Just wondering, do any of the games ever state any of the races' average lifespans (i.e. the average Argonian will live to be 75) or something like that?

There are a looot of topics about this. The lore forum is a good place to search for more info.

Elves live longer than men, but their life expectancy vary greatly depending on if they're lower class or upper class. One source says Dunmer live around 140 or so, but then Barenziah was like 400 in the Tribunal expansion. Men all live about the same as humans in our world.

Orcs live the shortest, at about 60 tops. Something about inheriting a curse the Nords used to have.

I don't remember the beast races. Khajiit probably similar to Elves. Argonians? I have no idea. I have no idea about Argonians in general.

That's a shame. They're probably the most fascinating Elder Scrolls race.

Elves life span reach thousands of years, for instance in Morrowind, http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Divayth_Fyr was 4000 years old.

IMHO beast races should live shorter lives than Human-like races.

Fyr extended his span through magic quite a bit, though.

More than quite a bit. He's a Telvanni, and all major members of House Telvanni use necromancy to keep themselves alive for as long as possible. Four-thousand is certainly not something that is the norm for any race. I think Divath Fyr is actually one of, if not THE, oldest mortal in Tamriel.

I don't think the average life expectancy is over 1000 for any of the Elves, not even Altmer.

Agreed. There is no recorded case of anyone getting near Divayth's age without some serious help. I mean, Divyath would have been born around the time of Alessia's slave rebellion, before Nerevar united the Chimer, and quite possibly before any single member of the Tribunal was born. His advanced age is far beyond what any elf has achieved.

According to "The Real Barenziah", elves have thousand year life spans but most die much earlier. Here's the quote.



Considering it's written by a servant of Queen Barenziah in Mournhold, I'm inclined to think he had a fairly reliable source. Also some can live even longer with magic.


I also recall reading somewhere that the Nords supposedly shared the long life of elves but it was taken from them by a curse from one of the divines.

I thought that they had a curse that condemned them to a short life, but they passed that onto the orcs - as stated earlier.

I thought Elves only lived a feww hundred years. Altmer living the longest with an average of like 450. There will be outliers (Divayth Fyr) of course, but common belief goes against that quote. We'd be better off asking in the Lore forum.

Well, the quote does say very few actually live that long due to disease and violence. Also, like previously mentioned, the rate of ageing and life expectancy barring accidents might be different for different classes/heritages.

I think the Altmer live 100 years longer than the other elves. Someone (forgot who) taught them to take shorter steps (probably metaphorical) or something, which increased their lifespans by a century. I don't remember it very well.