The Elder Scrolls is full of interesting races, lore, and the like. Whether it’s the Dwemer (a race of elves who were effectively dwarves) and their disappearance, the Sloads who are slug people, or the Khajiit and their interesting body types and births, there’s a lot that can be said for any playable or unplayable race in The Elder Scrolls.
Even the more “basic” human characters have ancestors and lore that go back thousands of years, but of all these races, the Dunmer, or Dark Elves, have some of the most interesting. That’s because they are cursed, are closely related to The Elder Scrolls’ Dwemer mystery, and have a lot of intertwined details like their religion.
The Elder Scrolls: Before They Were Dunmer, They Were Chimer
Chimer were once a race of gold-skinned elves who, in deciding to worship the Daedra, left their home in the Summerset Isles. This religious exodus was led by a prophet known as Veloth and resulted in the Chimer settling Morrowind. In this, parallels could loosely be drawn with the Pilgrims’ arrival in the New World or the Exodus of the ancient Israelites. Some would remain nomadic, while others would settle like the Great Houses (eventually).
The Chimer would go to war with many other races in Tamriel, with the big one being the Dwemer. The latter were agnostic in nature, being more technologically and scientifically oriented than religious, and this itself was an affront to the highly devout Chimer. Particularly, the Chimer were upset with the Dwemer’s use of the Heart of Lorkhan in an attempt to achieve immortality, and this would lead to one of the biggest events in The Elder Scrolls lore.
This culminated in the Battle of Red Mountain between the Dwemer and the Chimer, though some accounts suggest Nords, Orcs, and even Khajiit were also involved. Either way, the Dwemer and Chimer were the main forces, and for some unknown reason, the Dwemer reportedly and seemingly just vanished during the battle.
Azura’s Curse and The Dark Elves
The Chimer Sotha Sil decided to see if the Heart of Lorkhan could actually be used to obtain mortality, which is yet another parallel in terms of early Israelites turning to other cultures such as Aaron’s golden calf. Sotha Sil would discover its secrets, convinced fellow Chimer Vive and Almalexia to become gods alongside him, and together ascended to Morrowind’s Tribunal. This action, however, betrayed their worship of and pledge to Azura, a powerful Daedra. She cursed the Tribunal and all Chimer, turning their eyes red and their skin to ash. This physical change marks the fall of the Chimer and their recreation of sorts as the Dunmer, Dark Elves, or “Cursed Ones.”
The end results of these actions would be seen in The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind. The Nerevarine/Morrowind protagonist would defeat Dagoth Ur and turn the Tribunal mortal again. Almalexia essentially betrayed Sotha Sil, killing him, though she was killed by the Nerevarine in turn. Vivec survived the events but would disappear during the Oblivion Crisis. Their defeat led to the establishment o the New Temple, where worship was returned to the original Daedra pantheon of the Chimer (Azura, Boethiah, and Mephala) instead of the Tribunal. In other words, the Dark Elves’ origin lore comes mostly full circle from origin to the modern-day.
The Elder Scrolls 6 is in development.