There was an old Cyrodilic saying back home that went, ‘you have not witnessed true desperation and helplessness till you have seen a Nord in love with a barmaid’. Well as it turns out in Coldharbour, a Nord too much in love with their mead is a far worse thing.

But there is something wicked behind this seemingly bottomless thirst of the patrons of the Everfull Flagon, and it comes as no surprise to discover that it all began with a foolish bargain made with a daedra.

S.K

In the Eastern region of Coldharbour known as Black Garrison, I discover what appears to be a Nordic barrow set into the Eastern hills. I begin exploring the close, dusty corridors, wondering just who keeps the candles and braziers alight, when a draugr stumbles out from a nearby sarcophagus and raises it’s ancient sword against me.

As I delve deeper, more and more draugr rise to challenge me at every turn. I was led by the songs of bards to believe the draugr to be ineffectual, slow-witted, and capable of staggering about at barely the pace of a drunken Nord. They are certainly as hideous as the tales describe, their corpse-pale skin stretched taut over their skeletal remains, and they reek of decay; and they do indeed shamble like a merry Nord. But they are also quick to attack, unhindered by fear or qualm, and fierce in both blade and spell.

What possible use could Molag Bal have for a Nordic Barrow in Coldharbour? The draugr that roam the corridors are already undead, so they have no souls to harvest. And they are pledged in death only to the master of the Barrow itself, usually a Dragon Priest, so what use could they be as slaves? Eventually I find the answers in a book which tells the tragic tale of Haman Forgefire, a famed blacksmith who was murdered by a rival whose jealousy of his success led her to making a foolish bargain with the God of Schemes.

Jealousy, that worst of all emotions that blinds the mind and strikens the heart to believe everything it fears to be true. It is the mother of tragedies, murders, and wars, and it poisons victim and malefactor both. Thus now the legendary blacksmith is condemned to spend forevermore wandering this barrow in Coldharbour, and his jealous rival is just another of harvested soul.

S.K

I’m not sure that the Dremora have quite grasped the concept of games, for what is the point of playing a game you cannot win, and where is the challenge if you cannot lose.

At the Cliffs of Failure when things began to look like they were going against the Observer, he simply changed the rules mid-game. If I am going to lose everything, then I’d rather do so whilst drunk on wine and at the mercy of a pretty elf maiden’s smile.

Yet if there is one thing I’ve learnt since I first meet that blind old man in the prison is that in a life where there exists fate, luck, and Daedric Princes, there are no certainties… well, apart from the roll of Baandari dice of course… and whilst fate can be a bitch no doubt, she does seem to favour the fearless.

S.K

It is said that Coldharbour is Molag Bal’s apocalyptic vision for Nirn, and as I look out now upon the Bloodthorn camp at the battlefield of the Cliff of Failure, I fancy that I am looking upon what may have become of Glenumbra had we not put a stop to Angof and his Bloodthorn cult at the cemetery of Cath Bedraud.

Giant thorny vines cultivated by the sinister magics of the Reach have chocked all other life from the land, and now all that moves between the swaying stems has but already been dead.

I wonder if the people of Daggerfall will ever fully understand just how close the corruption came to their great city. For when Eagle’s Brook fell, when the wolves were at the gates of Aldcroft, when the streets of Camlorn bled. when the risen dead were all that roamed the northern roads, and when even the Wyrd Tree at Glenumbra’s heart suffocated on the foul pollution of the Reach, it was the brave men and women of the Lions Guard, the Knights of the Dragon, and the Beldama Wyrd who together, at such great cost, pushed back the blight to keep their land green and blest.

S.K

Folly is entering an unmarked portal on the cliffs of Coldharbour. And now I find myself partaking in an insidious game for the lives of three captured mortals, and also for three others who in life made bargains with the Lord of Brutality, and failed, and are now doomed to an eternity of fighting battles upon the Cliffs of Failure.

Necessity oft creates strange alliances, where your allies are just as dangerous as your enemies, one need only look to the Three Banners in Tamriel. To rescue the captured mortals, I will need to ally with one of the disgraced trio.

Angof the Gravesinger, that foul Reachman, leader of the Bloodthorns who I fought in the bowels of Cath Bedraud back in Glenumbra. Now he cuts an almost pitiful figure, seeking not redemption, but escape from damnation. Perhaps nowhere but Oblivion is mortal death seen as such a great prize.

Thallik Wormfather is a name I know only through tavern tale and court rumour. A worm cult leader from Skyrim who is said to have attempted to resurrect a long dead giant. Failure is seems has not blunted this necromancers thirst for power, and whilst I feel he might prove the most powerful ally of the three, he is perhaps the one I trust the least.

And finally the High Kinlady Estre, sister-in-law to the Elf Queen Ayrenn if I recall, and potential usurper to her throne. It’s strange to think now that if in my escape from the Wailing Prison I had fallen into the waters of the Southern Seas instead of those of the Illiac Bay, I might have encountered this Veiled Queen in Summerset, and who knows, perhaps I may even have ended up fighting for her… and yet here now we stand.

Of the three, only Estre shows any concern for the captured mortals, no matter how insincere, and I’ll admit, she has a certain condescending charm that draws me to her. I can’t help feeling however like a sheep allying with a wolf to escape a hungry bear.

S.K