The topic says it all, i'm going to be taking the Skyrim hardcoe challenge, due to an interest and immersion increasing the challenge in what looks to be a series more and more fine tuned for the more casual gamer, and it occurred to me as I thought out the background of my character, how old do healthy Orcs live, naturally? We have rough numbers for Dunmer, and Humans, and from there we can project Altmer numbers, but what about Orcs? Does anyone have some insight on the topic? Any lore books that may shed light onto this mystery, or numbers we could postulate from the appearance and age of Orcs seen in game?

And on top of that, from what we've seen from the new starter heads for Skyrim, do you see any mer traits in males?

I've been perusing the Imperial Library and wiki's to no avail, I would welcome some input on the matter.

I don't know a great deal about orcs in TES lore, but since they're supposed to have once been elves that were cursed, I would assume that they live roughly the same length of time that a normal elf might live.

This is a good point, i'd like to believe that even in their mutated state that they might have a lifespan that is superior to man, but it's very hard to tell. Most races would rather compare Orcs to beast rather then mer.

No, Orcs live no where near as long as a normal elf. The exact opposite, as a matter of fact. Orcs only live to be around 60, the shortest lifespan of all the Tamrielic races. The Nords were cursed at one time to live very short lives, until Shor moved most of the curse to the Orcs.

As far as whether or not they have merish traits, I don't see why that can't be answered by just looking at them. They have the same pointed ears and that's about it. The semblance to mer in male Orcs is no different than the semblance to mer in female Orcs.

But the appearance of Orcs disparage wildly throughout the games, as graphics dont fit to lore means, we cant objectively look at any orc and tell. I mean in Daggerfall Argonians looked like 2 legged insect dragons!

Where did you get this information about the Orcs and Nords?

Well, as I said, they have the pointed ears, a tell-tale sign of Merish relation. You can even see the Giants in Skyrim have pointed ears. Other than that, there's not much resemblance, other than two-arms, two-legs, etc. Their body structure is very different from any of the Mer we've seen, and their facial structure is very unique.


http://www.imperial-library.info/content/morrowind-varieties-faith-empire

I know in the world of Shadowrun at least, Orcs are able to interbreed with humans and fellow metahumans. Despite this, their offspring will be of the race of only one of their parents. No half-breeds exist. They grow much faster than humans, reach maturity at the age of 12, and give birth to a litter of about four children, though six to eight are not uncommon. Their average life-expectancy is about 35 to 40 years. They are physically larger and stronger than humans. Their mental capacities are considered slightly inferior on average to humans. There you go, maybe also that can give you an idea of why you don't see half breeds as well.

Perhaps, but when comparing races from different creative minds and decades, orc is probably one of the few things that ties together their similarities. Something lesser then Imperial makes sense though...