vidvana

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I Know That Nobody Asked, But Here's Some Telvanni Lore For All The Foodies.

I know that nobody asked, but here's some Telvanni lore for all the foodies.

Before you begin this culinary journey, check out this post about ash yams it's essential.

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Telvanni Cuisine

It’s obvious that Telvanni have an extensive knowledge of fungi. After all, they live in huge mushrooms and collect and plant numerous species from all across the Tamriel to use them in their potions. It goes without saying that their cuisine is also quite fungal. The commonfolk at Telvanni settlements as most of the Dunmer source their protein both from fungi* and insect meat. But Telvanni nobles love nurturing peculiar worldviews and traditions that differentiate them from other races - or even other Dunmer. One of them is their distaste for anything that doesn’t grow in soil. They frown upon hunter traditions of Ashlanders and stock-raising of house Redoran and regard them as “primitive” in contrast to the delicate art of growing fungi. The alchemy ingredients are an obvious exception from this rule, but in general as their occupations don’t usually include menial work, their light and low-calorie cuisine perfectly matches their lifestyle. This resulted in traditional cuisine of the nobility being solely plant-, or more specifically, mushroom-based**, that contrasts sharply with the cuisine of Skyrim that is rich in venison and other animal-based foods***. Noble Telvanni shun debilitating ingredients such as alcohol and moon sugar in their everyday cuisine, as keeping their minds sharp is their main priority. In order to get an indulgent sweet taste marshmerrow is used instead. Telvanni rarely import vast quantities of vegetables from other provinces as house Hlaalu does. They use commonly grown foods like saltrice, ash yams or mushrooms as the base ingredients of the dishes. In some aspects they prefer to stick to the Dunmer traditions. The nobles, though, indulge themselves in expensive imported berries - not only because of their magic-enhancing abilities but also because of their extravagant taste. As the Telvanni ranks feature numerous alchemists the import of alchemical ingredients is obviously very common. Telvanni chefs gradually incorporated some of the exotic spices into traditional cuisine. Especially valued are the most characterful of them that fancy up the bland taste of mushrooms, such as juniper, ginseng or garlic****. * In real life mushrooms are a rather poor source of protein compared to legumes like beans and lentil. But since there are no legumes in TES universe (at least as far as I know) let's suppose there are some protein-rich mushrooms Telvanni can plant. ** It’s also worth mentioning that I’m a Telvanni-fixated vegan ass myself so that’s a more probable reason why I made my beloved house also vegan xD *** A lovely example of that contrast you can encounter in @thana-topsy ‘s fanfic “Breathing Water”. This would nicely explain Neloth’s preference for apple cabbage stew. **** This recipe for example resembles Telvanni cuisine, it was one of the inspirations from my imaginary dishes above.

Above I’ve come up with some examples of what noble Telvanni would eat on a daily basis.

Thanks for reading that and take care :3

More Posts from Vidvana

vidvana

1 year ago

Fic Lines! Tag Game~

Thank you to @dirty-bosmer @kookaburra1701 @elfinismsarts @friend-of-giants @mareenavee @ehlnofeh and... anyone else who tagged me that I might have missed. It's been hectic irl for me, and I haven't gotten a chance to devote a lot of time to Tumblr Tings, but this seemed like a lot of fun.

I'm gonna try to pull from "Breathing Water" and "Liminal Bridges", since I'm currently working on the latter -- so I'll include some unpublished stuff from that as well!

The rules are to share:

A line from your fic that makes you laugh

“You’re in a mood,” Neloth declared through a chuckle. “And you’re distracting me. Which is not helpful, mind you.” Teldryn leaned in a bit closer. “Is that a bad thing?” “Shoo. Away with you.” Neloth flapped a hand at him. “Let me do my work. Unless you had a terribly important reason for coming to find me.” “Maybe I just missed you.” “Yes, well, absence does make the heart grow fonder. So go away.”

(from Liminal Bridges) Neloth and Teldryn's banter makes me laugh a lot.

