All The New Khajiiti Furstocks, Do They Meet Expectations?

Recremen

I am frankly completely awestruck at ZOS's dedication to doing the different "furstocks" justice in this most recent expansion. We have literally never had this delivered in a TES game before, let alone so thoroughly and with so much variety within a single furstock. Absolutely stunning work, truly.

But with that said, how do the different furstocks stand up to expectations? Rather than linking primary source material as I usually like to do, I'm going to go off my memory for this post, since I've been imagining how these different forms appear for many years now and I feel that every player's individual expectations are going to be shaped by a personal reaction to whatever they first read or saw in a game, and that a bare-bones factual analysis doesn't do much justice to that experience.

Additionally, as we all know, each Khajiit furstock has a base form and a -raht form, which by my take is similar in shape to the base form, but larger. I will be presuming what each in-game depiction is meant to be as denoted by the title of that section. It does not appear to me, in my survey of Elsweyr so far, that every single one of the 16 forms, -rahts included, has been represented. This is fine, there is literally only so much time in the year and I never expected all 16 to be covered, but as such I'm going to be making assumptions about what is being shown based on my presuppositions and how the available labels match up to that.

Alfiq



Meets expectations. Always thought they were supposed to look like housecats, and here we are.

Alfiq-raht



Again, completely meets expectations. Larger hosuecats. Cray cray adorbs. Fancy outfits. Could not be better! I am of course assuming that the ones in this particular style are actually the -raht form and not just regular Alfiq, but it looks like it fits, so with this label it sits.

Dagi-raht



Again, making assumptions here because I truly don't know if this is regular Dagi or Dagi-raht. I always pictured the regular Dagi to be smaller than this, but this is 100% my expectation for Dagi-raht so yeah, could not be better.

Ohmes-raht



Based on statue description. Mmmmm yep that's about right! Ohmes were described as being much more elf-like and there we go, elf with a cat tail. Now Arena and Daggerfall can be canon, too!

Tojay



Statue description says Tojay, so hey, this is what those look like apparently! I can't really get a read on the height tbh so I can't say much on this. Also I don't think these were ever actually described, so hooray, breaking new lore ground! Maybe Tojay wear fancy hats as their defining trait?

Tojay-Raht



Again, don't know a description for these fellers and never had much in the way of expectations. These guys kiiiiiiind of remind me of the Really Big Monks from the new tutorial area because they're so long and spindly. But who knows, until we get more in the way of descriptions and self-referencing NPCs.

Suthay



According to statue label, this is a Suthay. Yeah, looks about right! I know the purists will say that it should be digitigrade bEcAuSe MoRrOwInD but honestly I'm more than happy to leave that fully retconned. That's not how bipedal legs work.

Suthay-Raht



Just making assumptions here, but I assume that PC and vanilla NPC characters are intended to be in Suthay-Raht height range. Of course, some may RP their character as being a different furstock, height, etc. (I myself always thought of Men'Do as like a 6'8" or so Cathay) but beyond such considerations this seems about right for Suthay-Raht given what we know from other games.

Cathay-Raht





First one for sure based on statue description, second one is my assumption. Really big dudes, are the Cathay-Raht! I mean like really big, just look at that! The sort of dude where at the end of a good date you have to go up on him. Absolutely meets expectations.

Senche

Could not find a depiction that I was sure about, since I didn't see any talking NPC Senche and the wild "Senche-lions" and others are, as far as I can tell and recall based on previous ESO lore tidbits, just wild animals which people confuse for the actual Khajiit furstock. My expectation here was that they'd be larger but otherwise similar in appearance to lions and tigers and jaguars and such, so even if we don't have NPC for them for sure, the expectation appears to be met just based on the confusingly-named wild counterparts.

Senche-raht



*** boy, look at these bruisers! On the one hand, I always expected based on descriptions for them to be a lot bigger and have more elephant-shaped bodies (only, you know, still cats, and therefore way more terrifying), but I also heard there was a description of them in one of the novels where they're more gorilla-proportioned? Whatever, to hell with it, the way they look in ESO is AMAZING. Meets expectations for giant talking quadripedal war cat, and is at worst a lateral move in terms of what I initially imagined.

Pahmar

No known depiction. Lore says they're supposed to look like tigers, so I imagine another quadripedal form, midway in size between the Alfiq and Senche furstocks.

Pahmar-raht



Yikes. So apparently there's an NPC you can meet (haven't seen him myself yet) named Sharjo who says he's a Pahmar-raht. Here is, unfortunately, my first and only disappointment, as I was expecting another quadripedal form and not just Second Cathay-raht. Really not the worst thing in the world, though, since we never had much lore to go on for them.

