I know that the eruption of red mountain caused havoc in Vardenfell and was slightly before the events of Skyrim, but how long before was it? Could a dunmer from Vardenfell have escaped and still be alive to today? Is it that recent of just recent in the grand scheme of things. I'm making a mod and want to be lore friendly!

Thanks in advance

Lixerman

As i recall it erupted in 4E 05 (Fourth Era, year five of said Era.) Skyrim takes place in 4E 201, so 196 years has passed, but its still spewing out ash etc. I am not sure what the lifespan of a Mer is, and if it is different from Mer to mer. But i would say that is is possible. After having consulted the Wiki abit there are Dunmer which have lived for over 200 years.

a Dunmer certainly could still be alive out there.. they have had some historically very skilled mages, and magic can extend ones life.. I mean, Neloth is seen in Dragonborn, and he was still alive and played a sort of important role way back in Morrowind, and that was years before Red Mountain went to heck.. granted, i suppose its possible its not really the same Neloth, but thats another matter entirely (I got a thread around here somewhere giving a run down on a possible theory about that)..

Doesn't one of the Dunmer in Skyrim mention that they used to own a shop on Vvardenfell before the Red Year? Anyway, I'm not sure what the average Dunmer lifespan is, but the mages can be extremely long lived. Divayth Fyr is around four thousand years old.

The Real Barenziah says that they live for around 1000 years

ESO claimed that being around 200-400 is being very old for any Aldmer...which the games tend to contradict to hell and back, between goddamned miners chucking ore for centuries and not looking that old, along with the potion maker living out in the middle of nowhere, and then there's an active Altmeri legionnaire who is still active that has been of working age since 4E 42, pushing two hundred years by the time of Skyrim. Not exactly lofty jobs that would help increase ones life expectancy.

Personally, I think that particular "answer" is complete bunk, and that no one has any hard numbers to back anything up between how inconsistent different writers tend to work with different characters. For a Dunmer, I'd say 300-500 years old would be somewhere around the "natural" life expectancy IMO.

I somewhat agree with this, although I agree 100% in that "answer" is ridiculous and shouldnt be considered true. However, I also like to think that the ingame source was correct and that they live for about 1000 years, which makes more sense IMO

Something to bear in mind, though. The 200-400 thing comes from ESO, which is... roughly 440 years before Morrowind and Oblivion, and 648 years before Skyrim. It could very well be that most only lived that long back then, but medical and/or magickal advancements in the following centuries meant more could stick around longer, longevity no longer being only the domain of powerful wizards.

Do you mean Aldmer, Altmer, or Aldmer descendants (Mer in general)? Do different varieties of Mer have differing lifespans? Are different types of Mer even different enough to be considered different species or are they like us, lots of aesthetic variation but all the same sub-species, or at least the same species, like dogs, wolves, and dingoes? How much of the differences are cultural or environmental and how many inherited? Also, magic seems to extend lifespans and elves usually take to it easier than humans, which can easily skew the results; the orcs, who are easily the least magically inclined Mer, have a roughly human lifespan. http://uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Mer cites 200 as old and 300 as very old for many Mer types, but doesn't include citations linking to the reference materials and I don't feel like reading through every single link (it's late here). Then we have inconsistent writing with youthful-looking centuries-old elves and others that look and act elderly but are less than one hundred years old in the same game and being the same type (if I'm remembering correctly, which I may not).

An alternative possibility is that the natural lifespan is actually similar to a human's, but most know enough magic to wring out at least a few more decades and the occasional professional wizard lives much longer, skewing the average while leaving the median somewhat higher than a human. This could explain the inconsistent in-game depictions without invalidating the established averages, but seems like a cop out to me.

While I agree...the Alliance War doesn't particularly depict everything being as bad as the Interrgerum was made out to be, Soul Burst aside. Strikes me that as long as you aren't particularly close to the hardest struck regions (Cyrodiil), quality of life in different regions seems about what you'd expect into the late Third and Fourth Era.

Given that the ESO devs basically just said "elves", Mer in general is my guess.

I would guess that this is a safeish assumption. This isn't as applicable to between Bosmer or Dunmer (Though it could be depending on lineage), but more when comparing the Altmer to everyone else. Their stringent breeding and Altmeri culture in general is supposedly conductive to greater life expediencies then anyone else, so I would guess that the Altmer would boost longer life spans then the others because of it, if we take magical extensions out of the equation.

Culture and environment would be substantial IMO. Anyone born in a position of power would easily have much better access to medical/magical care that could keep them going on, even if they don't magically enhance their lifespans otherwise. Its the difference between an Ashlander and Barenziah, for example. As for inherited...the Altmer certainly believe in this, though how much its actually true is unknown. Are Aldmer of mixed parentage looking at a decreased lifespan? Maybe, once diluted enough. This is one of those things we just don't have good information on.

Orcs are weird, though I wouldn't put it passed anything metaphysical going on with them. As an alternative...well, just look what happened with the Falmer. Hard to imagine those poor things kicking along for even a good century.

A natural, 1,000 years is pushing it IMO. I can see Altmeri nobility and royalty, who are probably even more crazy about the racial purity thing then others, pulling it off, but the rest I would say is very, very rare.

You're thinking of Avrusa Sarethi. And according to one of Elgrim's conversations with Ingun, Rythe Lythandas (the painter that you rescue from the painted world in TES IV) is also still around.

It looks like the exact source is The Real Barenziah, Volume 2. Emphasis added.

"Katisha's face briefly wore the envious, wistful look humans got when contemplating the thousand-year lifespan Elves had been granted by the gods. True, few ever actually lived that long as disease and violence took their respective tolls. But they could. And one or two of them actually did."

This could explain nobles and mages living longer than peasants, but still seems inconsistent with how old some of those commoners look despite their relative youth and doesn't explain Divayth Fyr's exceptional lifespan.

Honestly? ESO is before the time restoration was more then just healing yourself. ESO is before the invention of the cure disease spell iirc so advancements in restoration for magic-oriented nations or nations with a large religious presence that has access to healing people could increase life-span by a drastic amount as you don't need to mass farm herbs or go rooting through the wilds or hunting down animals to make a potion.

For instance the crimson plague which was a common disease, nothing special, managed to really hurt Mournhold whereas during the time of the events of Tribunal it was simple to cure because of a cure disease spell.