Special: The New Life Festival

[tall mica]

The festive season has been and gone, but it's not too late to celebrate the joys of gift giving! The New Life Festival is a Tamriel-wide event that celebrates the birth of a new year and the death of the old year. Almost all major races in Tamriel celebrate the New Life Festival in their own culturally unique way, and the celebrations themselves have been known to change over time.

To celebrate the New Life Festival in our own way, we wanted to take a look back on the year that has been in lore, and what we're looking forward to in 2025.
What things have you learned in TES lore this year, and what do you want to learn more about next year?

-# Happy New Years to all, from the Mage team!

<@&1011584455019872266> 🙏

[jaunty mountain]

I feel strangely called out by this question

[tall mica]

[lost bone]

I don't think it has to be new stuff btw! Just new to you. Imo at least

[dapper raven]

I learned Michael Kirkbride worked on Minecraft Story Mode

[lost bone]

xD

[dapper raven]

I hope to learn what other weird things he’s worked on in the coming new year

[lost bone]

Have you seen Immortals of Aveum? It's got some interesting things going on

[dapper raven]

I have not!

[jaunty mountain]

Wasn't the main complaint for Aveum that its story was "too complicated"? 😂

[lost bone]

He and Kurt also made like a star wars fanfic a while ago. Iirc Titus Mede's name is from it

[fathom owl]

i learnt sum shit about vivec

shoutout to secchan

[dapper raven]

In seriousness though this was the year I got into Oblivion and swiftly found myself very intrigued by Mankar Camoran’s lore so I had a fun time digging through UESP pages on everything Camoran and Mythic Dawn related.
As for next year? Hope to learn anything TESVI related, officially.

[jaunty mountain]

This year I learned a lot about a lot (Mage role wooooo!!!). As for next year I'm hoping to keep learning a lot about a lot, but with less obsession involved 🙏

[lost bone]

Fr, congrats on Mage!

[jaunty mountain]

tyty 😄

[lost bone]

Mankar is a lot of fun to learn about. He's such a different perspective on things, while simultaneously being kind of familiar?

[dapper raven]

Such an underrated/underdeveloped villain too. I wish Oblivion’s narrative gave him more than three moments to shine and impose himself

[lost bone]

Fr

His speech was also literally a draft email that went unedited and shit 💀

It's still fun tho

[dapper raven]

Esp considering his voice is TERENCE STAMP. What a cool actor to use

[lost bone]

I think it was his speech. I'll check

[dapper raven]

YEAH 😭 which is super unfortunate bc lots of fans will write him off as being a dumb villain in game (for misnaming Princes and their realms) when it was just creative oversight

MK wrote that speech too and iirc commented on how if he knew who would be voice acting Camoran he’d have put in some crazier shit and given it a read-over. Which in part is very funny but also in part kind of relieving that we didn’t get more than the wildness already presented

[lost bone]

And THEN! ESO made certain parts of what he said "kind of true"

[dapper raven]

I’m not complaining

Anything to give Camoran a little bit more merit in the fandom

Oblivion you poor poor middle child

[lost bone]

Meridia and Coldharbour you say?
https://en.m.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Hollow_City

He's still wrong ofc, it's Molag Bal's Coldharbour, not Meridia's, but it's interesting that Meridia does actually have a small, protected area in Coldharbour

[upbeat ingot]

uuuuuhhh

learnt about the grey maybe, and i want to learn... more

[lost bone]

I think the thing I've liked learning about the most this year (and the end of last year) is the Many Paths. We've gotten a lot of lore in that direction lately, and a lot of discussions about it happened, both here and elsewhere. As for next year, I also hope we hear smth on TES6, but moreso I'm curious on the larger content drops mentioned in the ESO 2025 & Beyond thing. I'm hoping we see more of Vaermina, although tbf she was very relevant very recently already

[topaz zealot]

Hey, I've been in that city for like a year

[tame echo]

Well atleast it's a Coldharbour and not a far...

[topaz zealot]

You are not welcome in the water tank

[cinder lake]

The fuck is the "new life festival"?

[dusky ledge]

festival celebrating New Life

[tame echo]

The New Life Festival (also shortened to New Life) is a Tamriel-wide event that celebrates the birth of a new year and the death of the old year. In contrast to the Old Life Festival, New Life takes place at the beginning of Morning Star. It was originally the celebration of the sun god, Magnus, but over time it changed into a celebration of the gift of New Life, heralded by the sun. The New Life Festival also marks the start of the Winter Solstice, when Magnus the Sun begins his return, and the days start to grow longer. Almost all major races in Tamriel celebrate the New Life Festival in their own culturally unique way, and the celebrations themselves have been known to change over time. Many of the celebrations are symbolic of a historical event or have some deeper meaning. Celebrations include races, feasts, games, and dancing. - UESP

[ember ether]

The delivery of it from Stamp really does sell the notion of his seeming madness, something he later continued in Halo 3 as The Prophet of Truth, as his previous voice actor Michael Wincott refused to reprise the role.

Michael Wincott delivered a powerful character with immense political machinations, and Terrence Stamp delivered that character when said machinations all unravel steadily one by one.

He's really good at voicing characters who have gone mad in some sense.

Personally I think they should have leaned into the misconceptions further that Camoran asserts, and make more of them true!

Or not true

But partly

Or true from a certain point of view