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> The Nine-Hold Chronicles, Tales from the Fourth Era
Rohirrim
post Nov 4 2022, 07:47 PM
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Mouth
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Joined: 18-January 13
From: Greyhawk



Lianor, Elf-Thane of Hjaalmarch

It is the 22nd of Rain's Hand. As I write this, the iron blade, graven with thunderbolts, lays across my lap. It is the gift of Jarl Idgrod, and the badge of my new office. It was only hours ago I knelt before her on the Highmoon Throne.

"You have done us a great service", spake the Ravencrone, "But as you number not among the Children of the Sky, I cannot grant you the traditional honors."

I nodded, without emotion. I had not expected much reward for a wandering Bosmer from a Jarl, even a mystic such as she.

"However," she said, "In the late First Era, there was one Mer who rose to greatness among the Nords. He was called Urekynd, of the Wild Elves, the first and the last of his kind ever seen in these parts. For the working of his magic and the swinging of his sword arm against the hated Ice Tribes, Jarl Orm named him Elf-Thane, and for three hundred years, it is said, Urekynd kept the peace up and down the banks of the Hjaal with his mighty deeds and wise words of counsel."

She drew from a dark corner the sword in her wizened hand; the weapon was crude in form but dripping with solemnity, and it seemed to hold the dignity of ages in its dark grey surface.

"This was his blade, lo those many years ago, and now, by my right as Jarl, I grant it to you, and name you, Lianor, Elf-Thane of Morthal."

As I took it from her, still kneeling, I was struck at first by the feeling I had been handed a great misfortune. What Nord would stoop to respect an Elf claiming the Jarl's authority? It was a bad joke that was brewing, and I seemed destined to become the butt of it. But as I drew on the padded armor, and cast the green wool cloak about me, I felt instinctively that I was walking the path the Green Man laid out for me. The old Jarl is a canny woman, and she did not seem the type to invoke ancient tradition on a whim. seemed exactly the type to do things as much for her own secret amusement as to accord with her mystic visions.

It was a risible sight, watching the stableboys try to slip the green triskelion caparison onto my shaggy, ill-tempered, more-than-half-wild mare, but in the end, she looked all the better for it, and once in the saddle, I felt I truly looked the part, riding off in a flash of green to enact my orders.

Idgrod, it seemed, was no passive mystic indeed. The Jarl of Whiterun's prolonged neutrality was putting her off, and she had too few men to defend Morthal itself, let alone patrol the borders. So, as newly anointed Elf-Thane, I was to monitor the comings and goings between Whiterun and Hjaalmarch. A boring posting, with little promise of fame or adventure. Still, I rode.

My Jarl had given me another gift. A poem, bound in goatskin; Song of the Askelde Men. Not a difficult or lengthy read, even by Nord standards. A curious volume; it seems to narrate the victory of Ysgramor's Five Hundred over the Snow Elves. What meaning am I meant to take from this? It is set in Hjaalmarch, true, but that cannot be the only point of significance. Idgrod is too intentional for this to be the case. What does this book signify about my future?

Where, I ask myself now, leads the untrod path of the Elf-Thane?

Marius Sempronius, Clerk of the East Empire Company

22d RH 202
Calamity! O Zenithar, Mara, Stendarr and ancestors all, deliver me now from the pit I have landed in. Though I am loyal to the Company unto death, a man can only hope to endure so many humiliations and indignities in life before he is forced to throw himself either onto the mercy of the Divines or headlong into despair. When I received news of my new posting, I felt that this would be my breaking point. Not Solitude, or Windhelm, or even Dawnstar. The furthest-inland port in all Skyrim, nestled on the Upper Karth. Old Hroldan, a dour little rain-soaked town in the Reach, built up around an inn where Tiber Septim is alleged to have once stayed, after he had sacked the town and massacred its inhabitants. A typically charming Nord story. And my mood only worsened when I saw the place; Tiber Septim or no, Sancre Tor it is decidedly not. I had hired on a lad for the journey, a strapping local called Sven, and a mule. Easy enough to thread our way over the bluffs from Rorikstead, and thankfully no trouble from the Reachmen. But the town itself is a stinking skeever-nest of unswept alleyways, treacherous puddles, and dark corners where unsavory characters lie in wait. The apartment rented for me by the Company was equally dismal: rats under the bed, spiders under the pillow, and at least one hole in every door, window and bit of ceiling, to allow the free passage of dust, rain, chill, and all other detritus and precipitation as dictated by the circumstances of the miserable moment. I have written several letters to the home office in Solitude, and it is my hope that, given my family background, they will see fit to assign me somewhere more appropriate. Goose and applesauce for dinner tonight; indigestion.


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Renee
post Nov 4 2022, 08:20 PM
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Councilor
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From: Ellicott City, Maryland



So at first Lianor isn't getting the same accolades as Nords, but then "oh wait. There was this one of your kind from the days of the Wild Elves..."

I don't know where the path of the elf-thane shall lead, but let's just say there's the sound of hurdles being cleared, hoops being danced through, and barriers about to be broken. If dinner can be digested, first.



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Acadian
post Nov 4 2022, 08:25 PM
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Joined: 14-March 10
From: Las Vegas



Welcome back, Roh! And Welcome to Lianor, Elf-Thane of Morthal. Send a Bosmer with a title out to patrol the Nordic roads – what can possibly go wrong?

Oh, and an unhappy shipping clerk posted to Old Hroldon. . . .


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WellTemperedClavier
post Nov 5 2022, 02:13 AM
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Impressed with how ably you switched tone in the different perspectives. Lianor's is heavy with the weight of history and his situation. I don't know the full story here, but he's clearly involved with goings-on in Hjaalmarch, itself a rather bleak and lonely realm.

But for the clerk? Nah, he's just frustrated with his posting. Does a good job of taking the reader into the clerk's world, and highlighting the contrast compared to Lianor's.
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SubRosa
post Nov 5 2022, 04:34 AM
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From: Between The Worlds



Welcome back Rohirrim! I hope you have been having run off riding with Theoden and Eomer.

So we start with a newly made Elf-Thane (cool title btw). However, it looks like our friend Lian certainly has his work cut out for him.

Marius Sempronius writes with exactly the sort of voice one would expect from someone with that name! It was a good shift in temper and tone of the writing when you went to his missive. It is clearly from a very different person than Lianor.


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