Why are the Maormer so pale?

illuminousflux

I just randomly started thinking about this today and was curious why a race known as the "Sea Elves" would have an extremely pale white skin tone?

Acrolas

White eyes. Semi-translucent colorless skin.

I like to think they lack any body pigment, and that any Maormer with colored hair had it dyed.

Pyandonea is said to be a sea jungle surrounded by impenetrable mist storms, so the lack of pigment wouldn't be a problem. For traveling, a number of tropical plant oils would work to protect the skin.

luen79rwb17_ESO

It's because they're like those salamanders that live inside caves. Or those fish from very deep in the sea.

SlayerSyrena

Well, the dolphin's belly is pale so that it blends with the light from the sky above. It provides a sort of camouflage from predators swimming below.

Not sure if that's why they are pale but it's the first thing that popped into my head.

jedtb16_ESO

they are all closet goths...

Totalitarian

Why would the Nords have pale skin? Considering that snow reflects ~90% of the light it receives. Well, it's because light skin reflects light too .

So, we're left with the Maormer. They obviously don't live near the poles of Nirn, and they live in an area probably comparable to Summerset, Grahtwood, and Khenarthi's Roost in in terms of climate. So it would make sense to have darker skin.

Then when we take into account the ancestry of the Maormer, we find out that they descended from the Aldmer. As it turns out, the Altmer have bred themselves into looking like the Aldmer, so we have a good picture at what the Aldmer looked like.

Obviously there is still a skin tone discrepancy that cannot be explained by environment or ancestry. So, then we must take into account more recent genetics. Not only with their blue-white skin, the Maormer also have white eyes. Perhaps I should point out that colorless eyes and very pale skin are signs of albinism. So, a solution to this problem would be that the Maormer are all (or mostly) albinos.

That would mean that the Maormer have poor vision with a limited lifetime due to exposure to intense light (Magnus in this case). Also, the Maormer would get sunburn constantly from UV exposure, and would develop skin cancer much more often than other mer.

Legoless

luen79rwb17_ESO wrote: »

It's because they're like those salamanders that live inside caves. Or those fish from very deep in the sea.

This is what I assumed as well. They live in lagoons, they're gonna be gross and translucent.

BigBragg

Ironically they are born in various shades of traditional Elves. Years at sea causes them to absorb large amounts of salt and they grow pale over time. Not unlike the the gaming community of Earth's early third millennia Anno Domini.

josefcifkaeb17_ESO

Totalitarian wrote: »

Why would the Nords have pale skin? Considering that snow reflects ~90% of the light it receives. Well, it's because light skin reflects light too .

They have pale skin because up north the sunglight hits the planet at a sharp angle instead of directly like near the equator, that means less light and uv radiation hits the people living there. Due to this and several other things, the winters are long and summer is short and cold, hence less sunlight over the year.

The body needs vitamin D to develop and function properly, we get vitamin D from the sun. White skin is an adaptation to compensate for the lack of sunlight, since white skin absorbs vitamin D more efficiently.