The Elder Scrolls Online: Tales of Tamriel - Vol. II: The Lore

The Elder Scrolls Online #2

by Bethesda Softworks

In-universe texts that take fans deep into the lore of The Elder Scrolls Online, featuring in-game texts on factions, landscapes, creatures, heroes, and the villainous forces of Molag Bal.

For the first time in print, step into the fantasy world of The Elder Scrolls Online. Tales of Tamriel - Vol. II: The Lore takes readers on adventure throughout the war-torn landscapes and battlefields of Tamriel, featuring a horde of in-game texts and exclusive artwork. Lavishly bound and produced, this series of books is the definitive guide to lore from theElder Scrolls Online.

Genres: Fantasy, Video Games, Gaming, Games

232 pages, Hardcover

First published September 15, 2015

About the author

Bethesda Softworks LLC is an American video game publisher based in Rockville, Maryland. The company was founded by Christopher Weaver in 1986 as a division of Media Technology Limited, and in 1999 became a subsidiary of ZeniMax Media. In its first fifteen years, it was a video game developer and self-published its titles. In 2001, Bethesda spun off its own in-house development team into Bethesda Game Studios, and Bethesda Softworks became a publisher only. It currently also publishes games by ZeniMax Online Studios, id Software, Arkane Studios, MachineGames, Tango Gameworks and Bethesda Game Studios Austin.

Reviews

[Kyla]

I WANTS THIS. I WILL PAY WARES TO GET, KHAJIIT. I WILL EVEN TRAVEL ON WARM SANDS TO GET THERE.

[Ez Pavey · Rating 4 out of 5]

despite not playing Elder Scrolls Online myself, I am a massive fan of the lore and this book delivers that to an extortionate extent!

Written as though the reader has found the book within the world, it goes into great detail about the races, history, magic and daedra whilst also creating stories about the supposed authors of the excerpts themselves.

in summary, it is the perfect book for anyone interested in the story and lore of Tamriel, whether they have only played Skyrim, or have completed the entire franchise.

[Katie Konneker · Rating 4 out of 5]

My favorite part of the whole book was the Racial Style section, which starts off as a simple overview of how the various races and cultures style their architecture, weapons, and armor. Then it out of nowhere turns into straight up fanfic where the writer's elf OC becomes involved in a bizarre love triangle between two of the most important lore figures in the Elder Scrolls series.

Wild.

[Chuck · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not nearly as enjoyable as Vol. I. The entries here felt like watered down versions of other TES lore, and were particularly characterless. In premise, this volume should be the crunchier, more text-book aspects of the lore and I don't have a problem with that. This book fails however, often times having articles purporting to teach a certain skill or element of magic that are astoundingly short, vague and uninformative. I'm not so foolish to think that there would be any actual magical skills or lock-picking secrets to read here but a lot of pieces just felt like missed opportunities for stories, metaphor, poetry or even fanciful invention. Why not write a piece about how to "actually" conjure a skeleton, for example? Tamriel is a big enough continent to have multiple schools, styles and influences in any it's lore. Nobody's toes are being stepped on to take liberties here or there for the sake of having something to actually read.

Also plaguing this book were several typos: missing punctuation marks and even missing words from sentences.

[S. Policar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like the first book, this second one in the duology is written to resemble random pages of lorebooks one would find scattered throughout Tamriel. This book covers the motifs of each race, then delves straight into pages of lorebooks that are first person journal entries of Tamriel's history from the Akaviri invasion in the first era straight through to three quarters into first main quest line of the actual game; these last journal entries being written by Lyris Titanborn, Sai Sahan, and Abnur Tharn, the first quest companions we meet upon entering the Elder Scrolls Online. That story ends well before Molag Bal is defeated since we as players have irreversable choices to make that determine the flow of the game around where the journal in this book ends. Like the first book, this should be in every ESO fan's personal library.
I give this book 5 of 5 Paws.

[Teeka · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful

[Jen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Though both volumes are a great read for eso fans, I personally prefer this one mainly because of its content.