Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[LordBucket]

Is this correct?

EDIT:
This might not be correct.



Other relevant information difficult to fit:
 * Drenar's grandfather is dead (corprus)
 * We never knew our father (which makes it slightly odd that Drenar has any idea who we are, as well as odd that he'd come here looking for his son, the guy who left our mother (or our mother left?) ~20+ years ago)

How many wives did Drenar have? He's a dunmer. We're imperials. It looks to me like all of our other even great grandparents hadn't been born when this this happened. So I'm guessing Drenar married a couple times, his first wife/wives died, and like 90 years after this whole thing with Thavel happened, he married some imperial woman, had a son, then that boy grew up and had a son...us.

[IronyOwl]

Thavas/Thalvel and Edras were concurrent cousins, and Drenar's son/our father could have been a fullblooded Dunmer, I assume.

You're correct in that this is ancient history by human standards, and that it's odd Drenar knew where to find us.

[LordBucket]

Thavas/Thalvel

Yeah, we need to clarify if those were two different people. I assumed that was a typo, but now I'm not sure.

Thavas/Thalvel and Edras were concurrent cousins

...oh, Edras and Thavas were cousins, not Drenar and Thavas? That makes this whole thing an additional generation removed from us.

...wait.

It was there that my father, Edras Nero, spent his childhood. He was the sole child of his parents, but with them lived a cousin, Thavas, who may well have been his brother, adopted from some less-prosperous relatives.

Spoiler: no (click to show/hide)

If Edras was an only child, how could he have a cousin? A cousin is the child of your parent's brother or sister. ...wait, we can reconcile that: Thavas is the son of Drenar's grandMOTHER, but not his grandfather. So Drenar's mother had children through two different men, and Thavas is from Drenar's grandmother's line? That would make our villain the son of the "unnamed woman" at the top of the chart, through a different man?

That makes this whole thing....four generations and a former marriage removed from us?

Either way, we never even knew Drenar's son. It's weird that Drenar has any clue who we are. The idea that his grandfather's wife's grandson from a former marriage would have any idea who we are seems incredibly remote.

EDIT:

...no, that's not correct either. Edras' cousin would be his PARENT's brother or sister's child...so...Drenar's grandfather had a sibling, who had a son, and that was Thaval?

So...Thavel is our grandfather's (grandfather or grandmother's) (brother or sister's) son? So...the son of the sibling of one of the two people at the very top of the chart?



Is that correct?

[IronyOwl]

The phrasing made me think it might be more of the "related but not immediately" type of cousin anyway, rather than the more specific bracket. The stricter interpretation does do weird things to the grandfather-Thavas relationship, though. He couldn't be a literal cousin without being from a different coupling or having a weird "yer the grandchild of the wrong kid, kid" thing going on.


I still don't think it's that far removed, though. For an elf, anyway:

Able Edras and Cain Thaval grew up together
Edras' grandfather was a dick
Thaval murdered everyone, invoked the power of a Daedric Lord, was hurled screaming into a pit of his own doing, and burned everything to the ground
Edras' wife Amava fled to Mournhold and gave birth to Drenar, presumably by way of the now-deceased Edras
Drenar at some point sired our father
Our father at some point shacked up with an Imperial before taking off for twenty years
A hundred and fifty years after that whole burning to the ground thing, Thaval decides it's time to get on with that nefarious plan he has
Thaval kidnaps or murders everyone related to that prick Edras, like Drenar's wife, sister (in law or from another marriage, presumably), niece (same), and any husbands of the aforementioned other than Drenar himself
Drenar tries to find his son, stumbles across a fling from two decades ago and a resulting grandkid

Assuming banging Imperials is a relatively recent hobby, the chronology works fine except for wondering why it took Thavas so long. Finding us is trickier to reconcile; he'd need decades-old intel to figure out that his son had been in a relationship with an Imperial in Leyawiin, and apparently only long enough to sire a child at that.

I'm still not a hundred percent certain Drenar isn't up to no good. Notably, everyone except the son of the woman you desire above all else and the treacherous cur you once looked to as a brother has been snatched? That's gotta be intentional symbolism, Drenar being a much harder target than anyone else, or something else fishy going on.

EDIT: Our father's an oddball in this case too. There's a lot of explanations beyond being a vessel of Molag Bal, but his vanishing did occur closer to the kidnappings than Thaval's thing did. Wouldn't shock me to learn he was involved in some way.

[WillowLuman]

Thavas/Thalvel

Yeah, we need to clarify if those were two different people. I assumed that was a typo, but now I'm not sure.

