you got fucking kings, Torygg, Helseth, living gods of the Tribunal.... under an "Emperor"? who puts some garrisons around but does.... what exactly?
theres an "East Empire Trading Company"? whats that do?
it kinda seems like a holy roman empire, kinda seems like a regular roman empire. they've got knights, dukes, but a Legion...
yes i know the answer is technically "these jackoffs just made it up as they went" and don't care a lick about political theory but this is exactly the kind of excercise that makes fun speculative historiography
I dunno, the Empire feels very generic tbh. When you look at them, it's basically heavily inspired in Rome (CRINGE) maybe to appeal to "Retvrn to Tradition" white ass g*mers, they added the East Empire Trading Company because it had to be somewhat different than Rome, so in the end it's just another cringe element added into the mix: the british.
It could be worse still, but it feels very lazy. They just repurposed Rome into this fantasy world that has a lot of other vague elements.
It was cooler before oblivion, aka before :todd: watched LotR and retconned Cyrodil from a SE asian-ish jungle to incredibly generic western high fantasy through omg CHIM :so-true:, with a lot of Imperial culture changing along with it. There are still hints of that more interesting version like with the Blades though
It was like if Rome and China were fused into a single political formation, burned to the ground in the name of generic XBox 360 grass and forgettable western european medieval aesthetics.
They brought back some of the Morrowind-esque characteristics of the Empire for Skyrim but it just felt so forced and out of place seeing non-Nords in armor without pants or sleeves patrolling an icy area in Haafingar like it was nothing. I actually would have preferred the somewhat unique Legion armor from Oblivion instead.
Pretty minor as far as instances of Bethesda's bad post-Morrowind worldbuilding go but still noticeable.
it is lazy, but they ain't even clever enough that they're consciously appealing to romeaboos (more than enough discordant elements to throw them off)
What if Rome, but the equivalent of the praetorian guard used katanas?
That was actually pretty interesting, tbf. To the point where 15 yo me actually bothered to look up the lore as to why this contrast existed in the first place.
(Only to go down the rabbit hole over the Akaviri and associated parts of lore)
:soypoint-1: :maduro-gift: :soypoint-2:
Katanas and shields looks weird and bothers me. :lea-why: