Are Dro-m'athra and wispmothers undead creatures?

Neirymn

Is there any mention in the lore about the Dro-m'athra and wispmothers being undead creatures for sure? I can't make up my mind...

In Skyrim, wispmothers encountered in the wild are affected by spells that only harm the undead, but they do not glow when using both detect life and detect undead spells. On the contrary, the Pale Lady respond to the detect life spell but is immune to spells that harm the undead like Vampire's Bane, etc. As the Pale Lady is also a wispmother but does not have the same weaknesses as the regular ones, this is really confusing. Are wispmothers in ESO affected by the Fighters Guild's passive Banish the Wicked?

And what about the Dro-m'athra? I just know that they are dark spirits but do we know what kind of spirits? Spirits like ghosts or spirits more like spriggans and thus not undead at all. Does Banish the Wicked passive work with them? If it does, that would mean they are undead creature, right?

LMar

Wispmothers are undead both in lore and game mechanics

Dromathra are not undead both in game mechanics or lore. They are "dark spirits". They appear to be closer to daedra as they are associated with Namira but in game mechanics wise they don't have the weaknesses of daedra

Edit: I went and killed a few wispmothers using only AoE but upon death I didn't get ultimate (with the Fighters Guild Passive) so not sure if they are considered undead in game mechanics. Using fire on them should also produce a stun effect (most seen with zombies!) but not sure I got that either. So.... perhaps not..

LMar

I went and killed a few wispmothers using only AoE but upon death I didn't get ultimate (with the Fighters Guild Passive) so not sure if they are considered undead in game mechanics. Using fire on them should also produce a stun effect (most seen with zombies!) but not sure I got that either. So.... perhaps not.. More testing required XD

I edited my first post to reflect this

Dracofyre

wispmother should be classified as wraiths and Dro-m'athra are dark spirits, sort of like "spectre", the shadow ghost version, to me i would call them as banshee like version.

Dro-m'athra seem to bound to some items or relics, if disturbed and they will wake up with vengeance or somehow pulled thru a gate by evil summoners and not returned.

spriggans are completely different, they are wood dryads which became corrupted. in one of ancient lore, there was druids, not related to forlorns who worship hag mothers. druids were all died out and no one to take care of spriggans to stay controlled, without druids to keep them in line, they get nasty and hostile.

starkerealm

LMar wrote: »

Wispmothers are indeed undead both in lore and game mechanics

Dromathra are not undead both in game mechanics or lore. They are "dark spirits". They appear to be closer to daedra as they are associated with Namira but in game mechanics wise they don't have the weaknesses of daedra

Yeah, Dro'm-athra are, to borrow a D&D term, outsiders. They aren't native to Nirn, and originate from somewhere outside the universe, but they're not actually Daedra, but that is the closest comparison. Sorta like the Vestige, actually. They're not actually a Daedra, but that is the closest comparison.

To be honest, they probably factor into something about where the Khajiit actually come from, that hasn't been fleshed out in detail yet.

EDIT

Tryxus

Aren't Dro-m'Athra regular Khajiit that listened too much to the Darkness and joined the Bent Dance, becoming corrupted and upon death are dragged down into the Den of Lorkhaj?

raj72616a

starkerealm wrote: »

LMar wrote: »

Wispmothers are indeed undead both in lore and game mechanics

Dromathra are not undead both in game mechanics or lore. They are "dark spirits". They appear to be closer to daedra as they are associated with Namira but in game mechanics wise they don't have the weaknesses of daedra

Yeah, Dro'm-athra are, to borrow a D&D term, outsiders. They aren't native to Nirn, and originate from somewhere outside the universe, but they're not actually Daedra, but that is the closest comparison. Sorta like the Vestige, actually. They're not actually a Daedra, but that is the closest comparison.

To be honest, they probably factor into something about where the Khajiit actually come from, that hasn't been fleshed out in detail yet.

