Hallo everyone!

There is a question I've had for some time. I'm not a lore ninja, so I thought I would ask here and perhaps spark a discussion on this topic.

The question is quite simple: What is the life span of the various TES races and what influences it?

In Morrowind we could hear several quotes that suggested that the dunmers have a very long life span. Lord Fyr is about 4000 years old for instance. I am not sure at this moment, though if I heard about any other long-living dunmer in that game outside the House Telvanni.
In Oblivion, there is that dunmer smith that works in Anvil. He has some lines about how long he worked there and how long hw plans to go on. From it, it seem like his life expectancy would be a bout 60 years (if I remember correctly), which would suggest that longevity is not a racial trait. It could be argued that Lord Fyr lived so long using magic, but according to UESP wiki, he is a sorcerer and sorcerers do not list restoration (a logical school used in prolonging life) as either minor or major skill. So it would stand to reason that he did not prolong his life by himself.

So is it that mages have extremely long life spans or is it a trait of elves, or just dunmer? And what of other races? As far as I know, the Nords and Orcs should have a short life span due to Shorr's curse, but if elves are long-lived in TES, wouldn't the orsimer be as well?

Well, OK, your opinion on this:

Mer have (I think) roughly a 400-500 year expectancy.

Men are likely the same as us. The more Mer influenced races, though, such as the Bretons, may have a longer span. Perhaps a 200 year lifespan?


I too have been confused by life spans. I think Divayth Fyr increases his life span through magic. Unless Mer are exceptionally old, and I'm mistaken. (I can't remember my source)

Well, there are some indications- for instance, in the Census and Exice office, before you leave, the last guy you talk to asks "You haven't been in prison that long, have you?" after explaining that Morrowind was a province of the Empire for 400 years.

Of course, he could've been joking, too. But the Telvanni seem to have inordinate lifespans- The Man-Hater is the oldest of the Vvardenfell Telvanni. And you're assuming that Restoration is used to lengthening lifespans- the Alteration school could work as well- and that is a Major Skill for Sorcerers.

And if you have Corpus, all bets are off- I don't think Dwarves naturally live for thousands of years, after all.

Anyway, I don't think the Orsimer count as elves any more, after what happened with Malacath and all. But, I don't think that Bethesda has come out and said "Argonians live for this long."

Baladas and Divayth increased their lifespans through magic.

No, they haven't. I have a feeling they're roughly the same as men. No idea why. :shrug:
Then again, they wouldn't make very good slaves if they kept dieing on you every 50 years or so.

Khajiit are probably the same as mer, being that they are a form of mer.

Mer tend to live very long lives, with altmer living the longest. Those mer who are poor tend to live probably around one and a half to two centuries. Those who are well to do live much longer, and the nobles living very long. Barenziah lived since Tiber Septim came into power (and got tapped by that as a teen). Dyvath Fyr has lived 4000ish years, the most long lived mortal, either surpassing or around the age of the mortal gods of the Tribunal. I can only imagine the only people who are close, or older to Dyviath are Psijjic masters. But you have to remember that when elves use magic to keep themselves alive, they're pretty powerful to begin with, and pretty much cheat.

Men will only live slightly over 100 at the very best.

Orcs are very short lived, around 60 at best I think.

Are you sure? That seems very long for a man in a pre-industrial era. That's long even for our time.

(Men are based on us, aren't they?)

Well, the reason they can live over 100 there is because they have magic. No rauaging diseases to shorten the lifespan, toxic chemicals, everyone is pretty good shape, and so on. I know for a fact Tiber Septim lived over 100, and with a bunch of emperors who died of natural causes tended to be +80.

Yeah they're based on us, but they're not us, not this world, and so on.

I suspect the reason that Fyr and the other Telvanni's live so long is through necromancy (yeah, its illegal in Morrowind, but since when have the Telvanni cared?). I swear that somewhere, I heard that many ancient telvanni are either vampires or liches (though this applies to anyone whose really old, chances are they are something like that).

Also, I think that Uriel Septim is 87 years old (he says something about that in the intro video before you create your character), and he died because the MD killed him. And, as you can see in the MQ, he didn't look like he was going to die soon if he survived to the MD attack.

Fair enough, I guess.

Is it possible that Imperials/Bretons have longer lifespans due to the larger Merish influences in their blood? Nords, being around 90% man, wouldn't live for very long in comparison, but I would imagine those with closer relation to the mer races to have a longer life span.

Perhaps;

Mer races: Roughly 400 years
Bretons: 200 years?
Imperials: 100 years?
Nords: 60/70 years?

Just my take on it all.

No, bretons pretty much age like all other humans. With the elves, dunmer and bosmer I think go to 200, while altmer is going to be larger (they purposely breed longevity!)

