The Lesser Known Beast Races of Tamriel | The Elder Scrolls Podcast #13

[Music] what is up ladies and gentlemen welcome back to fudge muppet my name is scott i'm here with michael and drew and today's elder scrolls podcast is all about the lesser known races of beast folk so we've picked a bunch and most of them i don't think there should be any outside we're not also not going to do uh the akaviri ones we're not going because we've done mysterious acavia so we're not going to talk about ones from there so just in tamriel and uh we're just going to go through them in alphabetical order so which one of you guys wants to start us off with the birdmen of cyrodiil yeah the bird men who don't even have a name i just stole it off you michael sorry no we'll look uh to introduce them we had uh topple the pilot and he was like uh one of the aldema sailors trying to find old aldmeris that was lost and accidentally stumbled across tamriel and they had no idea where they were going and ended up sailing up the nib and saw the cat folk running along the waters and and whatnot and they found um the current location of the imperial city which obviously wasn't there at the time and found the bird men yeah yeah who do not have a name because it's been lost yeah and the thing that's really interesting about the birdman is that originally it seemed like they could speak to the old ma in old maris so they were calling out to them in their own language but really it they're more just like one of those birds that mirrors speech without actually understanding what they were saying like a liar bird or a mockingbird or something like that which i find quite cool and then obviously topple kind of gave them the the secret of literacy taught them to speak their own words and write with their talent feet and in exchange they gave him um basically the islands in the area where the imperial city sits today so it was a pretty good trade yeah and then that's how the aylids i guess got founded and started really because they started off there and they built their white gold tower and so on and you can see the alids are um they have lots and lots of bird imagery and they've been described with like beads and sort of feathers and stuff in there um you know in their dress and so on in the songs of pelano so it's um yeah i guess they took there's heaps of stuff with that and obviously also the uml the unfeathered and things like that who would only have that title if being feathered was the norm i guess i mean there's these theories that the ayleids and the uh bird people or birdmen are actually related like um biologically like they were interbred with them or there's even a theory that's like they were them but i don't i don't really like that one yeah it doesn't stack we'll see when i yeah because i mean i think of the aliens as getting pretty wacky but not initially you know it was more as their culture developed and started to degenerate that that some of the weirdest stuff happened i can't really imagine them actually interbreeding with these you know bird type people but i i saw a you know the the idea is that they taught them literacy um in exchange for this this land and then when they came back to settle it properly they just ended up enslaving them anyway and that's part of the reason why they're gone yeah that's one of that's one of the theories so there's there's one that says that the bird men were made extinct in general just by the cat demons or i guess khajiit ancestors that were also in the area at the time and then the other idea i think it's from it's from the leon coast guard who who speaks to you an elder scrolls for oblivion and what he says is that he's kind of laughing saying like oh they taught them the secrets of literacy and it was great because it made them better slaves for the aylids um so they could have just been slaves and died out they could have interbred somewhat there's no reason that they could have like they couldn't have it's just you know it wouldn't have been to a significant extent i don't think well it depends how much they could like if if like you know in the similar ways like with khajiit and argonian stuff is sort of uh hazy but like i i don't um like early on because when the aylids in their origin when they first got there like with well with topol the pilot and stuff like aylids is the name for the culture that sort of came after but initially they were like a tributary state of of um the somerset isles and they sort of adhered to the the king of eleanor and so on so it wasn't until much later that it kind of like diverged and so yeah well that that's what that's what i was getting at as well because you know as much as the aliens became a very distinct culture of their own when they were very close to the old ma and you know they're obsessed with their purity and whatnot you can't imagine them coming over and being like yeah let's mix our genes with these feathery people yeah it's like yeah it's probably a bit a bit of a stretch first but you never know you never know it is interesting to note though on the topic of all the um references to bird things so there's the smashed visceral of elven faces feathers and magic beads which were the markings of the aileroon um from pelinol and the bull had fallen to a volley of bird beaks there's a lot of quotes like this although generally speaking um the elven kind of race in general they have a lot of bird iconography like i don't know if it is uniquely ailed per se like if you look they do have elven armor in skyrim the helmet is basically a bird's head the shield's like this big feathered thing like there's this it's the oreo everything l'oreal iconography they started making auriel like like envision is an eagle and the aldmeri dominion symbol being an eagle and so on but yeah i imagine them forging their arrow heads almost to look like bird yes you know and what with you know the the feathers on the end so it's kind of it's it's a cool way to describe it you know metal so do you think um the unfeathered could have been called that um just because his armor or something was different we've had all kinds of conversations about i kind of think um i thought it might have been because of his differing heritage with his whole like divine father and so on and then maybe like if you thought about like being feathered is like a maybe some kind of uh like coming-of-age thing for an alien like or like trial or something like that but he's the unfeathered because he kind of never had to do any of that or or something like that or just it's just some way i guess to distinguish him from the rest of aylids and so on but i don't think it's meant in some super literal sense like feathered could be some sort of cultural thing yeah and they could also i've also heard the idea that they killed these birdmen and wore their skins and stuff as cloaks and and you know adorn the kind of adorn different things with it with the feathers and and things i got that i can't remember if it was um how he's described in the songs of helena whether he's referenced as umaril the unfeathered there but there's also the idea that he did have wings and pelinol tore them off and then that's why he's now called umreal the unfeathered okay right um rip the chick but i can't remember if that stands up just because he might be referred to him really unfeathered in songs of pelano but that's just another idea there's also a third theory which i'll just put out there because on the elder scrolls podcast we like to talk about every possible idea and not just throw them all in the bin although while i don't think it's likely there is this idea that it's referring to one of the old argonian tribes that may have been spread around the place i highly doubt it but there is that tribe said to be winged the only reason i i doubt that is is also just um the way that the aylids uh all of their iconography and stuff and the descriptions is very like feathered very very bird-like rather than some sort of like um what are they calling like pterodactyl kind of looking thing you know what i mean sure but i'm not talking about the aylids i mean the just the race of the bird men themselves like the aylids can do whatever they want with their architecture does it mean that it's based on the birdman yeah yeah but i'm just saying there's a good amount of like like logical conclusion there that they sort of with the birdman that were there and all you know you can also imagine just like exotic birds and stuff of jungle cyrodiil i guess which could affect their um oh for sure well he's also kind of the crossover point between meridia and the aurorans and then the elites so if you imagine the the old aylids were all wearing feathers and whatnot whereas the aurorans were golden hued so they were perfectly golden they wouldn't have had feathers and things on their armor which if you can even call it armour it's kind of just their skin but then you look at umril and he's kind of a mix of the two so he's got like it almost looks like he's got bird wings just completely featherless so it's kind of like the halfway point between the two yeah yeah but yeah as i said i don't think that they are the argonian tribe but i would just put it out there as food for thought ultimately there's not a whole lot bird people is just a whole lot of speculation because really outside topo the pilot and then the fact that the aylids have bird imagery there's not much to go on about them as so as a bit of description they were described as brilliant flightful creatures of glorious colors feathered men and as having talent feet so they sound like they would have looked pretty interesting like there's also a character in the elder scrolls online who thinks she has a what she calls a cyrodiilic bird person skull although it's another scholar in her group swears it's a terror bird which is just a large bird of prey found in northern elsewhere and and i just get the vibe that that would be the case as well seeing as there's no trace seemingly of this race of beast folk that have since been exterminated from the face of tamriel yeah well i mean i know we're going loosely alphabetical order but do you think there's any relation to the harpies no i i don't think so their creation story for the harpies kind of comes a bit later and also i don't know maybe maybe this is just me assuming but i kind of get the idea that there is there are male and female bird people and so on like i kind of get like a bit different to like do you want to be sharpies i mean they're called the bird men even though even though that's usually just used to describe the human races like lizard men was you know argonians were called that at one stage but harpies seem to be entirely like um female in yeah in their makeup and appearance but i think we're safe to move on from the the birdman of cyrodiil to the centaur to the centaurs yeah so the centaurs like they always are in every depiction basically have the lower body of a horse and the upper body of a really strong muscular man basically um if you look at the legends art too they have kind of done a bit of effort to make their face look a little more like um be steel sort of and it's got like elven lucky's actually but like they they don't look just like a human plastered to the top of a horse yeah they kind of look like their own thing they