EDIT

khajiit came from bosmer no?

starkerealm

raj72616a wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

LMar wrote: »

Wispmothers are indeed undead both in lore and game mechanics

Dromathra are not undead both in game mechanics or lore. They are "dark spirits". They appear to be closer to daedra as they are associated with Namira but in game mechanics wise they don't have the weaknesses of daedra

Yeah, Dro'm-athra are, to borrow a D&D term, outsiders. They aren't native to Nirn, and originate from somewhere outside the universe, but they're not actually Daedra, but that is the closest comparison. Sorta like the Vestige, actually. They're not actually a Daedra, but that is the closest comparison.

To be honest, they probably factor into something about where the Khajiit actually come from, that hasn't been fleshed out in detail yet.

EDIT

khajiit came from bosmer no?

No.

The Khajiit and Argonians are the last remaining native races on Tamriel. The Bosmer are, still, another variety of elves, who immigrated and then diverged into distinct races after reaching the continent. (Okay, technically, the Maomer never reached Tamriel, but same concept.) The Human races are all descended from either the Nedic colonists or the Yokudan (with the Redguard). There's an implication that there's some Akiviri blood going around as well, but no distinct race of them (there's actually a legitimate question of if there is a human Akiviri race, or what is going on there at all).

The Bretons are technically the descendants of both the Nedes and the Aldmer.

The Khajiit are sometimes refered to as "betmer," but the term itself is a misnomer, and really just translates to, "beast folk," not that they are actually another race of elves. This is further confused because at least two of the Khajiit breeds (the Ohmes and Ohmes-Raht) look elvish. However, Argonians and Khajiit are not able to interbreed with the other Tamerilic races (as I recall), while all of the elves and humans can.

WhiteCoatSyndrome

@starkerealm Sheen-In-Glade was mentioned in the Shivering Isles expansion as giving birth to a son, and the father was an Altmer IIRC.

starkerealm

WhiteCoatSyndrome wrote: »

@starkerealm Sheen-In-Glade was mentioned in the Shivering Isles expansion as giving birth to a son, and the father was an Altmer IIRC.

._.

*Looks at The Shivering Isles.*

*Looks back at @WhiteCoatSyndrome.*

Waitasecond, username is relevant.

o_o

starkerealm

In fairness to you, @WhiteCoatSyndrome, Racial Phylogeny has this to say:

It is less clear whether the Argonians and Khajiit are interfertile with both humans and elves. Though there have been many reports throughout the Eras of children from these unions, as well as stories of unions with daedra, there have been no well documented offspring.

Neirymn

Thanks everyone for your answers! I'm still a little confused.

LMar wrote: »

Wispmothers are indeed undead both in lore and game mechanics

Dromathra are not undead both in game mechanics or lore. They are "dark spirits". They appear to be closer to daedra as they are associated with Namira but in game mechanics wise they don't have the weaknesses of daedra

So wispmothers are undead in ESO game mechanics, fighters guild passives should be useful against them, right? I'm asking because I never tested it out myself, I've only tested it in Skyrim and it was a bit odd to see that regular wispmothers had the undead weaknesses and were not detectable with detect undead nor detect life spells but the Pale Lady, a named wispmother, didn't have those weaknesses and were detectable with the detect life spell. That should be a bug then?

Besides, in a book titled The Wispmother, it is said that they can be some sort of undead sorceress or something similar to Ice Wraiths: "elemental personifications of snow or mist". That's why I have some issues deciding what they truly are.

As for the Dro-m'Athra, we have so little informations in ESO about them, they didn't exist in previous TES games. What I find confusing is their ghostly look and ghost are spirits, undead creatures, so...

Sigma957

You could view the Dromathra as from another plane of existence similar to daedra,aedra etc While they may look like spectres,ghosts etc to us on this plane they are not from something that has died so don't have the same weakness as an undead.

starkerealm

Sigma957 wrote: »

You could view the Dromathra as from another plane of existence similar to daedra,aedra etc While they may look like spectres,ghosts etc to us on this plane they are not from something that has died so don't have the same weakness as an undead.

"Don't go to Sigma 957, strange things happen there."

I mean, the concept carries, anyway. The Dro-m'athra are something outside the normal frame of reference. Not undead, not daedra, not sure what they are, just fairly sure what they aren't.

