Im kinda confused about man+mer offspring, do these all end in bretons? Or are there half dunmer/man, half altmer/redguards etc. There is a seemingly non-existant breed of these. All I know is that Bretons are half elves.

I suppose this was done troughout the games from gameplay reasons (not to have a hundrend versions of quarter-quarter), but the explanation given was that a child inherits his mother race. Still, I would assume (or prefer) it's not entirely the case. Jagar tharn, for one, supposedly had some altmer, bosmer, and even human blood, with symmachus being able to recognize that. well.

They take their mother's race, with traits from the father.

Breton's aren't really half elves in the traditional sense. They are descendant from interbreeding of Direnni Altmer, Nede, and Nord way back in the first era.

Yep. They aren't half-elves. More like 1/16th Elves.

Aren't Bosmer similarly 1/16th man?

Can't humans interbreed regularly? What about mer? Altmer and Dunmer?

Really the whole lore on the subject is far to vague and imo you CAN have half-Nord half-Dunmer Nundmers if you want too, I am RP that right now, Just made a big friggin Dunmer and I plan on some console commands to make it so I have Frost resistance and the War Cry power. Not sure If I can do that but I should be able to. Pretty sure the whole mother domiant trait thing only applies to beast races and all else is just so they do not have to make half Dunmer half Orcs looking people. Simply game mechanic restrictions and that is it.

They also do not clarify age very well.

However good news on that front. The Archmage of the College of Winterhold makes a remark that basically says magic DOES extend your life, if you are good at it. I never felt we had total justification to really say this was a solid fact. This coupled with other evidence makes me say competence with magicka does extend your life in TES series.

Ehm... the telvanni? Also, when referring to the count of Skingrad in Oblivion, everyone chalks up his unusual-longevity to the fact that he's a powerful sorcerer. It's basically just accepted in-game that if you're particularly talented in the arcane arts you'll live longer naturally or, like therana, keep yourself alive (somehow) through necromancy until your brain rots. Divayth Fyr probably finds the concept of mortality-through-old-age amusing in abstract.

Well I am skeptical of nature. Those cases were not always clear cut that magicka in of itself makes you live longer. More like it was used to do something to prolong your own life. Such as necromancy, Dyvayth Fyr's Clones made me think those might have been part of the reason for his longevity. Granted I had enough evidence to say it was extremely likely, but this just confirmed it for me. Recent evidence is always best. Especially for new players.

One of the major determinants of life-expectancy is healthcare.

What is healthcare in TES, hmh?

Restoration magic, QED.

Interesting, but to live 1000 years or 5 times longer than your natural life expectancy is kind of hard to explain at least I would think. Unless Restoration restores decayed organs. In which case their should be ZERO aging. Of course TES organs could be very different from our own. Even if they have all the same ones.

Or maybe Fyr isn't 4000 years old at all. Maybe what we see is just the 400th clone he's made of himself... :wink_smile:

My own theory is Restoration would naturally add some sort of extension to ones natural life span or that in general anyone with a higher than average aptitude in magicka naturally could boast a slightly longer natural lifespan. Altmer can live about a thousand years or so and I could imagine even longer if they had the aptitude in magic.

I'm confused about the Nedic though. Didn't MK say that 'Nedic' was a misnomer?

We've got no better term :shrug: I suppose I could go with "indigenous Tamrielic humans" but that's awkward.

Atmoran?

they're only breton if the mom was breton, You see in tes biology to make it simple the kid just becomes the mom's race, simple

Bretons are like hundreds of generations of nords and elves getting it on