try like they look really cool and there's the i don't know if you're talking about the elder centaur card specifically but in due to that we actually hear centaur dialogue um so they're capable of saying a bunch of aggressive lines like you know about how they're going to kill you and whatnot and they also refer to others as mortals which kind of implies to me that they besides just seeing themselves above men they may live for longer we don't know what their time spans are like it all sort of ties into their connection to the whole old ways thing like they're considered um the true followers of the old ways by the conclave of elven forces but um it's kind of we're in the old ways the only other real reference we have like to these old ways is what the sigic order basically talk about and that's that like which is even different to how the summer said i'll sort of keep their purity and so on like a more ancient i i think of it as a more like el nave type kind of connection and so on and i would actually wager that if we were to think about this is an interesting thing discussion we should actually approach with all of these is where do they fit in to the whole el nafe thing because like because with the exception of argonians every single race um has is either old illinois or wandering illinois and i've signed a connection and i think the true followers of the old ways or something makes me think more old elena fey like more closely related but to elves but not necessarily like they don't have to fall inside that dynamic i guess but yeah i can agree with that especially if they look a bit elven in the art um i will actually say on the topic of the old ways it's interesting that the nords and the atmorans kind of have the same thing like the old ways religion which is different but i think they just isn't it just they're just calling it the old ways because it's their old ways um yeah but i mean they they really say it like the old ways like the phrase over and over again they don't just casually throw it away but that's a completely different thing so yeah just to be clear we're talking about the psijic old ways yeah it makes me wonder if perhaps they did master mysticism magic as well because they were already said to be extremely dangerous on any battlefield like skilled with bows and spears i mean we know how dangerous just a man is on horseback so when you combine that with a horse just fuse it permanently and give not not just so you don't have to control the horse you are the horse so you have a lot of mobility like yeah yeah direct mind muscle connection it's interesting that um their home is mainly valenward now though i i talked about this in the before um or before elves and men video but they were like you can surmise that they'd probably be spread like right up through valenwood up through clovia kind of area up through hammerfell up into high rock and in the daggerfall games you can see centaurs that are around there um to be honest they could probably even be in skyrim they're just not in the game that we see but like i i can imagine their numbers dwindling elsewhere because of civilization civilization spreading and the reason that they've survived along with other beast races in valenward is just because of the protection that valenwood gives them rather than it being their ideal environment because when you think of horses like a big forest isn't exactly it it's you know um home ground environment they'd much rather some big planes or something like that you know well when you were talking about the creation story you know you know you said that you either come from the el nafee or the argonians being the only exception are you kind of insinuating that you think they might have the same heritage i think as the members i i think men because i think old el nephi and wandering illinois might encompass more than strictly ideas of men or mer just by like look at um how i mean they do call them the men of akavid uh the site say yes he referred to them as men of akavi but if they are as serpentine as some descriptions say like that's something that really like departs from a typical idea of what a man looks like if you know what i mean like i feel like there could be other things mixed in there like for some reason i don't you know how there's some forces like a uh nerds or something that's what they're called is that that's how we pronounce it periods yeah they're sort of more related to like kind of earth bones kind of earth spirit kind of vibe things whereas the centaurs are kind of i just think their connection with the same old ways that the sigicorda follow and stuff like that i just kind of get this idea and also that they're more like a society rather than just this sort of water spirit i get like a different idea okay because yeah i kind of for me imagining their origins it was more of like the ifray creating from the ooze kind of story is what i imagined was their means of coming into the world because obviously the elena face story doesn't really it doesn't really justify the origins of creatures that are semi-intelligent or not intelligent so then it's a question of how much intelligence should be considered part of the el nafee storyline and how much is just a creature and i kind of associated them more with um being creatures that have just kind of developed enough intelligence okay i mean i kind of like the whole idea of the ooze because you know the bosmo once the idea is that they had all of these wildly changing forms and you see relics of that with their little horns and and little you know be steel details um that maybe the centaur are another sort of group that came from the same sort of ooze there because they're widely they just got kind of stuck in a different form like not related to the green pact though if that makes sense you know like they kind of came out of it differently maybe you reminded me of exactly what i was going to say because there's a there's a quote which i'm struggling to find now that essentially said every beast that comes to be on tamriel comes from a previous wild hunt and things like that so you can almost you can almost imagine that maybe there was a wild hunt in the early times that you know kind of somehow merged elements of man or elf with a horse you know and it kind of came about that way because just just to throw out there another sort of reasoning behind like sort of a lot of elena fey derivative for things like if you look at minotaurs technically um they are from wandering illinois because it's a it's a meeting of of man and you know mora house if you if you go with that idea which is you know it's pretty um i mean it's debate in the modern world in the modern incarnations you can see but i feel like they're the way they're written is like deliberate like anti-minotaur sort of propaganda because they don't like modern incarnations the empire won't like that we'll get to that later but just the idea that you know you could place their connection to the wandering illinois like in men or races of men in the same way i feel like there might be a path for that for a bunch of other um beast races well the interesting thing about their intelligence and stuff anyway if we're trying to figure out their origins and what they are is they're intelligent enough in one account to be invited to some revelries in valenwood so it's like a big celebration with food and drink and dancing and singing and there's a variety of guests there like inga even but one of them is a family of centaurs which is quite interesting and we know they can speak so they're not just uh they have their own language as well apparently called centaurian well even in this the plate the elden hollow beneath elden root as a resting place for minotaurs and centaurs that kind of you know having a formalized uh funeral spot or even like a dying spot or whatever does indicate like you know more uh intelligent society than just a beast or anything for sure and and there's also if you look at the daggerfall user guide uh it talks about how they have varied personalities and there's legends of their exploits ranging from the epic to another word which i don't want to say because i don't want to get demonetized but you know like there's the chronographic yes that can never be too careful these days but yeah so if they have a lot of varied personalities they were invited invited to revelries and you know they're capable of speech they can speak tamrielic as we've seen with the elder centaur and they also have their own language they seem they seem intelligent enough i wish they were i can easily imagine them as an enemy out on like the white run planes and stuff i wish they were an enemy type like it would have been a hass to sort of um animate them and so on and i can see why they they didn't because remember when skyrim first released they didn't even have mounted combat so they couldn't even kind of like fuse those two things but you know what i mean yeah what's their relation with the reachmen with the reachmen yeah oh it's just in that in that mod um it has uh the reachmen with centaurs with like some forcehorn stuff which i kind of like the idea of because there's already a precedent for um uh richmond working with minotaurs and then they also like have different obviously conceptions about how people sort of look like hagravens are revered and so on these mutated beast-like things so that they're kind of like uh they don't have like a purity complex in the same way other societies do about the physical form being altered to be more beast-like so yeah it fits in there but i don't think there's any strict cannon with centaurs with minotaurs they have worked with them before right i guess i'll also say which we probably should have said at the start if you didn't say it all of the beast folk that are lesser known that we're going to be talking about today it's not going to involve things that were kind of created from a curse like the hagravens you know like they're specifically a beast race almost no the way to think about it is a species that reproduces and creates more of that species rather than a twisted form because otherwise you could kind of go like oh i like where beasts you know beast folk because but it's just a curse they it's it's distinguishing like some big magical change from an actual species that reproduces and creates more of this species so talking about reproduction is there any proof of female centaurs or i'm not even sure how to pronounce the female form of centaur but um in the elder scrolls is there any i i don't think so not from what i know but uh yeah i'm pretty sure all of the ones you fight in daggerfall are you know just have big pecks and and absolutely yes it's just these big musty boys oiling each other up and then you get a babysitter i guess yeah i i don't know i'm assuming there are just because there are societies of centaur and you can't really have a society without procreation and like i was saying there was also a family of centaurs present at this supposed celebration so yeah it's going to be similar to how like you don't i'm pretty sure you don't see female minotaurs from memory but maybe there are some but still i reckon we move on to dregs now because i think we've covered um pretty much everything about the the sentinels and and the drag the dregs get interesting