Correct, I goofed up. His name is Thavas

[LordBucket]

I'm still not a hundred percent certain Drenar isn't up to no good

Neither am I, but my strongest concern is that even though he means well, he's nevertheless causing a problem for us by being here. Given that we apparently never even met our father, who is removed by all this nonsense by ~150 years and 5 or 6 generations... it seems incredibly unlikely that our villain would have any idea we even exist, let alone who we are or how to find us. Unless Molag Bal is directly guiding him to kill all descendants. Which I suppose is possible. But if not, if this is simply mortal vengeance, safety through obscurity seems the way to go here.

This Drenar guy seems like he's at risk. What do we have to gain by being in contact with him except the chance of attracting the attention of a powerful, homocidal nutcase, who otherwise would have had no way to know that his father's, brother's, grandson's son...had a child with an imperial woman he had a brief fling with twenty years ago?

If he wants to keep us safe, seems to me the best way to do that would be to stay away.

not a hundred percent certain Drenar isn't up to no good

...yeah. That's the other thing. We never even knew our father. And now his father is showing up after 20 years of showing no interest? I'm not buying the idea that he's here out of genuine concern. Seems equally plausible to me that he never approved of his son being with an imperial woman, and that's why we haven't met him until now. For all we know, our father might have had a dunmer wife, and our mother was just a summer fling that he moved on from, possibly never even having known that she was pregnant. Though admittedly, since Drenar is a dunmer it's possible that the ~20 years he hasn't been around is simply such a relatively short period of time to him that he didn't think it was a big deal.

I think we need to get our mother's version of the story

Our father's an oddball in this case too

Yes, but taking a look at the thread title, and noting that Drenar's grandfather died of corprus, there's an obvious way to reconcile that issue. I'm sure you and Hugo will both recognize the expression: Born to uncertain parents.

For example, iif Drenar isn't our grandfather but thinks he is because his son was sleeping with some imperial floozy who was also sleeping with other men...that would potentially explain at least a couple things.

[IronyOwl]

But if not, if this is simply mortal vengeance, safety through obscurity seems the way to go here.

I feel like swiping, what, six different people from three different provinces without Drenar managing to figure out anything from that directly seems to imply that we're dealing with a pretty competent agent here. If he is mortal, he's apparently rather good at it, so I'm pretty dubious he'd be unable or unwilling to find us whereas Drenar could.

Of course, this then raises another layer of how Drenar did that. Farm burned, tomb defiled, family vanished. Clues? Er... probably Thavas? Son missing, like usual. Clues? Well no sign of him, but I found his former squeeze and delinquent bastard son pretty easy.

I think we need to get our mother's version of the story

+1

And assuming he hasn't spoken at length with our mother yet, Drenar will want to hear this anyway.

Yes, but taking a look at the thread title, and noting that Drenar's grandfather died of corprus, there's an obvious way to reconcile that issue. I'm sure you and Hugo will both recognize the expression: Born to uncertain parents.

For example, iif Drenar isn't our grandfather but thinks he is because his son was sleeping with some imperial floozy who was also sleeping with other men...that would potentially explain at least a couple things.

You know, it does occur to me that Thavas' obsession seems strangely unfulfilled. Wouldn't horribly shock me to learn Drenar is Thavas' son, not Edras', and that our father discovered the terrible truth and has set out to fulfill his grandfather's dark legacy.

Might even dovetail with the mystery over Drenar not being kidnapped. Darth Thavas could be pruning the family tree.

[LordBucket]

Updated family tree with correction from this post. Note that, like IronyOwl points out, some of these relationships might be metaphorical. This chart assumes that the biological relations implied by titles is factual.

EDIT: "Thavas" not "Theval"

[IronyOwl]

...shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.

I just realized we have confirmation on exactly none of this. Drenar never knew his father either, so he's getting this all from Edras' wife at the very best, who would have gotten most of it directly from Edras.

According to Edras' wife, Edras found evidence of Thaval murdering Edras' grandfather conveniently located to implicate the innocent Edras instead. According to Edras himself, Edras was awakened by slaves murdering themselves at a Daedric ruin, where he valiantly engaged the traitorous Thaval and defeated him at great personal injury. According to Edras' wife, Edras then assured his wife that Thaval was attacking again and that she should flee, whereupon nobody knows anything except that there were charred bones in what was left of the house.

This could really easily be Cultist Edras murdering his grandfather to inherit faster, framing Thavas when Thavas found him out, framing Thavas again to cover his sneaking out to sacrifice all of his slaves, framing Thavas yet again when someone, maybe even Thavas himself, showed up to try and apparently fail to stop him, and then framing Thavas again when Thavas came to finish the job or he just felt like faking his own death.

The more I think about this story the less I like any given part of it. And that's assuming Drenar's on the level but with bad intel; if he or Amava are actually in on it, we'd be totally screwed.

