I have an unique topic for discussion and thought I'd bring it here to all of you. As we know there are ten different races on Tamriel. The High Elves, Argonian, Wood Elves, Breton, Dark Elves, Impreial, Kahjit, Nord, Orc and Redguard. Eight of these races fall into one of two species, Man and Mer. The Mer species consist of the High Elves (Altmer), the Wood Elves (Bosmer), the Dark Elves (Dunmer) and the Orcs (Orsimer). The Man species consist of the Breton, the Imperials, the Nord, and the Redguard. My question is where do the Kahjit and Argonians fit in? Are they Man or Mer or perhaps something else entirely?









edited for spelling and punctuation

Before men, mer and beast races there was only one humanoid species. I think they were called ehlnofey or something like that. With a lot of time they changed into elves, men and beast races. All of them have a common ancestor, but they are all different. Beast races are not men or mer they are unique.

Mer and Men are relatively closely related when compared to the beast races. This can be due to the fact that Azura changed the Kahjiit and the Hist changes the Argonians.

Interesting stuff and good to know. Thanks for the response! Just curious, what are your sources for this info or is it just something you recall from the Elder Scrolls series?

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Khajiit

the khajiit and argonians are native aboriginals. they were subjugated by the first elves (aldmer). the mortal aldmer were descended from the walking immortal gods of the mythic age. all elves descended from the aldmer.

the white humans were supposedly from another continent called atmora. nedes became nords, some bred with altmer and became bretons. some became metropolitan and became imperials (they were only introduced as an actual race in morrowind). redguards came from another continent i think, which seems odd to me but hey, i don't write this stuff

man I hope the next TES is in valenwood and elyswer I would love to see that tree city moving and the ancient ruins hidding in the deserts

Redguards fled from Yokuda after destroying it...
Altmer didn't actually really breed with nords as much as massively [censored] them over countless of generations creating the Bretons.
Khajiit are creatures made by Azura, at least if you believe the http://www.imperial-library.info/content/words-clan-mother-ahnissi-her-favored-daughter
Dunmner are just Altmer who left Summerset to worship Daedra, they then started to call themselves Chimer later on they were cursed to become Dunmer by Azura, changing their skin and what-not
Orcs were Aldmer that worshipped Trinimac who was then eaten by Bhoethiah when the Chimer left Summerset and pooped out again, this created the Daedric prince Malacath and along with him the Orcs.
Argonians are likely one of the original species of Tamriel existing before most others

It's Breton, not Brenton.

You mean Ehlnofey, ancestors of men, mer and beasts, as well as Tsaesci. Check out Annotated Annuad, it's a description of how the world was created (I like the Khajiiti version better, but well )

"On the world of Nirn, all was chaos. The only survivors of the twelve worlds of Creation were the Ehlnofey and the Hist. The Ehlnofey are the ancestors of Mer and Men. The Hist are the trees of Argonia.
Over many years, the Ehlnofey of Tamriel became the Mer (Elves)
On the other continents, the Wandering Ehlnofey became the Men: the Nords of Atmora, the Redguards of Yokuda, and the Tsaesci of Akavir."

Words of Clan Mother Ahnissis tell us about the origins of Khajiit - they were once "forest people", one with mer. Azura changed them into beastfolk and tied them to the lunar phases. Y'ffre, from the same forest people, created Bosmer. This might explain why Ohmes and Ohmes-raht (subspecies of Khajiit) look so similar to Bosmer.
Argonians are something different altogether.

However, you're wrong in saying that there are ten races on Tamriel; there are many more, they just don't make an appearance in the game. Read here:
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Races
Just to begin, Falmer, as you can see from the name, are elves as well and they actually still live in Skyrim.

Fishy87 explained the other races

I know the information is in the imperial library, but I always have a hard time finding the books I remember reading years ago. You might want to take a look. http://www.imperial-library.info/

Why have the Imga never been a playable race?

Great stuff! Your right I should have said ten "playable" races and I fixed the Breton spelling. My bad Thanks for all the responses. I'm happy I got to learn more about the origins of my fuzzy little avatar.

I believe Khajiit are a hybrid between Elves/Mer and the native Great Cats of Elsweyr. Whether they're Elves turned into Cats, or Cats turned into Elves is now irrelevant, but they've completely subsumed the Great Cats.

They seem to have a dual-nature of being connected to the Elnofey and Not Connected to the Elnofey at once. However, they, along with Saxaheel, Goblins, Imga, Minotaurs, and Dreug, are the "native" inhabitants of Tamriel. Elves and Men are foreigners.

I don't know much about Imga, but do they even live outside of Valenwood?

I tend to think of the "Men" and "Mer" species as the equivalent of different ethnic groups in real life. They are all "human" and are descended from the same ancestors.

The Khajiit and Argonians are not human, but descended from separate evolutionary lines. I.e. what you'd get if felines and reptiles had evolved at the same rate as primates in real life.

Think of them as what Neanderthals would have been had they not become extinct.

Supposedly Argonians who are not fully exposed to the Hist become very humanlike.
Some sub races of Khajiit look exactly like Wood Elves when they shave their hair.

In that case, you might as well say they're all elves They might have the same ancestor, but thousands of years have passed since the genetic lines separated; could Bretons be half-elves if humans and elves weren't disinctly different? Then again, could mer and men interbreed if they weren't basically the same?

Argonians certainly are, but we don't know for sure about Khajiit. They were changed by Azura; who were they before? A separate race, or maybe something in between?

All mannish and merish races, as well as everything else including the Khajiit are of Ehlnofey stock.
Except the Hist, and the Argonians are of the Hist.

The Ehlnofey wandered and changed, where the Hist are unchanging and immobile.
The Argonians are a part of the Hist, though it is unclear exactly how deep their symbiotic relationship goes.

http://www.imperial-library.info/content/monomyth

This feels like a evolution vs creation argument coming on


How human like? Do they lose their scales, their teeth, their protruding jaw and their tails? Or are they just as human like as a bipedal lizard can get?


Except for the big long thing hanging between their legs... (no, not that!)

Actually, that too

However, the Ohmes race doesn't have fur, tail, or claws (Though they are by no means "unclawed")

http://images.uesp.net/1/1c/AR-Race-Argonian_Male.jpg http://images.uesp.net/f/fa/AR-Race-Argonian_Female.jpg human like.

Words of Clan Mother Ahnissi explains how the khajiit came to be and their pantheon. The Argonians come from the hist and their proximity to and how many times they lick the hist trees effects their shapes and forms.

I'm with vadagar... let's go on a summer vacation.

for everyone!

This is just some tidbits from previous titles and some things I read on the lore forum but here it is.

They end up having a human like torso, with broader shoulders and smoother skin. They end up growing hair and just having a more human like appearance. Now this is with limited exposure to Hist. An assumption can be drawn that if the Argonians were not exposed to Hist for thousands of years then they would potentially be something that can breed with humans. Much like men and mer can despite the fact that they are separated by more geography. It is interesting that two races that can’t mate with men/mer are Argonians and Khajiit. The Khajiit were unnaturally altered by Azura and the Argonians were unnaturally altered by the Hist.

Dunmer were unnaturaly altered as well, besides is there any confirmation of them being unable to mate. The last book I read on the subject said they weren't sure, there was no evidence of it but then again that didn't mean it was possible.

That same book by the way mentioned the unlikelyhood of men and mer being able to mate with Orcs, but Orcs are just changed Mer anyway.

http://www.imperial-library.info/content/racial-phylogeny

Using furry terminology, they would be 'Murr.'

Trollolo