Awww, and I was all set, combing through Morrowind's editor with several quotes detailing the Argonian's life-springing relationship with the Hist.

To anyone from an actual source of civilization that is capable of scholarly discussion, Black Marsh and the Argonians have always been a. Mysterious, b. uninteresting for whatever reason, c. inaccessable and very tight-lipped about said mysteries, d. lesser/a beast race and therefore less than Man or Mer. Therefore, we only have off-hand, in-games quotes, usually by Argonians, a few books, and the fighter's guild quest-line.
The last source is our only good source of information on Hist right now, which confirmed that the Hist interact with the world around it by secreting magickal/alchemical sap or secretions that is lapped up by the environment and creatures around it, effecting change upon its surroundings. Since one Hist could make such a specific secretion with such a specific effect on creatures it likely had never encountered before, I'd imagine that multiple Hist working in concert with each other could change a species over time.

If it makes any difference, somewhere in the back of my skull I remember the prevailing idea was that the Hist coopted a species living in Black Marsh, changed them to be Argonians, and gave them sentience. So, made them, yes, but created, especially in the ES world, implies that one instant they weren't, and then the next they were.

From the sounds of the Anuad, it seems Nirn is comprised from the ehlnofey and hist-world, so they are as native as the ehlnofey are. They just happened to die off to the point where they are a tiny exceptional group to the ehlnofex norm that is the majority. Sort of like monotremes on Earth, being mammals like all other mammals in the same way that the hist are just as much a part of nirn as the ehlnofex, but being a bizarre little group that is fundamentally alien to the norm despite being just as much of that world as the other, larger group.

Just like Nirn is composed of the flesh of the Ehlnofey Aedra and the divine spark of Lorkhan.

Off topic, but Rufio said "I didn't mean too, she struggled". This implies he did something with a women, he's hiding in an Inn in the middle of nowhere, and if you talk to the guy who put the hit on him I believe he mentions it. So yeah. Sort of a lot of stuff implied there. Like how the skooma addicted High Elf does it in a house with a dead body in it, and skooma makes people stronger.

Also, has anyone thought of the fact that if you say the Hist had the power to create a race, yet got driven back to a single country/area? In any case they could be related/ symbiotic due to the Argonians living in the one area that HAS the Hist now, or the Hist could have gotten Sithis to create the Argonians. Which could very, very, very slightly be related too the fact that Shadowscale are taken for the Dark Brotherhood, whom take lives for the Dread Father and Mother(Sithis and The Night Mother, respectively).

Being able to create a new race and ending backed in one of the most eunplesant corners ot Mariel aren't mutually exclusive. "Creating a new race" can happen in several fashion, and only some of them are going to do much good militarily speaking : the 'poof now there's a whole bunch of my new guys and they're ready to spank your backside' approach being about the only one.

If it's of the 'use a few centuries of careful crossbreeding ang fine magicla alterations to get a large enough population that it becomes self-sustening' sort, it won't do you much good in a military confrontation.

I don't think Argonians are dragons...

The nature of dragons is even more obscured than that of the Argonians. At least we have something to go off of with them. They have some sort of strange connection with the Hist, and it seems to be involved with their reproduction or the rituals they have associated with their reproduction. They seem to have as much variety among themselves as the Khajiit, possibly even more. It's entirely possible that they do have more in common with certain species of tree-dwelling lizards than they do with men and mer.

But what do we know about dragons? I've seen only a scant few sentences about them in all in-game lore. Plenty of allusions to dragons, the Imperial heraldry and all that, but the only fact we have about them is that they come in two varieties, red and black, and that they're rare now. Also, apparently a tiger-person became a dragon. Not a lot to go on here. Just because they're superficially similar doesn't mean they share common descent.

And I find the assertion that the Ehlnofey and Hist were the only ones left to be somewhat suspect myself. I can buy the Yokudans descending from the Ehlnofey in a divergent bloodline from the Nedes, but where the hell did the Sload and the Tsaesci come from? One more thing: the bickering about how there's "no evolution" in Nirn is incorrect, technically. Clear instances of microevolution exist: the divergent bloodlines of man and mer, for instance. I may be wrong but I don't think I've seen any mythical origin of the Cyrodiil race, just records that the Nords came first.

Dragons relate to Argonians in the same way Humans relate to Lemurs, they belong to the same family. In this case, reptiles.

Anyway they both shouldn't have much in common besides being reptilians, as Argonians have no Draconic traces and apparently there are no Dragons on Black Marsh as their culture makes no mention of them. And when Dragons are around you can't just ignore them.

