tetrapod's Lore Corner (3)
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The Lesser Races of Tamriel: An Excerpt
by Nomoius Plethon
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This passage is not comprehensive in the least, being a reduced miscellany of information that has been compiled from a collection of much more extensive works. These passages pertain to the beastfolk and other lesser races that can be found within the borders of the Third Empire and its peripheral regions, whether they be indigenous societies or those that have been introduced in some manner over the course of Tamrielic history. Some are considered to be 'civilized.' Others are not.
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Minotaurs
The Bull-Men of Cyrodiil
Informally called man-bulls or bull-men, the Minotaurs are a species of beastfolk that are native to the Imperial Province of Cyrodiil and have played a weighty part in its long and tumultuous history. They're uncommonly large and stocky beings with a humanoid torso and the head, legs, and tail of a bull. Their thick hides are covered in a shallow layer of bristly grey, red, or brown fur, and their foreheads are crowned with a pair of curved bovine horns. They sometimes wear heavy nose rings of steel or bronze.
Minotaurs are an excessively male species, with their females being a small minority of the total population. It's for this reason that their numbers increase slowly even in times of peace. The Minotaurs possess their own language, which they rarely allow outsiders to learn, and also speak Imperial Tamrielic as a lingua franca.
According to Cyrodiilic legend, all Minotaurs are descended from the holy union between Saint Alessia the Slave-Queen and Morihaus Breath-of-Kyne in the early First Era. Their son was called Belharza the Man-Bull, and he succeeded Alessia on the Ruby Throne following her death. He's believed to have been the sole progenitor of the Minotaur race and his descendants are closely associated with the Alessian Empire as a result.
However, this theory is sometimes considered mildly heretical and there are dissenting elements of modern scholarship (PGE1: Valenwood) that postulate the Minotaurs actually originated in the temperate jungles of Valenwood. According to this alternative hypothesis, they were evicted from their forested homeland by the arrival of the primeval Aldmer from their the Summerset Isles. But whatever the case might be, the truth of this matter has long since been lost to time.
Minotaurs flourished in Cyrodiil during the early First Era and were the most stalwart defenders of the Alessian Empire, providing the patrimony of their god-ancestor with countless loyal warriors of unmatchable skill and ferocity. But as all things do, this period of ascendancy gradually passed away with the rise of the prophet Marukh's followers to political preeminence in the form of the fanatical Alessian Order, who demonized the Minotaurs as profane abominations and drove them to the fringes of society.
And thus the Minotaurs were reduced to a rustic race of wood and dell, confined to the forested highlands and deserted heaths of Colovia and the Heartlands where they scratched out an austere living from the wilderness for many generations. It was during this time that they gained their undeserved but long-enduring reputation as cruel man-eaters who could track down any manner of prey by scent alone.
After the decline and eventual demise of the Alessian Order in the sixth century of the First Era, the Minotaurs slowly but steadily salvaged their former position in mainstream Cyrodiilic culture and returned to the fold of broader civilization. They never quite regained the elevated status they enjoyed during the Alessian Empire, but they still eventually succeeded in reintegrating into the Imperial population. Since then, the Minotaurs have been a common sight throughout Cyrodiil for much of the Second, Third, and Fourth Eras. They primarily dwell in the Colovian Highlands, the Great Forest, and the Weald, with smaller populations being scattered throughout the fertile floodplains and rice-fields of Nibenay. The cities of Chorrol and Kvatch boast the largest numbers of Minotaur inhabitants outside of the Imperial City.
In the Imperial City itself – the 'City of a Thousand Cults' – the Minotaurs notably supply the cults of Saint Alessia and Morihaus Breath-of-Kyne with disproportionately large numbers of adherents. Even in the modern era, they still haven't abandoned the ancient traditions and venerations of their people that have survived for thousands of years. They frequently make pilgrimages to old Alessian ruins in order to worship their ancestors and the spirit of the Empire, and the more pious among them will even choose to take up permanent residency in these otherwise-abandoned locations. Three of the more remarkable examples of Minotaur ruin-cities are Sancre Tor, Sardavar Leed, and Moranda. Under their tender ministrations, these overgrown mazes of weathered stone have been turned into veritable gardens of chiseled statuary, stout archways of white masonry, and magnificent colonnades.
