The Elder Scrolls and the Moth Priests

The series is named after artifacts no one fully understands — and the Sentinel teaser puts a Scroll-reader at the center of the story.

Updated 2026-11-03

This page covers series lore established in earlier Elder Scrolls games — what the Scrolls and their readers are, based on what the series has already shown.

What the Elder Scrolls are

The Elder Scrolls are artifacts of uncertain origin that exist outside of time. They record past, present and possible futures — and because those futures are only possibilities, their prophecies can shift. Nothing written in a Scroll is guaranteed; the Scrolls offer shimmers of what might be, not certainties of what will. That ambiguity is the point of the Sentinel teaser’s voice: “a shimmer, a veil thinly lifted to my eyes. A future lost. A victory undone.”

Historically, the Scrolls were kept in the Imperial Library at the White-Gold Tower in Cyrodiil — a hoard of prophecy at the heart of the Empire.

The Moth Priests

Reading an Elder Scroll is a vocation with a price. The Moth Priests of the Cult of the Ancestor Moth are trained to interpret the Scrolls, and each reading costs a little of the reader’s sight — until, after a lifetime of prophecy, the reader goes blind. The order’s priests are living instruments: their fading vision is the toll the Scrolls take.

The Sentinel teaser’s narrator is one of them: Yazar, Moth Priest to High Queen Iradne of Hammerfell, writing in 4E 206. A court keeping a Scroll-reader on staff implies a throne that takes prophecy seriously.

In Skyrim

Skyrim put the Scrolls at the center of its main quest: the Dragonborn carries an Elder Scroll to the Time-Wound at the Throat of the World, using it to look back at the moment ancient Nord heroes cast Alduin out of time. The Dawnguard expansion brings a Moth Priest on-screen: Dexion Evicus, who reads the Elder Scrolls for the Dawnguard and loses his sight doing so.

The TES6 connection

The Verge reported that the main story of The Elder Scrolls VI: Sentinel focuses on the history of the Elder Scrolls themselves and on uncovering the secrets of the artifacts. Combined with a Moth Priest narrator, that reporting suggests the Scrolls may move from plot device — as they were in Skyrim — to subject. For what the teaser itself says, see the Sentinel teaser breakdown.