There are actually dragons in Black Marsh, or were (although there could be anything there, really). The Fang of...well, a dragon...is an artifact that the player can acquire in Morrowind, and it is described in Tamrielic Lore.

Well, my point exactly.

Well, if it is true that they are bound to Black Marsh, it would explain that. Thier world-shard is a part of them necessary for survival. So they are divine while there, and a perversion when not.


But there are also Dragons in lore-cyrodiil, in Game-Iliac Bay (sort of), and in Skyrim. That dosen't mean a link between those races and Dragons, in anything but contractual bonds. Dragons are a part of tamriel, and if they truly were extinct as opposed to hiding, I have a gut feeling something very bad would happen.

As do the Khajiit, and the Nords for that matter.

Wait, I know that the Nords use the Falmer Tower snow-throat, but I thought that was a big mountain? Also, I don't know much about the Khajiit side from the fact that they pretty much embody bad-ass-itude. Help please? It does make sense they have one, being that they are/used to be some type of mer, but I just realized I never thought about them in terms of Towers.

Well, a mountain is made of organic materials, isn't it? :hehe:

Towers for Kahjiit are in terms of sand-focal-points. Think a dune with a circumventing influx of moon-phase-matter. There's a lot to be said for that, seeing as how that'd make the Kahjiit more like the scourge of Pre-Enlightened Elf thinking, and less little cat people who are in the game simply because every fantasy setting needs cat people.

and the Dunmer.

As for a Khajiit tower, I prefer the "race as high as a Tower" theory, involving a massive lunar phased, woodstock moonsugar fest.



Adventurous Putty has a theory concerning Tsaesci and Hist. Most other races are Ehlnofey, don't know about Kamal and Dreugh (possible Hist of the sea ). There were many races and tribes of nedes, Bretons essesntially being one, who inhabited the lands for mellinia before the Cyrodiil "race" was created by the first act of Imperial god mantling. That race pretty much dissipates in times of interrum rulership, if I'm not mistaken.

I think the place Sithis has in the Argonian mythos has less to do with any personal relationship with Sithis (I'm not sure that's actually possible), than with a generally more Padhomaic leaning on the part of the Hist. I also think that the Hist, themselves, are more on a level with the Et-Ada than the mortals of Tamriel, or more likely a middle level between the two. They're just not terribly ambulatory.

As to the power combined with having been driven back... they weren't driven back. Their land was SUNK beneath the ocean, collateral damage during the Ehlnofex Wars (the ones alluded to in the Anuad, when Settled Ehlnfey (elves) and Wandering Ehlnofey (men) warred over the right for men to enter Old Ehlnofey. Actually, Old Ehlnofey was devastated as well...

I believe this is the incident Dreekius, the Argonian bartender in Stros M'kai (Redgard), was referring to when he explained why Argonians are sent abroad to study humans and elves. He refers to a previous war during which "they" lost a lot of territory due to a lack of knowledge about humans and elves. The first time I heard this, I thought he was referring to a prior conquest of Argonia by Tiber Septim... but since then I have learned that Black Marsh is another one of those areas that was never really conquered. And the Anuad does say that most of the Hist lands were sunk beneath the sea during the Ehlnofex Wars. Black Marsh was one surviving portion. I believe the lands of the Tscaeci to be another.

I suppose a heart can be organic, yeah.



No. That's a racial transcendence (which they naturally have, they didn't have to work for it like the Altmer!). Towers are Towers, and that's that.

This should be coached to browsers that this is speculation and not supported one way or another by ingame materials.

I recognize a game plot when I see one...

Why has no one linked to the http://www.imperial-library.info/fsg/brendanarticle1.shtml. It does an excellent discussion of the Hist with just about every source there is.

There's a remote possibility Argonians are related to Wamasus.

Well the part about the Hist being driven back was because of a book I read in game. Then I remembered the book wasn't actually fact, as it was simply a retelling of an old tale including the Argonians and the Hist. And I wasn't aware of the of the Ehlnofex Wars, but that does explain why the elves were stuck on the Summerset Isles and trying to find Old Ehlfoney to me. But who were the Wandering Ehlnofey? That part confuses me the most.

Humans.

I'd just like to point out that that's a giant misconception this isn't entirely true. Dragons were featured in Redguard and Daggerfall, and were only not in Morrowind due to Cliff Racer infestations and not in Cyrodill beacuse Oblivion is...well Oblivion.

MA is only referring to Akaviri dragons, and even that is suspect. It is often thoguht the talk of dragons in MA is merely allegorical and not literally true and even if it is and all the dragons on Akavir are gone, the ones on Tamriel are still going strong (except in Morrowind)