Who Makes the Lore? (Patreon)

I spent some hours today working on Who Did What, my continued attempt to compile a comprehensive list of credits and contributions by various developers to the lore of the Elder Scrolls. It's a massive undertaking, and while I now feel good enough to broadcast it widely, much still remains to be added and I have many nagging thoughts about the whole thing. 

On the surface, the question of who makes the lore seems simple. A writer writes a book, which tells us something about the world. A designer makes a quest that allows us to experience the world. A concept artist creates the look of the world. All these things are obviously lore, and all these disciplines have been included by default in the list. 

Look an inch deeper, and things get much more complicated. A designer may be responsible solely for laying out dungeons using existing pieces or balancing how much damage enemies deal - does that contribute to lore? An environment artist may add their own interpretation to the concept artist's designs, or design things without specific concept art - I would consider this creation of new lore, but we do not know when it happens. Adding everyone with "artist" in their title would triple the length of the already lengthy list. Thus, only art directors and concept artists have been included by default, which should absolutely not be seen as a dig against character artists, world builders, etc., without whom the games wouldn't be games at all. 

On the other hand, I have included the artists who create the card art for Legends, which depicts lore, but most of the time does not actually create it (rather rendering previous designs based on prompts). Ignoring the contributions of these illustrators wholesale is equivalent to declaring the whole game "not canon," which isn't something we can do. Many of these artists are contracted through 3rd party firms, only work on a few cards, and don't know anything about Elder Scrolls outside what is in the prompt and on Google. Effectively, it is possible that someone with the least possible amount of investment and understanding of the universe is at the front lines of creating its most obvious (visual) lore. 

Folks outside of creative disciplines can also add to the world, whether through direct contributions outside their listed discipline, or brainstorming meetings, or even through the performance of their on-paper job. Let's say, for example, that a designer has written about an epic flying citadel, and an artist has drawn an epic flying citadel, but a programmer says that the flying citadel is not possible to do in engine, and thus has to be located on the ground. Or, a producer may decide that a flying citadel, while possible, would take too many resources away from another feature, again making the citadel live on the ground. Or the QA department can find so many bugs and exploits with the citadel that putting it on the ground is the easiest solution. All of them have now impacted the lore. A real example of this would be the removal of Levitation in Oblivion, done for gameplay purposes, but then explained in the lore to make it an official, in-universe thing.  

On top of all that, the credits list of a game isn't always reflective of the people who actually did the work - people will frequently be removed (or downgraded) if they leave before a game is shipped, which means their contributions are not accurately reflected (I have tracked down and added these sorts of omissions when I saw them). Other times, someone will be promoted into a new role just before the game ships, and will be listed under that role, despite their actual contributions to the game being something different. Other times still, studios list their whole staff in the credits, rather than just those who worked on the title. And, on top of all that, roles are hardly standardized, and people often perform work that isn't in their stated job description - especially back in the day when the teams were smaller and game development was less structured and systematized. 

As a means of compromise, I have restricted Who Did What to art directors, concept artists, illustrators, designers, game directors, and writers, as well as people who have spoken about lore issues in official interviews or in their developer posts. The resulting list undoubtedly omits some people, and probably includes some that it shouldn't, but it is my best attempt. 

What's next: going through ArtStation and including anyone I've missed, as well as attributing specific designs to artists. Listing out the people that worked on the various commissioned books, like the Hero's Guide to Tamriel or the Skyrim Library. Trying to track down artists who worked on the games prior to Skyrim. Digging up as much as I can about people's specific contributions. 

Know someone I missed? Have a citation to what someone contributed? Let me know.