Argonians come from a completly different development line. Humans and Elves (in the widest sense, including Orcs and Khajites) are both Ehlnofey, after all. Argonians arent and are maybe descanded from the Hist. So Argonian-anything hybrids should be impossible.

Also, I dont think we should intepret "traits" and "traces" such narrowly. I think it means the offspring will be pretty much of the mothers race, in appearance and anything, while having some things from the fathers race, too.

No, I am right. The absolute key thing you have to read is "though some traces of the father's race may also be present.". Meaning, the characteristics of the dad may or may not show up, and if they do, it would subtle. You are your mom, with minor pieces of your dad.

If your dad is a khajiit and your mom is an imperial (hypothetically), she won't be popping out kittens, but imperials that are, at most, a little more hairy and nimble than your average imperial.

Agreed, and the evidence in the games supports this (e.g the Grey Prince is the offspring of an Orc mother and Imperial vampire father, but isn't a vampire and looks pretty much like any other Orc). My own view is that both physical traits and skills/personality traits may be partly inherited from the father, but these will be pretty subtle - i.e. a human won't get sharply-pointed ears or incredible magical talent from an Altmer father, though they may have slightly more pointed ears and slightly higher magicka reserves than normal. That's how I've chosen to play it with my own character, who's an Imperial with a Nord father.

Stronger, tougher, talent and aptitude, are very vague terms. You can not say that every Nord will be tougher then an Imperial, because there might very well be an Nibenian mountaineer who is going to outlast a Nordic trader from Solitude. Because of this, to measure these racial traits, you have to you average over all individuals of a race too see the difference. Yet doing this, also means you include their cultural preferences and geographic influences.

So at this point you have to wonder, if it isn't because Magic plays a much greater role in the live and upbringing of an Altmer that they have a greater affinity and weakness too it. Just as collectively living in the mountains is going to show a slant everything towards a more sturdier constitution.

That isn't to say that there are no physical difference at all, but rather that their influence towards their racial stereotype among the non-Betmer races is over stated.



Now I don't think dusky skin and red eyes are subtle or minor traits. When I'm reading that I'm thinking about the slant of the ears, minor changes to the bone structure. Basically so little of everything that you it would be easy to confuse a half-breed with the original. After all the book is also the defacto explanation for a lack of half-races.

Heck, the closest being to a half race are the Bretons, and that took many generations of humans breeding with elves before they became the race of humans they are now.

Define "Khajiit".

There's a certain breed which towers over ten feet tall and is a metric ton of pure muscle. These warriors would rip any Orc limb from limb.