Believe it or not, in Norse mythology (or at least the Eddas) "dwarf" and "dark elf" are just two different terms for the same race of beings. As far as I know, Tolkien was the first person to separate "dwarves" and "dark elves" into two distinct peoples, and later fantasy authors followed suit. So in a "Nordic" overhaul, it makes a kind of sense to redub the Dunmer as Dwarves.
Dwarves and Elves were actually not the same thing.
The word for Elf in old Nordic is Alf/Alfar. The Dark Elves and Light Elves both are refered to as Alfar(Svartalfar and Ljosalfar respectively). The word for Dwarf in Nordic was Dvergr. Nordic myths also make distinctions between theme given that there are at least two to three instances in Norse sagas that mention the Dvergr(Dwarves) living alongside the Svartalfar(Dark Elves).
I figured that the northern people would live in the woods. Somewhat like the Rangers of the North of Tolkien. That's why I chose a different race for it The Nords look tougher. I would expect them to have a lot of food, and do more physical labour like building large stone cities. That's why I made this choise The men of the North (imperials) do have the Nord ability of frost resistance.
Great Ideal But you have nothing in reference to load order or compatibility with other mods. Well, I should say at this point not that I saw. I don't want to mess up a game by just dropping it in. I'm the old fart - going on 69 and a gamer at heart with over 1500hrs in Skyrim. Adventuring type that checks all corners and hills and yes I have not even finished the main game yet. Just alittle on install would be nice. Enjoy and have a great day.
Generally any mod that modifies the vanilla races is going to be affected by this one. Overhaul mods like SkyRe, PerMa, Requiem, SPERG. Those are just a basic example. But if if modifies the entries for the vanilla races (Pretty sure this includes the USKP.) this mod is going to conflict with it.
Only ones that I'm using of that group would be SPERG and Skyrim-Commu-Uncapper modified to my spec for slower leveling. All set @ 0.30. I always hated getting to lvl 8-10 before even getting out of Riverwood. I do know about conflicting mods, on this game I'm running only 148mods on this character, which is a adult ver. of Skyrim. Some mods are more compatible than others and I hate have to put a ton of patches to get a mod to work. I was just wondering why the maker of this mod didn't add anything in about LO and compat. with other mods like so many others do. No biggie. Enjoy the game NEVER MIND - I see he added info today, Thank you
For the inconsistency between your mod and vanilla with certain races (high elves especially) maybe you can do an NPC overhaul and change certain people to fit your lore. For example, you could change certain peaceful NPCs into Light Elves and change the Thalmor into another race. That way you won't need to change any dialogue and it would still make sense.
P.S. I like the idea of this lore overhaul. Making the High Elves into a peaceful race is probably my favorite change since it's such a 180. Just certain things don't make sense to me. The North is cold and barren, not lush with trees. So it doesn't make sense that the former Imperials would be from the North. Unless you change Tamriel into Middle-Earth, it won't work. But then, it would be more of a "Tolkien Lore Overhaul". I would prefer it to be loosely based on Tolkien, not an exact copy.
The north of our world (the real world) has a lot of pine-woods, and not much to eat. Unless you go to the north pole of course. There, there are no trees. Maybe I could change Skyrim into having more pine-forest...
Awesome idea. I'm a big Tolkien fan. I haven't gone through the whole mod but still love idea.
About Tolkien trade stuff. I don't know how much you did but I really don't think you need to worry about naming the races after those in middle-earth. Tolkien, himself, took a lot from lore - even Gandalf is a name of a Nordic dwarf from the Norse poem called the Dvergatal or Tally of the Dwarves. Even the names of the other dwarves are from that as well.
Also, the elfish cultural names are taken from old english. Silvan is Medieval Latin sylvanus, from Latin Silvanus (“god of the woods”), from silva (“forest”).
In addition you can claim that you have no ownership of the names that are used from Tolkien. You are, also, not publishing this for profit. Tolkien's books are also in public domain now too.
I know. The names that do come up in Nordic mythology (including Gandalf and some of the names of the dwarves from the Hobbit) are indeed straigth from Nordic Mythology. I will search for these type of things. As for the complete copyright thing, I will try to find out what is allowed and what isn't. It should be somewhere on the internet I imagine...
