Is there any good reason for the lack of Orc members in the Oblivion Mages' guild? I haven't found anything amounting to a prohibition, schism or other event to make it such a clean sweep. The same seems to apply to Necromancers and Conjurers - no Orcs among those either. It's not that there are no Orc mages in history, just none around in Cyrodiil at this time.

Orcs have extremely poor magical abilities, and those that rise above this are culturally bound to become shamans rather then mages.

Morrowind has one - Shar Gra Muzgob in Balmora. They were was at least on orc healer in the Legion ranks too - he's a spellcaster if not a mage guild member. Orcs have several troubles when it comes to being mage :
- most of them are on the dumb side of brains
- their native cultures remains pretty barbaric, with scarce learning opportunities
- their relatively short lifespan hinders their progression
- last but not least, they've been admitted as citizens of the empire only for a few decades - before they were considered monsters like ogres, goblins or trolls.

With such handicaps, it's hardly surprsing for them to be few and far between in the mage's guild. Especially considering it's arather upscale organisation.

Shar has an advantage there, she's a necromancer

Ever since I became Arch-mage, I instituted a policy of "supermodels only." Orcs... just no.

But they have hot wimenz!

Oh, and there's that one master in Orsinium that turned out to be a necromancer, but wasn't necessarily evil. Hell, the MG sent their private army after her for only being one. It's almost like being arrested for being a mortician.

Cultural bias against orthodox magic, same as the Redguards. I expect the Orsimer practise an alternative form of indigenous magic. Their berserker tendencies may be an aspect of this.

Read "The Dark Arts on Trial". There was an Orc magister on the actual Council of mages. He was a Necromancer of course. Both Orc members of the Mages' Guild that have been seen or mentioned thus far are Necromancers. But the point remains. Some Orcs are talented enough at magicka to rise close to the top of the guild. Their culture doesn't value spell casting, but they are able to reach a high level of skill through hard work. They are also blessed with decent Willpower which is an important component of spellcasting. And stupid brutes? Really? A people who have survived for hundreds of years despite being universally despised? A group of people who lost their home land, won it back and then gained acceptance and respect in the Empire, lumbering brutes? Sounds like old fashioned knuckle dragging prejudice to me.

I call bull[censored]. Evidence to support this "out there" stereotype?

On topic: sure there aren't many orc mages in the MG, but how many practicioners did you encounter in out-of-the-way locales during Morrowind? Oblivion? Daggerfall? Tons from my experience.

Just because a group(s) of individuals don't agree with the already shoddy guild politikal system, doesn't mean they are too "dumb" to have any magickal ability...hell every man, woman, and child (snerk) in Tamriel has an inert magickal spark...

You pretty much answered the question with the rest of your post. Orcs are perfectly capable of performing magic, and I don't recall any specific discrimination against them from the Guild. What other explanation do you suggest?

In all honesty, I was refering to the Ra'Gada subtext of your post, which is why I called BS, which is why I asked for evidence to the contrary. Thats all...

It's the same with the Thieves Guild, no Orcs there either. To combat this, my female Orc character rose to the ranks of Arch-Mage!

And evidence you shall have.

Ala in game dialogue from Trayvond the Redguard:

Yeah, how silly of me to forget the old adage "One man, a people makes". I'll ignore the "my family" this, and "my prejudices" that. I'll even pretend that the priests/priestess' of Arkay and Dibella were figments of my imagination. I won't bring up the shamans and witch-doctors of Satakali fame. Really, everytime this is brought up someone always throws Trayvond in the mix and exclaims "there you have it". I guess Saban was just wasting her time, and Brother Nidal was stone-cold drunk. Ayaan-si must have been the high-prophet of blooming flowers.

C'mon...

Wasn't all that in like the second era? A lot can change. And besides most people in Tamriel make exceptions for chapel magic or religious rituals. It's pretty clear that what Trayvond was saying is that certain types of magicka commonly studied by the Mages Guild such as soul trapping and conjuring daedra are considered obscene by Redguard culture.

Ayaan-si is fairly current (and has a good amount of magickal muscle to back it up), and everyone seems scared [censored]less of what the Satakali are up to. As for soul trapping and Daedra summoning; most peoples of Tamriel consider these taboos, do they not? I just think that taking the word of one supposedly "outsider" Redguard is folly, and all avenues should be considered before saying "there you have it".

Nothing is to say that Trayvond isn't pulling all of that out of his ass anyways, since we don't know what city-state he hails from, the demographic of folks from said city-state or anything else that would draw the conclusion of "magick, no way man" consensus.

Its complete bs to assume the Redguards aren't magicaly adept, or magery is wicked in Hemerfell, when Prince Ator's Archmage sealed his Prince's soul in a stone before a dragon could send the heir to the Farshores. Its also bs to think they aren't magically adept, when they have the most vivid creation story of Tamriel's races to date (if you don't count Albide's Dawn story). They can't not be.

This is why I used the term 'orthodox magic'. The Redguards practise magic, but they have their own approach as befits their more exotic culture. Also Arkay and Dibella are foreign gods, so I wouldn't assume their priests are representative of traditional Redguard culture and more than Trayvond is.



Yeah, nobody's actually saying that though are they. I'm talking about cultural tendencies, not universal rules.



So what's your explanation for the lower proportion of Redguards and Orcs in the Mages Guild?

Arkay and Dibella are readily accepted due to their deep (if not spot-on) roots to old school Yokudan gods. Furthermore, why wouldn't their priests be representative of traditional culture? Tu'whacca is pretty much Arkay, Yokudan style, so I don't really follow your line of thought, same goes for Dibella/Morwha.

Yeah, people are saying that: essentially everytime the argument is raised Trayvond is the only example any one can pull out of the sky, which I always eyeroll at cause he seems like the wrong kind of person who's word to take on the matter. And there's many examples of why he's probably BS'ing

I've already explained the lower proportion above, but I guess I'll say again: friggin politiks, period. Nothing like sanctions and dues to stop your learning dead in it's tracks. Especially if you are a novice just getting started.

Arent khajiit supposed to generally be the least magickally talented race anyways, or am I wrong about that?

There is quite a few of them in the different mage's guilds in cyrodiil though.

Nadal wasn't a Redguard, but his dialogue made it seem like the temple of Arkay was there long before the Imperial invasion. Cyrus wasn't very religious, and he knew well enough about Arkay, even the "heavenly interim". Mostly I think they put up with Arkay because they were all scared of the necromancer's soul snare.

Arkay was very similar to a deity that was already in the Ra'Gada pantheon anyway. I imagine the shift from worshiping Tu'whacca to worshiping Arkay wasn't that big a strain on the Redguards.

Sure, but why switch before there were Imperials in the country?

Imperial cult :shrug: ?