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The Elder Scrolls Online

Elder Scrolls Online Faction Profile: Aldmeri Dominion

During the second era, in a time before any previous Elder Scrolls game, the world of Tamriel descended into a four-way war. In an attempt to conquer the continent, the Imperials – natives to the province of Cyrodiil – made a deal with the Daedric prince Molag Bal. At the beginning of Elder Scrolls Online, players join one of three factions that not only oppose the Imperials and Molag Bal’s undead army, but will also battle one another for the imperial throne. Elder Scrolls Online features three different alliances. Three different philosophies. Three different ways to approach the game. Which will you choose? Today we take a deeper look at the Aldmeri Dominion, represented by the Eagle on the ouroboros.

Zenimax Online’s Take:
“The name says it all. The Aldmeri Dominion wants to dominate the world. They plan on taking over the world. Submit or die,” explains game director Matt Firor. “The Aldmeri Dominion is like, ‘we’re going to kill everyone that isn’t us. You people are going to help us or else.’”

Provinces:

Valenwood is located in the southwestern region of the Tamriel. Home to the Wood Elves, Valenwood is covered by wide swaths of uninhabited forest. Swamplands and tropical rain forests dominate Valenwood’s coasts, but the nation’s most unique features are a few of its cities which are housed in giant, migratory trees. Valenwood’s capitol Falinesti, actually used to migrate south in the winter, but the tree containing the city has recently stopped walking.


Summerset Isles are a group of islands located southwest of Tamriel. Not much is known about the geography of the Summerset Isles, since it hasn’t been featured in many Elder Scrolls titles, but it is largely inhabited by the Altmer (High Elves.)


Situated on the southern end of Tamriel, Elsweyr is homeland to the various breeds of the cat-like Khajiit. Fertile jungles and rainforests occupy the region's southern end, but much of the rest of the nation is covered in dry plains and harsh badlands. In the south, upper class plantation owners grow the hallucinogenic plant Moon Sugar, which is often processed into the narcotic Skooma.

Races:
The Altmer are a race of High Elf that inhabit the Summerset Isles. Slender with a pale golden hue, the Altmer are among the tallest of all races. They are not as physically capable as humans, and their height makes them less agile, but they are possibly the most intelligent and magically proficient species on Tamriel. Their magical skill also makes them susceptible to magical attacks. However, they are highly resistant to disease.

 

 

The Bosmer are also known as the Wood Elves, and as that name implies, they are a people of the forest. Unlike their cousins, the Altmer, these elves prefer a simple lifestyle living in harmony with nature and exploring the beauty of the land. Both agile and quick, the Bosmer are excellent thieves and archers.

 

 

 

Khajiit are a cat-like race known for their natural agility and stealth. This race is not very adept at manipulating magical forces, but their agility and keen intelligence make them fierce warriors. Mobile bands of Khajiit often travel across Tamriel selling wares or distributing skooma. Oddly enough, Khajiit often refer to themselves in the third person.

 

 

If you missed it, check out our profile on the Daggerfall Covenant, and come back Friday when we take a look at the uneasy alliance of the Ebonheart Pact. Check out our Elder Scrolls Online Hub for even more ESO related content.

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Comments
  • Cool. Also, did Bethesda announce when this would come out?
  • I want Argonians!
  • this is me! i love playing as a wood elf and khajiit. i can't wait to explore tamriel in its entirety. i wanna see a giant migrating tree, i wonder if they have faces?
  • Down with the Thalmor!!!, This game sounds like it could be great if done right, well we will see.
  • very intriguing, but i'm more of a younger scrolls kind of guy..

  • So if Molag Bal fights with the Imperials, how exactly did the Altmeri manage to control the Imperials & nearly destroy the empire??
  • Aww...i wanna be a Khajit, but i don't wanna join the Aldmeri Dominion. Can i do that?
  • This might be the faction I choose, the High Elves are my favorite race. Hopefully this game will look as great as the pictures do.
  • Um, there's a pretty major lore error in this article. Under Valenwood, it states:

    "Valenwood’s capitol Falinesti, actually used to migrate south in the winter, but the tree containing the city has recently stopped walking."

    Thing is, this isn't true. According to the Pocket Guide to the Empire, 3rd Edition (link: http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Pocket_Guide_to_the_Empire,_3rd_Edition/Valenwood ), Falinesti rooted itself in "recent history", ie within the past ten years of the book's publishing. It was published in 3E 432 (Source: http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Third_Era#3E_432 ), at least 750 years after the events of the Elder Scrolls Online (+ or - a few decades).
  • Screw Khajiits!
  • I'd like to see the Akavir or Lilmothiit in one of the games.

  • I will most likely keep out of the Aldmeri Dominion due to my hatred of high elves. I love khajiits and Wood Elves though so I might join if we have no choice. If we do have a choice I will most likely make wood elf and join the Daggerfall Covenant. In my opinion the Daggerfall Covenant is the best out of the three. With Orcs and Redguards (the best fighters in all of tamriel) and Bretons (2nd in magic behind the High Elves) they will be hard to handle. In all this game may be good depending on how they work out the exploring and 4 way war (I want to be able to run through Blackmarsh peacfully as a member of the Daggerfall Covenant even though Blackmarsh is part of the Ebonhart Pack.).