__________________________________________________________________________________________

So yeah, with pretty much just a single exception, this was exactly what I've always pictured! What an amazing era for TES lore! No other game in the whole series was able and/or willing to get all these different furstocks on screen, so this is an absolute triumph! Especially since some people were worried closer to the launch of the game that the whole "furstock" thing was just going to be glossed over and retconned fully. Instead, all of our hopes and wishes have been fully validated and expanded upon, so HUGE kudos to the ZOS team for their vision and execution!!!

What do you all think? Did they hit the nail on the head? Did they knock it completely out of the park? Or did they step on your fragile toes by getting something slightly off your elaborately-created if factually-unfounded headcanon? Let loose your feelings!

max_only

I had no expectations and I don’t hate furries. No interest. I’m happy for you though.

Recremen

Nearly Perfect! A couple minor discrepancies from expectations but overall outstanding

max_only wrote: »

I had no expectations and I don’t hate furries. No interest. I’m happy for you though.

I knew I forgot something, looks like it was that I forgot to put in a "no opinion" option. T_T

Aliyavana

I was amazed by a certain person's appearance.

Sheogorath as an Alfiq is amazing.

Shanjijri

You got an Awesome for all those explainations. Well done!

max_only

The lack of spoiler tag is interesting isn’t it.

Resolved. Ty.

Recremen

Nearly Perfect! A couple minor discrepancies from expectations but overall outstanding

max_only wrote: »

The lack of spoiler tag is interesting isn’t it.

Yeah hold on, let me just put a spoiler tag on things that are viewable literally by just walking into the first town without having to do quests.

???

For real though, spoilers are for like story things, not for knowing that different furstocks of Khajiit exist, which ZOS has been showing off for several actual months. Unless you're talking about @Aliyavana 's post, on which case yeah, please put a spoiler tag there.

Darkstorne

Nearly Perfect! A couple minor discrepancies from expectations but overall outstanding

Great post I agree it’s mostly perfect. And with the dev time they have for annual Chapters, even more impressive.

Aren’t the Tojay jungle cats? I’ll have to UESP it, but I always thought they were Tenmar jungle tree top cats, hence not seen in Anequina beyond statues. Climbing about up high. Probably sleeping in branches in ways that defy the rules of comfyness...

max_only

Recremen wrote: »

max_only wrote: »

The lack of spoiler tag is interesting isn’t it.

Yeah hold on, let me just put a spoiler tag on things that are viewable literally by just walking into the first town without having to do quests.

???

For real though, spoilers are for like story things, not for knowing that different furstocks of Khajiit exist, which ZOS has been showing off for several actual months. Unless you're talking about @Aliyavana 's post, on which case yeah, please put a spoiler tag there.

Not you sorry. My post was meant to go right beneath Aliyavana’s picture.

Aliyavana

max_only wrote: »

Recremen wrote: »

max_only wrote: »

The lack of spoiler tag is interesting isn’t it.

Yeah hold on, let me just put a spoiler tag on things that are viewable literally by just walking into the first town without having to do quests.

???

For real though, spoilers are for like story things, not for knowing that different furstocks of Khajiit exist, which ZOS has been showing off for several actual months. Unless you're talking about @Aliyavana 's post, on which case yeah, please put a spoiler tag there.

Not you sorry. My post was meant to go right beneath Aliyavana’s picture.

I apoligize, I was excited to post it that I forgot to put the spoiler

Aliyavana

Ive documented alfiq, dagi, dagi-raht, alfiq, sencha-raht, cathay, cathay-raht, pahmer-raht and im curious if you guys have gotten any further verbal confirmation on other furstocks. I know statue is labeled as an ohmes.

Robo_Hobo

Nearly Perfect! A couple minor discrepancies from expectations but overall outstanding

The furstocks have been my most anticipated aspect of this Chapter, ever since it was first announced. All in all I'm very happy with how they turned out, not everything was as I was expecting but in some cases it was better than I had imagined. I wasn't expecting Alfiq to have new models and surely wasn't expecting them to be as detailed as they are, and with all sorts of different clothes too. Even the Dagi-raht and Pahmar-raht have unique models that you can tell apart from the standard Khajiit just by facial structure alone.

Despite the TES: Legends Pahmar-raht card I was holding out on hopes that Pahmar/Pahmar-raht would still be quadrupedal but I've made my peace with it. At first I though those tall Khajiit were Cathay-raht until coming across the group of Khajiit that confirmed the names of all of the different forms.

