I've always wondered if each race had a typical life span, or if we know? Or if its just the same as us?

You can thank this question for being the reason that I am on these forums today. I was looking for the answer to this question when I decided to look on the official forums, then found a whole forum section dedicated to Lore and fangirled all night long.

Anyway, what I found was that that is a very hard question to answer. There is no official lifespan mentioned.

One source, for example, claims that Dunmer live around 130 years, although Divath Fyr is around 4000 and other Telvanni are of similarly old age. Barenziah was around 300 during the events of the Tribunal expansion of Morrowind.

Uriel Septim VII was 87 when he was assassinated, and he looked fairly old, so I'd assume most of the human races live to be about 100, if not older. Bretons might live a little longer due to their natural magickal aptitude.

I remember someone in TESA: Redguard mentioned that elves live longer, whether he meant longer than all men or just Redguards, I'm not sure.

It's also a pretty popular opinion that Orcs live the shortest of all the races, around 60. I do not know why that is though, so I'm sure someone else could fill in the blanks.

Ah, well thank you I just wanted to know so I have a good sense of how old I want my Nord to be for Skyrim, I'm currently writing his Bio. Also, I just started roleplaying an insane breton and I wanted a good life span

Thanks again

Bretons live shorter. I forget who, but one of the emporers is said to have "aged like a breton" and died after only 2 years in power. Elves live's are basically based off how close too Aldmer they are; a pure Altmer may live more 1000 years without necromantic help, and an 'impure' Khajiit probably lives much shorter. We know that the Average Dunmer lives to be around 120, from the Skeleton Man's Intrerview, but Barenziah is a little over 400 and isn't rumored to have magical help.

Imperials, Redguards, Bretons and Nords propably live your usual human lifetime. Redguards maybe a bit longer and Bretons... Well. A breton Septim emperor was reported to be very sickly because of his breton blood and only ruled for 1 year, or something before dying. But I dunno so much about this.

The elves can live for anywhere between 100 to 4000 (Divyath Fyr, he is propably the only person to get this old, Telvanni Masters have lived for atleast a thousand year). 100, 200, 300 is the normal for normal mer. Longer for people very well-tended or being very good in magic.

Orsimer are supposed to be shortlived because of a curse Arkay put on the Nords, shortening their lives to... very short. Dunno how short to be honest. 1-7 years I think was the lowest. However Shor put this curse on the Orsimer instead, shortening their mer lifespan to around 60 years.

I think this is what the lore masters have concluded.

Beast races are a big dunno.

The typical amount of times this topic is posted is once every week and a half.

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The short answer is beast races on average have the shortest lifespans, humans in between and Elves the longest. There may be some exceptions but this is a rule of thumb.

Consider Orcs elves, not beast people. But also consider their lives shorter than all other elves, probably on par with humans.

Also consider wealthy members of any race to live longer than the non wealthy, and sorcerers even longer. Wealthy sorcerers longest of all. (Telvanni, Altmer wizard lords, wealthy Nibenese Battle-mages, Argonian seers, Khajiit sugar-readers, Orcish war shamans, etc.) Magic is strongly tied with longevity in Tamriel because the foundation of the world is magical, and it sustains flesh beyond its normal limitations.

The very poor or bandits would have the lowest life expectancy.


Please note my guess for beast races having the shortest lives is just an educated guess. I swear I've seen a reference to their lack of longevity before but I'm not sure where. It stands to reason that since the homelands of Argonians and Khajiit are harsh and their races endure constant hardship in the form of disease, war and oppression this would lower the average lifespan as well.

• Humans, ~80ish most likely. Tiber did live to 106, but that's pretty long for humans. The count of Skingrad isn't suspected of being a vamp, due to a rumor that he's a recluse wizard. So it can be assumed that human wizards are pretty long lived too.
  
• With mer, their lives tend to have much more variation. Peasant dunmer live to ~120ish years, which can be guesstimated that it's similar for the other mer. Royalty, if Barenziah is any indication, live up to 400-500 years. Mer wizards will live as long as royalty or longer, generally to 1000. Dyviath Fyr, however, is a giant freaking weird case, as he is practically as old as recorded history, and older than the Tribunal.
  
• Orsimer (orcs), despite being mer, are cursed with svck. I think I heard 60 years is pretty long lived for an orc, but I forgot where I heard this. You can blame their shortened life on Arkay for trying to screw over the nords.
  
• As for the beast races, unknown. I suspect lifespan for the khajiit depends on what one grows up as, with The Mane being the longest lived. However, I also suspect khajiit die early often, due to drug addiction. As for argonians, I'm only going to assume it's around the lifespan as men or peasant mer.

