Looking at the map that doesn't seem to hold. Both High Rock and the North of Vvardenfell are on the same height as Skyrim but not nearly as cold. Yet a place like Bruma which lies a long way south is still cold.

So I'd would like to suggest an alternative.

When looking the map and overlaying the distribution of Nords there is a clear connection between the temperature and the number of Nords in the vicinity. As such I'd conclude that when the number of Nords in the vicinity increases, the temperature drops.

Simply put: Nords refrigerate.




There is a longitude and latitude notation in http://www.imperial-library.info/sites/default/files/gallery_files/tamriel_westmap.jpg. Lattitude goes from 15 (bottom) to 40 (top), longitude goes from 10 (left corner) to 50 (right). With the 250 miles from Mournhold to Red Mountain that should be enough to make an actual globe.

So using Bruma as an example, there are 18 or so nords there out of a population of 60 perhaps? So if a third of the population of a town is nord, they convert the land around them to cold and damp... I suppose you should look up the weather in Dragonstar.

Hmmm... pretty unsatisfying responses so far. But nothing against the posters that tried to help, I guess it's something that the information available to us is insufficient.

Also, the world must have a tilt to create seasons right, along with an orbit around the sun. But is that the case in-game? Or is magic the best explanation I'm going to get?

As it stands, everything revolves around Mundus and the Sun is tear in Oblivion to Aetherius.

http://dwemerstudies.wiwiland.net/planets.html
http://www.imperial-library.info/content/cosmology
http://www.imperial-library.info/content/pocket-guide-empire-third-edition-magic-aetherius

I'd say that in the beginning of the drawing of the map of Tamriel almost 20 years ago (:o) it was imagined that the equator would pass exactly through the Imperial city. But with every new chapter of TES (new game), some recalculation needs to be made (like with GPS when you turn in direction that wasn't suggested ), so with Oblivion I'd say that Equator is somewhere near Torval and Senchal.
For Vvardenfell being warm, I'd say volcanic activity heats the land and the sea.

I'm honestly trying to understand this, but I'm not seeing it add up. If they're holes in Oblivion, wouldn't that make them stationary with respect to each other? And if Oblivion revolved around Mundus, wouldn't Magnus be in the same position with respect to the other stars (only much bigger/closer/whatever) year round?

I'm not trying to start a debate spanning several pages, I'm just trying to understand this model to a point where it all adds up.

There isn't much to understand. It's magical and impossible. Though if it helps the way the Elderscrolls present their plane(t)s isn't that different from the way it's done in D&D. TESS has dressed them up in fancy infinities and planes in other planes being actually observable as plane(t)s inside other plane(t)s but otherwise it's not that different.

You can see the similarities when you look at http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/eb/20040309a or http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/excerpt_mop1.jpg from DnD. There is the mortal plane orbited by several divine planes. Then beyond that is a hellish plane and a heavenly plane and what ever else Wizards comes up with.

The way to get from plane A to plane B is usually via portals. How they work, nobody know but all they need to do is get stuff from A to B quickly, some can even move around. Science fiction uses a similar variation in the form of wormholes. So rather then looking at the stars as if they were holes in something solid, think of them as portals, bridges to Aetherius.

It's not the planes I'm confused about. It's the idea that Magnus orbits Nirn; where did it come from? I don't think Magnus was represented in the Orrery, I can't recall reading anything in-universe about it orbiting Nirn and it seems a bit inconsistent with the idea that the stars and sun are holes (an idea which you have provided evidence for mortal belief in it). Am I missing something?

Edit: Cleared up post.

It sounds like they idea diarrhea'd their cosmology.

The cosmology notes that "The stars are the bridges to Aetherius, the magic plane. They are perceived as holes on the inside surface of space. Because they are on the inside of a sphere, all stars are equidistant from Nirn. Larger stars, therefore, are not closer to the mortal plane, they are just larger tears in Oblivion. The largest tear in Oblivion is Magnus, the sun." and it also notes that "Magnus is the sun, the largest hole in Oblivion, and the gateway to magic. (....). Magnus then left, some say in disgust, and Oblivion filled in the void with the Void. His escape was not easy, and tatters of Magnus remain in the firmament as stars." The 3th PGE has: Visit to Aetherius occur even less frequently than to Oblivion, for the void is a long expanse and only the stars offer portal for aetherial travel, or the judicious use of magic. (....) The expeditions of the Reman Dynasty and the Sun Birds of Alinor are the most famous attempts in our histories, (....) and the http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=io5f6aZinCQ&feature=related has the stars revolving around Mundus and Mundus revolving too.

I'm not that interested in your definition of "in-universe" to look further. I like my magical and impossible stuff to be properly magical and impossible thank you very much.

I'm not disuputing the stars being holes in Oblivion at all. I'm trying to understand as best I can a seemingly neglected aspect of the mortals' cosmological model; the relationship between Magnus and Mundus that explains the day-night cycle, the seasons, and the changing position of the stars with respect to Mundus. I can't recall reading any lore that actually goes into which orbits which.

It is true that the Orrery has the stars revolve around Mundus, but without Magnus represented in it, it's possible that the stars do revolve around Mundus, or simply that it was necessary in the Orrery to capture the seeming motion of the stars around Mundus and the Aedric planes without incorporating Magnus in the Orrery model. Using Mundus as a stationary frame of reference, it would be seen that the stars move around it. Without Magnus incorporated in the model, however it's hard to say how it all works.

This could be easily explained through ocean currents, were it not for the fact that you don't have one getting more weather from the north, and the other through the south (as the current moves down one coast, along the bottom, and up the other). Still, access to ocean air does, in my experience, moderate the temperature somewhat either way.



That works too.

However, unless corpses count, there are NO nords left in Altmora (probably) and it is the coldest part (that we know of) of Nirn

Other than they exist, and there's been some contact with them, we know the only way to reach these lands is through psychosis.


No. Most interaction has not been violent. Commerce with the Sload goes on, and the Tsaesci were feared and revered as demi-gods. As if the people of the Snake Pit looked at their souls in a mirror.

Where do you think Stalhrim comes from?

Does anybody have a pic of the globes in daggerfell? Would it be possible to calculate the size of the planet from the globes size in relation to the size of the land mass you can see on it?

Given that any cartographer knows that if you try to make distance accurate, you sacrifice true proportion and vice versa, I'd say probably not.

http://www.imperial-library.info/sites/default/files/df_globe.gif.

There is a better way to measure the size of Tamriel though. Using the longitude and latitude markings on the Redgaurd map and the known distance between Mournhold and Red Mountain you get a planet somewhat of the same size as Mars.

But closer to our moon, right? The lunar base is reality.