Night Nymphii are a Cyrodilic/Dunmer hybrid Nymph race. Though they have Dunmerii essence as part of their magical being, they did not inherit Azura’s curse along with it, so they rarely have ashen skin or red eyes. Your average Night Nymph will appear more like Chimer or Human than Dunmer, and thus have a range of pale, lightly tinted skin tones, ranging from golden, slightly purple, slightly orange, to more fair skinned human colors. Hair color like most Nymphii includes a floral palette of many colors, but Night Nymphii typically favor blue or red tones (purple pink etc), almost never blonde.
This subtype used to live exclusively in Morrowind, but many have migrated after Red Mountain. Night Nymphii are unusual in that they strongly prefer to live in the civilized world and most conceal their true nature. You can think of the Night Nymph as a "City Nymph."
Night Nymphii look quite distinct, far more "supernatural" than some types of Nymph, which begs the question as to how they manage to blend in to society. It is a perceptual trick unique to this subtype and part of what lets them favor urban environments, those who observe her simply do not actively process these unusual characteristics, they see and are aware of them, the odd shaped ears, hair the color of deathbell or lavender, but are compelled to disregard them.
While this might seem like illusion magic; manipulation of the senses, or mind control, it is a form of alteration magic intrinsic to her magical flesh that causes it her appearance to be processed differently by the brains of sentients. Think of it like a unique color that is within our visual spectrum which our eyes can see but the mind can't translate. Don't think for a second this lets her pass unnoticed or unseen! Indeed, a quirk of this magic, combined with inhuman Nymph beauty, makes her stand out all the more and quite memorable, seen either as a heart-stoppingly beautiful Dunmer or Imperial woman, depending which side her appearance favors.
Synne, who is a Night Nymph herself, may have earned her infamous reputation in no small part thanks to this trait. It is much easier to offend and upset people when they are compelled to pay attention to you!
Another part of what allows the Night Nymph to blend in to seemingly different cultures so easily is a strong subtype instinct for empathy or “reading” others. Like many Nymphii, the Night Nymph finds many aspects of mortal behavior, and mortals in general, to be confusing and silly. Unlike most Nymphii, she has an instinctual talent for mimicking these behaviors, even if she doesn’t really understand why she is doing something. She can effortlessly interact with mortals of many different backgrounds and cultures as though she were one of them and spent her entire life immersed in that culture.
This doesn’t necessarily mean she is more persuasive than your average Nymph; A large part of persuasion is intentional or deliberate, whereas the talents of the Night Nymph are more automatic, functioning primarily to help her blend in to whatever society she is a part of. Compare this to the Wood Nymph, who often has a great deal of difficulty “fitting in” and often has to learn some rather obvious rules of mortal behavior like “don’t walk through the middle of town naked” through trial and error. Although as a hybrid subtype they have, until recently, primarily resided in Morrowind, this empathic ability makes it quite easy for the Night Nymph to travel abroad, and made it easier for them to migrate alongside their Dunmer neighbors fleeing from the eruption of Red Mountain and the “Red Year.”
As with the other trait, this ability may play a part in the strange personality of the Night Nymph Synne. Like most Night Nymphii, Synne instinctively knows how to act or speak to blend in with mortals, and thus has a good understanding of how to avoid upsetting people. Unlike most Night Nymphii, she compulsively chooses to do the opposite, and instead she draws upon her instincts to pinpoint the exact way in which to offend just about anybody.
While the Night Nymph tends to follow the rules of civilized society for the most part, and does not regularly wander through cityscapes completely nude, she still has the Nymph instinct for keeping her body uncovered. This will usually manifest through a preference for revealing outfits, what mortals would view as “provocative” or "skimpy.” Fortunately for the Nymph, young Dunmer women tend to be almost as “hyper-sexual” in their behavior (by human standards), and revealing attire rarely draws undue attention to the Nymph.
Compared to many other Nymph subtypes, the Night Nymph also has a greater willingness for “body modification,” and it is not unusual for her to have tattoos or piercings. Lastly, it is very rare for a Night Nymph to not wear jewelry; even the humblest Night Nymphii will have some kind of silver or gold bracelets, necklaces, or rings, though they will not wear these things in excess for fear of drawing too much attention.
As a hybrid nymph subtype, they have lower powered but wider scope subtype abilities. Think of it as a dilution of the magical properties of whatever magic essence they integrate from the male parent into the offspring. The Night Nymph has a mild resistance to both thermal elements, along with good magic resistance, but she has a weakness to shock, so watch out for those storm mages!
Night Nymphii have a powerful connection to the Arcane forms of magic, with strong bonuses to destruction, conjuration, and most of all alteration. She regenerates magicka faster than other races, and if she keeps her body exposed, she has a larger starting pool, too. Lastly, she has a unique talent for spellcasting that causes her spells to have considerably more power after she has depleted most of her Magicka.
Night Nymphii have the following skill bonuses
Her Racial abilities include the following, in addition to Magical Body and Whimsical Mind
Night Nymph Chromatic Resistance
Increased base magicka regen (5%, instead of 3%)
Low Polarity (Active while you have more than 22% magicka)
Increased base magicka regen +1% (6% base)
High Polarity (Active while you have 22% or less magicka)
Increased base magicka regen +3% (8% base)
All spell magnitudes are multiplied by your magicka regen rate
Basically what this ability does is give the Night Nymph an incentive for burning through her Magicka. It gives a slight benefit that is always active, which triples as she drops below 22%. The base rate means % of magicka recovered per second, so 6% normally, and 8% while below 22% remaining magicka.