A line from your fic that makes you sad

“I do…” Neloth began, and Teldryn jumped ever so slightly. Neloth’s voice was so ragged that he felt a little startled himself, barely recognizing the sound. He cleared his throat. “I do… feel.” He twisted the stiff bedroll between his fingers. “I do.” Teldryn said nothing, continuing to look straight ahead. “It’s just…” He didn’t know where he was going with this, but the words were clawing their way out of him, like some kind of sick, emaciated animal emerging from a cave. “I don’t think I… feel… correctly .”

(from Breathing Water)

A line from your fic you're proud of

For a long moment, all he could see was darkness. Then, the shimmering light of his spell began to catch the edges of shapes, vague and distant. Dozens of ships, scattered like the splintered bones of giants across the ocean floor.

(from Breathing Water)

A line from your fic you think could have been better

Neloth hadn't quite gotten used to the new way of things.

(from Liminal Bridges) I actually went in and altered this line to read: "Neloth had difficulty adapting to the new way of things." but I'm still not entirely satisfied with it. Bleh... best not overthink it too much, I reckon.

A line from your fic that makes you want to punch a character

“It’s not like you even teach me,” Talvas argued. “You just use me as a–a slave.” “I’ve owned many slaves, my dear boy. If you view the meager work I assign to you as akin to slavery, then there’s no doubt you are just as weak as I previously anticipated. You would have found yourself in shackles had you lived in Morrowind not two hundred years ago.” He sneered, beginning to turn away. “But very well. Get out of my sight. Such spinelessness is unbefitting of anyone who wishes to carry on the legacy of House Telvanni.”

(from a yet-unpublished chapter of Liminal Bridges!) I want to punch Neloth often. It's why I love him so much.

A line from your fic that makes you go 'aww'

“Cold are you?” “Damn you,” Neloth retorted, looping a leg around one of Teldryn’s. He was as hot as a furnace and Neloth groaned at the warmth, wriggling his frozen toes beneath Teldryn’s calves. “Aye!” he yelped, trying to jerk away. “You have icicles for feet, you bloody frost troll!” “It’s your duty as my partner to warm my feet,” Neloth argued, tugging the covers up around his shoulders and shifting down to press himself against Teldryn’s side. “Partner, is it?” Neloth looked up, a flicker of panic catching in his chest. He’d said that, hadn’t he? Partner. Teldryn was looking down at him with soft eyes, the barest hint of a smirk playing at the corners of his lips. Neloth cleared his throat. “Would you prefer a different term?” “No.” Teldryn slid further beneath the covers, wrapping a warm arm around Neloth’s waist. “No, not at all. I… I like that.” He pulled their bodies together, no longer flinching away from Neloth’s cold feet. “And I certainly need to uphold my duties.”

(from Liminal Bridges)

A line from your fic that's full of symbolism

Neloth said nothing, chewing nervously at the side of his tongue as Teldryn slipped a hand beneath his linen undershirt, running a warm, smooth palm across his sides. What on Nirn had possessed him to say ‘partner’? It was supposed to have been harmless banter; their usual back-and-forth. Now, the future stretched before him in branching uncertainty, sprouting delicate buds of possibility that could so easily be clipped or stunted by the cold.

(from Liminal Bridges) A continuation from the scene that "makes me go 'aww'". Honestly it took a while to pick a snippet. I write in unintentional symbolism all the time, or so it's been pointed out to me lol. That, and I love metaphor.

A line from your fic that contains an Easter egg

“For now, we need to try to talk our way out of this. I don’t think I’ll be able to cast any time soon.” Teldryn let out a low chuckle. “Well, luckily, that’s something I can do.” He unstrapped his bracer and pulled his right glove off. On his middle finger sat a glimmering ring – a moon and star. “I can be incredibly convincing.”

(from Breathing Water) The Moon and Star ring has a charisma boon -- it fortifies personality and speechcraft LMAO.

A line from your fic that's shocking

He looked down at his own body and a wave of sickness washed over him, coupled with the feeling that what he was seeing couldn’t possibly be real: a sword protruding from the center of his stomach.

