Which Mer Do You Prefer? POLL

Aristocles22 · January 2020

Dunmer - the Dark Elves of Morrowind

I said the Dunmer, not because I regularly play as them, but due to their superlatively well developed lore. The Bosmer's history is mostly just "Green Pact" this and "Green Lady needs to wed the Silvenar" that, along with "hey, we may be cute, but we can turn into werebeasts!"

The Dunmer have a long history, dating back to when they were a different kind of Mer altogether. While every group of Mer was once the Aldmer, only the Dunmer have changed from the Aldmer twice; first into the Chimer, and then into the Dunmer themselves. They have a unique culture in a sort of environment rarely touched on in fantasy. Everyone's seen the forest elves, the elves living in big cities, and the elves which are similar to mermaids. But elves living in the shadow of a volcano who grow food in ash and have a history of worshiping false 'living gods' in between bouts of daedra worship while growing giant ant-like insects who live in mines? That's different. And then there's the many unique institutions they have: the temple, the great houses (each of which have their own styles of architecture, ethical codes, clothing styles, etc), the Morag Tong, even the Camonna Tong.

PrayingSeraph · January 2020

Altmer - the High Elves of the Summerset Isles

Aristocles22 wrote: »

I said the Dunmer, not because I regularly play as them, but due to their superlatively well developed lore. The Bosmer's history is mostly just "Green Pact" this and "Green Lady needs to wed the Silvenar" that, along with "hey, we may be cute, but we can turn into werebeasts!"

The Dunmer have a long history, dating back to when they were a different kind of Mer altogether. While every group of Mer was once the Aldmer, only the Dunmer have changed from the Aldmer twice; first into the Chimer, and then into the Dunmer themselves. They have a unique culture in a sort of environment rarely touched on in fantasy. Everyone's seen the forest elves, the elves living in big cities, and the elves which are similar to mermaids. But elves living in the shadow of a volcano who grow food in ash and have a history of worshiping false 'living gods' in between bouts of daedra worship while growing giant ant-like insects who live in mines? That's different. And then there's the many unique institutions they have: the temple, the great houses (each of which have their own styles of architecture, ethical codes, clothing styles, etc), the Morag Tong, even the Camonna Tong.

One thing I absoluteky love about the Dunmer is that unlike so many "dark elves" of other series, the "dark" part only refers to their skin colour, not nature. Dunmer arent some evil race of darkness that worships some evil dark deity.

Sure their culture has flaws, but no more than the other races.

Cundu_Ertur · January 2020

Thevampirenight wrote: »

Mer aka going to use the classification as just elf and the word by the way translates to folk. All decendents of the Aldmeri elves of summerset given the fact khajiit and bosmer were once the same race. Had I done this poll Bosmer would likely be excluded or left handed elves. Because of the Bosmeri connection to khajiit. I would have put the Orsimer in the place of them. For the reasons listed. They are not Aldmer descendants even if the Altmer say they are. As the elder scrolls say its basically not a real thing just confusion from the dawn era when time wasn't around. All the Mer races are interesting especially the ones not around anymore. But I do think Orcs should be on the list.

Well Bosmer, Dunmer and Altmer might be consiered mer races by many, I personally classify Bosmer as Betmer and Orcs mer because of the lore connections. To the Bosmer to khajiiit and the Orcs to the Aldmer.

Yep, not a lot of people understand that the Bosmer are really just an Ohmes-only offshoot of Khajiit. Or, more accurately, that Khajiit and Bosmer both come from the same proto culture. That's why the term 'Betmer' exists.

DukeCybran · January 2020

Dunmer - the Dark Elves of Morrowind

Those high elves are a bit haughty, I think.

phwaap · January 2020

Altmer - the High Elves of the Summerset Isles

LukosCreyden wrote: »

The Forgotten Vale in the Dawnguard DLC is one of my favourite locations in literally ANY video game.

Totally agree. Touching the Sky is my single favorite journey in the game. Looked forward to it every time through.

Maybe they can work an earlier time in as a dungeon

Radiance · January 2020

Altmer - the High Elves of the Summerset Isles

BC My character in the Morrowind Console Game was a High Elf. I don't much care for their holier than thou Culture but I like magic and they're so statuesque and their architecture is beautiful and they live a long time and stuff...

Edited for redundant verbiage.

Cloudtrader · January 2020

You seriously didn't include a playable race and instead went with a bunch of dead races of elves?

Orsimer. Obviously.

OtarTheMad · January 2020

Falmer - the Snow Elves, later the Betrayed

The Ancient Falmer, or Snow Elves, are my favorite race. I just found it fascinating how a race that was kind of advanced, had a civilization that rivaled even the Altmer, could be turned into mindless, violent goblins.I first read about Falmer when Skyrim was released, intrigued by the enemy NPC I dug into the lore. Then Dawnguard came out and I got to see what they once were, it was great and I was hooked.

I also loved everything about the Forgotten Vale but I really wished that Bethesda opened up the lore more, adding in a few things like Fort Dawnguard was actually a Snow Elven fort destroyed and then rebuilt by Nords, etc. Here's to hoping that more is added to the lore of this race, ESO added some new things which was cool. (snow-cedar trees and the ruins under Fort Greenwall were nice)

I am not sure we will see much of the Falmer in this Greymoor chapter. They mentioned at the event that most of the Falmer stories are "ghost stories" but we might run into a few. I think we should honestly, they might be ghost stories and all that but Blackreach is kind of home to them and they have a good number, it'd be odd not to run into a few. I would also love a Snow Elven ruin to explore but I doubt that.

@LukosCreyden, I will check out that mod for sure. I still play Skyrim from time to time, so it'd be nice. I dabbled in modding myself but wasn't that good at it. I just added tiny things around Skyrim to make it feel like Snow Elves once lived in it. I also hope we get to see those other Snow Elves some day, my guess is they are probably at those other temples that Gelebor mentioned. Perfect places to rebuild since Nords forget about them.

Ajaxandriel · January 2020

Altmer - the High Elves of the Summerset Isles

Before the Summerset chapter I would have voted for Falmer because we knew almost as few about Altmer than about them
Now some of the list are too obscure to be on the top...

Falmer - indeed, I'd love to find out more about them in the Skyrim chapter.

Maormer - high potential of awesomeness but a bland display in the vanilla game.
It would be neat if they get a polynesian theme, tropical flowers, pearls, shells, colorful dresses... instead of the greyish viking stuff and the snakes-snakes-snakes-and-thats-all-folks gimmick.
The outfit style was finer in Summerset so let's hope!

Yokudan elves - we know nothing... no aesthetics, no cultural data, nothing... so it's hard to say

Aldmer - no data apart from thinking they were the same like Altmer

Dwemer - do we even know the tone of their skin in canon? some say blue, other say human-like or brass-ish

TigressCreed · January 2020

Altmer - the High Elves of the Summerset Isles

Voted Altmer because hot damn the males are to me the best looking male race. Sign me up!! 🙋‍♀️