I know I'm the odd one out here, but I actually find Scandinavian/Barbarian style a little boring and simplistic. I mean it's mostly just basic medieval style with some added fur, horns, leather, spiked poles of wood and dragon-head shapes on the edges of roofs. I prefer a more bizzare, complex, sophisticated style, with some interesting elements, like Oriental, Victorian, Russian, Aztec or something, you know, these are random examples and probably not suited for the game, but just to show what I mean. Now this Nordic style in moderation isn't too bad, but when you've already had a fair bit of similar stuff in Oblivion, I want more different styles and maybe some unique parts that don't fit neatly into a real world culture as well. Perhaps there could be some influence from Morrowind, High Rock and Akavir (like with CRT in OB), and make it so some Nordic stuff is quite distant from typical viking style. I want it so that my completely unvikinglike mage assassin does not feel completely out of place everywhere they go. How do you feel about this and how much do you want in the game.

I love the whole viking feeling, but I also love the alienn feeling that morrowind had, a mix between these would the one of the best settings ever ^^

Keep it completely Scandinavian.

This is a question that no one has the answer to, and the people who know the answer aren't giving out that info yet.

At the very core it should be Viking, but everything else should be completely alien...Seeing as how on Nirn Vikings didn't exist.

It's about what you hope for, not what you know there will be.

Lorkhan-Akatosh-Anduin is already pointing to Hindu, being a creator, preserver and destroyer who are all aspects of the same being. Only these ones are Dragons. Since the plot seems to be pointing to screwing destiny hard that's one thing that's pretty much opposite to the intensely fatalistic Norse Paganism. Men are just as reviled for using magic as women, where in Norse Paganism they were reviled more than women because A REAL MAN axes or swords his enemies, and doesn't wear them down with spells like some sissy.

As a Norwegian, I don't hope they ruin it by adding typical "vikingclishés". Everybody should know that we did not use helmets with horns, like in some of the pics in GI. I do know now this is a fantasygame, so I am not actually pissed over it. I just hope it does not strenghten the stereotype of us "nords". We were not more brutal than other european tribes, we were actually quite peaceful merchants. It is positive that the scenery I have seen so far looks very much like norwegian scenery.

"Ein dag vil sanninga drepa l?gnen om v?rt opphav"

Real Vikings didn't wear helmets with horns, but the Nords do.

I think we might see some Morrowindish influence near the eastern border, as a Morrowind shout out if nothing else.

The thing is, the Nords have scandanavian stuff the way Tribunal has Medieval Catholicism. The influence is there, and you can very quickly look at it and say "you know, this reminds me of x!" But there are so many other historical and mythological influences that it really is its own thing. And in the GI article, Todd said he had some influences for Conan, which implies Irish Celtic influence indirectly.

There will be a mix i guess. The nords, even though mainly inspired and influenced by our scandinavians culture, is not a 100% copy of it. There is a place there for more elder scrolls-unique fantasy'ish things and other influences aswell.

And then the Scadinavians cry because they got confused with Celts again.

But no, yeah, Celtic and Scandinavian influences mix pretty well, and ultimately it's really just a fantasy game that draws on those influences in any case.

Heh... The Scandinavians are on the warpath it seems...

But it's true. These pop-cultural views on ancient norse culture as it is presented in movies and games has nothing or very little in common with how it really was back then. My favorite example is the horned helmets - as mentioned above: horned helmets from the viking-age has never been found, but nowadays it's more or less synonymous with Vikings. Like the vision of Vikings being some big, primitive maniacs with heavy axes- It's totally wrong, man! The Vikings were extremely sophisticated. They were traders and farmers, and of course seafarers- They had a major advantage on that account, their ships being superior to anything else back then, but piracy wasn't their primary duties. I know the word 'viking' means 'pirate', but that's not fair. Their terror wasn't accidential, but bottomed in ordinary powerpolitical considerations and interests. The only reason for their bad reputation was that they weren't christianized...

On another note: I like the ordinary pop-culturalized viking. He's much funnier than the historical one, so I'm not criticizing, just saying...

