The Elder Scrolls’creation myth feels like it was cooked up by a bunch of sleep-deprived writers crammed into a room and told they need to figure out the meaning of life by the end of the week. It’s conspiratorial, metaphysical, and as silly as it is enthralling.
Everyone is living in the Godhead’s dream, who long ago birthed the primal forces of chaos and order - Padomay and Anu. Their combined blood stirred up the Aedra, godly beings who would later sacrifice their power to become the world of mortals itself.
Now that you know this, one of two things may happen—you either become a lucid dreamer (achieving CHIM) and ascend to godhood… or Zero Sum and die. Sorry.
But not every Aedroth was so willing to surrender their divinity, and so a new pantheon emerged that rang closer to the chaos of their forebear Padomay—the Daedra. These demonic beings conjured up realms of Oblivion from their own flesh, separate to the newly formed Mundus that their kin had created. We would come to know these 17 different Princes over the course of the series, even becoming their champions on occasion.
But after nearly 30 years,The Elder Scrolls Onlinehas shattered everything we knew about the Daedra, revealing a secret Prince who had been wiped from the annals of history—Ithelia, the Mistress of the Untraveled Road.
Ithelia Is A Danger To Existence Itself In ESO
“Hermaeus Mora tells us from the beginning, at the end of Necrom, that just her very presence is a threat to reality,” narrative director Bill Slavicsek tells me. “She can cause reality to unravel. In a lot of ways, that’s more than just Nirn. That’s Oblivion as well, which is why Mora is so concerned. Oblivion is where he keeps all his stuff, and he doesn’t want to lose that.”
There’s a long-runningfan theorythat every single Elder Scrolls game has been working towards the unraveling of reality. Several towers across Tamriel were created by Aedra and elves, and it’s believed that their existence keeps Mundus from dissolving back into Oblivion.
InThe Elder Scrolls 4, the Amulet of Kings—which was forged from the White-Gold Tower’s stone—was destroyed; the Brass Tower was halved when Numidian was torn down in Daggerfall and Morrowind; and the Crystal Tower fell apart during the Oblivion crisis. But Ithelia’s existence is even more dangerous than the unraveling of Mundus’ foundations.
“Her threat is actually beyond the towers,” Slavicsek says. “It’s more than Nirn. It’s all of existence.”
What Do Ithelia’s Followers Get Out Of Worshiping Her?
Each Daedric Prince stands for something, whether that’s destruction, knowledge, trickery, or hunting, but Ithelia is far more abstract. She represents the many possible futures that fate could splinter into, which begs the question ofhowyou worship her, and to what end?
“We assumed that her early Ayleid followers would have prayed to her or offered a sacrifice or whatever before they went on a long trip,” Slavicsek explains. “She may not have been totally benevolent, but she was helpful in her own way. We tried to get that into her personality as you meet her along the story. It’s not so much that she wants to destroy everything, it’s just a byproduct of her portfolio that she was not even aware of.”
ZeniMax Online’s Reaction To The New Daedric Prince
There hasn’t been a ‘new’ member of the pantheon since the Daedric Prince of Order Jyggalag appeared in The Shivering Isles DLC for Oblivion in 2007. He was betrayed by the other Princes due to his raw power, ironically cursed with madness and turned into Sheogorath, only being allowed to return to his original form at the end of each era.
However, Jyggalag was referenced as far back as Daggerfall in the ‘90s, so he’s not exactly a surprise addition to the pantheon. Ithelia is the first of her kind, and the reaction at ZeniMax Online when Slavicsek pitched her sums that up perfectly.
“It was, ‘Can we do that? That’s exciting. Wehaveto do it, right?’,” Slavicsek tells me, jumping back into that moment at the office when he dropped the bombshell that he was going to put a stamp on the lore like ESO never had. “We wrote the ending like three or four times before we got the final version and said, ‘Yeah, let’s ship it.’ It was a lot of fun putting it together, a little daunting, but that’s part of the fun.”
He and loremaster Michael Zenke put together a matrix of all the existing Princes to see what aspects hadn’t been covered, and that led them to the Fate-Changer. “We wanted a Prince that wasn’t quite as over-the-top evil as Molag Bal or Mehrunes Dagon and a good foil for Hermaeus Mora,” Slavicsek says. “When you get to play the Gold Road, you interact a lot with Ithelia and find out who she is from her point of view as she’s learning and remembering from the beginning as well.”
To his relief, Ithelia wasn’t seen as a retcon defiling the established lore. Instead, fans embraced her almost immediately. We haven’t even met her yet and there’s already a wealth of cosplay and fanart.
“I was recently at the Amsterdam [ten year anniversary] event and getting to meet the cosplayer who was doing Ithelia was wonderful,” Slavicsek recounts. “She had the wings and everything, and then the voice actor was there as well. It was great, and the fans were all over it, so it gives me high hopes that they’re going to like the way the story goes.”
How ESO Keeps The More Outlandish Lore Approachable
When diving into the realm of divinity in The Elder Scrolls, it can get a bit confusing. The idea of CHIM, the Godhead’s dream, Padomay and Anu, and gods who both sacrificed themselves to form Mundus and still exist as a worshiped pantheon are incredibly metaphysical concepts that are difficult to comprehend.
Introducing a new Daedra who was cast out as part of a wider conspiracy to prevent the unraveling of existence means broaching some lore-heavy topics, but ESO is working hard to make it palatable.
“We love to take big weighty concepts and ground them in the personal, in the specific,” Zenke says. “I think we made what might be an otherwise very abstract concept grounded and approachable by developing a cast of characters with specific viewpoints on Ithelia’s situation.
“Through your experiences with these characters, you’ll be able to form your own viewpoint by deciding who you believe. Who you think has a strong argument, or by growing to care about a character’s goals. These interpersonal connections are what let us take things that can feel like a daunting wiki entry and connect them directly to your gameplay, to your character, and ultimately what lets us tell exciting stories in Tamriel.”
“The way we approach stories, not just the big metaphysical ones, but even your murder mysteries or just a person that needs your help, is we give you the basics but if you want more, it’s all in the background,” Slavicsek adds. “You can go get that if you want it without getting in the way if you’re a player who likes to go a little faster.”
you may meet Ithelia for yourself whenThe Elder Scrolls Online: Gold Roadlaunches on June 3.
The Elder Scrolls Online: Gold Road
The Elder Scrolls Online: Gold Road is an expansion for the popular Bethesda MMORPG. When a lost Daedric Prince returns to West Weald, chaos ensues. A new zone is added, as well as the Scribing system and a 12-person trial, the Lucent Citadel.
