alittlesharp Posted March 21, 2014 Share Posted March 21, 2014 It wouldn't be very practical for role-playing in Skyrim if they were. A cold-blooded lizard in a frozen wasteland would be a very lazy adventurer. Lizard jokes aside, I'm honestly curious for lore-folks out there who might no more. Because I think they're closer to birds. The thought started bugging me in a mod discussion where someone said that it didn't make sense how a khajiit could become a werewolf, and should become a werepanther instead (it didn't make much sense, since, with that logic, humans would become giant apes.). Likewise an argonian should shapeshift into a big croc, which implies they are reptiles. After some thought, I came up with two options:1. If argonians are reptiles, then they have scales, are cold-blooded, lay eggs, and shouldn't have feathers. 2. If argonians are birds, then they have skin, are warmblooded, lay eggs, and have feathers. Besides scales (I think they have mentioned having scales before in some books) argonians seem to me to be closer to the predecessor of birds than lizards. So in the shapeshift discussion, could they become some kind of weird feathery dinosaur?! I thought that would be pretty awesome. Obviously a fictional race doesn't have to fall into real world categories, but I would love to hear other's thoughts on the matter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlackRampage Posted March 21, 2014 Share Posted March 21, 2014 Argonian females have breasts. Reptiles don't have breasts, birds don't have breasts. I guess they're a sort of scaly, egg-laying mammals? If they'd live in the real world I'd guess they'd categorized as Montremes, like the platypus. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fusiontron Posted March 21, 2014 Share Posted March 21, 2014 They are a type of dreugh. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chanchan05 Posted March 22, 2014 Share Posted March 22, 2014 I'm thinking they could be like a cross between armadillos and monotremes, scaled mammals since they have breasts but lay eggs. They could be the missing link between reptiles and mammals. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Riprock Posted March 22, 2014 Share Posted March 22, 2014 Argonians are Argonians. They are not Earthly creatures so why be surprised that they don't fit the rules of mammals or reptiles on the planet Earth the way you are accustomed to seeing them? To you they look like lizards. OK fine they look like lizards. That doesn't mean they are ectotherms. There's a real want to make fantasy game creatures 'fit' into our world. I get it. But they are fantasy creatures, not a 'what if' strain of some real-life creature Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
strazytski Posted April 1, 2014 Share Posted April 1, 2014 (edited) Argonians are Argonians. They are not Earthly creatures so why be surprised that they don't fit the rules of mammals or reptiles on the planet Earth the way you are accustomed to seeing them? To you they look like lizards. OK fine they look like lizards. That doesn't mean they are ectotherms. There's a real want to make fantasy game creatures 'fit' into our world. I get it. But they are fantasy creatures, not a 'what if' strain of some real-life creature or perhaps those who made the game were lazy and didnt make a were panther or was more true to the game with digit legs and ect ect. lazy as in didnt devoup such features because A: too much other s#*! to worry about like the s#*!-ton of bugs which they still didnt fix right away B: Time and amount of work to pull it off. lizards dont have boobs but then again if that 10 year old cant have his lizards with boobs the world would fall apart XD Edited April 1, 2014 by strazytski Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sstaan Posted April 20, 2014 Share Posted April 20, 2014 Another possibility is that Argonians are an Amphibious Raptor (Descendants of Prehistoric Raptors/aka dinosaurs, many of which were warm blooded), and therefore as mammals may have developed something akin to breasts. But that's my own hypothesis. It could also be that everyone who came up with Argonians at Bethseda/ZeniMax for the game just said "Hey! This looks cool, lets go with this!" :) and never thought to use reference material for either Raptors or Reptiles. Regardless of what they are though, they're still the only race I play in the ES Games. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bben46 Posted April 20, 2014 Share Posted April 20, 2014 @Riprock: Excellent answer. :thumbsup:However,as you can see from the next two posts, it went completely over some people's heads. For those that just don't get it Nirn is NOT earth - so the category 'lizard' may have no meaning here. Nirn does not have the same history as earth, and may not have had dinosaurs at all in their pre history. Although they did have dragons, which were an intelligent species. Argonians, Khajiit, Orcs and Mer are not humans. But perhaps, along with the human races have a common prehistoric ancestor In the Nirn ( not earth) pre history. It's a fantasy game. And anything is possible in fantasy. :tongue: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TaeRai Posted April 21, 2014 Share Posted April 21, 2014 I'm thinking they could be like a cross between armadillos and monotremes, scaled mammals since they have breasts but lay eggs. They could be the missing link between reptiles and mammals.I agree with this so much. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Faelrin Posted April 21, 2014 Share Posted April 21, 2014 In Morrowind they didn't have breasts, and then in Oblivion and Skyrim they do, which I'm pretty sure is just because they didn't care to create a new body just for the Argonians in those games. I've always seen them as the lizard man type deal. Honestly though I don't care too much if they are reptiles or not. I just think they're a cool race. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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