Template talk:Lore Races

Dragons

Am I missing something? Is there a reason Dragons are being listed as a race? --GK^talk2me 23:43, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

They are intelligent creatures capable of speech according to Lore:Dragons, also according to King Edward, Part XI (Yes I know that lore wise King Edward is roughly as close to being fan fiction as it can get) dragons are capable of setting up settlements. Lore-wise dragons have always been in a precarious position but it seems clear to me that they can be considered to be an intelligent race. --AKB ^{Talk Cont Mail} 00:04, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

As the person who made the edit, I'd just like to say that my reasoning was basically the same as AKB's explanation. Legoless 16:08, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure about this. I don't think King Edward can be used as a source - it's fiction, and not even historical fiction like the 2920 series. Yes, dragons have their own alphabet and yes they can speak... but I don't think that qualifies them. Maybe Skyrim will give us more information. rpeh •T•C•E• 16:33, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Hist and Um-Hist

Why are they put into this template? I find them to be more a type of flora than a race and thus, in my mind, should be categorized as such. --Ad intellige ^(talk) 17:58, 12 July 2013 (GMT)

In terms of lore, they are a distinct, sentient race. Jeancey (talk) 18:01, 12 July 2013 (GMT)

Then shouldn't we put them on the races page along with adding a trail saying they are a race? --Ad intellige ^(talk) 18:05, 12 July 2013 (GMT)

Probably, but most people look for them under flora. Let's wait for more people to weigh in on it (I didn't add them in the first place, so maybe there's a good reason to have them on the template but placed under flora). Jeancey (talk) 18:08, 12 July 2013 (GMT)

I was suggesting that we put them on the races page and give them a race trail along with keeping them on the flora page and keeping the current trail, if possible. --Ad intellige ^(talk) 18:14, 12 July 2013 (GMT)

Hmmm, I'm not sure whether that would actually work... all the lore trails are added via templates (or should be, the templates exist), so I'm not sure what happens when two templates are on a page.... Jeancey (talk) 18:16, 12 July 2013 (GMT)

I tested it in userspace and it appears that with two trail templates only the last one will actually appear on the page. This can be seen here. I think we should put it on the races page and put the races template on their pages while keeping them with the flora trail and putting them in both categories. --Ad intellige ^(talk) 18:23, 12 July 2013 (GMT)

{{Trail}} actually works differently than {{Lore People Trail}} or {{Lore History Trail}} (I think). So the lore trail templates might allow for more than one template on a page. Jeancey (talk) 18:26, 12 July 2013 (GMT)

You can play around with that in my sandbox to try to make that work. I think that while they might work differently they also have far different layouts that would not make sense on a page, IMO. --Ad intellige ^(talk) 18:32, 12 July 2013 (GMT)

Bird People, Rat People, and Nereid Placement

Should Bird People (and to a lesser extent, rat and canine beastfolk) really be presented on this list of verifiable races of the Elder Scrolls? Every other race listed here verifiably exists or existed, while Bird People are mythical beings from a poorly translated epic, and there is no real evidence for having ever existed beyond said epic. Rat and canine people from akavir have a similar issue of them only being mentioned in folktales by pirates. Wouldn't it be best to remove them from this template?

Also, this is unrelated, but Nereids are water spirits, aren't they? Wouldn't they fall more in line with spriggans, not the various beastfolk? Jacksol (talk) 01:15, 5 May 2020 (GMT)

Bird Men should be removed from the Navbox as the source is a recounting of another source, which in of itself is very old dating back to the Merethic era and has claims that Orcs were on Tamriel that early (which isn't inherently false, but does imply apocryphal/fantasy info). The Bird Men article itself should stay generally the same and remain on Lore:Races, but not on the Navbox. Rat and Canine beastfolk sources are slightly more contemporary, and considering how little info there is on Akavir, it should stay on the Navbox because it tells us more about the already very few races from Akavir.

Nereids are complicated because they are relatively new to the franchise and as far as I can tell are described as "Water sprites", which would place them closest to Faerie (which I am hesitant to consider a major racial group), but they also have a great many fish-like features, which is more in line with Beastfolk. Personally I don't know where Nereids fit and I guess it would probably be best to leave them as is, but in any case they stay since Nereids are more than intelligent enough to be considered a race. The Rim of the Sky (talk) 01:55, 5 May 2020 (GMT)

An anonymous editor restored Bird Men to the list and I tend to agree with that. Unreliable narrator is a trope at this stage in TES lore and can be applied to almost every source. There is nothing inherently bad about Father of the Niben that should disqualify it from this list; this is simply a template for navigation, and readers can navigate to the page and decide for themselves what to believe.

