Imperial and Breton are my most common races, but counting them up, I have more Imperials.

Dunmer. They're a bunch of jerks. "Go away, n'wah!" TES3 makes them into fantastically well-developed jerks, the Red Year knocks some of the stuffing out of them.

Followed by the Altmer, who are also a bunch of sanctimonious jerks, in the main.

Why, yes, I am the sort of person who usually likes the villain...

• Anthropomorphic animal Species are always more enticing than Humans or Elves.
• They're a Matriarchy. Clans/Tribes are made up of several tight knit families with a Female Clan Mother at the head.
• They're one of the oldest mainland Tamriel civilizations and were mentioned to have been more advanced than any settlement of Humans in the Dawn Era.
• Their numerous Kingdoms eventually united under a single cause and formed the Confederacy.
• They have several Sub-Species of varying forms that can be born from any other Sub-Species. Imagine an Alfiq giving birth to a Pahmar. It's possible.
• They're a bunch of adorable cuties.

I voted Argonian, but I like the Khajiit and Bretons too.

Alter will always be dearest to my heart as a terribly misunderstood and beautiful race, with beautiful culture and lands. But Dunmer and Bosmer are right there as well, all with equally incredible lore. I would choose Maormer too but sadly they aren't playable.

I don't know much about ES lore, but I just love khajiits, the way they talk, racist jokes, internet memes etc. Elsweyr was the first location I completely finished, even sidequests

TES does a decent job of making all their races somewhat original, even the ones which at first glance are absolutely sticking to the fantasy tropes, but I think the khajiit are the most original. I only know of 3 other series with cat people (and when I first played Morrowind I'd only seen 1 other) and none of them are anything like the khajiit. I'm fascinated by their history and culture, and I love the idea of all the different fur stocks working together (I'm happy we finally got to see more of them in ESO, but I wish they'd included all of them).

Bosmer are a close second, mainly for being such an inversion of the usual portrayal of wood elves. Whilst they're often territorial they're also usually more concerned with animals than plants (except as a way of providing homes for animals), almost certainly vegetarian or vegan, wouldn't kill except in extreme need etc. Then there's the bosmer who absolutely would kill and eat anything, including you, but divines help you if you damage a tree.

Ryuvain wrote: »

Beast races in design and lore.
How many games can you play as a lizard or cat? Animals>humans/elves.

Personally I very much dislike the "human body with animal head" way ESO does it. It feels very cheap.
At least in GW or WoW when you play a cat or cow or panda or walking tree you have a unique body/shape and unique animations. In ESo it's very hard to discern any race unless up close (well agreed: it's the tails).

Lore is another matter ofc. Most games hardly have any.

*

Disregarding passives and roles, what race do you most like playing as?

I love when my character is one of the tallest, so Altmer Nords and Orcs can also be a choice, but I like their faces much less than Altmer's faces.

What char do you like seeing on your screen and enjoy building, no matter how the race abilities will change?

Khajiit is the cutest

Which race lore is your favourite?

Argonian lore is amazing

In general "beast races" are imho what makes tes & eso games special. In your average cRPG you can play as a dude, elf, dwarf and sometimes orc. And that is it. There are not many games that allow to play anything different. So my 2 favourite races are Argonian & Khajiit.

But out of those two ? Definitely Argonians. They are probably the most "unique" race out of all playable races in tes games & eso. Not only they are the only reptilian race, but they also have probably the most unique culture & lore. I mean they can literally speak with "trees" (hist, I know it is not a tree, but it looks like one). Also they have a special bond / conection with it, that they can reinforce by consuming hist sap. For every other race - it would probably be deadly.

Argonians are also covered in a shadow of mystery. No one knows what is in the heart of black marsh. As far as I know it was not told in any piece of elder scrolls lore. We can only speculate. I like to imagine that center of black marsh is simply full of "un-destroyed" xanamer cities where Argonian culture thrive & prosper and is on a similar (if not higher) level of advancement as Altmers or Dunmer cities.

The Argonians we see, the ones outside of black marsh tend to value different things. Wealth & power is not their goal. And I think the reason for that is the most precious thing Argonians have. It is not said directly, but once you collect all the puzzles of the lore it becomes more & more obvious. When Argonian dies, its soul goes back to the Hist. We can see that in numerous quest in Shadowfen & Murkmire. Also Argonian eggs have to lay under hist tree before they hatch. Interrupting that may result in a dead hatchling or a damaged hatchling's mind. Almost as if that process was... transferring soul from the hist to a new body... It is also kinda confirmed through a dialogue in the Murkmire main quest finnale. I think that is the Argonian secret. The secret that multiple conquerors & inveadors tried to steal in multiple Black Marsh conquest attempts... And they all failed. The secret of true reincarnation and true "natural" immortality.

There are not many famous / infamous Argonians. No famous mages, kings, leaders etc. The most (in)famous as far as I can tell is a Black Marsh pirate. It is probably due to a fact that Argonians dont seek attention. But in the 4th era, during Oblivion crisis Argonians showed what they are capable off. With the help of the Hist, Argonians forced daedra to close oblivion gates. I mean imagine that...

...Lizards attacked back, through the Oblivion gates, they overrun Oblivion realms to the point that daedric lord's generals were like: "Man *** this, ball groups everywhere!" and were forced to close the gates from their side... I mean wow, that is quite stunnig...

The Hist felt threatend and well... You don't *** mess with a Hist ! LOL

Side effect of that was that after Oblivion crisis, Argonians went after Dunmers - the race / nation that treted them horibly, worse than animals and enslaved many of them (karma ?). Argonians managed to conquer a lot of Dunmer's lands, but at some point they "run out of" hist juice, as the power that hist gave to Argonians was meant to defend from daedra invasion, and was only temporary.
Actually, it would be quite interesting to see in next tes game. Just like Altmers were shown as "the bad guys" in Skyrim, imagine if Argonians were shown not as a victims of enslavement (as always), but as the "evil" conquerors...

This one likes all of them, but if a single race must be chosen, the choice is quite obvious, yes?