The UESPWiki – Your source for The Elder Scrolls since 1995
In Jokes
- Within First Edition in the Market District of the Imperial City there lies a scroll called the "Document of Puerile Banter". The item is named in tribute to a message board frequented by one of the game designers. (Note that in the unmodified game, "Puerile" is misspelled as "Purile"; the Unofficial Oblivion Patch fixes this typo.)
- Certain shops in the Imperial City appear to have been named in honor of those restaurants native to Maryland, home of Bethesda Softworks. Amongst such are The Main Ingredient and Three Brothers.
- In the lake slightly West of Fort Nikel lies a corpse identified as that of Nath Dyer. On the corpse, you will find a primrose and an undelivered love letter written by Nath to a woman he is interested in courting. Unfortunately, it seems Nath never made it to the city to deliver his letter. In the construction set, there are two hidden names for this corpse, DeadLoverFortNikel and NathanMcDyer. Therefore it is likely this corpse is named after Nathan McDyer, a Bethesda employee who was on the Quality Assurance team for Oblivion.
- NPCs often speak of land dreugh, saying: "Have you seen a land dreugh? We call them 'Billies.' Don't know why. Steer clear of them, though." The seemingly colloquial name for the land dreugh was obtained, in fact, from the development team. An excerpt from a member explaining such reads: "The Oblivion bestiary is quite large and varied. You’ll see the return of old Elder Scrolls favorites, plus the addition of more than a few new critters to smash or sneak by, whatever your preference. One of our new favorite guys we’ve nicknamed 'Codename: Billy.' He’s a really awesome variation on a popular creature from past Elder Scrolls games."
Pop-Culture References
Television/Movies
- While participating in An Unexpected Voyage, your character is given the opportunity to claim, unsuccessfully, to be the ship's cook, mimicking dialogue from the Steven Seagal movie Under Siege.
- Lucien Lachance, the individual who recruits you into the Dark Brotherhood, is a caricature of Lucien Lacroix, a character on the Canadian television series Forever Knight. Chronicling the journeys of an eight-hundred year old vampire, Nick Knight, Forever Knight introduced Lacroix as the creature who brought Nick into his dark family, as Lachance does the player character.
- Nothing You Can Possess, the second quest given by Umbacano, is named in reference to the first Indiana Jones movie Raiders of the Lost Ark, wherein Indiana's nemesis, Doctor Rene Belloq, takes the Idol which Jones has risked his life retrieving, saying "Dr. Jones, again we see that there is nothing you can possess, which I cannot take away." Apart from the name, the content of the quest was also modeled after said scene.
- The concluding portion of the quest Where Spirits Have Lease begins with the completion of Lorgren Benirus' corpse, following the return of his skeletal hand. At this point he may be heard, prior to rising in lich form, to yell in triumph, "I live...again! Hahaha..." a reference to the movie Army of Darkness.
- It has been suggested that the area where Umbra is located - Vindasel - is named in reference to actor Vin Diesel. This may be the case, because The Pacifier (starring Vin Diesel), takes place in Bethesda, Maryland, where Bethesda Softworks was originally located.
- The Forlorn Watchman quest leads to the eventual acquisition of a ship's log telling of a mutiny in which the traitor "Gable" leads the crew against "Captain Laughton", all of which references the classic Mutiny on the Bounty, in which actors Charles Laughton and Clark Gable played the titular roles of captain and chief of the mutineers, respectively.
- The item dubbed "Mother's Head", from the quest "Following a Lead", is a reference from the slasher movie "Friday the 13th: Part 2". Jason (the deranged and invulnerable killer) talks to the head of his decapitated mother, who was killed in an earlier movie.
- Uriel Septim VII quotes from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar (Act II, sc. ii) when asked if he is afraid to die during the tutorial: "death, a necessary end, will come when it will come". Patrick Stewart, the voice actor, has been a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company since 1966.