I am happy that it was confirmed that the standard Khajiit are Cathay/Cathay-raht (Via dialogue where a standard Khajiit calls themself Cathay-raht - and another standard Khajiit is called Cathay by a different Khajiit). I wasn't expecting our characters to possibly be Cathay-raht, only Cathay, but I suppose there's still some ambiguity there since the height difference doesn't seem too much. Pahmar-raht fill the Cathay-raht role nicely even if I was hoping for the quadrupeds.

Also, that Suthay statue is digitigrade. It's hard to tell from the front but if you look at it up close from the side you can tell - so they are indeed going with the TES3 Morrowind interpretation of Suthay/Suthay-raht it looks like. I'm happy with this because it's another layer of something to differentiate between Cathays and Suthays besides a small difference in height. Also I guess Tojay/Tojay-raht are digitigrade too, again its a bit hard to tell with the Tojay statue unless you look close, but the Tojay-raht statue is pretty prevalent.

Other thoughts:

-Ohmes-raht statue is nice, glad to see they're committing to the human-face instead of backing out. Them hiding the ears is a bit amusing if a little disappointing, I've always expected they had elven ears since Ohmes are said to be nearly identical to Bosmer, but I guess a lot of people expect cat ears like typical cat-people in certain franchises.

-Dagi-raht, I like the touch with the side-manes, they also have pointier ears and a little different facial structure. They're a bit taller than I expected but that's okay.

-Senche-raht, not as big as first mentioned in the Booksellers Interview, I'm okay with this because I can imagine the difficulties of including them in much content if they were really as big as 2 Altmer. One thing I think could be improved upon is more variety of fur patterns for them, most of them all seem like they're identical to the Senche-raht mount, save a couple. Hopefully this will change over time.

Ravena

Pretty cool. Wish we got the other forms of the Argonians in Murkmire.

We've seen the Nagas, and the Behemoths. Supposedly there is also a very thin-snake like type of Argonian, and a WINGED one.

Flying Argonians would have been amazing.

Bouldercleave

Nearly Perfect! A couple minor discrepancies from expectations but overall outstanding

I have to say that even though I'm not too enthusiastic about non humanoid races, they did the Khajit right.

ArchMikem

The sort of dude where at the end of a good date you have to go up on him.

Bruh.

Recremen

Nearly Perfect! A couple minor discrepancies from expectations but overall outstanding

Robo_Hobo wrote: »

The furstocks have been my most anticipated aspect of this Chapter, ever since it was first announced. All in all I'm very happy with how they turned out, not everything was as I was expecting but in some cases it was better than I had imagined. I wasn't expecting Alfiq to have new models and surely wasn't expecting them to be as detailed as they are, and with all sorts of different clothes too. Even the Dagi-raht and Pahmar-raht have unique models that you can tell apart from the standard Khajiit just by facial structure alone.

Despite the TES: Legends Pahmar-raht card I was holding out on hopes that Pahmar/Pahmar-raht would still be quadrupedal but I've made my peace with it. At first I though those tall Khajiit were Cathay-raht until coming across the group of Khajiit that confirmed the names of all of the different forms.

I am happy that it was confirmed that the standard Khajiit are Cathay/Cathay-raht (Via dialogue where a standard Khajiit calls themself Cathay-raht - and another standard Khajiit is called Cathay by a different Khajiit). I wasn't expecting our characters to possibly be Cathay-raht, only Cathay, but I suppose there's still some ambiguity there since the height difference doesn't seem too much. Pahmar-raht fill the Cathay-raht role nicely even if I was hoping for the quadrupeds.

Also, that Suthay statue is digitigrade. It's hard to tell from the front but if you look at it up close from the side you can tell - so they are indeed going with the TES3 Morrowind interpretation of Suthay/Suthay-raht it looks like. I'm happy with this because it's another layer of something to differentiate between Cathays and Suthays besides a small difference in height. Also I guess Tojay/Tojay-raht are digitigrade too, again its a bit hard to tell with the Tojay statue unless you look close, but the Tojay-raht statue is pretty prevalent.

Other thoughts:

-Ohmes-raht statue is nice, glad to see they're committing to the human-face instead of backing out. Them hiding the ears is a bit amusing if a little disappointing, I've always expected they had elven ears since Ohmes are said to be nearly identical to Bosmer, but I guess a lot of people expect cat ears like typical cat-people in certain franchises.

-Dagi-raht, I like the touch with the side-manes, they also have pointier ears and a little different facial structure. They're a bit taller than I expected but that's okay.

