CREATE A (HYPOTHETICAL) LIVE-ACTION ELDER SCROLLS SERIES!

[CoGDork]

With live-action adaptations of The Witcher and a Lord of the Rings series in the works, I thought about what a live-action TES series might look like (what the story and setting would be, who the characters would be, who would play them). I had a few ideas for this entirely hypothetical show, but I figured there were plenty of people here that might be interested in this idea. Here are the requirements for such a show:

• 
  
• It must be at least relatively lore-friendly.
  
• It must be an entirely original story not connected to any of the games or novels.
  
• It must be accessible and understandable to an audience that has never remotely heard of the games or the franchise as well as to fans.
  
• As a corollary to the previous point, it should provide a good introduction to the franchise setting and lore.
  

With that stated, my concept is this (again, you could easily throw this out and propose an entirely different one so long as it fits the listed criteria):

TIME: 3E 365, late reign of Pelagius IV

SETTING: High Rock

BASIC STORY: A Noble-born Breton mercenary estranged from his family, a lone Nord thief recently ejected from the local Thieves' Guild for unspecified reasons, and a sheltered (but highly knowledgeable) High Elf mage from the Mages' Guild in Cyrodiil all stumble onto the same plot by a mysterious villain to locate a lost Elder Scroll. Along the way, they'll deal with local politics, hired assassins (Dark Brotherhood), their own pasts, and each other to recover the powerful artifact first and figure out what to do with it.

These three characters would, through their respective backgrounds, provide a good number of possible methods of exploring the lore of the TES setting; the mercenary would, through his upbringing, know quite a bit about the politics and culture in the setting and how they work, the thief would allow for the exploration of the underbelly of Tamriel, and the Mage would be able to explain a lot about the world (and would be a good character for giving expo dialogue explaining the nature of the titular Elder Scrolls).

How would you guys write a live-action TES series?

[DoctorKaizeld]

First I am throwing out the "It must be accessible and understandable to an audience that has never remotely heard of the games or the franchise as well as to fans." part as it isn't necessary. Elder Scrolls follows very easy basic fantasy rules at its base and takes its own twists and turn and as such is by default easy to get into. Also as a series instead of a single movie you can take more time on world building through out the show just like how the games do by simply exploring them and meeting people.

 

Time: Some time after Skyrim exactly when isn't hugely important as long as the Imps and the Dominion are still at each others throat.

 

Setting: Southern Skyrim near Riften on the border to Cyrodiil

 

Story: A wood elf assassin and thief, a Nordic wanderer, and a Red Guard War Mage are sentenced to death and are being taken to be executed when the Nord breaks free of her bonds and kills her guards while freeing the vampire who in turn frees the mage. The three kill there way out of the Imperial fort/camp and escape. Beginning their travels across the continent exploring dwemer fortresses and caves, to collecting bounties, and meeting and helping people they meet along the way.

 

Elsewhere a Imperial girl with a large scroll(s) wanders through the Cyridiil and is attacked by bandits, she is rescued by an Imperial ranger. During the fight the girl briefly loses her scroll and the ranger finds her to be blind, but when the scroll is returned to her she regains her eyesight. She explains that as long as she remains in possession of the scroll she can see but without it she is blind. The exact number of scrolls changes constantly with only the girl not being aware of the counts change and thinking she has always had whatever number she currently appears to have on her. The scrolls themselves are Elder Scrolls.

 

In southwest Skyrim is a cursed woman who travels with a large chain wrapped around her which was a "gift" from Clavicus Vile to "cure" her vampirism. The chain though simply suppresses the negative (and weakens the positive) effects of being vampire, but doesn't halt the accumulated need to feed leaving her in a ravenous state of blood thirst if removed. It also greatly reduces the negative effect of sunlight to a simple sun burn if exposed for too long. The woman continues looking for a cure to her vampirisim traveling place to place and trying to avoid letting anyone find out about what she is, when she accidentally attacked a woman who was traveling to the capital to see her brother and enthralling her. With the help of a Vigilant of stendar who wishes to solve the problem of vampirism through curing it and a orc warrior who chose to travel with the group to "Rid the world of such beings" but truthfully just has nothing better to do and was bored.

 

These three stories slowly move closer to each other over the course of the first season until the three finally meet at the Imperial Capital. Future seasons would follow adventures with these characters as they attempt to solve and work with their individual and group issues while exploring the world of the Elder Scrolls series.

 

 

 

Note: I think it's important to have someone start imprisoned as that is always the case with the games. In this case there are five people (arguably six) in some sort of prison.

 

The first three start imprisoned

The blind girl is bound to the Elder Scrolls and feels she cannot live without them

The Vampire is imprisoned by a curse and the false cure of her chains

The Traveler is imprisoned as a thrall to the vampire against her will as well

[Mudran]

I wish it would be something hard to reproduce in Bethesda style sandbox RPG openworld.

 

So my take would be my favourite very interesting, also dark, almost gothic/satanic kind of theme - dragon priests.

 

I have this prologue:

A woman in rags, is hanging on a cross, her head heading down, so you don't see her face, only dirty overgrown, uncombed dark hair, her head is unnaturally clinging. The sound is quiet like in a dream, only a woman voice is singing that kind of song like R. Plant: Darkness, darkness.

Camera moves out, you hear other noices as the focus is now marching soldiers with a man in robe going before them from an open gate.

the came slowly enhance view to of a big open courtyard with a big gate on the further side, still open as the marching soldiers just left it with architecture like from labirinthian.

When they are arriving before the woman, the camera slowly draw near, so you can see the face of the man in the front - the high dragon priest, then he starts to speak something like: You will be sacrificed to dragon and your blasphemy will end up there.

Then it focuses on the woman again, but she says nothing.

So it turns back to the priest, who says: what say you?

Then it turns back to woman, whos head starts clinging faster and she starts to laugh with madness, when she finally looks up on the priest revealing very pale and mad face, she will just scream.

Then the scene ends.

 

Then it would continue in some nordic village - the view of people believing in old gods, leading to someone from them serving a dragon priest, and another story branch would be connected to hagravens, where we will get to know the background story of that woman.

 

EDIT:

I should google first what live-action is, but still it could be used for that anyway :)

Edited August 5, 2019 by Mudran