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

In the wilds of Coldharbour freedom is nowt but the distance between hunter and prey. For when the Soul Shriven become too tired to work, or their minds weaken till they turn into feral brute, they are released into the wilds to become no more then sport for the Dremora. It is here in the Cave of Trophies that the hunters return to boast of their ‘heroic exploits’.

It is little more sport then hunting skeevers through the crags of Rivenspire, but it enough to feed the Dremora’s atavistic conceit that there is nothing more lethal in this realm but them.

What better way to remedy vainglory then by a hunt through these very caverns and then perhaps display some trophies of my own.

S.K

‘Judgement delivered in anger is almost always unjust’. Few exemplify that saying more then the ever irascible Judge Xiven at the daedric Court of Contempt, who condemned a group mortal mages captured by his daedra even before their trial commenced. Yet as fraudulent as this daedric trial is, even an honest court would have difficulty in raising a defence for the mages, for they did indeed invade this realm with pernicious intent.

We are however at war and with the aid of the Dunmer conjurer Malkur Valos, who himself is no stranger to the daedric brand of justice having been raised on the Shivering Isles, we must attempt to free the mortal prisoners.

People generally have two reactions to guilt, it either drowns them in self pity and regret, or it ignites their spirit with fiery indignation and purpose. I pray the guilty mages react with the latter, for if they are to escape their convictions, then they are going to have to fight for their lives.

And in our escape, to prevent further injustice we should tear this mockery of a court down, for one day the innocent may be held guilty for the good they did not do.

S.K

The Dremoran clans of Coldharbour are just as proud and arrogant as their Deadland’s kin. Their barbed blades are sharpened just as finely, their destructive spells studied just as keenly, and their blackened armour is polished with just as much hubris. They are just as dutiful in their ignoble cause, and yet just as fettered by the chains of their own taut dogma.

Dremora see their daedric allies as lessor races, and mortals as lessor still. This is perhaps why this warlike people, who exist only to serve the purpose of their Daedric overlords, seem not to be treating our incursion into their realm as a serious threat. Indeed, once they spot a mortal warriors approach, they invariably charge upon a guttural war cry, raising their great blades above their horned heads, or crackling staves before their uncomely faces, with little to no regard as to what threat the mortal might bring.

Perhaps it is because they are unburdened by fear of death or the constricts of mortal compunction. Indeed they cannot possibly comprehend just how precious we hold our lives, or how valuable we hold the lives of our comrades. But perhaps they are right to be unconcerned, for surely even with the aid of those mortal denizens of Coldharbour we have met along the way, we have not the numbers to overcome even a single clan. And yet there is still reason to believe in ourselves.

Whilst it is true that nobody understands better then the clans of Oblivion, who are uniform in both attitude and ability, that in unity is strength. What they cannot possibly comprehend is what our history has taught us, that unity of the discordant is far more powerful still. No matter how diverse are the philosophies of Men, Mer, Feline, and Reptile, or how disparate our talents may be, by standing together in purpose and heart, the solitary weak can become the collectively strong.

So stand together mortal warriors, stand next to me, stand as one Tamriel, and o’er Oblivion shall we achieve.

S.K