I know Nords seem to have a very Scandanavian feel to them and Imperials have a sort of greco-roman style i was wondering what everyone would consider the in real life counterparts to the TES races to be in their opinion? I ask this because i am trying to decide which race i will want to play iN TES: Online and thought maybe i could connect with one more if there is a general consensous on what their in real life counterpart would be.

In general, the races are too complicated to be tied to a single culture. Off the top of my head, the Dunmer are often compared to Mesopotamia, Egypt, the medieval Catholic Church (iirc) and various nomadic cultures in Central Asia (I even once saw someone argue the case for Scotland pretty convincingly). Even the Nords and Imperials are often tied to the Egyptians and the British Empire, among others. While recognizing their sources is useful, trying to make 1:1 comparisons only serves to diminish them.

(Also, this is probably a better question for the lore forum).

Here's how i see it, but like the guy above me said they're all based on more than one culture.

Nords are Scandinavian/ Viking

Imperials are Romans

Dunmer are based on a lot of cultures, but i can sense some Indian/middle eastern feel to them

Redguards are mostly middle eastern/african.

Bretons are french.

Khajiit are also indian. their names mostly.

Meh not a fan of these topics the races seem to complex to be tied to any one race/ religion plus what on earth would a orc-human counter part be....

I doubt they'll all have clear cut counterparts. Architecturally speaking, it seems the khajiit are going to be somewhat similar to middle eastern and indian styles, and argonians have some incan/mayan and other south american tones.

Bretons are modelled after your more traditional medieval-era france and england. Redguards seem to be based somewhat on desert-dwelling north african groups, possibly some egyptian influence there too. Orcs seem to be primarily based on pre-medieval germanic tribes, with something of a mongolian flourish.

http://i.imgur.com/iLE5W.jpg

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dM0O4dV7lMBQjqDMLfM3MIpcISy6JbaJsBOjiw8YxJI/edit

I'm just going to take a moment to giggle at the idea of Native Americans as a single culture, or even a bunch of remotely similar cultures. We're talking multiple continents spanning thousands of years here (and not all that many of them are cannibals who live in walking trees and refuse to kill plants).

Because when making a race based on racial stereotypes, one always takes into account the varied traits of a culture rather than basing them on the perceived and generalized stereotypes.

I mean look at how ethnically accurate WoW's racial comparisons are!

Why are you assuming they're based off of racial stereotypes in the first place? As far as I'm aware, Bethesda never linked them to Native Americans at all, that's just the result of fans going "archer nature people? INDIANS!!!"

Duh. If a lot of people aren't going to make a connection (which means misinformed people making up the majority), there's really no point in making the connection at all. Who'll get some obscure reference?

And I never said there was a connection. That picture illustrates what I think the connections would be if there are any at all.

Um, the Bosmer and Altmer are just based off the D&D/Lotro Elfs, of which are a mish mash of cultures

Dunmer have things from all over asia

The Argonians never displayed ANY aztec-like things up until ESO, so again not correct.

The Khajiit are are a combination of many cultures as well, only of part of which is Gypsy

Redguards have things from african cultures, as well as middle eastern cultures

Bretons have a lot more than just celtic culture, their culture also has a lot of feudal/middle ages influence

Imperials also have some American themes going on

Nords have mostly viking traits, but also have some stuff from Europe

yeah, sorry, but NONE of the race are based on one single culture.

only the

If they were carbon copies of a culture they'd be boring so of course they would include references to a varied amount of racial stereotypes.

The thread is asking for real life counterparts. Elves are not real, so saying "Lol elves are based on elves lol" is not an apt reply.

Argonians are difficult to deduce; as such I assume that's the picture creators best guess.

Also you people are taking this too seriously.

Bosmer would be closest to the wood-elves which are mostly based off the Celts. Altmer, however, are trickier, their superiorist mentality and isolationism lend themselves greatly to the high-elves, such as those from Rivendell or Lothlorien; however the affinity for magic would be closer to the early Quenya elves, those of the first and second ages, especially those of Eregion who forged all the rings with the exception of Isildur's bane. The latter is difficult to place, seeing as they are earlier version of elves Tolkien first wrote about, so when he accounted for the culture being different the only remainder of the Celtic influences were in the form the their language, of which there is no comparison with the Altmer.

These things standing it would be very difficult to compare the magical side to the Altmer to the Elves of Arda, you could still compare the aforementioned qualities of isolationism, among others to the high-elves; thus you could only compare part of the Altmer's nature to the high-elves, leaving the their magical and/or cultural affinity to be compared to another source. I cannot, however relate the Bosmer or Altmer to the elves from D&D.

Okay but which race represents canada

About the High Elves, not sure, but maybe this can help, http://www.sci.fi/~alboin/finnquelinks.htm

Kamal.