The Elder Scrolls Online v1.1.2 Patch, Loremaster's Archive

Those of you who have been delving into The Elder Scrolls Online since launch will be happy to hear that the game has received its first major update - version 1.1.2 - which adds the new Craglorn adventure zone, as well as a smattering of enhancements and bug fixes. The team at ZeniMax has also cranked out a new Loremaster's Archive that covers the "mysteries of the Mundus Stones". First, a snip from the update summary:

Welcome to The Elder Scrolls Online v1.1.2. This version contains our first major content update: the Adventure Zone Craglorn, as well as many other fixes and refinements.

You'll need allies to take on the new challenges Craglorn's quests and exploration are designed for groups of four Veteran Rank 10+ characters. (You can enter Craglorn and play the content earlier than Veteran Rank 10.)

We've also added our first Trials in Craglorn, 12-player adventures meant to test even the strongest heroes. In Trials, your team will have a limited number of resurrections to use as you attempt to reach the final boss. If you finish the Trial quickly, you might earn a place on the leaderboards and receive extra rewards!

Another new feature is the Death Recap. This screen will help you understand what contributed to your death and hints that can help improve your performance next time.

Alongside the new content, we're deploying bug fixes and improvements to make your adventures in Tamriel even better. You'll see fixes for quests and skill line abilities, updates to systems and quests in Cyrodiil (including bonuses for outnumbered alliances), and much more.


And a little something from the archive:

The Ayleids are commonly associated with the practice of Aetherial magic. You can learn more about their creations in my work Aetherial Fragments, but suffice it to say they were able to manipulate and store starlight in ways we have yet to fully comprehend. The Nedic people also had an interest in the stars, though their culture was focused on theology over magical study. However, there is evidence that the highest echelons of Nedic priesthood preserved ancient rituals that invoked Aetherial magic. If what remains of their ponderous, flowery, and excruciating-to-translate poetry is any indication, they had a particular fascination with the constellations and their aspects.

The constellations each occupy their own magical domains, as evidenced by the observable energies that emanate from Mundus Stones and their ability to instill power into individuals. We do not know who erected these stones (which can be found across all the provinces of Tamriel) or for what purpose, but their magical resonance tells us clearly that each constellation's signature is quite unique. This raises questions: were the individual constellations deliberately formed the Magna-Ge, imparting their essence into the trans-constellatory light? Is each constellation a window into a different Aetherial realm, such as Sovngarde or the Far Shores?

My own careful examination of several of the stones in the Alik'r Desert, which nearly exhausted my limited funding, revealed a curious phenomenon. Everyone knows that the guardian constellations the Mage, Thief, and Warrior are said to protect the other constellations from the destructive chaos of the Serpent, but my research may have exposed part of the magical underpinning of this legend. A survey of the Warrior stone uncovered strong Aetherial currents traveling from the stars into the stone and radiating outward, implying a cross-Tamrielic web. Why no other scholar or mage has commented on this, I cannot say. Mundus Stones are poorly studied, and it is possible that this energy is not always active.