(SPOILERS) Scribes of Fate and Necrom prologue lore
The prelude to the Necrom Chapter has been released and it contains a number of intriguing elements in it's own right.
**Scrivener's Hall**
A number of places where Oblivion bleeds into Mundus are known to exist on Nirn, one of these places is located in Skyrim's Rift, the Scrivener's Hall.
The Hall is filled at all times with natural portals that lead to a number of different Oblivion realms. The portals and their destinations are not set or permanent but rather they alternate or cycle at specific intervals ( the Hall contains portals to the Deadlands, Moonshadow and the Spiral Skein, than those close and portals to the Coloured Rooms, Scuttling Void and Apocrypha open for a time, and so on).
A Mora cult of *"scribes and librarians"* calling themselves the Scribes of Mora have been using the Hall's portals for centuries, exploring a multitude of Oblivion realms and gathering all knowledge, treasures and artifacts they can get their hands on in the name of Hermaeus Mora.
While journeying to Oblivion and back would normally be an extremely dangerous undertaking, the Scribes have managed to do just that for years and years to great success, as evidenced by the great library and relic vault which the Hall has been turned into over time.
The key to the Scribes' success is the Itinerant Staff, a powerful artifact which allows it's wielder to return safely from any Oblivion realm, whisking them and anyone with them back to their origin point (in this case Nirn) with but a thought. That's not all there is to the Staff though, the journal of a previous Magnastylus suggests the Staff is actually just a vessel for a more ominous power, something that *"calls out to the Void and is answered"* (that she can sense this is the reason she dislikes carrying the Staff except when necessary).
The Itinerant Staff is used as the symbol of office of the Magnastylus, the leader of the Scribes who is appointed only through the direct approval of Hermaeus Mora himself. The Magnastylus safeguards the Staff and ensures the Scribes uphold the neutrality Mora's followers strive for (it is noted that even Mora himself has little desire meddle with the course of fate and only does so rarely).
During the DLC events the Scribes have been betrayed from within. Valinna, the favoured apprentice and chosen heir of the current Magnastylus, Keshargo, has betrayed the order after heeding the whispers of the Daedric Prince Mephala and is attempting to sway the order to serve her new patron's goals, as she believes that under Mephala the Scribes will be allowed to break their neutrality and use their great reach to intervene in the affairs of the realms (as for Mephala, gaining control of the Scribes is nice, but she mostly wants the Staff).
The Vestige eventually retrieves the Itinerant Staff from where it was hidden (Deadlands), defeats Valinna in the Spiral Skein, and helps in the appointment of a new Magnastylus.
As his final act as Magnastylus, Keshargo removes the true source of the Itinerant Staff's power, the Umber Glyphic, a relic which takes the form of a strangely shaped umber crystal (as the previous Magnastylus hinted, it's suggested that the Umber Glyphic is dangerous and best left to Daedra from Apocrypha to handle).
[h](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Keshargo)[ttps://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Keshargo](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Keshargo)
[https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Letter\_to\_the\_Magnastylus](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Letter_to_the_Magnastylus)
[https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Scribes\_of\_Mephala](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Scribes_of_Mephala)
**Bal Sunnar**
The Telvanni township called Bal Sunnar has been engulfed in a strange phenomenon which has attracted the attention of the Psijic Order.
The whole area is enveloped in a potent time distortion which threatens to spread further if left unchecked, the inhabitants seem to somehow know the Vestige (whom they call *"The Scourge"*).
The Psijic Saresea describes such phenomena as *"an eddy swirling within the flow of time's river"*, they can arise for a number of reasons (Daedric meddling, the spells of powerful mages, even naturally, though whatever the origin they are said to require a great deal of power to form) and can grow and worsen in severity if left unchecked. Saresea was hoping to contain the distortion before it *"affected causality"* but it's too late for that, nonetheless she believes she'll be able to contain the phenomenon as long as it's origin is common (it's not).
The true nature of the distortion is something called a *"Time Knot",* it's described by Saresea as "*Threads of chance and potential tangled around a single point"* as well as an "*unnatural binding"* of the *"temporal threads that cross and stitch together"* with time itself to be thought of as a great tapestry of woven fabric (a description reminiscent of those of Raynor's "*think of time not as a road upon which you travel, but rather a rope, or a cable. Many threads, all bound together with no beginning or end."* and Ja'darri calling it *"a tapestry"*).
[https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Raynor\_Vanos](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Raynor_Vanos)
[https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Ja%27darri](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Ja%27darri)
One of the Telvanni mages in Bal Sunnar is guarding the Knot and has even found how to tap into it for power. With the Knot's power Kovan Giryon goes onto conjure creatures from the past, expand his being to occupy multiple points in time (existing in *"all of time"* per his own wording) and call up those separate temporal instances to aid him, and tear apart the fabric of time in an an attempt to destroy his enemies.
Unfortunately for Kovan, the Vestige is a Prisoner and it appears even existing in multiple points in time doesn't allow one to foresee the outcome of their involvement (something he draws attention to, the outcome is not what he saw)..so he is slain.
The Knot is something far worse than Saresea expected (*"unlike anything*" she'd encountered), it has incredible power and, even worse, a will of it's own. When Saresea tried to untangle it, it resisted and expanded to envelop the chamber, dragging both the Psijic and the Vestige into the past.
Here the inhabitants speak of a leader/founder that created their settlement over a thousand years ago before disappearing due to the actions of the Scourge and yet has somehow managed to return.