Sigma957

starkerealm wrote: »

Sigma957 wrote: »

You could view the Dromathra as from another plane of existence similar to daedra,aedra etc While they may look like spectres,ghosts etc to us on this plane they are not from something that has died so don't have the same weakness as an undead.

"Don't go to Sigma 957, strange things happen there."

I mean, the concept carries, anyway. The Dro-m'athra are something outside the normal frame of reference. Not undead, not daedra, not sure what they are, just fairly sure what they aren't.

You get an awesome lol

LMar

senhavran wrote: »

So wispmothers are undead in ESO game mechanics, fighters guild passives should be useful against them, right?

Yes indeed. You can test to see if you gain more ultimate when you kill them if you have the relevant passive in the Fighters Guild line. Or if they take more fire damage

Tryxus

Found a lil smth regarding the Dro-m'Athra: https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Litter-Mates_of_Darkness

Judging by the events that occur at Maw of Lorkhaj, I think that the Dro-m'Athra really are former Khajiit corrupted by the darkness and becoming Bent Cats.

Neirymn

LMar wrote: »

I went and killed a few wispmothers using only AoE but upon death I didn't get ultimate (with the Fighters Guild Passive) so not sure if they are considered undead in game mechanics. Using fire on them should also produce a stun effect (most seen with zombies!) but not sure I got that either. So.... perhaps not.. More testing required XD

I edited my first post to reflect this

Thank you for testing this for me! We might never know what they truly are, with some vulnerable to spells that only harm the undead in Skyrim, but their wisps and shades immune to them as well as the Pale Lady. And now the Fighters Guild passive not working with them in ESO... Maybe Bethesda doesn't really know what to do with them either. They are spirits, that's for sure, but maybe not an undead type of spirit.

That being said, in The Elder Scrolls Legends the Wispmother was classified as an Undead card until they changed all the undead cards to more accurate types of undead like skeleton, vampire, mummy and spirit. Now she is labelled as a spirit.

Before:

Now:

WalksonGraves

Wispmothers are essentially banshees, they have always been undead (hence wisps entering corpses and raising the dead) so if they aren't classed as such thats a bug. Not surprising that they screwed up something that subtle I'm sure tons of npcs are miss classed.

TheNuminous1

I love this whole post.

This is why we need a lore section on the forums.

So many of us came to eso with a vast knowledge and love of this games universe.

Neirymn

WalksonGraves wrote: »

Wispmothers are essentially banshees, they have always been undead (hence wisps entering corpses and raising the dead) so if they aren't classed as such thats a bug. Not surprising that they screwed up something that subtle I'm sure tons of npcs are miss classed.

Necromancers raise the dead and aren't undead themselves, that could be the same for the Wispmother and her wisps, she could be a mist spirit with an undead look, just like the Ice Wraith is an ice spirit with a strange dead snake look... But I agree that we can't trust the game mechanics at 100%, there always has been a lot of bugs in the TES games. I think that to know for sure, we need to trust the lore and it's not quite clear on the matter.

ArchMikem

starkerealm wrote: »

Yeah, Dro'm-athra are, to borrow a D&D term, outsiders. They aren't native to Nirn, and originate from somewhere outside the universe, but they're not actually Daedra, but that is the closest comparison. Sorta like the Vestige, actually. They're not actually a Daedra, but that is the closest comparison.

To be honest, they probably factor into something about where the Khajiit actually come from, that hasn't been fleshed out in detail yet.

EDIT

The Khajiit were created from a Forest people living in the ancient Valenwood by one of the Divines back in the Dawn or Merethic Era, who's goal was to make a Race that shared the best traits from both Man and Beast.

Nirni birthed many children, the various human and mer races of Tamriel. However, one of Fadomai's children, Azurah, had also been given a gift by their mother. She was given permission to take one of Nirni's children, and reshape them to her own liking, so long as she made them the fastest, cleverest, and most beautiful of all creatures. Azurah chose a group of forest dwellers among Nirni's children, and from them, she formed the Khajiit.