I'll be the first to admit I'm not too familiar with the Elder Scrolls lore and I've been looking around to learn more about it. Something that struck me is the fact that when different races breed, the children will take the mother's race. Isn't this kind of...I don't know, unrealistic and narrow? Why isn't the child a mix between the race of the father and the mother? Why are the genes of the father completely ignored? Is it just like that or is there a reason? I know it'd be against the lore but I'd completely be in favor of rectoning that and make cross breeds instead of just ''take mother's race'' which in my opinion is kinda silly.

Because evolution does not work the same way in Tamriel as it does in the real world.

I perfectly know this, otherwise I'd ask why are lizards walking around and how do they speak. I just want to know if there is a particular reason because it seems really senseless. A man has a child with a female orc and the baby is a full orc, not looking like the father in the slightest.

It's probably because of the way mortals were made, having been born from the et'Ada. Typically, huge changes in the races only occur with some type of god-interference, such as Azura changing the Chimer to Dunmer, or Boethia eating Trinimac and some of the Aldmer changing to Orcs. Why nature prefers the mother over the father, I'm not sure.

I guess that makes sense. Thanks.

Question though, would you happen to know how the bretons became bretons? I don't think any kind of divine intervention was needed and they are rather really different from their ancestors. If I recall correctly, they're a cross between elves and men. How did they end up being a complete separate breed? Wouldn't the first ones just take the race of the mother?

Children take a marginal amount of traits from the father. If there is multi-generation interbreeding going on, the inherited traits from the fathers may eventually dilute the maternal racial characteristics to the point that your looking at bretons rather than elves. Of course, this would require the mothers in a family line to consistently breed with persons of a different race.

Can you imagine an Altmer woman giving birth to an Argonian? Or an Orc woman giving birth to a Khajiit? Or even a Dunmer woman giving birth to a Redguard?

It would be too weird.

I can't imagine a male human being the biological father of a khajiit either. The best thing to do would just be an hybrid species. Something between a khajiit and a human for example.

Maybe something like that.

[img]http://www.eceti.org/Cat.jpg[/img]

http://www.imperial-library.info/content/morrowind-notes-racial-phylogeny-and-biology To make it short, it's the devs saying "[censored] you guys, we're not doing hybrids." No point in using RL [censored], when the [censored] universe itself is nothing more than the fractured mind of a mad dreamer.

Also, the argonians are completely unrelated to all the races on Tamriel, so I doubt they can successfully breed with an outside race.

Because the kid has to fit in the mother.



Well apparently this does happen given enough time.(see Bretons)


PS: You realize there are 16(I think) different forms of Khajiit right?

I believe it happend (ie the Bretons) because their similar in anatomy and function of elves and humans. Khajiit's and Argonians are another story and its not 100% certain its possible for man/beast offspring.

If you have half-breeds, then you'll inevitably have half-half-breeds, then half-half-half-breeds, etc. Everything would stretch so thin that it'd dilute the races, which would defeat the purpose of having distinctive races. Especially in a world like Nirn where everything isn't based on "human", but also elves, orcs, cat people (ostensibly elves, who already range from house cats and battle lions, to nearly-human in appearence), lizard people, vampire snake people, fox people, and sloads. I seem to recall a book mentioning a navy fleet that included dog or rat-like people, but I can't find it (might have that mixed up with something else).

We know orcs and elves are capable of breeding with humans and each other, and if Khajiit are related to elves, you could include them. If we accepted the others are capable of interbreeding as well, that would make a real mess of everything.

It wouldn't be a mess. It would just require more work. Seems like you're almost defending laziness for the sake of simplicity. I really wouldn't mind half breeds and half-half breeds. Everybody in Oblivion had a name, a profession and most of the time, a place to live. They all had a background to some extent. Having a few half breeds would have made things more diversified. Of course the problem would lie in their proficiencies and attributes and the players would inevitably want to play as them.

If half-breeds just took the race of the mother, we wouldn't have Bretons. I call it throwaway lore designed to quell unnecessary speculation and complications. The only reason I write fan fiction is to play with lore, and had no problem creating a biracial character. As a scientific text it may also be horribly mistaken, the equivalents of medieval Humors and their influence on the body.

But it is still probably true that most physical characteristics are inherited from the mother. A baby born to an Altmer will have 75% pointy ears, not 50% pointy ears.

I'm defending simplicity for the sake of distinctiveness. As it is, currently, you have Argonians who are quite distinct. IMO, it would devalue the race if you could also have 75/25 Argonian/Nord, 50/50 Argonian/Imperial, 25/75 Argonian/Altmer, etc. "Argonian" wouldn't mean much if characters would just have a certain percentage of "lizard-ness" to them.

*tries to imagine a 1/4th Argonian, 1/4th Orc, 1/4th Khajiit Pahmar, 1/4th Dunmer*
*brain melts*

And what makes you think that Argonians and Khajiit can mate with other races? If you take them out, that just leaves you with men and mer, which have already proven to blend quite well.

Probably because the alternative would be creepy.

Because it clearly states in the book thats our only source of info on the subject that there are no recorded (rumors mind you, but none recorded) or such blends.

We don't have any info one way or the other. They may, or may not. All we currently have is some circumstantial evidence with an Argonian+Human pairing producing a child in the Shivering Isles... it may not be something that can happen in Mundus, but it may just as well be possible. Besides, I also said (notice the 'if's):

To which was the reply:

To which I replied what I did, working off the assumption that the 'if's are valid.

FWIW, they can "mate" (Barenziah+Therris, Antiochus+Argonian Wench), we just don't know if it can produce children.