As a race well-suited to war, the Minotaurs are a much more common sight in the ranks of the Imperial Legion than their otherwise diminutive population would suggest. Due to their imposing physical stature and innate talent with many forms of melee weaponry, they're often used as shock infantry and have an undeniable aptitude for siege warfare, both offensive and defensive. It was in this role that many Minotaurs gained renown in the Empire during the tribulations of the Great War, when ever-shifting lines of control across southern and central Cyrodiil resulted in four long years of grueling sieges and counter-sieges.
But other than for the purposes of military service, Minotaurs almost never willingly venture beyond the borders of the Imperial Province, which they consider to be the Holy Land of their race. For this reason, they're an exceedingly rare sight in Skyrim and other peripheral territories despite being a staple of everyday life in Cyrodiil.
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Centaurs
The Horse-Men of the West
Centuars are varyingly categorized as monsters, demi-humans, or beastfolk, but the truth of the matter is that no one is certain of their precise nature. Their heads and torsos closely resemble those of a Mer – albeit much more rugged, sun-kissed, and hairy than the norm – but their lower body is that of a longhaired horse, complete with swishing tails and odd-toed hooves. Their ears are noticeably pointed, their noses are flatter and broader than average, and they have a fondness for body paint of varying colors and designs.
A civilized race or perhaps something more, the Centaurs often refer to Men and Mer as 'mortals,' possibly hinting at some form of longevity. They communicate using their own native language, which is called Centaurian, and have a penchant for eloquent speech that contrasts heavily with their harsh features and semi-equine forms.
Like many other beastkin, the Centaurs are believed to have originated in Valenwood, where they once dwelt and possibly still dwell beneath towering leaf-laden boughs alongside Bosmer, Wood Orcs, the reclusive Imga, and others. At some point in unrecorded history, a portion of the Centaur nation departed from Valenwood and migrated northwards to the Iliac Bay where they proliferated throughout the coastlands of High Rock and northern Hammerfell – an area they still call home in the modern day. Their lifestyle is predominantly nomadic with widely-dispersed clans roaming freely across the hilly landscapes of northwestern Tamriel, subsisting off the land as their ancestors have always done and paying no heed to the baseless authority of governors and petty lords.
The Centaurs are noted as being unmatched in talent with the spear and bow, and according to many Imperial and Breton myths, there are few warriors who could ever hope to overcome them in honorable battle. However, Centaurs aren't usually aggressive towards the other races and only become hostile when outsiders have the temerity to intrude upon lands they regard as their own. They aren't merciless, but nor do they tolerate the presence of fools.
Centaurs are devoted adherents to the Old Ways of the Psijics, a belief system fundamentally characterized by quasi-Merish ancestor worship. The Centaurs' particular brand of familial veneration is extremely complex and multifaceted, and shares many similarities with the contemporary ideologies of the secretive Psijic Order. As the Psijics are predominantly of Altmer stock, it's unknown what course of events resulted in the Centaurs sharing their unique beliefs, and this lack of understanding has led to the formation of numerous theories regarding their racial origin. Some are completely outlandish and others marginally less so, among which are: the Centaurs are Altmer who were forever changed by Aedra, Daedra, or wild magic in a similar vein as the Dunmer; the Centaurs inhabited the isle of Artaeum before it was settled by the Psijics; or the Centaurs and the Psijics share some hitherto-unknown vital understanding of the Mundus that the other races of Tamriel haven't yet achieved.
Another shared similarity with the Psijic Order is that the Centaurs are masters of an obscure school of magic called Mysticism. They're skilled in the use of many cryptic techniques, up to and including the art of defensive spell reflections, the dispelling of magical or spiritual conditions, and perhaps most strangely, the poorly-understood power of instantaneous teleportation. These abilities are almost always associated with the Psijic Order in modern Tamriel, as they've fallen out of favor among the mages of the Third Empire following the dissolution of Mysticism as a distinct school of magic and its assimilation into other schools in the early Fourth Era.
