I know that most, if not all cultures in Tamriel are based on Earth cultures, but what about the Germanic tribes?

The human races of the Elder Scrolls have some fairly close real-world anologues: Nords were clearly inspired by Nordic peoples, the Redguard by North African and Middle Eastern cultures, the Breton by medieval British and French groups (like the Breton), the Imperials by the Roman Empire, and the Akaviri by Asian cultures.

The other races don't have clear anologues. Certainly they still draw inspiration from real-world cultures, but I doubt any are "based" on a real culture.

The reachmen have some similarity with various "barbarian" cultures encountered by the Roman Empire. I don't know if Bethesda has mentioned any specific groups that inspired them, although it's possible this includes the Gemanic tribes. Picts are although possible source of inspiration.

I think you're going to dig yourself into a rabbit hole here. The cultures in Tamriel take inspiration from a wide range of both real cultures and fantasy cultures from other fiction.

Take the Nords for example. In Skyrim alone, I've seen inspiration taken from the Inuit, Ojibwa, and Egyptian cultures, let alone the Scandinavian/Norse culture which they are so often recognized as. And unless you live under a rock, you can't deny the inspiration the Bethesda team has taken from the Lord of the Rings movies/books. This is especially true for Rohan, who themselves where inspired by the Rus and other eastern Europeans who commanded the immense plains of Eastern Europe during Medieval times. Going further into lore, I'd make the argument that their design has been partially inspired by the Maasai of Africa, as the Maasai and the Nords share similar creation myths.

So you say the Germanic tribes? Well, when I generally hear "Germanic tribes" I think of the peoples non-Roman, non-Celtic peoples inhabiting Europe during the first millennium. If that's the time you're talking about, I'd say you should stick with the Nords. But if you're talking about "Germans", I tend to think of the second-millennium, post-Charlemagne peoples who share the common inheritance of the Holy Roman Empire, as well as a similar language. If you're talking them, I'd say the Bretons or Imperials. And this is broadly-based inspiration, mind. Most people here would tell you the Bretons are most closely inspired by the French, and that the Cyrodiils are mostly inspired by the Romans. But there you go.

You say the Bretons are based on medieval British? That would include the Germanic Anglo-Saxons and the French/Scandinavian Normans then. I was under the impression that the Bretons were based more on earlier Celtic Britons.

In what way am I digging myself a rabbit hole? And yes, I'm talking about first millenium German tribes, the millenium which the other tribes in Tamriel seem to be mostly based on, especially in TES-V it seems.

By "dig yourself into a rabbit hole", I think he means that once you start to say that X TES culture = Y real world culture, that immediately becomes a contestable point, as all the peoples of Tamriel draw on multiple sources of real and fictional cultures, and declaring that one race mirrors another is missing the point of really amazing world-building. Not only could some of these perceived similarities be incorrect, but there could be varying degrees of similarity. There could be direct comparisons, there could be minor ones, mistaken ones (meaning they're actually inspired by something else), or that multiple TES races are influenced by the same societies. More likely than not, those real histories you think are anologous to TES ones are themselves inspired and influenced by their precursors and contemporaries. The point is, the inhabitants of Nirn are a patchwork of many different pieces from our own history and mythology as well as original creations.

If you must put it in a nutshell:

Nords- Nords (Scandinavian not the Elder Scrolls race) with heavy Egyptian and Celtic influences (mummifying and "stonehenges" respectively).
Redguard- Mostly Middle Eastern with alot of the Moors thrown in.
Cyrodiils- Mostly Roman/Italian. Have some Native American/Japanese/(maybe?) African in Niben
Bretons- Celtic Britons in the Reach. French everywhere else.
Altmer- Japanese/Chinese sort of. Indian maybe with social structure and maybe architecture.
Khajiit- Persian. With crack. Lots of crack.
Dunmer- uh...dunmeri? Dunmer culture is very alien/original. Native American/ other nomadic tribes with the Ashlanders. Architecture is Mongolian/Mesopotamian in style.
Bosmer- bones in trees
Orcs- Shamanistic/Animistic cultures from around the world.
Argonians- wierd trees that weaponized math

The non-human races are hard to pin down.


This is my feelings too. The cultures are so well built, trying to give them direct real world parallels really don't work too well.

Depends on the nation,

Franks = Bjoulsae Horseman

Danes, Saxons, Geats = Nords

Alemanni, Lombards = Colovians

Angles = Bretons

Visigoths = Raga

Ostrogoths = Kothringi

Dunmer paintings also hearken back to greek pottery art (only dunmer don't use it on pots), with architecture inspired from Gaudi and adobe mud-brick structures worldwide (african, middle east, and american southwest, along with "modern art" adobe). Daedric structures are more straight up fantasy.

The Nedic people might be more along the lines of the various nomadic germanic tribes, but little is actually known about them.

Some interesting reading here. Very informative. Excuse if some of my questions seem lame but despite working my way through TES-IV about 2 years ago & TES-V recently I'm still a little unsure as to how everything fits together. I'm really needing to know all this so I don't make any muck ups once I start modding. I also like to play as close to me as I can 'cause it makes it easier to identify with my character. As a result of what I've learnt here I'm right to make my character a Breton, which is really a rough parallel of late 1st millenium Britains, both Celts and Anglo-Saxons (with maybe a tad of Norman here and there) before the Norman invasion.