- Weebam-Na, an NPC residing in Leyawiin, will tell, if prompted, of a man who sought riches through a new chain of restaurants specializing in the preparation of rat. His exotic menu included such delicacies as "Rat Ragu with Powdered Deer Penis", amongst others; this is a reference to Steven Seagal's movie The Glimmer Man. (Seagal's character, Jack Cole, gives Keenan Ivory Wayans' character, Jim Campbell, a powder to put "under your tongue" for allergies, only to then tell him that it's "powdered deer penis".)
- Casta Scribonia of the Chorral Mages' Guild claims to be the famous author of "Woman Gone Wild". This may be a reference to "Girls Gone Wild".
- When performing the quest May the Best Thief Win, if you read the diary after you steal it, it will be about a blood eating plant Amantius found during an eclipse of the sun. He tells of how he eventually kills the plant. This may be a reference to the film Little Shop of Horrors where a florist finds a similar plant who eventually eats all the main characters. Amantius had more luck than poor Seymour at least.
Music
- The in-game item "Blue Suede Shoes" is named in tribute to the classic Blue Suede Shoes, a rock-and-roll standard written by Carl Perkins and performed by himself and numerous other artists, including Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, and many more.
Literature
- Jakben, Earl of Imbel, a citizen of the Imperial City, was also given an equally clever name. By removing the appellation of "Earl" from his name, you are left with the JakbenImbel. Divided properly it may read as Jak be nImbel, or "Jack be nimble". As the famous thief Springheel Jak - a reference to Spring-Heeled Jack, a character from English folklore - his unique boots (granting a +50 Acrobatics) are quite useful for jumping over candlesticks.
- A Shadow over Hackdirt, a quest initiated in Chorrol, involves the mystery of a town's population which pays worship to unseen creatures known simply as "The Deep Ones", through the guidance of a "Bible of the Deep Ones". The scenario was closely modeled after The Shadow Over Innsmouth, a story by H.P. Lovecraft in which a small New England town is populated with half-human creatures who worship beings that live under the sea, the Deep Ones. Metallica fans may also recognize the story as 'it was told in The Thing That Should Not Be, track three on Master of Puppets. Furthermore, it is also an obvious reference to another Bethesda game, Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth, whose content is also based on the works of H.P. Lovecraft- coincidentally, the same story (The Shadow Over Innsmouth), and not Call Of Cthulhu, despite the obvious similarities in the names.
- Another Lovecraft reference may be the quest for Vaermina, the setting may be influenced by the works in Lovecraft's Dream Cycle.
- The quest Through A Nightmare, Darkly appears to have borrowed its title from the Bible.
- The Dark Brotherhood quest Whodunit? was based off the Agatha Christie book And Then There Were None [1]. The book revolves around a group of strangers, each of whom has committed a crime of some sort, who visit an island and are systematically slain, one by one.
- Following the completion of the Fighters Guild quest Azani Blackheart, the rare in-game book Palla may be acquired from Azani's bookcase. The book's content was written in a similar style, and with the same basic subject, as Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita.
- The Dark Brotherhood training room contains a single chest, wherein lie two books, one of which is entitled "The Gold Ribbon of Merit", an obvious allusion to Stephen Crane's masterpiece, The Red Badge of Courage.
- The Imperial City-based quest Unfriendly Competition leads the player into discovering the Macabre Manifest, a catalog of those recently perished. One of its entries concerns an "Oford Gabings", an anagram of Frodo Baggins, and lists several items that Frodo carried during The Lord of the Rings saga, including a "travel cloak with silver and green leaf fastener", an "enchanted shortsword with inlaid writing", a "leather bound travel journal", and a "gold ring with inscription (cursed?)".
- A further Lord of the Rings reference, that cannot normally be seen in-game, is that of the NPC Boromir. Oddly, Boromir appears as a woman, despite being assigned a male body. That much aside, Boromir fits the character type as a Nord bedecked in a full set of Elven Armor. Boromir is listed under form ID 0002319F and may be viewed by using the console.
