Did I misread that these two were supposed to be in the game?

Well, they are mentioned in the game. Does that count?

This is the General section, so no spoilers... You can't join either faction, but as for appearances... you'll have to play to find that out.

If I remember correctly the College of Winterhold was originally going to be College of Whispers, but they renamed it. The College of Whispers still exists, but now it's a separate organization with little presence in the game.

I hadn't been under the impression that the Synod was intended to be a joinable faction, although I didn't follow such details too closely during the game's developement.


There isn't too much that can be added to this, but as ThalmorStrikesBack has pointed out much of it involves spoilers. If you wish I can move this to the spoiler forum or the lore forum. But if you'd rather find out yourself I'll just leave this be.