Too bad, because Gortwog was quite the man. He likely died while making vigorous love to his wives.

And concubines of the finest stock, hailing from all over.

Actually, I always felt a twinge whenever I see a female Imperial Guardsman, or fighter's guild member. Obviously, there are exceptions. Unfortunately, all the women you've named above were leaders, and therefore had to fill more masculine roles to maintain power. 99.9 percent of every army in the history of the world were men.

On the flip side, since women were barred from more official forms of masculine employment, the type of woman who looked for that life was more likely to end up as a spy, or assassin, or bandit.

And while I was upset about the small number of women weaving and cooking, I was also upset at the small number of men farming and fishing and so forth, menial labor in general.

Anyways, the issue at hand. I DON'T think Orcs should be unplayable. But there SHOULD be unplayable races, even intelligent ones who can't be talked to and traded with.

BUT I do think Orcs should be more unique. Now, some people are saying they don't want Tolkien typical Orcs Are Violent Orcs. Well, that ship has sailed, the lore is written. I do like that they are being integrated into "society" but I think you should be able to see the transformation. People should say "Oh wow, an Orc serving as town steward? Never thought I'd see the day." There should still be Orcs who refuse to do any labor other than the violent nomadic life they are used to. whether that is serving the Legion or forming bandit gangs in the hills.

To be honest, I liked it how the orcs had some asian influences in their culture (as StoneFrog pointed out), coupled with being tribal.

Both. The way people view them forces them to be less sophisticated. Would you hire an Orc to be a bartender in a world racist against Orcs? No, they would drive away customers. Would you let an Orc join your magic based guild if you where a racist head? No, they're too inferior. the list goes on. I'm fine with Orcs being more or less as sophistcated as everyone else, it jut shouldn't happen overnight.

I just want to say there is nothing wrong with races acting "unlike" how you would expect. Ive seen Stealth Nords or heavy armour high elves, even orc mages, and that's cool, it even gives a unique feel that makes you know you have the power to make choices in the game. And look up the races of TES on wikipedia there are much more like "deep elves", chimmer, water elves, Sloads (slug ppl). The possibilities are endless, most races in the lore arent even in the game because they live in far off lands even outside of tamriel, or they have a reason not to be there. (example) snow elves were natives to skyrim untill nords settles and drove them out and to perhaps extinction. In game i am a Breton and i enjoy stereotypes, makes me feel unique

Orcs should always have that ostracised feeling to them. Was great in Morrowind when you'd run up to Malacath's statue and he'd say something different to your orc character than he'd say to others. Already know where his statue is in Oblivion and I'm planning an orc character now that I've beaten the MQ with my "hero" character.

Gortwog.. dead? Sad. Oh well, take one of his kids and put 'em on the throne. The empire already had a dark elf empress once, didn't it? Or did they change the lore for that, too?

Oh and i find that stereotypes in-game can add realism, like fear of a race, or hate, or love. I like what the dark elf in prison w/ u in the beggining of oblivion says, because thats a start, to show lore through unique-ness of race. Though it can be offensive if someone loves playing a race and someone disses them for it, so leave the stereotypes for INSIDE the game, for the sake of it being an RP. and to get this out of my system: Imerials are weak mortals, Kajits are theiving criminals, orcs are ugly brutes, dunmer are [censored]s and evil, high elves are slave driving pompus witches, wood elves are annoying midget pedos, argonians are swamp dwelling scum, Redguards.....k nevermind, Nords are stupid brutes, Bretons are filthy half-bloods, and i think thats it, u guys happy? but no i love all the races in TES

Edit: Nevermind, someone else already said it.

some people seem to forget a little game called Daggerfall... wasnt Orsinium established at the end? Therefore definining Orismer as a people?

1) So is it Orcish mentality again to take it lying down?
2) And the spread is pretty good concerning Orcs and their positions, given the 40 years.

Half sentient creatures/races make the world a little more interesting. Goblins have that role now in Tamriel (A race of creatures i would like to see more depth to in TES5)

I was introduced to the Orcs when i played Morrowind, so i've always known them as intelligent, but i liked how they were more barbarian and warrior orientated.

