The Imperial City
The defining feature of the City of Cyrodiil is its position at the center of the eight Ruby Isles at the heart of the great Lake Rumare. Rumare feads the River Niben, a wide, slow, unbroken river leading all the way down to the Southern Sea. Its position, both defensible, and with perfect naval access to the outside world, makes it the most strategically advantageous realestate in Tamriel. However, its location at Tamriel's heart has given it sacred significance as well by every culture that has lived there.
The inner city is divided into seven Districts, with three additional Satellite Districts beyond its walls. Each is reserved for a specific purpose
Talos Plaza
After three centuries of rule by the descendents of Alessia, the religion of the Imperials had become popular throughout the world as the spirituality of slaves. Inspired by a vision of Alessia, an Imga guru called Marukh began traveling the world, teaching all who would listen about the primacy of Akatosh over the other gods. He preached that the Empire was Akatosh's kingdom and that the Bull Emperors had failed Him by permitting idolitry in His temple on Nirn.
In 1E 358, while Emperor Ami-El was in Skyrim on a military campaign, Marukh led a band of 5,000 acolytes into the city. History does not record what follows, but early records indicate that most of the population disappeared overnight. By the time Ami-El returned to the city in 1E 359, he found the temples burned, statues smashed, and familiar faces replaced by the knowing smiles of strangers. The streets appeared cobbled from bits of marble and stone, the remnents of thousands of busts and statues of pagan gods. The Emperor was summoned to his own palace by the Elder Council, who had not been heard from since the night Marukh arrived, and was never seen in public again.
For the next decade, the Emperor's edicts were issued through intermediaries, each new law in furtherance of the cult's agenda. Then, Ami-El was finally declared dead, without an heir, the city mourned for eight days and eight nights. When a new dynasty began from the ranks of the nobility, the cult was elevated to the position of state relion with broad authority to persecute heretics. Thus, the Alessian Order was born, and the City of a Thousand Cults was officially no more.
In time, the Order gave way to a more fanatical sect, the Marukhati Selectives, who rejected the idea of any gods other than Akatosh, who became The One in their monotheistic reckoning. Temples to the Eight Divines in the city were torn down, and the sections of the city were formally organized to each serve a specific purpose, with one section becoming the Temple District, where the Temple of the One stood until its destruction in the Oblivion Crisis.
After a period of rulership by Reachman warlords known as the age of the Longhouse Emperors, a Colovian nobleman named Varen Aquillaros successfully led a revolt to overthrow the witch-king. For the first time in centuries, Cyrodiil was united behind a strong and popular Emperor, and all hoped the Interregnum had come to an end. However, if Aquillaros was to have any hope of winning back the lost provinces, he needed to reclaim the mandate of heaven.
Aquilaros, together with his five Companions who supported his rise to power, delved into Sancre Tor to recover the Amulet of Kings, the symbol of the Dragonborn Emperors since the time of Alessia. A true dragonborn weilding the amulet had the power to protect the land from the evil daedra. No surer sign of divine authority existed. And under the advice of a socerer called Mannimarco, Varen attempted a ritual to beseach Akatosh to bestow the dragonblood onto him as He had for St. Alessia millenia hence. But Mannimarco betrayed his emperor, slaying him in the moment of the ritual. The disruption caused a break in the Firmament which seperated Oblivion from the realm of mortals.
Tamriel became open for invasion from the daedric forces of Molag Bal who opened gate of oblivion in the sky all over the land in an attempt to merge his realm of Coldharbor with the mortal plane. Ultimately, this plan was thwarted, and the Firmament was reestored. However, the Imperial City had nearly been swallowed by the Daedric Prince's machine, leaving the city in ruins while the other provinces waged war for the next twenty years attempting to fill the vacuum.
For centuries, the City of Cyrodiil remained in desolation. A small population survived outside the walls, but within the ruins, the taint of the daedra remained, making the city unfit to serve as a capitol. Though many would-be emperors continued to attempt to recreate the magesty of the old Empires, each one making headway in restoring the ruins to function, they invariably failed to unite the province, let alone spread their conquest to the continent. That is, until Tiber Septim.
