reason is that such content only serves to tarnish the quality of an article, especially when planned constructions go unfulfilled. Instead, content should be added once it has been decided (or, in-character, once it has been "learned"). This has the benefit of giving articles a more natural appearance in the stub stage.
Speaking of stubs, they are fine so long as they are marked accordingly, categorized according to topic, and composed of more than just a sentence fragment or an infobox. Extreme low-effort stubs will be removed.
Images
Imagery used in this project should be of a high quality, and should contribute to a sense of immersion in the world. For illustrations, a realistic or semi-realistic style is preferred. Screenshots from the video games may be used if they do not betray a reduced sense of scale or otherwise have ugly textures, seams, obvious gameplay elements, or other immersion-breaking phenomena. Filtered/modded screenshots are therefore preferred. Real-life photographs are acceptable, but they should not have any out-of-character or immersion-breaking elements present in the frame; the same goes for AI-generated images.
Copyright
Although Dawn's Beauty is by nature a derivative (fan) project, we will make a reasonable effort to respect both copyright law and copyright holders. Official Elder Scrolls media is to be used sparingly, and only for the purposes of illustration or context. Third-party content may be used only with the permission of its author, or under the author's preferred license. Ultimately, The Elder Scrolls belongs to Bethesda Softworks.