Welcome to Encyclopedia Ayleidica!

If you're not the type for reading our story, check out the chapters and see what we've gotten done so far. We're expanding this page as often as we can, so stop by whenever you want to see our progress!

If you want to help out and contribute, head to the bottom of the page to find contact information. Every little bit helps, so don't be afraid to give a helping hand to our team!

What is Project Ayleidica?

Whether you realize it or not, we've already contributed to the Elder Scrolls universe, the community as a whole. Our thoughts, our likes, our dislikes, all things that drive ideas forward in a game company. The relationship between the designer and the consumer is something not to be taken lightly. The designer can only be as successful as the consumer is satisfied. We all give our opinions on things, and that style of public display of game content is what designers notice when they're making games. We can contribute greatly to the Elder Scrolls universe, we just have to work together and stay dedicated to what we're doing.

If you didn't know earlier, a lot of Skyrim's lore is actually based off of a set of novels written by Greg Keyes: The Infernal City, and Lord of Souls. These two books actually had a huge effect on the Elder Scrolls universe, covering Tamriel following the Oblivion Crisis. The Thalmor, the Mages Guild splitting up, Red Mountain erupting, Psiijcs disappearing, all these things were part of his books. It's easy to do our part to make something awesome in this game. We just gotta give it a shot.

I've often wondered if the Elder Scrolls universe is as rich and expansive as Lord of the Rings, but it never seems so. There's tons to know about the Elder Scrolls universe, but never anything that felt like everything they imagined was connected. It sounds weird enough, but I think a lot of it has to do with language. J. R. R Tolkien created complex languages like types of Elven and Orcish, which created a bigger sense of cultural diversity when any of the characters travel across the land. It makes it feel like a real world. The Elder Scrolls did do a pretty good job with creating senses of culture, but a central main language to work off of would make it feel even more genuine, in my opinion. It would give all Elder Scrolls fans (sorry for bringing this up) that one weird thing they can all do together to show they are serious fans. From there, you could seriously develop stories behind places like the Summerset Isles, Valenwood, and Morrowind, that have little bits of history, but nothing compared to Cyrodiil or Skyrim. Overall, the elves had a very significant effect on pretty much the whole game, so I feel like it would be pretty legit to have the Elven culture expand to more than just a couple references here and there.

But wait, didn't Bethesda make a Dragon Language for Skyrim?

Yes...technically, Bethesda did create a "language" in the game, but in all definitions, it's pretty much English still. It may have its own alphabet and its own words, but they're all in the same exact position as their translation into English. That being said, it's not an actual unique language to learn, rather a code language for English. I want to start something more legitimate. Something that is as complex and unique as the game they are trying to impersonate, not some basic code.

So why Ayleidic?

Because there's already a little tiny bit that was used in Oblivion that gives very basic ideas on how the language is already structured. However, there are very few words in proportion to a real language, so its applications are extremely limited. And because the Ayleidic is relatively early in the Elder Scrolls timeline, it can be slightly modified in some sort of way to resemble Altmeris, the overall language that the Summerset Isles would speak, being the oldest Elven language and others modifying off of it, like Dunmeris, Ayleidic, Falmeris, Bosmeris, and possibly Dwemeris. It's a starting point to creating a genuine Elven culture as well.

Why not use Falmeris or Dwemeris? They have some alphabets too, and texts to reference...

They don't have literal translations entirely. With the Ayleidic references (that we will use), there are complete translations to them. There are no direct translations to Calcelmo's stone (where the Dwemer and Falmer references are), so it's not really anything to work off of. If we are going to try to legitimately incorporate this language into the Elder Scrolls canon, then we need to add as little as possible, basing most of our work off of canon pieces rather than purely new created things.

What can I do to help out?

If this is going to be a new piece of Elder Scrolls canon, it would seem stupid to do it on my very own without the advice and help of the rest of the community. If we succeed at this, we will all get to enjoy this new piece of canon. Plus, I've always wanted to work at Bethesda, so doing something like this kinda feels close enough for me =P

This piece serve as my main note section, not really anything official yet, but simply notes and ideas for things. I will try to be updating and correcting this note section as often as I can, and hopefully, with enough effort, we can create something awesome.

If you're or anyone you know would be interested, please contact me at my non-work address at zack (a period after it) attack (no space between it) 789 at the site of Yahoo (ha! You can't beat me now FanFiction url blocker!). Any help would be appreciated, but remember that this will be a serious endeavor, so some sort of linguistic expertise would be nice, but if not, don't worry too much about it. I'll take almost any help I can get working on this, and I feel like this won't be successful without the community's help in the first place.

Thanks so much for reading!

-Zachary Root: Project Lead

© Project Ayleidica: 2014-