Orcs, short.

Well, so there seems to be a consensus to a degree that the mer races live quite long lives. Would that mean that the smith in Anvil is sort of a bug or a hole in beth lore? I guess that might be possible. The councillors of house Telvanni sure polong their lives using magic and it has been stated in game that at least Dratha and Therana use Necromancy to do so. Although I would still concider the Restoration to be the main magical skill to prolong life, I cannot deny the possiblity that Mysticism, Alteration or Alchemy can play a role as well.

There are three more questions that stay for me in this topic

1) Do we know any person in lore who was not of elvish origin and yet had a long life span (like more then one century) or is the process of prolonging life only possible for the mer
2) How is it again with the nords and Orcs. I know there was curse on Nords that made them live for only 6 years but it was transported to the Orcs. But are all Orcs affected? Do they live for mere 6 years or did some part of the course remainn on the Nords. And if the curse was totally lifted from Nords, yet the Orcs live reasonably long lives, would that imply that as a sort of mer race they had an above-average life span before the curse
3) There seems to be a consensus about the age of the man and mer, but do we know anything about the beast races? It was suggested that the Khajiit are in some way connected to the mer and thus could share their longer life span, but what about the Argonians?

I'm glad this debate is boiling. Thanks for the imput everyone!

From http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Interview_with_a_Dark_Elf

so a typical Dunmer commoner seems to live 120-130 years, almost twice as long as a typical human.

Orcs are cursed. Nords having a smaller lifespan was just my theory, being so far away from mer origin.


Khajiit ARE mer. The Dunmer definatley don't think so, and the Altmer may think they're too "impure" to be classed as a mer, hence, they should have the same lifespan as other mer, and there's never a reference to Argonian lifespans. I don't think we've ever even been told how old any argonian even is.

The Nerevarine, for one (if you didn't choose him/her as an elf race.) During the Main Quest, you get a bad case of Corpus.

Corpus isn't a disease, but a seemingly magical byproduct of Dagoth Ur's influence. It basically grants you a bit of divinity- protection from age and mortal diseases. The only drawback is that there's a good chance that Corpus becomes uncontrollable. In that instance, you start forming tumors and your mind erodes. If the tumors are bad enough, you could die (they would prevent vital organs from functioning. A legionarre actually does die because of how bad his tumors got.) But there's proof that Corpus does make you immortal- Yagrum down in the Corpsarium bowels is the last living Dwarf/Dwemer, dating back from around the Battle at Red Mountain- His mind seems to be (relatively) intact, although his body is now an obese mess.

There's also plenty of Undead- The Underking (Zurin Arctus), for instance. You also had that one Nord in Bloodmoon, Aesliip, who had turned himself into a Draugr (a nord form of a lich; basically a cannibal undead.)

I'm not sure about actual numbers and data, but this is the order I would put them in, longest lifespan to shortest.


Altmer are placed highest, due to their arcane abilities.
Dunmer placed second for similar reasons.
Bosmer and Khajiit are put together in third because they are both mer, but magic isn't commonplace with them.
Bretons are fourth because when speaking to one of Divayth Fyr's daughters, they will tell you that "out west" could hold someone older than Divayth. By "out west", I assume she means High Rock.
Imperials and Nords are fairly pure races of men so I put them together at fifth
Orcs are last because like Hellmouth said, they live fairly short lives.

No, it would have to be the Psijjics in Summerset Ilse they are referring to, not High Rock. Also, the altmer, while being more magically tuned, majorly practice eugenics.

Gyron Vardengroet become immortal via alchemy.
If Sirollus Saccus from Castle Ebonheart is the same person from the book "The Armorer's Challenge", he must be around ~250 years. But probably he is just descendant.

In good conditions mer can live several hundreds or even thousand years; Morrowind enviroment is apparently not the best conditions.
Regarding Khajiiti, S'rathra was aged 86, so at least suthay-raht's lifespawn not shorter that human's.

Wait, Argonians are descendats of trees, right? Trees can live for thousand years. Maybe Argonians have a simmilar life span to trees.

Argonians are so up in the air, it's not funny.

Actually, Argonians are a giant mystery for any Elder Scrolls loreophiles. Their traditions state that they decended from the Hist trees, but they have more in common with Lizards than trees. Hell, their design has changed over the games as much as a Khajiit- and Argonians are supposed to be one species, not multiple breeds of a species!

Actually, the look of Argonians does vary in lore. It depends on how many times they lick the tree, among other things.

Yes but they mentioned both summerset isle and "out west".

Yokuda is the only thing west of Summerset, and that place is nothing but sparse islands from a nuke. And the only people living on Yokuda are redguards.