um because we see their various different forms and one your if you were playing like oblivion for instance you're probably most familiar with the land drags it reminds me of um what do they call them the acklay and star wars attack the clones that big thing i remember like that's how i felt when i was in the arena fighting them i'm like oh i'm on like your noses when i was a kid playing it but in in morrowind they're more um they're like these aquatic sort of octopus kind of folk but the land drag is just basically a life stage of it where they get all aggressive and go to land to mate and make eggs and then they so it's it's called cavinisim but it's essentially their phase in life where they lay their eggs and it kind of makes sense that you know it's essentially um water drags when they're in heat so they just become you know they just become crazed and aggressive in order to protect their eggs so it's not that they're a different creature they just kind of go full like you know protecting my flock phase i like i actually like the the water-based ones more i find the art style a lot more uh interesting like the kind of octopus almost to me like a squid yeah like and and the most interesting part about them so so you know like dunmer make uh drag armor from their carapace and they like use drag wax as an alchemical ingredient and we can mention those in a sec but the most interesting part is how it intertwines with like chimer dunmer mythology and so on and also this is referenced by i'm pretty sure it's referenced in the mythic dawn commentaries as well but it's basically the idea of nirn before all this perhaps even a previous calper uh the the drag ruled all of these big palaces of like coral and glass and they were led by their chieftain molag bal at that time and that's how he there's some interesting interesting uh molex val was depicted almost much more uh crustacean in form like oh yeah and ultimately uh you know this the story of the ruddy man and whatnot but his shell basically is uh left behind and then discovered by a kid so the the mythic dawn commentary says the munduks terrain which is mundus was once ruled over solely by the tyrant drag kings each to their own dominion and border wars fought between their slave oceans they were akin to the time totems of old yet evil and full of mockery and profane powers no one that lived did so outside of the suffrage of the dregs which is a pretty cool uh way to imagine how they used to be and vivec kind of uh then says in his sermons when the dregs ruled the world the daedra prince molag bal had been their chief and i love the reference the tribunal temple calling them the ultima of the sea i just and then also because of their castles of glass and coral but if you're the somerset isles has all the like that it has like land coral and stuff around the beach areas and so on but typically in typical well in previous depictions you know the crystal tower and they were like supposed to have all these buildings of glass and so on it quite literally become the ultima of the sea versus like the lord of the rings interpretation we sort of get later on but yeah well there's the theory that they become they became less intelligent because they were hunted so much for their wax and their shells and whatnot but you still see like little hints of intelligence like they would they'll cut fisherman's lines so they can steal the fish from their nets and whatnot but um i kind of imagine them you know i don't know if this is a bit of a stretch but the idea is that they kind of perhaps endure the calpic cycles better than most in that they are that they're kind of like the same as they were before only they've lost their intelligence i almost imagine them kind of like turtles or crocodiles surviving the dinosaur extinction because they're under water and their civilizations perhaps they're not so affected and reset the way we never know that i guess there's not really been a whole lot of deep diving into the oceans and so on but there's a you know possibility of more intelligent drag civilizations living on underneath i don't know i've done some diving in skyrim and found absolutely nothing you know some slaughter fish you know i also did a huge dive around the water of the shivering isles just because i thought that that's somewhere no one would have explored like no player would have explored like the most off reach of the sea in the shivering house i found absolutely nothing cue a thousand comments saying that yeah i've done exactly i don't believe it but yeah the dregs are scary um especially when you when you look at um their egg laying and how they can actually sense where their eggs are if they go missing and like often they're harvested by fishermen and things like that and they're prized can you imagine how scary it would be to steal a drag egg and then they just come for you in the night like especially if you live on a farm it's not like you're up in some castle they just migrate over to wherever you've taken that egg that that would be so creepy it's it's so interesting that that like that phase they're like going after you in that like land drag form and they're such like it's like their attack form kind of high libido form yeah but it's it's funny how that's taken so literally that they become like they're actually more intelligent than they become crazy low intelligence like just sex driven kind of crazy they're horny they've got horny brains so they're just not smart yeah until that phase is over and then imagine having that phase and then returning back to the scene and kind of regaining your intelligence after all that crazy stuff you just did it's kind of like puberty isn't it yeah it's like waking up on sunday morning hungover yeah yeah but like they're pretty i like also the shock um it's shock resistance and stuff too isn't there and mm-hmm oh no yeah they shock attacks but the idea is that they kind of develop it naturally as opposed to magic but at the same time there's no real proof one way or the other for some reason i still go with the non-magic explanation just in my head it makes well it works in our world as well doesn't it like you know jellyfish and certain i'm sure certain crustaceans have similar type of abilities you know if you know what i mean not quite so like casting palpatine shockwaves yeah for sure and it's it's funny how they're called billies it's just the most it's just yeah land drags it's just the most australian thing i've ever heard yeah we would call dregs billies if they lived here absolutely but i think yeah that's um i mean i'm just trying to see if there's anything else yeah there's something i can tell the story of the ruddy man a bit more um yeah okay i was just gonna say what do you think about this some scholars argue that the land drag is a distant relative of the true drag from further back on the evolutionary timeline or perhaps even related to spider daedra that sounds like a bit of a meme i was with you until you said related to spider daedra they definitely could be related to an older drug that was more intelligent overall and you know like we talked about but the idea of them being related to spider daedra to me just feels like nah yeah i like you know it's like centaurs are described like you know oh they have the top half this body and that it's like are they related to spider daedra it's like no yeah well hit us with the uh the ruddy man so basically molag bao was like a giant crustacean what was in that form and when the dead carapace of bao was dropped into the world from his interactions with vivec this climate child from missus is that how you pronounce it i always say yes wore it to scary's village like oh i'm wearing this shell but instead became the ruddy man which is like this really how would you describe the ruddy man just this creepy yeah well like i it's all mythological but there is this ruddy broad mother thing which adds more to it which you can talk about it looks kind of like a land drag with fused with molag belle's face but um yeah the carapace taking over the body it's kind of a weird like um we need to see the concept art the concept starts really cool yeah it's kind of like an unintentional mantling kind of thing you know i mean because mo like belle's sort of um will kind of takes over this child the child's no longer really a part of the picture and then just becomes his ruddy man and then there's this massive um battle and this is what this is what creates the west gas region vivek battling the ruddy man which is one of his infamous battles and i like that even when roaming that region now apparently you can sometimes hear the like screeching of a vex sword across the carapace of of the ruddy man and you can hear like echoes of their battle like thousands of years later and it's like it's pretty cool and no doubt vivek was victorious and then gave the carapace to the queen of the dreg so there was like a drag queen the vex like here's the carapace um i believe it was given to god but eventually the ruddy man came back for a second round and then that time he decided not to give the carapace back and instead gave it to the devout and loyal mystics of the number room who made it into a philosopher's armor one thing that's kind of interesting about that is it's the queen of the dreg has kind of bitten her race in the ass there because they've uh you know now that the vivec has essentially just made it typical to use carapace armor um for the dunmer in general um the second time rather than giving it back that probably really upped the amount of drag being hunted off the coast of morrowind so and in a way like causing them to go close close to extinction or unintelligent yeah so it's like they've it's bitten themselves in the ass it's also interesting that um that the that their chief like they're associated with molecule and so on but like mehrunes dagon was involved in the sort of like revolution there as well against the tyrant kings of the drag and so on like it's just another it's an example of a direct conflict between you know murloc bell mayor and dagon and that's kind of where marian's dagon was created for right in the in the commentaries in the bowels of league because the the dread kings were getting too crazy so he's like marines dagon is just chaotic neutral he'll take out whoever's on top essentially he's a tool he's just a he's just got serious tall poppy syndrome he's just kind of sniff who's ever at the top but uh yeah there was there was this ruddy broodmothers character in eso like monster really and you know it's not necessarily literally the ruddy man or anything like that but it is a it is a a land drag that looks similar to molag bal in shape and so on and and you kill that in here so yeah they're very they're very scary honestly one of the most intimidating looking things i could imagine fighting in real life i'd say one of the coolest races even though there's not a great deal to talk about with them you know compared to the major races they have it's because they've actually got a really cool mythology around them they're involved in the kind of stuff in the mythic dawn commentaries and they're they're both so good anyway that it's going to like make them seem heaps and they ruled all of tamriel supposedly so yeah there's a lot of stuff there i guess does anyone else have