The Elder Scrolls: Arena

What happens in the game

The Eternal Champion gathers the scattered pieces of the Staff of Chaos across the provinces, making the first game a tour of Tamriel's political and mythic geography.

Tharn's deception turns imperial legitimacy into a literal crisis of identity: the empire continues to display its ruler while the real emperor is imprisoned elsewhere.

The story, step by step

1. A stolen empire

   Battlemage Jagar Tharn imprisons Emperor Uriel Septim VII in another dimension and takes his appearance. Ria Silmane reaches the imprisoned player after death and identifies the Staff of Chaos as the only instrument capable of breaking the deception.

2. Across Tamriel

   The Eternal Champion recovers eight staff fragments from dungeons spread across the provinces. The journey establishes Tamriel as a connected imperial space whose local courts and dangers persist beneath the central usurpation.

3. Return to the Imperial City

   With the restored staff, the Champion enters the Imperial Palace, defeats Tharn and releases Uriel. The empire is restored, but the ease with which appearance replaced legitimate rule becomes an early warning about imperial fragility.

What the story is really about

How it ends

The Staff is restored, Tharn is defeated and Uriel Septim VII returns to the throne.

What changes afterward

• Tamriel is established as a connected but culturally distinct continent.
• The Septim Empire remains the political frame for the later mainline games.

How it connects forward

Daggerfall narrows the scale to the Iliac Bay while making imperial intervention and disputed history more complex.

Places in this game

• The First and Second Era
• Cyrodiil

Continue exploring

• The Elder Scrolls II: DaggerfallThird Era
• The Elder Scrolls IV: OblivionEnd of the Third Era