[LordBucket]

...shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.

I just realized we have confirmation on exactly none of this. Drenar never knew his father either, so he's getting this all from Edras' wife at the very best, who would have gotten most of it directly from Edras.

She might be in a good position to know. My impression is that the feud was more over who got to marry her than the family fortune:

Thavas returned home several years later, having studied and dabbled in many trades, particularly magic and finance. They were exuberant to see each other again after those years, but my grandfather soon encouraged Thavas to leave again, giving him some money and the suggestion to invest in shipping charters.

Two years later, he returned again, having made a modest fortune for himself, but my grandfather bade him stay no longer than a visit, directing him to a timber enterprise in Skyrim. Thavas returned again, and in a shorter time was bade to leave and attempt Ebony speculation. And so on. At last, when suggested that he become a landlord in Cyrodil, Thavas expressed his intention to marry my mother, Amava.

If Thavas and Edras, two people raised as brothers, were both competing for her attention, and she ended up marrying one of the two...she would have known what was going on.

Thavas was given money and an expensive education, knew finance, and apparently had enough wealth that it was realistic to suggest that he become a land baron in the capitol. He didn't need some Morrowind whickwheat plantation.

He wanted the girl.

Which also explains the desire to kill all descendants. "They should have been MY children, not Edras'!"

Though...if so, it is a bit strange that Drenar's wife would have been taken, but not Drenar himself. His wife has no biological relationship to this. Neither does our mother. And it seems like a stretch to me that Thavas would care about us at all even if he knew about us. We're not a dunmer. If he's out to purge the children of the man who took the woman he wanted...an illegitimate non-dunmer great-grandchild by a woman that the biological relative abandoned isn't exactly very relevant to that motive. I can very easily see Thavas thinking "Let your legacy be a foreign, alien bastard!" and as a consequence him wanting us to survive.

The more I think about this story the less I like any given part of it. And that's assuming Drenar's on the level but with bad intel; if he or Amava are actually in on it, we'd be totally screwed.

Well, after Edras, Drenar is the most obvious, most relevant target, given the apparently motivation. Why is he is the one still alive? And apaprently his wife is missing. So, are we to believe that Thavas and/or his agents went to Mournhold, killed or otherwise disposed of a woman with no direct biological relation to his feud, and left the prime candidate alive? Why?

EDIT:
Actually, this is also super weird:

My mother's family took control of the plantation

So, Drenar's mother...the woman that Thavas wanted, apparently remarried and "her family" (implied second husband) took over the estate.

Why are those two free of all this trouble? If you were Thavas...a guy who apparently is running across provinces murdering people and burning down houses and stuff...why would leave the woman that prompted your freakout alone to go marry somebody else? And it's not like she was just too far away, or something. Denar's story seems to imply that Thavas specically went to Mournhold to make Denar's wife disappear.

So he "disappeared" the wife the son of the woman he wanted...but he didn't so much as say 'hi' to the woman who inspired his 150 year long  murderous freakout in the first place?

[LordBucket]

Updated:

[WillowLuman]

I think we need to get our mother's version of the story

+1

And assuming he hasn't spoken at length with our mother yet, Drernar will want to hear this anyway.

"Hmm." Artorius paused as their desert arrived at the table, the cherry pie. "Mom, have you told him much about my father yet?"

"Well, actually, when I met him this morning we wound up talking about you a lot. Erm... he didn't quite expect..."

Drernar interrupts her "Well, I knew about Camilla already from a letter I received some years ago, which was the last I'd heard of him. If you would tell me what you know of my Son, I would be extremely grateful."

Camilla opened her mouth, but seemed to struggle with her words for a bit. "Well... Artorius is sick of hearing this, but... well, I first met Foryn twenty-three years ago, almost to this day, as luck would have it. I was a cleaning lady employed at a few places around town at the time and, one day while I was cleaning the Mage's Guild, he came in. I didn't really make much of him at the time, other than that he was new, and..." she blushes ever-so-slightly, "well, about a week later, we wound up talking to each other at the Three Sisters' inn, having seen each other around a few times. I found out he'd been roaming Tamriel for a few years, but had fallen on hard times after using all his money trying to get into the Arcane University. He'd been directed down here, and found himself a job a this guild. Over the next two years we got to know each other more, and, one day, he asked me to marry him. Naturally, I said yes, and then we were married in the big Chapel, and all my friends came to congratulate us. Oh..." She seemed lost for a moment.