anything to say or shall we move on to the harpy i reckon we can move on to the harpies all right well the harpies are basically these huge female humanoid birds i suppose who are very aggressive uh super super aggressive they lay eggs they have nests they pretty much like everything a bird would like you know like rocky cliffs and crags that facilitate nesting and they feast on flesh no matter what kind kind of like a scavenger whether it's a week old or it's fresh they'll eat it and very scarily they're known to kidnap mate with and destroy human males well it's interesting too because they don't know how like outside of that how do they um you know breed because we don't really see any male harpies and i like i do like the the idea that they they're these primitive matriarchal sort of groups and they have their own little language but like i don't know to me matriarch matriarchal sort of implies like as opposed like you know women on top right yeah but as opposed to the men that are in the group as well if you know what i mean but i don't think there are any men in the group but that's what's interesting yeah that's what i'm sort of saying like i wonder what the well it could perhaps i mean unless this is obviously implied but they breed with mortal men that they capture and and do yeah it can't be that high and can't be that hard to find some candidates i imagine after a few too many meads or syjamas or something someone's gonna be like yeah yeah screw it take me away it's just i i just found it interesting that the the reference to matriarchal seems like a funny thing to sort of to to make sure you make that distinguishment when there is no other option in their species if you know what i mean like i think it could just be used to describe the fact that they're all female and that the oldest elder female is the one the most revered and looked up to and stuff like that well there's a quote it's like so in terms of biological functions harpies mirror those of common birds they craft nests a cluster of rocks arrange branches moss leaves etc all that kind of stuff they lay eggs bring back food for their young they huddle together in simple matriarchal societies crowding around and venerating the oldest or most powerful of the fold they feast our flesh don't care about the type of quality so they're kind of like that vulture element to them like carrion um and they're very territorial have infected claws and they scrape favor scraping attacks to the face elder harpies have been known to employ magic and these are all things that kind of like obviously it makes it sound just it is a bit of a society beyond just um like a group of animals they have this little bit of extra to them and and i like i i like the idea that they go and um you know find like i don't know how how do they do it like trick men into it maybe there's a magical element maybe but i mean they're also pretty physically imposing i don't know how much trouble they'd have you know like they're they're very powerful and they attack in grief so i don't know i also by the way i looked up matriarchal and there's like two main definitions one of them is what you're just saying where it's like women lead the society but then there's also a second one where it actually says denoting an older woman who is powerful within a family or organization like specifically denoting an older woman so you know that could just be the fact that they um are led by the oldest harpy among the group yeah plus this is all written by you know it's written probably by humans so they're kind of just imposing our idea of what a matriarchal archetype is like but then there's also um i looked into it a little bit because i was curious if there was any way or chance there was any relation to the birdman or similarities as well but they have a rudimentary language made up of shrieks and warbles amplified by small wattles beneath their chins but then i read that they've communicated with humans but couldn't find any actual evidence of that i don't know if in game there's something different but in in law text there's no example of them ever speaking to humans that i could find so i'm not sure if that's a mistake or whether it's just fine i know like this is a weird thing but they're not all just uh vicious and hate everyone basically so there's actually a story of an argonian having a relationship with a harpy like a non-violent one right yeah so basically i i'll read you the story four months ago i was exploring just off the shores of glenumbra looking for any sunken items that i could sell when i overheard the loud cries of a harpy i came ashore to help to my surprise i did not find summer stray tourists under attack by a flock but the reverse a single harpy matron the ones with dark feathers and jewellery so there's another societal example that they have jewelry was being robbed by three red guards not just of her finery but of her eggs that's in caps as a male argonian this sent me into a rage after driving off the trail the matron had rewarded me dot dot dot quite affectionately quite affectionately i have been visiting her each week and each time i leave she seems even sadder to see me go i have made up my mind to make this relationship permanent while i know how others will see it i'll willingly take their insults but my greatest concern is that the goddess of affection will see our love as blasphemous or tainted and then there's an answer um basically explaining how dybella just sees you know no matter the seed if the shoot is nurtured with love will not the flower be beautiful so they're not just uh angry birds you know they're not just drew's favorite mobile game of all time it's interesting seeing argonian worried about dybella's opinion well i guess an imperialized one yeah like um but yeah i don't know and there's the whole there is the whole uh origin story but this is a it you know it's hard to distinguish like myth from fact than the elder scrolls in general but um that they were once a group of cruel and beautiful daedra worshippers in laneland and uh they were transformed by a magic robe yeah so the story with that is basically that they come to a castle i assume where there's baron and they you know they're so basically they craft lies curses murders and suicides to hurt the people of laneland using their beauty as a weapon to drive men to mayhem and then their leader seduces the unnamed baron of laneland and is about to force him to commit suicide to prove his love when the baroness arrives the baroness tricks this leader into wearing a beautiful white robe from the baroness's closet and after putting it on the trap is sprung the robe's magical and transforms the leader into a giant black bird and then the baron slays the giant bird calls in the cook feeds it to the other followers and now leyland castle has turned into an orgy-filled den of decadence and at the height of their frenzied debauch the cook arrives with an enormous roast to keep the energy high they eat it they get told it's their leader and they scream and core and suddenly they too are transformed by the magic of the robe into harpies vicious half-bird creatures so if this is true they almost fit into that category we were talking about of like cursed things but given the fact that they now have eggs and carry on breeding new harpies it's like they are a proper beast folk creature it's a cool story but plus it is a play you know so yeah heavily drama the story is said to have changed like and continues to change as time goes by and there's all these different versions of the story but they all kind of say the same thing just in slightly different the mythology like as is usually the case is is really really cool and like way cooler but i feel like it could be a case where there is a real boring explanation that they are just some kind of like centaur-like origin creature just from ages ago it's interesting the the leader in this story is called noctira and you could easily look at that and kind of get nocturnal from it who is usually portrayed you know as holding two black crows and being this beautiful but dark woman you know there's um seems to be some relationship there at least in the tail yeah yeah well let's uh i think that's pretty much everything on harpies we're good to move to inga yeah i'd i'd say so drew you want to start us off on the inga did you bring your cake the imgur is another one of the intelligent races from valenwood so their origin is always going to be a bit um obscure but um the best way to describe them is the kind of little apes who dress up in uh in capes with dueling swords and and they they very much idolize the elves um which kind of gives the impression that they're very not intelligent but then again there's an example of an imgur who kind of ascends to a really important place in imperial society which kind of uh turns that on its head but it's funny that that's their like cultural sort of general archetype or at least in the modern days is that they are this sort of they really like um the high elves and they sort of you know emulate them and like powder their faces and try and appear more like pretty and elven kind of thing but at the same time one of the most the the greatest like prophet of anti-elven rhetoric ever existing was an imgur named maroc um and he he's what he is supposedly alessia came to him in his uh in his dreams or something in division and uh then he set forth the elysian doctrines and um and he basically spurred on um the transition of the early sort of elysian empire turning it into this sort of religious empire where religion and political matters are one and then um and then yes scrolling over cyrodiil for thousands of years well and that's where the mario karti selective comes from as well yeah yeah and and he's he's also the one with the law pretty savage law right here everyone is guilty until proven innocent like that was one of the rules that they had it's interesting that that stands yeah till today supposedly like that it's still the way that that uh law um operates in in um imperial territories i feel like there's examples where that's not the case i just i just feel like there's been like quests and things where it's like looking for evidence or stuff like that yeah but you can still have evidence to prove you're not guilty yeah that's true it's just you have to do it if you don't prove you're not guilty you're gonna get you know yeah but anyway the imgur in general are super super wacky i guess in terms of their personality like imagine these apes you know walking around and they have these really deep voices but then they're trying to speak all like posh with perfect enunciation and manners and things like this and apparently as well the ultima kind of find them funny like they don't see the imitation as like you know respectable i i can't imagine they would and they give themselves titles that they use when talking as well to the elves like baron or duke but they don't actually own any land and as we were saying they have capes that they perfume the corners of to hide the smell of men but they're kind of pretending that they find the smell of men to be really lucky it's gross it's a funny sort of uh thing because you could sum up the at least that aspect of the imgur as like monkey see monkey do like they just copy the elves but it's all the most