Mermaids don't have to be bare chested hotties. In fact, I imagine them as somewhat grotesque fish monsters. They have a lithe, womanly shape and a beautiful song that calls sailors to them. When you get closer, you spot their luscious form through the early morning fog. As you approach, the last thing you see is their terrible visage; yellow, snake-like eyes and teeth as sharp and long as daggers.

Their song is the essence of beauty, but even beauty has its noxious, spitting, repulsive side.

thank you for that. we all appreciate it. much needed. really.

TO CLOSE THIS THREAD OFF:
i think we've come to the conclusion that bethesda should consider mermaids because done well they can be good, but done poorly they can be indeed a stupid addition to the game.
they don't have to be sixy items just there for the sake of staring at and drooling all over your keyboard, but they can be fightable and vicious. and honestly...WHO CARES ABOUT LORE?
so what if mermaids aren't in lore........

and no i didn't post this because of the mermaids in Pirates of the Caribbean.

Maybe sirens along the coast who lure travellers/sailors to the death, those things are cool

Is this a young advlt romance simulator to some people? We obviously need playable fairies, a princess faction, and either a sparkling vampire or a naughty werewolf companion.

I made an RPG creature once where the 'mermaid' was a large stone/rock-like animal ~like a giant http://farm1.static.flickr.com/146/398032677_dfab408834.jpg, and its tongue was a lure to get the boats close enough, and get sailors to swim to the "island".

[quote name='Shuumbar' timestamp='1306103625' post='17736968']
Is this a young advlt romance simulator to some people? We obviously need playable fairies, a princess faction, and either a sparkling vampire or a naughty werewolf companion.
[/quotes/]
mermaids are not cute they are evil sirens who lure sailors to their deaths, learn you stuff [censored]

Not in Skyrim. It is not a suitable geographical location. It's too cold. I could maybe see them in some place warm though like Summerset Isle.

That's almost exactly what I imagined them as, but their angler is instead their song.

In Norwegian folklore we have merMEN(havmenn, merm?le), in the ocean along the coast, the cold isnt a problem for them.

And regarding Draugr, there are two catogory of draugr in Norwegian folklore, one land-version, and one sea-version. The sea-version are draugr who used to the fishermen, sailors etc. they stand on tiny isles in the ocean, or on shipwrecks who hasnt sunk. The sea-version has especially been sighted a lot in north Norway, where there are a lot of fishermen. Its only a few years since the previous sighting.

On the contrary, pretty much every coastal dwelling society in history has had legends of mermaids, including the Vikings and Inuit, both of whom live in very cold places.

Perhaps a tight knit group of all female Weresharks that live on the coast?

And you'll have to bring them a offering of imported chocolate, to get allowed to swim in their waters.

Um, what? No one ever said anything close to that. Are you even reading these posts?


Again, wtf?


Obviously not you. Lore shouldn't dictate what can and can't be in a TES game but to add an entirely new race of mer (because they are MERmaids after all) is rediculous this far into the series. It just wouldn't be right unless they swam to Tamriel from some far off land or just now decided to join the world for whatever reason. The point is, it would have to be explained. That's the Bethesda way and you can bet if these things were included, they'd have a pretty lengthy back story. Far too much effort to be placed in something that's not even mildly interesting. Come on, mermaids? Who honestly wants a new race called mermaids in Skyrim? Something close to mirelurks in Fallout 3 would be the only acceptable way to go but even then it doesn't make much sense for this province. It's too cold and I'd rather have fitting sea creatures for the climate.

Any fan of the series would care about lore ~and that goes for almost any RPG, and possibly even RTS.

You haven't read a single idea I or others have posted in this thread. Stop proping up false arguments only to knock them down. They don't HAVE to be a race, they don't HAVE to be like classical mermaids, and lore doesn't HAVE to explain them. We didn't even HAVE lore on the kind of creatures present in Morrowind before we finally GOT Morrowind. We didn't have any lore that said that Dreugh looked like they did in Oblivion, only that they had different forms.

You don't need lore to do everything, especially with creatures. You can't expect to have books in Morrowind or Cyrodiil describing every creature present in Skyrim. What about salmon? Have you EVER read a book in TES, or heard an NPC in TES, say that salmon exist? I know I haven't.

If they were called MERmaids in Skyrim, yes they most definitely would.

How bout they wear a fur coat with the [censored] cut out?

Its funny, because all the mer races have MER occuring at the END of their names. DunMER, AltMER, BosMER, etc.

Just because it has mer in it doesn't mean its a mer race. What about sound-a-likes? Can't have myr in TES. Definitely can't have gossamer, otherwise we'd have spools of silk cloth talking and walking and doing all sorts of things!

Um, that's what I'm saying. If they have 'Mer' in their name, they're a race. If a MERmaid is completely mer or part mer (which they would be), it'd have to be a race.
Don't kid yourself. It has a human torso; of course it would. If it didn't, it wouldn't be a mermaid. End of story.

Stop acting all pissy. One would think you'd be more even tempered with all those posts under your belt.

I've seen depictions where the body halves were reversed.

If things in real life can be etymologically unrelated, things in TES can be too. I don't assume any person I meet named "Stan" is necessarily from Central Asia, for example. Mer in "mermaid" comes from an Indo-European root meaning "ocean," and cane be seen in the Latin word mare; mer in Dunmer is presumably an Elvish word that means "elf" or maybe "person." I would assume most players are intelligent enough to know the difference.

There are different versions of every mythical creature. I'm talking about the http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/mermaid.


People try to avoid this as much as possible when creating videogames, making movies, or writing books on fictional information. Do it enough and you confuse your audience. Besides, it would only be right for a half-human creature to be considered mer in the Elder Scrolls sense unless it were some sort of Daedra...

Actually, some sort of Daedra, like golden saints or winged twilights, would make sense.

I said if it were a Daedra, it wouldn't have to make sense. Not Daedra aren't allowed to make sense... if that's what you were implying.