Skyrim: Why the Forsworn Want to Retake Markarth

gamerant.com:

The Forsworn in The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim are an initially hostile faction that the player can encounter when exploring The Reach. The people of Markarth see them as barbarians and call them the “Witchmen of High Rock.” However, the Forsworn are not violent for no reason.

The player can better understand the Forsworn peoples’ motivations through the quest “The Forsworn Conspiracy.” It’s also worth looking into the Reachfolk’s long history, which precedes the events of Skyrim.

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The Forsworn faction of Skyrim never actually existed until the Fourth Era, though it was primarily composed of Reachfolk, a race native to the Reach. Then, the Imperials and Nords came, forcing them to change their traditions and values to suit their empires. However, the Reachfolk were vehement about ruling over the region. They were its original inhabitants, so it was always their land. Everyone else was considered an invader.

In the First Era, the land had been conquered by the Direnni Hegemony, an elven kingdom. However, the Reachfolk overthrew them, killing nearly all the Reach’s former elven inhabitants and taking the land for themselves. Later, they would move into the Dwemer ruins that would be Markarth. For the rest of the First Era and the continuing Second Era, the Reachfolk would constantly be defending their land.

First, they fought against the Alessian Empire, which conquered every kingdom in the Reach except the Sundered Hills. This was when Skyrim’s Legend of the Red Eagle was born. A Reachman named Faolan formed a resistance group to fight against the Empire’s troops and even gave up his humanity to become a powerful Briarheart, Red Eagle — supposedly the first of his kind. With his