In addition to the wandering clans of the Iliac Bay, a few outlying Centaur tribes may also be found in the mountainous wilderness of the Greater Reach. They migrated to the region in ancient times at the behest of their soothsayers and shamans, who were seeking the fulfillment of a quest they believed had been communicated to them by their ancestors. They were seeking out the 'Witch of Wire and String,' a being of exceedingly obscure legend of whom little is known and even less is understood. And despite the difficulties involved, eventually… they found her.
To this day, the Centaurs of the Reach are classified by Men and Mer as an unusually mysterious and esoteric subsect of their race, which is already plenty mysterious and esoteric to begin with. Their interactions with the other inhabitants of Skyrim, High Rock, and Hammerfell are limited in scope and frequency as they rarely venture forth from their high valleys and alpine tundras. But when they do, they occasionally accept suitors who wish to learn more of their Old Ways. They only take the most humble and open-minded as their students, and even then they unyieldingly refuse to divulge the deeper workings of their spells and philosophies to any who aren't fellow Centaurs.
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Riekr
The Greater Ice-Goblins
Not much is known for certain about the Riekr beyond their status as a subspecies of goblin and their relation to the 'Ice Tribes' as mentioned by some historians in the Second and Third Eras. The Riekr were once spread throughout all of Skyrim, western High Rock, and northwestern Hammerfell, but were driven to apparent extinction over the course of the Third Era by northern Tamriel's other denizens.
According to what few extant sources have survived to the present day, the Riekr were a species of blue-skinned goblins with hunched statures, white or silver hair, and large ears in the shape of a bat's wings. Although they were capable of using multiple different types of magic, they had an avowed preference for elemental ice spells. Both their mages and their chieftains wore antlered headdresses to denote their higher status, and the most powerful and influential of them reportedly ruled atop macabre thrones constructed from the bleached bones of their slain enemies. Their largest settlements and strongholds were located high in the treacherous Druadach mountains, where even the tenacious Nords and fearsome Reachmen had trouble trying to exterminate them.
The Riekr sustained themselves primarily by hunting, trapping, fishing, herding domesticated animals, and – in true goblin fashion – raiding the settlements of Men in the lowlands. Their culture was centered around the endless cycle of raids and retaliations that they perpetuated both among themselves and against their non-Riekr neighbors, who included the Nords, Bretons, Reachmen, and Orcs. The Nords believed they were minor scions of Mauloch and considered them to be vicious savages undeserving of Stuhn's mercy, little better than ravenous animals.
The Riekr had a strong affinity for brutally cold climates and maintained an unusually well-ordered society by the standards of goblins. Their civilization is believed to have been comprised of multiple social strata, from slaves and soldiers to priests and warlords. During the Third Era, they were formidable enough to pose a serious threat to some of Skyrim's largest and most well-defended cities, most notably the northern city of Dawnstar on the shore of the Sea of Ghosts. It was here that the power of the Riekr tribes was broken once and for all by the city's Imperial garrison, who annihilated their confederated host in a full-fledged battle and slew most of their chieftains in one fell swoop.
It's unknown in the present day if any living Riekr remain on mainland Tamriel. If they do, then it's been many generations since they last descended from their icy mountain fastnesses. Most people seem to think they've been wiped out for good. But then again, that's what they thought about the dragons too. So who can say for certain?
The Riekr may be no more, but in the aftermath of their extinction, their frozen haunts were claimed by another sort of creature, similar and yet fundamentally different. Lesser known and much more insidious, masters of cunning and hidden blades dripping with poison.
They have crept forth from beneath the earth through constricted caverns and pits of darkness that know no end, emerging with sightless eyes into the surface world under the wan light of the moons, slinking into the shadowy dusk where none may mark their passing. Their misshapen ears twitch at the softest of noises. Their pallid skin with the consistency of paper has never been burned by the sun's rays. Their heads are bald and entirely hairless. Their nostrils are slitted like those of a decomposing corpse. Their sinewy fingers are perfect for grasping at the throats of unexpecting prey. Their dull red eyes are coated in an unbroken layer of film, reduced to vestigial organs by the passage of time and a lack of stimuli.
And so, the once-formidable strongholds of the Riekr now lie ruinous and cold… but they are not empty. Hidden from the prying eyes of the overworlders, they're still occupied to this very day.
