What themes go to the different provinces? Like I mean what culture is it in real life? So far I know Cyrodiil is english, Elsweyr is Middle East, but not African, if you look up on youtube "elder scrolls Redguard gameplay" Hammerfell looks more African, but I dunno thats what i am having trouble with. Advice? Oh and dont worry about provinces with unknown themes like Morrowind and Black Marsh. Thanks!

It's more complex than that. For example, Redguard culture take themes from Sub-Saharan African, North African, and Ottoman cultures. Cyrodiilic culture seems to be derived from general Western European Medieval culture and Imperial Roman culture. The Ashlanders borrow cultural elements from Mongolian and Native American cultures.


The Nords, with their strong Scandinavian foundation are fairly straight forward but other than that I wouldn't say that any of the races or provinces of the Empire can be easily connected to a single real world example.

Well these are the best connection I can think of:
Cyrodiil: Romans, Greeks, and a little bit Medieval West Europe
Summerset Isles: I think I saw someone say their are an oriental culture but that could just be someones guess
Elsweyr: I like to think they have a Hindu type culture with all the caste system stuff they have
Valenwood: I have no idea, maybe South American Indians (I don't think thats a real term but you get the point)
Hammerfell: I like to think they have Egyptian and Arabic influences based on what I've seen in Daggerfall
High Rock: French and British I think
Skyrim: They're the whole Scandinavian/Viking type culture

These are really broad generalizations because most races have really unique cultures and are really hard to connect to any culture in our would which is what makes Tamriel so great. :goodjob:

And even some asian (i.e. akavirian) influences.

With all that kalpa mythology they seems to be more hyperborean.

Maybe the Bosmer are Incan or Mayan.

Elsweyr seems to be a little bit Chinese/Mongolian, too. Rimmen in particular is mostly built in an Akaviri style, and the area near the Cyrodiil border is described in The Infernal City as being steppe-lands. Combine that with the nomadic Khajiit tribes, and you've got yourselves feline Mongols, though they don't seem like the "conquering the known world" sort, but that could just be because they're all too stoned on moon sugar to bother.

Redguard mythology has some pretty clear parallels to indigenous Australian mythology (all that Walkabout talk, for example), and the names used for some of the Redguard gods seem a little voodoo-ish.

The Nords are a tricky bunch. On the outside you'd think they were just Vikings, but all the stuff about kalpas is fairly Vedic/Buddhist/Hindu, and they have wasabi, which is Japanese, though they use it in battle instead of (or in addition to) using it in their food.

Summerset Isle is hard to place. It seems fairly "standard Tolkienesque elf land/medieval European fantasy setting" from what the in-game books show, but there's the whole eugenics thing which makes me think if you dig under the surface, it's probably not as nice and idyllic as it seems. Altmer, to me anyway, seem to be just like the Ayleids, but mask their cruel natures with an air of arrogance and enslave goblins (which I'm convinced are by-products of their eugenics programme) instead of humans. Mind you, this is all speculation on my part.

High Rock is an intersting place. Definitely "standard medieval European fantasy land" on the surface, but with definite influences from the French and British, especially their rivalry/outright hatred of each other. I can't remember who said it, but Bretons have more siege equipment than friends.
Additionally there's a few other ethnic groups that bear consideration. The Bjoulsae River tribespeople look like something straight out of Conan the Barbarian (check out the http://www.imperial-library.info/content/pocket-guide-empire-first-edition-high-rock), and I'd wager they embody the conquering side of the Mongols that the Khajiit are too stoned to bother with. There's also the Reachmen, which are supposedly "a mongrel breed, even for Bretons". Bretons are basically half-elves, but Reachmen are half-everything. So, they probably have similarities to Orcs (which they spend a lot of time with), as well as Nords, standard Bretons and probably Redguards.

Cyrodiil used to be sharply divided between the Greek/Roman/medieval European Colovia region and the Akaviri (ie Japanese) Nibenay pre-Oblivion (and presumably pre-Septim Empire). These days the Nibenese influences are fairly minor (though they exist), and the Colovian culture seems to dominate the province.

Morrowind has some pretty obvious Babylonian/Egyptian influences, though Vivec City's gondolas make me think of Venice, and if there's any Dune fans here, I dare you to look at a suit of Netch Leather Armour and not be reminded of a Fremen Stillsuit. Plus there's lots of bugs.

Black Marsh seems kind of Aztec from the little we see of it in The Infernal City. "Saxhleel" and "Wuthilul" seem like the kind of names an Aztec lizard would come up with (lots of X's for the Aztecs, but lots of S and L-sounds for the reptiles), plus they have pyramids. And there's the whole Hist thing, which is more like a beehive than any human culture.

Valenwood is again IMO, Tolkienesque elf-land on crack.

I don't know anything about Orsinium, but I'd wager it's heavily influenced by the surrounding Breton cultures, and Japan (Orcish armour looks a lot like samurai armour, for example).

I think that morrowind has a lot of mixed themes. I noticed that some dunmer have indian/pakistani names, even vivec is an Indian name.

Hammerfell is like Hammerfell, Cyrodiil is like Cyrodiil, Skyrim is like Skyrim, etc. Any real world similarities are the product of mental stress derived from the fact that our mind cannot perceive something completely alien. Trying to set up a set of stereotypes just narrows the possibilities and takes fun out of the world.

I agree

I would agree with Lady Nerevar but im quite sure I heard that the TES team thought of the Imperials as like the Romans. I could easily be wrong but I know I heard this somewhere not on this forum or on uesp, it was an interview or something i think.

They can be as original as they like, I find it hard to believe that the dev. team did not have inspirations for the various peoples of Tes. However, that is not to say that every aspect of their society can be explained using real world similarities, there are certain aspects that I'm sure were made up entirely. Thus, while you can name various sources of inspirations for the various cultures, to pigeonhole them into that one culture would be restricting them to just that aspect.

Yes the Imperials have a very strong Roman theme, but that does not explain their dynastic monarchial approach to government, not to mention their geographical differences (Cyrodiil is landlocked, while the heart of the Romans, Italy, was a peninsula) and vast historical unique-ness. Their religion does show some Olympiad similarities, but I would not go so far as to say that Lorkhan or Akatosh can be rightfully compared to Zeus; their only shared aspect is the personified animistic gods that occasionally walk around making a mess of things

And the Imperials are the most straightforward of the cultures (due, I think, to Oblivion's poor portrayal of them), trying to give the Argonians a real life counterpart is simply madness, due to the metaphysical differences between us and Tes (they have sentient trees) and the biological ones (we can't breathe underwater).

Which does not even take into account the inspirations from other fantasy series. Tolkien and DnD are obvious, but that pervades every fantasy world, and there are literally millions of them out there. Who knows what they were reading or watching when they thought up golden vampiric snake folk fighting tiger-dragons on an uncharted island?

While it can be useful, trying to pin down a Tes culture is like trying to describe an elephant to a person piece by piece (for those of you that have heard that little parable).

Valenwood is the only un-worldly one. They live in trees and eat each other. I dunno head hunters of Papa New Guinea-ish?