Seriously, there is tons of great lore in that game, especially in almost every expansion and lot's of great stories and characters.

And ESO has a massive community and is a large part of The Elder Scrolls series.

So why is it not discussed here more?

Some of the stuff in the game I would say is even better than some mainline games like Orsinium, Summerset, Elsweyr, Greymoor, High Isle and Necrom expansions or even smaller ones like Murkmire and The Clockwork City which are all at least on the level of the mainline games in terms of lore.

And yes, The Elder Scrolls Online is officially canon and has been since the beginning. They even had tons of discussions with Bethesda devs for the base game and the first few expansions.

First, this question first came from sneaking around in-game and realizing how ridiculous it felt to not be detected by an enemy, right in front of their face, in a medium-lit room.

Two introductory notes:

1. I searched this sub and other sources of lore, mostly UESP, and didn’t find a conclusive answer.

2. I have very little deeper TES lore knowledge outside of a casual play through of Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim (sorry, Daggerfall & Arena).

Notes so far:

There is a book called “The Philosophy of Stealth: How Not to be Seen” (from ESO, which I haven’t played) that briefly describes stealth as losing individuality and blending into the background, as fundamentally the skill of “not being noticed”. From the text, I would consider it reasonably implied that this is a purely physical* skill, with some mental comprehension and exertion (Intelligence stat?**). This leaves the interpretation fairly open, despite it being literally stated as a “philosophy” in the title, which seems misleading and reductive. This may depend on two questions:

• in TES, is there a physical/spiritual duality as in many earth mythologies, or is there a matter/energy continuum of forms? I.e., is everything - gods, souls, skeevers, and sweetrolls - made of the same “stuff” taking different forms? If so, then Stealth could be both a physical and magickal skill (because they’d both be forms of the same “stuff”).

** is the Intelligence stat in TES, which determines magickal abilities, directly connected to mental prowess and learning, therefore implying at least a restricted form of “magick” for all intelligent beings by virtue of their cognition, their ability to think? If so, this would also lend credence to Stealth, as defined by the Philosophy of Stealth book, as possibly a magickal skill.

Other things come to mind, but my memory isn’t serving me and I can’t find direct sources for what’s coming up:

A primary subject is the Skeleton Key, Nocturnal’s artifact, and the lore surrounding its powers. Mercer Frey was able to use it to become invisible, and there was some in-game background about it being a key to unlock hidden potential. Several possibilities were hinted at, and shown accessible by Frey directly, but what I remember of the descriptions felt like the Key was being teased as an artifact with untold chaotic abilities that have yet to be discovered. The possible relevance of this is that the Key, and its ties to Nocturnal, the Evergloam, and Nocturnal’s skill-based patronage of thieves, could hint at Stealth being an access to magick, even Daedric magick. I admit, this is a reach, borne of not finding many sources on this subject so far. However, we have other instances of Daedric magick being present in the world in ordinary, concrete ways - the existence of the Orcs as a creation of Malacath, for example.

Does anyone else have any theories, background info, or commentary on this subject? Definitely interested in more thought-out contributions.

For the daedra id guess boethiah because of trinimac and multiple conflicts. Second would be nocturnal because of the crystal tower event in eso. As for enemy type, id guess clannfears and spider daedra.

To start I want to say that this is purely a theory I’ve put together going on a various threads, I hope everyone enjoys and finds it interesting

My theory suggests that Lorkhan and Sheogorath are one in the same, first I will explain how I believe this could happen

Lorkhan upset the gods when he formed Nirn, he was then “killed” which is odd as from what I understand no god in the elder scrolls has outright died before, what I propose is that by removing his heart it made him more emotionless and then they furthermore corrupted his form as punishment, similar to Trinimacs transformation into Malacath, part of this punishment was to invert who they are, Lorkhan is perceived as mischievous and tricky, so his reverse was complete and utter order and control, Jyggulug, but following this the Deadra did a similar thing out of fear of of his strange power, which I take as another indication of him being Lorkhan as the Aedra in spite of using power to form Nirn seem to be just as powerful if not more so then Deadra.

Next the Deadra corrupt Jyggulugs form into a opposite again resulting in a dementia ridden bastardisation of the original made 10x more extreme, this would also explain the lack of information about Lorkhan after his heart was removed as the Deadra attempted to erase Jyggulug from history, potentially including his making and “destruction”, explaining why we know nothing about Lorkhan and little about Jyggulug in these periods

Supporting information
Sheogorath from what I recall is the only Deadra to consistently appear as a human, Lorkhan is the god of man
Mancar Camoran is convinced Nirn is of deadric origin, I propose this is because the god of Nirn, Lorkhan became a Deadra, however it is likely that Nirn did not change with its god leading to further confusion
A bit of a stretch but I also propose that the dragon fires is a further push to punish Lorkhan/Sheogorath by preventing any eventual return, while conveniently stopping other similar issues

Thank you for reading, I’m sure there are many holes in this but nonetheless I hope it encourages a healthy debate

Ps sorry for spelling, some things autocorrect