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Rieklings
The Ice-Goblins of Solstheim
In the Fourth Era, the presumably extinct Riekr are survived by their diminutive cousins called the Rieklings, a little-known clade of goblin-ken inhabiting one of the furthest corners of the known world – Solstheim, located in the Sea of Ghosts. The Rieklings are by far the northernmost branch of goblin-ken as defined by contemporary Imperial scholarship, but due to the secluded nature of their home island, very little is known about them beyond their resemblance to other goblins and their primitivity. The native Skaal of Solstheim believe that the Rieklings are descendants of the Snow Elves, the ancient foes of their ancestors, but this is generally accepted to be a folk-legend with little basis in fact.
Rieklings display noticeable physical, behavioral, and cultural similarities to the larger and more advanced Riekr. They have violet-blue skin, long pointed ears, prominent noses, and are extremely short in stature. They've been observed to mark themselves with white body paint and decoratively pierce their noses and brows using the bones of small animals. Riekling society is much less sophisticated than that of the Riekr, and while they do have priests and chieftains of their own, they almost never construct actual settlements or gather together in large numbers. Individual clan-groups usually take up residence in natural cave systems or abandoned Imperial mines where they can better defend themselves from the harsh elements, hostile wildlife, and rival Rieklings.
Most Rieklings are hunter-gatherers that subsist from scavenging for resources in the taiga forests and sheer-sided valleys of the Moesring Mountains. However, they've been known to domesticate one particular species of animal – the aggressive bristleback boar, which is found only on Solstheim. They raise the prickly beasts for their meat, their tusks, and for use by their warriors as mounts in times of strife. They're just as capable of goring a full-grown Man as they are trampling Rieklings from enemy tribes.
The frigid island of Solstheim has been the subject of ebbing and flowing waves of colonization from the Tamrielic mainland for much of the Third and Fourth Eras. First came the Nords, then the Empire, and then the Dunmer of Morrowind. The island was once a peripheral territory of Skyrim, but starting in 4E 16 it became a constituency of the Province of Morrowind in the aftermath of the Red Year. For as long as they've existed as a distinct race, the Rieklings have been locked in an eternal struggle with the local fauna, the indigenous Skaal, wealth-seeking Dunmer interlopers in search of exploitable resources, and whoever else dares to venture into the secluded vales and grottos they call home. And given the island's turbulent history, that state of affairs isn't likely to change anytime soon.
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Giants
The Long-Sundered Kindred of Men
The precise origins of the Giants have been a matter of intense debate for many centuries. A majority of scholars and historians believe that they originated on the frozen northern continent of Atmora, where they lived alongside the ancestors of the Nords long ago. This is supported by popular Nord folklore, in which the Giants are claimed to be their distant cousins. However, there are some who postulate that the Giants are actually one of the beastfolk races, much like the Khajiit, Argonians, Minotaurs, and others.
As their name implies, the Giants are a physically imposing race that typically stand somewhere between eleven and fifteen feet tall, with lanky but powerful limbs and disproportionately large hands and feet. Their skin is silvery-grey and is often marred by ornate patterns of deliberate scarring, while their braided and bearded hair is dark brown, silver, or white with advanced age. Their facial features are undoubtedly Mannish, as they lack the sharp cheekbones and slanted eyes of the Mer. The only exception to this rule is their ears, which are noticeably pointed. They speak their own language and rarely bother to learn the tongues of their neighbors.
Like many of Tamriel's lesser races, Giant society is organized around relatively small tribal groups that are typically familial in nature. They're nomadic and self-sufficient, with seasonal patterns of migration enabling them to gather different resources from different regions at different times of the year. Giants are expert pastoralists who sustain themselves by herding enormous brown-wooled pachyderms called mammoths, which provide them with both meat and milk in abundance. The latter is used to produce so-called mammoth cheese, a staple of Giant cuisine due to its high nutritional density. Their relationship with mammoths is cooperative rather than one-sided, and mammoths are known to charge, trample, and gore anyone who shows hostility to their Giant masters. In the same vein, most Giants are perfectly willing to defend their herds with their lives.
