As spoken by Lorekeeper Eamon of the Stonelore Druids
When one speaks of the Green, it is tempting to gesture at forests, fields, and beasts and think the matter settled. Yet those are only the surfaces of a far older story, one that began before the land learned how to remain itself. The Green is not merely what grows, but what remembers how to grow, again and again, according to rules set so long ago that even the stones speak of them only in echoes.
The world of Nirn is said to rest upon a hidden framework laid down in the Dawn Era, when the Aedra shaped the Mundus at great cost to themselves. This framework is remembered as the Earthbones, the foundational laws and principles that allow nature, time, and form to persist. From these Earthbones flow currents of primordial energy that course through the land in pathways known as Ley Lines, which druids often call Bone-Lines, for they are the lingering strength of the world’s earliest structure.
Where these lines intersect, places of heightened potency arise, known as Nirncruxes. In such places, prayers carry further, magic behaves unpredictably, and the presence of the Green feels closer to waking thought. Ancient rivers, reefs, and mountains—such as Mount Firesong in the Systres—are named among these sites, where the Earthbones have never fully fallen silent.
The Green itself is understood as the natural world of Nirn given enduring form through the sacrifice of the Earthbones and the act known as Y’ffre’s Naming. Before this Naming, all things existed in a mutable, unstable state the Bosmer remember as the Ooze, where land, life, and even time shifted without lasting shape.
Stories tell that it was Y’ffre—called the Singer, the Storyteller, the Spirit of the Now—who gave the world its first tale. Through song and story, he shaped the Ooze into defined forms, granting every living thing its Name and place. These Names were not labels, but bindings, anchoring existence to continuity.
Some say the Green itself is a kind of dream born from this act: a shared remembering of form that allows life to return, renew, and persist. Nature spirits are often described as dreams of the Green, manifestations of Y’ffre’s laws given purpose and presence. They are tied to place and pattern, yet remain as unpredictable as storms or seasons.
When such a spirit’s physical form is destroyed, it is said not to perish entirely, but to return to slumber within the Green, ending one incarnation and awaiting another. Thus, death among spirits is less an ending than a pause between verses.
Druids, particularly those of the Systres, are known to walk close to these truths. Their magic does not create, but guides, drawing upon the energies that flow through the Bone-Lines and listening for the stories the land is already telling. At places of Nirncrux, their spells take on unusual qualities, and even simple words spoken with care may carry great weight.
Some druids use sacred preparations, such as the Elixir of Y’ffre’s Thoughts, to step briefly into a dreamlike state where they may commune with spirits still slumbering within the Green. In this state, knowledge is exchanged not through speech, but through memory and impression.
Y’ffre’s influence is said to continue through subtle interventions: the choosing or restoring of figures such as the Silvenar, the sending of wisps that herald the storms of Rain’s Hand, and the shaping of cycles such as day and night in accordance with deeper laws of time. His song is believed to echo even beyond Nirn, compelling the stars—windows into Aetherius—to sway in distant remembrance.
Among the Stonelore, we do not claim to know the Green as one knows a tool or a map. We know it as one knows a long story, heard many times, each telling revealing something new. Y’ffre did not give us certainty, but continuity, and the Earthbones did not command us, but allowed us to remain. To listen to the Green is not to seek answers, but to recognize the shape of what endures—and to remember that we, too, are only verses within a tale still being sung.