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I've often thought it more than mere coincidence that the player's new character is accompanied by Saint Jiub on the ship to Morrowind. Suppose you started the game with the assumption that your character and Jiub are "comarades in arms," so to speak, or linked by purpose in some significant way. This idea led me to do some research on the concept of "warrior saint." Surprisingly enough, there is a quite a bit of information about this very topic on the web. Here's an example from Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_saint

I found other interesting historical references like an actual Imperial Cult (Roman Empire) and an actual Roman emperor named Septimius! It seems that Bethesda drew upon quite a few historical references in creating the lore for the Elder Scrolls universe.

So I thought I'd present this to the forum as a discussion topic. If the concept of a Warrior Saint appeals to you as a role-playing idea, how would you play the role? What would your character's back story be? What attributes/class would you build into your character in the character generation process? What would you name him or her? Would the use of magic fit the role, or would your character consider that an evil/occult practice to be avoided? Would your character continue as a Warrior (ala: Crusades, Jihad), or would he undergo a conversion and disavow arms as a result of his conversion? What would the conversion look like (for example: abandon the "pagan" Imperial Cult, and adopt--what, exactly?)

So many possibilities....
I look forward to reading all your ideas on this topic.

I wouldn't say Bethesda "drew upon" historical references. I'd say they completely assimilated real historical cultures, almost to the point of plagiarism, without making even the slightest effort to disguise it. This is most glaringly evident in the case of the Imperials.

As for the roleplaying idea; why not roleplay Jiub himself?

I'd say the Redguards are actually closer to Arabs than Africans. They appear to have been based on ancient Persians or Turks.

We know for a fact that the Ashlanders were modeled after Assyria/Mesopotamia. Ashlander names were taken directly from the Assyrian/Akkadian language. As for the House Dunmer, it's a bit more ambiguous. We know that they're essentially "cultured" Ashlanders, but it's hard to say if they're based on an historical culture independent from that of Mesopotamia. I don't know if anyone has been able to draw parallels between a real language and the language of Dunmeris, either.

Why do TES cultures need to be based on anything?

Ashlanders may have Assyrian names, but unless there is a direct quote from a developer we certainly do not "know for a fact that the Ashlanders were modeled after Assyria/Mesoptamia." They also live in yurts and are led by khans—why, then, do we not know for a fact that they are based on the Mongols?

Sorry if this sounds needlessly confrontational, but I have never been a fan of attempting to find the real-world inspiration behind the races of TES. Sure, the Imperials have quite a few similarities with the Romans, but they also have a lot of unique lore (PGE stuff, for instance). The brilliance of the TES races, especially the Dunmer (simply because we know comparatively more about them than a lot of the other more exotic races), is that they are almost wholly unique and free from large-scale real-world parallels. It's true that we can find similarities to real-world cultures in that of the Dunmer, but nothing that obviously points to any one culture. The Dunmer culture is the Dunmer culture. This is why people are so fascinated by it, because it's so authentic and unknown. Because it's not just "fantasy Mesopotamia" or "fantasy China," etc. Such constructs will inevitably pale in comparison to their real-world bases and prove to be far less captivating.

I'd also like to point out that Turks and Persians are not Arabs

You're already a saint in Morrowind. Patron saint of warriors (and statesmen) too.

How do you plagiarize history? It belongs to all of us.

No wonder they made Jiub a saint. He exterminated the cliff racers! I hate those things. Not particularly hard to kill just annoying like hell.

Oh and I think I've figured the (admittedly loosely) inspiring race for the Argonians: American Indians.

Surprisingly enough, I think my main Character already falls under this notion of Warrior Saint.



Skills are:
MAJOR - Medium Armor, Long Blade, Athletics, Unarmored, Blunt Weapon
MINOR - Restoration, Mysticism, Destruction, Speechcraft, Illusion

@Secret Magic User
That's almost the exact same build and character arc as my War Priest.

@Demiverse
Clearly, we know how to roll great classes and stories.

I'm all about dat character development. Here's .

I much prefer the fanatical end of the spectrum myself. If you're going to be a religious freak, you might as well pull out all the stops. Plus I find it excessively difficult to practice altruism in vidya games.