Giants might be habitual wanderers, but they periodically visit and maintain isolated burial sites scattered across the province of Skyrim with a zealous devotion. They erect massive menhirs of rock and bone to mark these locations as their own, beneath which they entomb deceased members of their tribes as well as the remains of their loyal mammoths. Very little is known about the religion of the Giants, though some people theorize that they worship the moons.
The Giants are an exceedingly old race and likely interacted with both the Dwemer and the Snow Elves in the early years of Skyrim's history. Some people think the widespread stories about the Dwemer actually being diminutive Dwarves had its origins in the Giants' first encounter with the Dwemer, who they affectionately called Dwarves because they seemed so short. This is probably a tall tale, but one can argue that every story has as least a little basis in fact.
Due to their alleged common origins and a fairly peaceable history, the vast majority of Nord legends paint the Giants in a positive light. For instance, these legends claim that when Talos Stormcrown first traveled from Atmora to mainland Tamriel in the late Second Era, he gave his farewells to a king who ruled over the frozen continent. This king of Atmora is described as a Giant in the literal sense, and Talos supposedly had to master the power of flight in order to converse with him eye-to-eye, from one lord to another as he rightly deserved. The Giant-King of Atmora granted Talos his blessings, which he carried with him all the way to Skyrim, Cyrodiil, and beyond.
However, the Giants of today have an increasingly complex relationship with Men. Their scattered grazing lands and tribal territories have been steadily encroached upon over the centuries, and although efforts have been undertaken by numerous Nord and Imperial benefactors to preserve their sovereignty, their numbers still continue to decline. They constantly suffer from the depredations of poachers seeking to harvest the tusks of their beloved mammoths, which can be worth exorbitant prices in certain markets due to the high value of ivory products.
Giants can sometimes be troublesome to Skyrim's sedentary populations, but they're protected under Imperial Law and are only hunted down by the authorities for committing especially grievous crimes. For the most part, Giants are an amiable race and prefer to be left alone. Herding mammoths is a solitary existence, but they don't seem to mind too much.
Unfortunately for them, there is only one constant in the Arena of Mundus and that is the inevitability of change. With the worsening of the Civil War in Skyrim after High King Torygg's bloody demise, it seems inevitable that the Giants will be drawn into the conflict at some point in the near future if they wish to preserve their way of life. Their days of self-imposed isolation might be drawing to a close whether they wish for it or not.
Common Giants are a distinct race from a handful of other species that are also sometimes called 'Giants.' Among these are the Frost Giants and the Ilyadi.
Frost Giants are sometimes considered to be cousins of the Giants, though of a less cunning and more fearsome disposition. Others say they're more closely related to trolls, to whom they admittedly bear a remarkable resemblance. Either way, they're incredibly rare and are mostly encountered on the island of Solstheim. They're probably extinct in mainland Tamriel much like the Riekr, and if that isn't the case, then their safe havens must be nigh inaccessible from the realms of Men and Mer for them to have remained hidden for so long.
The Ilyadi were a race of forest-dwelling Giants that once inhabited the distant Summerset Isles. They were reportedly taller than the tallest trees and their heads were covered in numerous eyes, allowing them to see in all directions and thus evade any form of ambush. They're sometimes counted among the ill-defined ranks of the Fae. In the Merethic Era, they attacked the crystal citadels and shimmering cities of the ancient Aldmer but were subsequently eradicated by a hero called High Lord Torinaan the Foresailor. He wiped out their entire race using powerful ancestral magicks and went on the found the grand city of Firsthold on the island of Auridon. He also annihilated the Gheatus and the Welwa, other beings or creatures that were indigenous to the Summerset Isles before the arrival of the Aldmer.
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These are but a meager handful of details about the lesser-known races that inhabit the provinces of the Third Empire. There are many other facts pertaining to many other races that I have not deigned to mention here for the purposes of brevity. If the esteemed reader desires greater knowledge of the myriad peoples and creatures with which we Men must share this world, then there are countless other works of both superior length and specificity that can be perused at your leisure. Take heart in the everlasting generosity of the Emperors, for the Imperial Library is open to all and none may be turned away from its gilded doors.