like superficial elements of elven society and stuff like it's just a sort of i i it also makes it to in my head at least funnier that they're just like these monkeys just copying like you know i'm just imagining like a monkey in a fez like riding a tricycle like that's the kind of vibe i get in part but i feel like that is also a bit of an overstatement in how many of them necessarily do that like you don't necessarily get the idea that they are like so there's the whole part where now this is convenient eso law for you why the imga aren't in valenwood and the reason is is because these ape men went to look for falanesti which had also conveniently disappeared um just before you know before the events of eso so because they all just went to falanesti and now the real reason is you know they just didn't want to program and make imgur and stuff in valenwood at the time at least no removing tree right yeah exactly but it's interesting that you know because that is law now is that they went to falanesti which sort of you know it's a pretty tight with the wood elves if you know what i mean like this big moving tree city like it it sort of has a bit of a connection not you know what i mean yeah and like i said anyway in that story the imgur are said to have been there at the celebration with wood elves centaurs so they were pretty integrated into the society and they've said to being a like they have been said to have been around for a really long time same as the centaurs i don't know if that was mentioned but they're ancient and always have said to have been there it's interesting uh i'll just do two things we'll bring up like because we mentioned this in the mysterious akavir thing um that that they might have the only other eight people we know of or heard of are the tang mo which are like the monkey people of the monkey thousand monkey isles in akavir and whether there's any form of relation but also the idea that in in valenwa there is this god called zen um which was suppose like might have been um of akaviri origin according to um the the book varieties and faith which could be an interesting idea that they were once from that area came and changed but one thing i also want to throw out there is in that pocket guide to the empire third edition which is the one that says about all of these races that were here before men the only caveat there is it depends what that is obviously going with the very sort of like typical migration kind of theory whereas the other because khajiit mythology and wood elf mythology both place them there at the whole time like they're either the ooze that gets transformed or the khajiit get turned by azura into the cat people um and those cat demons were there when topple arrived and then you throw in other things like you know unsure whether the snow elves were always there or the dwemer always there because there is no concrete like a to b from the somerset aisles sort of transition so um you know you just got to look at that one with a grain of salt when they say everyone's there before because it could have been they've been there forever with the wood elves and stuff you like it's you know what i mean or maybe before the conception of what else yeah before they were like this ooze or something for sure i mean the texture says they were there even before the ward elves were there so you just don't know yeah we just don't know and it's anyone's guess as to how different races got where they were really yeah and uh i mean the last little bit of thing about them is uh these are callopi and a boreal rodent which they eat they jump up and pick them from the perches of trees yeah i guess the thing there to know which is interesting about imgur biology is like real life they're very um dexterous and good at climbing and they basically climb up the trees and then jump for the kalapi on the most slenderest of branches i sort of imagine them like basically just a a more slim slightly more humanoid version of a gorilla is what i get um yeah to me the funniest thing about the imgur is just given the description we've given of what they're like as a as a race that they caused such a drastic thing to happen in in terms of an actual dragon break was caused basically by an imgur which is kind of funny to me because the middle dawn where they tried to separate akhitar from oriel was the murikari selective so that's marek um of the imgur so it's just kind of funny like why why does he get the vision out of everyone or is he just a kind of a con artist who just wanted to do something maybe maybe it's more of a modern thing to be so like uh like admiring the elves so much because like maroc like naturally would have associated himself more with um the races of men um and like as an eight and that's kind of like you know and we naturally do because of our like evolution theory when we go like you know they're um you know we're related to gorillas and chimpanzees and stuff but as opposed to the elves but um because the obviously the anti-elven rhetoric he had didn't include like inga so but with that idea of kind of being related even what even occur to what uh humans this is my next little uh thing i was going to segue into old el nephew or wandering elena like that's kind of like if you were trying to sort of to suppose where they're from or they might not necessarily fall into that could they have been made from the ooze like drew's theory about the centaurs yeah i mean possibly see i lean more towards that with pretty much every beast race in valenwood and beyond really yeah but yeah it's it's it's just so hard to say because it it ends up being a question of intelligence and how much intelligence seems to derive from the el nafee versus just being a beast well the other thing too is i i guess could be is if they are some kind of derivative or relative of um the tang mo in akavir um and that which also brings the question like what are all the other races classify like el nephew because really the old elena faye versus wandering elena fey is those who um had like aldemaris or as it was called old illinois versus the ones who were scattered and then tried to come back and we're told not you're not coming in and then a war started about it which then sundered the continents and the wandering ones were left to the lands of akavir and yakuta and atmora and so on whereas the old illinois had what was left of of aldmeris which was tamriel yeah well i guess i was wondering like how on earth could the imgur get from akavir across to tamriel but i i guess when the el nafee wars were happening it was all one big lad one big landmass so they could have just walked it before it was sundered and and new oceans were created and worn out just had like a yeah he slammed a yoga and got on his yoga like border boat i don't think anyone's going to know what a yoga put it up and just flew over obscure that's our official theory it's also interesting with the imgur that there's no uh like remnant of their society or anything like there's uh one of the things or it's a lady clarice lawrence answers your questions and basically saying um it's interesting that there's an absence of artifacts um in like from inga like they should still be around making or using tools like why are there no signs of them even if they've left my one thing i i think i guess if you think of them more like beast like in the way that they can just you know in terms of like to live they can just wander around the jungle and eat the rodents and stuff they want or whatever they eat in their natural environment but then they can just kind of piggyback off of all of the other groups because there's other civilizations around them in the same way that like you know you have like you know you know in in africa you'll have like you know tribes that in terms of technology jump they've just jumped from a spear to an ak-47 because people have ak-47s and they can just get access to them yeah for sure well that happened with the centaurs the centaurs kind of just claimed a bunch of imperials uh like outposts and things i think invaders you're about to say the circle's got ak-47s but but yeah 100 and i guess as well if they're nowadays uh kind of like a race that uh copies other races and imitates the ultima a lot of the things that they would be using and wearing are probably elven in origin anyway like they're not like wearing imgur clothes yeah they're wearing elf clothes that i don't know how they would make them fit maybe they custom do a custom fit but based on the concept art it looks like that'd be rough but yeah i think that that about wraps up imgur so we could move on to the lumia lumia is that how you say it labia i say i say lamia we've got three different associations going on in greek mythology they're just child eating snake women called lamia yeah so i guess that's just the inspiration tourists yeah so like yeah i mean i when i did a when i did a video on some of these races i i like specifically made sure i got it right so i didn't get crucified yeah um but yeah yeah dude look the thing is at the end of the day with elder scrolls in any fictional universe i like to pronounce things the way that i like to pronounce them so like i still say alid even though i get told it's aliad eso confirmed it's a lead yeah whatever but i say labia i mean the thing as well as in elder scrolls online they just do whatever they want they're they're chaotic but yeah about about the the things themselves they're basically another group kind of similar to the harpies in the way that they're exclusively female from what we can see um but they're these big serpentine amphibious women women snake people um but what's interesting is they're specifically um noted as quite intelligent they can speak tamrielic cast magic or so on they're not like the sort of harpies which is like a you know a step above beast they are like a proper um culture i guess and they've seen you know you see jewelry and stuff on them in eso and they do have their own sort of religion this uh you know entities with like the egg mother and the great egg very very complex mythology but it kind of reminds me of argonians in a way like eggs and and focus on that as well not saying they are argonians um although interestingly if you look at their names they do look a little bit more meso-american like a little bit yeah yeah and they also have a similar philosophy to that of the modern argonian as well like they choose not to erect permanent structures or cities of their own because you know there's no point although that's more so they can just occupy the ruins left behind by man or mer and also venerating like you know eggs and and that kind of theme yeah they don't they they do look a bit more like there's this idea that they could be like a hissed experiment like the hist uh tried to uplift a snake but it doesn't really explain why they're all female unless they just had some interesting designs in mind um they also interestingly though it also what goes against that and again it's just food for thought but the daggerfall ones are way more humid than literally just a naked woman with a snake bottom half like a snake mermaid but then in elder scrolls online they're just like all serpentine looking anything sort of pre-morrowind i don't take too seriously in their physical look because like i don't literally believe