More importantly, as soon as she drops below 22%, her spellpower is greatly increased, since all spells she cast have a magnitude multiplied by her magicka regen rate. Without any bonuses from equipment or from her naked power, this part doesn’t do anything (it will be multiplied by 1).
However, any improvement adds linearly to this effect. As you can imagine, it is possible to massively improve her high-polar power by wearing equipment that increases her magicka regen rate, such as a robe or enchanted jewelry. The obvious counterbalance to this is that as you increase your regen rate, it becomes considerably harder to keep her magicka below 22%, and this provides a unique cost/benefit relationship that both discourages anything that reduces spell costs and rewards aggressive spellcasting.
If she keeps her body uncovered she gains the following ability (the weakness is always active, however)
Increased magicka regen rate +50% (150% of normal, amplifying her high polar state)
Bonus +50 starting Magicka
Once above 75 alteration skill, both the regen rate and bonus magicka improve from +50/+50% to +100/+100%
Beast Nymphii are of beast-race blood, commonly Khajiit or Argonian, but there exist others such as Tsaesci, Dreugh, or possibly even a vulpine Lilmothiit blooded Nymph, although such a creature would be rare. Beast Nymphii are extremely resilient and appear only slightly beast-like, inheriting minor traits such as ears, tails, patches of fur or scales. Imperial Scholars speculate that rather than magical creatures all Nymphii are a part of the beast-races. Nymphii generally take offense at this.
Beast Nymphii are a fairly rare subtype of Nymph, and as you might expect with their unusual hybrid appearance they do not fit in well into civilized places. Unlike Night Nymphii, who have an inherent form of magic that allows their supernatural traits to be remain unnoticed, Beast Nymphii have nothing like this, and they only vaguely resemble any known mortal race, even the very rare beast/human hybrids. Thus, they rarely, if ever, attempt to live near civilized settlements. Likewise, there is little reason for them to conceal their Nymph heritage.
One of the reasons they are rare is that while most pure subtype Nymphii mothers who no longer have pure-subtype offspring (i.e. a wood nymph mating with a non-bosmer) generally retain whatever appearance they have that becomes gradually less distinct over subsequent generations, Beast Nymphii will immediately lose their beast characteristics as soon as their magical makeup no longer favors the Beast races.
Interestingly, if the offspring remains a pure sub-type it does not seem to matter which Beast race the father was, an Argonian Nymph mating with a Khajiit will still produce an Argonian trait Nymph, until enough subsequent generations alter the magical essence enough that her offspring begin to add Khajiit traits to their appearance, and eventually those offspring lose their Argonian traits.
Thus, it is entirely possible for a Beast Nymph to have everything from fur, scales, a lizard tail, and cat ears, all at the same time, but if such a creature exists, no one has yet reported it.
The Beast Nymph almost exclusively lives in jungles, marshes, caverns, or other places far from civilization. They typically do not wear clothes, but they also do not share the Wood Nymph’s desire to remain perpetually nude. They will often adorn themselves with bones, teeth, vines, or animal skins, though these things rarely cover much of her body.
She is naturally very stealthy, and her approach towards males is comparable to the Wood Nymph with one key difference; Rather than seduction, she will instead tend to stalk her male of choice like a predator until finally "attacking” and claiming him. If any male finding himself “attacked” in such a way actually objects to this treatment, it is unheard of. Beast Nymphii can be very possessive of their chosen mates, and those fortunate (or unfortunate) enough to be claimed by a Beast Nymph often disappear into the wilds, never to be seen or heard from again. They will spend the rest of their lives being lavished with attention and cared for by an affectionate and energetic Nymph. It is even rumored that Beast Nymphii occasionally live clustered in small groups and they will sometimes capture a single male to be shared amongst all members of this group.
The greatest strength of the Beast Nymph lies with her recovery. She heals extremely quickly both in terms of wounds and fatigue. She is a natural fighter, but would also make a reasonably strong mage, since she also recovers Magicka quickly. However, despite this talent for battle, like most Nymphii, she tends to avoid conflict and danger, and would make an excellent thief.
Beast Nymphii have the following skill bonuses
They possess the following racial ability
Increased base health regen 0.7% -> 1.5%
this also causes her to heal exponentially faster as she becomes more wounded.
1.5% +1% base rate when above 60% health (2.5%/s total)
1.5% + 2% base rate when under 60% health (3.5%/s total)
1.5% + 4% base rate when under 30% health (5.5%/s total)
1.5% +8% base rate when under 15% health (9.5%/s total)
These percentages mean % of total health healed per second, and they are multiplied by whatever increased health regen potions or enchantments you have, so with the right equipment a Beast Nymph can heal extraordinarily fast and any blow which brings her near to death without killing her will likely be fully recovered in a few seconds. It also allows her to utilize the equilibrium spell to generate huge amounts of Magicka unlike any other race.
As long as they remain unclothed, Beast Nymphii get the following special abilities
she recovers health just as fast in combat
Increased bonus health regen rate +100% (200% of base rate)
Increased bonus stamina regen rate +75% (175% of base rate)
Increased bonus magicka regen rate +50% (150% of base rate)
The Beast Nymph requires the mentioning of one other feature.
When creating a Beast Nymph, you can choose from a number of Beast Traits to customize your appearance, which you can find in the Hair Tab under “Hair Additional”. These traits are fully integrated and function identically to their representative race, so a Khajiit tail will move and animate the same as it does on a Khajiit, likewise as will an Argonian tail. There are a number of combinations that include tints based on your skin or hair color, and offer a wide range of customization for your Nymph. Currently this is limited to Khajiit or Argonian parts, but I may expand this at some point after release.
