To be fair, there are two types of Imperials in Cyrodiil, Colovians and Nibenaese (is that how you say it?) This isn't really shown in the games, but since the Nibenay Valley is tropical, I'm sure those Imperials would be darker than their Colovian cousins, as the Colovian region is pretty accurate in Oblivion.

Actually, Marukh the Imga came from the jungles on the coast of Colovia. Most of central and southern Tamriel were tropical.
It started in the coastal jungle of what is now the Colovian west, where a prophet named Marukh, who had spoken to the "Enlightened One," Saint Alessia, began to question the validity of Elven rule.

The Imperials were lightly http://www.imperial-library.info/gallery/mw_TAoM_p36.jpg, for a time. He's a Red Templar, who are based out of one of Colovia's lost cities, Sutch; so even he's touched by the climate. The change obviously came and went during Morrowind's development. Conventional approaches usually win out.

Between its western coast and its central valley there are all manner of deciduous forest and mangroves, becoming sparser towards the ocean. The western coast is a wet-dry area, and from Rihad border to Anvil to the northernmost Valenwood villages forest fires are common in summer. There are a few major roads to the west, river paths to the north, and even a canopy tunnel to the Velothi Mountains, but most of Cyrodiil is a river-based society surrounded by jungle.
So, wet-dry meaning two seasons.

Rice and textiles were its main exports, along with more esoteric treasure-goods, such as hide armor, moon-sugar, and ancestor-silk.
Most of the clothing in Morrowind is Cyrodilic or made of cyrodilic materials.

They were quickly superseded by the Alessian priesthood, whose inexplicably charismatic religion found purchase in the lower classes. The traditional Nordic pantheon of Eight Divines was replaced by a baroque veneration of ancestor spirits and god-animals, practices encouraged by the mutable-yet-monotheistic doctrines of the Alessian faith. The doctrines eventually codified nearly every aspect of Eastern culture. Restrictions against certain kinds of meat-eating, coupled with the sentiments of the blossoming animal cults, soon made agriculture and husbandry nearly impossible.

The Colovian nobility, all officers of the Imperial Legions or its West Navy, do not allow themselves the great expenditure of courtly life as is seen in the capital city. They prefer immaculate uniforms and stark standards hanging from the ceiling of their austere cliff-fortresses; to this day, they become a little perplexed when they must visit the grandly decorated assault of color that is the Emperor's Palace.

By contrast, the Eastern people of Cyrodiil relish in garish costumes, bizarre tapestries, tattoos, brandings, and elaborate ceremony. Closer to the wellspring of civilization, they are more given to philosophy and the evolution of ancient traditions. The Nibenese find the numinous in everything around them, and their different cults are too numerous to mention (the most famous are the Cult of the Ancestor-Moth, the Cult of Heroes, the Cult of Tiber Septim, and the Cult of Emperor Zero). To the Colovians, the ancestor worship and esoteric customs of the East can often be bizarre. Akaviri dragon-motifs are found in all quarters, from the high minaret bridges of the Imperial City to the paper hako skiffs that villagers use to wing their dead down the rivers. Thousands of workers ply the rice fields after the floodings, or clear the foliage of the surrounding jungle in the alternate seasons. Above them are the merchant-nobility, the temple priests and cult leaders, and the age-old aristocracy of the battlemages. The Emperor watches over them all from the towers of the Imperial City, as dragons circle overhead.

It wasn't a jungle, because that wasn't the game they wanted to make. I mean, in the wake of the Lord of the Rings movies, they saw a market for a traditional fantasy setting.

Pasty white? In Morrowind, they're olive to bronze-skinned, which is appropriate since they're Roman-anologues. I have no idea why you bring up high culture or wealth at all, as it's a complete non-sequitur--but I'll be certain to let the Mayans know that you thought they couldn't possibly have had intellectual attainment. Your ridiculous generalizations seemed to be tied to terrestrial patterns, and you fail to convincingly demonstrate that there's anything inherent about a jungle climate that precludes high cultural production. You can, at best, argue that no such examples of such cultures exist on Earth, but you would still be forced to prove why our civilizations wouldn't qualify.

