It's a fantasygame, so they twist everything to something unreal. Yep, its true that "viking" means a person that hails from a vik(wich, bay etc.).

Priests writing in the dark ages shocked at how the Norse bathed so much, they said that it made them barbaric... in fact the word bath comes from old Germanic. The Norse were incredibly civilised, most of the writings about them as bloodthirsty demons were to turn the population against them

Erhm Vikings didn't accept violence within their own village. VIkings were mainly farmers who sometimes also went on raiding parties... they weren't all blood thirsty barbarians

Where do you think the line should be drawn between the two?...the Nords seem visually influenced by these old cultures, how far should their laws and society also be influenced?

Having something similar to the old Tings(with the local chieftains acting as judges), with holmgang as a way of settling disputes would be nice. And being forced to pay blood money to the victims family instead of a fine to the central government. (Failure to do so would result in a blood feud where the family would come after you) It would differentiate the region from Cyrodiil in a nice way, no more "pay X gold or go to jail".

snip the Vikings, this is Tamriel.

That is all.

I think the Nordic culture will be similar to the Vikings, but I doubt it'll be as extreme. There won't be any pointless destruction of settlements just for the hell of it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6T6pspuajQ&feature=related

Yea just ignore the longships in Morrowind, the horned helmets (which although inaccurate are a common stereotype) the name Nord (Nordic, Norseman, Normandy, Norway) the references to Beowulf, the names of Nord characters...

I don't know how much pillaging and raiding there will be, but I expect very little from our character's side. I imagine everybody will be busy with the whole civil war thing to go out on raids for the sake of pillaging.

Unless we'll be able to gather up multiple companions, I don't see how raiding a village will be possible (unless you go berserk and kill a whole village by yourself) and unless they've added some type of cart/pack animal/ship, there's not really any way to move your loot.

As such, I think the pillaging will be kept to a minimum. You'll probably have plenty to do, what, with the dragons and all =)

Sure do. The Norse had amazing metal smiths. both ins weapons crafting, and jewelry. From what I understand too, the migration era germanic spatha or longsword, made in the traditional pattern welding fashion was later used in Japan, albeit much more refined by that point. But it seems even amongst many other germanic tribes there were many many similarities. Probably because of an ancestor group but who knows. They all had variants of the same gods. Odin, Woden, Wotan, etc. Hell Wednesday is Woden's Day.

As far as Nord's attacking their own villages . . . that was not unheard of amongst the Norse. Even neighbor's farms. If a farmer was having ill luck on his farm, and his neighbor a little ways away was producing more yield, well, let's hope he can defend his farm. I'd imagine Nord culture doesn't parallel everything from old Scandinavia, as their god(s) are different, and as a result I'm sure their mentality would be different. But civil war is a different ball game.

Lol, I'm sick of this notion that the norse were complete barbarians, quite a large amount of people here in britain have norse and saxon ancestry, and we based a lot of our ancient british society on saxon and viking values

EDIT: sorry if that sounded rude but tradition is important in britain haha

Well the vikings actually did take slaves, pillage and [censored], they did follow a religion that encourages violence but amongst themselves they were quite a cultural and civilized society.

Generally scandinavian historians(at least swedish) paint the picture of vikings as teddy bears while historians in other parts of europe calls them bloodthirsty animals.

http://www.suite101.com/content/ibn-fadlan-and-his-travels-among-the-vikings-a299218

Quite interesting really

The Nords aren't going to actually be vikings, I think, and as far as laws and rule goes I think they have a monarchy.

So did the "vikings" (scandinavians), didn't stop them from having chieftains

The viking age was from roughly 800 AD-1050 AD IIRC, the first king to unite Norway achieved that in 872. And before that, there were loads of small kings.

As was the case in Ireland, btw, loads of small kings - some with aspirations to become High King. I always got the impression that the Nords history in Skyrim was inspired somewhat by Viking settlements in Ireland. (Not based on anything else than the Nords arriving from a different country from the north, finding a new country further south, and coexisting with the existing population, alternating between peaceful coexistence and fighting)

haha ive been proved wrong!

True, and I'm sure most counties/districts will have their own chieftains, barons, and warlords, but the Nords in TES lore aren't exactly simple barbarians, they're no strangers to the idea imperialism.

what about the vikings in the movie pathfinder they were blood thristy savages who enjoyed looting and murder for fun

They also looked like football players.

I never understood what the blue foreheads were all about? I'm glad they all died in the end, though, it was getting unbearable.

look at cultures all around the world. people have been painting their face for centuries

Remember Solstheim? You were given the choice in one quest to exile someone or send him to the wolves.

I never worked out which would be worse.

Agreed, I wasn't a very big fan of that movie or the way they portrayed vikings.

well the best thing would be to send him to wolfs then he would die with honor :hubbahubba:

look through history every culture around the atlantic have horror stories about the barbarian hordes from the north and their bloodly unquechable thrist for war