☆ enderal ☆. "our mark on this world" is a questline implemented as part of its forgotten stories expansion.
[☆ Posted: May 23, 2025.]
SPOILERS WILL NOT BE TAGGED. EXPECT SPOILERS FOR THE TITULAR QUESTLINE WITH VAGUE REFERENCES TO ENDERAL'S GREATER NARRATIVE.
WARNING FOR VAGUE DISCUSSION OF AMERICAN POLITICS TOWARD THE END.
it's one of those things that sounds embarrassing to say, but is also completely true:
german skyrim kind of fixed my brain.
"the fuck is a german skyrim?" you ask.
it's my silly nickname for the total conversion mod of skyrim--enderal, which was made by a german team of modders known as sureai. they've made a few other similar mods for past elder scrolls games (nehrim for oblivion, myar aranth and artkwend for morrowind) all in the same setting of vyn. i've only played enderal. oblivion has never appealed to me beyond its fascinating…existence (the radiant ai! the aesthetic! the excessive bloom! it's such distinctive jank!), so playing nehrim isn't high on my list considering it doesn't share a writer with enderal. the two morrowind mods hold a bit more interest as i do like morrowind, but still…
it's less the world itself and more the exact specifics of the themes and stories told in enderal that made it so special for me.
extra funny is the fact i don't like skyrim. (got it on ps3 after caving to the hype only to realize that oh no…i don't really like open-world games and jesus christ this is glitchy as fuck.)
but enderal has made a deep imprint on me.
especially this one quest called "our mark on this world."
in it, you help a woman, esme, looking for her ex-girlfriend, tara. tara suffered from what she called the "black fog," a clear analogy to severe depression. they were together for eight years before her girlfriend broke things off and then later disappeared overseas. esme followed after her, wanting to ascertain if she was okay and clearly still having lingering feelings for tara. you help her at a few different locations as you trace her.
tara encountered an entity known as the veiled woman, a figure of both great enigma and power in enderal's narrative. this compelled tara to cross over to the titular continent and become involved with a cult of other individuals who have felt called by the veiled woman. some of they have been waiting years for tara, or whoever might have taken her place, to join them. together, all seven of them travel to an obscure temple where you don't find her; you just find a semicircle of bloody cultist robes.
long story short, your character is able to view "echoes" of the past, and you've seen a few of tara at this point. this final one shows her second-guessing her choice at this final juncture. the veiled woman herself appears and explains about as clearly as she ever does: tara can die with the other six if she chooses to empower the veiled woman with their essence so that she can continue as an impartial watcher of the world. tara can sacrifice her life to do "something with purpose, something that matters." no one forces her. you don't see her make a choice. you see this conversation and the outcome.
throughout this questline, there is strong theming on how humans need suffering and hardship to appreciate joy and peace. our souls are too fragile for the stagnancy of eternal happiness. we're trapped in a cycle of sadness, but there's always a chance for us to overcome our nature. the veiled woman is necessary to "keep the world from drowning in chaos." tara can do something that matters by helping empower the veiled woman with her sacrifice.
you tell esme about your final vision, and:
player character: "i'm sorry, esme. tara is gone. she and the others gave their lives for the veiled woman."
esme: "…no. no, i don't buy it. tara wouldn't do something this, not for some group of deranged lunatics, never!"
player character: "she wanted to do something that 'mattered.'"
esme: "'something that mattered?' this!? goddammit, and what about us? what about all those years we spent together? didn't they matter too? why, tara? why in the seven wasn't that enough? why couldn't you just be happy for once in your fucking life? i…i just don't get it. i don't get it."
player character: [one possible dialogue choice] "the veiled woman and those cultists manipulated her."
esme: "no, they didn't! she had it all! for fuck's sake, do you have the slightest idea what some people are actually going through out there? day in, day out, they have to fight for survival. but her? she had it all, a roof over her head, food, money, people to whom she meant the fucking world! but no, that wasn't enough! it was always about herself, even this! she never wasted a bloody minute even thinking about what it would do to me! tara, tara, tara…it was always about you, and you alone. 'something real'... bullshit. this was all about feeding her ego. the ever-so-sad-looking aeterna girl with the watery eyes. fuck the rest, right? fuck what your stupid 'sadness' does to the people around you! i…i need to go. this is too much. this is just too much."
provided you have a good enough relationship with her, she'll contact you a few days later and reflect on it all.
esme: "you know… tara once tried to explain to me what it's like to live with the black fog. we had just spent a wonderful evening together and we were sitting on a beach, not unlike this one. we kissed, and cuddled, and then, all of a sudden, she started crying. i tried to comfort her, but it was pointless. she just cried and cried, for almost an hour. at one point, she told me that she was sorry. that she was sorry for being how she was, that there was nothing she wanted more than to be different…but that it was out of her control. the fog…it's always there, and there were moments when it just overwhelms you, no matter how hard you try to fight it. don't you see? and she told me that the worst part of it all was seeing how much her suffering 'dragged me down' right along with her."
player character: "she felt like a burden."
esme: "yes… 'i don't even understand what it is that you love about me…all i do is drag you down.' strange, isn't it? now that i'm telling you all this, i understand her. but back then…i just didn't. i couldn't.
player character: "how do you feel about what she did now?"
esme: "...good question. of course i still struggle understanding why she did it. and the fact that she's gone…it breaks my heart. it just breaks my heart. i wish i could travel back in time and tell her that i will stand by her, no matter how she is. and that she never was or could be a burden to me. joining this cult, giving her life…it was her choice, and she didn't do it out of malice. but i just wish i could have somehow made her realize that it always gets better. that the two of us might have beat the fog eventually."
player character: [one possible dialogue choice] "i don't know what to say."
esme: "you don't need to say anything. of course, there are still so many questions…most of all, who that veiled woman really is and what she needed those people for. but i'm guessing we won't get an answer to that. who knows, maybe what she said was right, and tara's sacrifice really wasn't for nothing. we'll never know."
this is all indicative of enderal's themes in general. the cycle of suffering mankind creates for itself, our struggle to break it and coping within it, and the ever looming hope we will surpass it.
who knows if tara's sacrifice really meant anything. all we know is how it leaves esme, hurt and alone and wishing she could have done more. we hurt and hurt ourselves and others, sometimes intentionally and sometimes not. pain is a fundamental part of the human condition.
enderal is remarked on as a very depressing game, but a lot like with narutaru, there's an earnest hope to it--and that's what has stayed with me about both. we can always do better. we always have the capacity to do better. esme doesn't begin to understand tara until the aftermath, but it's so important that we do ever understand and bring that understanding forward.
the beginning of 2025 was really rough on me mentally. i'm american, and wow! headfirst slide into fascism! there's, obviously, a lot that can be said about my country and the myriad wrongs it has and continues to commit. but up until november 2024, i really believed in the inherent good of people. trump's reelection sort of snapped that brutally in half, and i fell hard into nihilism. my belief in humanity hit a hard nadir. i coped pretty badly and picked up some poor means to process said coping.
playing enderal at this time in my life was very meaningful to me. that idea of hope, that even a tiny step forward by someone at a great cost--it means something. some of us are, unfortunately, deeply committed to hurting others, and many of us choose to excuse that or justify it or even not see it as hurting at all.
but there's always always always a chance to overcome and prove otherwise.
maybe next time it will be enough.
because there will always be a next time, and that is so desperately important to me.
i'll never excuse or justify or even necessarily forgive the pain caused now, but i think i can still continue knowing there will always be a next time where maybe the cycle is broken.
germans made skyrim mod. german skyrim mod fixed my brain.
also, the titular song used in this questline is just beautiful.