The original lore had a major event where the god of time got an ice cream headache and just fucked everyone over for 1008 years by going on break for a while, causing a time loop. There's entire discussions about how everything's actually the dream of a dead god and if you realize this in universe without proper prep work you literally vanish in a puff of logic.
The new lore's considering itself edgy and scandalous when it turns out that the "I can't believe it's not National Socialism!" High Elves are secretly bankrolling the Talos worshippers in the civil war to give them an excuse to claim the peace treaty is broken.
Oblivion-Skyrim-ESO lore still has that, you know. The main retcons of Redguard-Morrowind were of its cultures and geography: they didn't retcon Cosmic TES at all. The Middle Dawn and the Godhead's still there, as they were in Morrowind, where they were just factoids hidden in optional lorebooks. People are mistakenly remembering Morrowind (if they've even played it at all, or more likely they've just remembered some cuh-razy video essay) as being some insane acid trip of a story. It wasn't, and focusing on those elements is actually losing what made it special. The beauty of TES was that it was a highly
mundane fantasy setting, and that's what made it so immersive, believable, and lived-in.
Hyper-esoteric creation myths and metaphysics are a dime-a-dozen in fantasy, unfortunately, but a setting that goes into detail of the material culture of its inhabitants? Now that's something truly unique.
Personally I don't mind Cosmic TES, but it's always been just an enjoyable side aspect for me. The worldbuilding of an alien fantasy society, economy, and demography, as well as the mid-level political intrigue between the Great Houses, the Empire, the organized relgions and other minor factions is more compelling, IMO.
None of this shit really matters when the gameplay is about being an adventurer who punches shit to death and loots caves. The esoteric lore being on the back burner isn't such a big deal.
Yet another reason why I love TR and why its heavy praise is so deserved. They could have easily went deep into the Elder Scrolls esoterica, with every quest tying into the Wheel and Chim and the Dreamer and Amaranth and Pelinal and the Fifth Era moonbase whatever shit. That shits cool, but it
needs to be contained to the slightest of in-game nods & hints and to out-of-game theorizing. Too much of it destroys the carefully built fantasy tone: if everything loops back to the cuh-razy esoteric lore, then it's not so cuh-razy anymore, is it?
I'm reminded of one Skyrim "DLC-sized" mod called Beyond Reach that fell into this exact trap. Cosmic TES by its nature doesn't have much broad appeal, which is why you
need to make engaging with it optional. Part of why the games work and are so successful is that, for better or worse, you can choose how much you engage with the narrative. You can turn your brain off completely, reading only necessary dialogue for quests, you can listen/read the optional dialogue, or you can engage fully by reading in-game books and analyzing them.
TR's short summary blurb is perfect, practically right out of TTRPG worldbuilding handbooks on how to create a compelling "setting for adventure".
The continent-spanning empire a regicidal warlord forged four centuries ago with the help of a god-robot of a dead race has been in terminal decline for half its existence, the reigning Emperor broken by years spent in hell at the behest of one of his closest advisors. Pietism, corruption, and adventurism are on the rise as civil order slowly but irrevocably crumbles. Petty nobles are jockeying for positions on top of the waste yard that will follow the Empire’s inevitable collapse, heretical sects preying on the desperate are on the rise, and the Lords of Oblivion are drawn to mortal affairs ever more, sensing the onset of necrosis.