The whole area appears to be caught in a repeating closed time loop.
The founder of the settlement, Lladi Telvanni was brought to Bal Sunnar in ancient times (following the Battle of Red Mountain and the rise of the Tribunal) when a mysterious relic (the source of the Time Knot, an artifact described as *"An object, but not solid. Air and light ripple around it in a unreal manner."*) in the caverns under the area that would become the town whispered to her, promising an eternal rule away from the gaze of false gods.
The Vestige and Saresea encounted Lladi, who summons primitive creatures from Nirn's past to thwart them. The greatest of these is Roska the Warped, a primitive Nix-Ox which has been changed by the Time Knot and has gained the ability to feed on the distortion's energies and channel them.
Roksa using the Knot's energy causes it to react and this time it throws the Vestige ans Saresea far into the future. Here the surroundings are turned into a fiery ruin filled wasteland (this might be the Red Year though it's also suggested the Knot itself might be responsible) and the town is dominated by a great temple to Peryite and great swathes of blight and rot.
It's revealed that Lladi fled far into the future to prepare defenses against the Vestige's arrival, and made a pact with Peryite for protection (the reason she chose Peryite is because she believes him the best option in terms of protection in the sense that he himself is a *"scourge*", so one scourge to fight another).
Eventually Lladi is defeated despite the creatures and blight magic provided by Peryite and Saresea manages to untange the Time Knot and end the distortion after a supreme effort, returning both to the present.
Unfortunately for Saresea coming into direct contact with the Knot, with *"all of time"* as she puts it, was not without consequence. She reveals that the experience actually *"fragmented"* her being and *"shattered it across time"* but than she was "*pulled back together"* and restored to physical form by a *"cold and silent presence"*, the same being behind the relic that created the Time Knot.
Even with that intervention Saresea has been rendered *"multichronal"*, she now occupies multiple points in time and is not only in the present but also *"watching an emperor rise. A nation cut in twain. A people vanish. I see all of these."* (Tiber Septim, Stormcloak Rebellion, and the disappearance of the Dwemer, seemingly ) and other events (in a field in Summerset, at her own death, being studied by the Psijics, at the Vestige's "creation" and so on).
The true source of the Knot ? An onyx crystal thrumming with *"eldritch and temporal"* energies, the Onyx Glyphic.
[https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Saresea](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Saresea)
[https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Journal\_of\_Adosi\_Fevur](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Journal_of_Adosi_Fevur)
[https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Journal\_of\_Kovan\_Giryon](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Journal_of_Kovan_Giryon)
[https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Journal\_of\_Nerile\_Belvayn](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Journal_of_Nerile_Belvayn)
**Glyphics**
Glyphics are relics of Hermaeus Mora created by the Daedric Prince himself (he is who the Umber Glyphic was calling to and the cold/silent presence who pulled Saresea back together), Leramil the Wise describes them as " *"creations of Hermaeus Mora. Each one contains knowledge or a memory. With the proper coaxing, they can be urged to transform into a tangible version of the concept within".*
Three Glyphics in particular (Umber, Onyx and Emerald) are sought by an alliance of Daedric Princes who seek to claim the great reality threatening secret of Apocrypha that will serve as the focus of the storyline for themselves. It is claimed that when brought together the Glyphics will allow these Princes to attack and greatly endanger Apocrypha somehow.
How exactly isn't clear, but it's clear from Mora's own use of them that Glyphics can be used for a number of things. Specifically, Mora uses all three Glyphics to create a pact that will bind not just the Vestige but even Mora himself, the former to aid Mora to stop the threat to Apocrypha and the latter to not act in a manner that might endanger Nirn or the Vestige.
**Hermaeus Mora**
Mora only appears briefly but he has a number of very interesting things to say about both his own nature and the nature of Mundus and Oblivion.
While speaking with Mora the Vestige suggests he is somehow different from the other Daedric Princes, at which point Mora defines himself as follows:
>***"I am the mystery at the end of existence. The first secret whispered at the dawn of creation. I am the guardian of the unseen and the question unanswerable.*** *I hold the knowledge forbidden and untangle the threads of fate.I am … the One Who Knows."*
Seemingly defining himself as *being* a/the primeval secret at both the *"dawn of creation"* and "*end of existence".*
When questioned on why a threat to Apocrypha would also constitute a threat to Mundus, Mora suggests that there might actually be truth to the theories mortals have about Oblivion and Mundus being reflections of/linked to one another. Mora claims that this connection does indeed hold true for many Oblivion realms, and that Apocrypha in particular is strongly linked to the mortal world, to the extent that the former vanishing would end the latter as well.
>**Tell me about Apocrypha.** > >***"I created and rule over Apocrypha, my endless repository of knowledge in the vastness of Oblivion. Every secret known to mortal and immortal resides here, as well as many known only to me.*** *It is a realm of fate, time, and wisdom."* > >**How will saving Apocrypha preserve Nirn?** > >***"Many realms of Oblivion have a relationship to the mortal world. Some believe that Nirn is a reflection of the Daedric realms, or that the Daedric realms are an echo of Nirn.*** *Regardless,* ***Apocrypha and Nirn share a powerful connection.****"* > >**And that means?** > >***"If my enemies succeed and damage or destroy Apocrypha, the resulting ripples*** *of fate* ***will unravel the mortal world.In short, Nirn will cease to exist.*** *You must help me to prevent that fate from coming to fruition."*
[https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Leramil\_the\_Wise](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Leramil_the_Wise)