(from Breathing Water)

A line from your fic you want to talk about more

Agatha huffed a laugh under her breath, removing an empty alembic and replacing it with a kettle on her alchemy workbench. “Your charisma is one of your greatest strengths, Mister Sero. You would make a good diplomat.” “I beg to differ,” he scoffed. “Look at all the good it did me in the First Era.” A sudden coldness settled behind his breastbone at his own words. An odd slip-up. He’d taken great care throughout his life to separate himself from Nerevar. The phantom memories that came to him in dreams, the loyalties he couldn’t seem to shake, the opinions that seemed to spring from his head fully formed, as if crafted by decades of experience… No. It was the result of knowing his history—knowing Morrowind’s history. Teldryn Sero and Indoril Nerevar were not the same person. To imply otherwise was too frightening.

(from an unpublished future chapter of Liminal Bridges!)

The difference between past Topsy writing Breathing Water and current Topsy writing Liminal Bridges, is that I've actually PLAYED Morrowind now and have a lot more insight into the whole Nerevarine business. And I really wanted to dig a little harder into Teldryn's relationship with being the Nerevarine, specifically what that means for him psychologically. I know there are 100 different ways to spin the reincarnation, but I've settled on the shape of "He's literally just Nerevar".

I tag @vidvana @trickstarbrave @tkwritesdumbassassins @daedrabait and anyone else who wants to jump in and hasn't already been tagged!

Tags :

good fic recommendation AGHFFDSAGJJ thank you for this brilliant compilation of beloved scenes

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vidvana

1 year ago

Attack on @snowy-weather !!!!!

(and her cute Dunmer OC Mirni)

Tags :

mirni viloni mirni tesblr dunmer dark elf darkelf elderscrolls theelderscrolls theelderscrollsfanart my posts the elder scrolls art fight 2023

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vidvana

1 year ago

*@elfcyclopedia is my second account lol I posted it on the wrong one lol

Still tagging @thana-topsy, @greyborn2 and @katastronoot :3

Fic Lines! Tag Game~

• • • • •

Thanks @thana-topsy by tagging me :3 And therefore recognizing me as a fellow writer even though I still haven't posted anything online. Yet.

The fragments are from two fanfics I'm working on, both telling the story of Ildari Sarothril from her perspecive. They are namely:

"She Looks so Beautiful in Her Grave: A Prelude" and "Ashes Feed My Revenge"

As I said, I haven't posted them yet. But if you get interested feel free to dm me, I'll gladly share my work so far with you :3

• • • • •

Ok, so here we go:

A line from your fic that makes you sad

He looked around the graveyard once again. The dawn greeted him with shy, pinkish rays dispersed in the morning mist. Lighting the sea, the grave… The beautiful and deadly nightshades painted ornate, slender shadows on the ash. The dawn, the time of the Mother of Roses. Silver tears filled his eyes. Oh what a lowly mortal he is, in the face of death, in the face of the Gods. He leapt down on his knees, facing the rising sun, and prayed, prayed ardently being sorry for Azura, Boetiah and Mephala for what he’s about to do. But he couldn’t help it, he couldn’t help it!

(from "She Looks so Beautiful in Her Grave: A Prelude")

A line from your fic that makes you want to punch a character

Master fucking Neloth. Ulves’ face was hued red with anger. It was him who killed her. He coaxed Ildari into performing some unfortunate experiment on her. Two days ago Ulves floated up into the main tower to bring his master food when he casually informed him to dig a fresh grave. His blood boiled from the sole thought of it. He wished to kill him with his whole heart. But he felt so powerless. The old sly wizard would fry him down to a crisp before he could even unsheathe his axe. The only option would be poisoning his meal… but it was very probable that this ash-sucker would survive somehow. And that would mean the end of Ulves’ life. And even if his master, what would that change? There was nothing that Ulves wanted to do after that.

(from "She Looks so Beautiful in Her Grave: A Prelude")

A line from your fic you want to talk about more

Imagine silence. But in its foulest form. The silence that is only found in places of death, sending shivers down the spines of the living. The stillness of a burnt-down village. The void that fills the space after a man has uttered their last words. Somewhere, all among that silence a faint sound could be heard. Ildari’s heart started beating.