pinned The Story of Blue Skooma: Past to Present

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Blue Skooma is a guild full of history and story; founded at the launch of Elder Scrolls Online, we have moved all over the Aldmeri Dominion and have created a plethora of events during our years of storytelling. In an attempt to rehash and summarize the story of the Blue Skooma Company, I have attempted to collaborate and comprehensively mash these experiences into a proper retelling that ultimately offers our newer and older members alike a bit of knowledge as to who we are, what we have done, and our significance within the AD roleplaying community. Enjoy!

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Amidst the events of the Second Era within Tamriel, the story of Blue Skooma began with the conception of two, individual trading groups: The Sugar Claw Clan, and the Broken Bottle Merchants. Operating under the guise of an honest, exporting merchant front, the Sugar Claw Clan found their wealth within the production of extremely sought-after “Blue Skooma,” a highly refined and expensive form of the infamous drug. The organization was suggested to be a group led by the guide of a Khajiiti Clanlord. The latter was an organization of more law-abiding and generic merchants, utilizing legal means to gain coin, and all the while abhorring the unethical methods of the Sugar Claw Clan. As a result, the rival merchant groups constantly lived under feud as they operated within close quarters, with some townspeople ending up caught in between the conflict.

Originally operating in Khenarthi’s Roost, the rival merchants soon found themselves chasing each other across the lengths of Tamriel each time they moved locations of operation. Although it has been lost in time as to who attacked first, the feuding organizations knew that neither group would cease their rivalry, and so it was that when one organization would move their location of operation, the rival group would follow suit, and this ideal held true as they soon found themselves in Skywatch, off the coast of Auridon. Operations did not last in such a bustling town, however; the groups were not subtle in their attack, and running such an infamous drug did not prove ideal in the capital of Auridon. As quickly as they had arrived, the groups departed and found themselves in Woodhearth, a port town hugging the Western coast of the Valenwood. It is here that the feuding groups made a direct confrontation, persistently attacking and killing each other within the boundaries in town.

Such direct criminal activity was enough provocation for the Thalmor presence within Woodhearth to investigate; it would not be long thereafter for the Dominion entity to catch onto the Sugar Claw Clan’s skooma business, as well as the violence incited by the Broken Bottle Merchants. Coming to a head, the two organizations would hesitatingly join together and charter a ship North, to Velyn Harbor.

After landing, the loosely unified group compiled their resources and caravanned East into S’ren-ja, a small town that hugged the edges of Elsweyr and the Valenwood. It would be here that the group would take up a more permanent residence, and seek to lead a more law-abiding lifestyle. Following the death of the Clanlord’s son, he immediately began to reprimand the production and use of the infamous Blue Skooma, and destroyed all skooma producing apparatus in his fit of rage. From thereon, the Clanlord vowed to turn to more honest means of work. This vow for honest work aided in mending the hostility between the two merchant groups, and allowed them both to live in a state of peace; the singular group dealt in exports and trade, and began selling to travelers that passed through S’ren-ja on their way to the nearby Khajiiti city of Rawl’kha.

This peace would not last, however. After this prolonged state of harmony, and a change in leadership among clanlords, a strange ruby was found and brought to town for reasons unknown. The current clanmother of S’ren-ja began to receive strange and ominous dreams, as well as premonitions of death and the destruction of town and the treaty between organizations. The Clan progressively began to point blame towards the ruby that had been brought into town, but the former Clanmother of town insisted that this was simply coincidence, and that nothing was wrong. In a decision for safety regarding the townspeople, the current Clanmother took her clan and led them to settle in Baandari, West of S’ren-ja.

Those who did not find themselves belonging to the current Clan took residence with the old Clanmother in the town of S’ren-ja, but it would not be long before the premonitions of death and destruction would begin to prove true. The residents of S’ren-ja began to experience malicious encounters, and run-ins with long forgotten antagonists. Those left were driven from S’ren-ja following a catastrophic storm from this forgotten antagonist; the ruby was buried somewhere in town, and the group departed from the very town they had found peace in so long ago.

The remaining group roamed back West, towards Velyn Harbor, before finding a small town nestled in the center of Malabal Tor: Vulkwasten. The price of the town would not come free, however, when the group was greeted by a plethora of bandits who had sooner sought to rob them rather than greet them. After a long and draining clash between the two forces, the petty bandits were killed off, leaving Vulkwasten to the clan for claim.

