Why do people continue to throw around this unfounded crap about 400 year lifespans for Elves?

In the Interview with the Dunmer, the old Legionaire indicated a lifespan of 120 - 140 is typical for a Dark Elf. It's certain wizards and necromancers can extend their lifespan unnaturally, but the average Dunmer doesn't even see 200 years.


Altmer are said to live 100 years longer than other Elves because a culture hero named Phynestar taught them to walk with a shorter stride. Since the only other age range we have for any elf is 130 years for Dunmer, and it's never implied the Dunmer have a lower than normal lifespan, we can assume Altmer can live up to 230 years if they're not a sorcerer or necromancer.


I would imagine Bretons, being mostly mannish with only a little Elven ancestry, would live maybe 5 to 10 years longer than the average human if there's any increase at all. Again, wizards are an exception. Wizards are an exception for any race, period. It's implied that Janus Hassildur is believed to be very old due to sorcery. Of course you and I know he's a vampire but the average Imperial citizen is clueless about that. Since it's so widely accepted that sorcery could account for his extreme lifespan and vitality, we can assume an Imperial can live for centuries with life extending magic.

It's just me throwing the unfounded crap, don't worry. ^_^

I think its because Barenziah is around 400 years old. She was born in 2E 893.

She has very little magical use, and is a highly respected and cared-for noble, as well as being a dunmer.

Well, that makes sense.

Most peasants during the Middle Ages didn't live much past 40 or so; while nobles on the other hand... yes, that was due in part to disease, but also due to hard work, needs of hunting and getting hunted by predators, and the occasional bandit attack. So if a Dunmer peasant lives at most 200 years, their nobles could easily hit 400, assuming that disease, hard work, hunting, and banditry affect elves just as much as it affected Peasants in the Middle Ages. Oh, let's not forget that the food was typically... less than fresh, especially meat.

It's reasonable to suspect that much, Marss.

my guess:

Mer races not using magick: about 200-275 years
Mer races using magick: about 1000-3000 years
Bretons: about 130 years (?)
Imperials: about 100-110 years
orcs: 60-70 years
Men: 65-80 years

of course that just guessing, im no lore expert so i cant say for sure.

Orcs are actually the shortest lived, and men tend live all around the same age.

The people getting ignored here are the Yokuda's. AKA Redguards. They are not like the other men races, according to lore they have an entirely different bloodline, they are also immune to disease and poisons, and live in a martial society.

Just tossing it out there, cause the Redguards were being neglicted. (Omitted from both estimated lifespan listings so far).

eh, redguard's have 75% common disease resistance and 75% poison resistance, not immunity.

YEah your right, sorry about that, but still wouldnt that help them live longer?

They're still men. The only real difference is that they have a more merrish belief, and swords that can cut atom(os).

For the sake of argument, let's cut out lifestyle hazards from any one race's expected lifespan. Let's assume that these Orcs, Redguards, and Nords are all living plush, Imperial lifestyles. How long do you think they would last?

Behold, my first attempt at memetic fanon: Argonians lives vary in length depending on how far away they live from the Hist. If they live in central Black Marsh, they live almost as long as Mer. If they leave Black Marsh and break their psychic link with the Hist, they lead shorter lives more akin to Men.

Observe creatures like the Galapogos Tortoise, who live for centuries thanks to their slow heart rate and easy lifestyle. The key to discovering Argonian longevity is learning more about their metabolism.

Key points being:

Where they live - Black Marsh is a tropical environment with a high O2 percentage due to vast amounts of flora.

How they live - Argonians are bipedal, which suggests that they might also be warm-blooded.

What they are - Are Argonians related to reptiles and amphibians as we know them, or are we simply stabbing in the dark here?

It'd stop some accidents, but without some sort of live-longer treatment their still going to croak from the wear and tear of aging.

It is very unlikely for the Argonians to be warm-blooded. The fact that they refer to other races as "worm-bloods" sort of suggests that they are not or at the very least that they do not seem themselves as such.

Redguards really need to be more fleshed out. They often get forgot. :unsure2:

Barenziah has always been very wealthy, and for most of her advlt life has been cared for and probably has more than one Healer at her disposal. This is not a luxury the average Much farmer or Guar herder has.

It's not 'unfounded crap'. Barenziah (the only in-game Dunmer whose age we know exactly) is 431 at the time of Tribunal and her husband Symmachus (a self-made man from a poor family) was 423 when he died. Meanwhile, the author of http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Invocation_of_Azura describes herself as being over 300 and is clearly not a noble. In any case, I refuse to believe that the maximum lifespan for a rich Dunmer is 2-4 times greater than that of a poor one (average lifespan, perhaps, but even that shouldn't be so much lower considering how easy it is to cure wounds and diseases in TES).

Meanwhile, http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:The_Real_Barenziah#Part_2 assigns 'thousand-year' lifespans to all Elves, including Dunmer. I realise that all these sources contradict each other, but just because you choose to favour the 'Interview with a Dunmer' doesn't mean everyone else has to.

Normally I'd agree with you. However, the Argonian's ability to thrive in colder climes makes things a bit less certain for me. If they are cold-blooded, they're not cold-blooded like Earth's reptiles. Their large size and ability to adapt to cold climates suggest otherwise.

I wish Bethesda would shine a bit more light on this mystery...

They certainly don't seem to like the cold. But many fish can survive in cold waters, and since Argonians have some fish-like characteristics, I figure it's plausible that they're cold-blooded yet able to survive in the cold.

I guess they have good insulation to make up the cold-blooded part. Hey, if the next game is in Skyrim, the east and south, which is pretty much harsh snow and ice, should have a freezing counter. Khajiit and Nords would be the best for surviving deadly cold conditions (one has fur, and the latter lives there), and argonians the worst.

Time to break out those fur boots!

I choose the one that's more recent and possibly less fanciful. As you're probably well aware of by now, there's been a succession of retcons going on with Tamriel lore since Daggerfall. Many of the ideas being tossed around at the time were half baked and might not represent the devs' current vision of that world. It seems to me that they've toned the Elves down and made them a lot less "Tolkien" in recent installments - more mortal. I see this as a positive thing. The lore is coming into its own and isn't relying on old tropes anymore like "thousand year old elves". That stuff's been played to death in a variety of fiction. Going by MK's rules I would consider it boring and therefore wrong.

The Real Barenziah shows up in Oblivion, making it more recent than the interview (which was done 3 years before Morrowind's release). But I agree that 1000+ as an an average lifespan is not typical for anyone who is not a noble or pure old-blood Altmer.

That seems unlikely, doesn't it? Resistance to disease usually has to do with the animals you've domesticated and the immunities you've built up by living in an area. I would have thought the Imperials would have the best disease immunity and the Redguards would be the most susceptible.

Actually.

You'll find through Raga lore that they know how to deal with desolate wasteland. Some are still residing in the desolate Yokuda. Their gods supposedly taught them to go fruit from Barren earth.

The nomads survive in the dangerous Alik'r. They are also athletic by nature as well. They are warriors by nature. While Shades is right on the immunity building, the Raga have always lived in desolation.