About Akavir ...

[magiii]

maybe the tsaeci cast some kind of forgetting appearance spell on them? :biggrin:

[SubjectProphet]

Consider this: Elder Scrolls can only be found on Tamriel, because they were never taken outside of it, except one which landed in Atmora. I rest my case. 8)

 

And Akavir is also kind of like a mythical Japanese kingdom, don't you think? I actually might want something where we could go there. :)

[BrettM]

It seems to me that the key to the mystery must be in the transition from the Akaviri Dragonguard to the non-Akaviri Blades. How and when did this come about? The transition may have been very sudden, based on what I see in the lore.

 

If I understand the lore correctly, here is the situation:

 

As a result of both the Dragon War (Merethic Era) and the Dragonguard presence starting with the Reman Dynasty, dragons were getting hard to find by the end of the First Era. The Annals of the Dragonguard seems to confirm this. By the beginning of the Third Era, there must have been very few dragons left at all. After Tiber Septim achieved divinity, many believed them to be extinct (There Be Dragons), and eventually dragons became matters of legend heading towards myth. (Of course, we know this wasn't entirely true. Paarthurnax survived until the current day, and a few others were known to exist during the Third Era, though I don't know what became of them or if any survived until Alduin's return.)

 

After the death of Tiber Septim, not only are the dragons believed extinct, but there is no further mention of the Akaviri in the literature. Instead, it is the Blades that served the remainder of the Septim Dynasty and the following non-Septim emperors, until the start of the Great War. But the Blades were basically an imperial-security/covert-operations group, not dragon hunters, as there were essentially no dragons left to hunt by the time the organization took that name.

 

So what happened here? The Blades use the armor and weapons of the Dragonguard, follow the same oaths and organizational structure, and use the old Dragonguard temples. The continuity seems complete except for the name. Yet, if it was just a matter of non-Akaviri being recruited over the centuries to keep up strength, why would there be a need for a name change? It is as if the Akaviri disappeared and a new organization was brought into existence to carry on their traditions. A suspicious mind might even wonder if they knew they were going to disappear (or planned to disappear) and made their own arrangements for successors first. But we seem to know nothing about how the Blades came to be other than that they are the heirs of the original Dragonguard.

 

It sure would be nice if we could have a chat with Esbern about this. He and the scraps of organizational history he managed to save may be the only clues left in Tamriel as to what went down back then.

[RighthandofSithis]

I'd say that over the eras, the Dragongurad accepted non-Akaviri members, remembering, the Blades/Dragongurad have existed in Tamriel for two or three eras.

 

I'd say that it would have come to be a necessity. The Fighter's Guild was originally an organisation built exclusively of Akaviri. however, they were forced to recruit local (most famously, a Nord blacksmith/knight who taught them about armor), and I'd imagine the Dragongurad would have had to do the same.

 

I do not know exactly how the Akaviri died out in both the Blades and in the general population. I'd imagine it would have happened during the Interregnum and the Early 3rd Eras.