I thought the green pact only said they can only eat meat,deer,boar etc.
As far as I understand the cannabalism was just after a battle where they ate there dead foes.This is why I assumed they avoided conflict whnever they could.

Of course I could be wrong.

A quote from it..

"a section of the pact that also states a Bosmer must eat his fallen enemy; this cannibalistic nature sets them apart religiously from other nations. The Bosmer allegedly made the Green Pact with Y'ffre the Forest Deity in return for Y'ffre's patronage and perhaps protection."

I agree with SubRosa that the Green Pact is an ill-conceived concept that is unworkable and full of hypocracy.

Wood elves that can't live in trees, can't use fire wood, can't gather hay or oats to feed their horses.

Can't use vegetable products and must eat meat. Hello? What do deer eat? It's ok for your food to eat grass but you can't?

Great archers, are they? Yet they can't craft wooden bow staves and arrow shafts? Let's see. . . bow strings could be made from flax, linen, silk. . . see a pattern here? All vegetable matter. Oh gee, I forgot - it's 'okay' if they pay someone else to do it for them - what a clever piece of hypocracy that concept is. Grrr!

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. It could have been so wonderfully easy to give wood elves a philosophy more in keeping with that of American Indians. . . such lost opportunities.

Ok. Sorry. Rant over. :blush:

Since anything can be rationalised, this could be uderstandable too: not too seldom do we see people opposed to killing, yet having no problem at all with hiring someone to do it. On a more practical example, many people opposed to slavery willingly and consicously buy cheaper products made in places, where the work-force is a proven kind of slavery.

(I'm not defending the Lore example, just saying this was probably created to justify some point / characteristic, which was clearly done in a poor, uncreative way).

I'm pretty sure it just prevents them from using plants from Valenwood, doesn't it?

I think some of the hypocracy is intentional. Remember. They are a mortal race. Mortals are prone to be hypocrites. As long as it's not done by their hand it's fine. They can have feed for their horses. Buy it from someone else or have the horses graze but is their any examples of them owning horses in their own lands? I'm not sure. They may not have horses. It's fine for animals to eat vegetables. The deal was that they won't. If someone else builds something it's fine. That wasn't part of the agreement. To me it's like a paper. "If you sign this you cannot by such product." but nothing prevents you from owning said product. As long as you don't buy it.

This. Read the "A Dance in Fire" book series from Morrowind (I don't know if it appear in Oblivion) and one of them has a part that indicates that even though they can't use any plant matter from Valenwood, bosmer can use timber from other places In the case of the book they took lumber from Cyrodiil.

Their height isn't a problem for me. I actual play as a custom race that's even shorter (0.8). I'm actualy a rather large framed person in reality. I've always wanted to be smaller so the shorter races like bosmer are kind of a nice change of pace.

Agreed, it's completely ridiculous. That's now how wood elves work in my Tamriel.

But if it's any consolation to you, it's no different than any other major religion ever conceived... *shrug*

:flame:

My current character is an Ohmes-raht. She's shorter than a male Bosmer, but not by much, and possibly more of a carnivore too.

Any shorter, and she couldn't swim. The "breath bar" flashes on and off when she does so, as the game engine places all races at the same depth in the water, and then checks to see if their heads are high enough to breathe. In reality, a smaller person or creature would float higher to avoid that problem, and you'll notice that rats can swim without problems. I just can't be bothered trying to create a "better swimming" mod to fix it, as a cat doesn't like swimming anyway.

I couldn't stand being so short. I was so low to the ground that I kept thinking I was in sneak mode.

I can see your point, Acadian. But you have to remember, it is only hypocrisy on the part of the Bosmer if they agree with the ideology behind Yffre's demands. In my experience the Bosmer are not opposed to using wood and vegetable products when they need to. They don't impose Yffre's tenants on the other races visiting their home province, and they don't even bring it up outside of Valenwood. Indeed, one gets the sense that leaving Valenwood elicits a certain sigh of relief because they are no longer bound by Yffre's rules. What you attribute to the Bosmer is more in keeping with the exploit of a loophole or a workaround than hypocrisy.

One can say the same thing about the cannibalism. It seems more like something they are forced to acknowledge and live with than something they are slavishly devoted to.

Myself I am not that tall myself ....

I don't really bother with mabye my Dungeon & Dragons background and the halflings, gnomes, dwarves and other short people overthere ... The male bosmers are hugh by halfling standards

The reason why I never liked to play Altmer, Nords and Orcs was the height, actually. I'm 174cm myself, and I am not used to look down on other people like that. It just feels awkward and wrong whenever I play one of these.

I feel most at home with female Breton height. That's slightly below average, I think.

Never tried to play a male Bosmer, because I don't play male characters; but I don't think that I would feel too small as one.


How do you change the height of your character, anyway? I've sometimes wanted to play as an Altmer because of the racial abilities, but I just can't stand the size.

You can change the height of your char with the PC command console. The average height (Imperial) in the game is 1.0. A female Breton is 0.95. A female Bosmer is 1.0. A male Bosmer is 0.9. All Altmer are 1.1. I have changed my female Bosmer from 1.0 to 0.9. Here is a link with all the info on how to do it: http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Console_Command_Tutorial#Player.SetScale_.23

I voted 'no' in the poll, I have an Argonian character and think that short Bosmer and tall Altmer are part of their brilliantly unique racial differences--like the fur of a Khajiit, the orange eyes of an Argonian and the tusks of an Orc. ^_^

Anyway I wouldn't say that the height doesn't bother me I must admit I havn't played lots of Bosmers in my Oblivion and Morrowind game experience but that is not because of it's height ...

Oh! SetScale. I didn't know about this command line option. Thank you.