Chimer appearance

[Minor Edits]

ESO has given us the first definitive look at Chimer, which has raised the question of whether the description of them on the UESP Chimer lore page is accurate.

Long story short, how would you describe the Chimer's appearance?

Edit- Here's a bunch of stuff to look at:

Screenshot of a Chimer in ESO

Screenshot of Legate Sadal (Chimer)

A video of Almalexia in ESO (keep in mind the unusual lighting conditions around her)

Screenshot of Almalexia in Tribunal

Screenshot of Almalexia in ESO

A video of the Chimer quest in ESO WITHOUT the blue filter getting in the way. A Dunmer can be seen near the start of the video for comparison

[Pilaf The Defiler]

When I first played through that quest in ESO, when you actually go back in time and see Chimer in the flesh and not as ghosts, I mistakenly believed their skin tone was identical to that of Altmer. I see now that I wasn't correct about that, exactly. The skin tone is odd to say the least. On BGSF you called it a sort of greenish color, but that's not exactly right either. The word I'd use is silverish-beige. Their skin is very similar to Data, from Star Trek-TNG. There's definitely something almost metallic about the tint. It's not nearly as dark as Dunmer skin, though, and it's markedly different from the skin of the Ayleid NPCs we also see in ESO. It's pretty much its own thing. If anything it looks pretty similar to the unfiltered Dwemer skin from Morrowind, when you remove the ghost effect from the Dwemer ghosts. Perhaps something about Morrowind's climate does that to the skin of Mer over generations. Something in the air, water or food.

[CBR JGWRR]

Yeah, Id say calling their skin tone a slightly more golden Data's is about right.

[Minor Edits]

When I first played through that quest in ESO, when you actually go back in time and see Chimer in the flesh and not as ghosts, I mistakenly believed their skin tone was identical to that of Altmer. I see now that I wasn't correct about that, exactly. The skin tone is odd to say the least. On BGSF you called it a sort of greenish color, but that's not exactly right either. The word I'd use is silverish-beige. Their skin is very similar to Data, from Star Trek-TNG. There's definitely something almost metallic about the tint. It's not nearly as dark as Dunmer skin, though, and it's markedly different from the skin of the Ayleid NPCs we also see in ESO. It's pretty much its own thing. If anything it looks pretty similar to the unfiltered Dwemer skin from Morrowind, when you remove the ghost effect from the Dwemer ghosts. Perhaps something about Morrowind's climate does that to the skin of Mer over generations. Something in the air, water or food.

Looking at the high-res screenshots, I have to agree. Although I'd like to say "silver-gold" instead of "silver-beige"; I think it has a better ring to it.

[Br3admax]

Perhaps something about Morrowind's climate does that to the skin of Mer over generations. Something in the air, water or food.

I thought it had something to do with Boethiah. The Orsimer and the Velothi both changed.

[Pilaf The Defiler]

Wouldn't account for the Dwemer, now, would it?

Granted, this is without the Ghost Effect, and he still looks - well - dead. Maybe the devs did this on purpose and this isn't meant to be the Dwemer skin tone. Yagrum's is more Altmerish, but Yagrum is thousands of years old and has the Blight, so he may not be the best example of his race to use.

[AngryNord]

Golden-skinned Dunmer without red eyes (or, if you prefer: Altmer, just not as tall)

[Velothi]

How if the first one a Chimer in any sense of the word though? It just looks like a Lite-Dunmer.

[Pilaf The Defiler]

Because he is? He's a character from the ancient past. Part of a time travel quest if I recall. There are a handful of those in ESO. The skin tone is more silvery than grey, in my eyes, and as for the eye color, it's possible some Chimer had red/orange eyes naturally, or else Zenimax dun goofed with that particular NPC.

[Velothi]

Because he is? He's a character from the ancient past. Part of a time travel quest if I recall. There are a handful of those in ESO. The skin tone is more silvery than grey, in my eyes, and as for the eye color, it's possible some Chimer had red/orange eyes naturally, or else Zenimax dun goofed with that particular NPC.

Zenimac dun goofed with everything else relating to this travesty, so it wouldn't be too surprising that they'd screw up an NPC. Especially when a lot of other Chimer have the, more or less, set features we'd come to expect.

[OblivionDuruza]

The 'silver-gold' description seems to be pretty close to the mark, especially if we view the Altmer as having golden skin. One plausible explanation for the seemingly wide variation in Chimer skin tone could be that of change over time, rather than a single and definitive tone change brought about by Azura.

The first Chimer may have darker skin due to a combination of genetic and environmental factors, while Almalexia as depicted in Morrowind might even be 'whiter' due to her own magic/preference. Sadal looks like the quintessential Chimer to me, though.

[Pilaf The Defiler]

Zenimac dun goofed with everything else relating to this travesty, so it wouldn't be too surprising that they'd screw up an NPC.

That's really just not constructive or helpful, now is it?

The 'silver-gold' description seems to be pretty close to the mark, especially if we view the Altmer as having golden skin. One plausible explanation for the seemingly wide variation in Chimer skin tone could be that of change over time, rather than a single and definitive tone change brought about by Azura.

The first Chimer may have darker skin due to a combination of genetic and environmental factors, while Almalexia as depicted in Morrowind might even be 'whiter' due to her own magic/preference. Sadal looks like the quintessential Chimer to me, though.

Yeah, I'm starting to really think the Tribunal's personal appearances are mostly just magical tinkering and preference rather than what we'd expect a typical Chimer to look like. It's likely there were a range of skin tones and eye colors. We certainly see that with other Elven and Human races, so why not here? You have Altmer who are almost tanned and Bosmer who are pale as lillies. You have Nords who are nearly as dark as Redguards (Vignar Gray-Mane comes to mind.) I see no reason why a particularly dark Chimer is lore-breaking or glaring in any way. As dark as that gentleman is he's not near Dunmer tone.

[Velothi]

Irregardless of being constructive or helpful, it's a fact that we all must accept.

But say the darkening of the Chimer is more a generation effect than Azura's daedric curse upon her former 'chosen people' - does this mean that Azura's curse was (more so) a threat towards the Tribunal about the eventual corruption of HER people. The darkening of skin and reddening of eyes just being side effects of residence in the Holy Land of Veloth, and it just seemed to become a very prevalent tone, if not the predominant one.

But then, how was the change brought about? Does Red Mountain have that much affect on the whole of Morrowind? I mean, sure, Vvardenfell itself can be a case made for it since it's incredibly close proximity. Or is this simply, and mayhaps ironically given TES's setting, the naturalistic course of events being next to a volcano that nearly takes up a third or fourth of an island.

it kinda comes down to that same question from before, being 'why exactly would this phenomena not be recorded since it doesn't do anything to hurt anybody'. I mean why have accounts (though I remember that most accounts don't really give much description) that say the Chimer were like this and there was no apparent alteration or change or variation. Not "well a majority of the Chimer were X". It's made out to be ALL Chimer that ever were - they looked like this.

You can change the lore and give us some interesting genetic questions, but if you just give us A character who has this variation and decide NOT to explore more on this phenomena (in game) then it's pretty okay to call Zenimax out on that. What does having some Dunmeri texts they actually created themselves ,rather than just borrowing books and deleting stuff that shouldn't be in there, really hurt the "Main quest" or all the "lovely lore" they "painstakingly" created?

Hell, it'd be a REALLY cool thing to do. Dunmeri accounts on the variation of Chimer, looking at old Chimer accounts or something that would add on to it. Don't even have to make a quest out of it, just having this information out there for people to read and go "hey that's pretty cool".

But nope. Not as important as HORSES.