"Yes, the house Argo, as opposed to the field Argo." - lady Ervesa Neloren

Kassandra in Murkmire counts?

Sun-In-Shadow (from the Morrowind chapter) is also a fascinating character: born a slave but using her cunning to rise through the ranks of House Telvanni (in fact, there is some similarity between her and Cassandra, although the latter rose to power in Cyrodiil). I definitely think there is potential in such a storyline: an Argonian finding loopholes within the system rigged against them, and ascending to nobility.

That's precisely what OP was going for, though: "not high ranking Argonians within Argonian culture, but Argonians found in positions of wealth and power outside of it".

Cygemai_Hlervu wrote: »

All those nobles you've mentioned are not nobles within their traditional Argonian tribal societies, though, yes, they are some sorts of outside of Argonia. The Argonians have still been at their pre-feudal primitive communism level of socio-economic development. It is one of the most primitive societies in terms of socio-economic formations. Nobles usually step on the stage later, when economical basis changes and thus it urges the social structure to change too either to the next stage of a chattel slavery state or an early feudal one. So their maximum at this point is a first among equals instead of a noble.

I was about to say this until I saw your post.

Argonian society is a tribal one, has been like that for thousands of years, and will likely remain like that for many more. Societies in Tamriel do not appear to evolve like our real-world counterparts; they all seem to be stuck in either feudal or pre-feudal (tribal/clan-based) societies (which is good since I play TES for the medieval fantasy setting and wouldn't want things like guns, cannons, computers, etc, in the game).

Argonian nobles might exist in other regions of Tamriel, i.e. an Argonian was raised to nobility by the king or emperor of some realm, but within Black Marsh that isn't going to exist.

NOTE about Walks-Softly: Through the questline with him we discover that he is an ex-slave, thus a commoner, and not a noble (there was no point in time when he was ennobled). A commoner can dress in all the fineries they like but they are still commoners. Given that Walks-Softly was raised alongside a wealthy noble (who treated him like a friend/equal), it is possible that made a mark on his character, giving him a liking for fine things and resulting in him being more dandy than most, but as said before, that does not make him a noble.

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Friends-with-Moon

Yes, Argonians can happen to be nobles. Such titles are not common in tribes linked to Hist, though.

I found something interesting in TESV:Skyrim that relates to this.

Veezara wrote:

"Once, I was a Shadowscale. An assassin in service to the King of Black Marsh. Trained by the Dark Brotherhood since the day of my hatching. Ah, but that was a lifetime ago. Today, I am the last of my kind. My order is extinct. Now, I happily serve Astrid, and this Sanctuary. I am a trained killer, and once again have been given purpose. Life is good."

Apparently there is a "King of Black Marsh", whatever that means. He might just be speaking for a very big Hist and King is just a translation on his part so that non-Argonians can easily grasp the concept. Still, very interesting I think.