Cyrodil

Dearest reader,

Cyrodil.

The Imperial Province.

Dragon Empire.

Starry Heart of Nirn.

Seat of Sundered Kings.

If Skyrim is the homeland where Men first took root on this continent, then Cyrodil is where we claimed our rightful throne.

The term Cyrodil comes from the Ayelid 'Cyrod' or simply, 'The Heartlands'.

Cyrodil is perhaps the only province of the Empire that can compare with the beauty of High Rock, but even here, it is foreign to those of us who call the North-West home.

It is the largest region of the continent, the core of the Third Empire of Man, and most is endless jungle. Its center, the grassland of the Nibenay Valley, is enclosed by an equatorial rain forest and broken up by the many rivers that make up the Nibben's drainage basin. To the South, out of Lake Rumare's ruddy waters and red tinted shores, the Nibben flows gently and placidly until it reaches the Delta at its mouth. The shore here is a maze of broken mangrove swamps, which bleed into Argonia and the placid waters of the Topal Bay.

The elevation rises gradually to the West of the Imperial City as the Nibenay gives way to the grazelands and cattleherders of Colovia. To the North, the landscape rises even more sharply as the river-side highways snake up into the foothills of the Jerral mountains which mark a stern and frigid boundary with Skyrim.

There are a few Imperial maintained highways crisscrossing the more heavily populated regions of Colovia, and to the North-East, canopied caravaner routes climb the steep Velothi slopes to hug the very rocks that shield the realm of men from the Ashen desolation of the Star-Wounded East beyond. Most of Cyrodil however, is traversed not by highway or caravan, but by river. The dense jungles of Nibenay cost more to pave and keep clear of encroaching vegetation than it does to simply move men and goods by boat. Thus the Nibbenese are a river-based society, with even the remotest tribal villages upriver connected to the Imperial City by the myriad waterways of the Nibben valley.

Cyrodil is home to the race of people known as the 'Imperials' though in truth, there is no such race. Many peoples call the Imperial province home, and none of them except perhaps a devoted legionnaire would actually refer to themselves as an 'Imperial'.

The closest thing to such a broad categorization that could be said to apply with any real veracity are the ethnic terms Colovian and Nibbenese, reflecting the standard division of the Cyrodil into its two constituent parts, Colovia in the West, and Nibbenay in the East.