Not trying to victim blame or anything but you’d think with all the times necromancers have tried/succeeded in raising undead armies the people of Tamriel would’ve stopped burying their dead fully armed and equipped for battle.
Like, I know your great grandpa’s sword was A Part Of Him and all but maybe you could bury SuperDeathblade somewhere not right next to SuperDeathbladeMan. Just in case.
oh, what, so he can get his ass kicked when he inevitably gets raised from the dead?? you want to make great grandpa into a loser? a chump?? if his corpse is going to be puppeteered into battle by a sick and twisted sorcerer then by the nine he is going to do it well
"average necromancer raises at least one army" factoid actualy just statistical error. average necromancer raises 0 armies. Mannimarco, King of Worms who's been practicing necromancy and repeatedly raising armies about it since the second era, is an outlier adn should not have been counted
If someone is a necromancer its cuz they have no money to hire men and no charisma to convince people to their cause u have to understand they only fuck with skeletons because they have no other option
on "maormer" and their origins in māori racial stereotypes
kia ora (hello/good health), i made a post about this a few years back, but i feel the need to update it. this isn't a dig at anyone with maormer ocs, just a post acknowledging racism in the elder scrolls regarding maormer.
basically, a concerning number of people don't know that maormer are based off of māori people, despite it being in the name. we understand that the races in the elder scrolls are heavily based off of real-world races and maormer is a very poignant example for this. like, in this post i point out a depiction of a sacred entity is traced into tes:o for an example of how blatant it is, so if the name isn't enough to convince you, keep reading.
māori are indigenous polynesians with a rich culture, known for our woodwork and carving, weaving, and tā moko (sacred tattooing), among other things. we have a deep respect for the ocean as voyagers.
we fought off pākehā (white colonisers) for quite awhile and thus got treated as uniquely vicious, warhungry, and violent. we did not stigmatise sex, so we were seen as overtly crude and predatory. during the musket wars/genocide, certain iwi (tribes) sided with pākehā and took other māori as slaves. while we had the concept of slavery pre-colonisation, it looked very different to modern day slavery and the slavery practiced by these iwi was taken directly from european influence, not traditional māori customs.
meanwhile, maormer are a race of vicious, tall/large slavers who pillage the mainland, the good people of tamriel. they have "intricate tattoos". they are said to have potentially been a cross between aldmer and the "bestial tribes of pyandonea", implying that there are not only other tribes in pyandonea that are racialised as primitive and inhuman, but that maormer had sex with these "bestial" beings, which is a bit. eugh. they also interbreed with sea giants to make even larger inhuman brutes. there are multiple depictions and theories in the in-game lore that imply maormer are less "human" than the other elf races.
they have "breeding pits" which is not elaborated on but feels pointed at māori displays of open sexuality. māori considered sex just... another thing to do. you would walk past two (or more) people having sex in public, say "oh, they're busy" and go on your way. "breeding pits" is not only dehumanising but weirdly pointed, like i said.
pyandonea and polynesia have the same number of letters. they both even start with a p, lol. pyandonea is described as a tropical jungle, off limits to anyone not indigenous to the continent as the land itself is shielded by a cloud of fog and the flora is known to sink ships. polynesia is a grouping that refers to multiple islands in the pacific, most of which are tropical (māori in particular had to adapt to a uniquely cold climate! we still had vast jungles, however). this reads to me as a continuation of the common trope that land (especially jungles) is something inherently hostile to outsiders (and thus must be tamed by the coloniser; both the land and its savage peoples).
they carve serpent totems that are quite easily proven as directly traced from a specific taniwha drawing from aotearoa:
taniwha represent many things and have many appearances but are generally depicted as serpents, to be clear.
there are a few good maormer but they're the outliers, most of the race is controlled by an evil godking who is analogous to a tohunga. a tohunga is a person skilled in something but is commonly translated to mean "priest" or even "wizard" as they hold sacred knowledge regarding "magic" for lack of a better word. maormer use serpent magic and tame sea serpents in a way analogous to many taniwha stories.
they have several gods including "mother sea" although it is unknown whether or not they're talking about an entity or the ocean itself. there were at least some maormer that followed hermaeus mora and/or molag bal. māori (and all polynesians) revered the ocean and treated it as a living entity. i think it's interesting that the only gods spoken of apart from mother sea are Bad and Evil.
they have weird propaganda pieces implying they're "the chosen people of aldmeris" (see: the book with the same name in tes:o) and that they have pure blood compared to "mongrel" races. māori had a very common theory applied to them, that we were aryan. (and thus related to white people, which means white people are also Technically indigenous to aotearoa, which means they can landgrab. bit of a leap in logic ay). we also are inherently a "mixed" race as we were so heavily colonised by pākehā that all of us now have some form of pākehā blood in us. there is no such thing as a pure blooded māori, not that it matters.
most of their attacks are described as "utter failures" which is fascinating as māori, the race they're based on, were quite proficient at driving off other people. it's like "this race of vicious polynesian stand-ins is Actually terrible at combat despite their constant attacks on the mainland! they can Never succeed!" it feels odd.
there's more that i'll potentially get into in another post, but i hope this was at least educating for some people. if anyone has questions, feel free to ask and i'll get to them!
Something that’s of note to me is that the Maormer are depicted as specifically targeting the Altmer, another race that is analogous to a POC group (in this case I argue that while they're not overtly based on East Asian cultures, they are meant to invoke them).
This furthers imperialist narratives about the relationship between their victims, specifically positioning Indigenous populations as dangerous to other POC who are then given the endorsement and motivation to participate with imperialists in violence against those who are “lesser” than them.