Reading through this I noted that The imerials and nord are inverted the nords should be north the imperials west. The dark elves cannot be dwarves the dwarves are gone,hence the dwemer (dwarven)ruins. You need to stick to skyrim lore overall and just tweak things a bit towards LOTR. Unless creating a new land where you can get into more LOTR lore. The falmer or snow elves would be the light elves if you follow Dawnguard line of thinking , The altmer thalmer are not peaceful nor are the orcs. Most players own all the DLCs and attempting to rewrite and force fit the races into diffrent roles wont' work without plausible adjustments.
This was only a start on changing the lore. I intent on changing a lot. The Thalmor will be changed from Light Elves to just Elves (they make a mess most of the time) and I might change the Dwarves.
The lore I try to create here is not quite fitted around Skyrim, it will get completely new lore. This was just the first step in doing so. The swapped Imperials and Nords are already explained in another comment. I chose the races based on their looks, not on their lore.
I'd say your naming schemes are a bit off. Dark Elves have never lived underground but the Dwemer have, and are also referred to as " Dwarves " in the game as well. I'd find something else to label/resemble the Dunmer and if you are insistent on keeping the Dwemer as a playable race creating a new race.
Cool idea. There are a few other mods on the nexus that add Norse weapons, armor and the like. I've tried to overhaul my game to a more Nordic dark fantasy type of thing in the past, but there weren't any mods that changed the lore in the way I wanted. I even tried myself, but I got held up by the books (good luck with that, there's a lot of text). I'll definitely pick this up next time I attempt such a build.
I know what a huge amount of thext the books (and dialogue) contain. That' why I have to wait untill some holidays I hope my adaptation will be to your liking.
25 comments
The word for Elf in old Nordic is Alf/Alfar. The Dark Elves and Light Elves both are refered to as Alfar(Svartalfar and Ljosalfar respectively). The word for Dwarf in Nordic was Dvergr. Nordic myths also make distinctions between theme given that there are at least two to three instances in Norse sagas that mention the Dvergr(Dwarves) living alongside the Svartalfar(Dark Elves).
The Nords look tougher. I would expect them to have a lot of food, and do more physical labour like building large stone cities.
That's why I made this choise
The men of the North (imperials) do have the Nord ability of frost resistance.
imperials are called dark elfs
nords can control animals and hunt
???????????
But you have nothing in reference to load order or compatibility with other mods. Well, I should say at this point not that I saw.
I don't want to mess up a game by just dropping it in. I'm the old fart - going on 69 and a gamer at heart with over 1500hrs in Skyrim. Adventuring type that checks all corners and hills and yes I have not even finished the main game yet.
Just alittle on install would be nice. Enjoy and have a great day.
I was just wondering why the maker of this mod didn't add anything in about LO and compat. with other mods like so many others do.
No biggie. Enjoy the game
NEVER MIND - I see he added info today, Thank you
P.S. I like the idea of this lore overhaul. Making the High Elves into a peaceful race is probably my favorite change since it's such a 180.
Awesome idea. I'm a big Tolkien fan. I haven't gone through the whole mod but still love idea.
About Tolkien trade stuff. I don't know how much you did but I really don't think you need to worry about naming the races after those in middle-earth. Tolkien, himself, took a lot from lore - even Gandalf is a name of a Nordic dwarf from the Norse poem called the Dvergatal or Tally of the Dwarves. Even the names of the other dwarves are from that as well.
Also, the elfish cultural names are taken from old english. Silvan is Medieval Latin sylvanus, from Latin Silvanus (“god of the woods”), from silva (“forest”).
In addition you can claim that you have no ownership of the names that are used from Tolkien. You are, also, not publishing this for profit. Tolkien's books are also in public domain now too.
There are even mods here for Weather top....
The Thalmor will be changed from Light Elves to just Elves (they make a mess most of the time) and I might change the Dwarves.
The lore I try to create here is not quite fitted around Skyrim, it will get completely new lore. This was just the first step in doing so.
The swapped Imperials and Nords are already explained in another comment. I chose the races based on their looks, not on their lore.
you could start here for the elves, and then work on the other races...
http://www.tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Elves
I hope my adaptation will be to your liking.