that like there were majors running around in bikinis with hoods either like their whole like art style of daggerfall and stuff was very old-school very pulp fiction vibe like um like like fantasy and stuff like those old artworks with like you know chain mail bikinis and stuff like that's the kind of with kona and the barbarian leading them yeah things like that yeah yeah a hundred percent 100 but um and i think it's obviously more inventive than newer incarnations of them but um interestingly also led by a queen which obviously indicates you know i guess there's like queen ants and stuff but it does combined with their intelligence and so on it insinuates there's a little bit of a you know societal structure and so on and that they prefer to occupy ruins left behind man and myrrh but i don't know how much they actually effectively use them or they use them just as like houses like you know staying places like i don't know if they decorate oh i i just think the idea generally yeah is like why build something if there's already these environments that we can inhabit and suit us perfectly i mean like some other races they are cold-blooded and they like lounging in the sun like they're snakes they don't need they don't need that much although like you said they are intelligent they just don't desire to build like um grand societies and things like that i love that they're just like a snake eat their prey whole and have this like big distended stomach and that that's like yeah it's just something extra creepy i think even being eaten whole by anything is like really war i knew you're gonna say it i'll say it i started thinking about that and it's gonna seem really weird because i brought it up at the start of the fictional universe video and then i'm like oh man i love the idea of eating the prey hole [Laughter] but yeah the they they are interesting there's again with the society thing that i was saying there's a quote that's saying um you must be from one of these uh societies basically which has led local models to conclude that building equates to advancement of some sort you know like yeah that they don't necessarily see um building a society as more advanced well here's one thing to throw in too is um how do they break we know they have eggs and stuff but like according to fables they can interbreed with other mortal races but if they're all described as female it's the same sort of harpy problem like what oh i i assume that they're actually kind of like hermaphrodites really oh that's common yeah because there are some snakes that are so i assume they can just kind of like produce their own eggs and protect them and things like that i think that's a reasonable conclusion just because it's kind of fits the reptile sort of theme yeah like everything's based on a snake so one could only assume that that's how that all works you know and by the way one last quote i've got on that same topic of civilization it's the human and elves so silly they set up city after city surrender to struggle and discord and succumb to the scourge of strife the sequel expanses of ruins all set for snatching it's simple um edifice assembly is for suckers so there you go yes it does sound a lot like modern argonian isn't it yeah yeah well while we're talking about black marsh and the argonians let's talk about the uh lilma fitz the volpine fox folk of black marsh that lived near the areas of lilmoth and black rose well i saw your notes before fox people dead yeah they're gone looks people gone so the most interesting part like besides you can imagine what they look like some sort of furry fox thing but what the the main interesting part of it is they're specifically referred to as a nomadic tribal group which may who left few and enduring signs of their existence but this might let you know give us a little insight into how they actually um like got there or where they come from or so on because by inherently being nomadic that kind of opens up travel as more of an option but like as a beast race like we know khajiit well at least the general idea is that they came from elven stock initially and that's in all of their mythology and so on i i see no real reason to disbelieve it it makes sense in proximity to the bosmer and all that but where did these fox folk come from yeah and uh in that regard like what what you know el nafee where are they old illinois wandering illinois we'll see just off the top of my head the idea that they're in some way related to the khajiit doesn't really make sense to me beyond the fact that they're furry you know because you know like as vulpine creatures they're closer to dogs than they are to cats as well you know it's like i i don't know it's i don't see them as being related to the khajiit but at the same time there's so little info yeah i mean just to throw it out there by the way is the nahant flew in the second era basically wiped out all the diversity there was that wasn't argonians in black marsh um in the second era so that's uh that's why they don't exist anymore who who named them as well because they do have the same like name ending as the kids apparently they were they founded this well apparently they founded the settlement of little moth and black rose but they were um lilma this means one who is from little moth the settlement so yeah i mean i didn't lil mathea just because of the khajiit like feet yeah yeah my feet whatever that makes sense but um yeah i don't i don't i don't buy necessarily the the khajiit relation i don't think they have to be it's possibility but the forms we it all of the khajiit forms are really dark it's like why oh because azura made them and and they abide to the phases yeah they're tied to the moon that's the thing fox wasn't included in there yeah you know yeah unless it's an ex it's azura's first experiment and she just didn't like that just sounds so like it's just such a weak thing and i feel like if they explored them in in in game ever they would get a better you know mythology and like you know more interest to them like well that's the thing out of all of the lesser known beasts folk that we're talking about in this podcast they have the least amount of information on them they're just vulpine creatures funny how people i i think the only reason people like get excited by them is that they're just fox people yeah that's it like outside of that like i mean the lumia or or however you pronounced it have um have more mythology and of society like you know details about them yeah like the little mothers basically just fox people dead in black marsh yeah that's about it it's not it's i mean i'm sure yeah that that does pretty much you could put an emoji on the end or something to give it some more flavor but that's about it oh like a tears emoji or something yeah i i can't but look they could just throwing out there the nomadic emphasis there does mean they could have been from somewhere else or originally maybe so i perceive little muff and the and the name lil my feet to be a name given to them by elves not by themselves it's not it's not what they would have called themselves so yeah you can't even really make conclusions based on that sure especially as a nomadic group why would you name yourself out of one of the places that you kind of yeah settlement at yeah i think it's just that yeah it's just what they got known for once they made the settlement and then that's where they sort of stayed although it is interesting as a nomadic group that they were all wiped out by this flu you'd think that some would be spread out in further places that may not have i know it ravaged like everywhere but you'd think there could be some survivors yeah but no no well it's also the case with all the humans there as well you know isn't it that the only surviving humans may be sailed away on a ship yeah um of the coffering because i think that's where it was that's where it came from wasn't pretty sure yeah it was the idea is that it was created by a argonian sharma is the leading and all the argonians were immune and they need to bring back stronger i know we've said this before but stronger racial bonuses and stuff i really didn't like how in skyrim they watered down the albanians poison and disease i don't even think that they didn't even have poison resistance it was 50 resist disease because it used to be 75 percent resist disease and full-on immunity to poison in the previous games yeah and that makes so much sense for the argonians and it kind of like you know like yeah that's cool even though poison's not the most common damage type it was still like a interesting racial trait in morrowind in morrowind they were 100 immune to poison and 75 resist disease yeah it's the same in oblivion i'm pretty sure oblivion had a solid one too i do remember that but yeah skyrims was definitely weaker all it was was 50 resistance to disease yeah so they just got rid of the poison thing which was its main thing before but i don't see the point in balancing races in rpgs it's like it doesn't matter if one is more overpowered or nerfed and it's like it's kind of part of the fun everything because um if you look at um like the dark elves resistance now is 50 to 5 but it was 75 percent fire in morrowind i just correct with nords but i can't remember if nords are completely immune to frost or if it was just 75 percent but yeah they're completely immune to frost and they have a 50 resistance to shock like that makes a lot makes them a lot more hardier and metal sounding as like you know yeah it makes sense how they can all walk around bare chested in skyrim and for sure but you know anyway let's let's get on to the minotaurs all right minotaurs minotaurs man bulls or bull men the best beast race yes but uh explaining all right so they were um i really the food let's i'm gonna dismiss all of the later things that are sort of like oh the minotaurs were just a normal beast race because that's the more boring explanation the typical one is that the um famed mythological stories of alicia and mora house and pelinal and all that maura house was this sort of people interpret him differently as looking like a minotaur with wings or he's described as a winged man bull um but some people like to envision him as just a bull which i think is cool with wings but like in the pelinovich and stuff like that but anyways he um you know did the dirty with alicia they fell in love and uh they made a kid and that kid was belhaza um and uh he is the second emperor of the elysian empire that was founded with alicia and then uh there were plenty of either maura house kind of went away around doing like lots of other mating or they're all blah belhaz's children but there's basically he was supposed to be the first minotaur belhaza and then after that there were many more that followed and i really loved that in the early days the minotaurs were really intertwined with the um with the empire with the elysian empire there were staunch defenders of alicia and they were like kind of like these revered warriors which i really love the idea of it especially with the connections tomorrow house and stuff but it also gives you such an ancient feel like when you think like all those ancient societies that revealed cows and stuff and or aurochs or whatever or just basically these horned bulls because because of husbandry and stuff and