Master Cat: Its true what you are saying, but the word "Viking" does not really mean pirate, but means "someone who hails from a vik" (Like "wich") . I am not a linguist, so I will not confirm this for sure. I am just trying to bust some myths . . But yeah, this is a fantasygame, and I don't really care about stereotypes in games, it is a much bigger issue in movies. I just hope people someday in the future just looks at vikings in a more fact-based way. Another thing that annoys me, is the looks of nords in TES. In Oblivion they were quite ugly(both men and women). In fact we are quite goodlooking, both men and women. At least, judging from the screenshot, the women looks better. She actually looks a bit like my aunt. I hope the men will look better as well.

Yes, it is a fantasygame, yes, there are influences from different cultures in this game, but just don't strengthen the stereotypes too much. Thats my point.

I hope a lot that we get to see a lot of different armor. I loved the helm from the screenshots. Looked like trollbone to me...

I think a combo of trdirional norse, morrowind and just a hint of something more civilised. Maybe seveenth century english architecture for the rich.

Lots of Celtic influences, I hope. We are a strong people! And much more attractive than those prefabricated, blonde haired blue-eyed Scandinavian mongrels... :happy:

Personally I see lots of potential for Hindu influences in the culture, or at least the religion, considering the parallels between Alduin and other freaky cosmic voodoo happenings like mantling. There could also be some Orthodox or Siberian influences, perhaps.

Pff, ur pretty because we came and [censored] you all! Southwestern ireland, eastcoast england, and north and northeast coast Scotland is actually heavily influenced(or in some cases dominated) by Norwegian genes.

I'm hoping for some dunmer influences in the far-east of Skyrim, since apparently so many dunmer refugees fled to solstheim after the red year. After 200 years they might have started settling the nearby mainland.

Oh same, I like the viking style stuff, but I have a feeling I'd like to see a little variety too.

That's true, but I actually agree that the whole stereotypical "Viking Style" has never appealed to me all that much. Now, I'm sure we'll see some stereotypical Norse style things, I mean, it's Skyrim, that's supposed to be what it's based on, but I kind of do hope we see some influence from other sources as well, at least in armor and weapons. I mean, Morrowind had a lot of non-local styles in armor and weapons in the form of imported items, so there's no reason Skyrim can't have them. Obviously, the predominant influences will be Norse styles, this is to be expected, but it would be nice to see a bit of variation here.

It should have it's own rich culture coupled with the rising commercialism of McDunmers and StarKhajit. Similar to asian countries like Vietnam who have people cooking and eating in the street etc and are now starting to get more and more westernized.

We are all beautiful! We scandinavians, the celts, the latinos, the asians, the afro-brazilians, even the east-europeans(russians . . not so much . .)

Let's not have "race"-discussion. I am happy there will be a game influenced by myths about my forefathers, and the old culture. I am just afraid it will all be a little too "americanized". All in all, I am looking forward to see how Beteshda will implement this.

I'm just going to throw this out there:

All the details about the setting so far have not shown anything Scandinavian or viking related. The existence of multiple dragons is directly opposite to the single dragon of Norse mythology (niddhog), the mountain of High Hrothgar is an Old English name from a Anglo Saxon Poem (that directly translates to Spear of Glory), the arch-typical style of longhouses with buttresses that end with dragon heads is, again, Anglo Saxon and Germanic, not Nordic.

The idea that fur clad barbarians in a cold climate are representative of Vikings is not really correct either. The traditional image of a 'barbarian' and 'barbarian settlements' are actually based on Germanic and Anglo Saxon cultures, not Scandinavian.

Scandinavia is north-germanic ! We are just Germans that moved north. And old english is very close to old norse( like Icelandic!). Skyrim is inspired by noth-germanic culture; much more than south-germanic culture. Please get your facts right.

"Norseman is used to refer to the group of people as a whole who speak one of the North Germanic languages as their native language. ("Norse", in particular, refers to the Old Norse language belonging to the North Germanic branch of Indo-European languages, especially Norwegian, Icelandic, Faroese, Swedish and Danish in their earlier forms.)" - Wikipedia