As for Nereids, I actually disagree with their inclusion under Beastfolk since they are immortal water spirits (see Halcyon Lake or Arx Corinium). I have moved them under Other for now, but wouldn't be opposed to seeing them under et'Ada or even removed entirely. —Legoless (talk) 11:06, 19 May 2020 (GMT)

I don't think Bird Men should be present.... they have a single source, and there are dozens of other "races" that we could continuously add, but that doesn't make them particularly useful... I think we should remove it from the navbox unless there is a particular consensus to add them in (there seemed to be a consensus to remove them, though some of that support was not expressed on wiki). Jeancey (talk) 17:29, 19 May 2020 (GMT)

What about a "Rumored" or "Not in Game" entry under the "Other" section that links to a list page or category? If it's a page, it could maybe provide links or text details with references. That would satisfy both the need for inclusion as well as the need not to clutter things up. The one drawback I can see to that is that races that would appear to fit into an existing category like "Man" or "Mer" wouldn't be found there unless we duplicate the link. – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 04:03, 20 May 2020 (GMT)

While well-meaning, adding a new section just for races that have yet to appear would complicate things heavily. Lefthanded elves for examples would be moved and the Akaviri section (besides arguably Tsaesci) would be gone entirely. Maybe italicize unseen races? I dunno The Rim of the Sky (talk) 06:27, 20 May 2020 (GMT)

These race pages exist on the wiki and therefore need to be in the navbox. Whether they have individual merit is a question for their specific talk pages I would think. —Legoless (talk) 07:18, 20 May 2020 (GMT)

You can always change the context of the navbox. Name it "Prominent Races in the Elder Scrolls" (or something to that effect) and you could remove all the rumored or single-source races. They would still exist on Lore:Races, of course. --Jimeee (talk) 08:56, 20 May 2020 (GMT)

Sure, but then we get into issues of prominence. Are Spiderkith really that prominent? Seems like this template would just degrade into listing the 9 playable races if that were the approach. —⁠Legoless (talk) 10:07, 20 May 2020 (GMT)

I mean, ultimately the navbox is a navigational tool to help readers find stuff and not an encyclopedic tool to list everything comprehensively. It's down to what works best for regular readers. I can't tell you if these giant navboxes we have at the bottom of many pages are helpful to the majority of readers. I know we get value out of them - but we're not the target group. --Jimeee (talk) 10:14, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

The issue isn’t necessarily prominence, it’s that it presents them as a verifiable race once found in Typo. There’s nothing that really speaks of their existence aside from a questionable epic written entirely in another language, whereas Spiderkith definitely exist. This is presented as a factual list of races in the Elder Scrolls, yet Bird People are the furthest thing from factual. Listing them here gives them undue weight to readers who go through it.

As a compromise, what about a box for “unconfirmed races”, which can have races like Rat/Dog People and Bird People within?Jacksol (talk) 15:34, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

Sounds okay to me. —⁠Legoless (talk) 16:42, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

Faerie subsection?

I think Faeries could be grouped into a subsection like Goblin-ken. Either that or they should all be consolidated under the current catch-all Faerie item. As of right now Spriggans, Nereids, and Nymphs are spilling over but there isn't much consistency. Mindtrait0r (talk) 14:10, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

I think it was decided that Nymphs aren't actually faeries and that was speculation, Nereids were removed to, and heck spriggans being on the list isn't proof they're actually fairies either, they've just been called "fairykin" once. None of the actual confirmed fairies are quite notable enough. And Nixads show that not all fairies are neccesarily races.

Tarponpet (talk) 10:44, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

Nedic Peoples?

Should we be including Men-of-ge and the Thousand-Strong of Sedor on this list? They are tribes of Nedes, not races. —⁠Legoless (talk) 19:41, 26 September 2022 (UTC)

Given the number of Nedic tribes, it makes me wonder if we should really just have a separate template for nedic tribes alone, maybe split by province? Jeancey (talk) 20:07, 26 September 2022 (UTC)

I think that while it is true that they are Nedic tribes, Nedes themselves are treated as blanket for all ancient Human cultures (like Kothringi and Reachfolk both being referred to Nedic even though they are not the same race as nedic tribes or Yespest and Howralli who are in navbox despite beingg referred to as tribe.), and those tribes are listed alongside the races in the Lore:Nede page. While I think listing all the nedic tribes as races may be overkill. I think they should be put in some way in some navbox, but not necesarilly in the Races navbox? Perhaps the Subraces and Subcultures navbox that already exists for likes of Skaal or River Horse Bretons? Tyrvarion (talk) 08:00, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