- Yet another reference to J.R.R. Tolkien's books: There lives a Nord called Havilstein Hoar-Blood at Gnoll Mountain, he has a wolf named "Redmaw" as companion. "Redmaw" is a direct translation of "Carcharoth", which is a mighty wolf known from Tolkien's book "The Silmarillion".
- In the third level of the Ayleid ruin Vilverin is a note written by the resident Necromancer, Jalbert, to a guard captain in Daggerfall by the name of 'Aluc Cardius'. This is likely a simple anagram (very nearly spelled backwards) of the name 'Dracula' and no doubt a reference to the infamous vampire, since it is hinted at that Cardius himself is a vampire.
- During the Nature's Fury quest added by the Knights of the Nine official plug-in, you will encounter a large bear named Forest Guardian. The Forest Guardian seems reminiscent of the guardian from the Rigante book: "The Sword in the Storm". It too was a large bear and could not be defeated through violence, to defeat it, Connavar (the 'hero' of the book) simply did not attack it despite its growls and roars and walked around it.
- There is a small bridge just past The Mouth of the Panther, east-southeast of Bravil. Underneath, in the middle of the river, you will find the remains of a Dead Troll. Reminiscent of the children's fairy tale "Billy Goats Gruff", you will find A Poorly Scrawled Note on the body, explaining its failure as a bridge troll:
Mee wurst troll evurr
nobuddy pay brijj tole
me nott sceary enuf
mee gett drunc an kil sellf
troll droun
Art
- The statue in Chorrol in front of the south gate is a rendition of the Pieta, one of Michelangelo's finest works.
- The statue in Anvil in the water near the dock gate seems to be an enlarged reference to The Little Mermaid, perhaps the most famous statue in Copenhagen.
Other Video Games
- Upon completion of the Battlehorn Castle quest you will be able to start a certain unmarked quest. During the quest you discover that the previous Lord of Battlehorn Castle, namely Lord Kain, was resurrected by a scheming Necromancer after being slain in a battle. This story is very similar the Silicon Knights'/Crystal Dynamics 'Legacy of Kain' series in which a nobleman named Kain is resurrected by the Necromancer Mortanius.
Societal References
Cultural
- Skjorta, a Nord clothing merchant in the city of Bruma, is appropriately dubbed, her name meaning "shirt" in Norwegian and Swedish.
- Fafnir, the Nord guard of Summitmist Manor (and the alleged chest of gold within) is named for the greedy gold-guarding dragon of Nordic mythology in the Volsunga Saga.
- The name of the quest Whom Gods Annoy is derived from an ancient proverb, "Whom the gods (wish to) destroy, they first make mad". The proverb is from an anonymous ancient Greek poet (some modern sources falsely attribute it to Euripides, but not for any reason).
- On rare occasion NPCs may be overheard discussing the acts of "Saint Jiub", who drove the Cliff Racers away from portions of Morrowind. This is, undoubtedly, referring to the fellow prisoner aboard ship in the introduction of Morrowind, who is never seen again following such. This is very similar to the legend of Saint Patrick, who supposedly drove away all the snakes from Ireland.
Historical
- Mannimarco, leader of the Necromancers, is revered as the "King of Worms", and was given his name in respect to the obscure Germanic tribe of the Marcomanni, who conquered what is now the City of Worms in southwestern Germany in the year 408.
- In the Cheydinhal Dark Brotherhood sanctuary, there lives a NPC by the name of Antoinetta Marie, an obvious reference to the Austrian-born French Queen of the 18th Century who was executed during the French Revolution. If you speak with her about 'rumors' she may talk about her being the next leader of the sanctuary.
- The shop "Novaroma" in Bruma is likely to be a reference to the Roman Capital of Constantinople (now modern day Istanbul), which was founded by Emperor Constantine as Nova Roma in 326BC. (New Rome in Latin). It could also refer to a Roman revivalist group created in 1998 that was called Nova Roma.
- The Black Hand was the informal name of the organization that assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, starting World War I.
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