Morrowind was 100% lore friendly in that regard. It's only in Oblivion where they changed Cyrodiil into Medieval England--not only changing the climate, but the culture as well (there was a book in Morrowind that contrasted Dunmeri religion with that of the Empire, and it specifically noted that Nibenese Heartlanders were predominantly secular, and had formalized relationships with their gods, similar to educated Romans--suddenly in Oblivion, Heartlanders are devout chapel-goers and they have appreciation for religious crusaders, etc etc.).

Since the jungles and rainforests are concentrated in the Nibenay Valley (which, before Oblivion, described the entire Heartlands region as well as the lower reaches of the Niben), it makes sense for the people there to have different coloration to the mountain-dwelling Colovian brutes. That said, you'll find many tanned legionaries even in Oblivion, and I imagine they must spend quite some time in the sun despite their ridiculous medieval plate armor. You may be focusing too much on inn-owners and such if you're noticing many pasty white Cyrodils.

This is a massive undertaking for one person. Wow, good luck, I have a feeling you might need it. When this is finished, it will be great.

Nah, the imperials were first introduced as a race in Redguard, and they weren't light-bronze in their first appearance in that game either.
That concept art is probably just that, a (better imo) concept.

You miss my point. I know that the Mayans and the Aztec's attained a degree of wealth and high culture. My specific points were in regards to the type of architecture, clothing, and other artifacts of the culture we see in the games. They are more consistent with a cold or temperate climate, than a hot, humid climate. Heavy, heat trapping armors become kind of impractical in a jungle, don't they? Heavy robes, also. Yet, that is what we tend to see Imperials wearing in the games. The design of their buildings I think, seems, largely, more in line with cold-moderate climates, than hot climates (although, I'm not really an architect or structural engineer, so I'll admit maybe I'm interpreting the Architectural styles incorrectly).

The change obviously came and went during Morrowind's development. Conventional approaches usually win out.

Of course, they didn't even bother to change the books in Oblivion. I just looked at "Provinces of Tamriel" in the CS, and behold: yrodiil is the cradle of Human Imperial high culture on Tamriel. It is the largest region of the continent, and most is endless jungle. The Imperial City is in the heartland, the fertile Nibenay Valley. The densely populated central valley is surrounded by wild rain forests drained by great rivers into the swamps of Argonia and Topal Bay. The land rises gradually to the west and sharply to the north. Between its western coast and its central valley are deciduous forests and mangrove swamps.

Since what we see in the games is obviously a scaled down version that fits game mechanics, I am going to go ahead and say that the lore version with the jungles and rainforests is still completely canon.



Well--sort of. The "imperial steel" armors are rather heavy, but we see them on Vvardenfell, which is a bit north of the Nibenese Heartland. Actual Roman-styled armor has little issues in warm environments though--the Mediterranean is rather temperate, but classical Italy was rather humid, and notoriously so around October. Classical armor is fairly airy, and the pants the Morrowind legionaries wore under their pteryges skirts were obviously not part of the armor. They wouldn't have worn them in Cyrodiil, presumably.



Well, the "Western" style is obviously based on European forebears, even in Morrowind. But I think this is a case of history providing only a lack of examples, and not necessarily counterexamples. It's also likely these are Colovian-style structures, where the climate would resemble cold-moderate. I always imagined Nibenese architecture would be rather different--and the PGE does indicate that it'd be so.

I've always thought the contrast between jungle vines and bright white marble buildings would have been remarkable to see. It's this dissonance with what we know and expect that makes it interesting: who wants to see something that matches medieval Europe? Vvardenfell was fun because it was utterly out of the normal, and lore Cyrodiil would've been the same.