  • I want this to be such a great game. I love TES, but I haven't loved a MMO since vanilla WoW. I loved the pace of it, the difficulty of the dungeons and raids, the PvP, the rewards for it weren't easy at all to obtain and that took dedication to obtain, and made them feel like something special, the EPIC AV matches that lasted for hours and hours is my favorite thing in any game I have ever played in any genre, gaining some forward ground, only to be pushed back, gathering resources to summon a GIANT tree to go berserk for your team, simply a great feeling if you won, and terrible if you lost. And I feel spoiled by those experiences. Even just hanging out in STV doing some fishing for a bit and that would be it for the day. Or maybe going to the Tarren Mill to beat down lowbies until their mains and guilds come, as do mine, until there is just a random giant battle started by me. Sorry to reminisce so hard, but these are things I hope can be incorperated to some extent in TESO. Really the things I want from this game is difficulty in all aspects of the game. Not extreme difficulty for everything, but some things must be, or else I don't get the point of doing it personally. If everyone can do it, it's not really all that much of an achievement. Then character customization. Looking basically the same as anyone else who has chosen my race and class is just sooooo lame. So a deep character creator, and an appearance tab
  • "but the tree containing the city has recently stopped walking."

    RAAAGE!!

    Look, that the article contains zero information as to the hows and whys of the Dominion, that it is a copy/ paste of a Pocket Guide, fine.
    But this lame excuse as to why the city doesnt walk..
    Here you have a chance to do something groundbreaking and innovative, something that will wow people and instead there is this excuse which smells of 'technical limitations, we didnt even try.'
    Bah.

    18/5/2012

    Seems I was hasty with my rage *shame*

    "CountChocula
    Hi Ben, can you clarify part of your recent "Elder Scrolls Online: Faction Profile Aldmeri Dominion" article that was confusing for us readers? You mentioned that "Valenwood’s capitol Falinesti, actually used to migrate south in the winter, but the tree containing the city has recently stopped walking." Was Zenimax the source for this statement, or was it from the UESP wiki page? When UESP states that Falinesti "recently stopped walking," it was talking about a reference from a different century, not the time period in which TESO is set. After reading your article, quite a few TES fans are now worried that Falinesti will not be migratory in the Elder Scrolls Online.
    21 hours, 49 minutes ago

    Ben Reeves
    Honestly ZeniMax didn't comment on that. They wouldn't even specify if Falinesti would be in the game since ESO won't cover all of Valenwood"
  • I'm probably not going to be able to play this game, due to my lack of a computer capable of playing games, but I'm still excited to find out more about it. Also, Bosmer FTW!!!

  • I want this to be such a great game. I love TES, but I haven't loved a MMO since vanilla WoW. I loved the pace of it, the difficulty of the dungeons and raids, the PvP, the rewards for it weren't easy at all to obtain and that took dedication to obtain, and made them feel like something special, the EPIC AV matches that lasted for hours and hours is my favorite thing in any game I have ever played in any genre, gaining some forward ground, only to be pushed back, gathering resources to summon a GIANT tree to go berserk for your team, simply a great feeling if you won, and terrible if you lost. And I feel spoiled by those experiences. Even just hanging out in STV doing some fishing for a bit and that would be it for the day. Or maybe going to the Tarren Mill to beat down lowbies until their mains and guilds come, as do mine, until there is just a random giant battle started by me. Sorry to reminisce so hard, but these are things I hope can be incorperated to some extent in TESO. Really the things I want from this game is difficulty in all aspects of the game. Not extreme difficulty for everything, but some things must be, or else I don't get the point of doing it personally. If everyone can do it, it's not really all that much of an achievement. Getting 2 50's with one in the best PVE and PVP gear, the other almost the best, in 2 months(SWTOR), what's the point of playing, where's my carrot on a stick!?! Then character customization. Looking basically the same as anyone else who has chosen my race and class is just sooooo lame. So a deep character creator, and an appearance tab is a must. I mean come on, in polls in forums for so many different MMO's people vote on an A-tab and it wins, usually only 15% of the vote against it. An A-tab also helps any sort of AH, as people will look through it for something they find appealing to them, it also gives players a reason to replay content that they've out leveled in hopes of finding some cool looking rare item, giving the game so much more replay-ability by adding something quite simple. Then the PvP has to be epic, and world pvp, such as the random battles I described earlier, are key imo. Think I've read that there will be 200 player wars going down in TESO so that does give me hope. What is really getting to me is that there won't be player housing. And that really, really, really, blows. All I can hope for is that they will add it at some point. I'm reserving all judgement though until either they reveal something that I think is just aweful, or until the first week after I log in.
  • Man, i hate those snooty high elves. (looks at Khajiit's hair) Yikes!!!.
  • Okay, thanks for telling us nothing about the alliance. But well done copy/pasting from the Pocket Guide to the Empire.

    I really love how the developers of this game approach difficult lore! I mean, why bother trying to incorporate the beautiful idea of a massive tree city walking through a forest, when you can just say something vague like "mysteriously, the great tree has stopped moving due to unknown and presumably nefarious causes"? Why bother allowing for a rich and player-driven faction system, when you can just break established lore by shoving races who hate each other into alliances? Just because you mention that they are "unlikely alliances" does not make it okay! That's not a reason for the Bretons to stop killing the Orcs! It's not a reason for the Argonians to suddenly be all buddy-buddy with the Dunmer who ENSLAVE them.

    The worrying thing is, a game's first reveal is supposed to be designed to wow and amaze the target audience. You open up with a great hand to show. Everything I've seen and heard from TES Online seems to spit in the face of players who truly love TES lore, and from an MMO perspective it sounds as though it's offering nothing new and is just making excuses about the technical limitations of the genre as to WHY it isn't doing anything new. This is truly shocking.
  • If I ever get a chance to play this game, I'm going with the empire as always. There is strong and then there is imperiallegionsoldier strong. Don't believe me? Check this out. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUEsaMaSMLo
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