-Senche-raht, not as big as first mentioned in the Booksellers Interview, I'm okay with this because I can imagine the difficulties of including them in much content if they were really as big as 2 Altmer. One thing I think could be improved upon is more variety of fur patterns for them, most of them all seem like they're identical to the Senche-raht mount, save a couple. Hopefully this will change over time.

Are you sure Toay are digitigrade and don't just have big feet to go with their spindlyness? And interesting about the Cathay-raht, that was... unexpected. I guess I'll have to do some more exploring and find such things. Wherever things land that's the new canon and I'll have to adjust/retcon my own understanding as needed.

Minyassa

I was rather disappointed with the lack of live representation of the digitigrade breeds, because humanoid feet are so inelegant and unwieldy. But the digitigrade statues are attractive.

Alfiq are freaking ADORABLE. I was very startled but pleased to meet one speaking aloud, because while that is against the lore that I myself have read (though I have not read all the lore everywhere) it was FREAKING ADORABLE. Also seeing an Alfiq sit up and applaud with their front paws was FREAKING ADORABLE.

I would not do well as a non-Khajiit tourist in Elsweyr. I am very sure I would offend numerous people squeeing at them and their kin.

Aliyavana

Minyassa wrote: »

I was rather disappointed with the lack of live representation of the digitigrade breeds, because humanoid feet are so inelegant and unwieldy. But the digitigrade statues are attractive.

Alfiq are freaking ADORABLE. I was very startled but pleased to meet one speaking aloud, because while that is against the lore that I myself have read (though I have not read all the lore everywhere) it was FREAKING ADORABLE. Also seeing an Alfiq sit up and applaud with their front paws was FREAKING ADORABLE.

I would not do well as a non-Khajiit tourist in Elsweyr. I am very sure I would offend numerous people squeeing at them and their kin.

we also got a lore explaination for the misconception of alfiq being labeled as unable to talk

Imperial_Voice

Abysmal! Horrid!! My most secret dreams lay shattered on the flagstones! My headcanons are dashed upon the rock of ZOS's ineptitude! Oh lamentation! Oh darkest day!

I just wanted to pick this one

ArchMikem

Minyassa wrote: »

I was rather disappointed with the lack of live representation of the digitigrade breeds, because humanoid feet are so inelegant and unwieldy. But the digitigrade statues are attractive.

SOMEONE WHO GETS ME

Alfiq are freaking ADORABLE. I was very startled but pleased to meet one speaking aloud, because while that is against the lore that I myself have read (though I have not read all the lore everywhere) it was FREAKING ADORABLE.

I believed just the regular Alfiq who were akin to domestic cats were the ones that couldn't talk, but the Alfiq-Raht were able.

NotaDaedraWorshipper

Minyassa wrote: »

I would not do well as a non-Khajiit tourist in Elsweyr. I am very sure I would offend numerous people squeeing at them and their kin.

Same here. I'd likely start coo silly and make ridiculous faces towards an Alfiq-Raht, then do a backflip of pure surprise when it talked to me and asked me to stop.

Aliyavana

I will pet all the floofers

Seleval

Nearly Perfect! A couple minor discrepancies from expectations but overall outstanding

I love all of your comments, especially the ones for the big cat dudes.

Im looking forward to seeing more senche-rath mounts

Would have loved if they would snarkily talk to you at times a la "im not going there. No. Nonono." "Really? Through the lava?"

But i love how bulky they look!

Arciris

Nearly Perfect! A couple minor discrepancies from expectations but overall outstanding

The only thing missing is an adjustment to the sliders in Character Creation to enable a wider variety for RP purposes.

A size slider from the tinniest Bosmer size available up to the tallest Nord/Altmer (not sure which race is tallest) is all it takes.
This should be fairly easy to do as it doesn't mess up character hitboxes since those sizes already exist and are accounted for in game code.

Iskiab

Need an option for like khajit but have never heard of a furstock before this thread.

Devanear

Seleval wrote: »

I love all of your comments, especially the ones for the big cat dudes.

Im looking forward to seeing more senche-rath mounts

Would have loved if they would snarkily talk to you at times a la "im not going there. No. Nonono." "Really? Through the lava?"

But i love how bulky they look!

I want an Alfiq sidekick. Please ZoS, I will give u all my monies for an alfiq pet....I mean, sidekick

@Recremen Too bad this poll doesn't have an "Other" option, I'm new to all this so I didn't have expectations, but your post taught me a few things. I love it

Aztlan

Nearly Perfect! A couple minor discrepancies from expectations but overall outstanding

Love it! You have got to get into Sunspire to see the all cats in the temple. 😺