what they that brought them but it's just it gives a more ancient feel to it and i just love the idea of these minotaurs being these staunch defenders of elysian empire back then but obviously as sort of marook came along and and stuff like that anti-elven sentiment they were treated like beasts later on but it's interesting that they instinctually seem to have this kind of connection to old elysian ruins where they actually kind of like congregate and stay around these areas and and it's like this sort of like on some deeply instinctual level it's almost like some connection back to belhazza and to their father mora house and stuff is this sort of like or alicia like they all have that kind of that uh blood whether diluted or not but i like that sort of thing it's it's similar to why i like the dreg is the idea is that there's you know they've degenerated in terms of intelligence but they still have this connection to their ancient past there's also the idea though that they may not have degenerated like i was i was having a think about it and i was thinking imagine okay we're all humans right we live in a society and there's a and there's a bunch of other like beast races there's elves there's this does that if we became the outcasts and then they sent us out to live into the wild for thousands of years we would degenerate into a pretty tribal state as well with no technology like our teachings and things would eventually like get watered down watered down watered down for a thousand years everything you know is when you see one of the other races they attack you and think that you're big and scary it i think it definitely is that because it is indicated more so in eso like if you kind of look uh at the minotaurs in oblivion they're kind of like big and goofy looking but the eso minotaurs the ones i prefer i think look much better and you see lots of they they wear armor they have weapons and also kind of smith and so on but you even have like um the minotaur dorm uh dom house the bloody horn who made a deal with i'm pretty sure that's the dread horn clan of richmond and so on and and sort of organized this whole like taking a folk wreath kind of thing like they are you know they're not dumb beasts they can they can conceive of of a plan to take over over a city and alliances and stuff like that and they have clans the other thing i also like is that the highest uh most powerful minotaurs called minotaur lords but i also like that minotaur lord like kind of thinking way back to the elysian empires are these minotaurs in high positions that it's kind of like a title that's passed down for from that kind of idea that's cool i never thought about it like that yeah 100 agree i mean if you just think about any group that gets exiled that severely is going to have their attitudes and their personality changed over time like there's nobody i'm pretty sure in elder scrolls blades too there's a minotaur around the arena area that you can actually talk to as well um that has conversation and you know minotaur shamans being there and so on indicates like you know a society a a you know a culture that has some sort of religious aspects to it and so on they're quite similar to orcs in in terms of their culture like you have a male with all the breeding rights you have shamans um you know for anyone to say their culture is primitive and that they're not an intelligent um based race would have to say the same about orcs in many respects yeah except they're they're not they're obviously viewed as like integrated into society and and whatnot so you know yeah absolutely but i just i just think they're such a i really like when you think back what the early elysian empire would have been like with like you can imagine alicia surrounded with a like you know royal guard of minotaurs or something like that um you know amongst her son and so on and and i i and the idea of having an a big minotaur with the the amulet of kings like belhauser and so on and then like it just it just feels like such an interesting like ancient place and there would have been a nobles and stuff who helped it like i don't know it's just such a cool place and it's all jungle too that would be so cool you've got to give it to alicia though she must have had a really good restoration mage at hand when she uh gave birth to belle haaser well they didn't born with hands yeah well i i even if they weren't i'd still say it's slightly more taxing oh yeah yeah but they're not just boring with horns like ripping out but yeah but i mean i mean to be honest like if if uh mauro house is this just sort of quite literally a bull with wings then even that could have been quite the sort of yeah i mean for sure i mean and that kind of would explain where the concept of the man bull comes from right like if you have a bull and a human and you fuse them with the lack of better words you get a man bull you know like if you have a man bull and a human what makes belaza different to more house i guess like um i also love that that domer house uh the big minotaur warlord who allied with the dreadhorden clan had these like magical wings going on which is kind of like a nod back to like maura house kind of feeling if you know what i mean like it's just it's just cool and i love i just i really love the idea of alicia and morehouse kind of being the center of their mythology this is a little headcanon stuff but like it's just it's just something that's distinct from the other groups because moro house i mean is not really talked about anymore in imperial mythology and so on it got kind of simplified and boring i feel like originally he was supposed to be but i guess not but you know i i like the idea as well when the the alids are warring against the elysians you've got more house the winged man ball representing kine and then you have umriel the unfettered who's kind of the leader of the other side says kind of the feathered versus unfettered yeah yeah to the wall yeah that's that's that's cool that's cool but i think we're ready to just the last the last thing i was just going to say is i love the quote we are ada more and change things through love we must take care lest we get more monsters on this earth if you do not desist she will take to you and you will transform all of syria if you do this which is kind of like so that's pelano's warning right yeah it's pelinal talking tomorrow house so that's kind of about alicia so it's kind of like the product of their thing like transforming all of syria it's just kind of an interesting sort of idea that the minotaurs like the very tangible like you you've changed the world kind of effects and i wonder if you know having the minotaurs there is what caused problems with the elysian order like back and forth and maybe helped the elysian order i don't know you know what i mean yeah it's hard to say because it almost seems like it didn't make a big impact but you can't know based on well i mean if the effect could do anything well i mean it did make a big impact in the way that their child became the new emperor and they started an empire it's kind of oh right sorry i'm more talking about how now minotaurs exist it's like okay oh yeah the minotaurs around as well yeah yeah um i'm i'm ready to talk about the slowed this has been a lauren podcast way longer than i thought yeah um slowed the slug-like beast folk living in the coral kingdoms of thrass these are i could safely say an evil race at least by our interpretation like they're they just don't have the same human mammalian sort of concerns it seems like it's rooted in in their even the way they treat their young and biology they have no empathy and they kill their children for soap it's yeah it's quite iniquitous but yeah i know it's not done with that mindset of like hahaha i'm so evil yeah it's just everything is for personal gain so they'll they'll honor laws and loyalties so long as it aids them the second it doesn't it's like yeah don't care anymore sure and they're they're really interesting um i like one of my favorite things about the sload who are really disgusting but i like how in all of their traditions and their myths and tales instead of focusing on some hero that you know does some big brave thing and takes big risks it's completely the opposite all of their heroes are like careful planners who are really diligent and play the long game and you know they're really methodical and all of their villains are the ones who are kind of hasty and that's why ultimately these slowed heroes win because they were careful calculated and planned yeah which i think is kind of how they perceive the races of tamriel is you know so the there's the story that the the after the what is the fashion plague came and wiped out half of the population of tamriel so as vengeance the humans gathered the all flags navy to go over and just mess up the coral kingdoms and that was god i need to get the exact date but it's a long time ago now it's like 1 200 or something in the first era first era yeah so it's been it's been a long time and i just imagine that you know as you just said michael the way they they're very methodical and they plan and plan and plan the amount of time that's passed since then is nothing for them they're still planning their ventures because they have civilizations underneath the water and there's even this idea that when thras was kind of sunk that that was part of their plan that they may have made a pact with like molag bal or something and as it did its whirlwind spiral down under the sea it was actually like a defense mechanism and not them being defeated and then since then you know it comes back and like they're also i do i do love just well before we leave the part about the mythology but the slowed language having no word for adventure and the closest equivalent is tragic disaster [Laughter] but uh but yeah so so the slowed like i mean they haven't i slowed a uh they're a funny one for me because i really really loved them in the morrowind concept art that never really made it and and i think i'm not sure if it's still in the law or if it's just mentioning stuff about them basically getting um hordes of slaves from the dunmer they would buy lots and lots of slaves from the dharma and then take them back to do their necromancy sort of things on them and so on but like there were these cool like concept arts caught um of like i think it was like grub lord or something and i had like this big sort of like mask and stuff on like this big sort of like it looks like something straight out of star wars like some sort of character well they had like as well you know so yeah like some rumors that they have airships carrying corpses from central to thrass which benefits them because they are super involved with necromancy they can use all magic but necromancy tends to be their area of expertise yeah and they have no problems doing it they have no no problems with anything as long as it helps them reach their goals basically zero moral concerns and the two thing like with the whole idea that they don't have like um good graspers they can't like grab things so using magic to like kind of naturally how like magic is so intertwined with them because it assists their very like physical functions even well apparently they can actually climb up walls and and surfaces like slugs like sticky like they stick