I would also like to note that the altmer, in general, will be the longest living race out of anyone. This is due to intense amount of eugenics they practice and the hardcoe amounts of perfection they demand from a newborn.

Also, one of their demigods taught them to take shorter strides which added 100 years onto their lifespans.

And they're also heavily in-tune with magic, which explains why they have the most sensitivity to it and a larger magicka pool than other races.

There was a Human in Shivering Isles who was around for the last Greymarch, 1000 years ago.

Beings under direct influence of Daedric Princes don't really count. Those in Mankar Camoran's Paradise live forever, not really an accurate depiction of a mortal life span.

Mortals are in Sheogorath's realm. His realm, his rules. Also, the guys in Paradise were bound to it, which is why they were immortal...till it collapsed.

weren't nords super long lived before the arkay deal?

If there was an orcish mage (not likely but it could happen) could they live longer than intended?

and i guess that living in the isles would make you live as long as sheogorath wanted, look at dyus(spelling?) he was around before sheo

Mankar's pvssyls were "unmortal" according to the Dremora Lord you speak to, Krazzt. They were bound to his realm like lesser daedra and kept being reborn when killed.

Dyus, the guy in the Great Library of Order, was cursed/blessed with immortality by Sheogorath because the knowledge he possesses is too valuable to be lost forever. It ended up being a very wise decision on the part of the daM doG because that knowledge ended up stopping the Greymarch.




All of the mortal races were once much longer lived than they currently are. It's a common theme in mythology, including our own. Look at the Abrahamic religions of earth for instance. You have a common motiff of humans once being closer to God and becoming more corrupt and shorter lived as time goes by. This motif occurs in TES as well. It bothers the Altmer a lot more than it bothers any other race, though, since they strive to return to the spirit-sleep before Nirn existed. They consider Lorkhan's actions a great and hateful curse.



Yes. Any powerful mage will live longer than the average member of his or her race. It's strongly hinted at multiple times throughout the games and books. An Orc mage isn't ever going to live as long as an Altmer mage but he's gonna live a lot longer than the average Orc barbarian.

Don't think so.

Magic seems to have an effect of causing the users to live longer.

It's the Prince's realm. Time could be 50x faster if he wanted. That, and it's very likely everyone in the Ilse is bound to Sheogorath.

Bleh, I was close enough.

Orcs are the shortest they're around 50-60 yrs (Stupid Arkay). :brokencomputer:

I'm not sure on the Khajitt or the Argonian but probably a little bit longer then the Orcs.

Nords and Imperials are about the same, they could live up to 100 yrs.

I'm not completely sure on the Bretons but I think they're either shorter then Humans or longer so anywhere from 80-110 yrs.

Dark Elves are about 130 at average but their are some who live longer like Queen Barenizah who is like +350 yrs old.

I'm not sure on the Wood Elves probably something similar to the Dark Elves but not able to live longer.

Altmer have the longest life span some can live for over +400yrs. Caradil the Altmer mage from Anvil she was involved in the original Benrius Manor attack 100 years before Oblivion and she still looks young.

Bretons should live slightly longer than Nords, Redguards and Imperials. They would mature and reach middle age at a similar rate but then remain relatively unchanging for another five or six decades whereas other mannish races would generally decline rapidly.

Shouldn't Bretons actually live shorter due to the magicka resistance? I think it was explained that High elves are more adept to magicka therefore it makes sense that they are sensitive to magicka.

No, I'm sure Bretons live longer than Imperials or Nords. The elf blood in their veins, while watered down, still confers them with a higher than average magical nature.

but,

And he wasn't breton, he was half-imperial and half-dunmer. It can be assumed that any mer-man crossbread has a shortened lifespan.

A pretty bizarre decision on that author's part, because the "only half-elven" part implies that "aged like a Breton" means he aged quickly by elven, not human, standards.

Perhaps, but it still shows that Cassynder lived to be less than 82. His father, Pelagius III, lived for 34 years, and Cassynder died 48 years later (46 years while Katariah was empress, 2 while he was emperor.)

And 82 is quite a generous mark, considering that Pelagius probably didn't even know Katariah when he was a newborn. It is much more likely that he was 68 or so; which for an Emperor with access to the highest possible medical care and magical healing is quite young.

Breton physiology doesn't seem to effect their psychology. They age rapidly, so how does their thinking reflect that?

Geanor was willing to incur a massive debt because he didn't care about the future.

Hmm, well I was thinking about the Breton race. I had to look up that name. Yep, he was an [censored].