The mudcrabs, they're based on the germanic tribes

I think the closest to the Germanic tribes of the ancient world and dark ages would be the Nords. The Nords are taken to be based on the real life Viking/Scandinavian people, and they too are Germanic. The next closest thing would be Imperials, but they're more like Romans/Italians. The Bretons remind me most of Northwest Europeans, from the British Isles to northern France, they are a sort of Anglo-Celtic-Frankish cultural hybrid. I think we could have done with a race based more on Eastern European people (Slavic people, Romanians, Hungarians, etc), but the Nords are sort of close to that too (especially some of their accents). An Asian-like race would have also been interesting if they made it in the Elder Scrolls series, but I think Bethesda meant for the human inhabitants of Akavir to reflect a sort of Asian influence.

Colovians kinda' fulfill that niche, I think.

Colovians seemed somewhat underdeveloped in the first pocket guide aside from their austerity. That could just be because the're next to the Nibenese and the author didn't really know what to say about his own culture. But this could give us more to play with. Maybe Tiber Septim did some good in chimming up Cyrodiil. Speaking of which, what accent is your signature in?

Kvatchi.

Dreugh.

There's a strong Celtic aspect to the Breton, particularly in the Reach. But the big kingdoms and big castles of High Rock are far more "classic medieval fantasy" and fits Norman aesthetics and society much more.

If you don't want to slip up I'd suggest forgetting about real-world anologues and reading through the series' lore. Otherwise you're going to end up with Bretons who spike their hair with lye or somesuch

Now if you want to play a Breton who draws more on the Celts that's fine, but it doesn't really fit the mainstream culture of High Rock.

I agree totally that the Breton is primarily based on Celtic lore.

The nobility of High Rock is mostly Imperial so would echo that of Cyrodiil (Much like the ruling Roman Empire in Britain)



Colovian Cyrodiil looks very German (upper Cyrodiil - as in Skingrad & Cheydinhall) To me it look very Holy Roman Empire / central Europe as in Northern Italy, Germany (Bavarian), Austria, etc. Skingrad reminds me a little of Transylvania which was originally the heart of the Roman province of Dacia. But its probably just the vampire count that make me think this.

The heart of Cyrodiil as in the Nibenay basin (Imperial City & lower Cyrodiil - Bravil etc) is much more Mediterranean Italy, Greece etc with marble pillars.

Skyrim is obviously very Northern Europe - Norse / Baltic Slavic. Norse are Germanics.

I was thinking more about the Angles and Saxons who originate from northern Germany and invaded southern and eastern Briton in the 6th Century. If the Bretons do take part of their cultural, and indeed racial (i.e. dark hair and darker complexion than the light skinned red headed Celts) inspirations from the Anglo-Saxons, then I have a better idea about both designs of clothes, buildings and the looks of characters.

Hmm, even more interesting. Northern Cyrodiil are more inspirational of Anglo-Saxons than the High Rock Bretons? I'll have to look into that. Reason for my original question was that I read that the Bretons were based more on early pre-Anglo-Saxon invasion Celts. So it got me thinking that I can't make them Germanic in appearance nor culture then. Best place to find out for sure? Here.

I think that colovians are strongly inspired by the early roman society, with their austerity and their martial culture. In Oblivion they use northern european architecture but I think it's a bit of a forcing or an evolution on the first colovian culture. For me it's no coincidence that the simbol of Kvatch, the heart of Colovia, is a wolf, a totemic animal for the Latins.

I fail to see the connection with the wolf. The wolf was the symbol of Rome. The Imperial City is more like Rome than Kvatch ever is so I can't understand why Kvatch would have a wolf. Many cities of Europe have a symbol of a wolf. Including among those in Germany. I'm sure its more like Medieval European Heraldry with cities and towns having a symbol & coat of arm / shield. I think the names like Colovian, Cheydinhall and Skingrad sound more central European than Latin / Mediterranean.

Cyrodill's landscape and architecture looks more central European (Holy Roman Empire). Nibenay is more Mediterranean. I think they did a poorer job on the Nibenay area when making Oblivion. It looked too poor and shanty instead of the wealthier part of Cyrodiil. I was expecting some thriving wealthy ports and a bit more marble mixed in. Its a shame they didn't have some Greek / Roman looking warships design crossed into the European looking galleons of the East Empire Company

A Germanic tribal culture would be hard, due to most of Tamriel taking more inspirations from 1300+, despite the Roman Legion inspired Cyrodiils. Even the Nords are cosmopolitan, and in that respect very much unlike the Norse. Cities in that time in Scandinavia were more like large towns (and probably small to many small/moderate sized towns today.)

[Insert joke about TES city sizes here]

If we ever go back to High Rock, I'd imagine one of the Kingdoms would end up being inspired by something German, in order to break up the more France and England thing they have going on right now. In fact, I could see Bethesda taking multiple European using more High Middle Ages and Renaissance from all over Europe for High Rock, rather then keeping it all France.

Since Colovia was brought up,I always imagined the Colovians (or rather, the Colovians from Tiber's time) to have just as colorful of an aesthetic as the Nibenese, just less garish. Pleasant to look at, rather than the "What were they thinking" Nibenese culture had. The First Pocket Guide shows a nice picture of them. They're like a fusion of Nibenay and the Nords: The colorful tattoo culture of the first (the author of the first pocket guide claims they don't have this, but the illustration of one shows a prince with tattoos), but more martial like the Nords (though this is probably limited to the nobility). Despite his obesity, that Colovian prince in the Pocket Guide reminds me of a Jarl. It's just the way he carries himself in that picture.

I just don't like the idea of them being "bland" compared to their Nibenese counterparts. Maybe they'd have a more European style of building, but they could have been just as interesting as Nibenay.

SilentColossus, that picture depicts a Colovian prince and his Ra Gada bodyguard. The fat man is the Redguard.

Having just finally noticed the big guy is carrying a weapon, I see what you mean. I take that point back, then.