No, it's in the lore. It's Pelly the Mad's wife, and she ran the empire into its most prosperous years. However, the circumstance for her death is quite shady. The only other emperors that were around her level were Tiber Septim, and probably Uriel V (though he really botched his invasion to Akavir)

And 40 years is a long time to forgive the mass slaughter of Orcs and the Orc's trying to take land for thier own? No. This isn't like our slavery, this lasted thousands of years (I believe)

All for stereotypes. Characters should play to their racial strenghts, with the odd exception (Treyvond the Redguard)
This is set on a whole different, entirely fictional planet for peats sake! Please dont bring real-world problems into it like someone posted "close minded individuals". Whatevers good for the game imo, and rascism and hate would make it much more interesting, wouldnt it be nice to see the odd racially motivated murder in the streets of bravil? Imo, this would make the game ssem much more immersive as people actually do things instead of just walking around. It could be like the goblin fights you occasionally bear witness unto. And I love a good goblin fight!

If that is the case (about playing a race's strength), there needs to be a helluva lot more orsimer smiths, other than ONE who deals with blunt weapons. In addition, there were hardly any orsimer who lived off the lay of the land, as we should expect. Yeah, we got ONE body guard and ONE smith, but that's about it. Lord Rugdumph gro-Shurgak was a good exception, but everyone else were pretty much green-nords-who-were-more-like-Imperials.

In Morrowind, we had plenty of orcs who were barbarians, comprised a good amount of members in the Fighter's Guild (instead of just ONE orc), had a whole town of orc guards in an neutral controlled area near a frontier, more orsimer smiths (one of whom has excellent knowledge on materials used for armor), and of course a few exception sprinkled around (like Sharn gra-Muzgob - Balmora mages guild)

I'm not quite sure what you are getting at there.

40 years since Orcs went from tribal to organized, barbaric to civilized. Sure there is racism. But the paces the Orcs have reached in the numbers that we can see makes sense from a shorter lived race. Lets say half the newborn Orcs agree with equally racist eldars, and half of those become bandits and the other half stay home, then another half of the Orcs see the old feuds and want to move on. Most of them build up home, and a good number still travel around Tamriel looking for work and end up as a Smith or Legionnaire. And yeah the racism might still exist but it is not so petty as denying work or becoming a bandit. Its the sort of racism that turns Lord Rugdumph into a laughable fool by all those with real power.

For 40 years I think this is a good spread. And I do not think MW was to ridiculous either.

I may be wrong, but it took far longer for black people to end slavery and get the same rights as everyone else in our world. Imagine something to the scale of Orcs?

I may be wrong, but all it took for anyone - even barbarians - to become citizens with the same rights as everyone else in the world of the Roman Empire (which the Tamrielic Empire is modelled on) was to finish one 20-year voluntary assignment in the Legions. Why shouldn't the same apply to the Orsimer in Tamriel?

personally, i think that the orcs, or at least the majority of orcs, should stay civilised. However, on toop of this, they should also be made uglier, even just look more gruesome, as a sign that they have bee cursed. Just because they are ugly, though, does not mean that they are automatically evil.

I for one would like the game to be darker, more sinister, like how you would IMAGINE early medieval life to be.

That said, i would also like if most races were made to look more sinister, like the beast races, and the dunmer, in particular.

This would all make for a more interesting game, even if the natures of the races stayed exactly the same. I would, for one, love to play as an ugly orc whose looks scared two bells out of almost everyone he met!!


I don't, however, like the sound of "un-playable races," as it would much lessen the experience of a game that many wnjoy playing as all the various races.

Did the romans mass kill these Barbarians? Throughout Daggefall, Orcs where CONSTANTLY killed. The player always killed Orcs whenever he met them, and it had been going on for years prior to the game. This kind of hatred doesn't fade overnight.

Yes. Yes, they did.

Roman auxilia were sent to other fronts than where they came from, so they didn't have to fight their own.

I really doubt to the scale of Orcs in TES. And where they a different race? Racism makes it take longer for hate to pass.

Even so, if it would had stupidly been 20 years for the Orcs to be complete citizens, I never felt that change. I just played morrowind, and all of a sudden, they where best friends with the rest of the empire. Taken from UESP:


Note the word "Slowly". I should have seen this happen in game, I don't want massive important aspects of the world to change so suddenly with every new game.

Julius Caesar's http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallic_Wars killed over 250 thousand Helvetii (where Swiss is today) alone - 70% of the total population. How's that for mass murder?



"Racism" as we understand the term today didn't exist in the time of the Roman Empire. As such, that's not comparable.