"Well, he came to live with me, rather than at the guild, and we were happy. About a year later, we talked about having a child, but he said he didn't think we were ready. After that, he got a second job, at the fighter's guild, and from time to time, he'd be given an errand to solve some problem outside the city walls. We were making more money, and starting to save some. He was always very insistent that we find a better house before we had a child, and after a year of saving up, we agreed it was time. Of course, then he lost his job at the Fighter's guild. There just weren't enough contracts to go around, and the dues were going to become an expense. After that he..." She has trouble gathering her words again.

"Well, he told me that he knew a way to get the rest of the money we needed before the baby came, and that he needed to go to the Imperial city, and he'd be back before I knew it, and... well, I never heard from him again."

[LordBucket]

So Drenar had never even seen our mother before today. Our father left before we were even born. And the only way Drenar even knew our father was married at all was from a letter.

Ask Drenar:
1) When that letter was written
2) How he found us

Also:

Ask how long ago these trouble he's having began, when his wife and relatives disappeared, etc.

Because if our father, who is relatively lower on the plausible target priority list, disappeared 20 years ago, and the far more relevant targets disappeared only recently...it seems likely that the two are unrelated. Which corroborates the idea that we're not at risk, except that he's drawing attention to us by being a great big juicy high priority target and hanging out with us.

Whereas if the other disappearances happened during a similar timeframe as our father's disappearance, then I have to wonder:

1) Why did it take him 20 years to go looking for his son?
2) Why does he think there's still any danger, since all this stuff happened twenty years ago?

And I guess finally,

Ask him what he proposes to do

Because he's saying that he wants to "protect us." Ok, that's nice. Does "protecting us" involve us doing absolutely nothing different, living our lives except he's hanging out with us? Is he proposing that we leave the relative safety of familiar home territory that's been completely safe and unaffected by his problem for our entire lives...to go into the heart of Morrowind where all the problems he's talking about are centered? Because he's already said that both the plantation and family home were incinerated and reduced to rubble. Where does he plan on taking us? To Mournhold, where his mother lives?

Translation: "hang out with the woman who the big bad crazy nutcase has been pining over for the past 150 years"

That doesn't make very much sense to me.

Right now, it makes just as much sense that he's just some random homeless guy who found a letter in a chest and decided to make up all this stuff he's telling us so he has a place to live.

[WillowLuman]

(Sorry for the long gap, RL was getting complicated of late. Incoming)

[WillowLuman]

(Note: am burnt out on writing from the events of the past few weeks, may or may not be evident.)

"So, when is that letter dated?" asks Artorius.

"24 Rain's Hand, 409. Twenty-one years ago."

"That was the day before the wedding..." adds Camilla.

"And when exactly did people start going missing? Not counting my father."

"Four months ago, as far as I've been able to determine. It's taken a while to confirm things over such long distances, but my wife went missing a bit under two months ago. I returned home to find her gone, and signs of a struggle."

"And no one has come after you? Or Amava, for that matter, who this whole thing seems to have centered on."

Drernar's features tighten, ever so slightly. "My mother... Amava... has been dead for a few years now. Morrowind has been a very volatile place, these past few years. As I'm sure you've heard. As for me, well," Drernar takes out a letter and hands it to Artorius.

Spoiler: "For the eyes of Drernar Nero" (click to show/hide)

In accordance with custom, this notice of the breach of honorable commencement is sent to the aforementioned person. A contract about the aforementioned person has been terminated, as an agent pursuing this honorable and lawful task so learned that abhorrent and unlawful agents had been employed for the same task, as was discovered when the two agents, in pursuing this task, encountered each other.

"My sources inform me that I've narrowly missed other unfriendly people on the way."

"So, let me get this straight," says Artorius, gesticulating the beginning of a timeline. "Your son writes to you over twenty years ago, and you make no attempt to reach him for twenty years, until people in the family go missing. And upon finding you have more family down here, you want to keep us safe."

Drernar nods, after a moment. "From your tone... I had my reasons for not seeking him sooner. Though I do not think it would be polite to bring them up here."

"Alright then. So. What, exactly, is your plan now? To remain here? To take us back to Mournhold? Forgive me, but what in Oblivion were you thinking??"

Camilla looks mortified. Drernar says "Excuse me?"

"You, who are apparently followed by hired killers. Would my mother and I even be in danger if you hadn't come here? We're not even Dunmer! Why would we be involved?"

"Because," says Drernar coldly, "being a Nero comes with a bit more than a name and those cheekbones. A sort of family destiny. Every generation without fail, going back into ancient times, the first-born Nero has always been born under the sign of the Thief. And every one has met with uncommon and strange fortunes. Many have done great things in their times. Our blood has great potential in it, Artorius. That is why I'm going to train you. If something's to be done about Thavas, we'll have to be the ones to do it."

"...way to bury the lead, there."