For Project 5, I had a hard time thinking about what city or country to focus on for these postage stamps. I had the idea of Florence, Italy, or the Adirondack region in upstate New York. But instead of those, I chose to go the fictional route and created some postage stamps from my favorite video game of all time, Skyrim.

Skyrim is not only the title of the game, but also the name of the country that the game takes place in. Skyrim is a country in the Northern part of the continent it lies on known as Tamriel, and shares borders with countries like High Rock, Hammerfell, Cyrodiil, and Morrowind.

The first postage stamp you see showcases an illustration of some of the scenery in Skyrim, and showcases the tallest mountain in the country known as the “Throat of the World.” The mountain sits in the very center of the country, and towers over any other mountain in the area. The mountain is home to a group of priests that reside in a castle called High Hrothgar, and they practice the “way of the thu’um.” The thu’um is the word for ‘shout’ in dragon speech, and a dragon is shown to the right of the mountain.

The second stamp is of one of the most famous foods in Skyrim, if not the most famous, a sweet treat known as “sweet rolls.” Sweet rolls can be found all around Skyrim, and the people always talk about the sweet rolls, and which hold (city) has the best, very much like us residents of Buffalo talking about which place has the best chicken wings.

In the third stamp, a picture of a man in armor is shown with the word “Dragonborn” below with some other etchings below that. The Dragonborn is not only the character you play as and can customize, but it is also the hero of Skyrim. Without getting into too much lore, the Dragonborn is the only one that can permanently kill a dragon, which once enslaved all races that lived in Skyrim, and wanted to achieve again. The symbols below the word Dragonborn is the word ‘Dovahkiin’ meaning dragonborn written in ‘Dovah’ or the language of the dragons.

Finally, in the 4th stamp we see a horse. Horses are essential in Skyrim, as they are the fastest way to travel the lands, and can be seen throughout the country. Horses in Skyrim aren’t as fast as horses on Earth, but they’re made for endurance and strength rather than speed.

Just to round things out here, ‘septims’ are the currency in Skyrim, but in reality they are just gold coins.