Lore:Gardens of Flesh and Bone

Gardens of Flesh and Bone
Type	Ruin
Realm	Oblivion
Plane	Shivering Isles
Region	The Fringe
Appears in	Shivering Isles

The Gardens of Flesh and Bone circa 3E 433

The Gardens of Flesh and Bone are an ancient ruin and root tunnel complex located just west of the town of Passwall inside the Fringe, the walled-off region of the Shivering Isles to which mortals are confined until they receive Lord Sheogorath's "gift" of madness and can enter the realm proper.

Like all ancient ruins found in the Isles, it is a relic of the Predecessors, the mortal inhabitants of the realm whose civilization was wiped out in a previous Greymarch. By the Third Era, root tunnels had broke through into the ancient subterranean halls of the Garden.

History

At some point, the sorceress Relmyna Verenim was invited to the Isles to continue her research into Flesh Magic. She took up occupation of the Gardens and labored painstakingly for many years in order to cultivate the mystical forms of Meat, Blood, Bone, and Breath—the four essential components of true Flesh, the "sixth element". Blood took the mystical form of Blood Liqueur, bubbling up from a root-twisted wellspring in the Natatorium of Wound Bled Tears; Bone and Meat took the form of Osseous Marrow and Dermis Membrane respective, bony plants which bloomed in the Conservatorium Corpusculum; Breath took the form of the Essence of Breath, a green gas which flows through the twisting tunnels of the Caverns of Susurration like a giant lung, gathering in its center.

By harvesting these four components, together known as the Essence of Flesh, Relmyna was able to construct a vessel for "child", a powerful flesh atronach known as the Gatekeeper of the Fringe. She would then animate this vessel with Soul—the Quintessence of Flesh—by ritualistically binding it to an atronach's Daedric spirit (or vestige) summoned from the waters of Oblivion. Although many of his "siblings" perished in the Garden, Relmyna eventually created the first Gatekeeper through a painful and bloody birth, using Sheogorath's divine madness as the seed. The Gatekeeper was then charged with guarding the Gates of Madness against interlopers who would try to exit the Fringe without Sheogorath's blessing.

Circa 3E 433, the Hero of Kvatch entered the Shivering Isles at Sheogorath's invitation and killed the Gatekeeper. It is believed that the Hero broke into the Gardens of Flesh and Bone to harvest the bones of a failed Gatekeeper in order to craft arrows which could be used to kill it.

Later that year, the Fringe was invaded by the forces of Order, and the Hero was tasked by Sheogorath with assisting Relmyna with creating a new Gatekeeper. Relmyna sent the Hero back to the Gardens of Flesh and Bone and granted access to her Sanctum to gather samples of the four essential components of Flesh. The complex at this time had become overrun by "creatures of the sorceress' doing and undoing": undead shambles, skinned hounds, flesh atronachs, and hungers. The Hero succeeded in harvesting the components, and a new Gatekeeper was formed.

At some point after 3E 433, a Redguard madman created the Garden of Swords in the Fringe, where metal weapons seemingly grew from the ground. He had used the body of a previous Gatekeeper to fertilize the soil; an axe grew from this plot, and was said to have been used by Talym Rend to slay the new Gatekeeper.

Gallery

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  Blood Liqueur

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  Osseous Marrow

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  Dermis Membrane

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  Essence of Breath

See Also

• For game-specific information, see the Shivering Isles article.