Ready for a fictional history lesson?
One of my favourite parts of The Elder Scrolls and the way it tells its lore, is the fact way a lot of the very special magical items aren't just imbued with special effects, but also with a living history which evolves and changes from game to game. It's something that I can really appreciate in the wake of all the CRPGs I've played recently, wherein you'll find plenty of named magical items with mostly forgettable effects and paragraphs of meaningless 'lore' attached to them; with stark exception given to the items of lore from Tyranny, because no game nailed 'living legend history' like Tyranny did. Perhaps the epitome of these magically enchanted weapons of legend in the Elder Scrolls universe are the Daedric Artefacts: Items of power tied to, and sometimes created by, one of the powerful Daedric Princes who influence much of the world of Nirn. These are all very unique items, tied with heavy lore, that are famous, no least of all for being collected by perhaps every player character in history; making the legend of their exploits the legend of your own as well.
Everyone has their Daedric artefact which they love the most, the one which speaks to them and their tastes, whether that be for its effect, general aesthetic, or the story written across its surface. For me that weapon is the ever-changing Sword of warfare and shadow, capable of such legendary carnage that most who came to wield it throughout history found their own names overshadowed and lost to its glory. I speak of the weapon of legend: Umbra. A dark purple blade, sometimes a long sword, at others a two handed sword, imbued with the ability to cleave away the very souls of those it fells and, perhaps consequential, always a weapon held in the hands of some nameless slaughterer very willing and confidant to challenge any who think they can claim the weapon for themselves. It's almost like the Elder Wand from Harry Potter, a weapon most feel invincible with, until they encounter that one person who is more deserving of the sword than they. (Spoilers: that person is always you.)
Some may be aware of the weapon but not even know that it is a Daedric Artefact or what significance that fact even has. Indeed, I do believe that in the game it was introduced, Morrowind, there's absolutely no indication whatsoever this is such a tool, and the relevant Daedric Prince who would eventually have it tied to his name didn't even have a questline in that game. (Even though three of his artefacts appeared in the game.) Of course I speak of the Child-god of the Morningstar, Clavicus Vile, the trickster Prince who's entire MO is trying to set people up with deals that ultimately don't go their way. Seems a strange fit, does it not? A Prince who prides themselves with their cerebral tricks and backhanded deals handing out a sword of ultimate destruction? Seems like something you'd expect more out of Molag Bal or Mehrunes Dagon. But look a bit deeper into the history of such a device, and you'll see the signature trademark of the child-god clear as day.
The Sword was created by one Naenra Waerr, (try saying that 5 times fast) a witch who took up the commission to make a sword specifically for Soul Harvesting, because apparently Clavicus Vile is too lazy to just use Soul Trap, one of the most basic conjuration spells. The Witch succeeded, but only barely for the sword she made was unstable and required some form of significant power to bring it under control. (Or at least, that's how one of the stories, the one which makes the most sense to me, goes) The Witch had Clavicus imbue some of his own power into it, only to reveal that she had tricked the great trickster himself! The Sword would siphon off a great deal of Clavicus' power and develop a sort of sentience of it's own, becoming the entity known as Umbra. Thus the reason that everyone who wields this blade becomes a war obsessed psychopath who loses their very identify to the weapon, is because they're becoming quietly possessed by the being inside of it. (There's the trickery I'd expect of ol' Mr Vile.)
After the Oblivion Crisis, the spirit within Umbra managed to solidify itself into a body and escape the confines of the Sword in which it was trapped, becoming a sort of shadow off the godling Clavicus Vile. This entity couldn't just leave the realm of his master however, because Vile had personally put safeguards up to tie the thing to his realm a while back. Instead, Umbra ended up siphoning Clavicus Vile's power and running away to claim a city from Vile's realm as his own; dubbing it 'Umbriel'. But that is far from the end of this story. You see, after the events of Morrowind and the destruction of the godly Tribunal, (Either by the Nerevarine destroying their power source or directly slaying the gods ontop of that) the many magical feats of the Tribunal began to fade from the world. One such feat would be the Ministry of Truth; the floating meteor hanging over Vvardenfell's Vicec City which the Tribunal god Vivec had halted on it's route to crushing the place. You can sort of see what problems might arise when he suddenly lost all his powers/ was brutally murdered.
One scientist devised a way to keep the Meteor in the air, through a powerful soul powered machine which required souls and also was a soul eating machine. (Why did anyone think that was a good idea? Why not just relocate?) So grisly connotations aside, the device didn't work and exploded, sending the asteroid careening through Oblivion and eventually into Clavicus Vile's realm. Umbra saw this happening and chucked his sword through the hole in Vile's realm that the ministry created before it could seal up again. This sword, through way of possession, managed to summon up some less-than-willing acolytes to build another soul machine, this one tied to the city of Umbriel and powered by Umbra's stolen fragment of Clavicus Vile's power. (Are you still following me? I feel like I'm barely following myself) The result? Freedom of a sorts, for Umbra and his city. Umbriel would be propelled across the realms of Oblivion as a floating city powered by souls until it eventually wound up in Nirn and almost caused a soul-zombie apocalypse.
Wow. That's a lot of flavour lore around what was originally just a sword with, in all honesty, a rather lacklustre enchantment effect tied to it. Who'd have thought a simple weapon that I had locked in a display case in my Oblivion castle would contain the sentient fragment of a god? Or go on to struggle against said god for supremacy, it just goes to show the real smattering of history some of these fragments of the Elder Scrolls world has. Whilst Umbra's journey may be up for the time being, with the sword being understandably absent from Skyrim, there's plenty of other tools with stories going even further back, if not with two extended universe books dedicated purely to fleshing them out. I'll see which of those is worth a summary blog too.
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