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Elder Scrolls Online lore titbits revealed: of orcs and mobs

An Orsimer warrior.

Titbits, tidbits, I know, I know. Let’s put that oceans-apart spelling dispute behind us and travel instead to Tamriel, a utopian world where American voice actors speak like Brits. Zenimax Online have parted with a handful of new details on the role of one of the series’ most underrepresented races in the events of The Elder Scrolls Online.

You may remember the odd Orcish Stronghold dotted around Skyrim. You may even have been persuaded by a shouty, tusked fellow on the palisades into taking another route. Zenimax’s MMO is set in a much earlier timeframe, but the dev team revealed that the race would have a part to play in ESO’s world.

“Orcs live in strongholds in the mountains throughout northern Tamriel,” they said in a fan Q&A. “Most of them keep to themselves, staying out of the wars of Men and Elves. The Orcs of Wrothgar, who are signatories to the Daggerfall Covenant, are the exception, having long had ambitions of nationhood.”

The Daggerfall Covenant is one of the accords that divides the game’s races into two broad alliances. Through their role in the treaty, the Wrothgar Orcs hope eventually to build their own state.

“These ambitions have been repeatedly crushed over the millennia,” wrote Zenimax. “Their membership in the Covenant is one more attempt at organization and recognition.”

Perhaps most excitingly for longtime series fans, The Elder Scrolls Online will see players witness the recapture of Orsinium, the Orcish capital city which featured in 1996’s Daggerfall.

“Thanks to the treaty with the Daggerfall Covenant, Orsinium has been restored to the Orcs of Wrothgar, and they are rebuilding and reoccupying it,” explained the developers. “Southern Wrothgar is under the control of King Kurog of Orsinium, but north of the city the region is still a patchwork of strongholds.”

The Orcs are a playable race in ESO. Will you be among their toothy number?