Books in the Elder Scrolls series

[Sparkie]

This, IMHO, is one of the best ideas I've ever seen used in a video game. "Books" that you can discover, buy, sell, and read. They can be used to increase skill and teach spells of course, but I find the stories to be fun as well. Some of my favorites are "The Real Barenziah" series, "Immortal Blood," and "The Art of War Magic."

Anyone else read these? Do you have some favorites?

 

[Telcontar]

Yep, always liked 'em. I've read most of them multiple times, because a lot of them have existed in multiple games and I've been playing Elder Scrolls since Morrowind.

"A Game At Dinner" is one that I remember. There are a couple others I can remember the contents of but not the title, like the ones that talk about the Nerevarine.

 

[RTGerardson]

Oh, good times. In Morrowind, I had the Telvanni Tower from that faction quest and filled it with heaps and heaps of books (and also skulls and ash statues), causing the game to lag like crazy when I was in there (I played it on xbox). Confessions of a Skooma-Eater, Lives of the Saints, The Ruins of Kemel-Ze and Chance's Folly. Lots of hours where uselessly spent reading bits of info about the world. If that isn't good world building in a game, I don't know what is.

 

[Aidan of the tavern]

In Oblivion all my houses had at least one copy of "On Morrowind".

 

[Leif Notae]

Someone went through and compiled all the "books" from Skyrim into one PDF. The Wolf Queen was my favorite... And no right/left button/stick to flip through pages!

 

[Sheriff Woody]

PAGAN: ULTIMA VIII came with my first PC in 1994, and that game had books that you can pick up, carry around, and read. Some weren't bad. Others were hilarious.

 

[TheTdroid]

I do read books when I play TES. Some of my favorites are The Mirror, The Arcturian Heresy andthe Incident at Necrom.

 

[TheFlayer]

"The Lusty Argonian Maid" anyone?

No but seriously I read "The Importance of Where" in Skyrim and laughed at that last line until my stomach hurt.

 

[Kikuchiyo]

I don't know why, but I really enjoyed Ahzirr Traajijazeri (it's the book detailing the worldview of the Khajiit for those of you who don't know or remember). Even though I think it was mostly nonsense, I liked how it was written.

 

[Rinzei]

I always thought a great mod idea would be to introduce a bookshop of just fan-books for the game, like a fan collective. Never got around to it though.

I sat a read a lot of the books in Oblivion, but I've not done as much in Skyrim. I'm a bad scholar this time around.

 

[Zero Angel]

Most D&D games have at least a page of text about the books, but TES definitely takes it up a notch. My biggest issue is that I usually don't want to start reading in the middle of a series and so wait until I reach end-game levels where I have every single book, and by then I am overwhelmed by how many books I have to read and give up after just a few.

I do think that most fantasy worlds should have if not books, at least scholarly articles written in-verse. I've written a few and have sketched out a few more. It's a nice exercise.

 

[Scribble]

PAGAN: ULTIMA VIII came with my first PC in 1994, and that game had books that you can pick up, carry around, and read. Some weren't bad. Others were hilarious.

They continued that in Ultima Online. These were well done. What I found to be even better was that they had player written books.

 

[TrustMeImRudy]

Elder Scrolls is my favorite game series because of all the background lore, which was introduced to me by those books. If you wanna read 'em, this is great:

Lore:Books by Subject - UESPWiki

I love all books under Esoteric Texts, and Religion, Myth & Prophecy, and one book series in particular was The Adventures of Eslaf Erol. Its so silly, I love it, makes me laugh every other line.

 

[Chessie]

My characters take time to sit down with a good book quite often. Some of my favorites are: "The Locked Room", "Chance's Folly", "A Cabin In The Woods", "The Woodcutter's Wife", and Cicero's Journals.

 

[Kn'Trac]

Immortal Blood is definately my favorite in Skyrim.

 

[Chessie]

Another good one (its name is escaping me) is about the couple that takes their sick daughter to a group of necromancers. It reminded me of a fairy tale gone wrong.

 

[SM-Dreamer]

I love that the books are there, and I have trouble leaving a book behind <.<; I haven't read a lot of them (I spend more time collecting, lol) but the one I have read and liked a lot was... The Horror of Castle Xyr, which I first read in Morrowind.

But I really love the concept, that you can read them in game, that they open up new dimensions to the lore.

 

[Hoff]

The Real Barenziah, A Dance in Fire, and Ahzirr Traajijazeri are great.


I also really like the diary of the Dark Brotherhood traitor in Oblivion.

"When in the snow I like to lie and fold my arms and wait to die."