I was thinking about how Morrowind could be so much more exotic and alien than Cyrodiil, that is basically Europe, when the explanation downed on me. The original myth of the creation of Nirn says that it is composed of many different worlds that were destroyed and remade into a single planet.

While the Hyst and Argonians are supposed to be the original inhabitants of the original Nirn (before the elhonfey (sp?) war, from what I read), all other parts of it are from these other worlds. The different races were part of these worlds or were changed by the environment they choose to live.

This would explain the multitude of races, fantastic animals and the most strange places, like Akavir.

I got it right?

I don't see why this would be wrong, but when you think planet, also think plane/sphere, also think god. Nirn was created by a variety of spirits/gods/etc. (essentially those who are known as the "Aedra" now) taking parts of themselves/their plane/sphere and combining them into one.

See http://www.imperial-library.info/obscure_text/cosmology.shtml. http://www.imperial-library.info/astro/ may also have some good information on this.

That with the environment sounds good, but the races less so, most lore says all humans descend from the north, and all elves, orcs and khajiit from one race.

You're all overthinking it.

The Velothi Mountains shield in the ashstorms of Vvardenfell, thus altering the flora and fauna of Morrowind. I'll find the post/text and link it if need be, but I'll hope you trust me.

That's an even better nomenclature. The world being formed by parts of the gods themselves gives Nirn a still more strange and magical nature.


Reading a bit more it seems that if the Khajiit and Orc myths are correct then we have only three main original races that branched into all races we have now: Argonians (that didn't branch at all), Men and Elves.


That would be a real good and natural explanation, still the insectoid/mushroom based life forms of Morrowind are quite alien and strange.

But to be fair something similar ocurred in South America, where marsupials dominated the continent (like in Australia) until the Panama istmo rose from the ocean and other invading mammal species overcame them and took over the place.

I was going to mention Costa Rico, which has millions upon millions of unique species that would be quite alien to the Mexican plateau not so far away. And Costa Rica isn't even isolated.

Vvardenfell has an inland sea, weather patterns determined by an active volcano, lots of mountainous ridges, etc.

LPS: Tamriellic humans are not descended from Atmorans. It's the other way around: Atmorans are descended from Tamriellic humans.

I see you just won't believe me.

Hm, so the planets are actually the gods? So what would happen if you tried to fly and land on them?

You'd land on a planet.

While I am a strong supporter of the idea that people clearly don't know Earth well enough if they think it is "boring" and your idea is probably what is true in a factual sense, I think Ludicrous' explanation, which may not be perfect, is more inclusive of what we know about Nirn and is the more interesting and not mundane answer. I am not against excepting multiple explanations, I prefer that really and it gives you a broader, fuller picture, we have to somehow see how this fits into what we know of Nirn and its inhabitants' myths, stories, and metaphysics. I do not think any world is as simple as to fit the statement, "Scientific facts and principles are always right and people's beliefs and legends are always false." You sometimes just need to change your thinking a bit, be a bit more creative and less bound by conventional rules. Even in the hard sciences a bit of this can be very useful, because these kinds of people who can think in more than one way are those who change our way of thinking about how the world works, that find new, better explanations.

That is my opinion on the matter anyways. I could be entirely wrong, but I am not very concerned about that.

You don't need a link. Tell them to look east when playing OB. See those BIIIIIIGG mountains? Yep. They only get bigger between here and the Morrowind province.

As to how there can be totally alien creatures in the volcanic environment... need a real life example? Chinchillas. Archebacteria. etc....

Note I didn't even really refute that idea. Also recall that I was speaking about Morrowind, which is the first example he brought up. I know very well the rules of BATW, including all that "Nirn ain't earth" crap. Like I said in that same post, I've seen that idea posted before, by MK and others; I really don't feel like going through the tedium of finding it because that would take a long time.

The Ehlnofey and Hist are as foreign as everything else, which means really not at all. They "landed" at the same time. There are no "aliens." The only ones who could probably fit that are the auto/homotheistic Tsaesci. Unless you can cite the existence of such odd creatures as the Nix Hound or Kwama in other provinces, then my idea I submitted above cannot be properly refuted.

And your "aedra planets created the world" is wrong. There aren't 12 Aedra. Padhome smashing the hell outta Nir created Nirn.

Right now I could talk about how Cyrodiil was supposed to weird(alien, exotic), and how Oblivion did not portray it right. But I'm sure everybody here has read the first PGE and can use their imagination and hodgepodge of knowledge about Rome, the East and South America to fill in the blanks to their tastes. That won't help though, as it seems to me the problem with this discussion is the assumption that weird is a good descriptor for Morrowind.

Weird isn't the right word. Even the real world is bloody weird at times. It's the real that matters most and with real I don't mean realism. I mean real as in the way people believed gods to exist. Real in the way were magic is understandable but still intangible. Not because you believe it, not because it's happening in front of your eyes but because everybody else seems to do. If magic and gods make it too hard, think the Truman Show or Pleasantville.

So lets forget about weird(alien, exotic) and continue with real.


The idea put forth by the OP is that the people and provinces come from different worlds. As a religious idea in a real world it's perfect, it's a believe that validates a peoples existence, against other people, acknowledges a shared history and cultural values. Of course the scholars of any real world would indeed, point to a much simpler explanation, a much more plausible explanation.

To us however, there should always be a little nag in the back of our heads. No explanation is ever complete without accounting in someway for evidence to the contrary. How can it be that in a world were gods are real, priests can portray such apparent falsehoods about the dawn-era? When magic is real, how can it be that scholars do not consider it as yet another force of nature? Clearly neither has such an advanced understanding as they claim to have. It's this imperfection that makes both the priests and the scholars real.

Now the matter of fact is that the boundaries in Tamriel are constantly shifting, people migrate and move about. They should be as a world that magically maintains boundaries set in place by people that are unable to discern them, isn't a real world. So clearly the Anuads spiel of many worlds having been put together doesn't work. Especially because the Anuad mentions that after Mundus was created a war broke out that changed it's surface and when cross referenced to the Monomyth, anybody should see that this all happened in the Dawn Era, the period when each god had his say over his personal chunk of time and space. This however also explains the idea that the there were different worlds. They were actually there!

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Now I hope everybody can make sense of that, I tried to cram way to many ideas in there but it beats having to do the usual indent and link tags.