wait..what? you human, are you not?

There is no lore to fix. Someone quoted this earlier, but I'm going to repeat it because it seems to have been missed:


In other words, Argonians in Morrowind (taken strait from Black Marsh) might have been cold blooded, while the Argonians born in Skyrim are adapted to the cold, i.e. warm blooded. Or they could still be cold blooded but have adapted in other ways to conserve heat.

We're not talking Earth lizards here. We're talking bipedal, scaly, descended-from-trees humanoids.

How would wearing warm clothing be a benefit to a creature that doesn't produce it's own heat?

the cold doesnt seem to bother basks-in-the-sun or right-wind. also remember skyrim isnt all ice i have a feeling most argonians will be in southern skyrim and near the morrowind border.

First: A wizard did it.

Second: No one ever said they are cold blooded (a improper term actually)

So were the warm blooded dinosaurs. Some of them even lived in the arctic. Not as cold as today, of course, but cold.

It would still act as an insulator. They get warm and then put clothes on.

fix'd

Despite half the posts in here saying Argonians aren't cold blooded, the OP presents proof that they are. Argonian NPCs in Morrowind call non-Argonian players "warm-bloods". So it is a fact that Argonians are cold blooded.

I think the game writers just didn't put much thought into the logistics of having a cold blooded race in the game world, and you all care far too much.

if im not mistaken isnt a chicken related to a tyrannosaurus? according to http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13772-t-rex-kinship-with-chickens-confirmed.html it appears so.

and dinosaurs didnt really have "scales" like on snakes and such. they had skin more akin to an alligator. plate-like. still sort of scales though.

also dinosaurs were never proven to be cold or warm blooded. dinosaur bones show alot of similarities with modern day birds. which are warm blooded.

although this isnt really a talk about dinosaurs.

still on the topic of cold blooded animals living in cold climates.

Gigantothermy is another temperature conserving technique that is used by the larger reptiles. The basic formula for this is that the larger you are the easier it is to keep your body at a constant temperature range. Gigantic endothermy is practiced by other reptiles as well, such as the crocodylians (the large forms) along with other large ectothermic animals such as the white pointer (Carcharodon carchararius). By being large these animals have more mass for heat to deal with and thus it takes heat a lot longer to leave the body. [Note: This is a simplification & a generalization. In both Dermochelys and lamniformes sharks, the use of muscles to keep the body warm is also used. D.coriacea has special circulatory adaptations along with a blubbery body as well].

Gigantothermy was proposed as one way that dinosaurs kept warm without resorting to endothermic techniques. Paleontologist Robert Bakker (Dinosaur Heresies, 1986) protested against this using animals such as elephants as examples along with the idea that the longer it takes for an animal to cool down the longer it takes for it to warm up. So if a dino is caught in a monsoon season then it's core temperature could fall dangerously low and the animal might never recover. The problem with this idea is that there are gigantothermic reptiles today that spend long periods of time in cold areas. These animals handle it by simply moving their body. When you move, your body uses energy and creates heat. So by simply moving a gigantothermic animal can keep its body temperature a constant. Besides that fact, it has also been shown that reptiles can gain heat faster than they lose it (Brattstrom 1973, et al). This is one of those little known facts about reptiles. The problem for them is not so much gaining heat, as it is losing heat (reptiles lack sweat glands).
So the general rule is that the larger you get, the easier it is to keep a stable body temperature. http://reptilis.net/cold-blood.html

so like it says. larger reptiles are capable of producing heat through movement.
and apparently its harder for them to lose heat. than to gain it.

i would be surprised if anyone actually reads this.

thing is argonians occaisionally choose to live in cold climates as is the case with right-wind a resident of bruma and basks-in-the-sun a resident of solstheim. so they can survive the cold its just extremely unpleasant thus few choose to do so. also take into account argonians are just as sentient as any race meaning they can build houses and start camp fires and knit warm clothing to wear and blankets to sleep in .