For example, the War of the Isle in 3E 110. The Altmer are only victorious because a storm (suggested to be whipped up the Psijic Order) and more importantly, the Empire. Yeah the Empire kinda gets their ass kicked too, but the war is considered an Imperial victory and most of the information we have about the war are from Imperial sources and basically only Imperial figures are given identifiable names and traits.
It positions the Maormer as a faceless force of literally endless resources that exclusively exists to kill Altmer and the Altmer as a faceless force of utterly helpless people. They would've lost if they didn't have the Empire on their side, they need the strong imperial power to protect them from the violent outsiders who want to destroy them. Therefore Imperial control of the Summerset Isles is justified. Moreover, Altmer violence against Maormer is depicted as a good thing because according to the laws of this universe, the Maormer are factually less “human” than they are (which not-so coincidentally is ranking peoples based on how close they are to whiteness since the majority of humans in TES are white and is in-line with Imperial interests of not wanting their power threatened by anyone).
This is strikingly similar to the dynamic between diasporic East Asians and Pacific Islanders (especially Polynesians) in real life.
Also not so fun-fact: the greatest war hero from the War of the Isles founded the Knights of the Nine 💀💀💀
on "maormer" and their origins in māori racial stereotypes
kia ora (hello/good health), i made a post about this a few years back, but i feel the need to update it. this isn't a dig at anyone with maormer ocs, just a post acknowledging racism in the elder scrolls regarding maormer.
basically, a concerning number of people don't know that maormer are based off of māori people, despite it being in the name. we understand that the races in the elder scrolls are heavily based off of real-world races and maormer is a very poignant example for this. like, in this post i point out a depiction of a sacred entity is traced into tes:o for an example of how blatant it is, so if the name isn't enough to convince you, keep reading.
māori are indigenous polynesians with a rich culture, known for our woodwork and carving, weaving, and tā moko (sacred tattooing), among other things. we have a deep respect for the ocean as voyagers.
we fought off pākehā (white colonisers) for quite awhile and thus got treated as uniquely vicious, warhungry, and violent. we did not stigmatise sex, so we were seen as overtly crude and predatory. during the musket wars/genocide, certain iwi (tribes) sided with pākehā and took other māori as slaves. while we had the concept of slavery pre-colonisation, it looked very different to modern day slavery and the slavery practiced by these iwi was taken directly from european influence, not traditional māori customs.
meanwhile, maormer are a race of vicious, tall/large slavers who pillage the mainland, the good people of tamriel. they have "intricate tattoos". they are said to have potentially been a cross between aldmer and the "bestial tribes of pyandonea", implying that there are not only other tribes in pyandonea that are racialised as primitive and inhuman, but that maormer had sex with these "bestial" beings, which is a bit. eugh. they also interbreed with sea giants to make even larger inhuman brutes. there are multiple depictions and theories in the in-game lore that imply maormer are less "human" than the other elf races.
they have "breeding pits" which is not elaborated on but feels pointed at māori displays of open sexuality. māori considered sex just... another thing to do. you would walk past two (or more) people having sex in public, say "oh, they're busy" and go on your way. "breeding pits" is not only dehumanising but weirdly pointed, like i said.
pyandonea and polynesia have the same number of letters. they both even start with a p, lol. pyandonea is described as a tropical jungle, off limits to anyone not indigenous to the continent as the land itself is shielded by a cloud of fog and the flora is known to sink ships. polynesia is a grouping that refers to multiple islands in the pacific, most of which are tropical (māori in particular had to adapt to a uniquely cold climate! we still had vast jungles, however). this reads to me as a continuation of the common trope that land (especially jungles) is something inherently hostile to outsiders (and thus must be tamed by the coloniser; both the land and its savage peoples).
they carve serpent totems that are quite easily proven as directly traced from a specific taniwha drawing from aotearoa:
taniwha represent many things and have many appearances but are generally depicted as serpents, to be clear.
there are a few good maormer but they're the outliers, most of the race is controlled by an evil godking who is analogous to a tohunga. a tohunga is a person skilled in something but is commonly translated to mean "priest" or even "wizard" as they hold sacred knowledge regarding "magic" for lack of a better word. maormer use serpent magic and tame sea serpents in a way analogous to many taniwha stories.
they have several gods including "mother sea" although it is unknown whether or not they're talking about an entity or the ocean itself. there were at least some maormer that followed hermaeus mora and/or molag bal. māori (and all polynesians) revered the ocean and treated it as a living entity. i think it's interesting that the only gods spoken of apart from mother sea are Bad and Evil.
they have weird propaganda pieces implying they're "the chosen people of aldmeris" (see: the book with the same name in tes:o) and that they have pure blood compared to "mongrel" races. māori had a very common theory applied to them, that we were aryan. (and thus related to white people, which means white people are also Technically indigenous to aotearoa, which means they can landgrab. bit of a leap in logic ay). we also are inherently a "mixed" race as we were so heavily colonised by pākehā that all of us now have some form of pākehā blood in us. there is no such thing as a pure blooded māori, not that it matters.
most of their attacks are described as "utter failures" which is fascinating as māori, the race they're based on, were quite proficient at driving off other people. it's like "this race of vicious polynesian stand-ins is Actually terrible at combat despite their constant attacks on the mainland! they can Never succeed!" it feels odd.
there's more that i'll potentially get into in another post, but i hope this was at least educating for some people. if anyone has questions, feel free to ask and i'll get to them!
i'm just sayin a sewer is a bad place for a thieves' guild. like if i'm Aware of that and i get a whiff of Mysterious Poop Smell in my home i am going to know there's a damn thief in there