Atmoran

At first I agreed with removing the (Atmoran) sublink on Nord, but upon a second look, we don't have a proper page for Umbrielans either but we include them nonetheless. And of course, we have no page for the unnamed rat and canine-like beastfolk. Per The Origin of Cyrus! as a source for Nords and Atmorans being definitively separate races, I think includign them parenthecized as was added is a good inclusion. Mindtrait0r (talk) 19:26, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

Imp, Nixad, Dragonling

These are low-intelligence creatures which belong in the bestiary, not on the list of races. I've removed them as speculative. —⁠Legoless (talk) 10:01, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

The other two are more speculative that I’m aware of, but the Dragonlings possess their own language. What’s the basis on claiming they are low intelligence? They should be restored. Dcking20 (talk) 14:08, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

Dragonlings have clear intelligence. They are described as having "minds of great wisdom" and speaking in their language, Dragonish, with a "veneer of maddening riddles and non sequiturs". 0% chance this doesn't correspond to intelligence. Imps, too, should certainly be included. Verbatim from the Daggerfall User's Guide: "They are certainly intelligent and speak their own language". One is also taken by a desire to rule over a palace: "You can find the creature at (palace) of (palace town). Apparently it thinks it is fit to rule." It fell into some sort of spell vat and was therefore given a magical power boost, but nothing is mentioned of its intelligence. Nixads don't matter since they are fay, and thus fall under that entry. Mindtrait0r (talk) 15:43, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

I'm neutral on Dragonling, but if intelligence is a key indicator of race, then most of what Mindtrait0r said would support them being intelligent. We don't know much about how the languages in Daggerfall function, we never get any vocabulary or specifics on Dragonish, for all we know "speaking" Dragonish could just be the equivalent of using bird calls to trick birds into revealing themselves. Its also worth noting that Dragonlings have one of the highest intelligence stats in the game, next to Daedra.

Imps I cannot support having on the Navbox. What I said about "speaking" Dragonish/Impish still applies, since we've never seen Imps talk in subsequent games, and in ESO they just talk in screeches, so this might not even be a proper language. This is not a direct indicator of intelligence and I can't find much to say that Imps have much of any intelligence otherwise. We also don't know enough about Imps to call them anything, whether they're golems or actual animals, how they reproduce, etc. The Rim of the Sky (talk) 17:06, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

Imps I'm ambivalent on if they stay, their confusing nature is weird enough. Meanwhile Dragonlings I think absolutely should stay for the reason stated above. Another important thing to note is, while this isn't definitive. Dragons have one of the highest intelligence stats in the game, above lamias, above centaurs, above Orcs even. The only enemies they seem to be below is Daedra. This is of course only gameplay, but between that and the guides description, I think they should stay. Also, I already removed Nixads because I think Faeries shouldn't be listed separately, just collectively, due to confusing aspects about them. Regardless, there is no basis for claiming Dragonlings have low intelligence besides the fact they aren't truly related to Dragons. -Tarponpet (talk) 18:31, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

Based on the above source shared I would look to restore Imps as well along with Dragonlings.Dcking20 (talk) 18:42, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

I'd be fine not restoring Imps even though I agree they are intelligent. Since the main in-unniverse theories believe them to be Daedra or Golems. Daedra aren't listed separately, and golems aren't listed despite intelligence. But Imps do have evidence for intelligence. But regardless, Dragonlings have no reason to be removed considering no sources give us reason to doubt it. -Tarponpet (talk) 18:47, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

I'd agree Dragonlings deserve a place, they're clearly an intelligent lizard people despite their stature. No real thoughts on Imps though. The Entity (talk) 20:18, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

(←) Imps have more shown intelligence than Grummites, the Betrayed, Lizard Bulls, and Fauns, per their usage of magic, ability to jest, specific reference to being intelligent, and usage of their own language. They should be included in Other due to their unclear nature. Mindtrait0r (talk) 21:00, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

I take minor umbrage with it being stated they have shown MORE intelligence than those listed examples. But regardelsss I agree Imps are intelligent. But I'm still unsure of thir inclusion due to the other factors about themTarponpet (talk) 21:11, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

I believe that Dragonlings are more than fine to be here - Imps - I believe are fine to be omitted here since they are probably present in Daedra navbox as disputed/unclear. As for stance on Nixads I agree with comments above.Tyrvarion (talk) 09:03, 23 October 2024 (UTC)