And I've presented proof that they can be what ever the Hist (or the Devs) wish them to be. For the sake of further argument, "warm-bloods" could just as well be a figure of speech ("you are a cold blooded individual") or relative (higher internal temperature than Argonians). I'd say the fact that Argonians survive just fine in Bruma, Soltheim, and likely Arena's version of Skyrim too, is more proof than a line of dialog.

If their description is correct and Argonians are in fact reptilian, they are cold-blooded. Highly evolved or not, reptiles rely on exothermic methods to produce heat. Now that's not to say they can't alter the viscosity of their blood to survive in extreme cold, but it would also place an enormous amount of strain on their cardiovascular system, unless of course it is also adaptive.

i implore you to read my post above. describing gigantothermy.

maybe there is a different breed in skyrim? I mean it would make sense that there are cold blooded ones in Morrowind becuase it is a humid climate, also we know that they can exist in cold climates becuase there was on in the expansion pack bloodmoon on solestiem or whatever it was called

For the last time, they're beings created by freaking sentient trees that have lived on Mundus when men and mer were the same. They're controlled practically by hive mind by these trees when they choose to do so, and act as a way for these trees to interact with the outside world. Being reptile is superficial at best right now, because the argonians are just extremely alien to all other beings in this universe so far, let alone Tamriel. Hell, they're not even related to men and mer at all, only these sentient trees.

In short, argonians are too weird, behaviorally, psychologically, and physically to assume anything other than what has been stated through books, lines of dialog (not greetings), and dev posts.

Again, he's a dev post (Mark Nelson) that sums up the "never assume" thing with argonians

Your post has a lot of good information. But when is the last time you saw or read of a croc surviving in subarctic climate?

While that might make some sense, it would be very disappointing. I don't think it really relates to being a figure of speech in the same way as your example.

i read it. only problem is that a good sized crocodile is much larger than any argonian ive ever seen in a game. and crocs cannot live past a certain latitude. reptiles survivue further up north by going underground and hibernating. for half the year they are inactive. the writers just didnt think of this. they arent biology majors, they are graphics and programming majors for the most part.

Yet their description in all the games specifically states they are reptilian. If they are warm-blooded, they are not reptilian. Period.

it doesnt have to be a croc though.

but since you asked.

advlt alligators can survive freezing conditions if they are in water. They submerge their body but keep their nostrils projecting above the water surface, so that when the surface freezes they can still breathe (called the "icing response"). Essentially their upper body becomes trapped in the ice. However, occasionally alligators may be trapped completely below ice, and have been known to survive for over 8 hours without taking a breath, because the freezing water slows their metabolic rate down to very low levels. Yet another example of their amazing ability to survive. http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/cnhc/csp_amis.htm

however my other post is just proving that a large reptile is capable of creating its own heat. and therefore is capable of living in cold climates.



have you ever heard someone with a short temper be called "hot-blooded" theres a foreigner song like that.
it could very well be a figure of speech to call attention to a races short temper.

In all fairness, those are alligators!


I don't know, that's still pretty sketchy.

right.
the point stands though.

We're talking about magical scaly tree people. If an alligator can do it, an Argonian should have no problem :thumbsup:

That is so people like you that have a hard time detaching your psyche from our reality can get an idea of what they basically are. Just because they are described as reptilian does not in any way imply that they are exactly like earth reptiles in every way. Just knowing a little bit about TES lore in general should clue you into the fact that most of it is based somewhere in our world but it's been run through a blender and is all mixed up.

alligators and crocs cannot survive long term in northern climates. they simply cant. if they are lucky they might survive a season if they happened to find a cave or other underground area since cave temperatures remain steady year round and they dont need to eat much. there are no breeding populations of large reptiles past a certain latitude. crocs and alligators are also much larger than argonians in this game so if they cant produce enough heat then there is no way an argonian can. i think that the argonian lovers are just going to have to svck it up and put this in the "ignore" bin. i can certainly deal with it as there are much more pressing things im concerned such as the consolization of the game.

when you have to jump through hoops to try and justify like ive seen with some posts saying that "warm blooded is just a figure of speech" its just nuts. altmer are not considered ill tempered by anyone......snooty but not ill tempered and they are referred to as warmbloods as well