Heya

I'm making an Altmer Mage to roleplay with, and perhaps write a story based on her adventures.

The things is, I plan for her to come from a highborn family on the Summerset Isles. I also plan to use setscale to make her about the size of an Imperial because i've always found their height a little offputting in Oblivion, though i'm not sure why. To top it off i'm going to start her off with the Atronach birthsign because frankly I love it. Extra power; but it's inherently a weakness and curse.

So... this girl was an Altmer, to whom their lineage is everything, who is a head shorter than the majority of her brethren, who also grew up with stunted magicka.

I would assume that she would be looked down on for these facts int eh Summerset Isles, i'm just not sure exacly how much so. Would someone who was 'of an obviously weaker bloodline' be simply scorned, or ejected from the Isles? So far i've got it written in the pre-story blurb that the others of her age would mutter under their breath about her, the other highborn Altemer would just look at her icily, and her parents would try to mask their shame but fail when talking about her. Marraige would cost her parents tripple the dowry that would usually be the case, if they could find someone who would accept the risk of her 'traits' passing down the bloodline.

I was thinking of that being her incentive to leave the Isles and 'become a powerful and influential Mage' so she would return and prove her worth. Spare her family the shame and escape the scorn.

However, i'm still learnign the Lore, and I could use input?

The altmer tend to kill babies that are not seen as being perfect, so I assume she passed the first portion. Also, I assume there are plenty altmer who are also born under the atranoch. It's not really a weakness, they still can svck up magicka, making them to be pretty good meat-spell-shields, not to mention they are blessed with higher than normal magicka reserves. However, I would imagine that she would be svcking down magicka restoring potions than most other magic practitioners, or tossed into a more combative role.

As for her height, that probably would give her some scorn, as the altmer view height being related to divinity (the bigger, the more god-like one is). By being short, I can see how the altmer of Summerset would look down upon her, both literally and figuratively. If you played Morrowind, and talk to an altmer, you will hear about how pure their race is, and that they tend to put up a lot on airs.

Now, if you ask me, any altmer outside of Summerset Ilse (maybe save for some diplomats) most likely left, due to its extremely ridged culture, and that they probably were not really considered altmer. Hell, Ocato is viewed as a sellout to his people back at home, and he's a pretty powerful guy from a very well to do family.

Hmm, I would have thought a person who could not naturally replenish their own magicka reserves would be seen as 'disabled' in a highly magical population, because even if they can chug potions, thats like having a medical condition that can be treated by an expensive suppliment. Thats just my view on it though. After all, only a noble family coudl afford a supply of magicka potions, and it would still hurt their coffers over a young Altmer's entire training period.

I'd image her height problems would not have shown themselves until advlthood, or at least the late 'teen' period, when she simply stopped growing. Magicka would probobly have not become known until she started studying magic. So I imagine she escaped the intial fate via that reasoning, and i'm sticking to it, hehe. =P

Yes, I can't imagine returning as a powerful Mage would do her any good, even if she made it to Archmage in an incredibly short time, but as a fairly naive youth who is just sick of shaming her family she probobly doesn't realise that. It's also unlikely that after living in Cyrodiil for a long time she would WANT to return. Though i've not decided if I want her to share her peoples views.

Thanks for the tings I can roll around in my head.

How young is young?

Maybe you can include some of the Current Events in her story? Scroll down on this http://www.imperial-library.info/content/pocket-guide-empire-third-edition-blessed-isle-alinor-and-summersets to get to some social unrest. Maybe she joined some of these groups or maybe that's why she left.

Ah, thanks for that, i'll give it a thorough read over and return with an answer.

Also, altmer do tend to live much longer than everyone else, and if she's wealthy and practices magic, she should very easily live extremely long. As such, I'd say being 100 is still kinda young. But, if the life of Barenziah is worth anything, mer have adolescence and teen years similar to humans, but the women are not fertile till 20ish (though Barenziah was younger when she learned the hard way, though it was speculated that it was because she was very easy and had many human partners).

And then Dunmer women tend to be quite promiscuous in their early years

Wasn't that just Imperial propaganda?

No, Altmer would be boring otherwise. Think Spartans, The "The Races' "Real Life Equivalents"" already pegged them as Greeks anyway.