Several of the new cards fromThe Elder Scrolls: Legends' upcomingHeroes of Skyrimexpansionhave caused a stir among some of the fantasy franchise’s most ardent supporters. That includes a card depicting the great dragon villain ofThe Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Alduin.
The critique, stemming from a Reddit post titled “A (Polite) Critique of Four Legged Dragons for Dire Wolf Digital,” posits that the card art in question has perhaps been made in error. The original author asks if developer Dire Wolf Digital could perhaps correct those errors and even offers several potential solutions.
The main issue is with regards to the number of legs dragons have withinThe Elder Scrollsuniverse; that is to say, dragons inThe Elder Scrollsfeature two rear legs and then clawed wings rather than frontal legs. Historically this type of creature has been referred to as a wyvern, but in TheElder Scrollsthey’ve always been dragons. However, in two of theHeroes of Skyrimcards, dragons are shown with four legs in addition to wings. That in itself would be frustrating to a fan, but the Alduin card as mentioned earlier happens to be one of those cards.
It doesn’t take a huge fan to realize thatAlduin is depicted with two legsin theSkyrimgame, so giving him with four legs on his card is rather odd. Moreoever, the card art bears very little resemblance to the Alduin fans know.
Another critique stemming from the recently teasedElder Scrolls: Legendsrevolves around a card named Dova of the Voice, where Dova is a misspelling of either Dov or Dovah depending on pluralization. It’s these and other issues that may put pushElder Scrollsfans away, even asZeniMax Online’sElder Scrolls Onlineand Dire Wolf’sElder Scrolls: Legendscontinue to strive for legitimacy with the community.
While the original complaint regarding the four-legged dragons wants to avoid any such controversy, the fan can’t help but admit there’s more to this situation than just the card art:
“Again, I have nothing but respect for Dire Wolf. Commissioning art can’t be cheap and the cards we do have all look gorgeous, even (especially) the ones above. But as tenuous as Elder Scrolls lore has always been, it’d be sad to see one more aspect of it become a vagary.”
There’s always a chance that theHeroes of Skyrimcard art is not final, or thatDire Wolf Digitalturns around and has the art corrected relatively quickly. But for now it seems there is a disconnect between existing lore and the upcoming expansion.
TheElder Scrolls: Legendsis available now on PC and mobile devices. TheHeroes of Skyrimexpansion is slated for launch later this week on June 29.