The City
- A residential district for the elite placed at the main entrence of the city. It has hotels, restaurants, and theatres reserved for the nobility.
- The general residential district. Contains houses, boarding houses, and apartments with a few municipal services and street vendors.
- The greatest hub of trade in Tamriel. The Market is home to numerous businesses for every walk of life. It also houses common theatres, vendors, and news services.
- Houses the massive collisseum where sporting events are held every day. It holds cheap housing reserved for gladiators, shared space for smithing and carpentry, as well as the largest public cafeteria in Tamriel where the Citie's poorest citizens are given a daily stipend of bread and free meals on holidays.
- The city park, featuring flora from across the Empire, as well as statues of the Divines.
- A complex of interconnected cathedrals containing shrines of a hundred different divinities. Also includes additional housing for those who can afford nicer accomodations. The heart of the district is the Temple of the One, where the stone remains of the Avatar of Akatosh remains.
- The center circle of the city. Contains a great graveyard and mausoleum complex wear the Empire's royal family has been buried since the time of Alessia. At the heart of this macabre pavillion is White-Gold Tower, the Imperial Palace and capitol building of the Empire.
- A secondary ring and tower connected to the Market District. It is the headquarters of the Imperial Legion and the most secure prison in Tamriel.
- A secondary ring and tower connected to the Arboretum. It is an institute of high learning for aspiring mages and the headquarters of the Mages Guild.
- Its tower serves as both lighthouse and warehouse. The largest single dock in the world and the hub of the Empire's maritime trade. Hidden behind the defensive wall are slums for those undesirables who could not find work within the city proper.
The History
Ancient Origins
The history of the City of Cyrodiil begins in the early Merethic Era before man or elf had set foot on Tamriel. In the oldest days, the heartland was populated by numerous races of beastfolk. Most predominant were a race of Bird Men, whose name and culture were lost after their conquest by the elves. Very little archeological evidence survives of the Birdfolk's culture occupation of this land. However, some insights can be gleaned from the Ayleid elves who conquered their territory soon after the first Aldmeri colonies began appearing on the mainland. Some scholors hypothesize that the Ayleid's rapid cultural shift away from their homeland in Summerset was due to intermixing with the Birdfolk. Early Ayleid artifacts includes pottery, moseics, and wall inscriptions depicting winged elves flying in formation over a hill, surrounded by the outline of eight islands. It is possible this depicts some kind of cairn or burial mound, and a ritual of communion, mourning, or worship of the dead. The repeated emphasis of the eight islands may mean more than simply where the mound was located, but perhaps indicates that the islands themselves have some cosmic significance.The City of a Thousand Cults
The legend of the Aldmeri explorer Topal the Pilot suggests that he lawfully purchased the archipelago from the Bird Men in exchange for teaching them to read and write. Whatever communication truly took place between the elves and the indigeonous people of the islands can only be guessed at. However, it is clear that the very first colonies of the elves who would become the Ayleids were build on these isles. Eventually, the colonies spread outward, city-states cropping up throughout Cyrodiil. A culture whose beating heart was Lake Rumare. Eventually, a neutral city was built on the largest island. This massive ringed complex was ruled by, and beholden to no earthly king. It was one giant temple meant to service all elf-kind. At its center was the massive White-Gold Tower, created in the image of the Adamantine Tower, the oldest structure in the known world. In this role, the temple-complex was home to temples and shrines of every god known to elf-kind, both Aedric and Daedric, as the Ayleids made little distinction between them. The tower was known as the Temple of the Ancestors, a massive tomb where the ashes of the dead of the whole civilization were interred, magically condensed into crystal glass. After centuries of brutal Ayleid rule, slaves of the Ayleids rose up under the leadership of Saint Alessia. At the culmination of her rebellion, the city was ransacked, its relics destroyed and clergy slaughtered. White-Gold became the palace, a symbol of human tenacity, and the city became the capital of the first Empire. It became a proper city, but continued in its role as thee spiritual center of the world. Travelers from every part of the world came through the city, setting up shrines and temples to their foreign gods wherever they could. In households, alleyways, sewer junctures, statues, shrines, and symbols turned up to venerate different higher powers. This multicultural hub was the pride of an Empire built in defiance of the hegemony of the Ayleids. However, this was not to last.Temple of The One
