The Season Of The Dragon looks Elsweyr
Bethesda announces year-long delivery of content for Elder Scrolls Online
Beginning with the incoming Wrathstone DLC, The Elder Scrolls Online will soon see the start of a year-long storyline featuring the Khajiiti homeland of Elsweyr. The Season Of The Dragon centres on the return of familiar, scaly faces to Tamriel and all that entails… or should we say, en-tails?
Wrathstone kicks things off with two new dungeons, which each contain half of the DLC’s titular artefact. Entering either of these two new dungeons will also net you an Ayleid crown. After you’ve plumbed the Depths Of Malatar, investigating why an earlier imperial expedition past the Ayleid ruins proved to be ill-fated, and avoided Dwarven automata underneath a glacier in Frostvault, you’ll be able to change the face of Tamriel. But the latest cinematic trailer does more than tease the terrible power that’ll be unleashed when the two halves of the Wrathstone are united, it shows dragons in all their terrifying glory.
The next big content update for The Elder Scrolls Online, a full chapter entitled Elsweyr, will arrive in June. Series veterans will remember venturing into Elsweyr back in the bad old days of Arena, but more recently Online players have made some inroads into the Khajiiti homeland from Khenarthi’s Roost and Reaper’s March. From mid-2019, you’ll be able to venture into Elsweyr proper.
CAT’S PYJAMAS
Elsweyr is a land of sand and stone, replete with moon sugar farms (got to keep the skooma trade going…) and palatial cities with new creatures lurking just beyond them. The capital city, Rimmen, is sadly occupied by Imperial mercenaries, meaning the Khajiit that live there are as much prisoners as citizens. Beyond the city limits, there’s more trouble a-paw as the returned dragons have overrun the temple of the Dragon King Of Cats, Alkosh (to say nothing of how the rest of
Tamriel is facing their return). Rally your forces, because you’ll need to form a team of 12 players to even stand a chance of taking on the powerful drake Nahviintaas.
As it’s their homeland, you may well see a whole other side of the Khajiit. The Khajiit are made up of a number of races that vary wildly from one another. Only the bipedal Suthay-Raht are playable here, but the Cathay were the playable cat people in Skyrim and Oblivion. However, there are over 17 different Khajiit races, ranging from ones that don’t look much different from a house cat all the way to some that are almost indistinguishable from Mer or Men. This is because, in a particularly nutty bit of Elder Scrolls lore, a Khajiit’s appearance and physiology is entirely dependant on which lunar phase they are born in.
The new zone is similar to last year’s Summerset in terms of the amount of new stuff it brings to The Elder Scrolls Online. With its dungeons, delves, dragon attack world events, Trials, and more, the Elsweyr update will amount to about 30 hours of content. But beyond its size and scope, there’s one more addition we’ve neglected to mention until this point…
SKELETON AT THE FEAST
Elsweyr will introduce the Necromancer class. It’s the first new class since 2017’s Morrowind update introduced the animalwrangling role of Warden, and much like that class gave you some control over the wilds, the Necromancer has control over the dead.
There have always been those who practise the dark arts across Tamriel, but for the first time in a long time you’ll be able to compel some bones to rattle yourself. Besides raising corpses to fight for you, this class includes three new skills. Reaper allows you to give your undead footsoldiers an extra environmental kick as they recruit your enemies to the cause, Bone Tyrant allows you to use the actual remains of the dead to shield yourself, and finally the power of Living Death grants you the ability to resurrect fallen comrades so that they may rejoin the fight anew. Touted as a more tactical class, this one is sure to suit the spookier inhabitants of Tamriel.
And you’ve not got too much longer to wait to raise a little hell as Elsweyr is going into Early Access in May. The full release will breach our
FOR THE FIRST TIME IN A LONG TIME YOU’LL BE ABLE TO COMPEL SOME BONES TO RATTLE YOURSELF.
console shores from 4 June and, as we saw previously with the previous Summerset and Morrowind chapters, The Elder Scrolls Online will see the release of a special Elsweyr edition. As you would expect, this edition comes with its own host of in-game goodies.
GET THE CREAM
If you’re a newcomer to Tamriel, the pre-order edition of Elsweyr nets you two 100% experience scrolls so you can hit the ground running. You’ll also get a number of treasure maps, a new costume, and a new pet. An electrified horse mount is also available with the digital prepurchase edition. The Collector’s edition also includes its own mount in the form of a fierce Senche-Raht battlecat… which may allow you to live out your He-Man dreams but will probably feel just a bit strange if your character is also a Khajiit.
Needless to say, the cat-mad members of Team OPM can’t wait to jump into this chapter of The Elder Scrolls Online and, with access to Summerset and Morrowind included within the Elsweyr editions, even if you’re not into the meow-vellous creatures there’s never been a better time to begin your own adventure in Tamriel.
For more information, see the official site: elderscrollsonline.com/en-gb/home.