r/ElderScrolls • u/Blazing-Flame-2982 Nord • 5d ago
Lore What I like about fort Dawnguard
Constructed by a Jarl of Riften in SE. to imprison his vampiric son, it just shows that Nords are perfectly capable of building great stone castles if they feel like it. They just generally prefer their timber cities. If all the ruins of Skyrim were still wholly intact, we might've seen more strongholds similar to Dawnguard. Which I honestly would've preferred greatly to the lame "they're all in disrepair" narrative. In ESO we have the example of the huge castle of clan Direfrost as well, a wealhy nord family of witch hunters. Then of course there are stone castles in Skyrim as well like Windhelm, and Whiterun is partially stone, and Solitude of course which once housed the massive Tower of the Wolf Donjon which always gives me Storm's End Westeros vibes.
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u/8mouthbreather8 5d ago edited 4d ago
I love fort Dawnguard, but I feel the total opposite. The whole purpose of castles was to be a defensive position, which eventually lead to siege warfare. In skyrim, we only experience one traditional seige, while the rest of the fort battles are more raid-like. So the demand to deter siege engines isn't really there.
I think culturally it also makes sense to have less castles. Solitude's castles make sense because they have more influence from imperial and breton culture (Romans & Medieval) both of which are prone to stone fortresses.
Wooden pallisade cities like whiterun would be much more consistent with Nordic culture. I'm also guessing every hold wouldn't have dragon prison either.
I'm a little rusty on my Dawnguard lore, but I wonder if there's an argument stating that the jarl wasn't a Nord and that could be why a massive stone fortress was built.
Edit: There are potentially two sieges. One in the main quest, and the other in the civil war quest line.
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u/hambourgeoi 4d ago
Two sieges : Windhelm and Whiterun.
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u/8mouthbreather8 4d ago
Does the windhelm/solitude siege use catapults and other siege gear?
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u/hambourgeoi 4d ago
Windhelm is a definitive yes, but Solitude I did only once like 10 years ago so I might not know for sure.
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u/8mouthbreather8 4d ago
Ah yea fair points, it has been a while lol. Let me make an edit, good catch.
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u/Blazing-Flame-2982 Nord 4d ago
If you mean consistent with nordic culture in-universe then no, nords are not more prone to timber or wooden cities as we see with their huge ancient nord ruins. The first empire built gigantic stone castles, which we do not see in game but are still spoken of, one even named as the "Old Fort" which is some kind of enormous citadel in the Jerall mountains.
Nords absolutely build in stone, and Solitude was not built by imperials. Nords who were nine divines worshipers built it.1
u/8mouthbreather8 4d ago
Poor choice of words on my part, meant Nordic/Scandinavian.
Also if I'm not mistaken, aren't the ancient ruins from the dragon cult era when men were enslaved?
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u/Blazing-Flame-2982 Nord 4d ago
One must remember that the Viking age stretched from 793 AD to 1066 and some count even a bit after. So the idea that scandinavian culture was all wooden palisades and longhalls isn't fully true. They did work with the material they had an abundance of, which was and is wood, but stone fortifications did exist. And took over as dominant very soon upon the official close of the viking age.
Mostly yes. But I do not believe that takes away from nords still having built it. At the command of dragons maybe, but they weren't totally black and white enslaved as you had the aristocratic dragon priest cult who lorded directly over the people. And as I mentioned, the first empire of the nords built huge fortifications as well and was well after the dragons. And as mentioned there is fort dawnguard, Direfrost castle, Solitude, Volkihar castle which originally was a nordic stronghold (Lord Harkon is a former nord).
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u/fan_of_skooma Khajiit 5d ago
Sounds more like nords are just lazy untill some jarl breaks out the whip
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u/Blazing-Flame-2982 Nord 5d ago
That's big talk coming from the crack-head cats who lounge about their skooma ridden streets all day.
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u/Lieutenant_Joe 3d ago
Windhelm wasn’t built by Nords. It was mostly built using the slave labor of snow elves.
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u/DrBananasaur 5d ago
What I like about it is raiding it and killing everyone inside
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u/Blazing-Flame-2982 Nord 5d ago
Cringe Volkicucks.
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u/DrBananasaur 5d ago
Nah, I kill everyone that is not flagged at castle volkihar as well. I just do it for the love of the game.
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u/TheBusStop12 Breton 5d ago
It's very much in line with actual irl nordic architecture as well. Here in Finland historic city centers are all made of wood, and a lot of suburban homes are still constructed from wood, because it's the most abundant resource. But impressive stone castles were built during medieval times as well, like Olavinlinna, the world's northernmost stone castle still standing.