The Interregnum
The city survived the fall of the Alessian Empire, ccontinuing as a the capital of a vestigial state of the Nibenese west half of Cyrodiil. Under direct rule of the Elder Council, the city persisted for centuries, but falling into disrepair. By the dawn of the Reman Empire, the city was little more than a palace and a dock amidst squatter-populated ruins. Under the Remans, the city was rebuilt and made a center of trade and cultural exchange once more. The Imperial Cult was formalized during this period, restoring the Eight Divines of the Imperial Pantheon, and opening the city again up to foreign worship, provided that each new cult uphold the supremacy of The Eight. The Imperial City, as it became known in this period, flourished for centuries under Reman rule. After the fall of the Reman Dynasty, the Empire fell into the hands of the Akaviri Potentate, a foreigner from a distant land who became regent. After the last Akaviri Potenate was assassinated, the Second Empire quickly lost control of the outlying provinces, becoming a rump state that controlled different portions of Cyrodiil at different times. In this period, numerous upstart warlords tore through the region, claiming the city for a time before being overthrown. This age of endless warfare destroyed the once prosperous heartland, scarring the once jungled land, leaving vast barren fields littered in ruins. The city itself, which had once encompassed the eight islands and even out to the lands surrounding Rumare, withdrew back behind the safety of its Ayleid walls. This period of calamity defined the back half of the Second Era, coming to be known as the Interregnum. In the middle of this desperate age came a disaster of cosmic proportions which left the city in ruins: the Planemeld.The Third Empire
A warlord from Falkreath named Cuhlecain led a campaign to unite several Breton and Nordic kingdoms before ambitiously marching south into Cyrodiil. In just a few short years, he had conquered the heartland, and began rebuilding the old capitol in earnest. He believed himself dragonborn, chosen by the gods to possess the world. His conquests would not have been possible without his general, a man called Hjalti Earlybeard, nicknamed by the nords who followed him as Talos Stormcrown. General Talos was a master of the Voice, an ancient magic stolen by the nords from their former dragon masters. With his incredible power, he sought out and recovered the Amulet of Kings, returning it to his master. With Cuhlecain's up-and-coming reign all but assured, a wave of nobles and commonors flocked to the old ruins of the Imperial City to turn it once again into a capitol worthy of the name Empire. On the eve of his corronation, assassins crept into the palace, slitting Hjalti's throat and slaying Cuhlecain. They were chased out by the bloody general, who survived the attempt, but would never shout again. In honor of Cuhlecain, and the emperors of old, Talos donned the amulet himself, taking on the Imperial name Tiber Septim, founding the Third Empire. The Septim dynasty brought wealth and stability to the heartland. Tiber ushered in the Third Era with the miraculous conquest of the Summerset Isles, the only province that had never before been conquered by humans. With the entire known world under control, Cyrodiil became again the cosmopolitan center of the world. The scarred fields left in the wake of the Interregnum became fertile farmland, new forrests were planted to replace the old jungles, and trade of goods and culture grew the Imperial City into the world's first metropolis. Though the city never again reached the size it had reached at the height of the Reman Dynasty, its concentration of wealth and power is unmatched in any era. Marred only by the recent devastation of the Oblivion Crisis. Thankfully, the Imperial City, and Cyrodiil as a whole was spared the level of destruction faced by the outer provinces thanks to the prioritization of the Elder Council, who wisely recalled much of the Legions to the homeland. The Empire protected its heart, at the cost of its limbs. But so long as that core remains whole, the future safety and stability of the whole world is secured.
Alternative Name(s)
Cyrodiil City - The City of A Thousand Cults
Type
Capital
Location under
Owner/Ruler
Ruling/Owning Rank
Owning Organization
Characters in Location
Demographics
- Imperial - 58%
- Breton - 15%
- Altmer - 11%
- Redguard - 9%
- Other - 7%
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