Gallery

Under the aurora

The aurora is over the northern holds most nights of the year. Winterhold and Dawnstar get the best of it, and the light is real, not a loading screen.

The old ways

Clevercraft is the old Nordic way of working magic, closer to a shaman at a fire than a wizard at a desk. Magic works the same here as anywhere. It just tends to look like this.

A hall in the evening

Most of what happens on Mereth happens at a table, over a longfire.

The jarl's hall

The mead hall is the hold's court. The jarl hands out rank at the same table people eat at, and can take it back at that table too.

The hold guard

Every guard on this wall is a player who chose the job, took the rank from a jarl, and is standing a real watch. Nobody here is scripted to patrol.

Around the fire

A normal evening on Mereth: people sat around a fire talking, weapons still on, nowhere to be. Most of your hours here will look like this rather than like combat.

A port in winter

Nine holds, each with its own law, its own court and its own trade.

Beyond the palisade

The whole of Skyrim is open, and the cold is a mechanic rather than scenery. Travel between holds with food, drink and somewhere to warm up in mind.

Arriving

You will hit your carry weight faster than you expect. The fix is a backpack or a pouch, which a leatherworker makes, so it is somebody you go and find rather than something you buy from a menu.

Giants on the road

Hunting, herbalism, mining, fishing. Eight gathering trades, each with its own nodes.

A spell, finally

Nobody starts able to cast. You need a player willing to teach you and the tome for the spell, and a teacher can only take on so many pupils a week, so this is a relationship rather than a purchase.

Alone on the pass

Some things are deliberately not written down anywhere on this site. Who holds what, who owes whom, what happened last week: you find that out by asking people in character.

The hold gathers

The jarl, the steward and every person stood in front of them are players. Nothing here is an NPC keeping a seat warm.

Court in session

Rank in a hold is granted through the holdstone, and it can be taken back the same way.

A jarl in his own hall

A jarl is a player, not a scripted NPC. The most demanding seat on the server, chosen by his own court at a Moot, and it can be lost as well as won.

The Legion, still holding

It is 4E 185, ten years after the Great War. Imperial rule is formally intact and the Thalmor presence is growing.

Under arms

An organisation caps at 25 members, and you may belong to one at a time. That is one per player, not one per character.

The muster

A rank in a holdstone carries real mechanical benefits, for example a guard rank granting light armour.

Longships in the shallows

The whole province is playable, so a harbour is somewhere people actually arrive.

Old bones in the snow

This site explains how everything works, and stops short of what is inside the dungeons. Knowing the boss is at the bottom before you go would spoil the only part of this that is still a surprise.

A camp in the woods

Comfort gives fifty percent health regeneration near a camp fire, and it drops the moment you walk away.

A lesson in a hall

A master willing to teach you, and a spellbook for the spell. Nobody here teaches themselves.

By candlelight

A blessing lasts eight hours, and you cannot take a second until the first has worn off.

The kill, and the work after it

Butcher in the field before the skill is high enough and you ruin pelts and ingredients. The client says so in its own tier text.

Business, done in person

There is no global out-of-character channel. To find something out, you go and ask somebody.

Something in the mist

Voice is proximity based. If you cannot make out who is talking, neither can your character.

Into the dark

A cleared dungeon seals, waits on a timer, regenerates and reopens. Keys found inside vanish after thirty minutes.

The long night

World time is synced for everyone and runs on the Tamriel year, so night falls on the whole province at once.

The mammoth, briefly airborne

It is still Skyrim under all of this, and Skyrim's physics has always had opinions. Some evenings a mammoth ends up somewhere no mammoth should be, and honestly that is half the fun.

Playing to whoever stops

Voice carries by distance, so a bard plays to whoever is standing near enough to hear. Some days that is a packed market and some days it is nobody at all, which is the job.

Nothing scheduled

No quest marker put anybody here. Somebody walked out to the end of the boards, sat down, and watched the sky, because that is what their character would do.

Sat out under the lights

Conversation happens where people are standing, so a row along a wall outside a hall is a real place to be. There is no global channel to talk in instead.

Made to be looked at

The paint, the scars and the build are somebody's decisions. You meet people here at speaking distance, so a character is a face long before it is a list of skills.

At the altar

Candles, an offering and nobody else in the room. Faith here is something a character keeps, not a menu they open.

Under the statue

The cities are lived in rather than passed through. Somebody put this here, and somebody still sweeps the snow off the step.

The empty throne

An empty jarl's seat is not first come, first served. The hold's own court votes at a Moot and the vote has to be unanimous, so taking the chair by force just makes you an Usurper the hold then removes.