Assuming that departing S’ren-ja would lift the curse, the townspeople took residence in this new, foreign land and declared it as their new beginning. Having been unaffiliated with the Dominion, the townspeople assembled to create their own presences within town, and began to flourish with variety as they quickly became a hotspot for a variety of work types. The Vulkwasten tavern found itself as one of the more renowned taverns within the Valenwood, providing a variety of exotic, imported drinks from all over Tamriel, as well as becoming the leading exporter of the native drink of the Valenwood: Rotmeth. Having no Dominion presence, the townspeople formed an independent Town Guard to uphold law, and Fighters and Mages Guild presence aided in the advancement of the town as a whole.

While it would seem that the clan would finally be able to rest and settle, their assumptions were sadly mistaken: Soon after the stabilization of this new settlement, malicious events began to unfold once more. Plague corrupted the town, bandits frequently attacked, and daedric presence began to take normality. This was climaxed, however, by an even more severe flood that threatened the town.

A year after its founding, the Vulkwasten chapter of the Mages guild took a more substantial foothold within town as they began to collect artifacts for research and study. Albeit a regular occurrence, one delivery would lead to a rather untimely disruption within town. A Mages Guild courier arrived in town from Eyevea to deliver the packages; upon conjuring a portal, however, the novice incidentally created a portal far too large over the nearby beach, which began to throw sea life and water into the skies. Over the course of the week, the clouds began to darken and take on a green hue, looming over the edge of Vulkwasten until finally bursting a week later over the center of town. Flooding the surrounding area with water and aquatic life, the residents of Vulkwasten fled into the tavern and took residence under the safety of wards cast by local mages. Repairs would follow, but the town would again find itself contemplating if their departure had held any effect whatsoever from disrupting the curse of the ruby.

Unfortunate events battered and bruised the town for years, until finally, the Heart Tree in the center of town began to suffer as well. The tree that gave life to all the other trees in town began to follow through as well, and due to the state of the slowly dilapidating town and the Bosmers' concern, all the clan residents of Vulkwasten were asked to evacuate the town's premises as soon as possible. Instead, the clan in Vulkwasten was offered an alternative area to stay, where spaces had been left vacant since the Blacksap Rebellion. That town was Cormount, to the North of Elden Root.

Only expected to stay for a few days, the clan didn't make themselves at home quite yet, and after a fleeting five day stay, they packed their belongings back into the wagons, and started their journey home. On the outskirts of town, plant life bloomed and thrived, a clear indication that the Spinners from Elden Root had successfully cleared up the sickness that had ailed the heart tree. Deeper in the center of town, however, things were not as they seemed.

The day of the clan's return brought havoc to Vulkwasten. Nesting skeevers, deadly senche-tigers, and rampaging mammoths terrorized the area as soon as the clan entered, which led to convince the spinners that the unimaginable catastrophes Vulkwasten had suffered was the fault of the clan. They deemed them no longer welcome in town, and the group was forced to turn around and make the trip back to Cormount.

The clan that had once shared ties with the Khajiiti clans of S'ren-ja was now nothing but a group of poor individuals of all different races and ages—Dunmer, Altmer, Argonians, and Khajiit—living in poverty as they carried their minuscule belongings into the town of Cormount. The townspeople of Cormount were not thrilled at the new arrival, and just as quickly, the clan had attempted to organize their own form of miniature government within the town. Organizing a clan Guard and a town Council, the group had taken a toss at managing their own finances, government, and enforcement within Cormount. As expected, however, this also would not last. Within six months, the clan was pulled out of Cormount.

As a last-ditch effort, the clan finally began to consider a form of government directly underneath the Dominion, rather than acting as a 'clan' like they had for so long. The Marshal of the Guard at the time organized a disbanding of the guard and the Council, and under approval, helped move the clan once more off the island. After a tragic event in Shattered Grove regarding people being turned to stone, the town was left largely empty, making the land an ideal refuge for the clan, under the shadow of the Altmeri Capitol. The townspeople were once again shipped off, carrying what belongings they could to the port of Skywatch, and to their new home.

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The curse of the ruby would continue to persist, but through their continued efforts, the new and old townspeople alike would find that no curse could destroy the concept of their settlement. Throughout the past, present, and future events of the clan, one thing is certain: By banding together, the townspeople could flourish in the most unforgiving of environments, and overcome the same curse that had been lain upon them so many years ago.