to it and just you know but like i don't think we've seen any slow that don't use magic like they're all like they don't have weapons like conventional swords and stuff like that but i mean look at them they don't really they don't need them you know i mean go go check out go check out our video the fattest race and the older scrolls or do you know the fattest race in the elder that was a fun video that was a really fun video they also they the sload have uh well at least we don't know for sure but they seem to have a really strange um way of reproducing so they're believed to be hermaphrodites in their youth though the sexual organs seem to be absorbed by the time they're old enough to survive on land i've also heard some story like of them going into the water and almost leaving their genitals on land or something and then coming back later to get them there's this yeah there's some there's some weird weird thrash like the way it's like like thrash is this giant like what's described um are these like called atolls which are like these sort of like big beach kind of like they'll be like it's like a thin strip of beach but like almost a ring or something that but water kind of gets into the middle so there's like these shallow pools and stuff in between and that's where a lot of their breeding and and creating new um creatures are new slowed like baby slowed happens in there and um but it's interesting that they're like they all coexist in this kind of big pool but the slow that are lucky enough to survive or good enough i don't know but they get they get out but then they come back and then they just sort of like use the slowed soap and like you know make the babies into like soap and stuff like there's no care for it you know what i mean it's just the survival of the luckiest or fittest who ever gets out and then they just well and it's not just soap to be clean though the soap is used in there yeah like that's yeah that's super weird i just found the quote of um we do know however that the slot of thrust are hermaphrodites in their use in their youth and later reabsorb their so reabsorb their reproductive organs once they are old enough to move about on land um so that's really really strange i feel like it would be one of the most disgusting creepy slimy societies to visit you wouldn't want to touch anything there there they're also um they're also like a i mean atheist in the sense that the dwemer also like atheist or whatever they don't worship any gods or have any religious sort of reverence for these but they'll make pacts with daedra for their own benefit just as anyone else could but also there's the example of nagasta in the red guard game that is following the king of worms which is mana marco but this is because you know necromancy you know um and they'll trick they'll trick people as well there's that there's this idea that while they don't have emotions they can teach themselves to emote in the same way as the other races in order to kind of gain favor with them and to be more relatable while when really they're not there yeah and it's interesting too there is the so thras sunk and so on but there's also what you experience in the suburbs or the sea sload which kind of look a little bit different um and they were from under completely underwater their ulvor course which is their uh the home of the sea sload but they're known to be even more reclusive than their thrashing cousins so um and it's interesting that they've uh in addition to necromancy they have the skilled arts of alchemy shadow magic and mind magic i don't know what mine could just be an illusion could not mind well the thing with shadow maybe but shadow magic interestingly it's like a reference to the the stuff in shadow key um remember which is just it's something we don't you don't hear about much but it's cool that they're they're uh into that i also wonder though it depends how far like deep underneath the water they are but like can get pretty dark deep beneath the ocean i wonder how many like shadows there actually are because it kind of all just becomes darkness after a while i'm sure they could throw up a bunch of like mage light kind of orbs just throw them everywhere under the water but it's it's funny that when you conceptualize like underwater kingdoms you usually think of being able to see it clearly like some like little mermaid atlantis looking thing but instead like the reality is deep in the ocean it's really really dark like you know well they're called really reclusive but they spend a lot of time raiding the ship we're not raiding but attacking the shores of somerset as well you know and making they made relations with uh the maumer of pioneer and and whatnot so it's they don't seem terribly reclusive at least for like long stretches of time where they're attacking yeah yeah that's true and they do have like those the jagra these sort of like um crustaceany sort of soldiers and stuff that they use as well which also implies like more like yeah let's raid more let's attack more and and i mean they did create and not the cease load specifically but the ones of thrass did you know make a whole plague to whack about 50 of people yeah the thrust in plague that's it and they were like pretty yeah but they didn't have to do anything they could just send it on this way and just chill i wonder what their end game was there like what was the point yeah that's the weird thing is understanding their motivations yeah for for anyone but they're just not corpses for necromancy i don't know but i feel like they could get that already through the done with slavery or like the big corpses or you know what i mean like i mean look i'm plus if you make everyone a corpse you won't have any corpses for very long you've got to have living people to create the course yeah i don't know maybe they just wanted to just a little test a little experiment see how much damage they could do i don't know because it bit they were worried about overpopulation i think but they've got their own like i don't know man it feels like a yeah i don't know because they just it just bit them in the ass that's all that happened really like i mean one thing that's that's interesting that be interested to hear your opinions on is this idea of this great tower that the um the all flags navy saw when they attacked so here's a line about it our first view of the largest island was awe-inspiring a tower taller than any i've ever seen and made of blood red coral reached into the sky a terrible a terrible blue light flickered at its apex like a strange bud upon the tower's stalk and people have like theorized that this is some kind of portal to oblivion um which i'm not so sure about but there there's some interesting theories surrounding it sure that could have just been when they when i was talking about thrash sinking and that potentially being like part of the plan like it didn't actually sink right it could be like the tower flashes with this light and activates and then they just go see later right so they just kind of retracted it under the ocean rather than it actually being destroyed and sank is that what you're getting at yeah they did they all flags maybe did slaughter a whole bunch of them though like i was like for sure they took damage actually yeah yeah i don't know something it says here the blue light atop the coral tower began to pulse and bleed energy into the sky and it was just then and it started to quake and tremble and sink so it almost seems like they're like you know pressing their remote control and bringing their land under the ocean could it also be because they used magic or whatever to sync it right was what yeah or flags navy so what i'm saying is like that pulsing could be like the the life force kind of of the or the coral or whatever the magical constructor that helps it up and because that starts pulsing and so on it's about to like defunct and sync you know what i mean it could be but at the same time i don't know maybe i'm underplaying the power of tamrielic mortals but the idea that they actually have powerful magics to to sync it that way to me it seems almost more like a slowed ploy to be like oh no you you've outsmarted us but we're kind of just you know retreating essentially and that's it but you i don't really have any evidence to do this since risen sounds familiar theory yeah because so i mean that that works with the theory because if so then yeah frass has since risen again which is but does that that could also be in the pocket guide but that could also be like you know i'm all down for the the idea that it was intentional but um it could also be that they by thrash risen again like built it again like the tower yeah like yeah but i think what you're saying scott is actually the more accepted theory that they were just sunk and defeated i just wanted to provide some alternative facts the sload would want it to be the accepted theory wouldn't they yeah true i guess i i feel like i feel like threat like the slowed uh um they are criminally underused they they should have it would have been so cool to see them in morrowind um and like i don't know yeah like just a few of them yeah yeah yeah like the whole idea of i like them when they play up their interact because they they do this a lot with a lot of races outside of the playable ones it's like all the other races are just evil and attack you and the enemies you don't really see the civil interactions as much which would you know what i mean like oh the slowed enemy here it is it's like i'd love to see some more of the non-playable races in positions where you can interact with them as npcs and stuff like and i feel like that's fair like people wouldn't i mean at least i wouldn't expect to be able to play a slowed in elder scrolls vi but i would still like to see a slowed character yeah you know scroll six that's not just an enemy you can get some slug mechanics going on go up on the roof upside down start spell casting yeah i don't think they're that fast though who knows but yeah i agree i think they've been said to be slow kind of in the same way that it's in the name man yeah well in the same way as they're like even their whole like philosophy is slow and patient but that's why they kind of use like magic to to yeah essentially yeah and their way around well that's all i've got to say on the lesser known beast races do you two have anything else to add before we wrap this up no i think uh yeah i think we've hit a good stopping point it's gone on forever yeah well thanks everybody it's been fun even help us if we missed any yeah but thanks for watching and let us know in the comments what we missed and what you want to hear more about remembering the criteria that we want to kind of be like a lesser-known beast race not necessarily like a cursed thing you know does it breed does it lay eggs things like that that are really interesting but yeah thank you so much social media links are in the description and uh we look forward to nerding out with you all again very soon

Channel: FudgeMuppet

Views: 169,868

Keywords: skyrim, skyrim lore, elder scrolls, elder scrolls lore, fudgemuppet, elder scrolls podcast, elder scrolls beast races, sload, minoutaurs, dreugh, imga, lilmothiit

Id: BFgzIaAyVk8

Length: 92min 36sec (5556 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 04 2020